thOroughly mOdern cOlin

You said it would never happen

2011-07-19T23:22:00.002+10:00

Well it still might not.....but at least I have my first post up . Readers (the half or one of you still out there), I've commenced a new blog : The Lazy Civil Servant

http://thelazycivilservant.blogspot.com/.

Do have a look. Warm thoughts....C

TALKING UNDER WATER

2011-01-14T19:09:00.003+11:00

Victor Charlie Fox Trot Ovah Under Outer Inner Send More Whiskey, Vermouth and Cigs Totty Fox Bravo Ovah?

Greetings from Flood City and in particular The Thoroughly Modern Colin Emergency Centre of Kenmore where I am accepting refugees from my work and their families. I currently have a colleague William and his girlfriend and his parents and his best friend and his cat called Jet. I love Jet. We’re hanging out smoking and drinking martinis. I’m not giving him back.

Will’s house at Figtreepocket went under Wednesday morning. Figtreepocket is just down the road from Kenmore which is located in Brisbane’s inner west. Will’s parents live in Mogill which is further out west and cut off from the rest of Brisbane. We are lucky that my parents’ house is on top of a hill at Kenmore and has a fully stocked bar. We are safe then from rising waters and being thirsty. We do however literally have no yeast left in the city. The last loaf of bread was collected Tuesday afternoon as the whole city went into a 1970s disaster pic hissy fit as everyone purchased 50 loaves of bread each. There was actually a riot at the Kenmore Village Coles New World yesterday as psychotic Kenmorians attempted to put the entire store into their SUVs. The police had to be called in to shut down the store. All ironic really...considering that most of Kenmore is on a hill away from the floods.

The disaster started unfolding when I walked into the office on Tuesday morning at 9.32 and I heard Will explaining to his father on the phone that sandbags require sand. I put down my toasted ham and cheese sanger looked out the window and saw half of the eagle street pier floating down the river. I wondered then if I would have to cancel lunch at the pier that day. This upset me but I coped by drinking my iced coffee. The Senior Manager then announced that the BCP Business Plan was being enacted. I thought...how on earth could we think of accounting at a time like this? I finished my iced coffee, rearranged my Epsom files, ignored my manager's phonecalls and read my Vanity Fair. Another colleague then drew my attention to the fact that the BCP Business Plan was indeed an emergency evacuation procedure and that we had to leave. I told her I had to finish my sandwich first.

When I finally left CP1 (my work building) I was confronted by a barrage of people with umbrellas fighting to get on buses, cabs , trains, horses and wayward cows. Anything to get out of Tsunami City. Where was Batman? Where was Spiderman? Where was someone in something tight to save us? No one but there was my father in the University of Queensland Mail Van to save me. Pushing his way through the chaos, Dad picked me up along with my mother all seated snuggled in the only seat...the front bench seat. Together we looked like the Kenmore Hillbillies.

It took us two hours to get home to Kenmore (the same distanc e to Dulwich Hill from Sydney CBD) and half of that driving next to a Brisbane River which was rising quickly. And it kept raining and raining and raining. And all through the night. Will brought over his three cars to put in our front yard. He said he was worried they would float away if he kept them at home. I looked at him as if he had a crack habit. Flood figtreepocket? Are you nuts? Calm down Will, I thought.

9 o’clock the next morning Will called panicked saying we needed to take all his food, frozen and in between. Yet again, I had a similar reaction going....what? You're over-reacting. I then drove down to his house to find it resembling a lake. I then realised this was no dress rehearsal. We rescued all we could as quickly as we could, the water encroaching on us minute by minute. The ground was impossible to walk on resembling mud cake unfortunately not smelling like it. Residents looked frightened ...really frightened.

Dad and I drove past suburbs like Chappell Hill, Toowoong, Auchenflower, St Lucia ...all under water and we hadn’t even hit the peak yet. The Jindalee Bridge was almost under water and the Brisbane River was half way up the hill that protected our house. It wouldn’t get any further but that was enough for me.

We’ve been lucky in Kenmore. We have had power all the time and most of that time phone coverage...although today I lost coverage with the 3 network. It’s back tonight. I have so many friends who have not had power since Tuesday and dying phone coverage.

The disaster was harrowing and heart breaking but at least Brisbane had warning. The poor people in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley had none and I fear that death toll is going to rise dramatically.

But as I said, at least The Colin Compound has a fully stocked bar and I am whipping up Sweet Manhattans as we speak. So please send more vermouth and whiskey.

Love to all.

Cxx

Baby It's Wet Outside: THE THOROUGHLY MODERN COLIN XMAS MESSAGE

2010-12-26T10:27:00.002+11:00

Greetings from Queensland which has recently been renamed Wetland as the monsoons breaking the 100 year drought continue to pour down. I’m sitting here in my clogs sipping on mum’s special punch contemplating the year that was and wondering where I put those plans for an ark. Upstairs I can hear my mother reading Xmas cards to my father and brother from people they haven’t seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall whilst supervising my father and his apparent inability to make ham sandwiches. Soon we will be putting on our raincoats and jumping on boats to go to my cousins’ place in Caboolture for Xmas lunch. A Very Caboolture Xmas.....ah the serenity.

So here we are

Yet again.

Another Year.

Even Mike Leigh (of Secrets and Lies and Happy Go Lucky fame) has made a film about this process aptly titled Another Year, the title itself evoking a resignation of a slow plummet to the end, rather than a celebration.

Twenty Ten officially marked my move into the 'do you remember when?' phaze of life which from what I've observed of my parents and their parents before them, will last until I actually can't remember anything at all. The process involves continual exchanges with people you haven't seen since the advent of social networking reminiscing about a particular event, fashion item, band, movie or song. Did I really wear that? Who sang that? Remember that club? Remember that weekend? Who are you? I now find myself continually claiming to be around the first time for just about the first version of anything. As a kid it infuriated me that every song I adored my mother would say, " I remember when that first came out. ' 'That's an old song.' 'Everything old is new again.' 'Oh Little Eva's version was much better.' I was miffed for weeks when I realised that Little Eva did the Locomotion before La Minogue. Now I find myself doing the same thing.At Splendour in the Grass (festival) in July I corrected a girl for saying that the band Passion Pitt had written the song, Dreams, which they had just performed on the main stage. Myself and the flock of Triple J fearing lesbians I was attending the festival with, launched on said Gen Y girl in a governess style fashion and attempted to put her right .

We failed.

Me: "Passion Pitt did not write that song'
Y: 'Who did?'
Me: 'The Cranberries.'
Y : 'Who are they?'
Lesbians gasped
Me: 'Dolores O'Riordan'
Y: 'Never heard of her.'
Lesbians attempted lynch.
Me:'Oh my god she was huge.'

I found myself gesticulating as if on fire in attempt to indicate the 'hugeness' of Dolores and her Cranberries while the girl looked at me as if I belonged in one of Bert Newton's 20 to 1 specials. I then knew how my mother felt when I asked if Petula Clarke was a brand of jam.

In February, I returned to Brisbane after being away 9 years. 8 1/2 of those years in Sydney and roughly the remaining half in London. After not being able to find work in London, I decided to spend money like I had tonnes of it and travel through Europe and the States and come home broke to my parents. Which is exactly where one expects to be at the age of 35.

I actually quite like it. Living at home is like living in a serviced apartment. Mum and Dad do everything for me. My laundry, my cooking, my cleaning ....my bills. They drive me to work. They drive me to parties. They pick me up from parties. They pick me up from work. They even let me ignore them. I listen to my ipod. I surf the net. I watch DVDs. I’ve almost completed reading the entire Twilight series and by the end of next week I fully expect to be a 14 year old girl.

Mum and Dad live in the suburb of Kenmore where I am the only resident who cannot access his superannuation. They live in a run down Spanish Hacienda House which apparently was built by Miss Australia 1971....although not literally I believe. Am told she had some help. We found her sash near the hot water system when Mum and Dad first moved in 12 years ago along with a box of old pennys; perhaps she was trying to create a time capsule. Anyway as you walk through the Spanish Revival (what does that mean?) front door of Mum and Dad's, you are confronted by a six foot portrait of Jesus Christ. So think Majorca on the outside, Bethlehem on the inside. My mother has so many religious ornaments in the house that I am constantly in fear of being nailed to something. Everywhere I look there is a painting of Jesus looking sad. Why didn't that guy ever smile?

Mum and Dad don’t like renovations. The kitchen is one of those asbestos installed kitchens which can only be removed by astronauts. The pool is the same. It's one of those fibreglass pools from the 80s which look like they were installed by Barbie. Except ours now looks like it was installed by Baghdad Barbie. Mum and Dad don't understand mood lighting. There are fluorescent lights everywhere in the house. A lamp to them is the beta video of lighting.Why have warm subtle lighting when you can light your house like a solarium? I have received so much fluorescent light since I moved back that I am about to change race. Dad keeps my brother’s broken down corolla in the front yard to keep away burglars. It also keeps away capital gains. Mum and Dad are excited though. We have new neighbours. They're young, have two kids, two dogs and an international porn distribution business. I found this out when I questioned ’Ron’ as to why there were 400 dildos in his front yard. Dad thought they were garden gnomes. Mum is still upset that they didn't come to xmas drinks.

I started back at work in my old job but in my work’s Brisbane office. They are a great team but drink a little and generally are loud all the time forcing me not to work at all. I spend most of my lunch hours being confronted by declarations of ‘Oh my god it’s John Cahill’, ‘John Cahill it’s been a long time.’, ‘John Cahill you haven’t changed at all.’ from people I’ve never seen before in my life but claim to have gone to school and/or university or a darkened alley with me. It appears that everyone has come back to Brisbane to have babies
or a good lie down and generally both. I love Brisbane. I’ve missed its storms, its smiles and its inability to merge. Brisbane drivers are still not familiar with the concept. And catching a cab on a Saturday night is still like waiting for Whitney Houston to arrive. To think that the last time I lived in Brisbane, I wanted to rule the world, now I just want a cab.

This year I also commenced my Masters of Creative Writing at Queensland University of Technology which has been great. I've been surrounded by people who were born after the release date of Pretty Woman in 1990; Post Pretty Womans I like to call them or PPWs. PPWs are actually quite fun and once you get them away from their iphones and angst, they actually talk. I've made some great friends although sometimes I fear I maybe turning into that annoying mature age student I remember from my uni days who had a sweating problem and still smoked ....and lived with his mother. All this aside, I’ve been having a great time doing the course with a chapter of my book being selected by the Brisbane Writers’ Festival for a meeting with publishers from the UK. They had lovely scones.

I’ve also started doing stand up comedy. Yes.....I’m having a mid-life crisis, come sit next to me. I started in October making my debut at the Paddo Tavern Sit Down Comedy Club in Brisbane after completing a six week course. It’s more terrifying than a Whitney Houston concert and you often find yourself performing to about as many people who are left remaining at the end of a Whitney Houston concert. But it’s tonnes fun and I’m enjoying it immensely. Most of the time, I’m the only guy on stage who doesn’t refer to masturbation and/or sex with his pets whilst smoking his bong. I like to think I am refreshing.

I now have to sign off as my mother is screaming at my father for more ham sandwiches and at me to get ready for the journey to Caboolture (where Keith Urban is from...am wondering if I will bump into Nicole at the pokies). To think this time last year I was snowed in at a cute village in Frenchiland with my Mrs Van Trap drinking mulled vodka. Still....it’s nice to be home. Merry Exmus and the best of New Year’s to all.

Mwa

Cx

i LOVE! this

2010-08-17T23:40:00.002+10:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs

Stolen Conversations....

2010-08-06T11:09:00.003+10:00

4.30pm

At work.

Watching the clock.

Phone Rings.

I pick up.

Me: Hello
Caller: Is that Colin speaking?
Me: Yes
Caller: Is that Colin Modern?
Me: Aha
Caller: It's Carmen Jones
Me: Carmen who?
Caller: You know who I am
Me: Do I?
Caller: Yes you do.
Me: How?
Caller: You wrote to me this time last year regarding the Afrika Central Bank
Me: Oh yes I do remember you. You gave the $200K to the African you met in a bar.
Caller: Yes that's me.
Me: Am gathering you haven't found him.
Caller: No I haven't. I have your letter.
Me: That's nice
Caller: It's not very nice.
Me: How so?
Caller: You should be investigating this matter.
Me: As I explained to you when I met with you, your complaint is a matter of Fraud and as such you should report it to the police.
Caller: You did not meet with me
Me: Yes I did; with my colleague Sharon.
Caller: Are the young man who met with me?
Me: Stop it ya big flirt.

C

Old Friends

2010-08-06T11:01:00.005+10:00

Old friend: Oh my god....I thought you were dead!
Me: I thought I was too.
Old Friend: Get out. How the fuck are you?
Me: Ya ya.....am good. Back living with the folks at the Thoroughly Modern Compound
Old Friend: How are u coping with Brisbane?
Me: Strangely: Am loving it. London wasn't for me and I don't think I want to go back to Sydney.
Old Friend: What are u doing this weekend?
Me: I can't. I am absolutely flatstrapped. Am doing post grad in Creative Writing at the moment....my mid life crisis.... and I have five thousand things due on Monday; maybe next Friday night?
Old Friend: Oh my god where are u doing that?
Me: QUT
Old Friend: Stuart Jones
Me: Yes....he's one of my tutors.
Old Friend: That's the Stuart I used to talk to you about
Me: Are you serious? That Stuart?
Old Friend: Yes
Me: Oh gosh now I remember.
Old Friend: You did meet him once.
Me: I wondered where I knew him from
Old Friend: I think I took him to your 30th.
Me: He wore a leather overcoat in November.
Old Friend: Yup that's him
Me: How could I forget?
Old Friend: Don't mention my name.
Me: Really?
Old Friend: He kept calling my mother for ages asking for my number.
Me: Well you did kind of end it abruptly.
Old Friend: I met that engineer
Me: He was hot.
Old Friend: I know
Me: What happened to him?
Old Friend: I turned 40.

C

A Very Armagedon Xmas‏

2010-01-09T00:20:00.002+11:00

Hello everyone...unfortunately I have been laptopless this last month as my old faithful blew up a week before xmas. And because I am a hopeless shopper, I cannot make up my mind as to which laptop to purchase. So I haven't been writing much...which is driving me nuts. Find below my xmas email to friends all over the place. Am currently sitting in the coldest internet cafe in Britain attempting to type with my iceblock fingers. Never again am I doing winter in the UK! NEVA!

.......Seasons Greetings from the land of transport chaos. Yes one flake of snow and this whole nation falls apart. Airports are turned into refugee camps, train stations into soup kitchens and roads into spaghetti. It's Armageddon The Musical!!!!! Come and bring a bucket of panic!!!!

Ok there has been slightly more than one flake of snow but everyone seems to react with an absolute aghast that this may happen.....that it may snow .....like lots...in this country! As if it has never happened before. The mother country is certainly one hell of an old woman. Ques for instance. This country invented the que when the ration was invented in World War 1 and they literally have not looked back since; never. They will que for anything without protest....for hours. Never question; never investigate; simply stand there turn on their facial screensavers and wait. The number of ques I have seen with people waiting for either something that is broken down or not even in existance is quite harrowing. Any wonder they lost the Empire, they were too busy queing.

Enuff moaning........ update as to life of mwa.

Well I arrived on the 14th of September.

For the first 7 weeks, I stayed with my friend Matt in the town of Reading which is about an hour's north of London. Reading is kinder like the Blue Mountains minus the Mountains and the Blue. A town of quaint cottages, third rate universities and pregnant 13 year olds. Matt's place was right on the river and had a terraced garden leading down to it. Twas lovely although as much as it was Jane Austen out the back, it was more like Trainspotting in the front. There was a pub on the corner formerly run by the IRA and now run as a drug front by the local Nigerian Mafia. Navigating one's way to the train station was often spent negotiating with wired bogans (or chavs as they like to call them here) or Nigerian godfathers dressed like Liberace. Needless to say I spent alot of time in the terraced garden or in London.

The first couple of months was spent doing countless interviews with recruitment officers who promise you everything from sets of steak knives to walking on water and then never call you again. In London they all speak so quickly and jump and down so much, you begin to think you're being interviewed by a human breed of chiwawa. To cope with that, I spent most of my time in one of the five thousand pubs in London and then a few more thousand in Berlin and Paris. I also managed to sit four interviews with the FSA (equivalent of my work in Oz); they managed to reject me four times as well which was awfully generous of them; every time I came into an interview I felt like that nerd who continually comes back to Australian or American Idol and re-auditions and re-auditions and they eventually get him to release a single to make him go away; so am hoping the FSA will offer me a recording contract soon.

Since November I have been working at Camden Borough Council as a lawyer in their child protection team; not ideally what I wanted to do but for the time being, it's a job and it allows me to continue to look around for something better. I always said after my time at DOCS, that I would never do child protection again and I now remember why....I used to always think it was because of the subject matter but it's actually dealing with the nutty social workers which drive you to the edge. Having said that, the group of lawyers I work with are very nice; out of ten lawyers, I'm the only male lawyer....so not much different to MBR!

I am living a ten minute walk away from work having become the Demi Moore of flatmates moving in with a 23 yr old guy in Kings Cross...... mind you I still can't get into work before 9.30. I had my first sitting at my desk "oh my it's snowing" experience last week. Snow is only good for one thing.....sitting in ur office looking at it; nothing else. Suddenly roads turn to slush, footpaths turn into surprise skating rinks and ur boots turn into clogs. Not a great look. And it has a tendancy to shut down airports which can be a bit of a pain when you have booked a weekend escape to Barcelona and can't leave because the airport is iced over. Was not happy last Friday Jan! Still London does xmas really well with Oxford and Regent streets amassed with Xmas lights and decorations. Strangely having grown up with summer xmas's, it seems a bit strange not to be sweating this time of year and looking forward to that storm coming over the horizon.

I was in Berlin the weekend before last and it was seriously "call the f'ing police' cold. -8 with -20 wind chill factor and all these crazy Berlinas out at the xmas markets drinking mald wine and eating their bratwursts. At one stage I thought it was hailing, then I realised it was snow and consequently ordered more bratwurts to put in my shoes to revive my blackened frost bitten tootsies. Berlinas are such lovely people.....almost too lovely.....anywhere we went someone would always talk to us ....it was almost like they were constantly trying to say "Hey...we're not Hitler!...Have a drink!". Which I guess is understandable.

We went to the world's best nightclub called Berghanhauff (am actually making that name up...I can't remember the name...it was huge) located in an abandoned factory in East Berlin. It was so underground, I thought perhaps we were being put in jail. We qued for two hours (yes Berlinas que as well) to get in and the door bitches were trully terrifying throwing people out who didn't have "the look". I wasn't quite sure what "the" look was as it varied from mad max to Julie Andrews on crack. Considering my friend and i were dressed as two yetties wearing our wearing parker dounas, I was concerned we would be cast out into the anti Berhanhauff abyss. But thankfully we were not. We must have been two hot looking yetties. And i must say what an amzing club. 7 different levels; arena after arena with varying music and electic group of people. It was fantastic. Not to mention am crossing the dancefloor and bump into two people from Brisbance. You can take the guy out of Brisbane.....

Anyway peeps, I've babbled enough. Am off to Switzerland for xmas and then driving to the Black Forest....fingers crossed....it's not snowed in so we can fly. Miss you all more than bricks. Have a merry xmas and a super new years. Please keep in touch.

Much Love

Jbxx

PS: laptop blew up on the weekend. have crazy indian dude try to perform some sort of mircale on fried mother board.....I've got to remember not keep the laptop on the bed under a quilt....it kinder stuff things. So am facebookless for the forseeable future. I may die.

Note to Self.....

2009-12-09T23:45:00.002+11:00

Don't sleep with the heater at full belt.... I am so groggy today. I feel like a half baked potato....make that a mash potato.

I cannot wait for the weekend and want it to be here now. It's the first of my three minibreaks this month. My friend A and I are going to Berlin this weekend, then I'm off to Barcelona the weekend after and then it is four days in the Black Forest over Xmas.

I really haven't done much travel since I arrived in September except going to Paris a couple of times. The first two months here was spent looking for a job, marrying a bottle of scotch and having a nervous breakdown. I think I underestimated how full on it is moving to another country. And there is the misconception between english speaking cultures that a move between one of these countries won't be that hard because there is no language barrier. Yes we all do speak English but it's a completely different language once you get there.

The first two months, I stayed with an old best friend of mine M; he and I lived together in Sydney many years ago when he was in Australia on a working holiday visa. We've remained close ever since. If it hadn't been for him, I think I would have been back in Australia by now. He offered his spare room rent free until I found a job which was very generous of him. Yes he did live in Reading (west of London) which is kind of like Woollongong without the beach but with the same ratio of pregnant teenagers and bogans ....or chavs as they call them over here. Oscar Wilde was jailed in Reading; Kate Winslet is from Reading and there is the Reading Festival and the television series Beautiful People which is shot in Reading. I kept reminding myself of these highlights every time I commenced the two hour late train journey home from a boozey night out in Soho and for the first two months of unemployment and a smithereened heart, that was nearly every night. Not to mention that an off peak return train fare was £20; peak is £34......it is cheaper flying to Madrid.

All that aside, it was lovely to stay with M. His houses backs on to the River at Reading with a lovely terraced garden. Catching the dying days of Summer sipping cheap aussie wines (there are more here than are in Oz) was a nice distraction to the turmoil in all directions that I was experiencing. It's nice now though to be right in the middle of it all in Kings Cross. The flat is the first place I looked at; it was renovated and clean and had a dish washer, dryer/washer and a fan forced oven which seems to be a rare combination in London town. And my flattie seems relatively sane albeit 12 years my junior. The best part is that I'm a ten minute walk from work, twenty minutes from Soho and West End and 25 minute walk to the cool stuff of Shoreditch and Brick Lane. Life is harder here than in Oz; I've basically gone back to living like my university days; no car; walking everywhere and buying homebrand! Not to mention I haven't flatshared with a stranger in nearly 15 years. But then again I didn't move here for it to be like home!

FAUXBOOK

2009-12-09T13:58:00.002+11:00

Brilliant article on friendships in the 21st Century: hit the FAUXBOOK title to link to the article. Poor yaself a cup of heroine before you read.....

C

More Issues Than French Vogue

2009-12-09T12:35:00.004+11:00

So have been a slacker again.

To be honest, I read my last post a couple of days after I wrote it and was totally embarassed. Why I choose my return to blogworld following a bottle of wine and a heart that has had an argument with a few kitchen appliances is beyond me. But once I hit that publish button, the deal was done and since then I haven't been able to work out how I wanted to follow the last post. So found myself in eternal writer's "how do I write the next part?" limbo. And the fact of the matter is I don't want to go into it in depth. In short, we didn't work out. It's been shit but I'm feeling better. Generally we both had issues but I concede I had a lot more than him. It was the wrong time for me; too much change happening in my life and too much upheaval on all fronts to let us run smoothly. He's the first person I've ever fallen for completely and trully which is actually a great thing because before him, I really did think I was autistic! Sadly it was just the wrong time for me. Sometimes when things you've longed for eons finally arrive, you actually doubt their reality. And that was me. I couldn't believe he was for real. I was determined to make him my too good to be true....and in the end I succeeded. C'est la vie.

So yah that's it. There's been lots of walks and wonderings through London, Paris......Reading.. these last few months; all wonderfully melodramatic. And every pop song from good to woeful suddenly takes on shakespearean importance once the heartbreak kicks in. Matchbox 20 are poets; Roxette were geniuses and Kylie was on to something in preferring the devil she knew. Ms Lennox.....Love is a stranger in an open car....and don't let me get started on anything written by Everything But the Girl. And then there's Mr Ben Harper.....ah....my therapist these past few months.

But enuff.....no more talk of this.

So now I find myself living proper in London: Kings Cross to be precise. Am working as a government lawyer; my flat is a ten minute walk from work and I am sharing with a 23 yr old university graduate. Yes I've become the Demi Moore of flatmates. Although I think I'm more Mrs Robinson......she at least drank, chain smoked and had a facial expression.

I'm still majorly finding my way here. I am firmly back to square one. It's scarey but I'm excited. As Yazz once wailed.....The only way is up!

C

Minding The Gap.....

2009-11-18T10:39:00.007+11:00

Well it's been quite some time since I've blogged on TMC. I ended it in February then came back briefly in April then let it go again. I actually set up a new blog but then didn't touch it. Lately I've been having the urge to write again. I keep wanting to get started on that ever illusive novel but then the giganticism (...put that in ya dictionary) of such a project has seemed too much and I've turned to another bottle of wine and gone to bed. I've never been one for determination. The day that ambition was being handed out, I was at the pub. So an update in the world of Colin.....

Well 2009 has been quite a year. I've experienced the highest of highs and taken a roadtrip through rockbottom....they've got lots of cheap drinks down there. The best way to cover the last 7 mths is via a checklist.....

1. Feb/March: Frenchi comes for two weeks. We have the most amazing time. I fall completely and deeply in love. I've never been to this place before. It is trully wonderful. He's the bloke I've been looking for all my life. I don't want him to leave. We both cry at the airport. I think I'm going to be alright but as soon as I lose sight of him, I'm terrified. Is this too good to be true?

2. April : split my calf muscle in half whilst training at bootcamp. That was fun. I was told I was going to be on crutches for two months. I threw the crutches away ten days later but haven't been able to run properly for anything more than two minutes since which on one hand is superb but not so great for the waist line. My brother came out to my parents which was a great relief but also rather heartwrenching. Change is good but it also hurts.

3. May: I finally make the decision to make the move to the UK. I get permission to take a year off my job in Oz and book the flight to the UK in September. I'm excited but questioning everything from what I'm doing to my friendships to my relationships. The long distance love affair with Frenchi starts to take its toll. I'm tired and stressed and want him next to me. My brain can understand but my heart has other ideas....

4. June: Frenchi indicates that he may not be able to make it out to Oz in July as originally planned.I try to be cool about but find it hard to handle. I've never been so in love with someone in my life and my desire to see him is crushing. I suggest coming over for a quick visit in July and he baulks. It's like a truck driving straight through me. He is renovating his house which has taken all his money and he's changing jobs and not sure whether he is doing the right thing. He's stressed and finding everything too much. I'm right there with him. Am shutting up shop and moving my whole life to another country. Am I doing the right thing? Why am I doing it? He's starts to shut off and my heart over-rules my head. We have a huge fight and I have a melt down. I panic....I try to second guess him and call it off.....of course not really wanting to do that but thinking that I'm beating him to the punch. He freaks out. Says he needs time to think. That truck keeps driving and then reversing.

