It was a year ago- almost to the day- that I happened on an intriguiging-looking link on the Guardian website to something called the 'weblogs' section. Randomly I clicked on some links (Eclectic Boogaloo and It's Wrong To Wish On Space Hardware were among them) and was instantly hooked- enough to think, 'Now how the hell do I get one of these?'. Fortunately there were easy-to-follow instructions for aspiring bloggers elsewhere on the Guardian weblog section, and within no time at all Crinklybee was born. Now I just had to decide what to write about.
For some reason, I decided to regale my as yet non-existent audience with a story about my morbid fear of postboxes. A year later I am still here- and so are a hearteningly growing number of you. To mark the auspicious occasion of our anniversary together, we are going to have a competition- just like the one recently held over at Petite Anglaise, and with the express permission of the eponymous adopted Parisienne herself.
If you have followed the link from Petite's comment box, you will know the rules already. But for everyone else, here they are. There follow nine multiple-choice questions about my life and times, the answers to none of which can be found on the blog. The idea is that you have to guess, from what I have written over during the last twelve months, which is most likely to be the correct choice. The competition is open to everyone and there will be a prize for the winner- I will tell you what it is just as soon as I have decided.
Right then- the questions. Answers in the comments box please, and best of luck to you all:
1- First of all, since it is Crinklybee's birthday, you're getting them in. What am I having?
Well I'll drink anything really. But as JS pointed out, very rarely a half of anything.
a- an expensive bottled lager with a slice of lime hanging out of the top.
b- what's the Guest Real Ale? Ah, Ruskins Old Wheelbarrow, 4.5% ABV. I'll just have a half.
c- a pint of Guinness- normal, not that new-fangled chilled one. And see if they've got any nuts.
d- I'll tell you what- how about we order a bottle of the rioja between the two of us, and take things from there?
2- What was the first single that I ever bought?
Ben is right- no-one is cool enough to buy This Charming Man as their first single. And as a pimply teenager walking the streets of Fenham in ridiculous pastel jackets and pink leather ties, I certainly wasn't. Mind you, from the worryingly encyclopaedic knowledge of his ouevre shown by several contestants, it seems I wasn't the only one succumbing to the questionable charms of this man...
a- 'One Step Beyond' by Madness
b- 'New Song' by Howard Jones
c- 'Another Brick in the Wall' by Pink Floyd
d- 'This Charming Man' by The Smiths
3- Which of these charming pin-ups has never graced my bedroom wall?
Karl Marx may have had a very striking beard, but it was Keren from Bananarama for me all the way...
a- Kim Wilde
b- Kevin Keegan
c- Keren, the dark one out of Bananarama
d- Karl Marx
4- If I was going to cook for you, which of these would you be most likely to find on your plate?
Abby remembered correctly that the secret of making the perfect tortilla had always eluded me... until now! (the secret, by the way, is lots and lots and lots of olive oil...)
a- spanish omelette
b- toad in the hole
c- chicken madras
d- chocolate souffle
5- which of these films have I watched so many times that I know the dialogue almost off by heart?
Si vous n'aimez pas la France...
Si vous n'aimez pas la campagne...
Si vous n'aimez pas le soleil...
Allez vous faire foutre!
a- Godard's Au Bout De Souffle
b- Tarantino's Pulp Fiction
c- Scorcese's Goodfellas
d- Schlesinger's Billy Liar
6- which of these acts of youthful over-exuberance once saw me spend a night in a Cheshire Police cell (but let off with a caution)?
