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...

Wee, wee, wee all the way to the infirmary

As if the daily battle against the global warming financial crises, Bikies, ATM bandits and sharks wasn't enough without the emergence of the swine 'flu pandemic!

We're doomed I say, DOOMED!

Age I do abhor thee

Oh pets and lambs, and curious species that are NSRs I have had to discard the chemist magnifying reading glasses which I’ve been sporting these past eight months, they were giving me headaches and hurting my eyes. So endowed with Kruddy money and on easter V A C A T I O N, I toddled off to the optometrist where I was diagnosed with an astigmitism (?) of the left eye, which surely would have been present since i graced the earth or perhaps not...

Oh I don't know ! (Remember rrround those vowels a la Julie Andrews/the Brothers Gibb and your diction will be perfection, yours Evie Hayes.)

Am sure i had the eyes tested when I was in Infants. Each year we had one day, generally when it was overcast and cool, where we Kindergarten to 2nd class pupils had to strip down to our singlets and underpants and queue in the playground outside a makeshift hall to see some health officials. Once you got into the hall and made it to the desk of the Health Official, he/she would check your ears and eyes, listen to your chest, and then with a ruler flick wide the elastic band of your briefs and peer down at your frontbottom and write notes on clipboards. I don't think the state's primary schools still perform that type of health check.

Anyway back to 21st century me. So yes after 45 minutes faffing about trying on a variety of eye frames I finally settled on a pair. I was going for more trad frames but the very kind optometrist indulged me and persuaded me to go for a bolder hue, purple! He said the colour would complement my crown of dark hair.

''I guess it will bring out the Liz Taylor violets" i dimpled as i once again patted my snoode, sucked in my cheeks, pucked up my moue and peered adoringly at my reflection, which screamed back in horror, natch.

No doubt the Optometrist pressed the adore button at that point and another star was added to my title of Icon, and a couple of more boozed and pilled addled spinners were pushed from the mantle, bye bye Judy, bye bye Liza. Ms Liz is of course firmly ensconced on the sign’s tippity top, albeit in a wheelchair behind which crouches a carrion crow like Joan Collins or is that Dannniii?

Tweeter Twitter Twatter

Lindsay Lohan looks a bit like a young Susannah York.

While interviewing Olivier Blanchard last week Kerry O'Brien shrieked "more bang for your buck" about 4 times. Was the autocue jammed?

Just before Easter while shopping in Coles the soundtrack to accompany my purchase of yoghurt (Jalna is my brand preferee) and three beurre boscs was My Sweet Lord. I heard the entire song, it's quite long isn't it. And do you know what the Coles' mix only featured the Hallelujah chorus and none of the Hare Krishna or Gurur Vishna and other Gurur bits.

Julie Andrews and Roger Moore could be brother and sister. They really could.

Clunks Passiona style

Hey guys, buds and special fwends do you remember (granted a challenging activity for the majority of you) a tattoo that was very popular around the mid to late 90s which depicted a ring of barbed wire and is generally placed midway around the upper arm. It was highly prized by Sydney Eastern suburbs beaches types (read wankers, no offence but), Pamela Anderson and lots of other people of that calibre.

Well i do and it's been dominating my pondering hours and i've generally concluded that it will actually be even more trag as the years pass. This morning on the bus when i espied a pedestrian sporting aforementioned tatt it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps this image was not actually meant to be barbed wire but meant to convey a goddamn crown of thorns!! OMG and more grotesque.

Windmills of my mind #2

In truth the blogosphere is just a form of public therapy, and here i should make some hilarious allusion to the fact that with therapy you get charged for the hour but only get 50 minutes with the shrink... yet no matter how hard i contrive that witticism just cannot be applied to cyberspace. Bummère (it's OK for me to talk about my mother like that but not you!)

This morning in between my chores and slipping into the 2nd b.r. to access the internet, i've converted it into a cyber chamber, thoughts about John Paul Young keep popping into my head.

I really don't know why.

First i was thinking about his comments in the 1977 or 1978 RAM Rock Readers poll.

When asked about his political allegiances/preferences he wrote "gorne fishing". I was shocked by his apathy at the time, actually i still think it is lame-o. Incidentally, the same poll featured an alleged quote from Debbie Harry stating that 'the only good thing about Australia is the smack.' I don't recall madly thumbing through the 's' section of the Oxford dictionary at that point. I would have already read several books by David Dalton, plus that delightful Going down with Janis Joplin, oh and that ridiculous Mick Jagger by J Marks book to have been well versed with synonyms for sugary breakfast cereals. 'Rock stars have such sweet tooths yet they do not pack on the pounds.', I mused as I examined my hair's split ends.

Then thoughts of Squeak led to my picturing him all squirmy and squittery and unco-ordinatedly bopping while singing "i wanna do it with you" on Countdown. Enticing or what! This then led me to think of his crimped hair and how a girl at school told me in 1978 that when she crimped her hair she looked like JPY. Why on earth would you want to look like JPY?! Well i did like his nautical ensemble when he performed on that pontoon in Sydney Harbour one Rocktober.

Every pop star has to have a go at sporting a sailor suit it's a winning look and has been favoured by bands from the Rolling Stones to Mother Goose. In fact i think Squeak's ensemble may have inspired the attire for that it's only rocknroll film clip. So not only was Ronnie Wood diddled for that song's writing credits but our very own JPY for the look!

And if you're in a band and fame has eluded you, may I suggest that you go down to your local army and navy store (a bit different from the ones that Hilda Rumpole used to frequent - they stocked nice chinaware) and purchase a sailor suit pronto! Post some pics and film clips of you and your band en nautique on Facebook and You Tube and I guarantee that your ship will come in.

Hey everybody take a look at me

Back in the day the most popular trend on the street for the people who wore t-shirts was to sport a Ramones t. One in five people did, with great smugness and a spurious feeling of street credibilite. And yes, many a time back then did i blog on about it - my humour and general slant is drawn from the powers of observation... (bully for me and everyone under the sun!)

Anyway that Ramones t-shirt trend was briefly replaced by Blondie t-shirts, alas none with the slogan “Blondie is a band not a person”, perhaps that was just confined to badges. Both have now been usurped by the style retro enfance. T-shirts with popular culture icons from one’s childhood. Marvel comics heros , tv shows, and very popular with many gels born in the late 80’s and 90’s are the t's featuring those Roger Hargreaves Little Miss characters. I have not seen any of their male counterpart wearing the Mr Men series, apart from one t that read Mr Cock but i don't recall that book, perhaps it was indexed.

I don’t need t-shirts to demonstrate my retro enfance allegiances for I have Facebook. And to have both would be just plain greedy, and, greed is bad, which also happens to be the slogan of my favourite t-shirt, written in Choose Life font, natch.

Crackers

Yesterday between the hours of 4.30 and 7 p.m. was curious to say the least.

After work I set forth to visit a friend in hospital. I left the bureau, striding down Barrack and crossing George Street. I marched down Martin Place, once named Martin Plaza (pity poor Martin ‘Mental as Anything‘ Murphy who thought it would be drole to have Martin Plaza as a nom de stage but dated himself immediately and continues to do so if he still sports that ridiculous white cowboy hat and struts along the promenade in Coogee or perhaps that was just his style for the late 90’s...)

Yes, so I was walking at a cracking pace down the Place and up, past the Cenotaph, the wacky, zany nozin’ about charity spruikers, and lots of middle-aged ladies sportin' floral sunfrocks with vavava-voom necklines. I crossed Pitt to continue my ascent when this stranger stopped in front of me and uttered the most ridiculously effusive compliments, warranted but nevertheless ott (oh welcome back 'ott'. Did you run away with 'trendy'?). Admittedly I was a somewhat dignified contrast to all that cleavage and red raw decoll – yep I was sportin’ a stripey neck to knees, a pink tutu and a giant green St Patrick's day hat. A noughties nod to the band Mother Goose. I thanked him and said he was most kind and attempted to continue the march.

He grabbed my hand , squeezed and caressed it, imploring me to meet him for a cup of coffee some time. I eventually unwrangled my hand from his grasp, looked around for Candid Cameras (kind of like “Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d”, kidz), and bade him farewell. He then said I was a very negative (?!!) and untrusting person and with that the Impulse sans fleurs moment ended and I continued my way.

I finally got to the bus, a trifle puzzled but 'negativity' well intact, and reached Randwick Junction. As I approached the hospital I bumped into someone I had thought of the week before who I hadn’t seen for 12 years. Ain’t that a cowinkydink!! Alas it was not New York City Funk - the Sydney identity of the 90’s. Not a day passes without my thoughts turning to him. Haiku mo: New York City Funk where have you gone? Did you finally make it to the Big Apple? Or just turn into Matthew Hall?

