Shameless exhibitionism
Dec. 18th, 2002 02:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaI find it monumentally difficult to believe that anyone would be interested to read all this, but, as suggested by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
triskellian, here's
100 Things About Me
1. I don't have a favourite possession. When asked the standard question "If your house was on fire, what would you grab on the way out?", I don't have an answer. Though I have many possessions I'm very fond of, I can't think of anything I'd be particularly distressed about if it went missing.
2. I am a member of CAMRA.
3. Some time ago I began a project to record interesting examples of graffiti in Oxford. I have quite a lot of photos, but not nearly as many as I'd like.
4. I enjoy mixing cocktails. Considerably more than I enjoy drinking them. Fortunately, this is not a problem, as I live with Frances.
5. My biggest regret about the house I live in is that it doesn't contain a piano. I passed Grade VIII while I was at school, but since I left university (where my college had a surprising number of grand pianos) I haven't been able to practise, and am probably now rubbish. I also play the oboe, have no such excuse for not practising that, and should really make more effort.
6. I own several items of clothing made from PVC. I don't regard this as a very interesting fact, but a number of people seem to be extremely surprised by it.
7. I can read OS maps very effectively when out walking, but have no natural sense of direction. When navigating in a car, I believe myself to be competent, but appear from empirical evidence to be rubbish.
8. I can skin a rabbit, and have done so on many occasions. I oweelethiomel a rabbit pie.
9. I belong to two rapper teams.
10. On the occasions someone I don't know has made an obvious chat-up attempt in a club/bar etc, their opening line has always been either to ask me what the E I wear round my neck stands for, or to tell me I have nice hair.
11. I have upside-down vertigo. I am scared of heights, but only from the bottom... Being at the top of a tall building looking down is fine, being on the ground looking up at it ranges from unpleasant to terrifying, depending on the building. Friends have advised me never to go to Manhattan :)
12. I wear glasses when driving, or watching a film. I wore glasses for a year or so when I was about 10, then stopped needing them until I got to university and discovered I couldn't read the board in lectures.
13. I can juggle a little, but have never learnt to do more than a couple of tricks.
14. When I was little, I used to enter clog dancing competitions.
15. There is a slim chance I may do so again as an adult :)
16. I like spiders. I seem, however, doomed to live with arachnophobes so spend much of my life throwing spiders out of other people's bedrooms. The spiders in my room get to stay there - consequently there are usually a few cobwebs on the ceiling. (I seem to have a spell checker which doesn't like "arachnophobes" and suggests I replace it with "archbishops".)
17. I am not embarrassed to walk into a sex shop. I am frequently embarrassed by the dreadful quality of the merchandise displayed therein.
18. I have had long hair as long as I can remember, and have never considered cutting it off. I used to have a fringe, but grew it out when I was about 16 (after a period of experimentation with a strange flicky half fringe, which my friends really ought to have prevented me from doing).
19. I have had no grandparents since I was six, and have very few close relatives. I adopted myself a set of grandparents (friends of my parents; the right age, and grandchildless), and borrowed extensively from friends' families.
20. I have a very fast heartbeat. Its resting rate is usually somewhere round 100.
21. I use far more dialect words than I realise. I had severe culture shock when I first came to university, and discovered that many of the words I use are not standard. Most recently, it seems that 'sneck' (meaning the latch of a door) is not generally known; I discovered this only a couple of days ago.
22. I can (and do) write with both hands. Most other things I can only do with one hand, but which hand it is varies. I can only brush my hair with my right, and brush my teeth with my left. I think on average I'm probably righthanded.
23. The idea of going blind doesn't worry me at all. I grew up round blind people, and regard it as a very little of a handicap. Going deaf, however, terrifies me.
24. Possibly as a result of spending a lot of time with blind people, I have a very poor visual memory, and no visual imagination. People have occasionally commented that I often describe places with relatively little reference to what they look like, but including unlikely details about the atmosphere, or what they sound like.
25. Only two of my milk teeth fell out naturally, the rest were extracted by the dentist for various reasons. I think gas anaesthetic still ranks as one of the most unpleasant experiences I've ever had.
26. Despite regularly falling off, over and into things, several trips to casualty with concussion, and once needing stitches, I have never yet broken a bone.
27. I have an A-level in German. Recent attempts to read "Das Kleine Gespenst" (probably aimed at around 7 year olds) suggest that I am very rusty. My vocabulary these days is very hit-and-miss, consisting of the stuff I remember from school, and the stuff picked up from Rammstein lyrics.
