My one and only ...

My one and only tagger, that is. My soon to be life-long and solemnly vowed better half has tagged me again, with one of those impossible list everything you know about yourself memes, and with the proviso that you tag half the world! Well actually only 8 people, but as I couldn't even manage SIX people last time, I'll just say (pre-emptively) that if you read this and are as yet untagged for this particular exercise, consider yourself tagged now!

Apparently I have to list 8 random facts or habits about myself, and then tag lots of other people. Well I've copped out of the last part already so here goes with the eight.

1. I like to be precise, and yes, that is almost synonymous with pedantic. But only almost...

2. I'm a coffee, tea and occasionally wine snob. It has to be real, (i.e. ground coffee, leaf tea and the wine must always be red, wet & alcoholic). Accept no substitutes!

3. I'm a bibliophile: the more books the better. It'll be even better when I get to read them all! I don't collect first editions or fine bindings just to look at them; I get books to read or to give away as presents. I refuse to recognise any other reason for owning a book, although if it happens to be nice to look at (or even smell too) that's no harm.

4. Pipe smoker. Only very occasionally but it's good for unwinding after lots of stressful goings-on, and is also a poke in the eye for the neo-pagan health fascists who seem to be everywhere these days. (After all, as my sainted Dad used to say, "life is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100% mortality rate".)

5. Stationery junkie. I like paper and envelopes and note cards and personal calling cards (I always have some with my name, address, phone number, email &rl in my card case, in my jacket pocket) and copperplate fount in mid-blue for my personal letterhead. (A PC with a half-way decent printer is a great blessing!) As addictions go it's more fun than most and less harm than almost any other.

6. When I get tired and I mean really tired my sense of humour (an erratic thing at best) either goes into overdrive or disappears completely. (My poor fiancée is sometimes reduced to reassuring me in a voice-suitable-for-the-sickbed-of-a-close-friend that she was only joking; the fact that I will, in fact, see the joke later, i.e. after 8 hours sleep never seems to help at the time ...)

7. I am capable of footnoting anything, even a conversation. I often lose people's attention that way ... By way of a footnote to items 1 and 5 in this list, yes, fount is the correct spelling for the word pronounced "font" and the contraction "&rl" is not a typo, it's the Irish form of "etc". And yes it is "Irish" or more specifically "Erse"; the language is emphatically NOT called "Gaelic" which is either a form of football or the Celtic language of Scotland. (The latter is pronounced "Gaah-lic" rather than "Gay-lic" incidentally.) Unless you happen to be American, in which case all bets are off!

8. I am terrible for finishing things properly, and often have no idea how to bring a project to a proper conclusion. Like now, for instance.