8 Random Facts about Stilgherrian

Oh, I get it. Social media “guru” Laurel Papworth has to kill time before her Saudi trip gets sorted out. So what does this visionary of society’s future do? She ropes me into a blogging meme. How modern. How avant garde!

How… 2005.

Laurel was tagged three months ago and is only getting to it now. And they’re not even real ropes!

Is that enough slagging-off? Shall I get on with it now?

Actually this will be fun on a Saturday morning. It’s been ages since I’ve done one of these. Here goes…

The Rules

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

8 Random Facts about Stilgherrian

As you read these, do reflect upon your own life and, if any thoughts are triggered, please add your own comments.

1. I can’t swim. Whenever I went near water deeper than my ankles my mother, bless her, would screech, “Don’t go near the water you’ll fall in and drown!” I avoided school swimming lessons. Even now, if I wade into water that reaches my chest, my pulse rate surges and more often than not I’ll have a panic attack. A spa isn’t necessarily relaxing.
2. I was the first person to let a talkback caller say “fuck” on Adelaide radio, as far as I know. At least in daylight hours. When challenged by the station manager, I said the sheer strength of expression was an important part of the caller’s political point, and that we didn’t do political censorship. This was in the late 1980s.
3. I’m told I’m a good shot with a gun. This was after a trip on HMAS Aware, an old Attack-class patrol boat run by the RANR. I loosed a full clip from a 9mm Browning automatic into a perfectly innocent oil drum floating gently off the boat’s stern. Most shots hit the target. The Quartermaster-Gunner noticed, and his views were relayed back to me. I haven’t fired a gun since.
4. One time I got so drunk I lost my colour vision for two days. I was left in charge of a keg of cider and was serving it on a “one for you, one for me” basis. Hey give me a break, I was young!
5. The scars below my left eye were caused by two different accidents. When I was about 2 years old, I ran into the brass tap of a rainwater tank — conveniently at face height at that age. When I was 23 I was run down by a car. I bounced over the bonnet. The windscreen wipers dragged my glasses from my face, ploughing a furrow through the flesh. It was raining. The blood trickled into my eye as I lay on the street waiting for the ambulance. My neck hurt. It hurt a lot. I remembered the drill, though. “Don’t touch me,” I kept repeating to the driver. “Don’t touch me!” Fortunately my neck was not broken. My left knee, however, continues to be dodgy.
6. At high school I was in the same Venturer Scout patrol as soon-to-be Senator Nick Xenophon. Every now and then I joke about running for the Senate too. Should I?
7. Once, for a whole week, I had no keys. I’d moved out of my Adelaide flat and was en route to Sydney. But everything I owned, apart from a bag of clothes and a handful of books, was in transit. I stayed with friends while making a leisurely journey via Melbourne, and I hadn’t arranged accommodation in Sydney. With no keys defining my relationship with land and property, I felt strangely liberated and fancy-free.
8. I sometimes wonder what would’ve happen had I stayed living in Adelaide. There’s an artist who… who perhaps could have received more of my attention. Last I heard, he’s sharing his life with someone born in the same hospital I was, on exactly the same date, but one year different. Fate is a fickle bitch.

You’re tagged!

And now it’s your turn. If you’ve already done this meme, let me know and I’ll victimise someone else.

• ’Pong, obviously.
• Alex Willemyns. Since you use Tumblr it’s tricky to post lots of text so maybe you have to do a series of pictures. Or post one fact at a time using text snippets. Or make a video.
• Garth “Deadly Bloody Serious” Kidd, it’d be nice to something from you more often than once every two or three months.
• Houston, whose last name I won’t give ‘cos it’s not on his blog.
• Nick Hodge Try not to make them all geekfacts.
• Snarky Platypus Here’s an excuse to finally write a second post. Or update Insane Platypus, a fine women’s basketball blog which has languished for nearly two years.
• Zern Liew. I know your Eicolab blog is business-oriented, so maybe yours all have to be facts about yourself which define your business identity. “All business is personal.”
• Zhasper