Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

Some more questions from mindygoth:

1) I often think you look slightly bewildered… are you?
Do I? Probably, yes, but I’ve never really thought about it that much…social interaction was never really that much of a strong point for me, I don’t (think) I take on that kind of look unless there are other people about.

2) I’m assuming you don’t drive when in Japan? Do you miss it?
Hell yes! I look forward to getting back to Europe and a chance to drive again – everything is too complicated and different here that I wouldn’t be confident about driving unless I had a competant Japanese driver (and good English speaker) as a passenger. I miss the freedom to just jump in the car and go to the countryside, or go to another town.

3) The Internet – Valuable addition, or damaging detraction from social interaction?
Right now – lifeline. But more generally somewhere between the two, its a beautiful, complex machine, but we haven’t figured out how to use it properly yet.

4) If there was one hobby you could take up that you don’t already have, what would it be (assuming money was no restriction etc.)?
Clockmaking. Not your usual fiddly little clocks, big clocks. But I need to learn to weld first, which always looked like fun in itself.

5) What is usually your favourite thing about Whitby Goth Weekend?
Watching people extract peas from their nose! The social interactions during the day times, the chance to spend time with people I don’t spend much time with. The evenings are a bit too much for me, but I wouldn’t go to the town without going to the evenings.


3 comments

  1. Y’know, it’s possible to make a grandfather clock from meccano. My father in law makes models as a hobby (he’s a retired aeronautical engineer) – usually steam engines which he makes from scratch, and has a sideline in meccano models which he does for exhibitions and stuff. He has a clock in his livingroom made from meccano, which isn’t too inaccurate either. He needs to spend some time tuning the pendulum so it keeps better time, but it’s pretty good even so.

    • That sounds like a cool thing to make, but its not quite what I had in mind – I’ll try to get a picture of the kind of thing I’m thinking of.

  2. Most of the time I lived in Oxford time was relative not absolute. I would arrange to meet people ‘in 20 minutes’ and didn’t care what the actual time was.

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