The questionnaire - last lines.

OK, I'm beginning to feel guilty that I've been using your answers instead of writing blogs myself, so this will be the last one. They're nicely contrasting answers from Sara Bain and Linda Faulkner, with just one for question 10 from Melissa Conway. Thanks to everyone who got involved - you gave me lots of laughs but also some food for thought.

1.       If such a choice were possible and meaningful, would you prefer to live in a real or a virtual world? Why?
Sara : Since reality is a philosophical concept of physical being and virtuality a potential form of existence, I would choose to live in a real virtuality: where life can be exactly what I make it. Just imagine a life with no violent criminals; no corrupt politicians; no starvation; no traffic wardens; no petty next door neighbours; no midges; and no onions. My fantasy would be an international best seller and the movie moguls would be slapping each other over the film rights.
Linda: Real. I can always make a virtual one if I want to.

2.       You have permission to paint a celebrity in a colour of your choosing. That doesn’t mean you make a portrait, you actually get to cover them in paint. Tell us which celebrity, what colour, and why?
Sara: I would paint Paris Hilton pink and camouflage her existence from both the real and virtual worlds.
Linda: I have more important things to do.

3.       What do you think of the word ‘nice’? In what contexts would you use it?
Sara: Nice is one of those useful words that can conceal a multitude of clandestine thoughts. I would use it as an acronym for the National Institute of Clinical Excellence.
Linda: When applied to me, it’s boring. When applied to other people, it’s … nice. In a good way.

4.       You have the chance to spend an evening with a film star of your choice. Whom would you choose and what do you hope the evening would bring? (Be honest.)
Sara: Buddy the Elf: we could talk about Santa over a bowl of spaghetti and maple syrup. He could show me how to make toys and snow balls and we would sing a Christmas duet. If Buddy couldn’t make it that evening then I’d have to settle for Hitman.
Linda: I seldom watch TV or movies, so I can’t think of any film stars I’d want to spend time with.

5.       Complete the following sentence – ‘If I won the lottery and discovered that the prize had to be shared with 3 million other winners, I would …’
Sara: Slip into Real Virtuality and burn 3 million tickets.
Linda: Share with 3 million other winners. I don’t mind sharing. In fact, sometimes it’s downright … nice.

6.       If you had to change nationality, which would you choose and why?
Sara: I would become Fijian for the sun, sea, sand and surnames.  I could be lying on a beach with a coconut in one hand and a machete in the other. I would be called Sara Yalayalatabua and live on a diet of fish (and coconuts).
Linda: Something about Celts calls to me. Perhaps because some of my ancestors came from Ireland. So, I’d have to say Irish. Maybe Scottish or Welsh.

7.       Nominate 3 types of people for a long custodial sentence in a prison that uses painful experimental therapies to ‘cure’ its inmates. (NOTE. Obvious categories, such as bigots, tyrants, traffic wardens, estate agents, bankers, politicians and family and friends of Rupert Murdoch do not count.)
Sara: The managing director of Trinity Mirror (just refusing her a monthly session of botox and breaking her nails would be sufficient to make her scream in agony) ... wait a minute, you said “types” of people: sorry, the managing directors of Trinity Mirror (see supra); my next door neighbour; scammers (including scam callers, hackers, phishers,  virus programmers and TalkTalk sales people).
Linda: I don’t think causing pain is the way to cure anyone or anything.

8.       Your fairy godmother grants you a wish. You can curl up in front of the fire with your favourite object. What is it? (NOTE. You can define ‘object’ in any way you like.)
Sara: Her magic wand complete with its full English manual.
Linda: A book, of course. Or paper and pen—which is two objects, but they really belong to each other and form one unit.

9.       A beggar sitting on a blanket on the pavement (OK, sidewalk, if you insist), says as you pass, ‘Fortune has favoured you but looks less kindly on deprived and desperate beings such as myself. It would be a kindness if you were to redistribute some of your wealth to redress the balance between you and I’. What do you reply?
Sara: Nice.
Linda: Nothing. I was born in New York City and was trained to ignore people sitting on the pavement looking for a handout.

10.   Would you like to be immortal? Why or why not?
Sara: There can only be one and that’s Connor McLeod of the Clan McLeod: I’m afraid that I’m a Macdonald and I haven’t sharpened my sword in nigh on three thousand years.
Linda: It depends upon what goes along with it. Right now, I say no. On my deathbed, I’ll probably say yes.
Melissa: No.  I was confronted with that question when I wrote The Gossamer Sphere.  My character Caitlin is immortal (as long as she doesn’t suffer a violent death) and has lived for over a thousand years. She’s had to watch those she’s loved grow old and die and it’s hardened her heart.  It’s unnatural for a person to outlive their children, and I can’t imagine myself living without mine…so no, I’d rather die as we were meant to, in our own time.  Unless, of course, I could stay young and beautiful and keep all my loved ones with me.  In that case, bring on the immortality!