After I’d made my lavender lady visit, during which I’d had my arm stroked continually by another visitor who stood beside me - so much tactility that afternoon I must have entered a Prozac zone for I was clearly no longer too hot to touch, I embarked on the tedious journey back to the inner west.

I walked through the delightful grime and humidity of Central's underground from Eddy Avenue to Devonshire Street tunnel, scanning the lists of names on the war memorial plaques in their handsome wooden cases along the tunnel's walls then turning my gaze to the big advertisements in one of which I espied the father of one of my brothers-in-law! There he was plastered on the wall promoting a telecommunications company and playing a suitor to Carol Raye! And no, he is not Barry Creyton.

It's a living thing!!

Don’t worry the mistress has not gone all pro-life on you and about to bleat that "Johnny would have been 12 today if his mother had not had an abortion." A quote from a pro-life campaign pamphlet placed in the faaaaaaaaamily’s letterbox circa 1974.

In fact I am exclaiming about language, the English language, you know that feisty, unwieldy, capricious, vagabond temptress of a tongue.

“Oh lady behave!” I cried to the telly the other evening while watching the ads in between Two and a Half Men. (Yeah, I disgust you because yes, I do enjoy that show. Hey, I’m thrilled to see all my Brat pack mates together again; Jon “Duckie” Cryer so gainfully employed and Charlie Sheen is like a total male feminist these days).

The commotion was caused by the promotion of a new dessert offered by one of those fast food chains that sells every possible ingredient on a soggy crusted pizza (commonly known as the got problems with me glands lovers special).

Said dessert/pudding/sweets/afters was called a ‘chocolate lava cake’ but it plainly looked like a self-saucing pudding to me. Is the term self-saucing pudding now over, passé, obsolete, dare i say, extinct in the culinary kingdom? Now only to be used to describe neo-cusser Pastor Krudd or other self-satisfied toads who one has the misfortune to endure in one’s quotidian.

D e v A s t a t e d.

Doppleganger Goddamn!!

Over the weekend in between beetling about the great Sydney metropolis, from the battlers’ west to the meretricious east, from the haughty north to the “I’m not a raShirelist” south, I was clearly in generalisation mode and also pondering people (yes, I can multi-task of which I am most proud), dead people. Dead and interesting people. Dead, interesting and famous people. So many thoughts, so many qualities all triggered by one email, an invitation to join the Ronald Colman Appreciation Society on the worldwide pencil case that is Facebook.

I duly joined the club for I like the sap, and firmly believe that everybody needs a club. Furthermore Colman did inspire the Odie Cologne and Maxwell Smart’s Prince characters, not to mention his sterling interpretation of Sydney Carton and that cove in Random Harvest, and then of course there is the Ronald Coleman Lodge Nursing Home near Bondi Jungle…oh that's coleman with an 'e'

Anyway would you please just let me attempt to assert the point of this Bill Collins-like ramble, mmm, I’m a bit thirsty, water or juice?, yes, well the point is:

(TA-DAH) thoughts of Ronald Colman led me to think about George Sanders and how he married Ronald Colman’s lady within weeks of her being known as widda Colman. So I wikied George Sanders and really didn’t glean much more about him and widda Colman; you all know about George and the Gabor sisters, his battle with the booze and that suicide note. However, I did happen on information about George’s brother Tom Conway, who was also an actor who lived his life through the bottom of a booze bottle. Are we not all a little bit thespian?

But look at this!!! Just LOOK I say.

George Sanders

Tom Conway

It’s a resemblance of Samantha Stevens and cousin Serena proportions, except they were meant to be cousins but even spookier two different actresses played them, Elizabeth Montgomery and Pandora Spocks!! Farout brussel sprout. Please don’t raise the similarities between Patty Lane and her cousin Cathy in the Patty Duke show (also produced by Bewitched’s William Asher) for I am like totally discombobulated now as I type.

So now I must go and search for my doppelganger, I feel so a-lone. I suspect it was the character Archangel in that asylum scene from the Nun’s Story…While I do that you should read this excellent article , always infinitely much pleasanter than those rude'uns.

Goodbye.

The Mistress and the rum realtors

The other evening as I fed the week’s dainties and morsels to the block’s garbage and recycling bins I was distracted from my act of benevolence by a very loud “Psssst”. I turned to see a man emerge from the shadows near the bins with an “excuse me" and "I’m sorry to startle you."

Well, how about not lurking in shadows and trespassing after dark, fella, not to mention saying "pssst", I thought , but instead said ,“oh that’s alright” and "How may I help you?" while taking several steps back. The last time this happens I’ll probably offer to sharpen the knife.

Having broken the ice, the fellow proceeded to grill me about the block of flats, asking how well they had been renovated, details about the fixtures and fittings, and whether the residents were happy with the quality of the renovations. Yes, I was still there in the shadows by the bins, intrigued by the ludicrous situation, I think it was the “pssst” that had reeled me in, but still somewhat cagey.

I answered his questions with questions and learnt that his father had apparently once owned the block and believed that he’d been diddled in the sale of the block to the developers. The sum he’d got sounded perfectly good to me (loads of lolly not to mention humbug all round) and as for the hard luck story, the previous owner was a slum landlord.

The tale continued for a while, how his grand pappy had laid the building’s bricks, etc. and that the dispute could go to court. I lost interest, my frontal lobe struck a gavel against its remains declaring both parties as bad as each other ("business is business, Gran(pa)" ). I then heard myself utter "oh, for fuck's sake" to something that realtor-in-the-dark said. This shocked him, granted swearing is a lot more offensive than lurking in the shadows and pouncing on people.

Conversation brought to a close he scrawled his number on a scrap of paper and asked me to contact him should I be prepared to provide further information. I have not. Property being theft and whatnot.

Flights of fancy

Last night I dreamt that Prince Phillip had died and I was in trouble because I didn’t tell the Queen but apart from that I am quite well in the conscious world, despite the ever present Sydney spectres of sharks, ATM bandits, bikie wars and acronyms.

Today marks the six month anniversary of a special bond that has developed between me and the Avian Kingdom.

I recently bade farewell to the Channel-Billed Cuckoo, a visitor from Indonesia and/or Papua New Guinea between September and February. This cuckoo’s dignified and handsome appearance belies a god awful (no, that is unfair, nothing could be that awful) cry that is uttered at dawn and dusk. Its cry is the combination of a wail and a shriek.

With the cuckoo’s departure my fascination/irritation has been transferred to the plague of Umbrella Cockatoos who have beset Victoria Park. There must be a couple of hundred of them flying about in the evenings when I walk through. They are really rather cracked and full of energy with a hideous plaintive cry and they have so much fun. They fly in packs and then hoards of them congregate on the branches of gum trees and some quite small trees. They hoe into the leaves and nuts causing the small trees’ branches to bounce. The trees look as though they will topple under the weight of so many birds. Imagine the trees’ bitching afterwards. It’s a ludicrous sight, the birds are so out of proportion to the tree, it’s like a medieval painting.

Generally the birds fly, squawk and defecate across the park and pool oblivious to the pedestrians and swimmers. However last week as I crossed the park the wind’s direction changed and it spun out the cockies, who decided to leave their trees and head towards more sheltered terrain. However the wind and their panic disoriented them and they flew low and entered the human domain. I had to raise my umbrella to defend myself as they swooped askew. Their swooping intensified and it seemed that battle had begun so I ran, squawking with terror and delight to the end of the park and the sanctuary of City Road.

Next week: my encounter with Gang-Gangs.

News stew

Look, promise not channelling Malcolm Fraser, I know that there are a lot more pressing and devastating issues but i have to table the following vatuous and facuous items, oh perhaps i yam.

Charlotte Glennie - The gel's news reports are fahne in content but glory the gel's voice; is she the love child of Lexie Downer and Christopher Pahne!?! Enunciation is important, and it's important to pronunciate clearly (to quote Tina Arena as Idol 2008 Special Guest Judge) but i cannot go for those fancy alleged refahned dipthongs, fricking no can do. Daryl Hall looks so old these days, oh don't we all. Bonjour Tristesse. Anyway i wikied the gel (Glennie not Sagan) and she is not from Addles but NZ probably Auckland and an award winning journalist (no Logie equvivalent but something akin to the Walkleys, still better than nothing i guess...) She needs to flatten her vowels though, it's all too terrribly finishing school and 1950's. I do love a clipped consonant though , love a sharp t. Baby!

