My Inner Brockovich & Lycanthropy

Years ago, I had a little boy who would spring up from the mat at preschool and run across the room with his arms outstretched, calling in delight, 'Mum-meeee!' when it was time to collect him.  Today I heard that little boy discussing an x-box strategy with one of his best mates.  He said, 'No, that idea sucks penis holes!'  This must be sign #15 that My Little Boy Is Growing Up.  I also issued a warning against that terminology in the house.

Not much happening in the world according to Bingells.  I have to study a chapter on disabled care.  I am also awaiting the cover art for my next book 'Silver Studs & Sabre Teeth', which I anticipate receiving early in the new year.  Once the art is approved, the book goes to print, and I go on the PR offensive.  Who likes social issues such as same sex marriage, male depression, and the right to listen to whatever one chooses in the privacy of one's own home?  Who likes glam rock?  Well, blog-browsers, you can read all about it in the upcoming novel. 

I have also been doing a little agitating on the community FB page because I was so annoyed at the refusal of a DA for a brothel in the main street at the end of town.  Why?  Well, may you ask given I have no vested interested in the proposed business.  From my last post, you will see I find the ignorance and NIMBY-ism just plain offensive.  The business will have a flow on effect in town, after all, the ladies and management have to buy lunches and shop for groceries SOMEWHERE, don't they?  At the councillor's suggestion, I read the objections and minutes of council meeting, whereupon I went straight back to my thread and said that my opinion hasn't change and I stand by my original comments.  Hizzoner has weighed in, and by God, I am feeling alive!  I will admit I am not a councillor, but the grounds for refusal do like a hotchpotch of spurious rhetoric.  Why are nearby businesses worried about a downturn in custom?  ('I need to buy a new air conditioner.  Maybe I'll get a better deal on air conditioners at the brothel.'  Pfffft, gimme a break!).  Meanwhile, I am really liking this rebellious streak in me.  I said to my husband, 'I don't understand why I'm like this.  Well, I kind of do because this NIMBY-ism is stupid, and the developers appear to be doing the right thing and not getting a fair go.  I have no vested interest in the proposed brothel, and I seem to be coming over all Erin Brockovich.  But I think I know what I MIGHT be getting out of this; the plot for my next book!'

Last night 'Teen Wolf' was screened on television, starring the ubiquitous feature of the Eighties, Michael J Fox.  If you've seen it, you will know there is a scene were he morphs into a werewolf on the basketball court.  I do not know what is more ludicrous a scenario: lycanthropy, or someone of Fox's stature playing basketball.

Happy New Year.

Insular NIMBY-ism

Do I play Devil's Advocate?  Possibly, subconsciously, I just do. The other day I found an article on the FB site of The Australian Sex Party which dispelled some myths about having a brothel in the neighbourhood, and I posted it onto my local community page.  There has recently been a DA application for sex services premises, and the DA has just been rejected.  As far as I can tell, the developer has complied with every regulation, crossed every 't' and dotted every 'i', but the application has still been rejected.  In the ensuing comment thread, I expressed the view that this article might allay some of the fears raised by locals when the DA was first lodged, and that it was going to be interesting from a legal standpoint (I am a former law clerk), and it was always interesting to watch people twisting their pearls and weeping about the decline of Western civilisation.  Anyhoo, a councillor for the local shire commented that although the article I had shared was interesting, it did not correspond with the objections raised by locals, and that he believed Council had been fair in their processing of the DA and the objections.  He said the objections did not decry the lack of social values, and that before I pass judgement I should look at the letters, which were accessible via Council's website.  I said I was referring to the general comments from the general public when the application was first lodged, but certainly I would check out Council's website.

I have checked Council's website.  I have looked at the minutes of the meeting, and the notes re the DA, and the letters submitted in objection to the proposed business.  And you know what?  All I can say is a big, fat, fucking Pffffffft!  You will correctly glean from that last sentence I have not changed my views, and stand by my original comments.  People with businesses that neighbour the premises who feel they have genuine worries, are entitled to raise those concerns.  I still think their concerns are groundless.  Some worry about drunken patrons.  Hello?  The premises are right near a fucking pub!  Are people only now worried about drunken patrons?  People don't want their children to see it.  Too bad, I say.  People are concerned that it is not a good look for the town as you drive in from the northern end of the main street, to have a brothel.  Uh, a brothel does not have glaring signage saying, 'Roots 'R' Us', or some such similar.  It must be pointed out that the proposed premises are kind of diagonally opposite the club house of the local chapter of a motor cycle gang.  I think that this might be just a tad more scary.  Also, when one drives into town from the southern end, there is a pub advertising lingerie waitresses.  As one continues driving, there are more pubs advertising lingerie waitresses.  I personally find this tawdry, but I know it is also legal and I therefore merely do not frequent those premises.  Which is the choice people have, ie stay the hell away from the place, if they do not approve of a proposed brothel.  But the signs for the lingerie girls are 'out there', and a brothel is a discreet building.  The pub nearest the proposed site does try to attract families, but the thing is, it's a pub.  It's not a hospital, a school, a church, or a childcare centre.  Some of these letters have comments about the owner not even being from town.  Well, what in the blue fuck does this have to do with anything at all?  It's insular NIMBY-ism at its most insidious.  I really do stand by my original views, which is that people hear about consenting adults having sex, and just because there is a monetary transaction, dance on the table, holding up their skirts and shrieking, 'Eeeeeek!'

Christmas Ham, Mariah, and Movies

It's done and dusted, as they are no doubt saying in countless households nationwide, for another year.  I like Christmas, but I'm glad it's over.  I do the same thing most years, ie, stuff myself silly.  I was pretty good this year, but I did fold and have a slice of cheesecake at dessert.  It was the in-laws' turn this year, and Mr Bingells together with Messrs 12 and 9, are still at my mother-in-law's house.  I have returned home today because I am rostered to work tomorrow.  I did score some good presents.  The reason I scored the good presents is because I went out and bought them myself, wrapped them, and wrote 'To Simone' or 'To Mum'.  Books.  Give a person a book, and you are giving them a whole new world.  There are certain things I don't like about Christmas.  I know it's like saying, 'Hey, look at the elephant in the room' to admit you're not always fond of the whole shebang, but I'm going to tell the truth and shame the pachyderm.

1.  Christmas ham.  It shits me.  Yes, I know, first world problem and people are starving in Africa.  I know ALL this.  But employers everywhere think a ham will be a great gift, even for a single person household, and these hams are monstrous in size, akin to the hindquarters of a Clydesdale.  My husband bought one the other week because our kids had friends over.  It's still taking up considerable space in the fridge.  It's going to dry out like a neglected houseplant or forgotten lamb roast before any noticeable inroads are made into the flesh of the thing.  I hardly ever eat ham at any other time of the year, and it's mainly due to the glut we suffer at Christmas.  Really, there's only so much you can do with ham before you succumb to an attack of the screaming meemies and run up and down in the street, naked, screaming, 'Oh God, make it STOOOOPP!'  I am actually considering becoming piscetarian, or fish-and-chipocrite, and giving up most meat altogether, with the exception of sea food. 

2.  Mariah Carey.  Yes, she's talented.  I know all this, too.  But I feel so sorry for shop assistants at this time of year.  Not only are they rushed off their feet with the Christmas stampede, they are subjected to 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' played continuously on a loop.  I would be beyond postal at this.

3.  Christmas movies - this can be good or bad.  Interesting, I saw one on the ABC last night called 'Nativity!', a British one which my husband, my mother-in-law, and myself found absolutely delightful.  It starred Martin Freeman as a failed actor turned primary school teacher, who is charged with devising the school's nativity play.  Okay, I'll admit to finding Freeman cute in a geeky way. Interestingly, he is also in another, but better known, Christmas movie, and that movie is the schmaltz-fest known as "Love, Actually".  He plays the stand-in on the adult movie set.  Know something?  I didn't mind that movie when I first watched it.  I decided to buy a copy, and have grown to find it really, really annoying.  I liked that it had bittersweetness to it (the Emma Thompson character).  But most of the other characters now just shit me to tears.  That foul-mouthed secretary the British PM falls for just makes me want to take her aside and rub a cheese grater down her face.  Seriously, bitch, stop swearing all the time!  Whilst the Laura Linney character didn't annoy me (indeed I found her compassion for her mentally disabled brother inspiring), I did yell at the screen when she was finally with that bloke she'd fancied for ages and the brother rang the mobile, 'Cut the call short!  Turn off the phone!  Chuck the phone down the dunny!  Do anything, but for God's sake put the phone out of the way and just do that hot guy, will you!'  I got dizzy from rolling my eyes when that twerpy guy got off the plane in the US and nailed three hot chicks he met in the bar shortly thereafter.  I mean,  COME. ON!

Sigh.  Sigh.  Sigh.  So I am home, feeling like a punctured whoopee cushion, and after a nice cool break in the weather yesterday, am wrapped in a film of moisture from the current humidity.  Our adopted fox-terrier is barking like a lunatic at shadows, and driving me spare.  What is almost as bad, he has eaten something that does not agree with him, and his resulting flatulence is like opening the door to the old outdoor dunny in Satan's backyard.

Merry Christmas, to all who take the time to read.

Nineties Nostalgia

'Mum, you seriously cannot be watching this!'  These words were cried in derision to me by my 12yo son this evening.  'Yes, I am watching this, ' I told him, 'And I enjoyed it when I was a younger woman.  In fact, I was HOOKED!'

The object of my son's scorn was the old Nineties serial 'Beverley Hills, 90210' (commonly referred to among hipsters as just '90210').  And yeah, I must admit, I was totally bloody hooked on it years ago.  I could never identify with it because I didn't attend a California high school for the rich and elite.  Nay, I attended a rural high school in New South Wales for anybody who lived in town.  It was a public school.  I did attend a private Catholic school in my tender years, but that's another box of neuroses for other posts.  There were no boys at my school (at least none I can remember) that in any way resembled Dylan Mackay.  Probably because the boys at my school were not obviously about twenty-eight years old.  But yeah, I used to watch it religiously.  Had no crushes on anybody, or anything like that.  My husband has admitted to having had a crush on the studious and humourless Andrea Zuckerman, but he has always had a thing for the librarian type, particularly ones with red hair.

