Let's see... I'm a slightly spiky, very open-minded (note: this does not mean I want to have sex with your dog) humour junkie who loves music, literature (not necessarily with a capital L) and visual media, with a slightly lazy Wikipedia-style desire to know everything about everything- in small manageable chunks that I forget 5 minutes later. Ask me about Kosher salt or the different types of horse bit. Don't ask me about sport or popular culture as it's likely I'll stare blankly...

I've spent more time than is really healthy in higher education, although I am in fact capable of tying my own shoes and buying a pint of milk.

Having spent my working life so far in heritage I'm now retraining as a conservator, so spend most of my time staring at small slightly broken things down a microscope. The benefits of this include not having to work with The Public any more and being able to listen to Radio 4 all day. The drawbacks include the fact that I cannot have a cup of tea on my bench and a cat on my lap... And that I'll end up a blind solvent-abusing hunchback by the time I'm 35.

Not filling in online profiles, clearly. Or blowing trumpets.

I'm *pretty* good at lots of stuff: cooking, eating, dressing myself... I'm mediocre at fencing, excellent at whistling and can name at least 6 varieties of lettuce.

That I'm rampantly, ridiculously ginger. But really, and I cannot stress this strongly enough, ginger-philia is not an attractive personality trait! No creepy stalkers please!

Books: So many. Too many. I'll read anything, very quickly, and probably have forgotten everything about it by next week. I get a slight feeling of panic if I don't have something to read. But, particular favourites: anything by Haruki Murakami, the Sandman series, anything by Robin Hobb, Margaret Atwood, Neal Asher, Vikram Seth, Patrick Gale, Kate Atkinson- really, anything. As long as it doesn't have a pink embossed cover. I also have a secret weakness for dreadful crime fiction novels.

Music: Again, most things. But not Country. Or R&B. So.. Badly Drawn Boy, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Suzanne Vega, Fairport Convention, Moriarty, Joni Mitchell, John Martin, Battles, Moldy Peaches, Belle and Sebastian, Chemical Brothers, Jeff Buckley, Mumford and Sons, Philip Glass, Offspring, Extreme... I also listen to Radio 3 a fair bit but find that my classical music knowledge isn't increasing one bit- it's just like pleasant aural wallpaper.

Films: There are an awful lot of terrible films. Most mainstream blockbuster type things just make me want to cry, and not in an emotionally moving way. But the good things are so so good! More mainstream: Bladerunner, Amelie, The English Patient, Spirited Away, Totoro, The Matrix, Labyrinth, Watership Down. Less mainstream: Cache, Eden, Lives of Others, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz (if anyone has a copy of this, I need to see it again!) and so many TV series- Battlestar Galactica, Twin Peaks, Deadwood, Carnivale, House, True Blood...

Food: Mmmm. Love food. Is real ale a food? Faves: fillet steak (cos we're playing fantasy food, right?), scallops, asparagus, curry of any kind but not with cream cos I'm a non-dairy wierdo, Thai, Chinese, really posh restaurant food but only very occasionally and usually when someone else is paying, battered sausage and chips eaten out of the paper on a park bench. Not celery. Hate celery.

Radio 4
The Internet
My cats
Trees and streams and stuff
Cooking
The English language in all its beautiful forms

things too much.

somewhere doing something. Often sitting on a bench at Paddington station, listening to the fab orchestra and waiting for my train.

wouldn't be private if I admitted it here!

you are not a wierd ginger-stalking maniac. Or an any kind of anything stalking anyone.