Ask Tim!

OK! So, after an overwhelming* response to my request for questions, I thought I'd better damn well pull my finger out and post some bloomin' answers before you lot went kerrrrazy waiting.

Strap yourselves in peeps - here we go!

• The world-famous Willowc took time out from training to be a ninja assassin to ask this little gem:

"What's your most interesting mishap, by which I mean broken bones, bruises, sprains, or other numptyings?"

Hmmm, that's a good one!  Two incidents immediately come to mind**. Incident the first occurred while holidaying in Cornwall many, many years ago with the family. I must've been about eight or nine, and for some reason my brother and I were creating something out of rocks on the beach; I'd like to say we were helping build a new and revolutionary form of sea defense for the Cornish coast, but its quite possible we were just being boys and moving rocks around. Either way, Simon dropped a massive one on my left foot, leading to the toe nail turning black and eventually dropping off. I later took it into school for show-and-tell. Oh, and good news: a new one grew in its place - is that normal, or am I some kind of freaky X-Men-type mutant?

Incident the second also involved my left foot (the real thing, not the Daniel Day Lewis movie), and took place just a year or so after the toe nail incident. After a heavy snowfall, Sparky Pa, Simon, and I went tobogganing on the toboggan Sparky Pa built. For some reason we decided that it would be a genius idea to all get on it together and shoot down Box hill. Box hill is, I should add, rather steep, and has lots of bumps at the bottom.

Halfway down the hill, my left foot slipped off, and got caught under the sled. In response, I began screaming like I'd never screamed before; Sparky Pa and Simon were unaware of what had taken place, and merely thought I was having the time of my life. 

I couldn't walk on it for a week, and when we went to the hospital on the following Friday evening they wouldn't x-ray it because the x-ray department was closed at weekends. The ankle still clicks when I walk now.

And this just in! I banged my arse on the edge of a bookshelf in the office yesterday and now I have a massive bruise. Is that a health and safety issue?

• Delightful Dinah from far-off Canadialand took time out of holding back the forces of evil with the power of her mind, feeding the third world, and nursing a baby polar bear back to health to ask:

"What's one toy/game/item from your childhood that you would totally play with now if you had one?"

Hmmm… That's easy! My grandparents' Atari 2600 (which they still have, so I actually could still play it!), which was awesome - I could totally play Combat forever. I think it was the only video games console with real wood trim - classy!

• Terrific Tara from Americaland somehow managed to find a few spare minutes in her busy schedule where she wasn't off filming a new blockbuster movie with David 'The Hoff' Hasselhoff, or searching for a cure to the common cold to ask this: 

"Didn't you redo your bathroom a while back? Do a video scan of your sparkly bathroom."

Well, hell yes, I did indeed decorate my bathroom, Tara! Sparkly is probably the wrong word, though, as it does actually need a bit of a clean - but it's amazing what a low-resolution mobile phone camera won't pick-up in this day and age! Over to my sexy video assistant in the field!

I hope you enjoyed that, Tara - now back to the lab with you - that common cold ain't gonna cure itself!

• Inexplicable Device, from a dingy bedsit on the wrong side of the North/South divide, stopped 'angling for business' on a street corner just long enough to pitch in. He has a lot of voices in his head, so actually ended up asking far more questions than everyone else. Combined.

First up:

"What is your favourite Star Trek (any series) episode, and why?"

Ooo, good question, and surprisingly not as difficult as you might imagine: I *love* 'Operation: Annihilate!' from the original series. There are several reasons why this episode ranks as my favourite; first and foremost, the original series has, is, and always will be my favourite Star Trek series. It's the one I was introduced to first, and you just can't beat the original cast. 'Operation: Annihilate!' is the first episode I remember seeing - I vividly recall the scene where the neural parasite swoops down and lands on Spock's back. It was scary, dramatic, and exciting, and I was hooked. I think it's a fine, underrated tale. And it's the only TOS episode with an exclamation mark in the title, which is deserving of kudos on its own.

But… I also love the Deep Space Nine episode 'Trials and Tribble-ations,' which celebrated Star Trek's 30th anniversary in 1996 by splicing the DS9 characters into the 1967 TOS episode 'The Trouble with Tribbles.' To be honest, I think this is the finest hour of Trek ever made; it combines everything the franchise stands for - humour, excitement, an engaging story, and adventure - into one episode, and puts a new spin on a familiar, classic story. It might be over 10 years old now, but I still think it's an amazing achievement.

So yeah, those are my favourites - 'Trials and Tribble-ations' is the best, but 'Operation: Annihilate!' is special to me.

Next!

"Relate an hilarious/disgusting food-based incident."

Hmmm… now, I'm actually going to combine this with IDV's third question, which is:

"Recount an amusing/horrific party incident."

Now, I'm not stupid***. I know IDV is just sitting there hoping I've got a story about a food fight in the same way that I might flick over to E4 in the hope that they might finally have bought the rights to the World-Wide Ladies Jelly Wrestling Federation, but sadly for him I'm going to disappoint.

I will however, share with you how, back in the days when I drank, I got so utterly wasted on Guinness at an 18th birthday party that I spilt a pint onto the vinyl (i.e. non-absorbent) seat on which I was sitting, but was too off my face to even worry about getting up, and thus spent a good portion of the party sitting in a massive pool of the black stuff.

How's that?

And finally:

"What kind of pants are you wearing?"

Trust IDV to ask this. While his request for a video-based response is quietly being ignored, I will share this:

On the day that he asked the question, I was wearing a pair of Ginch Gonch Big Bang briefs. And today? Calvin Klein Pro-Stretch trunks, baby! 

This is how I rock - this is how I roll!!

*And by 'overwhelming' I actually mean 'underwhelming'!

**Actually, they didn't. I wrote a whole other paragraph saying how I'd been quite lucky in not sustaining any silly injuries, then I remembered some. Does dementia count?

***See, appearances CAN be deceptive.