I graduated with a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering many moons ago. Since then I’ve been very lucky to have spent more than four decades designing and creating solutions for all sorts of problems in many fields of work. I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of working on cutting-edge, ground-breaking products, and have been able to work with some truly inspirational, clever, and supportive people. Whether it’s been in broadcast engineering, aerospace and defence, telecommunications, automated fault detection and recovery or chemical information I always take great pride in the quality of the design and implementation of everything I have done.

I’ve grown up in a time that saw the birth of many technological achievements. Sadly many are now confined to history, and some risk being forgotten altogether. This includes the electronic typewriter, compact cassette, DAT, minidiscm and compact disc. My degree’s final year report was written on a BBC Micro and printed using an electronic typewriter that had a Centronics interface – a marvel in the 1980s. I’ve also spend many hours recording BBC radio drama and copying the best dramas to compact cassette like the one below. This photo is of the very first cassette recording in my collection – “The First Men in the Moon” by H.G. Wells. Featuring Willie Rushton, it was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1981.

But I digress … this site is more of a “technical experiment” than for any real practical purpose in my life or my career. It’s funny, even though I’ve had the good fortune to have started my career in “information technology”, an industry that itself was just exploding as I started taking a real interest, I’m not a big user of it “socially”. I prefer to spend time doing things rather than writing about what I have done.

As for this experiment, my father always said that I was good at starting things, but rarely finished them. I like to think he’s wrong in this specific enterprise. I actually think he’d be very proud of what I have done, but I do understand what he saw in me. I get “bored” quickly with things that others seem to find exciting. It’s the same with “social media” – I understand the purpose but, for the vast majority of people I doubt they, like me, have anything to say that would be of the slightest interest to anyone outside a group of their closest friends. I think I’ve done some great things. I’ve been to some great places, and met some really great people. But, at the end of the day do I think anyone is really interested? No.

So, this is an experiment for me. Do I want to be creating posts about everything that I find interesting? Do I really want to spend more time on a computer (tablet or phone) having spent the vast majority of my waking hours staring at a cathode ray tube? Probably not. I certainly still have a lot to do so I’m not sure how much time I can spare on blog posts while I’m still working – but let’s see. I might surprise myself and I may look back on this and ask myself, as the autumn years close in, why I didn’t do something like this sooner. I certainly prefer control over my own information. With AI taking more and more space on social media maybe the coolness of running your own site (a novelty in the 90’s) might make a come-back?

Oh, and why The Almighty Bob? Well, I don’t much care to use my real name and, as I just loved BBC Radio 4’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” I always look there for a persona. Trin Tragular? Judiciary Pag? Wonko the Sane? They’re all fun characters but they’re too difficult to remember and obscure, especially if you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know the show. So I settled on a character that’s clearly easy to say, and spell, and where the .com address is still available! So, for now, I’m The Almighty Bob.

That’s a rather wordy introduction but if you have taken the time to read it, thank you.