Colour Me Confused

What I am hating on today: self-righteous, pious, smarmy, snotty, holier-than-thou equestriennes of the high horse.  I just might have to give up watching breakfast television, as today it set my teeth on edge; I looked like a frightened chimp.  Was watching the segment on Channel 7, and shan't name names, but the panellist included a former professional swimmer, who when asked for her two cents on the Robert Allenby story, practically came out and said had he been drugged (as he appears to suspect), then it could have happened to a nicer bloke.  Seriously, woman, what the total fuck?  He has apparently offended her because he directed his own income to a strip joint.  According to her, married people shouldn't go to strip joints, and she and her husband don't do this, nor do they look at porn.  Well, colour me humbled, lady.  Just allow me to get some Brasso on a lint-free soft cloth so I can polish your halo for you.  Shall we open an account at Paddy Pallins in order that you can purchase some crampons, rope, and a pick axe to get to this high moral ground.  Whether Robert Allenby attended a strip club is his own frigging business.  It's his money.  He earned it.  Look, I don't get all gooey and fawning about 'what a great sportsman and golfer' etc.  I don't like golf.  It's as boring as dried bat guano.  Apparently Allenby is not overly burdened with charm, either.  According to this panel.  Well, so fucking what?  To sit under the metaphorical judge's wig and robes and bang the metaphorical gavel because he did something YOU wouldn't do, something that is apparently quite legal anyway, makes you a she-tool.  And that goes for everybody who is dumping shit on him.  It got my wondering why this moral hate on the establishments.  Did the developer of one such establishment allow his dog to do a poo on her lawn?   For the record, I think strip clubs are rather infantile, but I would not be threatened if my husband looked ('looked' being the operative word) at a performer in one.  Hell, I've been out on Studs Afloat for Hen's Parties, and to be honest have found it more puerile than sexy.  Talking to a brainy man is very sexy.  But then again, so too is 'that's scene with Brad Pitt in 'Thelma and Louise'.  *Types with one hand as she fans self*.

What I learned today: 'Coloured' is considered an offensive term.  Actor Benedict Cumberbatch got into a bit of strife when talking of the unfavourable ratio of available work between white actors and um, darker skinned (I guess that's okay?) actors.  The term he used was 'coloured'.  Now, I am old enough to remember a lot of Anglo Caribbean people referring to themselves as 'coloured'.  When did it become offensive?  I didn't get the memo, and I saw footage of Benedict, and am quite sure it wasn't his intention to be offensive.  I'm not trying to chuck a cat among the pigeons, but is whitey considered offensive?  I don't consider it to be so.  I don't mind being called a ranga, either, but some don't like it.  Years ago, whilst instructing in a court trial, I had lunch with another law clerk who was telling me his background, and this is what he said pretty much verbatim: 'My mother's black, but my father was a whitefella'.  I'm not at all offended or taken aback by what he said, but I'd hate for him to be ever castigated over what he said.  It got me thinking about that awesome song by the Warumpi Band, and here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_DHwp5vYBI

If 'Hair' ever enjoys a revival, does this mean the song 'Coloured Spade' will be cut from the show?  It's sung by an African American character, and is a jibe at preconceived notions of that time.  It's also a rather good tune.

Sure, had Cumberbatch said the 'N' word, I could understand offence  That is vile.  But I honestly had no idea that 'coloured' had become a bad word per se. 

Well, I'm going to read aloud passages from Oscar Wilde, in particular: 'The Portrait of Dorian Grey'.  If you're wondering why, I'm auditioning for a play next week with the local rep, and it's a period piece (French farce), and the director has asked auditionees read from a period piece.

