We seem to have missed this for a couple of weeeks so I thought I'd run the risk of restarting a right old ding dong and chuck in some quick questions before the MFF.
1. Relating to the picture (left)..... Have you ever met your government representative (i.e. MP, Congressman or whatever they're known as in your country of residence) and why?
2. Where in the world would you most like to live. You've won the imaginary Lottery so money is no object, you can take your family with you and/or use your carbon neutral Lear Jet (!!??) to nip back to visit so there's no 'I want to live near my family' thing. I'm after place rather than type of location.
3. What was your best holiday ever?
4. What career - apart from your present one - did you nearly get into? Do you regret not doing it or was it a lucky escape?
5. DIY - Do you or don't you? Do you relish a weekend of drilling, rawplugs, sanding and grinding or do you call in a local joiner to put up your IKEA furniture?
42 comments:
You're a brave man, gordonimmel...
1.Not really. I've seen him around town a fair number of times, as he is a pretty good constituency MP (in a marginal constituency...). He did respond positively when I wrote to him a year or so back about cuts to funding for bee research; on the other hand, I sent him some seeds of a local variety of broad bean, after he mentioned in an article that he'd be interested, and the bastard never replied.
2.Either Berlin or Munich for the city, along with relative ease of access to the dacha in the Bayerwald. The German higher education system looks a bit wobbly at the moment - maybe not to the same degree as the UK one, admittedly - so I'd currently be inclined to go anywhere where my job wouldn't be made a nightmare by impending cuts, 'modernisation', overweening managerialism etc. But could we have a teleport rather than a Lear jet, however carbon neutral, as Mrs Abahachi doesn't fly?
3.Pass. I can think of some that were overall okay, but on the whole I endure rather than enjoy holidays.
4.Civil service, possibly. At the end of my doctorate, when there didn't seem to be any university jobs in the offing, I got as far as the final interview for their Fast Track training programme. They turned me down, on the basis (I think)that my views on the introduction of an internal market into the NHS were incompatible with government ideology, but if I'd been more enthusiastic about the job as a whole maybe I'd have trimmed to the wind a bit.
5.Absolutely, though I tend to be out in the garden constructing fences and reinforcing the badger defences (wire, concrete, rocks, electric fence) rather than doing anything indoors.
1. Nope, 'fraid not. I'm shamefully unengaged politically.
2. Hm, difficult one. I spent six months living in Udaipur, Rajasthan a few years back, which I came to adore. I will always find India fascinating, shocking, humbling, inspiring... But I don't know that I would want to live anywhere long-term where I would always be the 'outsider'/where I would be (seen as) a relatively wealthy 'expat'. Fitting in is clearly important to me. There's no place like home, there's no place like home...
3. Summer of first year of uni, first group of proper 'grown-up' friends who I felt I'd chosen (and who'd chosen me), a farmhouse in France, a shedload of weed, a barrelful of cheap red wine, a lot of shared laughter and shared tears...
4. Trained as an actor but was never much cop. Or never felt I was (which is tantamount to not being). Would probably still secretly love to be one - if someone were to offer me that career-making dream role now...
5. Heavens no. Does not compute.
1. I haven't met my MP (Diane Abbott) but i have met a few others. Tony McNulty, now Minister for London, stands out as the worst. A school group i was part of asked him a few polite but challenging questions on policy and he refused to shake hands with us after the event, in a huff. My 'old Labour' Politics teacher was beaming with pride. Somehow, despite his inability to debate rationally with seventeen-year-olds, he has risen to the cabinet.
I actually work with someone almost certain to be an MP after the next election. I wouldn't vote for her on party grounds but she's impressive and i wouldn't bet against her being called up by Cameron for a minor cabinet role at some point.
2. I might have to cheat if money is no object and say one urban location and somewhere more rural. Possibly Paris or Kyiv for the former and Dali in Yunnan provice, China for the latter.
3. Two months wandering around China. I had to endure a year of lousy temp jobs to save the money beforehand but it was worth it.
4. Law, probably. It was my degree at university but i wasn't sufficiently interested in the corporate side and couldn't really afford, financially, to take my chances with environmental or human rights specialism. Might go back to it one day, though.
5. In theory, yes. I'd love to be able to build things and, from the limited experience i've had (including a brief spell making coffins with my grandfather), i think i might be ok at it. I rarely need anything done though.
