In the event the old woman behind me at the Coles check out is reading this, let me point out a few things about the supermarket there, kind of like the way a flight attendant will point out the exits and safety features on a plane. Just as you go to the entry of Coles, there is a trolley bay. Likewise, there are trolley bays in the car park just near the disabled space where the medical centre is located. Also, they are just near Best & Less and The Reject Shop. I hope you can orientate yourself suitably, and locate a trolley bay next time. Where you will NOT find the trolley bay is between my arse cheeks, but that did not stop you trying to stow your trolley there, did it, you silly old cow? Why did you look so surprised when I turned around and asked that you not keep trying to push your trolley into my bum? My bum's not that big, and I know the work uniform slacks I was wearing today actually DON'T make my arse look big, notwithstanding the propensity of the female half of the population to ask that about the garments in which they are clad.
Okay, I've done my rant about people complaining about the banning of hi-vis work wear in a Paddington Pub, and again I beseech everyone to just get over it and remember a venue can enforce a dress code. But apparently Premier Mike Baird, and various TV talking heads are weighing in and critical of the proprietor's choice of dress code. Fuck off, you people. Baird, people in my area of the State are worried about the Newcastle train line, not what you think of someone's right to have a dress code at his own goddamn pub, okay?
Now it's time to rant about reactions to the opening of The Cruise Bar in Sydney. You know something? I think the concept of having food served from naked bodies is immensely tacky as well. But I think the models who posed as platters were wearing flesh coloured pants and boob tubes; I'm sure I saw these in the pics. What bugs me is the unhygienic nature of presenting food in this manner. Food handlers have to wear gloves, so why would it be okay to serve chopped fruit off someone's bare skin? I wouldn't bloody eat it, even if it came fresh from Hugh Jackman's abs! I do find this sort of entertainment tawdy and off-putting, so I wouldn't bother going to the venue. I live in a town with a lingerie bar on just about every corner, so I don't bother going to the pubs on the skimpy nights, because again, it's something I find rather tacky. BUT I do support the rights of the models to earn their income how they see fit. A sector of the populace are again losing their shit over the 'platters', about the demeaning nature and the objectification of women. There were scantily clad male models there, too, but the males were permitted to walk around, and therefore having the women unable to move just contributed to the objectification and oppression of women. Really? I thought the models had to lie prone and still because if they got up, the chopped fruit would roll about everywhere. I was actually more irritated by comments about 'the women just laying on the table'. They weren't 'laying', they're not chooks, okay? They were LYING on the table. Now, if everyone has a problem with this from a morally outraged view, just ask the models who put the gun to their heads and forced them to take on the job. Ask them who denied them the right to make their own informed decision as consenting adults. The answer might just be 'nobody'. It's their own choice. I heard they were paid $500 for the job, and quite frankly I'd be happy to peel off my clobber, put on some flesh coloured undies and lie on a table with fruit on me for that kind of coin, too. I occasionally have to clean faecal matter off people, and the pay's not that much great compared to what the models earned the other night.
Book Week Parade again today. My 11yo wanted to go as a Fairy Princess. I was worried he might be teased or bullied, but he wanted to be a fairy or a princess. I suggested if he wanted to be a fairy, then how about Oberon, King of the Fairies from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'? He thought this a good idea, so we shopped for a costume. He really wanted to wear a tiara, and we bought a pretty one adorned with fake purple amethysts. He insisted on wearing it in Big W as we tried to source other things Oberon might have worn. I worried about bigger kids teasing him or bullying him. I became annoyed because I did not want to infringe on his creativity. I became angered that he might not be able to just be a fairy, which would hurt nobody, because narrow minded people have a problem with it. I thought he could really make a difference if kids are scared to dress how they want for fear of being bullied (he's not scared personally, but I know I was worried for him). I had an epiphany just near the Men's Wear section, and that epiphany went like this: Fuck It! I looked at him and said, 'You know what? You're my son, and I love you, and you are going to be the best bloody fairy there! If anyone says something, tell them they're Philistines for not knowing their Shakespeare. And if anyone says, 'You look like a girl!', just say, 'It's better than looking like you: ugly!''. So he went to school in black, with pink wings, a wand, and his pretty tiara on his head.
Thursday, 27 August 2015
Tuesday, 25 August 2015
A Trade Off For Pub Rules
I'm not rostered to start work for a few hours, so I sank back into the lounge and had a look at some breakfast television as my kids got ready for school. Truly, the things that make 'news' these days have me looking for a big red button marked 'Stop', which I can press in order to signal my disembarkation from the world, like I used to do when I rode the State Transit buses in Sydney. A couple of years ago, we were visiting my sister and her family (they were then living in Coogee). My oldest, then aged 12, and I were riding on a bus from Bondi Junction to her house, and he was agog at the public bus. 'What does this button do?' he asked, before pressing the 'stop', and received a scolding from me. But back to my point. There is outrage over a pub in Paddington (which coincidentally is where my sister and her family now live) that bans patrons wearing hi-viz work gear, and muddy boots. ('Oh, it's an affront to the good working class of Australia, this banning of tradies!' 'It's discrimination!' 'It's this!' and 'It's that!' and the good old chestnut that never ceases to peel the top of my skull back: 'It's un-Australian!').
Listen folks: it's not. Nobody is banning tradies. It is a licensed business enforcing a dress code. Lots of venues have dress codes. I had to remove a denim jacket before entering the Sebel many, many years ago. If you really want to drink there, remove the hi-viz and get changed, and go on in. It is not a particularly complex conundrum, is it? I live in a mining community and am often hit with the glare of hi-viz work gear when I'm out, usually at my weekly club trivia game. The sea of florescence makes me feel I have fallen into a time warp and landed in a Wham film clip, which would be akin to my idea of Hell (the real horror would be a Haysee Fantaysee clip, or a Rick Astley one).