11.   What music would you play through loudspeakers at night outside the house of someone you disliked intensely?
Sara: I’ve Got a Brand New Combine Harvester by the Worzels – on a loop.
Linda: See my answer to question #7.

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The questionnaire - more of your answers

More responses to the questionnaire, more revelations from your deep, dark psyches. This time, the contributors are Donnie Ross, Melanie Robertson-King, and Fiona Glass. Once again, comment from me is superfluous.

1. If such a choice were possible and meaningful, would you prefer to live in a real or a virtual world? Why?
Donnie: I already live in a world which is simultaneously both real and virtual.  So do you.  Stop kidding yourself.  Why?  There’s no choice, other than to become aware of the real situation.  And the virtual one.

Melanie: Real. Yeah, it stinks at times but the virtual world is a place to escape to when real life gets too tough by picking up a book and reading or putting "pen to paper" and writing.

Fiona: The real world seems pretty good to me. I’ve always wanted to be a writer... and I’m a writer. I’ve always wanted to live in the English Lake District... and we’re hoping to move there later this year. I’m not sure I’d find anything better than that, no matter how good the virtual world. (Sorry if I sound smug, by the way. It’s taken me a long time to get to this stage, if that’s any consolation.)

 

2. You have permission to paint a celebrity in a colour of your choosing. That doesn’t mean you make a portrait, you actually get to cover them in paint. Tell us which celebrity, what colour, and why?
Donnie: Donald Trump, Cremnitz White.  Why do you think?  Lead Carbonate??

Melanie: Finger paint? Brush? Or just pour the bucket over his/her head? All could be fun. The colour and the person... hmm... will think about this one and come back to it...
Mel Gibson and it would be black... he's turned into such an ass (hope I can say that without getting sued). And I would pour the bucket over his head.

Fiona: Mel Gibson, bright blue. He deserves it for the historical drivel in Braveheart.

3. What do you think of the word ‘nice’? In what contexts would you use it?
Donnie: Curate’s egg of a word.  Good parts: I use it in the sense of accurate or condign.  Sometimes of people, maybe with a tinge of irony, but a nice one.

Melanie: It's lame and overused. I'd only use it when the thesaurus lurking in my brain couldn't come up with a word/phrase to replace it.

Fiona: Perfectly decent word if you ask me, but like so many cliches it’s been over-used to heck and back. Nowadays I would only use it in deep third person point of view if the character I was writing about was likely to use it themselves.

4. You have the chance to spend an evening with a film star of your choice. Whom would you choose and what do you hope the evening would bring? (Be honest.)
Donnie: Tom what’s his name, he’s nice.  No, not Cruz.  No, wait, that bloke from Indiana Jones, he might like my book, !Leonardo Mind for Modern Times (in Swahili).  Nah,  Margherita Buys.  She’s Italian, and the link with Donatello is irresistible too.  Besides, she doesn’t know me from Google.

Melanie: It would have to be either Judy Dench or Helen Mirren. I love their films and would like to just sit down over a cuppa or something and have a good natter.

Fiona: Preferably someone who didn’t look like a Greek god. I’m way too shy to talk to anyone as perfect as that and besides, in my experience the more handsome a man is, the more likely he is to talk about himself for hours. Give me someone who looks like the back end of a bus but is witty, charming and intelligent. 

5. Complete the following sentence – ‘If I won the lottery and discovered that the prize had to be shared with 3 million other winners, I would …’
Donnie: … make a decision based on a strategic analysis backed up by advice from Health & Safety.

Melanie: I guess a lot would depend on the size of the jackpot but I'd likely have the entire prize spent in my mind first, then take out a calculator and figure out what my share of the loot would be.

Fiona: Shrug. It’s just my luck to win the lottery and end up with sixpence. Having said that, vast sums of money don’t interest me - they bring responsibility and even unhappiness of their own.

6. If you had to change nationality, which would you choose and why?
Donnie: Italian.  Per che non?

Melanie: That's a no-brainer for me. Scottish. My dad was born in Aberdeenshire and came to Canada as a Home Child in 1930. Not to mention, I love the accent and the look of a man in a kilt.

Fiona: Irish. They speak the same language, the country is beautiful and they have a wonderful and inspiring heritage of culture, music and literature.

7. Nominate 3 types of people for a long custodial sentence in a prison that uses painful experimental therapies to ‘cure’ its inmates. (NOTE. Obvious categories, such as bigots, tyrants, traffic wardens, estate agents, bankers, politicians and family and friends of Rupert Murdoch do not count.)
Donnie: 1) People who’ve recently died. 2) People who’ve been dead for a while. 3) People who’ve been dead a long time.  This will teach those who run prisons not to waste their time with painful therapies, when they should be implanting electrodes into the relevant brain areas.

Melanie: Paedophiles, drug dealers and rapists. And with the former and the latter, put them in general population and let the other inmates have their way with them. They wouldn't last long.

