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Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.


It's looking grey out over the waterfront area of Hobart. Rain you say? A fair chance, I'd wager...

Yesterday I received the good news that I was to receive a prize. No, not the Nobel, Booker, Pulitzer or “Best Team Man” for the Lindisfarne Two Blues Under-8s, I have been humbled by “The Honest Scrap” award!

Tony – over there on ßench – has seen fit to honour my fine work here at this blog, and rescue me from the daily torment of having to think of something to write about. For that I am eternally grateful.

That said, I am also a contrary bugger, and award everyone who reads this post the award. Call me lazy generous, but I can’t just pick ten others, for fear of disappointing any of the two billion or so bloggers out there on the INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY.

As a recipient, I am to “tell ten true things about themselves in their blog that no one else knows”. On this point, I shall also be breaking the rules by posting five things today, and five things on Friday. I do this to save me from thinking about something to write on Friday best entertain you fine readers.

So here we go, part one of Ten True Things About Me:
  • I really don’t like the name Darren. Really. I hate it, actually. If someone comes up to me and says “Hi, I’m Darren”, it takes all my willpower not to spit on the ground in disgust. The Darrens that I have met in my life all seem to be bad eggs.


  • As an enthusiast of the sweet science – think geometry and physics fused with repeatedly hitting someone in the head – I was delighted when my childhood favourite to legally change his name to from ordinary old Marvin Hagler to the far more entertaining Marvelous Marvin Hagler. For a brief period there, I considered adopting the moniker Curious Kris McCracken.


  • Despite, or perhaps because of, spending a few good years of my life mired in the ‘grand’ works of Postmodern and Post-structuralist philosophy – think Baudrillard, Lyotard, Derrida, Deleuze, and Kristeva (amongst a myriad of others) – I am reasonably certain that (a few interesting enough questions aside) for the most part it is a load of indulgent, po-faced, relentlessly negative and poorly written nonsense. I’d call it intellectual masturbation but masturbation is supposed to be pleasurable.


  • I have always had a thing for Romania. No idea why. You would think growing up with Ceauşescu as the standard bearer would have put a boy off, but it didn’t.


  • I subtly – too subtly it seems – tried to seduce my lovely wife in the winter of 1999. She did not properly fall for my immense charms until the late-autumn of 2001. In this sense, think of me a romantic form of hepatitis.

Comments

Lee Spangler said…
Hard to be tolerant of the intolerant?
tony said…
A Mighty Fine List Kris!
Jackie said…
I'm with you on Romania. Fantastic place, in a kind of odd way.
yamini said…
I liked the last one the most. Sounds hard work though, considering the gap between 1999 and 2001.

How did you woo her, If we may know?
Priyanka Khot said…
"romantic form of hepatitis" now that is surely a phrase that should become part of regular vocab.
Kris McCracken said…
Tony, and there was more too!
Kris McCracken said…
Jackie, the ladies are pleasant on the eye too...
Kris McCracken said…
Yamini, well, it isn't like I was hot to trot all of that time.

I play a low risk strategy: send out the feelers in a subtle, playful way, then let her take the risk of making a fool of herself and being the aggressor.

It's like fly fishing, only not standing in a cold river for hours on end.
Kris McCracken said…
Priyanka, it is now!
yamini said…
Wow, how romantic that must have been, really!!! :-P
Kris McCracken said…
Yamini, well, I didn't gut and fillet her when I reeled her in at least...

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