Many of these formed part of the 32 Karl Facts which I shared last year, but I’ve revised the list for this year (removing some facts and adding others), and expanded some now that I’m not limited to just 140 characters for each one.
And so, without further ado, here are 33 facts about the Karl:
1. My first celebrity crush was on Claire Usher, who sang “It’s ’Orrible Being in Love (When You’re 8 ½)”. (In my defence, I was only 5 at the time.)
2. I loved trains when I was a little boy. My favourite steam train was Mallard. I was also a big “Thomas the Tank Engine” fan.
3. Two other favourite kids shows of mine were “Sooty” and “Knightmare”. I wanted to be a contestant on Knightmare. Still do.
4. Earlier this year I got to meet Hugo Myatt, who played Treguard in “Knightmare”. We were both at the same performance of “Knightmare Live!”.
5. I first became a proper Whovian when I was 10, in 1991. This was 2 years after the original series had ended...
6. My favourite episode of “Doctor Who”, from both old and new series, is “The War Games” Episode 10 (Patrick Troughton’s, Frazer Hines’, and Wendy Padbury’s last regular episode). Here’s a clip from the end of that episode...
7. Last year I watched all 800 episodes of Doctor Who (or listened to their soundtracks of the episodes that are still missing from the BBC’s archive). I also watched all of the spin-off’s – “K9 and Company”, “Torchwood”, “The Sarah Jane Adventures”, and even the Australian “K-9” series.
8. I was surprised when I first heard that Michael Palin was in Monty Python. To me he was the man who went around the world in 80 days.
9. At school I once tried singing the Tongue Tied song from “Red Dwarf” to impress a girl. She ended up moving to Ireland... :o(
10. When I was 14 there was another guy in my school called “Karl Green”. It was then that I started using my middle initial.
11. Despite already having a degree (in Film and TV), I'm currently studying for a second undergraduate degree (through the OU). I’m doing an Open degree, which allows you to mix and match subjects. In mine I’ve included modules covering Mathematics, Computing, Creative Writing, Astronomy, Astrobiology, Politics, Economics, and Philosophy...
12. I have more DVDs and Blu-Rays than I currently have time to watch, and yet I still keep buying more...
13. My favourite YouTubers are brentalfloss, Lara6683, and Smooth McGroove. Here’s one of favourite YouTube videos, featuring Lara doing a beautiful mash-up of “Titanium” and “Call Me Maybe”:
14. Including handhelds, I have 13 games consoles set up at home. The oldest is a Sega Master System II.
16. The first console RPG game I played was Soul Blazer. I still have a copy of it (and love it!).
17. A few years ago I spent about £700 on retro video games. My favourite games are for the SNES.
18. My 1,000th tweet was sent to the awesome Felicia Day. I’m inspired by the hard work she puts into her projects to achieve success. For example, for “The Guild”, whilst she had initially written a TV sitcom pilot for it, she eventually decided to produce it as a web series, where it became a hit.
19. I’ve been writing stories ever since I could write. I really got into it around 1999 with fanfics, and then went on to focus on original stories through “National Novel Writing Month” (NaNoWriMo).
20. I’m a big fan of Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and I once wrote a story with 45 of her song titles hidden in it... Here’s a live performance of my favouite Sophie song, “Is It Any Wonder”:
21. Nicknames that I have been given by others include “Captain Awesome”, “Mr V”, and “Sonic the Wordhog”.
22. I have a lot of books on my bookshelves. I’ve only had time to read less than half of them.
23. One of my favourite books is “The Hobbit”. I discovered it by chance when browsing my mum’s bookshelves.
24. If I ever have kids I want to be able to pass on to them a large personal library for them to browse and make discoveries.
25. Two of the top attributes that I look for in a potential partner are intelligence, and creative talent. However, more important than anything else, the one thing I want more than anything else from a potential partner, is simply someone who makes me feel happy...
26. I once auditioned for a Derren Brown show. I wasn’t selected. (At least, I don’t think I was...) It was part of a group audition where about 250 people from across the UK were invited to attend. Early on in the process he tried to get us all to be stuck to our chairs, but it didn’t work on me. I watched the rest of the process from the back of the room, along with all of the other people “eliminated” (although we were told that that even the eliminated people may get selected for something).
27. I’m a pescetarian (like a vegetarian, but I eat fish). I justify eating fish and not meat because I’m against the farming of animals for slaughter. I feel it is wrong for a farmer to care for an animal during its life, where the animal may put its trust in the farmer, but then for the farmer to betray that trust by arranging for the animal to be slaughtered. I don't have this moral dilemma with eating ocean caught fish.
28. I’m not too bad in the kitchen. The best thing I’ve cooked is a Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie. (Of course, the hardest part of this is finding a vegetarian shepherd...)
29. I don’t drink, and never have done so – for no reason other than I can’t stand the taste of alcohol. I have never been drunk, and I don’t know what a hangover feels like.
30. I also don’t drink tea or coffee. (I really can’t stand coffee – just the smell of it is enough to make me retch.)
31. I have been known to dip breadsticks into Marmite.
32. I have done NaNoWriMo 7 times. My cumulative word count is 854,312. I hope to reach a million cumulative words in 2014...
33. I already have an idea for NaNoWriMo this year (my 8th). My target will be 150k. It will be called “The Millionth Word”...
So, there you have it! I hope I didn’t scare too many of you off with those facts. (And apologies to anyone who read the 32 Karl Facts I did on Twitter last year and saw too much that was similar here, and to those who saw similar things that I’ve spoken about previously on this blog...) I’ve got another week of work to go before I take my well earned two week break, and this blog will also be taking a short break. My next post will be on 16th February, where I’ll start talking about my favourite video games of all time...
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