Kathy Foley

Every month, I have to make myself wait until I’ve read all of Vanity Fair before I read the Proust Questionnaire on the inside back page. And every month, I think I should fill that out for myself. Well, I still haven’t done that but I did answer the 50-question meme I saw on RedMum’s blog. I’m not sure why as I’m not normally one for public navel-gazing but here it is.

1.Whats your name spelt backwards?
Yhtak. This is a stupid question.

2. What did you do last night?
I enjoyed some lovely seafood, drank most of a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and was spellbound by The Departed. I missed it in the cinema. It is one cracking film.

3. The last thing you downloaded onto your computer?
A sermon by Dr Ian Paisley. Yes, really. The things I do in the name of research.

4. Have you ever licked a 9 volt battery?
No. Do people do that?

5. Last time you swam in a pool?
Last year, here. Nice hotel but we’ll stay more centrally when and if we go back to Barcelona. Very soon, I’ll be swimming in a pool near Cannes.

6. What are you wearing?
I should lie and say a taffeta ballgown or a PVC catsuit or my trusty old Le Smoking but I’m currently wearing a white long-sleeved t-shirt, yoga pants, trainers and a green puffy sleeveless gilet thing I got in J. Crew in Seattle. I love my puffy gilet thing. It ain’t sexy but it’s snuggly.

7. How many cars have you owned?
Just the one. One of these. I have an unhealthy adoration for it. I don’t have a name for it. I don’t have any stupid fluffy car toys in it and there are no stickers on the windows.

Actually, I did once briefly own a Ford Fiesta. My brother gave it to me but I couldn’t drive. My cousin ended up driving it for a couple of years.

Dad - a car expert – has suggested I might get myself something like this or this. I’m kinda tempted.

8. Type of music you dislike most?
Electronic dance music – what my brother refers to as Ravey Davey shite

9. Are you registered to vote?
Yes.

10. Do you have cable?
No – Sky. We have a Sky+ box. It’s a miracle we ever leave the house.

11. What kind of computer do you use?
A HP Pavilion 1250. I had a Dell laptop but I accidentally knocked a pint of water over it and fried it. I thought it was dead for good but 18 months later, it worked again. Now it is being used by a skinny long-haired journalist in Banda Aceh. Long story.

12. Ever made a prank phone call?
No. I was such a well-behaved child. I never stole anything either, unless you count nicking the occasional penny sweet from my parents’ shop. And I stopped stealing those after being caught looking guilty and being found to have a cola bottle in my mouth.

13. You like anyone right now?
Countless people.

14. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving?
I did a skydive from 12,000ft over Lake Taupo in New Zealand. I still can’t quite believe I went through with it. I was so gobsmacked by the speedy plummet earthwards that I didn’t speak for about an hour afterwards – an unprecedented period of silence for me.

15. Furthest place you ever travelled?
Raratonga.

16. Do you have a garden?
Yes. And I have recently started growing stuff in it.

17. What’s your favourite comic strip?
Dilbert, probably.

18. Do you know all the words to the national anthem?
I do. And all the words to Ireland’s Call, which I just love in a misty-eyed, lump-in-the-throat, patriotic sort of way. I seem to be alone in this.

19. Shower, morning or night?
Morning. But sometimes at night. And often at random times during the day. Working at home will do that for you.

20. Best movie you’ve seen in the past month?
The Departed. See question 2.

21. Favourite pizza toppings?
Two or three of the following: chicken, mushrooms, onions, sweet peppers. Disgracefully, for a self-professed wannabe foodie, I do like a Hawaiian from time to time.

22. Chips or popcorn?
I thought this was an odd question, until I realised it’s in American and means ‘crisps or popcorn?’. Umm, pretzels, actually.

23. What cell phone provider do you have?
Meteor.

24. Have you ever smoked peanut shells?
No. Are there parties where people sit around licking batteries and smoking peanut shells but I’m never invited?

25. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant?
Indeed I haven’t. I could never support such objectification of women. (Oh and I’m 5’5” so I doubt they’d let me in to be objectified.)

26. Orange Juice or apple?
Apple Juice, although I’m a recent convert to it. I believed my whole life that I didn’t like it but then tried an apfelsaftschorle, which is a fancy German way of saying apple juice mixed with fizzy water. Now I’m addicted.

27. Who were the last people you sat at lunch with?
The divine Rose from the Examiner.

28. Favourite chocolate bar?
Green & Blacks Milk.

29. Who is your longest friend and how long?
My brother. Since always.

30. Last time you ate a home-grown tomato?
No idea. My Grandad used to grow them in his green house. He died when I was six so it could be 24 years since I ate a home-grown tomato.

