'Knowing Me, Knowing You': Wiggly ears, custom pizzas and a burst appendix

In this week's Week Note in the Data Standards Authority (DSA), the latest edition of 'Knowing Me, Knowing You', which is a chance to get to know each of the members of the team a little more, was on me.

I thought it'd be nice to share this for everyone else, too.

What did you do before the DSA? How did you come to be part of the DSA dream team?

Before I joined the DSA, I'd spent 5 years at Capital One as a Software Engineer. I'd worked on the modernisation of the customer account servicing web - by building things from scratch in the cloud - while working on consumer identity, then went on to work on our Open Banking compliance, then finally moved into another migrate-from-scratch for the customer acquisition journey.

Y'all have Terence to blame, as I spotted him tweeting about the role in May and thought it was a bit of a moonshot, but why not? Years of building, testing and deploying APIs in a highly regulated environment, striving for better ways to do things, and publishing a lot of blog posts on my personal website (https://www.jvt.me) led me to finding the Senior Developer role in the API Pillar to be a great fit for me. And as they say, the rest is history!

Cats or Dogs?

I grew up always wanting a cat or a dog, but our family only ever had hamsters, even though my parents grew up around cats and dogs. When I met my partner, Anna, I became besotted with our cat Morph - although he's not always happy with me - and have thought I'm a cat person, as long as that cat is cuddly and vocal like Morph.

If you could live somewhere else other than the UK, where would you live and why?

In 2019, my partner Anna and I were seriously discussing whether we'd move to Amsterdam or Berlin, and that 2020 would be the year we'd properly start making efforts. Fortunately, we decided not to, as it would've caused untold pressure on top of everything else, but I'd still like to try living abroad in the future. I spent four years of my childhood in Cairo when my Dad had a job out there, and although I don't remember much, my parents found it to be a really great experience living somewhere else.

What is the thing you are most proud of achieving before you turned 10?

When we were younger, my sister and I were watching Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie and were transfixed by Mr Bean's ability to wiggle his ears. My sister and I taught ourselves to do it - honestly don't ask me how! - and to this day I can still wiggle both ears, or each one individually.

If we were all working in the office together, what music would you want to be played on The Whitechapel Building loudspeakers at 5.30pm everyday?

I'm a big fan of Drum and Bass, so it's very likely that you'd get some Maduk, or if I wanted to be a bit more considerate, Uppermost, who until last year was my most popular artist this whole decade!

What would be your perfect meal?

My partner and I, pre-pandemic, would go to the Asda pizza counter every Friday after work, getting our custom-made and perfect-for-us pizzas, and sit on the sofa with them, our cat Morph, and a good (or as one of my good friends says, not very good) movie and the fire.

Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?

I'm a very indoorsy person, so I feel that being able to fly would only be a waste for me, although it'd make the Nottingham to London commute much easier! I'd have a lot of fun scaring my cat, Morph, with invisibility, so that'd be a big plus!

Do you have any special skills or party tricks?

When we were younger, my sister and I were watching Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie and were transfixed by Mr Bean's ability to wiggle his ears. My sister and I taught ourselves to do it - honestly don't ask me how! - and to this day I can still wiggle both ears, or each one individually. A few years ago, my appendix ruptured but I didn't get it seen to until a week later. Long story short, I've got a high pain threshold and a great big scar, so maybe one of the two?!

For when we're back in the office, the people need to know: How do you take your brew? Coffee? Tea? Milk? Sugar? Just tap water?

I've always been a tea ginny - I'm sure I get it from my grandfather and my mum who are the same. When I met my partner as a student, I was told that the way I made tea was not good, and have since learned the error in my ways.

The perfect cup of tea is:

• fill the mug up on the boil
• stir immediately a couple of times
• leave it to brew for three minutes
• stir a couple of times
• strain teabag
• add milk and no sugar
• enjoy

I do however drink a lot of water, and regularly get through ~2-3 litres of water when I'm at home. I used to attend a lot of 24 hour hackathons and found that drinking water overnight kept me going!