28. My feet are slightly deformed. Not, as people usually assume, because I've worn badly-fitting or silly-shaped shoes, but because I was born like that. I had (unsuccessful) corrective surgery to straighten the relevant toes when I was seven; after that the surgeon started talking about amputation, and my parents decided (correctly, in my opinion!) that that was a bit extreme for what was a pretty minor problem.
29. It is eleven years today (17/12/2002) since someone first asked me out. I said "yes", and now believe this to be one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made :) We were involved (on and off) until my second year at university, and I still hear from him occasionally.
30. I have only been on a plane 3 times in my life, and have never been out of Western Europe. I have plans to visit New Zealand in the new year, however, which would sort both of those out.
31. Repeated attempts have demonstrated that I am incapable of putting on false eyelashes. Anyone who can offer advice ?
32. I am a communicant member of the Church of England. It annoys me that the only Christians you ever see in the news are the mad kind; they get the rest of us a bad name. There are some tenets of C of E faith I don't agree with; some people argue this means I am not a member of the church.
33. My family has a history of second sight. I am deeply disappointed that I don't seem to have inherited it. More annoyingly, the family member closest to me who does have it hates it, and wishes it would go away.
34. I am never bored. I may get fed up, for example waiting for a train, but I am never genuinely bored.
35. I am a blood donor. I carry a card requesting that, in the event of my death, any functional parts of my body be used for transplants.
36. I get on extremely well with my parents. I actively enjoy their company, and look forward to going home to see them.
37. At work, I use emacs in preference to the many more shiny editors out there. This is largely because I learnt all the keyboard shortcuts when I was a student, and have no intention of learning another set. [Boring side issue: a common mistake I make when typing is to include an extra space at the beginning of the line. Ctrl-A delete sorts this out a treat in emacs. On most MS applications this is a Bad Thing to do.]
38. I think Fight Club was a fantastic film, despite my being reluctant for some time to watch it. I am not normally squeamish, but I find bareknuckle fighting, or sometimes boxing, practically unwatchable.
39. I find the idea of smoking horrific. I have no problem with other people doing it - I've repeatedly lived with smokers, I don't mind smoky pubs, and I'm anti the current trend to make everywhere no-smoking. I have never tried a cigarette.
40. I am an avid reader of fashion magazines. Although I am only ever fashionably dressed by accident, I find the catwalk trends fascinating to follow.
41. This year, I have bought more CDs as a direct result of listening to illegal mp3s than I have bought in total in the last three years.
42. I have roleplayed in 4 (I think) live action Vampire games, two separate Camarilla UK games, and a few tabletops. I have co-run a live action vampire game, and one tabletop. I still don't understand the White Wolf combat system. Or the Minds Eye Theatre one, come to that.
43. I am deliberately non-vegetarian, but sometimes order (or cook) vegetarian food out of preference.
44. I went to a private, all-girls secondary school.
45. I talk to strangers. On trains, on tubes, in bus queues. Sometimes they talk back, often they just look disturbed. I've got into some great conversations that way - I once met a girl who worked for Henson's (yes, the muppet people), was carrying a Plasticine camel in a shoebox, and was being pursued by a pyscho she'd accidentally agreed to marry a few weeks earlier.
46. I used to drink enormous amounts of strong coffee; it never stopped me from sleeping. For the last few years, though, drinking coffee has made me feel ill, so I have had more or less to stop doing it :(
47. I sunburn easily, I don't like being too warm, and I get hayfever. As a result, I don't like summer much. No, not even British summers - I managed to get sunstroke in Penrith a year and a half ago.
48. Since I acquired a car around six months ago, I've been learning about the insides of cars, and can now do a certain amount of maintenance (and diagnosis) myself. I am bizarrely proud of this.
49. I can wiggle my ears.
50. My favourite type of wine is White Zinfandel or Syrah Rosé. I don't like Chardonnay - it tastes of yellow.
51. I'm very prone to static electricity. I crackle a lot, and get shocks off metal things.
52. I have never understood why Only Fools and Horses is funny.
53. There are only two books in my life which I have begun reading, and deliberately decided not to finish (though there are others I haven't finished for external reasons). They are Wideacre by Philippa Gregory, and Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. I hated both of them.
