Historically, my first scientific subject of interest was the mechanical behaviour of nanocrystalline materials, which we explored during my PhD in Chelyabinsk (Russia) with Prof. Alexander Mayer, and I am still very enthusiastic about the nanoscale. Then I had the chance to contribute to physical models of plasticity, including deformation twinning, grain boundary sliding, and dislocation plasticity in extreme regimes of high-strain-rate and severe plastic deformation. During almost 7 years, I was working in Saint-Petersburg with the excellent team of mechanics led by Prof. Yuri Petrov at IPME RAS, where I closely engaged with rheological models, and we showed (among others, with Dr Nina Selyutina) that they are excellent for non-conventional applications in high-strain-rate metal plasticity. In Manchester, I first encountered and was captivated by the modern fields of discrete mathematics, such as combinatorics, graph theory and algebraic topology. In particular, I never expected the recent expansion of my research area to include materials characterisation, materials design, and even crystallography. I am more than excited about the applications of fully discrete methodologies to the description of dynamic recrystallisation during severe plastic deformation of copper and magnesium alloys, recently elaborated in collaboration with Dr Siying Zhu, and the combinatorial mean-field approach to plasticity, currently being developed with Mr Afonso Barroso.