More Meme

Lee's tagged me for a meme. I tend to be one of the less revealing bloggers, I think, so this is torture for me, but on the principle that torture is probably good for the soul, I will oblige.

I have to answer all the questions and then tag six more people by listing their names and adding comments on their blogs. And I have to let Lee know I've done this. I should be able to handle that.

What was I doing 10 years ago? I was working at a job which seemed in many ways to be what my confused attempts at a career had been delivering me towards. It demanded the assortment of qualifications and skills I had acquired and was very innovative; I found it hugely satisfying. (You can tell there's a 'but' coming.) But, I had to do it in very difficult circumstances, battling with people who were prepared to behave pretty badly in an environment which didn't exactly reward team efforts. I shall say no more. I was also getting ill, a fact which I thought I could ignore or work around. I was living around the corner from Jean Miles, although I didn't know that at the time. I wasn't knitting, but I was sewing, making most of my own clothes.

What are five things on my to-do list today? Five? That's a bit ambitious. I have an appointment with the chiropodist, but you probably don't want to know too much about that. I want to drop into John Lewis and pick up some Noro Silk Garden for my second Lara jacket. I got some gift vouchers recently which are going to progress that project. I absolutely must start tidying up so that the broadband man can get at the back of the cable box. Something that you probably want to know even less about than the chiropodist is that everyone in Lothian of a certain age got a bowel cancer screening kit through the post recently; no matter how grown-up and serious I try to be about this, it's very hard not to end up giggling childishly at the contortions it requires - well, it's very hard for me. It's a pity they're not asking children to do it; they would enjoy it enormously. That's four things. I have to ring some friends who called me last week whom I haven't got back to yet - I want to as well as have to, so I will.

What snacks do I enjoy? Toast, toast, toast. And toasted bagels and toasted crumpets and toasted rolls. Toast contains more calories than bread because of the caramelised sugars, which I think is very unfair. I used to eat a lot of crisps (chips) but I settled on a drastically low-fat diet some years ago so they had to go. There is no such thing as a low-fat crisp, whatever they tell you. There may be not-quite-so-high-fat crisps, but there are no low-fat ones. The thing I like best on my toast is Marmite;I was always a fat-and-salt sort of a girl, not a sweet girl. Mmmmm, olives.

Where are some places I've lived? Edinburgh, Shortlands (we didn't live in the railway station but my Dad got the train up to London every day to work in Fleet Street), Loanhead (that's me at the Gala Day circa 1956, after all the crowds have gone and pies have been eaten. We got a bottle of milk each, and a paper bag containing a mutton pie and a bun, if I remember correctly. There was a story one year that a girl found a worm in her milk, but looking back I think that's probably not true.),
Leith, Paddington, Wimbledon, Edinburgh again, and now Leith again. I now live round the corner from the Woolworths that I used to mooch around after school while my friend stole bars of chocolate. I didn't and was terrified she would get caught.

What things would I do if I were a billionaire? Free beer for all the workers, for a start. After that, I think my benevolence would be directed towards socio-medical ends; you can't have too much clean water, I always say, and it would be good to fund research which solved the mystery of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It would be nice if all those earnest articles went the way of the discussions about what sort of people got tuberculosis.

Who shall I tag? Well, I've lost my bloglist at the moment so it's hard to remember. Can I add them later, Lee?

ADDED: I've tagged Jean, Vivienne, Jessie and Kathy.