steepholm

I owe the eager world a post about the IRSCL Congress, but I got up at 5.30am today and am now too tired to do anything but answer cmcmck's Britmeme:


1. Marmite- love or hate?
Love. So much love. On toast, as soldiers with a runny egg, or just added as a little something extra to vivify a sandwich made with some bland cheese such as brie.

2. Marmalade- thick cut or thin cut?
Not a fan - though I'd like to be. I imagine I'd prefer it thick cut, on the principle that I prefer crunchy peanut butter to smooth, and orange juice with bits (that being the scientific name for pulp).

3. Porridge- made with milk or water?
For feeding to horses, as per Dr Johnson.

4. Do you like salt, sugar or honey on your porridge?
I don't own a horse.

5. Loose tea or teabags?
I recently bought one of these, which is great for hot days. I often make myself powdered macha (I have a whisk and everything), but otherwise I sometimes use green tea bags. Oh, did I mention? I only like green tea. And white, quite. Black, not so much - though I'll drink it if there's no other hot drink available around 4pm.

6. Where on your door is your letterbox?
Horizontal - centre.

7. What's your favourite curry?
I'm fond of a lamb rogan josh.

8. What age is the place where you live?
9. I bought it new.

9. Where do the folks running your local corner shop come from?
Somewhere on the subcontinent, but I'm not sure exactly.

10. Instant or fresh coffee?
Fresh.

11. How far are you from the sea?
If the Bristol Channel counts, about 8 miles..

12. Have you travelled via Eurostar?
Once - to Brussels, en route to Luxembourg.

13. If you were going to travel abroad, where's the nearest country to you?
Ireland - though my first instinct was to say Wales, which I can reach by car in 20 minutes.

14. If you're female (or possible even some males) do you carry a handbag?
Yes - a capacious one.

15. Do you have a garden? What do you like growing?
A small one. I have an apple tree, a gooseberry bush, honeysuckle and a mock orange. I think those are the only things I've planted, other than dead pets.

16. Full cream, semi skimmed or skimmed?
I don't buy cream much. Most often it's sour, to go with nachos. I might occasionally buy a small pot of single for strawberries, or something like that.

17. Which London terminal would you travel into if going to the capital?
Paddington.

18. Is there a local greasy spoon where you live?
It's a major port and student city - what do you think?

19. Do you keep Euros in the house?
Only the sad remnants I didn't manage to spend at the airport. I probably have less than 10.

20. Does your home town have a Latin, Gaelic or Welsh alternative name?
Bristol was an English invention, as was my home town of Romsey - so, no. The alternative name is Brizzle.

21. Do you have a well known local artist or author?
Quite a few: shall we pick Chatterton at a venture? And, as reported recently in this journal, it turns out that Richard Long is a Bristol boy.

22. Do you have a favourite Corrie character?
I'm fond of the capital "C".

23. Are your kitchen sink taps separate or a mixer?
Mixer - thank God.

24. Do you have a favourite brand of blended tea?
Pukka do a nice blend of macha, sencha and something else that escapes me.

25. What's in your attic if you have one?
Lots of insulation.

26. If you go out for a cream tea, what jam do you like on your scone?
Strawberry.

27. Talking of scones- scon or scown? Jam or cream first?
Not being from the peninsula I'll let the Cornish and Devonians fight about it. By the time they've finished, I'll have scoffed the lot.

28. Barth or bath?
Long a.

29. Carstle or castle?
Long a.

30. What flavour of crisps do you favour?
Marmite's hard to beat. Mexican chilli (McCoys) or beef are also good.

31. If you go to the chippie, what do you like with your chips?
Cod or haddock. Salt and plenty of vinegar. Also, "bits".

32. Take away, take out or carry out?
Takeaway

33. If you have one, what colour is your wheelie bin?
Black (glass, metal and paper), green (carboard and plastic) and brown (food).

34. What colour skips does your local skip hire use?
Mostly yellow.

35. Do you celebrate Guy Fawkes?
Not so much now the children are grown but only because they've robbed me of the excuse.

36. Dettol or TCP?
Either.
.
37. Do you have a bidet in the bathroom?
No.

38. Do you prefer courgettes or aubergines?
Aubergines by a country mile. Courgettes are okay, but aubergines are the shit.

39. In the 'real world' Do you have friends of other nationalities? Which nationalities?
Iranian, Burmese, Japanese, American, Canadian, Australian, Spanish, French, Russian, Icelandic, Luxembourgish, German, Irish, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Israeli, Polish - and quite a lot more, depending on the degree of intimacy you imply by 'friend'.

40. Do you have a holy book of any sort in the house?
None that I think of in those terms. I have plenty of religious ones.

41. Do you prefer a hankie or tissues?
Tissues.

42. Are you a fan of crumpets? What do you like on them?
In theory, but I very seldom buy them. Honey is good.

43. Doorbell, knocker or both?
Bell.
.
44. Do you own a car? What sort?
Renault.

45. What sort of pants do you guys prefer? Y fronts or boxers?

46. Anyone still a fan of suspenders?
Not really.

47. Do you have a favourite quote from the bard?
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. [This is one for consonantia's Chiasmus Watch!]

48. Do you like toasted muffins?
See crumpets.

49. Do you think a traditional trifle should contain jelly?
In moderation.

50. Do you attend regular religious worship? Of what kind?
In theory I occasionally go to a Quaker meeting but I actually do it about as often as I buy crumpets.

