Saturday, January 06, 2007

10 Curious Facts About Me

Another of the popular 'tag' subjects going the rounds at the moment seems to be to reveal "x things about yourself that most people don't know".



Yes, well, there are probably good reasons why people don't know this kind of stuff.....


However, one of my 'resolutions' this year is to try to be a little less curmudgeonly (by the by, shouldn't there be a verb form of this? Curmudge sounds wonderful!), so here goes....

1) I am an accomplished puntsman. (One of the few real benefits of an Oxford education.)

2) I grew up during the original punk era, and was briefly part of a New Wave project at school called Ded Lemming. (I was more the Malcolm McLaren figure, songwriter and all-around creative guru; I couldn't actually play an instrument, and only joined the band on stage a couple of times.)

3) I once drank 11 pints of Guinness in a little under 3 hours. (It was immediately after I finished my Final exams at University. The 3rd, 7th, and 11th of them I downed in one - the last while standing on one leg, on top of a rather rickety table. The rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur!)

4) I nearly asked Helena Bonham-Carter out on a date once. (This must be almost 20 years ago. She was sat about 3 yards away from me in a pub.... but I lost my nerve. I have tried to console myself ever since that she is too short for me.)

5) I was once the President of the Middle Temple Debating Society.

6) I once failed a security clearance for a job with the British government.

7) I can play 'The Streets of Laredo' on the mouth organ. (Well, I used to be able to. I haven't picked the instrument up in years. I had dreams of becoming a maestro of the blues harp, but I lacked the necessary application...)

8) My best score on 'Elf Bowling' is 222.

9) I turned down a chance to play Francis Younghusband ("ravisher of Tibet") in a film.

10) Only once have I ever been on a blind date (which I fixed up through www.match.com). The girl turned out to be a journalist for The Scotsman who was researching an article on Internet dating! I was rather smitten - but, alas, I never saw her again. I've always wondered if I featured in her article....


And there you have it! Don't you feel you know me so much better now???

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This explains a lot. Any pictures from your punk years? I was in elementary school during the punk years and in Oklahoma. Based on the rate at which fashion and fads reached Middle America back then, I probably was in diapers during the real punk years.

and I grew up without MTV (or, in general, cable) - I only bring that up to explain my complete and utter cluelessness regarding most American/Western Music. (and no, my family wasn't weird--I can't think of any of my classmates who had cable, either. And yes, in Oklahoma we all have horses and wear cowboy hats.)

Ironically, here, in **** I get to watch Indian MTV anytime I want - how weird is that?

And sometimes, Indian MTV will have an international hour in which they play things like Beyonce, the Black Eyed Peas and other Western bands that I heard a local friend's 12-year old son go on and on about.

I can totally see you as Francis Younghusband - why did you turn it down?

I'm addicted to Elf Bowling... and generously passed the addiction onto my officemates... You've no idea what you started...

Mothman said...

I always found the MOST curious fact about you was that you are half Brazilian. Or, more accurately, that you are half Brazilian and yet chose to live in China instead of Brazil. Most odd...

Froog said...

Well, I don't have the Brazilian passport, you see.

Thinking of trying to get one now, since the bean-counters at my new employers peevishly insist that they will only give me a summer travel allowance for a flight to my 'home country'. I've never really thought of England as home, have no domicile there, no family. But I'm apparently stuck with a forced return once a year - just because I have a UK passport. So - becoming Brazilian just in time for next year's World Cup is my aim.

Alas, proving one's Brazilian-ness is a bit of a challenge. It caused my mother no end of hassle. Apparently, the Brazilian equivalent of Somerset House burned to the ground in the 1950s - so, as far as the UK government was concerned, she didn't exist... even though she'd been paying tax and National insurance for decades, had a husband and two children who were UK citizens, etc. No birth certificate, non-person. We had to get our MP to intercede with the Foreign Office to get her a passport; and then they only granted her a temporary one, for a solitary overseas holiday. I suspect I will have similar problems.