1) What's your greatest achievement?
Knowing how to ask my way to the post office in Russian. Ladies and gentleman, I give you 'Prasteacher pojalusta goodyeah sties porchda?' Should you find yourself all alone and clutching postcards in St Petersburg, this will come in super handy!
2) What would be on your tombstone?
Alison Aston: lesbian icon to straight women since 2006 - I hope!
3) Heels or flats?
I love nothing more than a pair of vertiginous heels, well until I put them on that is. I once had a beautiful pair of (fake) snakeskin boots - my heart skips a beat just thinking about them, but every time I wore them it was like walking on samurai swords and it got to the point where the wife hid them because she couldn't possibly put up with my moaning and groaning all evening.
4) What's your karaoke anthem?
'I will survive,' by Gloria Gaynor, usually when surrounded by a crowd of shirtless gay men. I should probably clarify rather quickly that I only do karaoke at gay clubs, and not that I usually have a harem of bare chested men following in my wake!
5) First lesbian crush?
Oh God, this is actually toe curlingly embarrassing and oh so typically lesbionic. It was my PE teacher when I was fourteen, but let me hasten to add how she was super femme and straight! And before she swept me off my feet on the hockey pitch, I was secretly in love with Sandy 'You're the one that I want' from Grease. Oh and the lovely Linda 'Wonderwoman' Carter.
6) Most random job?
Strange internship at bizarre lesbian and gay porn type theatre in San Francisco. They even had a naked dance troupe and put on shows like 'Clit on a Hot Tin Roof.' I was terrified! I simultaneously volunteered as the Assistant to the Peninsula Pet Person where I sat by the pool all day looking after posh pets. Talk about leading a double life!
7) What loyalty cards do you have in your purse?
Um, it looks like I'm a bit of a whore to this end…I'm clearly not fussy!
Boots
Nectar
Starbucks
Costa
Café Nero
Leon
Waterstones
Tesco
Crumpet Cakes
8) What was your first car?
I got given a Golf GTI when I started on Harper's Bazaar, but I was too scared to drive it for ages having not been near a car for six years since passing my test. It did look pretty outside my flat though. When I did pluck up the courage to get behind the wheel, my skills weren't exactly up to scratch and by the time I gave it back, I had scraped it along the McDonalds drive thru wall on Wandsworth Road and backed into a bollard at the Asda in Clapham Junction. Ten years on, I'm still reversing into things now, much to the annoyance of her indoors!
9) Most embarrassing moment?
Let's just say I've got plenty of skeletons hanging in my closet where this is concerned, but most of them are consigned to the deepest, darkest recesses of my brain i.e. they're not coming out on here. If I have to confess one, then it would have to be the time I was staying with a gay friend for his graduation. We had crashed for the night having been out drinking (me in his bed and him on the floor) when he mistook my incessant moans and general writhing - what turned out to be the AGONY caused by impending appendicitis - for something altogether more sinister. Let's just say it took him a good while to pluck up the courage to ask me if I was alright!
© Alison Aston 2010