the lady vanishes

Cool it everybody, just cool it, don't worry am not about to release a mass of dead white moths, quote Pete Shelley or dedicate the posting to Brian (as if - not for that treacherous toad) ; let alone lamely attempt to call into line some blood thirsty racist bikers . Brothers and sisters everythink is alright, it's cool, not Kris Kristofferson cool, but A-OK cool, the mistress is back, safe, sound and smugly ensconced in the mansions after allegedly going AWOL for four days.

Wooh. Glad i got that out.

Apparently my absence from functions, cyberspace and text has been the talk of towns from Bellingen to Bendigo, a disappearance of Lord Lucan proportions. But i have returned - moustache intact.

Hey, i love being the talk of the town and can only imagine the type of chatter that would have ensued had others tapped into my answering machine and heard the message left on Thursday:

Hi Bel, it's me I got out of lock up last week and I'm on parole. The lady told me to give you a call and check in. Call ___ ____ on beeeeeeeeeeep.

The telephone call was not returned...Hell, i know the mistress is occasionally worthy of the moniker, Vinegar Tits, but she draws the line at the Freak - she ain't no screw, more Governor, natch, oh, alright, i'll concede to Bea with a dash of Lizzie. Nevertheless, not one of us was going to ring him. I'd never met the man, confound it.

Yeah, so when i wasn't on the lam or visiting those doing stir, i spent a marvellous Easter in the montagna, Rydal, Cox's river and Lithgow. On the way back was driven down the Bell's Line of Road. My it was pretty. Very green and lush. Bellbirds chimed on Bellbird Hill and Richmond looked beautiful. The town's sign claims that Richmond is historic and a Macquarie town.

Is there anything that bank doesn't own?

My mind then wandered to Richmond's famous resident, Mike Walsh, and pictured MW at home hosting an Easter Monday banquet with Midday luminaries such as Shirley Williams, Hollywood Howson, Jeannie Little, Dr James Wright, Jade Hurley, and leggy Jackie Love at his table, perhaps later performing Jesus Christ Superstar at the town's Regent Theatre, which MW restored. A bel can dream can't she?

I got back by midday, actually, and gave Tupper Mansions a wonderful spring clean. Then donned dark glasses, a baseball cap and proceeded to walk on my knees as i accompanied nicnkeith on their surprise walk with the plebs keeping it real visit to the Royal Easter Show.

Oh the media manipulation by the celebrity - surely it is time for a tanty in the Temple about that. Name your price i've got everything indeed.

Cold Mountain you are a caution! One minute you’re complaining about the invasion of the press and conducting drag races against the papparazzi on the south coast, the next alerting all media outlets of your queuing amongst the people to buy a show bag.

Live by the sword die by the sword or i'll be seeing you in the laundry just near that ironing press......

Oh telepathic line

For those of you who have had the privilege of my acquaintance, my affectation and occasional fits of tetch (hard to imagine I know) over the past score or so, the following will come as no surprise but for my newer legion of fans i really feel that before things go any further there is something you should know. Not only do i have a gift for the inane but i have THE gift, i.e. I have a sixth sense.

A gift but at times also a burden.

I was first made aware of this psychic ability in the early 70's.

It was a glorious summer's day and my immediate family had an outing with my father's side of the family to Bilgola beach; curiously my father wasn’t there; no doubt beetling about doing important business - booze bargains to be bought across town.

Bilgola was a beautiful beach, no surf, water was crystal clear and sand rather pristine. It was also sheltered from the wind. My siblings and I had just been having a discussion about marine life and were smothering sniggers caused by an adult's comment about octopuses having such long testicles when my mother, tired of my er, exuberance, sent me to the sea to wash the sand from my hands before eating lunch. I didn't want to go to the water for fear of being stung by a bluebottle. My protests were ignored so I went down to the shore and stood in the sea limply dunking the hands, occasionally turning around to scowl, when I felt a very nasty sting and beastie wrap around my seven year old ankle; not an octopus' testicle but a bluebottle's tentacle.

While the sting didn’t result in my donning a blue catsuit and cape, saving lives and fighting villains or other duties required of a Portuguese-speaking hermaphrodite superhero, it did inspire me to visit the local stationer's the following week.

From Mr Mussett I purchased a thick Pentel black pen and a very big white sheet of cardboard.

With these tools I created a Ouija board and after snavelling a sherrrry glass and crystal ball paperweight from my great-aunt’s sideboard I had all the fixtures and fittings to peddle my psychic talents.

Miss Bel was a most enterprising young gel. While other kiddies would spend recess and lunch debriefing about Fester Fumble and Miser Meany or playing elastics, Miss Bel would loiter outside christian schools giving demonstrations of her talents; she had learnt that the clientele at secular schools were tougher nuts to crack. Soon Miss Bel and her Ouija board were doing a roaring trade. You might recall those kiddies’ parties that featured face painting, jumping castles and blousy dames and kiddies sporting fairy wings and tutus being the rage in the 90’s; well Miss Bel, her ouija board and sherry glass, empty or full, were the 70’s equivalent - unreal orange peel was how the kids described them.

It was at one of these parties that I met Brian the autodidact who became quite the devotee and eventually my assistant.

By the early 80’s, adolescent ennui an’that had well and truly submerged one’s psyche so the séances and general sense of enterprise petered out while i fell in with a rum set and went from junior miss to mistress.

However, the gift still lurked. My mere mentioning of stars' names could lead to their deaths, their walking down the neighbourhood street or their tv shows coming a cropper the very next day. Election results were predicted, spoons bent, clocks and watches stopped, traffic lights went from amber to red, telephones rang. I was later to make cameo appearances and provide some storylines for the television.

So like most gifted and talented I plodded on, aware of my endowments, making sure everybody else was, and occasionally using them. However, the other day I happened on that former assistant's blog where he denounced my power describing it as fraudulent and at its best coincidence.

A cowinkydink not a power?

Surely not. Or perhaps it was another example of the delusion and malaise that have beset the mistress in later years and her quest for elan, oh and bling. One minute feebly attempting to be different: adopting the Edwardian 'g' drop, baskin' in the reflected glory of some faded pollie or star of the plasma screen, and now skiting of powers; only to spend the next validating it and her existence by documenting it all in cyberspace.

Really where on earth is Brian when you start spiralling downward and out.