Watching it has made me feel a tad nostalgic for the Nineties.  I was in my twenties for much of the decade.  I watch it and feel a wistful longing for the days when I could actually were Levis 501s that were smaller in size than the ones I currently wear.  The jeans I wear are okay.  I do not wear the ones my mother-in-law gave me from her wardrobe (she lost a lot of weight after a diabetes diagnosis) and as much as I hold her in high regard, she does wear 'mum jeans'.  I don't place all that much stock on clothes normally, but I will not wear 'mum jeans'.  I had some sweet blouses back then, nipped in at the waist and floral patterned.  I cooked much spaghetti Neapolitana for my friends, and we went out and watched bands.  Often tribute bands; it was very much de rigeur those days.  We saw The Australian Doors Show, Sons of Beaches (Australian Crawl tribute act), the Australian John Cougar show, a Kiss tribute act, and even Bjorn Again before they got really big.  We went to many parties with themes.  I still recall the back to school one, and I had to borrow my cousin's old sports uniform.  We posed for a photo, and a few years later when visiting my cousin, she pointed out the photo of us in school uniforms.  My husband's eyes popped a little, and he looked like he was on the verge of a bodacious boner.  That was an okay party.  I remember everyone dancing in a circle, doing various swimming strokes.  'Do backstroke!' someone cried; we did backstroke.  'Freestyle!' someone cried; and this is what we did.  My cousin, one of the funniest people I know, cried, 'Do the safety jump!' and executed this manoeuvre from life saving classes, doing a jump with her arm spread, into the centre of the circle.  It has been almost twenty-four years since this party (and at the moment I fear almost as many kilos), but we still occasionally laugh  about it.

At the moment, I am sweltering through a true Aussie Christmas, and I understand there is a cool change a-comin'.  BRING IT ON!

Today I have been listening to Garry Puckett and the Union Gap, particularly 'Lady Willpower'.  Love that song.  Hell, I love that dude's voice.  How amazing was it?  He still sounds pretty good, too, as I understand.

What will the kids leave out for Santa this year?  Probably some cake and a beer.  When I was little, I bit the corners of a Sao biscuit to give it a skull like shape, and squashed apricots on it for eye sockets.  No, I shit you not.  But if you know me, and follow my posts, you will know I have always had a 'thing' for skulls.  I left this biscuit out for Santa.  He did not eat it.  I was disappointed and thought him an incredibly ungrateful fuck (but liked the present he left), and a Philistine for not appreciating the art and design that went into that Skeleton Biscuit.  We fed it to the dog.

Merry Christmas - I will probably post again on Boxing Day.

Oh, Joe (Jackson and Hockey)

I read today that hearing just a few bars of one song can evoke a thousand memories.  I don't know about a thousand, but yesterday when I was driving around I did hear a song that evoked a few less than pleasant ones.  That song, my friends, was 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?' by Joe Jackson.  I love Joe Jackson's singing voice; hell, the bloke could sing the contents of the phone book and I'd be in rapture.  I love the way the song mentions staring in disbelief at some women's choices 'while my coffee grows cold'.  It's a great image and seems to sum up despair and hopelessness.  I remember hearing that song at a school dance.  It was straight after the boy I liked asked another girl to go with him.  I remember feeling disbelief because it had been my firm stance this boy liked me.  ME!  For a few months, he had been shooting me glances across the playground.  When he started at our school, I was strolling o'er the quadrangle and my class wag called out, 'Hey, Simone!  He likes you!'  He was pointing to the young stud-muffin who had recently started to sprout underarm hair.  I noticed his underarm hair at the swimming pool and almost swooned because it meant he was growing up, and I didn't have to consider myself a pathetic cougar type (I was a little older than he).  I actually don't think cougars are pathetic at all, but I didn't want to think I was desperate going for a boy who hadn't opened the door to puberty just yet.  But then, one night at a school dance, he asked another girl to go with him.  I sat across the dance floor on one of those uncomfortable molded plastic seats, just wondering what the total fuck.  Up to then, the signs had been pretty strong that it was me he fancied.  Jesus, I had even gone so far as to fashion the letters of his name in that glow-in-the-dark glow putty and stick them onto my dressing table mirror.  I believed this action would have some talismanic effect.  Ladies, if you're thinking of trying this, don't bother.  Use the glow-putty for another, more useful activity.  Maybe to stop a draft or plug up a mouse hole.  And in the midst of my misery that night at the dance, the record (yes, it was records back then) given a spin was Joe Jackson's 'Is She Really Going Out With Him'.  So glum was my 14yo self, I couldn't ruefully chuckle at the Universe's totally fucked up sense of humour and timing.

Tony (Sc)Abbott has cut funding to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Aid.  How bloody wonderful - NOT!  And in the meantime, there is apparently to be a visit from the Cambridges.  This Royal visit costs the taxpayer money in sundry items such as security.  I have nothing against the young couple at all; indeed, I rather like them.  But when Abbott and Hockey are going on a slash and burn operation like some rabid psychos trying to get snakes out of a cane field, surely there is a better way to spend money that would normally go to the royal visit?  Particularly when a quoted ballpark figure I heard was one million dollars.

Just Desserts

I loved Christmas when I was a kid.  Usually.  I quite like it as an adult.  But this year I feel I am buried in a quagmire of ennui and blandness.  I have a fair idea what it is: exhaustion.  It has been non-stop for the past almost week.  I've been baking and icing cupcakes for the Year 6 graduation, helping to set up the hall for the dance (and crying like a sook), worked quite a few hours on Saturday, and had to take the youngest for swimming lessons and a birthday pool party on Sunday.  Yesterday we attended the high school library for an information about the teachers and lessons our oldest can expect when he starts high school next year, where he is in the opportunity class (he is one bright little biscuit!).  And I still have to wrap Christmas presents, write Christmas cards, and run the house because my husband is still a bit incapacitated.  And to crown it all, it's been seriously, revoltingly, can't-stand-it-anymore HOT.  My husband told me he would love to have the neighbours over for a BBQ on Saturday, along with a friend of ours and her kids, and I am seriously not wanting to partake in this.  I am too. Bloody. Exhausted.  I just want to cry a lot of the time these past few days.

It's too hot to hang the Christmas lights and angels outside - bah, humbug!

It's so hot the cockroaches are out in force - we are not dirty, but they hang out around our dishwasher when it's hot weather.  Hate 'em all!

Today I got into my car, and what should be coming through the speakers but Jim Diamond singing 'I Should Have Known Better'.  Oh, this song is direct from Satan's backside.  Hate it so much, especially that loathsome 'I-Yi-Yi-Yi-Yiiiiii!' chorus.

Got work Christmas luncheon tomorrow, and my team is in charge of desserts.  Two of the women will be preparing them, with the rest of us contributing.  I don't mind, and won't fuss too much.  Kitties work.  They are good.  Have been in enough share house accommodations to know there's no point splitting hairs about them because you were away over the weekend and therefore didn't get to eat two days' worth of food etc.  My point is, I will not be eating any of the desserts offered.  First of all, I am trying to lose a bit of weight.  Second of all, I don't like many desserts and the ones being done are the desserts I detest the most.  Trifle because it consists of everything I hate: soggy, sherry-loaded cake, custard (I just hate the texture of this), jelly (see custard for explanation); and cream (I have hated cream mightily, ever since I was a little tacker).  The end result of trifle looks and smells like a bowl of freshly-parked vomit.  Pavlova: a true yuck-fest of sickly meringue and cream.  The final dessert, as the cook doesn't want to waste the egg yolks after she has made the meringue for the Pav, will be - wait for it, are you sitting down? - lemon meringue pie.  Seriously, how can anyone stand to eat lemon meringue pie?  Yet another offering from Satan's kitchen.  My stomach is churning and my face is screwing up just at the thought of it.

Anyway, better stop bitching, and get tidying in the kitchen. 

Today's Folly

Not sure what the fuck is going on with the computer/blog site tonight.  I hope it's not going to mess up on me.  This is more or less a test post.  I'm kind of sleepy tonight, and I don't want to write too long.  I have had a rather unpleasant epiphany of a Damascene proportion; I am not as young as I used to be.  I am, however, still as clumsy as I always was.  I attended a pool party with my 9yo, being a birthday party for one of his little friends.  His parents hired the inflatable obstacle course.  I looked at it and thought, 'Hot damn, that looks fun!'  So, I queued with the children and waited my turn.  I stepped on, with all the grace of a spastic elephant on a skateboard.  I skidded and flopped onto the flat area of the inflatable, banging the top of my right foot on the edge of the pool, whilst simultaneously twisting my left knee a little.  Undaunted (and not wanting to incur the wrath of sugared-up kids waiting behind me), I valiantly negotiated the course, all the while thinking perhaps this had not been such a good idea, after all.  I became sort of stuck in the section with the big white rollers, feeling a little like that ursine honey thief, Winnie the Pooh (a character I have always detested, by the way) after he pigged into a shitload of honey at (I think) Rabbit's house and got stuck in the window, which served the break-and-entering gluttonous fuck right.  I wobbled and wriggled, and burned with humiliation when overtaken by one of the littler kids.  I was then faced with what really, to me, looked like Mt Everest; it was only a vulcanised peak with grips and steps to be climbed over, but I was seriously considering bailing into the water at that stage. But I got over it.  And finally went down the slope and bum-first into the pool, which felt as crisp, pure and sweet as the first bite of a delicious nashi pear.

But oh God, how I am suffering for my folly now.

