Thacker, Brian 1962-

PERSONAL: Born 1962, in England; immigrated to Australia; married; wife’s name Natalie; children: Jasmine.

ADDRESSES: Home— East St. Kilda, Victoria, Australia. E-mail— brian@brianthacker.tv.

CAREER: Worked as an advertising agency art director in London England; tour guide and ski guide in Europe; writer, 2003—.

WRITINGS

Rule No. 5—No Sex on the Bus: Confessions of a Tour Leader (memoir), Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2001.

Planes, Trains & Elephants, Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2002.

The Naked Man Festival: And Other Excuses to Fly around the World (memoir), Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2004.

I’m Not Eating Any of That Foreign Muck: Travels with Me Dad (memoir), Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Brian Thacker was born in England and moved to Australia with his family when he was six. As a student, he took an advertising course, then hitchhiked around Europe before returning to London and working for two years at an advertising agency. Travel was in Thacker’s blood, however, and he returned to Europe to work as a tour and ski guide. Three years later, he went back to his advertising career, which lasted until 2003, at which time Thacker turned his full attention to writing. According to his Web site, Thacker has visited seventy-two countries, seventy-three, he notes, if you count Tasmania.

Thacker’s first book, Rule No. 5—No Sex on the Bus: Confessions of a Tour Leader, includes many anecdotes about the consumption of both sex and beer. Thacker writes amusingly of both the good and bad experiences of twenty tour trips he conducted.

Thacker was inspired to write The Naked Man Festival: And Other Excuses to Fly around the World because during his backpacking days, he often had his best experiences at festivals that were being held in various locations he visited, ranging from a beer festival in Germany, to the Snow Festival in Japan, to a voodoo ceremony in Haiti. In an interview with Bant contributor James Hakan Dedeoglu, Thacker said that the most unusual festivals are held in Japan and the United States. “Only in Japan could you attend (and participate in) a Penis Festival, a Used Pins and Needles Festival, a Crying Baby Festival, a Staring Festival, a Quarreling Festival and a Knickers Festival. The King of Kook crown, however, belongs to the good ol’ U.S. of A., where you can party on at the Testicle Festival, the Snowman Burning Festival, the Barbed Wire Festival, the Big Whopper Liar’s Festival, the Roadkill Festival and the Rotten Sneaker Festival.”

Thacker’s father, Harry, lived in many places, including Gibraltar, Malta, Sri Lanka, and Singapore, before settling in Australia with his family. Thacker revisited these places with him in order to better understand the man, who had retained his conservative values, love of beer, and preference for heavy English foods. Booklist reviewer Mark Knoblauch described Thacker’s memoir, I’m Not Eating Any of That Foreign Muck: Travels with Me Dad as “an amusing portrait of a prickly but affectionate father-son relationship.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

BOOKS

Rule No. 5—No Sex on the Bus: Confessions of a Tour Leader (memoir), Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2001.

The Naked Man Festival: And Other Excuses to Fly around the World (memoir), Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2004.

I’m Not Eating Any of That Foreign Muck: Travels with Me Dad (memoir), Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2005.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2006, Mark Knoblauch, review of I’m Not Eating Any of That Foreign Muck, p. 23.

ONLINE

Aussiereviews.com, http://www.aussiereviews.com/ (February 3, 2007), Sally Murphy, review of The Naked Man Festival.

Bant Online (Turkey), http://www.bantdergi.com/ (February 3, 2007), James Hakan Dedeoglu, “Brian Thacker” (interview).

Brian Thacker Home Page, http://www.brianthacker.tv (February 3, 2007).

Northern Rivers Echo Online, http://www.echonews.com/ (February 3, 2007), Evelyn Gough, review of Rule No. 5—No Sex on the Bus.*