Dragon Shoes

Last week of my annual leave.  Kids back in school in a few days.  Counting down like a NASA engineer, I am.  Master Ten starts hip hop dancing lessons tomorrow night, so as well as purchasing his new school shoes and sports shoes, I had to get a pair of black canvas shoes.  Found heaps of such shoes, but fuck-all in his size.  I had to make do with something slightly different, and will beg forgiveness when I take him to the studio tomorrow night, all excited and aquiver (him, not me).  It's only for the first term, and the concert is not until the end of the year.  Any parent or guardian or just plain unlucky person who has ever taken an excitable ten-year-old shoe shopping will know the sorrow and aggravation that accompanies these outings.  Factor into account every other kid in town having shoes bought at the same time, and you've got true torture.  My son picks up every gauche piece of frippery he can find and requests it be purchased.  I say, 'No.'  Eventually I am saying, 'No!  No!  No!' over and over, and sounding like a robotically demented terrier.  In one crowded store (and by the way, can the curly-haired dude in the plaid-patterned shirt buy some deodorant?  Seriously, man, you stink) as I stood perusing the shelves, I heard my son call me.  I turned to see him sitting on the chair, with a pair of lilac sequinned ballet slippers on his feet.  He caressed one of them, and asked, 'How about these, Mum?  They're fine and faaaaabulous!'  Between snorts of laughter, I sternly told him to put them back.  Owing to the dearth of canvas shoes his size, and the fact that he's well, HIM, it took us ages to finalise the expedition and return home with the promised meat pies for the household's lunch.  My husband enquired incredulously to our tardiness. My exasperated response was, 'YOU take the little jackass shopping next time!'  You know what, when I die and if the Devil finds out I'm dead before I get to Heaven, I'm going to say, 'Shove it up your firey, coal-dagged arsehole, Satan.  On 24 January 2015 I took my son shopping for three pairs of shoes, and consider my time in Hell well and truly served.'

Saw Dragon at a local pub on Saturday night.  I dressed up but made sure I wore comfortable shoes.  I looked around at the other patrons, and thought of those days when I would see The Hoodoo Gurus or Icehouse or Boom Crash Opera or Whatever Eighties Aussie Pub Staple at Selinas, many years (and many kilos) ago.  Like then, I still can't really afford to drink too much (and it was oppressively hot on Saturday, so one would be a fool to have imbibed anything other than water - which was mainly my drink of choice that night, anyway).  I did fork over an extortionate amount for a vodka/lime/soda, and thought almost wistfully to those nights when my cousins and I would purchase bottles of Strongbow Cider and sit on Coogee Beach, getting our booze fix, before wandered into the venue for the main act.  I recall visiting the ladies at Selinas one night, to discover a couple were having a knee-trembler in one of the cubicles. As far as I am aware, there was no such debauchery taking place at the gig I attended on Saturday.  But at least unlike Selinas, I didn't get knocked over.  I was at a Gurus gig at Selinas in 1989, and some fuckheads behind my cousin and I decided to slam dance, and almost knocked me out of my uncomfortable shoes (I've since learned my lesson as you can tell).  My cousin was a bit unwell, so I decided to take her outside, but on my way I gave the slam dancing moron a good hard shove that almost knocked him over.  As abovementioned, I was quite skinny in my early twenties, but anger is a good reinforcement when it comes to physically asserting oneself.  I also complained to the bouncer, but doubt anything was done. 

But back to Saturday's gig.  Owing to my monetary status (and I'm trying to stay healthy), I am guessing I was the only sober patron in the audience.  This can prove problematic when trying to watch and dance a little - I was down the front - and having some tone deaf lurching idiot beside you swaying his arms as he drools, 'Take me to the Ay-pril sun in Kyew-BAH, woe-oh-OH!'  Fuck me sideways, he sounded awful.  I did not appreciate his arm being casually slung around me, either.  Oh, and I know it's not the same without Marc Hunter, but Mark Williams is a good singer and performer, and he did a great job as the front man.  They didn't do 'Love's Not Enough For You', which I always liked.  Some don't, because Marc had left band at that stage, but I always liked it. I remember it on 'Countdown', and Todd Hunter in the sunnies.  He was on the stage on Saturday, but instead of sunnies, it was age-related prescription spectacles, and instead of that cloud of black hair, he's a silver fox.  I gave the band a clap as they were walking by, and he thanked me.  I felt so star-struck.

Now, speaking of gig, the protagonist in my latest books attends many of them after becoming the driver for the world's most accurate Marc Bolan impersonator (so accurate is this impersonator, he doesn't drive, just like the real Bolan).  So please check it out at this link where you can read first chapter, and hopefully buy it so I can continue to buy my son shoes: http://www.zeus-publications.com/silver_studs_and_sabre_teeth.htm.

Not Flushed With Success

Yes, I know I wrote about FSOG the other day, but it seriously is the gift that keeps on giving.  It is a novel of utter gut-churning, labia-straightening godawfulness, and a textbook example of How To Write Shit.  It is the ultimate paradigm in How To Write Shit And Fool People And Retire On The Proceeds. 

