1. What's the first thing you do upon waking in the morning?
I pick up my phone to see if I have any messages from my sweetie and then I check Twitter (and then Facebook and email and...) and then I finally get out of bed and make some tea (black with one sweetner. If there is no sweetener, I do not add sugar because I do not like sugar: never milk!).
2. What's a song you might be persuaded to dance to?
I will dance to nearly anything with a beat and a few things that have none. Anything from Vic Reeves' fantastic version of "Dizzy" to Fred Astaire's version of "Cheek to Cheek" -- particular faves include Tori's "Raspberry Swirl" and Dee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart."
3. Where in the world do you live?
I live in lovely Galway and every day I stop to think how lucky I am to be here. Life is good and there are magpies outside my window on Eyre Square. I walk down by the bay and am filled with wonder to be in this wonderful world.
4. What's a great night out for you?
I am happiest with a good meal, some tasty drinks, maybe a little dancing or a concert with great music: essential -- good friends with lots of laughs (friends who make me laugh are the best gift of all). That said, an evening down the pub with my friends is aces.
5. What's a great night in?
A good movie and a cuddle in front of the fire with my sweetie. A real fire would be best, but at present I have a fake coal fire and he has no fireplace at all, so we have to make our own sparks.
6. If you were offered an all expenses paid trip anywhere in the world,where would you go?
Around the world I would go, for sure for sure. I have always wanted to go to Egypt and India, but as long as I were going there I'd want to go to New Zealand too and then why not Japan and China and then Russia and back through Scandinavia and to Finland again and Iceland too -- on and on. Macchu Picchu! Rio! Everywhere.
7. What book do you wish everyone would read so you could talk about it?
I would say Alice in Wonderland which people tend to know from movies rather than the real book and it is one of those lynchpins of my life, but I'd also want to get people to read Beowulf (in the original!) so I could just recite lines from it at random and be understood (well, I already recite lines at random, but people tend to stare at me). I should be smart and say one of my books...
8. What movie makes you cry?
Lots of movies make me cry! I'm a sap. Guaranteed tear-jerkers include Auntie Mame, Now Voyager, The Women, Dark Victory, An Affair to Remember, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility -- oh, the list goes on and on!
9. What makes you laugh?
Peter Cook, Peter Cook, Peter Cook! HAHAHA -- unexpected that, right? And Tony Hancock, the Goons, Pythons, Goodies, AbFab, Black Books, The Mighty Boosh, Blackadder, and all my witty friends.
10. Are there fairies at the bottom of your garden?
I am the fairy at the bottom of the garden but I moved inside because my toes were cold.
Thank you all for a fantastic month of sharing.
It takes audacity to assume you've got a novel in you,
although more and more people lately seem to find that audacity
regularly -- pity they're mostly illiterate celebrities who pay someone
to do the paperwork. Regular women often have more difficulty taking up
the proverbial pen because they lack the chutzpah, but also because they
lack the time. It's all that unpaid labour that's not really on the
clock but somehow takes up an awful lot of hours.
Chances are you've spent the last few days desperately defending your small shop from local thugs, wearing your fingers out texting your thug pals for the next riot hotspot, or sobbing quietly as the world seemed to be melting into a fiery ball before your stunned eyes.