Christina's Five Questions, November 2025

Here we go again!

1. Do/Did you do anything special for Samhain/Halloween/Dia de los Muertos?

I went to a party thrown by a colleague who is also a friend; not yet a super close one but I'd kind of be open to things moving in that direction, and that is mostly the reason I went. I did need this additional motivating factor, and probably wouldn't have gone without it. I don't really enjoy dressing up (which I make extra difficult for myself by refusing to buy anything I'm never going to wear again for the purpose of a party) and am a little surprised by Halloween's rapid recent conquering of seemingly the entire Western world. Well, I guess I'm not really surprised, it's clearly Good For The Economy and probably also fun if you're not a turbo-grinch. I had an okay time. It wasn't really the kind of party where you talk a lot and level up friendships, which probably should have been obvious in advance...

2. Did a grandparent or great-grandparent serve in any of the World Wars of the 20th Century?

I'm actually entirely unsure about my great-grandparents, but none of my grandparents did. My mother's father survived the Blitz as a young boy in London, which I know because he wrote up his whole life story during a period when he was really into genealogy. Because of this I know he was in the British Army for a spell as a young man and spent some time stationed in Singapore, but never saw combat. I don't actually know anything about my father's parents' experience during WWI, but being of around the same age as my mother's parents were I presume they also would have been too young to serve.

3. What are you a "natural" at doing?

This is a tough question, it's hard not to sound kind of arrogant declaring *yourself* to be "a natural" at something! But I guess I can reasonably say "computing", as it's something I've had an afinity for all my life but have also basically entirely self-taught myself. Not that you necessarily need to be a natural at something to be able to teach yourself to do it, but I guess I have learned more in a given span of time than would probably be easy otherwise? Maybe also mathematics, at least when I was younger, only because when I began studying it as an undergraduate at university something about it spoke to me and made sense almost immediately. I had no great interest in or talent for mathematics at high school, but I can't stress enough how little those two versions of the subject have in common. High school maths is mostly rote learning of separate and isolated mechanical procedures in the complete absence of any unifying perspective. I was only allowed to see "the forest" beyond the trees at university.

Let me be clear that I am not claiming any great talent in either of these fields! I know folks who could run circles around me in either.

4. What has been your best work of art?

If we're counting photography as making art then I guess that is most probably the art form to which I have applied myself the most seriously and for the longest period of time, as an adult, which is, once again, not to say that I have developed any great aptitude for it, but the odds are very much in favour of this being a photograph, because other stuff I've dabbled in (print making and electronic music) has not really yielded a lot (although I'm low-key proud of a bit of drone music I made a few years back which was actually included in an small online community album release). No, I haven't actually answered the question yet. I dunno, limiting myself for practicality's sake to the photos which are on my Gopherhole, I have always really loved...

5. What's something that amazes you?

The entirely autonomous and unassisted self-perpetuation of plants and animals over staggeringly long spans of time through unbroken generational chains. It is at once mundane by its ubiquity but also, when you reflect on it, just absolutely friggin' bonkers.