Like Petite, I wish to God it had been 'c' (and me mam's belated offer of home-made custard to carry out the job is much appreciated; perhaps we can prepare a batch for some deserving latter-day target- Robert Kilroy Silk, anyone?) And 'a' or 'b' would have been quite cool as well. But 'a' would be way too scary, and, as Ben worked out, Crewe Alexandra are one of the few lower-league clubs never to have humbled Newcastle in cup competition. Which just leaves us with those parked cars. Tssk, the youth of today. Bring back the birch!
a- Breaking into the grounds of a heavily-guarded industrial laborotory just outside of Alderley Edge as part of an organised protest against the practice of vivisection rumoured (incorrectly) to be taking place onsite.
b- Invading the pitch at Gresty Road, Crewe, racing to the dug-out, and haranguing the then Newcastle United manager Jim Smith over a dire Newcastle display that saw us 3-0 down in a League Cup tie and on our way to an infamous defeat.
c- As part of a rag-week stunt, pouring a bucket-full of custard over the Conservative MP for Chester, Gyles Brandreth.
d- Running over the roofs of a Northwich street full of parked cars in the dead of night while spectacularly drunk, and ,when confronted by the owner of the last vehicle, scarpering into a backstreet, only to be apprehended by the constabulary quivering behind a sofa in my mate's house.
7- When playing Tuesday five-a-side football, which of these types of player do I fondly imagine myself to be?
Several contestants reckoned I fancied myself as more than one of these, and they have a point . I had a couple of Franz Beckenbauer moments just last Tuesday, as a matter of fact. But he is not the man I had in mind...
a- a continental 'libero' in the style of Franz Beckenbauer, using my innate ability to 'read the game' to sidle languidly across the back line and effect another telling interception.
b- a cat-like, charismatic goalie in the manner of the great Russian Lev Yashin, defying gravity- and the advancing years- to crane backwards and thrillingly tip a goalbound piledriver over the crossbar.
c- a trusty, dour, but dependable full-back reminscent of Frank Clark in his pomp; one goal scored in four-hundred and twenty-six appearances, but never a ball carelessly squandered.
d- a tricky but frustrating old-fashioned winger in the style of the early Chrissy Waddle, liable to end a mazy dribble past three bemused defenders by slicing my cross four yards behind the goal.
8- In which of these jobs did I last the least time as a paid employee?
Some day I will tell the full story of my two-week-long career as a Manchester skirt pleater in a back street factory somewhere in Gorton. Full marks to John for remembering that the job was eventually foisted on an exiled Ugandan Prince living in straitened circumstances in a flat in Victoria Park, who my mate Lee had met down the launderette.
a- as a table-clearer and general catering dogsbody at Newcastle-upon-Tyne airport
b- as a trainee skirt-pleater in a Manchester textile factory
c- as a supply secondary school teacher in Oldham
d- as a roving branch librarian, on a whistle-stop book-stamping tour of the suburbs of Tyneside.
9- And finally- if baby Frank had been a girl, which of these names was top of the list?
Talulah Gosh was a pop celebrity...and if it had been left up to me... but it wasn't. and Hannah is a lovely name, isn't it?
a- Talulah
b- Amelie
c- Hannah
d- Toyah
So, all the scores having been counted- I can announce that the winner of the Crinklybee first anniversary competition is..... Abby! Abby- your prize will be winging its way to you as soon as I decide what it is, can get to the Post Office, and buy the requisite amount of stamps. Everyone else, thanks for taking part! Right, time to get ready for work....
Phew, I was just about to have to do some actual work when I came upon this fantastic opportuntity to waste some valuable office time. Here we go.
1. C (I was thinking the rioja would be very cool but somehow the guiness and the nuts clinched it.)
2. B (And do you feel scared, I do? Even though madness is what you might wish for in retrospect)
3. A (I'm taking a stab at Kim Wilde here because I'm just not feeling it for her)
4. C (I seem to have the feeling that you never quite mastered the spanish omelette even though you would have liked to because, like French croissants, it is peculiar to its surroundings, existing only in the warm upstairs rooms of spanish dowagers)
5. A (Quelle est degulas? Which won out in a tough contest with D. )
6. D (a cinch!)
7. D again ha!
8. B (I wish you'd write My Life As A Skirt Pleater)
9. C (I am betting safe although Talulah or Amelie would have been fantastic)
Phew, now back to bleeding work. When do we get the results?
