Six Sense
Six Things:
1. My mum and dad once saw Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs playing the piano at a school concert at my school in Rio de Janeiro in 1982. I’d like to say that Lord Lucan was draped over the baby grand singing “Summertime” but that would be untrue. The Biggs bit is true, though. They never said if he was any good.
2. My Mum once thought I’d been abducted when my Uncle saw me sitting in my pram outside a shop in Clydebank, thought, “Hello, neice!” and pushed my pram home with nary a thought. People used to leave their kids outside shops in the Seventies because crime wasn’t a “thing” then. My poor Mum came out of the shop to find me gone. Luckily no police were called because Uncle suddenly remembered that I was probably with my Mum and I hadn’t just wheeled myself there for a laugh. My Mum can still make her brother feel guilty by mentioning it even though I’m 39 now and safe and sound.
3. I once won the PE prize at school and the whole of the assembled school turned round simultaneously and went “Huh?” I am terrible at sports. The teacher was either on drugs or felt sorry for me. It’s very possible that she thought I was special needs and was being politically correct. Being good at sports at school is overrated. Where’s the money in it?
4. There is a fantastic and huge oil painting of me and my siblings. My dad paid a fortune for it, and it was done by quite an established artist about twenty years ago, but my Mum put it in the attic, because we were too overbearing, just like the First Mrs de Winter.
5. I once had breakfast with a bunch of Swedish actors including the legendary Max von Sydow. I embarrassed myself by telling him that he was great as Emperor Ming in Flash Gordon. He just laughed. I cringed for about two years. For Pete’s sake, the man was in The Seventh Seal! That’s like meeting Lawrence Olivier and going nuts over his turn in Clash of the Titans. The shame.
6. I am offended by ketchup and all its variants. I wrote about it here, but you may think I went too far like many others. In which case I put it to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that I did not go far enough!
This post is the result of couple of people tagging me this week; Edinburgh’s own organically run central heating system, Mr Farty, and windswept and interesting jazz loving authoress, Kate Lord Brown. Farty asked for Seven Things About Me and Kate asked for Six Things About Me. Isn’t that just like a man to want more? Anyway, I’ve done six just to be difficult. I thought about doing thirteen but it’s too close to Halloween to be tempting fate with the devil’s numbers. In both cases I’m supposed to pass the tag on. I tag Loth, Suzie, Billy the Kid and Inchy. And we’ll call it Six Things About Me, unless of course you want to do seven, which is your prerogative.
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