Rick's Biography

My name is Rick Bull, and — as I said on the home page — I'm from Middlesex (Yeading, specifically) in England. I'm not quite a thoroughbred; in fact I'm more of a mongrel, being made up from a mixture of mainly English, Scottish (great grandfather), Indian (grandfather) and Dutch (grandmother). If you go far enough back on in my genealogy, you'd also find some German-Jew, a little Welsh, and who knows what else. Obviously our family will take whatever it can get!

I was born on the 29^th of January, 1982, to my parents, Frank Bull and Valerie Bull née James. A big fat greedy baby, I was, who cried a lot, and was probably a lot of hard work. While I was still very young, my mum suffered with mental illness, and my parents' marriage broke up. I have had very little to do with my mum during my teenage years, to the current day: Whenever we meet, we usually end up in an argument, so I think it's best to keep a bit of distance between the two of us.

Anyway, relationships aside, I taught myself to play several instruments while I was at secondary school (Hayes Manor). The first was the guitar, and to this day, I class it as my primary instrument. I am also okay with Piano and Drums. I can also play a wee bit on the Bass Guitar, Mandolin, and a bit of Percussion, plus various odds and ends. I've recently built my own custom PC (which has replaced my old Roland VS-1680EX audio hard-disk recorder), on to which I occasionally record some of my compositions. If you'd like to know which artists I listen to, please view the ‘my influences’ page.

My other main interest lies with computers. Having not been given the oppurtunity to study any IT at school, I (alongside my friend, Carl Thomas) decided to to attend a computer course at Uxbridge College. Although the course was a bit of a shambles, it did spark my interest in computer programming. I taught myself (to varying degrees) the following languages: Visual Basic; XHTML; CSS; JavaScript; plus a few others which don't really warrant a mention.

A few interesting facts about myself and my family:

• I have been a vegetarian (for moral reasons) since late 1993, following in my dad's footsteps.
• I am a member of the RSPB, and am interested in nature and ecology in general (although I have very little knowledge of the subject, other than being able to identify a few garden birds!).
• I was named after the Steely Dan song, ‘Rikki Don't Loose that Number’ (from their Pretzel Logic album), although my dad always like the name.
• My (paternal) grandmother was the first female black-cab driver in England [or the UK/World?].

If you are interested, I wrote up a few anecdotes of my time at school. Other than that, you've reached the end of my biography. Feel gratified? Let me know, either way.