Tagged

I've been invited by friend and tremendously talented writer, Becky, to participate in a kind of hand-holding and bonding session in the blogosphere. I link to five blogs and divulge five little-known facts about myself. Ahem ...

1. My parents are Czech, which makes me a typical Australian, I guess. I was born in Sydney, and sadly, don't speak Czech at all. The only words I understand are words that parents say in moments of panic or rage: pozor (watch out), poćkej (wait), do prkvanćic (say it out loud, you'll get the gist). When people use the adjective Bohemian, I sometimes think of my mum and dad. It certainly puts a different spin on the word.

2. I was arrested once for... vagrancy. When I was 17 and holidaying on the Gold Coast, three of us decided that it might be a good idea to explore a building site, and when we went to leave we were stopped by police with dogs. The dogs were big, and the cops were from Queensland. They took us to the station, strip-searched us(!), charged us with whatever they could think of I suppose, and took all the money we had with us at the time as bail. Years later it stands out as the highlight of a pretty forgettable schoolies week, though I tend not to mention it at interviews.

3. I have seen Wham, Bros and Rick Astley, all live in concert, all at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Usually at a gig there is a great moment or song you remember, in these cases I don't. All I recall is lots of wardrobe changes, and one of my friends - Jon Pardi (where are you now, man?) - wearing white shoes without socks.

4. I am a very hairy person, and although I've never been teased at the beach for wearing a sweater ("but I've got my shirt off!") it was a source of great discomfort for many years and I've tried many hair-removal methods including shaving, depilatory cream, using one of those sadistic hand-held automatic plucking gizmos, and waxing. As painful as waxing is, it is definitely the way to go. TBH, I'm a bit over the whole thing now, and these days I only do it for special occasions, such as ...

5. Earlier this year I did a strip show with some male co-workers, for our friend (and boss!) Jill who was getting married. Instead of hiring a male stripper for the hens' night, another of our colleagues, Sole, had the bright idea of organising a Full Monty-style show, with us. We didn't actually go the full monty, which I think was right – we left the room as gracefully as you can in nothing but a thong. Somehow we got all the choreography right, backed by the classic house track French Kiss by Lil' Louis. A nice memory.

And now it's time for more revelations of the personal and hopefully embarrasing sort. Welcome:

Lesly

Greg

Daria