^ This is me. If you look closely you'll see that the tie has the colours and iconography of the Wellington Phoenix, the local club. Slightly awesome. Slightly tragic.

I live in Wellington, New Zealand, and if you think it's some obscure place in the middle of nowhere, that's because it is.

Sports and writing are my life, so this place seems like a logical destination for someone like me. I have a degree in political "science" (let's be honest, nothing that's almost exclusively opinion should really be a science), and I will be doing a postgraduate degree in journalism next year.

I follow football (soccer) in three countries: my home country New Zealand (pretty terrible league though, if we're being honest), Australia, which has our only professional club, and England, where I'm a die-hard Newcastle United fan despite no connections to the place. Come to think of it, I follow most major sports somehow.

I love the NFL, and the mighty Baltimore Ravens. The game is like a human chess match, but with the pieces actually trying to kill each other, which makes it fun to analyse and try to predict. The Orioles are cool, but my baseball team is officially "anyone but those Yankees."

I'm also a glutton for punishment, which is why I've stuck with the Orlando Magic as an adopted NBA team. Steven Adams is one guy I'm really looking forwards to seeing under the lights.

As a NZer, I also love rugby, league, and get thoroughly depressed by the cricket on a regular basis because we really are that useless. I enjoy other 'kiwi' things too, like cooking hangis and doing hakas.