54. According to X-rays done by my dentist, I have at least six, and possibly eight, wisdom teeth. Only four have come through so far.
55. I'm scared of oversized things. Pictures or statues of people rendered larger than life size, that sort of thing. I will probably never go to Mt Rushmore :)
56. My grandfather could never wear clockwork watches, they always stopped after he'd been wearing them a little while. When I was given my first watch, it repeatedly stopped when I was wearing it. I tried wearing it on my other wrist, and it was fine. I still wear my watch on my right hand, though haven't recently checked to see if a clockwork watch on my left would still stop.
57. I still call Marathon bars Marathons. Snickers is a silly name.
58. When FLRPing, I always preferred being a monster to being a PC.
59. Marsyas, currently on display in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern, is the first piece of abstract art which has ever really impressed me.
60. I have been a member of a Scout troop since 1983. I joined the cubs when I was 7, and still turn up to events (though only occasionally as they're in Darlington and I'm in Oxford).
61. When I was in the sixth form, I was ill and lost a lot of weight, dropping to just under six stone. Doctors never really worked out what was wrong with me, though I don't believe most of them tried as they assumed I was anorexic. Which was annoying.
62. According to the scales in Boots, I am now overweight. I do not give a stuff.
63. My main ambition, at present, is to have a book published.
64. Separately from that, I am attempting to write a Mills & Boon novel at the moment. (Actually, two, one by myself, and one jointly with Samantha). These do not count as books.
65. I can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Pepsi is the one that tastes foul.
66. Photos of me rarely look like me. Even according to other people. People have mistaken me for a bloke in photos. A picture of me was once mistaken for a picture of ChrisC - by his brother.
67. I am trying to learn to like olives. I've never liked them, but they hang about with many other things I do like (feta cheese, tomatoes...). And they look nice. I'm halfway there - I now get on OK with green olives, though black ones are still nasty.
68. I nearly failed my first year exams at Oxford, having spent far too much of my time playing an Oxford-based MUD called Island.
69. The day the twin towers were demolished, I had the worst bout of food poisoning I have ever had, and felt too ill to summon the spare energy to care what was happening in New York. Truly, "the troubles of the world are nothing to the man with toothache".
70. I can spell accommodation.
71. A year after Princess Diana was killed, a surveying person stopped me in the street to ask me if I could remember what I'd done the day she died. I answered honestly "invited lots of people round to my house for a party". I didn't feel it necessary to mention that this was because she died on my 21st.
72. I hate using blunt knives. When getting a knife out the kitchen drawer, I reflexively sharpen it before using it.
73. I've sung in assorted choirs at different times of my life. I'm an alto, but am not very good.
74. To the best of my knowledge, I have only ever heard the original version of Stairway to Heaven once.
75. I have made three floor-length velvet cloaks - one for me, one for Samantha, and one forquisalan.
76. I think my favourite book is Iain Pears' An Instance of the Fingerpost.
77. I am allergic to oranges, but not to other citrus fruits.
78. I can't bring myself to get into a unmade bed. I always make my bed, though usually immediately before I get into it.
79. I have read all the Discworld novels to date (with the possible exception that I believe there's a new one out at the moment). My favourites are The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. I've never yet found anyone who agrees with me on this...
80. Following on from #8 - I can gut fish, too. I discovered this this evening, shortly after discovering that the fish I bought today were still in possession of all their innards.
81. I have seen New Model Army live more times than I have seen any other band. I think, though I'm not sure, that the band I have travelled the furthest to see (Darlington -> Manchester) was The Mutton Birds.
82. I can, though rarely do, recite all of The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God. And numerous other poems.
83. I was born a Virgo, but having discovered that this is a really dull sign, I abdicated. In Chinese astrology I'm a Fire Dragon, which sounds much more interesting that a sign which one book described as "capable of performing simple tasks if given careful instructions".
84. My middle name is Cheryl. I was named after a friend of my mum's, who declined to be my godmother on the grounds that that was a religious duty, and she wasn't religious. It's pronounced with a 'Ch', not a 'Sh', because that's how she pronounces it.
85. I was named Elizabeth after the second Bennet sister in Pride and Prejudice. Apparently my parents also thought it was a good name because there were lots of different things I could shorten it to if I didn't like it. I do like it, and am called variously Elizabeth, Liz and Beth (and other less relevant/printable things) by different groups of people.