Posted by: abby | June 21, 2005 at 03:47 PM
Well, first of all, happy anniversary! I think you're ready for the first properly published, handsomely bound physical edition now, ready to grace coffee tables across countless nations and set thousands off a-chuckling. And now on to the contest, which I feel predestined to lose badly.
1. This is the one I feel I ought to be able to guess most easily, and yet I find myself stymied. The lime bit puts me off the expensive lager, I'm sure the wine is right out, and for the life of me I can't remember whether you're a real ale sort of man, but I'm sure I've never seen you order a half of anything, which leaves us the Guinness, and yet that too seems somehow wrong. What an excellent quiz!
2. I know, I know, I haven't answered the first one yet. Oh all right let's say Guinness, and I'll see if they have any nuts.
2 (for real). It would be no fair to ask Abby, and I'll have you know she's nowhere near the apartment right now. I'll go with Madness, and pray it wasn't Howard Jones.
3. It has to be Kim Wilde. Doesn't it?
4. We don't have toads in holes in my country to the best of my knowledge. Could I interest you in a pig in a blanket? I'll vote toad in the hole, if for no other reason than that I so rarely get to use the phrase.
5. Si vous n'aimez pas la montagne...
6. The parked cars! The parked cars! The parked cars!
7. I'll go with Waddle, but I vow to use the phrase "goalbound piledriver" in a sentence today (not including this one).
8. Here's where I begin to be less able to ignore my creeping suspicion that husbands of sisters of bloggers should be disqualified from entering contests, since I may have been previously regaled with certain stories about unfortunate employments. Let's just say that I seem to remember something about the job being ultimately foisted upon an unsuspecting Ugandan prince in the end.
9. Well, Talulah, obviously. Not really. I may once have been privy to unseemly knowledge aforethought here but if so I've absolutely forgotten it, so when I say Hannah, I do so with a straight face and a clear conscience, all innocent-like, except for the sneaking suspicion that it may be a buried real memory over which I have no control. With any luck I'll be wrong, and in the clear.
Posted by: js | June 21, 2005 at 04:01 PM
John scores a respectable six.... but Abby takes an early lead with an impressive seven. Impressive, but surely beatable. Right- who's next up?
Posted by: jonathan | June 21, 2005 at 04:11 PM
Happy birthday Crinklybee! One of my favourite regular reads - keep up the good work.
1. (b) (Though I'm tempted by (c))
2. (c) (No-one's cool enough to buy 'This Charming Man' for their first single, and I hope for your sake it wasn't Howard Jones...)
3. (d)
4. (c)
5. (c)
6. (d) (I don't recall the Crewe game, so I'm going with the parked cars)
7. (a) (I'm sure I remember you writing something about liberos)
8. (d)
9. (a) (Of course, following recent posts about indie pop and gawky twentysomethings in M&S cardigans!)
Posted by: Ben | June 21, 2005 at 05:42 PM
I am tempted to copy down all Abby's answers and change
3 of them but i won't.
1.C
2.C
3.c
4.A
5.D
6.D
7.D
8.C
9.B
Posted by: John | June 22, 2005 at 01:38 PM
Knowing your luck Eeourjohn, you would change the wrong three. Your honest approach has got you four out of nine.
Ben, as I know you are one of my most avid and long-standing readers I am almost ashamed to tell you you have got just two out of nine! I rather fear that you have fallen into a couple of my carefully-laid traps...
Any more for any more?? Answers tomorrow!
Posted by: jonathan | June 22, 2005 at 02:00 PM
My tactic is to answer the questions for myself, in the hope that we have lots in common....
1. c, because personally, I just love that creamy 'head'
2. b, "throw off your mental chains"
3. d, Karl Marx? I fancied those other birds something rotten. Although not KK.