Dissing you in cyberspace that's where.

Gather your wits Mistress don't let that Hector projector undermine you. Breathe in, breathe out. Didn't you mention Donny Osmond in your last posting? Affirmative. Didn't you just read that the poor pet had his show cancelled? Affirmative. Well there you go, gel, you've still got it and the gift.

Ohhhh, of course i dooooo! (uttered Julie Andrews' style )

Now i know what tall poppies, won't mention any by name..., battle against every day and i've triumphed. I've gone from poop to poppy.

Steady with your scythe, Bri, this poppy will not be felled, she's blooming upward and sidewards, gift, girth and gall.

Friday's child - loving and giving

So what kind of personality type are you? Teflon or Velcro?

I know a few Teflons and their company is really rather marvellous and liberating for a Velcro. I think most people are probably Tefcro, you know: a little bit country, a little bit rock n roll. Actually I saw Donny Osmond on the television the other day I can’t remember which show but stars he still looked youthful - naturally not in a botoxed, recut and sewn fashion nor an utterly disturbin' Cliff Richard fashion. Donny is probably a Teflon personality type.

Today I am off work as I have a flexi. I have a feather haircut too. I am on a flexi and I have a feather haircut. It is the 1970’s! Good times. Now where did i put that brushed cotton blue denim jacket and will muhummm let me eat the last of the dried apricots.

I was in dire need of a flexi as it had been bedlam at work this week and one day i mucked something up, nothing major but at the time i did not think so and i was velcroed out. On the way home I had to stop at the local coles liquorland and buy a wee bottle of shiraz, it contained 2 standard drinks, so i bought another teeny tiny tipple, had takeaway for dinner, and my mind reviewed the muck up at least 1000 times, a couple of gamboling lambs gatecrashed, before I fell into a fitful night's sleep.

Fortunately, for my tense neck and shoulders, the next evening i had an osteopathic treatment, probably should have scheduled some cbt for neglected old brain, and while waiting i read the 2005 Vanity Fair best dressed list. Charlie Watts was nominated. Not surprising for he is a dapper cove. I also learnt that Charlie doesn't drive but i wonder if he can, and his favourite books are anything by PG Wodehouse. Didn't say whether he was Velcro or Teflon but i have my theories.

Today I’m going to catch up on the past 3 nights of Neighbs, do the housework, this feather haircut causes the hairs to shed more easily , buy a couple of birthday presents and do the shopping which all really sounds like too much hard work and could necessitate a trip to town. I think i'll just loll on the couch for a bit and read old filth and then go to the cinema. I want to see the adaptation of running with scissors.

The weather is glorious today; sunny with a cool breeze. Hippity Hoppity really is on its way. My favourite time of year. While you're out and about check out the Haigh's chocolate shop. Its display and packaging of Easter eggs are works of art. Particularly the Easter eggs covered in pale gold and lilac metallic paper ruched in the centre. It's like a 30's film star's gown. Hump's gone from leggings to gown, from Hump to Harlow. I love a good makeover and Easter celebrates the greatest makeover of all. Nice one J.C.

Sixth sense

Yep, i'm pretty sure I've got one.

Cash and Co

So following the strayanyoushouldbespeakin'it debacle, Huey and I could not quite part ways without a full debriefing.

There we were smack bang on Broadway wonderin' where to go. Despite the earlier incident i really did not feel like going to a hot carpeted pub to be entertained by Mr Tipple; so where else could we go but the waterhole established and favoured by the Hillsong folk, no, not Lassiters, your obtuseness, glory get with the strength, Gloria Jean's!

Cockadoodledoo and god bless the mounties, which one of you little schnuckers will be usin' that for your next posting's label or title, there really was nothing else nearby.

It was great to enter a place that was just like Central Perk on Friends, so fabulous when reality blends into fiction. However there is no waiter/ressing service so i told Huey to bags us a table and chair, all de comfy womfy wounges and armchairs were occupied, bummer, while the mistress ordered and received - i'm in training for next week's Passiona celebrations.

I ordered two soda waters with ice and was asked whether i'd like some nice hazelnut syrup in the soda. What no malt?! I don't know what come over me but i declined. Ideas above station alert.

I collected the sodas from Al, no Arnold, um Gunther (?) and took em over to Phoebe, er Huey ah Potsie. Into every life a special guest appearance by Anson Williams must fall, singing, natch.

We sunk our soda and proceeded to rant. I must confess, non sequitur risers, that the Mistress was not making a shrrrrred of sense.

One minute i was slaggin off Mr C and barking at Potsie/Huey to sit on it - to which Huey sweetly enquired "what?", am surprised i could hear her enquiry for all the canned laughter reverberating in my ears. Following that timeless catch cry I'd flick my hair away from face, tilt my head from side to side, all jaw and chin jutting forward and utter another classic riposte " uh yehuh" only to blithely begin ranting about bigoted conductors, canned laughter switching to collective oooooooooooooh.

Was I speaking in tongues?

It was all a bit of a freak out at this coffeshop, people.

I might have been better off down at the Peach Pit rooting and tooting with Kelly, Dylan, Brandon, Steve, Jughead and Donna. I guess I'll never know.

And then the iceman arriveth (sorry about that phoney ye olde English I was a journo for RAM in 1977 and haven't quite shaken the style from my system).

Fellow was coming down big time; slamming hands on table, rockin' the table, cuttin' his tongue on someone else's pie, yellin'... then he got up and quietly joined the queue.

Oh Hillsong, you've done it again.

It was 5 p.m. on Saturday afternoon and the witching hour was upon us. Time to get off the crazy streets of central. I now knew how Penne Hackforth-Jones felt as that lady in the wild lawless goldrush days of Austraya. Only to espy PHJ from the bus four days later- strolling outside David Jones, alas sans Serge Lazareff and Gus Mercurio. Spooky or is that feeaky? NB next posting will have to focus on my sixth sense.

It was time to get home to the election coverage.

speak strayan

Yesterday was a scorcher but I still managed to have a generally delightful day. I met up with Huey and we went to the Fishmarkets for luncheon and sat at a table in front of the bay and had a most wonderful luncheon, a bottle of Jansz, two big bottles of mineral water and a good old natter for a couple of hours.

