It's a frog thing

 So what's with the frog theme? Well, if you're really interested, read on... If you're not interested then what the devil are you doing at this page in the first place? Huh?

 It all started back in 1990. It was in this year that I was involved with hosting a Polish Scout Troop on their visit to England. The Polish Scouts each had a normal name and a Scout name, and they'd use their Scout name at all times when they were taking part in Scouting activities. During this camp they asked me what my Scout name was and I admitted I didn't have one. I didn't want to use Akela because the host UK Scout Group already had an Akela.

 The Polish Scouts particularly liked two of the campfire songs I lead, both involving frogs, so our visitors decided that they would call me Zaba, meaning Frog. [Strictly speaking, 'zaba' is a type of toad, but they were happy translating it as 'frog'. Also, strictly speaking, the Z should have a dot over it to turn the 'z' sound into a 'zj' sound, but this font is somehow missing that character...] Coincidentally, on the same 1990 camp I also had a rubber ink frog stamp and a pad of green ink with which the Poles enjoyed stamping their postcards home. Oh, what fun!

 The name Zaba stuck during my time helping with this other Scout Troop, and I have many friends in Germany, Poland and Russia who still call me by that name. Eventually I started using it in my email address, and the rest is history.