the proust questionnaire

My very own meme, sort of. I got this from the Sunday Times today. Apparently these 24 questions have been all the rage amongst socialites for the last century. Marcel Proust did not come up with the questions, however, it was his answers, when he was just 15 years old, that made them famous. While, not as famous as Proust, here are my attempt to answer the questions.

Your favourite virtue

Generosity.

Your favourite qualities in a man

Integrity, honesty, loyalty, intelligence, kindness and good humour.

Your favourite qualities in a woman

Integrity, honesty, loyalty, intelligence, kindness and good humour. The questionnaire is probably showing it's age a bit. I like to think that I look for the same qualities in women as I do in men.

Your biggest flaw

Sometimes the words fly from my mouth like bats from a cave. Once they start, there is just no stopping them.

Your favourite occupation

I hate working and while some jobs are less obnoxious than others I just hate working. I suppose if I have to work, which I do unfortunately, I would want to choose a job where I did not have to keep a record of anything that I did. That would be nice.

Your chief characteristic

Integrity. It gets me in a lot of trouble.

Your idea of happiness

Coffee with my wife in the Yellow Square in Funchal

Your idea of misery

My idea of misery is being trapped on one of those reality TV shows, like Big Brother, for example. In my version of the show, I would be locked in an isolated house on an island in the middle of nowhere with my entire family. Oh God, I forgot, I’ve already done that. I used to walk past these stones, which are a lot closer to the road than you think, on my way home. These stone, the Stennes stones, are on one side of the road and The Ring of Brodgar is on the other side. I often used to walk past them at night. It was bloody creepy, a Wicker Man moment, if you like. I could easily imagine the damn Orcadians sacrificing poor unsuspecting tourists on the altar of these stones.

Your favourite colour and flower

This really has changed over the years. Nowadays, I would probably say that green was my favourite colour and that roses were my favourite flower.

If not yourself, who would you be

I always wondered what life is like for the rich and beautiful. I wouldn’t mind spending a few days as Matthew McConaughey, although I promise that I will definitely not smoke any pot, and there will absolutely definitely not be any naked bongo playing.

Where would you like to live

There can only be one place for me, and that is Madeira.

Your favourite prose authors

That is a hard question to answer, but here are just a few of my favourites:
John Steinbeck Tortilla Flat
Michael Moorcock The War Hound and The World’s Pain
Walter Tevis The Man Who Fell to Earth
Mervyn Peake Titus Alone

Your favourite poets

I was never really into poetry, but I have always been a bit of a depressive and have always been partial to Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Dickinson. Here is one of my favourite Dickinson poems:

The Forgotten Grave

After a hundred years
Nobody knows the place,--
Agony that enacted there,
Motionless as peace.

Weeds triumphant ranged,
Strangers strolled and spelled
At the lone orthography
Of the elder dead.

Winds of summer fields
Recollect the way,--
Instinct picking up the key
Dropped by memory.

Your favourite painters and composers

The painter is easy: Vincent Van Gogh. I think I was always a little in love with the romance of his unappreciated talent. I saw some of his sunflowers a few years ago and they looked as if they had been painted with fluorescent paint. Absolutely amazing. My favourite composer is a little bit more difficult. I don’t really listen to classical music enough to talk in those terms, but I do like JS Bach, especially the pieces for harpsichord, and I do like Philip Glass a lot. There is something about the intricacy of their work that appeals to me. I remember going to see a Glass opera some years ago, and being struck by how melodic his music was. You could practically hum along to the tunes, which at the time surprised me.

Your favourite heroes in real life

I have always admired Primo Levi’s humanity, and his wonderful skills as a writer. His first, great book, If This Is A Man started a life long obsession for me with the holocaust. I always hoped that I would have the strength to endure the terrible experiences that he suffered in Auschwitz and still retain a sense of hope. Levi killed himself in 1987 by throwing himself off a third floor banister in the block of flats where he lived with his mother in Turin. I was shocked by this, as was the rest of the world, but I don’t think that his suicide detracts from his great gift.

Your favourite heroines in real life

I have really struggled to think of a real life heroine. There is one woman that I admire and that is Barbara Dockar-Drysdale, a psychotherapist who set up one of this country’s first therapeutic communities, The Mulberry Bush. She tried to demonstrate that Donald Winnicott’s ideas on how children develop could be used to help children overcome some of the damage that had been done to them by the way in which they had been cared for. I have read her book The Provision of The Primary Experience many times, and yet each time I read it, I gleam something new from it.

Your favorite heroes in fiction

My fictional heroes are real heroes. I grew up reading comics. I used to have thousands of old Marvel and DC comics piled high in my wardrobe. Every now and then I would spend an afternoon rereading them and fantasing about the superpowers that I was sure to develop. After all that was the thing about superheroes. They never knew they had superpowers until the day they suddenly started manifesting them. I guess if I had to pick an absolute favourite it would be Batman. He doesn’t really have any superpowers as such, just a lot of technology and a really bad mood. I don’t have the technology, unless you count my ability to store 10,000 tracks on my iPod, but I could do the attitude with no problem whatsoever.

Your favourite heroines in fiction

When I was a kid I used to fantasise about Modesty Blaise, she was a kind of super cool spy chick from the 60s who's adventures were printed in a comic strip in The Evening Citizen in Scotland. Although her 38 years career started in the London Evening Standard. I remember her dressed in black, all slinky and dangerous. I seem to remember that she could change her hair colour at will, but that might be something from the really bad film that was made about her. I suppose in lots of ways she was a female James Bond. I haven't read anything about her for years, but I still think about her occasionally.

Your favourite food and drink

Chicken. Nothing fancy, just roasted or even better barbecued until the skin is crispy black. There also has to be chocolate involved somewhere. Any kind of chocolate, but I suppose if I had a choice I would choose a decent bitter chocolate with at least 70% cocoa solids. My favourite drink has to be red wine. I don’t really have a favourite, although I do like a nice ChateauNeuf du Pape.

Your favourite names

Despite my lack of any religious beliefs, I just love the names Mordecai and Esther.

Your pet aversion

Anyone who talks about being flexible. It invariably means that they are attempting to manipulate me into doing something I don’t want to.

What characters in history do you most dislike

I really dislike all those despots who have managed to kill millions of people to maintain their little bit of power: Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin and so on. I don’t know what else to say about them that hasn’t already been said.

What is your present state of mind

It is nearly midnight and I am feeling tired, but also satisfied that I have been able to complete these questions. It has turned out to be a much bigger job than I expected.

For what fault have you most toleration

I have an older woman friend who talks all the time. I find her very relaxing, in some strange way. She is almost a live version of those relaxation tapes that you get. Gentle sounds of waves on the seashore, that sort of thing. I seem to be able to listen to her and yet zone out at the same time. Odd really, but I like her lot. Although, maybe I wouldn’t if she also wasn’t kind, thoughtful and generous too.

Your favourite motto

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

How would you like to die

Quickly, in my sleep. I don’t really mind where, so long as it’s not somewhere embarrassing like in the bath or on the toilet or driving at 80 mph down the M25. When I am dead, I'm not that bothered about the funeral arrangements either. I’ve told Mrs McMuffin that she should just put me in a bin liner and leave me out for the refuse men to collect.