Reflections of a stormy petrel

You know how sometimes people on your friends list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when were they working THERE? Since when were they dating HIM/HER? Since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you should already know? It happens to all of us sometimes. Rfachir, for instance, had suffered a major loss, and I only found out from the meme.

Please copy the topics below, erase my answers and put yours in their place, and then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration. One-Word-Answers seldom help anyone out.

FIRST NAME: Fabio Paolo
AGE: 50
LOCATION: South Ruislip, London, England
OCCUPATION: translator.
PARTNER: None ever.
KIDS: (Hysterical laughter).
BROTHERS/SISTERS: 1 brother, 1 sister, 1 half-sister.
PETS:Never had one in my life, don't intend to start now.

3-5 BIGGEST THINGS GOING ON IN YOUR LIFE:

1) Franco Urru, my closest friend since I was 18 has died, an immense grief with many ramifications. (E.G., he died of lung cancer after a lifelong twenty-a-day habit, which has hardened my already negative attitude for smoking. I had been begging him for thirty years to lay off those things.) He was a source of light and laughter in my life, and I can never remember him without a bright smile on his face. It is also atrociously unfair that he should have died so early, when, after a lifetime spent in hope, he had finally managed to build a solid international reputation as the great cartoonist he was.
2) Since last spring I have been treated for a long-term wound in my lower left calf, which, if untreated, could have gone on bleeding and stinking for ever. The plumbing in that part of the human body is rather badly designed, apparently, and can spring incurable leaks for no apparent reason. The treatment is now nearing its end, but I will have to wear special stockings for the rest of my life.
3) I have started seriously trying to do something about my severe overweight problem, which had got much worse over the last couple of years. Results thus far mediocre, but at least I have stopped ballooning. The Christmas holidays don't help.
4) I am working on an extended essay on Homer and a book on the fraudulent peace of 1918-1923. Both are late and the computer seems to have declared war on the Homer.
5) Over the last couple of years I have got to know my half-sister, a fascinating person, both like and extraordinarily unlike me in every way. Before we got in touch via Facebook, I had only met her once, decades ago.

PARENTS: Both in remarkable shape for their years. My father, class 1938, is working on setting up a fashion company, with my occasional help and support. My mother, born 1945, has just been retired - over her own objections - from her post in one of Italy's highest courts, the Council of State, and is developing new interests - and learning to use the internet - to compensate.

Hobbies: maybe I should develop one or two.

Repost at will.

For the many of you I didn't know last time, this goes as follows:

1) I shall make a list of 15 characters first, which I shall keep confidential

2) You wonderful f-list ladies and gentlemen will post questions in the comments, such as:

"4, 6, 12 & 15 are starting a band together, what is their name and what kind of music do they play? Also, who's the lead singer, and what instruments do the others play?"

3) Once I received enough questions, I shall answer them using the previously selected 15 characters and post the answers. (On one occasion, the answers ended up being so wonderful that I didn't even have to make stories up to fit them.)

4) Everybody laugh!

Note: most characters are apt to be from the Marvel universe,Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek TNG and Voyager, BtVS and even my own (which you can see in two stories I published in FA: Harry Potter and the Silver Angel and Hermione Granger and the Nundu).

Swunked tihs from ani_bester.

"The first ten Five (let me be realistic here, 10 won't happen) people to comment get to request that I write a drabble or sketch a doodle. Any pairing/character of their choosing (in a fandom I'm familiar with). In return, they have to post this in their journal. Share the love!"

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Some bloke from the West Country:

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,—to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

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Strong, gentle, intelligent, courageous, affectionate, wise.

Swunked from pandoraculpa:

1. Post two truths and one lie.
2. Get your f-list to guess which is which.
3. Tag 15 people.

Well, tagging fifteen people is too much like work, but here is the truth and lies anywyay:

1) I once found a coconut in a snowstorm.
2) I have slept in the open in the quad of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
3) I have studied in the most ancient school in the world.

...here are the four items that nobody could get:



This is awesome new talent Imelda May from Dublin in her wonderful "Big Bad Handsome Man" and a life and vigour and fun I haven't heard since Ricky Martin in his prime:



This one, on the other hand, is a positive embarrassment; and oddly enough, Marty Robbins actually wrote one of the greatest love songs of all time - "My woman, my woman, my wife".



