25 random facts about me

1. I know I am lucky.
2. I have not accepted the fact that I will never win an Oscar or the Grand National.
3. I have had plastic surgery.
4. The first time I met Tony Blair, I curtsied. I was 29.
5. I cry a lot. Mostly at music.
6. At various points in my life, and hairstyles, I have been mistaken
for: Yvette Fielding, Jennifer Saunders and Tamsin Greig. None of which
are entirely flattering.
7. I can sing the books of the bible off by heart.
8. I used to write John Prescott’s agony column.
9. I’m a pretty good newsreader.
10. I have chosen my Desert Island Discs.
11. The first record I bought was Buck’s Fizz ‘Making Your Mind Up’.
The second was The Jam ‘Eton Rifles’. Which negates the first.
12. I am constantly saddened that The West Wing isn’t real.
13. I have never seen Casablanca or Citizen Kane.
14. I always want a Hollywood ending.
15. I love train journeys.
16. I was once sick at lunch in primary school and tried to blame Julia Tennick.
17. I have never read Pride and Prejudice.
18. I still know the playlist for The Duke jukebox off by heart.
19. I once had a job washing Roland Gift’s underwear.
20. I still want a pony.
21. I hated university.
22. I have always voted.
23. I fell in love with Marc Bolan at the age of six.
24. I have a season ticket for Arsenal that I have never used or even seen.
25. I’m a hopeless romantic.

About Joanna Nadin

A former broadcast journalist and special adviser to the prime minister, since leaving politics I’ve written more than 80 books for children and adults, as well as speeches for politicians, and articles for newspapers and magazines like The Guardian, Red and The Amorist. I also lecture in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and hold a doctorate in young adult literature. I’m a winner of the Fantastic Book Award and the Surrey Book Award, and have been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Booktrust Best Book award and Queen of Teen among others, and twice nominated for the Carnegie Medal, for Everybody Hurts, and for Joe All Alone, which is now a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated BBC TV series. I've also worked with Sir Chris Hoy on the Flying Fergus series and ghost-written Angry Birds under another name. I like London, New York, Essex, tea, cake, Marmite, mint imperials, prom dresses, pubs, that bit in the West Wing where Donna tells Josh she wouldn’t stop for a red light if he was in an accident, junk shops, crisps, Cornwall, St Custard’s, Portuguese custard tarts, political geeks, pin-up swimsuits, the Regency, high heels, horses, old songs, my Grandma’s fur coat, vinyl, liner notes, the smell of old books, the feel of a velveteen monkey, Guinness, quiffs, putting my hand in a bin of chicken feed, the 1950s, burlesque, automata, fiddles, flaneuring, gigs in fields on warm summer nights, Bath, the bath.

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