From around LJ:

1. Libraries or Bookshops.
My work necessitates a good many libraries, but in leisure hours I don't go to either as often as I should. (Having said that, I'm about to go to the library right now for an children's lit event.)

2. Pens or Pencils.
Cheap biros, for the five minutes until I lose them.

3. Handwritten or Typed.
Handwritten first draft, if we're talking fiction/poetry, followed by on-screen revision.

4. Thesaurus or Dictionary.
The online OED, usually. I don't have much recourse to the thesaurus, but sometimes get Word to brainstorm me some synonyms.

5. Kindle et al or Print Book.
I don't own a Kindle. I keep thinking it would be nice to have one for travelling, but it's not been a priority.

6. Wikipedia or Encyclopaedia.
I seldom if ever consult a general printed encyclopaedia (more specialized ones, yes). Wiki, as I tell my students, is a great place to start one's research, but a bad place to finish it: all the same, it's become invaluable.

7. Radio Play or Television Drama.
I love everything about Radio 4 except the plays (and Thought for the Day, of course, the only virtue of which is it makes me get out of bed and run retching for the bathroom). Occasionally I hear a very good one, but only about one in twenty. Having said that, I barely watch television drama. The last one I saw was an episode of Borgen, which I thought predictable and dull.

8. Poetry or Prose.
I can't conceive of this as a choice.

9. Fiction or Non-Fiction.
Or this.

10. Novels or Short stories.
I prefer novels, generally - but not very long ones (on account of being a slow reader).

11. Fantasy or Commercial/Literary Fiction.
I've never been sure what literary fiction is, so can't really answer as to that. Isn't all published fiction literary and commercial, in fact? But I enjoy fantasy more than the kind of thing I see advertised on posters in railway stations.

12. The Grapes of Wrath or Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.
I read GoW when young (along with a lot of Steinbeck), and found it good, if depressing. The Winterson I've not read. I suspect I'd like it, and would rather not discover otherwise.

13. The Odyssey or The Road.
I've not read The Road, but I think it's a bit hard on anyone to be put up against The Odyssey!

14. Tipping the Velvet or The Well of Loneliness.
Not read either - but I'm slightly more tempted by Tipping the Velvet.

15. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Winnie-the-Pooh.
For a re-read? Pooh every time. Both however are in my literary DNA.

16. Frankenstein or Dracula.
Not read either, but far more tempted by Dracula.

17. Charles Perrault or The Brothers Grimm.
Of the two, Grimm.

18. William Shakespeare or William Blake.
Shakespeare has to win this one (sorry, Blake).

19. Virginia Woolf or Katherine Mansfield.
A hard one. I like Mansfield a lot - and find some Woolf impossible to finish - but that style of hers can be mesmerizing, so she wins by a hair.

20. Philip Pullman or JK Rowling.
To read, Pullman; to meet, Rowling.

21. Emily Dickinson or Sylvia Plath.
I like both, but would find it hard to choose. I see that someone else went for Stevie Smith - I'd second that.

ETA: Via lady_schrapnell and ladyofastolat...

It occurs to me that I'd have a much higher score if I were counting television and radio adaptations rather than bona fide reads:

 

I was tagged for this by altariel:

Rules: Each player of this game starts off with 10 weird things/habits/little known facts about yourself. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 10 weird habits/things/little known facts as well as state this rule clearly. At the end you need to choose 10 people to be tagged and list their names.

Somehow I haven't the heart to tag anyone else, but do join in if you'd care to!

( More below the cut: )

The Greek Mythology Personality Test.

Close enough to be intriguing (the first sentence of the second paragraph sounds horribly plausible), but - I don't know, somehow it's not quite me. It's good to read that famous people like me, though!

33% Extroversion, 100% Intuition, 16% Emotiveness, 66% Perceptiveness

Heuristic, detached, and analytical to a fault, you are most like The Oracle. You are able to tackle any subject with a fine toothed comb, and you possess an ability to pinpoint nuances and shades of meaning that other people do not have and cannot understand. Accomplishment and realization of ideas are, for you, secondary to the rigorous exploration of ideas and questions -- you are, first and foremost, a theorist. You hate authority, convention, tradition, and under no circumstances do you accept a leadership role (although, you will gladly advise leadership when they're going astray, whether they want you to or not). Abstraction and generalities are your interests, details and particulars are usually inconsequential and uninteresting. You excel at language, mathematics and philosophy.

You are typically easy-going and non-confrontational until someone violates one of the very few principles that you deem sacred, at which point you can fly into a rage. Although you possess a much greater understanding of process and systems than the people around you, you are always conscious of the possibility that you've missed something or made a mistake. You don't tend to become attached to particular theories, and will immediately discard mistaken notions once they're revealed to be incorrect (but you don't tolerate iconoclasts who try to discredit validated theories through the use of fallacies and bad data). Despite being outwardly humble, you probably think of yourself as being smarter than most other people. That's because you are. In fact, in your dealings with people your understanding of their motives is so expansive that you know what they're going to say before they say it, and in world affairs, you usually know what is going to take place before it actually does. This ability would make you unbeatable in debates if only you were a little less pensive about your own conclusions, and a little more outgoing.

Famous people like you: Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, John McWhorter, Ramanujan, Marie Curie, Kurt Godel
Stay clear of: Apollo, Icarus, Hermes, Aphrodite
Seek out: Atlas, Prometheus, Daedalus
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:


You scored higher than 17% on Extroversion


You scored higher than 86% on Intuition


You scored higher than 6% on Emotiveness


You scored higher than 51% on Perceptiveness