Everyone has to start somewhere and this is it for me.

I'm Richard Smith, husband, father and a whole host of other things. I was born and brought up in Yorkshire, I currently live near Winchester, but the most immediately obvious thing about me, to anyone who meets me, is that I'm tall.

Not astonishingly tall, but bigger than most people you will meet. Just a touch under 2 metres and a little over 6 feet 5 inches. "So how tall are you?" someone will ask just after they meet me. I'll tell them and a funny thing happens next. Almost invariably they will mention someone else they know who is just a bit taller than me, or maybe the same height "but big with it". Whatever that means. I didn't bring up the topic; they did. But somehow the sheer size of me seems to have unsettled them and they want me to know that they have a taller or bigger friend.

That's one of the things that happens to me all the time; if you're tall it's probably happened to you too. I wanted to discuss some of these oddities, maybe just to point them out, perhaps to try to make sense of them.

I've got a bunch of ideas and I'll write them when I get the chance. After that, who knows? If something crops up along the way that's worthy of note, maybe that will start a topic.

I hope you'll join me for these occasional musings and get something out of them.

Here we go...