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lprovenFacebook meme, repeated 'cos it's quite long and I think this is more public and more permanent. It's rather long, though, so you'll need to...
1. I was a virgin until the ripe old age of 26. I had 2 girlfriends (in the going-to-bed-with sense, but only to sleep) before this, but still never Did It. I am not quite sure how I managed this. Too fussy, probably.
2. When I was about 20, I discovered I was hypothyroid and was put on thyroxine supplements. As a result, I lost about one-quarter of my body weight and one-quarter of my circumference - taking one foot off my waist size. And I want to get back to those measurements again! It also eliminated what I was told was a *killer* bad temper.
3. Although I love foreign languages, I don't speak anything but English to fluency, which is a source of intense personal embarrassment. I want to very much. I also want to master a couple of non-Indo-European languages some day. And design my own. I already have it sketched out in my head.
4. My current dream job would be to be a travel writer. This has changed quite a few times before, though...
5. I have vertigo, which *really* doesn't help with my efforts to learn to snowboard - but the snowboarding is really helping with the vertigo.
6. I have worked hard to disguise several of my basic characteristics; I was very shy, silent teenager, with a distinct Northern accent, who had intense difficulty speaking to strangers and groups.
7. I am not, as many friends think, Manx. Actually, I'm a Scouser, though technically born Lancastrian.
8. I have lived in Liverpool, Nigeria, Southport, the Isle of Man and London, but I want to move again and go abroad for a while. The Far East especially appeals. Particularly with the current economic situation.
9. I've given up drinking twice now due to doing it rather too much. Once in my early twenties, when I got my first motorbike (my beloved Suzuki GSX250). It was more fun and more convenient to ride to the pub than to drink. Before, I used to drink spirits. Lots of them. Always mixed, but never the same thing twice in a night, given the choice. After a couple of years, I went back to it, in controlled amounts, but only ales that time. Second time, 2004, after an end-of-the-birthday-week night out landed me in hospital with concussion and 8 stitches in the back of my head. Now I mainly favour Belgian and Continental beers - I've almost lost my taste for the rich dark British ales I once loved.
10. I detest wine and never drink it. I spent my second year at Uni trying to develop a taste for it, but it still tastes like rotten grape juice to me. There are some I hate less than others, but none I like, and I have tried almost all forms, styles, and vintages. Secretly (but not very secretly), I enjoy the small element of different-ness I feel this lends me. (Which is a bit sad.)
11. I also used to prize not having a car driver's licence and not driving, but I caved and got one in 2005. Having it landed me at least one job since then.
12. Despite being surely in the running for the world's wussiest and least roughty-toughty biker, I have long self-identified as one. My tastes have ranged from customs and chops to vintage bikes to Japanese pocket-rockets. I have a custom trike and a sidecar outfit, but currently, I'm thinking of selling the trike, which is gorgeous and Fast As F*** but utterly impractical, and spending the money on upgrading the outfit with a big Jap factory custom. I've always fancied one - or a Harley, which I can't afford - but the only way they make any kind of sense is as a sidecar-pull.
13. I also have an almost irrational love of bicycles, especially recumbents. Currently I have a (borrowed) M5 Liegfits 531 CroMoly Shockproof. Utterly barking ride but great fun. I also have a cherished Riese und Müller Birdy Blue and a lovely handbuilt Claude Butler Classic tourer which I got, almost unbelievably, for nothing off Freecycle.
14. I've worked in computers all my life. My only other job was tending a bouncy castle on Douglas Beach for a summer, which between the southern sun and prevailing winds left me looking like a Harlequin with one-sided sunburn. If I ever write a book, the pulverbatch (back-flap bio) will be terribly dull from a professional POV.
15. I'm not really much of a Goth. I like the music, the people, the clothes - on others, by which mainly I mean on pretty girls - but all the makeup and so on is far too much like hard work. I also have a fairly serious problem of insufficient gauntness. I also love heavy rock, but for the most part, find the people of that scene kinda dull... With a few notable exceptions. But hey, wear black all the time, and you get labelled. I started wearing black 20 years ago, in mourning for my father, but when I realised that for the first time I didn't look like I'd got mugged by a passing charity shop, I've stuck with it.
16. I'm slowly losing my hair as I move into my 40s, but I don't really care. However, some of the other signs of aging - failing eyes, ears, and sundry other body parts - are very distressing.
