J-P Stacey

J-P Stacey had been idling at the taxpayer's expense for some seven years until Oxford University caught him at it. As the last three of them had been spent aligning lasers in a lightless basement he was as keen to move on as they were to be rid of him once and for all. A traumatic nine-month gestation period led to the painful birth of his thesis, although his supervisor deemed it should be kept in intensive care for many months after that.

In the mean time J-P went to work for a company providing online publishing services for print academic journals. During this time he learnt some stuff about XML, but mostly he acquired the dogged attitude that permits someone to cycle a 20-mile round-trip commute over unlit, rainy Oxfordshire with the cold, hard determination of a hired killer. He quite succinctly summed this up on his CV as "team player."

When the company started letting people work from home, you'd think he'd have been grateful to swap such a journey for a ten-yard shamble from bed to desk in his dressing-gown (if that). But J-P, being hardly scintillating company, was utterly unsatisfied with his own for eight hours a day. With this in mind he leapt at the chance to join Torchbox.

Torchbox specialise in websites for charities and other similar organisations, and are a great company to work for. Also, they have an office Wii. J-P gladly relocated to Witney, so that he might cycle more easily out to their luxurious country retreat in the Cotswolds, and now wrestles with content management and web interface tools on a daily basis, punctuated by long country cycle rides and startling livestock.

In his spare time J-P has performed rather dubious comedy, organised literary and technological meet-ups, written short stories and syndicated book reviews, and been party to some of the least acrimonious indie-band splits ever, all caused by nothing more exciting than geography. When the Evenlode finally bursts its banks, isolating him forever from his one remaining drummer, he will finally be able to blame everything on climate change.