Well, with the upcoming movie, a certain scene from the book is not going to be in the movie.  I'm going to quote as best I can, which will give you the scope without me having to draw a diagram: 'He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string...what! ... pulls my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet'.  So, I guess I didn't have to draw a diagram or a - wait for it - FLOW CHART (bahahahahaha!); you, my dear reader, can guess what's going on.  You know something?  I honestly don't care what blows peoples' hair back in the bedroom.  If someone has this fetish, good luck to them - just don't indulge your fetish in the street and frighten the kids on their tricycles, okay?  But because it was a scene in this book I remember screwing up my face and just groaning like a cow in labour.  I do not think the menstrual cycle is shameful.  Indeed, I got a good (albeit grossed-out) belly laugh in an episode of one of my favourite shows, 'Californication', I think in Series 3 when Charlie and Marcie are selling their house, and the estate agent shows someone around, and there is a horrified shriek because Marcie removed a tampon and didn't flush it.  The prospective buyers were suitably sicked out by the bloodied white cotton blob in a red pool.  Yes, it was shown on screen.  But having some controlling fuck-up reach down and remove a woman's tampon?  Gimme a break! 

Let's just say, hypothetically, some dude tried to remove my tampon.  Let's say (also hypothetically) he succeeded.  I would morph into a snarling were-beast and shove the fucking thing up his nose, which would be fortuitous as he'd need it to staunch the blood after I'd smashed his nose.  I'm saying hypothetical because I haven't used tampons for years, being a convert to the diva cup.  If this is TMI, then too bad, deal with it; it's the nature of this post.

But you know what really, REALLY pisses me off about this scene (and a little in the 'Californication' ep)?  This asinine piece of shit threw the tampon INTO THE TOILET!  You do NOT throw tampons down the toilet, peeps.  Take a minute to let that sink in.  They swell.  The strings entangle as they swell.  They clog the pipes in a great sodden, bloodied, dirty ball that has to be removed by hand - and you wonder why plumbers charge so much?  I don't bloody blame them!  My nephew is a plumber, I must ask him if he's lived any of these horror stories.  And furthermore, they are not biodegradable, so will not be suitable for septic systems, either. 

Many years ago, whilst working in a law office, I was on the telephone to a police officer dissecting the rather convoluted schedule of a Subpoena for Production we had issued in relation to a case we had.  I was saying, 'Yes, the running sheets.  Yes, produce your notebook for the relevant time..' (and wondering had the dunderhead actually READ the frigging schedule), and right in my other ear, the horrendous old office administrator said, 'We mustn't flush tampons down the toilet, girls.'  My jaw dropped, and I felt like snarling down the phone, 'Catch all that, Sergeant?'  Don't get me wrong, I agreed (for once) wholeheartedly with the old bag, but there's a time and a place.

Slow and Greasy

Slowly, slowly the computer paces itself here at my local library.  It has the vim and vigour of a slug that has overdosed on Mogadon.  And until my internet allowance is readjusted next month, it is at my library I will continue to inflict upon the good folk in cyberspace my rantings and ravings.  People are raving that Taylor Swift is not included in the Triple J Hottest 100.  Um, I don't think she gets much airplay on Triple J.  We're talking about a radio station whose first ever disc spun back around 1974 was the Skyhooks 'You Just Like Me Cos I'm Good In Bed', after all.  Her songs irritate me like a nettle, and last Saturday night I took my youngest son to see a concert performed by local special needs kids and adults.  The closing number was a choreographed piece to 'Shake It Off', and my lad groaned, 'Oh God, let's get out of here!'

The 1978 movie 'Grease' is to be remade.  People are wailing and gnashing the teeth about messing with a classic.  Well, the movie isn't the first incarnation but an adaptation from the stage show in which the Olivia Newton-John character is not an Aussie exchange student, but an American.  Livvy didn't feel she had acting chops sufficient enough to put on an American accent, and rather than cast a competent actress, the studio went for the might dollar and drawcard.  I understand the actress from the movie 'Rock of Ages' is to play Sandy, and Vanessa Hudgens to play Rizzo.  I've no probem with this casting.  Furthermore, I hope the casting continues in this vein, ie, actors who don't look like they're one step from a zimmer frame trying to convince the audience they are horny 17yos.  I do not like the storyline to this movie at all, but I have just enough common sense to realise it is that: a movie.  But yes, I look forward to hearing who the remainder of the cast is to be.  Don't know that I'll bother seeing the movie.