Today's Vagaries

So many vagaries in my mind, a mind I must shortly take off to the boudoir.  I have just read Troy Cassar-Daly and Adam Harvey have quit or disassociated or something from the Country Music Awards because John Williamson has criticised their duets album as sounding too American.  I don't care if it sounds too 'American', or too 'Australian', or too 'outer-edge-of-Uzbekistani', and what is 'too American', anyway?  Is it a shortening of the vowels so the word 'pass' sounds like 'gas' (hey, pass gas - bahahahahaha!), instead of the broad sound Australians use, so it's a bit more like 'pahss'?  No matter the diction or delivery, most country music to me sounds like whiney, self-serving, shitty drivel delivered through the nasal passages.  Or pahssages, if you want to be reeeaaaallly broad with the 'a' vowel.  I live within a two hour drive from Tamworth, and when asked do I intend to visit for the Country Music Festival my answer is invariably, 'Probably not.  You see, most country music makes me want to pull a Chopper Read and hack off my ears.'  Does John Williamson think Troy Cassar-Daly and Adam Harvey should sound like him?  IMHO, he sounds really fucking awful.  I cringe when the rugby is on, and the All Blacks perform a blood-chilling haka because what do we have to offer?  'Waltzing Matilda' sounding like it is being sung by an adenoidal camel. 

The High Court of Australia have overturned the ACT's same sex marriage laws.  I thought this would happen because I was pretty sure marriage is under the umbrella of Commonwealth law, not State or Territory law.  This decision has voided the marriages of those people who took part in the same sex marriages the other day.  They must be gutted.  They must be proud.  They must be so many things.  I just wish they could be happy.  Is it not time to change the wording of the Act, and to enable a law to be passed allowing same-sex couples to marry?  New Zealand did it, and the world hasn't spun off its axis and disintegrated yet.  Come on, as pointed out above, they have this funky cultural haka and we have a jingoistic cringe for sports matches, let's prove we can be just as considerate of people's human rights as our friends across the Tasman.

I must sign off now, and put the cup cakes I have baked into a container, ready for icing tomorrow morning.  It is my 12yo's Year 6 Graduation tomorrow morning, and I am one of the mums who volunteered to bake cup cakes (as well as make a cobb loaf dip) for the party.  It was an emotional day today, being the Presentation Day.  I sat on the stage with some other people (I presented a drama award), and his name was called out for his class Academic Achievement award; I was able to get a good picture of him getting his certificate and medal.  Although nominated and having participated in the tests, he was not named Dux.  But you know what?  He has attended seven end of year presentations, and collected six (count 'em - SIX!) awards for Academic Achievement.  I have pushed through my loins one smart kid.  In any event, I was glad I ironed his shorts last night.  The last time I ironed his school uniform at all was a few days before he started kindergarten.  However, when I went to inspect him before he left for the bus this morning, I discovered there will still a drawing adorning his lower arm.  This was a sketch he did yesterday, and it looked horribly like an erect penis flanked by two testicles.  It looked like a crude prison tattoo.  Naturally I yelled, and grabbed the washcloth whereupon I scrubbed so hard, I almost fileted his arm.  If he was going to win Dux, he was not going to do it with a vulgar drawing on his arm.  Oh well.  Maybe I should have left it there.

Got other things on my mind, but they will have to wait for the next post.

Today's List

Might just do a little list of things that are sucking in the world according to Bingells of late.  Do you all care?  Maybe, maybe not.  In any event, enjoy the following post:

1.  That disgusting cow head skull that has made its way (probably via the dog next door) to the stretch of yard at the side of my house.  Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE skulls!  I do.  As an artistic motif, I think they're awesome.  Friends buy me skull mugs as souvenirs when they are on their travels, such is my fetish.  I'm as weird as you can get without actually carving a skull into my bicep and filling it in with ink from a leaky pen.  I first noticed this monstrosity on the nature strip at the front of my neighbour's house.  My 9yo was playing on his scooter, and their 3yo was playing on his bicycle.  'Yuck!' cried I, 'Where did this disgusting thing come from?'  The 3yo looked at me, all innocence and purity, and said, 'It felled-ed out of the sky.'  (Oh, bless).  I sneakily thought, 'Not my nature strip; not my problem'.  Well, it has become my problem because the horrid thing is now in my yard.  I don't know if it was the dog next door, or if the thing is cursed like something in a Wes Craven film, but it's in my yard.  And my dogs have been having a good old chomp.  My miniature foxy's breath is now reminiscent of a charnel pit in Hell.

2.  Drawing the bowser at my local petrol station with the bung hose.  Seriously, it trickles and dribbles like the cock of an ejaculating nonagenarian.  Sorry for the image you probably have in your head, but this is how it is.

3.  Being abused online because I cracked a tasteless joke.  I will not go into too much detail about the joke, but it involved cigarettes, Liberace, and the 'fag' word.  Someone called me a homophobe.  I am a person who actively supports same sex marriage.  I am a person who tells off my children the moment I hear one of them use a homophobic slur as an insult.  I am also a person who, if a bit miffed about a comment, will point it out to the poster without becoming abusive (all the while respecting their right to an opinion).  I would not fire off abuse and then unfriend somebody, or leave an online group after a bunch of abuse without giving my victims a chance to respond or defend themselves.  I do not particularly care to have my picture in the dictionary next to the words 'Craven Chickenshit', because I really do think this would be the definition.

Not everything is bad.  Today I reacquainted myself with a classic from my favourite childhood band, The Sweet.  The song is 'The Sixteens'.  It's got their signature awesome rhythm tandem team of Mick Tucker and Steve Priest.  Andy Scott treats us to the most angsty riffs that really seem to capture the pathos of this song.  Brian does his unique vocals, and Steve does back up, and it all blends to show what a talented band they were, particularly with the harmonies that easily rivalled Queen.

Well, something else I don't like is vacuuming, but it must be done.  Thank you for reading.

Vale, Nelson Mandela.

I love this time of year.  Usually.  At present I am not quite feeling the love. What I am feeling is exhaustion.  On Wednesday I was rostered to work a few hours, and as soon as I was finished I hurried (keeping within speed limit, of course) to the local high school where my oldest will be starting next year, and where he was attending for his final orientation.  It was my intention we attend the uniform shop and get him fitted up for his shorts, slacks, and a jumper.  Luckily, I already have his everyday and sports polos.  This was a very good idea.  Maybe not as good as using mouldy bread to treat infection like the ancient Egyptians used to do (which of course later became penicillin), but a good one nonetheless.  Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea, and there was only one shop assistant on duty.  I shit you not, reader, that my son and I waited almost two hours to get served.  I could have walked away, son in tow, but the uniform shop is not open very often, and this was my opportunity.  To compound matters, my son had a dental appointment (a Government freebie payable on Medicare).  Finally got him kitted out, and into the car, and off to the dentist.  Husband rang as I entered the surgery, and I said, 'I'm here.'  He said, 'With Dr Suchandsuch?'  Um, say wha?  Yes.  I had merrily driven my son to the Wrong. Fucking. Dentist's. Surgery.  On the bright side, after a check up and clean, no further treatment was deemed necessary.

'As I walked out the door toward my freedom, I knew that if I did not leave all the anger, hatred and bitterness behind, that I would still be in prison.'  This is a quote from Nelson Mandela, probably the greatest man I have ever known of in my lifetime.  I sat on the lounge this morning, watching a live telecast of South African President Jacob Zuma giving a press conference in which what we had all guessed was confirmed: Nelson Mandela is now definitely free at last.

You know something I remember about Mandela, something that I think is absurd?  That he was photographed with the Spice Girls.  Who can tell me what's wrong with this picture?  A man of his calibre, being posed with five pop 'singers' of negligible talent at best.  One with a face like the north end of a south bound cat who would marry a soccer player.  One pulling a face and sticking out her tongue ('Hey, look at me, everyone!  I've got a tongue piercing!').  One who went on to do a shite cover of 'It's Raining Men' in the moving 'Bridget Jones' Diary'.  Others whom I cannot be bothered writing about at the moment because I am going to watch a DVD.  'Behind the Candelabra', which is the biopic of Liberace.  I do like biopics.  If there is ever a biopic of the Spice Girls made, I will probably not bother myself too much.

Vale, Nelson Mandela.

Kinda Lingers

Just read an online article about an upcoming movie 'Charlie Countryman', in which the MPAA (apparently the US equivalent of the classification board) did not want to deliver a rating on this movie until a scene depicting the female character receiving cunnilingus was cut.  I'm not certain  how graphic this scene was.  Won't get to find out, except perhaps in the 'deleted scenes' on the DVD, should I choose to hire it.  What has been left in is some very graphic violence.  This leads me to think it's okay to see people getting tortured and blown to confetti, but God forbid a woman receive pleasure.  This does not sit right with me.  I am not going to trot out the most over- and misused word of 2013, ie, 'misogyny', but it is sexism and chauvinism and hypocrisy, and just downright stupid.

MPAA, please get out of the caves and evolve, like the rest of us have.  Years ago, I watched a British farce called 'Confessions Of A Driving Instructor'.  As the title would suggest, this was no 'Citizen Kane'.  I didn't see it in 1976 when it first came out, nor would I have been allowed to because I was only ten years of age then.  I watched it on video at a friend's house in 1984, when I was eighteen and believed I knew everything.  Like many eighteen-year-olds, I was a tad obnoxious back then.  At forty-seven, I probably still am just a tad.  Anyway, there is a scene where the male lead ( who looked disconcertingly like Mick Jagger) is on the golf course, and flirting with a lady golfer.  She says something (can't remember exactly what), and he gets what she is hinting at, and kneels down in front of her, and we see her bliss-filled face as she hisses, 'Oh, yesssssss!'  It is obvious the male character is going down on her.  It is also obvious that this did not cause the earth to spin off its axis and disintegrate.

But the FUNNIEST cunnilingus scene I ever saw was in a film called 'Re-Animator'.  This is pure Eighties schlock, in which a scientist invented a serum capable of bringing the dead back to life.  His rival fought him for the formula, and ended up with his head chopped off.  The scientist (Dr West) thought, 'Aha!' and injected the serum into the both the body and head of his rival.  The body parts came back to life, and went on a rampage (the body being controlled by the head).  It arranged for the kidnapping of a woman with whom it was infatuated (after it had been walking around the hospital with a surgically-masked mannequin's head on its shoulders, and carrying its own head in a sports bag with holes cut in for vision).  The woman came to on a slab, where she was tied down, and - I shit you not - the body picked up the head and placed it between the woman's legs.  Perhaps this is imagery and metaphors on the part of the director.  More likely it's an attempt to have the audience shriek with horrified laughter.  I sure did.  My then flatmate had been out on a date, and when he returned home I asked him how the date had gone, etc.  He explained he had taken his date to a movie, and this was what they had viewed.  I asked him about the movie was like, and it took ages to get an explanation because he kept breaking down in giggles: 'half the people in the cinema walked out!', '...and the head was going down on this chick!'. 

