As I'm stuck at home with msdebbyjr and a ton of paper tissues, waiting for my lost voice to return (sorry, tin, I'm going all medical on you again), I thought I'd grab the chance to actually participate on this blog and post this week's instalment of five non-musical questions for you all.
1) Details of the first car you ever owned, please - colour, pet name, number of scratches on the driver's door...
2) Apologies to anyone forced to suffer an adolescence without a dress code imposed by their local education authority: what colour was your school uniform and do you EVER wear it now? (the colour, not the uniform - that's probably wishful thinking for most of us these days)
3) What would be your absolute culinary luxury? (see above for msdebbyjr's ketchup delight)
4) Your favourite beach, wherever in the world and for whatever reason (doesn't have to have anything to do with a holiday)
5) Do you prefer your socks plain or with a pattern?
It's not easy to think of questions that have nothing to do with music!
46 comments:
nice questions, debbym- hope your voice gets better soon..
answers..
1. I have never owned a car.. ok, good start there..
2. I did have a school uniform, though- dominated by charcoal grey and royal blue... I still wear grey these days- hey, I'm an architect, ok?
3. A mysterious, ten course round of Chinese delicacies eaten with friends overlooking a bay on an island near Hong Kong, on a sultry spring evening. Transport and friends included. All 'Spillers invited.. Debby, hopefully the marinated ginger stems will cure your throat infection...
4. I have to split this into hemispheres.. North- Doi Mai in Romania, on the Black sea coast, for its relaxation quotient and the locals;
South- Sandfly bay, on the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin, NZ.. huge, rolling dunes and the constant crash and incredible colour of the Pacific Ocean.. now I'm getting nostalgic..
5. I'm a plain socker, as befits my control-freak profession.. patterns are simply too dangerous..
1. Red Ford Fiesta Popular, hence 'Lenin'; bought for the family by my grandparents when my middle brother learnt to drive, inherited by me when (a) he became a GP and could afford several cars, all much fancier and (b) I got a job in the depths of Wales, out of reach of public transport; did sterling service for over a decade despite increasing decrepitude, then sold because I inherited my grandparents' old car (20 years old but had done only 20,000 miles and never got into fifth gear; sort of turqoise colour, hence Robespierre) - which was then stolen nine months later and torched by rowdies from Wincanton.
2. Dark blue and grey/silver; don't tend to wear those colouurs much, but I don't think that's anything to do with the uniform. The bloody cap does stick in the mind, though...
3. Had probably better skip this question, as otherwise I'll be tempted to embark on a 5,000-word essay on the meaning of 'luxury'.
4. Mwnt, in Wales
5. Plain, definitely, despite not being an architect.
1. Have only owned one car, in Libya, a place devoid of public transport. A second-hand Chrysler Sunbeam, with sludgy Sahara sand at the bottom of the petrol tank, causing it to seize up on long drives. Finally fixed by Finnish mechanic at the extortionate price of two bottles of whisky.
2. Navy blue - never ever wear it.
3. I don't know if they still do it but, when I was an impoverished student, it was to go to the Fountain Bar at Fortnum and Mason's and have lobster sandwiches with a pot of Lapsang Souchong tea. There was about half a lobster in each sandwich, whole claws, great chunks of lobster meat and homemade mayonnaise. It cost a fiver including the tip.
4. Pednvaunder (spelling varies), east of Porthcurno and inaccessible at high tide. More than a mile from the nearest carpark, which keeps most tourists away.
5. Horizontal striped, but only black/grey. Worn with black/taupe/chrome shoes.
1 When my marriage broke down my ex got the car and I got the children...as there are and were 3 children, this wasn't workable and so I bought a blue Mini estate from a friend of a friend, and drove it till it died, pretty much. Its greatest adventure was getting stuck in a bog on the Naze, on the Essex coast, and being rescued by the council (which cost £25). After it would go no further, and the driver's door was held on with masking tape, I parked it a little way down the road from our house and waited till the neighbours had pinched everything they wanted, then alerted a scrapyard who disappeared it for me.
