To want to play a CD of Tom Paulin talking

[Swedes]

while the lights are out in our bedroom?

I am not at this stage asking DP to wear the Tom Paulin rubber mask; I think we should save something for our fifties as I doubt we'll take up golf.

He's offered to do the voice so that we don't need to resort to external props but his timbre is all wrong.

Oh please help me, I'm sorry if I've disgusted you all with my depravity.

Not disgusted exactly. Frightened by the fact that I can see where you are coming from on this though.

DH sat next to him in the Bodleian Library one day and apparently he just huffed and muttered under his breath at his book for about three hours.

I would happily have taken DH's place ...

The one time I spoke to him face to face he was extraordinarily rude, but not, I think, on purpose.

How exciting that you've met TP in the flesh.

It was years ago in Leeds (where he spent quite a lot of his childhood). I was a callow postgrad and asked him what was admittedly a stupid question.

Cork is fab - we live just outside Bantry which is just perfect when the weather is co-operating. Did you like it?

Red Lentil. We loved it. We lived in the city, in Douglas. We spent most of our weekends down on the coast (Skib and Kinsale) sailing, tapping our feet, drinking and eating. And funnily enough I remember it as always being very very sunny.

oh dear oh dear. Tom paulin - that's plain weird.

I'm afraid I don't share your taste in TP. I had the misfortune to commute to London from Oxford for several years. I always sat in the 'quiet carriage'. Sometimes, so did TP. His droning, know-it-all voice boomed along the carriage for much of the journey, making reading, or even thinking, almost impossible .... It was like being trapped on an endlessly looping edition of Newsnight Review.

Ah, my sister is in Douglas. TIs where I go when I need a fix of busy life ...

Your memory is doing an excellent editing job there. Can you not remember any rain?

Bizarrely enough I used to live where you live now ( we were based in watford for a few years and made great friends there)

Your children are gorgeous by the way

No not with you on TP although DH, disturbingly, has a slight crush on him I think. However the Naxos version of Sean Bean reading the legends of King Arthur-often have I suggested it as bedtime listening...In fact have given up all pretence that I bought it for DS originally.

The fanciability of a good voice is high though isn't it?

DH's Lancashire tones are v. lovely.

LadyG - at your DH having a crush on TP.

RedLentil - So agree about the high importance of voice in the fanciability ratings.

Excellent
Lancashire
Northumberland
Newcastle (so long as not too Geordie)
Scots (so long as not Glasgie)

Please Sleep in the Spare Room
Estuary
West Country
Suffolk
Cockney (especially if too much rhyming (sp?)
Bristol

oo. A north/south divide.

Pointy - A politically correct north south divide.

I'm sure many would disagree with you, swedes