Interview Meme

[alitalf]

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better. If I already know you well, expect the questions may be a little more intimate! (but not that intimate ;-D)
3. You will update your lj with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

sally_maria asked me

1. How and when did you first find out about the TS?

It was Hibernia the Balrog who first introduced me to The Lord of the Rings and to the TS. We met at university, when I was studying electrical engineering and she was studying English (and was a member of Hobbitsoc as well as the TS). She eventually persuaded me to start reading LotR. I started one evening and later realised it was time to go to a maths lecture the next morning. After we were married she introduced me to people she knew on the TS, perhaps via Northfarthing Innmoot or perhaps by hosting a smial at our house in Ilford. Either way, I came to find more and closer friends via the TS than from anywhere else in my life.

2. What's your favourite drink?

On an immediate basis that can depend on the weather, what I have been doing, and what I may be eating. However, if it was a kind of "Desert island drinks" choice I would probably choose to keep red wine. Otherwise the immediate preference can be; good English beer with character, for example some of the Wychwood brews, a continental lager-style beer, or a wheat beer, served cool in summer (not the fluid often sold as lager in UK pubs), maybe a glass of something crisp and white like Pinot Grigio if we are eating salad in the summer, or very occasionally late at night a fine malt whisky, such as an Islay.

3. Have you always had cats? (I understand that owned is the wrong term :-D)

No, I was always a dog person and had a dog just large enough not to be small and yappy when I was at school. The Boss, whose home background included a tribe of cats, got me to agree soon after we got a house that if she happened across a cat that needed a good home and was otherwise unloved we would not turn it away. I agreed, and some months later, perhaps as long as a year, a colleague at her place of work told her of a stray cat she fed but could not keep in her flat. Hibernia took a wicker cat basket to London and brought the cat back in the basket on the train. When the basket was opened, the cat got out, saw someone sitting down, and got on their lap. That was Goldie, a deaf white cat who we took to Innmoot on at least one occasion. The three cats we have got through random chance have been white.

4. Do you have a favourite Tolkien character?

Well, I'd like to be Gandalf for much of the time, the wisdom and knowing more about how the universe works is a great attraction, though the bits of fighting and heroism might send me catatonic. It would be good to meet Galadriel because she might be willing and able to help me think more clearly and understand life, the universe and everything from a slightly broader perspective. I most admire Frodo for meeting difficult challenges from a standing start and doing it better than anyone had a right to expect.

5. Who is your favourite author, apart from Tolkien?

That would have to be Terry Pratchett, evidenced by the fact that his books are the only ones we always buy in hardcover before they are available as paperbacks. OTOH there are others who are close to the top of my list. In no particular order, Vernor Vinge, John Varley, Peter Hamilton, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Moon, Selina Rosen, Justina Robson, Robert Sawyer, Lois McMaster Bujold, Tom Holt, JK Rowling, and some whose names will occur to me later.

Comments

Go on then

[muninnhuginn]

Nice to see Fred's still going strong. [I'm not very original: there are many things around that I've named Fred.]

I've not succumbed in ages.

So, interview me.

Re: Go on then

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

1. What was the main motivation for you becoming a tech writer?


2. What would you most like to achieve in the future?


3. Apart from Tolkien, what book(s) / writer(s) have had the greatest influence on you?


4. If schools, shops, etc were equivalent,
   what is most important for you in choosing somewhere to live?


5. How did you first encounter LJ?

[sally_maria]

Since it's only fair - interview me. :-)

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

1. Apart from Tolkien, what book(s) / writer(s) have had the greatest influence on you?
2. What is your favourite; type of music / band / singer?
3. What kind of things do you like to do on holiday?
4. Who is your favourite Tolkien character?
5. What is your favourite drink?

[sally_maria]

1. That's a really difficult question - so many to choose from. Maybe Rosemary Sutcliffe, for inspiring my love of history, and Terrance Dicks, for my love of sci-fi - Doctor Who has a lot to answer for. :-)

2. I like a really wide range of music, but most often with female voices. My favourites at the moment include Nightwish, Sarah McLachlan, Loreena McKennitt and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

3. Visiting places of interest (mostly historic). I don't mind sitting on a beach for a couple of hours - provided I have a book - but I couldn't imagine spending a whole holiday doing it.

4. Eowyn. As a young reader I admired her heroism, but as I've grown older I came to appreciate her as a more complex character, who learns and grows in the course of her story. I also have a strong soft spot for Faramir.

5. White wine, probably, though I enjoy cider on a hot day, provided it's not too sweet. Oh, and coffee, which I drink a lot more of than any alcoholic drink.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

Thanks, interesting answers. I wouldn't feel cheated if sometime you played me one or two of your favourite Nightwish tracks in case I like them as well.

[sally_maria]

I'd be very happy to. :-) I like a lot of things about the rock "sound" but I have an irrational prejudice in favour of people singing in tune, which isn't always easy to find in rock music. So a heavy rock band with an operatic soprano as lead singer was always going to catch my attention.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oh go on then ...

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

1. What non-career-related accomplishment you would like to
   have made by the time you get to about the age I am now?


2. If you could go back in time and change one thing about your life, would
   you? If so, what would it be?


3. Apart from Tolkien, what book(s) / writer(s) have had the greatest influence on you?


4. Describe the perfect day job.


5. What is your favourite sf or fantasy tv show, movie, comic or any non-book
   media?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

1. A good question.
I would like to enhance the sum total of knowledge about Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome. My stay in hospital was immensely lengthened and complicated by the fact that no-one spotted the symptoms early enough.

2. I have always considered myself shy and introverted - more so in the past than I am now. This was no doubt caused by a range of circumstances, but if I could change some of those, I think I would.

3. Isaac Asimov was the first SF writer I had any real exposure, and probably the one author who really got me interested in science fiction.

4. Leisured country gentleman ;-) Or cricket scorer.

5. The shows etc I enjoyed most at the time were:
TV: Thunderbirds, Dr Who (mid-late Jon Pertwee shading into early Tom Baker), HHGTTG, Star Trek, The Avengers
Film: Star Wars episode IV, Metropolis
Graphic novel: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

I enjoy them all very much now, although in some cases I suspect this is the nostalgia talking as much as anything.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

Thanks for interesting answers. It occurs to me that although you may not be able to be a medical researcher, you might be able to do some good by pulling together and disseminating the information that is currently available. muuranker does something like this with web pages on diabetes and treatment thereof. Diabetics generally seem to think that they learn, over time, more about the effects and treatment than the medics know.

Tell you what: if you want to do the huge job of collating all the information, I will design a website for you to put it on. Then people could find out about their own symptoms and ask the doctor more focussed questions.

I did

[muninnhuginn]

At great length. Here.