Thanks Steve.  I was amazed to discover that it is 2 years since the “5 things” meme was about.  Anyway, here goes:

1. I lived on the street in Amsterdam where Theo Van Gogh was murdered in 2004.  At a time when the Netherlands was supposed to be on the verge of inter-ethnic conflict, and it was almost a comfort to be able to walk past the spot where it happened and see people acting still like normal.  Almost a comfort.

2. My wife made me guess her nationality when we met.  After going half way round the Mediterannean, I gave up.  She’s Swedish.

3. That was 2001.  In 2009 we are expecting our second child, very soon.  It is possible you did not know this.

4. I have lived outside of my native country for almost all of my adult life.  If I return to England, I find the barrage of the immediately comprehensible and/or culturally significant to be intrusive: this was a phenomenon that Jane called my attention to.

5. I pulled a sheep out of a bog from which it could not esacape in 1990.  It was clearly frightened of me, and struggled.  After I had freed it, rather than it frolicing away as hoped, it sat down and did not move.  I wondered if this was from a newfound trust, or exhaustion, or even broken legs, and I came to realise that the only satisfaction one can necessarily take from one’s own actions is the intent.  I plan accordingly.

6. I once had the nickname “Elvis” in a band I was in, but not for my singing voice nor my dietary habits.

7. Were it not for the few very close friends I made there, I would entirely regret going to university.  I worked hard, but I was not happy.

That’s it.  And here are the rules of engagement:

1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

So, I hereby nominate:

Fellow member of the Mozilla Eskilstuna community David Tenser; David responsed!

Style guru Staś Małolepszy who will probably do this in Polish; Staś responded – in English!

And yes, William Quiviger, I wait to be scandalised; William responded

Erwin Tenhumberg, who needs to blog more;

Glynn Foster, and I can’t believe I am the first to tag him; Glynn did it

Aq – whose Wikipedia page is out of date, which at least shows he didn’t write it himself; Aq responded

And Mozilla creative director John Slater who I suspect has many a tales to tell. John responded!