86. I was born a month premature, and spent a while in intensive care. Instead of being born in September, I was born on the last day in August, and was thus always the youngest person in my school year.
87. The last non-fiction book I read was Nancy Mitford's biography of Louis XIV. It's not very good, and I wouldn't recommend it.
88. As a general rule, I take less time in the shower than nearly anyone else I know.
89. I can sleep anywhere, and stay asleep through pretty much anything short of long-range nuclear testing. I don't remember the last time I had a nightmare.
90. When I was little, my favourite animal was the giant panda. Having not thought about this for years, I was recently reminded, on seeing Jez's photos from a Chinese zoo, that they are fantastically cool animals.
91. I'm very, very ticklish. I hate being tickled, and it is one of the few things I have absolutely no sense of humour about.
92. Following a challenge issued this summer, I discovered that it is possible (though in no way desirable) to spit roast an egg.
93. Having read their website a while ago, I discovered that - on paper, at least - I agree with the principles of the BNP. (Funnily enough, their manifesto doesn't include the bits about kicking the crap out of people who aren't white).
94. When I was living in a college room (three out of the four years I was an undergraduate student), I never locked my door when I went out. I regularly came home to find small parties going on in my room, but never had anything stolen.
95. When I took a job three years ago, I was the first female programmer the company had ever had. Strangely, the experience doesn't seem to have put them off, and they've hired another two since.
96. Following the Oxford roleplayers' tradition, the house I live in has a name. It's called the Little Shop of Horrors.
97. My favourite day of the year is Christmas Eve.
98. I am a Friend of the Pitt Rivers Museum. It is one of my favourite places in Oxford.
99. I do not own, and never have owned, a television.
100. I'm very bad at getting up in the morning. So, since it's nearly half two, I should go to bed...
triskellian, here's 100 Things About Me
1. I don't have a favourite possession. When asked the standard question "If your house was on fire, what would you grab on the way out?", I don't have an answer. Though I have many possessions I'm very fond of, I can't think of anything I'd be particularly distressed about if it went missing.
2. I am a member of CAMRA.
3. Some time ago I began a project to record interesting examples of graffiti in Oxford. I have quite a lot of photos, but not nearly as many as I'd like.
4. I enjoy mixing cocktails. Considerably more than I enjoy drinking them. Fortunately, this is not a problem, as I live with Frances.
5. My biggest regret about the house I live in is that it doesn't contain a piano. I passed Grade VIII while I was at school, but since I left university (where my college had a surprising number of grand pianos) I haven't been able to practise, and am probably now rubbish. I also play the oboe, have no such excuse for not practising that, and should really make more effort.
6. I own several items of clothing made from PVC. I don't regard this as a very interesting fact, but a number of people seem to be extremely surprised by it.
7. I can read OS maps very effectively when out walking, but have no natural sense of direction. When navigating in a car, I believe myself to be competent, but appear from empirical evidence to be rubbish.
8. I can skin a rabbit, and have done so on many occasions. I owe
elethiomel a rabbit pie.9. I belong to two rapper teams.
10. On the occasions someone I don't know has made an obvious chat-up attempt in a club/bar etc, their opening line has always been either to ask me what the E I wear round my neck stands for, or to tell me I have nice hair.
11. I have upside-down vertigo. I am scared of heights, but only from the bottom... Being at the top of a tall building looking down is fine, being on the ground looking up at it ranges from unpleasant to terrifying, depending on the building. Friends have advised me never to go to Manhattan :)
12. I wear glasses when driving, or watching a film. I wore glasses for a year or so when I was about 10, then stopped needing them until I got to university and discovered I couldn't read the board in lectures.
13. I can juggle a little, but have never learnt to do more than a couple of tricks.
14. When I was little, I used to enter clog dancing competitions.
15. There is a slim chance I may do so again as an adult :)
16. I like spiders. I seem, however, doomed to live with arachnophobes so spend much of my life throwing spiders out of other people's bedrooms. The spiders in my room get to stay there - consequently there are usually a few cobwebs on the ceiling. (I seem to have a spell checker which doesn't like "arachnophobes" and suggests I replace it with "archbishops".)
17. I am not embarrassed to walk into a sex shop. I am frequently embarrassed by the dreadful quality of the merchandise displayed therein.
18. I have had long hair as long as I can remember, and have never considered cutting it off. I used to have a fringe, but grew it out when I was about 16 (after a period of experimentation with a strange flicky half fringe, which my friends really ought to have prevented me from doing).