2 Bottle green, with a green diagonal stripe on the tie...I don't think I own any green clothes at all. I like green cars though.
3 Fillet steak, black on the outside and red in the middle.
4 There's a beach on the Lleyn peninsula in North Wales called the Whistling Sands (because the sand squeaks if you shuffle through it); it's quite popular though, so I prefer the little cove next to it which isn't much frequented because you have to park some way away and walk over a couple of fields to get there. However one day when we were having a picnic there a frisbee came flying at us and hit my eldest in the face...the man who rushed up to apologise was our own GP. (We lived about 100 miles away.)
5 Plain: and though I'm not an architect I do have a copy of Banister Fletcher.
1. A 1983 Austin Metro, in 'Oporto Red'. Named 'The Captain', after Capt. Oates because of the registration letters and the sense of adventure you got attempting a journey - "I'm just going out, and I may be some time". My employer removed the car that went with my job (200 miles from home), and left me with a week to find one for myself. Now where can you get an interest-free, no deposit, cheap car? "Er, D-a-a-a-d-d-d?" He sold me his Metro and bought himself a decent car!
2. Ugh, the memories. Inch-wide green and navy stripes, with a thin white third stripe for good measure. Hated the uniform, hated the school. The school's green football kit played havoc with my having enough goalie's jerseys too.
3. Too many to mention! the cajun shepherd's pie at K-Paul's, maybe? Buying Heinz Salad Cream, regardless of cost, wherever I am in the world, is probably a better answer.
4. Donds to Mwnt (we'll be back next year, Abahachi), but for me it has to be St.James', just north of Holetown in Barbados, because I got married on it.
5. Plain, always! At work, supportive, long and thick enough to be comfortable with my work boots. Out of work time, trainer socks that stop below my ankles, possibly as an antidote to the work ones! And always with my left leg's support stocking underneath, sadly!
well, for no. 2 above I meant the tie had a grey stripe,,,
1. I've never owned a car myself, as Mrs McF is the driving force, the first car that springs to mind was a red ford fiesta (i think) that had a sound system in it that was bought of a dodgy geezer in a pub. Listening to cds in that car was awesome, better than my home set-up!
2. It was green, which tied in with the name of the school, the dark green blazer was eventually phased out after a couple of years for green jumpers. I never wear dark green these days, I guess that's why!
3. I am partial from time to time to a cheese and honey sandwich. People find that an odd combination for some reason.....
4. I can't remember tha names of the beaches I visited as a child, so I'll go for the current fave - Kingsbarns beach on the east coast just down from St Andrews. It's perfect for wee ones, as it has a shallow bay in the rock pools where you can mess about and catch all sorts of wildlife without being totally in the sea, and lots of spots where you can go for a swim too. Plus it only takes 20 minutes to drive there from our house, so if the weather is good one day, you have to grab the chance where you can!
5. All socks are good socks to me, I don't mind if they're mismatched at all.
Excellent questions Debby! That was a lot of fun!
Oh, and I love that photo, by the way. Mini McFlah is similarly partial to that amount of ketchup with nearly EVERYTHING! We even keep a bottle in the glove box....
1. Not yet
2. None. In primary school we were limited to grey, black and blue though.
3. Not sure what you mean by culinary luxury but something I can't always have is a barbecue rodizho (rotation) where the meat keeps coming and coming and coming. For the past few months, I've been on a search for buffalo wings.
4. I'll go with a classic, St-Aubin sur Mer, in Normandy.
5. Mostly plain, unless you count the ones with a golden toe as a pattern.
To add to the story of our first car, we gave it back to the family member we'd borrowed it off after a few years when another family member gave us their car.
He parked it somewhere, forgot where it was, eventually reported it as stolen to the police and eventually again got insurance money when the police found it burnt out after it had been nicked by joyriders.
