Chain Queries

OK so this is how it works, Kathryn devised these 5 questions for me to answer on my blog (I had asked her to be gentle but...) and I in turn will pose 5 questions for the first 5 people who volunteer in the comments here.

These volunteers then provide answers on their respective blogs to the bespoke questions I'll pose for them each here. They also ask for 5 volunteers... and so it goes on...

1. Tell us your favourite old film for a wet Sunday afternoon.

I don't think I can narrow it down to just one, but to cheer myself up I'd go for one of the following DVDs:

• 24 Hour Party People (it's the Manchester I
  fell in love with!),
• Human Traffic (to regain the Saturday night vibe),
• Dogma (an alternative church experience?),
• Moulin Rouge (so sumptuous, who would care what the weather outside was like),
  The Royal Tenenbaums (I love its strangeness),
• Being John Malkovich (well it's one way of escaping to someone else's reality I guess),

I could go on forever, but I've already stretched the original question more than is fair, so let's leave it there.

2. If you were not involved in your present career, what would you choose to do with your time? (aside from the inevitable "voluntary" full-time commitment to a certain Festival of our acquaintance)

Well quite possibly something to do with events and festivals in a more professional capacity.

Outside of that though, I guess I'd look for something that allowed me to exercise my creativity and brain in combination with working with people and making the world a better place in some small way. Maybe if I had the talent I could be a writer for half the time (and hopefully pay the bills) and then spend the rest of my time doing voluntary work in urban regeneration efforts or something to do with asylum.

But let's face it, if I could really think of a viable/more preferable option, I'd hardly still be following this glittering career path now would I?

3. Your house is on fire. What one thing do you save, and why?

I always loved Ricky Gervais' answer to this question: "one of the twins".

I can't match his wit however, so I'll go with the honest answer, which is my heart says "my iPod", but my head says "imagine the absolute nightmare that would ensue if you lost all your Greenbelt files!".

As a means to both ends therefore, can I go for my computer hard-drive? That way I'd have a back-up of my music collection, so a replacement iPod could be uploaded with ease and I'd have 95% of the Greenbelt stuff I'd need. Not to mention loads of contact details for people, photos, videos and so forth. Let's face it an awful lot of the things that matter to me, either through their beauty or usefulness, are now stored electronically!

That sounds terribly unsentimental doesn't it? I guess I'm not the sort to have little treasures and invest memories in physical objects (and one learns not to get too attached to material possessions in my neighbourhood). Then again I did manage to get this far before the booming voice of practicality broke in with "grab your insurance documentation fool!", so I guess there’s hope for me yet.

4. If you could spend a day with one person from the past, who would it be and why?

I really had trouble answering this, I don't really have heroes in the same way some people seem to.

I think therefore that I'll plump for my maternal grandfather as opposed to anyone famous. He died before I was born, but my Mum clearly adored him and always says he would have loved teasing me mercilessly.

By all accounts he sounds like a kind, gentle and intensely homourous man who was devoted to his family. I grew up knowing him through mum's reminiscences and a large black and white photo that sat on a small windowsill in the living room. He wears one of those smiles that goes right to the eyes. I wish I had known him, I think we'd have gotten on.

5. What makes you believe in God, on a good day?

I suppose (on a good day), I see God reflected all around me. I see the fingerprint of a creator in people and situations all the time, I don't really know how to explain it. It can be found as much in the broken person as in the (seemingly) whole, as easily whilst drinking a beer outside a bar as away from it all up in the hills. I don't know how to explain it properly - little glimpses of some sort of 'otherness'. Mostly I guess it manifests as a sense of something else around and within me, which I tend to put down to the presence of God's spirit, but it could equally well be a form of mild indigestion I guess ;-)


Oh dear, they're really not very exciting answers are they? I'm sorry Kathryn, I don't think I've done your questions justice.