Eleven

My friend Kath at Blurb from the Burbs tagged me to write on these eleven questions and then submit eleven questions to eleven bloggers I admire to answer. Thing is, most of my favorite bloggers have aready been tagged in this lark, so I'm not doing the eleven questions or naming the eleven bloggers to answer the questions, but here are my answers to some interesting and challenging questions set by Kath.

1. When and why did you start blogging?


I started this blog at the start of 2009 when I had it in mind that I wanted to run a marathon and I wanted to blog the journey. My friend JK had started one and was the inspiration for me to start this. It’s turned into something far more than a running journal, thank goodness. I’d be lost without my blog – sometimes it’s the only fun writing I do in a week – though I’ve the intention of writing more of my own stuff for a long time now. At least the novel has been started.

2. What is your middle name and why did your parents select it?

Pandora, my nom de plume, has the middle name of “The”. Makes me Pandora the Behr…

In real life, my middle name is Jane. Plain Jane. Thing is, my real name (Amanda) is one of the most popular names to come out of 1968 – I was in a class primary school with six others of the same name – and if you are given this name, you are, by default given Jane (or Jayne) as a middle name.

They only had a choice of four middle names in 1968 if you were an Australian girl - Jane, Anne, Louise or Mary (or maybe Elizabeth if you were posh).

It is bad luck to have Amanda as a Christian name and not have Jane as middle name as one girl proved. She was not the standard Amanda Jane, but Amanda Faye, and she died from cancer at the age of 12. My parents were pretty conservative so I wasn’t going to be anything else but Amanda Jane.

I also have the same initials as my paternal grandmother, (She was an Ada Jean) not that the name was chosen for this, or so I’m told, though I know it irritated my maternal grandmother somewhat. Then again, I know I’d be pretty upset now if they’d given me my other grandmother’s name as a middle name. I’d never make a good Amanda Eunice.


3. Toilet paper folder or scruncher? Provide your reasons

I’ve got my feet in both camps. Folder for number ones, scruncher for number twos. All about what needs to come off and the surface area involved. Folding lends itself to smaller surface areas.


4. What do you do at home when everyone else is out?

As I live alone this is a bit of a moot question. More appropriate to me is what do I do when people are around the place? Things that come to mind are shutting the toilet, bathroom and bedroom doors and generally I’m a hell of a lot tidier, make more cups of tea and don't spend as much time on the computer. I’m a reasonable host (if you discount the fact the first thing you’re shown when you’re invited to stay at my place is where the tea, coffee, milk and cups are kept - and then you’re issued with the instructions to make yourself at home and don’t expect me to wait on you hand and foot).

5. You've been given five hundred bucks (two hundred and fifty quid, say) to spend on nothing useful and just yourself. What do you do with the cash?

Seeing I’ve just purchased an iPad, that one is off the list now. Given $500 bucks I’d scour the cheap holiday sites and find myself a week’s accommodation on a Thai beach. Then hope I’d be given the grand for the airfare and the $250 so I could renew my passport then go take myself off for a week on a Thai beach. Actually, might start looking at doing that around Christmas.

If there was only $500 without the hope of a flight or a passport, I’d book a table at Attica and take a friend for a degustation menu with matching wine – might even get cab fare home from that. Just. (Friends, note, it's my birthday in August... hint hint)

6. It's finally come true. One of your 'five celebrities you're allowed to sleep with' has walked into your kitchen and is up for it. Who is it?

Again, moot point. I’m single, I can shag who I like, when I like, whenever I like – in my dreams (The only love life I’ve had in the last five years has gone on in my imagination anyway so this really is moot.).

However, of my five dream celebrity shags, being Clive Owen, Tom Hardy, Shaun Micallef, Ian Dickson(Dicko) and George Clooney – sorry, it’s Clive Owen, every time. As long as I can personally shove him in the bath before anything happens. He looks filthy. In the best way possible…

Right, hormones back in their box. Next.


7. Name one famous person (so that all our readers know who it is) that you think 'has their shit together'. Explain why.

Does anybody have their shit together? Really? Though from what I’ve seen, I think Jamie Oliver is doing pretty well to try and make the world a better, healthier place as well as keeping what looks like a lovely family going.

8. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?

As I’m fighting a minor bout of the blues at the moment (nothing major, just a bit of lingering glumness) getting out of bed means that I have an opportunity to make enough money to support myself in the manner to which I’m accustomed. Normally, I bounce out of bed looking for fun things and new opportunities and adventures, but with the cold, dark mornings, a head cold which wants to take me over (but I’m fighting it tooth and nail) and not enough sleep in the last week thanks to a persistent Maow Maow making a nuisance of himself at 5 am, I’m just content to know that I’m making enough money to live well. It will go back to my normal* Tigger impersonation soon. (* providing a coffee and shower are available soon after rising).

9. Who would you like to smack in the face, publicly disprove all of their stupid opinions and freeze their bank accounts?

Tony Abbott and Andrew Bolt. Sod the slapping in the face and freezing the bank accounts. Surely there is a bike shed available for which they can be leant up against and shot.

10. Low slung jeans on boys - how do we eradicate this disease?

Seriously, I find the fashion of boys who wear their jeans slung around their knees funny. Why would you want to look that ridiculous? Maybe a law could be introduced saying if you wear this fashion we’ll force you and your father to wear a mankini on national television. Or maybe a public information announcement that having your arse hanging out of your jeans causes mass hilarity and this will no longer be tolerated. Put this one to Hamlet and he said that this ‘fashion’ comes from prison culture in the us where belts and shoe laces are banned. Hamlet, in his wisdom also said that boys should be reticent to wear their baseball caps backwards due to its prison meaning that they’re “up for anything”. Women make dodgy fashion choices all the time, it’s nice to see that men can do this too.

11. Tell us about an invention for the home that we desperately need.

I put this to my meeting room mates. Dave wants a machine that takes away ironing. Gen Y wants a device that reverse parks your car without dinging it. Peter said that an indoor composter that doesn’t smell would be good, though I asked about this as I have no use for gardening materials – hate gardening.

I think that some sort of combined automatic floor mopper/hooverer/duster that mops, hoovers and dusts every second day and does this while you’re out and you don’t have to think about it would be marvellous. Some people call this invention a cleaning lady. I’m too tight to hire a cleaning lady (and cleaning up before she or he came to do their duties would take up too much time).