Personal

Freediving at the SETT

As some of you already know, I'm a qualified PADI dive instructor, and spent a good part of my twenties travelling around Asia, teaching people to dive. During the surface intervals, me and some of my colleague would jump off the side of the boat to practice our breath hold diving. We started just by finning down, but quick progressed to variable weight diving where we'd grab hold of a weight belt to pull us down, and then haul it up afterwards. We weren't very good, and I've later found that this practice was also quite dangerous, but it was fun and killed some time.

5 Things You Didn't Know About Me

# I can eat and breathe fire # I was flying planes solo before I was old enough to drive # I've dived on an active, underwater volcano # I lived in a tent for a whole summer while surfing in Devon # I helped set up a dive shop in Thailand when I was 27

A Long Weekend In New York

After SXSW Interactive wrapped up, most of the "BritPack" headed off home. However I decided to make the most of my time away, so arranged to meet up with my girlfriend for a long weekend away in New York. I've always wanted to visit New York, but despite all my travelling, it's a place I've never managed to get to. New York is one of those big cities–like London, Sydney or Hong Kong– that you absolutely have to visit at least once in your life. We live in an age where American popular culture has penetrated the furthest reaches of the world, and New York takes centre stage in our collective consciousness. It's one of the places that you've seen so many times on TV and in the movies, you feel you know it, even if you've never been there before. It didn't disappoint.

Diving the Southern Red Sea on the Sea Serpent