Sydney Morning Herald - LOATHE the majority of its 'reportage' which is worse than the Mercury cos (ooh so 70's rock journo) at least that rag doesn't have any hairs and graces about being a quality broadsheet. ooh i would not mind some quality street chocolates, been a while, i loved those toffee squares with the red and cream crest wrapping - Chew-wee! And of course no better than the Daily Telegraph. Sensationarama. Before the terrible bushfires happened in Victoria, the Herald appeared to be miffed about missing out on the heatwaves in SA and Vic. So just before that tragic, awful and horrendous weekend, it had all these outrageous predictions about what could happen in Sydney over the weekend as it could hit 42 in Penrith. Train lines could buckle, seniors could die (call me cynical but think there's high chance irrespective of extreme temperatures) and there'd be massive bushfires akin to the Sydney 1994 ones. Outrageous and lame-O. It took the online smh service ages to cover the actual horror in Victoria. It was a disgrace. I really do think the paper was peeved. Since the horrific fires the paper has continued the sensationalism about possible nightmare situation in NSW. Grotesque.

Kerry O'Brien - No complaints, love and adore, but i often ponder your ears. They are so big, so long. How old are you? And do you use some kind of Clairol rinse to freshen your hair's color. ( i said Clairol so i think i should use US spelling and i rather like that spelling. Props to meeeeeeee.)

Juanita Phillips not Mick and Papa John's love child or a track from Black and Blue but the ABC 1 newsreader, Monday-Friday. Lady, what's your game? You do all that fancy pronunciation, and then it slips and you start saying coast in the most cosiest of fashions, cohhhst.. And you become quite the coquette with the weatherman. Thanks, Graham - INDEED. Settle pet, and Wake Up, Patti.

Alan Kohler - The Warwick Hadfield of Finance reporting on ABC 1 News. Ugh. SMUG. Bring back Phillip Lasker.

And i won't even go on about the Peter Wilkinson and his sports presentation. Utterly Kath Day-Knight but without the biting yumour.

Yep over and opinionated out. Gotta dash. Got tap class.

I am curious marshmallow

On Saturday evening I caught the ferry to the Quay. The atmosphere was magical on the harbour and the water looked black, sparkly and kind of gelatinous. I had an overwhelming urge to throw myself from the deck into the harbour and see what would happen. I wondered if i could swim to Fort Denison without incurring harm. Fortunately common sense prevailed. Several days later a shark attacked a diver in the harbour.

It wasn’t me, Miss

Glory the lifts at work have pretty much become more contentious than the old dunoir.

The foyeh and her lifts currently reek of old sweat, opposed to that lovely new sweet smelling sweat, well you know what I mean - it’s stale, it’s pungent, it’s totally present and overpowering (no, that is not my cyberspace profile!).

I just enjoyed a spell in that den of malodour. My solo passage from the 7th floor to the ground was broken by the arrival of another passenger. She sniffed the air and then looked askance at me, or perhaps she caught her reflection in the lift's mirror. I swear that the only scent wafting from me is l’air du temps, perhaps with just a soupcon of vinegar. I didn’t pong out the lifts. Oh get. I didn’t. And with that I

Silver Screen memories

I have been to the cinema three times this week!! That is what it's like being an adult you can have bulk school holiday treats without going to school, except you have to work so you can pay (ohwuh).

Oh well, all three films were really good. I reckon Frost and Nixon was the best. Frank Langella was brilliant. He should win the Oscar but I guess Jelena Dokic will. Michael Sheen as Frost was good but at times he seemed like a caricature crossed with a successful Alan Partridge meets Austin Powers - or perhaps that's how Frosty is/was. I would have thought DF was too smarmy, shrewd and ambitious to be that much of a smirking twit. Still i suspect that the last time i thought about David Frost I was nine years old and it was his voice that struck me - yes i've been attemptin' to talk like him ever since ; unfortunately i sound more like Robin Leach. Catastrophe.

You should see the movie on the silver screen rather than the plasma.

Anyway i have to go now and buy some Olympic stripe exercise books as la grand rentree approaches.

MIckey Rourke Meltdown

Well, no, of course not! Can't claim to have tasted major success or hit rockbottom (well, it's all relative, sugar) but it's just that it has been sooooo hot for the past 5 days that every day i feel like a little bit of myself has melted and gone further askew.

41 today in the blinking harbour city.

Mental. Indeed i was.

What was i to do to combat this infernal heat? The boxfan was providing no relief. The swimming didn't really help - the sun's light was still bald, its heat still blistering. And i couldn't send myself off to the cinema two days in a row - too extravagant and totaly unGFC. So i took myself down to Circular Quay to take a round trip on the ferry throughout the inner harbour. A brainwave that had also occurred to a group of twenty Seniors. My first and last matooer thought.

Oh mate. Those seniors were going off. Big time. They weren't wearing red hats but lord ... If they didn't come and sit right next to you, practically atop your lap, they were dancing about comparing scars from open heart and knee replacement surgery, jigging up and down to demonstrate how one leg was shorter than the other. Knees up mother Brown (as interpreted by Herman's Hermits).

Keyed up at the Quay and oh so soigne!

Yes, it was hot, heat happens, man, and yes, it was sticky but lllady do not roll down your singlet just below your breastline and expose your turquoise bra to all , even if it does match your bobbysocks and you are carrying a handbag that features a photo of Audrey Hepburn. No, you cannot, must not and will not. It is completely against the law.

Bumps and eye bruises

One's return flight to Sydney was rife with turbulance, veiled nervy b's and a skitterish bumpy landing that provoked an expletive to be exclaimed and embarrassment to ensue.

However the most curious spectacle occurred on land in the transit lounge prior to embarkation. "Take a chance on me'' was playing in the background while i read a book. Despite my managing to block out the sound my focus was broken by some jiggling movement in front of me.

I raised my head and directly before me was a pair of buttocks, covered in a linen cotton blend - should have been gabardine, being flexed and crunched in time to the music, while its owner tapped her fingers against the airline's counter. Most remarkable was that the flexing of buttocks was alternated, the left would jut backwards while the right remained still then righty's turn to flex while etc., which i guess further defines alternate...

A fascinatingly gruesome dance. Possibly a tribute to Agnetha, who was once deemed to have the world's sexiest bottom , well Agnetha as interpreted by Kath Day-Knight.

Carry on at your convenience

Apparently toilet cisterns no longer feature ball cocks. Well that's what the plumber just told me. Being of an unquesting but whimsical mind i didn't enquire what had replaced them but chose to wonder why that carry on film about a toilet factory didn't make many jokes about ball cocks. Life is full of wasted opportunities but not in 2009.

VIPs

Well hello dollies.

D'you know what? i have been gadding about so much that i cannot help but feel a bit like a liz taylor jetsetting character in an airport movie - sporting a divine snow white swing coat with fur trimmed hood all the while hamming it up and trilling a few goddamnits to a stella cast of silver screen has-beens (no offence, good friends, but your halcyon days have passed, whereas mine, why i've just rejoined facebook so my life has taken a whole new flavour - desperation).

The roadshow began on 22 December:Hobart, Sydney, Mt Victoria, Bathurst, Blayney and Milthorpe. Celebratin' messiahs' birthdays, boxing day sales, new years, 18ths and the GFC. Then last Tuesday i set forth for good time centrale, melbournia ...(dear popular culture illiterate in this instance "... " signifies the commencement of romper room psychedelia swirls within empty stringless raquet face).

I was flying Jetstar International from Syd to Mel Bourne's Tullamarine. It was a cheap ticket and at the time of making the reservation my inner constable care cautioned that there would be a price to pay for not paying ; i thought that my luggage would be sent to Dengpasar or Deniliquin. Tuh huh. Never in my wildest dreams did i expect to: see Paris Hilton and her nbff; get trapped in a landed plane because the tallowbridge was broke; and endure an aeroplane voyage from syd to mel that would last 5 goddamn hours.

However, it is all true and yes, it happened to me, and if you're lucky, pumpkin, it will be something you'll only hear about! For further details facebook me.

Charlie Girl

Happy newie, nsrs.

Oh what a whirl the old bel gel has dervished since she began her V A C A T I O N in the summer sun. A veritable roadshow, sans buckets of rose petals and cherry pickers but plenty of good times, natch. Am currently touring rural and regional Victoria and just across her stateline, where the heat is dry and delicious and my Marie Antoinette tapestry fan indispensible.

I have to get back on the road NOW but will fill you in from the very beginning soon.

