Hobbies & Interests

Hello there.

I am very interested in:

- Dance machines (DDR/Rhythm games) ️ ️ ️ ️️ 

- Bowling  

- Snooker  

- Anime

- Manga

- Video Games (mostly League of Legends, PUBG) and the retro consoles like Sega Megadrive

- 3d modelling (creating models on a computer)

- Karaoke  

- Action films

- 90s/00s Trance music (like: Chicane, BT, PVD, Dave Pearce, etc)

- Butlins Adult Weekender parties

- Body boarding

- Camping/Caravanning

- House parties

- Waterparks (must have flumes lol)

- Manga art

- Creativity

- Travelling

I hope this helps you get a good idea of my hobbies.

I'd love to make new friends who do any of these 

I perform with a staff do tricks with it and maybe if you look online you might find an autism group. I live in Swansea and the group I go to on Saturdays is in Neath the next town over. 

Wow, a fire performer! How do you even start something like that? What exactly do you mean, like juggling fire or something?

I also enjoy board games, I'm not very good at them and have trouble understanding the initial rules, but I have some friends I play with and never realised there were so many different ones available.

Meeting people at groups sounds nice, it sounds like they are more geared towards people like us. I'm currently in a bit of a slump thinking I should be involved in a community I enjoy more but not sure how 

I like crochet, arts and crafts, Lego, animals, reading, board games, computer games, puzzles, words, cooking, rune stones, bubbles, I hate crowds and busy places however I do like going to music concerts if I am well prepared. I don't get as much time as I would like for my hobbies and interests, so I spend a lot of time 'inside my head' in my own world where nobody else can join me, though I can get a bit upset if I am interrupted while I am inside my head.

Wow Rach, you're so outgoing, the thought of all that socialising gives me the heebie jeebies, but it's good that you do and that you have people you can socialise with.

I like board games and I’m a fire performer. I also Lego building Lego sets the bigger the better. It’s not really a hobby but I love being involved in the autism community I go to different groups meeting people and on Saturdays I go to an autism hub the next town over from me and socialising with the members there. 

For me football is an all-consuming passion that takes over my entire life. I also like listening to music. My wife told me I needed to do something t take my mind off football so my first idea was to go on ebay and order a shedload of lego - and use it to build replica football grounds. When she pointed out this wasn't really what she had in mind and it would also be rather messy and take up loads of space I opted for a subcription to the British Film Institute instead - really good. Big selection of films. Some good, some bad, some weird but all have some kind of artistic merit. I still love lego, though...

Your welcome I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I did my masters years ago and I am not in touch with my old tutor. I miss not having access to the latest peer reviewed papers. For instance, finds such as a tiny pot or a male figurine have the capacity to change what we know about Neolithic society. Also, archaeologists have been notoriously bad (although now improving) at writing up excavation reports in a timely fashion.   After that, experts in various specialists review the information and write their papers offering conclusions or attempts at conclusions. By the time much of it is released to the general public, it is out of date insomuch as the conclusion may be challenged by someone else. It is very hard to know the true details about what went on with Mellart and the people around him. I don’t know all the details but it seems there are various conflicting anecdotal accounts of what happened. Although I didn’t fully explore Catalhoyuk in my figurine research, Neolithic, PPNB (Pre pottery neolithic B) and Iron Age pottery figurines in the Levant are my speciality. I stayed in Jerusalem for some of my research, and travelled to Jordan. I would loved to have had time in Iraq and Syria, but alas there is no chance now and much of the ancient structure has been destroyed. Some of the material culture archaeologists are trying to see if there are links links between production and meaning and function of figurines across the Levant. Most figurines appear to be female and all too often, have been labelled goddesses, without affording proper analysis. Many of them probably are goddesses, but for many others, there is no evidence at all, in fact there may be some evidence that would suggest some other function. The whole debate around these enigmatic figurines and their meaning and function absolutely fascinating. 

Two other interesting sites are:

https://acorjordan.org/ain-ghazal/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sha%27ar_HaGolan_(archaeological_site)

Those are some good hobbies, I really love gaming, designing, taking pictures and hanging out with friends. 

