The "Coldheart interview" - more probing than Paxman, more giggles than Parkinson, more wuminating than Woss!!

After this post, I too asked to be interviewed ...... so here we go!

1. If you could own an exotic or unusual pet what would it be and why?
I'm a bit of a sucker for wild animals but I'd have to have an elephant - I love elephants; I know they can be dangerous but they appear so protective and calm with their own young. The strength and majesty of them - wow! Last week I was hooked on BBC 1's Elephant Diaries about orphan elephants being released / rehabilitated into Tsavo National Park in Kenya. Many of the young animals had been left orphans because their herd had been slaughtered by poachers - this grief didn't leave them easily and their "keepers" were amazing; treating the babies like their own children, sleeping with them, hand feeding, them playing football - it was a wonderful week of television - well done BBC1!

2. Who would be your ideal dinner guest past/present?
Oh, now then let's think about this. A dinner guest from the past (I'm not sure if I have taken this question in the right way but ...... there you go!) There are so many I would have loved to have had dinner with - Audrey Hepburn (her films, radiant smile & work with UNICEF), Frank Sinatra (I love his voice, I listen to Frank everyday, I play him in the dinner hall :o) I can't do without music), the Wright brothers (they must have felt incredible and I would like them to know the effect they had on the world, how it has changed and become smaller because of them!) & my Grampa Carey-o (because he died when I was a child, before I had time to appreciate him as an adult and my mum and dad both wax lyrical about what a lovely man he was!)

Right, now a dinner guest from the present - what a choice - Anthony Bourdain (I love his enthusiasm about food, his own and everybody else's), Eddie Izzard (he makes me laugh so much and he's so damn sexy), Aishwarya Rai (she has done so much to raise the profile of Indian women and I'd like to talk to her about her life), Jeni Barnett (because she is big and beautiful and sassy & she loves food and ... when I grow up I want to be just like her, but I just can't be Jewish!) and Hugh Jackman (because he can sing and because he's Hugh Jackman!)

Now - I know I cheated that was 10 people (if you count both Wright brothers) so, if I can only have 2 of them I would have to say Audrey Hepburn and Eddie Izzard!

3. If you could be a flower, what would you be?
I'd be a sunflower, un tournesol en français - in the south of France where my parents live you see fields and fields of them. All turning their bodies to face the sun each day - until their heads droop and you feel sad, but you know they'll be back in their "golden magnificance" * next year!

4. What three items would you like to take with you on a desert island?
I would take mosquito repellent, a book and music. I know not stunningly interesting BUT these are three things I can't live without - I get bitten badly every summer. My mother says "they must like the smell of your skin!" - thanks Mammy. You don't need to know what my father says in response! I have tried lots of different lotions, potions and instruments of torture over the years - from mosquito coils, to strange buzzers you hang around your neck to homeopathic tissue salts to a pen that gives the bite an electric shock to Jungle Formula. And by now I just know, that from dusk to dawn I have to wear long sleeves/trousers, cover myself in repellent and take anti-histamine for the allergic reaction - boring & lame but true!
Books - I read constantly, people take the ketchup bottle away @ the table so I don't pick that up and start reading it, I read on the loo, in the bath, whilst travelling .... if I was stuck on a desert island without a book - I'd murder someone! What book to take? The new Harry Potter arrives tomorrow morning - I'll take that! I feel the same way about music; if music is not playing around me then I sing instead - to myself, along to the radio, in English / Welsh / French, in the bath, on the loo (my mother's fault!), in school - assembly / singing practice, to the children @ register / tidy-up time! I like a huge range of music - it's easier to pinpoint what I don't like instead ....... I'm not going to go into detail as I am already expecting hate mail from caravan and tractor owners because of this and I don't need more stick!

5. If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?
It would be my weight - instantly. I don't want to be incredibly thin and/or beautiful. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and the most important kind of beauty in my opinion is the kind inside someone's soul. I just would like to be slim enough to be healthy and to be judged for my personality and not for my outside shell! Slim enough that people don't mention my weight everytime I see them! If I had a friend with badly stained teeth, a squint or a lisp I wouldn't judge them - I'd see my friend instead! Do you understand? Mind you, I should have enough "chutzpah" to tell all the moronic idiots out there who judge me the person by what I look like to BOG OFF!!

There you go - sorry it took me ages (I am such a ruminator ... in a non-Arnie kind of way) thanks for the questions Katya!! Bring it on everyone else!!

Now the rules

1. Leave me a comment saying 'interview me please'.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions here on my blog (not the same questions you see here!)
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions

* I don't even think that's a real word, but you know what I mean - don't you?