Tales from The Engine Room

Skiff 6 - Dave Gurnell._mixdown
[00:00:00] Caroline Beavon (host): Hello and welcome to Tales from the Engine Room where we meet the people who make up the Skiff, a coworking community in central Brighton.
[00:00:08] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: I like solving problems for people in my freelancing work - there's three kinds of good job, right? One is you are working on some problem that's really interesting.
Another one is you're working with people who are really nice and really intelligent. You're learning a lot. And the third one is you feel like you are building something valuable or useful, or that's doing some good.
[00:00:25] Caroline Beavon (host): I'm Caroline Beavon. I'm a digital storyteller and I'm a member at the Skiff too. Across this series of interviews, we'll meet freelancers, remote workers, solopreneurs, and small team leaders asking the question, what are you working on today?
This week we meet Dave Pereira-Gurnell, the director of mapping company Cartographer, who's giving researchers new ways to gather location based data, but he's also navigating some new directions for himself.
[00:00:54] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: So today's mostly been calls, catches up on projects. Um, I've got, , maybe three or four customers. So my, my customers are other companies, so, um, who we are setting up mapping systems for them, just checking in with them. Some of them are in the quoting phase, some of them are, things are live. And then we're gonna review the, so it's been a lot of time sitting in our, uh, Um, call booth under a, under a skylight.
Gently roasting,
[00:01:21] Caroline Beavon (host): Gently boiling away, boiling away. So Cartographer mapping, is it specific mapping? Tell us a little bit more about what, what Cartographer actually is and does.
[00:01:29] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah, it's, um, it's, it's, it's quite, uh, a specialist thing in a way. So it's, um, the elevator pitch that I like to use for it is SurveyMonkey with maps.
So we have survey forms. Where you record, uh, bits of field data. So our customers are mostly environmental groups, charities, public sector bodies, and so on. So it'll be things like, um, wildlife spotting or water quality measurement or collecting litter.
And the survey form would be something like, you know, what species of wildlife did you see?
Um, you know, what was it doing at the time? And a few other questions. And then one of the questions will be, where was this? Click on the map and then we take all that sort of geo-reference data, we assemble it into a big database, and then we'll draw you a nice map, put that on your website, show it off, and you can also export it so you can do, you know, data processing and things like that.
Um, a lot of our, a lot of our customers are charities. Working with volunteers. So, um, there's, there's tools to help you sort of work with your volunteers, get 'em interested, um, check their work for them and, stuff like that.
[00:02:32] Caroline Beavon (host): So I guess one of the challenges you having to face is making it so it's, it's robust enough to, to work and do everything, but also simple enough that anybody literally could use it.
[00:02:42] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yes. It's an interesting balance. Yeah. And we, you know, have a lot of different customers who are using it in different ways. I'm sure with, with all the people who build software that difficulty with this job in general is trying to balance that, trying to build something that is simple and yet flexible. And then, uh, future proof. You know, if you, what if somebody wants to change something tomorrow, will that be an easy change? What it be a hard change? What do I want to anticipate? What things are gonna be important in a few, you know, weeks, months, years time? Um, yeah, I've got hit rate of about 50% on that so far, it seems to make, uh, as many, many difficult decisions for myself as I make good decisions.
So, yeah.
[00:03:23] Caroline Beavon (host): Okay. Okay. So you say you've got multiple clients or so, so I, I'm guessing how, how I picture it is that you have got like a base map system. Yeah. And then clients come in and go, yes, but can we bolt this on, add this on, take that off? Is that how, generally how it works?
[00:03:37] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah. Very modular. Um, the two kind of modules, if you like, are survey forms and maps. So survey form will just be, you know, what fields you recording, what types are they, what kind of data goes into the database. Yeah. And then the maps is, how'd you get that data out? What color do you want it, is it polygons or is it lines, or is it points and, and you know, and what do you want it to look like basically? Um, and, options Along those lines, how to group data and things like this. Mm-hmm.
[00:04:03] Caroline Beavon (host): So much potential with a tool like this, and, and I know that you, you say most of your clients are of environmental groups and working in the kind of natural world.
Is, is that out of choice or is that just the world that you found just, you know, could, this could map anything in theory?
[00:04:16] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah. It's, it's a combination of history. You know, first, first customers. So a lot of our customers work on rivers and water bodies, and that's because first customer, you have worked on rivers and water bodies and word of mouth is the strongest sort of marketing channel.
