When I say that I haven’t seen The Princess Bride, it’s not entirely true. In late 1987, maybe early 1988—it was screened at a Corinella party at the Town Hall in Melbourne. Corinella, defunct since 2013, was a children’s page published in the Herald Sun, and I was a seven or eight-year-old party guest. My memories dress me in a garishly hot pink taffeta monstrosity, and include the then premier John Cain behind a microphone addressing a sea of needlessly zhuzhed-up child ratbags. Almost every other detail is lost to the ravages of time, including whether I watched any of the film or just busied myself with shenanigans (probably the latter).

I remember nothing of The Princess Bride and nearly every single detail of seeing Dirty Dancing at the same age. Including exactly where I sat in the long-shuttered Greater Union cinema on Russell Street. Because, evidently, even as a child, I’d always pick—and would always be most moved by—forbidden fornication in the Catskills over dungeons, dragons and Peter Falk in any role other than Columbo.