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You are not getting any of the really boring stuff like age and birthplace. Really. Come on. It's in my CV anyway. And I am not particularly photogenic. This has nothing to do with running around with my boobs hanging out because that is artistic license on the part of the artist and has little bearing on Real Life. Although other than that the likeness is fairly remarkable given allowances for the style. Did the whole maths phys chem thing at a godawful place called Millfield, the only good point about which is the fact that it's barely 20 minutes walk from Glastonbury. Was persuaded by one of my Welsh cousins to do physical oceanography at Southampton University while in a drunken haze at the wedding of one of my other Welsh cousins. Discovered too late that getting a job in oceanography in this country is well nigh impossible. Spent a couple of years doing archaeology, in other words stuck down a hole in some coloured earth looking at other coloured bits of earth and thinking about dowsing techniques for features. Managed to get a place on a Masters course doing Environmental Diagnostics at Cranfield University, and ended up severely in debt. Worked for Elsevier for a year (but we don't want to talk about that) and then finally managed to do what I had always wanted to do. I got a place doing a PhD. In an environmental topic. The only one from my oceanography intake year not to have succumbed to the lure of accountancy. So I spent 2 full years out in a poo-filled field in the middle of rural Bedfordshire, studying agricultural wastewater treatment at the School of Agriculture, Food and Environment at Cranfield University, also known as Silsoe College. At the end of those two years I came down with a severe illness and was put on forced medical suspension. After a year and a half of useless medical advice, during which I acted as Warden for the Rollright Stones, I took matters into my own hands, got myself sorted out and got a job for the Environment Agency. There I currently languish, in a fugue of petty bureaucracy and disillusion, trying to work out if I have what it takes to be a writer and still trying to finish my PhD. My interests still include archaeology and climatology, as well as the less academic stuff like cycling, sub-aqua, sailing, reading Fortean Times, playing lots of Playstation, drinking and annoying fluffbunnies at every opportunity. Having given up most of the really freaky mailing lists due to a surfeit of moronic behaviour on the part of the other subbers, I now run the Atropos list and can also still be found on Britwitch and Fivetrees. I also like thinking up strange things to do with Flatlanders and complaining that they never publish worked solutions for the Enigmas in New Scientist. I used to be a member of Red Stags Morris at Southampton, and still occasionally succumb to an invitation to humiliate myself in public, because it is such fun. And of course I like to rant. This has led me to an active role in cycle campaigning, because ranting is great for that, and I am currently the CTC Right to Ride rep for Exeter, Mid Devon, and, from recent correspondence, it looks like the whole of Devon as well. I gave up calling myself pagan in 2003, although that doesn't stop me discussing things of a pagan interest (see Atropos), and I don't get out much. I live in the back of beyond in Devon, far too far from Scotland, with my other half, Frood; two cats whose names I can't remember; the Booze Monkey; and a small collection of very fine bicycles. We have a pond. Copyright Samantha Fleming, 2002. All rights reserved. |