5. July is awful. All I can think about his him. For six months we've talked nearly every day and suddenly he is not there on the other end of the phone. It's like half of me is cut off. He has a month with his family in France. We text but don't talk. I get asked out on a date by a hot guy I meet at the train station. I go on the date. It makes everything worse because hot guy is everything Frenchi ain't. Hot guy asks me home............I can't do it.

6. August. 6 weeks til I leave for the UK. There is so much to organise....my flat, job, job in the uk, savings, friends.....but all I can do is think about him. I go to my cousin's wedding in Brisbane. A is marrying his lifelong partner N. They've been together for 8 years. They met in London. N has moved his life to Brisbane to be with A. A is my only gay cousin. The wedding is beautiful on the beach at Redcliffe with the sun setting. Lots of friends and family I've not seen in a long time. It is also the first time my brother, parents and I are all in the same room together since my bro came out. It's heartfelt but hard. I can feel my parents' pain. I miss Frenchi more. I ring him. We chat for an hour. I feel like I'm home in his voice.It's like what it was in the beginning. We're back on track. I feel relieved but my second voice keeps asking.....is this too good to be true?

7. The end of August. Frenchi and I have fallen back off track again....this time completely. He's becoming more aloof on the phone. I can't work out what's going on. I freak out again and have a crack at him. He says he can't do it anymore. I'm devastated. I leave in two weeks. I ask him just to wait until I get there. He stays silent. Please wait Mr. Still silence. I hope he holds on. He goes to California for two weeks for a wedding. I miss him but I'm too busy to think about it.

8. September. I have a series of going aways culiminating in a big party at the Green Park the week before I leave. It is trully wonderful to realise how many great mates I have. I'm blessed...still terrified though....no job lined up and my heart hanging on a cliff.

9. 14 September. Brisbane International Airport. My parents, bro and I. It's a strange experience because I actually don't cry and nor does my Mum. My mum and I always cry....from spilt milk to The Thorn Birds. Ironically its my father and brother who are crying . I remain as if I'm an extra off Prisoner. I alight the 747 and take a deep breath. What am I doing?

to be continued....

Scenes from a ward....

2009-04-05T00:04:00.001+11:00

Dr: "So do you smoke?"

Me: "Only when I'm awake."

C

Cricket Ball Pain

2009-04-03T09:53:00.002+11:00

Last night I was at bootcamp....this outdoor exercise group thing I do three times where I pay people to scream at me and call my names all in the pursuit of physical fitness. Anyway so I'm doing this sprint across the soccer field with my fellow bootcampers when I was absolutely convinced that someone threw a cricket ball at my calf. I looked around accusingly. Everyone kept running....I couldn't see any random evil cricket player looking guilty. I then looked down at my calf and saw it swelling. At first I thought I had a cramp. I used to get them a lot when I was younger and it had been ages since I'd had one....I was due. I stretched it out and in the past, usually I could walk within a few minutes. With this I couldn't; in fact over 15 hours later I still can't. I went to St Vincent's and sure enough I have a ripped calf muscle. So now am on crutches; I have to go to get an ultrasound today to see how badly it's ripped and then I guess physio. When I asked the dr how long is the recovery, she said "How long is a piece of string?". Great.

C

Time After Time

2009-04-02T10:44:00.000+11:00

Well haven't I been so slack?

I don't know where this last month has gone. Time seems to be speeding out of control of late. I remember my grandfather used to always say that life was like a snowball, the further it got down the hill the faster it went. I think he was right.

The truth of the matter is I've been rather busy; I've started a new position at work which is thankfully challenging my grey matter again as opposed to my last position…which was killing it, not enhancing it.

I spent most of the rest of March in post Frenchi blues. Yes we had a super fantastic time when he was here. I've never quite had a week like it…in fact I think I'm still there. So it was hard to see him go. I never thought I would become one of these ridiculous long distance relationship people but it appears that I have. We're early days yet of course but I have to be honest….am damn well smittened.

Other news is that I had my UK Visa approved. Now before everyone jumps giving me love life advice, this was not applied for in the pursuit of said French citizen; it was applied for long before we even met. And yes only I would choose to move to Britain in the middle of the GFC (god I love an acronym….only two months ago, I thought GFC was a toxic gas) but hey I love a challenge. Strangely I've actually been having interviews with a number of organisations over there looking for lawyers; we lawyers are the professional equivalent of cockroaches….you will never get rid of us, a good bout of GFC just makes us stronger. Still if nothing comes up before the end of August, I intend to take three months off and go give it go anyway…and if nothing happens, I will simply come home with my tail between my legs. I meant to do the UK work thing (it's an aussie tradition) about ten years ago but came to Sydney instead…I want to do it before I am too old. And as for Frenchi, he at the moment is being headhunted by a bank in New York so by the time I get to London town he will be in the big apple; so we'll see. I do concede in the last few weeks I was a little confused as the motive I had for going to the UK; him or me. It's still me….Frenchi is an added complication…a delicious one. But thankfully one does learn with age to control one's giddiness and I realise that nothing is ever a certainty, set in concrete or forever. I'm just enjoying him for now….as much as I can when he is over ten thousand miles away.

So I'm in for quite a ride in the next six months; lots to organise: renting out of apartments, doing the mother of all spring cleans and getting rid of all my junk, telling the parents (it will be like coming out all over again) and saving my arse off….no more benders for me for some time. I'm terrified and not sleeping. Which is good because I've been asleep for a long time. Nothing like a little bit of terror to wake up one's soul. T's good. I finally feel like I'm starting to smell the coffee.

HOORAH!

C

Who Would Have Guessed?

2009-03-11T22:26:00.005+11:00

Well the bitch is back.

You really didn't think I'd gone had I? As my friend Betty has always said, there's no better pick me up than to kill yaself and go to your own funeral. I thoroughly recommend it.

I feel better than Whitney in a crackden.......thanks to all your kind comments. Vvvv. nice.

So ya. Am back. But I have some new rules so as to avoid potential past emotional time bombs. From now on tmc will be lighter than a Hollywood lunch; no more Dr Phil Oprah my mother is sleeping with my plant how do I feel about this palava. I am putting my Freud handibook away and pulling out that great dinner party ice-breaker......two dimensionality.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride..........

RIP tmc

2009-02-16T14:16:00.004+11:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had been umming and arrrring over whether to rest tmc recently and something happened today that has convinced me that it is now time for Colin to leave the building. tmc has been bordering on more an on-line diary of late....something I never intended it to be. And this has lead to someone quite close to me being hurt......even though it was certainly not my intention to do so.

tmc has been a great experiment and I've loved it for reconnecting me with my love of writing. I'm certainly not going to give up but I think it's a sign to get serious about this craft and tackle something much bigger than a couple of blog entries per week.

Thanks to all of you who read tmc, some of you are my closest mates and some I've never met in my life. Regardless I've always appreciated your words of encouragement.

I never say never though, so you may see me back out there in the blogoshpere at some point but not as Colin......Colin and his blog of thoroughly modern shenanigans is most definitely and completely over.

Thanks for reading!!

Open Wide

2009-02-14T11:55:00.003+11:00

10.20 am Saturday : in the dentist chair: mouth open like the opera house

Dentist: This tooth is going to require root canal treatment.

John: Oh. Is that the same as a root canal?

Dentist: Yes

John: But you said last time it wasn't a root canal? You said it required a filling.

Dentist: Yes. I was wrong.

John: But you took me through the xray and explained to me how it required a new filling

Dentist: Yes the xray was wrong.

John: I thought you were wrong.

Dentist: Sometimes xrays can be misinterpreted.

John: I thought root canals were supposed to be painful.

Dentist: Normally they are but the nerve in this mollar appears to be dead.

John: When did it die?

Dentist: It's hard to tell.

John: Wouldn't I've known?

Dentist: What do you mean?

John: Well surely I would have felt something when it died.

Dentist: Not necessarily. Sometimes nerves just die without pain.

John: Half their luck. So how much will this cost?

Dentist: Well this particular root canal is quite complex; I would have to refer you to a specialist.

John: Is that because the nerve is dead?

Dentist: The root canal has gone all the way to the bone.

John: Well isn't that what a root canal is?

Dentist: Yes essentially. But this is a complex root canal.

John: I can see that. How much?

Dentist: Because it will be done by a specialist, most likely $2500 for the root canal treatment then $1500 for the crown.

John: And I've already spent a $1000 on the original filling treatment which cracked in the first six months.

Dentist: Yes

John: This will be a $5000 tooth.

Dentist: Yes

John: What's the point of saving it?

Dentist: As your dentist I have to urge you to save every tooth but...

John: Every tooth is sacred is that what you're saying.

Dentist: Yes.....there is however only a 60% chance of saving the tooth through the root canal treatment.

John: So I will be spending $5000 on a tooth that has essentially lost it's mind, can't feel anything and has a 40% chance of not surviving anyway.....

Dentist: Yes

John: Would you spend five grand on a holiday where you've got a 40% chance of being killed?

Dentist: No

John: Exactly. When can I have it extracted?

Dentist: Next Saturday?

John: Lock it in.

C

Hip Hip.....

2009-02-13T11:14:00.003+11:00

Judith Lucy on the film Australia :

It shouldn't have been called Australia, it should have been called Oh For Fuck's Sake!

Hoorah!

ASH SATURDAY

2009-02-10T23:49:00.004+11:00

No doubt everyone (in Australia at least) has been glued with horror to their television screens watching the nightmare that has been unravelling in Victoria over the weekend. I still remember as a little kid watching the same nightmare over 25 years ago in the Ash Wednesday fires where 76 people died and over 3000 homes were destroyed. This time sadly the fire has claimed more lives and less houses (770). So far 181 lives have been lost with expectations that the death toll will exceed 300......Australia's worst peacetime disaster. I have been caught in a bush fire before. They are terrifying beasts to witness. They move fast, destroying everything and everyone in their path as quickly as they suck all the oxygen out of the air. Their roar is equally as terrifying. It is hoped that those who died had asphyxiated before the fire took them.

The last two days in Sydney it's been wet and cold and in North Queensland it's flooding. Victoria continues to burn.

What a country.

C

Red Cross is accepting donations for the disaster.....http://www.redcross.org.au/ ......please donate.

Plasma Economics

2009-02-04T10:42:00.008+11:00

So giving 8.1 million Australians who earn under $100k a year cash handouts totalling $12.4 billion dollars is going to keep us out of recession? We've since found out that the $10.2 billion K.Rudd gave out in December in cash bonuses to families and pensioners went straight onto credit cards or down poker machines and did nothing to stimulate the economy.Why is this going to be any different? Plasma screens for all? I totally support government funds stored and borrowed being poured into infrastructure and education. This creates jobs and provides for the future but to throw $12.4 billion out the window and say "go treat yaselves kids" when the severe consequences of this huge global financial crisis haven't even hit our shores (our unemployment is still low at 4.4%) is extremely careless. We are going into a recession. No amount of cash bonuses is going to stop it. We rely on China, Japan and Korea who in turn rely on America.....they are all in recession....we're headed their way. The thing that has put this country in good stead in front of countries such as the United Kingdom is that we had savings. We had nearly ten years of budget surpluses ....our last being $21 billion. Ten of that has already been spent; K.Rudd is about to spend the rest and another 35 billion on top of that. Analysts predict that Australia will have a budget deficit of $100 billion by 2010 all in time for the next federal election....not bad going for a first term government.

The Government is wanting to push this current $45 Billion stimulus package through both the houses of parliament by the end of the week without the usual Senate Estimates Hearings that are involved in such a piece of legislation. The Opposition rightly so is opposing the move. This legislation requires far more analysis than just two days. The Government will have to rely on the support of the Greens and the Independent to get the legislation through the Senate.

It's funny how history repeats itself. This scenario is reminding me of another "Great" Labor Prime Minister who entered power at a time of great financial turmoil following 25 years of conservative rule in Australia. He championed human rights particularly those of the Aboriginal people introducing the Racial Discrimination Act and the first land rights legislation in Australia. He also abolished the White Australia Policy and withdrew Australian troops from Vietnam. He also used the nation's credit card like an elastic band plunging the nation into massive debt; a debt that was a fiscal noose around the Australia economy until the commodoties boom of the Howard years thanks mainly to China. K. Rudd's debt will be five times that of his Labor predecessor. His predecessor was also a bright shiney ray of light when he first became Prime Minister winning the 1972 election on the slogan "It's Time" ending a strangelhold the conservatives had on Federal rule in Australia. But in under three years , Mr Whitlam was sacked by the Governor-General of Australia along with the Labor Government in the constitutional controversory which was the Dismissal. I'm not saying that K. Rudd is going to run off to the middle east and get shoddy loans like his predecessor in "the loans affair", but he should take note from the pages of history and not rush huge fiscal committments through parliament without proper analysis. This recession is happening whether we like it or not, our government should consider every serious fiscal decision it makes with the due care and consideration it deserves.....not because it will look good on the 6 o'clock news.

Cranky Pants

2009-02-03T17:56:00.005+11:00

I've had one of those days which I would just like to cancel. It started at 4 this morning when the moron in the block of flats next door starting performing some sort of mechanical overhaul of his long-gone excuse for a car.

I attempted slumber but could not get back to sleep mainly because I knew our cleaner was arriving at 7am and had to be awake to let him in. I find S irritating at the best of times but even more so when one's slumber has been halved. It didn't help either that my mother started speaking to me in front of S like I was in kindergarten

Mum to S: Ah Colin never likes getting out of bed!

Nor do you Mum.

Mum to S: And of course his room is a mess.

Thanks Mum. S and I have enough mutual dislike without you assisting.

Mum: Oh Colin quickly clean up your room so S can vacuum

Colin: Mum the point of having a cleaner is that he does the cleaning

Mum: Well move your shoes and books so he can get in.

Colin: Do you want me move to the furniture out as well?

I was not happy Jan. I quickly showered, got dressed and left. My brother had already left for work and Mum, Dad and I decided to go for breakfast down the road before I went to work. My mood didn't improve and became increasingly dire when the waitress spilt my coffee all over my lap. I nearly threw the table at her. She was however saved by the Eggs Benedict I ordered….they were divine.

They did not however stem my fowl mood. It has continued to brood all day grumbling its way through every email, phone call and social interaction. To be honest am rarely cranky, so I do find it intriguing when I am. It is strange to find oneself deliberately making oneself even more unbearable by one's own behaviour…..when one is fully aware that one is doing it. MADNESS.

Yes …I think I need to go for a run.

Bye Bye January

2009-01-30T22:25:00.005+11:00

My brother has just left to pick up our parents from the airport. They are down for their annual ten day visit to Sydney. They've come down to Sydney every year for the last 7 years around Mum's birthday on the 7th. For some reason more than usual I seem to be looking more forward to it than other years. I have lots of handyman jobs for dad to do....the toilet needs repairing, two plates on the stove are broken and the skirting boards of our new cupboards need painting. I don't know how a man with so many practical skills like my father could have ended up with two sons who practically have none. S and I can't even hammer a nail. I'm good at giving directions though...I got that from my mother. I'm looking forward to ten days of home cooked meals, everything washed and cleaned and the place smelling like our home in Queensland. As much as I don't miss the stifling heat of Queensland this time of year, I do miss the daily storms that build in the south. You get them in Sydney but not as often. It happens nearly every day in Brisbane this time of year......I love listening to the rumble of the thunder in the evening, the sprinkle of rain on the iron roof and the air bursting with expectation.

Still there is something in the air tonight in Sydney. It is certainly lush and boisturous blowing the blinds around in the apartment; at least it is cool unlike in Melbourne which is having to shed power because it is so hot. I swear to god if I was down there, I'd be booking the first jetstar flight out! I've been in Melbourne and Adelaide heatwaves before and I just can't hack that stifling dry oven heat; it's like your organs are going to catch on fire.

Is January over already? I still haven't got to the beach yet!

C

Welcome To Norfuck

2009-01-30T17:16:00.003+11:00

The Norfolk Islanders pronounce their island's name Norfuck and when I first arrived, I could understand why. There wasn't a fuck in sight. Well unless you're into A-frames and prostate cancer. Arriving at the airport was like walking into the foyer of Shadey Pines. As I walked through Customs (actually that should read Custom…as there was only one of them) I soon realised that my brother and I were the only human beings under 70; they all gathered around the luggage area in their seersucker couture their snow-white hair glowing in the fluorescence. Some people spend their Xmas's on the French Alps. I spend mine with the cast of Coocoon.

We arrived Xmas Eve and Angela, the owner of the resort where we were staying picked us up from the airport. She was Dutch, she was short and stout and she was unable to drive. She arrived in a mini-van and was having difficulty reconciling the relationship between a clutch and a gear stick. Greeting us in guttural Dutch overtones, she advised that our parents were waiting for us back at the resort. As we bunny hopped out of the airport clearing every parking barrier (there were only one and a half…thank god),Angela grabbed my arm covering me in guttural spital…

Angela: "I can see you are just like your mother."

Me: "Thanks"

Angela: "You are chubby like her….beautiful skin!"

This coming from a woman who resembled a small Shetland pony? To my horror she let go of the steering wheel and grabbed my cheeks like a three year old.

My brother: "The road!!!"

Angela: "Ah woops…..cars are not like horses are they?"

No Mrs Shetland they are not. I was so unimpressed. This was the last Xmas holiday I was going to let my mother organise.

After tiring of the stifling heat of Brisbane at Xmas, my mother decided four years ago that it would be good idea to the turn the Xmas break into a family getaway somewhere else…. preferably cooler. Since my brother and I both live in Sydney and our parents in Brisbane, we only spend time together as a family a few times a year. So in Xmas 2005, Mum organised a driving trip through Tasmania; Xmas 2006 a driving trip through the south island of New Zealand and last year's Xmas a driving trip through the north island of New Zealand. After three driving holidays in a row, I was starting to feel like we were turning into a much older version of the Griswalds in National Lampoons. So I suggested for this Xmas that we go to a place where we could stay put and not have to spend endless hours in a car with each other. I suggested New Caledonia or somewhere in French Polynesia; a place where we could just sit, relax….and drink cocktails. Mum came up with Norfolk Island, which really wasn't what I had in mind. It is kinder like ordering a Sweet Manhattan and getting a cup of tea instead.

Norfolk Island is situated in the lower end of the South Pacific approximately 1800 kms north east of Sydney and 700 km south of New Caledonia. Captain Cook discovered it in 1774 on his second voyage to the South Pacific four years after discovering and mapping the east coast of Australia. It became a penal colony not long after Australia did in 1788 and remained that way until it was abandoned in 1855. In 1856 due to over-crowding on the even more remote island of Pitcairn, the British Government agreed to transfer 199 residents to Norfolk. The Pitcairn Islanders of course were the descendants of the Mutineers of HMS Bounty; where Fletcher Christian in 1789 took control of HMS Bounty in Tahiti tossing Captain Bligh and 18 men overboard in a small raft. (Hollywood was to later turn its attention to the story in two films one starring Errol Flynn and the other, Mel Gibson) Christian and the remaining men took some Tahitian wives and set up a new life on Pitcairn Island…..an island so remote that it was only discovered by accident when an American whaling ship sailed by it in the 1830s.

Norfolk Island remains a special administration zone of Australia. It has its own legislative assembly and the locals don't pay income tax to the Australian government. Accordingly they don't have any representatives in the Australian parliament. Australian citizens must have their passports when they travel to Norfolk. They also need their patience. Everything in Norfolk is on Norfuck time from ordering a meal ("maybe it's an ornatmental café), doing a tour ("oh they're don't run on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays" to internet connection ("the satellite is down" down where?).

Mrs Shetland got lost on the way back to the resort. How anyone can get lost on an island the size of Redfern is beyond me.

Mrs Shetland: I'm not good at driving at night. ….can't see.

That was reassuring. My brother and I let out fake giggles exchanging glances of "is she for real?"

Mrs Sheltand: That is why my husband and I go away tomorrow for America. I am having laser surgery.

Brother: Oh so you won't be here for Xmas?

Damn

Mrs Shetland: No no…..we have managers who look after the resort. You will be in good hands.

As long as I wasn't having my cheeks pulled, I would be happy. I wound down my window and sucked in the dense south pacific air. It was sugary sweet and automatically relaxing. What on earth was I going to do in this place for ten days? I looked out across the hidden night listening to the rustle of the trees and the famous Norfolk Island Pines. I could just see their castle like outlines against the milky wayed sky. We are lucky in this part of the world……the night skies are breathtaking. So was Mrs Shetland's driving. She continued to find no harmony between 2nd and 4th or possibly overdrive. One poor unsuspecting cow almost lost her life to 1st gear as did my lower back. We finally pulled up at South Pacific. I hadn't even checked the name of the place we were staying until then. If I'd known we were staying with The Roger Hammersteins, I would have brought my grass skirt and dancing shoes.

Mrs Shetland : Velcome to Zouth Phacific!

I felt like one of those special guest stars who visited Fantasy Island. I braced myself for a midget to collect my bags. It didn't transpire; however Mrs Shetland's creepy husband who looked a lot like the dude who owned Fantasy Island did.

Mr Shetland: You had a good flight yah?

He was South African and appeared to have slow motion disease. He looked my brother up and down as if we had just been washed ashore.

Mr Shetland: You stay with your parents?

We both nodded.

Mr Shetland: You both have drivers' licences

We both said yes.

Mr Shetland: What do you intend to do whilst you are here?

What was this? Forty questions?

My brother: Well simply relax….a nice break.

Mr Shetland: Yes indeed you will

There was a lingering silence. He stared at the both of us. This guy made my skin crawl. Where were our parents? Were they packed in a cardboard box somewhere?

Mr Shetland: Please come this way

We followed him with our bags down a pebbled path covered in all things lush such as ferns, potted palms and the like. Mrs Shetland followed bumping into obstacles on the way due to her unlasered vision.

I had to ask.

Me: So are you going away as well?

Mr Shetland turned and stared at me as if I'd uttered the unutterable.

Mrs Shetland: Yes we both go tomorrow.

Mr Shetland: Angela I would prefer you not discuss our private lives in front of the guests.

Mmmmm…..that was awkward. We kept walking down the path and I was relieved when I could hear my mother berating my father for not putting the milk back in the fridge. We were almost safe.

Mr Shetland: And here we are.

The hut was kind of 1980s Miami meets North Queensland Caravan Park. Completely painted in Salmon, it was made out of corrugated iron with a tiled roof and paved patios to the front and the back. I was hoping for a view of something but unfortunately the only view we had was of the BBQ block. South Pacific was Norfolk's premier resort; if this was premier, budget was obviously the airport hanger.

Mr and Mrs Shetland giddyupped their way out of there to leave us to our parents who were still having an international incident over the whereabouts of the milk.

We both walked into the hut the interior of which only reinforced the 80s Miami impressions I had when I first saw the place.

Mum: Hello my darlings…..isn't the place beautiful? Isn't it a lovely colour?

I've inherited my mother's ability to exaggerate. But nobody can do it better than her.

"It's an absolutely gorgeous kitchen," she said speaking as if I was about to walk into a marble appointed Biele masterpiece. The kitchen was a masterpiece in laminex and antique whirlpool appliances.

'And the living area is so spacious…."….if we were oompaloompas.

I walked to what I thought was my room to find two single beds. I saw no third room. I didn't ask as I already knew the answer. I'm 34; my brother is 30 and my mother still thinks we're at school. 11 days in a single bed, in an over-sized caravan with a view of a BBQ. Thank god I bought up big on the duty free alcohol.

_____________________________________________________________________

When I woke the next day, I realised from the front porch of the "caravan" I could see up into the lush mountainside of Norfolk. It was quite picturesque. Unfortunately it did nothing to waylay my fears that I was on an island for the aged and infirmed. I'd begrudgingly attended midnight mass the night before where the mean age was so high I thought the service might end up a funeral for most of the parishners.

To my horror I'd also realised that international roaming still did not exist on Norfolk and I was affectively cut off from the entire world. The island had only installed the world's smallest mobile phone network a year ago and was still working out the complexities relating to introducing roaming networks. So not only was I trapped in a rather large aged care facility, I had no way of phoning or more importantly texting. Some people might love this……..particularly those in aged care….but not I.

I walked from the resort downtown….I use the term loosely. I needed to find a public phone. I wanted to wish Frenchi a merry xmas and generally just moan. Downtown consisted of about 10 prefabricated (in the 60s) buildings housing a variety of tacky duty free stores selling everything from dated linen to even more dated Royal Dolton china dolls. The town was completely deserted and looked like an abandoned film set. I found a public phone next to the even more abandoned video store.

Are you lost?

For a moment I thought perhaps it was the Lord Almighty speaking to me from afar or in my heard. I turned around to find Mr Shetland staring blankly in my direction.

Me: Hello!

Jeepers-creepers the man made my blood run cold.

Me: Ummmm…. I was just looking for a public phone.

Mr Shetland: This is the only one and it is broken.

Me: Oh damn

Mr Shetland: You can use the one in your room

Me: Yes I guess I can…it's just everyone is asleep and I didn't want to wake anyone.

Mr Shetland: You won't find any other phones down here.

He seemed to have an absence of blinking which was quite disturbing.

Me: Ah well. Merry Xmas. Safe travels….do u leave tomorrow?

Mr Shetland: No…….I've decided to stay…..

He kept glaring. I kept awkward. It was all becoming very film noir. All I needed was a pair of shoulder pads and a long face.

To be continued………

I LOVE JUDITH

2009-01-30T12:13:00.003+11:00

J.Lucy on AUSTRALIA

"There were lots of close-ups of Miss Kidman and I'm sitting there going: 'I know you're a year older than me and your face looks like a whitegood that I could just wipe down.'

HOORAA!

Seeing her on the 15th. Can't Wait!

C

Name ya status

2009-01-29T17:53:00.003+11:00

I love observing the sometimes bizarre juxtaposition of friends' status updates as they appear on my newsfeed on facebook.

Today's was a classic

Jb is in a good place
TE is over it
SG is very happy
MT is being ruthless
GS wishes we had squirrels in Australia
DC is removing dead wood

Judy's was the best though: Judy is wound up tighter than a wrist watch.

Hoorah!

C

Random Moments.....

2009-01-27T16:54:00.002+11:00

Judy reminded me today of random moments Monday morning at Phoenix Rising (a dayclub in Sydney)

Judy: What were you doing with that guy on the balcony when I was talking to that woman with the racoon eyes?

