Ten Things You Don’t Know About Me — Penguin Edition

Not the easiest article for an androgynous cartoon birdo to write

I’m following in the wake of this wonderful article by Simon Dillon who has found himself nudged into personal revelations by The Garrulous Glaswegian. As both of these people are part of what I’d consider ‘my corner’ of Medium I thought I’d better get involved and see if I could find ten things not covered in my ‘Person Behind the Penguin’ article that’s pinned to my profile.

So, here are ten things you don’t know about me, things you might be interested to know (but don’t give away any identity clues)

1. I have a very strong aversion to moths

I had childhood eczema, meaning my bed was stripped and the sheets replaced most mornings. Invariably I’d coat my bedding in blood with incessant nocturnal scratching. If any vampires were kicking around in the South West of England at this time, I was the blood equivalent of the gel snacks they give cyclists.

Not enough to live off — but a definite energy boost.

As a result of having my sheets re-fitted every day the duvet was always neatly folded at the end of my bed. This helped keep the sheets dry. My evening routine involved getting climbing into bed and pulling the duvet up around my neck.

One day I did this and didn’t realise that somewhere in the duvet was a sleeping moth. I was woken up sometime later by the hairy flapping of panicked Lepidoptera-malevolence fluttering around my nether regions.

That pretty much sealed the deal for me. No longer a fan. Butterflies, fine. Moths. No thank you.

2. I once collected bookmarks

I say I did… this is incorrect, leather bookmarks were once collected for me. I was always an avid reader, often having multiple books on the go. On one school trip, to a local Cathedral, I made the mistake of purchasing myself a souvenir leather bookmark for about £1.50.

I was delighted with my purchase. Unfortunately for me, my Mum is the sort of person who likes to both fixate upon and subsequently run with an idea. She’s positively Kenyan in her determination and longevity when she’s got an idea she’s decided to run with.

Everyone in the family was given strict instructions ‘Penguin likes bookmarks’ Within five years I had over a hundred of the bastard things from any tourist attraction anywhere. If anyone attended anything more exciting than the opening of an envelope or any building where a gift shop was deemed mandatory then I’d get a leather bookmark.

Now out of my hatchling stage, the Penguin owns ZERO bookmarks and remembers page numbers instead. The trauma is real.

3. I get irrationally angry in cars

There’s something about being in cars that brings out my inner rage-demon, though it only emerges in very specific instances. You can pull out in front of me, cut me up, even hit my car and you will find me as placid and as calm as a zen monk on a silent retreat.

If I find my time being wasted though… all hell breaks loose. Put up roadworks the failed to employ people to work on them? Have out of sequence traffic lights that change too quickly? Caused a ‘no-reason’ traffic jam thanks to rubbernecking? I lose my shit faster than weight-loss enthusiasts chain chugging double strength laxatives.

I am reliably informed by my significant other Penguin that my rage rants are terrifying to behold and utterly irrational. I can well believe it, because on the whole I am a very chilled and serene person. It is only cars.

It doesn’t happen on trains. It doesn’t happen on planes. It doesn’t happen if I’m a passenger in a car. Only when I’m driving

4. I’m unemployable by now

I have been self-employed (or some freelance variation of it) since I left university many many years ago. I alternate between creative whimsy and working hard on my own terms. When necessary I will work through the night to meet a deadline and I like nothing better than the ‘backs against the wall’ feeling with a team. That’s entirely my jam.

However, I’m at the age where I point blank refuse to attend meetings unless absolutely necessary. I take a nap in the afternoon if I need to and as my last ‘manager’ found out, this is a non-negotiable part of my working practice. I’ve put ‘manager’ in quotes because her job was closer to ‘keeper’ or ‘wrangler’.

My team won National Awards for our creative work with looked after children but I was never allowed to liaise with any Government people because of my ‘tone’. It turns out that being opinionated and creative doesn’t gel well with other people. That’s why I’m here on Medium I guess.

Now I have a portfolio writing career I love, alongside some niche legal work and writing workshops for schools. I still nap when I want.

5. I work in TV but I’m terrible at watching it

My agent is forever telling me that I need to ‘be familiar with the television landscape’. It’s important to know what’s on TV and important to know what trends are arising in the industry. I also find watching TV to be dull. There are occasional programmes that hold my attention, but given the choice, I’d much rather be reading or listening to a podcast.

I know exactly how this aversion arose. My mother, fixating and running with things likes nothing better than to watch a repeat of a TV show she’s already seen. She does this with shows like NCIS, Poirot and, Midsomer Murders. It drives me insane… and has made me equate watching TV with having my life ebb slowly away in a repetitive circle of drawing-room denouements.

For this reason other people give me a precis of what they’re watching and I join in on the last few episodes so I bluff my meetings.

6. My favourite subject is History but I never studied it properly

Alas. This still gets brought up in faux-arguments with my best friend from school. She wanted to do History and Physics for A-level, and I wanted to do History and Dance. The school accommodated her and History and Dance then clashed on the timetable.

As a result, both she and I took Physics (which we both failed at spectacularly) and both of us got top marks in our respective History and Dance classes. I believe had I been able to study History at A-level, I would’ve gone straight through and studied it for a Ph.D. I’d now be doing interviews on documentaries and living my best life, instead, I am now one of those ‘amateur historians’ who chain watches documentaries for shits and giggles.