Sssanctimonia

Oh yes, Sydney, the hustle, the bustle, the diabolical pluravit multivitaminess of its busy, busy world-class-sur-penury buzz and bile. How can one survive it all? By keeping schtum and observing. For the mistress not only creates her own language but, like the late Arkie Whitely, is a self-proclaimed people person – can watch 'em all day every day in a most non-judgemental but amused fashion, natch. Oh, am always lurking in the background, me.

Lawks what curious things these glauque pools have witnessed the past few days.

8.00 a.m. Monday in the foyeh of the bureau. Two of the lifts were sick and quite a crowd had gathered, one couldn’t ascend via the fire stairs until after 8.30.

After some time, crowd increasing at a furious simulated time lapse rate, a lift arrived. As I was first in the queue I boarded the old elevator along with quite a few young guns from the financial sectors. Then a man with an enormous box of fruit (not a euphemism) entered causing one young gun to comment how tight it was in the lift. To which another young gun who had entered just after fruit man replied “Yeahm well FUCK YOU! You’re alright jumping the queue and getting a space in the lift, you stupid fuck”. Young Gun 1 retorted with “FUCK OFF, you fuck”. I didn’t know where to look so surveyed that fruit box (and let me tell you there was not much variety, loads of bananas and a few large spotted red apples, which were no doubt floury). I’d just finished wincing in disgust when Young Gun 2 shouted “No, YOU FUCK OFF!!" and alighted at level 2.

Lift Rage.

Not only do I blame the parents but a little bit of the Ida Jessup/Mrs Mangle in me cannot help but attribute it to the Sopranos - Young Guns 1 and 2 were no doubt spawned by Pauly Walnuts and the delightful Janice Soprano. Now before I die please somebody make sure i get a stonesy tongue tattooed on my bosom - hottt and chic!

On the bus this morning I was standing next to this woman who prickled with efficiency and bossiness. What a powerful VIBE she had.I don’t know whether it was the curious black satin epaulets of bows that adorned her sundress, her barking at everyone to move down the aisle or her appraising me from head to toe – I don’t think my appearance pleased her. Hanyways, a seat became vacant, and the mistress was closest, so V I C T O R Y. However, it was short lived for I shifted uncomfortably imagining Sgt Major looking down on my crown wincing at the grey regrowth, I like to think of it as silver tinsel – so festive and fey, valiantly resisting an urge to pluck the hairs out. I protectively placed hand to head to smooth the fuzz that is my hair all the while noticing that the label of the shirt of the woman seated in front of me was poking out. It said she was "medium". Hmm, funny I thought, I would have classed her as "small" – oh what my eyes do not see, nsrs, what my eyes do not see.

The place next to label lady became free and Sgt Major took her place with great alacrity and force. As she parked her arse on the seat, she reached over and firmly tucked the label lady’s exposed label into her shirt!!!

She did not know la belle in question. Bold as brass is that Sgt Major and her proprietorial paws. She probably lifts adorable looking toddlers, who she does not know from Adam, from strollers and plants sloppy wet kisses on the poor lambs' cheeks. The height of impertinence in Snooter Pooter's handbook.

Bluster burst petering out...

Mrs D Hayden to the counter, please

I breezily waltzed out the Dymocks’ stationery store, holding a Dymocks' plastic bag in one hand and gazing with pleasure at some birthday cards in the other. Admiration turning into castigation upon realisation that i'd acquired yet another plastic bag when

Clunk, clunk, clunk

That plastic bag accompanied the book I had earlier purchased in the main section and in fact the cards were sans bag because I had actually not bought them, I’d lifted them!!!

Thus explaining why in-the-Winona-Ryder the Dymocks’ security alarms were ringing.

O M G

I quickly spun around and raced back into the shop, not quite shouting “oh, it’s me! Sorry, turn off the alarms" but if anyone had looked at me they would have read that thought, and if not at least paused to admire the handsome moustache that I’ve grown for the month – it’s faintly ginger and narrow with its ends waxed and twisted upwards, and no doubt not dissimilar from Cold Mountain’s ....I have heard that she was taunted with Ranga at school; wonder if that was alternated with Fanta Pants?

Oh enough of the japes from the old schoolyard. Don’t say vjayjay or I will have to stuff a handkerchief in my mouth to prevent my collapsing into giggles... (ugh what a solution, so Blytonian and unhygienic; St Clare's was the first school to have an outbreak of meningiccocal, not many people know that!!)

So yeah where was I?

Oh, yes, back at the counter paying for the birthday cards. I confessed to the staff that I had walked out without paying and set off the sirens. All they did was smile, with me, of course.

Baby J Day Payola

Hello nsrs, was the above matter a hot topic last week or the week before? I’ve been too preoccupied with myself and wondering about my kids. Lord love'em.

I've been pondering all the big questions that greatly concern us parents about our kiddies. You know, which language to teach them next? How are they? Where are they? What gender and colour are they? Do I in fact have any? Which I’ve heard also happens to be the same thought pattern for many of your celeb moms most mornings upon waking. So you know I’m really blessed and up there with the best.

As a frazzled and fictitious parent could you please indulge and permit me to post the next ground-breaking thought, even if it is coming to you live but delayed via satellite. And, yes, I am aware that there’s some service called “twitter” for that type of caper but no, I am not interested. Frankly, there’s only so much of the superficial information highway I can take on. So, without further ado and a hearty clunk, clunk, clunk…

BABY J DAY PAYOLA

What’s wrong with a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress, a couple of pieces of fruit, some nuts and perhaps a candy cane stuffed in a lovely Hessian stocking or pillowslip as a nice Christmas present? (dangling from mantle shelf optional) In my day..., you see, I, too, was once somebody’s child.

Actually I still am!!

Imagine all those Lions Club Xmas cakes and Big Sister plasma plum puds (wonder if possible to make some of them self-saucing) that Marmee will be able to buy me now. Hope she gets some of those Darrelleacious sugared peanuts. Yum scrum! Chocolate money! Oooh somebody's getting peckish. Oh, and an Allen’s stocking too please, Kruddy. And anything you've got in aspic will be much appreciated.

Greed is back

Announced the newspaper headline accompanied by a picture of Michael Douglas, in character, mind. The sight of such nonsense on the newspaper stand caused my dawdling to the bus stop to be enlivened with a head shake, neck rick and eye twitch. Oh Kruddy. Oh Fairfux. Oh Gordon Gekko. Oh originality! Where has she gone? (channelling Helen Reddy but who is she channelling - note to budding blog bores being obscure means never having to be genuinely funny).

“Nevertheless, greed is really bad. Fortunately there’s never ever been anyone as greedy as Gordon Gekko on the stockmarket or anywhere else in real life ", the inner child reassured the on-the-outer adult, and together we heaved ourselves onto the bus and inserted my yearly pass into the green ticket machine.

The green machine did not return my ticket, with one slurp it had denied my right to board any bus, ferry or train in zones 1 and 2.

"Greed IS back!" I cried and asked the driver of bus no 3813 to assist me.

Bus driver couldn’t retrieve the ticket, despite some expert jabbing with a straightened bobby pin. He instructed me to sit down and give my contact details when disembarking so he could forward the ticket to me. I thanked him and obediently moved to the back and found a seat.

Bus continued its path and I wrote out my details on a few spare yellow post-its that I found in my purse. Every now and then the bus would stop at the lights and driver would stop and start the bus to get the machine to regurgitate the pass. The process proved to be successful and i was called to the front of the bus. I weaved my way to the green ticket machine only to be told by another passenger, stood by the machine, that “it came up for a bit but then it went down again.” Curiously it did not strike her to take it out, what a slow-witted blob.

Driver then told me I had to stand by the machine as the ticket could pop out any minute, like Michael Douglas’s penis I guess. Pop goes the weasel... So I spent most of the trip waiting to play grab, eeewe...

By the time we got to Town Hall it’d been decided that the ticket would have to be removed at the depot. I sat down and began deleting messages from my mobe, its memory was full, so I could phone work . The bus passed Wynyard when the machine started “barfing” and up popped my ticket. I leapt from my seat and slid down the aisle yelping “oh shit”. Charm and athleticism had become one. I reached the machine in time to snatch the ticket.

A stupendous victory.

Don't worry it's OK

Theresa Rein, the ever-turning-Bull, Baz, Rusty, Cold Mountain and Cmug Blanchett are gonna bail-out Aussie.

"Aussie's gonna be A L R I G H T (and that's what counts.)"

A single of celebration, titled as above, will be released at Xmas. Smith, Julia and Lindsay sing opening verse, followed by Albo, Penny and Nicola,with a bipartisan chorus featuring Kruddy, Swan, Plibersek, Brown, E-T-Bull, Pine, Xenophon and Bish. Yartz types singing back-up as the Tough Week Choir; Choirmaster: P. Garrett. 30 Foot of Grunt insist on being back-up band. S T O P

Proceeds from sale will go to Iceland and NSW STOP

Terror in the dunoir

Happy Rocktober, happy Gothstock, happy labour day long weekend and, best of all, happy three days away from the office communal toilets.

