sentence meme

Apart from offering a good opportunity to waste a bit of time, blog memes are usually pretty tiresome and once I've completed them I usually decide against posting them. But in this instance this one, nicked from Anna Pickard's blog, is pretty interesting, I think, so here it is:

1. My uncle once: raised his voice at me, perhaps, but certainly not more than once. He is incredibly dry and soft-spoken. I remember the first time I felt confident to make a joke about it, in his car being driven home after visiting my cousin Will. He laughed in just the way you would expect him too; imperceptibly, gently – a taciturn laugh.
2. Never in my life: have I been totally out of control. I’ve never wanted to lose myself with drugs, or by drinking too much. I always veer on the side of self-control. This means I find it very funny when friends dramatically over-indulge.
3. When I was five: I decided to colonise part of the schoolyard and make it my own. There was a popular game at lunchtimes where the biggest kids would fight for control of a large, egg shaped mound of grass in the field. I settled for a small slab of concrete, perhaps ten feet by six feet, and declared it my own. Occasionally someone would come and perch on it, and I would make as if to fend them off, before allowing them to stay, like a benevolent land-owner.
4. High school was: secondary school. Each year there’d be a new intake of kids who had been kicked out of the local grammar school. One or two were quite disruptive, but most were just a bit quiet, or dysfunctional, or were just outsiders. I made lots of new friends that way – I think even then I couldn’t stand the idea of a system that excluded kids that didn’t fit.
5. I will never forget: the paintings in my parents’ house.
6. Once I met: my friend Victoria and between us we conjured up an entire social circle for ourselves out of thin air; we’d just moved to Brighton and knew no-one. I’ve always thought it miraculous that between us we met so many people, befriended them, introduced them to each other, and helped to thread together a few people’s lives, who likewise did the same for us. Faced with this fact, it’s impossible to think that our lives are without meaning or consequence.
7. There’s this girl I know: who has no interest in being my friend. It really bugs me.
8. Once, at a bar: I’d had a drink too many trying to impress a girl, and turned and tripped. I somehow completed a full somersault down some steps and landed on my bum. Everyone laughed. I didn’t get the girl, oddly enough.
9. By noon, I’m usually: starving, but somehow I always put lunch off so long that I lose my appetite.
10. Last night: I spent the first truly relaxing evening in my new flat since I moved in. All the (worst) unpacking was done, I’d eaten early, and I was able to just sit down and have a quiet hour or two before bed. It was wonderful.
11. If only I had: the ability to persuade Blur to reform.
12. Next time I go to church: I will, as usual, worry that I will undergo a sudden conversion. I didn’t have anything approaching a religious upbringing, so hardly set foot in a church ‘til I was an adult. Somehow my distance from them just made them more strange and powerful. So when I go in them now I feel quite affected. No sign of any encroaching belief thus far, however.
13. What worries me most: is that I don’t organise my time properly, so I don’t get everything I want done, done.
14. When I turn my head left I see: houses, running along past the train track.
15. When I turn my head right I see: a blur of fences.
16. You know I’m lying when: the story is too artful. I can’t tell a simple lie, only create a fake anecdote.
17. What I miss most about the Eighties is: the feeling that I grew up in one of the last decades in Britain where children didn’t perpetually, constantly feel under pressure about their appearance.
18. If I were a character in Shakespeare I’d be: It would be good to say Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus, who says: “I have done a thousand dreadful things as willingly as one would kill a fly. And nothing grieves me heartily indeed but that I cannot do ten thousand more." Except of course I cannot kill a fly, or any insect except by accident, so that rather limits my potential for villainy.
19. By this time next year: I’ll be happy to be roughly where I am now.
20. A better name for me would be: impossible to find. I think people should hang on to their names, not take other people’s as their own. I like my own name.
21. I have a hard time understanding: people who don’t engage with politics at all. I can see why they’re discouraged, or apathetic, but I don’t understand why they stay out of it and don’t express an interest – even if only outrage or despair. I think it’s because I associate a lack of interest in politics (or world affairs) with a general lack of curiosity.
22. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: not know what to study. I intended to do an MA at some point but I’ve not done one yet. I truly don’t know what I’d study if I did – I’m interested in too many things.
23. You know I like you if: I get a bit animated when we talk. I can’t really disguise my enthusiasm for other people. Although I’m not as bad as Sam, who is a lovely gesticulating idiot when enthused, positively vibrating with excitement.
24. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be: the corporate sponsor.
25. Take my advice, never: turn down the offer of a pint.
26. My ideal breakfast is: an early lunch.
27. A song I love but do not have is: anything that Peggy Sue have not yet got round to recording. At the moment I’m obsessing over a patchwork of demos, streamed songs and their meagre recorded output. But I want more, damn it. That said, their new ‘June’ CD arrived in the post this morning, so I can’t really complain.
28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: turn left coming out of the station and go for a drink at the Battle of Trafalgar. (NB: [edit] of course, I mean right coming out of the station, as the ever factual Andrew has just reminded me)
29. Why won’t people: stop laughing at my ukulele.
30. If you spend a night at my house: then you can have anything you like from the fridge, except the chorizo.
31. I’d stop my wedding for: a six figure sum from Hello Magazine.
32. The world could do without: the Olympic Games.
33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: vote for the Conservative Party.
34. My favourite blonde is: my friend Anne-Sophie. She lives in London now and I feel bad about not seeing her more often.
35. Paper clips are more useful than: bulldog clips. Except I can’t resist unfolding them, rendering them utterly useless, except for jabbing at people with. Which actually I enjoy.
36. If I do anything well it’s: talk.
37. I can’t help but: talk.
38. I usually cry: when I’m hungover. Anything can start me off; a scene from Hollyoaks, a newspaper story. On Sunday I was reduced to tears by the happy face of the bloke who scored Hull City’s winner against Fulham.
39. My advice to my child/nephew/niece: “Have a paternity test”.
40. And by the way: I think people, generally, are super.