Happy January! And some answers...

As much as I'd like to, I find wishing people a whole year of happiness rather unrealistic. By the end of December 2012, you'd be taking happiness for granted, maybe even needing more, like an addict, to actually feel happy.

For the sake of convention, though - Happy New Year one and all!

Lots to answer  - thank you everyone. Some questions are difficult, but most were easy to answer.

Kylie - great comment, thank-you. I have been known to lose so many phones, keys, purses. Always during the rare times I have cash in my purse too!

Wendz - if you had a choice would you want to leave the UK and live in another country? And if so, where would you want to go to?

Yes, I would leave the UK. I'd like to live somewhere with proper, defined seasons. Maybe New York.

 Grey Area - a very polite way to say that you're not in the least bit interested in finding out anything! You're not properly nosey,  just an observer.

Vix - you're as nosey as me!

1. If you were only allowed to re-read one book for the rest of your life which one would you choose?

The Oxford English Dictionary

2. Someone gives you £5000 on the condition that you had to spend it all in one day and only on yourself, what would you do?

I'd have every beauty treatment going - teeth whitening, lazer blasting on all the blotches on my face, that fat-removing thing they can do in an hour, facial, massage, manicure, full make-over, hair cut by a top stylist (I like the attention as much as the vanity aspect). I'd buy an heirloom type piece of jewellery, a brooch probably, I'm less likely to  lose that, yellow gold with diamonds. I'd buy a Mont Blanc pen, and then I'd have a very long lunch, eat 5 courses I've never tried, wash it down with a different expensive wine for each course.

3. If you could be anyone, living or dead, for a day who would you be and why?

All I can think about with this question is the line "I think I'll come back as Dannii Minogue". If you forward the video to 9:23 minutes and listen to that scene, I'm sure you'll agree it HAS to be Dannii! Or a bra. Hilarious clip.

4. Your five desert island discs?

Amon Tobin - Cosmo Retro Intro Outro

808 State - Nimbus

Bochum Welt - Yellow Asteroids Over Berlin

Boy Robot - Bass and Booze (cannot find this online, I love it though)

Autechre - Bike

This list would change if I were to compile it even in another hour. This is music which sort of fits in with my brain, I will never tire of these tracks.

5. What would your autobiography be called?

Lucewoman

Curtise - will you be making a new year's resolution; if so, what?

I really want to get fit, ditch the asthma pump and feel full of energy all the time. I only realised I enjoy exercise last year.

Boring - sorry! 

I'd also like to meet some bloggers, it'd be a good way to see more of the country too. Open to offers - I'm impeccably behaved sober, a nightmare pissed.

Krista - another curious sort!

1) Have you ever been around someone as they took their last breath before dying? If so who was it and what was that like?

No, luckily. I've been around some very sick children who have needed to be resuscitated, a calmness washes over me in a crisis though, so I become sort of detached from the horror. Not sure I'd be calm if it were a loved one.

2) What is your happiest teen memory? Saddest?

Happiest - a sort of religious euphoria swept over me onn my paper round one morning as the sun rose,  I must have been 13. I felt my life was going to be extraordinary.

Saddest - when my boyfriend went away to university, it was pure heartbreak knowing the end had come 

3) If you had a super power what would it be?

Invisibility - nobody would be safe!

Loren -What is the most memorable item of clothing you've ever bought? 

I bought a dress from Dorothy Perkins in my early 20's EVERY time I wore it I had the worst night out. I think I wore it 5 times before getting shot of it. It looked like a painting of the sea, all smudged blues, greens and browns. I loved it, then hated it pretty soon after!

Max  - I would like to know whats your favorite paragraph or line of writing Luce, of yours and in lit. in general and why?

I like this line from my Teenage Kicks post

The malnourished one spoke, her voice was how I'd imagine a full ashtray to sound were it to be animated in a cartoon. 

In lit, I love this:


"People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth. They don't look down at all except to be content to live on hills. They have nothing to do with last weeks garbage or fear of rats. Night comes. Nothing wakes them but the wind"


Bums in the Attic from The House on Mango Street


Sandra Cisneros

Sian -

um... are you still job hunting? do you like to bake cakes? do you like to read? and if yes what was your favourite book you read in 2011... and what was the best film you saw? what do you think your children will do when they grow up

I'm ALWAYS job hunting! I will find a job (and heaven knows I won't be miserable) this year, and volunteer at the CAB or a charity shop too. Charity shops make me sneeze though.