Me: Which guy?

Judy: The one you were cuddling? He looked upset.

Me: Oh ya him. He'd forgotten to pick his boyfriend up at the airport and was upset. Although I think he was more upset that he'd forgotten he had a boyfriend .

Judy: Or that he had a boyfriend at all.What were you doing?

Me: Consoling him.

Judy: What did you say?

Me: Lets go dance.

Judy: That would have lifted his spirits.

C

Waiting For Frenchi

2009-01-25T00:01:00.003+11:00

Unlike the last couple of years, Sydney this year is definitely getting a hot summer. Today it reached 42 degrees in the Hills of Dulwich. It was so hot I found myself at Bing Lee (electrical store) battling 5000 others to buy an air conditioner. Unfortunately the 4999 got there before me and took all the remaining 4999 air conditioners. I then almost found myself buying a new plasma screen simply just to spend more time in the air conditioning. The keen attendant discounted 100 bucks off the item within the first three minutes and I found myself reaching for my credit card. Thankfully I escaped just in time! I really didn’t want to be faced with installing a new television in 40 degree temperatures.

I then went back to my flat which seemed to be emitting its own radiation. Everything was hot…..the couch, the bed, the tiles…..the plants. I hate heat like this….there is no relief. I attempted to have an afternoon sleep of two hours. I felt like I was sleeping on hot-rocks.

Judy and I were supposed to be going out tonight but when the southerly breezes started coming and cooling the surrounds by about 20 degrees, I immediately became lethargic….so we have postponed….perhaps tomorrow night. I haven’t really been going out much at all this summer. I haven’t really had a “big one” out since I got back from London. I am however quite restless….

For the last three weeks I’ve been on a pretty strict diet and exercise routine. Am afraid I have ballooned over the last three months; with my UK trip, Norfolk trip and Xmas festivities there has been little time or enthusiasm for exercise and I’ve managed to put on ten kgs. I love my body…continually preparing for the next ice age. So it’s been low carbs, protein rich foods and salads……..and running every day. I abhor exercise but I just have to do it. I hate being this size….my face blows up and I start having to wear clothes that look like curtains. I just wish I could have my brother’s metabolism…..he eats everything, never exercises and always remains 77 kgs. Where was I that day those genes were being handed out?

Frenchi (the boy who I met in London) is arriving in just over 5 weeks. He’s coming for ten days and will be here for Mardi Gras and all the festivities. I guess I still really haven’t explained much of what happened between us while I was in London. Nothing a lot to tell really except that we had quite a lovely holiday romance (I’ve never had one before) and I really do quite like him. He’s very smart, witty and quite successful…not that ‘that’ matters. Most of all he’s quite a gentle, kind and romantic fellow. And that is something I haven’t had for a while. He really did make my holiday.

The logical side of me was quite happy to leave it as a holiday affair; I’ve always liked the idea of a holiday affair; there is a clear beginning, middle and by reasons of geography; end. No one gets hurt and we have the pleasant memories to look back on. But he kept calling me when I arrived back to Australia and we remained in continual email contact. And we decided he should come for a visit. It’s very exciting.

He’s very romantic and makes me comfortable at reciprocating that romance. Something in the past I’ve either not had the maturity or the confidence to do. I guess I’ve always been a closet romantic but thought it was a weakness to show that side. Frenchi has changed that. I’ve never sent a lover roses or poetry in my life until now!

So in a sense….the last couple of months have been wonderful. Even if he is on the other side of the world….it’s nice to receive phone-calls, text and emails from someone who is thinking of you.

But it’s also been hard. I’m just not very good at this; hence why I rarely do it. My last relationship was about two years ago and was to say the least very traumatic. The guy was completely wrong from the beginning but for reasons of pride, insecurity and wanting to make it work, I endeavoured ….much to my friends’ horror. I then rebounded into an affair with a friend which was also equally torturous. After that I decided I just didn’t want to see anyone for a while. I was tired of the heartbreak and drama. There have been two or three flings over the last couple of years but I’ve pretty much seen danger and jumped ship before any harm could be done. In a sense I had closed that door on finding a special one…for the time being anyway.

And then Frenchi came along. It’s been wonderful but for me it’s also like opening a Pandora’s box. Suddenly I feel needy again and it plays on all my deep-rooted insecurities. As much as people can’t believe it, I am not a very confident person. Yes I’m good at making an entrance, putting on a show and being the life of the party but deep down, I’m that terrified little fat boy arriving at his first day of school fully expecting no one to like him. And in matters of the heart I guess I’m always that little boy….always expecting that no matter how sweet someone is to me, they will eventually reject me. It’s fucked up I know and I kept hoping as I got older that these insecurities would disappear but they’re with me for life… I just have to learn to keep them at bay.

And up until this month I had. I had been Mr Cool Banana: witty texts, passionate romance and back and forth phone calls; in fact he called all the time. It was fantastic. I was fine. Then this month the phone-calls weren’t as frequent; perhaps something to do with the 300 pound ($AuD 650) phone bill he received ).I of course didn’t interpret it that way. Then he called me a couple of weeks ago saying that he mightn’t be able to come as long as he originally thought…three weeks….due to work commitments. This sent me into melt down. You swear to god he had just said to me it was over and he didn’t want to come. I tried to keep these paranoid thoughts at bay but of course I couldn’t. This resulted in a number of ‘needy’ phone-calls from me stating that if he really didn’t want to come, that was fine and not to worry about it (which of course was the exact opposite to the way I felt). He laughed the first couple of times and the final time just said “stop worrying! I’m coming!” The flights have been booked. But I HATE feeling this way….I hate being the needy one. And I guess I just worry that he will find this side of me a little scary and disappear. But as he said, I just have to stop worrying….in GENERAL!

The other part of the Pandora’s box is that when you do meet someone you quite like, you are reminded of how you would like someone in your life. Meeting Frenchi has done this. I’d forgotten that I actually would like to share my life with not just anyone but someone with whom I genuinely have affection. Before the UK I was quite content with my single life. I have great friends and I’m lucky that I live with my brother who is a great support to me. I’ve always thought that if I lived alone I would probably have found myself in some sort of disastrous live in relationship simply in an attempt not to feel lonely. Whereas having that close family support has helped me avoid such follies.

Sometimes with guys in the past, I’ve been more in love with the idea of them than with them. And in my last relationship this lead me down a particularly upsetting path. With Frenchi, I genuinely like him. We are as different as we are alike. And I like that.

A friend said to me the other day: Stop trying to control things; you can’t control this; what will happen WILL happen. Just enjoy it.

And she’s right. I just have to relax….and try to keep that little boy and all his fears at bay.

PS: I’m trying to work out from the noise next door whether my neighbours are shagging or being murdered.

Know Ya 'istory Kym

2009-01-21T00:34:00.003+11:00

It's bloody 24 degrees, I can't turn CNN off and I can't uckin' sleep. That's right the cogs of history are about to turn. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people are gathering in Washington to witness the inauguration of the United States' 44th president....and the Union's first African American president. It's 12.53am Wednesday morning in Sydney, the air is heavy and a storm is trying to break. It's almost mother nature itself knows that something "big" is about to happen. There is SO much expectation and hope placed on this man that he is almost bordering on supernatural. I hope such worship is not setting Mr Obama up to fail. We all want him to succeed. Only the future will tell. In the mean time....lets enjoy the show!

C

MOULD

2009-01-18T21:02:00.003+11:00

I must have somehow insulted the God Cuisine this weekend. After my bollocks incident on Friday night, I was with my friend K at a cafe in Newtown hoing into what appeared to be quite a pleasant carrott cake.

K : It's a bit dry

Me: Yes it is....it tastes a bit old in fact

K: So do carrot cakes generally have green bits in them?

Me: Generally not...unless they've added some broccoli.

I analysed K's discovery of green particles in said carrot concoction and soon realised that the green was in fact not anything from a vegetable garden but the beginnings of penicillin. Yes the cake was mouldy. ....all the way through....like an old loaf of bread....and I of course being the guts that I am, had already eaten half of it.

Bon appetite!

C

A Year of Blogging

2009-01-18T12:34:00.003+11:00

Well I actually thought I started my blog on the 18th of January last year and I've just realised that it was actually January 13th! Well I'm late for most things in my life so it doesn't come as a surprise that I would be late for my own blog.

Happy 1st Anniversery thOroughlymOderncOlin!

Almost 85 000 words, 11 and 1/2 thousand hits and 101 posts later, I still seem to be punching out some sort of hubbaballoo on tmc. My writing and enthusiasm for tmc has waned in the last few months mainly due to holidaying and not being able to sit down and write. Around the turn of the year, I was thinking perhaps of resting tmc to focus on other writing ideas I have but 09 is going to be a year of change for me and I think I may need tmc for my own sanity!

So much thanks to the few of you who read my little blurb to the world regularly; I've greatly appreciated your encouragement over the last 12 months.

C

BOLLOCKS

2009-01-17T01:02:00.002+11:00

Just got back from dinner with girls I used to work with in my last job. We're a pretty close unit and the five of us have been through a few ups and downs in the time we've known each other. We catch up every coupla mths for a noice meal except this time it was different and just a little too unushual.We went to this new vietnamese restaurant near my place....usually it's just us ....no partners or potentials or anythings in between are invited; we usually sink a few cocktails, dance around our handbags and go home. This time it was a little different. For starters, none of us were drinking....we've all got Sat morning things planned so apart from a couple of beers at a nearby pub, we were on our diet cokes. Secondly one of the girls, T, brought this new bloke she's seeing who was to put it bluntly one shandy short of horrendous. Late 40s, face like a camel and thought it was fun to call the waiters "ching chong". And then there were the stories of him taking his kids out to his horse stud to see the stallions with the big "dongers". And that was before mains were served. Then there were stories of how he just shagged T before dinner and he hadn't wiped the cum off his hands......followed by jokes about "boongs" (Australian slang for Aboriginal people). If I had a bottle of gin or a hit of heroin nearby I could have handled him .....but unfortunately I didn't and am afraid Diet Coke just doesn't give a big enough hit of tolerance. I simply had 85 cigarette breaks instead......and looked forward to the food ...which lead to the next disaster.

I ordered pork. I love vietnamese pork. I love how it is caramelised with lemmongrass and butter and melts in your mouth. My dish arrived as did everyone else's. It was noice but not brilliant. There were also two other items in the bowl which I couldn't quite work out. They looked like brown boiled eggs. I shared my views with the table. Everyone agreed. I consumed half of one and realised pretty quickly that it was NOT an egg. It may have been yellow but it certainly did not come out of any chook. I start to munch on it and realised the texture was quite meaty but like mash. As I am doing this camel face starts poking at the remaining half.

" Mate that's definitely no egg"

"Mate you know what you're eating...." He starts to burst out laughing.

"Mate you're eating bloody pig's bollocks!"

" MATE YOU'RE EATING BOLLOCKS....THEY'VE GIVEN YOU BOLLOCKS!"

C

Life Matters....

2009-01-13T21:10:00.000+11:00

Judy at the Beresford Sunday night on finding "the one".

Where is he? I'm tired.

C

OBAMARAMA

2009-01-09T16:35:00.004+11:00

UK AND AWAY: PART 2

They say the friends you make in your youth are the ones that stay with you for life regardless of how long it has been since you've seen them. All my friends in London fall into this category and most of them I had not seen in at least five years….the last time I was in London. To be honest I was a little worried before I left whether I was going to be a little lonely; I had not heard from many people when I sent an email out in September saying that I was coming over for a month in November. Two days prior to leaving, suddenly everyone came out of the wood-work. I pretty much had a social commitment every night of the 11 nights I was in London. It was fantastic as it enabled me to go wandering during the day and kick up my heels with my mates at night.

Two of my friends S & A had originally planned to host an Obama party themselves the night of the US Election: 4 November 2008. Due to overwork commitments and general disorganisation, the party didn't happen. Instead S & A organised tickets to go to a US Election Party at a bar in Leicester Square. There were about twelve us who went along. It was supposed to be a general US Election Party but it was obvious which side everyone at the party was on.

A arrived a little later with her new boyfriend….well who I thought was her boyfriend. S & A are old friends of my brother's and consequently friends of mine. We all went to the same law school and we've known each other for about 12 years. As the night proceeded and we knocked back more and more Obarama's (some lethal sambuca concoction made in tribute for the Democrat nominee), I started to realise that A's 'new' boyfriend was flirting with me. I couldn't believe it. In all the time I've known A, she has had about five boyfriends who have all turned out to be gay; her track record is unfortunately dominated by rainbow flags. The flirting continued between the 'new' boyfriend and myself. It didn't help either that he and I were also the only smokers in the group requiring us to head out into the 2 degree weather every 15 minutes for a fag. He wasn't my type at all. Short, shaved head and completely hairless, but the more I talked to him, the more he laughed at my jokes and he at mine, the more sexy I found him. He was a lawyer (yes another one) and he was from Paris. I made the first of many Colin Blonde moments by stating that I didn't know there was a Paris in the UK; he said "no, the one in France." I ordered another Obamarama. He sounded so much like an extra off Brideshead Revisited that I didn't think for a minute that he could be a frog. But perhaps by that stage the sambuca had taken over all my listening devices.

By about 3 in the morning all our friends had left and we were the last mugs swaying around the bar. We talked and talked and talked about everything from art to politics to religion to children to life to how we'd both would have bedded John McCaine in his war time years but not Obama….too much earlobe. By 4 in the morning, we were well and truly sambucked; he had an 8am meeting, I had a city to devour....we exited the bar and walked out into Leicester Square. The mood had changed. The air was stunned with anticipation. People were gathering around mobiles and available plasmas. A bloke next to us was watching CNN on his iphone: "McCain's conceding. He's in! Obama's in!" That's right there was an election on. The news spread fast. People started yelling and hugging each other. Then the whole square erupted into a roar. People were dancing around. Carhorns were being blown and people were running out of buildings cheering. Was this history changing gears? We stopped to catch our breaths. I looked at Frenchi. This was definitely a "where were you?" moment. So I pulled him in close and made sure we remembered it.

C

ARSETRAYA

2009-01-09T14:39:00.004+11:00

Well I finally went and saw it…..and it wasn't that bad. But it wasn't that great either. The most over-hyped film in recent times…..Baz Luhrmann's AUSTRALIA. Luhrmann has a very unique style of film-making which belongs more in vaudeville and cabaret than probably celluloid. It has worked to astounding success in his past three films Strictly Ballroom, Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge. His version of Romeo and Juliet still remains one of my favourite films. Moulin Rouge was the weakest out of the three due to its poor script but because it was a musical, it got away with it. AUSTRALIA does not.

However all is not lost. I still enjoyed this film. It could have been a masterpiece; if only Baz had thought to hire a scriptwriter or at least completed Narrative 101.

The golden thread that keeps holding the film together is Brandon Walters as the narrator, the young "half-cast" aboriginal boy, Nullah. If it wasn't for this young boy, this film would be totally lost. He is a complete natural and has a beautiful presence on screen.

AUSTRALIA tells the story of Lady Sarah Ashley, played by Nicole Kidman, who comes to Darwin, Australia to confront her wayward husband who is running his large cattle station Faraway Downs. Drover played by Hugh Jackman is sent to meet Lady Ashley in Darwin. There is friction immediately between the two and they fight all the way to Faraway Downs where upon arrival Lady Ashley discovers her husband dead.

Neal Fletcher, played deliciously by David Wenham is the resident station manager who wants "to take care" of everything for Lady Ashley. He suggests that it is best to sell the property. There are ten thousand head of cattle that need to be taken to Darwin for export and it is best that Lady Ashley cleans her hands of it. Lady Ashley is suspicious. She is befriended by Nullah who tells her how her husband really died. She realises then that Mr Fletcher's motives are ulterior and is equally appalled by his maltreatment of Nullah and his family. So she sacks him and he walks out with all the men who were going to drove the cattle to Darwin. And this is where Drover comes in. He has to help her get the cattle to Darwin so as to save Faraway Downs and her fortune.

If the film had been purely about their journey to Darwin, it would have been perfect. It had all the hallmarks of a true epic western. The scenes are well developed. There is a narrative arch….the massive task of getting ten thousand head of cattle to Darwin through the most remote desolate exotic country in the world while being chased by nasty cattle barons has the audience gunning for the cast; not to mention the scenery of the Pilbara is breathtaking. I spent the entire first half of the film thinking "what has everyone been complaining about? I love this film!". Until the second half commences…..

It is obvious then that Baz Luhrmann had only written half the script before he started filming. The film goes from being an epic western to Home and Away Goes to War with a $150 million budget. The cattle are delivered to the stockyards in Darwin and then the story loses complete focus. At one moment it is a story about the stolen generations then it is happy families back on the farm on Faraway Downs and then it is back to Darwin for a war story. Lady Ashley seems to drive back and forth between Darwin and Faraway Downs as if she's popping out for a bottle of milk. At one moment she's staging a revolution to have Nullah to be returned from children's home at Mission Island then the next scene she's off to join the war effort manning the radios at the army headquarters chatting to other characters as if they've known each other for years. It becomes a farce. …entertaining but for all the wrong reasons.

Nicole Kidman has been hardly darn by critics reviewing this film. She's thoroughly enjoyable as Lady Ashley. It is her leading man and director who have let her down. Hugh Jackman comes from the Paul Hogan School of Acting and is simply woeful in the role as Drover. He seemed to have only three expressions: crikey, struth and crying seal. Whereas Baz Luhrmann simply needed a good script editor to keep his story focussed instead of making it up as he went along.

AUSTRALIA is a flawed epic. It's still worth the watch on the big screen purely for the amazing cinematography and Brandon Walters' performance. It does seem a great pity that such a huge amount of not only Hollywood funding but Australian taxpayer's money (to the tune of $40 million) have been waisted on special effects, set design and costumes when the basics such as story had been ignored. We see this time and time again in Hollywood, but it's rare that Australians get to tell their own stories on such a grand scale. AUSTRALIA was an opportunity to tell an Australian story and for all the funding provided (nearly $AUD200 million), to tell it well. This opportunity has been missed and it will be a very long time before Hollywood will be confident to throw such a huge amount of money behind an Australian story again. And that is a great shame.

C

Ho ho ho ho......

2008-12-23T22:25:00.004+11:00

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year! I apologise for my slack blogging these last two months. Obviously I was away in November and December has been silly season where I've barely had time to put finger to keyboard. I'm hoping to have more time to write in January.....mainly because I intend not to eat or drink and thus will have much more time on my hands. I take off tomorrow afternoon for ten glorious days in the South Pacific to spend a very cOlin christmas with my brother and parents. Yes ten days with my family on Norfolk Island...one of the most remote islands in the Pacific. I'm still trying to work out whether that's a good thing or not....I will know by tomorrow night! Norfolk only received mobile phone coverage and the internet two months ago; scarey! Thank god though... I won't be completely on my own then! So hopefully I will get to do some blogging from there.

Merry Xmas everyone and here comes 2009 whether we like it or not!

Cxxxx

PS: I am also finding it absolutely intriging that I am taking more luggage on a ten day trip than I did on my five week holiday to the UK. Why?

UK And Away.....

2008-12-22T17:46:00.006+11:00

The last few weeks I've been sitting around trying to work out how to write about my month away. It's been difficult to sum it up without sounding like an advertisement for laundry liquid. It was amazing! It was fantastic! My colours are now brighter than bright! And my whites are now generating their own electricity.

I had a great time; as a result all stories from my time are all rather boring. There were no disasters, me losing my wallet, my passport or my mind. There weren't even really many odd "did that just happen?" moments along the way; apart from the time when I arrived for my luggage at Heathrow and I was surrounded by orthodox Jews looking at me very suspiciously in my black fedora. I was right….it did make me look like Yentl.

I had been to the UK before but I had never spent a great deal of time there, choosing to bypass it for Europe. The point of this trip was to actually to stay more than two days in London and explore the rest of the UK. I spent the first ten days in London staying at the Arran House Hotel in Bloomsbury just off Tottencourt Road and ten minutes walk from Soho and the West End. The hotel, like most Bed & Breakfasts in London, was in an old city mansion. It was clean, crisp and appeared to be straight off the set of Upstairs Downstairs all except that the South African manager would often fight with the Eastern European help. There were often arguments over the way the Ukrainian chef prepared the English breakfast buffet. I loved the breakfast…..in fact it was the best breakfast I had throughout the Union but the South African thought otherwise. There would be a fight every morning over the way the tomatoes were cooked and the mushrooms displayed. It was like watching a Prussian Antipodean version of Love Thy Neighbour.

As I said in my entry, Ten Random Moments in London, the best part of this city is the people watching. And that's what I did most of the time. From the lady in her late 60s trying to explain in very bad French the wonders of sitting in front of a photosynthesis machine each morning to her very confused French friends to Mary giving advice in her broadest Belfast accent to Leonie on how to leave her husband; I think there is a different accent in London every two minutes. Coming from such a mono-lingual country such as Australia, it is a vocal feast.

So where to start….well I think I will break it into five categories

1. Entertainment
2. Catching up
3. Nightlife
4. On the Road Again
5. Encore

Entertainment

1. Dame Edna Experience: Royal Vauxhall Tavern on a Sunday Night.

· I've heard about the Dame Edna Experience for years and I missed it the last time I was in London. I finally got to see it. It is the best Cabaret I have seen in years …..and yes better than Dame Edna herself. I have never laughed so much in my life. The RVT is one of the few buildings that survived the blitz in Vauxhall and inside it is shaped like an old fashioned cabaret theatre. It had a real vaudeville feel and with it jampacked with hundreds of screaming queens…the atmosphere was electric.

2. La Cage aux Folles ( Musical) at the Playhouse :

This is one of my favourite shows (book by my hero, Harvey Fierstein) but I've never had the opportunity to see it staged. Based on a french play, the musical focuses on a gay couple: Georges, the manager of a Saint-Tropez nightclub featuring drag entertainment, and Albin, his star attraction - and the adventures that ensue when Georges' son brings home his fiancée's ultra-conservative parents to meet them. The show's best known song performed by countless drag queens all over the world is " I am What I Am" and the story line was famously adapted in the movie The Bird Cage starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.

I loved the production; it was good old fashioned cabaret romp with more double entendres than twists and turns. If you're in London, I thoroughly recommend it.

3.Goldfrapp: Brixton Academy:

This was an unexpected surprise. Frenchi asked if I wanted to come with him and a girlfriend of his. To be honest I only knew one Goldfrapp song, Blackcherry which I have played numerous times after a rather large weekend. It turned out though I actually knew a lot more of their songs than I thought……I knew half the set played that night. There was such a great vibe. Alison Goldfrapp is a rock goddess…she kept reminding me of Stevie Nicks. This combined with art décor magnificence of the Brixton Academy, the concert was absolutely sensational.

I was a little embarassed though when I claimed to Frenchi that the band was doing a Blondie cover when they broke into the song "I'm In Love"

Frenchi : "No it's a Goldfrapp song….just sounds like Blondie"

Determined to keep digging that hole.

Me: "No this is Blondie."

French: " Just sounds like them"

The song then veered away from what sounded like 'Rapture'

I then realised I was completely wrong. His parisian girlfriend looked at me as if I had a second head. I tried to find an available opening in the earth to swallow my embaraassment. Frenchi laughed and gave me a big kiss.

It was a great first date.

PIAF :

This play/musical of Edif Piaf's life has been produced all over the world winning awards everywhere it has appeared. Sadly I missed Caroline O'Connor in the Australian production a number of years ago. Most likely due to the biopic La Vie En Rose earlier this year on Edith Piaf's life, the play has been revived in London starring Argentinian musical theatre star, Elena Roger who got her big break playing Eva Peron in the UK and Argentinian revivals of Evita. I enjoyed the production but didn't love it. The music is fantastic and Roger sounds eerily like Piaf when she sings; it's unfortunately when she opens her mouth to speak dialogue that she doesn't. Her strong Argentinian accent makes her Edith sound more like a Colombian drug lord than the famous french sparrow. That aside, it's worth seeing the production just for Roger's singing Piaf.

WICKED: The Musical at the Apollo

This Broadway musical has been wildly successful since it's opening on Broadway some five years ago. I remember I was actually in New York the week it opened but I opted to go and see Hugh Jackman in The Boy From Oz instead. Even though The Boy From Oz was largely slammed by the critics and has long since closed on Broadway, after seeing Wicked on the Westend, I'm still glad I saw The Boy From Oz first. Wicked is essentially a prequel and tells the story of the unlikely friendship between Glinda the Good Witch of the North and the Wicked Witch of the West all before some girl from Kansas fell down in her farmhouse killing the Wicked Witch of the East ( West's sister). I LOVED the story and I definitely am going to read the novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire on which the musical is based. The actual music though I found a bit 90s talent show. The only song that had me hooked was "Popular" by Glinda. The rest of the songs were quite vacuous. The dialogue in between and of course the actual story is what saves the production. It's fast and snappy….like an episode of Will and Grace. Being a musical though the songs do dominate…and not in a good way; it had me thinking that in the movie version Beyonce will play the Wicked Witch of the West and Britney will play Glinda. Need I say more.

More of my travels to come soon…..

C

Sunday Melodies

2008-12-14T15:23:00.003+11:00

Phone five minutes ago.....

Me : what did we do before text messages?

Judy: Told the truth.

C

Scenes from a Dulwich Balcony

2008-12-14T04:19:00.002+11:00

Dinner Party

My Place

Hills of Dulwich

Saturday night

9.15

Trev: So I met this girl last night who thought I was 28...

Judy: Was she with a goldren retriever in a leather harness?

Cxxx

SIGNING CEREMONY

2008-12-11T15:38:00.002+11:00

This poem appeared in last week's New Yorker and I love it. It's by Clive James....am not sure whether it is the CLIVE JAMES as in the famous expat Australian writer/humorist and entertainer who lives in London.

The lilac peak of Etna dribbles pink,
Visibly seething in the politest way.
The shallow vodka cocktails that we sink
Here on the terrace at the close of day

Are spreading numb delight as they go down
Their syrup mirrors the way lava flows:
It's just a show, it might take over town,
Sometimes the Cyclops, from his foxhole, throws

Rock at Ulysses. But regard the lake
Of moonlight on the water, stretching east
Almost to Italy. The love we make
Tonight might be our last, but this, at least,

Is one romantic setting, am I right?
Cypresses draped in bouganvillea,
The massed petunias, the soft warm night,
That streak of candy floss. And you, my star,

Still walking the stone alleys with the grace
Of forty years ago. Don't laugh at me
For saying dumb things. Just look at this place
Time was more friend to us then enemy,

And soon enough this backdrop will go dark
Again. The spill of neon cream will cool,
The crater waiting years for the next spark
Of inspiration, since the only rule

Governing history is that it goes on
There is no rhythm of events, they just
Succeed each other. Soon, we will be gone,
And that volcano, if and when it must,

Will flood the slope with lip gloss brough to boil
For other lovers who come here to spend
One last, late, slap-up week in suntan oil,
Their years together winding to an end.

