Baby on board

There’s a new kind of stroller for the parent pedestrian, as Tom Springfield once wrote.

As you know, NSRs, that practical small foldaway stroller was long ago superceded by those ridiculous, ginormous and cumbersome four wheel drives of push chairs. Well, the latter model has now , like most things, you know, mothers, wives, friends and lovers, run its course and been replaced and upgraded/babooshkaed/carlabrunied by a new, super, deluxe, i mean, luxe and ridiculous form of transport for life’s most precious cargo.

This new contraption is such a curious form, and I’m being polite. It looks like a lazy Susan table come palette fixed atop a tallish three wheeled stand. I guess it’s kind of Jetsons Space Age (but no jet pack required, shame).

Parent, generally proud poppa, pushes the object while jogging but the byebee does not look like it’s secured by a belt on the palette. Baby just sort of lolls about, which causes concern for Constable Care. Well, until the next possible imminent disaster pops into my head as I stride around Darling Harbour, hands behind back, surveying her port and quays. What’s that unusual ripple on the water’s surface..? Why do those boats bob so?
Quick! Where is some higher terrain....?
Tsunami everyone! T S U N A M I
Higher ground people, (I myself personally am perpetually takin’ the high ground), I bark then squeal.

I swoop onto that palette-on-wheels of a pushchair, scoop up baby, transfer its bonnet to my noggin, and demand that poppa get a move on and push us up that nice, hilly street.

Nozin' about

No I’m not pitching a program to aunty in which I hang out with teens and ascertain how their minds and hormones tick. I do that 24/7 – no bean bags required just a ‘puter and the world wide web. They call me June Dolly Watkins, cos grooming is my specialty. Woops that is not me either, more like another plodding plot for the filth at Sun ‘ill. Both sensational ideas but.

Now where was I ? Focus, focus, focus. Yes that’s it now I remember how it goes....

What I really want to share with you is a very curious sight I witnessed from the bus window last night.

Frank Sartor and Michael Costa in mufti on King Street Newtown chewing the fat and wildly gesticulating. Michael Costa’s mufti was crazy, crazier than his gesticulation! Army camouflage baseball cap and a smart but casual cotton knit with stripes, and chinos. Frank’s garb was kinda of drab, daggy leather jacket and jeans. Were they determinating Rees’ successor? Does anyone care? I don’t think even Quentin and the Stateline team can be bothered covering the state alp leadership tussle. It’s lame-O.

Snatch pant

Snatch pant, Snatch pant, l-l-l-ladies get your snatch pant.

As the Best & Less and K-Mart jingles and spruikers used to cry in the 80's and 90's. And very effective they were. Llladies of all shapes and sizes were sporting black leggings. Generally with large, long shirts but more often just with normal length tops and displaying their great smiling V to all and sundry. (oh don't choke on your pickle, prudence, i've got to give voice to this right here, right now! )

While I am a proponent of Lady love your cunt (why i think it was me on that celebrated Oz cover, wasn't it?) I consider the outline of the labia majora in the legging or high rise gabardine pant, or any outfit, as what Maggie T would call a major boo boo.

In the noughties the leggings have returned but are now known as the footloose or footless tight. Generally sported under dresses by stylish, chic, neat types (don't blow your pfff pfff valve*, yet, sweetness - worse is still to come!).

In the past few weeks as i've roamed around Sydney, from the haughty north to the I'm not a raShirelist South, from the battlers' west to the meretricious East, i have observed many things (about which i'm still to blog) but the most remarkable has been the return of the legging as trou - this time in faux denim stretch!!!

Granted the faux denim legging can look OK under certain shifts but when it is au naturel, l-l-ladies just put that smiling V away!


*a K.Elliottism i do declare.