I really don't have time for this now, but so what?!
1) Once went to a coffee & biscuity meeting with a Senator (yes, they have their very own Senate in Hamburg!) trying to get a scheme going, whereby single mothers of disabled children would be given computers (that nobody else wanted any more) to enable them to work from home. Nothing ever came of it, though :-(
2. Hornby Island BC. Or somewhere down near Swanage. Or possibly somewhere I haven't even been to yet (that only leaves about 99.9% of the world to choose from, then)
3. Ten days in the ex-Olympic Village at Kiel (now done up as a kind of youth hostel) about 5 years ago. This is a bit like living in Chelmsford and going on holiday to Southend, but it was the first time in years that I had enough peace & quiet to get my head free. Also, they provided 3 meals a day, so I didn't even have to shop & cook!
4. The only other 'career' I've ever been offered was staying on after my post-'A'level stint as campsite courier in France, doing something or other in a brothel. Hmmmmm...
(No, tinny, I didn't take it up)
5. Decorating type stuff? NO! I bloody hate it. Could give tfd a run on fitting Billies together, though!
Must dash...
we make tiny piccy big big
Thanks for bringing back EOTWQ (now at the EOTW!) Gordon!
1. My MP is Ming.
2. I'd split my time between Beaumont Sur La Mer on the French Riveria, Brooklyn, and Edinburgh. Thanks!
3. I spent all my childhood hols in England and Wales in cottages. They all seem to have blurred into one..
4. Whilst freelancing TV i had to fill in my wallet by working at a market/social research company, i got relatively far and earning tonsa $$££ (i'm still to do better salarywise) but it was real death of the soul stuff. i made the decision a long time ago to do a job i enjoy rathe than one that pays well. i'm quite happy living with the consequences (nae spare cash).
5. I do do DIY, (largetst job, a whole kitchen install) but it gives me temporary tourettes and i don't enjoy it.
@ Blog Elves, thanks for that. I wasn't too happy with my picture actually and that one is alot more appropriate (and funny!).
@Blimpy, did I miss out a Q? Alot of people tell me that I haven't got a Q (or something like that!).
Oh, and have you met Sir Ming?
@everybody else, liking the answers so far. That's just what I was after.
1) I'm not really sure. We have several TDs (MPs) per constituency and I've met one or two on occasion, but due to a degree of remoteness from the political system I couldn't actually be sure whether they were TDs for my constituency or not. The event was a party fundraiser which my brother was organising and there were a few TDs floating around.
2) Where to live . . . there's a lot to weigh up there, what with quality of life and so on. In terms of things to do - London & New York would be pretty good, but long commutes, high costs, etc . . . might mean it's not as much fun to live there as to visit there. We gave New Zealand a shot a few years back and spent 6 months there, so I guess I would say NZ would be up there on the list of places to live.
3) See above - New Zealand - 6 months of bazzing around the country with the kids aged 1 & 3, doing holiday stuff day after day after day. The edge was taken off it a little as I was supposed to be getting a job there and it gradually dawned on me that this wasn't going to happen.
4) Accountancy, Librarian (information management). Accountancy - lucky escape. Librarian - not sure, I still think I may have enjoyed it - I like order and categorisation.
5) In the middle there somewhere - no problem with IKEA, no problem with most stuff *that I have experience of already*. I wouldn't be the best at picking up the basic principles of something new like plumbing or joinery. But I can now do sat dishes, lay (not very flat) garden walls, drill holes, etc . . . first attempts at these though tend not to be too successful.
I seem to have found virtually nothing to say on RR or here recently - but I can't pass on an EOTWQ...
1. I've met John Leech (our current MP) a couple of times when he's been cosying up to the local chattering classes and have friends who are great personal fans of his. I had more contact with his predecessor, Keith Bradley (and even pushed his car for him once), and I didn't admire him particularly. However, the way that Leech took the seat made me despise him more than Bradley (lying about his opponent's policy, basically).
2. I've fantasised about living in Luang Prabang in Laos, because I fell in love with it when I was there, but I doubt I could actually live there with its intermittent power and lack of mod-cons. Similarly, Havana seems a great place to live, in theory.
