Alice Bachini was born and educated in the UK, reading English at Peterhouse, Cambridge. She was a teacher at James Allen's Girls' School, London, before leaving to educate her own children at home. She blogs at Alice in Texas and occasionally Samizdata.
Why do you blog? > For fun and learning.
What has been your best blogging experience? > When I started Alice in Texas, hundreds of readers wrote welcoming me to Texas and the US.
What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger? > Write from the heart, link people, and don't disparage other bloggers.
What are your favourite blogs? > I always read Kim du Toit, Belmont Club and LGF.
Who are your intellectual heroes? > I'm too genetically rebellious to have any.
What are you reading at the moment? > A biography of Primo Levi by Carole Angier.
What is the best novel you've ever read? > The one I wrote (but I am biased).
What is your favourite poem? > 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning' by John Donne.
What is your favourite movie? > The Kill Bills.
What is your favourite song? > 'What a wonderful world'.
Who is your favourite composer? > Beethoven.
Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind? > Pretty much everything.
What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? > Rational monotheism.
What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? > Moral relativism.
Who are your political heroes? > George W. Bush and Winston Churchill.
If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be? > I would replace public schooling with vouchers to be spent on private educational institutions of choice (including home-schooling), and lower taxes proportionately.
If you could choose anyone, from any walk of life, to be President, who would you choose? > Arnold Schwarzenegger, just to annoy the rest of the world.
What would you do with the UN? > Turn it into an olive and drown it in my gin and tonic.
What do you consider to be the main threat to the future peace and security of the world? > Islamism, with failure to take Islamism seriously a close second.
Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come? > Definitely still to come. We're winning!
What would be your most important piece of advice about life? > Do good, and believe in it. And if you can't do that, go and live in a cave somewhere and stop bothering the rest of us.
Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? > No.
What do you consider the most important personal quality? > Moral integrity.
What personal fault do you most dislike? > Egotism.
In what circumstances would you be willing to lie? > For a greater good.
What is your favourite proverb? > 'Play a harp before a cow.' Cows are harder to play. (It's Chinese.)
What commonly enjoyed activities do you regard as a waste of time? > They're never a waste of time; they keep crazy people off the streets and that's a good thing.
If you were to relive your life to this point, is there anything you'd do differently? > No, it would be too risky, because of the butterfly effect.
Where would you most like to live (other than where you do)? > Budapest.
What animal would you most like to be? > A bird. They get to fly.
[The normblog profile is a weekly Friday morning feature. A list of the first 52 profiles, and the links to them, can be found here. Details of subsequent profiles are here.]