Love, Love, Love

Time for a blast of egoism (aka marketing). I may as well take advantage of my surname - other people do. I was never into the Beatles, but they got a few things right. Here's some graffiti from Abbey Road.

The reason I write so much down (and take photos) is that my memory's poor. I even need to ask others about my childhood. That deficiency has advantages too - I tend to archive things, ephemera especially. I've a weakness for nostalgia and pottering in lofts.

See my illustrated CV for a potted history of places and events. I've not entirely given up the interests I had when I was younger, they've all been useful in their way, though my basketball aspirations faded fast (I'm 5' 8"). My career development, like that of many people, wasn't carefully planned. I tried various cities out, and rather expected to be self-employed in some way, or to do a 9 to 5 job just for the money.

I did physics and maths at university - the "Church–Turing thesis" type of maths in the end - but I don't think that Maths is really my subject. Having done Maths, Applied Maths and Physics at A level, the options were limited.

Computers have figured in several ways over the years, both in work (self-employed and otherwise) and play. I did a brief Fortran course while doing Maths, then after my degree played about at home. Before doing a Masters I wrote a cassette-based game. Then I found gainful employment. We've always had a programmable domestic computer. BASIC was the first language I had any success with. Search for "Tim Love Computing" and you'll soon end up in the UK's History of Computing Museum.

Writing's another hobby.

• "truly excellent website", Michael Donaghy
• "I admire the intelligence, seriousness and exhaustive reading I find here", Prof George Szirtes, Aug 2010
• "I commend TL's website to you as an excellent resource", Prof Stephen Payne, Nov 2010
• "Tim Love is a very clever chap", Jane Holland, 2010
• "Just a quick message to say how much I enjoyed your Happenstance chapbook. It was unexpected in the best way. The boldness and intelligence of the poems reminded me of twentieth century German poetry. It's a remarkable collection, and I hope it thrives", Alison Brackenbury, Dec 2010

I've lived in Cambridge since 1987, always working in the same place, but shifting emphasis every so often. I began working with computers before the web was invented, then being webmaster became part of my role. I don't do much system management nowadays. I've taught future astronauts and gold medalists though.

When I was little, the only spaghetti I knew about came in cans. I preferred baked beans. I visited Italy first when I InterRailed in about 1980. I've been there many times since (by car, train, and plane). My inlaws live north of Milan, but we've visited most areas, Sicily being the main omission. I've put online some write-ups of Italian books that I've read. Alas, my Italian's not good enough for the write-ups to be in Italian.