19. I have had no grandparents since I was six, and have very few close relatives. I adopted myself a set of grandparents (friends of my parents; the right age, and grandchildless), and borrowed extensively from friends' families.
20. I have a very fast heartbeat. Its resting rate is usually somewhere round 100.
21. I use far more dialect words than I realise. I had severe culture shock when I first came to university, and discovered that many of the words I use are not standard. Most recently, it seems that 'sneck' (meaning the latch of a door) is not generally known; I discovered this only a couple of days ago.
22. I can (and do) write with both hands. Most other things I can only do with one hand, but which hand it is varies. I can only brush my hair with my right, and brush my teeth with my left. I think on average I'm probably righthanded.
23. The idea of going blind doesn't worry me at all. I grew up round blind people, and regard it as a very little of a handicap. Going deaf, however, terrifies me.
24. Possibly as a result of spending a lot of time with blind people, I have a very poor visual memory, and no visual imagination. People have occasionally commented that I often describe places with relatively little reference to what they look like, but including unlikely details about the atmosphere, or what they sound like.
25. Only two of my milk teeth fell out naturally, the rest were extracted by the dentist for various reasons. I think gas anaesthetic still ranks as one of the most unpleasant experiences I've ever had.
26. Despite regularly falling off, over and into things, several trips to casualty with concussion, and once needing stitches, I have never yet broken a bone.
27. I have an A-level in German. Recent attempts to read "Das Kleine Gespenst" (probably aimed at around 7 year olds) suggest that I am very rusty. My vocabulary these days is very hit-and-miss, consisting of the stuff I remember from school, and the stuff picked up from Rammstein lyrics.
28. My feet are slightly deformed. Not, as people usually assume, because I've worn badly-fitting or silly-shaped shoes, but because I was born like that. I had (unsuccessful) corrective surgery to straighten the relevant toes when I was seven; after that the surgeon started talking about amputation, and my parents decided (correctly, in my opinion!) that that was a bit extreme for what was a pretty minor problem.
29. It is eleven years today (17/12/2002) since someone first asked me out. I said "yes", and now believe this to be one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made :) We were involved (on and off) until my second year at university, and I still hear from him occasionally.
30. I have only been on a plane 3 times in my life, and have never been out of Western Europe. I have plans to visit New Zealand in the new year, however, which would sort both of those out.
31. Repeated attempts have demonstrated that I am incapable of putting on false eyelashes. Anyone who can offer advice ?
32. I am a communicant member of the Church of England. It annoys me that the only Christians you ever see in the news are the mad kind; they get the rest of us a bad name. There are some tenets of C of E faith I don't agree with; some people argue this means I am not a member of the church.
33. My family has a history of second sight. I am deeply disappointed that I don't seem to have inherited it. More annoyingly, the family member closest to me who does have it hates it, and wishes it would go away.
34. I am never bored. I may get fed up, for example waiting for a train, but I am never genuinely bored.
35. I am a blood donor. I carry a card requesting that, in the event of my death, any functional parts of my body be used for transplants.
36. I get on extremely well with my parents. I actively enjoy their company, and look forward to going home to see them.
37. At work, I use emacs in preference to the many more shiny editors out there. This is largely because I learnt all the keyboard shortcuts when I was a student, and have no intention of learning another set. [Boring side issue: a common mistake I make when typing is to include an extra space at the beginning of the line. Ctrl-A delete sorts this out a treat in emacs. On most MS applications this is a Bad Thing to do.]
38. I think Fight Club was a fantastic film, despite my being reluctant for some time to watch it. I am not normally squeamish, but I find bareknuckle fighting, or sometimes boxing, practically unwatchable.
39. I find the idea of smoking horrific. I have no problem with other people doing it - I've repeatedly lived with smokers, I don't mind smoky pubs, and I'm anti the current trend to make everywhere no-smoking. I have never tried a cigarette.
40. I am an avid reader of fashion magazines. Although I am only ever fashionably dressed by accident, I find the catwalk trends fascinating to follow.
41. This year, I have bought more CDs as a direct result of listening to illegal mp3s than I have bought in total in the last three years.
42. I have roleplayed in 4 (I think) live action Vampire games, two separate Camarilla UK games, and a few tabletops. I have co-run a live action vampire game, and one tabletop. I still don't understand the White Wolf combat system. Or the Minds Eye Theatre one, come to that.