4. c, if you EVER cook for me, make mine a curry please.
5. b and c
6. C?? Oh please let it be C?
7. Bloody hell I don't do football. d?
8. b?
9. a) I hope, because it's Tadpole's favourite character in Maisy.
How did I fare?
Posted by: petite | June 22, 2005 at 02:20 PM
I like your tactics Petite... and we obviously have a few things in common, 'cos you score a respectable.... 5 out of 9.
Posted by: jonathan | June 22, 2005 at 07:21 PM
I just leapt out of bed here in NYC to get the answers and they are not here yet! I realise that it is 10 am and I could have gotten up earlier but I was up late making a giant chicken leg out of papier mache.
I am sure you won't mind then if I take the liberty of switching to Amelie and spanish omelette.
Is there a prize? Is there a prize?
Posted by: abby | June 23, 2005 at 03:21 PM
A bit late in the day, maybe, but I'll have a stab (without peeking at the others' attempts):
1. c
2. b (only because it would make me feel better about the copy I bought ;-))
3. a (Keren from Bananarama? All kinds of adolescent fantasy flashbacks...)
4. a
5. c
6. b
7. d (although I'm thinking you've probably found yourself fancying yourself as a) once or twice)
8. c (Oldham's just too tough for you soft Geordies ;-))
9. c
Posted by: Iain | June 23, 2005 at 04:43 PM
Abby- I have heard about you and your late-night papier-mache chicken leg escapades. Your new score is.... 7 out of 9, again. A good job or we may have needed a stewards enquiry to debate the validity of last-minute second goes...
Iain- not bad. Not bad at all. Five out of nine.
Answers tonight- or at the latest, first thing tomorrow. Still time for someone to pip Abby to the coveted prize....
Posted by: jonathan | June 23, 2005 at 05:13 PM
Happy Birthday and here goes.......
1- First of all, since it is Crinklybee's birthday, you're getting them in. What am I having?
I’m inclined to think that such a special occasion would warrant a bottle of rioja but if that wasn’t available we’d probably settle for a nice cup of tea.
2- What was the first single that I ever bought?
I admit to an unfair advantage here over the other entrants as I remember clearly the walls of our little house in Fenham vibrating simultaneously to the beat of Madness from your bedroom and Prince from your sister’s bedroom whilst I tried to listen to the afternoon play on Radio 4 in the kitchen and your dad struggled to follow the snooker on the telly in the front room. Thank goodness old Nancy next door was already half deaf when we moved in.
3- Which of these charming pin-ups has never graced my bedroom wall?
Now then, I distinctly remember allowing Kevin Keegan to ruin the wallpaper and Kim Wilde was possibly displayed somewhere, although I could only ever see her as Marty in a blonde wig. I’d guess that you probably had Keren on some student bedsit wall and Karl Marx is the odd one out ‘cos he had a beard.
4.If I was going to cook for you, which of these would you be most likely to find on your plate?
Jonathan, you’d never manage the Yorkshire pudding required for toad-in-the-hole; your chicken madras would probably have to come from the Curry Mile in Rusholme; you hate puddings of any description but YOU taught me how to make totillas patatas so I’ll go for the Spanish omelette please.
5.Which of these films have I watched so many times that I know the dialogue almost off by heart?
Without a doubt, Au bout de soufflé
6.Which of these acts of youthful over-exuberance once saw me spend a night in a Cheshire Police cell (but let off with a caution)?
I am reeling with shock at this revelation. I thought you spent your spare time at college canvassing for the Young Conservatives or as a key member of the Debating Society.
Seriously though, I couldn’t see you risking life and limb to save the poor smoking beagles and whilst I would personally make the custard for you to throw over Giles Brandreth, I somehow think this is just a fanciful dream of yours.
On the other hand, I could certainly imagine you being willingly swept up in a pitch invasion. But again, I think this is a wishful dream born of nostalgia for the good old days of pitch invasions, cold pies, luke-warm Bovril and ninety minutes of standing in the freezing North East rain singing Blaydon Races as your team once again loses at home to Sunderland.