Sometimes places seems silly, I know. Back in 1988 my cousins and I attended a Hoodoo Gurus concert. My cousin's then-boyfriend (now husband) was turned away because he was wearing a tank style top. Okay, this was annoying. We went to the nearby flat of one of our group, and he borrowed a t-shirt. My cousin-in-law stands about 6'3 and is built like a Westinghouse refrigerator. The woman whose t-shirt he borrowed is about 5'4 and medium build. I'm certain he found the garment restrictive and ridiculous. At least it was a plain white shirt without a feminine motif on it. But no matter, we were admitted entry and once inside we discovered about fifty per cent of the guys had TAKEN OFF THEIR SHIRTS AND WERE STANDING THERE SHIRTLESS!!!
But yes, a venue does hold the right to promote a dress code, and if you don't want to comply, drink elsewhere. To borrow a hackneyed phrase from my childhood: there is no need to make a Federal case of it. All you people who have lost your shit, get a small backhoe and shovel it up. Then take a high-pressure hose and spray the place down, and apply a sanitising agent. Seriously. What was the point to this asinine story? Probably to stir up outrage among the tax-paying little Aussie battler. But yeah, I will reiterate my original point, which is to just fucken drink elsewhere if you have a problem.
Now I think I have a problem with something else I saw on brekkie telly today. And I shouldn't because it's not my business, but I am annoyed. It's Miranda Kerr's Instagram picture in which she is advertising Reebok shoes. The pic is taken at an angle where all you see is her - um, I'm not sure how to describe this. She's apparently lying back in the nude (save for her sneaker) with her legs bent, and the foot just at the entrance of her vagina. The viewer would be standing front on, and all you can't see her face - it's from the bent knees onwards. She has a right to pose how she wants, and I support that right. So why is this picture really annoying me? I. Don't. Know. I guess it just screams 'Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!' like a Kardashian family shot, and don't get me started on that gene pool, FFS. It just looked really tacky, I guess. It's reminiscent of those photos one sees in magazines that advertise 'lotsa flange' on their covers.
Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.
Maybe I should seize that idea and pose thus, holding my novels just there. God knows I need more sales. Hey listen, if you're concerned I just might decide to pose that way, there is a way you can stop me. Click on the links and buy my books. Please.
Listen folks: it's not. Nobody is banning tradies. It is a licensed business enforcing a dress code. Lots of venues have dress codes. I had to remove a denim jacket before entering the Sebel many, many years ago. If you really want to drink there, remove the hi-viz and get changed, and go on in. It is not a particularly complex conundrum, is it? I live in a mining community and am often hit with the glare of hi-viz work gear when I'm out, usually at my weekly club trivia game. The sea of florescence makes me feel I have fallen into a time warp and landed in a Wham film clip, which would be akin to my idea of Hell (the real horror would be a Haysee Fantaysee clip, or a Rick Astley one).
Sometimes places seems silly, I know. Back in 1988 my cousins and I attended a Hoodoo Gurus concert. My cousin's then-boyfriend (now husband) was turned away because he was wearing a tank style top. Okay, this was annoying. We went to the nearby flat of one of our group, and he borrowed a t-shirt. My cousin-in-law stands about 6'3 and is built like a Westinghouse refrigerator. The woman whose t-shirt he borrowed is about 5'4 and medium build. I'm certain he found the garment restrictive and ridiculous. At least it was a plain white shirt without a feminine motif on it. But no matter, we were admitted entry and once inside we discovered about fifty per cent of the guys had TAKEN OFF THEIR SHIRTS AND WERE STANDING THERE SHIRTLESS!!!
But yes, a venue does hold the right to promote a dress code, and if you don't want to comply, drink elsewhere. To borrow a hackneyed phrase from my childhood: there is no need to make a Federal case of it. All you people who have lost your shit, get a small backhoe and shovel it up. Then take a high-pressure hose and spray the place down, and apply a sanitising agent. Seriously. What was the point to this asinine story? Probably to stir up outrage among the tax-paying little Aussie battler. But yeah, I will reiterate my original point, which is to just fucken drink elsewhere if you have a problem.
Now I think I have a problem with something else I saw on brekkie telly today. And I shouldn't because it's not my business, but I am annoyed. It's Miranda Kerr's Instagram picture in which she is advertising Reebok shoes. The pic is taken at an angle where all you see is her - um, I'm not sure how to describe this. She's apparently lying back in the nude (save for her sneaker) with her legs bent, and the foot just at the entrance of her vagina. The viewer would be standing front on, and all you can't see her face - it's from the bent knees onwards. She has a right to pose how she wants, and I support that right. So why is this picture really annoying me? I. Don't. Know. I guess it just screams 'Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!' like a Kardashian family shot, and don't get me started on that gene pool, FFS. It just looked really tacky, I guess. It's reminiscent of those photos one sees in magazines that advertise 'lotsa flange' on their covers.
Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.
Maybe I should seize that idea and pose thus, holding my novels just there. God knows I need more sales. Hey listen, if you're concerned I just might decide to pose that way, there is a way you can stop me. Click on the links and buy my books. Please.
Sunday, 23 August 2015
Pondering
Okay, the cold did travel south. It's in my chest and I've been hacking up wads of lung butter for the past few days. Saw my GP today, and I've been given a medical certificate and a prescription for antibiotics. Have had enough of visiting the doctors. It's all I've done in the past few weeks after my son reported a seizure, and I had to make an enquiry about my own health, and I had to have my biennial womanly check-up, and then I come down with this rotten bug. Also, this lurgy is draining me of all energy, like a bacteria-based vampire. All I've wanted to do is sleep. I'm too bung to even think properly. I reckon I will print off another copy of my work in progress later this week - it's been at least a month since I looked at it, so surely my eyes are fresh enough to go over it again.
