#chain mail

1. What's your blog title from?

It’s my AO3 name. It’s my AO3 name because I’d just been inside one the day before making the account. It was like being in a cathedral.

2. What movie have you watched most recently? What did you think of it?

The Count of Monte Cristo. I didn’t like that they GCI’d in a pack of beagles.

3. What are you looking forward to right now?

A cigarette and a Campari in the garden with my brother.

4. If you could do anything at all today, what would it be?

Have a cigarette and a Campari in the garden with my brother.

5. What's your drink of choice?

Mostly water, coffee, grapefruit juice, and tea.

In high summer, blitzed-up watermelon, or gin and Fanta lemon. Spanish beers with football. And in mid-spring, a really flinty Chablis, with a bowl of taralli.

Rosé in September. And Darjeeling. Hip flask of calvados on bonfire night. Masala chai after Diwali. Rots your teeth, but I could compose odes on an autumn negroni. Mulled cider at Christmas.

In the late evening, Grey Goose pear-flavoured vodka right out of the freezer. Tastes like some debauched fantasy of a pear. Martinis with lots of very savoury vermouth and three olives that get a slightly frozen bite to them because the gin is so cold. Laphroaig, specifically the Cask Strength Batch 15 I'm saving for my birthday.

G&Ts in frozen glasses with lots of ice at any time. Or just tonic water, honestly, the dryer and more astringent the better. I love that vein-blue- purple shimmer on it when it fluoresces, and the clank of ice and the fine spitting fizz... yeah. I get completely mesmerised by tonic water. Sometimes I throw peppercorns in it and just watch them going up and down on the effervescence.

Now I think about it, I could probably have just said tonic water.

6. What's your hair routine like?

Lazy, spartan. Cold water, baby shampoo. Then I comb it out with a fine-tooth comb.

7. What's your favourite way to travel? Is there a mode of travel you haven't done that you want to experience?

I like driving. Very quiet and private. Like resting without the guilt. And with different guilt, obviously. I’d love to ride a motorbike one day.

8. Favourite month of the year and why?

October. The air will get smoky, I’ll wear big jumpers and drink lapsang souchong again and order in plum porter and pinch the sloes to check their ripeness. We'll make cinnamon rolls and apple crumbles and fig cakes. There'll be long dog walks, and little glasses of orchestrally grand and complicated sherries with manchego or roasted almonds or poached pears. And it will be my birthday.

9. Favourite time of day and why?

Dawn. The light is unbeatable. I like being up before anyone else.

10. Do you play or follow any sports? And elaborate on that?

I have no coordination. I played a bit of terrible rugby before getting a knee injury. I watch international football tournaments because they're fun and available. I like national anthems. And surprises. Cape Verde...

11. What kind of music is stuck in your head a lot lately?

Generally some bit of oboe.

12. Dishes or laundry?

Laundry.

13. What's something you learned recently?

'Cybernetics', being derived from the Greek for a ship's steersman, has the same root as the word 'government'.

14. If you could give a TED talk on anything, what would you talk about?

I think my animus towards TED talks means I'm reading this question as code for ‘what pseudo-intellectual bullshit would you use to con a bunch of Davos set suckers' and Breads' answer makes me think that's probably not the intent.

15. What's a piece of advice you find yourself giving a lot?

It’s probably not worth worrying about. No, don’t use ChatGPT for that. Or that. Or that.

16. What's a piece of advice you would give to yourself five years ago?

This is worth worrying about, put her in rehab. Stop pretending you have the joint strength for rugby.

17. Do you believe in luck and superstition? Do you carry any lucky items or follow any lucky rules?

I would say no. It's a matter of perspective. I do keep this over my desk:

18. Are you musical? Play any instruments or sing? Would you ever perform for an audience?

Tone fucking deaf.

19. Write, type, or speak?

Type. I can’t hold pens correctly.

20. What do you wish someone would ask you?