Anyway, can the MPAA please review its priorities?  That goes for our own censorship lot here,  I've been trying to ascertain whether there is a petition going on to have the needless photoshopping of women's genitals stopped.  Will let you know if I find out.

Don't Fold The 'Folds'

Censorship.  It's a blight.  It's an insult to our common sense.  It is, apocryphally attributed to Mark Twain, telling a grown man he cannot eat a steak because a child might choke.  It is also a law in Australia that dictates the vulva of women portrayed in porn magazines be photoshopped, airbrushed, whatever so the lady-folds don't show too much, and what is shown looks like a slot on a kid's piggy bank.  It is, in my submission, the reason some women fear they are abnormal and feel it is necessary to undergo labioplasty, which in one of my other submissions, is a form of genital mutilation.  I am not talking if someone has disproportionately large labia that causes them discomfort, and the owner of such labia undergoes 'corrective' surgery.  I'm talking about I'm-Gonna-Cut-My-Flaps-'Cause-I'm-A-Product-Of-A-Society-That-Sees-Incorrect-Vulvas-Because-Some-Stuffed-Shirt-Thinks-'Oh-No-Normal-Woman's-Sex-Parts-=Bad!'.  By the way, did you like my term 'lady-folds'?  I made it up.  Isn't it great?  And it's used (WARNING: GRATUITOUS PLUG FOR NEW BOOK ALERT!) in my novel 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth', due out at the end of February 2014.

So I had a look at 'The Vagina Diaries' on ABC2 the other night.  It was riveting, but disturbing, stuff.  Disturbing because a young woman underwent labioplasty in what was likely an unnecessary operation.  Now, I'm resilient about many things.  I grew up on a farm.  I loved to watch my father kill sheep and my favourite part was when he hung the carcass and pulled out its guts.  True.  But the other night, when I saw the surgeon making for that delicate fold (I'm not going to use floral metaphors as they annoy me) I shrieked, 'Eeeeuuuuw!' and looked away, with a hand clapped over my eyes for good measure.  And my legs involuntarily crossed themselves.  I looked back just in time to see a blackened piece of cauterized labia on a white cloth.  Aarrrgghhhhh!   It looked like - so help me, God, - overdone pork crackling, or a piece of over-cooked gristle from a chop.  I slapped my hands over my face again.  This is one of the few times I have ever looked away from a screen.  I couldn't watch during the aversion therapy scene in 'A Clockwork Orange' because I'm a little bit squeamish about eyes.  Watching my cousin put in contact lenses one day made me feel a little ill at ease.  If I'm watching a nature program and there's a frog, I also have to look away because I hate those slimy, jumping, green fuckers.  My equally amphibi-phobic bestie and I tried to watch the mockumentary 'Cane Toads - An Unnatural History' for therapy, and we kept cringing and looking away from the screen, and we are both still terrified of frogs and toads.  But none of it held a candle to the revulsion and horror I felt watching someone undergo a needless mutilation the other night.

Some guys in the street were vox-popped for the show, and you know what, ladies?  They don't mind what the lady-folds look like.  They love you for you.  So please, can the Censorship Board stop being numpties and metaphorically mutilating the womanly parts of our bodies that lead to the portal through which our children are often brought into the world?  That would really be nice.

Know what else would be nice?  If I became a best selling author.  Check out the links on my page to my other novels.

Well, to use a poker metaphor that suits this post: I fold.

The Sledge Sludge

Oh dear, fuss and kapooha over the cricket.  Or in particular, the on-field verbal exchanges between the cricketers.  Many commentators are saying sledging is a part of the game, and all you sooky-lala-pants should either deal with it or skulk back off to Dear Old Blighty.  I think the stoush with Clark, and whoever that Pommy bloke is, is probably a textbook example of a storm in a teacup.  What I would like cricketers to remember is that they are playing cricket, not doing a job like a doctor or nurse or ambulance officer.  Cricket, in my humble opinion, is a game almost guaranteed to bring on catatonia.  It. Is. So. Fucking. Boring. As for the sledging, part of me wonders is it bad sportsmanship.  However, I don't really mind it so long as the sledger actually says something witty, and not racist or homophobic etc.  I've never been a huge one to sledge myself.  Indeed, the extent of my sledging career has probably been limited to an inter-school basketball match where I asked the captain of the visiting team was that her head or had someone crapped on her shoulders.  I then ran for cover.  One of my favourite sledges involved an interchange between Glenn McGrath and Zimbabwean Eddo Brandes.  McGrath had been trying to get at him, and asked Brandes why he was so fat.  Memo to McGrath and all other prospective sledgers: jibes about a person's weight are not clever, and will not escalate you the heights of Wildean wit.  However, Brandes replied, 'Because every time I fuck your wife, she gives me a biscuit.' Yowzah and Ka-ZIINNNNGGG!!  Love it.  And it would appear McGrath was stunned, and the rest of the Aussie team were falling about laughing (as would I, with no loyalty to my captain whatsoever!).

Pointless Remake Of The Day: 'I Think I Love You' by Voice of the Beehive.  As you can guess, this is a remake of the old Partridge Family number.  And it is pointless to the brink of tedium and misery.  The original is a nicely constructed pop song, and delivered with a wistful yearning as the narrator tells of being a bit scared of his feelings. There is an almost bittersweet feeling of whimsy in that song.  The remake, it must be said, sucks donkey's balls.  It is just .... shit.  There is none of the emotion in the original; it's all funk and bop and Look-At-My-Techno-Coloured-Hair.  They lose points for not having a deadest spunk like David Cassidy, as well. Just a collection of plunking notes and chirping voices.  Voice of the Beehive?  Nay, it is voices of the Aviary of Coked-Up Budgerigars. 

Proud Parent Moment Of The Day: Last night when my 9yo took to the stage to perform 'Balloons' on the piano.  He knows he is not yet the most accomplished musician of the children performing.  What he does know is how to make an entrance and exit.  He mounted the stage, waved to the audience as though he were headlining act, played 'Balloons' note-perfect, and during the applause, executed two campy, Liberace-inspired bows that had the audience chuckling away.  'Is that your little boy?' asked the old dude to my left (my husband sat at my right, laughing with amusement and pride at our little 'star').  When I nodded, he said, 'He's a character!'

Happy Anniversary, Dr Who

What I learned today: the theme song to 'Dr Who' was composed by an Aussie. ( What I have forgotten today: the composer's name!).  How awesome is that theme?  The opening bass, the synth, it's so atmospheric and creepy, and I love it.  I used to watch when I was a kid, all those years ago, and I remember the then incarnation of the Doctor's face would appear, as portrayed by actor Jon Pertwee.  And it was a creepy as.  It made my blood go cold.  It was on every day in the school holidays at about two o'clock.  My uncle, a school teacher, would visit my home town with his brood of four (to whom I'm quite close),  They would all be staying at another relative's house, where there was a large paddock.  Someone excavated a trench in that paddock, and we would play soldiers in the war, or else hide and seek (we always hid in the trench).  An older cousin (my rellies are legion) would sometimes double us around on his Yamaha motorbike, and I swear the bugger deliberately rode us through long thistles.

But what I mainly remember is we would be hanging out for 'Dr Who' to come on.  And we drove my grandmother absolutely batshit with the repeated cry of, 'Is it time for 'Dr Who' yet, Nanny?'  When it was finally time, we all huddled on the floor in front of the old black and white television (this was prior to 1975), and watched in fear.  Yes, fear.  We all loved a scare.  Most children do enjoy ghost stories around the campfire, or in the darkened room with the blinds drawn.  (I used to do that with some other kids until the blind inexplicably went up, and we all screamed).  I remember a cloud of evil looking fog, and some seriously scary-looking cyber-fucker (whatever he was) appearing and sending a ray from his forehead  to Dr Who, and knocking him unconscious.  We thought he had killed the Time Lord.  We ran out to the back yard, where my uncle was attending a bonfire, and my cousin cried, 'Daddy, there was a lot of smoke, and this monster came out and killed Dr Who!'  My uncle gestured to the fire and said, 'There's a lot of smoke here, so I hope some strange monster doesn't come out and kill me.'

One day, when we asked for the umpteenth time was it time for Dr Who yet, my grandmother finally blew her springs and shouted, 'No! No! NO!'  Karmic retribution is a funny thing.  I have echoed this cry many a time to my own children, when they have driven me absolutely insane with the same question or request, over and over and over.

Nathan's Naughtiness & Kanye's Krap

There are a couple of things I am truly nonplussed about today.  One is the revelation that former Premier Nathan Rees has admitted to an affair with a constituent.  Now I am really going to have to file this in the drawer labelled 'Who Frickin' Cares?'  Affairs happen.  I'm not saying they are an ideal thing to happen, and there will often be a hurt party at the end of it.  But you know something?  Both parties were consenting adults.  In this fine land of ours (unless Fred Nile gets his way, or Queensland Premier Campbell Newman decides he Just. Doesn't. Like. It and decides to lean on his Canberra mates), sex between consenting adults is perfectly legal.  My care factor that Nathan Rees has engaged in sex with another adult is Zero.  My desire to think about Nathan Rees in sexual congress is Zero.  My desire for Nathan Rees in 'that way' is Even Less Than Zero.  What really ground my gears today is the headline in The Daily Telegraph referring to him as Nathan Sleaze.  Seriously, DT?  A paper run by a man who thinks it's actually okay to hack private telephone calls in the name of a story feels it is entitled to take some high moral ground?  Put some crampons, rope, and a pickaxe on the expenses sheet to submit to accounts, did you?

