Welcome To My Home Page

Page banner: Andy's Patch.

By Andrew Westcott
Amateur Radio Callsign: MØWAN

No AI text. No tracking. No ads.

Introduction

Animated image of my face.

Greetings, people of Earth, and welcome.

The less sleepy among you may have already noticed that my name is Andrew Westcott, but in case you haven't, my name is Andrew Westcott. Among my friends I tend to get called Andy, along with a few more colourful names, most of which are less than 5 letters long and preceded with an interesting verb or adjective. Anyhow, colourful metaphors aside, if you look at the image of me long enough, you should see me blink; let your money grabbing leeches children see it; perhaps it'll give them nightmares.

Every web site has traditionally had a file named 'index.htm' or similar, to act as a default landing page, and to a lesser degree, as an introduction and index to the rest of the site; for various technical reasons, this is still a pretty good idea. This is my index page, and as there's a risk that someone may actually visit it, I've decided to fill it with completely useless waffle; I've also included a site map, which some may consider to be almost, but not quite, completely useless.

The site map acts as a central reference to all the other pages I've written; amateur radio is one of my interests, but I have many others, and when I feel like yet another project is coming on, I'll research the subject and if that subject isn't well represented on the 'web, I'll write a web page on it; quality or quantity can never be guaranteed, but some of my pages do run to well over a hundred words, which I think is quite impressive in this day and age.

At the top you'll see a load of links, each going to one of my web pages, and one showing where you are at that time, should there be any doubt. Each web page will have the same links at the top, so every page can be reached from every other page to make navigation simple, useful for simple people like me.

Below is my site map, listing all the links to my pages again but with a short description, and below all that is more personal waffle, should you be interested. If so, click here: My Personal Section to bypass the site mappy bit.

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Site Mappy Bit

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My Personal Bit

I live with two cats, a snake, another human and have access to quite a few offspring, both mine and my wife's, and to a number of brats of the generation below that. Our cats are called Dotty and Thomas, both rescue cats. While walking dogs, (Something I do for a living these days) I composed a little poemy thing about Dotty, and have decided to share it with whoever bothers to get this far down my page:

I went to see a pussycat,
as pretty as can be.
Her given name was Dotty,
and now she lives with me.
Her coat is soft and fluffy,
and it's all black and white.
She spends all of the day asleep,
and does zoomies in the night.

Yes indeed. Cats: things that go bump in the night.

OK, now that's out of the way, let's get down to some stuff. I was born in 1962 and was fortunate enough to have been brought up on a farm in the village of Doddiscombsleigh which is located within the Teign Valley, Devon, in the South-West of England. This gave me and my friends considerable scope for childhood exploration, with the vast woodlands, steep sided valleys and many disused quarries and mine workings in the area. I now live in a village on the south-west edge of the Blackdown Hills, Devon.

Work-wise, I've had many jobs; I've been a milkman, furniture delivery man, warehouse manager along with a host of other jobs, some of which were somewhat more technical, but up until a few years ago I was employed at an engineering company where I made and assembled various agricultural components, mainly bespoke PTO shafts and hydraulic hoses and related components, along with anything else too difficult or greasy for the poor sods elsewhere in the company to manage. These days though, I work as a professional dog walker which allows me to enjoy the company of dogs and get out and about as I like to do.

It's been said that I'm a little strange; I have loads of interests and hobbies, some of them perhaps a little eccentric and a few just plain weird. I enjoy photography, I'm interested in astronomy, geology, palæontology, meteorology, I like messing with electronics, I'm a licensed radio amateur... in fact just about anything scientific interests me, whether it be chemistry, biology or physics, and I am interested in industrial archæology, or any kind or archæology for that matter. I don't claim to know much about these subjects, I'm just interested in them.

I also have a rather dull interest in keeping the "æ" ligature alive as you may have noticed, rather than using the modern and far less interesting "ae", so unless I've forgotten, you'll see æ used in words like achæology and anæsthesia, partly because I can, but also because of an in-built cussedness and desire to be a bit different; I'm already regarded as "special" by many people who know me, so I seem to be doing well. Incidentally, the word 'anæsthesia' doesn't currently feature on any of my pages apart from this one, but I'll see if I can ease it in somewhere.

