I’ve recently been reading with interest the ’25 Things’ notes from various friends on Facebook, and was wondering how long it would be before I was tagged and would be asked to reciprocate (wow, spelt that right first time, lol!).

Funny then that I should be tagged twice by friends from two different social networks within a few hours of each other.

So for Helen Eastwood and Alex Dowding, here’s my effort.

Mind you, this post was first started about three months ago, so I doubt you’ll even remember you did one, let alone tagged me, lol!

And if you’re one of the twenty three other fb friends I’ve tagged, then may you have fun in telling the world your twenty five fascinating facts.

Anyway, here’s the obligatory bit to cut and paste…

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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. If I taggd you, it’s because I want to know more about you.
—

And here, in no particular order, is 25 things about me you’ve always wanted to know but were too afraid to ask…

1) I went to school and college with current cabinet member Yvette Cooper. I asked her out at a disco (she declined; probably knowing something I didn’t at the time, lol) and her mother taught me A’ Level Maths.

2) I have a recurring nightmare of the handbrake on the car failing. I am constantly rolling backwards out of control, desperately trying to avoid numerous parked vehicles.

3) I have a MENSA qualifying IQ of 155. (Cattell IIB – max 161) I took the test and joined to prove I wasn’t as “lazy and unintelligent” as my mother said I was.

4) I love my Mac – nuff said.

5) Grieg’s ‘Piano Concerto in A minor’ is my favourite piece of classical music but I doubt I will ever learn to play it. I can play ‘Fur Elise’ and ‘Chariots of Fire’ though.

6) Being bipolar (type II) means I regularly see a psychiatrist and psychologist and spent 3 days in a mental hospital when I had a mixed episode in July 2007.

7) I love books, but am very careful about reading them. I read paperbacks quickly and without damaging the spines, and I have an aversion to marking them – even with pencil.

If I buy another pair of sunglasses this summer it will be the third pair I have bought in my adult life and it will again be a pair of Raybans for about £100. Having said that, the first pair I bought 20 years ago seem to be quite popular again.

9) My mother is due to marry for the 4th time. Her 1st husband was my father, the 2nd was the 1st’s brother-in-law, the 3rd was the 2nd’s best mate and the 4th has the same name as the 1st.

10) I am ashamed to say I only get to brush my teeth about once a fortnight and am very lucky they have stayed in reasonably good health, despite my inablity to clean them.

11) There are (far too) many times when I don’t leave the house for three or four days at a time. These are generally the days when I stay in one room, sleep, and don’t answer the phone.

12) I will either die of old age or I will commit suicide. Since I am very protective of my brain, it would be somewhat ironic if I died of a brain haemorrhage.

13) I’m not superstitious.

14) I have lived with my partner Richard near Woking in Surrey for nearly 14 years. We have a parrot (who will probably out-live us both), but have never had carpet on the stairs.

15) My mental health renders me pretty much unemployable and so I’ve been self-employed (if you can call it that) for the vast majority of my adult life, and have only ever earned enough to pay income tax twice.

16) I am Sagittarian and my favourite colour is purple.

17) I keep a blog, Stephen Fry is following me on Twitter and I have my own Fan Page on Facebook.

18) In 2005 I finished writing a musical using 27 different Erasure songs. The lyrics are excellent and there’s a great story there if you get the songs in the right order. Took two years to complete it though. Watch this space.

19) I spent the majority of my fourth (somewhat solitary) year at secondary school (Year 10) writing a horror novel entitled ‘Leonsean’. It filled four and a half science exercise books.

20) I have always enjoyed being around young people. From working in various youth clubs and schools to helping out in a youth theatre. It’s amazing what you can learn from them, if only you take the time to listen.

21) I will one day have a play produced at the Royal Court, an afternoon play broadcast on Radio 4, and a musical running in the West End.

22) I finally accepted my sexual orientation when I was 22. I was 27 before I had the courage to tell anybody else, lol. I will never have children – and that really pisses me off.

23) I spent a year in America as an au-pair during which time I wrote, produced and directed what was reported in the Boston Globe to be America’s first pantomime.

24) I attempted to run away a lot when I was a teenager, but eventually gave up trying when my mother started packing my suitcases for me.

25) I am teetotal, I don’t drink alcohol at all. I did until I was 20; I prefered lager, had a particular fondness for Guinness, and avoided bitter and spirits like the plague. I have smoked five and a half cigarettes and never taken any illegal substances. (Okay, so I’m boring, lol!)

Oh well, that’s it. Your turn…