Meet the team: Matthew
Matthew joined us as a Web Developer in July 2019.
He’s worked on pretty much every site in the Fellowship portfolio since then, including SaveMoneyCutCarbon, Beacon, Genesee & Wyoming (US and UK), Flexiteek, Fiscale and Cambridge Econometrics.
Matthew led on the website for Beacon, a Europe wide rail leasing company. While not especially complicated, it was his first multi-lingual site, necessitating code to accommodate rail terminology in English, German, French and Spanish. Rather like solving a satisfying puzzle!
Reflecting on his experience to date, Matthew says:
“We’re a really professional, dedicated team. There are no slackers here, and the mix of skills we have is very complementary. I don’t know if it is by luck or judgment, but we all work together really well, and there is a lot of respect for each other.”
An avid reader from childhood through to university, Matthew’s been devouring history of science books during the lockdown/pandemic, with some fiction (Samuel Beckett, Thomas Pynchon) thrown in. He’s recently bought a proper digital SLR camera.
A bit of a film buff, his favourites include ‘Paris, Texas’, ‘Wings of Desire’, ‘Bladerunner’ and ‘Some Like it Hot’. As for music, you’ll find The Orb, Tom Waits, Laura Marling, Dead Can Dance and Arvo Pärt on his playlist.
Matthew’s been a Formula 1 fan most of his life but has rather lost interest following last year’s end of season debacle.
Favourite holidays include mooching around towns, villages and castles with friends in the south of France – with a lengthy lunch somewhere along the way.
Many years ago he spent time in South America (hiking the Inca Trail), and went to Costa Rica in 2018. Nowadays, the carbon footprint makes further long distance travel an unlikely prospect. As part of his mission to be green, Matthew rides an electric bike for the 25 mile round trip to and from work.
A friend’s first novel featured fragments of his life story – a philosophy student living in Norwich with family members of a certain name – along with other biographical similarities.
When he travels, Matthew seems to have a knack for attracting the attention of the authorities.
On a flight to the US/Canada in 2005, he was singled out and searched against a wall while queuing to board a 747. In Peru, he was strip searched at machine gun point in a cell at Lima airport.
And in Amsterdam he was nearly internally searched after customs authorities were tipped off. Luckily, someone in front of him was found to be carrying the suspected pills, so the search was stopped.
There are other less alarming examples. He reckons that now he’s probably considered too old to be of interest – until the next time!