Heggers - web design and all that

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About Me

Well, where do I start... I am a designer and developer in his mid to late 20's (a gentleman never reveals his age - and it saves me from updating this page when I turn a year older...). I am originally from Coventry in the West Midlands. I am, however, from a large Irish family and spent much of my childhood over there with family and have been brought up with good Irish values and, as such, I class myself as Irish, rather than English.

This provides my mates with plenty of ammunition to abuse me but, to be honest, I couldn't care less. I'm fiercely proud to be a Plastic Paddy and intend to move back there one day, although I will then be subjected to constant jibes about me being English and thinking I'm Irish from the other side of the water, but to be honest having grown up with lots of Irish relatives I'm used to being referred to as "The English One" and can give as good as I get when the banter starts.

As I said, I'm from Coventry and spent pretty much the first 18 years of my life there. I still have some family back there and lots of mates, and I try to get back every couple of months to see people, but I'm going back less and less now. I was always a very sporty kid and from the age of 9 I was playing Tennis for Coventry, as well as Cricket, Rugby, Football, Badminton, Hockey and Table Tennis to a good level. Once I got to about 13/4 I decided to concentrate on Tennis as it was the sport I was best at, and the one I wanted to make a living out of. Unfortunately a succession of niggling injuries and then pretty much the collapse of my knees (ah, that old chestnut, but in my case it's true) by the time I was 17 meant I had to give it up.

That's all very interesting heggers, but where are you going with this...

Well, once I knew I couldn't follow the sporting route I needed to find something else to do with my life. I was always quite arty and am heavily into my films and music, so once I'd finished my A-Levels I decided I wanted to move to London and try to become a film editor, designer or music technician. I came down to an open day at the University of Greenwich and liked the look of their Multimedia Technology course, so enrolled on that in September 1997.

During that degree I learned the basics to pretty much all the facets of Multimedia, from 3D animation, Computer Aided Design, Cinematography, Virtual Reality Technology, Interactive Media creation, the theories of Media and Politics, Media Law, Media and Society, etc and then... Art in the Multimedia age and web design. This is when I started leaning more towards a career in web design rather than film editing, and when I graduated in 2000 I had a couple of weeks worth of money with which to stay in London and find a job, or move back to Coventry and try and find a job down here (as this is where the jobs were) whilst working there. Luckily for me, I found a job 2 weeks after graduating and was able to stay down here, and have been here ever since.

That was in the summer of 2000, and since then I've lived in about 8 different flats/houses, as is typical in London. I spent my years at Uni in Eltham, then moved up to Poplar, then had 5 years living on the Isle of Dogs, before moving to Wimbledon in the summer of 2005. I am still living here and absolutely love it, I've got a great flat in a really nice area and great flat mates and plenty of mates nearby.

I still go to Eire as often as I can to see my friends and family over there in Donegal and Dublin, but I'd like to get over a bit more often. I also have a very good friend in Ballymena near Belfast and was seeing a girl over there for a while but it didn't work out. I fulfilled a life-long ambition the other year when I went to New York and while I've never had the travelling bug, I do want to visit other parts of America, as well as heading back to New York quite regularly, as it's the best city in the world. I've also got mates in Hong Kong and really want to visit there, Dubai, Australia and New Zealand at some point. I'd also like to see a bit more of Europe, but being Irish I'm not very good in the heat and burn very quickly.

As I mentioned before I'm really into my films and music and have over 400 films on DVD and video (old school!) and about the same amount of albums. Can't say I've got any particular genre I favour in either film or music. My film collection ranges from such universally acclaimed classics as the Godfather films, the Leone westerns (and Once Upon a Time in America - possibly the best film ever made) to such under appreciated gems as Howard the Duck (a new breed of Hero), Monster Squad, Blacula and the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

As for music, I have a very eclectic music collection from old skool hip hop like Lords of the Underground, Wu-tan Clan and the Pharcyde through Indie/Rock like Oasis, The Stone Roses, Arctic Monkeys, The Coral, The Foo Fighters, etc. right through to Celtic classics like Enya, The Pogues, The Dubliners and everything in between. And of course, being from Coventry, I love The Specials. I draw the line at Daniel O'Donnell though. My auld dear tried to play that to me when I was younger. Luckily, she knows better now.

That's enough about me, tell me about yourself...

Oh and in case you wondered why some of the words are underlined in all this, it is me cleverly hiding links off to radom picture sets and Internet links relating to those words. 10 years in this game, and that's as creative as I can be with my links. I bet my auld man wonders where his money went while he put me through Uni. Maybe this will answer him...

Heggers.