Andrew Clover was born in 1976 in Cosford, England. After becoming (more-or-less) educated in various parts of the country he went to the University of Warwick to study computing, became cynical and miserable, found something much more interesting to do and eventually dropped out.
(Twice.)
He now lives in Ingolstadt, Germany, in a nice flat near the pubs. He sometimes works as a programmer and web designer, when he absolutely has to.
He’s a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (you should be too if you care about your future freedom) and the Web Standards Project. He is not married, owns no cats, and is not an amateur ornithologist.
So, yeah, if you’re an (ex-) Acorn User you might recognise the name from that dynamo of software engineering DoggySoft. I wrote NewerLook, the annoying bits of Termite Internet, The/Desktop Hacker and too many silly little desktop utilities to remember.
And no, I’m not planning to write a Windows version of Desktop Hacker, because it would be quite tricky. (And probably illegal under the Absurd Misapplication of Copyright Laws Act.)
If you’re wondering why DoggySoft doesn’t seem to be producing RISC OS software any more, I think you’ll find it’s mainly because the government ordered us to be broken up, as we had a dangerous monopoly on Just Being Really Great. Oh yes.
Or, maybe you were around the University of Warwick a few years ago, and were unfortunate enough to be listening to Radio Warwick when Losertown was on? Maybe you rang up to complain about some tasteless sketch or something? I don’t blame you really. Sorry.
Or perhaps you are visiting because I shouted at you on a mailing list for using CSS ‘pt’ units or something and you want to find a good reason to laugh at me. I advise you to mock my curmudgeonly face and beer-belly. Cheers.
Or it could just be you spotted the name in that BBC article or others on the topic of the unsolicited commercial software stuff I seem to have ended up doing. Or maybe from bugtraq. Or something. I don’t know! I’m not bloomin’ psychic, you know.
You’d think a name like ‘Andrew Clover’ would probably be globally unique, but alas it is not: there is also the Other Andrew Clover, who is some sort of comedian thingy in the UK. I am not the Other Andrew Clover. (Obviously. By definition really.)
Whilst I continue to get more hits from Google than the Other Andrew Clover, he’s sneaking up the rankings and this offends me.
Watch as I link to this old bad review of your show, Other Andrew Clover! I will ensure the failure of your career! Leaving me the King of being Andrew Clover! Muahahaha!
