A mixed bag of family stuff, cycling, fleeting interests, learning, photos, poorly thought out opinions, reflective pondering, reactionary rants and righteous posturing.
My online space has gone through a few changes of name and platform since I first put stuff on the internet back in 2000. BongoTwisty 1 2 on Hugo is the latest. Previous incarnations under different names have been hosted on Standard Notes Listed, Wordpress, Blogger and way back when, Homestead. Where it’s not fallen to the wayside or has otherwise been lost, content has migrated from one to the other over the years.
This is a space for process, not polish. Everything here is a by-product of my own curiosity, interests and propensity for distraction. It’s all part of a personal journey, sounding out thoughts and experiences as the whim takes me. A slowly evolving work in progress.
My life is, for the most part, reassuringly mundane, and there is a contentment in that. It’s a foundation from which to explore the occasional quiet challenge, found in reflection, self directed learning, and the hills and hedgerows of winding country lanes.
Keeping a space like this is a means for self-expression. Any quality happens to be incidental and is not the primary aim. It’s a bit like a scrap book to me. A record I sometimes look back on and which I have chosen to share. It’s a point of connection despite the poor signal. I can’t fathom why but it can feel quite rewarding.
Thank you for visiting. I’m pleased you did.
The earliest memory I have of being called Bongo goes back to early infancy. My sisters used to call me Ali. We had a red revolving see-saw in the garden with white plastic seats on either end. I recall a day when I was on one side and my older brother was on the other. I remember him calling out “Aliiiii”, each time his side went down and I went up, then “BONGO!” when I bounced up from the seat as the see-saw bottomed out on his end. A lot of laughs at the time. As an aside there was a popular TV magician called Ali Bongo back in those days, which I guess is why the words came to my brother’s mind. After that day my brother called me Bongo pretty much all the years we grew up together. The name caught on with all his mates. On the very odd occassion we meet now, my brother and his old friends still call me Bongo when they see me. ↩︎
When I left school I worked at a print shop. The boss read a book with a character in it called Colonel Twisty Turner. The colonel had a twisted bowel and farted a lot. My boss thought that was hilarious and as my surname is Turner decided I should also be known as Twisty. I mentioned this name to my friends and they thought it was a great fit. Not because I farted a lot! Because of the way I got things done and turned out positive, unexpected results. Again the name stuck and travelled with me into my early twenties during the time I trained as a mental health nurse. I’m still called Twisty now by the friends from those years who I maintain contact with. ↩︎