Following the delicious luncheon we strolled around the markets and ate a gelato, mango for me and coconut kaffir lime for the Meister. We then decided we should make tracks to our respective digs and walked to the light rail station to catch the tram to Central.

We determined we were on the right side of the tracks (always of the utmost importance, yours Lloyd Waddy) and sat at our stop marvelling at the sandstone, the spic’n’span station, my freckles rapidly multiplying and skin burning while we melted along with another passenger to whom Huey proffered a tissue and in unison we all sighed as we mopped our brows.

The light rail seems to be a most efficient service, runs every 12 minutes, and right on schedule the tram and its promise of glorious air conditioned comfort glided in.

We boarded and were instantly soothed by the coolness, quiet and spaciousness. Our conductor for this voyage came and sold our tickets. The conductor was a little taciturn. I idiotically showed my bus, ferry and train travel pass thinking that it might somehow cover a privately run tram service, no wonder she was gruff with me (“This is a tram, lady”) but when Huey cheerfully commented what a relief it was to be in the air conditioning after that stinking heat, Conductor snapped that the heat was to be expected in mid-summer. Professor Peabody here bit her tongue from saying as at 21 March it was officially autumn – it had after all been 3 days since I’d flipped my mattress. Still the conductor was working on a Saturday probably without penalty rates - lightrail is private, whereas we'd just had a long luncheon and she might have mistaken our bonhomie for smugness. It was bonhomie i tell you.

We bought our tickets and basked in the tram’s coolness and revelled going down Dixon street and the absence of traffic jams. We were soon jolted from our self-satisfaction by hearing the conductor in an altercation with some French tourist seniors.

The tourists were refusing to buy a ticket as they had an all in one day pass which had been accepted by a previous conductor on another trip earlier that day. Conductor barked that they had to buy a ticket as their pass didn’t cover light rail, tourists emphatically disagreed, in French mind you. The debate continued for a bit, both sides doggedly arguing in their first tongue, with le français exasperated and shouting in English “don’t you speak French!” to which the conductor retorted , “Don’t you speak strayan? People visiting straya should know how to speak a little strayan.” Her delivery not the content was very William Brown but he'd say oughta.

At this point Huey and I looked at each other, appalled and rolled our eyes. Huey said we had to intervene, which was right but I also felt both sides were well matched- the conductor a Hansonite and the français seniors probably lePenites and never penitent. However I could not stand by after hearing the strayan comment, touche pas mon pôte and whatnot, so dutifully got off my derrière and entered the fray.

We went up and switched from speakin' strayan to français to assist and explain; neither side backing down. Fortunately the tram soon drew into Central and the conductor yelled “you all have to get off now” – she had had enough and no doubt needed to be surrounded by some normal strayan speakers but the tram was also terminating.

The français got out of paying and we hastily alighted from tram and a possible episode of Rosemary and Thyme with a glower from the conductor and a merci from the français . Was this a rrrresult? Was an outcome achieved?

Perhaps the conductor was suffering from a personal trauma but no circumstance justifies the speak strayan imperative. Or perhaps she is just a bigot and currently telling her pals about the pesky foreigners coming here not speaking the language and these do gooders interrupting and adding to the chaos.

Metro Light Rail will be advised and Tupper Mansions no doubt torched. Here's hoping little Rusty Crowe will get a gorgeous bit of Hollywood backing and film the conductor's story.

the age of the monologue

What is new? How sweet of you to ask and how novel.

Most days this mellennium you just get emails and text blurbs about the scribes without a how do you do? or a how was your weekend? let alone a how's your father! Rude articles!

In truth i do get quite a few enquiries about me, and i duly send return message, but really that dilutes my complaint and there's no point complaining unless you edit all truth.

This week i am very much the cow with the crumpled horn and in social interaction have also been doing a sterling impression of the mother with late teenaged/early adult offspring - both roles - versatill and self-indulgent, i don't know how i do it.. If you were staying at my flat you'd get a "This is not a boarding house/hotel it's a hoame" rant to boot. Lord it's been a while!

Must remember to stay at Matermisguidedmartyr over Easter. What do you mean I'm already there?

As some of those 2Bl broacasters would knowingly and cheekily intone, "good old mum, we love our mums." Oh 2Bl, i mean, 702. Oh aunty. Oh mum. Oh brother.

That hoame NOT a boarding house rant must be fairly regularly uttered these days with the "i'm worth it generation" living chez olds till their 30's. Pity the poor parents fettered by their adult offspring.

It is only fitting that the “i'm worth it” generation, so cosseted, so cocooned and such fans of JWH reign, live with their olds until their 30’s - that’s what the boob did. Old Mooother Howard must have been in a permanent state of vexation. I guess he replied to her rants with an "it's all about faaaaamily" or a "business is business, the customer is always right" while deducting her fine from his board payment due to a late and sub-standard tea.

The "I’m worth its" are masters and mistresses of the monologue, harping on about their rights and how others' actions or words make them feel (surprised they're capable of any sensitivity) so it takes some finesse to keep up with their litany of me.

Thank J.C. and Passiona for cyberspace and the BLOG which places me at the forebore of the monologue front.........vdelish

It's goodnight from Brian, and a what about me from the Mistress. Goodnight.

*This posting has the modest tally of 8 x I and 2 x me referring to the Mistress who after all did live through the 1983 recession, 1987 Black Monday and that recession we had to have.

Pollie, Pollie, Pollie, Pollie talk

Talk about things you know nothing abouuuuuuuuut.

State election is on this Saturday and while the actual election is not that exciting - it's a given the ALP'll return to government and Admiral Denham will be going down with the SS Libs ( just as well he always sports those sluggos and swims at Bondi every day) it's the Cabinet reshuffle that will get us goin'.

Well that's what I was telling my brand new personal bus stop bestie as he pushed in the bus queue. That is cool, he is important and there are like so many electorates and things to think about but still i think i might lend him Brian's High Maintenance t-shirt.

So like i was so painstakingly explaining to Ant this morning, while he foraged through his rucksack for his blessed red travel ten, what will be really interesting is the Cabinet reshuffle. Will Tripodi, Costa and Sartor go? Will Linda Burney ascend to Cabinet?. And who will the new Opposition leader be? Pru Goward or Barry O'Farrell?

