Wednesday Quiz

Question one:

You are about to publish your novel, do you use your own name, or a pen name?

A) Your own name, of course. That way you have a guaranteed readership of at least the few people who remember you from school, who will be curious to know if you have used their name or character in the book and, if so, will buy it to aid its success and make you worth suing.

B) A pen name. You do not want your mother knowing that you are capable of writing the sentence: 'Daphne thrilled as she licked the taramoslata from the back of Jason's knee'.

C) Your own name but with a strategically placed, possibly invented, middle initial, allowing you plausible denial but also meaning that friends and relatives will feel more motivated to move your paperback to a position of prominence in the stacks of any bookshop they visit.

Question two:

Is ignorance bliss? For many office plankton, the end of the financial year means it's time for annual performance assessment reports. Is it better to feel sprightly because you have been described as 'obtuse', or Google the word and spend the rest of your 'career' in a sullen mood?

A) Ignorance is bliss. Especially when a relationship is ending. On being told you are a shameless narcissist, it's better to think somebody considers you a good gardener than look up the term (in between googling your own name) and have to face an ugly truth when you could be facing a good looking reflection.

B) Knowledge is power. Knowing stuff allows you to leave the other person in no doubt as to your feelings, especially if your knowledge is an in-depth understanding of martial arts.

C) Wing it! Nothing wierds people out more than their conversational partner misusing words normally deployed with those with a large vocabulary. Those who know you are misusing words like 'intransigent' (possibly in the context of ordering how you want your eggs done) will either be too polite to correct you or will doubt their own understanding of the meaning. (For a bonus point participate in the following social exercise - use the word 'occluded' conversationally, to infer that it is the technical description for the layer of jelly between the pork and the pastry crust in a pork pie. See how many people ask you what the hell you are talking about).

Question three:

Is camouflage a viable fashion option for anyone over thirty?

A) Hell no!
B) Hell yes! What else does one wear while paintballing, going to militia meetings or hiding in a hedge when stalking the new girl from accounts?
C) Only if all your colleagues are wearing it too and you don't wear bright colours because not only do they make you look washed out because of your complexion but it makes it easier for the fucking Taliban to snipe at you. With an RPG.

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.