Igenlode Wordsmith

[Error: unknown template qotd]Someone once gave me a free Lottery scratchcard, and I scratched it and discovered that I'd won three pounds. I've never gone out and bought one myself, though -- I had some difficulty discovering how I was supposed to claim the money, and don't remember what I spent it on!

[Error: unknown template qotd]Vaccinations against diseases like polio and smallpox are obviously beneficial; when it comes to common childhood diseases like mumps and whooping-cough that everyone of my generation had before we reached puberty, and that none of us within my acquaintance suffered any ill-effects from, my irrational and unscientific feeling is that if naturally-acquired immunity was good enough for us then it ought to be good enough for today's children.
But I know that these things can, on occasion, cause harm -- my own mother somehow failed to catch German measles as a child, and in consequence was terrified that she might get it while she was pregnant with me. (She had it as an adult rather badly later on.)
I just... I suppose I have a stupid gut feeling that it's not safe if no-one in the world has any resistance to disease save for an artificially-induced safeguard -- if we never have the experience of coping with being even mildly ill. (And if that's really what I'm worried about then I always have the common cold to celebrate -- thoroughly unpleasant and almost never lethal!)
I violently disliked the BCG vaccinations, which scarred children for life in order to prove that they had been immunised -- that still seems to me a terrible thing to do to a generation.

So intellectually I'm in favour of the vaccination, obviously. But when it comes to individual cases I'm more... wobbly :-(

[Error: unknown template qotd]Cloaks/long skirted coats for men. Simply because most people look better with a bit of flare and swirl hanging from the shoulders (I exclude floppy maxi-dresses!)

The revival of the trench-coat seems to be going some way towards this...


Waists on women. No hipster jeans -- no tunic tops -- no muffin tops spilling over a low-cut skirt; waists up where they ought to be.

Of course, you'd have to find women who still actually hadwaists first :-(

[Error: unknown template qotd]I generally get my news from... the newspaper.

This has the drawback that effectively no news happens over the weekend (because by Monday it's then 'old news' and not worthy of publication...)

[Error: unknown template qotd]Recently I dreamt (on two separate occasions -- but basically the same dream reprised -- that I'd murdered somebody and stupidly used this as the basis for a piece of published fiction, and in consequence was terrified of getting caught. (Normal people have nightmares about being pursued by mad axe-murderers: apparent my nightmare is that I might be the murderer...)

I tried keeping a dream-diary once. This demonstrated two things: first, that I dream every night (so far as I remember), often several times, and secondly that my past crops up a lot more in my dreams than I normally realise. My dreams are frequently of a remorselessly everyday nature rather than excursions into fantasy realms -- even the nightmares which constitute a high proportion of them -- which means that it is sometimes quite hard to be absolutely certain whether I actually did something dreadful or merely dreamed that I did.

[Error: unknown template qotd]Rightnow? Probably Benedict Cumberbatch - though he's an actor, not a 'celebrity'...

[Error: unknown template qotd] Oddly enough I've been wondering about this recently (although the question was "what would you do with a thousand pounds", which is still less than a million dollars).

I ended up coming to the somewhat embarrassing conclusion that I don't really want the money, and wouldn't know what to do with it; when I do have money, I can't think of anything to buy with it, and the things that I could buy, I resent spending more money on than they are 'worth'. My various hobbies already have more supplies queued up than I can use, given my rate of work -- I don't really have storage space for more clothes, etc (and am busy trying to 'use up' the ones I do have so that I can justify getting rid of the worn-out-but-could-still-be-mended ones) -- I have no room for more books either, and don't on the whole wish to own them, merely to have read them -- I have no craving for foreign holidays, and not a great urge to travel in England -- I'm already going to watch as many films as I feel I have the physical endurance to do (if I had money I could actually pay to travel in comfort! but I still wouldn't have the mental capacity to absorb that much entertainment) -- I don't desire to eat out, or to stay in fancy hotels, or to buy fine furniture. In fact on the whole I am quite disgustingly unmaterialistic, and fortunate in that I already live very comfortably with very little expenditure of ready cash.

Really, if I had a thousand pounds (or a million dollars) I think it would be a burden to me.

(Well, give it away then! To someone who would get pleasure out of the little frivolities of life, or who at least wouldn't feel that it was wrong to waste money... But I'm not unselfish enough to find that a very gratifying prospect either, I'm afraid.)

Fortunately I don't have a million dollars...

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[Error: unknown template qotd]Probably Arnold Schwarzenegger (improbably -- certainly to me!)

[Error: unknown template qotd]Possibly my 'hussar jacket' with the endless buttons and the frogging -- though I wore that out in London when I went to see the Royal Wedding (well, it seemed appropriate and it's actually a remarkably warm garment, as well as flattering to the figure), and I can't say that anybody seemed terribly shocked... or even looked twice!

[Error: unknown template qotd]I was the Red-haired Map-maker at one point... (I'm not red-haired in real life, but my brother is; and that character was.)

I'd probably just be the Wordsmith ;)