What I discovered the other day on Goodreads: my first novel has been given some ratings. One reader gave it four stars out of five. Another rated it one star out of five. I will admit to feeling somewhat bummed at the low score on the latter, but I must try and remember the old adage: you can't please all of them people all of the time. People are buying and downloading it. People are reading it. For this I should be grateful. My first novel is a satire about a young woman who is charged in relation to the death of an elderly woman, who turns out to be the mother of a popular politician. Here's a link to the first chapter: http://www.zeus-publications.com/calumny_while_reading_irvine_welsh.htm. I do much of my marketing on social media, and I have recently been befriended by someone from my old home town. I don't remember this person, but he was a good friend of my late older brother (there was eight years between us, and this is possibly why I don't remember this guy too well at all). He purchased the book and enjoyed it, he tells me. I wondered how he would take to the portrayal of some of the police officers in it, given he is a former serving member, but he said it was pretty realistic from what he remembered. Hey, I haven't given them a glowing portrayal, but I daresay it's an accurate one.
Also, a tweet in which I am featured has been retweeted a couple of times. It's an interview a US author conducted with me. Here's a link: http://t.co/A9NlAIf3fS It's an amusing little piece, and I talk about different things, like the time I ate a mothball (I was THREE, okay?), and the barney I had with a member of the AFP in a local pub. Will this lead to extra sales of my latest novel? I don't know. This is a link to the first chapter: http://www.zeus-publications.com/silver_studs_and_sabre_teeth.htm. It's got something for everyone: nude massage, Marc Bolan impersonator, glam rock, and same-sex marriage. I'm wondering should I target some of the proponents of marriage equality and tell them my novel deals with this subject? I know how tacky it appears to attempt to profiteer from a matter of equal rights, but my bathroom needs painting, and my dining room needs to be gyprocked and painted, and my kitchen needs a splashback installed, and my kids never stop eating.
My fourteen-year-old's school trivia night is coming up. One of the other mums has told me to expect an invitation to be on a table run through the P&C. I have also been informed that at the recent P&C meeting my team mate from last year pointed out we had come in second, which is quite good. This was owing to the fact they 'had Simone on their table'. 'Simone knows everything!' one of the other P&C-ers gushed. The school principal said she would have to join the team for the game. I have informed my son of this, and threatened to embarrass the living daylights out of him if his principal is on our team. I don't know why I'm writing about this. I guess I'm bragging. Oh, no guess; I'm bragging my arse off! This is very flattering. My school years were a tide of always being the last kid picked for the team, and now I find I'm in demand. I cannot catch, hit, or throw a ball with any skill to speak of. I punctured a basketball on a screw sticking out of the back of the board from where I had to throw the ball back in, and watched in embarrassment as the ball hit the court with a blat and wheezed out air through the tear (at least the PE teacher found it amusing). I trod in a cowpat on a cross country run. If any other clumsy young bookworms are reading this, there is light at the end of the tunnel. You're an adult for longer than you are a kid. But I must point out the PC-ers don't have it quite right. Simone does not know everything. Obviously, sport is not my category. Heh-heh!
What I discovered the other day on Goodreads: my first novel has been given some ratings. One reader gave it four stars out of five. Another rated it one star out of five. I will admit to feeling somewhat bummed at the low score on the latter, but I must try and remember the old adage: you can't please all of them people all of the time. People are buying and downloading it. People are reading it. For this I should be grateful. My first novel is a satire about a young woman who is charged in relation to the death of an elderly woman, who turns out to be the mother of a popular politician. Here's a link to the first chapter: http://www.zeus-publications.com/calumny_while_reading_irvine_welsh.htm. I do much of my marketing on social media, and I have recently been befriended by someone from my old home town. I don't remember this person, but he was a good friend of my late older brother (there was eight years between us, and this is possibly why I don't remember this guy too well at all). He purchased the book and enjoyed it, he tells me. I wondered how he would take to the portrayal of some of the police officers in it, given he is a former serving member, but he said it was pretty realistic from what he remembered. Hey, I haven't given them a glowing portrayal, but I daresay it's an accurate one.
Also, a tweet in which I am featured has been retweeted a couple of times. It's an interview a US author conducted with me. Here's a link: http://t.co/A9NlAIf3fS It's an amusing little piece, and I talk about different things, like the time I ate a mothball (I was THREE, okay?), and the barney I had with a member of the AFP in a local pub. Will this lead to extra sales of my latest novel? I don't know. This is a link to the first chapter: http://www.zeus-publications.com/silver_studs_and_sabre_teeth.htm. It's got something for everyone: nude massage, Marc Bolan impersonator, glam rock, and same-sex marriage. I'm wondering should I target some of the proponents of marriage equality and tell them my novel deals with this subject? I know how tacky it appears to attempt to profiteer from a matter of equal rights, but my bathroom needs painting, and my dining room needs to be gyprocked and painted, and my kitchen needs a splashback installed, and my kids never stop eating.
My fourteen-year-old's school trivia night is coming up. One of the other mums has told me to expect an invitation to be on a table run through the P&C. I have also been informed that at the recent P&C meeting my team mate from last year pointed out we had come in second, which is quite good. This was owing to the fact they 'had Simone on their table'. 'Simone knows everything!' one of the other P&C-ers gushed. The school principal said she would have to join the team for the game. I have informed my son of this, and threatened to embarrass the living daylights out of him if his principal is on our team. I don't know why I'm writing about this. I guess I'm bragging. Oh, no guess; I'm bragging my arse off! This is very flattering. My school years were a tide of always being the last kid picked for the team, and now I find I'm in demand. I cannot catch, hit, or throw a ball with any skill to speak of. I punctured a basketball on a screw sticking out of the back of the board from where I had to throw the ball back in, and watched in embarrassment as the ball hit the court with a blat and wheezed out air through the tear (at least the PE teacher found it amusing). I trod in a cowpat on a cross country run. If any other clumsy young bookworms are reading this, there is light at the end of the tunnel. You're an adult for longer than you are a kid. But I must point out the PC-ers don't have it quite right. Simone does not know everything. Obviously, sport is not my category. Heh-heh!