So, um, uh, it, it's partly historical and it's also partly cuz I've never really worked out a good, easily defined customer base that would use this. That's not that. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Name me a vertical that I can move into where they've got. 10 times the budget and all this kinda thing. And, and I'll, and I'll check it out, but yeah that's, that's part of the issue, uh, there.
But you know, also, like environmental stuff. Both my parents are, are scientists, one's a biologist, one's a geographer. So it's, it's run in the family. It's part of the reason why I became a computer scientist, so I didn't have to go outside and do field work all the time.
[00:05:05] Caroline Beavon (host): Was that literally your childhood? Like walks, let's come Dave
step up from me on your computer.
[00:05:09] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Waders. Um, checking the depths of bit, walking through a bit of river going, oh yeah, the, the pole's gone down, you know, this far below the surface and that, that kind of stuff. It's Yeah.
[00:05:18] Caroline Beavon (host): Wow. So you went computer route. What was your path to getting to where you are now in terms of your own sort of development and your career? So, education degrees, that kind of stuff.
[00:05:26] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: I really. I got into computers because, you know, I was a, a little kid and like video games and my, my parents had a BBC Micro, you know, the really easy accessible computer.
So I started sort of writing toy programs on that. I got into programming at school as a hobby, and then I wanted to do computer science at university. And, um, I think my, my folks said to me, well, wouldn't you rather do a real science.
[00:05:55] Caroline Beavon (host): No future in computing.
[00:05:56] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Exactly. No future in computing.
Do something for us. So I actually did physics at uni and then, but I did some computing stuff and then went on and, and did that for years. And then coming out of that, I, got, um, I think my first job coming out of university was working for my dad, building webpages for his department at his university.
Right. And it was interesting that like one minute they were sort of saying, can you help us sort of arrange all the information about our staff and our courses and all this kind of stuff? And then the next minute it's like, can you make it so that we can register students for modules on this?
So there's this kind of interesting thing in their minds.
There's no difference between having a bunch of webpages that can show, some data, and then having a bunch of webpages that you interact with and you record data. Yeah. And it just, and then well, I said, well, yes. Well, of course I can, but, and then we,
[00:06:45] Caroline Beavon (host): that's a different thing.
[00:06:45] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah. And then, from there, I guess I became freelance developer and then it, it all sort of blossomed from there in a sense.
It did, uh, maybe 10 years being a freelancer and then set up Cartographer. Somewhere around the early 2010s.
[00:06:56] Caroline Beavon (host): So what kind of freelance work were you doing? Were, was it kind of pretty much anyone who would,
[00:07:00] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: yeah. Building it was a lot of, um, a lot of systems for universities.
Again, cause of word of mouth. So I started out building stuff from my, my dad's, uh, university department and then did a couple of other things for universities. Did a couple of startups, wrote some software to help schools manage their IT resources. That was a, uh, fun. And then I, I did some AB testing. Split testing software at one point. That was a, that was a pretty, pretty cool little project.
[00:07:26] Caroline Beavon (host): This almost comes around to back to what your folks do was off the research side of things. Right. That's almost like an interesting crossover between, you seem to have
that in your blood a little
[00:07:34] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: When I became a freelancer, I, I did quite a lot of work, uh, work with, uh, friends from university, so who are all, you know, computer science nerds.
So I guess, I guess there's a bit of that as well, isn't it? Mm-hmm. It's like where does the work come from?
[00:07:47] Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah, of course. But also what you are interested in yourself, so you know what lights up the light bulb in your head, you know, and there's, there's a ton, there's a ton of different ways that you could have taken your computer science and your, you know, your computer skills.
In fact, you, you've chosen pretty much to. Go down a nice, almost a research route. So it's, it's almost there.
[00:08:05] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: I don't, oh, I, I don't, don't think I classify myself as a research. I mean, like, yes, people do using cartographer are kind of doing sums. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I've always been more of an engineer, more of a product person I like, I like solving problems for people.
In, in my freelancing work. Then there, there's the two kinds of good job, right? Well, three kinds of good job. One is you are working on some problem that's really interesting. So the code itself is really interesting. Other one is you're working with people who are really nice and really intelligent. You're learning a lot. And the third one is you are building something where maybe the code isn't that interesting, but what it does is interesting. So you or you feel like you are, you are building something valuable or, um, useful or, or that's doing some good. So I've got a little bit of all of those with Cartographer and it's a nice little space to, to, to exist in.
