I’m a Bloglines convert. In case you’re looking at me blankly right now, Bloglines is a completely free, online feed aggregator. You tell it which websites you read on a regular basis, it hunts down their rss/xml/atom feed and adds it to your list. You can then instantly see who has recently updated their blogs or sites and just read them rather than clicking into everyone on your bookmarks list on the offchance they’ve posted today.

As I’m on a dial up connection, the time saved is impressive. I’m up-to-date on my favourite reads for the first time since Li’l Bhaji was born. I’m also finding time to keep up with the news via the BBC feed and a couple of web cartoons. I only have ten of my regular reads who do not seem to have an XML feed of any kind despite me scouring their sites. If that’s you, pleeeeeease consider setting one up!!

…piece of jewellery and why?

The obvious answer here would be my engagement ring and wedding ring, but that makes this a very short blog entry. Also, they’re more items of jewellery that are “there” than something that sits in my jewellery box calling to me to find an occasion to wear it.

So my next favourite items of jewellery (at the moment, at least) are something I asked Akra to get me for our anniversary this year. They’re a pair of rose quartz and silver earrings and a matching necklace from Silver By Mail.

Very simple, but I love them. They’re one of the few truly stylish pieces I own.

Today I wake up to a mixed but fair review from The Weblog Review. Thanks guys and welcome to any newcomers poking their heads around the door!

Psst… for my US readers… a “dummy” is a “soother” or a “pacifier”.

(For comparison, if you’re curious, last year’s review)

…accidentally forget to pack each time you go away?

I’m not too bad at packing things, to be honest. I used to be when I was younger, but now we have kids I’m fairly anally retentive about carefully writing checklist after checklist – I even have standard checklists on computer for both weekends away and weeks away to guarantee I don’t forget anything. They then get carefully checked off while packing and on the morning before we leave.

Akra, however, is a different story. Two years ago, we went to his parents’ villa in Spain with some friends of ours for the first time. We drove to the airport, got on the plane, picked up the hire cars and were just bombing down the motorway to the villa when he said “You know, I don’t remember packing the keys…” It wasn’t his finest hour.

Fortunately, his parents were friendly with the people who owned a neighbouring villa and the neighbours had a spare set of keys – but it did take us a fair while and cost us a late evening with exhausted toddlers to track them down!

We’ve been exceptionally careful about packing ever since.

It’s occurred to me while writing my responses to your questions that my About Me section is woefully out of date (it didn’t even mention Li’l Bhaji!) so I’ve updated my N.S.F.A.Q. over on the left. If you think of anything I’ve missed – drop me a comment and I’ll add it in.

…would you never EVER wear?

Um, can’t think of any that I’d never wear. But then I’m not that fashion conscious at the best of times! I find shoes all a bit of a mystery, and they seem to have some sort of secret code for the different styles that I never quite worked out. After all, if I want a pair of shoes, I’ll pick them out visually, not by knowing what the style is called. Kitten heels, slingbacks, etc… all a foreign language to me.

I’m trying to get a little more fashionable lately though, as you may remember from my Internet makeover post from a while back, so I now own more than just a pair of trainers and a pair of doc marten’s shoes. I can even walk more than ten paces in three inch heels now, too!

…views of the United States?

I’m approaching this blogging challenge question with some trepidation, as I don’t feel particularly qualified to pronounce on a whole country – especially on the basis of 1 trip when I was 11 years old and an addiction to their TV and film output! But since when has that ever stopped me making completely hopeless generalisations in the interests of a blog topic…

Culture: Like most british children growing up during the 70s/80s, I have been immersed in American “life” for as long as I can remember. Most of these were crime shows of some description: The A-Team, The Equaliser, Cagney & Lacey, Miami Vice… I probably have a completely disproportionate idea of the US crime rate as a result. As a kid, I think I used American slang more often than English and had big plans to move out there as soon as I could – probably half expecting to be given a Ferrari Testarossa the second I stepped on US soil. Even as an adult, the vast majority of my favourite shows and films are from the US (although hardly surprising given the output of the big studios). I can categorically state that I rate their entertainment industries very highly.

Politics: I don’t think it’s any great secret that I’m not a huge fan of the current US president either over the way he treats his own citizens (e.g. patriot act, faith-based funding, enironmental issues) or the contempt for the rest of the world (e.g. Kyoto agreement, Iraq war, Guantanamo Bay). I very much hope he gets voted out at the next election. (Of course, we in the UK can’t exactly judge having got Teflon Tony at our helm, but there you go).

People: Time for the huge sweeping generalisations you’ve all been looking forward to. I’m going to struggle here really, as the place is so huge and diverse – there are good and bad examples of every nationality. As a broad brushstroke, I would say it is my experience that most of the Americans I have met or “spoken” to on the Internet have been open, genuinely friendly and very good at speaking their mind! I think we in the UK are a fairly reserved lot, so it can be rather refreshing to be told things “like it is” – unfortunately in a few individuals I have met (one unfortunately worked with) this trait has morphed into a rather more insiduous arrogance and complete lack of tact. I’m happy to say they were the exception rather than the rule, though.

