From various people on the flist.

[tree_and_leaf]

Baa, baa, baa.

The effortless meme (on my part, at least):

I know very little about some of the people on my friends list.

Some of you I know relatively well. Some I know very well; one or two of you I even know in RL.

Some of you I hardly know at all. Perhaps you lurk, for whatever reason. But you friended me and I thank you for your interest in my words.

But here's a thought: why not take this opportunity to tell me a little something about yourself? It can be any old thing at all. Just so the next time I see your name I can say: "Ah, there's so and so...they listen in rapture to the love-music of she-turnips." I might feel compelled to mock your musical taste, but I'll certainly remember you.

I'd love it if every single person who friended me would do this. Yes, even you people who I know really well. Then post this in your own journal and see what gems of knowledge appear.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I first met Creatrix* at my first Taruithorn banquet, in 1994. I was the organiser of the Wellinghall smial at the time, and the Mathom editor had passed an invite along to me. Thus started a long association with Taruithorn.

*Despite both of us having attended the same event on three previous occasions, and me even remembering a comment she made on one of those.

[juno-magic.livejournal.com]

Three foods I love: spinach pizza with cream cheese, Spanish potatoes with aioli, home made lasagna.

Three drinks I love: chili-chocolate coffee, single malt whisky, red wine.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I can't even think about the Lyke-Wake Dirge without going shivery all over.

[aella_irene]

My parents are fervent Lib Dems. When I was a baby I 'met' Lord Russell (though I was so tiny its possible that it doesn't count as meeting). I'm going to stand as a paper candidate in the County Elections year after next.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I like chilli better than chocolate.

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

The only things involving dexterity, physical exertion and motor skills I was ever vaguely and remotely good at are drawing, badminton and dancing the slow waltz.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I have a terribly sweet tooth, and have never grown out of loving sugar in all its forms, including fizzy cola bottles. On the other hand, I cannot stand artificial sweeteners or sweet drinks.

How I still have good teeth, goodness only knows. My parents might have been very strict, but it has been a long time since the days of 10p sweets on Saturdays.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I lived in Nottingham for two and a half years in the mid-1970s, one and a half of them in an Edwardian house which had buttons on the walls to call the servants (there weren't any, at least not that one could see...) and which one of my grandmothers (who had been on the receiving end of such devices not long after the Edwardian period) regarded with foreboding. It had a two level garden, the upper part having once been part of the long-defunct Nottingham Suburban Railway.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

I pick up accents from people around me. I don't mean to do it -- it just happens. This has caused immigration officials at airports to make fun of me on more than one occasion.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I drink balsamic vinegar by the spoonful. Just the smell makes me close my eyes in delight. I first tasted balsamic vinegar (and roasted vegetables) in a cafe in Edinburgh in 1993ish, and a love affair was born.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Beetroot is the most disgusting foodstuff known to humankind.

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

I'll go with that!

[dameboudicca.livejournal.com]

I actually know what Tocharian is...

[themolesmother.livejournal.com]

I'm married to a man who once taught 36 coppers stage fighting as part of a management development workshop.

MM

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Agreed! (Well, nearly ... tripe, anyone?)

[tree_and_leaf]

Mm, Spanish potatoes... and ditto malt whisky. What are your preferences in that line?

Fire and sleet and candle-light, and Christ recieve thy saul

[tree_and_leaf]

Me too...

[tree_and_leaf]

Oddly enough, both sides of my family are also convinced Liberals (rural Southern Scotland and the Manchester area, respectively), and I inherited a teddy from my father which, legend has is, his great aunt bought for him at a Liberal party conference. I think we should give him a rosette at election time and put him in the window....

[juno-magic.livejournal.com]

Ardbeg arouses abject adoration in me. I love Talisker. And I've had a bottle of Glenmorangie that was better than chocolate.

Basically, I won't say no to any Islay whisky, but I'm willing to try any kind, really.

[tree_and_leaf]

Ah, the fatefulness of a fondness for Tolkien (excuse the alliteration, I've just been drinking Glühwein in celebration of having survived (a) packing and (b) a very boring meeting, and it seems rather to have gone to my head....

[tree_and_leaf]

I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to chilli, though I've been getting braver of late, but I can sympathise, as I'd rather have something salty than sweet most of the time.

How do you feel about chilli-chocolate? I once had a very good unsweetened chocolate-chilli sauce (with chicken) but I don't think the sweet combination works very well, though it seems to be in at the moment.

[tree_and_leaf]

It's partly genes, I suppose. One of my grandfathers rarely ate sweets, but lost all his teeth by the time he was in his forties (though a motorcycle accident probably contributed). The other was rarely to be seen without a bag of sweets or chocolates near at hand, and yet kept all his teeth. He had to have a few fillings, but given his diet, that was hardly surprising. Fortunately I seem to take after him, though I don't have a particulartly sweet tooth anyway.

[tree_and_leaf]

Respect - I can't slow dance; I can do jigs and reels, because then no-one has time to look at your feet, but at a more relaxed tempo I tend to trip and fall over.

[tree_and_leaf]

My grandmother also has a two level (more, come to think of it) garden. It used to intrigue me as a child.