Fiona: People who get paid to do a job but refuse to do it properly. People who are rude for no good reason. People who shout at children in public. (There’s plenty of others I’d like to nominate, but that’ll do for now...)

8. Your fairy godmother grants you a wish. You can curl up in front of the fire with your favourite object. What is it? (NOTE. You can define ‘object’ in any way you like.)
Donnie: Liddell & Scott’s Greek Lexicon.  It’s exactly the right thickness for a pillow.

Melanie: I'd curl up with my husband. Could we have a bear-skin rug and perhaps a bottle of chilled champagne?

Fiona: My fairy godmother??? You mean I have a fairy godmother? Good grief, where’s she been hiding all these years? As to the question, I’m going to cheat. A good book and a cup of tea. I know, that’s two objects. So sue me.

9. A beggar sitting on a blanket on the pavement (OK, sidewalk, if you insist), says as you pass, ‘Fortune has favoured you but looks less kindly on deprived and desperate beings such as myself. It would be a kindness if you were to redistribute some of your wealth to redress the balance between you and I’. What do you reply?
Donnie: Nae ti me!

Melanie: Sod off? I try not to make eye contact in these situations. In the end it likely wouldn't be quite so abrupt. I'd fall back on the 'sorry don't have any cash' excuse. And it's not really an excuse because with debit and credit cards, who carries cash anymore?

Fiona: I don’t think I would reply, I’d be too busy running away! (Has anyone seen Jasper Carrot’s marvellous ‘Nutter on the bus’ sketch? That’s me, right there, next to the nutter...)




10. Would you like to be immortal? Why or why not?
Donnie: Up to a point.  There would be enough time to get serious about learning to play the piano (500 years), paint (250 years oils, 400 years watercolour), write (1000 years).  Spending 5000 years without thinking a single thought about football would be a blow for freedom.  After all that I would go down the pub and then go clubbing.  One has to get out a bit sometime.

Melanie: I think I'd get bored living that long. And I'd want to have my health, otherwise, I'll stick with the lot I've been given and punch my ticket when the time comes... and I don't plan on it being any time soon. Could I come back and visit? By then my 'real' world would be unknown so my return would be my virtual world from question 1.

Fiona: No. Imagine having to watch everyone you ever knew or loved die, including your own children and grandchildren. It would be heartbreaking, and very, very lonely.

11. What music would you play through loudspeakers at night outside the house of someone you disliked intensely?
Donnie: Schubert’s String Quintet.  If they hated it that would show I was right about them.  If they loved it I would change my opinion of them.

Melanie: It would have to be Jeff Wayne's musical version of War of the Worlds. Cranked up good and loud! Bought the 2 CD set on my last trip to the UK after listening to snippets while we were driving... 

Fiona: Black Lace’s ‘Agadoo’. Possibly the most irritating song ever, and catchy enough to stick in your brain so they’d be humming it for days, thus doubling the torture. (Tiptoes away to dig out the hi-fi...)

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Impressions

Strange stuff, this blogging. Only four responses to the questionnaire and yet lots more visitors than the average when I posted them. I was hoping for more because the ones I got were so good, not only in themselves but when you put them beside one another and saw the variations. It was a great show of creativity as fun and I’ll probably try another one at some point. For those of you who didn’t respond, though, the questions are still there and new contributions are welcome.

Anyway, this week time presses so I’m doing another cop-out blog. It’s a corny old sketch I wrote when my wife and I used to do a revue at the Edinburgh Festival. She’d deliver this monologue in a cockney accent:

Funny ’ow ’istory never gets its facts right, innit? Take the Impressionists. They was s’posed to be ‘a generation whose fragmentation of the visual elements of experience dispensed with the erroneously deduced borders between reality and art’. Bloody rubbish. I ought to know, I used to make the tea for ’em.

I’d go into the studio – naked, of course – well, that was one of the rules, you see; gents wore clothes, ladies didn’t. Mr Manet thought of that one. He was a little bit inadequate, I think, our Edward. Anyway, I’d go into the studio and there they’d all be talking about translucent pigmentation and the transient fragility of perceptual experience, and they’d shout ‘’allo, Flo. Nice tits’. And they’d all laugh, and start up again about the aesthetics of transcendence and textures within traditional chiarascuro concepts. They didn’t seem to mind me listening to all their filthy talk. I had to be very careful not to step on Mr Lautrec, but they’d put 'im up on the mantelpiece where I could see 'im, so he wasn’t in any real danger.

Trouble was, the salon kept on refusing their paintin’s, and they’d come ’ome in a foul temper. Mr Cézanne would sit there fondling his oranges, Mr Degas used to get livid, ’specially when people called him ‘Dayga’ instead of ‘Duhga’. 'e’d shout ‘It’s bloody Duhga. There’s no bloody accent’. And ’e’d go off with 'is ballet dancers. And 'is jockeys. ’e was a bit funny, ’e was. And Mr Lautrec was so livid ’e nearly fell off the mantelpiece. Mr Gauguin was lucky. ’e won a competition – you ’ad to look at six pictures of sheds and pick out the Taj Mahal. ’e won first prize – a trip to the South Seas.

