About Me

I just realised I have nothing in the 'About me' section of my profile. When I tried to add what is written below I was met with the message, "must be fewer than 1200 characters", which I found very sad. Something as complex as a human character in less than 1200 characters. That's fewer than 500 words. Ridiculous.

So, rather than edit bits out I'll post it as a blog entry. This description of me is based on 'The Five-Minute Interview', which appears in 'The Independent' everyday.

If I weren't talking to you right now I'd be ...
Probably writing another blog entry. I have some free time, which is very rare at the moment.

A phrase I use far too often ...
“Nice one”

I wish people would take more notice of ...
Litter. Or rather, I wish people would take more notice of clean places and then think about them when they're about to throw their cigarette butt or tissue on the ground.

A common misconception of me is ...
I'm Irish (I'm English) and that I'm 27 (I'm 24).

The most surprising thing that ever happened to me was ...
Moving to the USA when I was 12. One morning my siblings and I went to the kitchen for breakfast and our mother asked casually, “how'd you kids like to move to America?”

I am not a politician but ...
If I was I would make the environment my number one priority. The first thing I'd do is make rail travel cheaper and easier and make air travel more expensive.

I'm good at ...
Teaching, writing and football.

But I'm very bad at ...
Lots of things. Drawing, dancing, DIY, ironing, cooking, folding clothes, multi-tasking, pronouncing r's in French (“Derniere heure”, par example), sitting through a film at the cinema, remembering names, reconciling peoples contrary political views...

The ideal night out is ...
Dinner at a friend's house with some good friends and some new people. Then out to a bar and finally dancing in a club. If it's truly ideal it will end with the first metro home.

In moments of weakness I ...
Rub my head vigourously and exhale exaggeratedly.

You know me as a teacher but in truer life I'd have been ...
A footballer.

The best age to be is...
21.

In a nutshell, my philosophy is this:
Ask yourself: what if everyone had that attitude?