43. I am deliberately non-vegetarian, but sometimes order (or cook) vegetarian food out of preference.
44. I went to a private, all-girls secondary school.
45. I talk to strangers. On trains, on tubes, in bus queues. Sometimes they talk back, often they just look disturbed. I've got into some great conversations that way - I once met a girl who worked for Henson's (yes, the muppet people), was carrying a Plasticine camel in a shoebox, and was being pursued by a pyscho she'd accidentally agreed to marry a few weeks earlier.
46. I used to drink enormous amounts of strong coffee; it never stopped me from sleeping. For the last few years, though, drinking coffee has made me feel ill, so I have had more or less to stop doing it :(
47. I sunburn easily, I don't like being too warm, and I get hayfever. As a result, I don't like summer much. No, not even British summers - I managed to get sunstroke in Penrith a year and a half ago.
48. Since I acquired a car around six months ago, I've been learning about the insides of cars, and can now do a certain amount of maintenance (and diagnosis) myself. I am bizarrely proud of this.
49. I can wiggle my ears.
50. My favourite type of wine is White Zinfandel or Syrah Rosé. I don't like Chardonnay - it tastes of yellow.
51. I'm very prone to static electricity. I crackle a lot, and get shocks off metal things.
52. I have never understood why Only Fools and Horses is funny.
53. There are only two books in my life which I have begun reading, and deliberately decided not to finish (though there are others I haven't finished for external reasons). They are Wideacre by Philippa Gregory, and Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. I hated both of them.
54. According to X-rays done by my dentist, I have at least six, and possibly eight, wisdom teeth. Only four have come through so far.
55. I'm scared of oversized things. Pictures or statues of people rendered larger than life size, that sort of thing. I will probably never go to Mt Rushmore :)
56. My grandfather could never wear clockwork watches, they always stopped after he'd been wearing them a little while. When I was given my first watch, it repeatedly stopped when I was wearing it. I tried wearing it on my other wrist, and it was fine. I still wear my watch on my right hand, though haven't recently checked to see if a clockwork watch on my left would still stop.
57. I still call Marathon bars Marathons. Snickers is a silly name.
58. When FLRPing, I always preferred being a monster to being a PC.
59. Marsyas, currently on display in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern, is the first piece of abstract art which has ever really impressed me.
60. I have been a member of a Scout troop since 1983. I joined the cubs when I was 7, and still turn up to events (though only occasionally as they're in Darlington and I'm in Oxford).
61. When I was in the sixth form, I was ill and lost a lot of weight, dropping to just under six stone. Doctors never really worked out what was wrong with me, though I don't believe most of them tried as they assumed I was anorexic. Which was annoying.
62. According to the scales in Boots, I am now overweight. I do not give a stuff.
63. My main ambition, at present, is to have a book published.
64. Separately from that, I am attempting to write a Mills & Boon novel at the moment. (Actually, two, one by myself, and one jointly with Samantha). These do not count as books.
65. I can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Pepsi is the one that tastes foul.
66. Photos of me rarely look like me. Even according to other people. People have mistaken me for a bloke in photos. A picture of me was once mistaken for a picture of ChrisC - by his brother.
67. I am trying to learn to like olives. I've never liked them, but they hang about with many other things I do like (feta cheese, tomatoes...). And they look nice. I'm halfway there - I now get on OK with green olives, though black ones are still nasty.
68. I nearly failed my first year exams at Oxford, having spent far too much of my time playing an Oxford-based MUD called Island.
69. The day the twin towers were demolished, I had the worst bout of food poisoning I have ever had, and felt too ill to summon the spare energy to care what was happening in New York. Truly, "the troubles of the world are nothing to the man with toothache".
70. I can spell accommodation.
71. A year after Princess Diana was killed, a surveying person stopped me in the street to ask me if I could remember what I'd done the day she died. I answered honestly "invited lots of people round to my house for a party". I didn't feel it necessary to mention that this was because she died on my 21st.
72. I hate using blunt knives. When getting a knife out the kitchen drawer, I reflexively sharpen it before using it.
73. I've sung in assorted choirs at different times of my life. I'm an alto, but am not very good.
74. To the best of my knowledge, I have only ever heard the original version of Stairway to Heaven once.
75. I have made three floor-length velvet cloaks - one for me, one for Samantha, and one for
quisalan.76. I think my favourite book is Iain Pears' An Instance of the Fingerpost.
