About This Website

This is the personal website of Paul Chappell. I’m a 69-year-old retired computer programmer, living in West Yorkshire, England.

I’ll be writing about anything that interests me, absolutely anything (except programming, which I’ll write about here, I don’t want to put people off!). However, my main interests are as follows. These are the subjects I’ll be writing about most.

Photography

I’ve been a keen photographer all my life.

It all started when I was at university in the mid-seventies. In those days there were no digital cameras, it was all film. In my study, I have a large box of slides and prints. I’m hoping to digitise some of them, in order to show them on this website (though there are issues doing this, see this web page.

In 2007 I bought a digital SLR (a Canon EOS400D). It’s getting very old now, but it still works. I’m hoping to replace it later this year. I also use my mobile phone. For photo editing I use Gimp, it’s open source and free.

I’ll be publishing a lot of my photographs on this website. You are not allowed to use any of them without my written permission, see my copyright page for further information.

The photograph of me on the right was taken by my friend John Buckley at Edge Hill railway station, in 1977.

Science and Technology

I’ve always been interested in science, maths and engineering.

Back in the early/mid-seventies I did a civil engineering degree. I never became a civil engineer; I decided computer programming was much more interesting. The one thing I did learn on the course was how buildings are designed and built. For some reason, I’ve always loved big bridges.

The course taught me a lot about maths, most of it I’ve forgotten, but I really liked maths (well, someone has to).

I may write about computers and the internet on this website, but not about programming (I don’t want to put people off). I’ve another website dedicated to programming websites, it’s here.

Travel

I’ve been lucky to travel abroad a lot in the past, but nowadays its mostly local. Around West Yorkshire and Merseyside. I’ll be writing about my travels.

I’ve been a member of the Campaign for Real Ale for over 50 years! I’ll be writing about some of the more interesting pubs I visit. Like the Ship and Mitre Liverpool, one of my favourites.

Website Layout

This website is still under development, at this point in time I have no idea of what its final form will be. One of the reasons I’m writing it, is to learn more about the design and programming of small websites. As I learn more, the layout of the website will almost certainly change. I’ll be writing about this on another website, located here.

This layout is article based. The articles page lists all the articles I have written. Each one has one or more categories, which are listed on the categories page. Clicking a category on the categories page displays a page listing all the articles for that category.

30th April 2024