3. I've done the great romantic breaks in Paris, Rome and Venice, and they stick in the mind for several reasons, but the first time I went to India completely blew me away. It may have been a cliche tour (Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Mumbai, Goa) but it covered everything from heaven to hell, in glorious technicolour.
4. I would have loved to have been a successful rock musician but I never really got that close. Everything else I was quite happy to let go.
5. When needs must, I do. I plumbed, sparked, tiled, shelved, painted and decorated this house when we bought it but have done very little since. There's a certain satisfaction in completing a job well but getting to that point is not always fun. I'm so happy they invented easi-fit plumbing, though: that is fun!
1. I too avoid politics like a embarrassing smell, altho I imagine meeting a Hungarian MP would be a bit like creating one of your own. Not a nice bunch.
2. "One day, you'll look to see i've gone. For tomorrow may rain so.." I would do my best to follow the sun; well, the sunlight actually. I'm a vitamin D addict and I need the endorphins, so I'd probably head south in November and north in the early Spring. I do like the dry cold of the far north as well though, so (rather like the Blimp-meister) I'd divide my time as much as I could. With a Russian wife to keep me company, natch.
3) I've still not had it. Will let you know.
4) The only 'career' I ever really went for or wanted was to make music. As a result, not a whole lot of effort went into anything else I couldve chosen. I sometimes regret that I didnt make more of an effort to get into something like radio or film, both of which I love, but in the end, it was music that madeth(?) the man.
5) (Sound of door being closed abruptly and then sliding off its hinges)
1. I have fortunately avoided a face-to-twofaced meeting with my local scumbag, the self-serving slimy schmoozer known as Sutcliffe. Watching him rise through the murky waters of local government to MP to Jr.Minister over the years has only has only done one thing for me: proved the old adage that shit floats. When I remember that he replaced the properly Rt.Hon. Bob Cryer (deceased), it makes my blood pressure rise far more than is good for me.
2. New Orleans? Cork, maybe. I would give serious consideration to buying my ex-brother-in-law's four-storey villa on the hillside in Grasse. I can't help it; I'm a townie and proud of it. The only other possibility is based on my answer to No.3, and that is somewhere in the mid-island hills of Barbados, away from the hotels and beaches.
3. Ask gordonimmel: he was there! And no, I don't mean Auchencairn.
4. I've only considered two other possibilities over the years, neither of which came to pass. I'm not driven or ambitious enough to chase a dream. Even my current job - officially Industrial Logistics, Safety & Training Consultant; in reality 90% is FLT operator instructor - kind of came to me rather than the other way round. As I am my own boss, I wouldn't voluntarily change it for anything, because I love it, but if business doesn't pick up soon ...
5. I won't touch the plumbing, gas or electric for all the tea in China, but painting, decorating and basic furniture assembly is fine. I know one which drill bits are for which jobs; all the doors / cat flaps / shelf fitting here is my work; I've re-roofed the shed, etc., etc. but I could never convince anyone to give me a job doing any of it!
Eyup! There's the doorbell: big sis is home from school ...
@sourpus, your answer No. 5 made me chuckle! (I'll take that as a 'No' then).
1. A "Local MP" doe not exist in the Dutch voting system.
2. Saas-Fee, Switzerland (a nice car- & care-free mountain town) or somewhere on the northern coast of the Olympic Peninsula (WA-USA), in a sleepy town like Sequim or Port Angeles...
3. Saas-Fee, Switzerland, 2009, the last one is always the best one....
4. None.....
5. Don't
Yay - EOTWQ!! Thank, GOrdonimmel.
1) I've met my representative (from the House of Representatives, you know). His name is Rush Holt and I'm very proud of him. He's a rocket scientist (for reals!) and politically I admire most of what he stands for. He holds a lot of town hall meetings, and he's actually set up a table in our downtown to meet people one at a time and hear their concerns. We mentioned that we were having trouble affording/finding healthcare. A few weeks later a process that was frustratingly stalled suddenly cleared up, and upon a little investigation I found that Holt's office had pushed things through.
2. Hmmm, a tricky one, but fun to think about. I actually really like where I live at the moment. The town itself and the surrounding area. I like the fact that we're only about an hour from our families, because I want the boys to feel connected, and I'm very close to my brother. But...if I could teleport, so it wasn't a big hassle to get back home...I'd like to live somewhere in Europe - not particular where, really - I like the idea of having a different country within easy distance, and I like all the history, and the non-Americanness of it. ANd health care would be nice.