After a few years again, the police called having found the car, a local had assumed it was abandoned. Turned out the burnt out car was a different red ford fiesta.
The morale of the story is, if you forget where you parked your car, it'll eventually turn up, and you'll probably get money for it during that time...
1. Still don't have a licence (failed the test twice as a youngster and never got round to trying again), but you don't really need a car in Tokyo......speaking of public transport, I know Tokyo trains are famous, but i've just stepped off THE most ridiculously packed train ever!!My feet were barely touching the floor!
2. Rules were reasonably relaxed in my school. Any grey/black trousers with any grey/black jumper and a white shirt, topped off with the school tie, which was black with an orange sea horse on it; the school symbol.
3. will have to think about this one, i've never been a foodie type, but am definitely coming round after being confronted with the dizzying array of (healthy and delicious) food Japan has to offer. For nostalgia's sake though i'll go for treacle pudding and custard.
4. Growing up by a pebbly beach means I have a lot of beach-based memories, so i'll have to say Brighton beach for the teenage fumblings and the many lunchtimes I spent sitting on it when I worked as a telemarketer, despite the pebbles.
It has something for everyone; quaint game arcades, deckchairs, Brighton Pier, trendy nightclubs, a nudist section, fish and chip shops, pubs, the lot! A real seaside holiday place.
5. Both! I like plain or a nice Argyll (today's sock of choice!) for work and, this may be slightly taboo, but I love white sport socks for my days off. You know, the really cheap, naff type with 2 coloured stripes at the top, gotta love 'em!
Great questions Debby, feels a little like a psychological test where seemingly innocuous questions reveal the real hidden depths to our souls.....
Japanther, since you mention trains in Tokyo, did you see this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/formforce/3409362834/sizes/o/
Ha, Blimpy, we used to travel with little sachets of tomato sauce too.. Mara got over that at about age six, for a couple of years afterwards though I kept finding the damn things in bags and jacket pockets.. you develop furtive habits at food stands, surreptitiously stuffing them into your pockets for later on, along with those little plastic forks and straws.. oops, think I've said too much there..
And Debbym, if you happen to be watching TV news on Monday night, and see a report about Thüringer Ministerpräsident Althaus resuming his duties, chances are you'll catch a glimpse of the opening of a hospital building in Rudolstadt which has been keeping us occupied for the last three years..
1) Austin 1100 in Man city blue - cost £20 shared between me Nan, my brother and me, we all learnt to drive in it.. I was 12 my nan in her 60's.. it was mostly called a steaming pile of... late at night when my parents were out me and big bro would rally it around the cherry orchards, it wasn't a good night if it hadn't turned over.. scratches covered by my artwork spray paints!
2) First and second senior schools had dark dress codes, but both had purple ties, the second with white yellow and black diagonal stripes and a blazer.
a Tie and jacket has been worn twice in the 22 years since (not the uniform!) at my brothers wedding and giving my best friend away at her wedding.
3) fantastically well made ice cream. Morelli's Broadstairs would be one of those.
4) Linking with 3 - i went to college in Broadstairs, would sleep in the photo studio get up at five and wander with my friends to watch the mist burn off the beach, breakfast at a seaside cafe... pitch and putt then ice cream and leisurely afternoon getting drunk in the pub with loads of musical instruments discussing how we would change the world.
Also the beach down from The Square and Compass at Worth Matravers.
And the one in Turkey that we stayed near last summer..
And all of the Norfolk coast is about 20 - 30 minutes away...
Me, I love beaches mostly deserted and wild so glad I live on an island.
5) Various Horizontal stripes in interesting colours - brown white and teal are a fav at the moments.
Bright orange plain socks only go with the Fat brown converse skate trainers.
