A Google's, World Wide Web WWW's and my BELL just went off -- it has been a 23 years since I arrived in Australia...

If you had told me that it is a truth universally acknowledged, that exiles faced with lucky new homeland will feel irresistable urge to introduce their children to live a bohemian swagman lifestyle, I would have said, 'Whoa! How True!'
Four years ago Lauren gave up her own dreams to pursue a safer life for our children. Having abandoned her good job in Sydney, we settled into the relaxed existence of a subtropical Queensland. Whether they like it or not my two daughters had to, for the first time in their schooling lives, struggle to establish their own identity (with a surname like Imrich) and pursue their own dreams (swimming) and reconcile both their mixed Antipodean/Bohemian heritage and ethnic identity with their desire to blend into Queensland society.
Today I feel a bit like Marlin who is an obsessive, over-protective and even slightly neurotic father who devotes his life to looking after Girlnemos after Sydney born and bred Lauren is hoping to return to working life in the New York of Australia .
The girls spent last weekend in Sydney where they went to see the movie FINDING NEMO. It was a huge hit with the girls. The reason may be that for the first time in their lives I am cooking, washing and taking them to swimming at 5 oclock in the morning every single day rather than once in a while. Nemo's father stroked a familiar chord.
On Father's day I really received a guernsey...(from my daughters) There's a whole level that pokes fun at the adult world – short-term memory loss, obsessive-compulsive behaviour, control freaks, you name it. Not only I have survivor guilt now Father guilt is gripping me too.

Fathers and Daughters: Happy Birthday Baby!

It was thirteen years ago today that Lauren said: this baby is overdue, overdue, we might have to try castor oil now! (This suggestion came from a respectable and experienced woman on 6 September 1990 at Lauren's birthday lunch.)
Not one to argue with highly pregnant women, whole thirteen days overdue to be exact, we took off for Double Bay Pharmacy and soon after our neighbours' car, driven by Rick rather than Tina, speeded for the DIY birth center attached to the Royal Hopital for Women with window overlooking Oxford Street at Paddington. The entire experience had caused my heart to beat faster as it took ages for Alex, a.k.a. Sasha, to arrive, thirteen hours to be exact, and not a second sooner. Our princess of Oz was born, to the sounds of the Antipodean TripleJ radio.
Ah, how radio is so much the soundtrack of our lives! Committing to memory the moment of bathing Alex for the first time to the sound of Throw Your Arms Around Me. There are no limits to the power of a good song.
Our first born is a child of the Velvet Revolution born exactly nine months after the intoxicating revolutionary moments, those rare evenings loaded with limitless celebrations and French champagne. Ah drinking with Alex's Polish godfather, Kristofer, at his Bondi Beach Bachelor pad (where the Swiss Hotel is standing today) was like drinking on board an ocean liner!
Meaningful Gural folk songs punctuated the midninght air. Fujara and Didgeridoo shared their dreams & Kulcha! If those primitive sounds did not move us, our hearts would be like the granites of the High Tatra Mountains.
My ears remember well the Hottest 13 played by the JJJ in 1990:;
1. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
2. Hunters And Collectors - Throw Your Arms Around Me
3. Smiths - How Soon Is Now?
4. The The - Uncertain Smile
5. New Order - Blue Monday
6. The Stone Roses - Fool's Gold
7. Smiths - This Charming Man
8. B52's - Rock Lobster
9. REM - It's The End Of The World
10. Jam - That's Entertainment
11. Cure - The Forest
12. Dead Kennedy's - Holiday In Cambodia
13. Sinead O'connor - Troy
As Lauren is not able to celebrate with Alex today her big birthday, we went through some of the top songs of the 1990 on Saturday. As we psychoanalysed names of bands, titles and lyrics of some of the songs played during 1989 and 1990, we filled the balcony with bellie laughs and sentimental tears. Some songs stroke a powerful chord with us:
Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot
Boys Next Door - Sivers
Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The UK
Cult - She Sells Sanctuary
Cure (Wran)- Boys Don't Cry
Public Enemy - Fight The Power
Hunters And Collectors - Talking To A Stranger
Prince - Kiss
Billy Bragg - Witing For The Great Leap Forward
Simple Minds - Love Song
New Order - Temptation
Sakamoto And Sylvian - Forbidden Colours
Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower
Tall Tales And True - Trust
The The - This Is The Day
Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side
Concrete Blonde - Happy Birthday
Happy birthday Alex, love Dad.