What I like doing and am pretty good at (apart from Whistling):
- Music. I used to sing in a band and I play piano and guitar. To be honest music is the main thing in the world that I love. I wrote some good songs, mainly with Olly Chang and Matt Knight. We recorded some, but they never end up as good as you want them do they! I was 2nd trumpet in the school orchestra too, but I didn’t stay long (bitch with the white gloves 1st trumpet!)
- Sailing. Ok so I love sailing too. I did the Sydney to Hobart once in the 4th worst storm they have ever had. It was one of the best things and one of the worst (and hardest) things I have done.
- Skydiving. Skydiving is really fun. I used to go every weekend in Sydney, and learnt in the USA. I highly recommend it. I did 150+ jumps which isn’t that much compared to most regular skydivers. I sold my parachute to start the company so haven’t been in a while
- Scuba Diving. The best diving I have done is in Cancun in ceynotes (freshwater caves) the water was so clear it was like floating in air (there is no silt so no loss of clarity). Maldives is excellent too. I go a few times a year but I’m not one of those nuts people for whom every holiday needs to be a diving holiday. I have my own fins and mask, but that’s it (I find you can always tell how much someone is into a sport by all the extra crap that they buy)
- Skiing. Since I was 4 was a family thing to go skiing so we all got pretty good. Most winters I ski in Verbier (thanks to uncle Frits’ chalet there – yes! I have an uncle called Frits). Oh yeah, I also ski well on water too – I came 4th in a waterski competition in Singapore, but the dude who came third only had one leg…. so I got him disqualified for not being in the paralympic competition! Mwooohaaaaahaaa haaaaa (ok so I didn’t. I should have!)
- Flying. Even though it makes me throw up alot, I fly single engine planes with propellars. I trained in the University of London Air Squadron (This is the Royal Air Force Volunteer reserve – basically the toy air force) and met some good guys there, one of whom is in the RAF now, but if I had wanted to join I wouldn’t have been flying jets and bombing people to death I would have been flying a cargo plane full of rubber dogshit out of Hong Kong…. which wasn’t really my thing
- Leather books and belt making. I started this because I wanted a new book to write music in, but thought that the ones they were selling were overpriced. So I bought vast amounts of leather and string and paper and other crap and made one myself. All up the whole little escapde cost over $2,000 (not by best business decision. And with the off-cuts I made belts, which my ex giurlfriend and little sisters have plundered so I have none left. If I really like you, you may get a book one day, but I always end up liking them so much that I don’t want to give them away
- Rugby was the main sport that I played when I was young. Our 7s team were all good friends so we used to win everything all the time which was good. I was apparently too much of a ‘bad boy’ to be captain, but was vited best player by the team and coaches which was nice. Then I went to University and a) realised it was cold and the opposition were men, not small asian schoolboys, and b) they had the nerve to put me in the 2nd XV, so I quit. Just like the bloody boy scouts when they told me I bit my nails but I didn’t, so I burnt down the cub person’s house with him in it! (ok so I didn’t really, I just quit). In Sydney I did 2 sprint triathlons, but only because I bet someone $1,000 I would beat him. I did win the bet too!
- Business. I am an entrepreneur, and run TigerSpike, a digital media company. See more about it on my work blog here