With any luck, they'll see what we have seen:
Not just, the picture postcard, but the splash
Of fire, and know this flowering soil has been
Made rich by an inheritance of ash.

Only because it's violent to the core
The world grows gardens. Out of earth we came,
To earth we shall return. But first, one more
Of these, delicious echoes of the flame

That drives the long life all should have, yet few
Are granted as we were. It wasn't fair?
Of course it wasn't. But which of us knew,
To start with, that the other would be there,

One step away, for all the time it took
To come this far and see a mountain cry
Hot tears, as if our names, signed in the book
Of marriage, were still burning in the sky?

RIM

2008-12-11T15:18:00.002+11:00

This morning 9am in a non-descript training room covered in fluoresence and bad carpet somewhere in the CBD.

I sat.

The IT trainer entered the room. He resembled a hamburger in a suit sweating from every pore.

"Hello and welcome to RIM training."

The trainer remained deadpanned as he pointed to the words on the whiteboard:

"RIM : Records Information Management or as I like to call it ....rimming."

I searched the training room for a hidden camera or some sort of hearing device; this had to be a joke right? What was it? Catch Out The Homosexual?

The entirely "straight" class continued to look "straight" ahead without a flinch as Mr Hamburger "rimmed" his way through the seminar.

Our organisation has a new data management system and it's called RIM.

There has got to be a homosexual somewhere in IT who is having the biggest laugh on this.

I cannot wait for the posters.

Cxx

Jet Lag Vision

2008-12-03T21:16:00.000+11:00

I’ve managed to survive my first day back at work mainly nodding politely and looking concerned at my pc at the appropriate times. Apart from that I have been rendered incapable of doing little else. Jet lag tends to turn my brain into a giant empty drum with all vision becoming peri-scoped and subsequent sounds into Dolby surround reverberations. The effect is that everyone seems to sound like they’re talking under water in an IMAX production. I always dread coming back to work after a considerable break as I usually expect time bombs that I have overlooked to be fully exploded for all of management to see. Thankfully there never have been and today was another example. My assistant nonetheless had five thousand questions for me regarding dozens of matters to which I had a continually replayed response of “can we deal with that tomorrow?” That woman should be made a saint for her resilient tolerance of my entrenched vagueness.

The government agency I work for is moving to new premises in 2010 and today the executive staff of my team had a meeting with the architect to confirm our approval of the space we will occupy in the development. Not that it really matters whether we object or not, management will move us in regardless; it’s just another tick in the box. I was quite happy to go along though as watching an architect dressed in designer jeans and check shirt (why do architects always wear these items?) fluff around an office model was quite suited to my jetlagged state of mind. That was until I walked in the door.

Dressed in his check shirt and designer jeans was P……with gold necklace and a mince in his walk you couldn’t step over.

P : Oh my god Colin!.........(in a voice that would challenge Liberace’s in the battle for Camp God)

I recognised the voice straight away (a mute would) and bolted upright in my chair.

Colin: Hi….

I couldn’t remember his name but I did remember him. We met one very drunken night at Phoenix when I first moved to Sydney about 8 years ago. I’d like to say I was left stranded by friends in extreme inebriation. The truth is I had no friends at the time and was completely inebriated and completely on my own. I stumbled across P on the dance floor. Under the Phoenix lights like myself and many others, P looked like a god, in the harsh light of his mood lit apartment, he looked more like an understudy for Albin in La Cage aux Folles. He wore a brunch coat and cooked me breakfast. I wanted to escape but the sex was so good, I stayed all weekend.

He rang for me for weeks afterwards (this was before texts…when people actually did call each other) and I completely ignored him. He was great sex but I wasn’t going to date Ethel Merman. I had not seen him since until this afternoon which considering how small the scene is in Sydney is odd.

P: You’re a lawyer right? I remember you saying you were a lawyer.

As he is saying this, others from my team are milling into the meeting room trying to work out and no doubt cottoning onto how P and I know each other. I felt like a cat under a sprinkler.

P: Now that I know you are in this team, I will take special care to make sure everything is right.

There were more raised eyebrows in that room than a Bette Davis film.

If I hadn’t been on London time, in a tunnel, in an underwater imax conundrum, I may have been able to deal with it and cracked a couple of one liners to take the attention off the fact that most of my colleagues realized that I had shagged Mr Ethel Architect. All I could do though was smile politely and explain that I was still in Jetlag land.

I can’t wait for the emails tomorrow.

C

I'm BACK!

2008-12-03T14:17:00.004+11:00

Well I can't believe I am back. It seems like yesterday that I was boarding that Air Korea (the Pepsicola Airline) flight for the mother country. I arrived yesterday morning and am back at work today….although I emphasize the word physically…most definitely not mentally. I'm still in a cosy café in East London sipping on a milky coffee perusing The Guardian and pretending not to look at Frenchi as he munches his toast. I have had an incredible four weeks away. I fell in love with London amongst other things. I am still in a jet-lagged fog at the moment so am not capable of writing much other than to announce my re-entry into blogworld. I have missed blogging but at the same time, it's been nice to have a break. A great deal has happened on the world stage since I went away; some predicted (Obama), some tragically not (Mumbai) and some feared (Proposition 8). So I have plenty to write about as well as lots of blog reading to catch up with. I will write of my adventures in the coming days.

A Random Ten London Moments Thus Far...

2008-11-08T21:13:00.007+11:00

I have far too much to tell and too little time in which to do the said telling. I'm having a marvellous time so far catching up with friends each night and exploring the grand old city that is London during the day. My expectations regarding the weather were low and each thus far have been thoroughly met. It has been grey, cold and miserable every day since I arrived on Sunday with the exception of yesterday.....where it was Sunny....kind of....in that the Sun seemed to never quite get into the sky; it was like it had a really big hangover. Ok I will give you a random ten london moments thus far because it is impossible to collate any of the moments into a top ten....

1. Meeting Nathan and Suzanne in Soho immediately after my 28 hour flight....I kept speaking in two minute delays.

2. The Belgian restaurant with Kristin and Guy where the Croatian waitress brought out our desserts before our mains; we had waited so long and drunk so much by that stage when the meals arrived we really didn't know the difference!

3. The Australian cuisine restaurant at St Pauls with Liv and David where the heating was so high that it felt like Townsville in February. My hair was ringing wet by the time I left.

4. Obamarama: the US Election party at Leicester Square; it was also a drink made out of Zambucca....I had far too many.

5. The French lawyer I met at Obamarama.....000...la...la.

6. My hotel is perfect; just a five minute walk from Soho and the rest of London city and Westminister. It is clean and tidy and very english although hilariously run by these South Africans (Front of House) and Ukranians (cooks/cleaners). Every morning is like a Ukranian/South African version of Fawlty Towers as the South African manager argues with the Ukranian cook on how to display scrambled eggs appropriately.

7. The best part of London is the people watching; sitting down at a cafe with a nice coffee (I'll admit so far hard to find in London), lighting a cigarette and watching the crowd go by. All the museums, palaces and galleries are nothing compared to this art form; particularly to the monolingual ear of an Australian, the gazillian different stories being told in multiple languages and accents is a continual delight for me.

8. The buskers in Covent Garden every morning; each morning I've gone down to Covent Garden for my coffee and around ten am, there is a young opera singer who busks in the middle of the markets ; there seems to be a different opera singer every day; it is absolutely magical.

9. Stumbling across this pub under Waterloo station full of labourers (yeah ok...it was kinder hot).....having lunch (snags and mash...of course) and a beer for £3....who said London was expensive?

10. The brazillian hookers who keep aprroaching me in Soho......do I look that old already?

And I'm OFF!

2008-11-01T04:45:00.003+11:00

Well I'm packed. I think. I've unpacked, repacked, unpacked and packed again about 40 times while at the same time writing about thirty different lists which make no sense and are strewn throughout my apartment. My new backpack which the saleswoman assured me is bigger than my old backpack seems remarkabley smaller; perhaps it's "the aerodynamic design". I didn't know backpacks were supposed to literally fly. Anyway it looks great and it does fit everything.....just not sure whether I'm going to be able fit much shopping in there. Speaking of shopping, I made a random flight outfit purchase this afternoon....a black velvet fedora. It looked great when I bought it but when I try it on, I fear I look like I'm auditioning for a part in Yentl. I should have gotten the Navy blue instead of the black. My flight is tomorrow night (read tonight); I still have a bit to do ....annoying things like buying toiletries and vitamins as well a visit to my gp to get some sleeping tablets for the flight....which I should have done earlier in the week but Last Minute Colin never seems to learn; just want to get on that plane....a stopover in Seoul and I'm in London town. Can't wait!

I've decided not to take my laptop so I'm not sure how regular and thorough my blogging will be but I will try to put something up at least once a week. I have a good feeling about this trip. I think I'm going to have a really good time.

YAY!

Tickets....Passport....History

2008-10-30T12:32:00.003+11:00

It's kinder weird to think that in the time I will be overseas, history will be made. Either we will see the first non-Caucasian elected as leader of the free world or we will see the first female elected as deputy leader of the free world. Whatever happens on November 4 the world will change. Whether it is for good or bad only time will tell.

The two hallmarks in history in my lifetime have been Princess Diana's death and September 11. In my parents' lifetime; JFK's assassination and Man landing on the moon. All of us remember where we were and what we were doing when such events happened. I was extremely hung-over having bacon and eggs at 4 o'clock in the afternoon at Mum's kitchen table when the first news bulletins came across the tv screen that Princess Diana had been in a car accident in Paris. Only half an hour later she was pronounced dead. We all sat there in shock. I rang everyone.

I was on the phone to my friend Christopher when I switched on the television and started channel surfing stumbling across what appeared to be a disaster film; except I couldn't recall which one. I remembered Towering Inferno but that was set in San Francisco with really bad hair….I didn't remember a disaster film being made about the Twin Towers. As the second jet flew into the remaining tower and Sandra Sully's (Channel Ten Newsreader) voiceover interrupted what I was seeing, I soon realised this was no movie.

On July 21 1969 (Australian time) my mum as a young teacher sat with her Grade 1 Class in front of a National black and white television set and saw Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the moon. Dad didn't see it, he heard it instead on the radio whilst he milked cows in his dairy…….one small step for man. Two weeks later my parents were engaged.

It was a Saturday morning when Australia heard news that JFK had been assassinated on 22 November 1963. My father was 22 and had just bought his first property where he was building a new dairy. He worked on that all day to come back to Nana and Mickey's place to find them dedicating a Rosary to JFK…the first Catholic president. Mum had just woken up and sat with her parents in shock as they listened to the news over the radio. She was 16 years old.

A friend in London is throwing an Obama party in his flat on Tuesday night. I intend to be there, drinking into the wee cold hours of the next morning waiting for history to present itself. I dearly hope I won't be disappointed.

C

Anywhere But Here.....

2008-10-23T17:55:00.006+11:00

"Those chips aren't cooked you idiot. You can't serve those up!," It was peak lunch hour. We all stood awkwardly in front of the glass counter as the manager of the Coles Deli on King Street gave the young Asian attendant her version of Gordon Ramsay. "How many times do I have to tell you? It has to be at least ten minutes." Her name badge read Manager: Cynthia. Such a name has always congaed up memories of pleasant string quartets, fields of flowers and girls in summer dresses. Cynthia was quite the opposite. She had a black hair net tied firmly over her faded auburn hair and a face that had served a thousand French fries. Her skincare was by Winfield's(Cigs) and her voice, damaged from years of screaming at "new Australians" was straight out of the cast of "Prisoner".

"I have a que a mile long and no bloody chips? What have you been doing?" Cynthia followed each word with a spittoon of saliva just in case her young assistant wasn't aware of her displeasure. He picked up the chips and put them back into the deep fry and stared blankly into the distance. "Sorry everyone but Andrew still hasn't finished cooking the chips. Does anyone not want chips?". There were 15 of us. We all remained silent looking sheepishly into the bay maree. We had all been caught out. Here we were smart young professionals in our Marcs suits and Burbury scarves being the epitome of a metropolitan vagabond about to partake in the most unhealthy and most uncool of passtimes; chips and gravy. $2.20 gets you a large tub of old fashioned crinkle cut chips covered in a gravy which contains a similar viscosity to that of bitumen. It's a heart-attack in Styrofoam and should come with a health warning similar to those on cigarette packs. "one more chip is making you sicker", "one more chip and you will have tuckshop arms"; "one more chip and you can shop at Lowes".

"See …all of these people want chips and now they have to wait because you've stuffed up!" Cynthia continued to spit resembling a lama in a hairnet. Andrew stood there with his screensaver face on contemplating I'm sure the most painful way he could possibly off-end dear Cynthia; like throwing her in the deep fry. This of course may have put customers off eating the chips but would have been deeply satisfying for Andrew and indeed his audience…us. We still would have cheered and pretended for Andrew's sake that Cynthia had slipped on her own hair net and landed herself in boiling oil. After all at times I think we've all lost ourselves in fantasies in which a bully senior heir apparent has met a particularly dire end. I used to daydream about hole punching my first boss to death then nail gunning him to his chair; or giving him a slice of my Rat Poison Pie or throwing a bucket of petrol over him and offering him my cigarette.

My first job out of uni was a graduate position in a very dead letter office of the Queensland Public Service. I wasn't over-run with job offers at the end of my degree so I took what I could get. I was placed in the section of this particular department, which dealt with deceased estates. The term was taken literally by the powers that be and my team was placed in the basement; perhaps to be closer to our clientele. Being the basement there were obviously no windows and being next to a one-story air cleaning system, there was no peace and quiet. It continually felt like 5 o'clock in the morning in the engine room of The Titanic. There were five of us on the team; myself and another graduate, Rebecca and Narelle and Noelene, two bookkeepers who'd been working for the Department since the First Fleet arrived.

Then there was Mark, our fearless manager. He was very efficient with his work. So efficient that he would arrive at ten and leave at two. Mark resembled a young Smithers from the Simpsons but had that uniquely bogan accent which has influenced an entire generation of Australian men to sound like Shane Warne. Words such as "time" become "toime", every present participle loses a g (going becomes goin') and everyone is refereed to as an Azza (Jozza, Dazza, Mazza). Conversations between these kind of men sound like the commentary of a one day cricket match. It is the quintessential Aussie accent; the sound of egalitarianism as long as you're white, straight and male. Mark championed this accent. If you weren't an Azza, you were at least a "mate". But that is where the utilitarian rhetoric stopped. Scratch the service and you soon realized that Mark was nothing but a Stalin dressed in office-wear from Kmart: short-sleaved white collar shirt with a tie; I'm sure you could buy them as a combo package back then. It was very Queensland. Technically Rebecca and I had been employed as legal graduates to prepare and advise in matters concerning deceased estates particularly those who had died intestate. We both soon found out that we were going to be nothing more than glorified clerks. My main daily task was to collect and tally the mail and order a cheque for payment. I had friends working as graduates in law firms who were doing mergers and acquisitions. I was doing mail collection. Strangely my graduate salary was more than theirs. It still didn't make it any less humiliating. I attended law school for five years to affix stamps. Were they serious? What was even more strange was that our tasks mainly involved accounting skills. I was in charge of balancing the books for our section whereas Rebecca had to data-entry and maintain any extra monies arriving for unclaimed deceased estates. We were law graduates…not accountancy majors. I could read but not add up. I thought a ledger was something made out of wood.

For the first month Mark left us alone. He had the only office in the basement and the rest of the team was located in their faded pastel pink workstations with pine trim and potted palms in between; the result of an 80s refurbishment years before which made the office look like the set of the Golden Girls.

Mark barely uttered a word to Rebecca or myself. He would arrive late, take ten thousand cigarette breaks and then leave early. Narelle and Noelene trained us in the systems that we would have to use to complete our tasks. Rebecca and I exchanged glances of "what the?" as Narelle showed us the mail book and the 20 page instruction manual that came with it. Narelle was as dull as the faded blue twinsets she wore day in day out. She spoke in a monotone that would put armies to sleep. I used to think Super-powers didn't need nuclear weapons to defeat their enemies, all they needed was Narelle. She'd cast a coma over an entire country by reading the mail manual. The only thing that kept me awake whilst listening to her was her face. Narelle had so many wrinkles; she resembled a ball of string. Her face was devoid of all moisture; the one story air cleaning system had completely sucked it out I'm sure. The irony was that she had a bottle of Oil of Olay with her at all times. She never used it on her face though; she'd sit at her desk staring at spreadsheets moisturizing her hands over and over again. Every file, receipt or random piece of paper touched by Narelle had her indelible moisturised fingerprint.

Noeleen was the exact opposite to Narelle. Loud, verbose and immaculately groomed, she was not unlike a well dressed mountain range; a tall stocky woman in her 60s with broad shoulders and a bust that could hold the Atlantic ocean. Noelene arrived every morning to work with her hair in a French roll and a plumb in her voice. She appeared to be more like the principal of a well to do ladies college, not an accounts clerk in the public service; all except for the fact that she had the mouth of a sailor.

Noelene: That‘s a lovely fucking tie John.

Noelene: What a beautiful fucking day?

Noelene: I hope to get to the fucking shops this afternoon.

Noelene: I have to fucking pick up my lovely grandkids today.

Noelene: It is a little fucking hot outside.

Noelene: Narelle this fucking photocopier is broken.

There wasn’t a sentence or a phrase that Noelene would say without throwing in her two cents worth of fucks. It was like Quentin Tarintino had cast Deborah Carr in one of his movies. The Fucking King and I, From Here to Fucking Eternity, A Woman of Fucking Substance. Noelene dropped fucks into sentences like croutons into a salad. They came without warning and because her accent was more indicative of High Tea at Buckingham Palace, the respondent was like a verbal deer in the headlights caught completely unawares of the approaching lingual onslaught. Even the directors from the 7th floor would often be subjected to “How the fuck are you Tony?” “If I was any fucking better Frank I’d be dangerous”, “ Linda I love that blouse…it’s fucking gorgeous.” No one ever complained because they were so shocked that such language could come from a woman one year off retirement wearing pearls and a ruby broach.

At first I couldn't work out why Noelene worked. She was married to one of Brisbane’s top car dealers who was known in the 80s for a particularly bad set of television commercials for his dealership involving him and an elephant having a conversation. As her diamonds demonstrated, she certainly didn’t need the money. After a while though I realized she worked to have some peace and quiet from the continual demand of her two married daughters, Kathleen and Sarah. Not that she got much. Both daughters were married with children under the age of three and couldn’t seem to survive more than a half an hour without calling their mother for help, advice or money; particularly the later. Strangely she never swore at them. I would have.

Noelene: Kathleen I put the money in your account this morning.

Noelene: Sarah I will come around after work.

Noelene: Kathleen I've paid that phone bill

Noelene: Sarah I can't come round tonight, I've paid for a babysitter.

Noelene: You put what on your David Jones card?

Rebecca was the nearest person to normal out of the whole team and that was more to do with familiarity than normality. We both went to the same university together and from time to time had exchanged study notes for different subjects. Rebecca was a sensible Brisbane suburban girl who went out with a sensible Brisbane suburban guy called Scott who also studied law. Throughout uni they studied together, ate together, went out together, graduated together…..and once they started work…..they had lunch together, as well as walk to and from work together; although strangely they didn't live together. Rebecca was the daughter of Russian immigrants and any form of co-habitation was strictly forbidden until Rebecca was married. And that dilemma was to be remedied by the end of the year. I spent the entire six months I worked with Rebecca listening to her on the phone arguing with florists, caterers, dressmakers, wedding planners and most frequently her mother…..mostly in Russian. Normally I would have found someone like Rebecca extremely irritating but because we were the only aliens in a very foreign world, we were almost married ourselves. We communicated via glances and eyebrows; mere eye contact would convey "you've got to be jokings", "what the's" but most importantly "Mark's comings".

Rebecca's desk was located at the entrance to the basement and as a result she could see directly to the stairwell, which came down from the 1st floor. Yes we had no elevators….it was all very Dickensian. We would be on alert for Mark from around ten am onwards. He would rarely arrive before that hour and we were free to convalesce and breathe until then.

I can't recall whether I always disliked Mark. He was present in my interview and seemed pleasant enough although he didn't really say much. The Head of the Department did all the talking and to be quite honest, at the time, I thought I would have been working for him and not Mark. And so I didn't pay much attention to him. Mark was the accountant…..I wouldn't be working for an accountant right? How wrong I was. Still Mark hadn't made much of a negative impression on me, he hadn't made an impression at all! As the first month went by, it was more the absence of Mark; the absence of any form of communication from Mark and the absence of any comments from Noelene and Narelle about Mark, which started to worry me. The only warning Noelene gave me one day was over one of her cook's (yes she had one) home made scons : "Be careful with Mark; he has a temper." Considering I was yet to receive any form of "Good Morning", "How are you going?" or any type of vocal attempts at interaction from the man after a month of working there, I didn't know how more careful I could be. His silence was making both Rebecca and myself very uncomfortable. I couldn't work out whether he was a circling shark waiting for his moment to strike or a whale with a sore head.

I soon found out.

This particularly morning Rebecca was away sick so I had no warning. Mark swaggered into the basement and without making eye contact walking straight to his office he said, "John can I see you in my office paleeeease." Such a request is never a sign of good things to come. Managers don't request their team members to "see them" in their offices to break bread, discuss fashion trends or ask whether the pant they're wearing makes their ass look big. Worse still is when the request is made in monotone with the please being stretched out as if spoken by a rubberband. It usually means certain death. Back then, at the beginning of my work career, I wasn't as attuned to the nuances of workplace relations as I am now. I thought perhaps Mark was finally going to welcome me to the organisation and see how I was going.

Mark:Close the door.
As I closed the door I felt something hit my back.
Mark:What the fuck is this?

I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I've been assaulted in my life. Three of them were as a child. The first time was at pre-school when Andrew Brior pulled my hair and poked me in the eye. That was understandable as I had just jumped on his right arm and broken it, which I thought at the time was perfect reprimand for his stealing my muesli bar. In hindsight I can see I over-reacted a little. The second time was in Grade 1 at Primary School where the resident bully John Kerr called me a sissy and challenged me to a fight in front of the boy's toilets. I took offence to receiving any type of deportment criticism from someone who was missing his entire front row of teeth and possessed that 80s iconic piece of hairstyle; the rat's tail. I decided not to acknowledge Kerr or his request. I simply walked past his gap teeth and pretended he wasn't there. This was to my detriment of course and soon I felt the sharp piercing pain of a kick to my back. Bullies always attack from behind. The same situation occurred in my first year of high school. Michael Davies approached me for cigarette. He also possessed an 80s iconic hairstyle, the mullet and had a similarly violent disposition to Mr Kerr. Being 12 years of age at the time and being on school grounds, I didn't have any cigarettes on me and advised him of such. Davies didn't warm to my response and declared that he was going to "get me". I used the same "ignore them and they will go away" technique but unfortunately it had the same limited success resulting in ripped shirts and my mother visiting the principle. Davies was soon "asked to leave" my school and life for the next 12 years throughout my secondary and tertiary education remained free of all physical altercations. Yes there were many confrontations of the tongue but none involving fisticuffs. I did however maintain the expectation though that at some point I would be confronted again by a Kerr or Davies style character who simply wanted to pick on someone. My expectation was correct; however I always thought the confrontation would occur in a bar, club or pub………not a workplace.

I picked the black leather embossed book off the ground. Had Mark really just thrown this at my back I thought. It was the mail-out book where I had been recording all mail in and out of the entire department for the last month. I hated that book. It represented the most boring and demeaning of all the responsibilities of my job. Again I thought…..did Mark just throw this object at my back? I finally answered myself and sat down. Mark kept his eye contact firmly on the corner of his desk. He slouched in his armchair sucking on a pen in the corner of his mouth like it was a piece of grass. He moved his head side to side as if it was attached to strings. I kept looking at my shaking knees, which seemed to have developed some sort of motor neuron disorder in a matter of seconds. I could not stop shaking. Violence was for kids I thought; violence was for playgrounds and lost muesli bars, bullies and their problems with sissies and under-age thugs and their unreasonable demands for cigarettes. Violence was not for relaying one's problem with a mail-out book.

I gathered my neurons along with my composure and finally asked "What seems to be the problem?"

Mark: If you can't tell me, there is a problem

He continued to chew his pen. I imagined him choking on it. Him screaming out for help and me just sitting there with the mail-out book watching him spit and gasp for air. I imagined my opening the mail book and reading it to him as he struggled for his last few breaths of life. Received 24th of September 1999, Letter from Australian Insurance addressed to Mark Fullerton…..is there a problem Mark? What problem Mark? I can't see a problem. There must be no problem. Bye bye Mark.

Me: I don't know what you're talking about.

Mark: Open the fucking book.

This was intolerable. Why was he being so rude to me? How dare he I thought. I imagined pulling the pen out of his loose-fitting mouth and shoving it down his throat, my fist breaking his jaw and my other hand strangling his neck. That or simply smashing his face with a hole puncher and walking out. These random thoughts of violence were strangely calming and were enabling me to get my nerve back.

Me: I won't be opening anything until you start talking to me in a professional manner.

He finally looked me in the eye and swung around in his armchair to face me. Mark was not an attractive man. At the time he would have only been 31/32 at the max but resembled a man 45 years or more ….although anyone more than 25 to my then 23 years was positively ancient. Mark was round shouldered and gauntly thin with sunken eyes covered by those climate-controlled glasses that changed shade pending on the amount of light available. Due to his continual chain smoking which required him to be outside half the time he was at the office, his eyes were continually covered in shade like storm clouds around a mountain. As a result you never quite knew whether he was maintaining eye contact or not.

Mark: Your data entry is wrong. The book is wrong; the electronic spreadsheets are wrong. Pretty much everything you have touched for the last six weeks is completely wrong.

