A Natural History

I was born in a village called Rachub in North Wales (53.193400, -4.060490).

Before I could learn Welsh, at the age of 1, I was taken to upstate New York where my mother held a yoga teaching position at a prestigious ashram in the middle of the wilderness. It had beautiful gardens, access to said wilderness and many tame goats - only one of which I remember head-butting me. A year later, I was moved back to Wales, this time to Llandrindod (52.243980, -3.377490). 

Shortly after the move, my brother Juni(per) was born. 

Here I was... perhaps 'attacked' is too strong a word... I was barked at loudly by a dog. This marked my toddler-mind, though 'hound of the Llandrevilles' it was not.

A few months after the momentous event of my brother's birth, my parents moved to Southern Tuscany. For a couple of years, we lived in a caravan on a dirt track between two farms off the via Aurelia (42.661863, 11.165586).

This was a relatively happy time, though I was stung by a bee. Oddly, my brother was found to have a bee in his ear. I distinctly recall finding this amazing European Marsh Terrapin. They can live 40-60, even 100 years; so, with some luck, it could still be out there. 

  With my grandmother Rita Clare Britton (nee Garlich)

Later, and rather unexpectedly, my parents moved into a house. It was perched on a hill, overlooking the old tin-mining village of Baccinello (42.793118, 11.364570). There I was attacked by a wild boar, and a semi-feral grey Persian cat called Barone viciously murdered a small rabbit in front of our eyes.

Incidentally, Baccinello is where they unearthed some of the very best preserved Oreopithecus bambolii 'hominid' remains, a bipedal Myocene ape. The locals immediately fell for the fossil, named it 'Sandrone' and made him (though actually her) one of the village. They hung him (actually her) up in their pizzeria. That is until the University of Florence cruelly stole it from them (replacing it with a wholly unsatisfactory plaster cast). It really is a spectacular primate!

Five and half years later, Elijah, my second brother, was born and our house was destroyed by a landslide. I don't blame him.

After half a decade of being 'temporarily' rehoused in an abandoned school on Baccinello's mainstreet, my mother moved us to London. Here we were finally allowed to sample the fruits of such a big city: sugar, meat and crime. I may have been menaced by a pigeon, but mostly the thing to watch out for were human animals. Here I learned about random acts of depersonalised violence and mugging.

Previously, I had only lived in villages and one town (pops. 700, 100, 150, 5'000, 300), so becoming part of London's (then) 8 million people was quite daunting. I remember stepping onto a industrial elevator at one point that said it could hold 150 people, the entire population of my village.

At 16, I started to study for my A-levels at a local comprehensive. This same year, my mother and brothers moved back to Tuscany to take up residence in a more suitably small village: Montorgiali (pop. 150) (42.737430, 11.298240).

I was stuck in London for my A-levels, but I was lucky enough to take over the attic of my maternal grandparents' house (two floors above their busy psychoanalytic practice).

My mother and brothers have since moved to an even smaller village 8km from the previous one: Polveraia (42.771002, 11.318836) (pop. 100). Its name, quite literally, means 'dust-bowl'.

More Recent Background

In 2007, I graduated in Linguistics from the School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London.

After that, I completed an MPhil in Linguistics at University of Cambridge. There I worked on the phonology of a fascinating and unique case of Aphasia. I also served on the MCR committee as LGBT officer.

In 2015, I completed my PhD in Theoretical Phonology: A Field Theory of Stress, again at SOAS.

Since then, I have spent three wonderful years living in France (between Paris and Isère) with my wife Anaïs. 

I was working as a Marie Curie post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Lyon. Throughout that time, I had a close working connection with the linguists at Paris 8, Orléans, Tours, and Nice. I was an Associate Researcher at the CNRS Paris 8. 

Between 2018-2022, I taught at the University of Deusto in Bilbao (Basque country):

Since January 2023, I took up a position at Memorial University of Newfoundland. We are living in St John's, Newfoundland.