Thursday, 20 August 2015
My Ranty Raving For Today
Just as I thought I was getting over my cold, it appears to be travelling south from my head to my chest. My throat is tickling today, and I'm feeling a bit miserable with it all. But perhaps it's not this bug that's infested my scone; perhaps it's just all the shit I read lately. Maybe I shouldn't read it, but it draws me in with its tractor beam, and I'm powerless to resist. I'm referring to the comments on social media threads about the hacking of Ashley Madison. I might have to go on Ebay and see if I can find one of those old fashioned silk screen printers, and cut out some white cotton squares approximately 1' x 1', and have them all printed with a big, bright scarlet 'A'. Then I can sell them, so all the self-righteous tools out there can go and arrange for them to be pinned on the shirt fronts of all these people whose details have been exposed by the hackers. Big, bright As stuck to their bibs, telling tales of infidelity, a la Hester Prynne from 'The Scarlet Letter'. Now I've got the song 'Lipstick On Your Collar' stuck in my head, as in 'Lipstick on your collar/Told a tale on you-oooo...'. Although from now on it'll be hackers on the website, and everyone will know because you've got a big A stuck on your shirt front. I can probably retire on the proceeds, but then I could not live with the hypocrisy of knowing I had profiteered from something that is seriously pissing me off! No, it's not the cheating spouses, it's the outrageous breach of other peoples' privacy committed by the hackers, and the self-righteous attitudes of everyone commenting.
Why is a perfectly legal activity, ie adult consensual sex, suddenly the concern of every carbon-based life-form sitting at a keyboard? No, affairs are not ideal; but unless you're the aggrieved partner, it's nobody's fucking business! As I've mentioned before, what if a wronged partner self-harms knowing their humiliation has been made so public? Also, who knows what's going on in a marriage that would make a person join a site?
I really think social media has just become a larger scale version of a bunch of pinafore-clad women, their hair tightly wound in curlers, yacking over the back fence about what they had said to so-and-so about such-and-such who was doing this-and-that with what's-his-face.
Seriously, I have read comments decrying the fact paramedics have been found using the site, and they should be setting an example. Paramedics like sex? Who'd-a thunk it? Not only that, it would seem some public servants and politicians enjoy sex, too! Oh, my giddy aunt! Listen, people, don't worry about what these people are doing, and just follow your own moral compass, okay?
When Mr Bingells and I first moved into our house, a previous dim-bulb occupant had put a whole heap of stones in the garden beds, ostensibly acquired from a nearby quarry. It was a bitch getting all the rocks out, and in putting the rocks there the previous occupant also brought in some onion grass, too. I've gotten the rocks out, but appear to be fighting a losing battle with the onion grass. No matter. My point is, I might have to hide the rocks I've removed from my garden lest some puritanical uptight twat who needs a good solid crap finds them, and takes them as ammunition for a public stoning of one of the alleged cheaters.
As I've mentioned in a previous post, I don't really approve of cheating per se. But it's not my freaking business what someone else does. It's not affecting me. It's legal. Someone's possibly having a mind-blowing orgasm, and good luck to that person if that be the case.
It seems not only is the world getting smaller, so is everybody's capacity to use common sense.
Well, I shall be on my way. I have to collect Master 11 from school for a check up with his neurologist, who is in town.
Why is a perfectly legal activity, ie adult consensual sex, suddenly the concern of every carbon-based life-form sitting at a keyboard? No, affairs are not ideal; but unless you're the aggrieved partner, it's nobody's fucking business! As I've mentioned before, what if a wronged partner self-harms knowing their humiliation has been made so public? Also, who knows what's going on in a marriage that would make a person join a site?
I really think social media has just become a larger scale version of a bunch of pinafore-clad women, their hair tightly wound in curlers, yacking over the back fence about what they had said to so-and-so about such-and-such who was doing this-and-that with what's-his-face.
Seriously, I have read comments decrying the fact paramedics have been found using the site, and they should be setting an example. Paramedics like sex? Who'd-a thunk it? Not only that, it would seem some public servants and politicians enjoy sex, too! Oh, my giddy aunt! Listen, people, don't worry about what these people are doing, and just follow your own moral compass, okay?
When Mr Bingells and I first moved into our house, a previous dim-bulb occupant had put a whole heap of stones in the garden beds, ostensibly acquired from a nearby quarry. It was a bitch getting all the rocks out, and in putting the rocks there the previous occupant also brought in some onion grass, too. I've gotten the rocks out, but appear to be fighting a losing battle with the onion grass. No matter. My point is, I might have to hide the rocks I've removed from my garden lest some puritanical uptight twat who needs a good solid crap finds them, and takes them as ammunition for a public stoning of one of the alleged cheaters.
As I've mentioned in a previous post, I don't really approve of cheating per se. But it's not my freaking business what someone else does. It's not affecting me. It's legal. Someone's possibly having a mind-blowing orgasm, and good luck to that person if that be the case.
It seems not only is the world getting smaller, so is everybody's capacity to use common sense.
Well, I shall be on my way. I have to collect Master 11 from school for a check up with his neurologist, who is in town.
