azdak

I held a gun to thedeadlyhook's had and forced her to ask me five questions. Unsurprisingly, the ones that got me most inspired are all about Buffy/Angel :-) In fact, they got so long I think I might tackle them in a separate post.


1. Where are you originally from in England?

Originally originally I'm not from England at all, I'm from Australia, but my parents are English and they brought me over to the homeland when I was one and a half, so I don't actually remember anything about it. It's set a pattern for the rest of my life, though, constantly pulling up roots and moving on. We lived in London when I was growing up, so I normally say I'm from London, and once I'd left home I lived in Exeter, Cambridge, Manchester and in and around Oxford. I liked Oxford best.

2. What are you studying in Vienna, and why?

Oh boy, this would be an entire essay if I answered it in full. I'm studying theatre directing at the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar (it's a real problem trying to combine that and family life, because all the other students are in their early twenties and have no life outside their devotion to theatre). And the why is basically because I had a mid-life crisis and decided I didn't want to be an academic any more. Or do you mean why Vienna? I've been engaged in a love affair with Vienna ever since I came over here to be an au pair as a teenager. I came back to do fieldwork for my PhD thesis (on Viennese dialect) and ended up marrying a man I had to share a table with at an overly full restaurant, and we decided to come back again last year when we got fed up with England and had midlife crises :-) I've been besotted with Vienna for twenty years now, and though the initial wild affair has settled more into a happy marriage, the city never ceases to charm and occasionally still surprise me. There's always more to be learned about it, and it's *so* beautiful.

What was your favorite childhood candy?

Um. I'm not sure I can answer that as I don't have much of a sweet tooth. I remember there was a period when my pocket money exactly covered a Bounty bar and a Beano magazine, so perhaps it was Bounties. I also remember one of the first steps on my journey to adulthood was when I realised it would be better not to eat the entire tube of Smarties and feel sick, but to save some for later, so I must have liked Smarties. My school was occasionally used for testing new sweets before they came onto the market (and how much fuss would I kick up if that happened at my children's schools??) and we loved it. I take personal credit for the introduction of blue Smarties, having given them the highest rating they could get :-)