The other meme I’ve been tagged with. This one’s doing the rounds on Facebook. I initially had problems thinking of 25 people to send it to, then realised I’d missed a few off after I’d sent it. Oh well.

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

1. The first time I was knocked off my bike by a driver I had a hard time getting angry because she was blonde and attractive. Should have exchanged insurance details though.

2. I once drank half a pint of bottle sterilising solution thinking it was water. Thankfully it wasn’t the concentrate.

3. I cried when I saw the Muppets’ tribute to Jim Henson.

4. I seem to be at my most creative when I’m a little sad/upset (but not depressed). Which worries me, because I’ve been having a lot of ideas in the last few weeks.

5. I once won £250 for a short sci-fi story I wrote inspired by my addiction to Command & Conquer.

6. I still want to write a story where one of the characters has the last words “What a stupid place to put a bus.”

7. From my parents’ house you can see Scotland. I once drove to that part of Scotland, but I couldn’t see my parents’ house.

8. When I was eight or nine I got locked in a suitcase whilst showing someone where I’d been hiding during our game of hide and seek. I don’t have claustrophobia as a result, but I occasionally get nervous in confined spaces, which has spoilt what little spelunking I’ve done.

9. I have a wierd sense of direction. I can still get confused connecting bits of Manchester, but a few years ago I went back to the town we left when I was 6 and found my way to the street we’d lived on first time, even though I hadn’t been back in over 20 years.

10. I once walked away from a car crash that wrote off and tipped over a Land Rover and destroyed twelve feet of dry stone walling, even though I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. The other passenger’s advice to the driver had been “Follow that car, but don’t kill us.” One out of two will do.

11. Despite everything, I’m a hopeless romantic.

12. I can be quite shy and reserved. Most people who’ve known me for a while find this hard to believe.

13. I’m allergic to cat hair.

14. For all my years of cycling I still can’t ride no-handed.

15. When I was 1 my dad got a job in Brazil. We stayed there for a year. The Brazilians loved the little blue eyed blonde boy and my father was once stopped by the police, who thought he was kidnapping me. I can’t remember any of this, I’ve only got the photos and anecdotes to tell me about it.

16. I was on a hill above the Cornish town of Looe for the solar eclipse in 1998.

17. I used to buy 10 packs of Tesco doughnuts, brew a pot of strong tea and see how far through both I could get before becoming so wired I felt like I was being pushed back into the sofa and had pins and needles on my scalp.

18. I’ve never smoked a normal cigarette. When I told my mother this she understood just what I was implying. Her reply was “Good for you.”

19. Food poisoning once put me off port for a year, even though it was all the garlic sausage’s fault. I had a similar experience with pork scratchings as well.

20. The first time I encountered an escalator, on a school trip to Blackpool, I absolutely refused to get on it because I was certain the ground shouldn’t move like that.

21. I was being driven from Cambridge to a town called Royston, in a snow storm, when I found out that Kurt Cobain had died.

22. I’ve got a certificate saying I flew out of Liverpool John Lennon airport on its first day (or maybe week) under that name.

23. I’ve never had a proper job. I’ve always worked temp or contract and now I’m trying to make money running my own business.

24. Every few years I’ll get a big crush on someone and absolutely fail to do anything about it. It’s a combination of cowardice, stupidity and fear of rejection.

25. It’s been very, very hard to keep from talking about sex in any of these. If a question is phrased right I’ll give an honest answer to it, so lots of people know details others might have kept secret.