And the winner is..............BOTOX

I watched most of last night’s Oscars. Why? Either me own personal hits of botox are seeping from the forehead into the brain or I gorged on too much British Beef in 1996 and am suffering from the onset of mad cow’s disease - it’s either staring into space or at the telly for me most work nights.

At times the show’s host Ellen de Generes was almost as wet as SJP. Who would have thought that could be possible.

And how about the freak show that is our Nicknkeith Kidman-Urban. Nicknkeith looked like they were sporting rubber masks of their faces. Still, once the contract is spent and the talent non-existent there's not much else to do but hit the botox or board the booze/toot/rehab merry-go-round.

Hey, at least there's a choice.

A friend once compared Nickers’ appearance to that of a well preserved old lady. And boy was she on the money. Nickers is doing a fine impression of Nancy Reagan welcoming Cruella de Ville to her visage and corps. It’s strange our Nic is not yet 40 but her whole demeanor has become that of Norma Desmond and despite lack of age difference Keith is doing a sterling support as Joe Gillis.

What a relief to get that off my chest.

Oh it is a therapeutic joy to have, not necessarily read, a blog as trivial as mine.

Pretty polly oh my

As the sun rises and the aircraft curfew lifts, the soundtrack for Tupper mansions these airless and densely humid summer dawns has been a cacophony of shrill and penetrating bird calls. No delightfully hearty mocking cackle from the kookaburra or the beautiful song of the magpie for this inner city aviary, no siree, it's haven to the cooing vibrato of those dirty pigeons and the irritating chatter of the Indian mynah.

One morning as i lay twitching and sticky under my crumpled and twisted bedclothes, forlornly determining whose call was whose, my ears cocked upon hearing a new call that was intriguing in its dissatisfaction, half-heartedness and complete flatness, was it a bird or just Pauline Fowler risen and doing a spot of ghost hectoring.

I could not fathom what it could be. All i could picture was a Sid and Marty Kroft creation of a bird with a great long bugle for a beak or perhaps it was a Boogaloo, they are in the air and everywhere after all. I then thought of Sigmund and the Seamonsters and the actor who was in that and who had earlier played Jody in Family Affair, murmured "oh, Mr French" and rolled over to fall into slumber and dream of Uncle Brian Keith astride a dinosaur, with a beautiful array of kaleidoscopic reflections rotating in the dream's opening credits.

Back to the call of the wild.

The bird's call had me puzzled for a couple of weeks and i finally discovered its owner while I was walking along the street, ears at attention. On hearing the sound, for which i had developed a strange affection, I reacted as though some regressed memory had been triggered and my left shoulder had a spasm attack. I looked up into the bright blue sky and saw that the screech came from a sulphur-crested cockatoo flying above me.

I was surprised. This handsome specimen has really lost out big time in the quality of its call. I had assumed its call would be the same as the black cockatoo which you generally only see in the country. The black cockato is a magnificently handsome creature with a corresponding cry - foreboding, gutteral and powerful. The black cockatoo uttering this cry while swooping over the trees with its enormous black wings spread wide is an audiovisual spectacular.

Closest you'll get to seeing a winged monkey and the closest NSR will venture into reflections on the animal kingdom.

Wednesday night bookclub

What have you been reading lytely? I myself personally have not been able to get enough of the bio or the autobio genre. Super read, learn a lot and get to make lots of harsh but informed judgements (two e's make that noun look so much softer and prettier).

Following a recommendation from fjg I began the Latham diaries, borrowed from the work library, but half way through it got too much even for bileous drawers here. Still he was shafted badly so who can blame him.

I recently finished the Helen Reddy autobio on loan from biblio lorraine. It was a great memoir and worth reading. Helen is a top dame - forthright, intelligent and interested. Holland named a tulip after her. Frank Sinatra sent her yella roses. Her family history and general tales about Australian showbiz were very interesting as were her reincarnation theories particularly the one about the houses of Windsor and York.

H.R believes that Wallis Simpson was the reincarnation of Richard III and that Elizabeth II and Princess Ma'am Darling were the reincarnations of the little princes, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York - Richard the III's nevews who he allegedly murdered up in that tower.

