About Me

Hi! Apparently the picture on here before was utterly horrible so here's a picture of my cat Dylan instead.

I have several main interests, which I describe on this website. Most of it can be accessed directly from the menu on the left

Additionally I work in I.T. and you can read about my experience and qualifications here (in the process of updating this)

Much of my time is taken up with music and I am a semi-pro trombonist. I used to play pretty much exclusively with Brass Bands to which end several years ago, whilst a member of the Stourport-On-Severn Brass Band, I created the Net Refuge Banding Stuff page in homage to all other banders out there. I've done a bit of conducting too in my time. More recently I could be found playing with Arrow Valley Brass which I officially left late 2002.

Now I mainly concentrate on new orleans jazz. I played with Johnny Everett's Red Dragon Jazzmen for a couple of years and they have residences at the White Swan in Henley-In-Arden every first and third Wednesday of the month, and at the Navigation Inn in Wooton Wawen every second Monday of the Month. They also play at other Midlands jazz clubs and venues including the Swan at Chaddesley Corbett, Burton Jazz Club, Tamworth Jazz Club and Solihull British Legion. I left that band in 2005 but still occasionally play with them. I also play with the Antique Six Jazzband fairly regularly.

Please read about my musical experience here.

One of my other main interests is cars. I currently own two...

In the garage I have a 1979 Karmann Beetle Cabriolet. This was my daily driver until around five years ago when the ravages of the English climate made me take it off the road after failing the MOT. I then saved up and bought a house, which used up most of my resources for a while, but it has a garage to keep the beetle in! I then stripped her to a rolling shell, and took her up to Offmore Road Garage for restoration work. She had extensive panels and welding replacing heater channels and strengtheners, rear quarter panels, the boot section and various other patches tidied up. Since getting her back I have started to respray in VW mellow yellow. It's a bit slow going (cold nasty weather doesn't help!) but eventually she will be reborn as a cool German look car. There are pictures of the work done here and here

I still like to attend VW shows such as Bug Jam and Big Bang, and have friends in the Ditch Dubbers VW club in Redditch. I also lurk (and occasionally post) on the Volkstorque and VZi volkswagen forums where my username is mellowyellow.

My current daily driver is a 2001 New Beetle Turbo in red.