- More Stuff

Welcome to my little corner of the web! This page contains a bit more information about my hobbies and interests. If you ever want to find me, I'm often in the best pub in Bristol, the Coronation Tap.

See also the Molecule of the Month page, and the infamous Molecules with Silly Names page.

Music

I've always preferred music that is fast, loud and heavy, but also intelligent and complex. If you think you might be similarly inclined, check out the following groups:

	Rush
	Dream Theater Listen to my interview with Mike Portnoy
	Spock's Beard
	Queensryche
	Pink Floyd
	Iron Maiden

Local Groups

Bristol has quite a good local rock scene, with a couple of excellent pub venues for live acts, such as The Fleece and Firkin (F&F) the Reckless Engineer (RE) near Temple Meads and the Bunch of Grapes in Denmark Street across from the Hippodrome. The Horseshoe in Downend and the Old Tavern in Kingswood are also good venues for rock, although they are quite a way out of the centre. Also, The Hatchet near the bottom of Park Street has a good rock night on Fridays and Saturdays and is open to 2am, as is The Crown in St Nicholas Market. The Bierkeller has a Rock night every Friday, as well as live bands every now and then. And there's always the Bristol Uni Rocksoc (which I co-founded in 1990)... You might like to check out the following recommended groups which play around the Bristol area regularly.

• The Big Time: Excellent group that cover most of the West Country and play Bristol (F&F, RE) every four weeks or so. The play classic rock covers, from Floyd and Marillion, to AC/DC and Thin Lizzy. They often do a night of Queen covers around November at the F&F.
• Smokin':Another really excellent covers group that plays the usual venues in Bristol regularly. Excellent muscians, and a superb lead singer. They play classic rock tracks from the 70,80,90's.
• The Bon Jovi Experience:The best Bon Jovi covers band in the UK, with a lead singer that looks and sounds like JBJ, right down to the 'New Jersey' leather jacket. They play at the RE or F&F about once every 3 months and always it's always packed out.
• Whole Lotta Led: The best Led Zeppelin covers band I've ever seen. They play at the F&F about once every 6 months and always put on an entertaining show!
• Rainbow Rising: An excellent tribute to Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, featuring some tracks by Deep Purple as well. The guitarist pulls of the Blackmore riffs expertly, and the singer can impersonate Dio, Bonnet and Joe Lynn Turner very well. they play the F&F about once a year and are well worth seeing.
• Limehouse Lizzy:The best Thin Lizzy covers band I've ever seen. The lead singer looks and sounds so much like Phil Lynott it's uncanny. They play the F&F or Bierkeller about once every 6 months and their shows are always packed, so get there early.
• Dizzy Lizzy: Another excellent Lizzy cover group, but they only play Bristol about once a year.
• Hi on Maiden: Excellent Maiden covers group from Birmingham who play Bristol about twice a year. Well worth checking ou for all the old foot-on-a-stool classics...
• Ironically Maiden: Another excellent Maiden covers group, but they don't seem to play Bristol very often.
• Hells Bells: An excellent AC/DC covers band, who always put on a good show.
• Celtic Pride: Excellent group from South Wales that plays Bristol (F&F, RE) about once every 2 months. They play rock and metal covers, and think that every song is "tidy" :-)
• 69: A Bryan Adams cover group that play the F&F every few months and are well worth seeing. And the lead singer does actually sound very like BA.
• Gunz'N'Rozes: They bill themselves as the 'most dangerous tribute band in the world', and they actually do make a reasonable copy of the original GNR, both visually and audibly.
• Larry Miller Band:An energetic and enthusiastic Blues/Rock group that often plays at the RE, F&F or Scally's. The guitarist (Larry Miller) is excellent, and the group have even made 3 CDs.
• Bazooka Joe: An excellent rock covers band that always seem to have fun playing live.
• The Peppercorns: A two-piece acoustic group made up of members of Bazooka Joe, who play rock and 80's pop covers, along with lots of jokes and parodies.
• Straightshooter: Another excellent rock covers band who play in the Bristol area.
• Goldfish Don't Bounce: Yes, that really is their name. They play heavier covers (Sabbath, Judas Priest, AC/DC, etc) and often play in the Bristol area.

Television

I prefer mostly Sci-Fi and science based stuff, such as Star Trek, Babylon 5, X Files, Farscape, Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis, Alien Nation, Battlestar Galactica, but also some comedy, especially Monty Python, Red Dwarf, Derek and Clive, etc. And of course, there's always the Gerry Anderson classics, such as Thunderbirds, Joe 90 and Captain Scarlet.

Books

Again, I read mostly Sci-Fi and Fantasy (Iain M Banks, David Brin, Orson Scott Card, Tolkien, Julian May [no relation :-)] , but also some horror (Steven King, Dean R Koontz, Clive Barker). I've also had a go at writing some of my own short Sci-Fi stories, although none have been published yet :-(
If you regard yourself as an independent thinker, check out the works of Ayn Rand, especially 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged'. After all, who is John Galt?

Computer Games

I prefer strategy based computer games to the shoot-em up types. My favourites are Civilization IV, and the 3 X-Com games, especially the first one UFO - Enemy Unknown. Other favourites include Command and Conquer and Total Annihilation, plus Sim City.

Teaching

At the moment I'm teaching 3 lecture courses, one on Calculus for Chemists, one on Molecules at Surfaces, and one on Chemical Energy (Thermodynamics).

You are visitor number

'Another squashed hedgehog in the gutter of the information superhighway...'

This page was brought to you by the letters F and U and the number 2 ;-)

Paul May, Sept 2009.

Back to the official (boring) page...