Monday, 17 August 2015
Today's List
Today's List:
1. What I Am Curious About: From what planet does the deputy mayor of Auburn hail if he thinks the local constituents are going to be happy about having their streets closed off (minus allowances for two-way traffic - NOT COMPLIED WITH!!!) for his wedding? Unlike many, I don't care how much of his own money he spent on it. It's his business entirely, how he disburses his own finances. But if my local deputy mayor told me I ran the risk of having my own vehicle towed for parking legally in front of my house whilst he paraded up and down the street in the most opulent and vulgar display of crassness in history (seriously, it all made the Kardashians looks tasteful), I'd be all, 'Fuck you, man!' For some reason, this makes me think of a local business owner in my home town who hated people parking in front of his premises in the main street. A school mate's older sister parked there, and was approached by his flunky who requested she move her vehicle elsewhere. Her response was an understandable 'Fuck you, mate', after which she went about her business. Her car remained parked where it was. But yeah, blocking off the street and holding up kids soccer games to land helicopters on the field? Even Bronnie Bishop's probably shaking her bouffant at that one! I'm pretty sure Mr Bingells and I inconvenienced nobody on our wedding day. Well, maybe a few golfers because we arranged for a marquee at a local golf course. Didn't have a cavalcade of expensive vehicles, just got some of our rellies to vacuum out their Holden Commodores and drive the wedding party. Seriously, who even looks at cars? Well, I'll admit Mr Bingells did at the wedding of a friend years ago who'd hired a Bentley, but Mr Bingells is a car nut. I guess I'm trying to say I cannot stand vulgarity at a wedding - or anywhere, for that matter. But yet I am conflicted, because I will always defend a couples' right to celebrate THEIR day how they damn well please.
2. Other Thing I Am Curious About: Am I old school, because I shook my head when reading about a woman who 'free-bled' whilst running some marathon? The athlete commenced her period the night before, and apparently wanted to make a statement. What statement would that be: 'I can't find my tampons anywhere'? Don't get me wrong, I am normally a howl at the moon during your cycle type. Indeed, one of my pet peeves is pissy ads that show a sanitary product's efficacy by delicately dripping blue liquid onto said product. Memo to advertising executives: menstrual blood is NOT blue! Grrrrrrrrr! But back to this runner, part of me was just thinking, 'Get a pad/tampon/cup, you dirty slut.' Maybe this was her idea of a sledge, a la Nick Kyrgios, in that she was going to put the other runners off? She runs the risk of annoying other athletes so much, there will be a rigged bucket of pig blood waiting to soak her next time she crosses the finishing line.
3. Who I Have Been Perving On: The guitarist in live film clips of Grand Funk Railroad from 1974, singing their rendition of 'Locomotion'. This was of course a cover of the Little Eva hit, and memo to Kylie Minogue: this is how it should have been done. Um, yeah, I've been having a bit of a perve on this guy - he's sans shirt, and when he sings the line about 'you gotta swing your hips', and he swings his hips, and my ovaries just go into overdrive, and I turn into a seething, molten mass of horny oestrogen. This is something of an achievement today - I've got a shitty head cold and at the time of typing (11.17am AEST), am still in my pyjamas and contemplating crawling back to bed. I think this hot muso's name is Mark Farner, anyway.
1. What I Am Curious About: From what planet does the deputy mayor of Auburn hail if he thinks the local constituents are going to be happy about having their streets closed off (minus allowances for two-way traffic - NOT COMPLIED WITH!!!) for his wedding? Unlike many, I don't care how much of his own money he spent on it. It's his business entirely, how he disburses his own finances. But if my local deputy mayor told me I ran the risk of having my own vehicle towed for parking legally in front of my house whilst he paraded up and down the street in the most opulent and vulgar display of crassness in history (seriously, it all made the Kardashians looks tasteful), I'd be all, 'Fuck you, man!' For some reason, this makes me think of a local business owner in my home town who hated people parking in front of his premises in the main street. A school mate's older sister parked there, and was approached by his flunky who requested she move her vehicle elsewhere. Her response was an understandable 'Fuck you, mate', after which she went about her business. Her car remained parked where it was. But yeah, blocking off the street and holding up kids soccer games to land helicopters on the field? Even Bronnie Bishop's probably shaking her bouffant at that one! I'm pretty sure Mr Bingells and I inconvenienced nobody on our wedding day. Well, maybe a few golfers because we arranged for a marquee at a local golf course. Didn't have a cavalcade of expensive vehicles, just got some of our rellies to vacuum out their Holden Commodores and drive the wedding party. Seriously, who even looks at cars? Well, I'll admit Mr Bingells did at the wedding of a friend years ago who'd hired a Bentley, but Mr Bingells is a car nut. I guess I'm trying to say I cannot stand vulgarity at a wedding - or anywhere, for that matter. But yet I am conflicted, because I will always defend a couples' right to celebrate THEIR day how they damn well please.
2. Other Thing I Am Curious About: Am I old school, because I shook my head when reading about a woman who 'free-bled' whilst running some marathon? The athlete commenced her period the night before, and apparently wanted to make a statement. What statement would that be: 'I can't find my tampons anywhere'? Don't get me wrong, I am normally a howl at the moon during your cycle type. Indeed, one of my pet peeves is pissy ads that show a sanitary product's efficacy by delicately dripping blue liquid onto said product. Memo to advertising executives: menstrual blood is NOT blue! Grrrrrrrrr! But back to this runner, part of me was just thinking, 'Get a pad/tampon/cup, you dirty slut.' Maybe this was her idea of a sledge, a la Nick Kyrgios, in that she was going to put the other runners off? She runs the risk of annoying other athletes so much, there will be a rigged bucket of pig blood waiting to soak her next time she crosses the finishing line.
3. Who I Have Been Perving On: The guitarist in live film clips of Grand Funk Railroad from 1974, singing their rendition of 'Locomotion'. This was of course a cover of the Little Eva hit, and memo to Kylie Minogue: this is how it should have been done. Um, yeah, I've been having a bit of a perve on this guy - he's sans shirt, and when he sings the line about 'you gotta swing your hips', and he swings his hips, and my ovaries just go into overdrive, and I turn into a seething, molten mass of horny oestrogen. This is something of an achievement today - I've got a shitty head cold and at the time of typing (11.17am AEST), am still in my pyjamas and contemplating crawling back to bed. I think this hot muso's name is Mark Farner, anyway.
