Well, it's been a frantic round here - generally in a good way. Catching up with myself I discover I've been tagged by Catriona with the most complex meme I've ever come across!

Anyway the rules are - you need to pay attention here because you might be tagged at the end of this...

1. Link to the person who tagged you. [done that - see above]
2. Post the rules on your blog. [done that - you're reading them]
3. Write six random things about yourself. [see below]
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. [see even further below]
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog. [good grief, I have places to be, people to see... ok, I'll do it]
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up. [done]

So, six random things

1. I've just a wonderful day walking on the beach in Whitstable with Linda, my wife. we had fish and chips and mooched in arty shops and spent very little money

2. I was the under-11 record holder for the Leicester Schools 50metres breaststroke, achieved in 1967. Actually, for all I know my record might still stand!

3. When I a financial journalist I interview Alan Clark (of the famous diaries) about import controls (which he was in favour of) and Mrs Thatcher (who we was very much in favour of)

4. I think the Smiths are still England's greatest pop act (apart from the Beetles, of course). 'will the world end in the night time, I really don't know or will the world end in the day time, I don't know...all I do know we're here and it's now, so stretch out and wait' could have been the theme of a presentation I did at church on how to read Revelation without going nuts.

5. I am negotiating with a publisher to write a book on the social history of the New Testament - lots of colour and lovely pictures accompanying text about where the early believers met, what they ate and what the plumbing might have been like in Erastus' house in Corinth. I hope it gets the go-ahead...

6. I discovered the depth of the divide between Brits and folk from the Southern States of the USA, when in an editorial office in Ashville, North Carolina, I was introduced to an eager, young woman feature writer as the editor of a Christian monthly magazine from England; and she replied 'Oh are there are any Christians in England?' I wasn't sure whether this was American irony - which I was sure up to that point didn't exist - or blissful ignorance of anything beyond the Blue Ridge Parkway. The jury is still out.

That wasn't as hard as it might be. The next bit is the hard bit. As Simon and Catriona have tagged almost everyone I know in the blogosphere, I'm going to have to stretch things a bit and tag one or two people whose blog I visit and comment on but who actually don't know me from Adam (sorry guys... No i really am sorry)

So I tag the following Jim Gordon, Stuart Blythe, Jonathan Somerville (who has a great music track posted at the moment), over the hedge and across the pond, Chris Tilling (at the always wonderful christendom blog - I'd love to know six random things about him!) and Sean (I feel we ought to know random things about him to treasure as he disappears to the other side of the world).