My Answers

You’re given $500,000 dollars tax free (any currency), what do you spend it on? 

I have a list pinned to the fridge of all the things I’d like to get fixed or replace around the house and garden. $500,000 would more than take care of it all so that’s what I’d do first. I’d probably share it with my sister too so that she could tear up her list of things to repair and replace aswell. If there was any left over I’d use it on a holiday trip. Maybe that trip on the Indian Pacific train from Sydney to Perth I’ve been dreaming of for years. Or maybe Scotland as I can’t seem to get it out of my head lately.

“Painter paints a room arp“. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

What’s the finest education?

I think that life itself is the finest education. You can learn a lot in school, college or university but learning shouldn’t stop when you graduate. We can learn from each other, from our own experiences good and bad and sometimes from our pets who usually have a much better attitude towards life than most of us.

What kind of art is your favorite? Why?

I’m very much the “I don’t know much about art but I know what I like” school of thought. If you consider photography an art as many people do I probably like that best.   I like applied arts more than fine art I think. I appreciate beautiful furniture,  china and the other decorative arts. I also have strong opinions about architecture. None of that modern stuff for me thank you very much! I like things that look true to life more than abstract. Years ago, when I was a teenager, my cousin and I went to see Jackson Pollock’s painting “Blue Poles” which was touring Australia, its home is in the National Gallery in Canberra. We had to pay a dollar each to see the painting, not a lot of money today but this was in the mid 1970s. All I can say is “I want my dollar back”.

“Blue Poles (Jackson Pollock painting)” by The National Gallery of Australia, object record NGA 1974.264 http://nga.gov.au/international/catalogue/Detail.cfm?IRN=36334&MnuID=2&GalID=1. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Is there something that you memorized long ago and still remember?

Our memories are strange aren’t they? Sometimes I can’t remember what I was doing five minutes ago but other things stay in my memory for years no matter how trivial they are. If my mind was a hard drive I would need to do disk clean up and be de-fragged I think. I remember silly things like all the words to the Gilligan’s Island theme, old TV commercials and so on. I remember the phone number from our previous house and the registration number of our first car bought in 1987 – UFS-221.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Last Sunday we caught up with some friends we haven’t seen in a while and had a pleasant lunch at a pub overlooking the Huon River at Franklin. This week I’m staying home but next week will be exciting because I’m going to Melbourne for the weekend!