Alas, I fear that you may well have been guilty of the sort of gross anti-social behaviour that makes decent citizens cower in their homes. Today you would be shown on TV in amateur video footage as evidence of the breakdown in society and Anne Widdecombe would be round your house sorting you out.
I say, bring back the birch and slap an ASBO on him!!
7- When playing Tuesday five-a-side football, which of these types of player do I fondly imagine myself to be?
I think you probably see yourself as a combination of all of these great players – able to switch from one to the other as the mood takes you.
8- In which of these jobs did I last the least time as a paid employee?
I hope the answer is ‘as a skirt pleater’. Everyone should have to work as a skirt pleater at some time in their lives. After that, all other jobs are bearable.
9- And finally- if baby Frank had been a girl, which of these names was top of the list?
I’d like to think it would be either Hannah or Amelie with Amelie as marginally favourite.
Posted by: Ma Baker | June 23, 2005 at 11:58 PM
I have bounded out of my bed at an unearthly hour to give you all the results, and found this fantastic late entry- from me mam, no less (does anyone else think me mam should have a weblog of her own...) 6 out of 9 the score! Now, to the answers...
Posted by: jonathan | June 24, 2005 at 06:24 AM
I agree with you. Ma Baker should definitely have her own Blog. I bet she 's got some great stories to tell
about Young Crinklybee and life in Fentham.
Got to be your best posting yet. I have loved reading
everyone's comments and have been checking the site every five minutes waiting for the answers.
p.s. being in work mode (i.e brain dead) i didn't realise you had added the answers onto the original piece until about an hour after i read you last comment.
Posted by: John | June 24, 2005 at 12:21 PM
Well, I wouldn't have realized the answers were incorporated up there if it hadn't been for that other John just above mentioning it here. I'd have thought our jonathan just plain forgot in the middle what he was doing and went off to do something else. Anyway, that was definitely the best quiz I've ever taken, and I'm only slightly bitter than the man's own sibling is allowed to walk away with the prize, but I reckon in the end there's no need to involve the ethics committee authorities in this matter. I do however have one remaining question:
"Si vous n'aimez pas la France...
Si vous n'aimez pas la campagne...
Si vous n'aimez pas le soleil...
Allez vous faire foutre!"
Now, I wouldn't actually bet the condo on this, but I'd certainly bet a pint of traditional Guinness with nuts on the side that it was campagne, montagne, and ville, not France, campagne, and soleil. And I've only seen the film twice!
Posted by: one of the johns | June 24, 2005 at 01:45 PM
Yippee! That was a fantastic quiz and I am glad that you have finally put us out of our respective miseries -- I, in particular, couldn't figure out how I still had 7 even after changing my answers. I tell you, you have to be a real super-genius around here. And I knew Talulah was just too good to be true. Ach, and lots of olive oil! Yes, it's all in the special exuberant elbow movement when you pour the olive oil into the pan, I think. We have been trying the same technique ourselves with greasy pasta, having learned it from someone who has an Italian boyfriend and used half our bottle of olive oil when she came to visit. But I digress -- I am going to sit by the postbox and wait for the postman (who, in America, comes in the afternoon!)
Posted by: abby | June 24, 2005 at 02:31 PM
ps I won! I won! I won!
Posted by: abby | June 24, 2005 at 02:36 PM
Oh too bad... I missed it! I was going to have a go and all.. but you put the answers up before I had time to sit down and think about it properly. I think I would have got about 1 right anyway. Hmmm...
Posted by: Martin Q | June 25, 2005 at 02:58 PM
Guinness...nuts...Keren from Bananarama...ill-advised car-related pranks while drunk...ill-advised purchasing of Howard Jones material...are you me?
Posted by: jamie | June 28, 2005 at 05:57 PM