Likes

 

Welcome to a fairly pleasant South Manchester with a blue sky but the threat of rain later, potentially. I don’t mind – the days are getting longer, the nights shorter, the temperature is rising and we are heading for summer. 

What’s not to like?

Shall we dive into some silly questions from Sunday Stealing? 

1. Do you like your handwriting?

It’s readable, I think so I guess the answer is yes. Judge for yourself. Here is an excerpt from my university notes (and this is as neat as it gets). It’s the same now but probably a little scruffier because I don’t write as much as I used to. It’s all on the computer now.

2. Do you like roller coasters?

When I was a kid I used to love them. However, something changed when I reached about thirty or forty and now I hate them. I think it was a huge ride somewhere in America that flipped me. I waited to get on the thing and it arrived with the pervious victims, some of whom were whooping and saying “ALRIGHT!” and high fiving each other in the way that our American cousins do. But then I noticed a few people get off with faces drained of blood saying “I am NEVER riding that thing again!”.

That made me nervous – but I got on anyway.

And I hated it. I was hurled around like paper bag in a hurricane and when I finally got off the thing, my heart was racing, my head was spinning and I felt pain when I had been bruised as then thing slammed to a halt. 

I have never been on a rollercoaster since.

3. Do you like scary movies?

I used to love them but now I find them a little boring. I remember watching The Exorcist and it scared me to death and I have never seen one since that has had the same effect. The problem these days is that they are there to make you jump and I find myself trying to predict when such moments will occur. I find films like Saw too disturbing so I don’t watch those gory films.

However, I have enjoyed some fairly recently. 

I liked Ring (the Japanese version is genuinely brilliant), Paranormal Activity and the two “It” movies based on the Stephen King novel. 

Usually I don’t bother unless somebody recommends them to me. 

4. Do you like shopping?

This is déjà vu. I used to like shopping but not now. When Mrs PM says “shall we go shopping?” I usually decline unless it is absolutely necessary. There is nothing worse than shopping with your wife/girlfriend for the following reasons:

(a) It takes hours.

(b) I end up waiting outside a changing room with other depressed and grumpy men. These changing rooms are usually adjacent to the women’s underwear department so there is nothing to see other than bras and panties – and that adds to the depression because you end up looking at the floor so you don’t appear to be a weird pervert.

(c) You have to answer the world’s most difficult question over and over again: “How does this look on me?”

These days I do 95% of my shopping online.

5. Do you like to talk on the phone?

Again (déjà vu) I used to do this a lot but now my phone conversations are limited to calling up companies to help me or to complain or things like that. Most communication these days is face to face or via some form of social media or application like WhatsApp. 

I feel sad about this – I think we are losing something.

6. Do you sleep with the lights on or off?

Mrs PM says that I have “see through eyelids” because whenever there is the slightest bit of light, I wake up. I love this time of year but the one disadvantage is that it gets light at 4am and I wake up early a lot of the time. We do have blackout curtains but occasionally the dawn light gets through gaps. 

I sleep with the lights off – definitely.

7. Do you use headphones or earphones?

I use both. When I am working or practicing the piano, I use headphones. When I am walking, I have my iPod and earbuds. 

I like both really.

8. Do you have tattoos?  Do you want any?

I have no tattoos nor do I want any. 

They are too permanent and I am starting to droop.

9. Do you wear glasses?

Yes. I have to wear them otherwise I would stumble around and bump into things.

10. What is your strangest talent?

I can say the first word of this song:

I learned this when I was a kid and I can still say it:

I am basically a weird person.

11. Have you ever been in the hospital?

I’ve been in a hospital several times to visit people but I have never spent a night in one. 

I hate hospitals.

12. What colour mostly dominates your wardrobe?

I would say that blue is the dominant colour. Mrs PM does her best to change that – I am wearing a red T-shirt as I type and have several other colours. But blue is the main one.

13. What’s your most expensive piece of clothing?

I would say that is the suit that I bought recently for a wedding. 

Guess what colour it is?

Blue!

14. Have you ever had braces?

What sort of braces?

I have never worn this kind:

but I have worn two different sets of teeth braces. I hated wearing them. They were a right pain in the rear end – and the teeth as well. 

15. Have you ever been on TV?

Only by accident. I have seen myself in the crowd at a football match and also at a cricket match. The last one was hilarious. 

England were playing New Zealand in a 20-20 game at Old Trafford cricket ground in Manchester. I was with two mates and had a full pint of beer. One of the New Zealand batsmen decided to choose that moment to hit a six. Moreover, he calculated that the best place hit it was at me.

The bowler ran up, bowled a loose ball and the batsman caught it perfectly. I watched with a smile as it sailed into the air. Now cricket balls are really hard and as a kid I have suffered with them when they have hit me. So as you can imagine, as the ball sailed through the air towards me, I started to panic. My mate pointed at it and said “It’s coming this way”. It landed about two rows in front of me but for a moment I was convinced it was going to hit my head.

What did I do to avoid this catastrophe?

I didn’t do what any normal man would do and try to duck or avoid the projectile. 

Instead I panicked and spilled approximately a quarter of a pint of lager down my shirt. 

When I got home, I watched the highlights on TV and saw the whole thing again – the look of amusement as the batsman hit the ball, my mate pointing at the ball as it flew towards us, the look of sheer panic on my face as I realized it was on a possible collision course with my head, a tsunami of lager cascading down my pristine T-shirt, the look of embarrassment on my face when I realized what had happened and the laughter of my two mates and a couple of others as they saw my beer-soaked shirt.

Not a good appearance; it’s a good job I’m not famous.