Round and round she goes #19809

Some hae meat and canna eat, and some wad eat that want it;But we hae meat, and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit

Hello NSRs, I truly do not know what’s going on with the old brain but for the past three mornings I’ve woken up with that piece of Little Robbie Burns prose on my mind. It’s nice though ain’t it and always looks so attractive on tea towels… It was emblazoned on one used for drying dishes at one’s childhood family seat, and whipped agin one’s seat amidst the oh get and rack off tetches of evening washing up sessions (faaamily good times, thank god they've rolled on by) which reminds me of this other favourite ditty from my enfance:

When I was a little boy
I washed my mammy's dishes,
I put my finger in my eye
And pulled out golden fishes.

Delightful. 'cept I was a girl then and I am really not quite sure what I have become.

Perhaps these pomes from one's childhood are coming to mind because of an sms text message received on the mobile telephone last Satdee morn. It advised that Tim Rogers and a superpoop were doing a recital of my favourite collection of prose from the time whence I crossed the threshold from enfance to adolescence, and where I have, in all likelihood, remained.

Can you imagine my derision 'pon learning that that r-r-r-rasping ineffectual r-r-r-runt* was doing a tribute to Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out!! It has evidently stirred my inner Colonel Blimp, doesn’t take much, admittedly, and my nice kind friends say it’s more Mainwaring than Blimp but let’s face it, it’s Blimp (still it’s nice to have a bit of Pressburger Powell gloss atop your Perry and Croft - and no, foot not dissimilar from bottom, that is NOT an allusion to a fricking Marty Rhone song - god give me strength!).

Response? What would my response be?

Get Yer Ya Ya's Out tribute night? Step off and into a grave! Will someone be hired to call "paint it black, paint it black , you devils?" If so can they please ensure that rent-a-fan brings a needle and thread lest that Tim claims to have busted a button on his trousers, for nobody would want his trousers to fall down now would they? Thank you kindly indeed! (It’s a shame that Mickey J had not read any Dorothy L Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey by the time of that 69 tour because I’m sure he would have embraced Lord P’s “thankee” and perhaps referred to Charlie as the good padre.)

Lament-A-ble. I mean to say, just go and put the original piece of hot wax on mr twirley whirley or try and compose some new music. Dude-dah!!


*r-r-r signifies the rolling of r's, you know how to roll your r's now, donchoo?

Her adjudication still brings me to my knees

I have been watching this year’s Idol and despite the excruciating auditions and all that honky soul hollering (howuh, howuh, howuh, ho – imagine Kylie and Dannii on YTT and their rendition of sisters are doin’ it for themselves (which was of course penned by Tony Newley and originally performed by Joanie and Jackie Collins)), I am absolutely fascinated by Marcia Hines.

Marcia is one riveting dame. Gone is the platitooodinal evasive adjudication such as “love the skin you’re in”, “you know who you are, you are what you are” and general proferring props all over the shop. Ladies and gentleman, make away for Marcia as pop psychologist, counsellor and heavy! During 2009 auditions she’s been workshopping potential stars’ scars, practically hosting rebirthing sessions and advising the young and upcoming that if anyone messes with ‘em, let her know and she’ll deal with ‘em! You go girlfriend!

Perhaps she sees the idol ‘gig’ as on its last legs and is laying down some foundations for a splendid new career as daytime variety talk show host/chanteuse combining Kerry Anne (granted MH has much better voice and crazier dance moves) with the sagacity of Dr Phil and the clout of Oprah. It would be rather marvellous and I would tape it, which is my totally giving Marcia props.

Conk City

Perhaps it's due to the unseasonally, oh sorry, unseasonably, warm weather, a premature primavera, if you like, but I have to say that the conks are out and at it in full force and it's wa wa wa waaah central.

Most nights around three am, if i'm not awoken by a feeling of doom i am stirred from my slumber by a rabble of conks buzzing the intercom of the building entrance. They are young, they run green, buzz my bell, make me scream. It's not like it's once and they run away. After all I recall that appeal, as a 9 year old.

No, this goes on for about 20 minutes and because the building's insulaton is pretty lame i can hear the other flats' buzzers going off too. It happened again on Friday. As the buzzing goes on I wonder whether it's some boozed out friend on the wrong route for good time centrale.I duly roll over only to twitch then turn back to lie rod straight on dootiful daughter alert.

