Nova Scotia Scott tagged me so that I could bore everyone with a list of jobs I’ve had. I admit, after an early, unfulfilled yearning to be a train driver, my ambition was to live as a tantrel; but things rarely work out as one hopes.

“It’s simple. Just list all the jobs you’ve had in your life, in order. Don’t bust your brain: no durations or details are necessary, and feel free to omit anything that you feel might tend to incriminate you. I’m just curious. And when you’re done, tag another five bloggers you’re curious about.”

Counting traffic for the city.

Ice-cream vendor – on a bike.

Cataloguing school health data for the NHS.

Teaching computer languages at a community college.

From then on – that’s the last 40 years or so – I’ve been paid by various companies to fiddle around with their computers, mostly mainframes and networks. Many of my compatriots are either retired, dead or senile, but the alluring prospect of retiring myself recedes a little more each year.