LOOKING tanned, fit, relaxed and happy, Warren Mead lopes into view among bougainvillea, palms and frangipanis at Karma Resort in Bali’s Jimbaran Bay.
He’s wearing a blue shirt, shorts and thongs. But most eye-catching is the smile that says: “It’s a brand new day in my brand new life, in brand new surroundings with a brand new woman.”
Not quite the renaissance man, but he’s positively brimming with optimism and is uncharacteristically talkative, waxing lyrical about Ica, the 28-year-old Indonesian law student now sharing his life, and he’s hinting that he would be happy to add another child to his brood of nine.
“Going for double figures,” he laughs. “She’s pretty wild, comes from the mountains in east Indonesia, near Timor. Her father had four wives; her grandfather had 13.”
Add pleasant, charming and good humoured to the usually taciturn and grumpy Mead mix and you start to wonder what’s in the Bali water.
“I never worried too much about finding something to do,” he says. “Going broke never really bothered me. I wasn’t going to commit suicide. If I was the sort of person who worried about having big lumps of money or driving a Porsche instead of an old Dodge truck, then I suppose I’d be worried.”
He might have lost his restaurant empire, his money, his house, his racehorse, his car, his boat, his sixth wife and, maybe, some weight but he still has the signature Warren Mead trademarks that accompanied him through 25 years of being the biggy of Perth’s hospitality business.
Error Page
He’s wearing a blue shirt, shorts and thongs. But most eye-catching is the smile that says: “It’s a brand new day in my brand new life, in brand new surroundings with a brand new woman.”
Not quite the renaissance man, but he’s positively brimming with optimism and is uncharacteristically talkative, waxing lyrical about Ica, the 28-year-old Indonesian law student now sharing his life, and he’s hinting that he would be happy to add another child to his brood of nine.
“Going for double figures,” he laughs. “She’s pretty wild, comes from the mountains in east Indonesia, near Timor. Her father had four wives; her grandfather had 13.”
Add pleasant, charming and good humoured to the usually taciturn and grumpy Mead mix and you start to wonder what’s in the Bali water.
“I never worried too much about finding something to do,” he says. “Going broke never really bothered me. I wasn’t going to commit suicide. If I was the sort of person who worried about having big lumps of money or driving a Porsche instead of an old Dodge truck, then I suppose I’d be worried.”
He might have lost his restaurant empire, his money, his house, his racehorse, his car, his boat, his sixth wife and, maybe, some weight but he still has the signature Warren Mead trademarks that accompanied him through 25 years of being the biggy of Perth’s hospitality business.
Error Page