Webmaster Jimmy Kavanagh

Welcome to my personal home page, It's a small area where you can read about me. No photographs please as I am not photogenic.

I was born on St. Patrick’s Day 1966 in Birmingham, England. Not wishing to break with tradition I arrived naked and a little cranky. Mars was rising, Jupiter was on the cusp and the wheels on my fathers car were in complete alignment. Conditions like this would not occur for another thousand years. Good omens I think you will agree. As it was St. Patrick's day my parents (both Irish) named me James. After six months my parents returned home to Ireland. When I discovered they had left I hired a nanny who moonlighted as a private detective and tracked them down.

I was raised in Wicklow, a small coastal town 32 miles south of Dublin. School was very easy. I waltzed through it with no problems. Alas there's not much call for people who can waltz through schools in the business world. Or the dance world for that matter. Had I sat down like the other students and listened to the teachers I would now have an education.  

I spent a lot of early summers on my grandmothers' farm just outside the town. I use the term "summer" in it's loosest sense as any of you who have visited Ireland will understand. On the farm I learnt how to talk to animals and capture and skin wild potatoes. Of course the conversations with animals never led to any great insights, but I found that the skinned potatoes made a plain meal when allowed to sit undisturbed in boiling water for around 15 minutes.

As the final months of school raced headlong into the crash barrier of life I was beginning to panic a little. How could I earn enough money to see me through the trauma of adulthood. Fortunately a friend lent me his home computer (a Sinclair ZX-81). I discovered that apart from the amazing graphics, 5 pixels by 3 pixels resolution I seem to remember, I had a  talent for programming it. The rest as they say is blistery.

After learning what I could from the ZX I begged, pleaded, sobbed and cried like a girl until my father agreed to buy me my own computer – a commodore VIC 20. Compared to the ZX this was a real mans computer so I could finally stop crying like a girl. It had a proper keyboard, colour display, sound and a better screen resolution of 32 x 3 pixels or there abouts. Happy days!
So I now had a computer on the cutting edge of technology and all that remained for me to take over the world was:

Perseverance
A degree in computer science
1 Billion dollars (a lot of money in those days)
A copy of Taking Over The World In A Nutshell
A little bit of luck.

Unfortunately I did not posses the first item on the list, Perseverance, so I didn’t bother with the rest. I did however meet someone who would have a profound impact on me for the next three to four years of my life.

One summers evening I escorted a young lady home and we engaged in philosophical debate on the subject of certain stuff. Suddenly, as I was about to make a profound point regarding certain stuff a long haired native appeared and stole my thunder. You have to understand that thunder was in short supply in the days before global warming and was therefore a highly prized commodity. Some valued it above gold - but they were foolish people given to dreaming and severe bouts of depression when reality crept in from time to time.

I was a bit annoyed but let the stranger have his head and listened. Somehow, and to this day I am still not sure how, computers came into the conversation. We discovered to our mutual delight we both had VIC 20’s. He ran, and I do mean ran, around the corner to his house and  retrieved a pile of magazines and games. He returned with the bountiful harvest about ten minutes later and gave them to me.

We continued chatting until the wee hours of the morning, said our goodbyes and I left for home with the harvest. I was about two minutes from my door when I suddenly had that sinking feeling I had forgotten........ something. Something.... important. Something........ I raced back to our meeting place at full speed, apologised profusely to the certain young lady and begged her forgiveness. She was very gracious and thankfully did forgive me.

I met with the longhaired native again and discovered we had a lot more in common than computers. We both had the same sense of humour, strongly influenced by Spike Milligan, Monty Python, Billy Connolly and others. We carried out disjointed conversations in hysterics. He would say “This Parrot…” and I would stroke my chin (or raise my index finger skywards depending on the mood I was in) and reply with “Stingers!!!!!" or "Boxed Jellyfish!” – believe me you had to be there. I was and I found it very funny.

Over the course of that summer we became close friends, some would say as close as brothers. My mother always discouraged such talk to prevent rumours circulating in the neighbourhood.  We spent many nights huddled over a bag of chips (fries to our American cousins) composing limericks, songs and sketches as a soft gentle storm blew in from the Irish sea. I feel I know you well enough now gentle reader to reveal his name to you, a name that is burned into my soul – Mick… er.. Michael…. Michael Sinus, er Synnott.....Michael Judas Synnott.......Michael J. Synnott! A name I can never forget.

Eventually these carefree days came to and end for me, although for Michael they continue to this day.