It's really only this year that the social activity, general chit chat and carping in the workplace latrine has become a ridiculous but major source of vexation and fatigue. Just thinking of it now causes tetchiness to prickle my blood and a moue of distaste upon my face, Generation Jones members can picture Dr Zachary Smith being forced to do some work on the chariot or lift a spade for HD visualisation of facial expression, but a-bog-blogging I must go.

You’re at the basin and someone enters the bathroom. Instead of a nod of acknowledgement, toiley timer transforms into have-a-chat, consumed with a desire to converse, and proceeds to continue prattling after entering the cubicle, sitting (i assume) on the honka and attending to other matters. Multi-tasker extraordinaire but please not in the dunoir.

Unfortunately there is no hand drying machine to thump and drown out the whole sorry business. I scoot out, with a clearing of throat and an awkward “I’m going, bye…” . It is worse when you scuttle into the bathroom and chatters is at the basin and continues to natter when you become otherwise engaged. It’s all so ter-rrribly inhibiting, and somehow unhygienic...

Yeah, I’m uptight. Yes, I am an embarrassment of a prude but as Marcia Hines would say "you know who you are; you are what you are. I give you props." Right on. Platitudes are indeed a tremendous source of comfort but a line must be drawn somewhere.

Last week I was in my favourite cubicle, the one at the end of the row, when I heard someone arrive and enter another (mercifully). I became tense, “must … get … , out … before other user does...” but in my haste fell off the seat and twisted my left buttock and hammy. As I attempted to get up from the floor I heard a mobile phone ring. It rang repeatedly. The person in the other cubicle muttered grumblings, annoyed that the mobile was ringing in the bathroom, she was annoyed?!, finally answering with an aggrieved “I’m on the toilet” – clearly the new "I'm on the bus/train."

Oh live and breathe, nsrs, as I live and breathe.

Then on Friday a curious thing happened. Confined to my cubicle, I heard one user enter as another departed. There was no chatter. No-one else entered. As I heard the last person leave and shut the door, the lights were switched off, punishment for previous hostill monosyllabic behaviour?

I was surrounded in an eerie darkness and silence. Overwhelmed with terror the imagination spun out, conjuring a Bruno Anthony like-villain, who whistled a hauntingly menacing tune while sliding his hands into a handsome pair of leather gloves, snapping the elastic at the wrists, in preparation for a nice bit of strangulation bathroom-style, or worse, head down dunny flushing, as he approached my cubicle. My mind's eye saw him kicking open the cubicle door when I heard a real person come into the bathroom, “Hello...? Please...Turn on the lights .", I whimpered. I don’t know whether she voted Liberal or was Renee Geyer (Tim Freedman lyric or 1975 Aust fed election campaign joke-ish – it’s lame and it's your choice) but she obliged.

Despite this punishment, I'm still on the side of Aesop, who once observed, “ we don’t piss down the telephone so please don’t talk on the toilet.” Sagacious dude, which is also the name of the fifth ninja turtle.

The Head Boy

So hard up

In poppa’s rented flat

Battlin' on

In Sydney Grammar crested flannel


Chompin' happy snax and fruit tingles

Enormous head nutting out future Singo jingles

All while swotting over prep and the Fin Review

Man of many metiers from Struggle St Vaucluse


So a-lone

In poppa’s rented flat

Vaunting ambition

Volcanic in Sydney Grammar flannel

SCOOP

Forget snake, leopard and cow skin prints you vacuous fashionistas, foxy baristas and twisted, scissory, Shakespeare's sisters for giraffe skin print is it and totally in the NOW.

It’s true.

There must be a fever in the fashion houses like you would not believe. Well it has impressed me.

At lunch time I passed a woman wearing a magnificent giraffe print ensemble. Curiously she was also petite, about 5”3 in high heels. Inspired by such boldness, or was it 'tude?, I stooped down to cup her chin with my enormous gloved hand and cooed “we can all have our dreams, can’t we, sweetness."

Schlemiel Schemozzel NSW Incorporated

And, sweetheart, we sure as hell are doing it our way. The disarray of the NSW Government has penetrated my sub-conscious (won’t bore you about the dreams at this point) and worse, spilled over to ecclesiastical administration.

The other night en route to the Tupper Parish Hall to deposit some of my treasures, on loan to Rev Philpott for his spring gala fete, which he insists on calling the Vesta Festa Primavera Situazione (Dante Alighieri classes for seniors Tuesday nights alert), I experienced a most unsettling awakening. As I veered left at the Rectory, my stride, general sense of self-importance, abundant community spirit and gaze were arrested by this:

"Tony Martin IS Reverend Bob!", I cried, dropping clipboard and upturning granny smith cardboard box causing the enormous pastel coloured ribbons to float on the breeze (soiling and entangling themselves with plastic bags that were having Alan Ball moments - oh the profondite!) as the K-Tel merry month of Maypole parts clanged to the ground.

Oh the disarray.

In truth, had the Rev behind this caper been Motorcycle Bob there would have been some allusion to Rocktober not this verily, verily wickede Gothickeria.

Rev Philpott has not gone doo-lally but his career has gone belly-up.

In fact, last weekend Tupper Parish Council was stormed! The Bishop booted out the Rector, leaf blowers, fluoro vests, grey power, Collins pocket Italian dictionary et al.

New Rev is commencing celebrations for Gothstock, which has usurped the Rocktober labour day long weekend. So no spring fete, maypole dancing or mud baths an' topless dames atop their men's shoulders; shame.

THE MOST

and I do not mean Donny Fanta Pants.

Hooray!

Another instalment in this magnificent series.

Actoring master class with Stefan Dennis

Yesterday afternoon I attended a get-to-know-you session with the Master and his ensemble before commencing on ten master class sessions.

It generally went well. I cruised (no, i do not mean hamming it up and continuously pulling a "disarmingly sexy grin") through the vocal exercises, improv and did a magnificent tree - a dying Murray river red gum. Stefan's insistence that we sport black leggings and black skivvies in 30 degree heat had initially annoyed me but do you know what, i think it may have facilitated what Stefan called emotional recall or perhaps it was my being-in-the moment. No matter i am sure i'll eventually get a grip on the techniques, well their names at least.

I do believe that there is indeed a method to the Master...

Hand across your stateline

The NSW Government has usurped the NRL in the scandale stakes.

As Blogger.com is my witness i am not voting for Labour in NSW while Tripodi and Obeid remain. Dirty filthy alp right machine number-crunching self-serving powerbroking toads.

From last weekend's Sun Herald Junior

When you're seeing double

That's a sign of vision trouble

You need glasses

When you can't read stuff on a jar

or road signs while driving a car

You need glasses

When you close one eye as you text

get headaches and long for Bex

You need glasses

No matter what your old man or lady say

It's come to the day

to get glasses

I, too, cried the day Queen Victoria died

I wonder if the helicopter that Damian Hirst sent to fly Ronnie Wood from Ireland to rehab in England was platinum and diamond encrusted.

I wonder what R. Hughes thinks of Ronnie's art...

I wonder why i have Rubber Bullets and not Art for Art's Sake on my brain.

NSW – The Parlous State #2000

Maaaaaaaate. Premier Iemma has been dumped and replaced by Nathan Rees. Rees was once Milton young boys and mary-jane are my weakness Uh-Oh Orkopolous's Chief of Staff.

Lordamumsamercy me. What will Hetty Johnson make of it!

Nathan Rees reminds me a bit of a Thomas Haden Church as 70's Parramatta Eel player with a sprinkling of the Kyle Sandilands – fine for a judge on Idol ...

What is particularly satisfying about the new regime is that all those vile Channel 9 toadies who were hired to boost Iemma's media profile will be gone, gorne, I tell you, G O R N E .

However my jameschadenfreude has been shortlived. New Premier is YOUNGER than me.

This no doubt explains why I always hang out for Stateline of a Friday night and the Insiders first thing Sunday morning.

Tonight's Stateline is going to be TOPS!

It’s official* I am a middle-aged poop. It won't be long till i quit my job to spend more time with the faaaaaaaaaaaaamily. I don't know whose family but if you've got a spouse and a set of kiddies you'd better watch out for Mistress Bel will be coming to a hard working Australian family's hoame soon. Beaut.


