Paul

I think it's fair to say that people are best understood through their passions. I have two - manipulating language and exploring the vulnerabilities in how we understand our world.The first derives from my longstanding fascination with the complexity and power of the written word and my attendant desire to combat and ridicule its epidemic misuse. It is this passion that most frequently inspires me to raise my voice to an impolite volume and has been for nearly as long as I can remember. (I once read a review of Good Will Hunting in which the author, while clucking her tongue about the amount of swearing in the film, remarked: "I heard the F-word so many times that I'm surprised they didn't just tack an -ly on the end and use it as an adverb!" The only letter to the editor I have ever drafted was to inform that reviewer "there is no need to tack an -ly on the end of the F-word to use it as an adverb. To illustrate: your grasp of the English language is fucking weak." It was never published.)The second grew out of the relatively recent discovery that two of my most powerful olfactory memory triggers from childhood are standard selections in any respectable catalogue of commercial odor suppressants. Needless to say, that has cast a sobering new light on what I thought I remembered. If the glimpses you get through those two windows don't tell you enough about me, then you'll just have to accept that I am a simple man who revels in complicated pleasures.