100 Things About Me, Version 2.0

01 The first book I remember being read to me as a kid was The Midnight Folk by John Masefield.
02 My favourite time of day is the night.
03 I bite my nails.
04 I've been drinking a lot of coffee lately. My concentration seems to be all over the place and paradoxically I’m yawning more. I should drink more water.
05 I'm disappointed if I haven't done at least one new thing each day.
06 I have hazel eyes ...
07 ... and light brown hair ...
08 ... and my birthday is 31st October which makes me a ...
09 ... Scorpio. And everything you're heard is true.
10 I don't wear jewellery. It just looks wrong.
11 My Dad is a retired watch maker and can always tell the time off the top of his head. I can as well, but I always seem to be five minutes out...
12 My five favourite films are The Seventh Seal, When Harry Met Sally, Clerks, It's a Wonderful Life, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Some of those always change.
13 I'm happy if you're happy.
14 I don't smoke.
15 I probably post far too much stuff on the internets. A friend said they couldn’t read everything because I’m ‘a bit prolific’. He’s probably right.
16 I can't say 'Honey'.
17 My keyring still has a key to every house I've ever lived in on it (except for the ones I've had to give back) and a key fob in the shape of the Eiffel Tower.
18 I have a hundred and thirty friends on Facebook. I’ve even met some of them.
19 I once married Julie Delpy in a dream.
20 My mobile phone ringer is Chopin’s Opus 64, Waltz in D-flat major or the "Minute Waltz”. Although on the phone it just says Chopin, as though that says everything.
21 I cried at the end of Titanic when I saw it for the first time.
22 The first poem I ever wrote was about a MouseSnail. I still don't know what one of those is. But in my young head it could swing through trees.
23 I haven't seen the girl I had my first kiss with since two minutes after it happened.
24 Four things I'd eat on the last day of your life: Fish and chips; Spaghetti Bolognaise; Christmas Steak; Caesar Salad
25 Religiously, I'm a non-denominational spiritualist. That way I can't piss too many people off.
26 I studied Information Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University which makes me a qualified librarian.
27 Some personal philosophies, beginning with: 'Wherever you go, there you are.'
28 'This life has been a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received actual instructions on where to go and what to do.'
29 'Be yourself. No matter where you go.'
30 'Funny how the girls you fall in love with never fancy you. Funny how the girls you don't do.'
31 'I can't hurt to help.'
32 'But sometimes it can hurt to help.'
33 I didn't hear Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven until the age of 28.
34 The best present I never ended up giving was a mug designed to be used as a black board with free chalk. It looks good, but it makes your tea taste funny.
35 The funniest postcard I have on my wall is of a pig orbiting the Earth.
36 My writing is always better when I'm working from someone else’s ideas. I'm not really that imaginative. I don’t think.
37 I can recited the whole of the first episode of ‘Friends‘. Still can't get REM's ‘It's the end of the world..’. Yet. But I can talk my way through Natalie Imbruglia’s ‘That Day’
38 Red wine if I’m drinking.
39 The first film to make me puke was ‘Annie’ (I was in a theatre in the bottom of an Isle of Man ferry in particularly choppy waters). The second was ‘Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan’. The third was ‘Switchblade Romance’
40 I spent a year commuting to Manchester University for an MA Screen Studies course. I miss the reading time on the train.
41 Really good classical music performances make me really cry.
42 someone with a personality. not a sheep, someone who speaks her mind. unpredictable but rational. willing to go out on a limb, be spontaneous, but responsible. someone interested in the world, who like me wants to discover the possibilites and how everything works. someone funny without being purile, spritual without banging on about religion all the time. who doesn't mind making an idiot of themselves if the outcome is pure.
43 I have the same name as the big bad demon in the 'Hell's Bells' episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
44 My birthday is on Halloween. Coincidence?
45 If there was one person from my past I would like to meet again it would be Rosie Holt. We were in halls together in Leeds and I always worry about what happened to her. Sometimes you don't hold on tight to the people who you later wanted to be life long friends. That's Rosie Holt. Rosie Holt. Rosie Holt. I'm hoping she'll find this if she ever does an ego search on Google, so I'll repeat her name again, Rosie Holt. Just email and tell me you're OK will you?
46 I'm the only person I know who watches BBC Four. More fool everyone else.
47 I once owned a rabbit called Dunk after the character from the Wheetabix commercials.
48 My first job was at The Henry Moore Institute in Leeds.
49 One of the best jobs I've ever had was volunteering in the Media Centre at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games. For some reason I cared more for it than for jobs I've actually been paid for.
50 This was the sound of my voice in 2003. I seem to be less generic now.
51 No 42 nearly said "I never can get the hang of Thursdays", until I thought of something else.
52 My favourite superhero was Spiderman.
53 I always wear odd socks. If it's job interview this differences can be very subtle. I once wrote a manifesto for odd socks wearers on a post-it note. I don't have this any longer.
54 My favourite jacket is a denim jacket I bought a few years ago which I'm afraid to wash because I life the colour and I don't want to it fade. Consequently I don't wear it all that often because I don't want it to get dirty. I do however seem to spend much of my time wearing white t-shirts and blue jeans.
