Interview with a stranger?

[lnr]

Interview questions from Marna. Yell if you'd like me to write 5 questions for you.

Update: OK, I think I've done my fair share of writing questions for now. If anyone else wants some they're very welcome, but should leave me 5 questions in return.


1. Would you rather eat fresh lemons or white sugar? (by themselves). Why?

Probably the sugar. Especially if it's sugar cubes. They're just crunchy and yummy, though brown ones are even nicer. I like both as extras with other things (lemon in my G&T, with fish, on pancakes, etc) but find lemon on its own a little sharp for me.

2. Do you think spending time outdoors is good, or important, or essentail? Would you be able to live your life always inside buildings if you needed to, or would you suffer greatly from a lack of sky?

Definitely good and important for me. Not sure about essential. Probably not completely necessary, and I probably could live always inside but I'd miss it. I love basking in the sun, or feeling rain on my skin, catching snowflakes, watching things moving in the wind, watching the clouds in the sky. And I love to just go and sit somewhere and feel like I'm miles from anyone and just enjoy the things around me, grasses and trees and streams and insects and birds and so on. Or just sitting on the lawn in the back garden. Yes, I'd miss it lots.

3. Do you see pictures in clouds and flames and puddles and other such random formations? Do you look for them? What do you see?

In flames and puddles I tend to just see swirly abstract things, rather than pictures. I love to just sit and watch flames but I don't tend to look for anything in particular. It can be very peaceful and absorbing to just sit and watch a fire and lose myself in it. I remember spending hours staring at the fire after Ian died. Funny the things that suddenly spring to mind sometimes. With clouds I sometimes see just patterns again, beautiful things clouds, but sometimes I see pictures. I only usually start looking once I've seen one. Tends to be things like ducks and dragons and teapots. Nothing very profound.

4. If you had to lose one aspect of yourself (and I leave you to define aspect, but it should be a pretty major part of you) what would you lose? Could you bear to lose it?

I don't know really. I look at me at the moment and I'm not sure I can see the things that make me me any more. If I ever could. Perhaps I just don't think about it much. I'm daft, I'm loud, I'm quick to fall in love, slow to anger, I hate to fall out over anything, I'm a bit northern but not as much as I'd like any more, girly but in a sometimes tomboyish way, geeky but not very good at it, none of these seems like the kind of thing you're talking about really, I dunno. Perhaps I should just lose the bits of be that are insecure, and overly possessive of friends and lovers. I think it is quite a big aspect of the way I am, but it's certainly one I could do without. I don't think I could bear to lose the bits of me that can get carried away by a sunset or a few drops of rain. Or the bits that make me dance and sing along to things. I don't think I'm a very creative person in a lot of ways, but I'd hate to lose my appreciation of the creations around me.

That doesn't really answer the question I don't think, but it's the best I can do.

5. If you could have one already existing object, out of everything in the entire world, given to you what would it be, and why?

I should chose something which isn't trivially easy I guess, but I cn't think of anything. It's not that I don't have a material side. I love to own lovely things, and things which bring me pleasure like books and music. I love buying clothes and jewellry and silly bits of tat. But if you put it like that I just can't think of a single thing that I want that wouldn't just seem petty. For me gifts are often more about the giver than anything else.

The closest I can think of is that I'd love to have my great great grandma's ring back. It was a lovely ring, old gold and a lovely rich colour and set with a garnet. Originally a wedding ring and then later made into a dress ring and then passed down my mum's side of the family. My mum gave it to me when I was 18 I think, or thereabouts, and I left it at home while I was at university because I didn't want to lose it and it wasn't covered by my insurance. Only they were burgled and I'd foolishly left my pretty things in the bureau downstairs so it was stolen. I think I got 100 pounds for it since it was insured at home. But it won't make up for it, and it was a lovely lovely ring, even if I don't usually like gold.

Thanks for the questions Marna, it was lovely to think about, and interesting to see where my mind ends up if someone else is leading the way for a change.

Comments

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I agree this is great - far more interesting than most of the sets of questions which do the rounds. They were fine questions, too, ones which really inspired you to tell good stories.

Please would you be so kind as to write five for me?

[lnr]

In some ways this is harder than answering them! I hope it's not cheating to make the questions have multiple parts to them.

