It's all meme me !

The other week I was going on about memes. I won't bore you with what they are; if you don't know, read the initial blog or go see the great God, Google. Since I discovered memes, I see them everywhere, rather like when you buy a new car and, as you drive home proudly from the garage, you see 600 other identical models.

As I was perusing The Independent the other day, in between all the pages of why the planet is dying, what animals are in danger of extinction and how much methane is exuded from the mouths of newspaper editors expostulating about global warming and dangers to the environment, I came across another meme. It was one of these "soundbite" type of fill-in bits that you see in most papers and magazines these days where they just have a few answers from someone most people haven't heard of to questions nobody cares about anyway. This particular one caught my eye, as I liked the headings, so here goes..........

I drive/ride ... a Toyota Corolla, which is now 5 years old. I don't really care about cars as long as they work and get me from A to B in relative comfort (and have a CD player). I also have a Honda VFR750 motor bike which is a huge, black beastie. I don't ride it much these days and I should. Trouble is, I'm grtting older and losing my confidence; not with my riding but in the inability of other road users. We've had a lot of fatalities around here in the last few years and an awful lot aren't the fault of the rider.

If I have time to myself ... Bit irrelevant this one as I have oodles of time these days. I am a butterfly when it comes to doing things and get bored easily so time to flit from this to that is great. Having said that, I have always been quite good at finding time for myself by escaping into my head.

You may not know it, but I'm no good at ... most things. Like I've said before now, I have many interests but lack the application and drive to become an "expert". I'm the original Jack of all trades but get really frustrated (paradoxically, considering I get bored easily) as I want to excel at everything, otherwise I beat myself up for a perceived failure.

A book that changed me ... was The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupéry. I'm still not sure why, maybe the simplicity gave me the scope to think more deeply about simple things? There seems to have been a link to the Prince running through my life subsequently. On holiday once, I was drawn to visit a cemetery in Corsica as I drove past...no idea why but it just felt the thing to do. I came across the "grave" of St. Exupéry (he was actually lost at sea during a flight across the Mediterranean) and that was a decidedly spooky moment. France also issued a banknote with the Prince on it and I happened to sell one on eBay. A lady in America emailed me, as I had talked passionately about the Prince in the sales description, and told me she was writing a book on The Little Prince. We started a protracted email correspondence and she used my thoughts and experiences about the Corsica episode in her book.

Movie Heaven ... Leon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Life of Brian. I'm not a great movie buff although, when I do watch a movie, I think I really ought to watch more. I tend to go more for humour than great works of angst and culture.

Comfort eating ... Unhealthy comfort eating tends to be a thing of the past now as I am trying to lose weight (and succeeding!). I eat when I'm bored so now go for lots of fruit rather than the cakes, popcorn and Haribo of previous times. At 6' and, now, 13 stone 5, I can probably indulge a bit more so bring on the almond croissants!

When I was a child ... I was of the "children should be seen but not heard" school so I don't look back on it over-fondly. It's still something I struggle with but, outside of home, I was a pretty ordinary kid.

My biggest regret ... Ah, where do I start? Nothing physical - I am what I am, but there are numerous decisions which I look back on with sadness and regret. Having said that, those decisions led me to many other good things so I am fairly fatalistic. Life is like a game of cards; play the hand you're dealt as well as you can. If it fails, learn and move on.

It's not fashionable but I like ... taking risks. Too many people are governed by too many rules regarding safety, "correctness" and caution. To progress in civilisation or life, people need to take risks.

If I wasn't me, I'd like to be ... Stephen Fry, for reasons outlined in a previous blog.

The shop I can't walk past ... Either cook shops or charity shops. I love cooking and gadgets but also love to find the occasional treasure (usually books) in charity shops. Shopping is not a great love of mine - mooching is!

My favourite work of art ... is anything by Salvador Dali. If art is there to arouse emotion, then Dali does it for me everytime. A genius, an eccentric, a technician.

The soundtrack to my life ... is somewhere between Neil Young at his most introspective and Python at their most zany.

Well, that's it. Fancy a go? Why not leave yours as a comment after this blog - I'd be really interested.


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