Land: As a continent I’d love to visit more of it. I really want to see some of the classic touristy stuff like New Orleans, New York and Boston in the fall, although I’m not that fussed about the theme parks. I would love to be able to do an Internet friend/real life friend/relative visiting tour at some point. I’d also like to be able to do a road journey – either North to South or East to West (I think North to South would be the most interesting of the two).

Living there: I don’t think I’d like to live there now I’m an adult, I have to confess. If we did have to move out there for work purposes, then I would completely avoid the Bible belt areas as tolerance issues would concern me. I’d like to live in a fairly large city, I think. It would be nice to have a higher quality of living (bigger house, luxury & every day goods cheaper as a percentage of income) but having to pay for health care/health insurance would be a shock, as would the much reduced holidays. Politically, I’d have reservations too, although to be honest issues of privacy, freedom and tolerance are becoming more important in the UK too. I’m not sure the benefits would make up for the upheaval of moving and adjustment.

There, I think I’ve covered all bases on that. Let me know if I haven’t…

… today would you go to Heaven?

Probably not.

I’m guessing I should qualify that a bit more! My personal beliefs are a mix from many faiths as I see glimmers of Truth in many religions – I think a human being declaring that they know everything there is to know about a supreme being is either being manipulative, arrogant or just plain mistaken and fundamentalism of any form terrifies me. I’m reluctant to give myself a label, as I have to confess my philosophy on life evolves quite considerably from year to year, but my current position on the spectrum is somewhere between paganism and gnostic christianity – although I suspect that muddies the waters rather than clarifies anything in particular.

I do suspect that there is some truth in theories of reincarnation, although I don’t think anyone can be 100% sure. I certainly can’t claim to have reached anything like a pinnacle of spirituality such as the gnostic ideas, so probably have a few more rounds of life learning to go before I go to “heaven”. If it’s oblivion then that doesn’t really frighten me, just think it would be a disappointment because I’d want to know what was going on with my relatives/friends left behind and those who went before. I don’t believe in the “biblical” idea of Hell (for reasons behind my thought processes, I can thoroughly recommend reading The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and the Lost Goddess both by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy).

I should probably extrapolate a bit from the original question and confess that the idea of death terrifies me and has done since Akra Jr was born. Not really from the perspective of what happens to me, but of the impact it would have on my children. As a result, I have become much more risk-averse than I was pre-children – I suspect this is a common reaction to parenthood?

… do you think you’re most like and why?

You know, I’m finding this question really hard! I can’t think of a particular character off hand that I could say “yes – that’s me!” … at the same time there are any number of female characters which I could say I have things in common with. As a result, I’m in danger of just picking a favourite film or one I’ve recently watched and saying “yes, I’m her”.

I could say I’m quite like Sandra Bullock in “While You Were Sleeping” and Meg Ryan in “Sleepless in Seatle” because I can be an impractical romantic while still retaining a sense of humour about my eccentricities.

Or I could say I’m like the female character in the Dark Crystal (gelf/gelflings? It’s so long ago I’ve forgotten their names!)… or at least I wanted to be like them as a child. Even to the extent that my wedding dress choice has roots in my childhood fantasy of wanting to own a dress with pointed sleeves just like them.

I could say I’m like Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films because I’ve always tended to be a stickler for rules (mainly because if I break them even only rarely I’m the poor sap that gets caught out) and I like to think I’m fairly intelligent.

I’ve been called Scully (okay, that’s a TV series, but there was an X-Files movie wasn’t there?) before now – okay, I think it was supposed to be an insult implying I was a geek, a braniac and I had reddish hair at the time (unfortunately dyed… *sigh*), but as Gillian Anderson had been voted most sexiest woman on the planet in GQ magazine that same week and I’ve always considered geeks cool I was insanely flattered much to the annoyance of the workplace bully in question.

And you know what, I still haven’t answered the question have I? Okay, which film character do *you* think I’m like? Looking at my list they have to have red hair, romantic with slight adorable eccentricities, intelligent, upright citizen, be a fantastic mother but still retaining a sense of humour with a positive outlook on life! Not much of a tall order, eh?!

This may be the most profound thing that anyone has ever written, or it could be I’ve drunk too much wine, however, it’s got me thinking. From Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks:

Levade had told her one day that there was no such thing as a coherent human personality. When you are forty you have no cell in your body that you had at eighteen. It was the same, he said, with your character. Memory is the only thing that binds you to earlier selves; for the rest, you become an entirely different being every decade or so, sloughing off the old persona, renewing and moving on. You are not who you were, he told her, nor who you will be.

You may answer this either in the comments or on your own blog (but please drop a link in the comments so I can read it). My question to you is this: if you were to meet yourself from a decade ago, would you recognise yourself? Would you have anything in common? Would you get on, or would you find yourself irritated with your naivety? Would you tell yourself to do anything differently or do you accept everything that has happened between then and now as necessary on the path to who you are now and who you are to become?

Actually, that’s lots of questions. I will answer them for myself sometime during this random question and answer session week/month/until the questions run out. But please do take the time to at least think about it for yourself. I’m curious as to whether this holds true for everyone…