Tell us about you, what you do and how you got into journalism
My job title is Business Correspondent and Senior Journalist at Cambridge Independent. I’ve been with the paper - initially as a freelancer - for seven years. The ‘senior journalist’ bit is a bit vague: in practice it allows me to write about non-business stories, including art, book, and music reviews, plus covering protests in Cambridge. These have included NHS, teachers, Black Lives Matter, climate change, Palestine, and Ukraine.
How did I get into journalism?
I’d started a computer games distribution company in my 20s, it was a runaway success, and we had vast amounts of money to spend before it got taxed away. I decided it might be fun to start a weekly trade magazine, so we launched Computer Trade Weekly, and I cheekily made myself launch editor. We hired a hot shot from Smash Hits magazine, and he taught me the basics.
Tell us more about Tilly, how long you have had her, how she came into your life!
Tilly’s a border collie; I took her on five years ago after her previous owner got sick. It was just 2 weeks after the first lockdown started, in April 2020. By then I was working from home - it would never have been possible if I’d still been in the 9-5, or 10-6 as it was in my case. It was a frantic period, as a journalist I was a key worker, and my workload went ballistic. I’d not had care of a dog before - we were a cat family - so I experimented with Tilly’s diet and exercise regime. It turned out she likes five walks a day and has very expensive and human-like dietary preferences! But she’s worth it, border collies are awesome.
What’s one thing people would be surprised to learn about you?
I worked on the football desk at the News of the World for a while. I’m quite into football. As a youngster in London, I went round all the football grounds - White Hart Lane, Selhurst Park, Upton Park, Highbury - to work out who I wanted to support. I settled on Chelsea. But hey, we all make mistakes….
If you could interview any person (dead or alive), who would it be and why?
Ooh that’s a fiendishly difficult question! Gosh is this what it's like to be interviewed? I guess it would have to be Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, because she was the first woman whose sexuality crushed empires and broke the hearts of men who should have known better….but it’s not her sexuality I’m curious about, it’s her character. We know a lot about what she did, but nothing much about what she was like. More importantly, I reckon she knew all the secrets of Ancient Egypt. Where did they get all that astronomical and mathematical information from? Was it handed over to them by visitors from Sirius, or did they have huge teams of people working away at the problems like the coders in Silicon Valley today?
What's something that never fails to make you smile?
Cute animal videos. And anything to do with Monty Python.
Describe your perfect day at The Bradfield Centre and why the space works for you!
Well, I get up, have some tea, and drive to the Science Park. I get out and walk with Tilly round the grounds. She has a particular spot where she drinks from the lake. I can’t believe how much water she drinks - gallons and gallons, and she drinks it whatever colour it is! Then we go in, I park up at a desk - these days usually one of the little huts in the cafe area - and go and get some coffee. I’m a huge banter fan - one of the (very few!) things I miss about not being in a newsroom is the bantz. So, I natter to everyone - the team running the kitchen are hilarious, the reception team are surely the best in the county, and anyone else who’s around. Then I work for three hours straight. It’s a fantastic place to work, right down to the music they play, which I find incredibly helpful. I’d not worked to music until I started hotdesking at the Bradfield. And the parking’s free!
If you and Tilly swapped jobs for a day, how do you think each of you would do?
Tilly would definitely structure my day very differently; she’d get a dongle for my laptop so she could work outside and have huge piles of snacks to eat while she was working. But she wouldn’t get any work done because she’d be watching cat and dog videos all day. And I’d probably relax as a dog, because all dogs want is love and friendliness (and food!) so that’s what they’re on the lookout for, whereas I’m on the lookout for people with original and occasionally devious minds who are untangling some of the world’s biggest problems, and of course not all those minds are motivated by love and community unfortunately. But a surprising number are!
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