📻 The Story
Bristol, Blackburn, Italy, South Africa, Stonehenge, Newport, Bilbao, the internet. One continuous thread.
CB Radio — Mesh Networking Before It Existed
Age 8, teaching neighbours to set up their CB rigs. Building communication networks without permission from any institution. "Breaker breaker, this is Christian Base calling." That knowledge runs through every -Oid site built since. Technology serves community, not the other way around. The education: ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications.
Breaking on Lino — Blackburn Town Centre
Popping, locking, robotics. Memorised every move from the film Breakdance. This wasn't a hobby — this was identity. The body as instrument. Performance as survival. The culture: Hip Hop Family Tree.
The Survival Years
Club 18-30 across Mediterranean resorts. Reading rooms of 200 drunk holidaymakers — you learn fast. Got abandoned in Italy, sailed alone to Piraeus, Greece. Survived a wildfire on Table Mountain, South Africa. 12 years in insecure housing in London. This is the context for every resilience training session — not theory. Kahneman explains the science; the road explains everything else.
Beatboxed for DJ Kool Herc — Newport, South Wales
THE founding father of hip hop. On stage. Chris got the nod. Legends recognise realness. That moment validated everything that came before and after. The context: Can't Stop Won't Stop by Jeff Chang.
GlowGadgets — The Origin Story
Bristol. Lakota. Trinity. Bionic nights. Stonehenge solstice. St Paul's Carnival. Selling glow sticks, poi, light toys. But really: building community. Looking after the massive. Making sure everyone got home safe. Peak turnover: £120,000 annually. Invented influencer marketing before social media existed — taking photos of ravers, handing them cards, driving traffic to FeelFamous.com. The FeelFamous ecosystem is this energy scaled to the entire internet. The culture: Energy Flash by Simon Reynolds. Last Night a DJ Saved My Life. But you had to be there to really know.
Met Daryl DMC (Run-DMC) Backstage
Talked hip hop culture, the crossover between breaking and magic, performance as art form. Legends recognise realness — on the dancefloor and backstage. The culture document: Can't Stop Won't Stop.
UK Children's Entertainer of the Year
30+ years. Magic Circle member. If a seven-year-old isn't watching, you haven't earned it. The award followed naturally from that standard. The craft: Tarbell Course in Magic. Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz. Royal Road to Card Magic until the pages fell out.
Doc Strange & The Dude — Predicting Everything
Lockdown. Chris and Ian (Holy Mole — pattern recognition genius trapped at the local supermarket with chronic back pain) start a show. Predicted the collapse of institutions, the rise of community infrastructure, everything that's happened since. Ian needed a hamlet. That's where the ecosystem began.
AuDHD — The Superpower Explained
Autistic. ADHD. Neurodivergent. The brain that sees patterns others miss, connects dots that seem unrelated, builds systems that make sense to brains like mine — which means they make sense to everyone. "If Ian can use it, anyone can." The design principle for every tool in the ecosystem. Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté explained a whole childhood. Unmasking Autism by Devon Price gave permission to stop pretending.
The Ecosystem — World Domination Through Kindness
Seven live -Oid villages. Hamlets for anyone who needs one. Revenue circulation not extraction. Bristol to Bilbao. Blackpool to the internet. One ember at a time. The Dude abides.
This isn't charity. This is infrastructure.
Escape routes for wage slaves. Permission slips for masking autistics. Amplification for silenced voices.
Ian needed a hamlet. malum needed a portfolio. You'll need something too. We're building it.