About Richard Flynn
Richard Flynn is a student at the University of Oxford, reading French and Latin. He is in St Anne’s College. Previously he had been at Ampleforth College between the years 1999–2004, and at the preparatory school (then called ACJS) for the five years previous to that.
Richard Flynn is half-Australian (through his father) and half-English (through his mother). He bears the nationality of both countries, but only obtained a UK passport a few years ago. Although he was born and brought up in England, he tends to describe himself more as ‘Australian’ than ‘English’. If pushed for an answer on the subject, he tells people that he supports Australia against England in international sports matches. Very often, this works in his favour.
Richard Flynn is a practising Catholic, and strives to uphold the sanctity of life.
In his time, Richard Flynn has sung in choirs (including the Schola Cantorum of Ampleforth Abbey), played the violin in orchestras (to a pretty poor standard), and engaged in debating competitions (including winning the inter-house debating cup in his final year at school). He has edited two school magazines—three if you include the magazine Psst! which he started at primary school. He has produced two plays at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and he advised on the production of a third play: he did these with an acting company he helped form and managed for three years, Theatrical Theatrics Productions. 2006 was his last year working with that Company, when they sold out with their production of P.G. Wodehouse’s Come On, Jeeves.
Richard Flynn is an unstoppable pedant, especially in matters of grammar and linguistic style, typography, etiquette and protocol, and liturgy. Sometimes he can be seen shaking his head in disbelief at printed material featuring hyphens instead of em- or en-dashes (and vice-versa). He avoids the use of the words ‘hopefully’ and ‘actually’ in all but their literal senses. He would certainly never use the expression ‘Beg the question whether…’. In order to stay well-informed on all things pedantic, he regularly reads sections of The Oxford Guide to Style and Debrett’s Modern Etiquette.
Richard Flynn is a computer geek of sorts. He designs websites, including this one, likes tinkering with network settings, and tries to make everyone he meets see the benefits of using RSS. In 2006 he made the switch to Apple’s Mac OS X platform after he got sick of the constant difficulties running Microsoft Windows. Although he will tell anyone interested about the relative merits of using a Mac, he doesn’t want to become a Mac Bore, not least because for very many years he professed a vehement opposition to the Mac, and he wants to avoid being labelled a hypocrite. On that subject, he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that it was the Mac OS prior to OS X which he so detested.
Richard Flynn likes taking photos. He wishes that he had both the time and the guts to take more photos than he does. Given the relative mediocrity of his photos, he doesn’t label himself a photographer, but is constantly seeking to improve.
Richard Flynn is uncomfortable writing about himself in this fashion. He is a private person with occasional flashes of extroversion. In general he dislikes inane party chatter. He also takes exception to social-networking sites such as Facebook. He can sometimes appear a cynic, a pessimist, or a snob. Sometimes he is those things. Most of the time he isn’t.