But every year it was the same. Trouble was, people kept encouragin’ ’em. That Mr Baudelaire, the poet. Fancied 'imself as an art critic. ’e came along one day and said they was the forerunners of one of the greatest revolutions paintin’s ever seen. ’e was pissed at the time, mind you. And ’e had a dead rabbit on a string. Said ’e was looking after it for a friend while she had some confidential treatment.

You know the real trouble though – their optician. ’e was rubbish. ’e tried to sell Mr Zola three contact lenses. Mind you, I only realised what was goin’ on when I noticed Mr Seurat’s glasses 'ad spots all over ’em. And Mr Renoir – well, ’e used to get a bit excited when all the models was there and ’is’d steam up, so 'is paintin’s came out all fuzzy. And you all know ’ow different Mr Van Gogh’s paintin’s was – well, ’e couldn’t wear glasses at all, ’cause of 'is ear. So that’s it you see. All the optician’s fault. Pity, they could’ve been good artists.

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The Questionnaire - your answers

The interesting (well, to me anyway) thing about this idea is that, although it was only meant to be a silly exercise, a piece of fun and a blog filler, the daft questions actually provoke responses which can be as revealing as straight answers to serious questions. There’s also the thought that the questions themselves reveal more about me than I realized. The emphasis seems to be more on doing nasty things to people I dislike than to glorying in the wonders of friendship and lovable human beings. Maybe that’s why I have so few friends. Anyway, I’ve had four responses so far, from Michael Malone, C. N. Nevets, Janice Horton and Anneke Klein. They’re all entertaining, varied and, most importantly, fun, so with no commentary from me, here they are:

