Debacle of the highest order

Oh lamentations everyone. You may have read in my last “posting”, I hear that’s what it’s called, not entry as I’ve been saying (thanks P. Edant of Coogee sur mer), that my weekend was to be spent in the Illawarra region, performing in a salute to the stars of the Hollywood musical. I had confessed to some trepidation which unfortunately was realised more completely than I could ever have possibly imagined.

Oh, it had all started so promisingly. I boarded the train from Central, resplendent in that Australian flag, which I’d doused in 4711 (couldn’t lay my hands on any Aviance, oh, match a bloody belli where were you?). My hair looked truly magnificent, freshly bleached and curled, very Shirley Temple meets Sarah Jessica Parker and Dee Snyder on a night out on the tiles. Cute yet simultaneously hot and desperate. I was as pleased as punch with myself and my aspirations.

At first, the train trip was pleasant as I munched on some nice devon and tomato sauce sandwiches, which were tasty and in keeping with my surrounds.

I always get so peckish before a show so I rummaged further in my lunchbox to retrieve an economy sized sugar dusted jam doughnut. Yum Scrum.

The train drew into Sutherland station and I bit rather wolfishly and greedily into the doughnut's sugared surface causing raspberry jam to spurt forth, spilling over my flag frock, trickling down the Union Jack and settling in a large blob just below the Southern Cross.

At that precise point the Leader of the NSW Opposition, Dr Denham, no Admiral Denham, I think is his title, he looks like a cross between Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor and Lord Nelson, capital fellow, burst through the train’s doors, accompanied by Dana Vale (a former Hollywood matinee idol, I thought male but was proven wrong), Peewee Costello (can't stage a leadership challenge to save himself), and the entire camera crew and a journo from a Channel 7 current affairs tabloid television show. They were filming a "what's wrong with the trains" segment for an election campaign.

Denham and co strode rather impressively through the carriage drawing to a halt at the spectacle that was moi.

Suddenly I was surrounded by a circle of admonition. Fingers were wagged furiously around my person and in my face, my eye still waters just thinking of the prodding it received from Peewee. A chorus of “unAustralian” as they decried my jam stained flag frock, followed by “ooooooooooh mushy multiculticulturalcurlywurlygirly” taunts as they tore at my tendrils, and much murmuring of “where are your values” (I don’t know about them but mine are meretriciously on display in JWHoward's Australia, or under the mattress if really precious) resounded throughout the carriage as they pushed and prodded causing me to sob and wail. Horrible great galoots of pollies and press.

Eventually the tumult and shouting subsided as the rabble dispersed and disembarked from the train at Waterfall station. (no sign to be seen of Terry and Julie)

I was left discombobulated and shaken.

Another fat, hot tear rolled down my grubby rouged cheeks and my finger forlornly lifted that blob of jam from the Southern Cross and placed it in my mouth.

As I disconsolately sucked the jam from my digit, I stared into space and reflected on the turn of events.

I guess it was like what my friend Brian, the autodidcact from the municipal library, would call Bad Carmen (Miranda, Duncan, Electra or rollers, not sure which), resulting from last week's jamesschadenfreude.

I mean to say, perhaps if I hadn’t been snickering about boils and butts ( ha, still makes me laugh, imagine having a butt these days when you can be boilimic) and the ignominy of the pickle in which Lee Tamohori has recently found himself, poor man, I do sincerely sympathise, none of what had just passed would have happened. Surely not in God's own.

Trying to come to terms with the consequences of my actions, i was unaware that I was on the threshold of an extraordinary journey to me.

The train chuffed out of the Sutherland Shire and meandered towards the Illawarra...........................