Car update: I'm amazingly lucky because I get a lease car for work, which means that every 3 years I can choose myself a brand new car...little did I know in my poverty-stricken years of driving old bangers (see above) that I'd ever do what I've just done this lunchtime, which is go over to the Citroen showroom and sit in my next one (not the actual one, that's still on order, but the showroom model)...Because this'll be my last lease car, too, I've splashed out on a rather more upmarket set of wheels than heretofore. Pic coming later! (But not for 2 months unfortunately.)
Good on you picking up the reigns debby.
1. White '69 Ford F150 pickup. Got it 10 years old for $600. Worked great other than rear springs were bad so if you had to brake hard, the back end dragged - in effect lengthening the truck an inch or two. Problem was it had a split drive-shaft (one end from the front, one end from the back, meeting in the middle where one end fit inside a sleeve of the other) and when the truck lengthened the drive shaft pulled apart.
I carried wrenches and a white monkey suit, and would have to crawl under and unbolt the drive shaft from one end (4 bolts), slide it back together, rebolt it. Got so I could do it in about 10 minutes.
One time I went on a date with this girl I was so so so impressed with. All dressed up, flowers, big restaurant booked.... and a block from her home some schmuck pulls out in front of me, I slam on the brakes ....
2) nope. I wore whatever colour flares I wanted over my platform shoes.
3) I thought once that it would be much quicker to make an omellette if you just through everything in the blender insteasd of painstakingly cut up green peppers, onions, etc. The first Mrs. Tin still turns green when she remembers the green omellete I served her in bed.
4) Harrison Beach in Harrison Hot Springs, B.C. (British Columbia, Canada) The current Mrs Tin and I had some lovely strolls there looking at sand sculptures. http://tiny.cc/z34oI
5) Plain. One colour. Years of mismatched sock frustration ended when I started buying all the same. For 10 years now I have bought the same kind of sock. Same brand. Same colour. Same size.
Ooh tcm - the In and Outlaws have a song about the F150. I'll put it in the dropbox for your delectation when I get home.
(That was my post above - it went a bit wrong.)
First car: A 1932 Morris minor, a 'convertible', ie, no top. Red when I bought it but since I worked at ICI paints division it changed color regularly, they allowed us to use the spray booth and to test their auto paints.
Another benefit of working in a lab was that I got to 'create' my own fuel, nick it might be a better word. From the bottles of industrial solvents on my bench, ie Toluol, Xylol, MEK, Acetone etc I would concoct mixtures that went into my tank, that is until one day the engine seized!
Dress code, you must be bloody joking! Like every other kid I knew I wore short pants, usually with the arse hanging out, a gansy, stockings with holes in 'em and black boots. Very chic!
Luxury was a piece of bread and jam, still is a staple in this house, except now I make the jam.
Never understood this universal obsession with beaches, lived about 200 yards from one for 20 odd years and visited it maybe a dozen times. Now if you want to ask about jungles, well there's a topic!
Socks, I only wear white, I have a large drawer jammed full of 'em, they all match.
When I was a little lad and adults would ask me 'What are you going to be when you grow up?
I would always answer 'An architect', I'm sure that came from my father's love of sharing his Bannister Fletcher with me constantly, now I have my own copy, 18th edition in perfect condition. Frequently consulted.
TFG; excellent wisdom shown in your choice of car, one of the under appreciated marques, I owned one in the early 60's, most comfortable and interesting car I've ever owned. There was a detail in the G some months back that they are considering re-introducing that model again! 50 years on!
Just a detail re. beaches that springs to mind.
About 30 odd miles inland from where I lived were the San Gabriel mountains, approx 10,000 ft. Whenever it rained all the water of course drained back to the Pacific via various rivers and drains. One year there was a huge storm, the next morning I went for a walk along the road overlooking the beach and there were literally thousands of tons of debris that had washed down and then been deposited onto the beaches. When they cleared it up they discovered thousands upon thousands of rattlesnakes, all dead, all washed up onto the beach!