77. I am allergic to oranges, but not to other citrus fruits.
78. I can't bring myself to get into a unmade bed. I always make my bed, though usually immediately before I get into it.
79. I have read all the Discworld novels to date (with the possible exception that I believe there's a new one out at the moment). My favourites are The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. I've never yet found anyone who agrees with me on this...
80. Following on from #8 - I can gut fish, too. I discovered this this evening, shortly after discovering that the fish I bought today were still in possession of all their innards.
81. I have seen New Model Army live more times than I have seen any other band. I think, though I'm not sure, that the band I have travelled the furthest to see (Darlington -> Manchester) was The Mutton Birds.
82. I can, though rarely do, recite all of The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God. And numerous other poems.
83. I was born a Virgo, but having discovered that this is a really dull sign, I abdicated. In Chinese astrology I'm a Fire Dragon, which sounds much more interesting that a sign which one book described as "capable of performing simple tasks if given careful instructions".
84. My middle name is Cheryl. I was named after a friend of my mum's, who declined to be my godmother on the grounds that that was a religious duty, and she wasn't religious. It's pronounced with a 'Ch', not a 'Sh', because that's how she pronounces it.
85. I was named Elizabeth after the second Bennet sister in Pride and Prejudice. Apparently my parents also thought it was a good name because there were lots of different things I could shorten it to if I didn't like it. I do like it, and am called variously Elizabeth, Liz and Beth (and other less relevant/printable things) by different groups of people.
86. I was born a month premature, and spent a while in intensive care. Instead of being born in September, I was born on the last day in August, and was thus always the youngest person in my school year.
87. The last non-fiction book I read was Nancy Mitford's biography of Louis XIV. It's not very good, and I wouldn't recommend it.
88. As a general rule, I take less time in the shower than nearly anyone else I know.
89. I can sleep anywhere, and stay asleep through pretty much anything short of long-range nuclear testing. I don't remember the last time I had a nightmare.
90. When I was little, my favourite animal was the giant panda. Having not thought about this for years, I was recently reminded, on seeing Jez's photos from a Chinese zoo, that they are fantastically cool animals.
91. I'm very, very ticklish. I hate being tickled, and it is one of the few things I have absolutely no sense of humour about.
92. Following a challenge issued this summer, I discovered that it is possible (though in no way desirable) to spit roast an egg.
93. Having read their website a while ago, I discovered that - on paper, at least - I agree with the principles of the BNP. (Funnily enough, their manifesto doesn't include the bits about kicking the crap out of people who aren't white).
94. When I was living in a college room (three out of the four years I was an undergraduate student), I never locked my door when I went out. I regularly came home to find small parties going on in my room, but never had anything stolen.
95. When I took a job three years ago, I was the first female programmer the company had ever had. Strangely, the experience doesn't seem to have put them off, and they've hired another two since.
96. Following the Oxford roleplayers' tradition, the house I live in has a name. It's called the Little Shop of Horrors.
97. My favourite day of the year is Christmas Eve.
98. I am a Friend of the Pitt Rivers Museum. It is one of my favourite places in Oxford.
99. I do not own, and never have owned, a television.
100. I'm very bad at getting up in the morning. So, since it's nearly half two, I should go to bed...
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Date: 2002-12-17 11:02 pm (UTC)The rest of my repsponses...
I would have avoided it, based on the adverts, if a friend hadn't taken me along to see it with him - and now find it to be one of my favourite films.
I can't see how someone could willingly put smoke in their lungs, but I do have a problem with other people doing it (at least if they're around me) I've had too many asthma attacks where the only reaction of the smoker who caused it is to light another...
Caffeine only affects (in the keep-awake sense) one (or is it two) in three people. Though drinking large amounts of coffee does keep me awake, but only because I have to keep popping off to the toilet every half hour :)
Another reason not to go to Manhattan, methinks (the Statue of Liberty)
Good for you - and what did they rename Opal Fruits?
The thing that looks like a cross between a trombone horn and a tent?
I'd like to publish a book, though writing a book would be a good start...
I haven't read all of them (not quite), though my fave is still The Colour of Magic - it's just so much funnier than all the others (though the latter ones work on more different levels)
I have owned, but don't now.
I used to be very bad at getting up in the morning, though now I seem to wake up at about 04:00, which probably won't help me in the slightest when I am next in work...