Tagged

In a slight change from my usual fare of travel posts, today's post contains 8 random facts about me as I was tagged by Ini with a malicious meme that is spreading around the entire blogosphere. Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll be able to come up with 8 interesting things to say about myself, but here goes anyway.

1. As a kid I used to make sure I climbed the same number of steps with each foot i.e. if I went up a flight with an odd number of steps beginning with my left foot the next flight would be started with the right foot.
2. I have developed an intense dislike for throwing food away and will go to great lengths not to (licking the very last morsels out of jars of honey or chocolate spread and picking the last scraps of meat off bones) and will generally finish up the leftovers from other people's meals. When I was housesharing I often didn't even have to cook!
3. I used to be a huge Lord of the Rings fan (well before the films came out) although with some therapy I am slowly getting better. By the time I was 12 I had read the book over 10 times (sometimes I read in class whilst the teacher was talking and once he even confiscated my book, so I just went to the library and loaned it out) and have since read it in two other languages. I used to collect the original Middle Earth card game and my dreams came true when I lived on the road with Tolkien's Two Towers and could see them every morning from my bedroom window.
4. I am not good around babies and little kids in general. They're OK from the age of about 6 until 12 when you can start indoctrinating them properly. Then is the whole adolescent period when they should just be locked away in a cellar until they're 16 (I speak from experience as a teacher!) when they can once again be let out once the whole puberty debacle has passed.
5. I'm full of useless trivia. It comes from reading too much. I can't do anything practical, but ask me the height of Everest, the capital of Mauritania, or the names of the 4 stomachs of a cow (in order) then I'm your man.
6. Despite having a driving licence for the past 7 years I've barely driven since and I, for one, certainly wouldn't trust me behind the wheel of a car.
7. I am completely tone-deaf, can't sing (don't know the complete words to any songs anyway) and have next to no coordination. Therefore my only party piece is the ability to snap my fingers in a very loud and strange way.
8. I've let my facial hair grow into quite an impressive beard, of which I am more than slightly proud, because I am lazy, I use it to store food, and because I thought it would help make me look more Muslim whilst travelling in the Middle East (didn't work though as I still wasn't allowed into the al Aqsa mosque).

Since this is a meme and must be passed on I tag Kangaroo so that she can practice her English and because there isn't anything better to do in Bielefeld. I know I ought to tag more, but since I'm travelling I don't have time to read hundreds of blogs regularly.

(In case you're wondering, the answers to the trivia questions are: 8848m; Nouakchott; and the rumen, reticulum (also sometimes referred to together as the reticulorumen), the omasum and the abomasum.)