Sunday Stealing - Cottage By The Sea

Another Sunday, another set of silly questions from Sunday Stealing. Shall we?


01  What is the worst nickname that anyone has ever called you?

I’ve had so many nicknames over the years that it is difficult to choose. I worked out at an early age that the more you protest about a new nickname, the more likely it is to stick. Moreover, sometimes they stick just because people think they are funny anyway. I know that I have invented a couple for others that have stuck because the person in question protested too much.

At work, for example, I once said to a colleague:

“Your surname sounds just like the word “Tufty”"

which caused mayhem when others started laughing. He wasn’t happy but let it drop. Then, a couple of months later, we had restructuring of the department and he ended up sitting next to me. I had completely forgotten about the similarity between his surname and “Tufty” – but he hadn’t.

Nobody had called him “Tufty” since I first mentioned it months earlier – yet it had irritated him to the point where he was almost obsessed. He sat next to me on that first morning and said:

“Can I just say one thing? While I’m sitting next to you, there will be no mention of “Tufty” at all – not once. If there is, there will be trouble.”

I burst out laughing and, my reaction shocked him a little. One thing he didn’t really know about me was that I don’t like that kind of attitude. I just said:

“No problem Tufty Bear!”

He just stared at me with shock. And then somebody else said

“Tufty Bear! That’s really cute!”

And so it began. He was called “Tufty Bear” from that point onwards until the day he finally left the company a few years later. He did realise his mistake and just accepted it. Every morning I would come in, gently pat him on his shoulder and say “Morning Tufty!” or “Morning Tufty Bear!” or “Morning Tuffers!” or other variations.

He tried to retaliate with nicknames for me but none of them stuck and in the end he called me what everybody else called me.

He would probably answer this question with “Tufty Bear”. I will give you a list of the names I have been called and let you judge for yourself:

Snowy, Bagpuss, Joe 90, The Milky Bar Kid, Banaspec, Specky, Scrumper, Bricktop, Rambo, Mr Puniverse.

Sorry for the long answer – I got carried away.

02  Have you got a favourite flower?

Not really. As long as a flower is colourful, pretty and free from wasps it is okay by me.

03  Do you add a sauce, ketchup or other artificial flavourings to your food?

Sometimes. It depends what I am eating of course.

04  Describe yourself using only words that begin with the letter 'T'.  

Tactile, talkative, tenacious, tolerant, tidy, trustworthy, truthful

05  What is/was your lover's pet name for you

I am not saying but Mrs PM does have a public term of endearment for me that relates to my awful unmanageable hair – Flossy!

06  What is your least favourite colour?

Easy – pink!

07  Who did you vote for in the last election, and did they win?

I did not vote for the candidate that represents the Conservative Party led by the walking disaster that is Boris Johnson. Sadly the majority disagreed with me and the dangerous clown is now our Prime Minister. God help us!

Tosser!

08  What is/was your grandfathers’ names?

My dad’s dad was called George and my mum’s dad was called Gilbert.

09  What is the best present you ever received?  

Probably a trip to Australia from Mrs PM’s mum who insisted that we go with her. She had always wanted to go and on her 60th birthday asked us to go because she was nervous about travelling all that way with just her husband.

I was very uncomfortable about it and offered to pay for myself but she absolutely insisted.

Mrs PM and I are seasoned travellers so had a lot of experience. I acted as a travel guide, especially in Hong Kong and Singapore, where we stopped on the way there and back.

I also wrote a travelogue for her and presented it to her a month later as a memento.

10  What is 17 1/2% of 97 + 42 x (6 / 2) – 137 ?

15.05.

11  What would be the best possible way you could live?

Exactly as I do now but with a little more money and a different career.

12  Given the choice of absolutely anything, what would be your dream job?  

A writer – probably a travel writer so that I could document my travel experiences. But I would also quite like to write a huge space opera with a little bit of horror involved.

13  What position do you sleep in at night?

I have no idea. I am asleep.

14  What is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?

Far too many to mention here. The key is to embrace them and laugh at yourself – that makes such episodes less embarrassing.

15  Who is your favourite fictional character?  

That’s a tough one. Off the top of my head I would say Harry Keogh from Bryan Lumley’s Necroscope saga because of the incredible things he can do.

16  What food do you hate most in the world?

Rhubarb by a long, long way.

17  When was the last time you were ill?

January 2019. I caught a rather nasty cold that lasted about four days.

18  If you were transformed into a wild creature, what would it be?

Probably a chimpanzee. I think I look like one anyway.

19  What was your favourite toy as a child, and whatever happened to it?

I had a massive collection of model cars, including models of vehicles from TV shows like Captain Scarlet, UFO and Thunderbirds. I would lose myself in my own imagination and use them to create vast action stories.

Sadly, I gave them away to my cousin when I grew up and I have no idea what he did with them. I wish I had kept them.

20  What's the most amazing thing you've ever seen?

I’ve seen so many things on my travels that it is difficult to single one of them out. I’ve just looked up the Top 20 sights in the world according to Lonely Planet’s “Ultimate Travelist” so I shall list the items from that list that I have seen:

Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Great Wall of China
Grand Canyon (from a helicopter)
Colosseum, Rome
Iguazu Falls (Brazil and Argentina)
British Museum, London
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Santorini, Greece

There are lots more things but it is difficult to list them all or to say which is the most amazing.