I was tagged by Zhu with this currently popular meme:
The Rules: “Each person posts the rules before their list, then they list 8 things about themselves. At the end of the post, that person tags and links to 8 other people and then visits those peoples’ sites and comments letting them know that they have been tagged, and to come read the post, so they know what they have to do.”
So here goes.
1. Thanks to George Orwell, I don’t take sugar in tea or coffee. He wrote that if you take tea without sugar for a couple of weeks, chances are you’ll never go back. He was right.
2. I’m a huge fan of English cryptic crosswords. Have fun with this classic:
15 across or whatever: (1, 6, 3, 1, 4)!
That’s it. Just that.
First correct response gets to try another.
3. Places I’ve worked include a Swiss hotel, a French lycée, a Spanish language school, and a Dutch cheese factory. In the cheese factory, my job was to plane large rectangular blocks of cheese. The plane looked like this:
Each planer had his own partly-enclosed work bench. The first day, I tried to match the workrate of the guy in the next cubicle. He worked about four times faster than me. After a full day of non-stop planing, I was close to exhaustion. Thinking he was on a temporary contract like me, I asked him how long he’d been working there.
“About seventeen years,” he replied. I slowed down a bit the next day.
4. Our sons are both named after islands: One real and one fictional.
5. When we lived in Spain, my wife was pregnant with our oldest son. For her first ultrasound, the Basque doctor spoke Spanish to a colleague, who translated into French, which I translated into English for my wife, who was quite stressed by the whole thing.
6. I like John Hegley’s work. Here’s one of his shorter poems:
Shed
The shadow that a shed sheds is called a sheddow
A snake sheds no shadow but does shed its skin though
Unlike a shed.
There are more on John Hegley’s website.
7. Self-deification time: I scored the most beautiful goal I have ever seen at a football (soccer) match.
I was in the ‘D’ facing away from the goal. The ball was crossed from the right touchline. It was coming to me at about head height, not goal-side. I launched myself into the air.
At this point, I usually miss the ball completely and fall into a heap, or just clip the ball and watch its slow forlorn bounce towards the corner flag.
This day, however, the Brazilian gods of style were on my side. In mid-air, with my right foot swinging back over my head, I met the ball dead centre and executed a perfect overhead bicycle kick.
As I fell backwards from my upside-down position, I had a wonderful view of the ball crash into the roof of the net beyond the flailing goalkeeper.
In football, everyone gets the chance to feel like a world-cup winner, if only for a few ecstatic seconds.
For a pale imitation, click here, although this so-called professional had to control the ball on his chest first 😉
8. Because we came to Canada around seven years ago, people naturally assume that our oldest son (aged 14) was born in the UK and our youngest was born in Canada. In fact, it’s the other way round. Recounting the riveting reasons behind this usually causes eyes to glaze over. So not today.
Coincidentally, my wife and youngest son were born in places with the same name. The Canadian Scarborough was named after the English Scarborough, because they resembled each other. What are the odds?
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Roll out the next victims. And the nominees can be found at: just my opinion, Dreaming in Iambic Pentameter, a Berlin diary, Sunny spells and scattered showers, kauderwelsch, Jayne’s World, Prairie Road, and Pinay in Barnsley
I went sans sugar in my tea ages ago. Now it’s just a splash of milk in my cuppa, or nada with my herbal cups.
I love the international flavor of the Wapentake clan! Very continental.
And great meme!
Scarborough?
The vile suburb of Toronto? Scarberia?
I’m a Beaches boy myself (West of Victoria Park. Between Main and Woodbine actually)
Blood transfusions, they are your only hope!
You named one of your sons “Houyhnnm”
I am a descendant of Adolphus Egerton Ryerson.
You do the education thing?
Great meme ! You were a good victim 😉
I don’t take sugar in tea as well : it tastes much better without.
I like the ultrasound story !
Beth: But what about coffee? Tell all!
Your “flavor” reminded me that I’ve been switching back to British spellings here recently. Not sure why that is – might be useful as a homesickness thermometer! Gotta watch these orthographical and grammatical quirks though eh?
R.S.: The very same. My wife’s parents fetched up in Scarborough back in the sixties having moved from London. (I hear it can have the same effect these days as well.)
Coincidentally, her father was an engineering professor at Ryerson.
Or Laputa for a girl perhaps?
Yup: education is my thing – college prof. Yours as well? Classics?
Zhu: Thanks for the meme tag – enjoyed doing it.
And what about your coffee? Putting sugar into French coffee has something vaguely criminal about it.
Our second child was born in Yorkshire – think a few accent translations were needed there as well!
Laputa?
Really?
The Spanish would have a bit of fun with that.
I am a physician.
I waste away the summers in Pembroke, Ontario. And in the winter I dispense Healthcare in S.E. Asia.
Classics and History being only an hobby.
Not really! Just carrying on the Swiftian theme – and yeah, I know at least that much Spanish.
Good place to spend winters. My brother has all the Asian connections – currently involved in setting up a carbon offset project in Myanmar. I’ve spent time in India, but that’s it.
Glad you used Myanmar and not Burma. Some folks just can’t accept the fact that the sun has set on the empire.
I was in Myanmar in 1996, as a tourist. I will return again one day.
India is a possibility for me this winter, Bhopal and environs.
What do you teach? And where?
Ok, John, I’ll play! By the way my husband says he was at Barnsley Sixth Form College the same time as you. (He was born in ’65.) He did History, Economics and Politics and was a big football (soccer) player and fan of LUFC. He was usually known as Keba or Keb. He went on to Newcastle Uni (for a year) and then Coventry Poly (as was.) Ring any bells?
[…] make an exception for John, just this […]
I was thinking of changing my monicker to Dactylic Hexameter.
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
RS: Never was much of an imperialist.
English / Communications / EAP / Teacher training etc. GTA college for seven years. Fifteen years in the field.
Bhopal? Sounds like you specialize medically.
My six months of Latin doesn’t allow for Virgil in the original. I love a lass etc.
How’s the new place? Saw pic on your site – looks good.
Anna: Hmm. Rings a faint bell on a distant horizon. I was born ’67, so probably different year group. Ask if he recognizes any of following: Simon (Dad) ‘H’, Cheets, ‘G’, Drew, Doc Moz, Shoulds, Steve H, Trev C…
Yeah, he thinks you were in the year below him. He went out with a girl called Hilary something who was at Broadway and then the College in your year. His cousin Gary Evans was also at Broadway (although there’s no love lost there.) He wonders if you know Simon Morrit from Silkstone.
By the way, I think the answer to your crossword clue is “I haven’t got a clue”?
I am not in Bhopal because of the Union Carbide atrocity, though some of those who might present at the clinic could have complaints originating from the disaster. I am in a rural clinic dispensing primary healthcare. I am only a GP and forced to be such by mater and pater.
Amo Amas Amat!
Virgil is easy! Cicero and Catullus almost killed me! And I did it as a hobby! No wonder I’m single, innit?
I take possession of the dump at the end of August. It was bought more for my friend the Flower Girl than for myself. Her family owns the properties on either side. They will buy it form me one day. I am fixin’ to live in Toronto the Good ifin’ I gets me a wife.
Anna: Spot on with the crossword clue. Are you a cryptic puzzler?
Don’t know any Morrits. I grew up in Dodworth – the family Silkstone connection is fairly recent. Is Barnsley much missed in your household?
RS: I like my GP’s attitude to my healthcare: “You know best – it’s your body.”
Dump looked decent to me – plus sizeable acreage.
Good luck with the search.
Finally did this! You can see my answers at Prairie Road. Your answers were fun–sounds like you’ve not had a boring life!