FlamingOcelot - Plinky Answers

'Up' deserves an Oscar

2010-03-06T15:50:49-06:00

Up
Because it has the best opening to an animated film that I've ever seen, it has a crazy bird called Kevin, and Christopher Plummer plays a baddie. Plus it's beautifully animated and has a brilliant story.

A Single Man
Coolly elegant, spare but full of pathos, the use of colour to depict mood, Julianne Moore's brittle laugh, the way it leaves you wanting to know more about the people who hover at the edges of George's life post Jim, the reality of Jim whom we only ever see in flashback. For a fashion designer and first time director, Ford has made a masterpiece.

Show me the monkey!

2010-03-06T15:45:01-06:00

Japanese Macaques 001

Anything about Japanese Macaques. I can't get enough of them. They're smart. The have a matriarchal tribe structure. They wash their food before eating. They like to play with snowballs. They like to bathe together in the hot springs. Frankly, they're just ace.

Breathing like a clarinettist helps rid hiccups

2010-02-17T13:10:00-06:00

As a clarinettist, the ONLY way to get rid of hiccups is to stand tall and straight, then breathe in deeply, using your diaphragm to pull the air in. Once it's in, hold your breath but imagine that your diaphragm has a string attached to it that you can pull downwards. Pull that string, and pull the air in your trachea further down into your lungs. Stay rock still and hold that breath for as long as you can manage. Then release it slowly, with control. You will be cured.

Hale has great bowls of soup

2010-02-17T13:07:14-06:00

Miso of course. With lots of different kinds of mushrooms and a healthy portion of rice sitting at the bottom, soaking up the miso goodness.

YUM!

I wear my wedding dress on special occasions

2010-02-17T13:05:16-06:00

I only wear my wedding dress on special occasions. It's pink silk. None of that white frothy nonsense. Why bother spending good money on a dress you'll only wear once?

It only comes out for special dates because the first time I wore it was a special date, and because it's way too nice to wear for general partying or everyday.

So Valentine's, wedding anniversaries and husband's birthday are reserved for its special appearances. And days when I want to dress up and float around the house, of course.

If you're reading this, you must be interested in history

2010-02-17T13:01:30-06:00

Dear Fruit of the loins of my loins

My advice is that you study history and learn from it. Judging by the evidence available to me, 100 years in your past, it's not something that humans are good at, but I think it's worth mentioning.

See ya!

Lay it all on me, I'm the birthday girl

2009-10-31T07:48:56-06:00

As it is my birthday today, I am open to all offers of candy, sweets, cake, biscuits, pudding. Anything I'm allergic to I'll pass on to my bewitched beloved. Thanks!

If I could be in any band, I'd join Blondie

2009-09-03T13:42:58-06:00

Blondie (Debbie Harry)

Blondie. But only if I got to be Debbie Harry.

Does that need any explanation?

I'd love to ask my great-great-grandparents 'What was your life like?'

2009-09-03T13:38:41-06:00

What was your life like?
My great great grandparents were typically born in the 1830s. No motor cars, no electricity, no inside toilet unless you were posh, no telephones, no television. The big news was rail travel. The cotton industry was beginning its big boom. The workers were fighting for their rights. Industrialists were fighting for theirs. Workers were migrating across the country to find work in the new factories.

I'd like to know if my great great grandparents were aware of how much their lives were changing, and how different things would be by the end of their lives, or whether, like me today, they were just getting on with things, trying not to let it grind them down.

Just that one question would be enough.

Signs of life already located in Chadderton, near Manchester

2009-09-03T11:26:08-06:00

It has already been discovered in Chadderton, near Manchester.

It has skin that can't be superglued together but doesn't mind having a needle and thread poked through it to seal up a gash.

It answers to the name father.

My money's on the kangaroo

2009-09-03T11:23:32-06:00

Have you seen the size of its back legs?

Have you even heard the Status Quo story about the time they ran one over with their tour bus, decided to dress it up in someone's clothes and take pictures, only for the kangaroo to regain consciousness and hop off still clothed with the tour bus keys in the jacket it was wearing?

Snake, schmake...

Now that I'm invisible, I'm heading to The Cabinet Office

2009-07-10T12:27:45-06:00

I want to know exactly what goes on in those cabinet meetings. Is the air rank with the stench of testosterone? Does everyone carry a small silver dagger in his or her inside pocket? Does Mr Brown really bully and browbeat people? Does he ever take his glass eye out, just for a laugh?

These are the things I need to know.

'Oh, hi, Mozart. You free for dinner Wednesday?'

2009-07-10T12:24:59-06:00

Mozart
Because, as well as being a musical genius, I've read that he liked jokes about farts too.

Engels
So I could ask him whether he wrote most of Marx's work, and to swap stories about our favourite parts of Manchester and Brussels.

Clooney
Every dinner party needs eye candy, but why not make it smart eye candy too?

Camping. It isn't for everyone.