Sunday, 16 August 2015
Sledging Sludge
I'm wondering whether to write some kind of open letter to Nick Kyrgios, but it might somehow validate his truly pathetic behaviour. Seriously, you little twerp, if you're going to sledge, make it clever. I'm wondering if the decision to make a nasty remark to throw Wawrinka off his game is to compensate for any perceived shortfall Kyrgios has in his own ability. Can you not just hit the fucking ball and not act like a tool?
And to all those who say he's just a kid, might I point out he is twenty years old? Look, I like a bit of fire in the sports people (the rare occasions I pay attention to sport), and I don't like false modesty. But what I dislike even more is utter toolmanship. To make a slur about someone's girlfriend says more about YOU than it does the girlfriend, or your opponent. I cannot believe your family stick up for you. You should be thankful you are not my son. God knows, I am!
Now to Stan Wawrinka, on the off chance you're reading the ramblings of a rural author and AIN, mother-of-two, husband-of-one, owner-of-two-dogs-and-one-cockatiel, you need an arsenal of comebacks for this clod. Next time he tries to say, 'Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend', what you must do is sneer back, 'And I banged yours, and she reckons I'm a ten times better fuck!' Got that? Can you commit that to memory? Good. Now get out an wipe the court with the flog.
Anyway, I'd better go and prepare tomorrow's school lunches. My head is filling with cotton wool - having a head cold and dosing up on Codral will do that for you. I tried to nap this afternoon, but my older son has a voice like a herald's trumpet, a ringing and resounding clarion that would strip the paint from the wall. The only bright point to my day was I've found a local chemist that doesn't treat you like you're about to sneak off to a clandestine laboratory and cook up a batch of methamphetamines when you buy flu medication, which used to happen at my regular chemist. I'm not going to name the chemist (can't afford a law suit), but it's something that seriously craps me right off. I've got a cold, gimme the fucking medication I've asked for, why do you want to see my driver's licence, do I look like I'm going to mix up MDMA, look at me - I can barely see through my watering eyes and can't breathe through my be-snotted nose.
Rant officially over.
And to all those who say he's just a kid, might I point out he is twenty years old? Look, I like a bit of fire in the sports people (the rare occasions I pay attention to sport), and I don't like false modesty. But what I dislike even more is utter toolmanship. To make a slur about someone's girlfriend says more about YOU than it does the girlfriend, or your opponent. I cannot believe your family stick up for you. You should be thankful you are not my son. God knows, I am!
Now to Stan Wawrinka, on the off chance you're reading the ramblings of a rural author and AIN, mother-of-two, husband-of-one, owner-of-two-dogs-and-one-cockatiel, you need an arsenal of comebacks for this clod. Next time he tries to say, 'Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend', what you must do is sneer back, 'And I banged yours, and she reckons I'm a ten times better fuck!' Got that? Can you commit that to memory? Good. Now get out an wipe the court with the flog.
Anyway, I'd better go and prepare tomorrow's school lunches. My head is filling with cotton wool - having a head cold and dosing up on Codral will do that for you. I tried to nap this afternoon, but my older son has a voice like a herald's trumpet, a ringing and resounding clarion that would strip the paint from the wall. The only bright point to my day was I've found a local chemist that doesn't treat you like you're about to sneak off to a clandestine laboratory and cook up a batch of methamphetamines when you buy flu medication, which used to happen at my regular chemist. I'm not going to name the chemist (can't afford a law suit), but it's something that seriously craps me right off. I've got a cold, gimme the fucking medication I've asked for, why do you want to see my driver's licence, do I look like I'm going to mix up MDMA, look at me - I can barely see through my watering eyes and can't breathe through my be-snotted nose.
Rant officially over.
Monday, 10 August 2015
Explosive Heads
Has anyone ever seen the movie 'Scanners'? Peoples' heads exploded in it. Same thing happened in 'The Kingsman' as the 'Land of Hope and Glory' music played, and it was to great effect, and had me screeching laughter like some kind of nocturnal mouse catching bird of prey with big eyes and reported great wisdom. I bought my older son a copy of the movie for his birthday, at his request, and he plays it often, and gets sick of seeing his mother playing air guitar in the scene where the yummable Colin Firth is kicking arse in a Southern church, as 'Freebird' is playing.
But my point is, MY head is about to explode. My younger kid has been home sick from school for the past few days. Today I contacted the school and arranged to collect some work to keep him occupied, and prevent him falling behind. His teacher assigned Maths. I sat it on the table, and then came the dreaded plaintive call, 'Will you help me, Mum?'. You see, the problem here is this: my mathematical skills are total dung. I have always hated maths. But I soldiered on, and sat with him and looked at his work book. Multiplication. Well, thought me, no drama; I can help with this. I then saw the example formula and equation. I spluttered, 'What the hell is that meant to mean?' to my poor, coughing sick kid. I have seen this before, on a DVD. Being a mainly male household - pets included - the viewing material is confined to 'Top Gear' and 'The Big Bang Theory'. That equation in my eleven-year-old's book is very similar to what I've seen scribbled on Dr Sheldon Cooper's white board when the fam is watching 'The Big Bang'. And you'd have to be Dr Cooper, or Professor Stephen Hawking to understand what the blue fuck it's meant to mean. I don't know if I've caused bafflement, bamboozlement, befuddlement, or be-whatever-ment, but I told my kid the only way I can do multiplication is the good old-fashioned, and UNDERSTANDABLE, method which was indoctrinated into my by the Good Sisters of St Joseph. Well, they weren't all that good. Most of them only wore veils to hide their frickin' horns. And that's how we did it at the dining table. He understood it, too. He got the concept of 'put down the whatever and carry the thingummyjig'. I wished so much his dad was home. His dad's working today, but his dad his fab-u-loso at maths, and would have explained it so much better than I.
