Which ‘Wind in the Willows’ character are you?
Quizzes in women’s magazines appear to give you insight into yourself by telling you which celebrity you most closely resemble. Apparently it’s good to resemble Angelina Jolie. I can see being married to Brad Pitt would have its uses – I bet she never has to wait in line at Alton Towers. Being like Madonna is bad. I can see this too, I look ridiculous in a leotard, but then so does Madonna.
I used to enjoy doing the personality quizzes in women’s magazines. Years ago, when I used to go out with a woman who bought magazines that had personality quizzes in them, I would wait until she had left the room and then flick through whatever glossy happened to be at hand, hoping for an insight into her personality to be revealed through sight of a completed multiple choice quiz, so saving all that tedious business of conversation. Such tactics were not without risk – the ‘what kind of lover am I?’ quiz clearly showed the result ‘filthy’, but had been completed by her flatmate.
The ‘Wind in the Willows’ is a great book – it has shown millions of kids how great it would have been to be born middle class in the Edwardian era. These days the middle classes are worried about their mortgages, their kids’ school fees and somebody spraying ‘tosser’ on their 4x4. Back then, all you had to worry about was being broken in by the wrong sort of homosexualist at school and, later on, being machine-ginned to death in the Great War.
There are several key characters in the book. Mole is the stay at home sort who, nevertheless, once he is out and about becomes tremendously enthusiastic about things. If you are the sort of person who prefers the company of a DVD box set on a Saturday night to the company of others, but once persuaded to go to a party has a drink or two to overcome nervousness and then wakes up on a Sunday afternoon with a banging hangover and your e mail brimming with .jpg attachments promising ‘hilarious pictures of you last night’, then you’re the Mole.
Ratty is the typical feckless Edwardian gent. He has his own house, his own boat and a quite a lot of firearms. If you are the sort of person who buys organic and sees nothing wrong in a bit of direct action against new roads, then you’re Ratty. Also enormously loyal to friends, to the point of visiting them in prison when they are convicted of fraud.
Badger. Badger is the one all boys want to be. Tough. Resourceful, a man apart. Lives the in centre of the wild wood and is rarely seen. No mention of infecting cattle with TB. These days Badger would be the old chap who lives in the last remaining house that wasn’t demolished when they built the new estate. His is never bothered and his gardens are free of litter, this is because Badger is active in the community, quietly helping those in need. He is also an active vigilante, using the vast selection of weaponry he brought back from the last war and a new assortment sent to him by chums in Iraq, meaning that his garden perimeter is lined with Claymore anti-personnel mines. No men can actually be Badger, we change our bedding too infrequently.
Toad. Toad is always entranced by the next big thing, in the book he becomes a road hog. If you are the sort of person who thinks that fitting out your mum’s Nova that you were given on your 18th birthday with a plastic body kit and driving it at 90 mph through the village, then you’re Toad. If you made and then lost a fortune in the dot-com boom, you’re probably Toad too.
We want to be Badger, we don’t want to be Toad, we’re worried that others might see us as Mole but, if you have read the Wind in the Willows more than once and enjoyed it to the point where you can recognise yourself in the characters, you’re probably Ratty. And that’s no bad thing.
I used to enjoy doing the personality quizzes in women’s magazines. Years ago, when I used to go out with a woman who bought magazines that had personality quizzes in them, I would wait until she had left the room and then flick through whatever glossy happened to be at hand, hoping for an insight into her personality to be revealed through sight of a completed multiple choice quiz, so saving all that tedious business of conversation. Such tactics were not without risk – the ‘what kind of lover am I?’ quiz clearly showed the result ‘filthy’, but had been completed by her flatmate.
The ‘Wind in the Willows’ is a great book – it has shown millions of kids how great it would have been to be born middle class in the Edwardian era. These days the middle classes are worried about their mortgages, their kids’ school fees and somebody spraying ‘tosser’ on their 4x4. Back then, all you had to worry about was being broken in by the wrong sort of homosexualist at school and, later on, being machine-ginned to death in the Great War.
There are several key characters in the book. Mole is the stay at home sort who, nevertheless, once he is out and about becomes tremendously enthusiastic about things. If you are the sort of person who prefers the company of a DVD box set on a Saturday night to the company of others, but once persuaded to go to a party has a drink or two to overcome nervousness and then wakes up on a Sunday afternoon with a banging hangover and your e mail brimming with .jpg attachments promising ‘hilarious pictures of you last night’, then you’re the Mole.
Ratty is the typical feckless Edwardian gent. He has his own house, his own boat and a quite a lot of firearms. If you are the sort of person who buys organic and sees nothing wrong in a bit of direct action against new roads, then you’re Ratty. Also enormously loyal to friends, to the point of visiting them in prison when they are convicted of fraud.
Badger. Badger is the one all boys want to be. Tough. Resourceful, a man apart. Lives the in centre of the wild wood and is rarely seen. No mention of infecting cattle with TB. These days Badger would be the old chap who lives in the last remaining house that wasn’t demolished when they built the new estate. His is never bothered and his gardens are free of litter, this is because Badger is active in the community, quietly helping those in need. He is also an active vigilante, using the vast selection of weaponry he brought back from the last war and a new assortment sent to him by chums in Iraq, meaning that his garden perimeter is lined with Claymore anti-personnel mines. No men can actually be Badger, we change our bedding too infrequently.
Toad. Toad is always entranced by the next big thing, in the book he becomes a road hog. If you are the sort of person who thinks that fitting out your mum’s Nova that you were given on your 18th birthday with a plastic body kit and driving it at 90 mph through the village, then you’re Toad. If you made and then lost a fortune in the dot-com boom, you’re probably Toad too.
We want to be Badger, we don’t want to be Toad, we’re worried that others might see us as Mole but, if you have read the Wind in the Willows more than once and enjoyed it to the point where you can recognise yourself in the characters, you’re probably Ratty. And that’s no bad thing.
Labels: Magazines, Quizzes, Wind in the Willows
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