3. Maybe my honeymoon - we went to Edinburgh. I'd been there a few times before, but it was just perfect, we have the same low-key travel goals. We spent a week in Killin, too, also very nice. We saw buzzards!! It was the last real vacation we've taken. I'm looking forward to travelling with the boys when they're a bit older. Showing them life outside of America.
4. There are a lot of careers I feel like I've tried and failed at that I wish had worked out--filmmaker, Novelist, children's book writer. I suppose it's not too late, but sometimes it feels like it is.
5. I'm married to a furniture maker!! WE still have a ton of Ikea furniture, though, and he gets just as sweary putting it together as anybody else.
2b) Here's something I've been thinking about lately - do you want to live in a place where there's a "scene"? We moved here from Boston, and my friend asked, "Yeah, but is there a scene there?" And My brother lives in Williamsburg, BK, which I think is THE epicenter of all scene-i-ness in the world at the moment. And sometimes I feel a little jealous, or like I should be a little jealous, but I think the reality of it would probably drive me crazy.
@steen - we love Killin too - 'cept it's easier for us to pop there (about an hour's drive away)
@gordo - i have not met sir ming, tho i do believe him to be completely without compurgation
@steenbeck: Ooh no, too old for any sort of 'scene' now. Just the thought of it tires me. I can recall as a 17-year-old applying to go to uni in "Madchester" because of the Roses and the Mondays et al. At that age, the idea of a scene appealed, but not now. I think it would make me feel even more past-it than I do already!
Mind you, I suppose it depends what you mean by a 'scene' - I'm still fixated on grunge-type scenes from the previous post! I live in Brixton, which I'm always being told is 'happening'. So perhaps I actually do live somewhere with a scene without realising it!
@TonNL, I realised when I asked question No. 1 that we get responses on this here blog from about 8 - 10 different countries all of which have a different political system, so I knew it wouldn't fit for everybody but on the other hand I wanted to hear about what everybody's national 'local' politics is......or should that be local 'national' politics?
Good questions, Gordonimnel. Thanks!
1. Here in Spain, we vote a list system and don't have local MP's as such. As a Brit living over here I'm not eligible to vote in General Elections anyway, so I don't feel represented by any of the (largely) anonymous party lackeys that make up the lists anyway. As a teenager back in the UK, I once met Leon Brittan when he was MP for Cleveland and Whitby (my dad was interviewing him for the local paper) and remember being singularly unimpressed.
2.Good question. Boring answer. The only place I could be sure of being happy would be some small village on the NY Moors; Danby, Lealholm, Egton Bridge, somewhere like that.Of the more exotic locations, I once spent a day or two on Isla de San Andrés in the carribean. I'd like to go back, it was fun. But live there, I'm not sure.
3.Best holiday was with my late uncle Peter. We sailed from Mallorca to Sardinia, taking in Menorca and Corsica on the way. Two weeks of bliss. Great weather. Easy sailing (after years of getting soaked in ISORA races off the Welsh Coast!). Wonderful food and excellent company.
4. I almost stayed in sales. That would have been a mistake. I'm glad I decided to become a teacher.
5. DIY. Not very well but with great enthusiasm.
1. No. But I take part in lots of online charity campaigns, which often involves sending an email to my MP, usually asking them to sign an early day motion. They're form emails, but he always sends back a personal reply - and since he doesn't believe in EDMs, he always writes directly to the minister involved. And then sends their reply on to me. Overall, I'm pretty impressed. Pity he's a Tory.
2. I've never been there, but I'm going to say Costa Rica. Beautiful, green, excellent social system on account of abolishing its army 50 years ago. It does sound like an earthly paradise...
3. Any one of many childhood trips to Scilly. Two months backpacking round Greece just after uni, with my new girlfriend (now my wife... ah!)
4. I did a drama degree, and my first job was working in a theatre (of sorts. In Peterborough.) It didn't work out. I do kind of regret it, but I'm very happy where I am now.
5. Hate it. But have become reasonably capable despite all my natural inclinations. And, having finally got our flat finished, have just bought a house that needs LOADS of work done (and absolutely no money left for anyone else to Do It). Any of you enthusiasts are very welcome to come down and help. There's a spare room (though you'll need to do something about the artex ceiling).
