Welcome to my home page. I'm very glad that you made it this far . . . and I hope that you'll stick around long enough to get to know just a little bit more about me and my life. After all, these days, acquaintances that begin in cyberspace are often the most real, vivid, and long-lasting.
Hint: Check out all the images, links and icons. I promise that you'll enjoy them! Start with the frog.
My Background
My name is Lance Mitchell. I was born in the St Pancras borough of London in December, 1955. My father is from Yorkshire, and my mother is from Scotland. I've spent most of my life trying to work out if I'm a Londoner, a Yorkshireman or a Scotsman. I've come to the conclusion that I'm half Yorkshire and half Scots. The place of your birth doesn't really count. I am married to Joy and currently live in North West Hampshire.
After spending my school years attending ten schools, the last of which was HMS Conway in North Wales, I joined the Royal Naval Engineering Service. After BRNC Dartmouth, I went to RNEC Manadon where I played a lot of hockey and rugby, had a great time, and consequently failed my BSc first year exams. A few months of milking cows as an assistant dairyman in Aberdeenshire, and time on the dole, saw me back in the Armed Forces. Over sixteen years later I was back in civvie street, working for a software development company.
In April 2003 I joined Barclaycard UK as a Business Partner in the Operations and IT Planning area. There are four Business Partners in this area, and our aim is to help the business to shape and deliver on strategic progress. If you have further interest in my career details to date, have a look at my curriculum vitae.
My father, Tony, who was the Professor of Medical Statistics at Queen's University, Belfast, is now Chairman of his own company, of which I am the Managing Director. Greenfield Research provide training and consultancy across a wide spectrum of businesses. They have also produced best of class clinical trials software (Metagen), and software for the design and analysis of factorial and response surface experiments (WinDex). Greenfield Research collaborate with similar companies to provide a broad choice of top quality consultancy opportunities. Visit the company website for more details.
My mother, June,
was a professional musician who eventually settled down in Perth, where
she had spent much of her childhood. She taught piano from beginner level
to the very highest level. She also taught singing and elocution. Unfortunately,
she died in February this year only eight weeks after being diagnosed with
pancreatic
cancer. During her illness she and we were helped a lot by the MacMillan
nurses. I miss my Mum enormously.
[I wrote her epitaph in the small hours
of the morning after her death, having lain awake all night thinking about
her. These are my feelings from the heart at the time of her death. I saw
no reason to add, or change, anything between that time and the moment
that I read these words immediately after the funeral service.]
I have two unfulfilled ambitions in my life. The first is to visit Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva. If you take the trouble to read Feynman's biographies (see below), you will realise why. The second, I thought, was far too personal to share on the World Wide Wait! However, I am now persuaded to let the world know that I have been trying to join the MHC since I was fifteen, without success. If you don't know what the MHC is, you don't fly enough!
I love to travel. By far the best holiday of my life was a three
week trip
to Ecuador in 1994 with my father and
brother. Read my journal. It includes some great
photographs.
I'm also and an avid reader. My favourite authors include John Grisham, Reginald Hill, Nigel Tranter and Iain Banks. I also enjoyed reading a psychological crime novel by a young author I met on a flight back from Sydney. Her name is Tara Moss, and the book is called Fetish. I am looking forward to reading her new book "Split".
Which book would I recommend to you the most? Of course it would have to be "In Quest of the Unicorn Bird" by Oliver Greenfield. Oliver is my younger brother, and I am very proud to say that he was nominated for Sunday Times/Dillons Young Writer of the Year in 1992 for this interesting and humorous account of his travels in Bolivia. Unfortunately, this book is now out of print, so your best chance of finding it is through your local library. I promise you that it will be worth the effort.
Links to My Favourite Sites
Another way to really get to know someone, especially someone who
spends
as much time on the Internet as I do, is to learn their favourite
sites:
My favourite search engine has to be Google. It is based on a mathematical model which does some clever statistical sampling. It caches popular home pages, and takes you straight to them if you're "feeling lucky". Have a look for yourself.
I like classical music and jazz, and have
always been a fan of Elton John's music. Try these links:
Elton John Discography
and Montreaux Jazz Festival.
If you like art, you have to visit the Tate
Gallery.
My lifelong hero is Richard P Feynman. To contribute one tenth of that which Richard contributed during his lifetime, or to have half of his enthusiasm and talent, would make me feel really good about my life. If you have never heard of him, there is a whole section of your life which is missing! Get along to the website and find out more. Read his biographies. You will not regret it.
Somebody who has helped me along the way to creating this web site
is Alan Runfeldt who I first met at
CA World '97 in New
Orleans. As well as having loads of useful help for would be website creators,
he also has an interesting website in many other ways. Find out more by
visiting his site.
Finally, my personal motto:
One World, one people - Care about them all
You can send me e-mail at: lance@greenfieldresearch.co.uk
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