I love to bake cakes, scones and bread - so therapeutic. I'm no artist when it comes to decorating though. I tend to cut a template from paper  and sift icing sugar over my cakes. I love flour, silky flour like Marks and Spencer's Organic self-raising.

I love to read, not necessarily novels, just words wherever they are. I spend every spare moment reading. I enjoyed In The Forest by Edna O'brien and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro which the gorgeous Comtesse kindly sent me (I noticed the Ishiguro on Wendz's pile too).

Liam (12) I think will seek a very ordered life, a job like his dad (parts manager) a modern and tidy house (he loathes my lax attitude to housework) lots of pets and foreign travel

Ricky (4) he likes one on one friendships, is very logical and likes finding out about how things work.  He is the most like Rob, so I'm sure he'll end up working with computers too! I try to increase Rick's confidence, his fear of failing could be a stumbling block.

Sonny (3) is wild. A true monkey who would set my nerves on edge if he was my first. He loves the outdoors, is very physical, impatient and impulsive, I will have sleepless nights when he is a teenager, no doubt. I don't think he will take kindly to being told what to do, so goodness knows what work he will enjoy!

Ricky is on the left

Tristan - have you done the dishes yet ?

The dishes are never 'done'. I wash up about 6 times per day, my hands are raw. Rob's are like a baby's backside!

Scarlett  - What was your best holiday memory? If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be? What would be your perfect day?

Best holiday memory - the first time I saw the sky from an aeroplane, I think I was 8. I'd always wanted to see the sky close up.

Food - cheese, I eat way too much cheese. When I left home my mother couldn't believe how much longer the cheese was lasting!

Perfect day - a peaceful train journey through lush green countryside, a picnic on a warm day by the river, falling asleep with the sounds of  nature ringing in my ears, and a really good laugh, there's nothing better than nearly collapsing with laughter.

Steerforth - 1. If you could choose your nationality (including being born there and speaking the language), what would you choose to be?

After much thought, including living in the Amazon, it comes back to being happy to be British. I will be fluent in Welsh, French, Spanish and British Sign Language one day, I know I will. I suppose I'm too ignorant to other cultures to make an informed decision about being anything other than who I am. That saddens me.

2. What's the closest you've come to death?

I've been in 2 car accidents, one when the headteacher didn't let us go home early in heavy snow,  I skidded and ended up flipping the car onto it's roof. The second was as I was being beaten up by the passenger. My life flashed before me in a clichéd way, just like in films (to quote Rik Mayall from the above YouTube clip "it was like one long relentless collage of grey")

3. If you had a time machine, where would you go?

Nowhere, I have no desire to return to the past, or to see my future. I'd only end up trying to change things and make everything worse! I would like to see how the earth looked at the dawn of time though, if that can be arranged.

4. What's your earliest memory?

Eating 2 plug fuses, I was 2 years old and it's as clear as if it was yesterday. They just looked so tempting.

5. What were your best and worst holidays?

Best holiday  - Ibiza 1998, I felt so free

Worst - West Wales 1996 - 3 males (all super odd and gormless) and my friend Louise. A holiday home owned by one of the oddballs' parents. His parents wanted him to be normal. We'd been there an hour, were watching TV and a drag queen came on. The one whose parents owned the home said (super camp) "she's nice". We all burst out laughing because he genuinely thought it was a lady. We were home by teatime. Major hissy fit and we were all ordered to leave. Trouble was, he had to drive us home. In complete silence.

Sarah - What would you save from your burning house (everyone is already out)?

Just my black handbag. Everything I need is in there

PerlNumquist - Why do the tiny precious crumbs of chocolate left in the wrapper when the rest has been eaten always taste nicer than the huge chunks you gorged only moments before?

I disagree, so will say its something about not knowing what you've got 'til it's gone, and not buying enough chocolate in the first place. Rookie mistake.

Little Nell - sorry!

La Dama - 

Do you believe in Tarot?

I believe such things can cause equal comfort and distress.

have you ever had a tarot reading?

No, but I do have a pack of cards which I used to gain popularity at school. I used to make up my own meanings.

seen ghosts,felt,heard???

I saw a butler in Victorian dress very clearly in the bedroom of a guest house in Dorset 9 years ago. I am always seeing people/hearing things. Every female on my mother's side of the family does. I think it's our imaginations.

You feeling better?

A lot, thank-you. I feel better than ever!

Phew, that took hours! I need a drink...

Thanks again for all the questions.

Lucy x 

Curtise, Em (Ivy Black Chat) and Keshling - a post featuring your gifts to follow very soon...