03 April 2008

Mac's Meme and the White Stone Name Seeker's too

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Mac's: Write 7 non-important things/habit/quirks about yourself.

1. I spend enough on books that the postman thinks that all of the packages sent by Mr Amazon to the close in which I live (nine houses) are for me.

2. I hate: driving; pop music; soap operas (including The Archers: Burn, Ambridge, Burn!); the Underground; walking through Metroland (they're 1920s houses, not Eden); the Guardian and all its associated lesbian, lentil-weaving, finger-in-the-ear folk singing, post-modern inanity (don't start me on the Independent, which I really dislike); the Great Wen; the West Riding; South Yorkshire; religious practices which ape the Church of Rome's; coffee without caffeine; and reading History backwards. The last is the thing I hate most of all (at least at present).

3. I have met six senior members of the Royal Family; one Prime Minister; six Secretaries of State; four: Chiefs of the Defence Staff, First Sea Lords, Chiefs of the General Staff and Chiefs of the Air Staff; and a lot of foreign dignataries as well; never mind slightly less V VIPs and when people ask what they were like, I nearly always answer "really nice", because they nearly always really are.

4. The older I get, the more I realise how right my father was; and when my sister says that I'm turning into my father, I thank her for the compliment.

5. I haven't been abroad for nearly 18 months since I returned from New Zealand dosed up on Immodium.

6. I don't look as English as I am.

7. I have had a beard for two thirds of my life.

WSNS's:

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

Working lunatic hours and missing episodes of my children growing up, at the country's behest.

2. Five things on my to do list.

Open the mail. Check on new books. Keep all of the different Novenas going. Don't do anything which will put a penny in Rupert Murdoch or Richard Branson's pockets. Pray for a friend who has made a wrong decision.

3. Snacks I enjoy

Anything to do with sausages. Tortilla de patatas. Cold veal in breadcrumbs. Pies. Anything included in Ratty's idea of a picnic.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire.

I genuinely can't imagine. "Give it all away" sounds a bit pathetic.

5. Three of my bad habits. (only 3?)

I drink too much. I eat too much. I swear too much. (Is it three Hail Marys again, Father?)

6. Five places I have lived.

Manchester
Coimbra
Madrid
Asturias
Here

6. Five jobs I have had.

Orderly on Psychiatric Ward
Ice Cream Van man
Teacher
Crown Servant
Lawn Mower salesman

2 comments:

Anagnostis said...

As far as wrong decisions go, find out what his "four-in-the-morning-test" result is: what is his state of mind on the subject when awake in the dead of night? If he answers "a profound and passionate peace and certitude, absent for the past twenty years" you might have trouble arguing him out of the error of his ways. ;o)

I've only ever lived in four places. I have, however, been a boilerman, milkman, printer, saxophonist, deckhand.

JARay said...

I know Coimbra Ttony but it is many years since I visited it. I was at The English College, Lisbon at the time.
I have never had a beard and I'm trying to master a "cut-throat" razor at the moment.
I have never really met any 'great' dignateries but I can live with that. I was at a function when Queen Elizabeth visited Portugal in 1957. I didn't get to speak to her but the reception was quite nice.
Unlike Ben, I have never been any of those exotic persons.
I have been a Painter & Decorator (family business). I was quite a good signwriter (inherited from my father). I served in the RAF, during the Cold War. I became a Seminarian but left and became a Mathematics teacher. I emigrated to Australia in 1975 and my three sons have thanked me for this move ever since.

JARay