Apparently it was natural justice or the karma chameleon that led Edward VIII, who in a past life had been a devoted servant to Richard III, to be drawn to Wallis and rectify the 500 year old wrong by abdicating and letting a York ascend the throne.

A-ma-zing.

I think Admiral Peter Debnam is the reincarnation of Edward VIII but I don't think Wallis has returned yet.

Each to her/his own in the search for meaning, and a spiritual belief must be comforting, but the prospect of reincarnation and the after-life in general strikes me as utterly exhausting. Just when you think you can give up the ghost you're back on. Talk about a neverending story.

Speaking of exhausting and neverending stories i am about to hit the couch to read Jonestown, which I also borrowed from the work library. Fortunately the librarian has covered the book in brown paper so i don't have to see the Parrot's face.

Oh and for those of you who were wondering why i don't frequent my local municipal library - three words:

Brian the autodidact.

You remember him, my librarian come community theatre pal who I performed with in that salute to Hollywood stars in the Illawarra, and who later sabotaged my musical bio, Before the bubble burst - see 2006 postings, well, the stupid twerp in a frenzied panic to read the entire library's contents in alphabetical order by 2010 has broken his own rules and borrowed all of L, M and R. Nevertheless I do admire his setting such a goal. It's important to realise your dreams, well not the type i've been having lately but that's another posting..........

SUPER JAZZED TOOSDAY

Call me Jimmy Tickles, oh google the reference for jc's sake, i cannot be arsed doing a link today, but the past three days i have been feeling super jazzed by work, it has been tops, and play, weekend was fun and had some amusingly silly moments with some ridiculously extravagant and funny personalities. And i mean that in the nicest possible way A. M-C. Caffarel. Don't worry about her privacy, she'll only happen on this blog a couple of years after googling her name , the question is : will you do it before her? When was the last time you googled your name?

Speaking of Jimmy Tickles, i did watch the strangers with candy movie a month ago. It was not brilliant nor was it a right off and i hate to be all oh their first lp was their best but there is truth in the cliche and you are better off buying the dvds of the tv series. I cannot lend mine out anymore as i love them so but you are welcome to come over for a screening. Nevertheless i was entertained by the movie, not having watched my favourite episodes for a couple of months, and delighted to hear goddammit uttered with such invective, and tittered at the stock inversions of platitudes. Everyone looked a lot older, well apart from Jerri - i guess everyone else had caught up, a lot of physical ageing happens in 8 years, so don't say you haven't been warned.

I also watched that film about Boring Jones called, oh gordon , Stoned. Again, it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be - is it any cockin' wonder that I start today's posting announcing my superjazzedness when a month ago i was hiring films that from the outset i thought would be terrible!?!

In sum the dvd was entertaining and acceptable weekend fodder - yours Wilfred Hyde-White.

The relationship between Bri and the alleged murderin' builder was very Turner and Chas from Performance. Have never been a fan of the Bri Bri so never had any interest in reading any of the murder consipiracy books on which the film was apparently based but having savoured all those david dalton books on rs as a 13 year old, the memories flooded back like those of somebody else. Rampant blond androgyny and misogyny, Bri's capacity to pick up any instrument or bird and play, Tangiers, Pipes of Pan's People, your best mate running off with your best old lady in the back of a limo, getting expelled from the band - beautiful re-enactment that - McKeithncharlie went round to Pooh corner, where Keith told Boring "you're out of the band, cock." Hey who hasn't heard those words and run to their bleedin' recorder or flute, taken a dip, or phoned the fanzine press beggin' for an interview.

Hanyways you'd all know whose life story i'd rather see on the silver screen, no, not mine, that's already been adapted for stage musical. The synopsis for that future bio epic will be left for another posting or until subjects die. Respectful, eh.

Yeah so another review in which i say it was ok , what i'd rather have seen or heard, and then proceed to talk about a past that is not even mine.

I'm so super jazzed right now.

Who's that knocking on my door?

I hope you now have another classic tale from the Rod Stewart songbook on your gullible brain.

I do and it's magnificent.

Nothing better than a tale or one hundred about a rocker birdin' it up with a schoolgirl, let's face it. When you've got a topic like that in a song, no need to worry about riff or rhyme - it's content what counts.

