The Interview Meme

[philmophlegm]

From wellinghall via parrot_knight.




1. What is your favourite animal?
If we're talking about favourite species of animal, then probably servals. Also pretty much any bird of prey. If we're talking about individuals, then any one of my four cats.



2. What is your most vivid memory of Taruithorn?
Very first meeting I ever went to, first week of my first term at Oxford. In, I think, St Hilda's. Being in a team of three with kargicq and some red headed guy who I don't remember seeing again. And singing a love song to Eowyn to the tune of Laurel & Hardy's 'Trail of the Lonesome Pine'.
"In the Golden Halls of Edoras
In the Home of Theoden
I love you my dear, for as
You know we'll meet again..."



3. Who or what was most responsible for Doctor Who ending as an ongoing television series in 1989?
Much as I'd like to say Michael Grade, ultimately, someone else decided to hire Bonnie Langford, approved more silly storylines, moved the show further away from straight SF, allowed poor directing, encouraged C-listers as comedy guest stars and generally exercised poor quality control. Even allowing for budget limitations, it would have been possible to produce a quality SF series instead of the pastiche that DW was for much of the C Baker and early McCoy eras. So I blame the late JN-T.



4. What is the best feature of living in Cornwall?
The views. Admittedly the best views from our house are of Devon (we're about five minutes walk from the River Tamar, and most of what we see out of our front windows is actually Devon (or 'civilisation' as I often refer to it)).



5. If you could bring any discontinued car back into production, which would it be, and why?
Ferrari Dino 246 GTS. If in a couple of years (when my S2000 is paid off) I was a bit richer than I am now, I would want to buy another convertible sports car, and I would want a step up from the S2000. Thing is, there's quite a gap between S2000 prices and what I would think of as a decent step up (say something like a 911 convertible or one of the more recent Ferraris). Wouldn't it be great if Ferrari made a more mid-range model? In the early seventies, they did. It was called the Dino (named after Enzo Ferrari's son) and it was also one of the most beautiful cars ever made.




The rules:
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 ;-) )
3. You should update your lj with the answers to the questions.
4. You should include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you should ask them five questions.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oh go on then ...

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

1. What single piece of computer software do you use the most?
2. Your favourite sporting moment.
3. Assuming you like steak, how do you like it?
4. If you had to recommend a single author to everyone on your friends list, who would it be?
5. Something you wish you'd known when you were fifteen years old.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

1. Outlook for work emails. Apart from that, Excel.

2. David Gower and Ray Illingworth scoring the winning runs for Leicestershire in 1977 to get them to win the John Player Cup.

3. Well done. Very well done.

4. JRR Tolkien. Failing that, Lois McMaster Bujold.

5. Ooh, tricky one. How to talk to girls?

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

Interview me

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

1. Name your favourite dining establishment.
2. What is your earliest memory?
3. Describe your ideal cat. I don't mean a cat that you have known, but an imaginary ideal cat.
4. What talent do you not possess but wish you did?
5. A single moment in either television or film that you found particularly moving.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

1. Paradiso, just off Market Street in Newcastle.The entrance is hidden away down a side street, in one of the few run down parts of the city centre. The food is amazing.The Blacksmith's Table in Washington old townis a pretty close second.

2.Hard to sy- I seem to remember something on the news about President Carter, also something about a Russian defector. No idea what it was about.

3.One that I love as much as Magnus, as affectionate and intelligentas Cobweb and as affectionate as Mikka. Which doesn't shed fur all over the placeor get knots.

4.Um- being able to make pots of money without much effort??

5.Hard to say. Very hard to say. I found the moment in Goodbye Mr Tom where the little boy is rescued from the cellar holding the body of his dead baby sister absolutely unbearable.The final moments of Blackadder goes Forth.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I meant to ask 'interview me' last night, but will do so now.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

1. The controller of BBC1 comes up to you and says "Doctor Who is such a success, we're looking to bring back the only programme we've ever done that was even better, and I want you to come up with the basic idea." So how would you do a "Blake's 7 - the next generation" or whatever?
2. Your most surreal or bizarre DocSoc moment.
3. Your favourite Who story. Only TV counts, not borderline canonical Big Picture stuff.
4. What would you consider the most beatiful part of the country? Be specific if you want to.
5. What would be your ideal job? Nothing like 'retired billionaire' - it has to be a form of employment.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

These are hard...