My cheeks became flushed with embarrassment. This was my first full-time job and I'd stuffed it up. All my old demons waltzed out in front of my eyes. You're a loser; you're dumb; you're no good. My body commenced its own global warming turning my mouth into the Sahara and my eyes into melting icebergs. What the hell am I doing? I'm supposed to movie star by now I thought; I'm supposed to have my own variety show and be complaining about my maid's friends always hounding me for autographs; why am I in a basement getting a lecture on data entry from a loser who looks like he's been dressed by Ronald McDonald.

Mark: I don't know what's going on mate but you clearly don't want to be here. Narelle came to see me about your work and she feels that you think you are above the work.

I was shocked. I didn't know whether to be more upset that I was accused of being a snob or the fact that Narelle had gone and blabbed such an unfair criticism to Mark behind my back. I was always nice to Narelle. I greeted her every morning with a smile and complimented her on her poor use of faded pastels. I had the decency to feel sorry for Narelle, the least she could have done was come and see me about any issues she had with my performance.

Mark: Do you want to work here or do you think you're above it?

Well yes of course I wanted to work there. I loved working in the basement where it continually felt like dawn where I got to do such exciting tasks as order cheques for the post office and count the number of intestate estates we had referred to the Supreme Court in one week. I loved it……..not; but it was a job and my first full time one where I received a salary that was more than the equivalent of two cans of baked beans. So I wanted to stay at least until I found something else.

Mark: From now on you will be reporting to me. We will meet every afternoon to review your work.

Mark nodded to himself as if he just stumbled across what a manager actually does. I left his office; walked straight to my desk and sat down gazing at the wretched mailout book. I felt completely remedial. Five years of tertiary study and I couldn't even fill out a form. I felt a large firm hand on my back, " Are you alright luv?" It was Noelene looming in her mountainous beaded glory her eyes warm and concerned. She was like having your own grandmother at work except for the obvious expletives; "He's just a fucking bully. Don't take any notice of him and don't let him push you around. You are doing well. Fuck him darling ". I wanted to burst into teas and give her a big hug instead I hit my inner enter button and brought up my "I'm fine" screen saver. I got back to my data entry and mail. I really needed to get drunk.

*********************************************************************

"He what? Are you serious?"

Me: Shushhh….I don't want him to hear.

Panic invaded Rebecca's face. Her continual catastrophic wedding plans had turned her into a complete nervous nelly yo yo; if she wasn't bursting into tears in Russian at her mother over table arrangements, she was screaming at the Italian wedding planner in broken English. She really was a bridezillar before the term ever reached the world of reality television. My telling of the previous day's events involving Mark only added further pressure to a cooker that already had far too much steam. I may as well have told her that I found her name on the death row list just next to Noelene's delicious scons.

Rebecca: He hit you?

Me: No not exactly, he threw the mail book at me.

Rebecca: He can't do that. That's outrageous.

Me: Well he did.

Rebecca: What did you do?

Me: I didn't do anything….I was too shocked to react.

Rebecca: That is abuse.

Me: I know

Rebecca: You should report him to the union.

Me: I don't want him to shoot me.

Rebecca: Oh my god does he have a gun?

Me: I'm joking.

"Rebecca can I see you in my office palease." Like the previous day there was no eye contact, or temporal tones; Mark simply walked straight into his office. Rebecca looked at me as if I was a priest about to award last rites.

*********************************************************************

Narelle had avoided me like cancer since my meeting with Mark. She sat in the corner moisturising with her spreadsheets. I found it difficult to be in the same room as her. I was tempted to lash out and give her a strong Alexis Carrington slap. This was my first taste of workplace betrayal and old string face had strung me too far.

Me: Narelle

She continued to moisturise and gaze at her lotus notes. There was no response.

Me: Narelle

Narelle: Mmmmm

Me: I was wondering if you had a moment.

Narelle: Mmmmm

Was she laying an egg? Her eyes remained locked with the computer screen. I remained at her desk.

Me: I had a meeting with Mark yesterday and he informs me that my work has been unsatisfactory.

Narelle: Mmmmm

Me: And you complained to him that you think that I feel the work is beneath me.

She paused. Looked to the side of her pc, picked up a tissue and blew her nose.

Narelle: The mailbook was incorrect and your data-entry at times was inaccurate.

Me: I would have appreciated if you had seen me first about it. Yesterday's meeting with Mark wasn't the most pleasant event of my life.

She finally looked at me, her heshin eyes locking onto my gaze.

Narelle: I didn't say that I thought you were beneath the work. I said that I thought the work wasn't challenging enough for you.

Me: Well Mark seemed to think that you thought I had an attitude problem.

Narelle: No …that's what Mark thinks.

Mark's door opened and out walked Rebecca ashened faced. She walked straight to her desk and Mark made his usual exit for his cigarette break.

Narelle: My advice to you is to get out of here as fast as you can. There is nothing to learn in this place.

********************************************************************

Mark had two ex-wives, which was pretty impressive considering he was only 32. Even more impressive was the fact that both of them worked for the same department and still did. Kathy was in finance and Tippy was in Human Resources. They looked identical both channelling Melanie Griffiths in Working Girl. Even though it was 1999, for Kathy and Tippy it was still 1988 wearing big hair, bigger should pads and even bigger earrings. According to Noelene, Mark at the work Christmas party one year got so drunk that he mistook Tippy for Kathy and snogged her on the dance floor. Mark's marriage to Kathy soon ended and he moved in with Tippy both of them eloping to Las Vegas the following year. Only one year later Tippy showed again her talent for dance-floor-pashes with married department managers at another work Christmas party. Unfortunately she didn't display such a talent with her own husband. Mark left the Christmas party and never attended a departmental party again let alone his marriage. He lived on his own with his two German shepherds and numerous white short sleaved collared shirts in the western outreaches of the never-ending landscape that is Brisbane suburbia. I said to Noelene perhaps this was why he was such an arse hole. He felt abandoned.

Noelene: No darling…..he has always been a fucking arse hole…once an arse…always a hole. Don't forget it luv.

Such words of wisdom were always dispensed by Noelene during morning tea over one of the scons baked by "our nina" (Noelene's cook I mentioned earlier). These pearls were delivered with typical Noelene darling flare but made absolutely no sense.

To Rebecca over her frustrations with her wedding: Darling you're not bitter, you're just sensible.

To her daughter Sarah who would delight us all by visiting with her three psychotic screaming children: Darling one slap on the bott is worth fifty in the air.

Sarah always nodded knowingly; Rebecca and I always exchanged glances of confusion agreeing: "we must get Nina's scon recipe….these are absolutely delicious."

Still regardless of all the bizarre fonts of advice, I did like Noelene. Her eccentricity and warmth was always a beacon of relief for life in the basement. In the five months since Mark's initial dressing down, his tantrums toward both Rebecca and myself had escalated. Regardless of whether we had done anything wrong or not, he would never miss an opportunity to reprimand, abuse and humiliate us.

Who do you think you are?
Your work is pathetic.
I'm tired of repeating myself
You don't listen!
Get the fuck out of my office.
Do as I fucking say
I don't give a fuck about your stupid wedding.

Such reprimands always resulted in Rebecca bursting into tears. Considering she cried every time she got off the phone from her betrothed, the wedding planner or her mother, Mark's reprimands meant that she permanently had a box of Kleenex attached to her face.

Noelene: That poor girl…more nerves than fucking sense.

Mark did not make me cry once. I was always the same. I never argued. I never smiled. I never reacted. I was the human equivalent of teflon ……..every attack slipped off my surface like a well fried egg. My morbid passivity drove Mark nuts. He was just another schoolyard bully; a Michael Davies, a John Kerr dressed in Kmart corporate couture. I took delight in completely repelling him. Not that I found my time there enjoyable. The six months I spent working for Mark was by far the most miserable period of my life. Every morning I would throw up before I got to work. It was great for my figure. It was one of the few times in my life that I dropped below 90kgs. But the patches of hair that fell from my scalp; not such a hot look.

Like all bullies, Mark eventually went too far. The jabs got nastier, the demands more incoherent and the performance reviews more bizarre.

Mark: I want you to re-write the last month's mail-book entry in green biro.
Mark: You need to learn to write in English
Mark: From now on I want you to answer my mail.

It all ended when he found out I'd filed a formal grievance against him with Human Resources. Instead of writing a formal response to the grievance, he decided to throw the mail book at me hitting my back yet again. He was obsessed with that mail-book.

Mark: If you expect me to waist my time and write a response to your pathetic complaint, at least use writing I can understand….do this week's entries again.

Noelene shook her head. Narelle moisturised and Rebecca reached for her last Kleenex. I picked up the mail-book. I imagined going over to Mark and belting him across the head with it; better still I imagined picking up my jacket grabbing my bag and walking straight out of the joint never to come back again. I shrugged, smiled, put on my jacket and walked out the door.

Mark: Where the fuck are you going?

Me: Anywhere but here.

*********************************************************************

The French claim to have invented the French Fry or the "pomme frit" as it was then known. However the Belgians claim that the term "French" was introduced when British and American soldiers arrived in Belgium during World War 1, and consequently tasted Belgian fries. They supposedly called them "French", as it was the official language of the Belgian Army at that time. The first "chip" recipes began appearing in the English speaking world long before that. In mid-19th Century London, hot chips started to be sold at Tommyfield Market and the first fish and chips shops started opening in the 1860s. Wikipedia didn't say who invented the crinkle cut…perhaps it's a uniquely antipodean delicacy.

Our chips were almost ready.

Cynthia pulled the crate out of the deep fry and threw it into the bay-maree steam flooding her chooky neck. Everyone except me nudged their way closer to the goods glistening canola gold. I like my chips to be a little less fresh and not so piping.

Cynthia: Andrew??!!!

Cynthia: Andrew can you come and help please?

Cynthia struggled to fill the Styrofoam cups. Andrew remained noticeably absent.

Cynthia: Andrew?!!!

Some wanted chicken salt; some wanted tomato sauce and most considering the unseasonable October freeze wanted soothing gravy. I was the last to be served. Cynthia covered in more oil than a chippendale reject gave me a super-sized Styrofoam container's worth. Gravy induced chips in hand, I handed Cynthia my 4 bucks 20.

Cynthia: I'm sorry about the wait.

Me: No worries…..it's gonna be worth it.

Cynthia smiled with teeth the colour of hepatitis and quickly made her way out the back screaming Andrew's name, her abused right hand slave still amiss.

I made my way up the Coles escalators resisting the urge to start eating. Chips and gravy are best enjoyed whilst seated reading a tabloid. I made it to street level and had the abnormal October south westerly slap me across the face. I looked across the street and saw the elusive Andrew, backpack in hand and cigarette lit. We caught each other's glances, smirked and continued our separate ways.

C

How may I direct your call?

2008-10-21T18:03:00.003+11:00

Me; 7.15pm; Yesterday;Work ….Phone Rings:

Me: Hello Colin speaking

Caller: Hi it's Sandra from Billington calling.

Me: Hi Sandra

Sandra: I was wondering if you've got a moment to talk.

What about? Jesus? I'd had vague phone-calls all day from people who thought I had some sort of in-built telepathic device, which could automatically decipher who was calling and what the purpose of the call was. These calls were mainly from defendants I had prosecuted the week before……….calls that contained conversations like the following:

Caller: I just got a conviction letter in the mail. It says I was fined 5 thousand dollars.

Me: Yes that is the case; you were convicted in your absence and fined that amount.

Caller: Why?

Me: You received the Court Attendance Notice?

Caller: Yes

Me: What did the Court Attendance Notice say?

Caller: To attend court on Tuesday 14 October 2008

Me: Did you attend court on Tuesday?

Caller: No

Me: Hence you were convicted and fined in your absence

Caller: Why

Me: What don't you understand about a notice, which asks you to attend court?

Caller: I thought it was a joke.

Me: It wasn't.

Caller: It's not fair.

I'd had at least 20 similar such phone conversations equating a Court Attendance Notice to a Hallmark card by the time Sandra had called. So when she employed the "you obviously know who I am" method of phone conversation I jumped to the conclusion it was another Hallmark prankster:

Me: What was your name again?

Caller: Sandra

Me: Sandra ….. are u like Madonna?

Caller: What do you mean?

Me: Or Cher?

Caller: Sorry?

Me; Well if I am going to look up your court matter, I'm going to need a last name; unfortunately I've sold my crystal ball and won't be able to ascertain it without your assistance.

Caller: What court matter?

I was tired. I was wanting to go home. I was sick of stupid questions….in fact I was sick of questions in general.

Me: You've lost me……I'm gathering you're ringing regarding a court matter from last week.

Caller: No I'm calling about your CV which you sent to Billingtons last week….about work in London.

After I located my jaw somewhere between my dignity and my fax machine, I was able to resume a conversation with Sandra so much so she is still willing to meet with me when I am in London. But of course we all know what recruitment officers are like….they are hairdressers with laptops; willing to say anything to get you on their books and then moments later not even recognise you in the street.

And yes for the 1.8 persons who read this blog, I am off to the mother country for a month as of Saturday week….1 November. In typical Colin style, I am completely disorganised. At this stage it looks like a couple of weeks in London, a few days in Dublin then up to Edinburgh then a driving trip down to Cornwall (hopefully to see my great great grandfather's grave) and then some tripping around the south and onwards back to London. Nothing of course has been booked except the flight from Sydney to London. After much pulava of where and with whom I was going to stay with in London, I've decided to go the B&B option, which has required me to sell one of my kidneys but at least retain my peace of mind. Am I excited? I never am about these trips until I am getting on the damned plane. I am looking forward to seeing some old friends though and simply hanging out in London….something I've never done….it's always been in transit.

And now that Guy Ritchie is single….I intend to go and hang out his pub, get him blind drunk and take glorious advantage of him.

C

BLIND

2008-10-16T13:19:00.001+11:00

K and I on the phone this morning:

K: Would you be up for a blind date with a nice guy I met last night?

Me: Oh my god have I hit that stage of my life already?

K: What do you mean?

Me: Blind dates……aren't they for people over 35? I have one year and a bit left….let me enjoy the last strands of my miss-spent youth.

K: Calm down dear.

Me: Who is he?

K: A guy I met through….you know my friend Dr P?

Me: Yes dear…I do know Dr P

K: Anyway he was with Dr P last night at Slide.

Me: What does he look like?

K: Quite tidy; a little chunky.

Me: Chunky? Dear you know I like to be the only fat person in bed.

K: He's not fat.

Me: Who would play him in a movie?

K: I knew this would be too difficult.

Me: Is he rich?

K: Yes…he has his own place in the Millennium Building in Kings Cross.

Me: Am free Sunday night.

C

Quote of the Week

2008-10-12T13:22:00.002+11:00

"There's no greater pressure than getting into your 30s and having failed at everything else," 2008 Booker prize nominee Steve Toltz.

Here here…..I have to get this guy's book……..A Fraction of the Whole.

I'd never heard of him until features on him appeared in this weekend's Australian and Good Weekend. He sounds quite the character.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24460816-5001986,00.html

Saturday Night Snippets

2008-10-12T12:59:00.003+11:00

Conversation with P on the phone last night:

Me: what are you doing?

P: I'm watching Vertigo on Abc2

Me: Is that the one with the eyebrow woman?

P: Eyebrow woman?

Me: Yeah she has massive eyebrows

P: Kim Novak

Me: Yes that's her.

P: A poor man's Marilyn Monroe

Me: What's it like?

P: It's very stylish but makes me no sense.

Me: It sounds like every gay man.

P: You call yourself stylish?

C

Have Him Washed and Sent to My Room

2008-10-09T02:27:00.005+11:00

I am reminded why I am attracted to men every day, every hour, every minute. It will either be the forty-something lawyer in his pin strip navy blue suite on the train on his way to work, his morning shower still hanging in his hair; the labourer in his king gees and overworked bloodstones who always grabs that early morning sandwich at the same time I collect my mid-morning coffee and the cheeky cockiness of that DJ’s menswear attendant who is always a little too keen to sell me another tie I do not need. The centre of Sydney is a continual source of adoration and repressed flirtation forever re-affirming my sexual orientation. Because it is so frequent I hardly notice it but every so often I am jolted awake…. like I was tonight.

My friend R invited me along to the launch of photographic exhibition in Paddington. Her friend was launching the artist. It was all very 1968 revolution with more Nepalese pashmenas and velvet smoker’s jackets than you could poke a stick out. The exhibition was fabulous but the free grog and nibblies even more so. R’s friend J wandered over resembling a young Maggie Tabbera asking what we thought of the exhibition, our congratulations soon following. R and J went to school together and have known each other more than 20 years. They both started catching up as my eyes gazed around the room assessing the male quotient of the crowd. It was a good-looking crowd and I was happily gazing until my view was interrupted by a broad strong figure tailored in Armani charcoal making his away towards us.

J: Ur late?

J: R u remember K?

R: Ah yes…K how are you

J: Colin this is my brother K.

K: Sorry I’m late everyone….nice to meet you Colin, R.

It was like J had unveiled the final masterpiece of her exhibition. The whole room gauked at him. I almost clapped. He was beautiful; 6ft 2, olive complexion, nice lean athletic build, piercing black eyes and a jaw that could chop wood. He was soft and masculine all at the same time whilst ever so slightly cross-eyed; I don’t know what it is but wog boys who are slightly crossed eyed cause me to develop paralysis below the knees.

He was a dead ringer for Bobby Cannavale….the guy who played Will’s policeman boyfriend in Will & Grace…..but more stylish and refined. I spent the rest of the evening doing what anyone who comes across a masterpiece does….I blatantly stared and tried to work out a way I could possibly steal him. But to no avail our goodbyes were offered and R dropped me home to slumber to wake up again in the morning to my daily, hourly minute by minute routine of reaffirming all of the above.

HOME

2008-10-08T00:35:00.000+11:00

I went home to Brisbane for the long weekend. It was nice and steamy with thunder storms breaking the afternoon sky every day I was there. I hadn’t been home in almost 6 months. It was nice to see Mum and Dad. For some reason this year I have found myself missing my parents more than I normally do…..not a childlike longing but more a wanting of their company; to hang out; to have late night yarns over toast with Dad or to take Mum to the movies or the theatre. Living down the road kind of stuff; stuff to be honest that I used to find a chore not that long ago. Maybe it’s because I’ve noticed my parents getting older and I can sense the gentle breeze of mortality brushing against my face; we don’t have forever left. Normally when offspring start feeling this way, they have offspring themselves. They generate their love into new life. Gay men generally don’t have that option. We buy houses, plants and pets. Or visit our nieces or nephews. Unfortunately I don’t have the later option and never will. My brother, my only sibling, is gay as well. So there are no grandchildren on the horizon for our clan and unless I win the lottery and I buy myself one, I doubt there will ever be one. All my cousins and all my friends are having babies. My brother and I are standing alone childless in a sea of maternity. Mum and Dad are the only non-grandparents out of their group of friends. It doesn’t seem to worry my brother much. He doesn’t want children and never has. I guess I’ve always wanted children but never thought it a possibility. I know there are certainly options for gay men but generally they involve part time fatherhood which is not for me. Maybe it’s this growing gap in my life left from being single or my lack of fatherhood or both that is pushing me to be closer to my parents emotionally and geographically. I’m beginning to worry about them in their big house; worry about them being on their own without myself or my brother nearby. Perhaps it’s a Catholic guilt thing that I’m not going to give them grandchildren; all I know is that it is the first time in a long time I’ve got back on the plane to Sydney and realised I didn’t actually want to come back.

Facebook Follies

2008-10-04T18:57:00.002+10:00

K and I on the phone earlier this week:

K : Do you know J has restricted what I can see on his facebook profile. Has he restricted yours?

Me: I don’t know. I haven’t checked.

K: I am furious. I have restricted what he can see of my profile as well.

Me: Right

K: So that the next time he gets on-line he can see that I’ve restricted him as well.

Me: Right

K: Are u going to restrict him?

Me: Well I guess I should check first to see if he has restricted me. It’s only manners to restrict once one has already been restricted.

K: Dear you should write a Facebook etiquette book.

Me: Thank you dear.

C

Drill Baby Drill!!!!

2008-10-03T14:41:00.002+10:00

Well ding dang we had the goddamn vice-darn-it-presidential debate on this mornin! And that Missy Little Palin got up and did her darn best….god bless her!

As much as I would love to say that Republican VP Nominee Sarah Palin's performance in the VP debate with Democrat VP Nominee, Joe Biden was an absolute catastrophe ….it was most definitely not. I listened to the vice-presidential debate this morning Australian time. After the disastrous media encounters Palin has had in the last two weeks, it was expected that she was going to implode and pretty much bring the McCain campaign to its knees. I think we all expected to see some sort of Beverly Hill Billy Stepford Wife Carry On movie with Ms Palin at this event. She proved otherwise. Even though I still believe she's a Stepford Wife built by the McCain camp, Palin performed reasonably well as a debater and came across as charismatic and warm; unlike McCain last week. However her grasp of details at times were lacking particularly with respect to McCain's legislative history in the Senate. And she still had some cracker quotes together with a continual penchant for winking….I felt like she was trying to pick me up in a bar. Tina Fey is going to have a field day with quotes like these:

"McCain knows evil."

"McCain won a war." (which one?)

"Aw, say it ain't so, Joe"

"I want to take you back to my energy policy." (in response to questions about tax, wall street, foreign policy, iraq, homosexuals….)

" darn gone it"

"drill baby drill" (her energy policy)

"God bless her"

"You betcha.."

"Her award is in heaven…."

"Yee yay…."

"A shout out to the third graders…." (maybe she thinks they can vote…)

"Burn all the homosexuals….." . No she didn't say that but I wish she had, it would have been easier to hate her then.

Joe Biden's technique was to continually attack McCain's history in the Senate which worked. He also tried to be as non-patronizing towards Palin as possible…I suspect almost too much because at times he came across as being a little soft.

Both he and Palin tangoed around the issue of gay marriage. Biden came out straight away and said that he and Obama did not support gay marriage in a literal sense but suggested that such an issue is a spiritual decision. He does support gay couples having the same financial rights and rights to health care as heterosexual couples. Palin almost short-circuited over the issue by saying that she has a "diverse" group of friends (:"diverse" is Alaskan for poofters) and that she would support her "diverse" group of friends being entitled to the same rights as her less "diverse" group of friends. But marriage is only between a man and a woman……so no wedding gift registers at Macey's for her "diverse" group of friends.

I found the debate more entertaining than the one between McCain and Obama; not only because of Palin's "ding dang" hillbilly tone but because both nominees attempted to engage the audience, unlike last week where McCain thought he was addressing the chair person and no one else.

I think the horse had bolted on Palin long before this debate. Even though her performance has far outplayed expectation, I think that people can see that she has been schooled within an inch of her designer Kawasaki frames; and that at this stage she just doesn't have the judgment and policy experience to be vice-president ….or a potential president. Having said that, I don't support the intellectual snobbery that she is an air head, bimbo or otherwise. Such criticisms are sexist and ignorant and will only assist in expanding her working class support base; look at Pauline Hanson at the Queensland State Elections in the late 90s.

Palin has been an interesting distraction in this presidential campaign; however at the end of the day, the American public is not concerned about the deputy headmaster, they are concerned with the top dog and that is where this battle will be fought and won. The only contenders in this fight are Obama and McCain and they meet again on Tuesday.

C

Doom and Gloom

2008-10-02T02:00:00.002+10:00

It’s all misery guts at the moment isn’t it? We’re either going to boil to death via global warming or be too broke to live to see it. The Tsunami of Turmoil which has been long predicted both economically and ecologically has finally broken the horizon. It has been promoted as a Summer Movie Blockbuster for so long that it almost doesn’t seem real. Is it another gigantic exaggeration by the media to whip the globe up into an intense frenzy of paranoia all in aid of selling more papers and watching CNN? Or are we sitting queens on the Titanic clutching our pearls and fur ordering more gin and asking the band to play “Roll Out the Barrel” one more time? All I know is that I am sick of it. We’re all sick of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a very pessimistic person. I embrace pessimism. I’m always convinced I’m going to robbed, sacked, dumped or murdered. The worst is always nigh for me. My glass isn’t half full….it’s not even there. I have my good Irish catholic upbringing to thank. Think the absolute worst and only better things can come. It got my family through a potato famine and nine months on a leaking boat to come to a land without any water or air-conditioning. Believe me I do pessimism. But this year takes the cake.

The pessimism in the media from global warming to global credit crunch has been non-stop.

As a result, all us earthlings have been turned into deranged stressed out chooks being hurdled from one side of the pen to the other. From mamma used the microwave too much so we’re fried to papa used other people’s money too much so now we’re broke. As a result we’ve torn all our feathers out and now stand bald with fear.

Is this what the “powers that be” intend? Is this their game plan? To have us so petrified that we will simply agree to anything.? Yes here is $700 billion dollars, please fix the banks; yes I will pay a $1000 tax every time I fart; please refrigerate the polar caps.

As Kath Day always says when she’s in a miff over doing the household budget “Toime Out! Toime Out!”

I think the world is in need of a little toime out.....that...or more porn.

C

Look At Moi....

2008-09-28T17:13:00.003+10:00

I’ve followed the American election campaign kinder the same way I watch a clip on MTV which is usually when I’m between the laundry and motivation. I stand; I look wearing my facial screensaver convincing myself that I know the artist and the song they’re singing. Like many things in my life I pretend. I nod my head thinking I recognise the song and move on to finding something else to avoid my dirty underwear.

For a moment I did switch MTV off. I had followed the Democrat primaries to a certain extent this year in that, after years of mystery I finally came close to understanding how the primary system actually operates. Coming from a traditional Westminster democracy, I wasn’t very familiar with the electoral process for the President of the United States. I was also a Hilary supporter. I thought and I still think it is time for a woman to have a crack at being the leader of not only the Union but the free world. To my disappointment she bowed out in June and Barack Obama became the Democrat Nominee for the November election.

I then lost interest and reverted back to my MTV interpretation of American politics. Not even Sarah Palin ignited my interest that much although I liked her glasses and she is kinder charismatic in an ambitious cheerleader hating homosexual way. Still she didn’t get me to pay more attention than a lost disco tune.

In the last couple of weeks though, I’ve paid more attention as the world’s biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s has unfolded. The financial tsunami that is the credent crunch which we’ve all been aware now for some time has finally come to shore. And America has seriously sneezed. And like the saying goes, when America sneezes the rest of the world gets a cold. America is in trouble to its core and we need to pay attention to this presidential election.

