Picture of a nametag that says 'Hello my name is Joe'

Traditional New Year Introduction Post:

For reasons I can’t quite put down in words, I write an yearly introduction to me. It’s something to do with the new year, something to do with a loss of a sense of identity in lockdown and something to do with the nature of social media (‘you can know every detail of someone’s dark trauma but be surprised they turn out to have a dog’).

Hi, my name is Joseph Reddington. You can call me Joe. I have no middle name, and have never wanted for one. I live in Luton with my partner and two children. There are no pets. I like the house and it’s getting nicer. We currently pour all our disposable income into rebuilding and upgrading it. I’m super pleased that we have automated blinds now. You’ll be shown them if you visit; you have been warned.

I have been vegan since 2010. I am very frugal: we are a household of reusable nappies, second hand toys and books, and well-worn clothes. Our cars, phones, TVs and computers are modest, bordering on miserly. I overspend massively on computer keyboards. I am far too frugal for my own good and end up having a lot of stuff that is low-quality or broken.

I am difficult to talk to: I am precise, literal, direct, and combative. I am almost entirely incapable of small talk, I will also assume you are interested in my broad collection of obscure facts unless I’m told otherwise. People tend to only ask my advice if they are looking for the advice: “Tell them to piss off”. I am working on all of this, but so far I have been unsuccessful.

I tend to be factually very open, but emotionally very closed. My todo list, internet history, and, indeed, most other factual bits of my life are public, but I generally fail to articulate ‘why I am angry’ to myself, let alone the general public.

My favourite dinosaur is Ankylosaurus.

I am surprised to find I have hobbies - I enjoy both photography and cookery, and am having particular fun because I start from almost no knowledge in either. I climb sometimes but I restarted Judo this year after a long absence and I missed it dearly.

With the aid of a running buggy (Nova cycles) I run 10km every school day, more when I forget a bag. By ‘every school day’ I mean ‘at most half of the school days because sometimes I’m tired or it’s raining or I don’t want to’. Also by ‘run’ I mean ‘hobble like a wounded animal’.

I have two jobs. I work as COO for eQuality Time, which I also happened to found in 2014. It’s a charity, but in a ‘persuade big funders to give us money to try strange ideas’ way rather than a ‘sponsored swim’ way. I work part time because I’ve only raised enough money to work part time. I intend to work full time when I can. This makes me sound like a particular type of worker, which I’m NOT - I write code most days and was avoiding phone calls and face-to-face meetings long before it was cool. The rest of the time I’m a lecturer in the Information Security Department of Royal Holloway.

I wrote a book called “Advanced Memory Palaces” it is available at very few good bookshops but you can buy it on Amazon. It earns about a hundred pounds a month in royalties which is about ninety five pounds more than I expected when writing it. I am halfway through writing a second.

I have issues with negativity, and a talent, nay gift for seeing the worst possible world. I have various tricks to compensate but they are at best a sticking plaster rather than a cure. I think The Lego Movie is the greatest movie of all time and Spider-Verse is a close second.

I have two children. Nova is nearly six and Leo is three and a half. Leo spent the first month of life at Great Ormond Street and that is something I keep incorrectly thinking I’ve processed. I refuse, refuse to be negative about them. Nova enjoys gymnastics and asking questions; Leo enjoys ‘being a pirate’.

I lost a brother during Covid. I have another brother, and a sister. My younger brother has complex needs and has a staff team that look after them. That officially makes me a ‘glass sibling’ and I am mildly active in groups that work with or talk to other glass siblings.

I wear glasses. The image is from https://newmediarockstars.com/hello-my-name-is-joe/. I have strong opinions about people citing sources.

There is a big pile of unread books on my bookshelf. I have a blog at https://joereddington.github.io/, where there are 167 articles. That’s 36 more than this time last year.