17. I have quite good self-control when it comes to giving up things. Quitting smoking & caffeine were no problem at all. Stopping alcohol for a year or two (with very occasional exceptions) also a doddle. But when it comes to moderation, I'm awful at it. I have struggled lifelong to control both my eating and sleeping habits.
18. I suspect I have DSPS: Delayed Sleep-Phase Syndrome. Basically, for me, 24 hour days are too short: I'd rather they were 30-36 hours or so long. I struggle to wake every morning and can't go to sleep until the wee small hours, and willpower is no help. Stopping caffeine did, though, and I wish I'd tried it before my mid-30s.
19. Despite being an early adopter of the Internet and email - my main email address has been the same since 1991 and it was my second; I got my first in 1985, and used it - I completely failed to spot any element of the whole WorldWideWeb thing coming. Tried it in the early 1990s, dismissed it as a gimmick. I curse this failure now.
20. I find myself torn between two callings - as an SF geek, I feel that humanity's role is to spread Gaia to other worlds; as a biology geek, I think the world would be much better off without humans at all. With either hat on, though, I think the world is in a desperately bad way, far far worse than generally appreciated, and I'm starting to think that I may live to see the fall of our technological civilisation. Things are very very bad and almost nobody's noticing. Bugger the economy, we stand on the brink of gigadeaths. The mid-21st century is going to be *spectacularly* messy.
21. I vaguely admire friendly/cuddly atheists of the Stephen Fry ilk, because I can't do it myself. I hold religious faith in contempt and regard organized religion with loathing. I'd like to see the world completely rid of it.
22. I also admire the open-minded but determinedly-rational mode of skepticism, which always seeks to admire. Another failing of mine is that I err towards the debunk-it-all mindset.
23. Possibly in some kind of connection with the fact that I've been writing for a living for about 13 years now, I have never had any aspiration to write fiction. Never tried, don't really want to. This is in stark contrast to many of my friends. Do plan to write several books one of these days, though.
24. Another of my growing dreams is to bicycle around the world. I've been researching the idea for a year or so and it's really growing on me.
25. Despite never feeling that I was a natural "people person", I have a lot of friends and am intensely sociable. I go quietly spare after just a day or two of enforced solitude. On the other hand, there are very few people I really dislike.
1. I was a virgin until the ripe old age of 26. I had 2 girlfriends (in the going-to-bed-with sense, but only to sleep) before this, but still never Did It. I am not quite sure how I managed this. Too fussy, probably.
2. When I was about 20, I discovered I was hypothyroid and was put on thyroxine supplements. As a result, I lost about one-quarter of my body weight and one-quarter of my circumference - taking one foot off my waist size. And I want to get back to those measurements again! It also eliminated what I was told was a *killer* bad temper.
3. Although I love foreign languages, I don't speak anything but English to fluency, which is a source of intense personal embarrassment. I want to very much. I also want to master a couple of non-Indo-European languages some day. And design my own. I already have it sketched out in my head.
4. My current dream job would be to be a travel writer. This has changed quite a few times before, though...
5. I have vertigo, which *really* doesn't help with my efforts to learn to snowboard - but the snowboarding is really helping with the vertigo.
6. I have worked hard to disguise several of my basic characteristics; I was very shy, silent teenager, with a distinct Northern accent, who had intense difficulty speaking to strangers and groups.
7. I am not, as many friends think, Manx. Actually, I'm a Scouser, though technically born Lancastrian.
8. I have lived in Liverpool, Nigeria, Southport, the Isle of Man and London, but I want to move again and go abroad for a while. The Far East especially appeals. Particularly with the current economic situation.
9. I've given up drinking twice now due to doing it rather too much. Once in my early twenties, when I got my first motorbike (my beloved Suzuki GSX250). It was more fun and more convenient to ride to the pub than to drink. Before, I used to drink spirits. Lots of them. Always mixed, but never the same thing twice in a night, given the choice. After a couple of years, I went back to it, in controlled amounts, but only ales that time. Second time, 2004, after an end-of-the-birthday-week night out landed me in hospital with concussion and 8 stitches in the back of my head. Now I mainly favour Belgian and Continental beers - I've almost lost my taste for the rich dark British ales I once loved.
