Thieves Like Us

Welcome to a very changeable South Manchester. The weather is sunny and warm one hour and then thundery the next. At the moment the sun has dried the ground from this morning’s rain but the forecast is that there will be a thunderstorm this afternoon (another one) and the ground will be saturated again. 

Compare this with Europe where countries like Italy are in the middle of a heat wave with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). I would rather be in Manchester at the moment I have to say. 

We are going to Italy at the end of September for a week, - well Sicily to be precise. I’m looking forward to that.

Shall we answer some silly questions from Sunday Stealing? 

1. What are the 3 most important things everyone should know about you?

(a) I may appear to be an outgoing and friendly chap who can talk to anybody but inside there is a battle going on between the personification of my desire to be an extrovert and the real me, who is a shy fellow. The extrovert wins most of the time but if you find that you have managed to penetrate my outer shell, the Dave that you met socially and thought was a great guy is not that Dave all the time; he can quiet, shy and slightly vulnerable at times.

(b)  I am not impulsive at all. I have been known to be in the past but those rare occasions have been the exception rather than the norm. I take a lot of time to weigh up the pros and cons of doing anything important but once I have made up my mind, it is cast in stone. 

(c) I like to think I am a nice guy. Somebody once said to me “If you need to tell people you are a nice guy, then deep down you aren’t!” I found that way of thinking rather odd because I believe that I am a nice person. I am helpful and I will never willingly hurt or harm anything. I feel terrible if I inadvertently upset somebody. I even open windows to let flies out of the house rather than killing them. That said, if I were to find a wasp in my house, then it would be killed as soon as I could. That’s the exception. I am a nice guy – but not if you are a wasp.

2. What is the strangest thing you believed as a child?

My dad once said to me – “I’m going to make you a snowman”. I was about five years old and I thought that he was going to take me outside and cover me in snow and leave me in the garden. I read "make" as "turn you into". 

If he had said “I’m going to build you a snowman” I wouldn’t have had such a bizarre thought. 

3. Thinking of school classes, which were your favourite and least favourite?

I loved maths and chemistry. Maths was my favourite subject and I was very good at it. I was such a geeky nerd that I actually used to do extra maths homework – FOR FUN! Can you believe that? Chemistry was fun because I loved mixing chemicals and doing experiments. I was very good at chemistry but I had a tendency to break things on occasion. 

My least favourite subjects were geography and history. I found them difficult and rather tedious and couldn’t wait to give them up. Strangely, now, I am more fascinated by history. 

4. What is your favourite fast food?

I don’t eat fast food very often but it has to be fish and chips, or a “chippy tea” as it is known in Manchester. When you are in the mood for fish and chips, there is nothing more satisfying. 

5. What song comes closest to how you feel about your life right now?

6. Have you ever taken martial arts classes?

No. I did consider it at university. I watched some guys who were trying to get us to join the Karate Society and I was so impressed by their moves that I almost signed up. 

A friend of mine took up kickboxing but gave it up after a few months. I asked him why and he said “I am sick of getting beaten up all the time!”.

Another guy I used to work with is a black belt third dan karate instructor and I asked him if he had ever injured anyone. “I accidentally broke somebody’s leg once,” he said. 

I am glad I didn’t take up martial arts.

7. Does your life tend to get better or worse or does it just stay the same?

It’s getting better. There have been a couple of blips over the past ten years but the trend is definitely upwards. I am very content at the moment.

8. What arts and crafts have you tried and decided you were bad at?

All of them.

I tried painting but a child of five can paint a better picture than I can. 

I tried creating art using a computer and this is the terrible result. I call it “Naughty Cat!”

I tried woodwork and the “thing” I made fell apart after I put it down. 

I tried pottery once and ended up with more clay on my body than there was on the pottery lathe.

Basically I am the worst artist who has ever lived.

9. What is the truest thing that you know?

My name is Dave and I am a bloke.

10. Are you more of a giver or a taker?

I am both but possibly more of a giver than a taker. 

11. Do you make your decisions with an open heart/mind?

I try to but, as I hinted above, I agonise over decisions and take a long time to make them. Mrs PM is the complete opposite – she is impulsive. 

As a couple we work well because she sometimes pressures me to decide things more quickly, and I sometimes rein her in when she is too quick to make an important decision. 

It works quite well – she has made me more impulsive and I have made her less impulsive – if that makes sense. 

12. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you?

I have never really seriously injured myself. I do remember once falling downstairs as a child and though I was in agony, I didn’t damage anything other than my pride.

As a man, however, I do have a rather vulnerable spot that I won’t go into much detail about (for the sake of common decency). One day I was playing football and I tried to tackle a person who was about to take a shot. I managed to touch the ball out of the path of his foot but it found another target – that vulnerable spot. 

I dropped like a stone and was in absolute agony, rolling around like a total lunatic.

Any man who is reading this will know exactly what I mean. 

13. What is the most emotionally painful thing that has ever happened to you?

The loss of anybody close to me. This has happened a couple of times in recent years. 

14. What is your favourite line from a movie?

I have several favourite lines. Here are some of them:

15. Can you eat with chopsticks?

Absolutely. 

I learned in Hong Kong in the 1990’s when a guy from New Zealand showed me. I have used them all over China and the Far East and I am pretty handy with them.