From :

[although I missed the first 9 because I did them backwards and then ran out of time.]

10) Who was your first crush ?

Probably Sarah Sims, next door neighbour, 1977. She has now had a child, I hear. It's not mine.

11) What's been your most memorable/unusual bus journey ?
Excluding tour buses, because that's a much too bizarre voyage of thought… In the midst of my fear of flying (still present, but now decreasing, i hope) Erika and I used to take the bus to Hungary every year to visit her parents. Yep. A bus, to Hungary. 26 hours of horror. Nothing particularly unusual happened, it was just sh*t. Oh, once, on the way back, we got stopped by German police and anyone who wasn't white was removed and interrogated for about an hour, including an understandably irritated black guy travelling on a US passport.

12) What's your most peculiar charity shop purchase?
An unbelievably hideous clay model of a cat. Even now it provokes the wildest laughter in my ex-wife. It looks like a malformed totem pole, plus lumps.

13) What's the oddest thing you've ever received by mail?

An enormous postcard, about 6 foot by 3 foot, in the shape of an enormous arrow, addressed to the band I was in at the time, which just said “hello” on it.

14) What's your favourite cake ?
I want to say “simnel” but to be honest I can't remember where that word has leapt into my head from. Is it The Bible?

15) What would be your dream shop ?

It would sell music software, short sleeved shirts, stationery and alcohol.

16) What are your phobias ?
Being sick. I've not done that since a particularly heavy night in December 1990. I have considerable anxiety about the welfare of my “love-partner” but that's not really a phobia, that's me being stupid.

17) What's the most embarrassing item of clothing you've worn in public ?

Gold PVC trousers and bright orange wig, St George's Hospital, last Monday.

18) Which period in history would you like to have lived through?
The collapse of communism. I mean, I did live through that, but I was paying ZERO attention and that's something that really, really annoys me. History happening around me and I didn't buy a single newspaper or watch a single TV news bulletin, I just pointlessly pursued a student nurse called Hannah, despite the fact that her favourite band was Meatloaf.

19) If you could have a sandwich named after you what would it contain?
Cheese. I like the idea of the humble cheese sandwich being renamed after all this time.

20) Who have been your CELEBRITY crushes ?

Jane Wiedlin from the Go Gos.

21) Have you ever won a prize/trophy, and if so what was it for ?
1st prize in the under-11s solo piano class at Watford Music Festival, 1981.

22) What makes you laugh ?
The bit in Black Books that goes:

Bill Bailey: Do you think I should wash my beard?
Dylan Moran: Yes. I think you should wash it. And shave it off. Then glue it to a frisbee. And throw it over a rainbow.

23) What do you have on your refrigerator ?
Bottles of: Southern Comfort, cucumber vodka, Ukranian vodka, some weird Slovakian spirit, a Black & Decker dustbuster, echinacea, Croation pear liqueur, lime cordial, a beautiful 60s soda syphon that dispenses undrinkable soda water, a bottle of expensive red wine that I'm saving for a “special occasion” (but that occasion never seems quite special enough), a cooking timer in the shape of a pig, vitamin / zinc tablets, a small pebble. The abudance of unusual (and largely undrinkable) alcohol is due to a Eurovision Song Contest party held here earlier this year.

24) Peanut butter – smooth or crunchy ?
Crunchy, naturally.

25) Think of an interesting concept for a compilation CD.
“Songs beginning with the letter F”.

26) What are you looking forward to ?
Finishing this here questionnaire.