There comes a time, cherished listener, when one should wallow in a spot of self-indulgence. And when someone as lovely as Zen Scribbles bestows on me the most superb ABC Award, which demands that the receiver of said award attributes a fascinating titbit about themselves to each letter of the alphabet, then it would be rude not to.

Yes, Stickman. Narcissism, egomania, gasconade. Take your pick. What’s a bit of casual narcissism between friends? And anyway I’m not going to say things specifically about me – I’m going to say 26 things on which I may or may not have an opinion or may directly or indirectly relate to me. Okay? Now shut your noise.

Before I say these 26 excellent things, I would like to lavish this most glorious award on eight fellow bloggers about whom I would very much like to learn 26 things: Speaker 7, Don’t Quote Lily, The Blog of Funny Names, The Bumble Files, A Clown on Fire, The Evolution of Hatred, Happy Zinny and The Very Single Girl. 

I can never tell whether you’re being sarcastic or not, Stickman. It’s disconcerting.

And now to it.

26 Things Said By Becky That Relate To Her Either Directly Or Indirectly Or About Which She May Or May Not Have An Opinion

A – ANCHOVIES – The best things since smoked mackerel. Oh, salty, slimy little creatures of joy, please swim around this marinade of olive oil and herbs and then slither onto this chunk of warm ciabatta for I wish to enjoy thee.

B – BREAKFAST – Can’t do without it. Get excited about it. Would happily consume breakfast goods all day long like some manically-depressed student.

No, actually. You’re being very bumptious today, Stickman. Pipe the heck down.

C – CATS – Evil, smug, rude, antisocial, venomous, spawn-of-Satan idiots. They have nothing to be so offensively arrogant about. When I am Queen of All Things they will be shipped to a tiny island that I shall simply call ‘Cat Doom’ and if anyone really misses their obnoxious, unpleasant company, then they are more than welcome to find their way to Cat Doom and get clawed and haughtily stared-out to death, but I want no part of it.

Bit much, Stickman, but I appreciate the sentiment.

D – DEATH – It’s going to happen, sweet listeners. Nothing we can do about that. I do have a few stipulations though: 1) It doesn’t happen any time soon; 2) It’s not painful, long-winded, or embarrassing; 3) It doesn’t inconvenience anyone or ruin anyone’s plans i.e. I’m invited to be a guest speaker at an important event and cop it ten minutes beforehand; 4) It doesn’t involve cats.

E – EGGS

Hush. An important point needs to be made. I enjoy an egg. I find its runny, sinister embryonic core and the potential for chicks to grow inside me rather unnerving, but I can handle an egg. But if anyone puts an egg on a pizza ever again, I swear I will go spare.

F – FALLING OVER – I do this so regularly I have been advised to patent the concept. See here for all you need to know.

G – GROWN-UP THINGS – There are some things that apparently grown-ups need to know about in order to make them grown-ups. So if you don’t know what the FTSE 100 is, or what dividends are; if you have no understanding of government, life insurance, how to change a baby’s nappy, or soy yoghurt; if you have no intention of spending money on mortgages, window cleaners or winter duvets; or if you shudder at words like ‘capital’ and ‘interest-free credit’ and ‘pension’, then does it all mean you’re not a proper grown-up? If so, then I’m not.

H – HYPOCHONDRIA – Not so much now, but back in the day, I had it bad, man. The best example with which to illustrate this point is the day I dragged my two friends to A&E on a Tuesday night because I was convinced I was pregnant, and not only that, but that I was having an ectopic pregnancy. It was cystitis,  listener. Cystitis.

 I – IDLENESS – I’m guilty of being a little idle every now and then. Who isn’t? But when I stand for literally five minutes debating with myself whether I can be bothered to put the cup I am holding into the dishwasher that is an arm’s length away from me, and then decide I can’t be bothered, place said cup on the worksurface that is just above the dishwasher, it’s nothing short of ridiculous.

J – JULIE ANDREWS – Hold on a minute. I need to gather myself. Deep breath. Must put my head between my legs for a couple of minutes.

Okay. I’m fine.

She is my hero. She is my Queen. Her loveliness, her majesty, her dignity, her elegance, her beauty, her magnificence knows no bounds. I mean, check this out: if you were going to put your faith in one person to sort the entire world’s problems, make everything lovely and ensure that humanity resides indefinitely in happiness and joy, who else would you choose but this person???