1. To take your example - even though Blake's 7 doesn't have as long a history as Doctor Who I'm reluctant to remake it and am sympathetic to a Next Generation approach. I'd suggest that the Federation needs heroes, and that Blake is a hero they could adopt. A generation or two later, there has been the appearance of a revolution, and total news management leads to the reinvention of Blake as an antecedent for the new regime. Why invent when you can borrow from the past? Blake's twentysomething daughter or granddaughter(except she isn't) is treated as a heroine and her career followed, though not overhyped as that would be cloying, by the media. Except that something happens to give her suspicions that the past is not what she's been led to believe it was... and seven what? Not necessarily people, though there would be an ensemble cast about whom we would come to care greatly.

2. In fun terms, probably the assassination of the fourth President, despite my heroic sacrifice in his favour, and the victory of the 'campaign for a taller President' in the shape of JB. More disconcertingly, 1999/2000 when I returned to Oxford to find DocSoc well under way to becoming an Italian Job cult; and there were other entire years which were surreal, but I won't discuss them now.

3. I wouldn't think of including the books and have heard little Big Finish, so don't worry on that score, though I'm glad all the non-television forms exist. I think that my favourite is probably the very first episode, but if that doesn't count (and I think that there is a strong case that Doctor Who becomes a different series once it is produced by Innes Lloyd in 1966, though elements of the original format are brought back by his successors) I think that 'The Ark in Space' is probably on top.

4. Probably the green open spaces of Sutherland, despite the forced depopulation that created them. Next, the cragged moors of Northumberland.

5. Very difficult. Probably something senior, with a lot of responsibility and initiative, in the public or voluntary sector; I can't be more specific than that.

[chainmailmaiden]

(Not that I should really be spending my time reading LJ at the moment, but...) Interview me too! (Please)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

1. Have you ever eaten something (and I mean a recipe here, not a single ingredient), really liked it, tried to cook it yourself, but not been able to reproduce the original?
2. If you could live anywhere in the UK, where would it be?
3. Favourite Maiden song?
4. Best Blake's 7 quote.
5. Oddest Taruithorn memory.

[chainmailmaiden]

1. Have you ever eaten something (and I mean a recipe here, not a single ingredient), really liked it, tried to cook it yourself, but not been able to reproduce the original?

I used to think that about my Mum's roast dinners, but I've worked on them over the years and Bacchus reckons I now do a roast better than her. The other thing I can think of is the Pizza Express house dressing. I have the recipe, from the official cookbook, but in no way does what I produce turn out like theirs. Fortunately they now sell it in the supermarket, so I can buy it rather than make it :-)

2. If you could live anywhere in the UK, where would it be?

Back in the Lake District, though I would miss being in the south from the point of view of being nearer to friends for visiting. Specifically I'd like to live in the cottage my parents had in Troutbeck Bridge, though only if the horrible neighbours weren't there anymore.

3. Favourite Maiden song?

Tricky one that, I really really like so many of them. In the end I'd have to go for 'Infinite Dreams' from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son though. It's the track that got me into Maiden to start with and I adore the guitar intro. In fact the intro is quite possibly one of my favourite bits of music in the whole world and every time I hear it, it evokes all sorts of feelings & memories, it's hard to explain quite how powerful the effect is on me.

4. Best Blake's 7 quote. Oh, so many which one should I choose... Sorry can't pick just 1.

Best Servalan quotes:

'But first, there is the matter of that degrading and primitive act you subjected me to in the control room... I would like you to do it again' The Harvest of Kairos

'I think, if you don't mind, I'd prefer my slave to address me as Mistress.' Assassin.

Also the girl next door bit with Tarrant.
Servalan: 'Oh Tarrant, I'm just the girl next door.'
Tarrant: 'If you were the girl next door, I'd move. '
Servalan: 'Where would you move to, Tarrant?'
Tarrant: 'Next door'

Best Avon quotes, Most of the Avon/Meegat dialogue in Deliverance,

'I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going.' Horizon,

'You look so beautiful when you're angry...' Sarcophagus,

Dayna: 'Don't you ever get bored of being right?'
Avon: 'Just with the rest of you being wrong.' Rescue.

