Tim Perutz has been playing the clarinet in chamber ensembles and orchestras since his early teens. His teachers included Alan Hacker, a charismatic advocate of the diverse capabilities of the clarinet. As an undergraduate, reading Mathematics at Clare College, Cambridge, he was a member of CUCO, CUMS 1, and many more ephemeral orchestras, and played wind chamber music under the auspices of the university's Instrumental Awards Scheme. He then studied for a PhD, completed in 2005, at Imperial College London, where he was principal clarinettist of the college's symphony orchestra. Recent chamber performances include trios by Brahms, Mozart and Schumann and duos by Debussy, Weber and Brahms. He returned to Cambridge in 2005 as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics. His research is on the geometry of four-dimensional spaces, an area where there is mathematical confirmation of something many might suspect -- that such spaces are deeply mysterious creatures.