Reply #28: Well seriously... [View All]

No I have no good picture to put up right now. Haven't got around to doing it yet.

I know what you're getting at by "troll". I guess I have never formally introduced myself anywhere at all at any stage. I hide nothing so here goes:

My name is Mark Wooldridge, I'm 31, married, with one son. I work full time for a major credit card company in the call centre, taking the "supervisor" calls and helping my peers out with difficult scenarios.

How did I begin? Well, I was born in Guildford, in England in 1974. For the most part of my life I lived in and around my home village of Cranleigh, which is known as being England's largest village. It is also the home of Ringo Starr; Phil Collins used to live nearby and Eric Clapton lives in the vicinity too.

I got politically active at a young age - before I was able to vote. I joined the Liberal Democrats - a third party in UK politics. In our local area it was a straight fight between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats - Labour didn't feature prominently because this was never an area where they were strong. I loathed the sleaze and the stuff that was coming out of John Major's Conservative government - the headlines was about some minister having sex with someone else - and it was a number of ministers, not just one or two. There was "Cash for Questions" scandal, where companies paid MP's to ask questions in the Commons, there were senior ministers convicted of crimes (Jeffrey Archer, now Lord Archer, was jailed for perjury). This was when the Conservative Party was elected and had a wafer-thin majority in the House of Commons. Fortunately in 1997, New Labour beat those bloody Tories into the ground with a majority of 179; i.e. they had won 64% of the seats (now that's what I call a mandate).

Now you might ask how I ended up here. I failed my degree course at the University of Dundee (depressed, grown disinterested, my fault - say what you will). I was killing a little time before I had to go home and face the music... and was writing to people via email penpal boards. There was this one person who described herself as a Military Brat, had a tongue-ring, was tattooed, and described herself as a wild child. We immediately clicked; I met her in Jan 1998 (she flew over to the UK), and a few days after meeting her I proposed. She said yes; we married in March 1999.

I admit that early on I was naieve about US politics and thought in 2000 that Bush would have been a good President (remember I had turned against the Tories in the UK due to their sleaze and sex scandals and I connected Gore with Clinton and didn't want to align myself to Gore due to Clinton's sex scandals and he was in the same party and appeared to me to represent the same values. Ok I'm wrong). Come 2004 I knew better and hoped that Kerry would win (anyone but Bush) but because I am not a citizen I can't vote (yet). However we learn that yep, the shrub grew out again and somehow got the keys to the White House again. (I'm not a fan of computer voting. If it was done Indian style then I'd be OK for it... the British manage to do fine with paper and pencil thank you very much and get a winner usually by 4-5am the next morning. In places where the Single Transferable Vote is in place (for Euro elections mainly) it takes a little longer but not much).

I notice that some people wear their faith on their sleeve but I generally don't. I am Church of England by persuasion (Anglican, Episcopalean). I used to go often to a Holiness church and teach Sunday School but after some time I felt unsupported and drifted away. I do consider myself a Christian but I don't align myself with any particular sect or denomination right now as I don't feel at home in the US Episcopal Church and the other churches round here seem a little different and a little "off". I don't shove my faith down other people's throats; I keep my faith private though that's probably a contradiction with what Jesus said though.

I guess if/when I gain citizenship I might become more activist but right now I won't be able to do a whole lot. I can share my experiences with you, and I can share my thoughts.

I know this is a little long winded but here I am.

Have a great day, y'all.

Mark Wooldridge.