2009-07-10T12:21:49-06:00

I have spent an entire week in a tent. Surrounded by the mud fields of Glastonbury. On more than one occasion. It's brilliant.

Underground bunker, nah. I work in a basement. Just one day without natural light sends me stir crazy.

Treehouse, nah. I can't even go up into the attic without feeling as though I'm going to fall over. And there are floor boards and everything up there.

Tent every time. Even though I went camping with the Girl Guides once and our ten-man tent blew away.

Eddie Izzard is king

2009-07-10T12:18:55-06:00

An appreciation of the surreal. Like Eddie Izzard describing a cat purring behind the sofa. Or Sean Locke talking about how best to care for a hamster. Someone who can take the everyday, twist it a little, then make you imagine their twisted reality just through the power of their words.

I'll get around to sorting the house out one of these days

2009-07-10T12:16:16-06:00

I haven't sorted out the house yet, because it's a pain in the bum. Even though I know that, this weekend, we have to move everything from the house I'm selling to the house where we now live, I just can't stop procrastinating over the whole tidy up/clear space/get things straight thing.

I'm off to look for a Nintendo Turtle Bridge game on eBay now.

I wish I still had my Nintendo Turtle Bridge Game

2009-07-10T12:13:41-06:00

Nintendo Turtle Bridge Game
Because it was the coolest thing I ever owned. My first hand held "computer" game, it was also an alarm clock. You had to get the little pixellated man across a bridge of turtles by jumping from shellback to shellback. The trouble was, those turtles kept being distracted by pesky fish, and when they dived to the bottom of the sea, if you were mid leap, you met a watery fate...

They had a bunch of Nintendo games similar to it in Mandarake in Shibuya. I pawed at the locked cabinet, sighing "If only..."

If only I hadn't lent it to my dad to use as an alarm clock and forgotten to get it back off him. He now denies all knowledge of its existence.

If I thought he knew how to use eBay, I'd have my suspicions...

Martha will love my prison food

2009-06-16T12:29:11-06:00

prison food
It's her favo(u)rite

'Business Time' must be played at any good wedding

2009-06-16T12:27:43-06:00

Business Time by Flight of the Conchords

This was our first dance song. It has everything. References to programming the mother-in-law's vcr, doing the recycling, making love for 2 minutes.

Hammer Time by M C Hammer

Does it really need any explanation?

Groove is in the Heart by Deeelite

Lots of time changes, swanee whistle, Lady Miss Kier, Dmitri the Mickey-haired Russian Rapper and a silent Japanese assassin on keys. Excellent.

Woo hoo!

2009-06-16T12:22:50-06:00

Last Monday, when the estate agent rang to say that, after 13 months on the market, my house had finally sold.

That was a definite and genuine Woo Hoo! that escaped my lips.

I wish I could have seen Rear Window in the theater

2009-06-16T12:21:11-06:00

The tension, the obsessive compulsive behaviour of a bored man with a broken leg, the frantic attempts to prove he wasn't dreaming what he'd seen, the haunting melody composed by the musician across the way, Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr and Thelma Ritter. They don't make 'em like this any more.

'Plumb' sounds so sweet

2009-06-15T12:16:50-06:00

plumb
It is round and soft in my mouth. It rolls around my tongue then plops out with a satisfied MMM at the end.

spigot
It's a word that is like a hiccup. It sounds odd even when used in its correct context.

This summer, I'll be slurping up the Pimms

2009-06-15T12:12:54-06:00

I heart Pimms

Pimms and lemonade. All that fruit, it's your five a day in a long, cool glass.

I hope I stumble across a fallen star

2009-06-15T12:11:33-06:00

I could save it for a rainy day, then swap it at the fallen star shop for a ticket to sunnier times ahead

Hello, my name is...

2009-06-15T12:09:51-06:00

I just did change my name. It means that I belong with the person whose last name I now share.

Alan Rickman and I are practically best friends

2009-06-15T12:08:09-06:00

Alan Rickman
In Harvey Nichols, Knightsbridge. I was waiting for my sister to decide whether or not to spend £300 on a pair of green suede dungarees from the Nicole Fahri shop. I spied a person across the floor that I thought I recognised. I'm not sophisticated. I stared until he raised his eyebrows twice, smiled and said, "Yes, I am."

'The Tale of Murasaki' will help pass the time

2009-06-15T12:02:06-06:00

It's set a world and a lifetime away from the humdrum life we lead that involves jury service. It's a good book to get lost in.

Point the getaway car to Uji

2009-06-15T12:00:07-06:00

I'm going to open up a little tea house. We'll sell green tea all year round, and green tea ice cream in the summer.

Hook up the Vimto

2009-06-15T11:57:55-06:00

Vimto can

Vimto. I read about a family once. They drank so much Vimto that they had a special tank in their back garden and a tap in the kitchen. I was jealous. I still am.

The chicken came first

2009-06-15T11:55:57-06:00

Well, someone had to come in order for the egg to be made. Right?