For meme

A personalised meme, just for me - devised by The Lass! If you want your own, leave me a note and I'll email you five questions. None as good as these, though, I'm afraid.

1. Of all the things you learned from your parents, what do you think was the most valuable?

If you don't regularly challenge your own beliefs - about the world, about others and about yourself - you risk closing yourself off to a wealth of experience. That lesson was inadvertent.

2. What is your most indispensable possession and why?

Our cats, quite literally. No matter how hard we try, or how logical it might seem at this point in our lives (and given the small amount of space we have to share), we can't seem to get rid of them. Yes, they are antisocial, ungrateful, petulant little things that flee from us 99% of the time and have nothing to offer except vet bills and the occasional whiff of used litter, but they're ours and we love them (at a respectful distance). Because we are suckers of the bleeding heart variety.

3. How has impending motherhood changed you? (Besides the obvious physical changes, of course.)

I'm less shy about saying what it is I want and need from others, because you can't afford to be timid when you're responsible for the well-being of something so vulnerable and so completely reliant on you. That meant saying 'no' to people at work more often, leaving the office on time instead of staying late, unapologetically taking someone else's seat on the tube if they offered, and eventually giving work an ultimatum (I can have the doctor sign me off now or you can let me work from home for the next six weeks). I will have to become even more assertive once this kid is out in the world, but it's definitely becoming a trend.

4. It's time to throw a dinner party for your favorite deceased authors. Who is in attendance? Why? What are you feeding them?

Most of my favorite authors are contemporary, but short of killing Martin Amis (who I'm not sure I'd actually want at a dinner party) and Zadie Smith, I guess I'd have to say Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and David Foster Wallace, because I like to imagine we share a similar perspective on life and writing, and I reckon that after a few bottles of wine, we'd have several hours of incredible dialogue. Or the two women would huddle together in a corner whispering venomously into into their cupped hands while I tried to wrest a bottle of corrosive toilet cleaner from David. I think we're having take out from La Porceta, because Italian is timeless and classic and therefore inoffensive to diverse palates, and I'd be far too nervous to cook for them myself.

5. Would you rather be famous or infamous?

The two aren't always mutually exclusive in these here parts, but if I had to pick one, I guess I'd say famous. Your tenure in the history books is probably far shorter than if you were infamous, but if I'm going to be remembered for something, I'd rather that something conjured up fond feelings in others, over impassioned rage or ridicule. Or am I missing a trick?