Alexis Dubus (Philosophy and Psychology 1997-00) writes: 'After going on to do a sabbatical year as Communications Officer of the Students Union, I took the natural path of becoming a stand-up comic. Actually, it's not as random as it sounds - this (fairly successful) method of avoiding an office job came about through the sketch show I joined while at Warwick, Ubersausage. We performed our first ever show in The Cooler in 1999 and went on to perform at the Edinburgh Festival and the Canal Café, London, receiving some lovely reviews along the way and being compared to Monty Python, The Fast Show and The League Of Gentlemen.

I performed my first ever solo stand-up gig at the Comedy Superstore up in Zippys in early 2001, although I never dreamt that a couple of years later I'd have the opportunity to do this all around the country, and get paid for it. I'm now with Karushi, a top comedy agency, and hoping to get some decent TV and film work in the near future. I'm living in London and doing promotional and graphic design work during the day, so still avoiding that office job at all costs!'
See www.comedycv.co.uk/alexisdubus/index.htm

The Circle of Wine Writers and Websters International Publishers have announced that the winner of the 2003 award, to help develop promising young UK-based wine writers, is Stuart George (English and European Literature 1993-96) for his proposal for a series of articles on the Friuli region of north-east Italy. As well as the award of £1000, there is an additional prize of an expenses-paid, 14-day trip to the wine regions of Australia, courtesy of the Australian Wine Bureau and Qantas, along with an opportunity to write articles about the trip in the AWB newsletter.

Stuart began his wine trade career as a van driver for Haynes Hanson and Clark in Stow-on-the Wold, progressing to shop manager before working for six months at Enzo Lorenzon's winery in Friuli, where he fell in love with the region's food and wine. After this he travelled for a further six months around Europe, visiting many wine regions. On his return to the UK he worked as a sales assistant at Noble Rot Wine Warehouses in Bromsgrove. This autumn he plans to work the vintage in Provence before taking his prize-winning trip to Australia.

Frank Craig (MBA DL 1998-02) writes: 'After completing my MBA, I decided to form my own business - Venture Consultancy Limited (www.Venture-Consultancy.com). This business capitalised on my international management experience and networks and was designed to provide general management and consultancy services to the biotechnology and venture capital sectors. Within two months, I won my first few contracts and, within a year, I had clients in all of the main biotech clusters: Cambridge, Oxford, New England and California.

My activities have been varied, e.g. I have been an interim CEO, performed due diligence for M&A's, done business development and created my own workshops ('Strategic Roadmaps') to help CEOs develop the basis of a strategic plan. I have also been invited onto several boards, including TekCel based in Boston. Recently, I was working with a new spinout company from Cambridge University, called Smart Holograms Limited (a healthcare technology company). Since I was very impressed with the company, I agreed to become their CEO and am now in discussion with international venture capitalists regarding funding. I guess I am now running several businesses but enjoy the multitasking. My MBA was fun and provided me with excellent management frameworks and credentials so was undoubtedly a superb investment.'

Since leaving Warwick, artist Julian Broadhurst (Philosophy 1994-97) has perused his project in Geometric Art to a professional level through projects and solo shows in London, Berlin and Liverpool, where his latest and largest public work hangs, the geometric abstract Eight Crucifixions, an altar piece for Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. 'I have not, nor did I intend to represent or depict the crucifixion in this work. It is not a rendering of it in abstracted form. Rather the language of my work, its syntax, is one of pure shape. I have spent my life in Geometric Art, deriving a visual language from pure shape, and those geometric figures I call the elements of pure shape, the triangle, the square, the circle et al. These elements are the given basis of the art I call elementalism; Eight Crucifixions is an elementalist work.'

The work itself is just over two square meters in area and is printed on a single laminate panel in the artist stark black and white, a feature of his work. This is the last in a series of works based on the ground plan geometry of the Cathedral, called Sacred Circles, after the circles defining it's groundplan. Julian's work The Rape of Europa will be featured in the Luke and A Gallery, Mayfair, London this summer.

Jeremy Fish (MBA DL 1997-01) writes: 'I took the British Computer Society professional exams immediately after the MBA - I think it must have been some sort of after-shock reaction to a realisation that my study routine had evaporated - it's a hard habit to break when you've studied by distance learning for 4 years. I took the exams because I was IT Director at a Misys subsidiary and wanted to formalise my technical skills as well as my general management skills (which I had done through the MBA). It was a bit of a shock when I was awarded the best worldwide candidate award, not only for the project management exam but for all the diploma exams in 2002!

In May I joined a small company based in Coventry, as managing director. The company authors and distributes software to Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) and is a leader in its field. This is a great move for me because it allows me to practice a wide range of the skills and techniques that I learned at Warwick.'