Meme

Laura at Rehearsal Times Over (check it out!) has tagged me for this meme that's been going round lately. I have to start, she says, by posting the rules, so here they are:

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.

2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

OK, that's done, now what on earth can I tell you that (a) family and old friends don't already know, and (b) won't bore new visitors to tears and send them clicking straight back to Mad Priest or wherever else they've come from?

1. My first name is really Alison. My parents were cajoled into calling me that by my great-grandmother, whose own name was Alice and who reportedly had, let's say, quite a personality. They themselves really wanted to call me Claire, but to avoid my initials making me a "cad" they christened me Alison Claire instead. I'm always doing a double-take in places like driving-license centers and doctors' offices when people call me by a name that doesn't feel like mine.

2. When I was little I desperately wanted a pony. I was one of those horse-mad girls who read books by the Pullein-Thompson sisters endlessly under the bedclothes with a torch, and nagged my parents to paint my bedroom grass-green so I could plaster it with paper horses cut out of pony magazines. Even today I feel a faint stab of longing whenever I see a horse.

3. The Queen Mother once shook hands with me - by mistake. She'd come to open a new classroom block at our school, and was making her way down the line of prefects, saying distractedly "Isn't it exciting?" to about every third person without looking them in the eyes. I happened to be standing just past the final prefect, and she sailed right along and grasped my hand too before the headmaster hastily hustled her away.

4. My favorite chocolates are made by Leonidas. Godiva comes a close second, followed by Thorntons, followed by ... well, pretty much any company that makes sweets consisting of cocoa butter, milk, and sugar, basically.

5. I once traveled from the UK to Japan by train, bus, minivan, and ferry. It took a leisurely month in all and was one of the best times I've ever spent travelling, though nearly falling off a crumbling bit of the Great Wall of China on the way was a bit unnerving.

6. I'm feminist enough to hate it when men try to hold doors open for me or carry my bags in the UK, but Western enough to resent it when Japanese men don't even offer.

7. I don't like mayonnaise. Can't stand anything with it in, which is a bit of a problem when you're trying to buy a sandwich in a Japanese convenience store as it seems to be an ingredient in absolutely everything. This sometimes freaks out Japanese friends, who assume that because mayonnaise is a "western" food I should automatically love it. I get round that one by asking them "Do you like natto*?"

8. I don't like natto either. But then everyone thinks that's normal.

*Sticky, stinky, fermented soybeans. Foreigners are generally believed not to be able to stomach natto, and in fact many Japanese people (especially in Osaka) hate it too. Kentaro and the boys just love it, though.

Now the big problem: as I've only been blogging for a couple of months I don't know many people well enough to tag, and all of the ones I do know have already done this meme. So I'm going to go out on a limb and tag a couple of people on the Married in Japan list who I know have blogs: Kathy at Mikan Days and Jojoebi at A Bit of This & A Bit of That. Girls, I hope you don't mind....