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There's a new quiz. A kind of can't-be-arsed, yet musical, theme. Answering is both undemanding and anonymous. How fortunate.
Several questions. Go on.
- Are we human, or are we dancers?
- Are you experienced?
- Is this the way to Amarillo?
- Do you know the way to San Jose?
- Should I stay or should I go?
- What have you done for me lately?
- Is there life on Mars?
- Don't you want me baby?
- Do you wanna touch me?
- What difference does it make?
Be philosophical or factual. It doesn't make any difference.
One grey and rainy day in Somerset last month, we decided to entertain our large number of small girls by taking them shopping to the Clarks Retail Outlet. Or, more accurately, to bung them £20 and let them spend it on tawdry last-season garments while we lolled around in Starbucks. Don't worry, I'm not going to write about that day, it can be imagined all too easily. Too much rain, too little parking, too many children to supervise - and the fatal mistake of buying heavy things from the cookshop at start rather than the end of the session. I'm a slow learner.
On the drive across from our cottage, we approached from the west a drab grey town hunched gloomily against the rainy horizon. Where were we? we wondered. We came closer and a sign informed us that we were arriving at Bridgwater: The Home of Carnival.
Excuse me. The Home of Carnival? Surely there are other places that can lay better claim than that? Rio de Janeiro, Venice, Notting Hill, even? There is obviously some essential truth I've missed about Bridgwater, with its pound-shops and its closed-down pubs and its absence of bypass and its bypassing of quaint charm.
The interweb informs me it was 44th on the list of Britain's Crap Towns, with Hull coming at number 1. This is quite, quite wrong. Hull is chockful of history, and fine buildings, and river front and heritage and white phone boxes - and is soon to have an achingly funky History Centre to prove it.
So I tried to find out why Bridgwater is the Home of Carnival. It seems the town has a procession on Guy Fawkes evening. This is, according to the website, the largest and best illluminated procession in the world. That's the whole world, right, not the whole world of Somerset. So it must be better than, say, the Christmas Parade at Disneyland. This seems rather unlikely but I'm prepared to suspend my belief. In fact I'm making it a Quiz Of The Week. Right hand side, down there.
I know you can't wait to go, so here's the website. Party on, dudes.
It's been a while since we've had a Quiz of the Week. Let's give it a try.
It's deadly serious this week. Well, more serious than some of the others you may recollect, including the obscene one which so offended our American reader. Ho hum.
So I need your opinion, whoever you are, regardless. I'm coming to the end of my four month course of anti-depressants. And I'm still a right miserable cow. But maybe that's just me, and the winter, and the recession, and the brief-but-lost-ability to write good poetry, and the disappointment of involuntary celibacy and oh god, you know the rest...
Anyhow. Should I stop, carry on, have more, have less, cut my throat, self-harm, jump off Beachy Head, go postal with an AK47, lose control and go loopy or what? Please answer my quiz. I'm begging you. Over there, right hand side.
your name here
So if you wanted to find the way to a man’s heart, how would you go about it?
I suppose it would be sensible to start with a man who you know has a heart in there somewhere to begin with, a capacity for warmth and tenderness, for passion. That’s already ruled out a few chaps we know.
Then the exploring would begin. It’s a blindfold journey with only a few clues along the route. Perhaps it’s the way he listens more carefully to a particular story, the way his eyes light up when he talks on a certain topic, the catch in his voice when he tells you about a memory. The way he softens in your arms at a particular touch, his look when his eyes meet yours at a certain moment.
Sometimes you can find the way. Sometimes you can get close. Sometimes it's like the centre of a maze: tantalisingly slipping into view and then as suddenly away again.
Some men want you to find a different part of the body, lower down. Some men want you on the outside: they don't want you coursing through their veins, echoing their beat. Some men have an invisible tattoo on their heart that says "Closed". Some men have a heart that's open for business, but with a sign out saying "No Vacancy".
To assist with the unravelling of this mystery, I've made it the new Quiz of the Week. Safe for anyone to take part. Even Americans.
What song makes you think of me? I had some interesting emails, thanks. And we never did find out whether I get to be Jarvis or the Greek heiress studying sculpture at St Martin's College in Common People...oh do tell......
It's an easy yes-or-no this week. I didn't include pictures on the blog entries while I was away due to the cost of downloading them overseas. Do you think I should go back and put a picture with each entry, or do you think that previous entries are overtaken by events now and it wouldn't make any difference?
Last week’s quiz, Why Am I So Hard To Love? didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know. Duh, I do set the questions after all.
These are the shortcomings I already know. Maybe my quiz should have had some open questions (unprompted as we used to say in the glamorous world of marketing). It would be interesting to know whether I missed anything out. But I’m probably paranoid enough already, without asking for more things to worry about.
I am thinking that, in honour of my holiday (which will be restorative and calming) I am going to have a more positive quiz. Afer all, I've just been reminded about running myself down all the time, haven't I?! I need to regroup and get my head together. It will be hard graft,whether I am taking the business down finally or building it back up again, and I need my energy.
So help me. This week's quiz is How Should I Mostly Spend My Time On Holiday? I would like to know what would help me gain more equilibrium. I’ve made some suggestions, but do feel free to make more. Down there, in the right hand margin, at the bottom.
Well, my first quiz results point to the conclusion that I’m perfectly normal. Muahahaha, my evil illusion is working! You see, I took a quiz a while ago called Are You Clinically Insane? It was on Facebook so it must be scientifically researched and reliable. It showed me a photo of Britney in her shaved-head phase and said:
Bipolar: Ever wondered why you're so moody? You experience days or weeks of paralyzing, cheeto-binging depression, then a week of frenzied, hyperactive, ridiculously irresponsible behavior characterized by wild thoughts, sleepless nights, maxing out credit cards, having unprotected sex with dozens of strangers... or shaving your head and attacking the paparazzi with an umbrella. Some might call that chemically imbalanced... others call it "passionate".
See, it's insightful.
My next quiz is about my renowned characteristic of being hard to love. I must be, because my own mother told me (and she’s not the only one to say so, oh no).
Do join in. It’s down in the right hand margin. Be frank – after all, it’s anonymous.
In a spirit of bold experimentation, we're going interactive with an exciting new feature: Quiz Of The Week.
It's down on the right hand side. Your answers are anonymous. Do join in.
