Hi, I’m Tudor
I’m a software engineer and engineering manager based in the Cambridge, UK.
Personal history
Every once in a while, a truly special person is birthed into this world, someone who, by virtue of their character, and the time into which they are born, is destined to shake the foundations of the universe and attain to great things.
More frequently, children are born in central Swansea. Such were my personal origins in the nineteen hundred and ninety-seventh year of our Lord, whence I came kicking and screaming into this undeserving world in the now-shuttered maternity ward of Singleton Hospital.
Wherefore it is that I - or indeed any of us for that matter - should have grown up within the location we did, none but God can say. But the history books will record - yes, they will, and many of them shall be written too - that I lived my formative years in a large village named Three Crosses, or Y Crwys in the local tongue, in an aged, not to mention damp, nor to mention drafty, old farmer’s cottage. Pen-Y-Wern, or head of the hill as we may call it, was and is a ramshackle, rheumy old pile of stones, as much a character and member of the family as any cranky grandparent or strange great-uncle.
Thereupon, and with great trepidation, did I apply myself to my studies in the local primary school, and latterly at Bishopston Comprehensive, excelling in matters academic, sporting, and social, before at last graduating to the local sixth form college in Gorseinon.
At last, having attained the right and proper grades, that sweet, beautiful taste of academic freedom was mine. What beautiful edifices, what dreamy spires, did Cambridge enbosom for me in those wondrous youthful years! Ah, that I could return to those honey-dewed days of yonder!
Then I worked as a technology consultant at IBM and somewhere along the way I had the olde Englishe stylings beaten out of me. Sad!
Hobbies
Music forms a decent chunk of my time sync outside of work. I play electric and classical guitar, and less frequently bass guitar, in a jazz band. I also like to noodle on the ivories, but the quality bar is low there. I’m a regular swing dancer - come say hi if you see me near a dance floor!
Outside of that, it’s reading, writing (subscribe to my substack!) and movie-going. Oh, and board games, which I play frequently with my friends. Yes, we’re STANDARD NERDS! But the cool kind so it’s okay.
Talk to me about…
The Claudio-Julian dynasty, the history of the British Empire, epistemic philosophy, the metaphysics of religion, the future of democracy, the modern tech industry, the 19th century novel, Herman Melville’s unreasonable use of exclamation marks, your life story, the last book you read / movie you saw / board game you played. Why not try to cover all these topics in one conversation? Anything to avoid being goddamn boring.
Taste
People often say “I like movies”, “I like books”, “I like music” and so forth. But who doesn’t, right? I mean, have you met a human being yet who ever declared their hatred of music? That’s not even a thing.
What matters isn’t that you like music, but the music you like. So here’s a sample of my taste:
- Wagner
- Verdi
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Pixinginhua
- Beethoven
- Louis Armstrong
- Django Reinhardt
- Tom Waits
- Prince
- Jimi Hendrix
- Cream
- Tuba Skinny
And for books:
- War and Peace
- Moby-Dick
- Anything by Geoff Dyer
- Anything by John Le Carre
- Siddhartha
- Great Expectations
- Les Miserables
- DUUUNE! (all six Frank Herbert books)
- The Lord of the Rings
And for movies:
- The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp
- Apocalypse Now
- Body Double
- It’s A Wonderful Life
- Mulholland Drive
- Withnail & I
- Blazing Saddles
- Airplane
- Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
- Election
- The Ballad Of Wallace Island
And for TV:
- Peep Show
- Twin Peeks
- Battlestar Galactica
- Alan Partridge
- Frasier
- American Horror Story (the older series only)