CharlesC :: MOLI ::

Zodiac: Aquarius
Current Location: London
Hometown: Congleton
Occupation: Business
Income: 75K-100K
Status: Married
About Me: Family is important, followed by the outdoors (see Devon pics below). A great day is a good walk in the wilds, followed by dinner with friends and a bit of banter. Like an intellectual challenge - something to design, a problem to work through, getting something just right, and a campaign to fight. A laugh with the girls.
Ethnicity: White / Caucasian
Kids: Got 'em
Drink / Smoke: Yes/No
High School: Blundell's School
Colleges: Cambridge University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Student Status: Graduate School
Major: Engineering and Business
Student Organizations: Mainstream Holdings, a unique social, business and family neural networking site.
General Interests: Hiking, reading, wildflowers, bird-watching, art, rugby, entrepreneurism
Hobbies: Creating a really useful (the best ever) guide to British wildflowers, building garden structures, watercolour painting (off and on), crosswords
Books: Power and the Glory, Graham Greene; Speer, Gitta Sereny; Keats poems; The Viz, Sherlock Holmes, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Dickens, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, John Le Carre - Smiley's People, The Odessa File, etc.
Fitness: Home treadmill. - tried the health clubs, but work always got in the way. A thirteen mile walk across the moor less of a problem than a half-marathon.
Fine Arts: Royal Academy director;. Buying paintings we like from young artists. Mary Fedden, Bratby, Monet, Paul Klee, Bomberg, Klimt, Hockney. Moma, the Met - Frank Llyod Wright, Tate Modern, The RA.
Performance Art: Ballet, flamenco, modern dance.
Who I want to meet: Ghandi, James Cook, Charles Darwin, Churchill, Richard Burton, the explorer, Kim Philby and his father. Kaiser Wilhelm to ask why. Alanbrooke, Che Guevara, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Socrates, Judas Iscariot, Samuel Johnson and Pepys, the Duke of Wellington, Lee and Lincoln, Pol Pot, Ho-chi Minh, the Dalai Lama.
Interested in: Friends, Networking, Old Friendship/Alumni
I love: Blackberrying. Spicy red wine from S. America. The black labrador. The smell of woodsmoke. Cold nights, warm duvet. Spring and autumn. The fear when climbing. A passionate, good-natured debate. Dartmoor granite, buzzards, skylarks, and the Hound of the Baskervilles. An honest pub. Butcombe bitter. The smell of gorse and the colour of heather. The grumpiness of my children when they get up. Sharing their successes. The hoot of an owl at night.
Pet Peeves: Liars, senseless corporate politics, plastic which pollutes our shores and everywhere else, the cult of celebrity, tattoos and bling, sycophants, the nanny state, magpies, tassled shoes & cravats, politicians who treat our tax contribution as if it is their own money, people who dress way below their age. Petty administrators, 'vouchers' and 'credits', the Global Arms Industry
Places I've been: Worked and lived in: Dubai, Nigeria, Libya, Belgium, U.S., Czech Republic Visited: Cuba, Venezuela, Tobago, Bahamas, Canada, U.S., Belize, France Germany, Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Jordan, Greece, Latvia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Libya, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, Australia, etc.
Places I'd like to go: Morocco, Patagonia, Kerala, Scotland, Northumbria, Pembroke (again each year), Crete, Syria, Istanbul (again), Seville and Cordoba, Florence, Nordic fjords, the Hindu Kush, the Iron Trail in the Dolomites
I'd rather be: Better at what I am. A 19th century politician. An architect. A cryptologist. A National Park ranger. An internet blog journalist.
Sports: Fell-walking, climbing, badminton, scuba-diving, surfing, skiing, rugby (a while ago)
Music: Van Morrison, Santana, Dylan, Armatrading, very early Elton John, Puccini, Tabla, Bob Marley, Mahler, Everything But the Girl, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Bruch, Brahms
Movies: Godfather, Schindler's List, Lawrence of Arabia, Patton-Lust for Glory, Great Escape, Lord of the Rings, Midnight Express, Apocalypse Now, Dirty Harry, Blazing Saddles, Life of Brian b
TV: Pride and Prejudice, Jewel in the Crown, The Worst Week of My Life, documentaries, University Challenge, World at War, Out! Pride and Prejudice
Games: Chess, backgammon, cribbage, Risk, jigsaw puzzles, eye-spy (at one time)
Website / Blogs: moli.com; abebooks.co.uk - second-hand book seller , c@charlescoates.com, ccoates@moli.com
Fashion Designers: Have huge respect for their skills, fascinated by their process, but the end-product holds little interest - probably shows.
Brands: Moli, after that I am struggling. Not really a brand person. Like reliability - VW and Toyota, Meindl boots, Lee jeans, eVent material
Worst trends: Best: Small business entrepreneurs in crowded markets like the UK - e.g. better, organic food - generally finding all sorts of ways to be different. Increasing awareness of the environment. The internet (best and worst). Worst: Increasing corporate greed. Unbridled capitalism. Politicians who support it, whilst claiming to do otherwise. The general thinking that, because war is distant, it is not a part of our daily lives.
Favourite stand-up comics: Lenny Bruce, early Billy Connolly, Richard Prior, Monty Python, Bill Crosby, Bob Monkhouse