Hanyways Federal election is going to be a lot more exciting and full of so much promise and i can't wait to write a posting called

"Now we've got a P.M. called Kevin." And as he appears to be a bit of a godbotherer, i'm pretty confident the next line can be "he's sure to go to heaven. "

Torpor calls

I have been doing battle with a tiresome low grade virus and consequently been having quite vivid dreams and waking up in odd positions. Last night i felt so exhausted I retired to bed around 8 only to wake at 11.15 feeling very dizzy yet lying straight and flat on my back with my hands above my chest, my fingers' tips tapping together as though i were pronouncing judgement.

Still rather tame behaviour compared to the capers that ensue after knocking back a capsule or ten of Stilnox.

On Monday night someone must have slipped some Stilnox into my bedtime banana smoothie for the next thing I knew I was seated in the dress circle at the Enmore Theeater watching

Weird Al Yankovic

What a night. Oh what a long and loud night. Live performance spliced with videos from ALtv featuring wackily edited interviews between Al and pop stars.

Birthday boys and teen enjoyed the show and while it was a joy to witness their delight, and the reason for which I was there, the show left me with the same feeling experienced after viewing Carry on camping – disquiet and despair.

The psephologist

Oh Antony Green

Star of the television screen

on election nights

2007 will be a busy year for you

But in downtime what is it that you do?

I see you at the bus stop watching bicyclists zip past

while you wait ...

Would you like a bike for Christmas?

When bus arrives you jump the queue

Naughty, impatient Antony Green

At night on the bus people chat to you

You laugh, feign interest, then bolt

Leaving chatters lookin’ out window - dejected;

poor puds are no match for

Elusive, athletic Antony Green

Striding purposefully down the main road

A pack of frozen four ‘n twenty pies in your hand

Peckish, carnivorous Antony Green

Star of psephology

Mackerras successor

When will you introduce the Greendulum,

Antony Green?

Christ on a bike

Just saw a poster promoting the INXS and Simple Minds tour, a sufficiently vile concept in itself but said poster also features a photo of INXS.

What an eyeful i copped. They look like they've been cast to star in the very Hairbear Bunch reunion movie. Admittedly the lead role would go to Doug Parkinson. Hey, perhaps they should replace singer J.D. with Doug . I'm sure they would all love to crank out a heartfelt version of Dear Prudence as an encore.

Oh the grotesquerie.

Now this is happenin'. and please don't mess with stumblef.

Kinda young, Kinda now, Kinda free, kinda wow

The past five days or so the Mistress has been leading the giddy life of Charlie girl. She's been gadding about like leggy Shelley Hack promoting a perfume for Revlon. The things I do to fill this chasm of a soul yet plenitude, or a contract with l’Oreal, persists in eluding me.

The whirling dervish of Charlie bel began once her senses had settled after that electrical storm, several days post-tempest on International Women's Day when she was fortunate to partake in the festival of the lambs, celebrations for the 12th birthday of the lamb twins at the local family friendly hotel beestro beer garden.

A jolly night was had by all. I was seated at the kiddies' end of the table and was regaled with tales of school, its assembly hall's seats came from the Hub Cinema; favourite movies such as Borat, Jackass and some scene from the latest James Bond where his balls were whipped (?!!) - surprise was expressed by my not having seen any of these films, and general mirth and mayhem with the spillage of hot chips and chook on the lap (not mine). Then the rain bucketed down and we had to race inside where I bumped into a couple of indie from dayze gone by and promptly went home.

I only had a couple of glasses of red wine with dinner but still felt rather seedy the next morning when I rose at sparrows to be at work by 7 am. Had quite a productive day,completed a report and met some former colleagues for a pleasant lunch then left work at 3.30 to get home and have what I'm sure Dannii and Kylie would call a 'disco nap'. It did the trick and I fixed myself a pot of ambition and prepared myself for a nice night's entertainment at the theeatre.

Met up with Blonde Mischief at 7.15 outside the Toaster and we ambled our way along the quay to the Opera House's drama theatre. Had a glass of bubbles and enjoyed the gloriously glittering working port, let's keep it that way please, pollies, and had a good old pre-play natter about pants man pollies, disgraced hosties and raffish fiends.

We saw the Sydney Theatre Company's production of The Season at Sarsaparilla. It was excellent. Peter Carroll as Girlie Pogson and Pamela Rabe as Mrs Boyle were particularly outstanding. Play also featured a really clever set and use of technology. Catch it if you can. It was brilliant, highly moving and rather haunting. Blonde Mischief claimed to have read a review that compared it to Big Brother and Number 96....mmmh hot off her mind and straight to pixie press?

We were rather abruptly roused from our meditation and suburban passage when we hit the Rocks/Wynyard end of George Street. What a buzz. What a damn awful buzz. What was the reason for this buzz? It was 11.30 on a Friday night and it was crazy, so many people, so many really young people, natch, joyfully roaming the streets like packs of cockroaches on Christmas night. Far-out.. There was no way i was going to catch a bus it would have just prolonged the agony of waiting to hit the hay. We eventually managed to hail a taxi, that in itself seemed to be a cut throat affair. I'd busted my 10 pm curfew and boy, was i paying for it.

Finally got home where the mistress downed a couple of 'dols and water, unstitched the Charlie bel shadow, and put herself to bed for a good night’s rest in preparation for a few more days of striding around in a tailored pant suit, smiling maniacally while playfully spraying perfume into the mouths of sailors, Harpo ('mooooovie star ' not Marx) look-alikes and silver foxes sportin’ cravates.

Past five days have been like this;

Sugar titty

The weekend weather was relentlessly humid and the sun blazed baldly, one was constantly bathed in sweat, somewhat cantankerous, and a little hung.

Relief finally came last night in the form of a most magnificent electrical storm. As the southerly approached around 10.21ish i positioned myself in front of the wide open bedroom windows and did a sterling impression of Mrs Danvers, standing bolt rigid, nightgown billowing in the breeze, tits flung out the window, staring like some nocturnal beast at the rapid flashes of lightning attacking the district as the thunder did a ferocious number. Eventually i got a bit wet and the lightning gave me the jim-jams so i closed the windows, ouch, and scuttled under the bed.

The storm lasted two hours.

Since that storm I have been feeling rather skewiff, it has caused havoc with my senses, i've now got about 7. My antennae have been all over the shop and picking up the wrong vibe and misinterpreting text, email and speech. Am sure a night of the long knives is imminent but am not sure when, where, who or .....

