Matthew Revell

A while back, Patrick Finch tagged me on a “five things you don’t know about me” post. It’s been a while coming but here’s my response.

I ran a Fidonet BBS: From 1993 until 1996, I ran the Socrates BBS, on our family PC. From 9pm to 9am people dialed into the BBS to swap files, get mail and play games. Just about every UK Fidonet-style network was available on Socrates, along with internet email, both of which were pretty rare. I also helped setup an Amiga-realted Fidonet-style network and created then ran the terribly named Ciibernet. I learnt a lot about creating social bonds through ASCII and ANSI text displays, made some good friends and got an excellent grounding that gave me a head start when I got my first dial-up internet account.

I have mild Raynaud’s disease: I’m wearing thermal socks as I type this. Raynaud’s disease leads to a constriction of blood vessels to the hands and feet. Even in warm environs, I usually have very cold hands and feet. When I lived in the (much colder) north east of England, my feet regularly turned entirely white and, sometimes, blue. The cure involved slapping them and bowls of hot water, both of which hurt like hell. I no longer take medication for it and, in my case, it’s no more than an annoyance.

I had a hospital radio show: Again from 1993 until 1996, I had a three hour weekly show on Radio Derwentside, the hospital radio station for Shotley Bridge Hospital, near Consett. Each show was assigned a particular ward from which to collect requests; mine was female geriatric. I ended up playing a lot of Harry Secombe, with a bit of the fabulously named Klaus Wunderlich. It was a great way to learn about radio and to write and perform sketches with my mates. We ended up at Radio Leeds, recording some of our sketches for the same show that Mrs Merton started on. Don’t think our stuff was broadcast, though

I ran a small press publisher: I was a busy teenager. From 1994 until 1998 I ran Poetribe, which published the rather pretentiously named Po?techniciens magazine, put on the Derwentside Poetry Festival, produced a tape of north-eastern English poets and had a few bits on the web. I was frustrated by the establishment arts crowd in the north east of England, who seemed (to the 16 year old me) more interested in fund raising dinner parties than discovering hidden talents. Using my BBS contacts, I found some great writers and think I reached enough people to have made a small difference.

I have strangely jointed wrists: If I place my hands on a table, arms straight, I can rotate my arms independently of my hands. It doesn’t sound much but people often recoil in disgust on the very rare occasions that I demonstrate it

I tag: Rob Annable, Felix Grant, Stuart Langridge, Andi Gladwin and Austen Macrow.