Our second Infrequently Asked Questions guest this year is one of our all-time favourite humans, Lex Croucher.
We spoke to Lex at Summer in the City in 2019.
Her amazing first book, You’re Crushing It!, had been published just a few weeks earlier, so there were loads of interesting and important things we could have asked her about.
This is what we did instead.
Hi Lex. What’s the most fun you’ve had with your clothes on?
LEX: “I went to Secret Cinema. I barely had my clothes on, but I went to Secret Cinema, the Romeo + Juliet one, and I got fully into character, covered myself in fake tattoos – before I got more real tattoos. There were a lot of… what are those tropical shirts called? Hawaiian shirts? And I just ran about getting fully into character and jumping on the back of trucks. I had a great time.”
What’s the most fun you’ve had with your clothes off?
LEX: “I went to an onsen in Japan, and I waited until one in the morning so there was no-one else around, because you have to be naked. It’s segregated by gender, but I didn’t want anyone to see me nude. I was like, ‘No, that’s not really my vibe.’ So I went at one in the morning, and it was this beautiful outdoor hot spring, and it was the most peaceful, wonderful experience. I think I was there for about half an hour, which is a long time when you don’t have your phone, just staring at the ceiling. [pause] Ceiling? Sky.”
What’s the most fun you’ve had with someone else’s clothes on?
LEX: “I… Well, they’re still kind of my clothes, but they’re a character’s clothes: I walked around the countryside dressed as Lizzy Bennet, in Regency dress and bonnet, and had my friends take loads of pictures of me, with an actual dirt ring around the bottom of the dress like she gets in Pride and Prejudice when she walks across the fields. So that was pretty good.”
What was that for?
LEX: “Oh, just for fun. [laughs] Literally for no reason. No-one asked me to do that. I chose to do that myself. And we kept bumping into random families who were out on walks in the countryside, and I’d just walk around the corner in full Regency wear and be like, ‘Yes, I am a ghost’.”
Which member of One Direction do you think has the most hygienic bottom?
LEX: “Oh my god. None of them.”
There has to be some kind of hierarchy.
LEX: “I honestly can’t remember their names.”
HARRY ZAYN LOUIS LIAM NIALL.
LEX: “I don’t know, maybe Niall? Just because he’s the last one you said.”
If your YouTube channel were a medicine, what would you take it for, and what would be its unwanted side-effects?
LEX: “Oh god. The side-effects would be long gaps in memory, because I don’t really make videos very frequently. And the positives would be… the benefits would be… [laughs] I should really know the benefits of my own YouTube videos. It would make you think critically? That’s the worst thing I’ve ever said.”
And how would you take it?
LEX: “It’s a suppository.”
In what circumstances might you consider becoming a nun?
LEX: “Oh I’m pretty much already there. I think maybe when civilisation collapses, the people who already live in these closed-off communities and are very self-sufficient – the people who can pick herbs and vegetables and keep themselves going – will be the ones who survive and do well. So when the fiery end of the world is coming, I’ll just nun up and have a great time.”
“Nun up”?
LEX: “You know, nun up. It’s a verb. It’s fine.”
By the time you die, what do you want the Controversies section of your Wikipedia page to say?
LEX: “I want it to say that I wrote a Regency-era Jane Austen-style book with filthy sex scenes in it that was banned in all 50 states.”
What is objectively the best film in the world?
LEX: “Hook.”
That’s right, it’s The Muppet Christmas Carol. What existing story, from any medium, would you most like to see retold with the Muppets?
LEX: “With Muppets? Shit. Heathers. Yeah, Heathers. Kermit would be Christian Slater, blowing up the school, which means Miss Piggy is Veronica. I can’t imagine a better Veronica than Miss Piggy.”
If you were secretly a werewolf, how would you conceal it?
LEX: “I would walk around, like, openly as a werewolf all the time, and people would just think I was cosplaying. Hide in plain sight, that’s what I always say.”
So like a furry?