This evening i have thought a lot about Rod but don't worry it wasn't in a portentous or Bel from St Trinian's sense.

It was a lot more profound.

Thoughts of Rod had been triggered by the current storyline on Neighbours - fanaticism for model trains.

Just don't choo it.

Oh those Ramsay Street residents are not bonding around the train set in the sweet manner of Gomez and Pugsley. No, all they do is sport Casey Jones caps, saucily talk about stoking Col?!, who the fuck is that lucky bastard?, and watch the trains just proceeding smoothly on and around the tracks ( admittedly a thrill for a Victorian but earth to Reg Grundy, we are not all Victorian -Copernican Revolution time or what .)

Cockadoodledoo.

Which is precisely what my close personal bestie Rachel Hunter thinks about model choo choos, Hornby train sets in particular.

When New Zealand's first supermodel, I don't think Veruschka was from NZ, was married to Smiler, I recall their marriage all started to go belly up when Raech moaned to me about Rod and his "cockin' train sets up in the attic!"

"Oh Language" I exclaimed to Raech. "That type of talk does not befit a liedie. Imagine if Rod heard you. May mystery always be your middle name, Princesse." I counselled. "Just be grateful you've got an A1 rocknroller as your man!"

Oh but you do think that kept Mollene quiet?

As if! The whinging rag just kept bleatin' in my delicate ear.

Apparently Rod kept inviting his mates, well just Ronnie Wood, everybody needs a friend like Woody, someone who is always willing to sink some jds and coke, jump on your bed, copy your hairstyle and paint your portrait no matter how often you diddle 'em out of birds and writing credits, over to his estate, Selkirk United, where they'd play in the attic with Smiler's model train set. Train with me, train with me, in the attic you must train with me.

Both Rachel and that lovely Jo Woods, Ronnie's old lady, had had enough, despite their promising all kinds of fun with those smuts on their noses and them darling Casey Jones caps on their long blonde hairs.

Teasin' ingrates I called 'em.

Raech and Jo hosted an intervention. Sharon, that's Elton John to you and me, was invited, as were Becks the first and little Ian McLagan. Mickey J stormed over on his own accord, in a total funk about Woody mucking up the ph level of the soil underneath his hydrangeas in Richmond.

Nevertheless the lads refused to give up their passion(s).

I cautioned Raech, i put her on my knee and said "Darlin', a woman must know her place with the rocker, you must never get between yer man and his Hornby." (what with all the dropped g's peppering this posting i've come over all Edwardian, don't ye know. My great-grandmother had advised Lily Langtry.)

Still the silly girl bleated to the press, well just Woman's Day really, about it all.

So uncool.

What had happened to the unswerving loyalty and gratitude for being with a man, let alone a man in a band! Luckee. You must never talk in the presence of a man, girls. All you can do is look up through your lashes, blush and nod, and occasionally reveal a bit of nip. And never ever crack a joke. If you want a rockin' daddy never ever opine or mock just spread your wings and let him come inside, angel.

Just as well Rachel left Rod, with Liam, Raquel and Smiler Jnr in tow, because if she hadn't, lawks, with all her bleatin' and whingin and whinin' she'd have come a cropper like that Pauline Fowler - murdered and dyin' on Arfur's memorial bench on Christmas day no less.

How'd you be?

Dead, stone cold dead, girl, laid out flat on a dead philanderin' villain's bench in Albert Square.

That is not the deal.

Lovely llladies of the CBD

The summer fashion for the young working woman about town is neither eclectic boho nor rack off mollene. It's rather je ne sais quoi.

Those crazy young foxes are wearing suits, be it of pant or skirt, on their person and thongs on their feet. The thongs are generally brown or white, and i must say i have always found a pair of white thongs particularly stylish.

Perhaps it's a tribute to the zippy fashion of days gone by when suits were combined with sandshoes, no, sneakers, er runners, oh plimsoles, then!

It's a look that is professionale yet casuale. You're bound by work yet you're still footloose and fancy free. You're in the city but ready for the sea.

Young women of the CBD there is now nothing that you cannot do.

You have got it all.