1. If such a choice were possible and meaningful, would you prefer to live in a real or a virtual world? Why?
   (Michael) I would prefer to live in Disney World. No bad news and everybody is cheery.
   (Nevets) Real. I'm already bad at telling the difference sometimes.
   (Janice) I prefer to live in the real world and visit the virtual one.
   Anneke) At the moment, a virtual world can't exist without the real physical world. The machines used to get access to the virtual world are all part of the physical world. If a virtual world, separate from the real world, would actually exist, staying there would be a different experience. Then, living in a virtual world, such as Second Life, would be like living in another real world, only with different options. Difficult to imagine. But the benefits of transportation through teleportation would never make up for giving up the joy of smelling and tasting good food. If that would be the case, I'd rather stick with my old fashioned imperfect real world.
2. You have permission to paint a celebrity in a colour of your choosing. That doesn’t mean you make a portrait, you actually get to cover them in paint. Tell us which celebrity, what colour, and why?
   (Michael) Ooooo - drums fingers on bottom lip while thinking - the Rebekah Brooks wummin. and it wouldn't be paint, it would be tar with a pillow full of feathers. Why? I've always had a strong dislike of the gutter press and what they stand for and she was right at the centre of it all.
   (Nevets) Jennifer Garner in red, because it's the first thing that came to mind.  I'm a little disturbed that I didn't even have to think about it.
   (Janice) Gordon Ramsay. Pink. He’s such an arse.
   Anneke) This one is too hard. Why would I want to do such a thing? I thought about it for hours. Then I went to Paul McCartney and covered him in blue.
   'Why did you do that?,' he asked, still dripping.
   I shrugged. 'A guy named Kirton suggested it.'
   'Kirton,' he said, 'and who the hell is that?'
   'A writer, I can recommend his books,' I said. I grabbed in my bag and put two paperbacks on the table. 'There's The Figurehead, and The Sparrow Conundrum. He's a paperback writer.' 
   Paul didn't laugh. He picked up The Sparrow Conundrum and flipped through the pages. 'Which one should I start with?'
   'I'd say The Figurehead', one of my favourites. The Sparrow Conundrum is more suitable for, how can I say this politely, people with a good sense of humour.'
   'Ah,' he said. 'No, that's not me.'
   'I thought so,' I said. 
   He took The Figurehead and left without saying goodbye. I noticed I was humming Black bird singing in the dead of night, and wondered if I'd chosen the wrong colour.
3. What do you think of the word ‘nice’? In what contexts would you use it?
   (Michael) Nice is a nice word and underrated in my view. Some things are just NICE and no other words will do to describe them. No, don't put me on the spot, I can't think of anything right now.
   (Nevets) As a compliment it's luke warm.  As an exclamation it's on par with "Sweet!"  As an adjective, it feels smooshy.  I usually use the middle option only.
   (Janice) Nice is such a negative word - as in ‘I’m trying to be nice’.
   Anneke) I would use it here, in: 'What a nice question.'
4. You have the chance to spend an evening with a film star of your choice. Whom would you choose and what do you hope the evening would bring? (Be honest.)
   (Michael) Jennifer Aniston and I hope the evening would bring romance, a marriage and a shitload of book sales because of my new celebrity status.
   (Nevets) Robert De Niro.  I want to learn to imitate his voice.
   (Janice) OMG. I’m a married woman so I can’t answer this question on the grounds that I might incriminate myself.
   Anneke) Jean Paul Belmondo. When I was very young I fell in love with him, deeply. It happened when I saw him in the film L'animal. He kissed every woman in the film, and they all loved it. I couldn't resist either. I started dreaming about him. Fascinating, after all he wasn't actually considered to be a 'real' 'beauty', but his eyes.... his eyes. He's 78 now, I'd love to discover if he still has it. I would not expect much though. Hopefully he's fun to chat with.
5. Complete the following sentence – ‘If I won the lottery and discovered that the prize had to be shared with 3 million other winners, I would …’
   (Michael) If I won the lottery - blah - 3 million other winners, I would laugh (cos I'm assuming there isn't much to go around). I would laugh lots. Call the universe a bastard and then laugh some more.
   (Nevets) Hope that I had bought all 3 million other tickets myself.
   (Janice) Buy a bottle of Champagne/Cava, the quality of which would depend on how much I’d won.
   Anneke) be thrilled, because the prize is 300 million zillion euros.
6. If you had to change nationality, which would you choose and why?
   (Michael) French. I'm a bit of a francophile - and then I would have to learn the language and buy a second home in Paris. Cos you do, don't you?
   (Nevets) Japan.  I think I'd get along pretty well there.
   (Janice) Always fancied being American. I know they like our accent (Brit) but I quite like theirs.
   Anneke) I would refuse, and if they kept insisting I'd beat them with my wooden shoes.
7. Nominate 3 types of people for a long custodial sentence in a prison that uses painful experimental therapies to ‘cure’ its inmates. (NOTE. Obvious categories, such as bigots, tyrants, traffic wardens, estate agents, bankers, politicians and family and friends of Rupert Murdoch do not count.)
   (Michael) This one is going to be a bit obvious - paedophiles, rapists and murderers. Oh and people who turn right against the traffic but don't signal until you are stuck behind them for AGES. Bastards.
   (Nevets) People who crush the self esteem of children.  People who thwart the dreams of others.  People who act destructively in noble ignorance.
   (Janice) OMG. I can’t answer this question on the grounds that I might incriminate myself at work.
   Anneke) People who put laminate floors in their house, because it is so easy. The ones that claim it really looks good have to do extra time. 
   People who say it's very unhealthy to drink milk (and/or evangelise similar kinds of fashionable food religions).
   People who claim that everything in the world is there for a purpose and/or that everything in the world is connected, and get angry when I say I don't believe in this kind of nonsense.
8. Your fairy godmother grants you a wish. You can curl up in front of the fire with your favourite object. What is it? (NOTE. You can define ‘object’ in any way you like.)
   (Michael) My "object" - and I would never objectify women - would be Jennifer Aniston - and then we would marry and I would get a shitload of book sales because of my new celebrity status.
   (Nevets) More fire.
   (Janice) My fully loaded Kindle. Can I have wine too please?
   Anneke) I'd thank her for the fireplace. I always wanted to have one. Then  I will ask my fairy godmother to join me. I'd love to hear what else she has in store for me.
9. A beggar sitting on a blanket on the pavement (OK, sidewalk, if you insist), says as you pass, ‘Fortune has favoured you but looks less kindly on deprived and desperate beings such as myself. It would be a kindness if you were to redistribute some of your wealth to redress the balance between you and I’. What do you reply?
   (Michael) I've only got a pound on me, mate (I'm like royalty me, never carry money). Here you go. (I throw him the pound.)
   (Nevets) Sorry, no cash.  And it would probably be true.
   (Janice) I would give him a fiver. If he can deliver a spiel like that he’s neither drugged up or zonked out - neither of which I can abide in a beggar.
   Anneke) I''ll say that I would give him his share as soon as he comes up with a better, more creative, reason. This will inspire him tremendously. He'll start thinking, writing, practising, until he's so good, his book gets published and becomes a big hit. It'll make him very rich and famous. He'll tell the story about that friendly lady who inspired him, in every talk show on tv. And that he would love to thank her if he could find her. Bad luck for him, they'll find me, and let me show up in one of these shows as a surprise. He'll play his role well, he'll even accept my gift, my own book. However, he'll leave it in his dressing room where the cleaning lady will find it it. She'll take it home with her, not that she will ever read it, she grew up in a poor village in Morocco and never learned how to read. She just took it because she liked the picture of the violin player on the cover. It reminded her of her late father.
   I will end up completely broke and homeless, until Jesus saves me and as a born again Christian I'll start a very successful career as a real-estate agent. The rest of my life I spend forgiving people for their laminate floors.
10. Would you like to be immortal? Why or why not?
    (Michael) Immortality? No thanks. Life has its cycle and it would be beyond boring to live forever. Now, if you were to offer me the gift of flight I would chew your hand off.
    (Nevets) Yeah, I think the Highlander was wrong.
    (Janice) No. It’s not how long you live but how you live. (Wouldn’t mind popping back though, say in 200 years or more, to see how things have progressed and if Star Trek has come true.)
    (Anneke) You don't have to be friends with Faust to understand that this is a trick question. It doesn't say when I would get immortality. Imagine, I'm 95, deaf and blind, with Parkinsons. With my trembling fingers I just signed my euthanasia request. Then they say: 'You always said you'd like to be immortal, didn't you?. Hey, guess what a surprise I have for you.'
11. What music would you play through loudspeakers at night outside the house of someone you disliked intensely?
    (Michael) Killing in the name - by Rage Against the Machine - apparently they used this as torture in Guantanamo. That suggests it's effective.
    (Nevets) The Blues Brothers' cover of Stand By Your Man.
    (Janice) Motorhead. It’s just a racket.
    Anneke) Great one. The issue here is that it is important to choose something that most people hate but that you actually like yourself. Unless you are a masochist of course.
    I once took a class on avant garde music, and after listening to Iannis Xenakis' Persepolis I felt my tooth fillings had come loose. But, after having listened to all kinds of modern music I got used to this kind of sounds and actually started to appreciate the music. Give it a try. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJUR2qkJup0&feature=related
    If this is too hard, I recommend Bebop. Charlie Parker is a genius.

