Here is a little non-astronomical information myself. I am originally from Sutton Coldfield, North Birmingham but have lived in Sweden with one or two breaks for study since 1989.I live with my Swedish wife Karin, a Montessori nursery school teacher and our three children Bill, Abigail and Måns. Following seven years in the Swedish west coast town of Halmstad, we completed a move to the opposite side of the country in December 2005. We now live in the town of Färjestaden on the island of Öland.
By profession I am a university lecturer in English language and applied linguistics.I completed my PhD in linguistics at the University of Birmingham in 2005 with a thesis looking at grammatical patterns of causation in biomedical research articles, a research area encompassing natural language processing and systemic-functional linguistics. Since 1998 I have been working at the University of Halmstad and during 2002-2005 I was Director of Studies for English (single subject degree and teacher training options). I have also served on board of the Department of the Humanities and on the International Council.I am currently a long-distance commuter, travelling on a weekly basis from the Öland to my work place in Halmstad.
I also have a previous academic background in the natural sciences which is really where my heart lies. I studied geology at the University of Durham in the 1980s and went on to train to be a primary school teacher in science at the University of Exeter in 1988-89.
In addition to my family and my astronomical interests, I am also very interested in sport and music.I follow Aston Villa and my adopted Swedish team Halmstad BK in addition to finding the time for long-distance running. I have run the Stockholm Marathon twice and intend to do it again in 2010 ( a sucker for punishment!). Musically I have very eclectic tastes, with a large and varied record collection encompassing everything from downtempo electronica, to indiepop and jazz.