I was born at the British Military Hospital in West Berlin on a beautiful summer Sunday. I was lucky enough to spend a long weekend there a few years ago with my sister and I have to say that it's a tremendous city. I'm hoping to go back there shortly for another visit. I lived the first 18 years of my life in Cumbria, more specifically Carlisle. I currently live near Heathrow Airport with my sister, Liz.

Another of my favourite places is Florida. I spent a wonderful two week holiday in Kissimmee/Orland in 1997, behaving like a child, and generally having a ball. I had taken a big bite out of the brave apple and went on my own and it was the best holiday I've ever had. Another favourite holiday location is Crete where I've been on more than one occasion, and thoroughly enjoyed the peace and quiet.

I left school as soon as I could, armed with a measly 4 'O' levels and took on a two year secretarial course for the lack of inspiration and, by some miracle, qualified as a secretary back in 1982! I worked for an engineering company for a year and then moved down to London with my aforementioned big sister. I'm not going to sit here and spout my cv because, quite frankly, it's not very interesting!

My little Renault Clio let me know at the beginning of 1999 that she wasn't happy with me any longer and I was forced to change cars before I was really ready. I changed to Tilly, a Renault Megane Alize 1.6 of which I was very proud.  Yes, I know that it's very sad to name your cars, but that's the way I am OK? I had a Ford Capri for years (I can hear the heavy sighs from here people!) and was more than happy driving a mini tank around up until a couple of years ago. I also used to drive an Opel Manta, and have had a Vauxhall Cavalier too. I guess I grew up and realised that big cars and London just don't go together too well.  To that end, I recently bought the sexiest little car in the world, known to everyone else as a Toyota Celica.  She arrived in August 2001 and we haven't been separated since and, sad to say, I'm still totally in love with her.  She's been christened Heavenly Hannah and she gets a good clean every week - don't know how long that novelty will last, but she's kept looking very well looked after.

I bought my flat in Ealing in 1984 at the tender age of 20 and at the height of the interest rate at the time (14%) and only sold it in August 1996 when it became too much of an administrative nightmare to have tenants any longer. Quite frankly I got tired of legging it over there whenever there was the smallest problem. Being a property tycoon ain't all it's cracked up to be, lemme tellya! So I dumped most of the furniture, sold a few bits and put the rest into storage in various areas of the country.

My sister and I moved into a brand new townhouse in November 1999 after sharing her flat for around five years.  We get on uncommonly well, so buying the house was a natural solution to our space problems!  I worked as a legal secretary until May 1997 and then went to work in the Technical Support Department as an analyst and then as Support Manager at ClaraNET until June 1998, when I moved to work for a company specialising in network solutions. They put me through lots of courses and I qualified as an MCSE in September 1999.  Currently I work for Compaq (for my sins) and have been there since May 2000.  I do server support with a speciality in SMS (that's Microsoft SMS and nothing to do with mobile phones!) and am quite content.

Apart from that little potted history, there's not a lot to tell. I don't go out a lot and am quite comfortable in my own or my sister's company. Fortunately, the friends that I have are used to me being a antisocial and are quite used to not hearing from me for weeks at a time. I always promised myself that, by the age of 35, I'd have a life. I'm now 37 and I still don't have a very active social life, but I've realised that I'm quite happy in my own company.  However I'm no longer a workaholic. I still work hard, but believe that my free time is precious and shouldn't be squandered on work!