Speaking of movies, a local club is having a promotion.  Tickets to see a male strip show, and then go to watch 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. I am sure I would feel less nauseous watching a dog eat vomit, than watching this movie.  The book made me feel combative enough.  The dialogue was the most woeful ever, and the characters more irritating than a, uh, Taylor Swift song.  Doubtless I will watch it on DVD, so I can regale cyberspace with my ranting.  As someone beyond giving a shit at times, I do not want to be seen going into the new cinema in town to watch it.  And I'm not paying full price to watch a movie version of the worst book I have ever read, either.  But yeah, I would be embarrassed to be seen watching it, and might have to don a wig and sunglasses at the local DVD store.  When I hand over my card, the clerk will probably blow my cover with a hearty, 'Hello, Simone!  How are you?'  Many years ago, when I was a sylph-like thing aged twenty, my cousin and I were going to a nightclub in North Sydney.  It had a reputation for being a pick-up joint.  I didn't care because as far as I was concerned, and still am, any place can be a pick-up joint.  We got off the bus, and found the street, but were unsure whether we should turn right or left.  Saw some people in the street, and I suggested I ask them.  'No!' cried my appalled cousin, 'I don't want people knowing we're going there!'  I looked at her, and asked did she honestly think those people gave a shit that we were going there.  But almost twenty-nine years on, I am finally beginning to understand what my cousin meant.  So I won't go to the cinema to see it, but a friend and I are going to hire it on DVD, and metaphorically tear it to confetti.  I will then inflict my thoughts on this turd upon all and sundry in cyberspace.  Well, it's bound to be a turd; look at the source material.

Gotta go because like the Stones sang, 'The storm is threatening...', and I have washing on the line.

Making Allowances

Given I'm a rate payer, I've decided to use some imagined self-entitlement of mine and am using the local library's Internet to write on my blog, rather than my own.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd rather be using my own computer, but my husband did some checking today, and guess what?  It seems we've used about fifty per cent of our monthly allowance, and we're not even half way into the 'month', which for us starts on the 4th of each month.  What's happened?  What is draining our allowance like a vampire supping at the throat of a young virgin (or a not-virgin) and draining it away like the vampire draining away the lifeblood of its victim?  I suspect, nay, KNOW it is the fruits of my womb, two boys aged 13 and 10.  The little one appears to have been living on You Tube these school holidays.  I am going to point out to him I didn't have the Internet when I was a kid.  I either drew pictures, read books, or went outside and played in the dirt.  It's been unseemingly hot, so I might refrain from sending my sprog out to play in the dirt. 

I mentioned this to the librarian here, who has similarly aged children, and she said they have sapped away half her allowance this month already, also.  'Can I get a high-five on that, girlfriend?' I asked, and we slapped palms together.

Anyway, it really pisses me off that my allowance has been depleted.

It also pisses me off that people are criticising that Lindt Cafe hostage for asking for a sum to tell her story.  Apparently she wants to set up a foundation with some funds. You know what?  I begrudge her absolutely nothing she receives.  If the media outlets are stupid enough to offer money, then she'd be a total dingbat to not take it.  I was on a FB thread and some people were demanding to know how much would to to charity etc, and I said how any payment was disbursed was nobody's business but the woman's.   The way she was dressed in the photograph was called into question.  As someone old enough to well remember the Lindy Chamberlain trial, this really grinds my gears.  How is someone 'meant' to dress?  She can dress anyway she sees fit, and I said she might have chosen this attire because she wanted to empower herself, and wanted to reclaim her life.  The dress was a low cut slinky red one, by the way. 

I bought an Itunes card yesterday, and wanted to put some more music on my iPod, but have been advised by my better half to wait until the Internet allowance resets.  Grrrrr!  But, it's made me sweetly nostalgic for the days of my youth, when if you wanted to download music, you had to sit beside the radio, or in front of 'Countdown', with your fingers hovered over the 'Play' and 'Record' buttons of the old Sanyo tape recorder.  If you wanted to purchase music, you had to visit the record store.  The town in which I grew up had no such business (well, it did occasionally, but only sporadically) and I would often have to wait for when my mother was visiting the larger town on a shopping spree, and give her instructions and a wad of my pocket money.  I would catch the bus home, walk through the paddock gleefully anticipating playing my latest K-Tel conglomeration (after my coffee and chocolate biscuits), and discover - wait for it - my mother had brought the wrong album home.  So, this is like waiting for my mum's major shopping trip, which occurred every few weeks.  I'm sure this waiting will make the listening all the more sweet. 

