I play a Couesnon Alto which I bought in Oxford many years ago, and with a Berg Larson mouthpiece which I bought for five pounds off a kid in a local jazz orchestra when I was fourteen. I boiled the mouthpiece once in an attempt to clean it, and the rubber toothguard fell off, and I soon discovered that made it easier to get the harmonics - I also lost the octave key on my old alto while being arrested for busking when I was about nineteen, and I learnt to play up the register without it. These are two of the happiest accidents in my life.

I listen to Cannonball Adderley, and Lou Donaldson, and Art Pepper, and Lee Konitz, and Paul Desmond, and especially to Dexter Gordon who, although not an alto player, has a suppleness and a subtleness not often heard on any horn.

My party trick is speaking Bavarian (it has to be that kind of party) and I'm never happier than sitting by my little pond examining some bit of weed or a snail. Abstract links I would like to share include a great accordion sound archive, cheesy jazz radio, a recipe for damson plum flan, a classical music MIDI archive, pictures of cats held in scanners, frog calls, a wonderful resource for 2d and 3d modelling, maps of the solar system, and Jim Hamlyn's fabulous art.