Australian politics is very different to American politics. Generally we like our leaders to be the underdog; we like Mr Corner Store or Mr Suburban Solicitor; someone we could see our mothers have over for a Sunday Roast. In a way we like blandness in that we equate it to resilience and security. It’s what kept John Howard in power for 11 years. Kevin Rudd is just an updated fat free version still maintaining the Howard sex appeal of wet paper. The alpha male exceptions to this rule have been the former PMs Bob Hawke and Paul Keating who injected the Australian political landscape with their rogue cowboy style. Most of the time though we want out leaders to be equally at home firing up the barbie as firing up the parliament. Americans on the other hand like their leaders to be leaders in every sense of the word. Presidential candidates resemble movie stars and their campaigns movie blockbusters. It’s like the Oscars on a loop. The trouble is all the red carpet and couture tend to detract from the actual candidates’ policies.

So it was for the first time yesterday that I actually turned MTV off, sat down for the Presidential debate and listened to what each candidate had to say. Being gay it is naturally assumed that you lean to the left side of party politics. I’ve never fallen under that cliché. If anything I’ve always had issues with parties such as the ALP and the Democrats who have a stranglehold over a reputation for being “progressive” when in fact they are just as conservative, or more so than their right wing equivalents. This together with my wanting Hilary in the oval office, I wasn’t an automatic convert to Obama.

This debate was focussed on foreign affairs but considering the disastrous economic events of the last two weeks, the issue of the economy was at the forefront. In all honesty neither candidate could explain where they are going to get the money from to support their economic policies particularly when the $700 billion financial markets rescue package is passed by Congress. They both failed in this regard.

However Obama did dominate the rest of the economic portion of the debate, arguing that the Wall Street disaster was the fault of the Bush administration’s anti-regulation, pro-corporate culture. He called for a major overhaul of the financial regulatory system. McCain however fumbled his way through the economic points resorting to generalizations about greed and corruption. He seemed quite lost and demonstrated little understanding of the regulatory failures which have lead to the current market crisis.

As expected, McCain was stronger on foreign affairs issues than Obama but he did at times sound like a poor man’s Ronald Reagon constantly referring to his “I know best” experience and the naivety of Obama. He came across as patronizing and arrogant and his scare mongering was bordering on the laughable. When he said that he sees the letters “KGB” when he thinks of Vladimir Putin, I was waiting for the canned laughter. It never came.

The most interesting part of the debate was the body language. McCain never locked eye contact with the television audience or Obama once. It was very strange and didn’t assist his argument at all. I kept yelling out “Look at moi! Look at moi!” It made McCain seem quite old and arrogant; whereas Obama continually maintained eye contact with his audience and particularly McCain. This worked in his favour. He came across with candor and warmth. You felt that when he talks about change, he actually means it. Whereas McCain sounded like a 20^th Century hangover echoing the same sentiment that has lead America to its current disastrous state.

The debate still lacked details such as when and how Obama intends to withdraw all troops from Iraq, but it was good to finally move off the red carpet and hear these candidates argue their policies. For some time I thought Obama was nothing but a one hit wonder; he had a catchy tune, was clever with words and had a good stylist. Yesterday I changed my mind.

Kevin 747 In New York.....

2008-09-24T17:15:00.002+10:00

Love it...

I'll Have What She's Having.....

2008-09-18T13:34:00.001+10:00

My god it's Lesbians galore at the moment. Katy Parry is kissing a girl; Lindsay Lohan is locking lips with DJ Samantha Ronson and they've even made Ellen a CoverGirl. It's so darn trendy, I might pick one up myself when I go to get my iphone next week.

One would almost think that the great gay revolution was on our doorstep. But sadly, this latest lesbian craze has nothing to do with gay emancipation. You won't see two male movie stars getting dirty on the Star Tracks pages in the latest issue of Who Magazine (without it destroying their careers anyway)and you won't have Justin Timberlake warbling "I Kissed a Guy" any time soon.

Lindsay Lohan can wander off with a girlfriend without it remotely affecting her career, yet if a gay male movie star is to do the same thing with his boyfriend, he has to act as if he is living in Stalinist Russia with fake Gucci Girlfriend in hand maintaining more decoys than Sarah Palin at a pro-choice rally.

Whilst male homosexuality is seen as a weakness in our modern patriarchal society, lesbianism (particularly the hot lipstick kind) is seen as complimentary. Since the advent of porn, straight blokes have been permitted to enjoy watching chicks get it on. Lesbianism (as long as the chicks are "hot") accordingly has become part of the straight paradigm. For god's sake Ellen peddling beauty products?

Lets not fool ourselves then that this lesbian phase has something to do with the mainstreaming of homosexual culture; it's all to do with straight male titillation…. pardon my pun.

Over and Out

2008-09-16T17:54:00.002+10:00

One of my best girlfriends P, arrived back from a year in Cambodia on Friday. P and I used to work together as lawyers at a legal aid organisation for a couple of years and have been firm besties ever since. She has spent the last year working for an NGO Environmental Rights organisation throughout regional Cambodia. It sounds like she had a fantastic experience and looks really well. She has accepted a lawyer's post at a legal aid centre in Broome, Western Australia and starts there at the end of October. She's back in Sydney for a month. P is one of the few close female friends of mine who is equally part of my Sydney gay posse as well as my straight group of friends. She's seen it all. She almost should be an honorary gay man but not in a clichéd faghag Judy Garland way….she's more one of the boys; think Shirley Maclaine and the Brat Pack; she's probably one of the few female friends I have where I am free not to censor anything from the World of Gay when we talk. I usually give most of my female friends a Hallmark version of my life; with P, nothing is off limits. As a result, I've missed her greatly over the last year and I was looking forward to seeing her on the Friday night.

Trev and I had booked Macleay Street Bistro at Potts Point for dinner. There were eight of us going. I had canapés and champagne cocktails at Judy's before we headed across the road to the bistro. I hadn't been to Macleay Street (bistro) in ages and it was super-nice to sample its "lower east-side" intimacy again although if the waiter described another dish as "absolutely beautiful", I was going to offer him a job at the Home Shopping network. We returned to Judy's place for more champagne and an assortment of cheeses I had purchased earlier that day. We were all suitably inebriated and like most people in their 30s and 40s were thinking of turning in.... until Trev said five minutes shy of midnight……"So are we going to the Colombian?". We all knew what this meant. It was the lull before a bender. My heart sank and my liver quivered at the suggestion. P and I exchanged a knowing glance of "fuck….are we going to do this?". P had been away from all the action for a year and 2008 thankfully has been a relatively quiet year for me .... so we were ripe for the picking. Trev is 41 and is a seasoned party professional. As are the other forty somethings in our group. They've all been going out every weekend since the strobe light was invented and have an amazing continual zest for activities of the night. So faster than you could say Amy Winehouse, we were off to The Colombian and soon found ourselves up, up and away and the rest as they say is history. In past years when P and I have had many of these "random" nights out, we've always ended up saying…..well it was unexpected but at least we had a good time. And I'm sure we did in the past but now it just seems a bit tired. Yes we went everywhere; Colombian, Shift, Arq, back to Shift, back to Colombian, Wil and Toby's, Shift….Phoenix…the list goes on…and we met five thousand strangers with whom we shared our deepest thoughts, philosophies, cigarettes and phone numbers and made promises as shallow as the niteclub stamps on on our arms : "lets stay in touch, I think we're going to be great friends, I love that top, we must do this again". Bla bla bla.

2008 for me has been the Year of Living Quietly……finally. After several failed attempts in the past couple of years to cut down on night hopping, this year I've taken up cooking, reading and couch-sitting instead. Not to mention I've fallen back in love with sleep. Don't get me wrong, in the 8 years I've spent in Sydney town, I've had one hell of a time and it's been loads of fun. I always remember the advice though of an old queen I met when I first arrived in Sydney; "Be careful not to go out at 26 and come home at 44 and wondered what on earth happened." There were a good couple of years where it seemed that I was completely ignoring his advice. I started seeing a guy at the time who led me into the world of late night parties and dayclubs. I loved it. We loved it. I took P along for the ride. The love affair with the guy soon ended but not my love affair with party life. P & I were out like a pair of old glow sticks every weekend. After a couple of years of night after night jumping up and down in a dark room with pretty lights and booming music staring at people doing the exact same thing, it all became rather dull . I realised by the end of last year, I was not finding it fun anymore. So I stopped.

Apart from Mardi Gras, my dance card has been delightfully dull and after my big Friday night out with Trev, P and the gang, I have confirmed that I want it to stay that way. The best part of Friday evening was dinner at the bistro, champagne cocktails at Judy's and the great conversations in between; actually spending time with my friends and not staring at them through a haze of dry ice and sweat speaking in consonants whilst keeping your peripherals on guard for the entrance your knight in shining armour is never gonna make.

The Twilight State

2008-09-10T14:43:00.001+10:00

Last Thursday New South Wales saw another change in its state administration with Morris "Dilemma" Iemma stepping down as Premier after he realised he didn't have the numbers within the Labor Party Caucas to continue to preside. The tide started turning on the Tuesday when Iemma announced a cabinet re-shuffle following the resignation of his deputy, John Watkins, and former minister John Della Bosca being cleared of all charges in the Iguana-Gate Affair. Mr Della-Bosca left cabinet to sit on the back bench while the matter was investigated by both State and Federal police and finally reviewed by the State and Commonwealth DPPs. He was cleared of all charges on Tuesday. Mr Della-Bosca was one of the few efficient and competent ministers Mr Iemma had in his cabinet and as a result Mr Iemma was desperate to have him back on board. Mr Iemma was also using this opportunity to get rid of quite a number of under-performing and/or controversial ministers in particular the no holds barred Treasurer, Michael Costa. The previous two weeks for Mr Costa and Mr Iemma had been particularly trying with their unsuccessful attempts to get their proposals to privatise the NSW Electricity Commission through the NSW parliament. The Upper House ended up rejecting the entire bill. Mr Iemma sacked Mr Costa on the Wednesday night. Mr Costa was not going to go quietly though calling a press conference Thursday morning informing everyone loud and clear of the dire financial situation NSW finds itself. NSW it seems is no longer the Premier State, in danger of losing it's AAA credit rating.

If Costa was going down, he wasn't going on his own. Using politic spin, he basically said "we're fucked"; NSW is out of money and it's not his problem anymore. The writing was on the wall for Iemma. By lunch he realised he didn't have the numbers. By 2pm he had resigned and by 4pm a new shining knight was appointed as Premier. It was all very Shakespearean.

Nathan Rees has been in the NSW parliament less than 18 months and is now Premier of New South Wales. From Western Sydney, he was formerly a green keeper, then a public servant followed by a stint as an advisor to Morris Iemma. He is 41 years of age and is to be married in November. He is NSW's youngest ever Premier. Carmel Tebbutt has been appointed deputy premier. I still can't fathom why the Labor Caucas has appointed someone whom the community does not know and who has very limited experience over someone like Tebbutt who has been the only decent consistent minister this government has had over the last ten years. Perhaps she didn't want the job or probably more than likely the boys club that is the NSW Labor Right didn't want her.

My estimation of Mr Rees dropped immediately when he announced on Monday he wanted to talk to the homeless because he wanted to understand why people in this day and age would be homeless. I always become very suspicious of politicians who want to play Mother Theresa. It means usually they have absolutely no fresh ideas and are grandstanding. Kevin Rudd did the same thing with alco-pops and fuel watch and John Howard did the same thing with the military intervention in the child protection crisis in the Northern Territory.

I can tell you Mr Rees why there are so many homeless not only in this state but in others is because successive state governments (yours included) have practically shut down the mental health systems in this country leaving people with mental health issues either to be left on the street or in jail. That is pretty much the mental health system in this country these days: truancy or jail. And you don't have to wander down and talk to Jo Homeless Blow under his blanket in the St James tunnel to find that out. In fact Jo Homeless Blow will probably tell you that he's perfectly happy where he is and he'd rather be in a tunnel than being stabbed in an understaffed under funded homeless shelter.

Mr Rees also announced that there is a billion dollar shortfall in the state coffers. Woops. Can I ask a stupid question? NSW has been under Labor Party rule now for almost 13 years. The next election is two years away. What I want to know is why this state is in such a fiscal mess when Australia, the country, the nation state has just had 15 years of the biggest economic growth it has ever seen?

Nathan Rees says he wants to make a clean change, get rid of the dead wood, prove to his constituents that his new team is capable of good governance; yet on Monday he announces his new front bench which will include none other than Eric Roozendaal and Joe Tripodi, and all their right faction cronies. Joe Tripodi has had so many scandals in the last couple of years that he should just move his offices into the ICAC building (Independent Commission Against Corruption). To add insult to injury both Roozendaal and Tripodi have been appointed to administer the state's finances as Treasurer and Finance Minister. And Rees says he is not being dictated to by the factions of the Labor Party? Please…come on. The new Premier even conceded himself that he formulated his cabinet based on a list of names handed back and forth with NSW Labor Party Head Office Chief, Mr Karl Bitar. And so the charade continues…

This state government is being run in the twilight. The light is not clear enough to show what is really happening. Mr Rees is yet another puppet of the right faction of the Labor Party and while that happens, NSW and it's administration will continue to resemble something out of 80s Queensland but even worse….at least Joh Bjelke Peterson had the nouse to leave the Sunshine State (or the Moonlight State as it was nicknamed then) in good fiscal condition when his corrupt government was kicked out. NSW on the other hand is not only corrupt but it's also broke.

C

Maybe

2008-09-10T00:57:00.000+10:00

You See the World Through Blue Colored Glasses

You live your life with tranquility. You have faith that things will work themselves out with time.

You judge all your interactions through the lens of hope. You try to get all the facts before forming your opinion.

You face challenges with wisdom. You know that all bad things pass, and you have the confidence to see problems through.

You see love as the utmost expression of trust. Your relationships tend to be peaceful and stable.

At your worst, you can be cool, melancholy, and detached. You sometimes have to step back from emotionally charged situations.

You are at your happiest when you are able to reflect and relax.

What Color Glasses Do You See the World Through?

.......and that's why I drink.....

C

Not Without My Filing Cabinets

2008-09-05T17:18:00.002+10:00

Because of the re-structure our team is being moved again. I've been here two years and this is my third move in that time. Sigh. Not to mention that I will lose my harbour views; albeit slightly obstructed by the Deutche Bank and Westpac buildings. We moved to this floor about 14 months ago and I have really taken the views for granted. It has been most pleasant to come in of a morning, munch on my porridge and look out on the boats bobbing up and down on the harbour; although not today where the only thing bobbing are droplets on my window pane; yes rain and fog……just in time for the weekend. Sigh again. We are being moved out of this building completely to another building a block away. Basically the organisation has outgrown the current premises and until the new premises is completed by 2010, staff are spread throughout three different buildings. And my team has appeared to score the rotten egg; we are being moved to a shopping centre. We inspected the office earlier this week and it is open/open plan. No one has an office ….which I can't stand and the work stations are built for persons who are size zero. The décor and interior design is straight out of turn of the century Ikea with everything stark white except for the carpet which is fluoro lime green. It will be like working in a glass of Midori. There is also no storage space. I've already had an argument with the Removals Manager, who insists that we are not allowed to take anything from our current offices. I have a large number of files, which are stored in three considerably sized filing cabinets in my office. I need my files close by and as a result, I need these filing cabinets to come with me. The Removals Manager seems to think that having my files stored in the vicinity of Eastern Europe will suffice. She has suggested that my files be stored in the basement of this building, which I remind you, is essentially a shopping centre. I will be going to collect my files whilst Coles is delivering their fresh fruit and veges. That would be handy I guess; I could do my grocery shopping at the same time.

I did my first theatresports show last night in four months in the new theatreports venue which is a pub in Glebe. I was so rusty. In the warm up before we did the show, I seemed to be incapable of speaking or understanding English. Firstly we did the warm up in the back beer garden of the hotel where there was Spice Girls music blaring constantly through the speakers. I couldn't hear anyone speak and was quite stunned that such music was still played in overtly straight venues. To add to this strange distraction, I was then paired with Mr Hot Guy. Tall, chunky, big hands, big nose; he had that whole Vince Vaughn slapstick thing going on. He was funny, cocky and hot. My confidence packed its bags and left me immediately. Of course we were first up to play a warm-up game. Mr Hot Guy started the game and in response I became Jodie Foster in Nell making strange noises; not really the intended outcome of the game. My friends Jess, Em and Jack (also playing) just looked at me with that stark familiarity of "I know you but please forgive me if I don't acknowledge you in public anymore." The warm up games continued participants easing in and out of witty offers and cheeky responses while I lay in consonant constipation attempting to find the connection between my tongue and my brain. Unfortunately it had left when it saw confidence walk out the door. I was now absolutely the loser of the group; the remedial kid; the kid who no one wants on their ball team; the kid whose parents are called by the teacher to discuss his delayed progress; the kid who takes his mother to the formal. That was me; anyone who was forced to play with me viewed me as nothing more than a tax deduction. All I needed was a change box wedged to my forehead and I could have collected for the guide dogs.

After the warm up, we had to be broken up into three teams. At this point I wanted to pretend to develop a brain tumour, apologise for my sudden withdrawal and quietly leave. But I was still in the midst of lingual paralysis and thus couldn't beg pardon. I remained and was placed in the Green team thankfully with my friends Jack and Jess and another more experienced theatresporter (lets call him ET) who hadn't washed his hair since the war…..am not sure which one. ET was actually on two teams: both the red and the green teams as one theatresporter had failed to show. ET didn't seem that impressed with us Greens and quickly bedded down with the Reds. I of course attributed such a manoeuvre to me being the theatresports equivalent of Mr Stinky.

Our first challenge as the Green Team was the game Death in A Minute which was quite apt actually considering I did want to die. The title of the scene was Parent Teacher Interviews and within a minute, one of the characters must die. Jack and I immediately entered the scene; Jack assumed the role of the teacher, I assumed the role of the parent and we were to discuss my son Roger. Jack indicated that Roger was quite violent having hit him on several occasions. He said that this must stop. I agreed it was a problem but perhaps he was over-reacting. I at first was simply relieved that I could speak English and interact with another human being. We continued the scene where I admitted that I fed my son Roger speed and perhaps this was leading him to be somewhat violent. Jess then entered the scene as the hyperactive speed inflicted son Roger. She was hilarious ……kind of like a chiwawa on crack. In awe of her comic genius, I then momentarily developed lingual paralysis again. Jack and Jess continued to interact and Jess as Roger died within the minute. We survived the first game….no thanks to ET who didn't assist at all….but strangely assisted the Red team. Mmmmmmm.

Our second challenge involved the game Emotional Replay which is one of my favourite games. It requires the team to replay a normal scene with three different emotions. In this scene, we were at dog training school and we were to replay the scenes with fear, anger and ecstasy…..sounded like an average night out for me. I assumed the role of dog owner, Jack assumed the role of the dog and Jess, the role of the dog trainer. Well apart from taking method acting to a whole new level where I actually thought Jack was my dog and yanked the hood of his jacket so much that I almost broke his back, we did a fantastic scene and scored our highest points for the evening. Jack now walks a bit funny. ET remained absent yet again. In fact ET remained generally absent for the rest of our challenges except the last one, which was in fact our worst scene. It involved each participant speaking with a limited number of words. ET put his hand up for three words, Jack got one word, Jess got six words and I was the sucker who got 13 words. It was a complete nightmare; I ended up being a doctor in India who chops the arm of a servant off after it was mauled by a slightly violent white elephant. It was weird and it didn't work.

I did feel somewhat better by the end of the night and thought that I had restored some form of dignity after my Nell impersonations earlier on; not that Mr Hot Guy noticed; he was too busy re-arranging furniture at the end of the performance to care…..perhaps I should have invited him over to move my filing cabinets.

A Night at The Circus

2008-09-03T13:05:00.005+10:00

My gorgeous friend Em scored two complimentary tickets to Cirque du Soleil's Darlion and she kindly invited me to accompany her to the show last night. It's exactly ten years since I saw Cirque du Soleil's Saltimbanco when the company first came to Australia. Funnily enough I saw that production for free as well when I was writing for a local magazine in Brisbane. Darlion is a celebration of the 4 elements that maintain the natural order: air, water, fire and earth. It had a definite Chinese theme and at times I thought I was watching a miniature re-enactment of the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics. You can never have enough drums and red latterns I find.

The show was a visual feast but alas like the last time I saw Cirque du Soleil, I felt like I was watching yoga set to music and after about an hour I found myself drifting off. There is only so many times you can see someone do the splits upside down. From a kid's point of view though I think the show is fantasy at it's very best; the vibrant colours, the elaborate make-up and of course the amazing acrobatics. I still remember being absolutely amazed as a child when the Moscow Circus came to Australia 25 years ago. It was escapist ecstacy. So escapist that half the circus defected here in the 80s.

As an adult though I guess I'm an old fashioned circus kind of guy where the clowns were drunk and abusive and the animals were mal-nourished and psychotic. I remember as a kid going to the local Ashton's Circus and being truly terrified of the slightly too aggressive clowns and the very tired irrational animals. As an adult, I'd find that far more entertaining than watching Suzy Flexible fold herself into an envelope.

As I always do when I am faced with boredom, I search for hot men. There were none in the production surprisingly; maybe it was because they dressed like the cast of Farscape. In the audience however, it was couplehood; hence full of bored hot straight men who'd "done the right thing" by taking their respective wives and girlfriends to a night under the Grand Chapiteau. Em and I were happily entertained in the second half of the evening browsing the audience going "Oooo isn't he gorgeous?". There were plenty to keep our eyes occupied.

As per usual the cost of drinks and food was that of a Monte Carlo bar. $6 for a soft drink, $9 for a glass of wine which came in a plastic cup and a tub of popcorn and a packet of chocolates for $12. I spent my entire interest rate cut in just one interval.

Still it was a very pleasant evening and far better than a night at home in front of the box.

And to other news….

Thanks to everyone who wrote to me re my last blog entry. I am totally fine. I've come to the conclusion I should write action novels as my last entry made the situation sound a lot worse than it really was. Having said that, I think it was the jolt I required to get my arse into gear regarding a few changes that have to be made in the future. I shall keep you posted.

Cxx

I Beg Yours.....

2008-09-01T23:41:00.003+10:00

Have you ever had one of those days where the world as you know it appears to be sucked into a black hole and suddenly the true reality is revealed? I think that happened to me today at work just after 5pm. I decided to leave early so I was packing my things and then bang! The news first came via an email and then confirmed in person by a particular colleague. The news and thus the realisation was like a bullet to my head. The moisture drained from my mouth, my gums started to ache and I developed an instant nauseous migraine. I still can't work out whether I was shocked by the actual news and the way in which this particular colleague delivered it or whether I was disappointed in myself for yet again ignoring my gut feeling when it comes to someone's true character; my gut feeling has never been proven to be wrong; it is always right. Yet I spend my entire life ignoring it.

I left work with my face plump with hot blood and that Ebola feeling where you think your organs are about to turn to liquid. As soon as I got in the door, I threw up. I then of course wanted my mother. I then realised of course she was 2000 kms away which lead me to realise how lonely I am which then led me to bursting into tears. Usually I feel a lot better after I have a cry but this time it seemed to make me more claustrophobic. I discarded my suit, brushed my teeth, chucked on some trackies and jumper, grabbed my joggers and walked out the door.
I spent the next four hours traipsing around the inner city launching a press conference of questions on myself. I was a high achiever for the first 17 years of my life; why have I spent the next 17 years simply passing? Passing everything literally; never fully participating; never fully committing; never making up my mind; remaining a spectator while waiting for that something to find me when in fact I should be doing the finding. My father always said to me in life stick to the middle of the road.....well I have taken it one step further and stuck to the middle of the roundabout and never left. I need to leave this roundabout.

All upheaval leads to good. Who said that? Anyway it works for me. As much as I am disappointed in the turn of events at work this afternoon whether it be in myself or my colleague or most likely both, it has cleared my mind. And I think it is time for a big change. A change that I saw coming but I think will be brought forward substantially. It will most likely lead to cancelling my holidays in November ( if I can still do that??) and bringing my other plans forward. This will depend on a couple of things falling into place in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned…..

I think this has been my most schizophrenic post yet. Can someone fetch me a pale of scotch?

PS : And no, I haven't been fired.

.....just don't ask

BEING JUDY

2008-08-31T14:41:00.002+10:00

Judy left for a month in Ibiza and Europe on Wednesday and as a result I am house-sitting his flat in Potts Point…or the village as Judy likes to call it. He lives in a gorgeous one bedder art deco apartment overlooking Elizabeth Bay. Judy and I have very similar taste when it comes to furniture. We’re both in love with 1920s London and decorate our apartments accordingly; all except that Judy has nicer taste and co-ordinates better than Dorothy Parker. Am continually wandering from room to room perched with a cigarette convinced I am Beatrice from the House of Elliott or after a few cheeky gins, Sebarrrstian Flyte from Brides Head Revisited. I have spent the last few days sat at Judy’s Norfolk island pine desk in his bedroom punching away at his laptop whilst looking out on the goings on of Macleay Street littered with it‘s cafes, shops and homosexuals. This suburb is so gay that even the shrubbery cruise each other. Thursday night at Woolworths is like a visit to your local SOPV; there are so many dirty stares, all they have to do is dim the lights and turn up the disco. Other than those obvious delights, I am looking forward to sleeping in a little more each week day and walking to work; still arriving earlier than I normally do when I catch the train from the Hills of Dulwich and have to leave at the crack of dawn. I plan to do lots of writing when I’m here; that is if I can stop meeting friends for breakfast and lunch and refrain from spending far too much time at Woolworths.

The last couple of weeks at work have been strange to the say the least. The organization I work for is undergoing (and as of tomorrow has undergone) a massive corporate re-structure. This has resulted in my team losing the best boss I’ve ever had and the team being combined with another team. Essentially my role is not affected and I will be carrying on as per usual (although my direct manager will be in Adelaide…I don‘t know how that works). The environment however will be totally different. A, my now former boss nurtured a great team environment whereby we all became like a family. He finished on Friday. With him not there, and management structure that is going to be largely run out of Melbourne, it is going to be starkly different; not to mention most team members are applying for new jobs. So it’s time for me to make a change ….again. I change jobs generally every two years so I shouldn’t be surprised and I am beyond bored with this job; the only reason I have stayed longer than I intended was that it was such a nice place to work. However having said that I have been far too comfortable and hence lazy in this position for too long. So it’s time to pull my finger out. I just have to make up my mind what I want to do next. For the next three weeks though, I am happy just to be Judy.

Go Matty!