1) I've met some at different points in my life - I used to be quite political - (or I wanted to sleep with people who had principles 'bout such things.. can't remember now!)
2) In the bloody house we are doing up.. right here in Norfolk.. nowhere would make me happier... I like my base, then we travel to visit our friends... lovely life.
3) I've never really done holidaying.. always sofa surfed mates places (they now need 3 sofas for all of us)
so right back to school an a holiday to Switzerland that my nan paid for - £2 a week for what seemed like eternity - thanks nan (RIP).
the Matterhorn was incredible (and a bloke told me he was inventing snowboarding- it was 81ish - I'd never seen it, so believed him - it was cool anyway.
4) Fashion Photographer - but I kept quoting Lenny Cohen 'don't like those drugs that keep you thin' line.... hey who needed to make shit loads of money from vacuous bitches (NOT used in a hip hop stylee) just fact (those that I met anyway - sorry to the nice people in the industry.
5) Don't relish it.. but I've been getting knowledgeable in the last two months - tomorrow I build a kitchen (okay this weekend) but as the re-claimed floorboards got laid in a day - a kitchen can be built.. can't it?
Electrics and water still petrify me.. but wish I'd taken the Plumbing and sparky badge.. HOW MUCH?!
Barbryn
good luck - we thought we had LOADS of work - but found the survey man had missed the small matter of the roof rotting away and drains built to soak away into the walls - nothing much... (paying a professional a shed full of money to pick up on - as we did - should have saved us that stress!).. but having dug down 4 foot and re-built the roof.. it's getting closer and we will be in by Christmas how ever many times people laugh at that notion... We still love the place.. it's beautiful.
@ shane
I've been meaning to offer to come over for a few days with my toolbox and help. But its my back, you know.
1. Nope. PR, etc. And I only get to vote for the local ones anyway. MPs don't really act locally here anyway, they are all in Berlin arguing about nuclear power.
2. Well, here, I guess. I have travelled halfway around the world to find it, after all.
3. They've all had their plus points. I could do with one now, actually.
4. Oceanography would have been the logical Phd/Masters topic following my hons. Maths degree, but I switched to architecture instead. Otherwise I'd probably be writing this from a boat bouncing around above the Chatham rise, trying to dodge icebergs and diving albatrosses. I may yet switch back, we'll see how next year goes.
5. I do the first two IKEA items perfectly, get cocky, drink a beer or two, then build numbers three and four back to front and end up with a handful of unused fasteners.
@tinny
all tin cans 'round here get a screwdriver to their top... lid flipped off.. dip a brush in.. and use the juice as varnish or paint.
(so that back excuse is pretty lucky for you)
1 In my line of work I have to schmooze MPs from time to time, so I've met a few. As a resident of Scotland I have both an MP (Westminster) and an MSP (Holyrood), but the constituencies are different so that's a bit confusing.
I have only ever voted for one MP who was actually elected. Guess what year? Yep, 1997, when both Milton Keynes constituencies went to Labour - one by accident, because James Goldsmith's party split the Tory vote, tee hee.
2 Currently and for quite a bit of the foreseeable future - Milton Keynes, where I can be a proper Grandma, meeting the grandsons from school, taking them back to mine and giving them lots of unsuitable things to eat. (Not really the last one.)
3 Hmm, I've had loads of excellent holidays. Maybe Madeira, where apart from the touristy levada-walking and frangipani-admiring I really REALLY loved my hotel room, which was in fact a suite with cooking facilities and had a balcony that looked straight out on the sea. The breakfast buffet was pretty good too - I have been sorely disappointed by hotel breakfasts ever since.
4 I should have done a drama degree, except for the running away with a married man and having babies instead thing. Yes, I do wish I'd been able to work in the theatre though I know it's very hard and many (most) people can't make a decent living from it.
5 My DIY skills are pretty limited, though I can put up a shelf when necessary, and also, as previously noted, erect a Billy bookcase. But I'm far too impatient to do proper decorating. In fact my sister, who saw the inside of my present house before I did (which made the estate agent very excited, thinking he'd got two prospective buyers) told me I would like it because the decor was all plain - she knows I hate patterns - and in pretty good nick. Of course that was 9 years ago, and since then there have been two major leaks, not to mention the cat's constant attacks on the paintwork...