*Dear NSR, i know it's rather queer that i should genuinely use such an expression when i am so amused by more bang for your buck, heads up, so and not plus adjective/present continuous, at the end of the day, whatever, no brainer and then some, aux armes etc. Just put it down to my being a mysterious and complicated cove, a puzzle like the meaning of life. Have a good weekend and ponder on!

Feeling poopy

Not in a white polo neck sportin' Roger Moore/Jimmy Hannon fashion or the comfortin hot milk drink before sleepy bo-bo's ilk.

My zing has gone.

I think i need a nice sausage roll with quite a bit of tomato sauce.

scooters, vacation, fall

No i'm not talking about that crazy summer holiday past where i merrily vespa-ed along the narrow Amalfi Coast roads with Rock and Gina and Gore and Howard until i fell off the scooter and realised that the joke was on me. References to 60's Bee Gees are so hip these days if only that'd been the case in 75. O one's woe is practically Janisian. Nevertheless that summer in the early 60's was marvellous and i promise to share it with you another day.

Ectually the post's title features words that are blogger.com's suggested labels for this post but i thought i'd go one better and make it a heading. Do you like that Blogsy? Does that make you happy? Approbation PLEASE.

I really don't want to share much more or moan, so it's a toodes dudes, which is what all the olds say to the young these days, to you, and telly time for me. Ta Ta.

A Blyt on the landscape

It certainly looks like my magic faraway tree has snippety-snoo land on its tippety top this week. I'm constantly being sprayed with vinegar by administrative types across the ceebeedee. I am in soupe centrale. The rude articles need their gall bladders checked as they're clearly producing too much bile.

Things that matter - the Final

I guess I’ll have to stop using that heading now that Little Lexie’s left and gorne abroad. So sad. At least I’ve got the LNP to buoy my spirits. Now that is one progressive move for those conservatives, and possibly a boon for the descendant of Captain Bligh.

Anyway I don’t really need the LNP to buoy my spirits as I’ve been feeling rather chipper this past week, despite the return to work, i guess it's because of the recent visit by that Pope Star.

If only Pope were still JP2 as I could have given him the witty title of His Polishness or His Squeakiness. I have to say I was rather fascinated by Benedetto's red shoes,il papa and SJBarker - unfathomable phenomenons who are crazy about shoes, and the religious fervour - happy and mad as all-get-out are those pilgrims. The sight of those young gels jumping up and down on the steps of the Cathedral, where that medieval Cardinal plots and proselytises, chanting “Benedetto, Benedetto” “Where is the Pope? Where is the Pope? We want him now” was bamboozling. It also led to fond thoughts of Mickey J at 33 and then as Stella Street shopkeeper ordering supplies of Lemsip. Unfortunately there was no slowmo waving of banners or Mick at 33 leering and astride an inflatable cock. oh where have those good times gone! Mickey...

Autumn/Winter collection for the Holy See.

Toussaints

Baby J Day

Epiphany

Word on the street

I was stretching my limbs down the main drag yesterday afternoon, en route to the hardware, when a poster on a telegraph pole shouted, "SHAM 69 Fri Gaelic Club", and before I could groan, "Gordon" , the next telegraph pole's poster snickered and boomed, "DEVO Aug Hordern Pav". I really don't know which would be worse - i'm talking about the bands not the venues. What do you think, Dot?

It's after your time, Ena, but feel free to opine. Hmmm " they're no better than they ought be..." per chance?

You've got to work hard for the fun ones

well that's what Jerry Hall said. I have always found that quote amusing but cannot for the life of me understand why it floated forth this morning. I am not working hard and as for these so-called "fun ones" - who the fuck are they? I don't think i've found a rake amusing for at least a decade, and well , I couldn't find anyone more entertaining than myself and my scintillating set of imaginary friends.

The manifestation of so silly an utterance is particularly perplexing after having completed the 2nd instalment of Gore Vidal's memoirs, which features the most magnificently entertaining lectures, anecdotes and quotes delivered in the patrician, witty, biting, erudite, vituperious, superior and didactic glory that is GV. So refreshing.

I guess i was thinking of Jerry because i had discovered that my favourite lipstick was discontinued and just didn't know what to do. Oh lordamumsamercy me I cried. Fortunately this triggered a flashback to me, natch, in the late 70's, sitting on a green footstool, chez paternal grandparents, flipping through the enormous Womens Weekly to read an interview with Jerry Hall in which she lamented about a similar lipstick dilemma and recommended that you just scrape the lipstick's remains with a lip brush. She also disclosed that she kept her hairs long for her man. It was an enlightening read, and the advice has clearly proved indispensible.

I have practically recovered from the physical sickness. Once i got over the nasty 'flu business and being annoyed that it coincided with my holiday (for the first four days of the malady (oh for some reason I hear Parker addressing Lady Penelope) i attempted to cure myself by imbibing one glass of champagne daily but that seemed to make me sicker, so i bathed in the remainder, it was only Grandin, my dears) i found recuperation rather lovely.

I had the Gore book and A single man and a series by Simon Raven to read; I was in a state of same-sexualiste author bliss, furthermore no Womens Weekly, no telly - teev's even got too tawdry for me, and eggflips galore!!

Now that i'm better all i want to do is tell my friends the Gore anecdotes and quotes; they are brilliant and so applicable to one's quotidian. Please note that i don't let trip from my ever lingua franca quotations of the Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker variety; hmm just those of J. Hall - oh brother... Merely something will remind me of an amusing Gore anecdote that i am compelled to divulge... It's never boring and i don't palm it off as my own; the latter is a most vexatious trait.

Have you ever had your anecdotes or observations recounted back to you? It's queer ain't it. You feel like you're being gaslighted. Oh sorry that was you who rebuked me for doing that the other day... whoopsy.

Why it's a dilemma of Keith and Danny Partridge proportions; perhaps worthy of a two parter in Degrassi Junior High.

Yeah, cocking major.

Signing off now for there is beetling about to be done and holidays to be had.

Controversial corner #90210

Do you think Kruddy and Hetty and Morrie and Barry, and all the other moralising fools, have heard of the Led Zeppelin rock group? I think i have. Apparently, the ledbellies, as those in the know called 'em, made terrible honky cock rock music but their lp covers were like total art Oh and there is one other piece of vital information i know about that band of minstrels - their lead guitartiste washed his locks in Pantene.

I'm pretty certain that Kruddy and Hetty have heard of blind faith, well probably not the band whose lp cover David raised to my Houses of the Holy reference at the time of the Henson "scandale" .

Oh where oh where do we draw the line between art and pornography?

Oh and while you're there, ponder "frrreeedom fighter or terrorist". And by all means discuss among yourselves, hold press conferences and perhaps even film yourselves on your mobes and digicams while giving the press conference.

Don't let that basket fall!

On Tuesday i had a rather crackpot day at work. Well in truth it was probably one who was crackpot. First i attributed it to feeling seedy; I'd had 4 glasses of vino to celebrate Alice's birthday the night before . This really shouldn't have made one hung but i thought that the old bod was adjusting to the new government guidelines for what constitutes binge drinking. It transpired i was coming down with a cold, actually some 'fluish thing as i am still running a temperature...

Anyway it was a day of finishing stuff before hols while also having to attend a few meetings. Meetings are generally tiresome because they are bang-on sessions that resolve nothing and just encourage self-aggrandisement and inane prattle - yes, i know you'd be in your element.

The first one attended was at lunch break and was meant to be an information session about superannuation. Ten minutes into the meeting this ridiculously garrulous presenter cautioned attendees that he couldn't provide any financial advice. I returned to my beautiful cubicle to endure a most vexatious Yes Minister style discussion with an 81 year old assistant; it's like i'm supervising my father...

30 minutes later I bailed from the discussion, which was verging on a dispute of most absurd proportions, to attend a work meeting.

The Chair of the meeting was not very commanding. We had to comment on the final draft of some internal policy. We duly commented and approved it subject to a couple of amendments... We then waited for the next directive from Chair, i.e. dis-missed or some additional information. We waited. Oh how we waited. We looked around the room. We scratched our ears. We looked to the ceiling. We shifted in our seats. Silence prevailed. We looked sideways. We looked downwards. We looked across the table. I caught a colleague's eye and pulled puzzled lunatic expression. We cleared our throats. Still nothing happened. It was as gripping as those ten minutes in Romper Room when the cameras filmed the kiddies drinking their milk and all you could hear was the children's breathy guzzling of their milky snorts.

Then I heard my voice say, "so, we will just ah submit this to the Executive and ah..." (vague waving and rolling of hands to convey some important active step). The majority of attendees then scrooched back their seats and bolted, leaving Chair behind looking at us benignly from the table, where to this day she no doubt remains.

