The One Hundred

Admittedly, this isn't the most original of ideas (mainly because I stole it from several other people who've already done it) but it seemed a fitting way to celebrate the one hundredth blog post*. So here are one hundred things about me. If you make all the way to the end of this ridiculously long list, you probably deserve some sort of medal like Muttley in "Stop The Pigeon". You're not gonna get one but, you know, you probably deserve one.

1. My full first name is Nicholas, meaning "victory people".
2. People only call me Nicholas for the following reasons:-
3. To annoy me; or
4. To attract my attention if I'm not responding to them.
5. The exception to this was my Nana (mum's mum) who called me Nicholas because it was my name.
6. I don't generally attract nicknames.
7. The exception to this being at work where we all seem to be calling each other by overly extended and tortured variations on our surnames.
8. I am from South East London.
9. But don't hold that against me.
10. My hair loss has been genetically passed down from my maternal grandfather.
11. But he lost his at about 19 so I had two years on him at least.
12. And his went white as well.
13. So I win. Yes.
14. I have one brother.
15. He is not bald.
16. In fact, he's quite hairy.
17. He's three years younger.
18. And four inches taller.
19. That's not very fair.
20. I'm supposed to be taller. I'm older. That's how it works.
21. I love music.
22. I have the musical ability of a crab. A really unmusical one, too.
23. Fortunately, I do film-making instead.
24. The first thing I tried to film was a feature length adaptation of a comic called Hellblazer. Whilst still at school.
25. Start ambitious and work your way down, that's how we learnt.
26. The existing rushes are utterly unwatchable (no, you can't see and judge for yourself).
27. It was later filmed starring Keanu Reeves.
28. I would have been better.
29. No, really.
30. An unmusical crab would have been better.
31. I can touch the tip of my nose with my tongue (ladies)
32. I can also breathe through my ears (ladies).
33. Number 32 was a lie.
34. But number 31 is true (ladies).
35. Still here? OK, just checking...
36. Sport is a bit of a foreign country to me.
37. I mean, I get that it's important to some people but I don't really get why.
38. I was brought up in a footballing environment.
39. We're English so the word "soccer" never crops up.
40. Somehow, it just didn't take with me.
41. The immediate family are a mixture of Charlton, West Ham and Millwall supporters.
42. That is the extent of my footballing knowledge.
43. I'm ophidiophobic (go look it up).
44. Fortunately, it doesn't impact on my day to day life.
45. Although a friend is threatening to get one as a pet and I have warned that visits may be less frequent. Or nonexistent.
46. I'm strangely obsessed with the number 23.
47. I should probably have put that at No. 23 on the list.
48. Although 46 is a factor of 23.
49. I find it hard to pick a singular favourite of any particular thing.
50. I am however always in the mood to read The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
51. Halfway there, people. Take a deep breath and gird yourself. No, that's not girding, stop that, you'll go blind.
52. I'm a confirmed pedestrian.
53. I never learned to ride a bike.
54. I never took my driving test (although I did have lessons when I was 17)
55. I live in London; there's public transport everywhere and, although it's frequently annoying or inadequate, when it works, it gets you around.
56. I did learn to roller skate, though.
57. And, by default, this means I can ice skate. Been twice, never fallen over.
58. The exception to my no sport rule is tenpin bowling.
59. Hey, if darts and snooker are sports then so is this.
60. I'm not very good but I can hit the pins most of the time.
61. I'm a cat person and former cat owner.
62. I don't dislike dogs but I'm not overly keen.
63. I was bitten by a Doberman on the road that I lived on when I was about 9 or 10. That didn't help my liking for them.
64. I have a small lump on the right side of my nose from where I fractured it when I was 18.
65. No, it wasn't caused by fighting.
66. Yes, it was alcohol related.
67. We're two thirds of the way there. In some sort of sport, they refer to this as the home stretch.
68. I cannot roll my R's.
69. 69, dude!
70. I've been a comics collector since I was about 7.
71. My Nana (mum's mum) is largely to blame for feeding this addiction.
72. The first comic I started collecting was Return Of The Jedi.
73. The only comic that I bought when I was 7 that I still by now 2000AD.
74. Batman is great and could kick both Anna Russell and Trodo McCracken's collective asses.
75. Like many my age, I worshipped at the altar of George Lucas.
76. That faith has been shaken a bit in the last decade but it's ultimately still there.
77. I'd love to be able to swordfight like in old-fashioned swashbuckling movies or Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride.
78. My dad used to get told he looked like Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent quite a lot.
79. My mum currently has no known celebrity lookalikes.
80. In the mirror universe, my evil twin has a full head of hair and a clean shaven chin. (And probably an eyepatch as he can't have the goatee).
81. Having said it's hard to single out favourites, my favourite dinosaur is a tyrannosaurus rex. Naturally.
82. My love of Chas 'n' Dave stems from happy memories of younger times at my paternal grandparents.
83. I still live in hope that one day I'll be able to shoot electric bolts from my fingertips to smite my enemies like the Emperor in Star Wars. That would be cool.
84. I'm fond of lists but this might be taking things too far.
85. If you're still reading then I can only assume that you're some sort of masochist. You kinky so-and-so.
86. I was never a festival person until 2005 when I suddenly decided to go to Glastonbury.
87. In fact, I'd never been camping before then.
88. It was the year of the Great Flood. Everything I owned was soaked on the morning of the first day and I feel full length in the mud.
89. I loved it.
90. I went back in 2007 and got just as muddy and still loved it.
91. I've been to a folk festival. I mainly enjoyed the cider. Most of the music wasn't really my thing.
92. Chas 'n' Dave were there and I got offered my current job whilst drunkenly dancing to "Gertcha". Good times.
93. I do not and never will understand the appeal of Morris dancing.
94. I still have a friend that I've known since the first year of primary school. We still tell the same jokes.
95. 2006 was (with one notable exception) a great year.
96. 2007 sucked donkey balls.
97. 2008 was fair-to-middling.
98. 2009 is too early to call.
99. This is the penultimate fact about me.
100. I will never do a list this long again. It was sheer folly. Folly, I tell you.

Right, someone else's turn, I reckon...


* OK, if you're including the previous blog, technically this is the 318th blog post but people don't tend to celebrate the 318th anything, really. Unless it was your 318th birthday. I reckon people would celebrate that. Not that anyone you knew would still be alive. But I digress in a slightly odd way.