"...and end up with a handful of unused fasteners....sounds like my love life..."
what dat?
preferable to a handful of unfastened users, though, Bob.
Bugger, just lost a big long post in reply to all your comments and my own questions.
I might try to replicate it tonight if I've time but........
Bugger! that's the first time that has happened to me on this site.
OK, here we go again....
Thanks for all the comments and I'll try to answer my own questions now. Not easy since, apart from Question No. 1, I hadn't thought of any of them until 10 minutes before I realised that nobody else was going to post any EOTWQ's.
Anyway, here goes......
1. Cuttting a long story short I met my local MP (Mike Wood, (Old) Labour backbencher, perpetual rebel, voted against Iraq, Foundation schools, Uni Fees etc, which is why he's never got close to Government and why you've never heard of him) at the official opening of my daughter's new school (his politicking had been instrumental in delaying it's construction but, hey...). Since I'm a governor of the school I got to walk around with the 'Official Invited Guests' of which he was one and we exchanged small talk. I bit my tongue and managed to not ask him anything about the (at that time) impending MP's expenses scandal.
As it happens, he has come out of that squeeky clean.....
2. Having done my fair share of world travelling I should have some good answers for this one but basically my travels taught me that.....there's no place like home! (I used to daydream about drizzly days on the moors between Lancashire & Yorkshire, honest!)
OK, if forced to go abroad it would have to be somehwere southern Europeanish, not too hot, not too humid, no freaky spiders but still with a Big City nearby......Barcelona! That'll be it.
3. Too many to mention. It depends very much on whether it met your demands at the time (i.e. teenage holidays in France meeting teenage French girls - very exciting at the time, nothing I'd like to own up to nowadays).
However, my holiday in Barbados, based around the nuptials of Darceysdad and Darceysmam must be up near the top.
But since others have mentioned long trips I'll also mention my six month stay as a volunteer on a commune in a certain unmentionable country in the Levant aged 18/19 or my long holiday in 1992 due to an enforced layoff through East Europe, Turkey, Egypt, USA and Australia, the outstanding part of which was, without doubt, my six weeks in Turkey.
4. It won't come as much of a suprise to you that I was nearly an Army Officer. Not just the PBI, mind, but one of the technical corps, like the Royal Engineers, say. So, aged 17, I went to see a recruiting officer who told me that they wanted MEN in the Army, not BOYS and that I should go and get some experience of life, which I did (see question 3 above). At the end of such experience I realised that the Army wasn't for me but I already had the Civil & Structural Engineering degree course set up so that set me on my present career (although like Darceysdad and nilpferd say, if things don't pick up soon.....)
5. I won't touch Gas or electrics for obvious safety reasons. Otherwise, I'm prepared to give it a go, my first attempts aren't always perfect but I learn.
Mind you, I find IKEA furniture so easy.....
1. I live in a safe Tory constituency - I have never met my MP and I have no desire so to do. Having said that, I would very much like to slap his sallow-cheeked little face. He's a shit.
2. Dorset. Somewhere in that magical triangle you could draw between Dorchester, Weymouth and Bridport.
3. One of several trips that ToffeeGirl and I made to the Pfalz when the girls were young. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven.
4. Nothing really. I'd quite like to have been a teacher. Possibly.
5. Somewhere in between. I hate getting started but once I'm up and running I find it quite satisfying. I LOVE putting IKEA furniture together. I always set myself a challenge to see if I can put it together without referring to the instructions. But I'm obsessive about checking that all the parts are there before I start - right down to the last bit of dowling.
@TofffeBoy, my thoughts exactly about IKEA furniture....!!!!!!!!!
oh make a room you 2
gordonimmel, actually I suppose I do exaggerate slightly. Like DD, I keep away from the plumming and the leccy. But I will do the odd little bit here and there and my step-father for 28 years was a painter and decorator, so I would be all ashamed if I couldnt manage the odd bit of emulsion, egg shell, paper hanging, etc.
steenbeck, I hope I will never feel too old to enjoy the old 'scene' thang. The best ive seen was in early noughties StPetersburg, where I found myself among the night people (the day sleepers, in theory). Wild and crazy is putting it mildly. Here in Budapest, the early nineties was the last time anyone saw anything approaching a scene (a kind of post-commie party 'scene' that went on a bit long). Now, its all rather well organised and the chaos is sorely missing, as is the variety (try-it-you-may-like-it) mentality which is so necessary for these things to have a chance of maturing. What gives in Williamsburg exactly? Do tell.