Yeah.
[00:08:52] Caroline Beavon (host): Uh, yeah. That's fantastic. So since I've known you, you've had various sort of iterations, like you freelance, but you also do training and
[00:08:58] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah.
[00:08:59] Caroline Beavon (host): And you still, you still do
[00:09:00] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah. Training. Pay the bills.
[00:09:01] Caroline Beavon (host): Um, what do you get from training do, apart from obviously paying the bills? Do you, do you enjoy it as a thing in itself?
[00:09:06] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Oh, I love it. Yeah. Um, I. I guess so when I, when I was doing my, when I was at uni, I did some sort of teaching assistant kind of stuff. Um, uh, teaching people's program basically. And then, and, and, and that is really good. Like, I, it's really satisfying. It doesn't, there's this sort of moment when somebody like you see the light bulb go on, you know, they, they, oh no, I understand this thing. Especially if like, they clearly weren't understanding it just before and you, you managed to say that one thing where they kind of like the neurons rewire or something. It's like, oh, that's brilliant. So that's, that's very satisfying and I really do like that. Um, and so yeah, I did, I did training at uni.
Back in the day I used to do a bit of JavaScript sort of training as well, or just like working with people to teach them JavaScripts. And now I do, I I do um, sort of proper commercial software training, if you like. Um, so it's mostly companies need team trained up.
Go to classroom. Sweat it out for three days.
[00:10:02] Caroline Beavon (host): So how, in terms of the life you've got now in running Cartographer, is it just you or do you have staff? Is it, how does, how's the company structured?
[00:10:08] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Um, it's, so the, the company is, there's basically two people running the company. There's me and a, and a lady named Lucy, who's my sort of the, the environmental person to my technical person.
And Cartographer the company, it doesn't, we don't just do software. So Lucy does a lot of, um, Uh, training in, but like how to do certain types of environmental analysis, environmental surveys and so on. So we have some survey methodologies that, that she sort of manages that we also use the software to record.
So, um, she and I, basically pilot things and then, um, we have five or six different trainers that work on courses for us on her side of the company. And then on my side of the company I'm currently working with, uh, two, uh, developers, two freelancers. Uh, one to do web stuff and one to do mobile stuff.
A lot of little teams and we're all sort of quite separate in a way. And then we stop check in every now and again. It's sort. Mm-hmm.
[00:11:04] Caroline Beavon (host): And you're physically separate because you are all remote.
[00:11:06] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah, that's right. All remote.
[00:11:07] Caroline Beavon (host): Do you wish you were all in the same, if you could wave the magic wand and all be in the same place, would you prefer that?
[00:11:13] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: So I do for programming stuff, I do think there's nothing really to beat sitting next to somebody, um, and sharing, you know, you, you've got your screen, they've got their screen, you can tap each other on the shoulder and go, how, why does this thing not work? What, what have you done here?
[00:11:31] Caroline Beavon (host): You've broken it again.
[00:11:32] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: You've broken it, and that, that's really valuable. And, and you, there are tools like Zoom or Teams or whatever, and, and they, they're pretty good, but like, there's nothing to really beat the same physical space. Um, so I do work remotely with people, but then fortunately some of the developers, I'm working on local and so I can, I can work with 'em face to face and that's great.
And then for the people who are a little bit more remote, Uh, it's nice to get together every now and again. And of course the frequency is inversely related to the distance. Um, yeah, so, so Lucy lives in North London and we, we get together once every sort of a couple of months or so, something like that, frequency.
Whereas, uh, the developers I'm working with, uh, it's currently, it's four days a week-ish kind of thing. Yeah.
[00:12:15] Caroline Beavon (host): That's fantastic. How do you find managing people? Because that's a skill that I have never had to,
[00:12:18] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: I'm terrible. Absolutely terrible at it.
[00:12:21] Caroline Beavon (host): Cause it's, it's something that people presume you just, if you have a business, you know how to do and it's not Yeah,
[00:12:26] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: no, I'm, I'm, I'm definitely not a manager, but it's is kind of fine because I don't have employees. People I work with are contractors and with that comes they know what they're doing technically, and they're used to working with different clients. And then, so, and, and I'm a contractor as well, and so we kind of understand each other and that's nice. Challenge that I actually have to face is sort product management in a way.