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The Questionnaire - my own answers

So far I've had a couple of responses to the questionnaire I offered in my previous posting and some of their answers were so good I wanted to steal them so, in order to avoid feeling the same about any others that arrive, I thought I'd get my own out of the way. So, here's my offering:

1. If such a choice were possible and meaningful, would you prefer to live in a real or a virtual world? Why?
   A: Real, because that’s what virtual aspires to be anyway (although it would be nice to ride unicorns, to remain at an age you can select for yourself, and not to have to perform embarrassing private functions associated with waste products and other secretions).
   
   
2. You have permission to paint a celebrity in a colour of your choosing. That doesn’t mean you make a portrait, you actually get to cover them in paint. Tell us which celebrity, what colour, and why?
   A: Mick Jagger – black. Black because it’s negative and anyway he sang about it, but mainly because his ‘dancing’ is that of a white middle-class Englishman who can’t dance and also because he can’t sing. Oh, and he’s a ‘Sir’ – ludicrous.

3. What do you think of the word ‘nice’? In what contexts would you use it?
   A: Immensely irritating because it’s so appropriate for so many contexts and stops people finding a more specific, more accurate word. I’d use it when I meant anything but nice.

4. You have the chance to spend an evening with a film star of your choice. Whom would you choose and what do you hope the evening would bring? (Be honest.)
   A: George Clooney. I’d hope all his qualities (and physical attributes) were contagious. (Failing that, Isabelle Adjani – no need to say what I’d hope for.)

5. Complete the following sentence – ‘If I won the lottery and discovered that the prize had to be shared with 3 million other winners, I would …’
   A: … become the world’s biggest serial killer.

6. If you had to change nationality, which would you choose and why?
   A: French. They know how to live, how to relax. They assume that everyone else wants to be French, too.

7. Nominate 3 types of people for a long custodial sentence in a prison that uses painful experimental therapies to ‘cure’ its inmates. (NOTE. Obvious categories, such as bigots, tyrants, traffic wardens, estate agents, bankers, politicians and family and friends of Rupert Murdoch do not count.)
   A: People who drive in the middle lane of the motorway when they’re not overtaking. Footballers who feign injury. Anyone who makes any sort of noise which disturbs me (which is most noises, most of the time).

8. Your fairy godmother grants you a wish. You can curl up in front of the fire with your favourite object. What is it? (NOTE. You can define ‘object’ in any way you like.)
   A: A complicated kit for making a full scale wooden model of one of the great tea clippers.

9. A beggar sitting on a blanket on the pavement (OK, sidewalk, if you insist), says as you pass, ‘Fortune has favoured you but looks less kindly on deprived and desperate beings such as myself. It would be a kindness if you were to redistribute some of your wealth to redress the balance between you and I’. What do you reply?
   A: (OK, I confess I altered this one in order to allow me to make one of my pathetic gags based on linguistic things. Originally, I was just interested in the idea of how people would respond to an apparently educated, sophisticated beggar, but as I wrote it, the gag occurred, so I would say to him …)
   The final pronoun should be ‘me’ not ‘I’.

10. Would you like to be immortal? Why or why not?
    A: I want to cheat and be somewhere in the middle because I hate the idea of outliving family and friends and the degeneration involved would be intolerable but, on the other hand, I have huge curiosity about everything so I want to know what happens.