1. What's your favourite journey? An individual trip you made one time maybe, or one you do every day, or anything in between.

2. If you were to have a dinner party who would you invite and what would you cook and why? If you really can't cook then what would you ask me to cook if I was throwing the party?

3. What was the last game you played that really made you go "wow!"? At the gameplay or a concept or the interaction of the players in one particular instance or whatever.

4. Who was the last person you spoke to, and who would you most like to be able to speak to now, if you could pick anyone still alive? What about dead?

5. Do you have interesting dreams? Do they stay with you afterwards or fade away? Can you tell me a recent one, or one which was particularly vivid?

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Incisive, interesting questions! I think I've had as much fun with mine as you have with yours. Answers now available where you'd expect.

[simonb.livejournal.com]

/me yells :)

[lnr]

Asking for more than one set of questions is cheating dammit! But go on then, I'll try.

1. If all your allergies and intolerances were to completely go away, and you weren't veggie, what's the first thing you would choose to eat?

2. Of all the people you've known in the past and no longer keep in touch with who's the one you'd most like to talk to? What about famous people?

3. Do you own any soft toys, perhaps from when you were a child or perhaps bought as an adult? Which is your favourite and why?

4. There are cat people and dog people, but you seem to be a bit of both, do you have a favourite? Would you be happy living without animals around?

5. What's the last book you read, or are in the middle of reading? Did you enjoy it? What made you choose it.

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

Ooh - *fantastic* answers! With stories and thoughs and all sorts of inbetween! Thank you!

Would it be cheating to ask for questions back? I be liking this meme-ish-thing.

[lnr]

This is *hard*.

1. You take lots of photos. Do you have an all time favourite pic of yours? What about of other people's? Do you think of it as art or documentary or sometimes a bit of both?

2. When was the last time you had a moment when you were just caught by the beauty of something, metaphorically or whatever, and just had to stop and experience it for a while? Or what was the last thing that just made you go "wow"?

3. What's your favouritist thing to cook ever? Is it the same thing you'd most like to eat? Is it the thing you think would go down best with other people? What would you most like to be able to cook?

4. What are you looking forward to most about Glastonbury? The music, the atmosphere, the people, the sideshows? Is there a particular band you want to see? Who's missing from the lineup that you'd really love to see there?

5. Sunshine or the Sea? That was the one question on your poll about alternatives that really stumped me. What made you choose those two things in particular? And which pair of things was the hardest for you to choose between?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Go on then...

[lnr]

I could ask you some really difficult ones, but it wouldn't be fair.

1. If you had to cut down your web comic consumption to only one comic a day which would you choose and why? What if you could only read it batched weekly instead, would that make a difference?

2. Fact or Fiction? You read a lot more history and so on than I do, but if you were asked could you give up novels entirely? What's the best one of each you've read? Recently or more long term or ever, whichever's easiest.

3. If you had to decide today whether to have children or not, and that decision would be binding even if it weren't immediate, which way would you decide? What if it did have to be right now or never?

4. If you weren't human what other living thing would you want to be, and why? What about inanimate objects?

5. Imagine a genie that can't be cheated, and you have just one wish, for anything. Would you wish for something for yourself, or for someone else? World peace or something more concrete? Would you ever wish for something if you weren't sure it was possible?

[senji.livejournal.com]

Do you want to ask me some too?

[lnr]

1. What made you decide to grow the beard, and how did you put up with all the ribbing before it got less straggly?

2. If there was one thing you could change about your appearance what would it be?

3. How much are your not-drinking and not-smoking related to your religion? Is it simply just a dislike of them?

4. Suppose you believe in the afterlife, which one person of all your friends do you think is most likely to go to heaven? What about hell?

5. What's your favourite place, to visit or to sit in or whatever?

[brrm.livejournal.com]

*yell*

Er, please. :)

[lnr]

1. If you could only keep one of the MG, the Moggy and the Cub, which would it be and why?

2. What made you get into keeping fish?

3. Have you ever given anything up? What for? How long did you manage?

4. If you could go away for the weekend tomorrow, anywhere in the world, where would you choose.

5. What's your favourite food, and your least favourite? Is there anything you just don't eat?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I'll yell too. (I've been tempted to yell on a few examples of this where I don't know the questioner at all, just to see what I'd get, but it seems odd. Might be easier to set some where you know the person a bit rather than intimately, though.)

