This is a website for all the (mostly folky) stuff I do outside work.
I call for most genres of English country dancing, including ceilidh, American contra, Playford (early country dancing, starting with the publications of John Playford 1651 onwards) and modern country dances at all levels written since the revival in the early 20th century. I've done a fair bit of research into Playford.
Musically I mostly play the accordion, mostly for morris dancing, country dancing, and French dancing (aka "Balfolk"). For morris I play with Boggart's Breakfast in Sheffield and Gog Magog Molly in Cambridge. For French, I play in a duo with Jo Veal (an amazing clarinet player also in Sheffield), as well as turning up to the Sheffield Eurosession when I can make it. For country dancing, I most commonly call and play at Sheffield's "Playford in the Pub" on the last Thursday of every month, upstairs in The Shakespeare, a music and dance session which I run with Daisy.
I've written quite a lot of tunes too, many of which are for French dance and which Jo and I play.
If you have ever been frustrated by how hard it is to enter non-standard characters on the keyboard, give Keyferret a try, which I wrote to solve the problem (Windows only).
I live in Sheffield, UK with my wife Daisy Black. It's a lovely place. Prior to 2012 I lived in Cambridge, hence the connections to that equally but differently lovely place.