I have long considered following my Psych degree with a History MA, but you’ll appreciate that number four on this list also applies to being told what to write about, when to write it and who to listen to. Such a bind. My history writing is some of the least clicked on in my Medium career — but it’s also my favourite thing to write. Like this piece, ‘So You Want To Be a Roman Legionary’

History is my favourite thing to write about on this platform but it gets shunted into the shadows by mountains of productivity porn.

7. My other side hustle is infinitely cuter than Medium

I spend much of my free time writing spec scripts. This is unpaid work done in the hope that someone wants to make your film or TV series. It’s long creative hours that don’t often pay the bills. In order to make time for this and continue to live my best creative life, I have a selection of things I do to make ends meet.

I work alongside another Medium writer in a very niche bit of British law…(we pretend not to know each other on here). I teach state-educated school children how to write plays. You might occasionally catch a glimpse of me in the back of films or adverts as an extra. I do freelance script editing/script reading. I have residuals come in from my published work and you guys know me from the opinionated nonsense I write on Medium.

Then there’s my secret hustle. The best of all of them!

I look after dogs for people who go on holiday or who need a break from their pets for whatever reason. I walk every day and I work from home most of the time. As a Penguin I’m good company for other animals. At the moment I’m looking after a Siberian husky (The Snowbeast), I get all the fun of borrowing him with none of the commitment to having my house permanently coated in fur. Win win for everyone.

Yes, I do let him sleep on my bed. Yes, he is beautiful. No he isn’t very bright. Cute though, often farts himself awake.

8. I’d love to sort out your kitchen

I am fascinated with how people use space… I’m not an interior designer nor do I ever want to be — but I am acutely aware when I enter a space that doesn’t feel optimised. People don’t really understand how their brains work and ignore the effect that their environment has on how they think. I think a lot of mood problems are down to a poor understanding of the psychology of space.

Maybe I’ll write a book about it one day.

I remain convinced you can get a decent psychological profile of someone by visiting their house and watching them move around in it for a bit. How they organise a process like ‘making tea’, how they choose the layout of different rooms and where family members choose to spend time will have an effect on how they think and feel.

For that reason alone, I will happily optimise your kitchen. I will put things where psychology demands they need to be — not where you believe they should be. There’s a very real chance your house is making you unhappy and affecting your relationships and you have no idea how or why.

If I could monetise this, I’d be the happiest Penguin in the universe. I love a bloody good tidy and sort out.

9. I cannot work with abandoned children

You must know your limits and your emotional buttons when you work in social care and child protection. I am fine working with children who have been physically, sexually or emotionally abused. These children represented the bulk of my caseload and I was able to operate as a compassionate and well-boundaried worker for a decade or so.

The one time I was asked to work with an unaccompanied asylum-seeking orphan, I fell apart within minutes and the case was speedily reassigned. It took my supervisor (and me) by surprise when I didn’t make it through the briefing let alone meet the child.

I would rather work in a children’s hospice than in an orphanage — that’s how strongly I feel. I am pleased there are people who can do this work, but I’m also competent enough to know I’m not one of them.

I blame Roald Dahl, an overactive imagination and the tendency of working-class parents to threaten abandonment to elicit good behaviour in children (particularly during a phase of development where they often engage in magical thinking). As a result there is a complete moratorium on ‘orphans’ or ‘street children’ in our house and the significant other penguin goes to great lengths to stop me seeing or reading such stories.

It pays to know your own psychology and understand your limitations. This is one I’ve known about for a long time

10. I am a prolific letter writer

I hate social media with a passion. I think it has been a clusterfuck-grenade in the collective wellbeing of our species. I came off Facebook and Twitter in 2018 and haven’t been back since. It hasn’t stopped me from writing and now the only social media I have is Instagram. I got it during lockdown so I wasn’t entirely alone and I haven’t deleted it yet — however, it has been dormant since the world reopened after Covid.

Lockdown was the time I started writing letters. Again. Old school ones with actual handwriting

I have about three or four pen pals on the go at any one time — I write to people because there’s nothing better than getting a handwritten letter in the post in return. Writing a physical letter to someone requires you holding them in your thoughts for a long time. It slows your brain right down.

Letters are the best form of communication other than face-to-face chats. Not the most prolific method nor the most efficient but technology often takes away things we didn’t know we missed. I missed writing letters and so I remedied this fact in my own life.

And I’m sad there’s a whole generation of people who won’t understand the joy of a slow back and forth via snail mail. The anticipation of getting a letter and the excitement at reading something someone has put effort into compiling for you in their own hand.

Of all the things I hate about modern life, the death of handwritten letters is at the top of the list. That and cancer.

So there you have it. Ten things you didn’t know about me. You can add these things to your noticeboard with red string and pins if you want. It’ll help you work out whether I’m one person, an algorithm, or a conspiracy of right-wing and left-wing people working together to engender an all eclipsing rage across the northern hemisphere.

As I mentioned them earlier… here are some of my favourite history things I’ve written on this site. Go give them some love. :o)