55 The first holiday I remember is a wet week in Polperro.
56 The one thing I always remember about my Eighteenth Birthday is faux-Russian dancing with a girl I'd had a crush on for years to the dance version of the Tetris music by Dr. Spin. At that same party someone tried to request The Smith's Girlfriend in a Coma.
57 If I could live anywhere in the world it would be New York.
58 Anywhere in the UK, it would be Edinburgh.
59 Anywhere in England it would be Leeds.
60 Anywhere in Liverpool it would be the city centre.
61 I didn't drink alcohol until the age of 20. My first drink was a bottle of Carlsberg at a Jazz Festival in Leeds. I still have the bottle.
62 I'm never what people expect.
63 Sometimes when I write in my weblog I wonder if anyone is reading. Are you?
64 My favourite play by Shakespeare is Measure for Measure. Unlike most of everything else, the ending isn't certain and takes an unexpected turn, a bit like life. My second is Hamlet, for obvious reasons.
65 I only ever need six hours sleep. If I get any more, I feel sleepy for the rest of the day.
66 My typing is better and more coherent after a good sleep.
67 I'm in all the crowd scenes at the end of the film There's Only One Jimmy Grimble.
68 The world needs to think more. Thinking is a good thing.
69 I've never taken drugs.
70 At various times I've owned or borrowed an Acorn Electron, Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum+, Acorn A3000, Camputer Lynx, N64, Nintendo Gameboy, 286, 386, 486 Pentium etc, Sega Master System, Sony Playstation.
71 My current computer sits on a giant oak dining table in my room. The theory being that when I move out I'll at least have a table to sit at. I quite like the idea of not having chairs when I do get my own place. The floor is an underrated placed to sit.
72 The first weblog I ever read was Rebbeca's Pocket. It took me a while to notice other people were doing the same thing.
73 Doctor Who. There I said it.
74 On book case behind my bed which I use because I don’t have a bedside table, there is an electronic alarm clock with a real bell inside which I got for my Eighteenth birthday.
75 I hate computers. It's pity they can be so damn useful.
76 My last holiday was to Cardiff for two days. Does that count?
77 I don't take holidays quite as much as I should.
78 When I was kid, I wanted to grow up to be Zoologist. Then I saw a documentary in which an animal was put down and I cried for days and gave up that ambition.
79 I've never been very good at science.
80 I've never been very good at learning languages.
81 My handwriting is atrocious due to years of typing everything.
82 I don't eat fish. Much.
83 My watch is on a chain which dangles around my neck. I'm the only person I know who has one.84 I had a nursery teacher called Mrs Kilgallen. She used to call me the banana boy because I used to eat banana butties for lunch every day.
85 I've never stolen anything from a shop.
86 I was once at The Albert Dock in Liverpool with a friend and momentarily distracted Alan Bennett by doing Beavis and Butt-head impressions.
87 The first time my name appeared in print was because my blog was quoted in The North West Enquirer. It was their final issue.
88 The only time I visited a magazine office was Zzap! 64 in Ludlow. It was very small and similar to a telesales place I worked at for a week on very low wages.
89 I always include my middle name because I'm the only Stuart Ian Burns around.
90 There are very few famous people I'd want to meet. If I see them in the street I tend to walk past because they really aren't that much more important than you are.
91 But if I could choose, Claire Danes, Woody Allen, Joss Whedon, Laura Fraser, Bill Murray, Alanis Morissette and Kelly Macdonald.
92 I once called up a radio station in the middle of the night to make the important point that Harry Enfied isn't that funny. I wasn't drunk. This year I asked a question on the Radio Four programme, 'Any Questions?'
93 I once walked through a Macdonalds drive-in to get a burger with the cars. I wasn't drunk.
94 I don't need to get drunk to do weird things.
95 When I was training for a job once, I had to say three things only one of which was the truth. I said I'd had am album out, I'd had a book published and that I was in a film. They all thought it was the book, which is quite flattering.
96 I'm not as well read as some people think I am. I've just seen a lot of film adaptations. It's amazing how people never know the difference. I don't tell them I've read the books, they just assume.
97 I've left some really embarrassing stuff out of this list.
98 I now have pine a wardrobe in my room.
99 I used to keep my clothes in a filing cabinet.
100 Is up to you ....

I want you the reader to tell me what the last entry on the list should be from what you've read over the past few years. You can bung the answer in the comments box or by email and I'll pick the best one at the end of September and there’ll be a special prize.

6 comments:

Mr Man said...

I too studied Information Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University. But I left after six months cos it was too boring for words. More fool me, I think these days... :)

Stuart Ian Burns said...

It's funny how I keep bumping to people who have. Which year did you attend?

Mr Man said...

Sep '94 I got there, til about March '95, by which time I'd had just about as much of the Skyrack as my wallet could stand.

Anonymous said...

Nice idea. 100 things. May do that myself..... I'd have think of 100 things lol... may use ure 100 things as a base and change em to mind accordingly.

Andrew Murdoch said...

I wish i could come up with 100 things about me. Nice post.

Stuart Ian Burns said...

I'm sure you could. Go on, try it.