Anybody who knows me well knows I like music.  Most kinds.  Not overly fond of country music (whiny, self-serving dung in most cases), and I detest (c)rap.  Now I have even more reason to do so.  I have just viewed a couple of minutes of the video from Kanye West's latest offering, 'Bound 2'.  Is the reason rappers rap because they cannot sing?  This piece of poop isn't even rhythmic.  The lyrics are banal in the extreme, and the fact that it is brought to us by one half of the most narcissistic couple to strut the Earth makes it all the more awful.  It is truly an aural manifestation of the smegma scraped from beneath Satan's foreskin (this is a favoured metaphor of mine when it comes to shit songs).  There is a hideous caterwauling in the background, which sounds like a bunch of cats sucking helium.  The video features his fiancée Kim Kardashian, who is the sort of person that makes me want to shout, 'Stop the world so I can get off!'  Seriously, why do people have to make these vacuous imbeciles who are devoid of any discernible talent famous? 

Today's Vagaries

The vagaries of my mind toss and twirl like clothes flapping in a tumble dryer.  I have today off because my father has an appointment near John Hunter Hospital with a rheumatologist.  As it happened, my husband ended up driving him and I'm enjoying a few hours of peach and quiet.  So I sat watching breakfast television, and all it seems to be is sap and sugar, and pointlessness.  For some reason, fawning articles on the merits of models, both super and ordinary classification, really grind my gears.  And because I am female, I will no doubt be accused of jealousy, but I can assure you it's not the case.  I just get irritated when the media seems to lose its shit because someone's lost a contract with Victoria's Secret (which I'm sure must be such a great aspiration to wander up and down with ludicrous wings on that must upset the equilibrium, as well as a stringy undergarment that travels northward up your date).  My internal irritation factor is also triggered when there is an article about how someone's getting their figure back within weeks after giving birth.  How can I put this delicately?  Oh, dear, I can't.  I shall type it slowly.  Who. Fucking. CARES?  I don't.  My figure returned in due course, and then went for a wander again not due to a pregnancy but a laziness and gluttony that I have succumbed to of late.  I'm working on getting fit and healthy again.  I don't care, but it worries me that some other women will feel pressured to look like they weigh six stone within a month of going through an incredible, life-changing experience instead of focusing on someone little and helpless, who really needs you.

The UK is talking of lowering the age of consent to 15, and there is talk of whether we should follow suit.  Quite possibly, given our laws very closely mirror the UK's.  I'm not sure if this is necessarily just a band aid solution.  Kids under the age of 16 are already having sex, some at the rate of satyriasis-stricken rabbits.  Maybe some very, very in-depth education about STDs, pregnancies, and emotional consequences might be a good idea.  Certainly better than the education I was given in high school.  The school assigned a rather pious teacher who didn't believe sex ed was the school's responsibility to teach such subject.  Who can tell me what's wrong with this picture?  I remember viewing a film called 'Are We Still Going To The Movies Tonight?'  A girl rejected her boyfriend's sexual advances and he got the shits, and she timidly asked, 'Are we still going to the movies tonight?'  Maybe 'Eve: Portrait Of A Teenage Runaway' might have been better, although it might have scarred us looking at Jan Brady turning tricks. I do like the way the film showed the girl should have autonomy over her own body and not feel pressured into activity she does not wish to engage in.  I think the only thing the teacher really tried to hammer home to us was for girls to always say no because guys preferred to marry virgins.  You know, when I met my husband I wasn't a virgin.  Many times over.  Neither was he.  We didn't give a shit.  Twenty years later, we still don't give a shit about each other's past.  And it helps to have someone with artistic ability to draw diagrams of the reproductive systems, too.  This teacher's depiction of the ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus looked like a front view of the skull of a cow, like what you see in the desert.

For some unknown reasons, bacteriologists and toxicologists in Antwerp decided to check library books for bugs and germs.  The most nasties were found on 'Fifty Shades of Grey'.  They apparently found the herpes virus on there.  What the what?  What I'm positive they did not find was any literary merit whatsoever.  There was definitely none visible to the naked eye, and in my case, none visible to the reading-spectacled eye, either.

I Saw The Signs....

Sign My Little Boy Is No Longer My Little Boy #13: Took him to a local store to by a few items for his high school uniform next year, just a few polo shirts and a sports shirt.  They were a size 14.  Got him home and got him to model one for his dad.  I just looked at him.  He's a handsome lad, and filling out from the weedy stringbean he used to be.  He is only a couple of inches shorter than me, and I am actually rather tall for a woman.  His dad and I just looked at him, standing tall and confident in his high school shirt.  I felt my eyes prickle.  I remembered a tiny, slippery individual with messy, sticky black hair, a coating of vernix (from being a couple of weeks early), and an incredibly worried look on his face when he was handed to me by a midwife.  Now he's been nominated as Dux for his school this year, and due to start secondary school.  Where have all the years gone?  Don't worry, I'm not about to break into, 'Sunrise, Sunset'.

Sign My Little Boy Is No Longer My Little Boy #14: Drove him to a local store to buy some clothing for his school graduation party.  He chose a black shirt, but there were no slacks at Best & Less - oddly enough.  As we were leaving the car park, Adele came on the radio: 'There's a fire in my heart...' whatever the lyrics are.  I commented I liked her.  He pondered the physiological impossibility of starting a fire in your heart.  (I did wonder whether to tell him his grandmother's pea-and-ham soup gave me frightful heartburn when I was pregnant with his little brother).  He then said, 'I heard at school that there was this girl and she got really drunk and she poured kerosene down her throat and threw a match in - oh wait, it was her vagina.  Uh, never mind, Mum!'  I almost crashed the car.

Sign I'm Always Going To Be His Mum #4: He likes to play x-box live online.  He has online friends, some from school, with whom he communicates verbally through the television.  What an amazing technological age we live in.  Sometimes random gamers enter into the game, and you can hear them talking to each other.  My son won a game.  I heard an older sounding person ask his age.  Twelve was his reply, because he is twelve.  Then through my television speaker directed at my son, I kid you not, came the word, 'Cunt!'  I was in the lounge room in a micro-second, and shouted at the television, 'And how old are YOU?'  A faltering voice replied, 'Nineteen.'  I then roared, 'You are old enough to know better than to speak like that to someone, you foul-mouthed little son-of-a-bitch!' and switched off the x-box, and told my son I would not have him subjected to vicious abuse like that.  I do believe nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to have been able to confront the monstrous troll face to face.  I imagine this guy as an overweight, greasy haired git; perhaps a scrawny, greasy-haired git.  Regardless of his size, he is no doubt unemployed and sponging off his parents, and unlikely to lose his virginity before age twenty-six, an encounter he will have to pay for.  And when I confronted the virginal, socially inept jerk, I would peel the skin (after donning gloves because he's probably covered in zits all over, and dried jizz from his constant masturbation to Miley Cyrus videos) from his miserable carcass, and then stuff the pointless cretin into a barrel of salt. 

There is no bitch like the one whose child has been threatened.

Welcome Aboard, It's .... Icky

I will crouch like a vulture and admit I don't mind some Seventies pure cheese.  There are times when I feel I should confess to a priest some of the cheese I like.  For some reason, the other day I got to thinking about the good old Pacific Princess - yes, 'The Love Boat'.  It was kitch.  It was twee.  It was as daggy as an unattended sheep's butt.  But I used to watch it.  Mainly to see who the guest stars were going to be.  This show as a great platform for actors whose stars were on the wane.  Seriously, did Ron Pallilo get much work outside 'Welcome Back, Kotter'? 

But this show did have its bad points, aside from the cheesy qualities.  Often, one would have to check credibility and belief at the door before a viewing.  Here's why.

1.  The ep with Sonny Bono as a hardened, heavy metal type rocker.  C'mon, why did the producers think we'd believe this?  Bono is no Marlon Brando.  I actually decided to You Tube it, and see if I could locate footage.  I did.  It was just as awful - no, MORE awful than I remembered.  He played someone called Deacon Dark, and came on stage in Kiss type make up (more Eric Carr than Gene Simmons), with flaming torches on stage, and sang (hah!) some truly godawful song called 'Smash It'.  The lyrics went something like 'Smash it/Crash it/Hit it with a hammer and bash it'.  From memory, the character falls in love with a deaf girl (oh, WHY do I know this?).  Not surprising.  No hearing person could stand to be subjected to his nasally, adenoidal singing.  This awful clip is probably used to 'cure' teenagers whose parents are worried about their heavy metal tastes, like the aversion therapy in 'A Clockwork Orange'.

2.  Doc Bricker.  Why was this guy allowed to practise?  He sleazed and slimed and slutted his way around every deck of that cruise liner.  Truly, if a patient presented with a sprained ankle, he'd have her undress.  This guy should have been struck off the medical register.

3.  The episodes set in Australia.  Warning: if a US dram-edy has a special suffixed with the words 'Down Under' - RUN!  And memo to all American screen writers - most Australians do not pepper every day speech with rhyming slang as every second phrase and idiom, okay?

4.  Billy Crystal as The Kissing Bandit.  This shy bloke would get dressed up in a mask and cape, Zorro-style, and kiss unsuspecting women.  The women were thrilled, and some were waiting on the moonlit deck in gowns and applying perfume waiting for a smooch from this Lothario.  I'm calling total BS on this - most women would have reported him, and kicked his nuts up into his throat if practicable.

I don't know whether to conclude with this as point 5, or as something I think is worth commenting on.  It is icky to think about now, and I doubt it would be filmed now.  There was an episode where Gopher hit on what he perceived to be an attractive young woman. This enchanting creature was a 13yo on holiday with her dad, dressing up with older clothes and experimenting with make-up.  This was at a time when it was de rigeur for fashion houses to use teenagers painted up to look older in the fashion shoots, as the teenagers probably had unlined complexions (until acne hit and rendered them useless).  Nowadays they use air brushing and this is a different can of worms.  I guess the producers thought it would make a good story line.  It made for a rather uncomfortable one, that was for sure.

A List For Today

So I sat down and decided to compile a list of things that suck a bit somewhat lately.  I'll try not to be too much of an Eeyore from 100 Acre Wood about these things.  I didn't like Eeyore as a kid - the dude was total negativity and sucked all the joy out of a room like an imploding black hole.  Didn't like Winnie the Pooh much, either - gluttonous fat fuck he was.

1.  The annoyance I felt at the relevant government whilst watching the David Hicks interview this morning.  (Did someone say John Howard?).  It doesn't matter what they THINK HE DID, the fact was he was locked away without consular access for five years, and charged with a crime that legally didn't exist at the salient time of the alleged offence.  This, in law and in life, sucks donkeys' balls.  You cannot just say, 'I don't like what I think you might have done, so I'm going to enact a law NOW and charge you.'

