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.