Tags (2)

I've been tagged with the same task by two people, which suggests that the growth of a meme may not be exponential at all, but whatever the opposite of exponential is. In other words, the circle might get smaller and smaller until finally only I'm left. What a horrifying prospect. The taggers (and I'm honoured by their attention) are Linda Grant and Simon Barraclough. They've asked me to list six random facts about myself and then pass the task on to six other bloggers. Well, the first part is easier than the second. So let's start with that.

1. When I was a child I thought the word 'unyet' existed and was slapped for answering back when Mrs Fletcher, my teacher, told me it didn't. The primary school was so small we used to watch schools programmes on the TV in her living room, sitting in a circle on the floor with her Aberdeen terrier on the sofa behind us.

2. I have bags of second-hand clothes I've never even opened. (This random fact is being recycled from an earlier tagging exercise - I suspected it was, and checked. Why should it matter so much? A nod to Linda?)

3. I was once described as 'a small bearded man with one earring' by the Cambridge Evening News.

4. I have a genuine Roman tessera round my neck, made of blue glass and found in our garden beneath the big lemon tree. There's a display case in a nearby museum (in Sperlonga) in which hundreds of similar tesserae have been tipped, like Spangles, so it's precious but not that precious. It makes me wonder, though, what else there might be in the garden.

5. I'm currently editing a report on the control of the Armenian vole.

6. I was given a ride as a child in the Rolls Royce Silver Shadow used by Charlie Drake at a Royal Variety Performance. I'm not interested in cars now, and I wasn't then, so the reason I remember this must have something to do with Charlie Drake. I'd rather not think any more about this.

Now comes the hard part. I feel that I'm exhausting my tagging credit, but I'll give it a go.

Erin O'Brien

Kay Sexton

This should be Vanessa Gebbie, but she's declared herself a meme-free zone. How wise! But I can't think of anyone else....

Rachael King

Tyla Tingle

Elizabeth Baines (who tagged me some months back with a very similar meme: revenge is a dish best eaten cold!)