I'm following a road paved with good intentions. What could go wrong?

Working in publishing (corner me and I'll admit it's marketing), trying to get into editorial, or maybe just do more freelance editing. Wondering what I'd really want to edit.

Outside work, I'm looking enviously at Melbourne where I used to live before my visa died. Wondering whether it would actually live up to my memories if I managed to return.

Also trying to improve my skills at contract bridge and improv. Wondering *why* I'm trying to improve at bridge (improv justifies itself. It's verbose like that).

Gazing towards the ocean, and wondering what sort of job would let me live on a yacht. Piracy seems logical.

Soulseeking, or at least seeking enough self-knowledge to decide which food I want in a restaurant without holding everyone up for several hours.

I think I give a pretty good amateur massage (though I've never tried double-blind testing).

Before I forget that I have an official skill, I've done a copyediting degree, and various people who are shining beacons of honesty have said that I'm good at that.

I am supreme at forgetting stuff. As in, no-one under 70 seems to have a worse memory. Every one of my friends has hundreds of amusing anecdotes that showcase my idiocy. Naturally I've forgotten them.

I can probably listen quite well, although what with the memory thing it's not always obvious afterwards. Presumably the combination means I'm a great person to tell secrets to.

Various people have said they initially thought I was gay. Not sure why... I don't seem to be particularly camp (apart from succumbing to the occasional bout of jazz-hands).

Things with strings. Although violins are overplayed. Three new genres have recently ensconsed me with their melodious tendrils that I've lost where I was going with this sentence, cheese anyone? Dark cabaret, cello rock and Joanna Newsom. The first is people like the Dresden Dolls - artists with a sense of evil fun, but who're afraid people might call them gothic if they don't pre-empt with a better adjective. Cello rock is self-explanatory, but Rasputina have a gift for making it surprise you. Joanna Newsom is music personified - an avatar of the harp god, created to bewitch people who would mock his limited metaphysical domain.

I secretly like most genres of music (except the usual exceptions), just not so many artists. The whole of musical history was appealing until the 1980s, when everyone noticed that they could repeat the whole of musical history until the 1980s and no-one would notice. The occasional excursions into Ace of Base are my penance for having been a teen.

Oh balls, I completely forgot about the rest of this stuff. Um... most of the books I've read recently were bridge books, so I've kind of forgotten what others look like. Unless you count graphic novels. Sci-fi is fun, although I haven't found any that I could really get into in several years. Oh, I'm gradually going through Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander series, which is great swashbuckling fun. Otherwise when I read these days it's usually non-fiction. I enjoyed The Selfish Gene, and I've got my eye on Roger Penrose's The Road to Reality for whenever I have a spare year.

I generally like to watch popcorn flicks and lament their lack of depth. Occasionally something like Heathers or Grosse Pointe Blank ruins my fun by really being good. I haven't turned on a TV in almost a year, Anime is helping me learn Japanese. I hope.

I'm an atrocious cook, so the best food is anything made for me by other people. I do like to keep it healthy...ish though. Oh, and I'm vegetarian, so my favourite dishes are obviously all meat.

Douglas Adams is spectacular.

1) Theatresports aka improv, except that I spend most of my life doing without. I've started two groups, which both died lingering deaths. Although I'm still attempting CPR on the second one.

2) Joy of living, in myself and people around me. People sometimes berate me for being pessimistic, probably with good cause. The world is full of small print. But I'm so enthusastic about people who're passionate about their thing, be it music, humanitarian aid, particle physics or actuarial science - just so long as they enjoy it, or if not are trying to do something they do enjoy. I'm also -loosely- into soulless analytic philosophy, and so apparently banned from such sentiments. Sometimes they make a hypocrite of me too. But that's life.

3) Cheese.

4) A futile belief in the potential of humankind to sort out their issues and have a nice metaphorical barn dance before colonising the stars.

5) Verbs. I tried doing without them once, and it got ugly.

(Apparently I'm running out of worthwhile answers here; friends etc, but I might as well write 'oxygen' for all the insight it'd give.)

6) Oxygen.

Lines of play in bridge are good for a long journey. In case that hasn't given me auto-zero compatibility with everyone for everything, I should add utilitarianism, which I'm convinced is both obviously right and easy to prove. I still haven't quite managed to find compelling evidence for either conviction after 27 years, but I remain optimistic.

Science is captivating too, but having only noticed that after uni I can only really cope with popular science before I can smell brain cells burning.

Presumably I also think about less flighty things, but most things that I devote thought to are things I need to think about. Oh, I often contemplate my bestselling novels - I have three of 'em just waiting to be written. That must make me unique...

Lastly, sex (and oxygen).

Avoiding pubs. Last Friday I think I played bridge (resistance is futile). This Friday I'll hopefully be getting back into kickboxing and/or writing a massively overdue book chapter on utilitarianism and Judo, in the hope that I can nudge it into a book otherwise written by professional academics without anyone noticing.

Anything, really. The other day I spent three hours wrestling with a pistachio shell. Never mind who won - it's the taking part that counts.

You're thinking about rating me highly on the evil that is QuickMatch. Having to numerically rate an endless row of people is horrific.