1) First car--Pontiac used to make these non-descript little cars that were destined to be first cars. My brother and I shared a used one. But I didn't get my license till I was 20 (Which is freakishly late for an American) So I never drove it much. Had a lot of good old-fashioned bruce springsteenesque fun riding around with my older brother and his friends though. There was one street in town, that dipped into a hill, if you drove down it fast enough you FLEW over the bump at the bottom. We used to go on all kinds of adventures in that car.
2)never ever had one. I did have to suffer an adolescence in the 80s, though, so maybe a uniform wouldn't have been such a bad thing.
3) My culinary luxury is wine with dinner every night. One bottle split between David & me, which is about 2 big glasses each. We don't really buy anything we don't need--anything--except that, and I have no real way to justify it, except that one of my biggest pleasures in life is to drink wine while making dinner. We eat with the boys, but before dinner we'll let them watch cartoons, and it's nice to just make dinner together and talk.
4) Hmm--it's funny that many people have picked beaches close to home, or where they grew up, and I guess I'll do the same. There's a beach at the very tip of New Jersey that's quite wild. It's not like a beach town--no boardwalk--just a little community with no businesses except one small general store and a post office. It's actually quite famous for migratory birds in the springtime--all sorts of crazy things have turned up there. Nice soft white sand, wild roses and orchard orioles everywhere. And my parents have a small house there a block from the ocean, which is nice, too.
5) Either way. My favorite socks at the moment are some bright plain ones--bright green, bright blue, and chinese red.
And Japanther--my parents just got back from a trip to Japan. They said the trains were amazingly crowded, but they were on the NYC subway immediately when they got home, and they said it might be less crowded, but in terms of noise, rowdiness and stink, it was incomparably worse.
1. When my (ex-)wife was pregnant we bought our first car, a red Rover something, from an auction. It was very temperamental, had a very tricky manual choke (what's that?, say the young 'uns) and was a b*stard to work on (which I had to do occasionally as we couldn't afford a garage). I did manage to pass my driving test in it though.
2. Our uniform was dark and light blue, with a cap of concentric circles. In the first year, wearing of said cap was compulsory, providing endless target practice for rival schoolkids. When I reached the sixth form, I started a movement to make the uniform optional, with some success, to my surprise. Blue is my favourite colour, so I often wear it.
3. I'm not really a foodie, so I probably enjoy meals that are unexpectedly good. I once had a very simple meal of prawns and noodles in Vietnam that, given the setting, was absolutely wonderful. Similarly, a meal of blackened catfish in an Oakland 'restaurant' was very enjoyable, despite the surroundings.
4. I live within striking distance of the Lancs coast and I do enjoy the empty sweep of Formby beach. But the most memorable beach would be the one I first encountered in Goa. We stayed in the posh Taj hotel, shared with the then deputy PM of India. His bodyguards made sure we could watch the sun go down in perfect safety.
5. I prefer my socks to stay comfortably placed on my feet: that's the only requirement I have of them. But - apart from my Grateful Dead dancing skeleton party socks - they are all monochrome.
@ saneshane - 1100s! Ace. I learnt to drive in two of those (I lived in two different households when I was 17 - Mon-Thu & Fri-Sun). My 'Uncle' had a knackered white Austin, so rusty that the subframe flexed in corners! My dad's MG version (leather seats, wood dash, thermometer-style speedo) was so tight it was like a brand new car, but that meant it was massively unforgiving trying to get it into first with no synchro: GGGGRRRR0OOOUUUCCH. Connaught Green, one darker than British Racing Green.
And sad synchronicity time - my best friend bought a new Metro shortly after me; given that mine was The Captain, and his came with the registration letters MAO, his was instantly named The Chairman. The Chairman was late being delivered to Dave as someone crashed into the headlight corner in the compound; when it was delivered, the garage scraped the door bringing it round to the showroom. We told him then to sell it; it was cursed. Unfortunately he kept it.