You know, we got all these things we could build at any given moment. Lots of new features, things that we, we know, uh, need changing behind the scenes. You know, there's always that bit of code that no one dares touch, that sort of, you know, uh, has warnings written all over it and he's like, we probably ought get rid of that, but it's gonna take, you know, some amount of time what priority and that, that kind of stuff.
Trying to keep an eye on what everyone's working on, trying to keep an eye on what priorities are trying to manage the fact that priorities change. Mm-hmm. You know, a new customer comes on board and they're like, well, we can give you this much money in two weeks if you do that thing , maybe we should consider that thing.
I don't know, you know? Yeah. That's quite challenging. Again, like the, the good thing is I'm working with, with good people who are, are willing to put up with my, my changing my mind all the time.
[00:13:31] Caroline Beavon (host): But, but again, when you run your own business, and it works for every level, mean I'm a, I'm a freelancer. I have to be all the hats. I have to be the marketing and, and, and same when you're running a small business, you, you know, you don't have a business development person. You don't, you know, it's you, it's you doing all of it.
[00:13:44] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: That is actually 90% of the the problems, I guess problems is the wrong word, but 90% the challenges I face day to day is that I need two or three of me.
Yeah. Uh, constantly, uh, having to context switch and, and programming is difficult, right? Because I find it takes me at least half an hour to sort of get into a problem and then I need to be working on it for probably at least an hour. If it's any, if it's anything that's sort of non-trivial. Okay. So getting a couple of hours straight to kind of really focus on something is almost impossible.
[00:14:14] Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah. How do you see the future for you within the business? Do you want to, would you ever give up actually getting your hands dirty in the code or is that really important to you to keep doing that?
[00:14:23] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: That's an, that's a, that, it's a fairly realistic question as well, right?
Mm-hmm. Like, uh, above a certain scale and, and, um, you know, the natural path, uh, if you're working in a small business as a programmer and, you know, you go up through junior, mid senior programmer and then you get into either becoming a team leader where half your job is management, or if you end up as a CTO, CTOs like to think they program, but they don't touch code really.
And they, all they're doing is trying to choose technologies and manage teams. So to answer your question, um, I, I do love programming. I think it would be very difficult to leave it behind. Um, I think I'll always have at least one hand in it. I think if Cartographer grows, I will hire around me to do, for fortunately, I'm better at programming than I am at management,
[00:15:12] Caroline Beavon (host): so it makes sense to hire,
[00:15:13] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: I would hire out that side. Yeah. I can see, you know, a time where I do do less programming, but I think I would, if I, if I got too far away with it from it, I would find a way to steer myself back in. Back into the technology.
[00:15:25] Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah. Cuz that's the problem. The higher up you go, the further away you get from the thing you wanted to do in the first place.
[00:15:30] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah. In, in all careers.
[00:15:31] Caroline Beavon (host): Right. In all careers,
[00:15:32] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: in all paths, every path leads to management. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:34] Caroline Beavon (host): God, isn't that depressing? Isn't that depressing? So, so you could see yourself bringing in a somebody to run the business side of things whilst you kept
[00:15:42] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Potentially Yeah. Um, and, well, the first, you know, a closer goal might be to carve out parts. So let's say for example, like, um, a lot of sort of customer engagement and like, well cross between marketing and customer success and customer engagement kind of stuff. And that, and because my, my customers are charities, and charities have volunteers. Some of that is trying to engage volunteers. They're trying to, um, when we change something or where we add a new feature, trying to, uh, make sure everyone knows what's going on, that kind of stuff. Right. And so communications, I guess is the, is the, the role for that. That's something which I'm doing a lot of at the moment. And again, you know, like. I'm learning a lot very quickly mean there's probably people out there who know how to do this already, so, yeah.
[00:16:26] Caroline Beavon (host): So you are based here at the Skiff?
Yep.
Um, you've been a Skiff mate for years, right?
[00:16:31] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Uh, let's see. I moved to Brighton in 2014, so I, and I joined up at the Skiff. Within a couple of weeks of moving to Brighton, so. I think that's right.
[00:16:40] Caroline Beavon (host): Had you co-worked before or was it, was it just a the moving to Brighton?
