Five things most people don’t know about me
January 21, 2007I was tagged for this meme a while ago by Meg and have spent the intervening weeks struggling to think of noteworthy quirky facts about myself. There aren’t many. But I tried.
I have a forked uvula
A rather strange trait that my sister and I share is our strange bifid uvula: that is, the dangly bit at the back of our throat splits in two. Apparently it can be associated with submucous cleft palate, but it’s not a big deal and doesn’t mean we’re freaks.
- Gabriel Yared once asked me to get naked with him in front of a 50-strong audience
That’s right: he composed the music for Betty Blue, The English Patient and Cold Mountain and then, one day in March 2005, he asked me to join him in disrobing before a group of surprised University students. I should point out that he was using it as an endearing turn of phrase, and what he actually wanted was a nice bit of musical deconstruction, not a spell of piano-top fornication. Just as well – his beard is pretty terrifying.
- In 1990, I asked a serious question about diarrhoea in front of 200 people
Poor 7-year-old me. I’d just had my first experience of horrendous fizzy gravy. A week or two later, at a school assembly about fire alarm procedure, I thought it only prudent to ask the headmaster – in front of the entire school and staff – what to do in a fire emergency if you’re stuck on the loo. Minutes of laughter and years of name-calling ensued. And, ironically, a fire. But my bowels were behaving themselves that day. Phew.
- I failed my cycling proficiency test
Evil thing. I failed this because I was crap at cycling slowly and couldn’t control my bike without falling off or having to put a foot down. I now have a slightly loathing of cyclists.
- Our school band played for the Queen and her hubby
Somehow, Wrexham managed to bag the Queen to open a revamped leisure centre in the middle of the town (with a rather distinctive roof structure). In a slight talent mismatch, they also asked our school wind band to play at the event. Clearly we got rained on and nearly froze to death, and Duke made some innuendo small talk about fingers and clarinet holes. A day to remember. Or not.
And five more people to do this: Vic, Will, Kat, Mary, and Dan.
