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My academic credentials are available in my Curriculum Vitae for those who wish to know.
Hi Folks, thanks for visiting my site.
Here is some basic information about me.
My full name is Gordon John Larkman Ramel, though you may call me Gordon, and I am the sole creator of this site. I was born in London England, brought up as a child in Australia and am now living in England again. I am currently employed working as a night attendant in an ESSO petrol garage after finishing my M.Phil. I live in my flat in Okehampton, this is on the edge of Dartmoor and the surrounding countryside is really very pretty. I have a CD stereo but no Television. Instead I have around 1000+ books and many journals and must confess I am addicted to reading. I also have the office I run my web site out of, officially the spare bedroom, which is filed with books and camera and computer equipment. In my living room I have a 3 foot by 18 inch tropical fish-tank, with tropical fish in it. I am 6 feet tall and devastatingly handsome as you can see from my photograph.
I was until recently (since my M.Phil) doing some biochemical analysis of soils at the Institute Grassland and Environmental Research. I am available to design your website for you if you wish, contact info below. Apart from being fascinated by all forms of natural history, and my rapidly growing addiction to computers I like to play tennis, cricket, 5-aside football and basketball though not all at the same time, I also enjoy running (about 8 miles in hour) and visiting the beach during the summer. I drive a lovely Powder Blue 1982 Vauxhall Cavalier.
Despite all these points in my favour I am horrendously single, so if you are a good looking young lady you loves nature and kids and can put up with all these insects why not drop me a line at g.ramel@earthlife.net.
I now live in the village of Kerkini on the edge of Lake Kerkini in Northern Greece where the weather is great, but the littering is awful, really they throw their garbage everywhere. I put up with it gladly though for the sunshine and the birds. I only have half my books with me, this is all the important ones though, and the fish-tank got left behind in England. Now I am working full-time on the website when I am not out getting to know the local flora and fauna or helping in the local visitor centre identifying mosses, setting insects etc. More later.
Well, I have moved around a bit since then, I went broke in Greece rather quickly and in September I left to take up a job as an English language teacher in Bulgaria. I lived there in a city called Sliven beneath a mountain called Karandilla for 22 two months, meaning I taught 2 academic years. I not only taught conversational English but also Biology (Human Anatomy) in English. It was a fascinating experience, working with so many beautiful young people was very rewarding. It was also hard work, learning to be a teacher is not easy.
Despite enjoying myself in Bulgaria, I was still in love with the area of lake Kerkini, and as I was making no money in Bulgaria, barely enough to live, so I returned to Greece at the end of June 2003. Now I am living in a village called Himmaros on the opposite side of the lake to the village of Kerkini. In two weeks I will start work here in a number of small private schools, again I will be teaching conversational English. I also teach students privately. I have a large garden here, something I missed very much when I was in Bulgaria because I lived in a 4th floor flat. I did mannage to grow 120 Oak trees on my patio however, in the autumn of 2002 we (my ecology club students, Girgina Daskalova the local zoologist and my self) planted them out along the bank of the Tundja river.
I have written a lot of poetry over the last two years, a novel for young people and a book on breeding invertebrates. Not much is published, except one small volume of poetry for children and their parents. I was accepted by a literary agent in January, who seemed quite pleased with what I had written, then a few months later he decided to give up being a literary agent (a little worrisome) and as of yet I haven't found the time to make any new contacts. I am currently surveying the Kerkini area for insects, small mammals (using Longworth Mammal Traps) and Reptiles and Amphibians as part of the process of writing a book about the area.
Here are some more images:-
Me as an undergraduate = pic 1 with a stick insect
Me working on my MPhil = pic 2 a man 'out standing' in his field
Me working on my MPhil again = pic 3 shredding dried straw and cow dung. What lovely stuff slurry is I dried it, shredded it, ground it into a powder, sieved it, centrifuged it, weighed it, reconstituted it, studied it under a microscope and spread it back on the soil. Not to mention feeding it to Collembola and growing bacterial plates from it.
Me finishing the Chagford Two Hills race = pic 4
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| These pages are here free for you to use, I would like to keep them that way, however making and running this site, and the other sites I am currently making or have made, on Birds, Mammals, Insects and Fish and Bacteria as well as all the other invertebrates costs money. There are several simple ways you can help. The first is by using the search engine here, that way you make me 2 or 3 cents a time, not a lot but it adds up.
Or you could buy a copy of my recently published book of poetry. It is called Poetry for All the Family, which describes it perfectly. Although I do publish poetry in the specialised poetry magazines the poetry in this book is specifically designed to be enjoyed by people of every age. Follow the link for more information. It is not expensive and should be thoroughly enjoyable, so if you like it please tell people about it, or better still give it to someone as a present for Christmas of a birthday. |
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