11. What music would you play through loudspeakers at night outside the house of someone you disliked intensely?
    A: Mozart’s Queen of the Night, sung by Florence Foster Jenkins. You can hear it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM6qntPpyZ0

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The Questionnaire

I’m in that wonderful proofreading mode again – the galleys for Brilliant Workplace Skills have just arrived so I can stop trying to force myself to switch from thinking about writing to writing and instead get on with doing something useful by trying to weed out any remaining typos. So this is an attempt to keep you visiting while I get on with that. And it was triggered by thinking about doing some more interviews and inviting some more guests.

There are lots of blogs which conduct excellent interviews with writers and others and it’s always interesting to hear how they approach their work and the attitudes they have to the profession. I’ve even held some here and will no doubt do more in the future. But I want to propose something a little different because I think we perhaps reveal more about ourselves, or maybe create a more telling impression of who we are (or who we want to appear to be) when questions aren’t direct or leading. That’s why I’m inviting you to respond to a questionnaire.

As you’ll see, the questions are … er … unusual, but that’s intentional. Routine is deadly, so I like to use provocation, invite the unexpected, connect things which don’t belong together. Don’t worry, in order that you won’t feel inhibited, the first respondent will be me. As I wrote the questions, I hadn’t thought of that. So my approach to them will be the same as yours. The only difference is that, by posting this I’m actually committing myself to completing the questionnaire while you can slink away and find more interesting blogs to read.

But if you do join in, I’d prefer answers to be relatively short – maybe not as repressively so as tweets, but short enough to stay interesting. Also, if lots of people take up the offer, it would make the comments section rather long, so I suggest you send your answers to me via email (bill@bill-kirton.co.uk) and I’ll post them in whatever combinations seem to make sense. If the response is a deathly silence, I’ll know that no-one ever reads this or that those who do have lots to hide.

But it’s not serious – the main object is to banish predictability and have some fun, so …

THE QUESTIONNAIRE

1. If such a choice were possible and meaningful, would you prefer to live in a real or a virtual world? Why?
   A:
   
   
2. You have permission to paint a celebrity in a colour of your choosing. That doesn’t mean you make a portrait, you actually get to cover them in paint. Tell us which celebrity, what colour, and why?
   A:
   
   
3. What do you think of the word ‘nice’? In what contexts would you use it?
   A:
   
   
4. You have the chance to spend an evening with a film star of your choice. Whom would you choose and what do you hope the evening would bring? (Be honest.)
   A:
   
   
5. Complete the following sentence – ‘If I won the lottery and discovered that the prize had to be shared with 3 million other winners, I would …’
   A:
   
   
6. If you had to change nationality, which would you choose and why?
   A:
   
   
7. Nominate 3 types of people for a long custodial sentence in a prison that uses painful experimental therapies to ‘cure’ its inmates. (NOTE. Obvious categories, such as bigots, tyrants, traffic wardens, estate agents, bankers, politicians and family and friends of Rupert Murdoch do not count.)
   A:
   
   
8. Your fairy godmother grants you a wish. You can curl up in front of the fire with your favourite object. What is it? (NOTE. You can define ‘object’ in any way you like.)
   A:
   
   
9. A beggar sitting on a blanket on the pavement (OK, sidewalk, if you insist), says as you pass, ‘Fortune has favoured you but looks less kindly on deprived and desperate beings such as myself. It would be a kindness if you were to redistribute some of your wealth to redress the balance between you and I’. What do you reply?
   A:
   
   
10. Would you like to be immortal? Why or why not?
    A:
    
    
11. What music would you play through loudspeakers at night outside the house of someone you disliked intensely?
    A:

I look forward to:

a) some interesting answers and revelations, or

b) tumbleweed and the sound of the desert wind.

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Confess me, brother - a welcome guest blog

At last - another guest blog from brother Ron, a wry entertaining peek at life through his much fresher perspective. He said he'd thought of fictionalising it to submit it to Rammenas but, since it's an account of actual events, he decided instead to bring it to this virtual confessional and repent. (Actually, I rather like the idea of offering this as a Sacrament of Penance so if any of you feel like confessing something, feel free to get in touch with Brother Bill.) Anyway, this is what Ron wrote:

There was something about the detail in his answer phone message that made me prick up my ears:

            “….my name is Eric Hill. It’s now five past eleven on Tuesday the 26^th of July. I’d like to speak with you, if you’d like to give me a call. It’s my business number. Leave a good time to get back to you if I’m not around. My number is 0473….”

Perfectly innocuous of course, except when it’s filtered through an over-fertile imagination. I often wish I’d never met that phrase, “what if?” – the stock in trade of you writers. In this case I needed to consider, “What if he’s a local businessman with a legitimate and un-threatening proposal which would be to our mutual benefit?” The obvious course was to call him, have an adult conversation and find out, but no: simple I may be but I don’t always do simple things.

