- I once wrote a letter to Isaac Asimov.
The BBC had been screening a Merkan tv series called Holmes and Yo-Yo, about a human police detective and his robot side-kick. This idea was obviously stolen from Asimov's novel The Caves Of Steel and other stories featuring the robot detective R. Daneel Olivaw. So I wrote and asked Asimov if he was collecting royalties on the series. He wrote back denying that H & Y was anything to do with him. If you've ever seen it, you'll know why. - I gave my girlfriend a butterfly for Xmas.
Embra generally gets even colder in December than in "Summer". So imagine my surprise when I woke up on Xmas Eve 1972 (possibly) and found a newly-hatched butterfly fluttering around in the relative warmth of the kitchen. I fed it some sugar water and gave it to my then girlfriend as a surprise Xmas present. She didn't dump me on the spot, so I guess she was fairly impressed. - I'm a bad male model.
Actually, that should read bad rôle model. One of the local kids, G, had overheard his parents gossiping about me, so he repeated it to his mates. Who completely misinterpreted what they'd heard, like Chinese Wispas. The first I knew about it was when they asked me if I was a male model, so I strutted my stuff up and down an imaginary catwalk, to general hilarity. Then they all turned and pointed at G, shouting Numpty!
(I have no idea why G's parents thought I was a bad rôle model, I've never been banned for drink-driving.) - I once stopped drinking tea for four years.
When I was twelve, I went on a school cruise to Scandinavia. The ship struck Leith docks on the way out - our cabin received a rather large dent in the wall, i.e. hull. I was seasick for the first two days. For hot beverages we had a choice of tea or coffee, with nowhere else to go. The tea tasted like, well, it's hard to describe, but let's just say that it was so bloody awful that for the next four years I would only drink coffee. I had a great time. - I'm heavily into recycling.
To prove it, here's a recycled joke:
Two blondes, let's call them Sam and Amanda, are in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Sam says, "Let's play Hide & Seek!" and promptly buries her head in the sand. Amanda takes three days to find her twin. - The first time I read The Lord Of The Rings, it took me three days to finish it.
Hey, who needs sleep when you're fourteen? - I'm the world's worst darts player.
During one game, I managed to throw a dart through a window. Well, it would have gone through if the window had been open at the time. As it was, only the point came out the other side. Ooer. - I love the song Over The Rainbow.
Especially the Tori Amos version, but also Eva Cassidy. And when they played this one at the end of 50 First Dates, I just had to track it down. It's by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. Beautiful.
Tagging, lets' see, Cat, Mr. X and Brom.