1. I can read braille.

Although I suppose technically I can’t as I cannot read it with my fingers, only my eyes. A genetic disorder meant that my father began to lose his sight in his late teens and was totally blind by his early twenties, before I was born. Dad tells me even when I was very young I knew he couldn’t see and would take his hand and say “Look at my pretty dress, Dad.” He taught me to read Braille using an egg carton. Unless you are blind it is not a terribly useful skill but is an interesting one.

2. I went to stay with someone I’d met on the internet

This is a shameful tale but at the age of fourteen I inexplicably became besotted with Rik Mayall after watching The Young Ones. I collected his videos, books, pictures, CDs, and made regular contributions to a fan site. During the summer of 1999 my family and I went to Cornwall for the solar eclipse. The drive took us through Devon, where Rik Mayall lived; I begged to be allowed to at least drive past the house and root through his rubbish bin but Mum said no and wondered why I couldn't have a normal teenage fixation instead.

Through the fan site I met a girl my own age named Ruth, who was equally obsessed. She lived in Shropshire and we wrote to each other twice a week for a year. Her letters were funny and lively and we discussed the usual teenage issues of friends, boys, and perhaps not so usual, alternative comedy actors of the 1980s. She invited me to visit for a weekend. Understandably, arrangements were elaborate as both sets of parents were anxious that the other girl was not mentally unstable (the Rik Mayall evidence seemed to go unnoticed) but I was allowed to go. It was the first time I travelled on a train alone and I was excited to finally meet this girl whom I already felt I knew so well.

I’m sorry to say, readers, she was awful! She was irritating, bossy, patronising, and spent much of the weekend playing the flute for hours whilst I sat on the couch aching with boredom between her painfully posh parents, who expressed surprise followed by disappointment upon learning that I don’t play a musical instrument. “This is why they warn you not to go meeting people on the Internet,” I thought to myself as I jerked awake during another four-hour-long musical odyssey. I fully admit that the Rik Mayall obsession was odd but she was weird.


3. I am a morning person

I go to bed early, wake up when it's light, and dream vivid and detailed.


4. My first trip to casualty was in Rome, aged 18

My friend Emily and I were backpacking through Europe in 2003. It was a painfully hot summer. I was very soon covered from head to toe in insect bites. I tried various methods of prevention, including dousing myself in repellent and retiring fully dressed and zipped into a sleeping bag in 30-degree heat but each morning I arose with fresh bites. After three weeks the bites began to swell into yellow marble-sized blisters and I decided enough was enough.

Emily and I took the bus to the hospital. In A&E I slapped my passport on the counter, pointed to my pustulous skin, and was hurried into a back room.

"What seems to be the problem?" asked a large smiling man in a thick Italian accent. I rolled up my trouser leg. He started, then leaned in and beckoned over a colleague. "Urghh!" they eclaimed, which I found unsettling and a tad unprofessional. "How did this happen?"

"Well!" I began, and launched into a rapid tale of woe with much gesturing before being interupted by the doctor who said, "Slowly, slowly please!"

He gave me a steroid injection and prescribed three sets of antibiotics. I went out and found Emily in the waiting room where she had been sitting among fierce glares from other patients; apparently I had pushed in front of a baby and a man with two broken legs.


5. I went to Mexico to cure a broken heart

I went alone, for a month. The adventures that happened on that trip require its own blog post (the fling, the leg amputation, the abandonment at the cinema -- stay tuned) but the cure worked. Apart from a guilty hour spent rolling with laughter watching a program about Tourette's Syndrome (like narcolepsy, a tragic, yet hilarious disease) I had barely smiled since being unceremoniously and utterly dumped by a grubby vegetarian environmental scientist with sweaty hands, long toenails, and three dogs too many. Lord knows what I was thinking.


6. I have been to three rocket launches.

I was a volunteer member of Starchaser for four years.


7. I am a book snob.

I trust very few people's opinions on books and have almost entirely rejected the fantasy genre based on limited experience and unfounded prejudice. I collect hardback books, remove the dust jackets, and arrange them alphabetically on a bookcase in my living room. I like my books to be looked after but they are meant to be read, and if someone gives me a book as gift I like them to write the date and occasion in the front.