SmackCrumpleBang!

Happy New Year!  Gliding elegantly out of the festive miasma that marked the end of the noughts and the start of the tens, Mrs Trefusis looks to have meme’d me, so it appears I must go around memeing other people (in my mind much of ma memeing eez like being een an omicidal episode of ello ello).

According to her my blog is ‘one to watch in 2010′ – which is delightful, if perhaps undeserved… having been through the other hot blogs she selected, I realise I have much to aspire to

(bravo to the Errant Aesthete – your blog is both beautiful and beguiling).

The things Mrs T said on her blog about me are blush inducingly nice – and because I am english and brought up proper, I am going to wince and deny any of what she says is true and melt away into a tepid puddle of modesty.  The immense amount of mirth and guidance la Trefusis has provided in only the last year has been astounding – she is marvellous and I love her dearly.

According to the rules of the memeing – I must now reveal 10 things about myself (try not to pass out from the excitement) Then pick 7 of my favourite blogs…

1. Whenever I am in the shower I almost always sing the same song – if I were a statistician (an unlikely career given that I can’t actually spell statistician without the joys of spellcheck) I would say this song pops into my head 99% of the time – the song is the very very beautiful Górecki by Lamb – which is 6 minutes 30 of unmitigated bliss.

If I should die this very moment
I wouldn’t fear
for I’ve never known completeness
like being here
wrapped in the warmth of you
loving every breath of you
still my heart this moment
oh it might burst

for those of you with the benefit of spotify this song can be found here.  The lyrics look awfully corny written down, but I love them – it has been reverberating around my head for years now, and I hope it stays for a good many to come.

2. I have slight fetish for red headed boys.  Luckily my preference for men doesn’t entirely depend on him having red hair – I like to think though that I have an eye for a pretty ginger.  Many many people have mocked me for this, but a certain tone on a certain man is terribly attractive (not that I have found any nice flame haired boys who weren’t useless yet).  I think the rampant gingerism which riddles this country is staggeringly unfair.

3. I fear that I may be deeply homophobic.  This is a problem for two reasons -1) I am a homosexual myself, so it might come across as a bit hypocritical of me. 2) Homophobia is intolerable and a sure sign of stupidity.

4. My unhealthy crush on John Barrowman has yet to subside (the homophobia thing isn’t something I am hugely successful at dear readers).  This is despite the fact that the man is orange and cheesier than 4 tonnes of mini cheddars. why why WHY?

5. Shoes are terribly important to me – even if I find someone staggeringly attractive, if my eyes flick down to their feet and find bad shoes, then they go right down in my estimations.  This is less of an issue with girls (I appreciate a good shoe – but ultimately neither women nor their footwear do much for me) with boys though shoes are a dead giveaway – most men dont give a rats arse about what they put on their feet.  I have yet to decide on whether its english men that are useless shoe buyers, or just heterosexual men in general (possibly an unfortunate combination of both – the europeans seem less clueless)

6. I have inherited a nasty genetic condition from my father (and my fathers father and his fathers father) It is shameful.  It is rampant nostril hair.  Luckily I recognised the warning signs as a young man and I keep the tendrils at bay with terrifying ruthlessness. If I didn’t though I could be living in ignorance – shunned by the world and never knowing why. Imagine.

7. I hate celery – as far as I am concerned it is the bastard cousin of the noble leek, and that is all I wish to say on the matter.

8.  I perceive myself as being terribly awkward.  This may or may not be true – but I have a lingering suspicion that within me lurks my younger self (I was a pretty rubbish child – then I discovered girls… and then boys – then it all went to hell).

9. I have punctuation paranoia – all these marvellous bloggers with their dashing prose and complex sentence structures, then theres little old me with my GCSE in English lit/lang and a complex about hyphenation… luckily aforementioned bloggers are an excellent source from which one can learn about how to write proper.  My punctuation isn’t *too* bad I hope – but I wish it were impeccable.

10. I am a perfectionist (when it suits me)  This tends to manifest itself especially in the field of ‘making things pretty’.  I can procrastinate and fiddle with something for weeks, it is a terrible habit and means that quite often things never get done.

Phew – there you have it, my ten things… and now to complete the cycle of memeing, I have to suggest 7 blogs (no idea why only 7 – thems the rules) which I love, so that in time they may partake of a little memeing of their own etcetera etcetera ad infinatum…

Belgianwaffling – seeing as how she is queen of the blogs and HILARIOUS and in the SUNDAY TIMES and stuff, she has probably been nominated, like, a million times already, but I don’t care.  I am nominating her for several reasons, mainly because she will probably whinge about having to reciprocate (but when she does it will be amazing).  I stumbled across her blog almost exactly a year ago, and it helped me get through a deeply dull job – the woman is a belgiumbased comic GENIUS.  Once I had started hassling her she agreed to meet me for a bacon roll, and late last year I turned up at her house *on the continent* and she let me stay with her – we assembled furniture and laughed at trannys in brussels, we drank gin and I slept in a bunkbed – it was basically immense.  Suffice to say that I love Belgian Waffle more than I probably should – she is as fabulous as Penelope Cruz – FACT.

Adland Suit – I don’t know him terribly well, but he seems to watch cricket and swear more than any person I have ever encountered (on twitter that is).  His blog is a moderately less sweary platform for some pretty damn good writing about the suit in advertising (as in job role not outfit).  Mr. Suit used to be anonymous, then he offered to lift his cloak of mystery in return for cold hard cash, which he donated to charity – he raised a fuck of a load of money (thats probably how he would put it) which is bloody admirable.

Belle De Jour – yes yes I know – this is like saying your favourite cheese is cheddar, blah blah bandwagon.  Belle was the first blog I ever read regularly, and I caught her in her prime – she was and is a brilliant writer, first in the blog and later in her books – which are superb.  I once got into a conversation of sorts with her on facebook (when she was still anonymous) about how I had just disastrously covered my cat in margarine in an attempt to worm it – she thought it was funny, I just about fainted from the response.  Last years unmasking (by the lovely India Knight) was a bit like finding out the truth about Santa Claus, only AMAZING – because whilst santa is imaginary, Belle is a gorgeous woman with a brilliant career (not the fictional construct many people assumed).  Without Belle I don’t think modern blogging would be where it is today, I salute you Dr. Brooke Magnanti!

ElikaFM – Elika is someone who I follow on twitter, and where I found her originally completely eludes me.  Having only started to read her blog recently I am now hooked – her posts are funny but also quite clever really.  within the short and sweet twitter universe you can’t help but miss her tweets (god thats a piss poor trendster of a sentence – I may as well type ‘shes so hot right know y’all!’).  A recent post talked about her ongoing IKEA addiction and steps she has taken to deal with her affliction – I am now genuinely curious about a garlic press.

XO’s Middle Eight – An American music blogger extraordinaire, this man has impeccable taste in music.  Luckily for lazy old me he not only finds exciting new shiny things and fabulous old gems, but he writes about them with a genuinely vigorous  verve.  He is also the owner of some terribly amazing looking bond villainy cats, which I covet.

I want to also put Mrs Trefusis but thats probably against the rules…

Lord above! It is now way way way past my bedtime and i’ve been doing this for what seems like hours – so you shall have to make do with 5 (6 with a Trefusis) blogs – there was this AMAZING cat one which I found recently and totally lost… so maybe I will add it on at a later date (massive cop-out there I know) ooh also one of Mrs Ts recommendations was especially fabuleux (Knightley or Elton? Glorious vocab!) - and now I can feel myself becoming incoherent… adieu!