Well, we're taking a break from all that now. I got him out 'Paddington Bear' to watch because he's been told he's NOT playing on the computer or his iPad while he's home sick. He did want me to get out 'Frozen', but it was out. In any event, that damnable song is something else that makes my head feel like it's going to explode. I don't want my head to explode. I don't want bits of brain and skull and associated gore flying around the room like sparks from a Catherine wheel, and sticking to the walls, and drying there. My dispersed cranial filling would most likely remain in hard flecks on the wall like a Jackson Pollock painting, because it is impossible to get my kids to clean.
But my point is, MY head is about to explode. My younger kid has been home sick from school for the past few days. Today I contacted the school and arranged to collect some work to keep him occupied, and prevent him falling behind. His teacher assigned Maths. I sat it on the table, and then came the dreaded plaintive call, 'Will you help me, Mum?'. You see, the problem here is this: my mathematical skills are total dung. I have always hated maths. But I soldiered on, and sat with him and looked at his work book. Multiplication. Well, thought me, no drama; I can help with this. I then saw the example formula and equation. I spluttered, 'What the hell is that meant to mean?' to my poor, coughing sick kid. I have seen this before, on a DVD. Being a mainly male household - pets included - the viewing material is confined to 'Top Gear' and 'The Big Bang Theory'. That equation in my eleven-year-old's book is very similar to what I've seen scribbled on Dr Sheldon Cooper's white board when the fam is watching 'The Big Bang'. And you'd have to be Dr Cooper, or Professor Stephen Hawking to understand what the blue fuck it's meant to mean. I don't know if I've caused bafflement, bamboozlement, befuddlement, or be-whatever-ment, but I told my kid the only way I can do multiplication is the good old-fashioned, and UNDERSTANDABLE, method which was indoctrinated into my by the Good Sisters of St Joseph. Well, they weren't all that good. Most of them only wore veils to hide their frickin' horns. And that's how we did it at the dining table. He understood it, too. He got the concept of 'put down the whatever and carry the thingummyjig'. I wished so much his dad was home. His dad's working today, but his dad his fab-u-loso at maths, and would have explained it so much better than I.
Well, we're taking a break from all that now. I got him out 'Paddington Bear' to watch because he's been told he's NOT playing on the computer or his iPad while he's home sick. He did want me to get out 'Frozen', but it was out. In any event, that damnable song is something else that makes my head feel like it's going to explode. I don't want my head to explode. I don't want bits of brain and skull and associated gore flying around the room like sparks from a Catherine wheel, and sticking to the walls, and drying there. My dispersed cranial filling would most likely remain in hard flecks on the wall like a Jackson Pollock painting, because it is impossible to get my kids to clean.
Thursday, 6 August 2015
My Crap Day
My day did not actually start out all that badly. There was nothing out of the ordinary. I yelled at my kids to get ready for school, but that is par for the course. If anything, things were coming along quite nicely, thank you, Universe. But Universe, you didn't have to throw a spanner into the works. No really, you didn't.
I was rostered to take a pensioner out for some social support, and she wanted to mail a package. I mean literally mail a package; I'm aware 'mail a package' is slang for having a shit, but no, I had to drive her to the post office. We were pretty much at the end of the allocated time, and she was finalising her business at the counter, and I received a telephone call. It was my eleven-year-old's school, advising he had presented to the office and reported a seizure. If you're a regular follower of my self-indulgent blogging, you will be aware my younger child is epileptic. He has complex partial seizures, not full-blown, and his medication normally controls it perfectly. Fortunately, his paediatritian has anticipated a likely need in medication tweaking, and a few weeks ago wrote him a script for some additional dosage. But in any event, it's not fun to receive this news.
Unsurprisingly, I was feeling a little agitated as my client and I left the post office. I was parallel parked right out the front. Actually, when I moved my car into that space my client and I joked about the luck. I said, 'For once the Gods are smiling on us, instead of shitting all over us!' And as we descended the ramp of the post office (my client uses a mobility aid), some flog parked in front of my vehicle and backed up fast, hitting it. I said something somewhat un-ladylike. The driver then got out, and ran across the road. Look, I know sometimes you can clip a vehicle and not be aware; I've done this myself (I was blaring music in my car; heard and felt nothing). It was a few years ago, but when it was brought to my attention I had clipped another vehicle, I did the right thing straight away. But anyway, I was a bit distracted being worried about my kid, and all that jazz. So I got my client ensconced in my car, and stowed the mobility aid in the boot. A kindly man came over to me and said his father had seen the other driver hit my car, and asked was I okay. I said I was, but more concerned about my son in the school infirmary at that moment We walked alongside my car to inspect any damage, and then a huge semitrailer went roaring by and almost dragged me into its slipstream (seriously, Council, can the fucking bypass that's been in the 'works' for at least fifteen years that I know of get constructed already?). The man swept me into his arms and held me tight against his chest to save me. If this was a movie, we'd have looked into each other's eyes as Celine Dion music played (for this reason alone, I am glad it wasn't a movie). What actually happened is I looked around wildly and spluttered, 'Fuck me, that was close!'
The damage to my vehicle appears confined to a crack in the plastic covering of the number plate. My son has to have a blood test at 4.00pm, to comply with the eight hour requirements of acceptable time between his particular medication and blood taking. He will be a brave little soldier, if his stoicism last time he needed blood taken is any indicator.
Sigh.
I was rostered to take a pensioner out for some social support, and she wanted to mail a package. I mean literally mail a package; I'm aware 'mail a package' is slang for having a shit, but no, I had to drive her to the post office. We were pretty much at the end of the allocated time, and she was finalising her business at the counter, and I received a telephone call. It was my eleven-year-old's school, advising he had presented to the office and reported a seizure. If you're a regular follower of my self-indulgent blogging, you will be aware my younger child is epileptic. He has complex partial seizures, not full-blown, and his medication normally controls it perfectly. Fortunately, his paediatritian has anticipated a likely need in medication tweaking, and a few weeks ago wrote him a script for some additional dosage. But in any event, it's not fun to receive this news.