[00:16:43] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: I had actually not, not for long. So, well, back in Birmingham, we used to work at my front bedroom, uh, me and, uh, my colleagues, stroke freelancer buddies. We, when it got to the point where I knew I wanted to leave Birmingham, And I'd set my, set my sights on Brighton we moved to a co-working space because we thought, well, look, everyone's gonna have to make this transition. It'd be better if I made it with them. And we, you know, we would go for the same experience and find something really nice. And then I feel they feel less guilty about leaving, taking the office,
[00:17:12] Caroline Beavon (host): basically moving them onto somewhere else.
[00:17:14] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah. Evicting everyone. So I did do a bit of coworking, but it wasn't the same as, as the kind of thing I get from the Skiff. I think it, it is interesting, a co-working space is really about the relationships you make there and, and, and the kind of people who are there.
And, uh, so at the Skiff I've always found like Everyone is very friendly and welcoming and it's really great. And I've, I've made nearly all of my friends, my long term proper friends in Brighton now I've met through, met through work, well met through co-work, I guess. So That's great. Um, and we didn't really get the same experience at Birmingham I dunno if it's partly a, a thing about, uh, a thing about the Skiff, definitely. For sure. Mm-hmm. Um, and partly the thing I think about Brighton as well, actually, uh, you know, um, people seem to be more willing to take a punt than just, chat a bit more or like have a few more, you know, out, you know, coffees or beers outside of work, that kind of thing.
[00:18:05] Caroline Beavon (host): There's definitely a creative, entrepreneurial spirit, not just here at the Skiff, but in Brighton as a whole, and the Skiff feels a very distilled version of that.
Are you here five days a week or do you work at home some days a week?
[00:18:16] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Oh, that. Yeah. I, I try to be. Childcare sometimes takes
[00:18:18] Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah, of course. Does working at home work for you or is that now you've got a little one, it's must be slightly more challenging.
[00:18:23] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: It does with, with a little one. She's at a nursery very close to here, so that's basically regimen to my day, my. Take her in, drop her off, work here, pick her up, take her home again. Um, prior to that, I would do days at home if there was either so sometimes I do sort of recording of videos or, or, or, or you know, audio material and stuff.
And then home's quite good for that, you know, I've got a little attic mic set up in it and stuff. Um, sometimes if I know I've gotta be on a lot of calls or I'm running a training course, then I'll just, you know, get outta bed. So, slob my way up to the attic and get going, but, um, but I think it's, I can only do that for so long, you know, so many days.
Um, after about a week of working at home, I'm craving getting out and chatting to people. Yeah. I've been kind of spoiled in that regard. I think
[00:19:12] Caroline Beavon (host): We all have, this place is wonderful. So how much crossover between your work and your. And the Skiff is there? So I know you work with the son of a former Skiff mate. So it's, this is not just like you're work, you, you turn up and you work in a, in a silo. There are tendrils there.
[00:19:25] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah, that's right. So well, um, yeah, I mean, one of my long term colleagues who, um, uh, one of, I, I was part of a consultancy for, um, probably about 10 years I think.
Um, is a guy who I met at the Skiff, well, actually no, I didn't meet him at the Skiff. Uh, I joined the Skiff because I came to Brighton and he said, oh, you've gotta come to the Skiff. Yeah, that's a guy named, uh, Richard . And then, yeah, I've worked with three or four people here and yourself included in the past.
Yeah, it's been really good as a sort of contacts. And then there, you know, the other sort of contacts is meetup groups basically where there's a, like for example, like web developments. Um, there's, there's a couple of meetup groups that are around my development. I met a couple people there, who as well.
[00:20:06] Caroline Beavon (host): Are you still able to go to a lot of those meetups? As a, as a relatively new dad, it's, you know, it must be a, a bit more challenging,
[00:20:12] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: less I go to less, but then coming out of, you know, the pandemic, which my, my meetups obviously went to zero. Um, then yeah, I've, when I was doing more freelance and consultancy work, I used to do a lot of conference travel and a lot of talks. Um, it was, I went to nine international conferences in one year, you know, that was, it was pretty heavy and I, I can't do that anymore. So, fortunately, you know, switching from freelancing or that particular kind of freelancing, all of our customers were international. So that was kind of, you know, switching into having a business and, having a, a group of people.
I'm, I'm working with a team more often. I don't need to travel. No, I can get on Zoom. That's great. Um, that makes things a lot easier. Um, especially with the, with the baby.
[00:20:56] Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah, of course. Do you feel like your life is now organized in a, in such as you've got a good work life balance? You've got, is that, are you in a healthy place now?
