clivemurray.com

…to the true or false quiz:

1. My dad will be 77 years old this year.
FALSE! He’ll be 79, though he still looks in his 60s at most and still thinks and behaves like a teenager. I love my dad.

2. I started smoking because my first girlfriend dumped me.
True. Emma Lever dumped me on Thursday August 1st, 1991, and later that week the guys from the band were round my house for beer and Chinese food. They all smoked, and I was feeling so dejected I decided to try one. The next day I bought my first pack of Marlboro reds and smoked pretty much continuously until 1999.

3. I nearly died in a swimming pool 3 years ago, drunk on mai-tais.
True. I can’t swim, so I still look back on this one and shake my head. I was in the deep end of the outdoor pool at the hotel I was staying at along with lots of other guys from work when contracting offsite. I was very drunk and my confidence had shot up after successfully going underwater and re-surfacing several times. Then I tried it and lost contact with all surfaces. I can’t swim, I’m terrified of being submerged, and I had my eyes shut tight. I started thrashing and was just about to burst when one arm hit someone else’s and he pulled me to the surface. For that, I am forever indebted to Dave Denton.

4. When I was 6 my pet rabbit died when it tried to jump through the wheel of the bike I was riding at the time.
True. Poor thing. I still remember how he lay there with his head half off, twitching.

5. That rabbit was called Ayatollah.
True. Named by my mum, because he was black. This was in the 70s, before political correctness was invented, you know.

6. I once burned down an abandoned warehouse on some waste ground when playing with matches as a kid.
FALSE! Nearly, though. I used to play with matches all the time, and on the old railyard next to my parents’ house there were lots of abandonded warehouses and sheds where people used to dump stuff. One day there was an old foam-filled sofa in one of them, so me and my mate flicked a few matches onto it and up it went. We figured the whole thing might catch, so we legged it. Luckily, it didn’t.

7. I have worked as an ice-cream van driver.
True. For about 7 weeks in Eastbourne, before getting a job doing graphic design in a local print shop. On my 3rd day, my first day out on my own, I managed to drop the keys to the van, the lockup, and the car park all down a drain. I was not popular.

8. I have never had a fight.
True. And I don’t want one either, thanks.

9. I don’t smoke dope because I find it boring.
True. I’ve smoked it loads of times, and when younger used to enjoy it greatly, but nowadays I either feel sick or fall asleep. Not interested, thanks.

10. I have never been arrested.
FALSE! Drink driving, summer 1998. No, I’m not proud. Yes, I did learn my lesson.

11. I have a tattoo of a burning guitar on my arm.
FALSE! I have a tattoo, but it’s not of a guitar, burning or otherwise.

12. I work with Giles Brandreth’s nephew.
True. His name is Michael. He’s a good laugh.

13. I have a metal splint in my right leg, the result of a nasty BMX accident when I was 13.
FALSE! Complete rubbish. The only bone I ever broke was my left wrist when I was 6 or so.

14. I am allergic to the additive in “fireball” gobstoppers that makes them hot.
True. No, really. I come out in a nasty red itchy rash on my back. That was the only thing we could pin it down to when I was a kid.

15. I am afraid of large dogs.
True. I’m not keen on dogs at all, and they appear to know this. Big ones freak me out a bit. Um… I know that’s wussy, but hey.