Favourite Characters - Real and Fiction

As HOUSE - I was used to the bumbling idiot Laurie portrayed so often in his early career. House is a fantastic character, that noone else could play as well - his sharp retorts, his hatred of his patients and people in general, his genius. This is who Stewie Griffin grows up to be

A wonderfully evil intelligence, with mother issues- just like James Joyce.

Not as a character, but as himself - is there anything he doesn't know? and yet at same time he brings it in such a fascinating stream of consciousness.

As Eli Gold in the Good Wife - this character is fantastic, sarcastic, cunning and yet likable all in one. Again it was being impressed with what I had typecast Cumming as having first come across him as the camp but embittered cabin crew member in The High Life

with his crumpled coat and 'just one more thing' I watched him as a child with my father, and hung on to each episode in suspense as to what the 'one more thing' would be. Always having that satisfaction when he was looked down upon due to his crumpled and scruffy appearance and then proving himself to be a genius sleuth.

My first introduction to the romantic literary hero, not very handsome, arrogant and quite brash, not to mention questionable treatment of his former wife due to her mental illness. But the little games he played, dressing up as the fortune teller, the deep agony of his loss of Jane - he is responsible for my shrine to the Bronte sisters when i was in my early teens. But alas, I then met 'Heathcliff'.

He loved Ireland, he hated Ireland and exiled himself from it, He turned his back on religion and hated it with a passion but could not stop writing about it. He was a passionate writer, who wanted to break the constraints of language, and started to make up his own. He is the original genius.

Ricky Gervais writes that if you think Karl Pinkerton a genius, you are an idiot. There is a way he sees the world which is beyond comprehension- devoid of all tact, or social mannerisms that makes it akin to seeing through the eyes of a child who thinks too much.

Annoying Irish Twins, yes, but loveable with such strength of character and energy. Week after week they faced put downs and smiled with gratefulness despite their young age. They are always positive and optimistic.