My final assignment on disabled care has been completed and submitted, so now it's back to the writing.  I am on holidays, but I have become so Internet dependent, it's hard to imagine only having finite time this month in which to go online and promote 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth'. 

Annoyances of the Day

Annoying things about today:

1.  Hearing what Rev Fred Nile said about the Lindt Café hostages.  It was apparently about the lack of chivalry (hey, God-botherer, YOU consult your Chivalry & Etiquette Guide when YOU'RE being held hostage, okay?): 'usually men try to protect the women, but it looks like ...protect their own skins'.  Not only that utterly offensive comment, but, 'The only man really there was the man with the gun'.  No, you dick, that 'man with the gun' wasn't a man.  He was a vicious fuck-up with a twisted agenda, and couldn't understand that not everybody wants to kow-tow to a metaphysical being.  Actually, take a moment to absorb that, Freddie, because it applies to you also: not everybody wants to kow-tow to a metaphysical being.  Nobody knows how they will react in that situation until they are in that situation, and please Powers of the Universe, they never will be.  How and why in the blue fuck are you an elected member of parliament?  Seriously?  I recall the night years ago I got stuck standing next to you at the GLBTI Mardi Gras, and you and your silly acolytes were praying your little hearts out, with your eyes closed to protect your sensitivities from the depravity.  I should have shoved you hard and shouted, 'Hey, Fred!  Get a load of that one!'  Kindly fuck off out of parliament; you're a dick.

2.  Hearing 'What's Going On' by 4 Non-Blondes when I was driving around this afternoon.  It starts off innocuously enough, and I admit I don't mind the singer's voice, but then it goes pretty much postal.  She wails and shrieks, and I had a look at the clip on You Tube to see if it was as dire as I remembered, and yeah, it is.  She's got this huge mouth painted in a glossy red, constantly open as she yowls, 'Hey-yay-yay-yay, Hey-yay-yay-yay...'.  She looks for all the world like the entrance to Luna Park, but the howling and yowling and angsty shrieking make me wonder when someone's going to shoot her arm with a load of Thorazine.  I understand why so many of my friends loathe this song.  Someone I know calls it 'fingernails down the blackboard stuff', and someone else says it's like 'cats fucking'.  I don't particularly loathe it, I'm just bewildered by it.  Maybe because the overblown grandiosity does have a propensity to beat and pummel you into submission.

That'll do for now.

Hellish Holiday Happenings

I have been away from my desk, gentle reader, for a few days.  I am on annual leave, and more or less enjoying some time with my children.  We decided to journey en famille to the Central Coast, The Entrance, to be precise.  Mr Bingells happily announced he had booked us the executive suite of a resort right on the water.  Too fabulous, I thought.  We arrived, checked in, and were given a key.  I took into account the shabby carpet as I climbed the stairs.  Stairs don't worry me too much, but I couldn't see an elevator anywhere, so the place might have been not very wheelchair friendly.  We opened the door, and the first words out of my mouth were, 'Executive suite, my arse!'  Indeed, we had been put in the wrong room, and when the problem was sorted, and we got to the right room, I echoed the cry I had given in the previous room.  It was truly the shoddiest room I have ever stayed in.  Now, I have stayed in a hole in the wall - literally - in India.  In India my bed was a bunk carved into the wall, and I didn't mind so much because, hey, it's India; it's to be expected and part of the ambience and experience of travel.  The so called private balcony was perhaps a little over a metre in width.  The folding shower screen was a design of cumbersomeness sufficient to be an occupational safety hazard.  There was scarcely any dunny paper, to boot.  With the innocence that is the sole province of children, my ten-year-old ventured the opinion the self-contained cabin we rented last year was better  My ten-year-old was correct.