Unsurprisingly, I was feeling a little agitated as my client and I left the post office. I was parallel parked right out the front. Actually, when I moved my car into that space my client and I joked about the luck. I said, 'For once the Gods are smiling on us, instead of shitting all over us!' And as we descended the ramp of the post office (my client uses a mobility aid), some flog parked in front of my vehicle and backed up fast, hitting it. I said something somewhat un-ladylike. The driver then got out, and ran across the road. Look, I know sometimes you can clip a vehicle and not be aware; I've done this myself (I was blaring music in my car; heard and felt nothing). It was a few years ago, but when it was brought to my attention I had clipped another vehicle, I did the right thing straight away. But anyway, I was a bit distracted being worried about my kid, and all that jazz. So I got my client ensconced in my car, and stowed the mobility aid in the boot. A kindly man came over to me and said his father had seen the other driver hit my car, and asked was I okay. I said I was, but more concerned about my son in the school infirmary at that moment We walked alongside my car to inspect any damage, and then a huge semitrailer went roaring by and almost dragged me into its slipstream (seriously, Council, can the fucking bypass that's been in the 'works' for at least fifteen years that I know of get constructed already?). The man swept me into his arms and held me tight against his chest to save me. If this was a movie, we'd have looked into each other's eyes as Celine Dion music played (for this reason alone, I am glad it wasn't a movie). What actually happened is I looked around wildly and spluttered, 'Fuck me, that was close!'
The damage to my vehicle appears confined to a crack in the plastic covering of the number plate. My son has to have a blood test at 4.00pm, to comply with the eight hour requirements of acceptable time between his particular medication and blood taking. He will be a brave little soldier, if his stoicism last time he needed blood taken is any indicator.
Sigh.
Monday, 3 August 2015
Disastrous Duets
Okay, so today my Facebook group are posting really rank duets. There are many. I'm not going to be narky about 'Ebony & Ivory' in this post because, let's face it, it's a no-brainer. When it was played back to Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, Stevie probably wished he could have been struck deaf as well. But if you're travailing cyberspace and wondering about what to avoid should it come to your notice, here are some stinkers:
1. 'When Something Is Wrong With My Baby' by Jimmy Barnes and John Farnham. This is a yowling cacophony of pure aural horror. It is overwrought to the point of caricature, and has all the subtlety of a fisting by a knuckle-duster-wearing Irish stevedore.
2. 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' by Macy Gray and some now dead tone deaf clown who went by the name OBD. Not sure what those initials stood for, but I'm choosing to run with Overly Bloated Dreck. Obviously it is a remake of the delightful Elton John and Kiki Dee. I never understood the fuss about Macy Gray; she sounds like she's singing through a humungous wad of freshly coughed up lung butter. And as for this OBD, there is a reason rappers don't sing, and he proves it in this melodic monstrosity. Truly, he makes Bob Dylan sound like Pavarotti. The studio engineer probably resigned, and joined corporate America just like his parents wanted him (or her) to.
3. 'Crusin'' by Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow. Only because it's Gwyneth. She's annoying.
4. 'The Girl is Mine' by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney. In relation to the first paragraph of my posting hereof, it would seem that a sure fire to make a stinker of a song in the Eighties was to record a duet with the now Knighted Beatle bassist. I am sure I never heard this song without feeling my ears shrivel. And their woeful 'Say, Say, Say' is also in the same drawer marked 'Shit Duet'.
5. 'State of Shock' by Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. It's just, just, well, shit. It's pointless. Mick Jagger, leader of the wild Rolling Stones singing this stupid song with the fartiest man to grace the planet? I know Jacko was a wildly talented performer, but this song just - I'm not sure I can even go there such is the pointlessness of this crap. It certainly left me in a state of shock as to what Jagger's motives and thoughts were, and my ears were stunned.
So avoid those, blog-browsers. If you do happen to listen, don't say you weren't warned.
1. 'When Something Is Wrong With My Baby' by Jimmy Barnes and John Farnham. This is a yowling cacophony of pure aural horror. It is overwrought to the point of caricature, and has all the subtlety of a fisting by a knuckle-duster-wearing Irish stevedore.
2. 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' by Macy Gray and some now dead tone deaf clown who went by the name OBD. Not sure what those initials stood for, but I'm choosing to run with Overly Bloated Dreck. Obviously it is a remake of the delightful Elton John and Kiki Dee. I never understood the fuss about Macy Gray; she sounds like she's singing through a humungous wad of freshly coughed up lung butter. And as for this OBD, there is a reason rappers don't sing, and he proves it in this melodic monstrosity. Truly, he makes Bob Dylan sound like Pavarotti. The studio engineer probably resigned, and joined corporate America just like his parents wanted him (or her) to.
3. 'Crusin'' by Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow. Only because it's Gwyneth. She's annoying.
4. 'The Girl is Mine' by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney. In relation to the first paragraph of my posting hereof, it would seem that a sure fire to make a stinker of a song in the Eighties was to record a duet with the now Knighted Beatle bassist. I am sure I never heard this song without feeling my ears shrivel. And their woeful 'Say, Say, Say' is also in the same drawer marked 'Shit Duet'.
5. 'State of Shock' by Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. It's just, just, well, shit. It's pointless. Mick Jagger, leader of the wild Rolling Stones singing this stupid song with the fartiest man to grace the planet? I know Jacko was a wildly talented performer, but this song just - I'm not sure I can even go there such is the pointlessness of this crap. It certainly left me in a state of shock as to what Jagger's motives and thoughts were, and my ears were stunned.
So avoid those, blog-browsers. If you do happen to listen, don't say you weren't warned.
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