Number 12

According to anyone who's ever seen me dance, and me, I can't dance. Putting together the comments over the years – people have been quite free with them – it seems like a) my legs look like they've been swapped round, b) and are made of wood, c) and my arse sticks out. In my youth I perfected a style which some cruel people called 'prawn dancing'. The prawn part, I think, came mainly from the way I kept my head down and my arms bent in front of my face (my bright pink face and bulging eyes possibly also contributed). If I had to dance, I was determined not to be recognised.

So now I just have to decide which of the following local dance groups (there are millions – what the hell is wrong with people?!) is in for a laugh / awkward silence:

• 'Folk dancing for fun' (Sorry? Did you say 'Driving a nail through your own foot for fun'?)
• Morris dancing (as a vocal life-long supporter of fox dancing and morris hunting, would need heavy disguise)
• Scottish country dancing (a coward's way out, as have done this drunk at weddings)
• Argentine tango (would require most bravery - picture Al Pacino in 'Scent of a Prawn')
• Balkan dance (have 'spoiled' this while drunk at a wedding, they said. Why should they decide which direction the circle goes round, I say)
• Modern jive (has potential. I don't)
• African dance (I have done, not through choice, the Kikuyu circumcision dance. A large crowd of Kenyans from all over the country was watching and guffawing. Some, I discovered afterwards, were crying with laughter. In a country racked by tribal divisions, I like to think my dancing briefly brought them together. There is a photo of this below – the only known photo of me dancing; I am the one with the swapped round wooden legs and the sticking-out arse)