Sometime later, DarceysMam crashed The Captain by rear-ending a brown V-reg VW Passat. As a result, we decided to buy my (v.recently-deceased) Grandad's car ... a brown V-reg VW Passat. Dave gave me a lift to pick it up . . . and on the way home, rear-ended me in it!! It was so ridiculous that we just collapsed on each other in fits of giggles at the side of the A1, much to the bemusement of the crash witnesses.
But the sad coda is that The Chairman was cursed; a slow puncture sent Dave sliding across the white lines on a Cumbrian B-road bend, and he was killed by the oncoming lorry.
Great questions debbym ...
1) Blue, ex-Water Company mini van - ToffeeGirl had an almost unlimited supply of the things through work. No pet name but we had cushions in the back ... very 80s!
2) Plain black blazer - black and white diagonally striped tie. Hate wearing it until we got into the sixth form when we were "allowed" to wear smart suits. My little rebellious gang then insisted on wearing school uniform just to annoy them ...
3) Food's not a big thing in my life (odd, I know!) - I don't think you can beat a big bag of seaside chips, eaten walking along the seafront on a warm summer evening.
4) And where better to eat them than Weymouth. Britain's best beach - no competition. All the traditional joys of the seaside (helter skelters, donkey rides, Punch & Judy, beach volleyball) without any of the garish excesses.
5) Plain with trousers, white with shorts or tracky bottoms.
Hey Debby get some honey down that throat, honey. Nice questions...
1) White Peugeot 205 and it felt like heaven to have a CAR!!!
2) Black blazer with black and gold tie. Hasn't changed for the school since. I sport a blazer in spring - but a nice navy blue one.
3) At the moment - osters, shallot vinegar, brown bread and butter, champagne.
4) South tip of Rhodes - Prassonisi http://www.travel-rhodes.com/places_images/31.jpg
5) Patterned.
Osters? Yaknow whadda mean... Preferably ones from the Ile de Ré. Marennes or fines de clair. Donds for Brighton Beach and ketchup on everything.
Except oysters.
1) A banana yellow Ford Capri - I kid you not
2) Purple blazer, purple tie with yellow diagonal stripes - again, I kid you not. I seldom wear purple, even when, as this year, it would seem to be couleur de la saison
3) Corned Beef Pie, a la World War Two. A recipe my gran taught me.
4) My favorite beach is Solnechnoye, near St Petersburg on the Russian coast. Desolate and delightful.
5) Not fussed, but plain for work and pattern otherwise if I have the mood. Odd question that
Oooh, I just love the anecdotes from everyone. Very sad about your friend, DsD, though.
1: Have never needed to drive and hubby is perfectly content for it to stay that way, as I often have to make the L shape with my left hand to remember which is left. Love the feeling of being driven though, the freedom of gazing out of the windows, singing along to music or giggling along to Adam and Joe podcasts, or falling asleep, more often than not.
2: My school uniform was quite simple: a black or grey skirt, which when I was a goody-goody in 1st year was grey a line, by 5th year I had graduated to a floor-length swishy black number with slouchy pockets, worn with black tights and big chunky socks. I also had a lovely pair of black and white golfing shoes which used to annoy my teachers greatly. A blue or white blouse and a black tie with the school shield (tree, Staffordshire knot, book and an owl) and our house colour stripes on it. Mine was blue for Hawkins. Yes, our houses were named after explorers, and I got one famous for being involved in the slave trade. Yippee. I do wear my school tie to work every now and then, amazing how much it weirds people out, women wearing ties. I blame Annie Hall.
3: Culinary luxury would be reinstating afternoon tea for everday.
4: Favourite beaches are Waimanalo on Oahu, where we got married, Kailua a few miles further north, where the sea is the perfect depth for a long way out. In the UK it has to be Aberystwyth, purely for the nostalgia: 10 minutes drive away is the perfection of Ynyslas (featured on the Manics lp This Is My Truth), miles of windswept beach, dunes and the hills behind you.
