In a funny "Talk of the Town" piece in "The New Yorker," Lizzie Widdicombe describes a book that grew from a reader contest run by SMITH online magazine: readers were asked to create a six-word biography for themselves. The book includes, for example, bios submitted by a dominatrix ("Women Seeks Men -- High Pain Threshold"), a minister ("God called; Mother listened; I responded"), and suggests some possible celebrity bios:

Hillary Clinton: "From Ill.; met Bill; iron will"

Jimmy Wales: "Yes, you can edit this biography"

Aimee Mann: "Couldn't cope so I wrote songs"

So, FT players, think about it: if you had to write your biography in six words, how would it read? I'm still thinking about mine. Let's see what you can come up with.

P.S. The Widdicombe piece is a tour de force; every sentence is just six words long.

Hmmmm.. only six words?! Thats hard i'd have to think about it.

We're having an election in this province right now, and the local CBC radio station has been having fun with this very idea. They were asking for campaign slogans in exactly six words. Best I've heard so far is "One party - good enough for China" which is very funny to anyone who knows anything about Alberta politics.

Everything I can come up with for my own is so lame I'm ashamed of it, or too revealing.

Well, let's see. I've been playing around with:

"Ohio, Italy, Illinois; art is long"

That leaves out many of the places I've lived, but it does express the fact that my profession has taken me places and says something about my feelings about art (with apologies to Hippocrates, who wasn't thinking about painting or sculpture).

Hmm definitely a challenge...

So far I'd go with

Eclectic highstrung birdbrain, England to Jerusalem,

Optimist, planner; good with a spanner.

Single-parenthood has made me quite good at DIY.

Mad, bad and dangerous to know. (If it was good enough for Byron...)

Splendid, Quiz Beagle! Though I think it was actually said ABOUT Byron by Caroline Lamb.

Does it apply to you?

happy, sad, good, bad, innocent, guilty

This shows I think my almost two-faced aproach to life, at home I am almost all the negatives and at school I am the positives.

my friends shorten me to "teachers' pet"

Marriage, Career. Better second time around.

trivia orphaned kids whats for tea?

You're right about the source, Ianfranco - and I'd like to think so
;-)