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.

Slake that thirst

A more mellow and positive vibe has permeated my aura since the silly season was officially declared over.

I only realised this new state while in the queue at Coles on Monday when i espied a new guarana energy drink displayed en masse in stands at the end of every aisle and by the checkouts. The drink must have been launched that day. Well it was the first time that i had encountered it and i do pride myself on being on the qui vive for new products.

The new energy drink has the most impressive packaging and name.


Talk about laugh out loud (that means LOL, kids) which is indeed what i did. It really tickled me no end. I was almost tempted to point it out to my fellow queuer, a stern looking young man, but I am not quite that mellow so just collected a can as a memento.

At first glance the drink can appears to be targeting the metaler market but on closer scrutiny the mother referred to is of the nature not the other variety. Shame.

Beverage has a most unpleasant taste, rather bitter and medicinal, a cross between floradix and chinotto.

Name, please

It first happened when I purchased a beverage at one of those coffee house chains. Apart from giving my order and relinquishing my moolah I also had to provide my name. I was taken aback but obedient, and waited in the queue for Ms Ann Thropy to be called out.

This trend for forced and false familiarity has now become customary when purchasing fare and beverages at most outlets in the ceebeedee.

And I do NOT like it.

No I do NOT.

NOT one little bit.

In keeping with my philosophy to carp and demean, and wail while I rail, the last couple of instances have been, hmmm, how should I describe it, somewhat fraught, a teeny bit mental, utterly self-involved and mildly undignified. Just another day of laughs and high kicks with the Mistress.

At a Mexican joint while placing an order, my name was requested. I asked why, and this unctuous buffoon expounded the forced and false familiarity manifesto. I suspect he had had anger and self-esteem issewes and had undergone all types of therapies to resolve them but to no avail, and consequently had only recently emerged from some vile week of Vipassna meditation in the Blue Mountains and landed this plum new job. So I gave the chump a chance and acquiesced. 10 minutes later I jumped out of my skin and yelped when he called out my name and I collected my burrito. My cheeks were burning as I stomped, no longer anonymously, past the neighbourhood centre and along Enmore Road.

The final straw was Monday at the healthy juicey extend your life loveyourliverbar. It was 7.15 am and a work day. So pets and lambs, cats and dudes, can we please just stick to the basics, no time for making new fwends . Please note that when i say basics i mean that when I place an order I always wait my turn, smile, look people in the eye, say hello and please, and pay.

IS THAT NOT ENOUGH?!

Everybody wants a piece of me. Well no more, you hear, no more. There are some things I just want to keep to myself and be left unsaid. If I wanted that kind of familiarity in my life I would have changed my name to Candy .

"What’s your name?", enquired the young woman. I replied that I didn’t want to give my name. Serveuse was a bit taken aback and raising her sulkiness to my petulance, instructed me to just make one up. I suggested that she just call out the name of the drink and I’d collect it. She explained that they liked to use names as it gets busy. I said, "well there’s only you and me, and that other customer I am sure we won’t get confused. " She grunted, processed my order, no doubt instructing juicer guy to piss in my drink, then went and served the next person.. Once the fruit juice was ready she slammed it on the counter without any announcement. I placed digit to bottom lip, popped my eyes, placed right hand on chest's centre and exclaimed "ooh is that mine" and jauntily collected the drink from the counter.

Oh I know; they’re only trying to make a living and I’m only trying to make it that little bit harder.

Old friends' night* #2017

Following a tip from Nickers i've been trawling youtube all evening watching old Dragon film clips. Oh don't get me wrong, sugar, i wasn't copying off him, i was into you tube way before he! I had just previously spent my time on the youtube channel trawling other important business - checking out Dragon had never crossed my mind.

Hey, do yourself a favour and have a look, at the clips not my mind, there's nothing to the latter.

Frankly Marc Hunter seems distinctly wilder than he did when i was 11. MH was one louche, dissolute, rangy cat. I just find it odd that in the same year, 1976, that i saw this time I just sniggered and enjoyed the bop and the carry on of the lads in the El Alamein Fountain whereas i was silenced and intrigued upon seeing Mickey J prancing about to hot stuff, must have been the scarf and that alcan foil on his arse, crotch and jacket. Grrrr tiger. Both singers were patently off their scones and i was sober, possibly razzed on some GI or red cordigal and playing with swap cards. I guess it's a question of über, that term is just not used enough these days, star quality.

In the promo film clip for this time Marc Hunter is a total caution, completely wild and full of cheek. Oh glory here's a link from grandma and then compare and contrast and of course, discuss amongst yourselves, this.

While marvelling at the high jinks of that MH in this time i can't help but worry about the future adulthood of my more rambunctious nevews.

Looking at the film clip for hot stuff now i find the appeal of the old Micksmaster somewhat comical. Any 11 yo worth her/his salt really would have been struck by how cool that Charlie was. How about Keith and his stripey trou, he'd been wearing that pair since the goddamn rocknroll circus. Special Scag or what. Not to mention the ensembles in this time - Todd and his super silver space boots. Anyway thanks for humouring the mistress and her little plastic inevitabel multimedia extravaganza. Oh technology where would we be without it. Oh and yes, i do remember the sex pistols on the goddamnmikewillessee a current affair but can we just focus on Marc H and Mickey J. You want to rekindle those kind of memories go to youtube -the Mistress, while a trailblazer, is not renowned for street credibilité.

Hanyways i could blog and bore you like this for hours, and let's face it have done, will do and did to most of you last weekend in the flesh, youtubethatnow.

Yes, so you know i spent the weekend par-taying in Mel and it was like being 19 all over again, oh good times and i guess if it were like i was 19 again the correct term to use would be raging.

The wedding celebrations seemed to generally go very well and the Bride and Groom enjoyed themselves as did the majority of the guests. I had a great time and was really happy to socialise, contrary to my big funk before attending which i attribute to pre-wedding jitters. I've said it before and i'll say it again - sweetheart, if i cannot personalise your experience it is not worth my while. Thank you to the Bride and Groom for their generous hospitality, the post-wedding hosts and crew, and of course to Lorraine.

I had a really wonderful weekend and am missing you all already, even those i possibly offended, but that's the ways it's got to be, little darlings.


*term copyright gha.