It was the lack of context and the fact that his message wasn’t aimed specifically at either me, or my wife, that was unsettling. I reasoned it was a pretty fair bet that if a businessman was ringing me at home he didn’t want to talk about how my tomatoes were coming on and leapt immediately to the conclusion that he was after something, probably my money. Instead of ringing him, I Googled him.

Given the fatal fork I had taken on my imaginative road, I was not surprised to discover he was a property developer. Not quite enough evidence to take back to the lively debates my wife and I were now having about judgement and tolerance but, a start. Information on the web presented him as successful, involved in several prestigious local developments, mainly residential. Residential…..hm. He was involved in fund-raising for a number of local and national charities (clearly a cover for his nefarious dealings on the property market).

I then made my final mistake by clicking on a link that took me to a forum which had two people exchanging views about my developer.

“Quite a few mysterious fires over the years…..Eric Hill owned one place…just when he was having cash flow problems…..”

This was even worse than I had imagined. The man was a villain, and he was going to set fire to my broad beans and build a residential development in my garden. Thus armed, I returned to my wife with my, “I told you” file bulging. To her credit she was unimpressed but agreed not to ring him and to let him make the next move. And the very language I’m using here hints at the paranoid state of mind into which I’d sunk.

I’m just so grateful that I was not there when he did make his next move, which was to call and ask my wife if she was still involved in life-coaching and could she help his niece confront a problem. I’m almost worried about the lack of relish with which my wife relayed this to me. The worst she said was, “That’ll teach you….”

But I’m not sure it will. Although I changed the property developer’s name, I will tell you the name of the ebay seller I’ve just bought a golf trolley from: Mr Bones. And once again the creative cogs whirr: Billy Bones, the first pirate we meet in Treasure Island, a distant relative in Basildon….

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Words, rocks, respect.

Please, bear with me, be gentle with me and, above all, be patient with me. The next paragraph will, probably from the very first word, get you clicking the exit button and deleting me from your blogs-I-occasionally-visit list. Please, though, try to resist the urge and just read it and then I’ll explain why I risked losing your friendship or just your casual curiosity through such flippancy. It’s a spoof opening to a supposed review of a non-existent book called Ambiguity and Gastronomy in Tennyson’s 'In Memoriam'. If the book had ever existed, it would have been written by Professor V. Nonchalant. (If any such person exists, I apologise unreservedly for hi-jacking his/her name.) Here, then, is how my review of his/her book starts:

Teleological inadequacy in the quest for meta-fictional catharsis is a trope too frequently associated with linguistic excess. In his previous studies of root vegetables in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and his monograph entitled Descartes and the Bay Leaf, Professor Nonchalant posited the extensory variability of post-cultural deviance in the seventeenth century’s sporadic yet transitional dalliance with anarchic conceptualisations of disassociated herbivorous phenomena. Here, he extends his exegetical analysis of textual malfunctions to encompass the twin themes of literacy and indigestion, arguing persuasively that the Victorians’ semi-precocious insistence on the iconography of laissez-faire nutritional expediency both complemented and contradicted their equally fervent adherence to the vertiginous monotony of the iambic pentameter. That, in simplistic terms, is the point de départ of this 642 page study.

If you’re still reading, thanks for your persistence and good will. The paragraph, of course, means absolutely nothing. It’s unadulterated garbage masquerading as learning. In a moment, I’ll get to why I’ve quoted it here but first, why write it at all? Well, some of you may have visited the excellent booksquawk.com (and, if you go there this week, you’ll see my latest review for Lisa Hinsley’s  My Demon in which I use the word I introduced in my last posting – algolagnia). The site is celebrating the fact that it’s attracted 25,000 visitors and I suggested one way to celebrate would be for all its regular contributors to send in a parody paragraph of the worst type of reviewing they could think of – not nasty or vicious stuff, just typical of the most pretentious or just plain silly garbage. The idea was to just have a bit of fun.

So I wrote the above as an example and posted it to the group. But here’s the interesting thing. Two of the other contributors – both friends and excellent writers – knew that it was only a parody and therefore not supposed to make sense but they tried to read it as if it did, and one of them said ‘my brain couldn't HELP trying to make sense of what you wrote...and it *almost* did’, a fact which she said was sort of frightening.  So it brings us back to another aspect of the power of words. If we see them laid out in seemingly normal structures, we want to unlock what they’re saying. The tendency is to assume that they ‘mean’ something so we do what they implicitly ask and try to give them that meaning. And if we can’t, we think it’s our fault.

But what if I hadn’t confessed that the paragraph was just crap? I’d be admired for my profundity and towering intellect or dismissed as a con-man and a wanker, and all sorts of other things in between. And all because of my words. People are in awe of words, especially big ones; they’re powerful,  they shape our experience and they’re the only things that suggest meaning in the accidental absurdities of the world we live in. My old mate Sisyphus had his rock; we have words. It's a big responsibility. Let’s respect them.
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