Aaaaargh. Honey tagged me.

1. Each player must post these rules first.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

eight random facts/habits about me:

1. I was once, for a couple of years, the second best female archer in Belgium after a woman called Gerlinde Klingels. I own a Hoyt Spectra Lite. It lives with my cousins because they have a garden, and also because if they see it, it scares men off even faster than I do already.
2. I wish I was able to say "no" more when people ask me for favours. Sometimes I think I get invited AS the entertainment.
3. I can make soufflés. They're actually not at all difficult to do.
4. I had to have rabies jabs as a child of eight after a nasty dog bite. I didn't get the full course. Apparently it shows.
5. I don't want children of my own, I'm terrified of psychologically crippling them. I enjoy being an auntie. Hence the name.
6. I'm a cyborg. 25% of my pelvis is made of cement (see gory stuff).
7. I never date other women's men. Not even if they've just expressed slight interest. A man I was living with came home to tell me his secretary was pregnant*. Aside from his betrayal, I thought it was the most tacky thing I've ever seen any woman do to get a man. Of course I sent him to live with her and his child. I've got class, me. It didn't last, of course.
8. I'm off for a bubblebath.

TAGGED: Scouse Doris, A.A. Ayscoughe-Hussey, Mutley the Dog, the very kind Andy Ramblings, the exotic Edina Monsoon, the erudite pundit Prufrock, the activist Lucy Arin, and the Lippy Lawyer, not that I know any that aren't. Let's see what they make of it.


*yes, by him. Apparently he fell down the stairs on top of her with his flies open, or something.

Things I have learned recently.

- There are no actual words to Bee Gees songs. One goes "nanana na na na, You Win Again, na na na" or "Tragedy! Nanana nanana nanana nana it's Tragedy!".
- My grandfather was born in 1916, not 1917.
- My sister K thinks it is appropriate to take a salmon and cucumber on wholewheat sandwich to her grandfather's funeral. In her handbag.
- I do not want Danny Boy played at my funeral. I shall haunt you, I shall.
- Why is it that during the post-funeral bunfight old UKIP-voting codgers of the sort who arr-arrr their way through a conversation ("Arrr arrr grandfather what, Arnhem, jolly good show, arrr arrr arrr fuzzy-wuzzies arrr arrr Kitchener arr arrr arrr absolutely ripping!") always assume that your defunct family members were of their political opinion just because they admire them? Sometimes, just sometimes, I'm tempted to say "well, I'm glad you enjoyed his company, given that he was a communist." Not that he was, but just to wind'em up.
- The Swan in Lympstone is a dam' fine hostelry.

That's all for now.

"Arrr arrr dontcherknow, arr arr arr Mafeking, surrounded arr arr arr only cucumber and salmon sandwiches left arr arr".

Away

I'm off to Bridport for the funeral. Back next Wednesday.

Whilst I'm over, I shall also go and pay my respects at the enormous, smoking, tragic crater that once was Beavershott. Gosling must have been killed in the explosion, for he is gone too. I am blaming Hector Munroe. He has also disappeared from the radar, and I suspect him of suicide bombing the pub.

The Webley-Bullocks seem to have survived. Perhaps they can reveal what happened.

Hugs.

Bulldozer

Elaib has been blogging through the summit. There are several delightful posts, not least the one where the hacks ran out of beer, but the best one is about this superb public relations gift the Brussels police were stupid enough to give the UKIP group. I don't agree with UKIP, but because I cling (doggedly and in the face of all evidence) to a belief that the electorate is able to vote intelligently, I will defend to the hilt UKIP's right to say what they think. Let them have their inflatable bulldozer.

In any case, I bet UKIP are delighted. To be able to deploy the "we're being gagged" argument at any summit, and particularly this summit, is fantastic news capital for them.

What stumps me is why the police felt they had to take it down. I'm sure it was on their own initiative, as no-one politically savvy would have been daft enough to hand such a PR coup to the Eurosceptics. I suspect one of Brussels's finest will be being sent to political sensitivity classes on Monday.

William Kamkwamba

Via Worstall, a young lad making his own homemade windmills in Malawi. V. Cool if you ask me.

Secret fantasies revealed n° 2.

Tippler is recommending we all go and see The Prestige. I wasn't that bothered until I realised Christian Bale is in it. BTW if Tippler can get away with lusting after Harry Potter characters I can get away with the following:



He's a funny chameleon of an actor, is Bale. Allegedly he's Welsh, but he's so good at accents no-one would ever be able to tell. I understand he did a fabulous job of the kid in Empire of the Sun, which, sadly, I've never seen. Scary as hell even with no clothes on in American Psycho, completely unidentifiable due to the very authentic-sounding accent in Captain Corelli's Mandolin, coldly efficient with a heart of pain in Equilibrium, burgeoning superhero in Batman Begins (sequel coming, yippee!). He also voiced over Howl for Howl's Moving Castle, who is much the same sort of powerful, aching character. It all sounds so hedgehoggy and chilled, rather as if snuggling up to him would be rather like pressing one's undressed body against a freezer door covered in tears of condensation, brrrr, now I have to go and have a hot bath.

And then you get this sort of a quote:
"At first, I was somewhat hesitant to do the role. I mean, after all, Batman is an icon. But I remember, as clear as day, being at the grocery store the day the movie opened, and this little boy saw me. He couldn't have been more than five years old. He just walked right up to me and hugged me. He hugged me, and I was so moved by it that I hugged him back. Then he looked up at me and said "You're my hero." And in that moment, I knew that not only as an actor that I had done my job, but that I had made the right decision to play Batman. And I've never looked back on my the decision to play Batman since. "

*Sigh...*

Mwahahahahaha!

Sherman's on fine form. He's been trying to buy a drink in Utah.

"Most gas stations and supermarkets have a cooler containing cans and bottles upon which is stenciled the word, "beer." Don't be fooled. It is 3.2% by volume. As we all know, these are merely bottles and cans of colored water, at which several elderly ladies from Bratislava with gigantic moles sporting prehensile hairs on their chins have screamed the word, "beer" repeatedly."

I looked for a hairy mole photo for this post, but they all made me feel sick, so you'll have to do without one.