5: I like both plain and patterned socks but my three favourite pairs are from Japan. One pair features an elephant and appears to be advertising "Cheeses biscuits!". The second has a cartoon host with a bow and the word Obayko on and the third...a monkey in a bra. Seriously.
Ghost, not host.
1.First car was a red/orange Fiat 127, which I only drove for six months until another driver on the A1 omitted to indicate to me that she wanted to both pull over infront of me and slam on the brakes at the same time. The car wasn't totally written off at that time but I didn't have the money to get it fixed until the insurance paid up. When they finally did, six months later, my boss mentioned that I shouldn't bother buying myself a new car since I was in line for a company car. Wahey, the insurance money went on a spanking new Hi-fi which, 20 years later, still plays all my vinyl.
(slightly spooky aside to this and going back to Darceysdad's tale above about the death of our friend Dave, I had bought a Rover Metro myself a few weeks before that incident and had had a strange premonition about it being in a crash. It wasn't - but it added to the shock when Darceysdad rung me about Dave's death)
2.School uniform was pretty simple grey/black with only the orange/red/black stripes on the tie for colour. No real problem although I do often wonder about anybody involved in sport who also wears a blazer - you know what I mean
3.If I were kept hostage somewhere far off, I imagine that I would either drool for a good Bury Black Pudding with lashings of hot English Mustard or pork pie from Metcalfe's on Northgate, Cleckheaton, with whom I have a reasonably regular trade.
4. This should be about the beach outside our family holiday home in Galloway where I played since the age of 6 and where most of my first civil engineering projects took place but years of littoral drift has taken all the sand away and it's only a rocky beach now - although for the geologists amongst you it's got a fanatastic array of folds, sinclines etc all caused by the nearby Criffel volcanic plug. I nearly dond Darceysdad's nomination for a beach on the west coast of Barbados (I was there) but would humbly remind him of our greater adventures on Bottom Beach, Barbados, on the east coast where the Atlantic rollers roll in and gave me one of the best body surfing experiences of my life.
5. Socks are nearly always plain. I might allow a slight trim but my heart sinks whenever I unwrap socks with a 'special message' from (usually) female members of the family.
Ah, Gordon's orange Fiat 127 ... less said the better I think!
gordonimmel's right about Bottom Bay. For those that know Mwnt, imagine it warmer, with the cliffs less pronounced but the surf more so, palm trees picturesquely framing one rear corner of the beach, and you're getting there!
But Gordon, Bottom Bay was a day, St.James' was for life (I hope).
Great, if slightly creepy(-crawly-shuddery-stylee) tale from goneforeign about the snakes.
1. Thanks for bring up cars, but it was a red Ford Escort.
2. Black & yes.
3. Kebab stand in Rhodes. Tasted nothing like it since - perhaps it was cat meat? Fish N' Chips in the Motherland.
4. Not much of a beach boy, but any unspoilt Carribean island beach will work for me. For the Shoeteens it was the Jersey shore and now Indian Rocks on the Gulf coast.
5. See 2.
Suddenly cut with the desire to sharpen my first car description. First of all it was a hand me down - from my mum. Secondly, it was a 1976 Capri (my mum had it new). Thirdly, although I shall be eternally grateful for how mobile I became because of it, it has nothing to do with my taste whatsoever, even as a joke. The point is, as a car and colour combination, it's so extreme - first EVER car, a banana yellow 1976 Capri! - you have to upfront about that one, dont you?
sourpus, I saw a yellow Capri on Tuesday - it being Easter, all the old cars have come out of the garage!
ejaydee - thanks for that link....very cool. Twatter....sorry, Twitter as Shibuya is very apt methinks!
Just realised I never posted my own answers (duh)! I'm really, really glad so many people joined in on this, I've had great fun reading most of the answers.
