Playing the game… after all, it’s Christmas

I’m not a particular fan of any form of “chain” anything, but it’s not something I’m legalistic about. Kris Tuttle “tagged” me via this post while I was in hospital, so it behooves me to follow suit. [All your fault, Kris :-) ] Here’s my five “little-knowns”:

  • 1. I’ve never learnt to swim or to drive. Ever. This is something I plan to correct over the next 12 months.
  • 2. I received my first formal proposal of marriage when I was 17. From a man! And only learnt about it when I heard my siblings, parents and grandmother hooting with laughter. [I used to have long hair in those days, and a very short sighted crony of my grandmother’s thought that I was perfect for her grandson. And my grandmother, God bless her soul, couldn’t resist going along for the ride.]
  • 3. I spent thirty-odd hours in a coma in the early 1980s after being worked over by a large group of skinheads. Some people say that it explains a lot.
  • 4. I still find Blackadder and Fawlty Towers, and for that matter PG Wodehouse or even Laurel and Hardy, really funny. And still watch cartoons when I have an excuse to….the joys of parenthood!
  • 5. I once played scrabble for nearly 20 hours non-stop with one of my childhood friends, Viraf Mehta. I believe Viraf was the first non-UK holder of the UK Scrabble Championship. He’s an unbelievable player.

And here are my five tags: AKMA Nilanjana at Kitabkhana
 Ron Silliman Kathleen Herding Ric Hayman Over to the tagged.

6 thoughts on “Playing the game… after all, it’s Christmas”

  1. Now that’s the spirit!

    I think you will love being able to swim. It’s very liberating to be able to go places in the water. To float and tread fearlessly exploring new places. I’m not much of a swimmer as in laps but give me an island and I’ll swim to it!

    Glad you are well and enjoying the holidays.

    Kris

  3. There is no way you’re getting the all-out honest version, JP, but nice try. So here’s the dope–all true, but the plain vanilla, certified by the Indian Censor Board version. (And get well–soon.)

    Five little-known things about me:

    1. The first time I tried to read Proust, I chickened out and read Watership Down instead. Ever since then, every time I see a rabbit, I feel an irresistible urge to dunk it in a cup of tea.

    2. In the infancy of the net, my first alias was “silk-rustle”, borrowed from a Pauline Kael quote about how Kurosawa created a sense of menace around Lady Macbeth by making the silk rustle of her gown clearly audible on the soundtrack. I thought this was a really nice, suitably bluestocking handle, and was naively puzzled by the number of men who made significant suggestions–and very twisted ones, I still remember the man with the goldfish fixation–in chatrooms. Until I discovered that there was some confusion between silk-rustle and a person who went by the handle “silk-wrestle”, who clearly knew ALL about the goldfish-and-whips side of life.
    My next handle was something so boring and forgettable that, well, I don’t remember what it was.

    3. If you grab me at the wrong spot on the back of my neck, I black out. And if anyone who reads this ever tries it, I promise they will meet an untimely death, if they’re still around when I come to.

    4.There are four things I have always wanted to do but never managed: bungee jump (can’t, see above, but plan to wait cunningly until I’m 80 and couldn’t care less about my neck any more), sing (can’t carry a note, and even my fond parents finally cracked after I took to singing Over the Rainbow every morning for a week: “There’s something we have to tell you.” “I’m adopted?” “No, it’s worse. You’re tone deaf.”), win an Olympic shooting gold (sigh, my .303 days are SO over, I couldn’t handle a kid’s Holi water pistol these days), and to play the piano. Have given up on three of the four, but if anyone has a spare baby grand lying around…

    5. a) There are many cats in my house. b) And there are many cat artifacts (porcelain, printed on towels, figurines, sculptures etc). I only love one of these categories, and that’s the one that contains the object that is sitting and purring on my lap at the moment, but haven’t found a way to tell the genuinely thoughtful and loving friends who kindly contribute to b) that I abhor cat-flotsam–except for the Lautrec cat postcards and the Warhol cat calendar.
    The only thing you should give people who have cats is a better cat litter box, cat odour deodoriser that actually works, a lifetime supply of catfood, catnip (thanks, BP, if you’re reading this) and a dismayingly large supply of Dettol. (That sweet little thing that’s sitting and purring on my knee? She’s also digging her claws into it.)

Let me know what you think

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