Mad? Me? Who says I'm mad? Mad am I? That's what those fools said in medical school. Could a madman do this? Hahahahahaaaa!!!!
[FG] Not wanting to bore on this topic any more than necessary, but yes, the more engrossed I am in something the less OCD I am, and the less, the more, if you see what I mean. But I think this applies to everyone to some degree. Aristotle says that the only people who eat sweets at the theatre are those who are bored by the play, the point being that there's no such thing as generic "pleasure", but rather each activity has its own pleasure, and the more engaged you are in an activity, the more you enjoy it. In other words, you can't completely enjoy two things at once, because they will compete for your attention; and conversely, if you aren't enjoying something, your mind will try to find something else to enjoy. Discuss.
I can't sit still, especially in things that I'm required to sit still for. My mum refuses to sit by me at the theatre as i'm constantly shuffling in my seat and my boyfriend clobbers me when i fidget whilst sat next to him at the cinema. Its not cos I'm bored (as I'm often accused of) I just get un-comfy so feel the need to move.
[st d] It's a wooly hat. It was on the floor. It was knitted by my mum with big thick wool and consequently (a) stands up on its own, and (b) has holes in it especially a nice one in the top. I managed to get a cigarette wedged in the hole, pointing vertically, and then attempted to balance another one on top of that, and so on. Quite a challenge actually, I never made it further than one on top of another.
I remember a book by Julian Barnes in which someone lies on her back and smokes a cigarette all the way down without tapping it out, so that a thin grey column of ash is balanced perilously on top of her lips. She then reveals that she had stuck a hairpin down the length of the cigarette before lighting it to hold it together. If I knew how to smoke, I'd use that trick to impress girls.
For some reason I thought BM was going to give us the low-down on the ping-pong ball scene from Priscilla Queen Of The Desert. Its a great trick for impressing the boys...