And this one, to finish with, is a masterpiece and one of the greatest songs ever composed - but it is, alas, in Italian.

1. What bill do you hate paying the most?
What, there are any you line? But seriously, gas and electricity have been obscene and make me have murderous thoughts about directors, shareholders and privatizers.

2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?
My old shared home in Leyton, actually.

3. What do you really want to be doing right now?
Write a passionate panegyric for a man who's been dead a quarter of a century. What do you do when you find out that a man who was so far above you that you had to bend your neck to look up at him has seriously done you a major kindness, and you did not find out for 24 years?

4. How many colleges did you attend?
St. John's College, University of Oxford, and, (alas), School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

5. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?
It was around and it was washed.

6. What are your thoughts on gas prices?
Gas and electricity prices are living evidence of collusion and cartelization.

7. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?
I don't have an alarm.

8. Last thought before going to sleep last night?
Well, it still is last night as I am writing, so cf. question three.

9. Do you miss being a child?
No comment.

10. What errand/chore do you despise?
I kind of like errands and chores. The worst thing about most is that I might not be doing them well, and that I am lazy. But the only ones I hate are major breakdowns like the clogging of a drainpipe or the collapse of a heater.

11. Get up early or sleep in?
Depends. I used to think I was an evening person, but I found that is not really the case.

12. Have you found real love yet?
Too often.

13. Favorite lunch meat?
Bresaola rolled around a grissino.

14. What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart?
It's called Asda in this country, and it always looks cheap and crowded. But they do have an amazing variety of stuff and it's cheap.

15. Beach or lake?
Lake. One thing that will never change is that I am a mountain person and beach holidays bore me unutterably.

16. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?
Do I think brething is an outdated ritual?

17. Sopranos or Desperate Housewives?
Neither. Can we please have something that does not insult our most basic moral sense?

18. What famous person would you like to have dinner with?
Gilbert Keith Chesterton.

19. Have you ever crashed your vehicle?
Two-three times, if bicycles count.

20. Ever use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?
Only in training as a security guard long ago. But I did have a real fire in my last flat, so my current one is well provided with extinguishers (plural).

21. Ring tone?
I don't use portable phones - it's too like being at the end of a long leash. In fact, I loathe the telephone altogether and I wish my countryman Antonio Meucci had seen fit to invent a jet-pack instead.

22. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?
Army barracks in Sassari and L'Aquila.

23. Somewhere in California you've never been and would like to go?
I'm still short of places in Italy - but sure, I won't mind visiting Yosemite Park or San Francisco or Disneyland or the Mojave Desert if the opportunity ever comes.

24. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?
I would fuck up either, but I am working on a new career anyway.

25. How old are you
47 until next July

26. Do you have a go to person?
No, never did. Very occasionally, my mother.

27. Are you where you want to be in life?
Is that meant to be a funny question?

28. Growing up, what were your favourite cartoons?
Classic Popeye the Sailor. Also Disney. Also Japanese big robots - but I did not dare say that at the time, because it was all the fashion to despise them in Italy then.

29. What about you do you think has changed the most?
I am more constructive, and I know a bit more about managing money.

30. Looking back at high school were they the best years of your life?
No comment.

31. Are there times you still feel like a kid?
When I read old sixties comics - only the good ones, though. The dull ones only make me feel bored.

32. Did you ever own troll dolls?
I think I have one now, if that counts.

33. Did you have a pager?
Never had one, and never will have anything similar. Check my answer on portable phones: I would loathe to feel like I'm on the end of someone's leash. If I ever were given a pager by some well-meaning person, it would be sure to suffer an unfortunate incident involving the nearest river very soon.

34. Where was the hang out spot when you were a teenager?
No comment.

35. Were you the type of kid you would want your children to hang out with?
Christ, no.

Your result for The Your Type of Girl Test...

The Favorite Friend

60% Sexy-Cute, 70% Dark-Light, 44% Artsy-Stylish

Take The Your Type of Girl Test at OkCupid

Debbie and Ruth were DEFINITELY like that
Clare was as unlike that as possible.
Cathy was unlike anything or anyone I will ever meet again.
So, on the whole, not bad, test.

The problem with LJ: We all think we are so close, but really we know nothing about one another. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.