[tree_and_leaf]

I certainly speak differently depending on who I'm taking to. The English (or assorted foreigners) generally don't believe I'm Scottish.

[tree_and_leaf]

I love good oil and vinegar with good bread, but I don't think I could drink it.

Though I did once have a very good cold drink in Austria that _contained_ apple vinegar.

[tree_and_leaf]

Funny, I was going to say the same thing... though last weekend, a friend of mine was eating tripe which had been chopped and cooked with a wine sauce. It almost looked vaguely edible (I couldn't brink myself to try it, though.)

[tree_and_leaf]

*applauds*

[tree_and_leaf]

*is awed, and slightly baffled*

[gramarye1971]

I can sight-read most any kind of music with relative ease and memorise complicated vocal pieces without difficulty, but I have an absolutely awful time trying to memorise piano or other instrumental music. By the time I went off to university, I was so burned out by the stress of memorising pieces for competitions that I had to wait a full year before I could even think about taking music lessons again -- and when I did, one of the reasons why I chose the organ was because I wouldn't be expected to memorise any of my pieces for performance.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

One of my favourite comfort foods is poached egg on tinned spaghetti. With buttered toast.
I have an exceptionally good ear for music and can harmonize effortlessly when singing.
I can read Greek, but choose not to.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

I play cello fairly badly, but have been accepted into various groups of higher standard than I deserve due to the general scarcity of cellists.

[themolesmother.livejournal.com]

It came about thus -

A friend of mine on my MBA course was a trainer at the police college at Bramshill. He was in charge of the fast-track management development programme. He had the bright idea of using stage fighting as a way of illustrating teamwork. Hubby's stage fighting tutor and three others, including hubby, were drafted in to give lessons in technique. Then the course members were divided into teams and told to make up a short sketch using the techniques they'd learnt. They were observed and assessed on how they worked together. I saw the video of the sketches. It was hilarious. There were a lot of frustrated comendians in that group.

MM

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

I wrote my honours thesis (in Literature) on the roles of women in the "religious fantasy" of CS Lewis and Susan Cooper. For many years I was very proud of it. I am now scared to re-read it ever again because I'm afraid it was total undergraduate crap.

I am a Wilsonian rather than a Lancelyn-Greenite (serious division within Lewis scholarship), think Lewis was brilliant if a product of his time (but who isn't?) and get rather annoyed at "but he was so mean to poor Susan" arguments.

[tree_and_leaf]

I wish I was better at sight reading - I can do it for the flute, but not well for singing, which is where it would be useful.

I didn't know you played the organ! - I love it, but I doubt I lack the co-ordination necessary, seeing as I can barely do the footwork for a strathspey while keeping in time...

[tree_and_leaf]

*is slightly jealous* Of the harmonizing, not the spaghetti. Though I remember loving spaghetti hoops on toast as a child, with mild Lancashire cheese grated over the top. I've never dared try them subsequently, as I fear they couldn't live up to the glorious perfection of memory.

[tree_and_leaf]

I had the opposite problem as I played the flute - not that I was ever that good, and I could never be bothered to go in for exams, even though I did do a bit of music theory with my teacher.

[tree_and_leaf]

Personally, I hate rereading my own work, at least academic - I can quite enjoy reading my fiction and even poetry.

and get rather annoyed at "but he was so mean to poor Susan" arguments.

Indeed. Actually, I think his portrayal of Susan is rather more subtle than he gets credit for. I don't know much about Lewis scholarship, though I have read most of his work; and I have recommended 'The Discarded Image' to my students on the basis that it's a very good picture of the mediaeval world view, even if bits of it would now be seen differently by scholarship. But it's very good at getting people to accept that there was a complex intellectual model behind mediaeval thought, not just naive (mis)interpretation of surface appearances.

[harriet-wimsey.livejournal.com]

Was it mole? I've had widely different types of mole. When you're actually eating it in Oaxaca it's delicious. I don't think I'd like to try chile and chocolate sweetened together, though. I'll stick with the other traditional Mexican combination of chocolate and cinnamon.

[mk-tortie.livejournal.com]

I secretly adore 90s cheesy pop... especially S Club 7!

[caulkhead.livejournal.com]

I lived in Ludwigsburg for three years and speak with a Swabian accent when I am drunk.

I've also been lurking for ages, and this post has reminded me that I keep meaning to friend you. So I have.

[tree_and_leaf]

Hello!

And that's an odd coincidence, as I was in Ludwigsburg last weekend.

[anna-in-the-sky.livejournal.com]

Have been lurking, too, ever since I read your Phineas Black fic with the Germanist in-jokes and enjoyed that immensely. Am delurking now because I see you have moved to Freiburg. Which is somewhat weird to me, because I was born and raised in Breisach (30 km west of Freiburg) and I'm currently there to spend Christmas and New Year's with my family.

Random information: I wanted to be a ballet dancer when I was little. Unfortunately, my mom didn't allow me to take lessons because the next ballet school was too far away. To this day I believe I would have made a great primaballerina. ;-)

Also, I intend to friend you.