As I’ve turned 50 this week, I thought it might be both fun and factual to share 50 Fun Facts About Me, to mark the occasion.
1) I like lists.
2) I sometimes go over the number allocated on lists.
3) I was born on July 27th, 1976, as an only child to two wonderful parents. Although I’ve averaged around 20 stone as a 6ft 7 weightlifter for most of my adult life, when the midwife gave my wee bottom its first slap I weighed just a mere 7 pounds.
4) I’m hugely blessed to be married to my wife Zosia – a beautiful, smart, witty, caring beloved, who doesn’t mind that she married intellectually upward but domestically downward. 😅
5) Remarkably, my mother became a Christian at the age of 79. She’s a wonderful lady – so kind, generous and loving – and we have a great relationship. My father was a lovely man too, but he’s no longer with us. He sadly passed away in April 2023, and is greatly missed.
6) I have absurdly low levels of anxiety and incredibly positive mental well-being, and remarkably balanced reactions. I don’t know how this came about, but I am very thankful for it.
7) There have been about half a dozen key ‘fork in the road’ moments in my life that have gone on to radically shape more than I could have imagined at the time. The most profound and exhilarating of which was becoming a Christian 25 years ago.
8) Each year my weight-training extremes involve heavy lifting outdoors in freezing cold January/February, and heavy lifting in the garage in unbelievably hot July/August. The benefits to the mind as well as the body are inestimably positive. I also cycle about 45 miles per week, which reaps multiple benefits in body and mind.
9) You can find my online work in many places: on Substack, on my Philosophical Muser blog, on my YouTube channel, on Network Norfolk, on The Adam Smith Institute blog, and several other places with a quick Google search. In the writing sphere, I always enjoy hearing from old friends and new.
10) The top four cheese-related snacks I enjoy making for guests at chez Knight are:
I) Fry halloumi in a pan with sweet peppers and mushrooms, beat eggs, milk and butter in a jug, then pour egg mix on the pan to make a halloumi omelette.
II) Ciabatta bread covered in Port Salut, dripped with olive oil, toasted in the oven and served with crisps and red grapes.
III) Fried halloumi, beetroot slices, sweet peppers and fried mushrooms in a baguette, lightly toasted in the oven.
IV) Roule with garlic herbs spread on McVitie’s digestive biscuits.
Do come round and try them!
11) You can find lists of my favourite books, music, movies and TV shows in the Entertainment tab on my Philosophical Muser sidebar.
12) My favourite alcoholic drinks are Jack Daniel’s and coke with ice, Gallo red wine, sweet sherry, port, and Kronenbourg lager – and I love how each drink comes into its own depending on the context and environment.
13) My favourite foods are Greek, Indian, English, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Thai, Turkish, and Spanish. Basically, pretty much all food.
14) One of my biggest regrets is not learning to play the piano and guitar at a young age. I know it’s technically not too late, but my late‑stage human‑capital accumulation curve makes me feel like I’ve probably missed the boat.
15) My Big 5 Personality Profile is approximately:
Openness – 85th percentile
Conscientiousness – 70th percentile
Extraversion – 80th percentile
Agreeableness – 65th percentile
Neuroticism - 30th percentile
16) I can be hard to pin down, because I don’t fit into easy categories. I am an extrovert who loves socialising, but I’m very content in my own company; I carry high levels of optimism and hope about humanity in general, but I’m generally pessimistic about humanity at an individual level; I value the private life, but I express like an open book; I am highly analytical yet emotionally highly sensitive, especially to other people’s pain and discomfort.
17) I am very bad at all outdoor sports that are played on a field or pitch.
18) About 20 years ago, long before social media and AI, I participated in a Turing test experiment to see whether participants could distinguish between a human from a machine. I caught out the bot decisively by tricking it with a syllogism in which I hid a semantic shift in the common word ‘nothing’, along the lines of:
Nothing is greater than the universe
An apple is better than nothing
Therefore, an apple is greater than the universe
Things have moved on a bit since those days.
19) I find it difficult to physically cry, even though I’m emotionally sensitive.
20) I once embarrassed myself in a supermarket asking a female member of staff by the fruit and veg section if they had any ‘free range’ bananas. After an awkward mutual pause, I realised I meant to say ‘fairtrade’ bananas, and we both laughed.
21) Politically, I don’t support any party. I’d characterise myself as economically right wing, socially left wing, anti-authoritarian, pro-liberty, human‑centred, reflective, and non‑aligned – which doesn’t bode well for any particular tribal affiliation.
22) For years, my most read Philosophical Muser blog post was The Economics of an 'All You Can Eat' Buffet. That stayed top of the pops for over 10 years, but has recently been overtaken by the following:
1} The Political Compass Test Isn't Very Good, Is It?
2} The Disturbing Cult Of Greta Thunberg: Questions She Can't Answer (And No One Else Will)
3} On Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo, Supply & Demand, Feminism & A Quote To Die For!!
These posts are not, in my view, anywhere near my top 250 in terms of quality, but I assume their popularity comes from the fact that the subjects contained have been widely Googled.
23) My favourite UK places outside of my home city Norwich are London, Cambridge, Oxford, Bath and the Lake District.
24) My favourite holiday destinations outside the UK I’ve visited so far are (in no particular order) Barcelona, Paris, Budapest, Vienna, Sicily, Toronto, Niagara Falls, Athens, Rome, Venice, Amsterdam, Porto, Dublin, Paphos, and Letchworth State Park in upstate New York (The Grand Canyon of the East).
25) I strike a fairly rare balance in harmonising a keen interest in both things and people. Some people are much more interested in things (mathematics, physical systems, objective properties, mechanical topics, etc) more than people, whereas some are really interested in people and inter-personal connections and less about things. I am passionate about both, and I’ve been that way for as long as I can remember, which feels like a blessing for which I’m very grateful.
