If you know me then you may have been lucky enough to know my friend Peter Bamford. Pete died a few weeks ago shortly after having a heart operation. I’ve wanted to write something about him for a while, but it’s taken me a while till I felt like I could, and I know that I can’t write anything that will do him justice.

Pete was the most enthusiastic person I have every met and he threw himself into everything he did. Ever a geek, he overflowed with project ideas, and although he could never do all of them he had a bloody good go. Never satisfied with just doing one, he always had countless …

I grew a beard, because I didn't feel like myself. When I shaved it off I expected to feel like myself again. I didn't, but it was the start.

My friend Pete committed the whole thing to film. I wanted to capture what I felt was a deep spiritual moment. Pete added the music, which reveals wonderfully that shaving off a beard, is in fact, quite silly.

I published the video in the same month that You-Tube released it's first beta. However, I didn't know that at the time, so I published it on my own site.

My video was featured on Boing Boing and about 50,000 people flooded to my site in …