1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
I asked
gths to interview me; here are my answers to his questions: 1. What's the best thing and worst thing about London compared with Melbourne?
The best thing: probably the fact that there's so much going on. As Disraeli said, London is a roost for every bird, and one realises the truth of that when one realises that there are two monthly shoegazer nights, regular electropop band nights and more indie nights than you can shake a stick at (albeit most of the "we play Franz Ferdinand/Bloc Party plus better-known/fashionable old bands" vein, though there are some decent ones too). Either that or the fact that London has a decent public transport system (it breaks down a lot, but even then, it's comprehensive), and plans to expand it even further (something that happens very grudgingly in Melbourne).
The worst thing: the taste of the tapwater; it has a vaguely soapy quality to it, and forms a slick layer on top of one's cup of tea. I've actually gotten into the habit of lugging bottles of water home from the supermarket.
2. Have you observed any kind of prejudice against Antipodeans in the UK? (This is a dumb question, but I'm just wondering because my impression is that snobbery against the colonials seems to be the last socially acceptable form of bigotry there.)
I can't say I have, though perhaps I don't come across as being stereotypically Aussie. I've heard anecdotes about Australians who go to London on working-holiday visas using the fact that they're far from home as an excuse to turn into Barry McKenzie, drink a slab of Fosters every night, try to crack onto any woman they encounter and so on, though I've avoided the Australian-specific watering holes (Walkabout and such) partly for this reason.
3. Who's your favourite typeface designer?
I must confess that I haven't really followed many of the new fonts recently. I rather like Neville Brody's geometric fonts from the 1980s, and going further back, think that Eric Gill's Gill Sans, and Johnston's London Underground lettering on which it was based, are classics.
4. You are suddenly imbued with the necessary chops to form a fair dinkum rock band with other similarly skilled performers. What's it called and what kind of music does the band play?
The Random Numbers; we play a sort of angular art-pop (not to be confused witn NME/Xfm/Carling art-rock), with equal parts 1960s film scores, Stereolab, post-C86 indiepop and shoegazer. Lots of layers, angular keyboard melodies, odd time signatures, and such, and possibly some incisive lyrics too.
5. Reform the UK electoral system.
That's easy. Preferential voting, and a proportional upper house. Lower-house electorates may remain preferential one-member electorates or have multiple representatives elected proportionally. If the latter, replace the proportional upper house with a chamber of citizens selected as for jury service, as Charlie Stross (I think) once suggested.
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