My real name is Colin Jones. Ponder is Ponder Stibbons from the Terry Pratchett Discworld books. I live in Cardiff, which is in South Wales in the UK. (Americans take note: this is NOT part of England, regardless of what CNN or Failbook says!)

I've sometimes been accused as to having double standards with regards to my warped sense of humour so I hope this'll clear a few things up for people who feel they just have to make comment on my viewpoints ;o)

I hate spam. Spam to me is any message offering services, 'free' or otherwise, crossposted into inappropriate newsgroups and also e-mail offering similar services. I have been known to block entire IP ranges from regular spam points, and due to the flood coming from Korea and China I no longer accept mail from anywhere in these countries.

I'm not particularly fond of HTML or binary postings into newsgroups not set up for the purpose and I'm not afraid to point this out. Please don't take any such messages as flaming or derogatory, they're just meant to point out what the majority of net users consider to be good netiquette. I'm not so sad as to report these postings so don't take offence, ok? ;o)

As you might have guessed, I like using smileys. As text can't convey the way you're feeling when you write a message they provide an almost acceptable alternative. You'll know I'm serious when I omit them.

A quick note to users of Incredimail: this program is so bad it triggers off my spam filter. All mail tagged as spam gets automatically dumped without me seeing it so if you really need to send me mail through this monstrosity, please let me know beforehand so I can whitelist you.

I don't really like having to explain all this but I do hope it'll reduce the number of 'misunderstandings' some people have :-)

I work as a train driver for Arriva Trains Wales, initially a conductor I took the necessary aptitude tests and after an intensive training course I now finally feel settled in doing something I actually enjoy.

Judging by a couple (literally) of e-mails I've received it would appear that there is a very small minority out there who have no sense of humour whatsoever. To those people: the statement about Americans is a JOKE!If you can't take it you must be one yourself ;-)

I'm currently rebuilding the site because I'm going to discontinue the address which has been displayed on this site in favour of a Contact Form due to the enormous amount of spam directed at it, and because it needed it really. Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions (constructive, I say CONSTRUCTIVE!) or if there's anything missing that should be here from before the rebuild.

Take care out there! :-)