Could it be a family emergency or just pater needing assistance yet again for his cockin' computer. Surely not at 3 a.m? However, octogenarians do keep curious hours. Oh woteva pops. Don't derange this fille rangee. I jam the earplugs deeper into my ear canal and slide further under the bedcovers to eventually sleep fitfully and later rise more Eds Monsoon than Doris Day.

The icehouse down the road had been doing a roaring trade until its great galoot of a kitchen wiz left some chips unattended in a vat of fat on the stove causing a fire and blowing out the power grid (?) across several suburbs for about five hours. It also brought the fuzz and the firies and caused quite the commotion.

I've now got a shocking bout of rsi (or is it carpal tunnel syndrome?) from twitching the lace curtains.

I thought that this explosion marked the icehouse's end but its owner seemed to just give the joint a lick of paint and a new lord has been installed. He is very garrulous, very flash harry and somewhat careless. I 've watched sufficient eps of season 1 of the Wire to have an inkling what will happen next, let me tell you.

And you know you can set your watch by this conk even if it happened in the northern hemisphere but oh, well, just sit on it, Mr/Ms C (and that ain't short for Cunningham) for this is NSR.

Tales of the self-obsessed and unaware

God if I were really to divulge tales of that calibre you’d be utterly bored but also kind of tetchy. Aggravation centrale.

What eh really would like to say is:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s response and reaction to that reporter's asking for President Clinton’s perspective was utterly JUSTIFIED. Even if it transpired that the translation was mucked up and the 'journo' meant President Obama. Really...? Big whoop. She was right to set ‘em straight, which is all she did. It was a stupid question and warranted short shrift. As for the way Fran Kelly and Virginia Trioli have been going on about it. Get out of the pool!! Why don’t they just call HRC a ‘shrew’. Perhaps the media could focus on the actual significance of the Secretary of State's visit to Africa.

Yours,

Pepped up and opinionated.

Ananas the high priest of fruit

Busy, busy, oh so busy but while I’ve got you here may I ask whether you eat pineapple?

Pineapple is delicious at the mo. I’m talking about the fresh variety not the canned stuff - leave that for those delicious toasted cheese and ham sangers of a Sunday would you.

When I think of pineapple several things come to mind : perfect digestion, the big P at Nambour and its darling choo choo train, the Aug/Sept school hols of cheese, ham and pineapple toasties past, and of course Blue Hawaii starring Angela Lansbury and Elvis Aaron P (for Presley not Pineapple).

It is somewhat unnerving that within those memories lie connections to the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition.

Such a small world, almost as small as Tony Abbott's mind.

Avocados are also at their most delicious NOW. Pineapple and Avocado are in their prime like Miss Jean Brodie once was and me, I guess...gumps. (and yes, i am aware that one really cannot talk about fruit being in its prime, foot not dissimilar from bottom type, but this is my blog and i'm having a goddamn Windmills of my mind moment alright? Well, it's fine by me, sugar. Lovely. Now where was I? )

Oh yes... Are you still in your prime, boys and girls? More’s the point can one possibly still be when one nudges the mid forties? I thought one could but I think that J Brodie was possibly in her early to mid 30’s.

D E S P A I R

What is one to do? Run off with the Fascists? Too tiresome, not to mention taxing on the plantar fasciitis and well, which ones? (Right on).

Oh cock to political engagement! I’ll just run off to the Rod Stewart Academy for young ladies and get myself a nice young l-l-l eggy blonde. Granted that's more the domain of the has-been cockstar and not entirely suitable for aspiring pink lemonade drinking Baronesses; Why it could lead to one chartering a yacht to that notorious isle of sapphic love! (Don't tell T. Abbott, Krudd or that shit 'appens Albanese.)

A veritable gels' own adventure.

What curious new dawn beckons Bel. And where on earth is my local chandlery?

Wireless

Have you noticed that during the 7 o'clock news bulletin preceding AM on Radio National the newsreader has commenced announcing “9 minutes past seven"? It’s rather out of the blue (or should that be random?) and then the newsreader finishes bulletin with a very brief weather forecast.

