john skinner

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About me

As the great Sam Cooke once sang, I was born by the river. Not the Mississippi, but the South Saskatchewan; and not in a little tent but in the University College Hospital in Saskatoon, the Paris of the Prairies. My parents had met through the university, they both lived one winter in the same boarding house. We lived in Saskatoon some four years, then moved to England. After two years in London, we returned to Canada and settled in Toronto. My parents still live there, in the house they bought "second-hand" in 1965.

When I was nineteen, I moved to England to study at the Architectural Association, and a fine time it was too. My fellow students taught me as much as the tutors and lecturers. I lived in London for seventeen years, working first as an architect then switching to computer programming as my interests changed.

Nine years ago, I moved to Stuttgart, Germany where I now live. I had been commuting irregularly between London and Stuttgart for several years before that, learning the language and — with hindsight — acquiring a circle of friends and clients.

I work mostly at home as a database programmer, but visit clients' offices for consulting work — and for the social life. Working at home is convenient and highly productive, but can get lonely. There's also nobody else to blame when the coffee runs out.

I am a keen reader and collector of books. Not antiques or first editions, just things I've read and wish to read again. I value books as objects as much as for their content.


New: by popular demand, a selection of photos.


Click here to see this page as translated by the Babelfish into French or German and back!


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Copyright © John Skinner, 2002. All rights reserved.
Last updated 2002.09.18