Wog Blogger is a first generation Australian-Italian, born in Melbourne, who has been living in Sydney since 1994. The Wog's family life revolved around the family restaurant. Home was filled with opera and antiques and the Enciclopedia Italiana. There was a farm with a pony, racehorses, Poll Hereford cattle, a Fiat tractor and a bocce course. Each St Francis day the priest came to bless the animals. Father's family is all in Italy, Mother's family is mostly in Australia with a few left in Italy. They all rock. A lawyer for 13 years, the Wog works inhouse for an Australian IT company - and blogs at Wog Blog.
Why do you blog? > Cos I got an opinion on everything and I like to put a wog perspective on stuff. Plus blogging is cheap and easy to do, you can make fantastic connections with folks from all over the planet just tapping away in your loungeroom and you learn so much from other bloggers.
What has been your best blogging experience? > The kindest sweetest emails after I posted about my Pa who died in 2003.
What has been your worst blogging experience? > Have honestly not had any bad experiences.
What are your favourite blogs? > Bunyip, Blair, Bilious - every day first thing. But I got about 30 I check, including Norm, Harry Hatchett, Chrenkoff, Jim Geraghty, Currency Lad, 1972, and Instapundit, and then I like to go wandering to other stuff I have not seen before.
What is your favourite poem? > 'Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk' by A.B 'Banjo' Paterson, cos it rocks and I can recite it.
Who is your favourite composer? > Cannot pick one: Mercadante, Vivaldi, Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Mozart, Schubert, Bach. And prolly Richards/Jagger.
What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? > That Wogs can do anything.
What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? > That there are some things that Wogs just cannot handle – like democracy, non-corruption and not being a member of the mafia or other organized crime.
Can you name a work of non-fiction which has had a major and lasting influence on how you think about the world? > Yep. Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot and Culture Matters. Read 'em both around the same time. They each grapple with attitudes and habits of folks outside the Anglosphere. Made me think about the difference between culture and habit and how habits can change to improve things and culture does not need to be lost.
Who are your political heroes? > Galileo Gallilei, the Italian judges who attacked the mafia in Sicily in the 80s and Winston Churchill.
What is your favourite piece of political wisdom? > 'Do what you want, do what you will, just don't mess up your neighbour's thrill, and when you pay the bill kindly leave a little tip to help the next poor sucker on his one-way trip' - Frank Zappa, 'Mud Club' I think.
If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be? > Uniform train tracks and some sort of giant desalination project.
Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come? > Yet to come, for sure.
What would be your most important piece of advice about life? > Be good company - everything comes from that.
Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? > No, not radically different.
What personal fault do you most dislike? > Bad temper.
In what circumstances would you be willing to lie? > To make someone feel good and to avoid conflict.
What is your favourite proverb? > I dunno if this counts as a proverb but it feels like a proverb to me and I like it: 'Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to clean the sty' - from Ronnie Barker Porridge, the movie.
Where would you most like to live (other than where you do)? > Nowhere is better than Oz for living. The rest is just for visiting.
What would your ideal holiday be? > Rome every time, first stop Piazza Sant'Eustachio for the best macchiato coffee, then a wander past the Pantheon to grab some gelato and then get stuck in looking around. Lord, it is top town.
What do you like doing in your spare time? > Watch hours and hours and hours of the teevee, read blogs, read books and magazines, spend time with buddies and talk.
What is your most treasured possession? > All my art and furniture. I only get stuff I love and I have some antiques from my parents that mean a whole lot to me.
What talent would you most like to have? > To speak and write fluent Italian, Spanish and Russian.
What would be your ideal choice of alternative profession or job? > Maybe author or magazine writer, but tell the truth, I do like being a lawyer.
Who is your favourite comedian or humorist? > Oh, man I love to laugh. I got so many favourites I cannot pick just one. Say the team from The Fast Show in Engerland and the boys from Pizza in Oz.
Who are your sporting heroes? > Tazio Nuvolari, Alex Jesaulenko, Mario Milano, Mankind (Mick Foley), Ari Vaatenen, Sir Jack Brabham.
Which football teams do you support? > I support Carlton in the Australian Football League and Lazio in the Serie A calcio in Italy.
If you could have any three guests, past or present, to dinner who would they be? > All present: Mark Steyn, Tim Blair and Theodore Dalrymple. (Not Galileo, even though I adore him cos he would prolly spend all his time being amazed at modern stuff like my Atomic coffee machine and my Vipp bin that closes hydraulically).
What animal would you most like to be? > A black Labrador owned by a very rich family with kids, big cars and a farm where they shoot grouse and such. Pam-pered.
[The normblog profile is a weekly Friday morning feature. A list of the first 52 profiles, and the links to them, can be found here. Details of subsequent profiles are here.]