What is with this "9 minutes past"? Could it be that the bulletin had been cutting into A.M’s time and Tony Eastley got tooshy? Did T.E. demand that AM start on the dot of 7.10 to allow sufficient time at the end for the witty banter baton exchange with Fran Kelly?

Does anyone care?

And Charlotte Glennie is back! Reporting from Brisbane but back nevertheless. I wonder if she is good friends with Christopher Pahne? Someone has to be, well apart from Lexie Downer.

Double ignominy

For the past month I’ve been doing a battle against some tedious low grade virus which incapacitates me for two days per week.

Whoopee zing and a hot motherycockadoodledoo, I know. S’winter after all. However, when LGV made its last special guest appearance, Thursday and Friday all day and a l l night, I decided that it was time to see a doct-err . Perhaps I had the Epstein-Barr virus (all that living and loving and learning in the vibrant varsity campus of life) or could it be that I was suffering from such ennui that I am now imagining these illnesses. As if!

Unfortunately my preferred medical practice was booked out so I had to go to the local medical centre. Quack-a-rama. Upon arrival I was instructed to wash my hands and wear a mask so as not to spread my disease despite not having ‘flu or cold symptoms. As I sat in the waiting room flicking through a mag, and wondering why other patients were permitted not to wear a mask, I surreptitiously slipped the mask’s hoops off my ears allowing the mask to slide from my face when a doctor arrived and barked at me to put the mask back on. It was quite the rebuke even though not clearly audible for doctor was sportin’ a mask. Lawks was he swine afflicted?

Eventually I was summoned from the waiting room to my appointment. It was with the very doctor who had chastised me. Oh brother. Doctor began his consultation with another tirade about the importance of the mask sportage and instructed me to have it on until I left the surgery!! I gulped some air and proceeded to enumerate my symptoms. He sneered and enquired whether I was a smoker. I exclaimed no, pulling down my mask to convey my injury to such an insult, rapidly returning the hideous, smelly, fuzzy fibrous cloth to my face before i was further admonished.

Dr Cockfoster scowled and then took my temperature and said it was fine and that I didn’t have the ‘flu. But…I never said I had the 'flu. Waaaaaah. I suggested that he check my ears and the glands around my throat as they were tender, oh what about a blood sample, sugar, but he refused. Perhaps he couldn’t hear owing to the mask muffle but it's more likely consequential to a no temperature, no illness philosophy. He did however recommend that I use garlic and ginger in my cooking, which I so already do, and provided a medical certificate advising that I am suffering from a medical condition (?!) and unfit for work/school for Friday 10th July and that "she states that she has been unable to attend work from 9th July.”

Not quite Smiler

I was looking for footage of D. Waterman playing William Brown in the BBC series but found
this .

A tawdry image shared is a repressed memory spared.

Stick to your flaming knitting!!

In this time of the GFC and the Great Recession one is ever so humble to have a job and continually tugging one’s, never anybody else’s, forelock .

Nevertheless this does not mean that one, or even you, should have to put up with the most ridiculous, dicky and utterly trite language.

Comrades (Hey, it is EG Whitlam's 93rd bday today after all) you are making my ears bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeed.

Sitting hunched over my keyboard in the corner of my delightful workstation/cubicle I am stirred from my diligence by the words “Knock, knock” wittily uttered by unctuous Splodge(tautology?),who then issues me with an imperative tagged with the conditional!! What a technique and what a *&^%!

Two things about the dickiness that is ‘knock, knock’:

(i) what is wrong with ‘excuse me’?! I promise not to retort with ‘you’re excused’. Oh office banter you are so cute and drole, I now pronounce you Mickey Office-Banter.

(ii) When utterer is actually standing beside a door!. Dear colleague there’s no need to be coy, you can rap your knuckles right against that door’s hardish mock wooden surface. Oh yes you can! Actions speak louder than words, woopsy I've almost come over Mickey O-B.

And as for the language in the variety of formal bang-on sessions - vexation exclamation marke centrale!! Let's face it, that is the goddamn 'elephant in the room'. Oh my godfarva, if only there were an elephant in the room, i'd mount the darling and yell a hearty 'charge' !