Magnificent.

If I had to choose one famous person in the whole world to have a  cup of tea with, it would be her. Unfortunately I am convinced that I would spoil the meeting by stuttering, wetting myself, being sick and then fainting.

K – KETCHUP FIENDS – Dear People Who Put Ketchup On Literally Everything Even When It’s Not Appropriate, Like On Roast Chicken Or Rice Or Spaghetti Bolognese Or Chinese Takeaways: Stop it. Love, Becky.

L – LONG-WINDEDNESS – What’s that you say, listener? ‘Becky, don’t be silly, you’re not remotely long-winded. Your posts are always very concise, succinct, and get straight to the point with no fannying around whatsoever. Don’t put yourself down so much.’ Ohh, you are too kind, sweet listener. But you know it’s not true. You know I’m long-winded. Why use one word when you can use ten? Why say ‘It’s a nice day’ when you can say ‘The clemency of this unit of time is pleasing to my visual, aural and nasal receptors’? Being long-winded is fun. 

M – MEALTIMES – Yes, I know. Food again. But I love mealtimes. My days are structured around them. If my days didn’t look like this:

then they would look like this:

and nobody wants that.

N – NOISY EATERS – Oh, listener. Save me from the crunchers, the squelchers, the salivaters, the juicers, the munchers. I would rather spend a year on Cat Doom Island than spend an hour in a room with a load of noisy eaters eating cornflakes and bananas.

O – OBLONGS – I have no opinion on oblongs.

Nope, nothing.

P – PROCRASTINATING – 

Q – The QUEEN – I am an unashamed, loud and proud lover of the Queen. I just think she’s marvellous. A figurehead of everything that made this country great and that we should grip onto with all our might: stoicism, dignity, wit, fortitude and let’s-just-get-the-ruddy-heck-on-with-it. Unfortunately, I think that if I ever met her, the meeting would very strongly resemble my meeting with Julie Andrews.

R – RABBITS – These furry fluffy balls of cuteness have scared the living shit out of me since first being exposed to the film Watership Down as a child. I mean, would you show this to a child????

Irresponsible parenting to the max.

S – SUMMER – Don’t talk to me about summer. For the last million years, our summers here in England have looked like this:

That’s right. A load of black rainclouds beating the crap out of us. For months and months and months. Brilliant.

T – TORTOISES – Urgh urgh urgh. Little reptilian beasts that have been alive for thousands of years and have only just managed to walk from one end of the room to the other. I think what frightens me most is the sheer boredom of being a tortoise and the concept of living forever and achieving literally nothing. 

U – UMBRELLAS – Hate them. They annoy me so much I dedicated an entire blog post to them.

V – VICES – We’ve all got to have a vice, listener. Whether it’s drinking, smoking, dancing-privately-in-underwear-to-Wham!, peculiar sex, squirrel breeding, ice cream making or needlework, embrace it, do it in public (within reason) and enjoy it. Squirrel breeding’s a bit weird, though.

W – WRITING – I love it, I hate it. It makes me want to laugh, cry, get drunk, punch a hamster in the face. It beguiles me, it enrages me, it amuses me, it bores me. Yet I keep on doing it. Even if sometimes it makes me want to adopt extreme measures to avoid doing it.

X – X-RAYS – What would we do without them when we got to ‘X’ in any alphabet game ever played?

Y – YULETIDE – Christmas, to those of you who don’t have to think of a word beginning with Y. I love it. It’s sparkly, ridiculous, warm and cosy, and you can get away with stuff you can’t get away with the rest of the year.

Z – ZEBIBYTE – I don’t know what this means, but I came across it having just googled ‘Words beginning with Z’. I think it’s something to do with Maths.

Listen, I felt under a lot of pressure to make the final one really amazing and profound and funny, but I failed, okay? I buckled under the pressure. Leave me alone. You’ve been nothing but rude today.

Anyway, so there you have it. If you managed to listen to that all the way down to the bottom, you have excellent ears, a marvellous constitution, and should perhaps think about taking up a new hobby.

P – PROCRASTINATION – Oh yeah, suppose I should do this one. Er…. so yeah, procrastinating… Um…. Let me just go and make a cup of tea and cook a chicken and I’ll be right back.