10. I detest wine and never drink it. I spent my second year at Uni trying to develop a taste for it, but it still tastes like rotten grape juice to me. There are some I hate less than others, but none I like, and I have tried almost all forms, styles, and vintages. Secretly (but not very secretly), I enjoy the small element of different-ness I feel this lends me. (Which is a bit sad.)
11. I also used to prize not having a car driver's licence and not driving, but I caved and got one in 2005. Having it landed me at least one job since then.
12. Despite being surely in the running for the world's wussiest and least roughty-toughty biker, I have long self-identified as one. My tastes have ranged from customs and chops to vintage bikes to Japanese pocket-rockets. I have a custom trike and a sidecar outfit, but currently, I'm thinking of selling the trike, which is gorgeous and Fast As F*** but utterly impractical, and spending the money on upgrading the outfit with a big Jap factory custom. I've always fancied one - or a Harley, which I can't afford - but the only way they make any kind of sense is as a sidecar-pull.
13. I also have an almost irrational love of bicycles, especially recumbents. Currently I have a (borrowed) M5 Liegfits 531 CroMoly Shockproof. Utterly barking ride but great fun. I also have a cherished Riese und Müller Birdy Blue and a lovely handbuilt Claude Butler Classic tourer which I got, almost unbelievably, for nothing off Freecycle.
14. I've worked in computers all my life. My only other job was tending a bouncy castle on Douglas Beach for a summer, which between the southern sun and prevailing winds left me looking like a Harlequin with one-sided sunburn. If I ever write a book, the pulverbatch (back-flap bio) will be terribly dull from a professional POV.
15. I'm not really much of a Goth. I like the music, the people, the clothes - on others, by which mainly I mean on pretty girls - but all the makeup and so on is far too much like hard work. I also have a fairly serious problem of insufficient gauntness. I also love heavy rock, but for the most part, find the people of that scene kinda dull... With a few notable exceptions. But hey, wear black all the time, and you get labelled. I started wearing black 20 years ago, in mourning for my father, but when I realised that for the first time I didn't look like I'd got mugged by a passing charity shop, I've stuck with it.
16. I'm slowly losing my hair as I move into my 40s, but I don't really care. However, some of the other signs of aging - failing eyes, ears, and sundry other body parts - are very distressing.
17. I have quite good self-control when it comes to giving up things. Quitting smoking & caffeine were no problem at all. Stopping alcohol for a year or two (with very occasional exceptions) also a doddle. But when it comes to moderation, I'm awful at it. I have struggled lifelong to control both my eating and sleeping habits.
18. I suspect I have DSPS: Delayed Sleep-Phase Syndrome. Basically, for me, 24 hour days are too short: I'd rather they were 30-36 hours or so long. I struggle to wake every morning and can't go to sleep until the wee small hours, and willpower is no help. Stopping caffeine did, though, and I wish I'd tried it before my mid-30s.
19. Despite being an early adopter of the Internet and email - my main email address has been the same since 1991 and it was my second; I got my first in 1985, and used it - I completely failed to spot any element of the whole WorldWideWeb thing coming. Tried it in the early 1990s, dismissed it as a gimmick. I curse this failure now.
20. I find myself torn between two callings - as an SF geek, I feel that humanity's role is to spread Gaia to other worlds; as a biology geek, I think the world would be much better off without humans at all. With either hat on, though, I think the world is in a desperately bad way, far far worse than generally appreciated, and I'm starting to think that I may live to see the fall of our technological civilisation. Things are very very bad and almost nobody's noticing. Bugger the economy, we stand on the brink of gigadeaths. The mid-21st century is going to be *spectacularly* messy.
21. I vaguely admire friendly/cuddly atheists of the Stephen Fry ilk, because I can't do it myself. I hold religious faith in contempt and regard organized religion with loathing. I'd like to see the world completely rid of it.
22. I also admire the open-minded but determinedly-rational mode of skepticism, which always seeks to admire. Another failing of mine is that I err towards the debunk-it-all mindset.
23. Possibly in some kind of connection with the fact that I've been writing for a living for about 13 years now, I have never had any aspiration to write fiction. Never tried, don't really want to. This is in stark contrast to many of my friends. Do plan to write several books one of these days, though.
24. Another of my growing dreams is to bicycle around the world. I've been researching the idea for a year or so and it's really growing on me.
25. Despite never feeling that I was a natural "people person", I have a lot of friends and am intensely sociable. I go quietly spare after just a day or two of enforced solitude. On the other hand, there are very few people I really dislike.