Still, we decided to soldier on.  We clambered up and down the stairs, and I took into account the melon rind on the floor, and the cigarette butts not cleaned away from the communal balcony.  We entered the games room, which due to the fans blowing hot air from the Daytona car machines was untenable.  Also, the ripped baize on the pool table would have ensured no decent game would be played, with hypothetical pool balls either bumping and rolling backwards at the tear, or clattering over it but with their trajectory altered and no subsequent sinking into the pocket.  Interestingly, Mr Bingells is quite a good player (he goes for competition), and he might have calculated a trajectory and a strike with the cue that could have circumvented the problem of the torn and raised flap of baize, but he didn't bother trying. 

But I didn't want to spend too much energy moaning about the accommodation.  The next day, after a pleasant morning boating, we returned to the cesspit hotel to shower and dress for dinner.  My ten-year-old mounted the stairs and turned down the corridor leading to our room, whereupon his toes snagged in one of the multitudinous carpet rips, and he was sent sprawling   I demanded rhetorically, not for the first time, how the hotel dared to charge like a bull with an erection for such a substandard dump. 

Not to worry, I thought.  Dinner would be enjoyable.  It was so not enjoyable.  I ordered the barramundi.  We waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  I can normally cope with waiting, but with hungry children it is on par with water-boarding.  Finally - FINALLY- the food arrived.  I salivated at the thought of my succulent fish.  My eyes bulged like Ping-Pong balls in their sockets at the ersatz creation masquerading as a meal that was placed before me.  After moving a few watery vegetables, I located my fish.  Well, again, it was something masquerading as a fish.  It was miniscule and dry to the point of being a fire hazard.  Somewhere, a befuddled nun is trying to find her underpants.  Did I complain?  Yes.  Did I tip the restaurant?  No fucken way.

But it was not all crud.  Enjoyed a train ride into Sydney and a few hours in the Power House Museum, and an absolutely scrumptious Japanese meal on our last night, which our oldest son used as an opportunity to showcase what he's learned in Japanese as he conversed with the waitress.  And we have learned next time, we are booking early and getting into a decent spot!

1993 and Now

This very night, in 1993, I was staying with my father following the death of my mother the week before.  I was grieving, yet relieved her suffering was over, and rather thin.  I guess my thin state was due to genes (my dad's a toothpick), and from the stress, and an illness I was then suffering which turned out to be a mild form of pluresy.  It was this night a very kind-hearted, straight-talking, pleasant natured man a few months my senior took me out to dinner.  We ate Chinese at a local restaurant in my home town, and caught up with one of my oldest friends who suggested I spend the night at her house.  So we sojourned back to her house.  Like tonight, it was a warm January evening, and because we were all in a silly mood, we decided to strip off and jump into the backyard pool.  As you do. 

All of a sudden we were bathed in a light so garish, I imagined the theme music to 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'.  Turns out it was my friend's older brother shining a dolphin torch on us.  A few months later he said had he known my 'date' back then, he would have grabbed a few beers and jumped in the pool, too. 

Rumours abounded after this night, about the shenanigans in my friend's pool.  The young man heard he had been skinny dipping with (INSERT NAME OF TOWN SKANK HERE) and (INSERT NAME OF TOWN SKANK'S SISTER HERE).

No matter, twenty-two years on and that young man and I are now an established middle-aged couple.  We have been through a wedding, various illnesses, and are raising two children.  I shouted at my oldest tonight because this heat wave has made me fractious and tired, and I get sick of him monopolising what is supposed to be MY computer.  I shouted at my youngest to brush his teeth and go to bed.

We had Chinese for dinner tonight.  We did not strip off and jump into the pool.  We don't have one.

I play 'Still the One' by Orleans: '...After all these years/You're still the one I want whispering in my ear...'