26) My favourite poet is William Blake.
27) I try not to let scammers get away without telling them how loved they are by God, and that He wants so much better for them than the life they’re currently choosing.
28) I’ve never had or needed any fillings from the dentist, and I got to 49 without ever going into hospital as a patient – until I broke my wrist this year.
29) I’ve been quite prolific creatively over the years; I’ve written 11 books, have 5 or 6 more that are nearly finished, and I’ve published around 1500 articles in various places online.
30) I enjoy making videos for my YouTube channel, where I’ve even had a few famous people on as guests.
31) One of my main ambitions is that the material in numbers 26 and 27 above will bear more fruit in years to come.
32) I’d like to be famous, though not for the usual trappings of fame - least of all the erosion of privacy. What I mean is that I’d like to be famous by virtue of writing best-selling books or becoming a global influencer, yet still live a largely sequestered, private life.
33) I love dogs; and I believe that the way we’ve domesticated dogs and made them part of the family is one of the most wonderful things we’ve ever done. I’ve had two dogs in the past, and we hope to get another next year and call him Wodehouse (after P.G. Wodehouse, whom we both love), which I know the dog in question will appreciate, especially if it’s a male one.
34) I’m a mentor (in the sense that I’ve had formal mentees), and I might be quite interested in pursuing mentoring or coaching as a vocation at some point.
35) I lean toward Essentialism - choosing what truly matters and letting go of what doesn’t. If it isn’t a clear Yes, it’s a No, because life already gives us more than enough genuine Yeses to fill our time.
36) If I had to choose favourite animal, it would be a tiger.
37) Things I don’t really care for that many people do seem to, in no particular order: Star Wars, Harry Potter, the celebrity culture, champagne, Ernest Hemingway novels, punk music, rap and hip-hop, firework displays, awards ceremonies.
38) I’m a blue belt in Taekwondo, but I got that in my early teens, so I’d probably need to rely on other strengths to fight off five muggers.
39) The place in the world I’d most like to visit one day is Jerusalem.
40) I run a monthly non-fiction Christian writers’ group on Zoom.
41) I love going on walks in nature with special people. And contra C.S. Lewis on this, I believe that walking and talking in nature are two of life’s most exquisite pleasures when combined.
42) One of my primary goals is to live a life of kindness, because I believe that the closest thing to a superpower humans have is the ability to show kindness. Of course, kindness doesn’t always present itself as gentle warmth, especially when the kindest thing we can do in a situation is speak uncomfortable truths. But in terms of how we treat others, the attempts we can offer to help make their lives better, and the work we do to help create a more loving society, kindness is one of the most precious qualities we can strive for.
43) At home, all our rooms are named after great writers. In our house, you’ll often hear sentences like “Let’s relax in Milton tonight”; or “I’ve put some gifts for the family on the bed in Dickens”; or “Could you get the hoover out of Blake and give Dostoevsky and Austen the once over?”
44) One of the most surprising blessings I’ve learned about my writing scraps that I couldn’t assign to one of the books is that it’s usually fairly easy to develop the passages into the autobiography I’m writing. In fact, I hadn’t planned an autobiography until I’d had more experiences and successes to capture, but transforming these scraps has revealed that the story was already quietly forming itself long before I realised I was ready to tell it. And I guess that’s a good illustration for life in general too - it becomes more of a profound story the more we pay close attention to it.
45) As soon as I wake up, I down a pint of water. Then, unless we have company, I have my usual breakfast ritual: a raw egg mixed with milk, protein powder and chia seeds, followed by a banana and a yoghurt with flaxseed. Then I’m all set to seize the day.
46) I’m a huge fan of the freestyle approach – whether that’s talks, video-making, discussion panels – I really value not planning or preparing much in advance, and the adventure of going with the flow. Don’t get me wrong, for some things there is a necessity to prepare well. But I vibrate more to spontaneity – there’s something wonderfully alive and liberating about the art of what might happen when we create content.
47) Advice I’d give my teenage self is: Don't be so hard on people who you think are wrong! Be kind and gentle when you are trying to explain to them how foolish they are being!
48) The way I’ve tried to live in my relationship with God, and the values I espouse, I honestly believe that every year of my life has been better than the previous. Of course, there have been years and seasons that have had more difficult challenges than others, in a non‑linear fashion – but the growth, maturity, enhanced life experience and increased wisdom during every passing year has meant that each new chapter has deepened my sense of gratitude, sharpened my understanding of what truly matters, and expanded my capacity to live well, love well, and walk faithfully with God.
49) I believe that everything happens for a reason in the grand cosmic narrative, and our mistakes are a key part of that. Case in point: this entry was going to be the following: quite often, when I get approached by scammers, I embark in conversation with them to try to help them transform their lives for the better. Then, I noticed I’d already put that in number 27, but I decided to leave this one in anyway, because somewhere in the vastly complex social butterfly effect, errors can be artistically meaningful at a deeper level – and somewhere down the line I’ve altered the fabric of social reality by its inclusion.
50) I’m not naturally very good at DIY, but I enjoy trying, and I can distil a pleasing satisfaction when completing a project. Especially if it aligns with William Morris’s wisdom about having nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
51) I think if you asked my wife what my biggest fault is, she’d say that my head often seems to be in so many conceptual places at once that I might not notice when it’s time for her to empty the bins.
52) On reflection, I think my proudest life achievement thus far isn’t anything creative; it’s how I supported my dad and mum for several unbearably tough years through his decline with dementia, and gave him the send off he deserved at his funeral. Because I believe that the very best things we do in life are those quiet, steadfast acts of selfless love that shape who we become – usually done quietly and faithfully, not spectacularly.
Thanks for indulging me on my big birthday! 😍
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