don't you press that button

On Wednesday morning I rose at 5 in keen anticipation of an early meeting at work. I got to the building at 6.25 and initially had difficulty gaining entry, finally got in at 6.30, the building's entrance door still bears my silhouette.

Eager to get to level 7 and tie up some loose ends before the meeting, i bounded into lift number three, swiped my pass and firmly pressed the button. Hmm, no action. Swiped pass again, nothing registered. So i tutted and pressed the <> open door button to exit but was thwarted. I huffed and pressed the mother again. Still no action. Proceeded to furiously jab the button but to no effect. Ball of tension about to erupt, hope the cctv caught my calm and poise coping with being trapped in the lift. Fortunately the lift was on the ground floor or i would have been in a worse state, i was wailing and cursing as it was.

Pressed the emergency button and was half way through explaining the situation, had to holler as the reception was bad, when the emergency line cut out. Pressed emergency button again and got a different operator, who sounded as though she was suffering from a night before of larfs, lime and lager at the Coogee Bear Hotel (backpackers' special -GBH at the CBH, lovely). She was really unhelpful, brusque and was asking for my mobile phone number when we got cut off.

In my experience mobiles go out of range when you're in an elevator.

This carry on and my frustration only continued for 15 minutes, had to press the emergency button about five times as the line kept disconnecting, when mercifully a security guard on the basement sought a lift and did press the button, and my number went down. I was let out of the lift, very soothingly placated and then escorted to my office without further incident. Thank you Security Guard.

Hope it doesn't happen again because it really brought out a curious mixture of bluster, panic, and doom. Admittedly it doesn't take much. At least i was alone in the lift.

Hanyways the meeting and everything went well and that evening i went to the doctor to have the stitches, which were a souvenir from the excision of black mole friday a fortnight ago, removed from my back. Mole is benign, so you know, lovely.

I LOVE TV

as a toddler atop her daddy's shoulders yelled out to all on the Coogee Beach promenade, one spring day in the late 90's.

Oh, out of the mouths of babes.

But you know what, as there is sauce in the negligee, there lies truth in the cliche.

LOADS.

I love TV too. Especially now that Kate Fitzpatrick has returned to the plasma screen.

Oh, sweetheart where have you been? Aren't you glad that you gave Imran the nick nack paddy wack? Or was it he? Not to mention cricket commentary for that matter. Darling you're no Blowers and you were most certainly not meant for the wireless; YOU were made for PLASMA.

Self-proclaimed serial bolter, I salute you.

To think it was only January this year, while watching the pilot ep of Aunty Jack, featuring KF as Airy Fairy, on dvd at Wipplegong in Bendigo, that a little question mark popped above my noggin and i put digit to chin and pondered the whereabouts of the KATIE FITZ, infinitely superior to the Katie Fischer, who for past 18 months has been the face for Marrickville Metro. No sooner had question mark appeared did it evaporate and i retired to bed appalled by how weak Aunty Jack had become 30 years on. Nice little insight to the depth of my thought processes, what.

Thank christ for the middle-aged and booming on Neighbours is all that I can say. Gordon. All cockin' week we've had to deal with the hottties what have moved into Ramsay Street. Ho diddly hum. (and no, that is not the name of some "hooker" in Days of our lives , it's the name of Tex Perkins's backing band, you der! ) Tonight's episode of Neighbours was tops. It featured the geniuses that are Oliver, Smith, Fitzpatrick and Feeny

Hats off to Tom Oliver!!

Tom Oliver has been part of my television experience since i was three. My first memory of him was either from "Motel" or "Bellbird" which i used to watch with mother. By the time i was five he was on Play School. He was sensational on Play School and sang my favourite tune , riding along singing a cowboy's song, he also favoured Jemima over Hamble, which was very important. Hamble is a passive agressive scrag, pass it on.

Power to the Grey on Neighbs, for it is they who are keeping the show entertainin'.

Tazzle it's a beautiful red drink
Taz, it's less than two calories

sky rockets in flight

Day two of the job and i am stoked. i haven't got into any of the hard core, full-on work yet but though.

Can i just tell you what a joy it is to work in a professional, cohesively structured and friendly environment. A place where the executive staff are civilised and smilingly address you by your name, and neither booze nor Ted Danson are required.

Colleagues at my last job gave me a wonderful send off and i will keep in touch with the friends i made there . It is just great to be in a new environment that presents a lot more challenges.

A true indication of my delight is that despite learning all this new stuffnthat, (HR Puffnstuff's old lady, oh god, Jack Wild is dead) and my head getting kind of dizzy and tired, when i have a breather and go to lunch or sit on a bus - stationary or moving it's my favourite form of relaxation, my mind plays the sweet and happy tune that is the theme from are you being served. I am clearly deliriously happy in the workplace.

While things are fabulous on the work front, the home entertainment front has gorne belly up.