From the ever present desire to be on the same page to people saying that they’ve been having ‘side bars’ with others (no doubt these 'others' are grassroots stakeholders or summat.) Then it's on to worry about ‘siloing’ and ‘lockstepping’, intentions to ‘socialise’ certain concepts before 'roll out' not to mention requests that we have a 'quick'n'dirty' (oh the crudite!) overview, 'park ideas', ‘press pause or rewind’ mid-discussion. I myself personally would not be averse to pressing ‘stop’ or perhaps something totally out there such as ‘stop’ and ‘eject’ simultaneously. Woah mama!!

However the dickiest expression of them all is yet to surface at my bureau. A friend told me of some Jargonista who regular peppers her parley with the term ‘real estate’ to refer to new equipment. And worst of all when said Jargonista wishes to convey that her team/unit is going to focus on its key responsibility and/or area of expertise she says “we’ll stick to our knitting”.

Ludicrous!!

"Cheer up, it might never happen”

chirped some irritating senior dimpling and jigging before me as i attempted to pass (not stomp by, mind) in a station underground shopping complex at 3.45ish yesterday afternoon.

Well, sweetheart, from looking at you it possibly had.

Cannot these troubles in kitbag packers just zip it. Furthermore, there really is nothing more disgusting than someone over 10 behaving cute.

Glory you’re a senior, sir get a bit of dignity about you and embrace your inner curmudgeon.

And really why in the bejesus do I have to smile while I stroll. I’m sufficiently decowative as it is, I mean, I’m a liberated woman! Life may be a flipping cabaret but it certainly cannot always be chuckles centrale.

And one other thing cuteswutsey senior perhaps I was actually worrying about someone who is sick, mourning a loved one or puzzling over friends behaving in fashions most bizarre. And yes I possibly could have been but it was more likely I was wondering whether I’d turned off the iron, what was causing my foot to ache or why no-one sold jam doughnuts in the ceebeedee. Possibly all three so is it any wonder I looked so glum chum.

And for my next trick...

Elton John reportedly performed a rendition of "Candle In The Wind" to guests at his White Tie and Tiara ball, moments after learning of Michael Jackson's death.

Moments later a piano key lid was slammed down on a set of bejewelled, mottled pink sausage-like digits. E-bony and Rooo-bee ...

GET THAT DRIVE

I am reading the Bruce Beresford memoir/diary. It had been recommended by two people whose opinions I almost respect.

It's an interesting read but it exhausts me. Well, Bruce Beresford's drive does. It is extraordinary. Where does he get it from?

W H E R E?!

I would like 25 percent of his drive for Christmas please.

A view from the faaaaaaaaaaaaamily room

I'm not outraged about the Chaser business and not that interested but really must opine. I think the Chaser is generally fairly lame and tame. However, if i were 13, had never seen any biting and nasty satire, i would love it but then i loved the Two Ronnies' Phantom Raspberry Blower at 7. Now that I am 75, the days grow short and i'm in the autumn of my years, I have matooered and only have time for my jokes and world-class perspective. Nevertheless I think the indignation, the sacking and fricking Kruddy are just downright silly. In fact Krudd and the general outrage about it all are the most appalling.

I really cannot stand Krudd. His prissiness, his overarching aching desire to be popular, his tactile ways - stop hugging the common people, his conceit, his delivery of speeches and eulogies - oh his pause for effect, his moral rectitude are just disgusting. Julia Gillard soon please. Well how about NOW.

I'm a fan but

Several times per day for the past five months Connie Francis's "where the boys are" wafts out from a colleague's office .

It is such a mournful tune.

Each time I hear it a wave of unease bordering on agitated despair washes over me. I feel like an extra from a truly distressing scene in Blue Velvet and that some terrible repressed memory longs to emerge.

Follyfoot

Mayday, Mayday as Captain Peachfuzz used to cry.

