Meme of 3

Andrew tagged me with this. The ungrateful voters of Lewisham left him with too much time on his hands, if you ask me.....

1. Things that scare me

• Penury
• Violence
• Disorder

2. People who make me laugh

• Evelyn Waugh
• Flann O’Brien
• Pootergeek

3. Things I hate most

• The vast majority of what passes for political journalism
• Unkindness to strangers and a lack of neighbourliness
• Musicians who try to sound weedy, disoriented and sloppy. Like The Cure or Nirvana to name but two.

4. Things I don’t understand

• Why most political journalists can’t see just how ridiculous they are
• How do people learn jazz chords well enough to ‘comp’?
• How people have the nerve to use the word ‘holistic’ in any context at all

5. Things I’m doing right now

• Suffering from post-holiday ennui
• Mentally composing about half-a-dozen blog posts that will never see the light of day (when I could be reading a novel instead)
• … while mentally processing the various incompatibilities that various bits of hardware that I own have – and finding a way that I can get them to work together. (There’s always a way if you think about it long enough)

6. Things I want to do before I die

• Find a way to live and work part of the year in the west of Ireland and part of the year somewhere hot.
• Go to watch Forest win an away game in the European Champions League with my son.
• Get involved in a band that plays regularly again.

7. Things I can do

• Play guitar quite well when I put my mind to it
• Pick up the basics of a new musical instrument quite quickly
• Provide information and contacts for people (people are always surprised at how many other people that I know)

8. Ways to describe my personality

• Difficult sometimes
• Single minded and impetuous sometimes
• Outgoing most of the time

9. Things I can’t do

• Manage my time properly
• Concentrate on the things I should be concentrating on
• Offer anything more than strained politeness to posh people

10. Things I think you should listen to

• ‘Sweet Sticky Thing’ by The Ohio Players
• Craobh Rua’s ‘The Antrim Narrow Gauge Jigs’
• Captain Beefheart’s ‘Clear Spot’ LP

11. Things you should never listen to

• Any musicians that are part of the ‘bedwetter’ genre
• Pessimists and bureaucrats
• The Rolling Stones

12. Things I’d like to learn

• How to be a competent jazz guitarist
• How to be an exceptional guitar accompanist of Irish music
• To play either the tin whistle or the tenor banjo to a performance standard

13. Favourite foods

• Cheese ‘n’ Onion Crisps
• Curry Chips
• Lamb Dhansak

14. Beverages I drink regularly

• Coffee
• Guinness
• …er

15. Shows I watched as a kid

• Roobarb and Custard
• Scooby Doo
• Top Cat

16. People I’m tagging (to do this meme)

• Col – for the schadenfreude (a word that I only pretend that I can’t spell)
• Seán Óg
• And i-Pope for fucking moaning.