Sets by Mr Bob interior decorator

The new year in Neighbours has brought some incongruous fittings and fixtures to some of the sets, not to mention swearing and that new look and wardrobe for Karl Kennedy and his pursuit of self-sustainable living. Karl is looking quite dishevelled, almost grunge (hey, i cannot take credit for coining the word grunge, but gee imagine if you could, imagine making up a term, oh my brain hurts just thinking of the creativity required). A spin off sitcom about Karl and Susan and their self-sustainable living is imminent, if only their surname were Good and not Kennedy. Perhaps the show could be called glad i'm not a Kennedy .

Back to the sets.

In tonight's episode of Neighbours i was struck by the curious decor at Erinsborough hospital.
While Stef was telling Mad Max that they could not reunite, in the hospital's family break-up room, she was standing beside a wall shelf that held an array of coloured cocktail glasses , none of which, unfortunately for Max, had a splash of Mr Booze. The hospital corridor now features this amazing fish tank like decoration on its wall. It is lit by an aqua fluorescent light and appears to contain some kind of marine plant.

One mobile phone was persistently ringing in the background during most scenes at the hospital. It's very hectic there.

Off to Melburn tomorrow and i really must take the opportunity to further examine those sets.

Big treat and major gush

Jo and Craig treated me to Lou Reed's Berlin at the State Theatre last night.

It was A-mazing.

The Australian Youth Choir was just brilliant, i wonder if any of them or their parents had heard of loubear before this tour. Quite a night for some of those tots, as it was for all, really.

horn and string sections were incredible as was the rock'n'roll band.

Lou's voice, alternating between staccato and drawl, was magnificent, rich and resonant. The performance really came into its own from Men of good fortune onwards.

Spellbinding.

multimedia event, natch.

audience stoked, lou choked and gracious.

There was an encore after the performance of Berlin.

It began with Lou singing Sweet Jane with Sharon Jones who led after the first chorus and was sensational. Antony Hegarty sang an utterly sublime version of Candy says.

Then LR.

Then it ended.

Audience was quite a mix featuring: the lord mayor - sporting a particularly glittering ruby red dog collar, state alp pollies, rocking cats from dayze gone by with names like si the pie, jase the face and little jimmy scannerz, double and triple J and M deejays and abc newsreaders of yore (yes both James Dibble and Bruce Menzies were there!!), 1980's Surry Hills types, young indie wearing horizontal stripes, old new wavers looking like bumble bees in their horizontal stripes, old rocking daddies sporting Miami vice fashion, interesting looking women, Sydney eastern suburb blondes - tanned, toned and tucked, and people like us. Unfortunately no Tina Bursill, Ita Buttrose nor Joe Hasham, who would have definitely raised the tone. Perhaps they'll be going tonight. Must have been some crush in that Green Room post-performance - and some fly is still trying to make sense of it all.

Pink wasabi premonition

Don't worry not a single by a number three idol but the statement on a pale green t-shirt worn by a passenger sitting opposite me on the bus.

Oh wasabi it means nothing to me.

People appear to get a little irritated when you squint at their chest trying to decipher what is written or illustrated on the shirt covering their treasure but really they should just get a grip. You're making a statement, duds, be prepared to be read.

The only words worth writing and wearing on a t-shirt are

big fat mothertrucker

Oh, and in this our Federal election year,

Llady, love your Krudd.

cannot get enough of these goddamn carriage returns.... ooh and those dots, hoo ha

Neither of those t's will i be a sportin' this weekend when i make a special guest cameo at the wedding of the 21st century.

The wedding is in Melbourne, and i'm flying ass'n'stuff herself - the Qant. No more verjus bleurgh for me (see 6 March 2006 posting).

Back to the nuptials.

They are to be held in the suburb that Dame Edna once called hoame. One day, not in your lifetime, but probably mine, that Dame will be the patron saint of the Ponds. My monster prediction for 2033. Mind you, canonization could be a bit too much of an RC concept for the Dame who is probably CofE. However, towards her later years she will convert as all the best brains do. Well, actually the best brains are atheist.

It will be a marvellous celebration - the wedding, I mean, admittedly it pales in comparison to the celebrations that will ensue with Our Lady's future canonization.

Victoria being in the grips of a firestorm, I fear that the weather will be insupportable, hotter than Hades - 40 degrees, and that is one hot mothery cockadoodledoo, is forecast for Saturday 20107 ( man i hope i stil have this blog on the 9th february in 2010, but will shannon doherty still be alive? will luke perry still be dating renny zellwelleger?And Brian Austin Green still obscene?)

We will be jolly but sweaty puddles with fallen fascinators and skewiff ties, having celebrated the nuptials with great verve and joy, and once the newlyweds have bade farewell, we will re-group in a circle, it will be too hot for a group cuddle, as we flatly sing, not throw your arms around me but it's so hot today, a dirge like ditty popular in daycare centres nationwide in the early 90's.

it's so hot today
40 degrees in the shade
pour me some lemonade
it's so hot today

(refrain x 10)

Carry on matron is on Channel 2 at 4.30 Friday morning. I am a glass is half full person after all.

Back with a Wimpie burger

Happy newie and a happy new year too.

Well it's been some hiatus.

I guess it was caused by the lack of frivolity, self-deprecation, general fun and celebration of the superficial in cyberspace and their supplantation by the pretentious, self-congratulatory and misguidedly self-important, see postings November, October and all of September worldwebwide.

I could no longer be part of that kind of blogosphere. I yearned for some laughs, just one more ride on the merry-go-round for the sake of a good time, a pause from the bottom's not dissimilar from foot know-it-all and his good friend right-on Roger Bore. I had also recently read Debra Byrne's life story and had slumped to a new low. If only Gerald Samper had ghostwritten her horror story of a bio.

My blogjo had gone and i felt rather glum. What was i to do now that i'd given up public navel gazing and lame but carefree jokes. Inertia had consumed my very core, gone was the pitter patter banter of my tiny mind. I felt sluggish, washed up and cast aside, not to mention juiced up and sloppy.

It then dawned on me that it was time to engage physically with people, and i don't mean hooking up with strangers at swingers' fleshpots as advertised on the telegraph poles that are strewn open slather along City Road, let's leave something for 2008.

So socialise i did.