Dreams Are Ten-A-Penny

I learned a new phrase yesterday: gish gallop.  It means to present your argument in a debate in such a manner as firing off points at a tangent, often over your opponent's points.  Kind of a smoke-and-mirrors device, or as I said to the friend who explained this, 'Peeing down someone's leg and telling them it's raining.'  I also learned an interesting thing in our constitution regarding free speech, and that being we have a few provisos to enable us to 'protect ... public health...'.  The abridgement and ellipses are mine.  I am embarrassed that I, a woman of sturdy legal background, had this pointed out to me by a physiotherapist.  She's also another writer in my town, and that's how I know her. How we got discussing this is via an online petition to not have Dr Sherri Tenpenny come from the US to give a talk.  She is an anti-vaxxer.  IMHO, this makes her something of a fruitloop.  I have had my children vaccinated, and in my younger days when travelling, I would toddle off to the doctor for the recommended vaccinations pertaining to whatever country I was planning to visit.  I put up with those jabs, and chowed down on foul tasting quinine tablets to stave off malaria.  To this day, I cannot understand how anybody can willingly drink tonic water.  It is fiendishly bitter.  Anyway, I'm not signing the petition.  Oh, don't get me wrong.  I don't particularly want the woman to come here at all, but where do you draw the line?  I've seen online petitions to not have rappers allowed visas owing to what are perceived to be misogynistic lyrical content in the oeuvre, but again, if you don't like the music, don't go to the concert.  Yes, I continue in my steadfast refusal to sign online petitions of this manner because I think they fly in the face of free speech.  And as it turns out, we have a few little provisos on ours, and the interest of public health one could be this woman's undoing, if there is a move to revoke or disprove her visa.  And I must say, from a legal standpoint, I will be agog.  I pointed out that perhaps some informed people could present a counter argument at the seminar, and then my friend said she will likely gish gallop.  So I learned a new phrase.  If her visa is refused, then what is to stop a presentation via a video hook-up anyway?  In any event, it's not like the principles pertaining to Euclidean geometric equations apply here.  It's simple: if you don't like what the person ahs to say, then don't bloody rock up to the seminar.

A Reflective Time

It is not my intention to saturate you, my reader, with Too Much Information about things that can be just a tad icky and eye-watering.  Let's just say I enjoyed New Years Eve not at all.  After breakfast on the last day of 2014, I made my way to the loo in my house (and for 2015 I'd really like to get a new one, and have tiles put down, but oh well...) to void my bladder.  Instead of the relief that goes with, uh - relieving oneself - I found myself hissing sharply inward through clenched teeth, and crying, 'Holy crap, that feels like pissing a razor blade!'  Managed to get myself an appointment with one of the local GPs, and was given a prescription for antibiotics.  Waited for the prescription to be filled, and joked with the staff about how, given my paid work as a carer, I'm usually putting in other peoples' prescriptions.  This time it was mine.  Shared a few jokes with the pharmacist about The Most Horrible Woman In Town, as you do, and went home with my tablets and a 2ltr bottle of cranberry juice.  I very rarely drink this stuff, but I downed it like a parched woman in an oasis.

But it's no fun having a bladder infection on New Years Eve.  I had wanted to take my children to the 9.00pm fireworks in a nearby town, but felt so ill, and truly couldn't sit in a crowd too far from a toilet because frequent desire to urinate is one of the wretched symptoms of these things, and with these things, you have to get to the dunny NOW.  Not in a few minutes, but NOW.  But bless whoever devised antibiotics.  Was it Fleming and his penicillin?  Was it the ancient Egyptians who used to feed sick people mouldy bread?  (Mouldy bread?  Eeeuuuuuw!)  But on the bright side, by New Years Day, I was much more energetic, and able to actually do some activities with the kids.

New Years Day is the anniversary of my mother's death, and yesterday marked the 22 year one.  But I refuse to dwell, and just look forward.  Yet, I look at my children and wish she could have met them  My oldest would have had her bragging up and down the street with his academic prowess (I just do the bragging for her!), and the youngest would have been a kindred spirit with his love of music and wild sense of humour. I wish Mum knew that I actually did end up publishing novels.

Today is the anniversary of my father-in-law's death.  He was a beautiful soul, and the world was definitely left a poorer place when he passed.  Later that year, we discovered B2 was on the way, so we gave  B2 my FIL's name as a middle name.  Right now, I'm thinking of that sad day when I watched my husband, along with various uncles on both sides, hoist the coffin to his shoulder and carry it into, and out of the church.  I miss him so, especially today.

Enough of this sadness. Sure, I'm feeling in a bit of a malaise today.  I guess New Year is a reflective time for many people.  I just felt sick.  Also, the sweltering heat is not doing much for my temper, which is a naked flame near a pool of petrol just right now.

Tonight, I am going to do something I haven't done in almost thirty years: I'm going to watch 'Beverly Hills Cop'.  It's on TV tonight.  My 13yo asked was that the one with Axel Foley, and I said it was.  He asked about 'Axel's Theme'.  So yes, watch it with Mum tonight, my son, and have a look at what made the Eighties great.  I'm kidding.  Hated that decade so much.