No. Not inspired. Just not.

Have some more of a Q&A meme from the lovely Mez, which is perhaps inspired...perhaps not. (the As, I mean, never the Qs).

1. Does the Homer Simpson spelling of doughnut as "donut" get on your nerves?
In a word? Yes. Two things though (or should that be "tho"?): I can forgive Homer almost anything, just for Spider Pig and the Spider Pig song and then we have always called the humble doughnut a "duffnut" in our house, so? Have I concluded anything here? Perhaps not. Next!

2. What's your favorite dinosaur and why?
Velociraptor! Love them. Evil little beggars with evil little faces that remind me of the alien in, well, Alien. Ever since The Child was small and was learning the Dinosaur Alphabet - because her mother had some strange idea that all 2-year-olds need to be able to identify the Xenotarsosauras - we would have to pause at length and marvel at the Velociraptors and their pointy little teeth.

3. "I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood," What's the scariest story you've ever read?
I am not easily scared by literature. I read The Shining in one sitting, in a tent in my back garden, on my own. I was about 14. Nothing. Dracula scared me a little, I was quite young when I read that and the idea of people floating up to my bedroom window did not impress, but it didn't rob me of sleep. The thing that scares me most, as in makes me put books down and take deep breaths, are descriptions of accidental injuries or slicings. The description of someone taking hold of a knife blade and it being pulled across their palm or their fingers can reduce me to wibbles and make me stop reading. Full scale carnage, on the other hand, will not.
If you want scary, try Barbara Cartland. Never again. Most frightening ten minutes of my life...*shudders*

4. Are you good at wrapping up presents?
I think a 5-year old could wrap better than I do. I am so glad they offer this service in shops. Sellotape hates me, I can't ever find the beginning, even on the ones with the special cutter bit, and even when I do, it all tears lengthways and I am left with pathetic little strips and a sense of futility - it's all going to be torn off anyway, well it is here, it's bad luck to unwrap carefully. I also have no sense of proportion (if you know me in real life, you are strongly advised to remain quiet at this point), and this means I inevitably cut the paper - in a jagged and of course, wonky line - to the wrong size. I can do nice ribbons and curly bits though.
The Italian for Sellotape is Scotch, which may have something to do with why I can't wrap presents...

5. Do you lick the knife clean after spreading jam, Marmite, etc. on toast or do you leave a little bit on and chuck it in the sink?
Lick! Always. Jam, Marmite? all of them. Since being told that it is unacceptable and rude to lick my knife, I make a point of doing so, whenever The Child can't see me.

6. Umbrella, hood or nothing?
I have told everyone here that being English, I am genetically waterproof. They assume it rains all the time in England and I don't want to disappoint them. It's nothing mostly - the 8 or 9 umbrellas in the house are usually there, in the house...and I almost never go out without some form of hood (it is my outdoor equivalent of sitting under the table), so hood it is.

7. If it were compulsory, who would you adopt out of the following: Smurfette, Fingermouse, Boo-boo, Wee-Jimmie Krankie? Give reasons for your choice.
Tough one. It would have to be Fingermouse because he could change into a seagull or the cool tortoise. Yes, definitely Fingermouse because I can still remember the song. And the beardy guy, Yaffy was it?
I couldn't hack prolonged contact with any of the others and I suspect the queue for Fingermouse would be a long one.

8. Tissues or handkerchiefs?
I am not washing hankies. Ever. Yuck.
Tissues all the way. We like Hello Kitty ones for the same reason we are great fans of Hello Kitty toilet paper.

9. What's the best remark you've come up with AFTER the event and regretted not having said at the time?
My esprit d'escalier never fails to amaze me, but I can't think of anything at the moment. I'm not really one for talking to humans at the moment, not by phone ("hanging up now...*click*), and much less in real life, so the skill has abandoned me somewhat.

10. If you had "does what it says on the tin" printed on your forehead, what would it say on the tin?
At the moment? Past its best before date!
I don't do what it says on the tin. Tins have instructions on them and there are no hard and fast rules for dealing with me?Lunatica might be ok - it doesn't mean lunatic, but moody, bad tempered, spiky - yes, a right mardy one. Good selling point that. Mardy mare is probably what it would say on my tin, along with instructions to Handle With Care, Fragile...

11. Do you agree that a paw paw would have been a far more imaginative choice of poisonous fruit in Snow White? After all the apple is just copying the bible innit.
Paw paw? Bit of a pain when it comes to peeling. Yes, of course the apple is just copying the bible and here we get into the whole forbidden fruit allegory and the doing what you're not supposed to and becoming tainted metaphor, which I am probably in no way qualified to talk about, so I won't. Strangely enough, most Italian fairy tales have a tendency to use pomegranates, which I like far more than apples...

12. Have you ever meticulously detached bits of pocket fluff from a boiled sweet in order to make it edible?
Ohgoodlord, no! That was my lovely nan's job (not gran, she became my nan at the grand old age of 36 and anyway, I'm from Essex), the lady of the bottomless handbag. Her passion was the Trebor Mint Imperial - green or white - she would even crunch them in bed and yes, she kept a pack under her pillow; they were responsible for wearing out lord knows how many sets of false teeth. But I digress... the damned things used to escape the packet and end up in the depths of hell with handbag fluff, earrings, the tobacco from the odd fugitive Embassy no. 6, emery boards and the hundreds of tissues she was always in such a hurry to hand out, so she would often be seen grubbling about in there for a mint. Her little face would light up when she found one, then she would blow off the fluff, pick off the more stubborn bits and pop it in her mouth, looking just like the naughty kid she always was at heart.

13. Skirting boards. Discuss
Tiles. We have tiles. They match the floor, apart from the two that have come unstuck, one of which I seem to have lost...

14. What is your favourite "flavour" of bubble bath?
I don't drink bubble bath.
I have two: Patchouli made by an Italian company and Poppy by the same company, L'Erbolario. A bit costly for your bog standard bath and shower gel, but you only live once and baths are a pleasure rather than a chore. My other excuse is that the nice ladies at the shop load me up with enough free samples of wrinkle cream to save me a fortune! And before you ask... No, wrinkle creams do NOT do what they say on the tin!

15. What's the most you've ever won on a fruit machine or similar?
I have never *got* the idea of the fruit machine. I never know what I am supposed to shuffle or whatever...I used to spend my pub time drinking, not playing games. Unless they were drinking games. Now there's another reason I can't play pool.
Won 100 euros on a scratch card last week, but that is going towards the 20th March Project.


Tom...