From: ivan@spider.co.uk (Ivan Reid)
Newsgroups: soc.penpals
Subject: Scotland Calling ...!
Date: 14 Sep 92 19:00:51 GMT
Organization: Spider Systems Limited, Edinburgh, UK.

Hi folks! I'm new to this game of "penpals", but it sounds like fun,
so here I am, soliciting! I'm particularly interested in how people
live around the world. Do you really have the kind of sad bars in the
States that I've seen so often in the movies? I've learned that
N.America (that includes Kanada :-)) is pretty diverse and that brash
stereotypes of "Americans" aren't completely true (only 90%? ;-))

It's impressive and delightful that the CISS(?) have been touched by
soc.penpals - I'd love to chat to people from there - "Russians" isn't
strictly accurate anymore is it?

Are you from Germany? I've lots of friends there, but few in the East.
Obwohl ich Deutsh sprechen kann (bis zu Hauptabitur, oder "A"-level
Grad), mein Vokabel ist <insert equiv. German xpression for
"shot-to-pieces"!!> Hmmm...

Closer to home (Scotland), anyone sharing similar interests to me
might want to write too - I'm a keen hillwalker and Scottish mountains
are ... err... mostly wet but very spectacular and fun to walk in! 

But hold on, these are all countries/kinds of people with whom I'd
like to correspond, and you know nothing about me yet ... Well, let's
see, I'm 23 years old. I've just started working for the company I
spent one summer with (yeah, the recession's that bad in Britain :-)),
which is how I have access to the marvels of e-mail .... Having just
graduated with an honours MA in Linguistics and Artificial
Intelligence at Edinburgh (plug, plug), I like to think the world's my
oyster (but I'm not completely naive, so I reckon I'll have to work at
making it so!).  My interests, well, to list them all would chew
bandwidth, so let's settle for "LIFE" (in Big Letters so you know it's
Meaningful - some writer's standard trick I believe ...). 

I suppose this is a little too all-encompassing, so to narrow it down
a bit, I should point out that I don't go for drugs, heavy-metal/rap
music or computer-heads (unless she's very attractive (sez he,
tongue-in-cheek) - NB I make the distinction between that and just
pretty - something to talk about?). I like to travel (I used to live
in Singapore, then London (yuk!), now Scotland (yippee)), to make
friends, cook, oops! I'm "listing". But most of all, I like to share
things, happy experiences best of all!

So, male or female, weird or(and?) wonderful, if you'd like a pen-pal
here in Edinburgh, e-mail me and I'll try to reply. I can't promise
too much *electronic* correspondence as that would take too much
work-time :-( , but if you write to me using that good old medium, pen
and (recycled-)paper, you're assured of a reply!  Write to my work
address (below) in the first instance, as I'm not too sure about
broadcasting my home address around the whole wide world!

Hope to hear from you soon! Regards, Ivan.

-- 
Ivan Hans Mark Reid                      Management Information Systems Analyst
"Information is Power ..."                                   Spider Systems Ltd
vox: (+44 31) 554 9424                                 Spider Park, Stanwell St
fax: (+44 31) 554 0649                              Edinburgh EH6 5NG, SCOTLAND
Newsgroups: soc.penpals