Yes, it is also May Day but no, I am not wearing a sprig of lily of the valley on my lapel or anywhere on my person, or marching or dancing around a maypole (apparently one of the rockstockracy set has a gold one in her bathroom but it's sans ribbons making it one of them poles de sauce ). I do all of that come October (well not the sauce pole dancing, I hear you can get some very nasty sprains) for I live in the southern hemisphere.

It is autumn in the southern hemisphere and the air has been kind of nippy in sin city.

Yesterday I bought a lot of hosiery at Myers, 25% off one particular brand. Apart from the discount I was drawn to the packaging which boldly claimed that the line of hosiery was the brand preferred by Qantas hosties – a mark of prestige no less. This of course greatly appealed to me, which granted is rather curious for be the matter sociale, intellectuale or real estatale the mistress likes to think that she is generally NOT a snob.

That bold statement made, she is a bit of snob when it comes to the old champers and was always mildly appalled by the prospect of imbibing a glass of Cock Ridge blush. Nevertheless duly knocked it back ('Saint Bel') and its parent bottle ('Supertrooper') and no doubt proceeded to behave in a fashion that appalled all present. Oh just rack off, Fischer, it was the mid to late 90’s, I was in my 30’s and celebrating the end of a recession.

However I digress, blame it on the Blue Dalton who I saw for the first time in 15 years last weekend ….

And in the spirit of reminiscing…In the late 90’s I frequently shoved my snout in the bargain troughs at the bottle shop that was conveniently located next door to my former residence, Derwent Flats (my how i've come up in the world...).

My favourite DROP for a very reasonable price was a variety of methode champenoise called Omni. I told a friend and colleague, who was a wine expert - in a fun way not in a C. Erskine-Browne way, about this drop called Omni, which was not bad and quite a bargain, to which he purred that it was the splash that Qantas reserved to serve its First Class passengers.

For years I would present this brand to people advising and wowing them with the Qantas First Class factor. Frills and thrills at no frills prices. Only to find out several years later that it was a joke and my covetting prestige at bargain prices had caused me to be punk’d big time!

So you see it’s with some trepidation that I proceed to boast about the brand of hosiery enveloping my pins and toes for snobbery and boasting are perilous follies bound to lead to ignominy.

Tweeter-Twitter

(For those I’ve already told, respectfully I say to thee ‘bad luck'. I have to increase the blog quota for April, ye see or I am in soup city with Blogger dot com (that old joke, again - yes sorry, not really) )

Last Friday I saw Daniel Johns down by the posh part of Circular Quay, the western part. I am surprised by the thrill but it was very thrilling. I wanted to look at him and his companion a second time but resisted, he is such a lovely sensitive, creative thing i didn't want him to turn me into a pillar of salt so i thought i'd blog about it instead.

Then today I saw ONJ in Myer!!! I was stimulating the economy and she was ostensibly promoting those wii smart brain boxes but really just seemed to be sitting down looking G O R G E O U S, being utterly charming and signing autographs. It must be extraordinary to be a blue eyed blonde with those creamy pink apple cheeks and talented.Fairy floss perfection! The current editor of the Women’s Weekly was also there and she was probably ruminating about cotton candy and such. Is Myer owned by ACP? Perhaps I need a Wii brain thingy.

This morning I spoke to a young woman whose first name is Bliss and then a young man by the name of Englebert, which is so much more dignified than Bliss. No offence Bliss.

Do you eat Baked Beans? I do and I love them. They are so delicious and satisfying.They are a complete meal.

Two celeb sightings and a small tin of baked beans and I am really happy.

Rap rap R A P P Y

This evening as I approached the final stretch of my walk home from work, among the promenading throng on the narrow paths of King Street a curiously dated vision appeared.

A male, Generation X-er garbed in a rapper ensemble including a baseball cap worn sideways (RAD) strutted past, hangin' tough as his legs, arms and hands cut loose through the air no doubt in time to the tune blaring from his ipod into the ear piece whose wire dangled about his chest.

As he caught me eye, he bellowed:

"You ain't fucken cool, man so you can stick it up your arse."

Now to what song could that lyric possibly belong...