5. Oddest Taruithorn memory.

The weirdest thing about this is I was suddenly struck at how few clear Taruithorn memories I have. Obviously I spent rather more of my time in Taruithorn under the influence of alcohol than I thought... Probably the oddest one was Tigr minuting an impromptu meeting at Oxonmoot in '93 where he stated that I'd lost my knickers. I had no memory of this (see previous note on alcohol) and so was rather disturbed by the revelation! Later he admitted it was either 'knickers' or 'watch' that he'd written, but he couldn't read his writing properly. The odd thing is I don't remember loosing my watch either...

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Go on then, interview me! (I've been fighting the urge to succumb to the memage, but have failed...)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

1. A lesson in life you have learned from playing role-playing games.
2. Your favourite computer game moment.
3. The best biking road you've ever ridden (and would it be just as good in a sports car?)
4. Your funniest Taruithorn memory.
5. I'm very much looking forward to The Children of Hurin. What obscure or semi-obscure piece of Tolkien would you like to see given an expanded treatment?

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Answer in my journal.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Answers to your questions:
1. What colour would your ideal sportscar be, and why?
2. Which is the best version of Traveller?
3. Have you ever knowingly drunk alcohol?
4. Which was your favourite subject (paper if you wish) at university?
5. Pick a book you wish you hadn't read when you were younger, so that you could read it now for the first time (improving the experience).

1. That very much depends upon the car. Some cars only ever look right in certain colours. You wouldn't, for example, want a blower Bentley in anything other than British Racing Green. However, you actually asked what colour my ideal sportscar would be, so I suppose I first have to work out what my ideal sportscar would be. And that's a really complicated question. I've never owned a genuine supercar. While the obvious answer would be some kind of Ferrari or Lamborghini or (more exotically) a Pagani Zonda or Koenigsegg, I suspect that the genuine everyday owning experience would actually be very annoying. You'd scrape it on speed bumps, you'd have to fill up with petrol every 80 miles etc. More to the point, because these cars are really built to be driven at speeds far in excess of a) the speed limit and b) what Cornish and Devonian roads can cope with, you would never actually get to drive them hard. I would want a car that I could put my foot down in and have some fun with. I can do that in the S2000, or in our Impreza, and I reckon would still be able to do that with a bit more speed. I might go TVR (but only if you'd let me have a slave mechanic to look after the damn thing) and I might go for an Ariel Atom (assuming you would let me have another car for when it was, like, raining).

Actually sod it - I'll just wear a hat and get wet. I'll have an Ariel Atom. With a slave mechanic. And I'll get my laptop and overnight bag couriered to the hotel when I work away. Colour? Since it doesn't have much in the way of bodywork, it doesn't really matter does it? I'll say 'aluminium'. Oh, and I'd want the 'big brake pack', because as Mr Clarkson says, "If you don't buy it, you won't be here in the spring."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaWoo82zNUA

2. For rules, late Classic (i.e. after Mercenary, High Guard etc). There's a lot to be said for my own version of the rules, which I publish here in their entirety:
Roll 2D6. Referee compares the result to the number which he has just arbitrarily thought of, modified by anything that the players can think of. That's it.
The 'Advanced' edition of these rules adds this extra rule:
The players may gain further modifications to the dice roll by bribing the referee with food.

For setting, I like what they did with the ongoing storyline in New Era (and by extension New Era: 1248, published last year). This makes me a little unusual among Traveller fans generally, and very unusual among collectors. A lot of Traveller fans (the nerdier ones generally - the sort that spend all day creating realistic vehicle designs using Fire, Fusion & Steel) hate the Virus idea because it doesn't fit in with what they know of real-world physics in 2007. I couldn't give a damn about that if it makes for a good story.

3. Knowingly yes, deliberately, no. A chocolate dessert at a chris_maslen dinner party which I didn't know was alcoholic until halfway through. Some medicines contain alcohol too. And I daresay I've accidentally swallowed the odd gulp of Listerine or similar. But that's it (to my knowledge).

4. Not necessarily my best subject (which was probably one of the macroeconomics papers), but my favourite was 'International Politics Since 1945'. Interesting subject matter, lots of sources (I used to hate subjects where there was a standard text to read) and a fun tutor - Dr Ziba Moshaver, a friendly, short, Iranian woman.

5. I did 'To Kill a Mockingbird' for GCSE English Lit. and quite liked it. I haven't re-read it since, but I do think I'd probably enjoy it rather more now. We have a brand new copy in the library, so I may well get around to it this year.