I went to the work Christmas party and caroused until the wee hours, I went out to luncheons and dinners with some new acquaintances who i'd met at group therapy, i met up with old friends and family to celebrate the birth of the J baby, Jesus the man lingers at Waverton Station, danced till dawn at the Lord Mayor's NYE part-ay with Tina Bursill, Ita Buttrose and a handful of other personalities, not to mention their tiny bodies and big heads, from the 70's and the 80's - a night of nights.

In essence and ultimatively i took a reality check. A hard pill to swallow indeed but i did, loved what didn't choke me, and am as proud as Shane Warne, but possibly not as proud as Simoane (that's French for dumb, former model - French is a very succinct tongue) and I eagerly anticipate and embrace the end of 2007.

For love, adventure and cash to spend, like Goldmark, or rehab, are just around the corner.

Warnie

Did you watch the Ashes?

Did you see Warnie's chin? He had this 3 cm long 2cm wide horizontal line along his double chin.

Was it a cut or a form of facial hair topiary only to be sported by those with double chins.

"it's not rocket science"

I don't want to hear it anymore.

Mr Squiggle mastered it and i doubt he slogged at it 24/7 so it's not really that difficult, and why not just say that?

Has the expression only been in use this century? I don't recall hearing it until i returned to office work in April 2000. I was very slow on the uptake as the girl friday and everyone kept chiding me for stocking the tea trolley with sachets of Coffee Mate instead of miniature motel portions of soy milk. Steep learning curve or what.

One phrase that i was really expecting to take off was "sex up". The English press frequently and magnificently used it - Blair "sexing up" intelligence and the dossier on weapons in Iraq. I was really getting irritated and loving it at the same time, such a fine line between pleasure and pain, contriving all kinds of conversations to use it, keenly anticipating Kath and Kim using the expression in the next series but it all fizzled out.

Kind of like this posting.

hot, hottt and hotties are now passé. Have derived so much pleasure from hot and its variations since I first heard it used that way by the common person and not rock stars or jocks in 1998 but goodness knows how long it had been used before that. In 2007 there'll be a new term so bye, bye hot.

and goodbye 'like' which is very over. Very is back and rack off "so".

24/7 is 4ever. Before you die you will have uttered it sincerely. Scary but true.

As for swear words well they are all passé and the once potent have been usurped by suck, flute and the classic, Schweppes. I'm never swearing again. Swearing has lost its oomph, as have i, and is pretty much like it's not rocket science or shit happens.

Haven't heard anything new recently, well apart from whoosher, but that struck me as rather contrived, and skill but that's big in Tasmania, and i really long to hear something of world-class proportions, so I cannot wait, along with Kel Richards and Ruth Wajnryb, for 2007. It is going to be a bumper year full of change, promise and many milestones.

Hesba Brinsmead

Neck is still ricked but gradually getting better.

Quelle semaine as they say in Year 7 French classes at academies for young English speakin' ladies.

Samedi soir found the mistress afloat in champagne at a festive and merry dinner party only to discover mid jape and neck freeze that two of the guests were villains from the underworld. I realised summat was afoot when there were rum mutterings of kneecapping, dodgy coppers and being slum landlords mixed amongst their general parlay about moolah. I felt like innocent joelene public at a fundraiser run by the Sopranos. Thank you fiction for helping me understand the real in my quotidian.

I awoke the next morning feeling a little freaked out. A nefarious foray indeed.

Neck ached. Spent the free time over the weekend groaning, reading William in trouble and watching the entire series 5 of six feet under. Far out am still haunted by that series.

Busy-busy week of sms, farewell Splodge and bienvenue Mac and Myer - Opposition for hire. Work was rather busy an'all and delightfully broken by accommodating a visitor.

OH and pollies to the left of me and pollies to the right. Couldn't escape them, they are everywhere campaigning for the March election. I was walking down the city streets at lunch hour when my path was blocked by papparazzi, so what, yeah, nothing unusual for the the mistress. I snatched a camera and after a frustrating 10 minutes of trying to rip out the film i realised that the camera was digital and hurled it to the pavement as a car drew to a halt. A prominent leader of the Parlous State emerged to enter a restaurant called Machiavelli. Our eyes met and i couldn't help but audibly groan "oh no" and turn around, bright eyes, and walk off. Boy that would have hurt him big time.

Love the non-ratings telly: Will and Grace, God's own Princess, that 70's show - what more could you want.

Well a better goddamn dramatisation of the life and times of Princess Royale Margaret de Mustique for starters. Ma'am darling/Queenie's sister was a travesty. Which was worse the courting rituals of hons and rebels where they'd make the sounds of barnyard animals to find their soul mate or weedy old roddy llewellyn in his hippy humpy in Buckinghamshire. Neither actually, both were trumped by a no-necked monster portrayal of Ma'am darling come Ma'am chanteuse boozily mumbling Eartha Kitty ditties in a club then munching hash cookies with 60's popstar type in Cheyne Walk.

Risible.

Krudd looks nothing like Harry Potter

While Kevin Rudd's supercilious, pedantic and smug manner reminds me very much of Professor Peabody, physically he is the dead spit of Cousin Oliver, who was of course John Denver's son. Kevin is Phil Rudd's brother.

No more on this topic, I promise, so 7.30 report. Instead I'll ponder incorrect spelling and grammar on shop signs, which generally prove to be almost as drole.

Political insight #5

Ooh that paragon of erudition and best practice in the public sector, godbotherer Kevin Rudd, is gearing up to contest Splodge's leadership crown.

Would have preferred Julia Gilliard myself.

Each time i think of or hear about Kevin Rudd I can't help but picture Professor Peabody.

I guess Julia Gillard as deputy would be Sherman.

Here's hoping Peabody and Sherman will be able to end John Howard's wayback machine of a reign.

kant, kanter, kaaant

Yeah how d'you like them apples for a title. I do love a good declension but at the moment it's all in my neck.

Did i land you in the soup with your work supervisor? Oh you are the team leader, well you'll be in the Heinz chunky veg/creamy pea and ham variety now and just about to flow down Robert Morley's throat an' all, cupcake.

So sOrry.

The mistress is up to her armpits in anguish and ignominy so it's only fair that you gain a little bit of her pain.

During my innocent knees up last Wednesday, i was blaring the nashville soundtrack, blogging away and sinking a gin and tonic or two, revelling in my company, when the neighbour from upstairs came and complained.

It was 7 p.m.