A-vauntin' she will go

Today is

1/7/08.

It's pure arithmetic, don't ye know.

Yesterday was Madame's birthday. Well may she be French but man is she OLD. Old I tell you. Old and vieille as yesterday. I feel rather guilty being so young and jeune and sans souci but what can you do. At least she'll always have my friendship.

I chided a jetsetter acquaintance, let's just call her Sputnik, for forgetting Madam's birthday. I received a curiously unapologetic text:

given the life I've been leading it is amazing that I can remember my name.

Oh nsrs, what happened to courtesy, guilt and self-restraint?

A fortnight ago I saw Richard Neville, then last week i saw Jeannie Little. Hazard a guess which baby-boomer star from the Mike Walsh Show this week will bring. I was also fortunate to happen upon Geoffrey Robertson. He has a wonderful face, kind of like that of a nice crocodile. Both he and Dicky have marvellously luxuriant heads of hair.

Are people still down on the baby-boomers? I can't get enough of them.

Marbles lost and seediness set-in, a situation that is utterly win-win.

No flying ashtrays but

Murray from Flight of the Conchords looks like a youngish Gareth Evans.

The end of the affair

For the first time in my existence I am without a daily serial, nothing on wireless, television or the world wide web. Poor, feckless Bel.

I stopped watching Neighbours a while ago. It had become so dull without the Timmins family, there was not enough carry-on with Lou and Harold and too much of: ruddy Carmella and her tedious nervy b's, Paul being "he's- a-good-boy-now" and that vile Jane Hall. It had lost its high campery and mental melodrama. I guess they are saving their best storylines for Pantos in Blighty. Recently I was told that Neighbours had improved but when I attempted to watch some of it before the 7 o'clock news my interest was not piqued. Well apart from seeing Paul attempt to rekindle romance with the character played by Jane Hall;he pretended to fall over and hurt himself. That was sheer Actoring master class with Stefan Dennis.

Despite that one glorious moment, it could be all over between Neighbs and me. Actually it could also be the end of Neighbours; ratings are bad.

Despite the lack of daily serial, there are programs that I watch and listen to on a weekly basis. My favourites are generally panelish shows where people humorously and dismissively opine and compete, such as Top Gear and the Insiders. Top Gear initially drew me in as it looked like Top of the Pops for cars - the sight of those presenters standing beside a car, raving and joking while surrounded by a studio audience was very appealing. Am not sure about Australian series, could be like Torque but I will be in the market for a motor (plus i always watched Countdown). I rather enjoyed watching Never Mind the Buzzocks on You Tube for a while. Some episodes from last year and the year before that were entertaining. And I'm partial to that news quiz on radio 4 (?). That can be very funny unlike the Australian Good News Week.

I cannot believe that show is on television again!! Why do stations keep giving Paul McDermott air time to recycle shows from his “heyday”. What does he have on them? And why do they allow him to sing the shows' signature tunes? And how could he do that? I guess he hasn’t twigged to the parallels between him and the Little Britain Dennis Waterman skit. Dennis has a much better voice anyway, and he was tops in the Sweeney, well I like him in everything from Up the Junction to New Tricks, well sort of. Did Rula get him a spot on the Rock Follies? That would have been some showstopping tune. Unfortunately I have never seen Waterman's portrayal of William Brown.

There is a hastiness of cooks on the television but I haven’t really been into those programs, there will only ever be one King’s Kitchen after all. Admittedly the 21st century cookery show is a whole new genre. I generally prefer reading cookery books and recipes. However, I quite like watching the cook and the chef. Maggie Beer’s manner reminds me a bit of that woman Megan who sang for the Fifth Corruption (not the fifth column that’s what the Duke of Edinburgh called Lady Di). Oh and Flight of the Conchords makes me laugh aloud oh and I ….

Set me free

On Tuesday I was treated to a night at the theatre - opening of Altarboyz.

JQ got tickets and, being a notorious sponge, I was invited. Musical had been described to us as a comedy so we assumed it was going to be a biting satire about boy bands and religious fervour. We sat there listening to the lyrics, waiting to squeal with mirth. There were people in the left stalls, laughing, must have been relatives, or perhaps it was too sophisticated for me. The lyrics were terrible, not really borne of any great theological knowledge (you know like Nick the Prick’s prose) just a mixture of Good News and sap. The parody was so feeble that the lyrics seemed to be promoting the faith.

Comedy consisted of the boy band members, a Jew (too funeee), a Hispanic, who seemed to be playing Fez from that 70's show, a closeted homosexual, a homeboy (Oh like I’d know... is that term still au courant? no doubt as ac as ac...) and some Doogie Howser type 'cept he wasn't a genius young docteur just looked like him, frequently grabbing their crotches, which is of course as heeeeeeeelarious as cancer, yours J. Blank, saying y'all and doing something else, um, recounting how they came to be together and …?

It was truly appalling.

Then there was a song sung by the camp altar boy and it was implied that his solo was to be a confession of his homosexuality but no it was a clever parody, and he announced that he was Catholic. The audience proudly cheered, some standing up and waving their arms and clapping. It all seemed strangely and sincerely evangelical. It gave us the creeps. We left and went to the bar.

I have since been told that the musical could be performed for the Pope when he comes to Sydney. That can't be true or have I been caught up in World Youth Day propaganda? Divine justice has struck. Gordon Benedict and jeepin' Jensens.

cinematic insight # 25

Last night I watched the first disc of Warren Beatty’s Reds. I’m enjoying it, particularly the eyewitness accounts by Dora Russell and Rebecca West, and Henry Miller. Really great. I’d like to watch an entire interview with Dora Russell and Rebecca West – such interesting, forthright and entertaining personalities.

Anyway while I’m really appreciating the film, rather engaged with a pretty amazing story, I keep getting sidetracked by Warren Beatty, there’s something about his face, or should that be his character's face, that reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld.

It's Queenie's long weekend

Hooray!

No bungers, Tom Thumbs or Catherine Wheels in NSW but i can cope; i guess i could get some sparklers (goodness a few indywindy bands named themselves after firecrackers - ooh crackle and pop!)

Firecrackers were always a bit too terrifying really, so full of ire, and almost as worrying as the possibility of being blinded by that annular solar eclipse in 1971.

There has been rain in Sydney and along the NSW north coast for a total of 5 days and 5 nights!!This has caused reporter types to bleat about the very long spell of bad weather in poor old Syd. Oh get with the strength! They earnestly drone about the much needed rain then cluck about the farmers but as soon as there is a mammoth downpour that lasts FIVE DAYS there's grumbling and grief during the wireless and television weather forecasts.

This Queenie's I have loads of activities in store, have gumboots and puddles will rage, and visitors a- plenty. What more could you want? A republic... with Quentin "Lovey Howell" Bryce as President ...?

Happy Queenie's to you!

Marty, Mick and me

Oh nsrs, have you seen that Shine a Light? I have not. I don't really want to but I guess i will. Surely, tt'd be less of a wank and more divertin' than one plus one - one great band on the threshold of superbrilliance (no Mick Taylor yet) and one Frenchie over analysing and boring us boeuf big-time.

The French and rocknroll, somebody please keep'em apart.

But, permission to rant, suh, what i really want to say is:

Why when talking about Marty and the Stones, does everyone, well Mickey J, go on about Marty using Gimme Shelter in his fillums. I didn't think it was that common on a Scorsese soundtrack (oh sorry for that interjection from foot not dissimilar from bottom corner...)

Marty's best use of stonesy music was in Mean Streets, which is of course a top little fillum. I loved it so much i tried to spread the word as i do with most things i 'm keen on.

So one year i got a friend a copy, direct from the Amazon, for her birthday. Unfortunately she was sent a dud. And when i found out, it was too late for me to sort it for she was too polite to tell me, Shane did. I guess Shane broke it; shredding the tape with his gnashers in some drunken crazed out jiggy moment at an anarchic punkywunky new wave retrospective atop some oh&s nightmare of a rooftop bar in Mel Bourne

Yeah Mean Streets is tops. i was stoked from the moment Charlie (? played by Harvey Keitel) enters this smokey dank bar and tell me is playin'. Then when crazy Mickey(? -it's been a while since i seen it, oh JOhnny Boy, thanks Shanks played by Bobby de N) arrives, jukebox plays jumpin' jack flash.

Thus providing like a total insight to the characters of the key protaganists....Ooh yeah mind-blowingly deep as Tim and Debbie would say (can you believe there are still people who talk like that?! Hi Astrid. Of course you can, they host programs on RRR and JJJ and are now infiltrating RN, and pop goes the weasel you're listening to newsradio of a morning to avoid right-on central).

