I'm a bit disturbed by how often my name has come up in thread titles lately, even though I have a healthy ego. Kindly desist, you lot.
Did anyone actually think I was a made up name? Good lord. I always wished I was called something like Steve Storm or Grit Viper. It sort of sets up an image of a square-jawed cigar chomping leader of the Howlin' Commandos.
I used to go to school with a kid called Wayne Strong. I saw his name on the register and as you can imagine, I formed a vision of a tall, blonde he-man of a kid, football captain who inspires lust-filled frenzy in women.
Precisely what I inspired in them is lost in the veils of time.
Turns out that Wayne was a tiny, slim myopic Woody Allen lookalike with Woody Allen paranoia about his health, bad breath and a disgusting habit of picking his nose with his thumb.
Valerie, (the author I mentioned) and I met for the first time in Sydney after we'd corresponded on a cartoonists board for some time. Afterwards she posted "met Mr McGookin today, he was surprisingly pleasant really, and not seven feet tall".
Mr McGookin? Seven feet tall? For the record, five foot nine and call me Malc.
Just another shot in my eternal battle to inform people I'm a real person of average height.
Anyone would think that I'd made an impression on Valerie in that meeting, but the next time I met her I said "Valerie, how are you?"
She said "oh, fine.....Sorry, have we met?"
Oh yes. That's what I inspired in women -amnesia.