1) Have never owned a car and never will - don't even have a licence. I live in a city with a pretty good public transport network and I figure if I can ever afford that elusive *house in the country*, I'll be able to afford a chauffeur to go with it!
2) It took me nigh on 20 years, but I do wear green again these days; mostly pale shades of green, but never ever ever bottle green (and most certainly not in combination with red and gold stripes)
3) My absolute culinary luxury - and I've given a lot of thought to this! - would be a fresh green salad consisting of several different types of leaf, maybe some (bean)sprouts, wouldn't mind the occasional slice of radish, carrot or tomato, attractively arranged on a plate or in a shallow dish PREPARED BY SOMEBODY ELSE. I HATE cleaning salad leaves!
4) I don't have a favourite beach (yet), but was hoping for inspiration from yours!
5) Some people thought this a funny question, but I am a knitter of socks. My favourites are knee-high stripey socks (I may have a bit of a Pippi Longstocking complex).
TY, if you get around to reading this, have you ever tried entrelac socks?
Red Fiat Cinquecento called Phoebe (Phoebe Metallura is a metal-tailed humming bird, hence the name)
Dark red - almost impossible to match which is good because it means I never have to wear it again
Salmon tarka daal from our local curry house
Farr beach on the north coast of Scotland - white sand dunes, astonishing sunsets, mist for miles - and (almost)no people.
Black with a discrete pattern so I can match them up when they come out of the laundry
I'm still struggling with question 3, partly because when I've had to deal with it professionally, 'luxury' is a problematic and ambiguous term. But I don't want to go into that here. So far, people seem to have answered this question in at least two different ways:
(a) Perfect meal of self-indulgence if money, seasonality, endangeredness of species etc. were no object, in which case I think I'd go for monkfish (which I've given up on ecological grounds) a l'amoricaine made with a particularly fine Alsatian Riesling and perfectly ripened Italian tomatoes, with a proper Milanese risotto and steamed Romanesco courgettes. Plus a nicely chilled Franken Sylvaner.
(b) Ultimate comfort meal, the one you'd want after being held hostage by vegetarian teetotlers for six months: sausages in chilli sauce (a classic old Delia recipe, I must confess) with rice.
I could add a third category, that of food I get to eat only when Mrs Abahachi is off visiting her mother: a toss up between the aforementioned sausages in chilli sauce, or braised stuffed hearts, or grilled neck of lamb, plus broad beans.
Oooh, Debbym, I am wearing my own knee-length stripey socks today, I always feel a bit special when I wear them!
Hold on a minute ... knee-length stripey socks - Darce, nilpf - it's that bird out of Kokomo I Love You So - ahh, happy days ...
Giggling at Japanther's typo. Social networking site for dickheads: Twatter!
1) A Ferrari red Volvo 340 in 1980, it was a company car, I was quite shocked by its redness, but it was a nice reliable car....
2) No school uniforms over here
3) A seven course surprise menu at the Fletschhorn Restaurant hidden in the woods & mountains near Saas-Fee, Switzerland, cooked by star chef Markus Neff, been there a couple of times and enjoyed the four-course "menu au choix" & wondered how anybdy could manage seven courses of this heavenly stuff, served in Swiss portions (which means that each course will get you through a day of heavy mountain walking without a problem...), check www.fletschhorn.ch for the current menu....
4) Not a beachy type, more of a mountainy type (see 3....)
5) Plain (colour) with a pattern (relief stripes), woollen socks knitted by my mother, she loves to knit, I ove the socks....
TonNL: You should change the punctuation, ie; Ferrari, red Volvo340 in in 1980.
That's how I initially read it and thought 'A young man of taste'!
Beaches, sort of.
Do we have any surfers hereabouts? There's a fabulous documentary going around, I just saw it on IFC, it's 'Step into liquid', beautifully photographed all around the world including on my doorstep at Mavericks, the place with the largest surf in the world, it reaches 100ft! Look for it, it's great even if you don't surf.
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