[00:21:05] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: It's something the baby helps with. I, I used to be like a real workaholic. I would work into the evenings, I work weekends and all that kind of stuff. And for the most part I really enjoyed it cuz I would always find overlaps between programming for customers and programming for fun. You know, programming is a hobby of mine. It's not just a thing, but um Occasionally I would get horribly burnt out, you know, uh, and that kind of stuff. So actually having, um, having my baby, um, she's a year and a half old now, so had plenty of time to, you know, get used to the, the routine now. And it's, it's mostly been for the better, I think.
Yeah. Could probably do with a few less nappy changes.
[00:21:45] Caroline Beavon (host): Little bit more sleep for
[00:21:47] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: maybe, bit more sleep. Uh, but yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's really good. So yes. Um, 8:00 AM through to 6:00 PM every day weekday. And, uh, and then, you know, mostly at the beach, at the weekends.
[00:21:59] Caroline Beavon (host): Nice.
So what's the future for you and Cartographer? Is it growth? Is it more of the same? How, how do you feel ...
[00:22:05] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: it's an interesting question. So we've reached a point now I think where some growth is. I mean, growth is great. I, I'm not interested in growth for growth's sake.
Mm-hmm. Um, I'm very much a believer in having a sustainable business, a sustainable life. And I want to be, have a lifestyle. I can have a family I can support, and the business needs to be big enough and not a lot bigger than that. At the same time, you know, um, Growth naturally entails bringing more people on.
And then, so it sort of feeds itself a little bit. I think. Um, we, we are reaching a point now where we are moving from having customers who have small businesses, that have customers that are larger businesses, doing more citizen science work that's on a larger scale, and then some, some projects on the national scale now.
So I think, uh, We're gonna try and develop more of that work. Um, and it's, it's, but we are not really pushing it. It's very natural. So, We're not really marketing. Um, we're certainly not doing, you know, the standard kinds of marketing you would do if you had a business and consumer products. Um, yeah, so, I'd like to get a couple more big customers on board, but it's not like the end of the world if it doesn't happen.
[00:23:19] Caroline Beavon (host): No. And you're not gonna be traveling around the world trying to find them.
[00:23:22] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: No. Although
[00:23:24] Caroline Beavon (host): wouldn't be terrible though if, you know,
[00:23:26] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: if you can find some nice. You know, nice countries to go visit, maybe some beaches. Mm-hmm. You know, maybe some mountains to play.
That'd be fun.
[00:23:32] Caroline Beavon (host): That would be nice. That would be nice.
Well, I, I wish you all the best of luck with Cartographer.
I have three quick fire questions to finish.
What was for lunch today?
[00:23:40] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: What was for lunch today? I had, I went to Sainbury's. I got a sandwich from Sainbury's and a can of Coke.
[00:23:46] Caroline Beavon (host): Is that standard lunch for you?
[00:23:47] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Uh, it's 50 50. One of the, the great things and the biggest problems of Brighton is how many Wonderful if more expensive than Sainsbury's options you have for eating. So yeah, I'm a, I, I love my coffee shops and I love my, uh, I love my bagels and
[00:24:03] Caroline Beavon (host): yeah. You are you, you often pop out for coffee, don't you? Like several times.
[00:24:06] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Yeah. Every morning. Yeah. Every morning I get a coffee from coffee shop and then, 50% of afternoons as well. Yeah.
[00:24:13] Caroline Beavon (host): So, and this, it's a problem.
it all adds up I know people in here who spend like 10 pound on lunch every day, and it's like, how do you, how do you do that?
Um, if you didn't live in Brighton, where would you live? Anywhere in the world.
[00:24:24] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Oh. Uh, well That's fairly easy to answer cause my wife's from Singapore Uhhuh and so we've had discussions at various times in the past about which, you know, where should we live? Where are we gonna bring up, bring up the baby. Yeah. So, yeah. So maybe
[00:24:36] Caroline Beavon (host): Singapore. Okay. And, uh, if you could earn the same, doing any job, what job would you do?
[00:24:42] Dave Pereira-Gurnell: Oh, my one, yeah, I don't wanna do another job. That's fine. I'm, I'm, I've ended up in a really nice place.
[00:24:51] Caroline Beavon (host): And you can find out more about Dave and Cartographer at cartographer.io.
And if you are interested in working alongside people like Dave and myself, then head to the skiff.org and don't forget to subscribe to Tales from the Engine Room, and we'll see you next time.