Put up a few facts about yourself.  I was strongarmed into this by two lovely individuals, @JoyCronje and @StephenMerlinoAbbot

Try it yourself and tag someone today.

Pontificating is fun and I love to do it.

Thinking about the pontificating I have done the following day is gut churningly embarrassing.  I always vow to never do it again.

I have a poor memory.  My wife finds this maddening.  I find it liberating.  Everyday is a surprise!

As I have gotten older, I have become more liberal in my outlook on the world.  When I look on other men of my age, I see only choleric demeanours and hear only worryingly right wing dogmatism. 

I have travelled widely in my youth and I have loved the experience.  The one constant that there is in the world is that most people are welcoming and hospitable, wherever you go.  Why then are there so many people who are afraid?

Kittens are profoundly entertaining.  Demented and determined, there is nothing quite like a kitten for reducing an adult human being to tears of laughter or incandescent rage. 

All my furniture is ruined.

Chickens are weird.  My wife adores them and we keep four in our tiny suburban back garden.  Three are relatively normal but we have one that lays abominations rather than eggs.  It’s a Transylvanian and truly looks like a hen that’s aping its bigger, more vulturey cousins.  Bald and creepy, it stalks about the lawn like a velociraptor, scaring the neighbours.  At the moment it’s moulting and is becoming more like the foul undead than uncorrupted fowl.

Running is the only weapon I have in my armoury to fend off middle aged spread.  It’s a battle that I’m not winning but I keep entering the fray.

Many years ago I thought I had a dream job.  I then worked for an absolute swine – a dissembling coward of a man – who made it impossible to continue.  I thought that my life was over but it turned out that there is more to life than your first career.

I am a teacher in a primary school.  There is no more satisfying job that I have ever done.  I have never been more challenged than at the start of the day but I have never been more exhausted than at the end!  I work in a school that allows teachers to be teachers and not bureaucrats.  There’s more to life than maths and grammar!  It’s not punctuation that we find painted on to cave walls by our ancient forebears, it’s art!  Get children singing, painting, dancing, thinking, arguing, talking, acting, making, drawing, exploring, cataloguing, collecting, researching, recounting, reviewing, laughing, running, being silly, and by those things actually learning!  The wheels are coming off the discredited English inspection bus – it’s time for schools to break it completely.

The most delicious thing that I have ever eaten was Munster cheese on a piece of sourdough.  Awesome.

The most memorable thing that I have ever drunk was Chateau Coutet 1947.  Fresh, vibrant, light and elegant, this wine was multilayered with the scents of spices, toffee-apples, honey and marmalade.  I know where I was at the time, who I was with and what we were talking about.  Fine wine is one of the most powerful memory triggers I have ever experienced. 

My favourite book?  War and Peace.  It’s big and I hate the first hundred pages or so but when it gets rolling, Tolstoy’s masterwork is a juggernaut.  I find it a visual experience and I see it in my mind’s eye as a series of highly detailed vignettes and set-pieces.  Why would anyone try to make a movie of it when it already is one?

I drive to work through the most beautiful countryside imaginable on almost empty roads.  I get to listen to the radio in peace and quiet, without interruption, and admire hill forts, stone circles, crags and hidden valleys.  Who said commuting is hell!

I would love to earn more money but I have learned that money is not what I need to be happy with my life (though it would make it an awful lot more comfortable).  How much money do you need to type at a laptop after work?  How much money do you need to read a book?  I have what I want.  Why want more?

I have three children who I love to bits and stand in awe of.  I won’t talk of them here other than to say what I have said.

My wife is a patient woman who deserves more and got me.  Everyday is a blessing and I cannot believe how lucky I am to walk beside her.

My ancient roadster has now officially gone to the place that forlorn hopes go.  Rusted out, wrecked shocks and dodgy brakes have put paid to my summertime fun.  My new ride is far more practical.  One previous owner, it’s a well looked after super-mini whose owner stopped short of putting anti-macassars on the headrests by only the narrowest margin.  Bangin’!

I can fly.  Not like Superman but like a trained pilot.

Every now and again, I fantasise that I am Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk.  Was there ever a better film?

I have not lied and I am much more boring.  It is writing that liberates me.