2.  The fury I felt when I saw Tony Abbott on television this morning, talking about boat illegals.  'They bloody are not!' I snapped at the television.  My 12yo asked me what ailed me, and I explained, jabbing a finger toward the television like a Grimm Brothers fairy tale crone, 'That man there!  He's the Prime Minister, and he's talking utter crap!'

3.  That song 'Jack and Jill' by Raydio.  Now some of you probably haven't thought of this melodic silliness since it was inflicted upon us in 1978.  Perhaps some of you had it buried like a suppressed traumatic memory.  I was goofing around on the Internet and looked up some Billboard Top 100 charts.  This silly song actually is here.  Don't get me wrong, the blokes performing can carry a tune, but this offering and interpretation of a children's nursery rhyme is so farty and pointless.  So farty and pointless, I suspect they might have inspired some of Coldplay's latter day material ('Paradise', anyone?).  They asked us why do we think Jack snuck down the hill.  Well, I didn't want to know, but they go on to explain he needed 'love he couldn't get from Jill.'  Either Jill refused to put out, or she was a bloke in drag.  I don't care.  But why record such a pissy song?

4.  The Channel 7 news crew that waylaid Simon Gittany on his way to court and asked inappropriate questions, thus earning themselves a little summons to the court from the presiding judge.  Are you clowns trying to cause a mistrial?  Do you clowns not realise that regardless of how heinous an offence with which a person is charged is, the charged person is entitled to a presumption of innocence until otherwise proven in a COURT OF LAW, and not a court of tabloid journalism.  So what will happen should the case be aborted, one would imagine, is that these tabloid television shows will screen an ex-pos-zaaaay about tax payers' money funding criminal trials.  Which, incidentally, I'm more than happy for my tax dollars to do.  I'd much rather this to funding some rorting politician attending a wedding and claiming it as expenses, let's just say.

Here Come De Fuzz!

It has been a fiendishly sweltering day today, and when I stepped from the air conditioned house of a friend this afternoon after dropping The Great Gutsby there for a sleep-over, the heat that assailed my face was like a physical slap.  It has been a bit of a crap day.  My other half visited his specialist only to be referred for an MRI.  I received a text advising a gentleman, who was one of the elderly I do paid care for in town, has passed away.  I got in to my car and Michael Jackson's 'Man In The Mirror' was spewing - yes, spewing - through the speakers.  I hate this song - it's like hearing an anaemic fairy urinate.

Stupid things are making headlines.  Things like a Brazilian woman has filmed Justin Beiber sleeping.  What?  Justin Beiber sleeps?  The Devil you say.  I'd be sorry for the Beib if he had not also been photographed fetching a slag up his throat to spit with a ptoot! on the heads of unsuspecting fans below a balcony.  But truly, filming somebody sleeping?  Why would you do this?  Is it to prove he is not a vampire?

Speaking of Brazilians, in this case the hair removal treatment and not the race, today I read an article that suggested good on 70s pubic hair is making a comeback.  Yes, the bush is enjoying a revival.  A renaissance, if you will.  The bush is back!  This just goes to prove if you hang onto something long enough, it will come back in fashion.  Personally, I do not get the appeal of lying on a kitchen-papered table with my loins exposed and my legs spread like a contortionist's while some person I don't know well pours hot wax on my most sensitive areas and rips out hair by the roots.  My eyes are watering as I type.  Thankfully I can touch type, and therefore don't have to look at the keyboard.  The concept of then rolling onto my stomach and spreading my cheeks for further possible waxing, as I have heard some women do, makes me clench my fists and raise my eyes Heavenward and wail and keen, 'WHYYYYYY?'  Anyway, ladies who have kept their pubic hair intact can no longer worry about pressure to have it all ripped out, and get around with a pudenda like a cloven billiard ball now.  As they say in the classics, 'Here come de fuzz!'

And They're Off!

Okay, I succumbed,  I watched breakfast television for tips, and armed with a few names, attended the local TAB and got the kindly officer with a green shirt on reading 'ASK ME HOW' to help me place a few each-way bets.  The country tends to lose its collective shit on Melbourne Cup Day, doesn't it?  Horse racing interests me only slightly more than the bowel habits of turtles, as a rule.  Yet, along with everyone else it would appear, I get just a little bit interested on Cup Day and have a flutter on the GGs.  I have only ever attended three race meetings in my life.  The first was in 1993 when I first stated dating my now-husband.  It was in my home town and my father was clerk of the course.  I didn't even think to wear a hat.  The second time I went was as a hospitality student at the Scone Cup, and I was actually working, ie, passing around plates of sangers to the socialites.  I did very good silver service at the buffet, doling out the boiled spuds to the punters as they passed by with their plates.  I also almost had my head bitten off by a very well known socialite who often graced the relevant pages of the Sunday papers.  I offered to clear her coffee cup, which had dregs and more foggy cloud than Canberra airport on a winter morning.  'I haven't finished!' she barked, in the manner of a demented Chihuahua.  I felt like saying, 'One more facelift, lady, and you'll have a beard!'  The third time I attended was at a local meet about a year ago with a friend who, as a horse trainer, had credentials which enabled me to enter the private bar and use the ladies room there.  I am normally more than happy to use the same facilities as the hoi polloi, but the public loos were infested with big, horrible, slimy, green frogs ,and I am highly amphibiphobic.  I don't know why; I just hate the slimy jumping fuckers, that's all.  Anyway, go Fiorente, or Mount Athos, or Dandino!

Anyway, I will try and get a little bit of writing done before I lie down.  It is my day off today, and I am suffering a head cold that is fast travelling down the chest.  I would like a little snooze-a-roo before the kids get home.  Whether I watch the race or not, is not decided.  Watching it will not make 'my' horse win, so I don't care too much if I miss it - although I do get a chuckle at the frenetic ranting of the race callers, who always sound as though they are about to simultaneously blow the springs in their heads, and evacuate their bowels.

Of First Aid, Russkis, And Bullies

Am stoked beyond repair to advise I passed my First Aid renewal yesterday.  So many things change over the years.  Instead of shaking a casualty and asking if he/she is okay, it's now squeeze the shoulders etc.  If someone feels faint, we no longer sit them on a chair and have them place their head between their knees (makes sense because if they do become unconscious we don't want them falling to the floor and clobbering their noggins now, do we?).  I paid particular attention on the choking first aid, having a gluttonous son who shovels in his food like a threshing machine.  And having only last week completed mental health first aid, I was able to answer the question about how to deal with a casualty in the throes of an anxiety attack before anyone else put up their hand.  Yay, me.

But I almost needed first aid last night.  I almost went into shock.  What happened?  Well, I had a spare ticket for the local theatrical society's production of 'The Narcissist'.  My husband didn't feel up to coming along, and I rang around various friends and 'L' was available.  She wasn't going to come out because of her impecuniosity, but I just figured it's better than the seat being spare, so I offered to spring her the cost.  She said she had a couple of bucks she could give me, and I said to just buy me a drink at the venue, being one of the local clubs.  Being a sensible driver, I ordered a middy of light beer.  She handed over her money, and I was aghast when I realised she had none for herself, so I said, 'Right, let me buy YOU a drink.'  She ordered a lemon russki.  I don't like these drinks much; they're a bit sickly for my more dry tastes. I didn't mind them when they first came out, but I could not drink more than two at any given time, and they were rather flash and more costly than other mixers.  I actually took a six-pack to my cousin's hens' night, and her sister-in-law, who I had not met before, asked me did I want to swap a drink from her six-pack, being VB.  Being a social type, I did.  She then asked did I want to swap another drink, and I declined.  She snottily asked was I precious over my Russkis.  I said no, but had I wanted to drink VB (which I generally fucking hate, anyway), I would have brought along a six-pack of VB.  She flounced off.  Stupid girl.  But last night, the bar tender cracked open the bottle for my friend, and told me I owed $9.00-something.  I almost fell and had to hang grip the bar for support.  What the total fuck?  Is this due to Kevin Rudd's tax-hike on alcopops to stop the young binge drinking so much?  They're just going to drink something else, if that's the case.  And my friend isn't a young binge-drinker.  She rarely drinks at all and is thirty-two years old.  Anyway, we really enjoyed the play, which was 'The Narcissist'.  It's different to what the local theatrical society normally does, and this play carried an MA15+ rating.  Great dialogue in it, and I argued hard to NOT have the play toned down for local sensibilities.  Hell, the town I live in is peppered with lingerie bars, so can't we have something that might be salty but witty?  I actually auditioned for the lead female role, but obviously didn't win it. 

Does anyone ever comment in online forums?  There's one I read, but because I can't be bothered signing up for membership, I don't get to comment.  I was almost tempted to this morning.  I read an article about bullying, and one of the commenters said she used to be a high school bully, and she did it because she could get away with it.  It's one of my theories.  Yes, I know some bullies are cowed and abused at home, but the ones at my school weren't.  They were vicious little bitches who knew they could get away with it, and who enjoyed inflicting misery on others.  This poster wrote about having obtained a pleasure in her activities, and it was only the disappointment on the faces of her parents that made her stop.  I actually felt like typing, 'You were clearly a complete little c**t, from the sounds of it.'  I wonder has she grown out of it?  I occasionally see my old school bully around, and avoid her.  She's still as toxic as a bilious toad, and although I'm no longer scared of her, I just downright don't wish to have my normally passable, if not pleasant, day ruined by an encounter with her.

Hallowe'en & Life Saving!