LEX: “Like a furry! Everyone would just think I was a furry. That’s fine.”
Which of your fellow YouTubers do you think is most likely to secretly be a werewolf?
LEX: “My ‘fellow YouTubers’ – I don’t even know who they are! I don’t know who anybody at Summer in the City is except my immediate friends.”
Which of your immediate friends, then?
LEX: “Which of my immediate friends is a werewolf? [pause] Why is that such a hard question?”
Is there anyone who’s kind of shady? Or, like, good at admin?
LEX: “Good at admin?”
They’d need to be able to hide the evidence! And explain away their absences!
LEX: “I guess it can be Rosianna. Rosianna Halse Rojas is a werewolf! [laughs]”
If you were a potato, which potato-based food product would you most like to be made into?
LEX: “Mmm. Okay, so— [laughs] This is the hardest question you’ve asked! I’d quite like to be a waffle – like, a potato waffle – because they’re intricate, they’ve got a lot going on. But I’d also like to be chips, because chips are very soothing and comforting. And also very multifaceted, because there’s a lot of chips. There’s a lot of chips, everybody, in the world! Or I mean… [sighs] This is just too hard a question, I’m afraid.”
If you were a chaser on The Chase, what would your intimidating nickname – like the Beast or the Dark Destroyer – be?
LEX: “The Vegan. Everyone hates a vegan.”
Invent a new public holiday or festival, and tell us how it would be celebrated.
LEX: “Okay, so it’s a midsummer thing. You know in Finland and stuff, they do Midsummer, and that’s a holiday? So I haven’t really invented it, but just pretend I have. I want us to celebrate that in the UK, because I feel like we have a holiday in the spring which is Easter, and we have Halloween in autumn, and Christmas in the winter, but there’s nothing in summer which brings people together in the same way, so I feel like there should be a summer thing. And the thing is that you all have a barbecue, or you all do a festival, you dance around a maypole… Because people do do this, but it’s not a nationally-acknowledged thing. So basically I just want to make Midsummer a thing.”
You’ve thought about this before.
LEX: “I think about this ALL THE TIME. [laughs] I always want to, like, throw a Midsummer party to start it off, and then I always miss midsummer by a week: ‘Oh, fucked it again haven’t I.’”
If you ever manage to do this, will you invite TenEighty?
LEX: “No. My flat’s too small.”
Finally, have you ever had an amusing encounter with a postman? And if not, can you please make one up?
LEX: “The only encounter I have ever had with a postman was two days ago, when I asked if a package had arrived for me when he was standing downstairs in my building – so he hadn’t made it to my flat yet – because I thought maybe I’d missed him going to my flat. I was like, ‘Have you gone to this flat yet?’, and he said, ‘Oh, no I haven’t’, and he was like, ‘Do you want your package?’, and I was like, ‘Yeah’, and then he just handed it to me… And I was like, ‘You shouldn’t have handed me this! I could literally be any person, stealing anything! It could have been a box that said—’ I don’t know, where’s a fancy thing? Chanel? ‘It could have said Chanel on it!’ I mean, it was my Specsavers contact lenses, so I don’t think he was too worried that I was stealing.”
…
LEX: “That’s not a funny encounter. That’s just me talking about rigorous health and safety and security of the mail. Anyway he’s a very nice person, and I hope to get to meet him more times.”
Photos by Emma Pamplin.
Want more?
Catch up with yesterday’s interview with Daniel J. Layton, come back tomorrow for our chat with Peter Kingston, or check out the 2018 instalments of Infrequently Asked Questions here:
- Riyadh Khalaf: “I am obsessed with trees”
- Dean Dobbs: “Cry into a flannel and smell your tears”
- Jon Cozart: “Teletubbies seemed almost sacrilegious”
- Elle Mills: “I thought humping made babies”
- Ricky Dillon: “Banish onions from everything”
- The Midnight Beast: “Mummy wants a cuddle”
- Roly West: “I’m very much like Po”
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