Seven Random Things, a meme

My "friend" Marg, over at Reading Adventures tagged me in her meme to tell the world 7 random things about myself.

All seven things happened to me in 1975.

1. I have been to Hell. I have a stamp in my passport to prove it.
2. I have ridden an elephant through the "eye of the needle". There is a gateway into the Red Fort at Agra in India called the "eye of the needle" and I took an elephant ride into the Red Fort through it.
3. I have kissed the Blarney Stone. No mean feat for a person who is vertically challenged because you lean over backwards down a cavity to kiss it. Perhaps that has finally blessed me with the eloquence you now see in my blog.
   
4. I have been through the Khyber Pass. I was on a bus trip with 45 others from Kathmandhu to London and the Khyber pass bit was rather scary.
5. A test that I failed miserably was one that was supposed to bring wealth or wisdom or something. Just south of Delhi is Qutb Minar where there is an iron pole supposedly 1500 years old. You back up to the pole and wrap your arms around it so your hands meet on the other side. Vertically challenged people don't have long arms either!
   
6. I have been to Mandalay - the one in Burma not the house in Daphne du Maurier's REBECCA. Spent 7 days in Burma travelling on the smell of an oily rag!
7. This particular year also saw the beginnings of me keeping records of the books that I read. They are kept in a battered green note book. In the front I wrote:
   I have a theory that the books you read are somehow a reflection of your own mental state and so I have resolved to keep such a list. The 1975 list is probably not complete as that was the year I was travelling.
   I recorded a mere 43 books for 1975 and it was pre my current addiction to crime fiction. But look at some of the titles and consider their significance in a year spent travelling the world and visiting some of the places I mentioned above.

CARAVANS, Jame Michener
JULIAN, Gore Vidal
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, Agatha Christie
DON'T LOOK NOW, Daphne du Maurier
THE DUBLINERS, James Joyce
THE DON FLOWS HOME TO THE SEA, Mikhail Sholokhov
THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY, Irving Stone
ENGLAND MADE ME, Graham Greene
VANISHING CORNWALL, Daphne du Maurier
BURMESE DAYS, George Orwell

One thing that will please you, dear reader, is that I'm not going to "tag" anyone with this meme.

But I invite you, if you've a mind to pick up the gauntlet, to voluntarily make a post on your website with the same subject, and then to come back here and leave a comment about your post. Please link to my post in yours. You can make up your own mind about whether you tag any of your friends.