Yesterday took the lads to a cheap-o shop and purchased some props and costumes.  Yes, we are going trick or treating tonight, with a friend of theirs.  Their dad has not been supportive of this idea over the years when the little one has asked about it, on the basis that it's not really an Aussie tradition.  All I see when I get on FB is the usual bleating, beefing, and blathering about this Halloween business being an insidious US custom pervading our culture like a measles epidemic.  The reason I've never been that keen to celebrate and rolled my ocularies is not because I'm afraid of the Americanisation of my way of life.  It is because Halloween is actually a Celtic tradition and marks the end of summer.  Seriously, if we want to celebrate it here in Oz, do it at the end of FEBRUARY!!!!  Anyway, my kids will only be kids once, so I've got some face paint and fake fangs etc, and I'm looking forward to it.  This morning, I called the little one to brush his teeth, and he walked into the bathroom wearing his fake fangs.  He removed them and ran a toothbrush over them, and chortled, 'I'm being like you, Mum!'  This is because I wear a partial, having lost one of my front teeth to an abscess some years ago. I could go without my denture, but do not wish to look like some of the ferals in this town, which appears to have more than its fair share of boganalia.  (I've just made up a word - like it?).

Well, I'd best go and complete some paperwork and questions for this Saturday, when I renew my First Aid Certificate.  I need to have a current one for my employment and mine is due to expire in December.  I always recall having to do life saving and first aid at school - I'm sure we all did - and nobody wanted to do mouth-to-mouth on the mannequin because one of the kids (when the instructor was called away) stuck his dick in the mannequin's mouth.  For some reason, one of the mannequins was in a classroom at school instead of the swimming pool, and this same kid decided to dry-hump the mannequin.  His performance came to a sudden end upon the appearance in the doorway of the teacher, a dour woman with a countenance so fierce she was secretly referred to in my coterie as 'Gargoyle'.  The kid's case flamed scarlet to the point of near-combustion.  Nobody else got any work done because we were all too busy snickering throughout the lesson.  At least I didn't have to rescue this kid doing practical at the pool.  Unfortunately, I was assigned a kid I'll call DR, and he was the fattest kid in class.   He swam to the middle of the pool and feigned drowning.  I did the great safety jump, swam to him, and then tried to tow him back.  I struggled.  I spluttered.  I wondered whether Captain Ahab had my piece of gold handy.  Who remembers that fancy rescue technique of getting the victim out of the pool, the one where you stand on the edge, grab the victim's wrists, and pull them out and 'turn them', so they end up sitting on the edge?  I remember it well, but with that memory come the traumatic recall of this kid grabbing my wrists, slamming me into the side of the pool thus winding me, and dragging me out in such a way I almost lost a yard of skin, which then went floating off along the surface of the pool like a deceased jelly blubber.

Well, I'm off now.  Thanks for dropping buy.

Of Smog & Dumb-Arses!

I type this and hear thunder in the distance, and pray/hope/wish there is a downfall imminent.  But no lightning strikes - PLEASE!  There have been bushfires burning not far from here, and the grass around my home and indeed the town is tinder dry, or as we'd say in school, 'as dry as a nun's underpants.'  The smoke circling the town, a hangover from the controlled burns and out of control fires, is making me think I live in Los Angeles, and not the Upper Hunter Valley.  I keep thinking of the opening credits of 'LA Law', an 80s/90s show to which I was pathologically addicted.  But I could not stand Anne Kelsey.  If you watched it, you would know what I mean.  She was this holier-than-thou, piss-elegant, la-de-da type with a forked stick wedged firmly up her date.  She vehemently opposed the appointment of Rosalind Shays to position of senior partner, and a lot of it was based on gender.  She sniped at fellow lawyer Victor, who was preparing a case defending a death-row murderer, with the self-righteously intoned, 'How can you defend this scum?'  I sat in my beanbag, probably scoffing Thai takeaway (I was single then), and rolled my eyes as I said, 'Because. It. Is. His. Job.  He. Is. A. LAWYER!'  My background is actually law, and I tend to get a bit irked when people ask (or they used to ask) did I not have qualms about my job, a job that entailed assisting in the defence of people accused of some heinous acts.  My answer to that is a big, fat, "NO!", accompanied by a cheekily blown raspberry.

I walked my dogs yesterday and became out of breath.  I am vastly tired of this smoke in the atmosphere.  The frickin' coal dust is bad enough.

Don't you just hate standing in a queue at the supermarket and the queue doesn't progress because there is a dumb-arse in front of you typing a text on her mobile phone?  The fact that she was all fake-tanned with Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses perched atop the carefully straightened, glossy locks just makes it worse.  And I feel guilty that it makes it worse.  She is entitled to dress and groom herself as she sees fit.  But is it necessary to hold up the supermarket queue sending a text?  And a big hate-fest goes out to those clowns that walk around the supermarket whilst texting, ergo not watching where they are going, and then plough into you, or bang into your trolley, causing a jolt that sends a shockwave up your arms that then rattles the fillings in your teeth.  These people are mega-dumb-arses.

The other dumb-arse at the moment is Kim Kardashian.  I sometimes wonder if she deliberately cultivates her dumb-arsedness for publicity's sake, but then again she's too dumb to realise that feigning stupidity is even MORE stupid than natural stupidity.  She's said her labour was easy.  Fine.  My second labour was a relatively easy one, too.  It happens.  She said she couldn't wait to check out her vagina in the mirror.  Again, that's her business entirely.  She said, and herein likes the kicker, her paternal instincts have kicked in.  Yup.  Alert the media; a BLOKE gave birth!

Let me just point out who is not a dumb-arse.  It's the Great Gutsby, aka my 12yo son.  Yesterday he advised me he, and a handful of the other Year 6-ers, are to sit a test today.  He doesn't know why, but I have a very sneaking suspicious it is to determine who will be the student named Dux at the end of year assembly this year.  He has been awarded Academic Achievement every year he has been at school (with the exception of when he was in Year 2 - WTF was his teacher thinking?).  Except that it would make typing difficult, I would be crossing my fingers for him.  His dad and I spoke last night about how utterly wonderful a Dux-ship would be to our beautiful boy. As long as we don't get as passionate and one-eyed about it as that awful woman who murdered the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival some years ago in the US.  I think we will be okay.

Who Kerrs About The Split?

Well, the needle on my Give-A-Shit-O-Meter has not twitched at all upon reading the news that Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr have separated.  Women's magazines et al will no doubt be perpetuating a great contagion of teeth-gnashing and breast-beating, but I seriously couldn't give a fuck about it.  So much so that I feel compelled to write about it today.  Okay, call me a bitch (because I'm about to be one) but I have always found Miranda Kerr a tad annoying.  Well, maybe not Miranda per se, but more the gushy slop that gets written about her, and the constant selfies, and the fact that she is a MODEL, not a curer of cancer (let's get a little perspective here, people!) and I don't think models need to be deified quite to the degree that they are.  I must have been one of the very few teenaged girls back in my day who DIDN'T want to be a model.  Am I the only one who rolled her eyes when the term supermodel became the catchword of the Nineties?  Am I the only one who Just. Doesn't. Get. It?  Undoubtedly a Day of Mourning has been declared in the town of Gunnedah; their best (or only?) known export's marriage has fizzled, but all I could think was 'meh', when I heard the news.  But no doubt there will be an overkill and overload of quotes and Miranda might even be given her own column to write, because a lot of the right-wing media likes to give unqualified people journalistic possies. 

I have discovered a fabulous way to embarrass your children and teach them a lesson.  When they make an inappropriate remark, simply have them explain it to you.  Last night, my 12yo, The Great Gutsby was playing x-box online, and he said to his opponent, 'I'm going to kill you and teabag your grave!'.  I sat down beside him and asked him to repeat what he said.  I then said, 'I'm not sure what that means.  Can you explain it?'  I was almost sorry for my little rapscallion as he turned an unfetching shade of magenta and falteringly explained his idiom.  I then told him I didn't want to hear that phrase again, and thanked him for giving me inspiration for a saying to use in one of my stories!

Speaking of stories, I have liaised with my publishers, Zeus Publications, and I will be getting the cover art of 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth' for approval early in the new year, and after that the novel goes to print, and will be available for purchase around late February.  Hint, hint, hint to my readers, friends, and countrymen.

Condoms (if not splendour) in the grass

Okay, I'll admit it.  I enjoyed the episode of 'Ja'mie' last night, and am a big fan of Chris Lilley's work, although 'Angry Boys' didn't grab me.  Sorry, Chris, but it didn't.  I did not attend an elite private girls' school during those formative teenage years, but I think teenage girls are the same everywhere, ie, bloody awful.  Ja'mie was kind of a hybrid of two rather full-on girls from my school, in my mind.  Anyway, I went to a State school, and one of my memories of the alpha girl was the lurid tales she would tell me during Maths about the sexploits she and her then boyfriend got up to.  It is little wonder I am so totally pants at Maths.  Then one fine day she told me she and her boyfriend had gotten up to what is euphemistically referred to as 'rumpy-pumpy' on the gym mats in the sports equipment store room the previous evening.  Not only had they engaged in illicit sex (she being underage), they had left not one, but TWO (count 'em - two!) condoms on the mats, and we HAD to find them.  Yeah, WE.  I had been recruited against my better judgement.  Admittedly, my judgement was somewhat clouded because I had never seen a condom, used or otherwise, and was curious.   So, during break, with another girl going 'cockatoo', we scrabbled about in the sports room (which was really only an oversized cupboard) looking for dirty condoms.  I found a screwed up, yellowed thing and held it with the very tippy-tips of my finger and thumb nail, where it wavered precariously.  'Is this one of them?' I asked, my voice saturated with distaste and awe.   She said it was, and located its mate.  We then hid them under a rock and washed our hands, with the fervour of an OCD sufferer.  Someone saw us, turned the rock over, and they were bright yellow contrast against the green grass.  But that's another story.

Completed a course in mental health first aid today.  Had to drive 1.5 hours to another town to complete my training, which was an employment requirement.  Fascinating course.  But now I'm tired.  I'm tired and stressed out because my kitchen is a mess and the dishwasher needs fixing (this is going to be a simple task, but it's a matter of getting it done).  My kids did a totally shit job last night, and my youngest is a nightmare when it's his turn to dry (as detailed in a previous post).  I was playing trivia last night, and of course Mr Bingells' back is still in a state of fucked-up-ness.  I came home tired, and a bit irked after having an argument with one of my team mates about Scott Morrison's spurious and offensive use of the term 'illegals' to describe asylums seekers.  'They ARE illegals!' insisted my team mate.  'They effing are not!' I disputed heatedly, 'it is NOT illegal to seek asylum!'  He presented me with the chestnut of them not stopping at other countries en route to Australia.  I snarled that unlike these other countries, Australia is a signatory to the UN convention on refugees.  And I really wish I worked for the appropriate department so I could actively defy Scott Morrison's policy that the employees refer to these people as 'illegals'.  I would love to shout loudly from my desk I will do no such thing.  Morrison says to call 'a spade a spade'.  Okay, applying that logic, I say that the Immigration Minister is a twit.

