Hello I’m Ian Dove, Yikes, this is the page where I have to write about myself.
Most people don’t like to do that, I guess I’m one of them.
Put the kettle on, this will only take 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
Warning: Contains confessions.
There are a lot of I’s in this, which goes against the way I usually write where I’m always looking for the angle from the reader’s point of view.
Recently I took a personality test and the test determined that I was INTJ – The Architect.
You can have a look at the result here https://www.16personalities.com/profiles/2e737eb55141a
This is very interesting to me, I have to confess that I do seem to have the exact traits this test highlights.
Most interesting is the tendancy to be introverted while someone is talking to me, I can tell you that ‘I am’ listening, it’s just that my architect brain is racing off at 100 miles per hour searching for all the possible outcomes of whatever it is you are talking about.
About 15 years ago, I got interested in Opera.
It is also interesting to me how that is so misunderstood. Most people think that opera is a quick Nessun Dorma and a Flower Song. Or corpulent people screaming at each other. or 12 year olds on tv singing ‘o mio babbino caro’ not knowing that they are singing about a daughter manipulating her father because she loves the boy and threatens to throw herself off the Ponte Vecchio Bridge into the river Arno if he won’t let her marry him.
It’s a bit Romeo and Juliet that one.
Opera is pure theatre, it’s Dance, and music, and movement, and acting, and scenery, and staging, and lighting and also of course the singing.
Most importantly, it is story.
I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve been sitting not 10 metres from the stage and orchestra and had the hairs on the back of my head rise.
The feeling is indescribable. A couple of years ago I went to see La Traviata and felt like I’d been shot when Violetta tells Alfredo to love her.
Anyway, I’d better stop rambling about opera and get down to the rest of my bio hadn’t I?
I run a reading group (since 2000).
My background is in Electronic Engineering and I have worked in Microelectronics as well as the Commercial Manufacturing sector.
I also have experience with programming in various languages and database management.
I like Coarse Fishing, usually with my father (he’s 85 now) but don’t get to go as often as I would like.
I’m also a keen runner and am a member of my local running club, I’m always trying to beat my own best times. If only I could lose about 10lbs.
I regularly do the Parkrun.
In 2008, along with 3 other friends I cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats for charity. 1057 miles in 15 days. Not easy for a slightly podgy 40 something.
So, I try to keep fit and healthy. Supplements take a part in that. Wife feeds me all the good things too.
I also maintain an email list that I write to every day which is about the ‘Thirteen Virtues of Benjamin Franklin”.
Daily practice to improve yourself. Topics go like; Planning, Waste, Silence, Humility, Truth etc and each one lasts for a week, and each virtue is visited 4 times a year.
So, I’m also well versed in Self Help.
I got into writing copy in 2004 and wrote all the internal promotions for the businesses I was involved with.
The early years of my copywriting were not great, very hit and miss, and it’s taken a good while to formulate the system I use so successfully on a freelance basis now.
In summary I have experience or interest in:
Self Help
The Arts
Fitness
Supplements
Weight Loss
Alternative Health
Technical issues
Software
And that’s a remarkably diverse set.
Maybe you disagree with me but I’ve found over the years that ‘success breeds success’. Constant learning and improvement is always the way for me.
Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed reading about my escapades, and although we shall probably never meet I do dearly hope to meet you.
I want to leave you with a quotation, something to take away.
“Men do not care how nobly they live, but only for how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man’s power to live long.”
–Seneca
Thank you for reading about me and I hope you found it interesting. Ian Dove