Invincible Summer |||

About me

Les vacances de M. Hulot

Au milieu de l’hiver, j’apprenais enfin qu’il y avait en moi un été invincible.
— Albert Camus, “Retour à Tipasa” (1952)

 

Stephen Taylor, FRSA

Livelihood I edit the developers website of a company founded by a friend. I also work part-time as a developer writing software for the pension industry. For some years I edited Vector, my professional association’s journal; I also served as its webmaster. I am a panelist on The ArrayCast, a fortnightly podcast about the array-programming languages.

I have a life-long interest in typography and typesetting, and rebuilt the journal’s production system for publishing online and in print.

Connection [Religion: from re-ligere (Latin) to reconnect to something beyond the subjective self] In the 1970s I converted to Rinzai Zen Buddhism and trained for some years with what is now Shobo-an temple. In the 1980s I trained as a psychotherapist; I do not practise.

I live in North London, where I co-founded my street association and the local neighbourhood forum. In 2009 I was the London venue manager for the Convention on Modern Liberty. In 2016 I stood as the Green Party candidate to represent Camden & Barnet in the Greater London Assembly.

Transport I get around on foot and by bicycle and co-founded a monthly bike maintenance workshop. In 2012 some friends and I founded Londoners on Bikes, a pop-up campaign to make road safety an issue in the London mayoral election. When the moon is full and the weather fine I’ve been known to ride to the seaside for breakfast.

In 2023 I cycled to Burgundy to visit my sister and some other friends, spending six weeks on the road.

Words In the 1970s I was a performing member of Ignition Poets. Recently I typeset and printed a collection of my own verse. From time to time I have written for openDemocracy. In 2016 I enrolled in the Westcountry School of Myth and Storytelling; I occasionally perform at Pentameters Theatre.

I speak French, German, Danish and Swedish; mostly badly.

Contact I have been SJT on email since before the internet. Write to me at .

Other lives

Regents Park, London 2003-06-07, by Miki Yamanouchi

So often one’s true life is the life one does not lead.

Oscar Wilde

You can live two lives, but not three.

Nigella Lawson

Author, barrister, jazz singer, saxophonist, therapist, typographer & printer

When I grow up I want to be like


Credits

fencing
Angelo de Sant’Angelo, Sydney University
Vivienne Watts, Manly Fencing Club
ki
Master Oh Soon-Tak, Chun Do Sun Bup
languages
Steen Christian Andersen, Københavns Intensiv Sprogskole
mathematics
Messrs Pring & Willis, Canford School
ontology
Norman Crowder, Canford School
Irmgard Schloegl (Daeyu Myoko Zenji)†, The Zen Centre
Jorge Rosner†, Gestalt Institute of Toronto
Anna Bernet & Yaro Starak, Sydney Gestalt Centre
Marie-Louise Makris, Alain Roth, Nicole Tremblay & David Ure, Landmark Education
philosophy
David Armstrong, Denise Gamble & Michael McDermott, University of Sydney
poetry
Andrew Davies, Canford School
Elizabeth Maslen, London University
Ed Simpson, Bonnie Shaljean and Alastair Howard Robertson†, Ignition Poets
programming
Mr Willis, Canford School
Ken Iverson† & Arthur Whitney, I.P. Sharp Associates
Paul Mansour, The Carlisle Group
John Scholes†, Dyalog
Ray Cannon
science
Tony Ayres, Canford School
Cyril Latimer, Sydney University
singing
Ian Brown, Canford School
Barb Jungr, London
storytelling
Martin Shaw, School of Myth

Data

name
Stephen Taylor
born
1952-09-15
family
mother Bel Macdonald
sisters Joanne Taylor • Caroline Douglas
schools
Pokesdown CP
Bournemouth
Canford
universities
London (mathematical physics)
Sydney (philosophy & psychology)
married
Bonnie Shaljean 1974
Catharina Lovén 1981
Stephania Melnychuk 1993
stack
AJAX APL JavaScript kdb+ Markdown Nginx q XML XSLT XSL-FO
lived
London • Zurich • Copenhagen • London • Sydney • South Korea • New York • London

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