| Date of Birth: | 22nd January 1963 | Nationality: | UK |
Driving license: | Clean |
My name is Andy W. Smith. I live in Hemel Hempstead, which is in Hertfordshire, in the South East of England and about half an hour from London.
In my spare time I enjoy reading, writing & occasionally films, theatre, live music and playing pool. In the past I used to get together with some guys a couple of times a week to play role playing games although recently this has had to take second place to work. Gaming sessions are largely a social occasion where we get together for a laugh with a few mates, have a few beers and some munchies. This is a sort of guys night in, that before the advent of role playing games might have just as easily centred around a card school.
In recent years I have been learning African percussion, patricularly the Djembe and the Bougarabou, which is an African drum that may have been the origin of the first Latin drums. Over Christmas and New Year 1998/1999 I spent a couple of weeks in Senegal, West Africa, where I attended a school of African music and dance. Most recently in February 2001 I attended the Danza Libra school of Afro-Cuban music and dance in Guantanamo Cuba where I learned Latin rhythms on instruments such as the Congas.
I also enjoy stimulating conversation, particularly about old religions & philosophies, metaphysics, new science and the paranormal. I find that an interest in apparently obscure subjects such as these gives an objectivity that is very useful in everyday life. That's apart from the intrinsic fascination that these subjects hold. The other attraction here is that these are just the sort of subjects that inevitably lead to long night time sessions talking the night away with good company and a drink.
Occasionally I go hill walking and camping, although my camping trips these days are more often to festivals or to a particular country pub in Oxfordshire (the name of which I am not going to disclose here) where we spend the weekend, get locked in overnight until we fall out drunk and land in our tents ready to start all over again the next day. This is a great way of letting yourself go without having to worry about getting home for the night or driving the car until we have sobered up on Sunday afternoon.
During the Nineties I became interested in community development projects, particularly Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS). Because of my fortunate circumstances (I own my house and have paid off my mortgage) I am able to choose to work when I want to. Therefore I have time to devote to projects that I feel strongly about and LETS is one of the areas I have involved myself in.
Between 1993 and 2000 I studied (part time) for a psychology degree with the Open University, which required a great deal of self reliance and organisation as the support normally gained from other students is largely missing with OU study.
Having had a long term philosophical interest in metaphysics and the occult I sometimes attend local meets in pubs, or even the occasional conference or symposium, where in the past I have been known to give the odd talk. As a result of this interest along with my knowledge of publishing, in 1989 I started a small publishing imprint called Winged Feet Productions which has been a vehicle for my ideas, including a book I produced in 1989 and also for a series of fanzine type magazines during the mid Nineties.