Gavin and I got talking about things we’ve done that other people probably haven’t. Gavin went with the Parachute Regiment to fight in Afghanistan. Here’s a stream-of-consciousness list of some stuff I’ve done, that you probably haven’t.

I left school and left home at 16.

I have evacuated from a burning building.

I have fired an anti-aircraft gun at an actual aircraft.

I’ve emigrated multiple times. Four countries. Three states. 13 cities.

I slipped off the bridge of a ship and narrowly missed hitting my head on the ship’s side.

I was invited to a funeral by the Most Beautiful Girl in Moorea, French Polynesia.

I’ve been caned once, slippered (Dunlop Green Flash) twice and beaten around the head by a teacher half a dozen times.

I jumped off Bournemouth Pier onto the beach while my mum wasn’t watching.

I loaded the shells for the 4.5in gun on my ship and fired 300 rounds during Naval Gunfire Support. They weighed 72lbs each.

I’ve met the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and Bill Gates.

When I was 10, I rescued a little boy who was floating face-down in the swimming pool while his parents enjoyed the evening entertainment at Pontins, Scratby. When I delivered their almost-drowned six-year-old to their table, they bought me a Coca-Cola and a packet of crisps.

I fired a practice torpedo from a Polaris submarine.

I have a titanium plate in my skull.

I was chased by a fur seal in South Georgia.

I drank 34 drinks at my leaving do when I left the Navy (rule: no two drinks the same colour).

I’ve swum with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef.

I was CEO of a Silicon Valley startup.

I was at the Live Aid concert at Wembley.

I have ridden a horse bareback into the ocean.

I flew out of the side of the half-pipe at Squaw Valley on a snowboard and landed on my arse.

I won a silver medal in the London Area Sea Cadet regatta.

I once learned to recite the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

I saw a German girl get bitten on the bottom by a sunfish while swimming on the Great Barrier Reef. She thought I had pinched her bottom.

Five minutes later, I thought I was being bitten on the bottom by a sunfish but it was the German girl getting her revenge.

As a teenager, I was arrested by the police for scrumping.

I scratched Prince Andrew’s car with the buttons on my overalls (his fault for parking too close to my ship).

I took my girlfriend to Saturday Morning Pictures on the bus every Saturday when we were eight. She was crowned Miss ABC Cinema by the prime minister, Ted Heath.

I slept on Waterloo Station when I missed the last train home after a well-lubricated evening at The Goose and Firkin. I was woken by a policeman’s boot at 5 AM.

I paid tribute to Earnest Shackleton at his grave in Grytviken, South Georgia.

I hitchhiked across Australia. Sydney to Cairns. Cairns to Darwin. The driver knew a shortcut across Queensland but the engine of our van fell out halfway. We waited 8 hours for the next car to come along.

I attended a meeting at the White House with Vice President Biden.

I watched Rocky Horror on stage wearing stockings, suspenders, French knickers and a camisole.

I ran out of money in Tahiti and survived for three days on mangos & coconuts straight from the tree.

My team won a Duke’s Choice Award, a Jolt Award and InfoWorld’s Technology of the Year Award for best new Java software.

When my parents divorced, my mother married the next-door neighbour. So did my father.

I brew mead, cider, wine and beer in my garage.

I was in the fire-fighting team on a nuclear submarine. Lots of fires!

The Mayor of Raiatea invited me into his office and kindly suggested where I could pitch my tent. The gendarmes violently objected to my first location.

I walked 70 miles barefoot through the Thai jungle because I lost a shoe getting off the bus.

I did A-level maths in 6 weeks.

I was chased by a Komodo dragon in Komodo. He didn’t catch us.

I’ve been on the cover of a magazine.

I proposed over the phone and got married on the beach in Jamaica 10 weeks later. Still married 32 years later.

I made a bomb from magnesium dust and homemade gunpowder with a friend. Our injuries were not too severe.

I was at the infamous Sozzlehurst and Hiccup party that made the front page of every newspaper in the land. I danced with Jo who became my girlfriend for three years.

I ran out of money in Flores, Indonesia and persuaded the airline to let me fly to another island for free and pay at the other end.

I slept on the beach for a week on Bora Bora, French Polynesia.

I ate crushed beetles with chilli for dinner in the jungle in Thailand. We followed it with fresh honey straight from the nest.

I slid down the metal strip between the escalators at Waterloo underground station. It didn’t end well.

My ship was buzzed by a hostile Argentinian jet near the Falklands. We were ready to fire if came too close.

I was mugged in Amsterdam. Big knife!

I almost tripped over an elephant seal on South Georgia.

I took off on a tiny plane from a short runway at the edge of a cliff. We used the fall to pick up enough speed to fly. Wheeeee!

I went to London on a Red Bus Rover for the day with my next-door neighbour when I was 10. He was 8. We went to St James’ Park, Trafalgar Square and Hamleys.

I snuck into Burma (twice) when the border was still closed.

I danced naked in a shopping centre with 40 of my closest friends.

I woke up drunk at the end of the District Line on the last train.

I was responsible, as a 21-year-old petty officer, for most of the sonar systems on a Polaris nuclear submarine.

I climbed to the Top of the Rock in Gibraltar. A Barbary Ape stole my camera.

I rode an elephant through the Thai jungle.

I was banned from all four pubs in Port Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands.

I rode a freshly made bamboo raft down a river in Thailand.

I got snowed in for a week in Manhattan and for a weekend in Lake Tahoe.

I was the only member of Greenpeace on my nuclear submarine.

I won a gold medal in a London area shooting competition.

I held the hand of my love as she died.

Details available on request.

Philosophical Unruliness

I listened to an interview on BloggingHeads.tv recently where philosopher Agnes Callard explained the concept of unruliness to Robert Wright.

So maybe one way to think about it to make it seem less crazy would be to put it in a context of thinking about that as a kind of outlier decision among a large field of decisions where I am more open and risk-taking than other people. I’m sort of seeing more possibilities of what to do.

Even just when I walk down the street, and if there’s a little ledge, I’ll tend to walk on the ledge because it’s more fun. And I notice other people don’t do that.

Callard claims that, because she feels less constrained by convention than other people, she gets to try things that other people don’t think to do and, as a result, has more fun.

The fact that I walk on the ledges and other people just walk on the sidewalk. It’s fun. When I walk down the street, sometimes I skip, sometimes I dance. I’ve noticed other people don’t do that. So I get to have more fun than other people, because I’m seizing these possibilities that are there.

Callard decided to become a philosopher to rein in some of her wilder instincts. Maybe I should try that next.