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February
Eight things you (probably) don’t know about me
I got memetagged! I think this has happened to me once before, and I didn’t follow through, and it was awful.
So thanks Bryan for sharing, and for tagging me. I appreciate it.
Okay, here goes: 8 things you (probably) didn’t know about me.
- I speak fluent (ish) Samoan
My wife Marie is Samoan, and I’m a bit of a language freak. I did my wedding speech in Samoan (it was very short and I had a lot of help) but mostly it’s useful to figure out what Marie and her parents are talking about – most of the time. - I’m descended from royalty
Legitimately on my dad’s side from wonderful folks like King Edward Longshanks (the bad guy in Braveheart) and King John (the bad guy in Robin Hood) and on my mum’s side illegitimately (and possibly not at all) from Kaiser Wilhelm I (not to be mistaken for his grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the bad guy in World War I) - I have never ridden a bike (with wheels anyway)
The only bike I have ever actually ridden is at the gym. This used to be a great source of shame but now it’s just a bit of an anomaly. One of these days I’ll learn. - I play keyboard
Self-taught, but I took music theory at school from age 15-18. - I wanted to be Popeye when I grew up
I had several heroes growing up, but Popeye was just the best. Around the age of 6 or 7 I was absolutely going to be a sailor when I grew up. With big forearms. - I served on the leadership team of a small and deeply dysfunctional church for about a year
It’s a very long, fairly sad story. - Until yesterday, I didn’t know that a long black looks suspiciously short. (I am very coffee ignorant)
This despite living in one of the most coffee-aware countries in the world. - My last year of high school was all arts: History, Art History, Classical Studies, Music, English.
How I became a business journalist I’ll never know.
Now to pass it on… I’d like to nominate Julie Starr, Jake Pearce, LordALF, John Lewis, Anna Farmery, Nigel Parker, Paul Reynolds and David McGregor to reveal all.
February 1st, 2008
1. That’s cool. I speak fluent Dutch, but my wife has never been to Holland and hates the languages cause it has so many ch sounds (ch from the back of your tongue. I also speak reasonable French and have studied Spanish, Russian and Japanese at night school.
2. I have blue eyes, so according to the NZ Herald I am descended from the same person 10,000 years ago that all other blue eyed blondes come from, maybe I’m related to Simon:)
3. I used to ride bikes all the time, especially motorbikes, but since I married my wife won’t let me any more, which is almost like never having ridden them, it seems a long time ago, except when I quietly got a proficiency certificate, as I rode for many years without a license and thought I might do the right thing and be insurable.
4. I do too, but my main instrument is guitars (pl)
5. I didn’t. I hated spinach and I was really pissed with my parents who forced me to eat it when I learned as an adult, that the iron in spinach is bound by oxacylic acid which stops your body from accessing the iron during digestion, bet you didn’t know that!
6. I founded a church many years ago as a protest against pseudo-churches who were sucking people into their diamond smuggling and brain washing rackets. problem was, people were prepared to follow me!
7. I asked for a flat white in the USA last year and they wanted to know what I was on.
8. My last year of high school was sex, drugs and rock n roll
February 1st, 2008
Things for carrying on the meme, Prince Simon. Very cool about Samoan. Does that, combined with your being a Kiwi, make you a superstar rugby player?
My most obscure language is Tetum — the national language of the tiny Asian country of East Timor, which just became independent in 2002. I spent a total of 6 weeks there in 2002 and 2003 and learned at least a basic level of conversational Tetum. I wouldn’t say I’m still at that level today, but with another 3 weeks …
February 17th, 2008
Bryan, thanks for that. No, the closest I came to being a superstar rugby player was scoring a try when I was 11. That was only because my friends got tired of chasing me across the field!
Tetum, huh? You never know when that’ll come in useful … say, East Timor could use some help right now… maybe they need a social media evangelist?
February 5th, 2009
Thanks, Simon for sharing. Really, people have so many interesting things to share and if it weren’t for these memes, we’d never know! I’m sensing that you have at least one blog post in each of your eight things above. Do tell more….