31. Have you ever won a trophy?
Very little ones for languages at school. I came fourth in the Munster U-16 javelin competition but I didn’t get a trophy for that. There were five of us in the competition and the fifth girl was disqualified.

I’ve no idea what possessed me to start throwing the javelin – possibly the inaccurate assumption that it wasn’t really a sport and therefore a person who was in no way athletically gifted might be good at it. My entire javelin-throwing career lasted about four months.

I’m just glad I didn’t kill anyone. Mind you, someone would have had to be an idiot to stand close enough to me to get hit when I threw that thing. My maximum range was about five metres.

32. Favourite artist?
I’ll say Henri Cartier-Bresson but really, it’s impossible to pick.

33. Favourite computer game?
Don’t like ‘em much. I could spend hours playing PacMan but the opportunity doesn’t often arise.

34. Ever ordered from an infomercial?
Nope.

35. Sprite or 7-UP?
Diet 7-UP.

36. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to school/work?
Our primary school uniform was bright green and I do mean bright, bright green, not bottle green or pale green.

At secondary school, it was royal blue. For the first two years, we had to wear mustard-yellow shirts with blue pinafores and blue jumpers. Mustard is not a shade that complements either royal blue or Irish skin tones. Happily, someone saw sense and the shirts were changed to a more fetching pale blue.

The summer I was 17, I had to wear a black skirt, black waistcoat, white shirt and red dicky-bow to waitress in an Italian restaurant. And the summer I was 18, I had to wear a shamrock-emblazoned shirt to work in Cork city tourist office.

37. Last thing you bought at a store?
The Irish Times, the Irish Examiner, the (London) Independent and an apple turnover. Two minutes before that, €42 worth of bets on the Grand National. (We won about €20. Gambling pays but not as much as it costs.)

38. Ever thrown up in public?
Not too often although I did once scarper from a taxi that was stopped at traffic lights in Paris to run down the street and puke into a planter. It was about 4am and about 10 years ago. A Scottish barman my friend had just met eventually succeeded in cajoling me back into the taxi so we could all go home.

We made back to Rue Vaugirard, where I lived, and I staggered out of the cab again and threw up on a tree, leaving the Scottish barman to pay for the cab while my friend ushered me home. She put me to bed but I had such bad spins I fell out again. I do not drink to this extent any more.

As a child, I once spewed great tendrils of vomit in my wake while on the whirling chairoplane ride at the funfair (or, as we called it, The Merries) in Crosshaven.

39. Would you prefer being a millionaire or finding true love?
True love, of course, although being a millionaire would have its compensations.

40. Do you believe in love at first sight?
Not so sure. Lust at first sight? Undoubtedly.

41.Can exes just be friends?
Sure they can, although it takes time.

42. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?
I can’t remember, which is fantastic. A few years ago, I seemed to be constantly visiting people in hospital, so I’m happy that it’s been so long now I can’t recall the last time.

43. Did you have long hair as a young kid?
No. Pageboy.

44. What message is on your voicemail machine?
The usual.

45. Where would you like to go right now?
Bed, to be honest. Or any of my 43 places.

46. What was the name of your first pet?
Monty. He was a budgie (my mother refused point blank to let any other sort of pet into the house) and survived three weeks.
Monty II, his replacement, lasted one afternoon.
Monty III lived for about a month before he too keeled off his perch. Disconcertingly, he did so right in the middle of dinner – I can still hear the thunk and see my mother’s horrified face as she gazed at the vacated perch in the cage behind me.
The budgie guy sent Monty III off for a post-mortem. Turned out the anthracite fumes from our Stanley range were doing for the budgies. I’ve never had another pet since.

Before I was born, my auntie had a dog called Sputnik, which is a great name for a dog. The husband would like to get a dog and call it billmurray. We’ll see.

47. What kind of backpack do you have, and what’s in it?
I only do handbags. I have had a reputation for carrying more than my own body weight around in my handbag but there’s not so much in there today.
Contents are: wallet, 65c, keys, driving licence, lipstick, pen, pencil, diary, two bus tickets, a wad of receipts, empty Solpadeine sachet, chewing gum, a thingy for cleaning my glasses, a Brown Thomas gift card with €1 on it (well, it would be like throwing money away, wouldn’t it?) and my (deactivated) Sunday Times security pass. I like the picture of myself on it. Vanity is an ugly thing, isn’t it?

48. Last incoming/outgoing call on your phone?
Incoming: Mum & Dad
Outgoing: Fred

49. What is one thing you are grateful for today?
Today.

50. What do you think about most?
Life.