Concordia

Concordia Winter 2018 31 Concordia Winter 2018 30 Class Notes Jonathan Hollis (1998-2003) Jonathan Hollis has recently published his first novel. A Rational Man is set in a near-future society without privacy, where every action is recordable and available to watch through an app called “W”. Despite the all-seeing, all- hearing nature of this society, the high-profile politician Cecil Stanhope kills his wife in an act totally out of his character. As a result, Stanhope’s son Sebastian is left to piece his life back together under the public eye. Jonathan writes here about becoming an author: "I never dreamt of becoming an author. Maybe I imagined writing a book one day but only as one item on a rather extensive bucket list. And so, when I had the idea for a novel, it arrived somewhat uninvited. It popped into my head while I was filming a (very bad) short film based on the Velvet Underground song The Gift. I don’t know what the inspiration was. Perhaps it was the experience of looking through the camera at our actors’ faces, the entrance of Facebook around that time, or pure coincidence. Whatever it was, I wondered aloud to my friend whether we could make a film about a world in which all information was public. We chatted about it for some time but eventually the discussion petered out. I couldn’t shake the idea though. In between studies and then work, I endlessly re-wrote first scenes and first chapters. It was only in 2014, eight years later, that I got the chance to move things on. My wife was offered a job in Kenya and I gratefully left my job at a City law firm to move there with her. With no job and free rent, I took the opportunity to write and eventually finished the first draft of a novel called A Rational Man. Although I finished the first draft in 2015, I only finished writing A Rational Man this year. We returned to the UK after a year in Kenya and so I had to edit the book each morning before going to my new job, advising the Government on EU and international law. While I love writing, I still have no intention to try to become a full-time author. Even if I could make a living out of it, which I doubt, for me it is better as a pastime in which I can explore new ideas without any concern about who the audience might be or whether the ending is sufficiently commercial. And besides, it is an interesting time to be advising the Government…" Veeru Kasivisvanathan (1996-2003) Veeru is now a urologist working at Frimley Health NHS FoundationTrust, carrying out research at University College London. His research into prostate MRI may change the way that prostate cancer is diagnosed and his work was published in the world’s leading Medical Journal, The New England Journal of Medicine http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/ NEJMoa1801993 . He has just been awarded one of the Evening Standard’s Awards for London’s Most Influential People in Health in 2018: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/the1000/the-progress-1000-londons-most-influential-people-2018- social-pillars-health-a3954311.html Tom McIlvenny (2001-2006) Congratulations toTom McIlvenny on his wedding in Florence, Italy in September 2018. He is pictured here with fellow OMTs Rael Miller, Piers Lemoine and Daniel Thomas (all Class of 2006) and James McIlvenny (Class of 2004). Will Porter (2010-2017) playing for Wasps v Bristol Bears Ollie Smart (2011-2016) selected to play for Cambridge in this year's Varsity match Richard Lane Photography OMT Rugby Stars