1. my local representative is the hateful Shintaro Ishihara who I mentioned a few weeks ago as a public figure i hated the most....of course I haven't met him, he doesn't speak to foreigners!
2. Hmm...that's a hard one. I can't see myself being crowbarred into the Tokyo trains when i'm a pensioner. Somewhere a bit nearer home, but not too near! I love Stockholm but an not sure I could handle the winters. somewhere warm all year round like Okinawa maybe...which is even further from home...hmm...I might like to join my sister in Portugal.
3. I'll have to lower the cultural tone and say one of my "lad's holidays" to Benidorm when I was a teenager. Birds, booze and er...more booze. Life was so much less complicated back then!
4. Nothing i'm afraid. I always wanted to be an NME writer but of course it was just an idle dream.
5. Well, i'd like to, but we rent so aren't allowed to do anything. I don't think Mrs J would let me anywhere near a hammer either, she does all of that side of things if something small needs doing. I fold up the laundry and nod approvingly.
1. Haven't met my MP though he writes me encouraging letters ("Let's work together on this one!")and has me down as an "environmental activist" (they forgot to cover up the handwritten note on a photocopied document they sent me). Have met several MPs and ministers through the course of my work and was once charged with looking after Harriet Harman for an afternoon, which was scary. I think I was quite superfluous.
2. South Cornwall. No jet required. Just ban the tourists. What d'you mean, that includes me?
3. In terms of seeing something new, it has to be South Africa (c.2000) when we stayed with my cousin near Johannesburg, and went on a Safari type weekend (which she financed). Amazing. Otherwise, did I mention South Cornwall?
4. Social work or journalism. Probably a lucky escape with the former but the latter could have been interesting.
5. They don't call me Bodger Munday for nothing. Dodgy shelves? Just call me in, I can make them worse. I called a local joiner to build cupboards in sprog's bedroom, but I drew up the plans. Does that count?
Evenin' all!
1. Yes - the odd handshake goes with the job. Not more than that though.
2. Residences in Strasbourg, Edinburgh, Budapest, Lucca and Amsterdam please. Oh and Paris too.
3. Caravan on the Scottish borders. Fresh farm eggs and bacon for breakfast and a flea bitten poney to ride round the field. Heaven,
4.Conference interpreter in Prague. I woulda learnt to speak Czech which mighta been nice.
5. Am of the Toffee and Nilpferd school. I generally make a decent job and secretly love putting it together. Proves that gurrls can.
Better late than never, eh.
1. Not that I know of.
2. Hmm it would have to be more than one location, one of which would be this house, but there'd be spots in Paris, London (maybe in the old/new Highbury flats), New York, and Bangoulap, Cameroon.
3. Well I've been very fortunate in that sense because my parents always managed to take us far away, so much so that my first real holiday through France was this summer. If I had to pick, it would be the time they took us around the world, so in the same holiday we went to Tokyo, where we visited my sister who was studying there at the time, Hong Kong where I bought the best walkman ever (it even came with a microphone, and radio), and New Dwlhi, where I saw the Taj Mahal in Agra, still the most beautiful building I've ever seen in the flesh. I had just turned 11 so I wasn't quite old enough to catch everything, but still aware enough to appreciate it.
4. I could have been working in HR, in New York. Maybe even engaged by now. I wonder if I would be RRing right now. Sometimes I do regret the job part, but then it would be very difficult to catch midweek Arsenal games, so yay London!
5. I like to think I do, but like cooking, I might feel creative from time to time but if I can afford it I leave it to the pros. I tend to favour stop-gap solutions, a sort of, "if it's still vaguely usable, no urgent need to fix it".
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Cash Making Opportunities - The Beginning The working life is already tough enough, but the worries of being out of work was even tougher. The unsecured working environment have prompted me to search the internet for an alternative source of extra income so that I could learn how to Make Money Work for me and be Financially Independent. I listed down a number of Free Internet Business Opportunity Ideas while researching ways how people earn money online while working-from-home.......
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