Questions, Questions (A Good, Fun Game)

[dolorous_ett]

theregoesyamum has revived the Five Questions meme, to my great delight.

Here's what happens.

Leave a post saying you want to play. I will ask you five questions, which you then go on to answer in your own livejournal, together with your own call for questions. Leave a link to your answer so I know what you've written.

1. Most overrated HP character?

Fred and George. I was the but of plenty of practical jokes at school, and for some unaccountable reason didn't find them funny at all when they were being performed on me. Though all my classmates who were standing around watching found the whole business hysterical. A warning sign should be the fact that they pick on Neville, of all people. Neville!

And now they've opened a shop in which the less imaginative type of bully can buy stuff with which to ambush his or her less rich peers. Lovely.

Their only defence is that they may well be too oblivious to realise they're causing real damage. Not a defence that appeals much to me.

I realise I may ruffle a few feathers by saying this, but I will never love Fred and George.

2. Aren't there just people you wanna smack up?

Yes. Despite the calm and emollient persona I try to project on the world, there are plenty of people I want to smack up. I just don't think it's cool to do it (or go on about it) except under really extreme provocation.

I can't bear religious evangelists of any sort. I particularly detest the anti-science brigade - the Intelligent Design brigade, flat-earthers, losers of that sort. It offends me that they think any deity worth its salt would be gratified to see people being so stupid on purpose.

I loathe Margaret Thatcher and all her spawn, who are still cluttering up British politics today. Including, I'm sorry to say, Tony Blair, who is in many ways her natural heir. And I increasingly think the British people as a whole deserve a good smacking for putting up with it for all this time without having the wit to do anything about her legacy or trying to put a few things right.

It probably ought to go without saying (especially after those horrors you posted the other day), but racists of any description need a good smacking. I'm not up to inventing a punishment specially, but it ought to be both painful and humiliating, the bastards. Add homophobes to that list, too.

I can't stand people who look down on others for their background. Both in China and in Britain, people seem to think being born privileged gives you a good reason to look down on people who didn't have those advantages. Why? Being born isn't an achievement.

Finally, I detest ingratitude. If someone has worked hard for you you should say thanks, even if it's not exactly what you wanted. People who just sneer at the efforts of others are not demonstrating they're bigger than the rest of us - they're just being crap.

Eeeeeeh, that feels better! I've probably offended at least one of my f-list now. But you asked.

3. If you were to lie down dead in the gutter as the result of drug overdose, what drug would it be?

It's hard to imagine. I've never been particularly taken by any of the obvious choices - so the drug that really does things for me is probably something really illegal and scary that I'd never have the bottle to take anyway. My brain's a scary enough place at the best of times - the last thing I need is to go stirring things up.

I suppose it would be opium - I've never been near the stuff (though I once had a hotpot in China I'm pretty sure was doctored with it - to lure customers back), but at least I'd be able to claim that I was doing it all in the interests of my subject, trying to really empathise with Late Qing degenerate intellectuals after the Opium War, before I finally passed out.

4. Most obnoxious pop song?

Thanks a bundle Gun - I now have the most awful things going through my head. And will all evening, no doubt.

I think I'd have to go with The Lady in Red. Not only is it vile and full of cheap, spurious, souped-up emotion, it always goes far slower than I remember - meaning I have to suffer it for longer.

There are some horrors in Chinese too, but they won't mean much to you. One - much loved by sentimental females at Karaoke - has a chorus that goes I miss your smile/I miss your overcoat/I miss your white socks /and the smell of your body (this last in a vile screech because it's just that bit higher than most women should sing). Awful. And then there was a beastly one when Macao went back to China, sung by an annoying squeaky-voiced child, finishing with the child (meant to personify Macao returning to the Motherland) crying Mama! Mama! (with hindsight, this reminds me of a certain Dr Who episode).

Enough. Enough!

5. Favourite movie critic?

Sorry - I like films but I have no background in the study of them at all. Can't think of a single one.

Barry Norman used to do the films for the Radio Times I think. He'll have to do.

After all that, I'm in the mood for asking questions. Any takers?