These are a few of my favourite things...

I am a serial "what's your favourite...?" question asker.  Yet it does appear sometimes that people don't really like being asked what their favourite things are; it puts them on the spot, or at least they think it does.  My husband is one of these people.  Quite recently I asked him what he thought his favourite film was, only to get the mildly irritated reply: "I don't know...why do you always want to know what everybody's favourite things are?"

The answer is, of course, because people's favourite things, and finding out what people like and don't like, can make for genuinely interesting conversations.  It also tells you something about who that person is,  which of course may be why some people don't like being asked in the first place; perhaps they think it's akin to a psychiatrist getting them to lie down on a leather chaise longue before grinning ominously and saying "Tell me about your mother..."  

Now I must clear up, before I go on any further, just HOW I ask people about their favourite things...it isn't in an interrogatory, Gestapo-y way; I don't shine a torch in their faces and shout it, and also usually the question is conducive to whatever we're doing/reading/seeing/listening to at the time.  I was out with a friend on Saturday whom I hadn't seen in a long time; we had a great time catching up, but the best bit of the afternoon by far was when, as part of a general conversation on the subject, I asked her who her favourite comedian was.  She not only didn't slightly recoil and answered, she was happy to answer as well!  (I'd missed her).

Contrastingly, at a business networking event not so long ago I asked an older man with whom I'd been discussing crime novels who his favourite author was.  He looked at me strangely, then said "Well dear, I don't know what could possibly be gained by having a favourite of anything."  

(Hmmm...and people wonder why I hate business networking events).

Anyway, in the interests of answering my own irritating questions I've decided that I shall list "a few of my favourite things" right here on this blog.  They don't contain "raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens" - because I've just assumed that'd be boring - EVERYBODY likes them, after all!

Ahem...

My Favourite Song to Sing in the Shower or Doing the Washing Up
That would currently be Freddie Stevenson's 'Learning Your Name'.  But it used to be Dolly Parton's 'Jolene', and before then something by Dusty Springfield.  I'm due to change it again quite soon.

My Favourite TV Programme
'Mad Men', probably because it's the only programme I will watch, hanging on every well-crafted word, without also tapping away on my laptop or talking on the phone (I am a multi-tasker in the extreme!)

My Favourite Book
Hmmm...currently a toss-up between those two renowned literary heavyweights Leo Tolstoy with his 'War and Peace' and Derren Brown with his 'Confessions of a Conjuror'. 

My Favourite Thing to Do in a Recession
Eat dust, mainly.

My Favourite Quote
This comes from 'A Bit of A Do' and it goes, "Brazen it out - show a bit of style!"  Say it to yourself, preferably in a Northern accent (and also preferably when no-one's listening) when you think you might be embarrassed in public about something, and you'll feel better instantly.

My Favourite Picture of a Knitted Cat
That would be this one...

So there you go...thinking of a few 'favourites' every now and again isn't all that hard is it?