Learned lots today.  I am not happy at the moment.  I have come home and am feeling stressed and miserable out some things on the home front, so have poured wine, ie, 'self-medicated'.

Our Politicians Are Nuts!!!!

Is there a delicate way to put this?  Is there a way I can be subtle about it?  Can I be tactful?  Do I WANT to be tactful?  Oh dear, I can't think of anyway to put it.  Oh well, here goes: dear politicians in Queensland and with Immigration portfolios: ARE YOU ALL ON FUCKING CRACK?!!!! 

Ah, that's one succinct way of putting it.  I am glad I don't work for Scott Morrison who has instructed the staff of his department and detention centres to refer to asylum seekers as 'illegals' and 'detainees'.  I will have to type this slowly for his benefit: They. Are. Not. ILLEGAL.  Seeking. Asylum. Is. Perfectly. Fucking. Legal. Whether. It. Be. By. Boat. Plane. Or. On. A. Hang-glider.  I fear I might turn green and bust out my clothing when I see frightened, desperate people being dehumanised thus.

And to Campbell Newman up there in Queensland: what the total fuck, man?  These proposed laws for dealing bikie gangs, to say the least, suck donkeys' balls.  Closing tattoo parlours because there MIGHT be a bikie association?  Where does this leave the poor tattooist who wants to ply his/her trade and make a living?  Increasing the sentences of people convicted of particular crimes, notwithstanding application of the parameters of the relevant sentencing law, if they HAPPEN to be associated with a bikie gang?  This is seriously and dangerously nuts.  Refusing parole if someone doesn't co-operate with police?  Charging someone if they refuse to turn police informant?  Why should someone have to put their life at risk by turning police informant?  Who are you going to target next that you don't happen to like?  Left-wing activists?  Greenies:  Trade unionists?  God forbid - BLOGGERS?  In Russia, Vladimir Putin is no doubt removing his hat and saying, 'Dude, RESPECT!'  Seriously scary and offensive stuff going on.  I keep imagining jackbooted footsteps.  You know what I've just been listening to?  It's an old Skyhooks song from around 1979 called 'Over The Border', which was a scathing little ditty abut the police state under the rule of The Flying Peanut back then.  Just wondering if much has changed.  You Tube the song.  I think it might have been one of the first numbers released after Shirl left the band, and Tony Williams doesn't do too bad a job.  Maybe he's not as good a singer as Shirl, but there is no doubt he leaves me in the shade in the vocals department! 

Ah, Queensland.  Beautiful one day, draconian repressive gulag the next!

Don't Look!

I'm going to issue a warning to all of you who may be contemplating watching a certain movie. It's not overly recent; 2006, I think.  Last night it was screened on television, when I was so exhausted I couldn't move.  My exhaustion can be attributed to having had to cart my children places, purchase some groceries after my work out at the gym, the decision of my car battery to flatten like a pancake thus necessitating a call to the NRMA, all followed with a trip to a neighbouring town to visit my father in hospital (he was transferred back to the district on Friday, from the John Hunter Hospital).  My children were keen to see their pop.  I filled up my newly-charged-battery-under-the-bonneted car with petrol, and got the kids some chips at the servo.  As you do.  If this makes me a terrible mother, then guilty as charged, m'lud.  Dire warnings were issued to the children to behave themselves, but the warnings were not heeded.  The minute we were in my father's room, it was, 'Mu-um, I'm hungry!'  Through clenched teeth, I snarled, 'You've just bloody eaten!'  Actually, my 12yo, a gluttonous wretch, has dubbed himself 'The Great Gutsby'.  It's apt.  There is a verandah off my father's room, and they sat there poking and prodding at each other, with my 9yo grizzling like a teething infant. 

In a cloud of fury, I marched them back out to the car and drove home, where I had to cook dinner as their dad is still incapacitated.  My dishwasher is giving out the OE code, and I think it needs a new pump, so I referred to the roster and said whoever was on 'stacking' duty would be washing up, with the 'unstacker' doing the drying up.  Easy in theory.  The practice entailed me shouting like a pre-menstrual sub-human monster, as my 9yo pretended to be a matador, flapping the tea-towel and chanting, 'Toro!  Toro!'  And then, oh and then, he said, 'Why do I have to do this?  It's a woman's job.'  Let's just say he has now been disabused of that theory, and was very defensive in his argument that he had just been trying to be funny.  'You. Are. NOT. Funny!' I hissed at him, in that manner that lets the boys know the needle of Mum's thermostat is teetering dangerously at the top end of the red section and there will soon be hissing, hot, scalding steam enveloping the room like the cheesy special effects of a B-grade horror movie.

I was worn out, and just lay on the couch, with my fox terrier pup curled up on my lap.  I looked at the television where a movie was starting.  I looked at the actors in the credits: Jennifer Coolidge, Fred Willard - people I find amusing.  So I decided to watch.  As I watched, I wondered what the hell I was doing.  The sheer badness of this movie had stunned and debilitated me, and I was powerless to move away as it drew me in with its tractor beam.  It was an utter car wreck.  A train wreck.  A plane crash.  I thought the worlds would implode with the sheer force of how hard this movie sucked.  I wondered what satanic force had convinced the actors to take roles in this mountain of dung.  Did they all have electric bills due at the same time, and need the money?  Strewth, it was terrible.  And the name of this celluloid suckery?  'Date Movie'.  I don't mind the occasional spoof it it's done cleverly.  Look at 'Galaxy Quest' which had a decent story line and poked good natured fun at trekkies.  But many spoofs just make me want to go out and stab a kitten with newly-opened eyes.  Put it this way: I cannot stand most Mel Brooks movies.  And as I explained, I had been powerless to move and the remote was not in reach.  When the evil spell broke during the closing credits, my pup looked up at me, with one ear up and the other folded  (awwwww!), and I said, 'Fergus, that was without doubt the worst fucking movie I have ever seen.'  It possibly eclipsed 'I Spit On Your Grave'.  No, maybe not.  I'll save that for the next post.

Peeves of the Day

Today's peeves, if you care, are as follows:

1.  Fancy-schmancy hidden addresses on curly strata plans.  It sounds like a first world problem but when you're driving in an area looking to assist shower and medicate some old people, and they all seem to be living in houses whose street addresses are not apparent from the street, this can make you a tad tetchy.  I had to deal with this yesterday.  I wasn't meant to work but a neighbouring town had a lot of sick carers, so I got asked to do the honours.  I did, but I was late for every service because I couldn't find their houses, because the houses were up a winding path and hidden behind another house!  Grrrr.  And then I had to drive to a farm to look after an elderly gentleman, and got lost.  There are also severe bush fires in this area today, so I did not enjoy looking at the smoke and haze, and have done nothing but sneeze for the past day, it would seem.

2.  People saying 'same difference.'  One of my Facebook friends commented on a thread thus the other day, and I begged with him that if he loved me, or held me in any type of esteem at all, to please CEASE AND DESIST this odious phrase.  It.   Makes.  No.  Sense.  None at all.  One of my mates suggested it was an idiom.  It is not an idiom.  I think what it is trying to achieve is status as oxymoron, but it is failing miserably.  It is grammatical bullshit, and should NEVER be used.  Any time I have ever heard it, it's usually been in a kind of passive-aggressive tone of defeat.   People, don't ever use it.  And while I'm at it, please don't say 'would OF', either.  This is plain psychotic and evil.

3.  People bagging out teachers.  Quit it now.  Could you stand in front of a classroom trying to control and educate a bunch of little monsters who are probably hopped up on a high-sugar diet?  No?  Then don't criticise the saints-in-making who do.

Must get a bit of writing done, and then I'm watching a bit of a DVD I got out of the library - 'The Passion Of The Christ'.  Never saw it, and thought it might be interesting film to watch - yeah, I know the ending.  The protagonist gets nailed to a cross.  But I thought the approach, with actors speaking Aramaic and subtitles, might make for interesting cinema.  Cin-E-Ma.  Not film, but cinema.  I'm not even letting the Mel Gibson association turn me off.  Not a huge fan of Mel's, what with the bilious, drunken, anti-Semitic and racist rants he is prone to.

Boxing Fifty Shades

And the Twitterverse is going into meltdown with the news actor Charlie Hunnam (and I have no idea who he is having never watched him in anything) has pulled out of the role for the proposed '50 Shades of Utter Shit' (sorry, 'Grey') movie.  I don't know why he pulled out.  I'm guessing he had an epiphany of overwhelming common sense and realised that this just might be a career-crusher of a role.  I remember the stink when Kim Basinger pulled out of 'Boxing Helena'.  It cost her serious coin to do so, but I think she did the right thing.  'Boxing Helena' was mind-blowingly awful.  It might have been directed by either David Lynch or his daughter Jennifer - can't remember.  Lynch you might recall brought us 'Twin Peaks', which was actually a hallmark in pop culture.  Admittedly it dragged on so much it got to the point where I didn't give a rat's arse who killed Laura Palmer and wrapped the poor unfortunate soul in plastic, but my then flatmate wouldn't miss it.  But 'Boxing Helena' totally sucked the balls of an old bull elephant dry.  Hunnam realised that in filming 'Tale Of Two Fuck-Ups' (sorry, Dickens fans), he would be subjected to the most execrable dialogue ever, and Sir Alec Guiness is no longer around to guide him.  Sir Alec Guiness, in his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi, was able to deliver the appalling line, 'Mos Eisley Space Station: you'll never find a greater hive of scum and villainy' with a straight face and make it believable.  Anybody who has seen him in his Oscar winning role in 'Bridge Over The River Kwai' will know how brilliant an actor he was.  I remember watching him in that, and being utterly spellbound.

Well, I'd better get on with my current project, which will one day be my fourth novel. 

Cheers!