Oh like i'd know anything about music and fillum. Those two songs were chosen just because Marty loved 'em. (Marty released a great Stones compilation lp called Just because, Marty; lp has copious liner notes).

I love tell me. It might have been a bigger hit in the States than in the UK - perhaps it was on that US December's Children. It might also be on high tide green grass. I encountered it in God's Own of course, 12 years later.

It was on this Decca compilation that was heavily advertised on the television one summer when i was in primary school. The lp was called Stones. Its cover featured a black and white photo of a prancing barechested Mick with his pout coloured crimson. It was a pretty good compilation and introduction to 60's stones for an Orstralian tween, yours David Dalton.

It was a really long summer and i spent most of it waiting to be invited to swim at the neighbours' pool or watching mother riley films on the television after being banned from the neighbours' pool for being too noisy - Oh my life's been spent in Coventry....

In the evening I did impressions of mother riley and others from my extensive repertoire, as part of variety hour, well just younger sister and I performing - oh such simple times. On the evenings I no longer had a willing audience, i'd chuck a spaz (not really, well occasionally, oh a couple of times per week) and then go and listen to that Stonesy LP, which had been finally bought after seeing all the ads in between mother riley and mac and myer. I endured mockery of stones by considerably older new waver of a sorella. I am still younger.

Languid,louche and filled with inertia?

NSW - The Parlous State

I’ve lost the keys to my letterbox and been quoted a sizeable sum to have them cut from the lock. Surely the federal government can do something about reducing the cost of key cutting; it controls housing prices, interest rates and the cost of petrol . People shuldnthaffta pay so much to access their mail. Snot fair. You’ve got to do something about it Kruddy, goddamit.

OH speaking of sanctimonious drawers, god not krudd (in this instance), its earthly representative, well the one after god's son so selflessly sacrificed himself to enable the wannabeeffluent to whinge eternal, is coming to Sydney.

Oh yes it’s World Pope Day in Sydney this July - proudly supported by the NSW Government.

Gordon Benedict.

The Parlous State’s government is issuing media releases advising workers in the ceebeedee or near any of the other areas where his holiness goes during that period to take leave. This was its solution for the Olympics, APEC, the beautiful big love boats docking in the Harbour, and now World Youth Day. NSW the state where planning is world-arse.

How much room does a popemobile require?

They’ll need the workers out and about frankly. How much pulling power does Pope Benedict have? Do the Catholic youth of today have something to say apart from pass the Eucharist on the left hand side. Perhaps the Catholic Church will borrow some young Crusader groovers from Hillsong? Padres and bonnes soeurs are currently scouting Gloria Jean’s for some additional pilgrims.

Oh I mustn’t be so negative. Each to her/his own beliefs and freedom to worship and whatnot. To have religious faith must be extraordinary and the new testament is a top read, yours Pollyanna. It's the government's city lockout solution that gets my goat. Surely the whole thing could have been staged at Olympic Park.

World Pope Day will be a gala week with the stations of the cross scattered about the city and Randwick, there'll be that spunky young man playing Jesus (Yes, Trevor White's grandson), a Saint’s corpse being paraded, and text messages from Pope Benedict to all World Youth Day pilgrims - HILSR (He is like so risen), HCB (hot cross buns), UFM (you flay me).

So really it’s all utterly moderne and progressive; could never be likened to some medieval pageant.

Thank goodness for the separation of Church and state.

Now if we could just separate the Vice Squad from the Yartz.

Oh the furore and scandale surrounding those photos of adolescents. It's the moral outrage expressed by state and fed pollies, media columnists and certain activists that has been revolting. What an utter downer, well more of a Howard actually but no, it was a Krudd.

This is the dawning of the age of Victoria , the age of Victoria…

OK yah

Oh hello there pet and lambs and members of Generations Jones, X, Whine and Zzzz. I hope you are well. I am having a bit of a May's almost over posting in cyberspace frenzy - two posts in 20 minutes you wouldn't credit it.

Johnson lent me Tina Brown’s the Diana Chronicles. It’s a top read about all them hons and vons.

At the mo Charles and D are still married, and, in between Deeeahna hurling (down the honker or herself down the stairs - yeah that’s a direct quote from Princess Michael of Kent to moi, confidente de luxe to SS offspring, me), Di’s suffering the interminable August hols at Sandringham with not much stoicism, some nights feature Princess Margaret entertaining the fam playing show tunes on the piahno until 2 a.m. - The thought of ma’am darling on the ivories singing songs from Camelot and High Society entertains me no end but i guess it'd be particularly rum and stuffy if you were teetotal and only into Dire Straits or Wham! - Di's childhood was indeed deprived; if only there had been Bill Collins' Golden Years of Hollywood in Blighty she and Margo would have fit like hand and glove; or annoying all the fam by usurping their limelight and being adored by press and plebs globally.

I’ve also learnt that Pris Cholls likes to be called Arthur (his second middle name) at the height of sessuale satisfaction. However what I found curious about this was how the request would be conveyed to the lover, via equerry or the Prince?

When I told one of my friends (I have several, no truly, ohwuh I do so, get) that i was reading the book, she confessed to having a soft spot for Lady Di for alleged friend was in London at the time of engagement and the same age as the Liedee. Well not any more sweetheart, you’re older than she’ll ever be, as am I. In fact said friend was born the day before Lady Di. And the spooky similarities well they just never began from there.

I mean to say, how many people do you know enter potato sack races willy nilly, well apart from the family Brady.

Music is my life my life is music

Why you know that ain’t the truth, sugar but I tell you what the past week and a half my dreams have featured music blaring. Big time.

Most mornings I’ve been waking with Psmith’s Rocknroll nigger in my head, and can you spare a thought for the disturbance felt when I just woke up with the so-called Babelogue (oh brother that's some kool term) of said song going round and round my poor old noggin.

Then last night I had this dream which was meant to be set in friends’ house in Mel but their house had turned into this extraordinary Laurel Canyon mansion complete with sweeping driveway, conversation pits, sandstone fireplaces and decoratively balustraded staircase, no I was not sliding down its banisters and honking horns Harpo Marx style that was the week before.

It was a swinging party, almost as good as the real one I went to last week, alas sans vision in pink tutu, frou frou and grey tights but that's for another post. Oh and everyone I didn’t know was at dream party. Unfortunately no Warren Beatty but there was Jamie C begging to put his hand in people’s pockets.

Anyway, that dream featured two songs blaring: Brand new Key and ruddy Congratulations (boom boom boom) and has left me somewhat distrait.

Things that matter #2020

Don't panic, Jonesy, am not about to launch into another twenny twenny summit monodrone. No, am instead going to treat you and nsrs 1 and 2 to thoughts that have been revolving, like a fancy rest-o-ront, in my brain for the past five days- a thought a day keeps intellectual rigour away.

On Monday Wayne Swan was sounding like a cranky primary school deputy principal at assembly. Yes, Malcolm Turnbull is smug, smart and very self-assured, and to put it mildly, annoying but Wayne get a grip. I am expecting WS to don shorts, long socks, slick back his hair and call MT a rude article then bark at him to leave the line and go to the Office - or is that just a flashback to April 1975 - oh the living and loving and learning that was my primary hedgucation - Brian Cadd how did you know.

Ant Music. Since Tuesday night when strolling back from King Street wharf after a delicious dinner and fun evening out I've had that dicky song on my brain. Not because i was dining with Marco or Garry Tibbs but because while walking back to St James, kept hearing pedestrians tip tapping across the streets' metal manhole covers, thus replicating the intro to Ant Music. By the by, Fool's Gold has a similar beginning to Ant Music, well vaguely similar it features metallic sounding percussion but is a lot shorter...Nevertheless the mind's soundtrack has been alternating between Ant Music and Fool's Gold.

New womantic one day; mad aceeed smiley raver the next. Rollercoaster of milestones in pop music this week, nsrs.

Working family. Cockadoodleboohoo. There's no-one out there doing it tougher, is it a crime to aspirate... Get your working fam on board bumper stickers from NSR now. They're tastefully designed; the slogan is flanked by a delightful Anne Geddes portrait of byebee in flower pot and a McMansion in the background.

As for the now. Like i would know but am surprised by the 2 glasses of booze per day cancer link - surely peanut butter is more harmful?

Oh dear this post is beginning to sound bileous and ridiculous I must be channelling Lexie Downer. Oh my. I'm sure your French is sensational, pet, just not that pratique in Asia.

Have a good weekend, nsrs. I will for I'm exploring the harbour foreshore where gold ingots and fountains of ginger pop abound.