I was just setting the veeceeahrrr for Wednesday night when i discovered that channel 9 now broadcasts the Sopranos on Monday at midnight. Fuck them. That's two episodes i've missed now. Stoopid dumb fuck of a free to air television station.

Every season i miss chunks of the Sopranos because of 9's inconsistent programming. m*&^erfucker!!

I would love to keep on cursing American mafioso style but you get enough of that from me in person.

dvd is the only way to watch a tv series.

yeah but i'm hap, hap happy at work, la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.


Ground floor perfumery,stationery and leather goods,wigs and haberdasherykitchenware and food...going up

ne ne ne ne ne nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

First floor telephones,gents ready-made suits,shirts, socks, ties, hats,underwear and shoes...going up

ne ne ne ne ne ne nerrrrrrrrrrrr

Second floor carpets,travel goods and bedding,material, soft furnishings,restaurant and teas. Going down!

It's show time, get up and go time

There are so many good things coming up at the gallery, theeater and cinema. It panics me so. Why did i let thrift trump splurge in the battle of the low credit card limit.

I just read that Burt Bacharach is playing in Sydney in February. He is going to be performing with the Sydney Symphony, his band, and guest vocalists. Who could the guest vocalists be? Dennis Walter, Marina Prior, Tony Hatch, Jacki Trent, Bindi? The possibilities are endless. I think i will have to go.

Game on, mole

Stars but the temperature is already 29. I hope that there are no major horrible bushfires and potential aussie legends killed today, not that i hope for that every other day, was just thinking more of the possible brouhouha surrounding bushfires occurring on friday the 13th, the day that bad luck struck god's own, when we all know that that happened in 1996 after the federal election.

This morning the doctor excised a mole from my back. It was tiny and black, and of course surrounded by the most beautiful creamy alabaster skin. Unfortunately i can't take the specimen to the first show and tell session at my new job on Monday, lucky old pathology gets it. Even worse i have to take baths instead of showers for a fortnight. I wonder if i could ask Brian to play Nursie and give me a hospital wash...

Anyway i shouldn't be too cavalier about bad mole really, it does affect me after all, but the chances of it being marralingant are slight. And if it is the beginning of the end that chapter of the autobio will have a sensational opening para alluding to the portentous date when it all went down the Bellinger. I might get Jeremy Irons to do the audiobook version.

wheel on fire

Astride a tumbleweed and sporting a straw cowboy hat that he thought was très Madonna but was plus Molly Meldrum, Mr Steven Ross blew into town direct from the Deniliquin ute muster.

It's a hoot and holler to have him back. Running that franchise of the Stefanie Powers wildlife park in Denni, as folk in the country like to call the town, keeps him well occupied. But like me he always manages to find time for the little people, i don't know how we do it, oh yes, two words, Lady Di.

Well she's gawne and we're living so let's press play and get on with the posting.

Last night we met up with Blonde Mischief and hit Leichhardt to see the devil wears prada and then dined at il cugino, which is my favourite eyetalian tratt - I promise to take you there some time. We had lots of fun, laughs a plenty, and a pearl hunt. I’d caught my pearl bracelet on the cuff of my coat, tearing a strand of pearls that proceeded to pour down the sleeve and spill into the cinema's aisle, give me Jaffas any day. I guess this means i'm about to lose all my teeth.

The film was entertaining and visually gorgeous but I think you can wait till deeveedee.

And today is my last day at the old job.

These past 2 weeks, or is it a month, have whirled past. It has been wonderful catching up with so many different people and knowing that the old routine is drawing to a close and a new challenge lies ahead. But the mistress is starting to panic, phantom sore throats and headcolds strike and then immediately disappear when the smoke alarm rings as she's forgotten to remove a pan from the flame.

i feel as though i'm looking into a crystal meth ball and all these laughing faces and incidents from my past are tearing by. My smug bubble continues to rapidly inflate until ridiculously enormous it finally bursts, smearing my face, my reputation, my career with the sticky, icky hot pink remains of arrogance, conceit and vanity. Then Naomi Robson knocks at my door.

hurricane

i'm a star in New York , i'm a star in L.A. tum da dum , dee, dee, dee, doo, from New York to L.A., from L.A. to New York, tum, da dum, dee, dee, oh hello, nsrs, my that's a healthy look of bemusement you're sporting. Yes, the mistress is back, she's been a busy, busy bel, interstating about and now unpacking her overnight bag, returning her witches britches to their drawer and her toothbrush to its Ipana splattered mug, after yet another whirlwind visit to Mel.

What is a bel to do , so POPular. Me and darren hayes, but I won't be coming out for a while, well Alan Jones said he wouldn't out me till 2010, and that still leaves me plenty of time to pip Tom to the outpost. Tommy and I have a lot in common: obnoxious, sensational teeth, smug, deluded and neither of us have scaled cold mountain. Pour the milk and hit that cymbal as Eric Burdon sang but I preferred the Freaked Out Flower Children's version. Who was sexier, Gumpy or Sophie Lee?

