This is NOT a recent photograph!
Thought for our times:
"He that goeth about to convince a multitude, that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want for attentive and favourable hearers."
Richard Hooker 1554(?) - 1600
Following early retirement from the UK Senior Civil Service in 1997 (see my CV) I became a member of the National Measurement System Working Group on Software Support for Metrology and the European Commission's panel of experts for project evaluation, monitoring and appraisal in the then current Science and Technology Framework Programme. In the context of this I chaired the panel of independent experts that monitored the launch in 1999 and the first year activities of the Commission's then new Information Society Technologies programme.
I also worked for some years as a self employed tourist guide through an agency called British Tours Ltd.
In the voluntary sphere I was a Trustee of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG) from 1999 to 2006 and chaired its Finance and Audit Committee from 2003 to 2006. Until recently I chaired USPG's staff pension trustees. I was also treasurer of the Southwark Cathedral Millennium Trust, a Churchwarden of St Paul's Church, Clapham and a member of North Lambeth Deanery Synod which I represented on the Southwark Diocesan Board of Finance.
Address:
25, Rozel Road, Clapham, London SW4 0EY
Phone 020 7622 5744 (International: +44 20 7622 5744)
And sometimes in Wales at Cae'r Saeson, Gellilydan, Nr. Bl. Ffestiniog, Gwynedd LL41 4EY
Phone 01766 590602 (Maentwrog 590602)
You can email at roger.hird@argonet.co.uk (or just click on this link). This is not my main email address - but I don't want to expose THAT to the whole internet.
If you want to know more about Cae'r Saeson just click on this link.
Note For Early Retired Civil Servants - which must now be out of date -
Follow this link to my tax hint page!
BORING TECHNICAL DETAILS For IT types, I use Orpheus Internet's Broadband ISP service and the Netfetch communications package with Jonathon Duddington's Pluto News/Mail Reader on an Acorn RiscPC 700 upgraded to the ARM Strongarm microprocessor with the RISC OS Adjust 4.39 gui operating system. For those who cherish the history of computing in Britain, this means that I'm using a UK ISP and running a UK designed comms and news/mail packages on a UK designed and manufactured computer, with a UK designed microprocessor chip which, in ordinary use, needs neither Microsoft DOS nor Windows of any sort - and gee, it feels so good! More realistically, my RiscPC is now networked to a PC running Windows 7 which for all its faults offers considerably better Web browsing than anything available on the old Acorn platform - though I at least avoid the pitfalls of Microsoft products by using the Mozilla Firefox Browser and the LibreOffice suite of software.
3 July 2019