Me

Last updated: 24 November 2016
 
Some readers who have commented favourably
on what I am writing have asked:
Why is there no information about yourself?
Who are you really?

Well, my initial reaction and answer was:
What I say here is for me much more important
than describing or advertising myself.
But I guess they do have a point and the
request is reasonable, so:

I am O.E.H. Johansen, now Ibraheem
(see below), born in Copenhagen and
a citizen of EU member state Denmark.

I started learning English at a very early age
and by the time I was 20 had systematically and
completely re-programmed my brain to work
better in English.
Then worked as a land surveyor for a few years
before moving to England where I retrained to
computers and then worked for many years as
a freelance computer systems analyst and
programmer on contracts for some of the world's
best known companies, several of these years in
the Middle East.
I became a pensioner (65) in May 2012 and soon
after moved permanently from my native
Denmark to Bulgaria where I now live in an old
farmhouse in wild and beautiful surroundings in
the central Balkan mountains. 
I have started a Back to the Land project here -
see link for details.

I discovered the mountains when around 20 and
used to spend all my spare time backpacking,
camping, trekking and climbing, and also lived
for many years on a sailboat, sold in 2005,
and cruised the Baltic, Britain, Ireland and
the Mediterranean.

I love classical music, especially Beethoven,
and English poetry, particularly PB Shelley.

I am also a singer/songwriter (guitar+harmonica
+vocal) and used to perform regularly in the
1980s and 90s, then stopped, and I only started
playing my guitar again after moving to Bulgaria,
and surprised myself by soon both playing and
singing better than ever.

I have always been very interested in astronomy
and history, especially archaeology, and all kinds
of living creatures, particularly insects.

I have followed Formula One motor racing
closely since the late 1950s but am gradually
losing interest.

I have worked and lived and travelled in many
different countries. My decades-long fascination
for the Islamic world developed to the extent
that I officially became a Muslim by making the
Shahada on 15 November 2006, and I have
the paper to prove it. And I have adopted
the calling name Ibraheem.

My long poem AXIS of EVIL was completed
in November 2005 and I set up this website in
early 2006. It is true to say that without the
poem this website would probably not be up
and running yet, although, around the same
time, the international crisis caused by those
dreadful drawings of Muhammad (pbuh),
helped to make up my mind that, being Danish,
I had to do something.

What I am writing here is not done to please
anyone, not even myself, in fact it would be a lot
easier not to do it - but it has taken on a life of
its own and has to be done, as proven both by
my collection of poems which has grown from
2 totalling less than 600 lines in early 2006 to
currently (Nov. 2016) 184 totalling 25,000 lines,
and by publishing my first book in late 2010 -
al-hamdu-lillah!

Should you wish to support my efforts financially
you are of course welcome to DONATE

Sincerely / wa Salaam
IBRAHEEM (O.E.H. Johansen)
( see also my Blogger-Profile )