That was a wonderful read Hopscotch Queen Since 2015 , thank you!

I've seen all the Twilights. The whole saga is amaze from start to finish-I wish there were more! I haven't seen the behind the scenes yet, don't know why either-just one of those things I haven't got round to. I relate a lot with the vampires, their not fitting in, not being able to talk to peope. Great series of films.

Completely agree with this! Hilarious scene and so well made, must have taken so much time to get it right but worth it. I imagine must be an amazing job working on something like Wallace and Gromit! I could do that for the rest of my life and not be bored.

Here's a page about how they did it https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/the-making-of-the-wrong-trousers-dream-teams has some pics from it too. Must be a lot of patience, imagine one slip up and I guess you'd have to start all over again.

Pure genius.

Such a small bit of Catalhoyuk has been excavated so far, I think Mellart got a bit swept up in his own theories, but he wasn't alone, there was a lot of suppoert for a female led neolithic and early bronze age in academia at the time. Although there does seem to be more evidence comeing to light that neolithic societies were more eglatarian across the world. I ofte wonder when did patriarchy start and why? I think you can see it in places like Greece where Goddesses become the wives of Gods, Aphrodite for instance is much older than classical Greece, Bettany Hughes wrote a fantastic book on her.

Does you tutor have any theories about what the bits Mellart dug up might actually be, all the tusks set out and the reliefs of women with vulture beaks coming out of thier breasts on the walls?

If you can get to Istanbul for a long weekend or longer, it's an absolutely fascinating place for anyone interested in history to go, the Roman, the Crusader, the Ottaman and the modern are all jostling besde each other. It is a bit crowded and chaotic though.

My all time, hands down, favourite animated moment ever is from Wallace and Grommit, where they have a train chase through their house on a model train, then Grommit has to lay down the track fast enough to not crash.

1. It's just plain funny, the kind of thing you would see in a Looney Tunes cartoon from 60 years ago.

2. Then I think that someone (or a team of people) had to move plasticine models a millimetre at a time AND make it look like it was happening really fast AND have a fast moving background AND do other multiple things at once! It must have taken them 3-6 months to film a 30 second joke, can you imagine the patience involved?! 

I imagine it was hard to tear yourself away from the museum in Istanbul! Unfortunately I have not yet managed to get to there but I would particularly like to see any neolithic figurines that might be in the museum. Yes the debate around how society at Catalhoyuk functioned is ongoing and it seems that it may not have been matriarchal after all, rather more egalitarian. My tutor on my masters course used to spend every summer working in Catalhoyuk. Your almond and honey biscuits sound lovely. It is incredible how you can taste and experience something the same or very close to that eaten by the ancient Egyptians. 

I watched behind the scenes of twilight saga. I liked the saga and the vampires I somehow identified with them and the behind the scenes was also fun for me. 

This used to be my special interest around 10 years ago. This special interest is super special to me and still in my heart. I made a lot of short animations with various topics like marbles rolling around or soap bubbles flying in the air, airplane, flowers or leaves trembling on a wind etc. I made them in photoshop. First I worked in ps4 but then I got ps5 extended and there I had a lot of joy. There are also other programs where you can use effects like abrosoft phantamorph but I usually after that imported that animation to add something else in photoshop. I learned that myself with help of other members of one online platform that does not exist anymore unfortunately. I can upload here an animation but it will appear only as a picture. 

Me too! I love to see the behind the scenes of how things are made. One of my faves is behind the scenes of Wallace and Gromit, I watched that on youtube and it was so interesting seeing how it was made. Always very inspiring to see behind the scenes of movies.

I agree with Hopscotch Queen Since 2015 that film making sounds very interesting. I always find myself watching films with half a mind on how they are actually made, I like diving deeper into them.

One of my lifelong interests (which I wish could have been a hobby but probably never will be) is animation. I love the idea of watching someone produce something artistic, then stitching together lots of static images to produce motion and make something come alive. To me, the mixture of artistic and technical skill make it seem like magic. Alas, I lack the imagination and creativity to do it myself, so I make do with watching it instead.