2008-08-27T00:11:00.003+10:00

Yes I'm sorry am probably the upteen billionth gay blogger to mention his name in the last five days but what a sweetheart is Matthew Mitcham???!!!! We all had tears welling in our eyes at Manacle (and no it wasn't from the BO) when he won. It was the highlight of the Beijing Games I must say. He seems like such a gentle kind fella and not half bad on the eye which always helps. It will be interesting to see whether Uncle Toby's or Kelloggs puts him on the back of their cereal packs; only time will tell. It is hoped that his opennesss will lead other gay athletes to be more honest with their sexuality and the sportsworld, in particular sponsors more accepting of gay people. I expect Mardi Gras has their eye on the young diver to lead the parade next year.

And to other more important news to hand. I got a shag on the weekend. Yes quickly someone write a press release. After three months of the "couldn't be bothereds", this bear finally dragged himself out of his cave and scored himself a Scotsman at the disco Saturday night (yes be careful Monty, I'm moving into your territory). And we share the same name can you believe it? For a moment I thought he was saying his name was "June" and whilst I have male friends who go by female names, I generally don't like to shag those who use them. I finally worked out throughout the course of the evening that he was saying "John". He is also a lawyer and a Catholic (my mother would be so happy). So apart from the fact that he was a redhead, 6 ft2 and of a non-portly physique, I was practically taking myself home....which is really no different to any other Saturday night.

R.I.P. COLIN

2008-08-22T10:49:00.002+10:00

Poor Colin passed away this morning after being given a lethal injection of anaesthetic. The baby humpback whale's condition had apparently worsened last night to the point where he wasn't breathing or sitting in the water properly. Colin hadn't eaten since Sunday when his mother abandoned him. It was expected he wouldn't survive the night but he was found this morning again nuzzling a yacht in Pittwater. It was decided then to put him down. Following the lethal injection, National Park and Wildlife officers apparently dragged the whale kicking and screaming for 300 metres across to the other side of the bay to lay him on the beach where he continued to moan. It all sounded a little undignified but perhaps they were trying to prevent him from sinking to the bottom of the bay and being attacked by sharks when he passed away.

Sweet dreams Colin.

C

Yacht Sucker

2008-08-20T10:47:00.001+10:00

Well they've finally done it; they've named a humpback whale after me. Yes Colin, the baby humpback whale has been lost in Sydney waters the last couple of days after somehow losing his mother. He has already been lead out to sea once but keeps coming back into Sydney's Pittwater nuzzling yachts obviously thinking that they are his mother. A yachty was woken up this morning to the sound of what seemed like a giant vacuum sucking on the bottom of his boat. It was Colin.

Colin only has a couple of days to survive without his mother's milk. The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service are trying to find a way to provide Colin with baby formula milk to keep him alive until they can find a way of returning him successfully to the wild. Meanwhile no yacht's bottom in Pittwater is safe.

On this day....

2008-08-15T14:09:00.006+10:00

…..in 1935, my grandparents married, in 1958, Madonna was born, in 1969 my mother and father were engaged and of course for all you Catholics out there, lapsed and otherwise, today is the Feast of the Assumption whereby Mary Mother of God, the Madonna , the Virgin Mother, Lady on a Donkey looking for a room landed in heaven to be reunited with her magician son and the husband she'd never met. What a cocktail hour that would have been. Awkward.

My grandparents (my father's parents) were married in the weatherboard bush chapel of St Mary's at Christmas Creek (sth east Queensland); a church which had been built by my great grandfather 40 years earlier when he and his eight brothers arrived from Ireland.

Nana was 29 and in those days was almost considered an old maid when she got married. Mickey wasn't exactly young either at 37. Nana and her bridesmaid, her sister Evelyn were supposed to come to the Church in the local priest's car but it ran out of fuel half way there. So Ev and Nana had to catch a ride on the back of the milk truck; quite ironic considering she was marrying a dairy farmer. Nana always said it could have been worse ….she could have arrived on a cow.

1935 was similar to this year in Australia. The winter was cold and the country was just coming out of the worst drought on record (although Australia is always coming out of the worst drought on record). It was also the middle of the depression and the countryside was awash with the unemployed looking for work. The morning of the wedding there was the biggest frost seen in years. The whole countryside was covered in white turning into a winter wonderland. The wedding had to be held at 9am so that everyone (being dairy-farmers) could get home to milk the cows at 3pm; my mother experienced a similar time constraint with her wedding 36 years later although thankfully she didn't have to rely on a milk truck to get her there. Nana wore a typical 1930s wedding gown full of lace and silk together with a cloche hat…..which always made most women in the 1920s and 30s look like Amelia Earhart flying her plane over the Atlantic. My nana was no different except that she added a lace veil to the cloche hat. There must have been a sale on lace at Enright's (the local department store) that year as all the pics from the wedding have not only the bride but all the female guests covered head to toe in lace. Following the wedding, the veil was converted into a lace tablecloth for the "good room" and consequently adorned the dining room table for many a Christmas dinner, baptism and wedding anniversary for the next 59 years…… as well as myself and my attempts as a 6 year old to impersonate Princess Di at her wedding to Charles.

Mickey passed away just shy of their 60th wedding anniversary. He was 97. Nana lived for another five years. They were very ying and yang. Nana had a big loud voice with an Irish whisper that could travel for miles. On a good day, as kids growing up in Christmas Creek, if the wind was blowing in the right direction we could here Nana talking on the phone at her place 6 kms across the creek from where we lived. Mickey on the other hand, was quiet, read his papers, watched the news and said the Rosary. He was happy as long as he had his rice pudding once a day….his favourite dish. Nana lived on the phone and loved Neighbours and Home and Away. She is still the only 80/90 something year old I know who had albums by Madonna, Abba and Kylie; she wasn't always too sure about Madonna but the Queen of Pop scored extra points for being a mick and being born on the Feast of the Assumption. If Nana didn't have anything nice to say about someone, she used to always say: "Haven't they got lovely teeth?". Madonna's gums were mentioned a lot followed by "I hope she says her prayers".

C

From Russia.......with Structure.

2008-08-10T15:10:00.003+10:00

Lately I've been receiving quite a number of messages on manhunt (gay date
(i use the term loosely) website) from Russian guys looking for love and visas
from Australia. Most of the messages make no sense but this one I received
today has been by far the most entertaining.

Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!

My name  Aleksandr!!!!!!! You know, what at you very remarkable structure? 
Yes it is valid so. I have read your structure. And you have seemed to me very
good and remarkable the man. I would like to get acquainted with you. I would 
be very happy to our acquaintance. If you also want to get acquainted with me.
I shall be very glad. Write to me on mine mail

Packing my structure and flying to Russia as we speak.

Quote of the Week

2008-08-10T14:51:00.001+10:00

Judy at the Colombian at 4.15 Sunday morning:

Something will happen, I just have to stay awake for it.

Hooraah!

C

PROJECT RUNWAY AUSTRALIA: Episode Five

2008-08-09T18:10:00.003+10:00

The challenge for this Episode was a group challenge whereby all the contestants had to work as a team to put together a collection. The theme for the collection was 1960s European Spring The colours chosen were from a colourboard of light pastels…variations of blues and pinks. Only three people were allowed to go and chose the material. The two bossiest ones, Helen and Mark of course pushed their way in and Petrova was the third.

There was scandal when the material arrived back and Juli didn’t get the material she requested. In fact she got the opposite of what she wanted…..cheap bright pink material. There was a classic scene where Mark pulls out this beautiful soft pink silk material and Juli is saying how gorgeous it is thinking it is hers. Mark then informs her it is his and pulls out her hideous material. Juli understandably was quite upset. The sooner Mark goes the better!

There was also one other challenge during the episode and that was a social one. The contestants were guests at a party attended by the host Kirstie Hinze and social commentator and host of the Foxtel gossip show, Confidendital, Sophie Faulkner. Whomever impressed Sophie the most with their social graces won the challenge and received immunity for the current runway challenge. Brent won the challenge. Considering Brent is pretty much the nearest thing PRA has to an alfpha male and he ain’t bad to look at, there is no doubting how Soph reached her decision….and it has nothing do with social grace.

This collection like the last episode, was a little hit and miss. Lui again was the outstanding designer followed closely by Brent. These two will be the ones to beat in the competition.

The guest judge for this challenge was Melbourne Fashion Festival, Karen Webster who looks like and dresses like Marge Simpson’s long lost sister.

Rundown:

Winner: Lui Hon: I can’t even begin to describe Lui’s dress. It was so amazing simple and complex all at the same time. All in all it was beautiful. He’s got the whole Akira Isogawa thing going on.

Helen Manuell: Ah the contestant we love to hate but would strangely miss if she was eliminated. Helen’s design was fit for a Pan Am air hostess for the 60s but not so much a European Spring. Still it was well made and she got through to the next round easily.

Leigh Buchanan: He is without a doubt the wittiest and most enjoyable contestant. Every time he opens his mouth, it’s hysterical. He is Will, Grace, Jack and Karen wrapped into one. His contestant had a Pan Am feel as well until she took off the heavy coat and revealed a beautiful light pink mini dress. It was very 60s.

Juli Grbac: Poor Juli. Mark had pretty much jeopardised her challenge by getting entirely inappropriate pretty in pink material. To make matters worse, her model as she went down the runway decided that the shoes were uncomfortable and kicked them off! I didn’t think the outfit was too bad. It was a little confused but she did the best she could with material that belonged on Nana at her 50^th wedding anniversary and not her honeymoon in Italy in the 60s.

Brent Zaicek: Well because he had flirted his way into immunity, Brentski didn’t have to worry about this challenge. He did however do a superb job being only second to Lui’s design. Very Grace Kelly in Italy which actually probably would suggest that his design was more 50s then 60s. Still it was beautiful: nice blue slacks and a cream top with a cream scarf head wrap….very la dolce vita.

Mark Antonio: He is over-rated and over-spoken. He is the least enjoyable contestant. His model was basically wearing a mini nightie and looked like she was about to go to bed.

Eliminated: Petrova Hammond: Unfortunately Petrova’s outfit was well made but it did not meet the brief at all. Strangely Petrova was the one who chose the colours off the colourboard but then didn’t actually use them. Her outfit was mainly grey with a strip of pink across the bust. It looked more communist autumn then European summer.

PROJECT RUNWAY AUSTRALIA FOXTEL ARENA MONDAYS 8.30pm

http://www.myspace.com/projectrunwayau

Pull My Finger

2008-08-08T18:38:00.006+10:00

Last week I attempted to find my inner Olympian forcing myself to Fatness First and working out every day. On the Thursday at lunch I decided to do a boxercise class. I've done boxercise plenty of times through my outdoor exercise group so I was pretty confident about completing the class. I always get a little nervous though about doing group classes at gyms like Fitness First because all the participants usually look like they've walked off the set of Baywatch. They're chiselled jawed and MacLean's teeth shining with their designer butts and protein enriched water. These are people who actually love to exercise. They do marathons for fun and cycle interstate for the scenery. These people weren't born; they sprinted out of their mothers' wombs instead. Me on the other hand arrived two weeks late. I sat in my mother's womb refusing to budge. No way Jose was I coming out of my own accord. I was quite comfortable where I was; all creature comforts and room service to boot. Why would I move? 27 hours it took to coax me into the world. Once I did get out, I just sat there…..for a long time. I didn't walk til I was 3. Mum always says that I was the sweetest baby; I never cried. She fails to mention that I never talked either. I would give children Omen like stares who attempted to interact with me in the sandpit. That or I would try to eat them. I was continually in trouble for biting everyone. But I still never uttered a word or cried a tear. When I turned 4 and continued to maintain my vow of silence, Mum and Dad thought I might be deaf and had my ears checked. I could hear perfectly. I was labelled "shy" and put back in the sandpit. I didn't really start talking until school when I realised that if I was to eat, I'd have to ask for food. Even still my use of the spoken word was quite rare. Usually I resorted to plain old-fashioned violence like the time I jumped on and broke Andrew Brior's arm when he took my muesli bar…funnily enough in the sandpit. No one ever took my food again. I did get used to the sound of my voice over time, but still resorted to the label "shy" when it was convenient such as requests by mother to join the church choir or my father to play rugby. All up I was lazy and have continued to embrace this attribute well into adulthood. I will subconsciously avoid any type of exertion whether it be social, physical or emotional. I'm like a walking piece of kryptonite…. that is if I can be bothered walking. So going to do boxercise with a class of supermen and superwomen was quite daunting.

The class was being run by Frederick, a German instructor, who looked quite like his Van Trapp namesake in the Sound of Music. All he required was a pork pie hate and some lederhosen made out of curtains.

Frederick: Find a partner now! Hurry up!

The edelweiss burst into flames as soon as Frederick opened his mouth. He instructed like he was declaring war. I kept expecting schnells and whistles to come marching out of his mouth. I needed to find someone feeble. I searched the room. A lanky grey haired chap approached. He would have been in his late 50s and didn't look as if he'd just finished climbing Mt Everest for something to do over the weekend. He seemed perfect.

"G'day mate….u got a partner?" He had one of those nasal Australian accents, which resembled that of a cockatoo and belonged in 1955. A bygone era where men were cobbers and women were sheilas and everyone was Caucasian; a time when all things were "you beaut" and "too right" and "don't spare the horses Charlie". His name was Bob and he handed me the boxing gloves. I was first up. Great.

Frederick: Right: 100 high punches! Go!

100? I'd never done more than 50 and usually we worked our way up to 50 after a few sets; never straight into it.

Bob: Lets Go Mate.

Everyone was a pro, punching like they were lightweight champions. I thought I was doing reasonably well until…..

Frederick: Who taught you to punch like that? You look like a chicken trying to fly.

I think I was up to punch number 57 somewhere between perspiration and exhaustion when Frederick introduced instruction by humiliation.

Frederick: Stop flapping your vings and punch from zee shoulder.

I thought I was punching from the shoulder. I kept going hoping Frederick would move onto his next victim. He did not.

Frederick: No you are still doing it vong. Let me show you.

The whole class had now stopped and was looking at me. As Frederick demonstrated how not to have wings, I could feel their discombobulating gaze of pity strip away my dignity garment by garment. Like a schizophrenic off his medication, I could hear all their thoughts. Get out! Leave! Why are you wasting our time? You can't box! What on earth are you wearing? It reminded me of the time in Grade 3 when I was put into Mrs Sainsbury's class for those who were mathematically gifted. I was surprised as anyone else to find myself in this class and soon proved my unworthiness by completing a long division, whereby I concluded that 45 divided by 3 equalled 12. Like Frederick, Mrs Sainsbury employed similar skills of humiliation. She made me stand in front of the class and do the long division on the blackboard in front of the class where I continued to get it wrong and she continued to apply humiliation. The class burst out into laughter and I burst into tears running out of the room. To this day I can't do long division.

I thought of employing a similar reaction to Frederick but I couldn't really apply a 6 year old's solution to a 33 year old's problem. I grinned. I bore. My second round of 100 was far more wingless. Apart from the odd flutter, I managed to strike my way through the first session with Rocky precision. Then it was Bob's turn. Holding onto the pads and blocking the punches of your partner is usually the easier part of the session. Blocking Bob's punches was like trying to stop the Titanic sinking….impossible. Bob may have looked feeble but his punch was nuclear.

He kept going and going lunging into me. I kept falling backwards in horror with the pads protecting my face hoping to avoid a lifetime of reconstructive surgery. Anything but my face….or my shoulder…or my arms. Did Bob think I was his ex-wife perhaps? Bang, bang, bang, bang! Was Bob an axe murderer? Bang bang bang bang! Was Bob one of my ex's in disguise? All these thoughts were running through my mind when my left wedding finger slipped out of the pad and connected with Bob's that there right fist….going at say….5000 k's an hour.

My finger flung backwards as if it was competing in the flip diving division of the Beijing Olympics. Yes it hurt but I was determined not to draw any further attention to myself.

Bob: You right mate?

Putting on my Doris Days, I smiled and said: " No I'm fine." I picked up my gloves and finished the session. My eyes were watering so much from the pain by the end that I'm sure I looked like someone who had just attended a funeral. It didn't help that Bob shook the injured hand after class. Thanks Bob. Perhaps I was his ex-wife in a former life.

I left the class examining my finger, which now resembled my big toe.

Frederick: Vat have you done now?

Frederick grabbed my hand and started examining my finger. In fact he pulled my finger. Who was this guy? Old Mother Hubbard?

Me: Awe that hurts.

Frederick: It is not broken. Just badly sprained.

Me: Thanks

Frederick: You need to ice it.

Me: Ok

Frederick: Do not put any pressure on it for a week.

Me: I'll drink to that.

Frederick: And please come back to my class. You are a good boxer.

I smiled and he walked off. No Floreine Frederick I thought, I'm never stepping back into your class again mate. In an hour I'd been humiliated and abused, beaten up and finally had my finger snapped in front of my eyes by a demented digger who thought I was his ex-Mrs. And all in the name of exercise. Pull the other one…it plays Buy Another Reebok. Broken finger, broken foot….it's all the same as far I'm concerned and as a result I'm heading back to that sandpit and sitting on my arse biting anyone who takes my food.

Happy Olympics Everyone!

C

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner ?

2008-08-03T00:26:00.007+10:00

I was thinking tonight as I was fussing over my dinner for one plowing through my bottle of merlit, if I could invite anyone in the world right now to a dinner party for twelve who would it be? I allowed two further positions for myself and a friend. After finishing the bottle of merlit, this is the list of people I came up with:

David Sedaris : American humorist.
Condoleezza Rice: US Secretary of State
Kathy Griffin: American Comedian
Maggie Tabbera: Australian Fashion Icon
Emma Thompson: UK actress
Jana Wendt: Australian Journalist
Oprah Winfrey: do I have to explain this?
Richard E. Grant: UK actor, writer, director
Barry Humphries: Australian Comedian/humorist (Dame Edna)
Paul Keating: Former Aussie PM
Madonna: you may have heard of her
Justice Michael Kirby: Openly gay member of Australia’s High Court Bench
Judy (best friend): he’s great at parties

Then as I commenced my bottle of shyriz, I thought of all the people who are no longer alive who I would like to invite to a dinner party of twelve. Yet again I allowed two further places for myself (not dead last I looked…touch wood) and someone who I knew but has now passed away.

Elizabeth 1 HRH: The Tudor Queen
Tennessee Williams: US Playwright: A Streetcar Named Desire etc
F Scott Fitzgerald: US Author
Noel Coward: UK writer, director, singer, actor, everything
Graham Kennedy: the Australian King of Television: comedian
Oscar Wilde: Irish writer/playwright/humorist
Agatha Christie: UK author
Bette Davis: US actress
Henry Lawson: Australia’s 19^th Century Bush Poet
Sir Robert Menzies: Australia’s longest serving PM
Sir Samuel Griffith : 1^st Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia and author of the Australian Constitution
Neville Bonner: 1^st Aboriginal man elected to the Australian Senate.
My grandfather
Special Extra: Katherine Hepburn: With a post entitled Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, I couldn’t not mention her. She probably wouldn’t come anyway.

As you can see I am having a slow night and no one has messaged me on manhunt. So to all you readers out there in Blogland, who would you invite?

The Ghost of Relationships Past

2008-08-01T01:00:00.006+10:00

I had an email from an old "girlfriend", L, out of the blue today. We have known each other for donkey’s years. We send the odd email a few times a year. She’s a very successful lawyer these days working as a partner in a magic circle firm in London. She married a very sexy Aussie banker last year and is living quite a nice uber life. Her older sister is getting married in September in Brisbane and she has been asked to be her sister’s maiden of honour. And here’s the catch. The best man at the proceedings will be her ex-fiancé, A, whom she left at the alter five years ago. They had been together for 8 years when it happened. It was a huge shock to all of us when L called it off.

Not only will the ex-fiancé be the best man at the wedding but his parents will be there as well. L is not exactly their favourite person. They watched their son have a complete nervous breakdown following the break up and make a very slow recovery. A has only started working full time again in the last year and apparently has just started seeing someone recently. Strangely L’s sister met her future husband (who is obviously one of A’s best mates) quite some time after L broke it off with A.

L reckons she is going to do it. I think she’s mad. Sister or not, there is no way I would do it. I could barely go to the reception let alone be partnered in the wedding party to the person whose life I practically destroyed. Call me weak but I’d rather be thrown off a cliff. There is only so many times a person can ask forgiveness for something that could not be avoided and only so many times the other person can ask why. And at no time can a satisfactory answer be given.

Arena at the moment is screening the Aidan years of Sex and the City. I was watching the episode tonight where Carrie is trying to get back with Aidan after they’ve been apart for some time. They broke up because she cheated on Aidan with Big. She sees him out of the blue and in panicked confusion she thinks she wants to get back with him when in fact she just wants his forgiveness. She pursues him and goes around to his flat and puts it out there:

Carrie: Aidan I want to get back with you. I miss you. I want us to be together.

Aidan looks shocked, stares and shakes his head.

Aidan: I’m sorry Carrie. I didn’t realise you felt this way but it can’t happen.

Carrie then carries on (pardon the pun) saying how great they were together and what a nice guy he is etc etc.

Aidan continues to stare and then screams:

YOU BROKE MY HEART !!!!!

Carrie sprints away running down the street because what can she say? Nothing; she did break his heart and there is not a thing she can do to put it back together.

This is one of the most powerful scenes in the series and still sends a jolt up my spine every time I see it; Aidan’s “in cold blood” accusation and Carrie’s flee of guilt. Case closed. I’ve beat myself up quite a bit over the years about past relationships where my behaviour had been less than stellar. In my late twenties (and early early 30s) I regressed to the personality of a giddy teenage girl. I didn’t know what I wanted. I still don’t but back then, I just kept grabbing people and taking them along for the ride. For a while I attempted to pursue friendships with ex’s which really were nothing but a subconscious selfish bid for forgiveness. These days I keep to myself. Some things, particularly bad break ups and those involved are best left to the confessional that is the past.

WAITING

2008-07-31T20:15:00.001+10:00

My boss yet again postponed my performance review today. Argh! Don’t get me wrong I’ve got nothing bad to expect and he’s one of the best bosses I’ve ever had. And he has a million things on his plate at the moment which has lead to thus far, two postponements of my review. But……I just hate performance reviews. Whether they are good, bad, ugly or fabulous, I can’t stand the hour you have to spend where your life (well your work life…which lets face it is your life) is laid in front of you and you’re given a grade. I wish I could just send my parents along like we did at school. And they would come home, give you a hug and advise that everything was super and they’re so proud of you. Instead you have to endure an hour of management speak and discuss where you have been, where you are going and where you want to be in the next year when in fact if you had a million in the bank, you’d be anywhere but here.

PROJECT RUNWAY AUSTRALIA: Episode Four

2008-07-29T00:49:00.004+10:00

The challenge for this episode was to design a glamorous frock for an AFL footballer’s girlfriend to wear down the red carpet at the Brownlow Medal (kind of like the Academy Awards of AFL: Australian Football League). The challenge commenced in the middle of the sacred ground of AFL: the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Eight footballer’s wives were present and each chose the contestant they wished to work with. Of course Helen “It’s a walk in the park” Manuell declared that she had designed frocks for five of the girls and almost laid an egg trying to tell everyone. Part of the brief was to design not only something glamorous but in accordance with what the footballer’s girlfriend wanted. Makes sense really; all except for Helen. When Helen’s girl presented her ideas for her frock, Helen dismissed them immediately and told her that she would take care of it. She is a full bag of wrong but so annoyingly fun to watch.

My new hero is Lui. I ironically didn’t say much about him on my last PRA post because I couldn’t quite remember what he made or contributed. In this challenge his personality and skills really came out and in my opinion he made the best frock. At first it looked like a complete disaster for him The outfit he made initially resembled something out of the last days of Pompeii. His footballer’s girlfriend looked like she wanted to throw herself into Mt Versuivus when she first saw it. He had four hours to re-do the frock and he turned into something that was both glamorous and very original. In my opinion all the other frocks paled in comparison.

Lui’s, Juli’s and Helen’s frocks were the only ones which were above average….(yes Helen…who would believe it). The rest of the collection I thought was very ordinary and bordering on embarrassing.

Here’s a run down of the contestants and their entries:

The special guest judge this time round was designer Peter Morrisey who seemed as impressed as christmas to be there.

Winner: Juli Grbac: Juli’s brief by her footballer’s girlfriend was to make her look like a Creatian Goddess. And she did. She also looked like an extra off My Fair Lady but the judges seemed to love it. I liked it but I didn’t love it.

Leigh Buchanan: Leigh’s entry was allowed through straight away to the next round. My honest opinion: his client looked like she was wearing a black satin nightie. It was boring but well made.

Petrova Hammond: Petrova’s entry was also allowed through straight away to the next round. Her client also looked like she was wearing a nightie…except this time a pink and blue nightie. I found it boring too but it was well made.

Helen Manuell: Helen made a very elegant black and gold frock and her footballer’s girlfriend looked hot. It was very Grammy Awards. The trouble was she didn’t follow any of her client’s instructions or requests. I’m not quite sure whether her client was entirely comfortable with the revealing outfit. Still, all that aside, Helen made the third best outfit behind Juli and Lui.

Lui Hon: In my opinion Lui made the best outfit. It was original and elegant. His client went from absolutely loathing the outfit to absolutely adoring it after he totally overhauled it when she initially didn’t like it. The judges loved the frock. It is something I could see on Cate Blanchett.

Brent Zaicek: I love Brent. He’s cute as a button and he’s got that Kiwi country-boy knockabout feel to him. But….his frock was crap. It was poorly made and it looked like a piece of white material with a black belt around the waist and the top cut out for his client’s tits. She looked like a wet cat. Enough said.

Mark Antonio: In my opinion Mark should have been eliminated in this challenge. His outfit was nothing short of appalling. His client looked like she had rolled in my mother’s salmon curtains and walked out the door. It was dreadful. Like Brent’s outfit, there is no way Mark’s model could go out in such an outfit. She would be a laughing stock.

Eliminated: Shane Garland: I felt sorry for Shane. His frock wasn’t outstanding but his client could still get away with walking down the red carpet unlike Mark’s and Brent’s clients. She looked beautiful and presentable. The frock was made up of a deep lipstick red material. The top part looked great but when u looked at the lower half, the frock didn’t fit the model properly and the finishing made her look bigger than she actually was. Still it was streets ahead of Mark’s monstrosity. Mark should have been eliminated.