Anyway that's enough libel for one posting, let's take a step back into paradise and talk about me.

So yeah it's been wild, crazy and cuckoo whirly whirly. You may recall i was moaning about my work. Well, i got a new job, starts on Monday, they'll have me working night and day, punching in, punching out but at 41 that's what life is about. ooh. I am excited really, it's only taken 3 years.

The past three days have been fun. Gosh 3 is this week's important number, last couple of weeks 56 has been highly signifcant. Celebrating birthdays in Sydney and Mel. At all celebrations i was the epitome of decorum and charm. It was marvellous to see so many dear friends and i'm sure the pleasure was all theirs too. I ate lots of fries, the best were at acmi cafe, had a quite a few snifters, best champers was at the Pavillion on the Park, saw a few minor identities, scattered about yearning for paparrazi, and all they get are baffled looks from members of the general public as general public member scratches his/head, smiles absently and wonders if he/she knows celebrity minor. The worst must have been Julie McCrossin.

Incidentally, i'm being stalked by Julie McCrossin. I have seen the dame about five times this year. NO wonder she couldn't hack the early rising at 2BL, she's constantly trawling the streets, art galleries , airports, and docks, standing in a demi squat, pen pointed at the pad ready to busily scribble notes or banging on the mobe - waiting for me, yeah, me.

Julie, baby, sweetheart, you should have just fixed yourself a poopy milk drink, retired to sleepy bo bos by 8.30 p.m. and you would have started work fresh as a daisy at 4 a.m., and remained gainfully employed.

Next time i spring her i'll tell her so and perhaps i could become her life coach. And let's not even begin with all the other identity minors prostrating themselves along the path, creating an hazardous obstacle course, to my increasingly important career, that includes you, Peter Garrett and Anthony Green.

Just step off, fellas. This girl is keeping herself real and if that means hanging out with sweet simpletons, so be it.

I love them so.

tawdry and lame

is the only way i can describe this year's idol and that opening performance for the AFL on Saturday.

I was lying on my beautiful couch, it is a goddamn work of art, and no, it is not a Salvador Dali lips sofa, it's a set of Stonesy lips, natch, because i am a rocking chick, thoroughly enjoying gone with the wind on channel 9, marvelling at Vivien Leigh's beauty, doing a beauty ranking exercise - Viv 'versing' Liz Taylor, in between itemising the contents of my Glomesh bag, when i received an sms from fjg alerting me to the top ten Idol contestants performing on Channel 10's broadcast of the AFL.

Gordon was i appalled to see that talentless top ten wailing waltzing matilda. When they weren't wailing they were doing those awful phoney soulful shrieks, like Dannii and Kylie did when performing sisters are doin' it for themselves on YTT. I hastily returned to gone with the wind but after several more utterances of "fiddledee" and visions of Scarlett heaving her bosom and languishing over the super poop that is Ashley Wilkes, i had to flick the remote for a further taste of tawdry. And nobody does that better than channel ten.

This time i was delighted to cast an eye upon the Young Divas hollering out some tune that i cannot recall. Oh kate deAraugo! How could i have voted for her last year, well i blame Marcia Hines's campaign for Emily. Kate deAraugo really is the female Johnny Farnham in vocal delivery, movement and appearance. Some trifecta.

Still which was more appalling the performance by the young and idol or the oldsters from countdown revival. It was kind of entertaining to hear Sean Kelly performing I hear motion. the last time i saw him he was playing toadfish rebecchi's father on neighbours. Oh and the time before that, well I was competing in Elwood Idol and he was adjudicating. Between you and me , he's no Evie Hayes.

The other artistes from the Countdown Revile were lame as, still at least they were being true to themselves as Marcia Hines would say. Marcia Hines is a pillar of sincerity, truth and wisdom. And man, i mean, girlfriend, when will i master the jive bunny talk?! has she got soul.

Little Brian Mannix used the occasion to rock out big time. What a sensation he was - bounding abooot the stage in his black lycra tights and midrif shirt emblazoned with Beatles, another great band. Unfortunately the Cardinal's grandson didn't treat us to 50 years or how do you get your kicks. Bummer.

John Paul Young, that's Squeak to you and Molly, belted out "yesterday's hewo". A curious choice. If you were about to play in a grand final how would you feel hearing that: inspired or defeated.

It was godawful and utterly cringemaking but somewhat compelling.

Which of course brings me to Idol 2006.

Who will win this year's idol? Jessica? Idol had seemed rather promising earlier on but now it's rather bad. The choice and performance of songs are even worse than last year.

But hey, i am being kind of negative, and therefore untrue to myself. So please remember to love the skin you're in because if you take the L out of lover it's over. Right on, Marcia.