Meme

Since I have not been a blogger, or a blog reader for that matter, for very long, I was a bit puzzled when Haddock left a comment on my blog, saying I had been tagged. Well, I understood roughly what that meant, but meme? What the heck was that? I went on whatis.com to find out and then I had a look at Haddock’s blog. After that I had the whole picture.

I don’t ‘know’ many other bloggers yet so I will have to see how many I dare invite to take part. I feel a bit uncomfortable approaching ‘strangers’. What will they think? How pc is that? What about blogosphere etiquette? Throw caution to the wind? Well, I have put up a proper photo of myself in my profile now, so why not be bold and harass a few people in the kindest possible way?

Rules: Each person posts the rules before their list, then they list 8 things about themselves. At the end of the post, that person tags and links to 8 other people; then visits those people’s sites and comments, letting them know that they have been tagged, and to come read the post, so they know what they have to do.

1. Inspired by CanadianSwiss I will reveal what I wear in bed – ear plugs! It’s a habit from the days when we lived under the Heathrow fly path. Now it keeps out early birdsong, snoring (yes, I snore too) and noisy neighbours.

2. As a little boy in Sweden in 1958 I managed to get the autographs of the whole Brazilian World Champions football team, including Pelé, Garrincha, Didi, Vava etc. My father, whose favourite foreign language was Portuguese, interpreted for them on a couple of occasions, so I had easy access. Sadly, later in life I lost the autograph book with all the valuable signatures. Sentimental value, but also real money value. What would they have fetched on eBay, I wonder? A fortune I guess!

3. I saved somebody’s life on Hammersmith Bridge once, or at least I thought so. I was walking across the bridge when I saw a man standing on the outside with his arms behind him, clutching the railing. His briefcase and coat were behind him on the bridge. He was a big chap and the Thames was rushing out towards the sea far below. Without thinking about my own safety, I instinctively hurried up to him, grabbed him under his arms, held hard and said something like ‘What are you doing?’ All of a sudden the place was swarming with police, first-aid people, camera crews etc. They had all been hiding in little wooden hides, which I presumed had something to do with the forthcoming Oxford-Cambridge boat race. They were filming for a recruitment ad campaign for the Special Constabulary to see how people reacted in different scenarios. So, did I save somebody’s life? In a way I did, I suppose.

4. My own life was definitely saved 30 years ago when I was a passenger in a car crash. What saved me? My good habit of always putting on my seatbelt, even before it was made compulsory. Despite the trouble of lifting up three pairs of skis to fasten the belt, I stuck to my routine. It was quite useful when the car hit a lorry sideways in the fog. Every morning for many years after that, I said to myself ‘It’s good to be alive.’ It certainly is!

5. A life that wasn’t spared was that of a pheasant on the M25, the London Outer Circular. I was doing ca 85 mph and the dumb bird smashed up my front. I pulled over, walked back to try to recover my lost number plate and was severely told off by motorway police who had spotted me.

6. In the sixties I played in a band in southern Sweden. On a number of occasions we were the first support act to famous British bands. We ‘played with’ all of them except the Beatles and the Stones. Everything was so much simpler and small-scale in those days. I felt rather insignificant standing next to John Entwhistle of the Who tuning my bass guitar. We were becomingly embarrassed the time we played (from our regular repertoire) some Spencer Davis numbers, which they repeated an hour later on the same stage. Dooooh!

7. I still feel guilty sometimes for once having prevented a female colleague of mine from getting Paul McCartney’s autograph and photo. We were having an after-work drink in the Sun Inn in Barnes, London, when we spotted Paul having a chat with a friend. My colleague had the camera, paper and pen, but I convinced her to leave him alone. Even worse, a few years later a friend of mine gave me a birthday present, a demo single with a personal dedication from Sir Paul. I feel not a little rotten about that.

8. Five years ago I had a pituitary adenoma, a tumour/growth, which killed off my pituitary gland. So all hormone production was wiped out. Before I was completely diagnosed and got the proper medication sorted out (ca 2 months), I experienced something which is normally the domain of women, namely hot flushes. So, menopausal women everywhere, you have my full sympathy. I know what it is like!

I have tagged the following bloggers for this meme: TBA ASAP