Get outta the pool.

If it had been in the wee hours or the people downstairs i would have sympathised, heaped on the Uriah and self-flagellated for a week.

The block of flats where i live is situated on a main road, under a flight path and in the city. These neighbours pick axe on amp, and generally between the hours of 10.30 and midnight stomp, move furniture, slam doors, and have explosive rows, so really should have kept sschtuum about my merrymaking. That's what McPoop here, who generally retires to sleepy bos by 10 each night, does, keep sschtuum not make merry. I just put in the ear plugs, roll over, and carry on - other people's living noise is one of the jöy's' of apartment living. Anyway i managed to express this several hours later after the complaint.

In true Costanza style i'd been simmering, stewing and huffing for quite a while and finally went up to the house of wowser and enumerated the reasons why i felt the complaint was rich. In essence i made a complaint but they started it. read the last clause with even more petulant and indignant tone.

This irritation added to the tension that had been lying in my neck and shoulder from the stress of a new job, not enough rest, three months of tennis elbow, and being mental. Friday morning my neck snapped and my head has been steeply inclined to the right ever since, this is jwh australia after all . For three days excruciating spasms from pinched nerves would stop me in my tracks every 10 minutes. On Sunday i was collected and chauffered to my sister's for a faaaaaaamily do. I had some booze and a marvellous pain killer, good times.

Chiropractor has stoppped the spasms but the left side of my neck and the shoulder are still very sore, immobile and twisted. Fortunately booze and pills make such a handsome pair, "and so say all of us "- Miz Liz 1962 to the present

And no interventions please, i need a hobby for 2007 - high lilly, high lilly, hi low.

Keep a-goin'

Well it is as hot as Hades in Syd. as it probably is everywhere else in this world-class, it don't worry me, T3 besotted nation.

No point complainin' about the heat. I've been countering it with a couple of very long Gordons and tonic, closed the windows and lowered the blinds.

It's a very dry heat which i must say i don't mind in moderation. I just imagine i'm in a Tennessee Williams play, but the heat in the south would be humid surely, adopt a southern accent and amuse myself greatly while flapping my pea green chinoise fan and alternate between cooing, sighing and laughing hysterically as i gaze upon my aged reflection in the looking glass.

Good news!

i have mastered an absolutely flawless impression of Liz Taylor's voice. I didn't have an opportunity to try it out at work but give me a call and you'll be so entertainted.

Am still loving the new job, despite lack of showing off opps, and more importantly am still being amply adored there.

Curiously i've managed to keep up the quietly competent front but for how long? I feel as though i'm walkin' a tightrope of double indemnity proportions; super efficient bel versus shit happens you got a problem with that bel. it's her and me straight down the line. or was that the premise for the patti duke show?

I do declare this heat is frahing what remains of mah brain. flutter of fan, twitch of eye, high pitched flirtatious giggle, gulp of gin upon glimpse of reflection. NB not example of Liz Taylor voice impression.

Been busy busy on the social front and all but like i said greatest achievements to date are my sensational impression of Liz Taylor's voice accompanied by the carriage of B. Dubois, and my new work place relations.

Spin out sister

Sad news about Robert Altman*. But frankly listening to Fran Kelly attempt to analyse his work with David Thomson on Radio National made me even sadder.

Nashville really is one of the most brilliant and entertaining movies. If it weren't for House and trippin over being broadcast tonight i'd watch it on deeveedee....

Thanks for some excellent movies and appreciating the Carradines, fella.

One of the Carradines should have been made President.


*When i heard the announcement of Robert Altman's death i was in a room away from the radio and misheard Bob's name for that of Dennis Waterman. I stopped in my tracks and then got dressed.

"comfy undies"

Call me uptight but every time i see that poster of Pat Cash, er, Rafter, oh how long have i been traipsing this earth, promoting Chesty Bond's underpants with the testimony that they are comfy, i get irritated. Imagine a world-class sweetheart such as i feeling such an emotion. Well it has happened and the concept of comfy undies has done it, sweet nsrs, all three of you, and yes, i do mind that i do not have global appeal.

I find the associated slogan displeasing not because i want my brothers and sisters, mums and daddies, to suffer discomfort and sport full briefs with loose elastic or knickers that have a tendency to seek domicile in the crack but because each time i read or hear that comfy undies' slogan i feel that Pat is sportin' underpants that have a distinct fart-like quality.

And woah, just stop there, you budding shrinkaramas and pop psychologists, I am not projecting. I most certainly do not a equate a pair of comfortable fitting underpants with fartpants. My beef with the slogan principally lies with the combination of an abbreviated adjective and an abbreviated noun. It's too smug , cute, self-congratulatory, gotta love our lingo, and is as coy as that catchcry promoting the eating of lamb, mum's cooking a lamb roast tonight. cosy. ugh.

Permission to spin out further.

What is with all those b grade starlets and lingerie lines. When will it stop? Only the other day, while having my hairs tinted at Rodney's hair salon, i read that jade jezebel scarlett jagger, mmm what message were mick n bianca trying to convey, had launched a line. This actually makes her a c grade starlet really, although she'd claim to be rockstocracy but you know, same diff, as most b's have their own line of perfume these days , and a's endorse skin care products, direct theatre companies and smile beatifically on red carpets, in playgrounds while festooned with kiddies or in foreign lands on kiddie adopting sprees.

tripping over is on tonight and that will soothe me no end.

Love you, and i'm talking to you, Huey, Dewey and Louie .

and furthermore

This morning while sitting on the bus I happened to observe a poster promoting Jamie Oliver's new cookery book. The poster features one photo of Jamie smashing up a microwave and another of him standing looking all puffed up and cocky with his arms crossed against his chest.

Jamie Oliver has never bothered nor thrilled me but as I appraised the advertisement distaste imbued my palate and it dawned on me that Jamie had become the Bono Vox of the cookery world.

Speaking of Bono, last week I was commenting to a friend how Sting had become practically harmless only to learn two days later that Sting had released a new lp on which he plays lute while squawking Elizabethan ditties or recitin' some excerpts from John Dowland's letters. I was lucky enough to hear an example of both on the radio.

English teacher, noo waver, poet laureate of pop, tantric lover, turtle lover, Russophile, peace troubadour - is there anything that Sting cannot do, well, apart from act.

A true Renonsence man.

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.