Get A Life!

Music

[Picture of Sean]

When I'm not at work, I spend a lot of my time involved in music. I've played the piano for many years, but my main instrument for public consumption is the guitar. Since the end of 2000, I've been playing guitar in the ceilidh band Albireo. More details of gigs on the Albireo web site.

I also played for several years as one half of a duo, known as Burton & Bechhofer. We played at a number of venues in Manchester over the last few years including Band on the Wall, The Roadhouse, Night & Day Cafe and numerous pubs. In the recent past we appeared as a trio including bass player Phil Cawsey. In Summer 2003 we recorded a number of songs along with drummer Ian Bamford. Check Holly's site for more information about the availability of the CD.

A number of years ago I played in the band fiction, who were quite liked by the local press. Holly and I were also half of the four-piece Going By Feel for a while in 1999, appearing at the Night and Day Cafe a couple of times.

I also enjoy the usual kinds of stuff including eating, drinking, cooking, hill-walking, theatre, films.

Underwater

"If one dives and returns to the surface inarticulate with amazement...then he deserves to go again and again. If he is unmoved or disappointed, then there remains for him on earth only a longer or shorted period of waiting for death; there can be little worth while left in life for him."

Charles William Beebe (1877-1962) *

[scuba-divers]

I took up scuba diving in 1999 and I'm a PADI Rescue Diver with 240 logged dives in the Red Sea, Mediterranean, Caribbean, Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. I took a dry suit course in July 2001, but most of my diving has been in comparatively warm waters. I initially trained at Aquatech in Manchester and I'm a member of their Diving Club. My favourite dive so far has probably been the Carnatic, a P&O passenger steamer that sank at Abu Nuhas in the Red Sea in 1869. There are a number of close seconds though.

In 2003 we dived the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, including a trip out to Osprey Reef. This is a sea mount over 100 miles off the eastern coast of North Queensland that rises up 1000m from the seabed to just below the surface. Strong currents attract a large number of big pelagics, and there's a resident population of sharks. An incredible dive, and well worth the 10 hours of rough sea crossing.

In 2005, we dived in the Maldives where we were lucky enough to snorkel with whalesharks. They were relatively small ones at about 5 metres, but still the biggest fish I've ever seen!

There were lots of other great things to be seen in the Maldives including reef sharks, eagle rays and turtles. While there I also trained up as a Nitrox diver. So far though, I haven't felt a noticable lack of post-dive tiredness — this may have something to do with the effort expended when being chased by "Bruno", the island's local (and rather aggressive) Titan Triggerfish.

Although it's not always thought of as a dive destination, the Mediterranean has some great diving. We've had excellent trips to Sardinia (Villasimius), Gozo (Marsalforn) and Turkey (Kas). It's not full of colourful coral, but the topography and landscapes are beautiful (in particular Cathedral Cave in Gozo) and there are lots of interesting things to look at — it just sometimes takes a little more effort to find them!

Shark & Yolanda Reefs in Ras Mohammed and a twilight dive on La Machaca (House Reef at Capt Don's) in Bonaire were also highlights. In 2002 I had the opportunity to dive in the kelp forests off Catalina Island in California which weren't bad either!

Some of my favourite underwater creatures are nudibranchs or sea slugs, in particular flabellina affinis, chromodoris quadricolour, and the Spanish Dancer -- the latter is basically a big red slug that can grow up to two feet long. They swim through the water rather gracefully, however, with a "bucking" action that resembles the flapping skirt of a dancer, hence the name. As for bigger things, despite having dived at a couple of locations where the Atlantic Manta Ray is "often seen", I've never yet caught sight of one. I'm beginning to doubt whether they really exist....

You can see some of my attempts at underwater photography in the gallery. However, if you want to see how it's really done, David Doubilet is the man.

*The above quote from Beebe was found in Trevor Norton's book Stars Beneath the Sea (Random House, 2000), an excellent collection of written portraits of the early pioneers of diving. Tim Ecott's Neutral Bouyancy (Michael Joseph, 2001) is also a great read for anyone wanting to know more about why one would want to strap on a tank and several kilogrammes of lead then leap off a boat....

Photography

Some of my photographs can be seen in the gallery. I also have a collection up at flickr.

Manchester City

I'm a Manchester City supporter, although the introduction of all-seater stadia led to me no longer attending many live matches. If you want to know why, read my account. This is part of the excellent Manchester City F.C. Supporters Home Page.

Mystic Haikus

At the HT'00 conference in San Antonio, a hypertext writing competition (known as the Bernies in honour of Mark Bernstein) was held. My entry (which didn't win) was a collection of carefully crafted haikus.

Manchester

Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't always rain in Manchester!

Last modified: Fri Feb 15 13:55:38 GMT Standard Time 2002