I am an amateur palaeontologist and have spent years (and hope to spend the rest of my life) studying and collecting fossils (dinosaurs are my real passion), learning about geology, sedimentology, taphonomy, tectonics etc

Jack, I was at university with Bob Spicer (aka Professor Robert Spicer these days!) who I believe was responsible for raising the profile of taphonomy in the UK. He got a first and I scraped a boozer's 2:2 so I'm not going to bathe in reflected glory. That was 40 years ago and, would you believe, I only found out what that word meant last week!