7 Things

I seem to have been tagged by La Bete over at safeism with the current meme du jour. So here we go with 7 things about me. I think most people who read this know me fairly well, so I'll put some obscure stuff in.

1. I once claimed to have been born on a plane travelling to America.

This was while I was at school and seemed fairly hilarious at the time. Managed to get away with that particular lie for over a year. I have also claimed, at various times, to be part Irish, despite there being no known truth to this (or any proof that it is an outright lie). As far as I'm aware, I was born either in Newcastle General, or Ashington General hospital, during a snow storm.

2. I don't eat (most) fruit.

I've tried pretty much every different type of fruit and I dislike pretty much all of them. The only things I will put up with are; pineapple slices if they're cooked; strawberries if they're thinly sliced, oven cooked and served with cracked black pepper; and very recently, bananas if they're in very small pieces (ideally blended) and in one of The Devil's excellent muffins.

3. I am rubbish at keeping in contact with my friends.

As pretty much everyone who reads this will know. I can go for probably a year without talking to some of them. As far as I can remember, I've always been like this and it shouldn't be seen as me not liking you any more. The person I've known the longest (who I'm not related to) is Julie Cho, and I've known her for about 25 years. For about 10 year of that, I didn't contact her. Not through spite, I'm just rubbish at keeping in contact.

4. I used to be very good at athletics.

Difficult to believe now, but I used to be VERY good at 400m running. So good, in fact, I used to run it for the county. I also represented my school at 200m, Long Jump and High Jump & the county at 4x100m relay. Oh, and I was on the county side for rugby for three years. Once I got to High School, however, I pretty much stopped all involvement in sports outside of class specific events. And once I went to University, I stopped taking exercise altogether.

5. I was born pretty much 9 months after my dad's birthday.

So that must have been one hell of a present my mother gave him. It always amuses me to see people's reactions when I point that one out. Mainly because you can see them doing the maths in their own head, and realising that they too were daddy's special present.

6. I'm fairly certain that I've only got a prize in two competitions.

Not that I enter a great deal of competitions - although there have been a couple of phases when I used to enter every competition I saw - and I'm not including the lottery in this either (although I've never won a prize bigger than £10 on that). But I do remember winning a Pretty In Pink t-shirt, book & soundtrack album (on vinyl) from Smash Hits and a jacket and something else from Empire magazine.

7. Considering I don't work in TV, I've met a decent amount of famous people.

Well, not a HUGE amount, and some of them aren't really *that* famous. But I have met music-related; Robbie Williams, Jarvis Cocker, Damon Albarn, Kylie Minogue, all of Duran Duran, all of INXS, and all of The Bangles (plus I kissed Susannah Hoffs). Comedy related; Eddie Izzard, Frank Skinner, David Baddiel, Bill Bailey, Sean Locke Mark Lamarr, Johnny Vegas, Ross Noble, Phil Nichol and Phil Kay. Sport related; Peter Beardsley, Chris Waddle, Neil MacDonald, Dewi Morris, Roger Uttley and Alan Shearer (long, *long* time ago). And a rather large number of actors from my University days.

And that is me. I'll spare most people the embarrassment but I will tag the following to continue the meme if they see fit, Feldman, Mia and Jamesh.

Anyone else who wants to, can.