An amusing meme from... everywhere, almost.

[tree_and_leaf]

Name a character from one of my fandoms and I'll give you (a) three facts about them from my personal canon/fanon, (b) a reason I dislike him/her, (c) a reason she/he is brilliant, (d) five things that never happened to that character or (e) five people that character never fell in love with and why. You pick the character. I pick the letter.

I am irritated to note that I have about €5 in library fines. I really hate the German system of giving you a stupid little computer printout with the date on it - which I instantly lose - rather than putting a stamp in the back/ front of the book where you can see it at a glance. I also haven't had the postal 'Mahnung' - as I set my preferences to 'contact by e-mail', I assumed if I didn't get an e-mail nothing could be overdue, but apparently they just send out overdue notices by post. This strikes me as expensive and inefficient, but is probably a good way to increase fine revenue....

Comments

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

Sam Tyler from "Life on Mars", please.

(And "boo!" on the library fines! When tuition fees of 500 euros per semester were recently introduced, our university library proudly announced, to everyone's wry amusement, that the fees for fines and reservations would now be lowered from 1 euro to 50 cent per book. Hah.)

[tree_and_leaf]

1. Sam used to like science fiction - back in the twenty-first century - but he hates it now. Annie has a weakness for Doctor Who, but Sam leaves the room when it comes on. He's never made any attempt to explain this, and Annie doesn't like to ask, as she has a feeling the answer won't have anything to do with not being a child or a Pertwee fan...

2. Neither of them remembers this, but Sam first met Gene when he was four, and got seperated from his dad after a football game, because his dad was too busy trying to organise meeting up with his friends to pay attention to his son. Gene, who had also been at the game, happened across the weeping small boy and ended up taking him back to the station and getting a WPC to give him chocolate biscuits until he calmed down and cheered up enough for them to get his address out of him. The WPC took him home to his mother and Gene gave Vic - who eventually turned up at the station to make enquiries after Sam was on his way home - a bollocking for wasting police time by being bloody careless with his lad.

This may, ultimately, have started Sam off on the road to joining the police, so it's probably just as well that they've both no idea of this.

3. Occasionally he kicks himself for not knowing enough football statistics to make the odd bob or two at the bookies. He did briefly consider putting money on a woman being prime minister before the end of the decade, but he couldn't bring himself to. It would be nearly as bad as actually voting for her.

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

Awww, all three scenarios are quite adorable, but #3 is truly hilarious!

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

Hmm...how about young St George?

UEA library used to give the slip of paper too, and I was forever losing it (or getting the wrong one), but luckily as a postgrad a loan lasted practically a whole term, so I didn't have *too* many fines...

[tree_and_leaf]

Three facts about St George:

1. The heavy flirting with Harriet wasn't entirely an act to annoy Peter. He developed something of a crush on her, but even if it hadn't been for the Uncle Peter factor, he'd never have dared verbalise it - except as a joke. He had difficulty admitting to himself that he found intelligent, strong-minded women attractive, because that would also have meant admitting he found them bloody scary.

2. He loves downhill skiing, the faster and more dangerous the better.

3. He read English. The only reason he got a second rather than a third or a pass- which on the whole would have fitted his philosophy of life better was that at the start of his last term, he woke up from a dream where he'd been telling Uncle Peter he'd been ploughed.... His mark was also pulled up by a question touching on early printed books, which he was able to answer brilliantly.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Absolutely agree with (1), and I rather like (2) - I have a bizarre desire to get the various Wimseys to a ski resort!

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

Feirefiz.

[tree_and_leaf]

a.

1. The main reason he went off to India with Repanse was that he couldn't stand the European weather. Too much rain and fog.

2. He never quite forgot Sekundille, though he tried quite hard to.

3. He was fond of Parzival, but he had difficulty taking him seriously as Graal King.

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

re. 3: him and me both!

(I always thought it was unfair he couldn't see the Graal; but then again - if he could, he'd probably have taken over the whole shbang immediately - asked The Question, and made the epic a bit more pagan. And then Wolfram would have done for heresy.)

[tree_and_leaf]

More importantly, it would kind have made the whole Parzival story up till then pointless :)

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I have just left two of my library books in a padded envelope for one of my JYA students. This may be risky.

[tree_and_leaf]

I hope they'll survive!

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I'm just as bothered that they get back to the library!

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Gilderoy Lockhart!

[tree_and_leaf]

Gilderoy Lockhart is brilliant because he works very hard at being a lying solipsistic fantasist. You almost have to admire someone that dedicated!

[owl]

The public libraries in NI do that. It's an enormous pain.

[tree_and_leaf]

It is indeed. I suppose the idea is to save work, but I wouldn't have thought the date stamp was that much more inefficient, and it saves both trees and the tempers of the readers...