[lnr]

1. Do you still read AFP at all or keep up with the old regulars? Is there anyone you particularly miss not seeing around any more?

2. Have you picked out baby names yet? Have you and DH argued about it? (You don't have to say what they are of course!)

3. What's the best holiday you ever went on, and why?

4. Who do you look up to? Is there one figure you particularly admire and try to emulate? Or perhaps several?

5. Marmite? For or against, or are you an ambivalent weirdo like me? Are there any foodstuffs you have really strong feelings about that seem unusual?

[j4.livejournal.com]

Interview me, please! :) Though, as I said to ewx, I'm still struggling with kaet's questions so don't expect speedy answers...

[lnr]

I'll leave you a little longer then, I'm finding it really hard posing the questions, and I want to make sure they're good ones. I'll have a think overnight or something.

[lnr]

Drat, it's getting harder not easier, given I'm trying not to be too repetitive.

1. Which one person from school do you wish you'd kept in touch with? What do you think they're likely to be doing now? What do you think they would think you're doing?

2. Suppose you were somehow transported back in time, say to roughly the 17th century or so, what would you miss most from now? What do you think would be better? Who would you try and meet?

3. Was there any particular book that made you decide you wanted to study English? Or a defining moment or anything? Is there anything you might have done instead, and do you ever regret that choice?

4. What's the first song lyric that pops into your head?

5. How many beans?

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

One for me, please, if you don't think you're already innundated.

[lnr]

Right, lets give this a go. Glad you're feeling a bit better today BTW.

1. You're one of the few people in our social group who's openly straight. Do you find this a bit disturbing at times? Or does it just not have any relevance?

2. What made you get into chemistry in the first place, did you know before A-levels that it was what you wanted to study at university? Was it your idea or more something you felt steered towards because you were good at it?

3. Who was the first person you remember kissing, and the last. Who would you most like to kiss, among your friends, or anyone in the world?

4. When you've finished the PhD what do you want to do? Stay in academic research, go work in someone's lab commercially, something else entirely?

5. You have to move away from Cambridge, for whatever reason, maybe it sank, where do you go and why?

[mpinna.livejournal.com]

Me too please!

[lnr]

1. OK go on, explain the user pic. What was the occasion?

2. You don't have any siblings, does that bother you? Is there anything obvious you think you've missed out on as a result? Anything where you think it's been better without them?

3. If you could only have gone to one festival this summer which one would you have picked and why? Which one are you looking forward to most? Any particular act?

4. I think this is a fun one to ask a bloke rather than a girl: What's your favourite item of clothing? What one thing do you see and wish you had? What's been your greatest fashion faux pas?

5. If you had to give up alcohol would you find it difficult? Impossible? What would you miss most?

[rillaith.livejournal.com]

Some cool questions around ... if you get time and don't mind, maybe you'd ask me some?

[lnr]

Right, your turn, let me think (a couple of glasses of wine will probably have helped :-)

1. I know you through Simes and E-J, how do you know them?

2. As someone with lovely long hair do you ever get the urge to cut it all off and do something different? How long have you been growing it?

3. Music or books or films or pictures? What's the branch of the Arts that grabs you most? And do you have a favourite example of it (best book, whatever)?

4. What do you like best about living in London? And miss most about being in Cambridge?

5. If you could have a date with any person in the world, living or dead, either sex, who would it be, and what would you do?

[songster.livejournal.com]

Would you interview me if you have a moment?

[lnr]

Moments seem to have appeared now, so I shall do my best :-)

1. What's the best thing about being a step-dad? Do you still want kids "of your own" or do you feel like they're as much yours as you need?

2. What on *earth* gave you the idea for the Paxman/Portillo slash? And have you considered writing anything else on those lines?

3. You say people these days are surprised at the idea that you used to be shy as an undergrad. If you could go back and change one moment of shyness from then what would it be? Are there times when you miss it?

4. Do you ever consider going back into medicine with the aim of training to be a doctor, or are you hooked on academia and planning on staying in research? Think you're going to finish the PhD faster than Leo did?

5. Music! You sing, do you play anything too? I tend to associate you mostly with "classical" in my head, do you think that's fair? If you could sing a duet with any one person in the history of mankind who would you pick and why?