About The Author

Photograph by Paul Clarke

Crispian was born in Falmouth, Cornwall in 1966. He is married to Tori and has 2 children, Indie and Peter. As a child himself Crispian moved around Cornwall from Falmouth to Praze-an-Beeble and finally to Tregajorran. The one thing Crispian showed any promise at as a child was as a hooker for Helston School rugby team. He had county trials to play for Cornwall under 16’s but moved to Durham the next week following the unexpected death of his father.

At Durham Crispian completely failed to make it as a bass guitarists in a famous rock and roll band, but after tenaciously fiddling about with a Sinclair ZX81 in his bedroom he turned out to be a reasonably competent computer programmer. After studying Software Engineering at Teesside University Crispian moved to Hampshire and worked as a software developer. He moved from software development into systems integration and test engineering and finally as a software test manager before becoming a freelance IT consultant specialising in strategies and management for the validation and verification of complex and critical IT systems. It is as dull as it sounds.

Crispian is a founding member of the Hampshire Skeptics Society and Winchester Skeptics. Winchester Skeptics' arrange monthly talks from eminent scientists, academics, broadcasters and entertainers and covers a variety of topics from an evidence based perspective. Crispian is also the Orwell Prize long-listed author of the popular blog, The Reason Stick, that uses satire to highlight irrational beliefs.

A few years ago Crispian and his family bought an old listed thatched school house in Wiltshire which they have restored and renovated. It all sounds rather idyllic, and indeed it was until Crispian was diagnosed with cancer on his 49^th birthday. This book is an account of how he dealt with that illness. Like most books it’s best read in sequence, and the customary place to start is chapter 1.