Quick Quintet: Team Support

With all the Rugby World Cup shennanigans going on, one of the interesting things that has come to light has been the talk of the 'minnow' teams, by which it is meant a team that isn't from the Five Nations and Italy, or the Tri-Nations. (Incidentally, most of the players in these teams hate this patronising tag, and rightly so.) Many folk in the 'provincial' towns have 'adopted' a team, so although they are obviously All Black fans, they will perhaps buy a Namibian flag to wave, or paint their faces in the red and white of Canada.

I'm afraid I simply don't understand this. You either support a team or you don't. You can't feign loyalty for a finite period. The team you support is the one you support and if you're unlucky enough to be born in Burnley, then you just have to tough it out. Although you may have a soft spot for another team and be interested in their results, there is no such thing as a second side. I will watch Wycombe Wanderers and am happy for them when they win but if they ever play Liverpool (and due to the magic of the FA Cup it has happened) there is absolutely no question where my loyalties lie.

5 Teams I Support:

1. England at anything (except the Olympics where it has to be Team GB)
2. Liverpool FC
3. Team HTC Highroad, the lads who led Mark Cavendish to a record number of Tour de France victories were all astounding
4. The New York Yankees - watching them play at Yankee stadium is an experience I will never forget
5. The Lions at rugby - see, we can play nicely with Ireland

Quick Quintet: First Impressions

They say you should never judge a book by the cover, but I think they are wrong. We make snap judgements all the time based on appearances and assumptions.

I am (nearly) always happy to be proved wrong, but I form instant opinions about people when I first meet them. These opinions may well change as more information comes to light, but if we're honest we all form our first impressions on a number of pre-determined factors.

The First 5 Things I Notice About People:

1. Their accent
2. Their height
3. Their smile
4. Their hands
5. Their manners

Quick Quintet: Photography

5 Subjects I Like to Photograph:

1. My cat
2. Reflections in water
3. Vineyards
4. Plants
5. Cyclists

Quick Quintet: You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

There is a lot of music that I love and a lot of bands that have shaped my life. We all have an inner soundtrack and The Jam, The Pogues, The Smiths, The Damned, The Cure, Pulp, Blur and Oasis all feature highly on mine. 

You know how it is - there are certain songs that no matter where you are or what you're doing, or how tired you are, you just have to get up and dance. They may not even be your favourites, but they have a certain rhythm or connotations that cannot be ignored. I blame other people for most of them...

5 Songs I Have to Dance to:

1. Debaser - The Pixies; Manchester Academy and anywhere in Manchester when I was a student with the Essex Girl - those were the days, my friend...
2. Baggy Trousers - Madness; doesn't everyone our age? It's guaranteed to turn any do into a flashback to the primary school disco
3. Groove is in the Heart - Deee-Lite; Thermal Girl is entirely to blame for this one
4. White Riot - The Clash; not played very often, but for years this was my Friday-night-going-out-song. It's fast, furious, frenetic and gets me every time
5. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses; partly the fault of Our Man in London, I remember a particular gig in 1987, and it fires up my inner rock-chick

Quick Quintet: books

I've been very busy recently with various shows, but always manage to squeeze some time in for reading. Some of it is decent (what I believe is called) literary fiction, and some of it is light relief:

5 Most Recent Books Read:

1. Dolci de Love - Sarah-Kate Lynch
2. The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje
3. Painting Ruby Tuesday - Jane Yardley
4. The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman
5. On Canaan's Side - Sebastian Barry

Quick Quintet: Jewellery

Collectors, screen buffs and jewellery lovers were all of a flutter recently when it was revealed that Elizabeth Taylor's magnificent jewellery collection was going to be sold at auction in New York by Christie's in December (what a lot of prepositions in that sentence - does that make it preposterous?).

She was certainly a beautiful woman (who incidentally reminds me of my mother in some shots) and she wore it well. The collection consists of 300 pieces (many of them amassed from the multiple marriages, including two-time husband Richard Burton) and is valued at approx USD 30 million. Naturally I have nothing like that, but we all have little bits of 'bling' that are important to us. Here are some of mine:

5 Favourite Pieces of Jewellery:

1. My wedding ring - obviously - designed by local jeweller Juerg P Muff and incorporating gold washed down from the hills in the floods of 1999, which left us homeless
2. A rose gold charm bracelet, made from the chain of my grandfather's fob-watch
3. A greenstone triple twist bought for me by Him Outdoors - greenstone can only traditionally be worn if given to you by someone else, and the triple twist represents, 'the joining together of two people, two peoples, two cultures for eternity even though they experience highs and lows of life they remain bonded by friendship and loyalty for life' - so that seems just about perfect then
4. A cute black dolphin with diamante eye necklace brought back from Fiji by a friend
5. A garnet and opal nose stud bought as a replacement for the one lost at the Leeds Festival while watching Chumbawamba

Quick Quintet: Morning routine

Because I am a creature of habit, and I am not particularly good in the mornings, I have a checklist of things that I do each morning before I leave the house. It includes, but is certainly not limited to:

5 Things I Do Every Morning:

1. Get up
2. Brush my teeth
3. Make the bed
4. Have a cup of tea
5. Feed the cat