Anyway, as I indicated earlier, photography is one of my interests despite my hair-wrenching ineptitude at it, so you'll find that a lot of images have been used throughout the various pages; in most cases a caption can be clicked on to load a higher resolution version of the picture if you happen to wish to see one, and in some rare cases, resting your mouse over the caption may reveal a 'tooltip' offering more information. This is all assuming you're using a proper computer, and not trying to view the Internet on a soddin' phone of course! I have, however, attempted to make my pages mobile-friendly for those who insist on looking at them on a 2½ inch wide screen.

Favourite Quotes:

"Careful, you'll have someone's eye out with that."
  - King Harold, 14th October 1066, to one of William's archers in the pub before the big battle.

"It's better to miss by a yard, than to hit by an inch."
  - Me, sometime in the 1980s, on the subject of reversing carefully.

"I was born with nothing, and still have most of it."
  - Unknown, but inspired by something similar seen on a forum somewhere.

"Meow meow meow frickin' MEOW!!"
  - Dotty, 24th January 2026, on the subject of wanting to be fed.

"Go boil yer ring."
  - Winston Churchill, 3 September 1939, in a message to Mr. Hitler.

Way back in 2019, we went to an airshow at Dawlish Warren. One of my wife's nieces is called Amelia, and while waiting for the show to begin we decided to venture out across the pebbles and shingle, bare-foot. The photo below is of the two of us, intrepid explorers as we were. Amelia's mother, Heidi, sent me this photo she'd taken of us, and attached with it a bit of text, which appears below the photo.

Me and Amelia on the beach.

"Some people you meet by accident, some meetings are planned, sometimes you're born into it and the people around you are family."

"Sometimes we're blessed with good people and sometimes we struggle to see the good."

"Then sometimes, just sometimes, the perfect friend comes into your life, from outside the circle they slowly make their way in. Little by little their wit, humour, knowledge, love and passion shines through and before you know it, you find you have a special buddy for life."

I was quite moved by this little bit of text, and the way it seemed I'd been accepted by my partner's children and grandchildren, particularly little Amelia, which is why I wanted to put it here.

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The Curse Of The Smartphone

It's becoming a bit of a problem; no, it's worse than that: it has become a major disease of society, with no cure in sight. I'm referring to the ever increasing number of people, of all ages, who seem glued to the screens of their smartphones; whether walking down the street, visiting a beauty spot or even when riding horses, the symptoms of the disease can be seen everywhere.

Just the other day when out with some dogs, a bloke, also with a dog, was walking directly towards me glued to a smartphone screen. I stopped where I was, mainly out of cussidness in the hope of a collision, but at the last moment he became aware of the large object in front of him, causing him to glance up. He mumbled a vague apology and continued around me, still glued to his screen.

A poignant depiction of a possible future: humans have become robotic, AI has become sentient
Copyright © Asier

This disease is being perpetuated down the generations, with kids of single-figure age now also addicted to their smartphones, as their parents are. Might there come a day when humans have been reduced to a robot-like mindset, while AI becomes sentient?

My as yet unanswered question is: what the heck is so pressingly important on these phones that it can't wait until they leave the resturant, stop walking in the high street or whatever other inconvenient location they may be in? The ease with which these hideously overpriced slabs of crap can be snatched by a passing delinquent is something I'll moan about another day.

From the outside looking in, I can see the insidious march of this seemingly unstoppable disease into every sector of our society, yet alone, I'm powerless to do anything about it, and that bothers me.

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Messing With AI Art

This entire website is an 'AI text' free zone (some may say it's devoid of indications of any kind of 'I' whatsoever, and I wouldn't argue), meaning that all text has been written by me. I have to confess though that two of my web pages (in addition to this one) have images at the top which have been created using AI art; perhaps see if you can spot them, it isn't difficult.

I do enjoy messing about with AI art; it sometimes doesn't get it quite right, which is the best thing about it. Here's a selection of the more interesting AI regurgitations.


Boris Johnson the professional stripper. 6-fingered, of course.
 


Cats on smartphones. Note the little thumbs!
 


Two old men pushing wheelbarrows. Physics is something AI has yet to get to grips with.
 


I requested something along the lines of, "a horse pushing a wheelbarrow." AI did the best it could.
 

OK, I probably do have too much time on my hands sometimes!