Myspace Layouts at Pimp-My-Profile.com / Blue water - Image Hosting
Myspace Layouts at Pimp-My-Profile.com / Blue water - Image Hosting
Music, guitar, science (especially evolutionary biology), humanism, philosophy.
E.O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, Ross Noble, Dan Barker, and (if they were still with us) Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Baron D'Holbach, Carl Sagan.I briefly met Steve Howe (my guitar hero), and told him he had inspired me to learn guitar when I was 14. He said "Oh no, I'm the one to blame am I?"Maybe it's best if we never actually meet our heroes.
I play acoustic guitar and write songs and some guitar solos. See my other Myspace site: www.myspace.com/geoffmather I love classical music and go to see the Manchester Halle and Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras when I can. Favourite composers are Sibelius, Brahms, Schubert, Rachmaninov, Elgar, Mahler, Stravinski and Beethoven, Britten, Arvo Part, Gorecki.I also listen to Beatles, Stones, Suzanne Vega, Nick Drake, Kate Bush, Coldplay, Yes, Steve Howe, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Camel, Led Zeppelin, Bert Jansch, John Renbourne, Peggy Lee, Nina Simone, Etienne Daho, Django Reinhardt, BB King, Joe Pass, Fairport Convention, Joan Armatrading. I'm getting more into folk music "strum sessions" at the local pubs around Middlewich and Sandbach, Cheshire. Come along! http://www.sandbachfolk.com/
Favourite films. Hmmm. I liked Amelie cos I fell in love with Audrey Tautou, and I always like surreality when it's done well. Liked "Delicatessen" for the same reason. Thought "The Truman Show" was powerful and moving. Jean de Florette / Manon Des Sources are great films. I could watch Julia Roberts all day - she's so natural - especially Pretty Woman and Erin Brockovich.Can always depend on Laurel & Hardy and Buster Keaton. Liked Jack Black in School of Rock and Shallow Hal. Anything with John Candy.I'm totally pissed off with Hollywood these days, they seem to think every film is a chance to promote America and to give us Sunday School moralising.I liked "2001 A Space Odyssey" when it first came out - - I was 7 years old and it blew my mind. Still like the concept of it.
Favourite programme would be something like Horizon - a science magazine. Comedy would be - Spaced, League of Gentlemen, Scrubs, Simpsons. The Office was great. Loved the first few series of 24. Old stuff like the 70s TV series of Mission Impossible. Anything with Paul Merton, Ronni Ancona, Ross Noble, Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey.
Dickens, Hardy, Brontes, Jae Watson (Read "Journey"!!) All of Dawkins' books: read "Climbing Mount Improbable" or "Unweaving the Rainbow" first. Steven Pinker "How the Mind Works", Dan Barker "Losing Faith in Faith", Thomas Paine: "The Age of Reason". Louis de Bernieres: "The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts". John Fowles "The Magus". Jared Diamond: "Guns, Germs and Steel" Matt Ridley "Nature via Nurture"
Thomas Paine, Steve Howe, Baron D'Holbach, Carl Sagan, Beethoven (and all the other composers I mentioned under "Music"), Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Dan Barker, Ernest Shackleton.