8 (More) Things You Didn't Know About Me

Well, I've just been 'tagged' to come up with a list of 8 things about me that are "interesting, unique, or unknown". I receive this cyber-baton (brick through the window?) from the intermittently prolific Jeremiah over at The Granite Studio. (J is a Ph.D candidate, over here doing research for his thesis on Qing Dynasty history. I have been meaning to write a puff for his rather fine blog – mostly on Chinese history, but with occasional more contemporary stories and personal quirks as well - for some time, but.... Well, I don’t want to appear to be too much of a blog-slut, so I am trying to limit myself to one blog recommendation per month. It's a new month, I suppose...)

Now, I don't really approve of this 'tagging' practice. It is a potentially onerous imposition on a poor blogger's time. Even more alarmingly, it is a form of 'virus', and could - if it continued to spread as exponentially as it aspires to - eventually quite overwhelm the Internet.

I don't like the use of the word 'meme' to describe these potentially destructive fripperies either. It seems to be attempting to confer an importance (cultural? sociological?) on them that they don't really deserve. And I just don't think it is an accurate use of Richard Dawkins' fairly narrowly conceived term (a 'meme' replicates content, automatically, as a result of the perceived usefulness or attractiveness of that content; these Internet 'tag' games replicate only a format, not the specific content, and they do so only through compliance with the explicit request or instruction to replicate, not because of any innate 'evolutionary advantage' in so doing).

However, laying such qualifications and objections aside, I don't wish to appear to be a curmudgeon. And I've nothing better to do this morning. So, here goes....


1) Despite never having had a driving licence, I have driven an armoured car and a Land Rover (ah, the joys of army reserve training!).

2) I have a tendency to fall in love with the sound of a woman's voice - particularly a fine singing voice. I have for many years had a raging crush on Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies (undiminished by the discovery that she was rather older than I had thought, and married).

3) The weirdest job (and there have been some weird ones) I have turned down in China was being an MC for a Spring Festival gala for foreign diplomats at the Great Hall of the People. It was to be unpaid (although we were promised an engraved glass trophy to commemorate our participation). It was also to be completely unscripted and unrehearsed (this is China!). When they threw a chaotic-sounding game show segment into the mix at the last minute, I politely backed out. As did all of my friends who had been in discussion with the Ministry of Culture about it.

4) The film I have most enjoyed showing to Chinese students (in the Beijing Normal University a few years ago) was 2001: A Space Odyssey. They sat through it in fascinated incomprehension - slack-jawed, wide-eyed, completely silent from start to finish. It so far transcended the bounds of their imagination that they had no terms of reference with which to try to interpret or discuss it. In the deep hush of the lecture theatre I fancied I could actually hear the sound of minds boggling.

5) I once went to an AC/DC concert wearing a suit (and ear-plugs). I was en route between two job interviews at the end of my University days, and was travelling very light.

6) I once went to an Arthur Andersen careers presentation wearing fishnet stockings (underneath my pinstripe suit trousers). I was going to a performance of The Rocky Horror Show at Oxford's Apollo Theatre immediately afterwards. And I wasn't that concerned about getting the job!

7) I was hopelessly spoiled as a sports fan in my early life. I was born in (and grew up around) the tiny 'city' of Hereford, on the Welsh border, and so became a supporter of the local football team there as a toddler. At that time, they were enjoying a period of astonishing success. They were dominating their semi-pro league, had a couple of dazzling, 'giant-killing' runs in the FA Cup (famously beating top clubs, West Ham and Newcastle, and only narrowly losing to Leeds Utd - then the best side in the country); and when they finally won election to the main professional league, they achieved an unprecedented, meteoric rise through the divisions, winning promotion from the 4th to the 2nd in only 4 years.

Of course, it was too good to last. They had risen too far, too fast - and promptly dropped again just as quickly. They then spent 15 years or so propping up the bottom of the lowest division in the league.... and are now 'non-league' again. Heady times, for a while, though. I think the first game I ever went to see live was the celebrated FA Cup Third Round Replay clash at home against Newcastle - in which we got a late equaliser with The Greatest Goal Ever Scored By Anyone In Any Competition Ever..... and went on to scramble a last-gasp win in extra time.

It's not right. It's not good for you. It doesn't prepare you for the lifelong frustration and disappointment that is the inevitable lot of sports fans everywhere (unless you cheat by supporting Man U or the Yankees). It was rather too painful a contrast with the pitiful under-performance of the national team (England contrived to fail even to qualify for the World Cup finals during the 1970s).

The last game I saw live was China v. Japan in the final of the Asian Cup at the Workers' Stadium three years ago. The bad juju I have brought to following England over 4 decades has obviously carried over to the Chinese team now that I have started supporting them. China were undone by a goal that was an outrageously obvious handball. It was the Maradona "hand of God" all over again. Everybody could see clearly that the Japanese forward hit the ball into the goal with his forearm. Everybody in the entire stadium. Except the referee and his linesman. Ggrrrrr.......

8) The "most irritating thing about me" - according to a friend at University - was (and possibly still is) that I "always monopolise the prettiest girl at the party.... and then don't sleep with her."



And there you have it.

Ah, but the insidious thing about this 'tag' malarkey is that you are supposed to 'pass on the challenge' to a bunch of other bloggers of your acquaintance.

Yes, well, I don't really like to consider myself a 'blogger' (not in the classic sense!), and I don't really read blogs very much - so, I'm not really "acquainted" with many other bloggers (apart from Jeremiah himself – and I assume that the rules of these things prohibit 'returns').

I will pass on a very humble, apologetic, take-it-or-leave-it-and-please-don't-feel-obliged-to-bug-any-of-your-friends-with-it request to participate to those bloggers who have been kind enough to leave me comments here on Froogville (and/or over at the Barstool): moonrat, earthling, and, of course, Leah (though she is probably far too busy with making preparations to join us in China to be bothered with such nonsense). I'd also like to extend the invitation to two rather interesting bloggers I've recently been introduced to as friends of my über-commenter, Tulsa - AKA:omg and Home in Kabul.

Tulsa, of course, doesn't have a blog of her own, but shares mine, inhabiting my comment pages as a kind of benign - or symbiotic - parasite. She will no doubt contribute her own list of '8 Unusual Things About Me' in the comment thread here.

And now.... ho, hum: back to work.