Twenty five random things...
1. I have very thick hair and until I was fourteen it was long enough for me to sit on. I used to wear it in a single plait or a ponytail, as it was too thick to do anything else with.
2. I love to eat snow. My first instinct when I see freshly fallen snow is to take a mouthful.
3. I also crunch ice, although I try to restrain myself in company. I can eat my way through an icebucket full, the way some people eat popcorn or peanuts.
4. When I heard the full version of The Three Musketeers I was horrified to discover that Juliet was the wife of D'Artagnan's landlord, and he knew her for a very short time. Having grown up with Dogtanion and a heavily abridged children's edition, I was terribly shocked.
5. My first 'fanfic' was spoken onto a cassette and was a Juliet Bravo story acted out with a friend. I still have the tape. I was five at the time.
6. I never slept with a stuffed animal when I was growing up. When I was twenty-one my then boyfriend gave me a teddy in a dog costume (strange but true). When I was twenty-two I was feeling very miserable, alone, in need of a cuddle, and ended up going to sleep with it. Worked like a charm.
7. The more I read of Lucy Mangan (Guardian Weekend columnist), the more I am convinced that she is a slightly AU version of me.
8. I am not a Finisher. This is something I want to change.
9. I have a minor crush on Alan Alda (Hawkeye in the TV series of M*A*S*H). The fact that he is old enough to be my grandfather bothers me only slightly.
10. In my personal canon, Kerry Weaver (ER) is actually Phil Maynard. There are lots of things that support this, not least a story I have sketched out and partly written.
11. I have 82 books on my 'unread' shelf.
12. I have had a three-in-one copy of George MacDonald's 'At The Back of the North Wind' trilogy since I was about ten. I am not quite sure why I have never read it.
13. When in North America I consume silly quantities of wintergreen altoids, and a fair number of the cinnamon variaty. I find it hugely frustrating that these are made in the UK but for export only.
14. I have been looking for a copy of 'Chronicle of the year 1998' since about 1998. I have all the others.
15. I heard Barbara Castle speak at a Labour Party rally in Cambridge in about 1994. I still rank it as one of the most exciting and inspiring experiences of my life.
16. I believe in God, but struggle to put myself into any sort of denomination.
17. I have a couple of carrier bags containing newspapers I have saved. These are mostly on political topics.
18. I was able to vote for the first time in the 1997 election. Somewhere I still have a BBC video of the election night coverage, bought from the bargain bin in WH Smiths about a year later.
19. The first video recorder in the house was a sixteenth (or possibly seventeenth) birthday present from my Dad. The first thing I recorded was The Third Man. I still have the tape with the original recording.
20. My parents separated when I was three. This has never bothered me, but was a bit of a novelty in a Norfolk village.
21. I love the smell of the London Underground. I know this makes me strange.
22. Elvis's 'Always on my Mind' makes me think of my Nan. It is my trigger track - something I play if I need a good cry before I can start to feel better.
23. I eat balsamic vinegar by the spoonful
24. I know all the words, and both tunes, to The Red Flag. I would like it sung at my funeral.
25. I have a recording of a radio play of The L-Shaped Room. There is one point where a character gets the inflection so utterly wrong that I have to turn the volume down so I miss it. The actor clearly missed the point of the comment and it drives me bananas...
So there you have it. Nothing particularly exciting, methinks, but I am a sheep when it comes to memes.