PROJECT RUNWAY AUSTRALIA FOXTEL ARENA MONDAYS 8.30pm

http://www.myspace.com/projectrunwayau

The Dull Knight

2008-07-28T14:26:00.011+10:00

I went and saw the new Batman film Saturday night: The Dark Knight. The film of course has garnered a lot of attention due to the fact that it stars Heath Ledger who passed away earlier in this year. The Dark Knight will most likely be the most successful film out of the Batman Franchise thus far having taken an amazing $300 million in ten days (in the US alone) with some predicting that it may go on to challenge the box office supremo Titanic's taking of $600 million, over eleven years ago.

The film is magnificently shot. Apparently 30 minutes of the film was shot on IMAX cameras. The scenes done amongst the Hong Kong skyscrapers are gob-smacking. I almost felt like I was in an IMAX theatre.

The story starts off with a fantastic robbery scene in which Joker impersonators rob Gotham City's main bank. There is a new crime serge in town and Gotham City is determined to stop it. They call on Batman. The mob are rattled by the city's declaration to destroy them: they hire the Joker to kill Batman (Christian Bale) and anyone else who crosses their path. The spotlight is on The Joker. Heath Ledger is outstanding continually bubbling over with evil lunacy. I would however stop short of awarding him the "mesmerising performance" badge. It is a good performance and certainly leaves Jack Nicholson's more comical version of The Joker in the original Batman Film very much in the shade. At times though Ledger weirdly sounds like Maxwell Smart (1960s version); I kept expecting him to pick up his shoe and order a cab.

The last film Batman Begins was about the man behind Batman: Bruce Wayne. Christian Bale made him a passionate and complex person. You felt for him. You wanted him to win. In this film Bale seems to think such passion and complexity is created by continually speaking in a ridiculously husky voice as if he is appearing in a porn spoof. Batman is wooden and droll. In a nutshell he is about as charismatic as cardboard.

Ledger's Joker fills this charismatic black hole. As a result this film isn't about Batman at all. It's about The Joker. The audience ends up wanting the Joker to win; anything not to have old Bat face up there on the screen with his justice and his eyeliner. The Joker's narcissistic forms of violence become the true stars of the film. His victims are stuffed with grenades, shot point-blank in the head, filled with razors, butterfly-kissed with knives and set alight just for fun. The violence is relentless. Maggie Gyllenhaal challenges the Joker in the charisma stakes in her role as Batman's former girlfriend and the love interest of Gotham District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Gyllenhaal is reminiscent of another era of movie star and if they ever do a biopic on Greta Garbo, she's the girl to do it. Unfortunately just as her part is getting interesting in the film, she is struck out, a victim no doubt of quite misogynist script editing. With all the chicks out of the picture, the big boys are then left to tear each other apart.

At 2 hours 40 minutes, this is a long film. About three quarters of the way through I had "so is this it?" realisation and the film started to lose me. Tim Burton's two Batman films (Batman and Batman Returns) are still my favourite simply because they were entertaining on every level. They were fantastically escapist, they had action but most importantly they still had a sense of humour. The Dark Knight in its attempt to be dark and mysterious through its extreme violence has taken all the fun away and become decidedly dull.

My Winter of Diabetic-Content

2008-07-24T00:57:00.001+10:00

This cold snap that we’re currently experiencing in Sydney is turning me into a diabetic. I cannot stop eating. And we ain’t talking low GI good stuff either. Fuck it in the last two weeks I’ve been on a high GI rampage. Literally I’ve been getting high on High GI. Not one saturated fat has been left unturned nor any processed meat left clinging to itself nor any carbohydrate wrapping device left in its plastic bag. If it hasn’t been dipped, dumped and dunked into ten thousand calories of oil….I’m not interested. Fried chips, fried rice, fried chicken, fried potato….Jesus…I’d eat my own right hand if it was covered in canola. Add to that pies, sausage rolls and any type of pastry surrounding a solid item, I’m banging down my arteries to get me a piece. And then you have the bacon, the eggs, the butter, the white bread and recently re-discovered pudding recipes such as apple crumble and rice pudding “which are just so easy to make.” The latter items alone have enough kilojoules to power a small Mongolian army….for weeks. I may as well just book my bed at the RPA cardiac unit now.

To make matters worse my willingness to exercise in this cold weather is nort. At the best of times I hate exercise. If I could take a pill instead I would and believe me if it’s developed I’ll be straight up there to get my prescription. But until then I have to pay people to yell at me to exercise or go to rooms heated to that of the surface of the sun to make sure I keep myself “noice”. I haven’t been to gym in two weeks. Since doing bikram yoga, my motivation to do a weights work out has been like a deflating balloon. I’m just not interested. Two weeks ago I completed my experiment of doing bikram yoga four times a week for a month. It was good but it gets a tad dull doing the same thing every session as well as the fact it is too expensive ($18 per session or $165 per month for unlimited) So I’m going to go back to doing yoga once a week and doing bootcamp again (outdoor exercise group: Outdoor X) twice a week in the Domain in the city at 6.30pm. I’ve been doing bootcamp on and off for two years. There’s a group of eight of us and it’s basically been the same group for the last 12 months. We have one instructor Ray and we do everything from running 6ks in an hour session to boxercise, strength or a combination thereof. At this time of the year it’s about the most fun you can have running around in the dark with your clothes on. I caused a little bit of a stir in the group when I announced 6 weeks ago that I was going to take a break to try out bikram for a month. It was like I’d announced my own crucifixion.

Really?
Why are you going?
What is this bikram?
Are you going to come back?
You’ve been doing it for so long, it would be a pity to let it go.
Don’t forget us.

I assured them that I wasn’t about to bless them and wash their feet. I would be returning. I just needed a bit of a change and this bikram was certainly different. Like Jesus I returned from the dead…..last week. And unfortunately yoga had not given me the Jesus stamina I’d hoped for. The session involved running up and down all the stairs of Lady Macquarie’s chair and doing boxercise in between. I lost count of the times I dry wretched. It was exhausting although my fellow disciples had appeared to have increased their fitness levels four fold. …which made me even more exhausted with jealousy. In the intervening days I’ve been hoping to get my sorry ass down to the weights room at Fatness First at Bond st in the city but I just can’t seem to do it. The lure however after 5pm of my couch, tracky dacks and ugg boots together with green coconut cream curries and tim tam desserts have been winning out every time. My waistline is of course embracing such activities and as a result is setting sail and discovering new territory every day.

http://www.outdoorx.com.au/

I NEVER LIKED YOU

2008-07-22T14:05:00.006+10:00

Yes well it's overwhelmingly campsexual of me to admit, but I am absolutely loving the Australian version of Project Runway. It leaves the American and British versions for dead. The contestants are so much more entertaining and appear to be far more adventurous when it comes to their designs. They are Kath n Kim meets Vivienne Westwood meets Mr G meets Mad Max. They are hilarious and already there have been catfights galore.

Project Runway Australia (PRA) is based on the American original and it involves fashion designers competing by making specific garments for specific challenges. All contestants appearing on the show are designers residing in Australia. Supermodel Kristy Hinze is the host. I use the term super loosely…she's appeared once in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition and you can find her on about page 85 of the Victoria Secret's catalogue. The only thing "super" is probably the billionaire she's dating; Netscape creator Jim Clarke. However she is proving to be quite a good television host. After a shakey start in the first episode where her facial expression appeared to be operated by hydraulics, in last night's episode she's settled quite nicely into the role. She's already offering constructive criticisms to the contestants that easily byepass her american counterpart Heidi Klum's fascist offerings of "I like it"; "I don't like it." The other two permanent judges are fashion buyer and trend forecaster, Sarah Gale and fashion designer Jayson (that's with a Y) Brunsdon. Sarah thus far has had the best line of the show when reviewing one of the contestant's designs. "That outfit is a dog. It's going to go barking off the shelves in no time."

The mentor to the designers is Henry Roth; an Australia fashion designer who has lived in New York for the last ten years. This is a tough role to fill as Tim Gunn in the american version of PR has virtually turned himself into the stylist du jour in the United States with his own spinn off show: Tim Gunn's Guide to Style. It would have been easy for the producers PRA to simply get an Australian impersonation of Tim Gunn. Thank god they did not. Yes Henry's face does seem to resemble that of a bird's stuck in a vice and would perhaps would scare small children without the correct lighting; however he has made the mentor role his own and is proving valuable assistance to the contestants on the show.

The contestants though are the real stars of this show. They are bringing back camp ochre humour to Australian television like never before. Not since Graham Kennedy and Blanketty Blanks has there been so much camp in one hour of television. It's a welcome relief from the Kyle-Jackie O-Rove McManus "eat ya rice bubbles" version of televised entertainment. There were 12 contestants at the start of the show. As of last night's episode, there are now 8.

The Contestants
(in order of elimination)
Alison Davis, 21, West Pennant Hills , Sydney, New South Wales: poor Allison was supposed to design something glamorous but ended up making an outfit that resembled a bowl of fruit.

Deborah Pak, 35, Sydney NSW : In episode two, designers were asked to create an outfit that could go from the beach to the bar. I actually didn't mind the swimsuit Deborah designed. It was the skirt which looked more like a sarong which let her down.

Sophie Spalding, 22, Adelaide South Australia: Ah! I was so disappointed when Sophie was eliminated last night. She was one of my favourites. She had a classic 50s style to her which came out in her designs. In last night's episode designers were paired to design an outfit from spare car parts and the style was to be sporty. It was a brilliant challenge and certainly showed the talent of all the designers as there really wasn't a complete dud amongst any of the designs. Sophie was paired with Petrova. Both girls share similar design tastes. Their design was criticised for not being sporty which was the brief of the challenge. I quite liked their Jetson's style outfit though. It was Petrova's choice of a coil style fascinator/hat which turned the outfit from fashion to costume. The hat was made out of a spring and unfortunately made the model look like the Tin Man. Even though the hat was Petrova's choice, the judges elected to eliminate Sophie as she was the team leader of the group and made the final decision to let the hat in. Bummer!

Oren Nuri, 29, Bondi Sydney NSW (Originally from Israel): Quite a striking looking Israeli boy who seems to be quite a talented tailor and designer but unfortunately tried to make pants out of a tyre in last night's spare parts challenge. The pants just didn't fit the model and she ended up looking like an extra off Mad Max. Still it wasn't hideous. Oren was paired with Mark.It was a double eviction last night so Oren was the second person to go. I found it interesting that the judges did not apply the same reasoning they applied to Sophie and Petrova to Mark and Oren. They eliminated Sophie because she was the team leader and made the final call with respect to the tin man hat even though it was Petrova's idea and was executed by Petrova. On the other hand, the pants were Mark's idea and he was the team leader. Oren simply made the pants and Mark still let them in, yet it was Oren who was eliminated. Odd!

(still in the running)

Brent Zaicek, 32, Sydney NSW: I love Brent. He's a kiwi boy and the only "dude" of the group. He's kinder like a sewing surfie. I love his enthusiam. He just gets in there and does it. Before PRA, he'd never designed anything for women. Everything though he's come's up with has been thoroughly original but better still, sellable. I think JaYson has a crush on him as he seems to gush over everything Brent designs. I'm with him. He and Shane deservedly won last night's challenge. I really think Brett's got a great chance of winning the competition.

Helen Manuell, 38,Melbourne, Vic: Helen is the contestant that everyone loves to hate but doesn't want evicted because she creates a debarcle in every episode. She is like that mature age student at uni who has done not only all the minimum readings but also the recommended ones and spends all the tutorial letting everyone know this. Out of all the designers I think she is the least creative and adventurous. But she's great for the show. Last night she did her block accusing Oren of stealing her block……he designed his ill-fated pants on her block. I am sure it was by mistake but Helen turned into the middle eastern peace process.

Julijana "Juli" Grbac, 29, Brisbane, Qld: I love Julie. Great Brissie girl with that long drawl that is the south-east queensland accent. I have loved all her designs. She was paired with Helen last night. Poor thing. Still she was the one who came up with the great design which won favour with the judges. Helen made a hideous handbag out of a mudflap which literally looked like a handbag made out of a mudflap. Being the team leader Juli made the call not to use the handbag much to her credit. Her running commentary of Helen was hilarious!

Leigh Buchanan, 31, Brisbane, Qld: Leigh is the QUEEN comedian of the group and is thoroughly entertaining. He is a very talented semestress and won the first challenge. I'm not sure whether he is entirely original as say Brent or Juli. His designs, particularly his winning design in the first challenge, show a definite influence by Vivienne Westwood. Regardless he is so much fun to watch…very entertaining.

Lui Hon, 33, Melbourne, Vic : Lui is the quiet one of the group. His designs are well liked by the judges. I just can't seem to remember what they are!

Mark Antonio, 22, Sydney NSW : Mark is second to Leigh in the Queen comedian stakes. He is very entertaining. He won the second challenge for the beach to bar design for a very cool black number. Apart from having a concern about his carbon footprint by the amount hairspray he uses in his hair, I think Mark is a definite top three contestant.

Petrova Hammond, 27, Melbourne Vic : I am biased. I wish Sophie was still in the competition and Petrova evicted for designing that ridiculous spiral hat.

Shane Garland, 41, Sydney NSW: Shane is another quiet one but is also well-liked by the judges. He and Brett worked well together to design their felt, rubber sports outfit. It rocked.

PRA is on Monday nights at 8.30 on ARENA (FOXTEL) and then repeated again sometime on Saturday. I only just realised that the theme song I Never Liked You is actually by the Australia band Rogue Traders. I normally can't stand their music but this song is catchy…..a lot like PRA.

http://www.myspace.com/projectrunwayau

YOGA RAGE

2008-07-21T02:23:00.004+10:00

Maybe it was the celebrity filled class at Bikram yoga, the bitter cold chill outside or my body’s desperate lack of electrolytes; whatever it was, it lead to Judy and I having our first fight the Friday night before last (or should I say, a partial disagreement….gentlemen who lunch do not raise their cuffs). We have known each other for almost four years and in that time we have become firm besties. Strangely and nicely, we’ve never fought and I’m not sure whether that is a good thing and a bad thing. As much as I detest and dread confrontation (how on earth I ended up being a lawyer is beyond me), my closest friendships have had the required confirmation of a mutual moment of not being amused. I think Judy and I have successfully avoided such a moment due to the fact that we are quite similar. We were both raised by dominant mothers who taught us that there was simply no excuse for the absence of a happy face and witty conversation regardless of whether one was confronted by war, famine or boring company. Combining this social aptitude with an amazingly well attuned shared sense of humour, Judy and I get on very well.

We met upstairs at the Shift through Christopher. It was November 2004. I’d just got back from being in INDYIAA for six weeks and was still offering every second stranger 20c to carry my bags and buy me packets of cigarettes. It didn’t seem to work in Australia the way it did in India. I mentioned this to Judy and he snorted vodka and soda all over me. We had an instant connection. It is of course through Judy, that I got the nickname Colin (and he, the name Judy) after we discussed our dream dinner party invite. It would be from the acting couple, Judy Davis and Colin Friels, to their Balmain residence. We met the week that Colin Friels had appeared in court on an AVO (restraining order) preventing him from harassing and/or abusing his wife after a dinner party they had went a little pair shaped.

“That was a very expensive vase Colin,” Judy would scream.

“Fuck you Judy,” I would scream back. We’d fake slap, pretend strangle and order more vodka. The routine lasted all night and well into the next day. Patrons didn’t know whether to clap or call the police. It was all crazy wild and so much fun.

Since Judy met Colin, there have been a gazillion more of these crazy wild nights, lapsed boyfriends, lost jobs, pointless affairs, roots to remember and plenty of “where the hell is my life” goings. We share not only the same sense of humour but a similar passion for books, theatre, politics, film and the hope to be one day chased by the paparazzi. We’re both waiting for our own reality TV shows, book deals and subsequent ranges of linen at K Mart. In the mean time we will drink, smoke and do yoga.

Which leads me back to last Friday night. It was freezing. Judy and I decided to do the 5.30 yoga class. I was about to leave work at 4.45 when I had a couple of “5 o’clock specials” come through. Once I sorted those, I didn’t get to leave work until 5.10pm. The walk to the Bikram school normally takes 20 mins. So I sprinted from my office. At lunch time I’d purchased a new winter double breasted overcoat from the Myer sales. It is spectacular but not that conducive to running. By the time I got to the school, I looked like a cardiac arrest. I ran in, snap changed and went into the class with my towel a couple of minutes before it began. I got a position next to Judy. There was something missing but I couldn’t think what. I was so relieved to be there in time that I was just happy just to lie there and catch my breath. The floor did seem harder. It wasn’t until the instructor came in and turned on the lights that I realised I was lying on my towel sans my yoga mat. This is the yoga equivalent of turning up to a swimming lesson naked. I quickly ran out of the class, grabbed my mat and returned.

Judy and I were in the second row where you are allowed to practise if you can touch your toes but can’t yet remove your underwear with your teeth like those in the first row. The back row is for those who have not done bikram before or are on their ten day introductory pass. They generally look terrified and as the class progresses with the 40 degree heat intensifying, they resort to spasmodic moments of collapse and utterances of “you’ve got to be fucking joking.” Of course I am so in my yoga zone that I don’t notice such cries for help and I certainly never find myself smirking at virgin yogis’ pain. I am too busy watching the blood disappear from my right big toe, as it turns black and falls off.

Friday night the back row was awash with celebrities…..d-class….but celebrities all the same. There was the bookie son of a well known racing identity (lets call him J), some reporter from Channel Nine (lets call her L for Legs), an African American guy who is on MTV (lets call him MTV) and a former Cleo Bachelor of the Year, (lets call him G), who also works for Channel Nine and according to the tabloids, changes girlfriends like I change songs on my ipod. I’ve always thought G was quite dishy in a pretty boy way and he still ain’t bad in real life but like all television and movie stars in real life, he looked like he’d been put in the microwave a bit too long and consequently appeared to be a fraction of his size. He was still quite pleasant to have in my rear view though. What was more amusing, was watching poor J famboozle his way through the class. J is in his mid twenties and is quickly becoming one of Australia’s most successful bookies. What he makes up in finances, he loses in looks. With the body of Pinocchio and the face of a dropped pie, poor J is about as sexy as cat food. And he was about as co-ordinated as an earthquake. It didn’t help either that he happened to be standing next to the hottest and most flexible person in the room. If L was any more flexible, Channel Nine wouldn’t bother flying her overseas for stories, they would just FedEx her there instead.

J begged to leave several times. Trying to leave a bikram yoga class early is like trying to defect from East Berlin in the 70s; unless you can dig a tunnel, it ain’t gonna happen. The instructor blocked J’s every request.

J: I don’t think I feel very well
Instructor: J just sit down and breathe.
J: I feel dizzy.
Instructor: J just sit down and breathe.
J: Can I go outside and get some fresh air?
Instructor: J just sit down and breathe.

The humiliation you have to endure in order to escape the rest of the class, you are better to simply grit your teeth and tough it out. J took this view until about half way through the class when finally all the stand up poses were completed. This is normally the psychological turning point for me. If I can make it through all the stand up poses, then I can finish the rest of the class. Even though all the back and spinal stretch poses are actually more intensive and a harder work out; because you are lying on the ground doing them, psychologically they are not as taxing. J didn’t think this was going to be the case and had enough. This time without asking, he jumped up, grabbed his bottle and mat and made a cartoon dash to the door hoping to avoid the instructor’s bullets. He took several but managed to get out much to the envy, but also relief of the rest of the class. L had enough as well and quickly followed suit. Ironically there was no protest from the female instructor as L’s fliptop body exited the room.

Mr MTV was by far the hottest man in the room but was the only one wearing his shirt. Considering there were some men in the class who should have been wearing a sports bra, Mr MTV’s shirted torso was more than a little ironic….it was downright cruel. If this guy had any more pull, he would have formed his own constellation. The air pressure in the room changed every time he moved a limb. Meanwhile it soon became apparent to me that Cleo’s Bachelor of the Year was wearing no underwear which if God had given him an arse, would have been quite appealing. But God didn’t; yes, he had an old man’s arse flappin’ in the breeze like mamma’s curtains. Attached to his drapes were a pair of very lazy boxer shorts riding lower and lower by each sit up pose. It was a whole bag of wrong.

Apart from all these obvious distractions, I quite enjoyed the class although as per usual I felt absolutely exhausted once it finished. You are supposed to have a teaspoon of celtic salt in a glass of water after the class to replace all the electrolytes you’ve sweated out in the 40 degree conditions. It’s like drinking gravel. I skipped my dose of it and headed straight to the showers.

I met Judy in front of the school. It was bloody cold. We watched Mr MTV leave and decided immediately that we were starving. Neither of us felt like Japanese at Don Don’s where we have been going regularly. We decided to walk up the strip to see what was on offer. I suggested the Court House Hotel Bistro (upstairs) which does a great steak and barramundi. Judy didn’t seem fussed.

Judy: Yeah doll sure. Go where you want to go.

Me: No well, where do you want to go?

Judy: It doesn’t worry me. I don’t love it and I don’t hate it (the court house).

Judy has a remarkable way of sometimes getting his point across by not making a point at all. Normally I don’t care but in my electrolyte starved frame of mind his indifference was quite frankly starting to give me the shits.

Me: what do you feel like then?

Judy: Well what about that place over there.

Me: Steak, seafood and pasta…yeah ok….although the pub would be just as good.

Judy: Yeah okay well if you like that, lets do that.

Blind Freddy could have sensed that he wasn’t keen on the idea but I was determined to have my barramundi and eat it too. We went to the Court House. My growing agitation joined us as well.

The bistro on a Friday night is always full of your “dinner and a show” style poofs. Generally they are in their late early 50s; they like a ‘noice’ meal and a crisp dry white and perhaps a flutter on the pokies and a bit of a dance at Palms afterwards. They always wear a collar and a nice firm trouser. Conversation is usually littered with polite laughter and many “and remember whens”. There is an atmosphere of a pre-sms era when people picked up the telephone to ask someone on a date and at least cooked them breakfast the next morning if the date was a “success”. The place was sensibly busy.

“ Good evening gentlmen….just the two of you is it?” said the waitress.

ME: Yes please can we grab that table next to the window ?

Waitress: No problem

She took us to my preferred table, gave us menus and requested our drinks order. I was so thirsty although I was determined not to have a full strength soft drink. Soft drink is my weakness and since I’ve started bikram yoga, my thirst for “lolly water” has been insatiable.

ME: I’ll have a diet coke.

Judy: Have another soft drink John.

ME: It’s a diet coke.

Judy: Only fat people drink diet coke.

ME: What do u want me to order….tea?

The waitress gave us that polite screen saver smile that wait staff often do when patrons are about to have a domestic in front of them.

Judy: You could have water. I’ll have a soda water thanks

I was furious. Receiving dietary advice from Judy I thought was like receiving dietary advice from Patsy Stone. The last thing he ate was a kettle chip in 1974 and even that gave him constipation. I picked up the menu to alleviate my worsening mood but it was too late. My temper had control of the switchboard and it was quickly turning all the lights off. And there was no switching them back on. Judy could have turned his soda water into wine and cured random cripples; regardless, I was still going to be rather pissed off.

The waitress cautiously returned with our drinks. Judy ordered his salad like he was Gidget and I ordered my barramundi and chips like I was Roseanne Barr. We both looked outside down on Taylor Square hoping for some inspiration to refresh the mood. It didn’t.

Judy (spotting the Batman billboard): I can’t wait to see Batman Begins

Me: Yeah it looks good.

Judy: Heath Ledger is supposed to be brilliant.

Me: Yeah he’s getting pretty good reviews

Judy: He’s such an amazing artist.

Currently there is a television advertisement in Australia for a cereal where two men are sitting in an open plan office eating this cereal. One of the men says “This All Bran is delicious”. A very tall woman then pops her head above the petition and says/asks: “Tall Jan is Malicious?”. Both men protest. She reacts angrily. “I heard what you said. Tall Jan is Malicious.” She then storms off to file a grievance. I had a similar reaction to Judy bestowing such an artistic honour on our Heath.

ME: I don’t think he was an amazing artist at all. People only say that now because he is dead

Judy: Well he was. He was a very talented actor.

Me: That doesn’t make him an amazing artist!!!!! An amazing artist doesn’t spend 33 thousand dollars a week paying for an empty Manhattan apartment and get a housekeeper to come and clean it!! If he was true to his art, he would be doing community theatre back in Perth or busking on the streets of Paris.

Judy: So an amazing artist you’re saying is someone who shouldn’t have any money or have commercial success? What about Brett Whitely and his paintings? That’s a ridiculous thing to say.

Me: No…you’ve missed my point!

He’d missed my point because I’d missed it myself which only made me more furious. As a result I resorted to yelling jumbled words.

Me: You know he wasn’t an artist!….you know….if he was ….you know….he’d be in Paris!….or in street theatre!

What was with Paris? Or street theatre? What on earth was I trying to say? My embarrassing inability to put forward a reasonable argument in the negative against Mr Ledger being an amazing artist was now firing my temper to amazing levels, not to mention starting to cause an amazing scene at the bistro.

Judy: Can you not raise your voice at me? You are yelling at me.

I was losing the argument and I couldn’t stand it. I was so angry I couldn’t even maintain eye contact. If he said another word, he was gonna wear his bloody soda water. I heard myself think this and realised what I had to do.

Me: I’m sorry Paul I’m going have to go. Sorry I’m not in the right head space.

Judy: What? You’re going? Ok go.

Me: I’m sorry. I will cancel my meal. I will call you tomorrow.

Judy: Don’t bother. Bye.

It was the only option. My blood was boiling and I was worried that I was going to completely lose my temper and start screaming. It wouldn’t be pleasant and certainly not funny in any respect. I cancelled my meal with the waitress who still had her screensaver on. I picked up my new jacket and exited the bistro like Joan Crawford. All I needed was a pillbox hat and a bottle of Pepsi.

Once I was downstairs, I sent Judy a text immediately apologising for my behaviour. I was still angry but it wasn’t because of him. I was just in a post yoga rage.

Judy sent me back a text straight away:

Nothing to forgive doll. One must storm out when one has a new mink.

C

THE INVASION OF THE SINGING CATHOLICS

2008-07-16T18:08:00.006+10:00

In the movie, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, human society is invaded and replaced without that human society realising. Nicole Kidman wore a very bad wig and ten kilos of botox in an excruciatingly bad remake of the 1970s classic last year. Sydney at the moment is dealing with its own type of invasion. Instead of carrying pods and throwing up all over you, they are carrying ipods and orange fluorescent backpacks singing random songs of halleluiah at you. Yes World Youth Day has landed it's big fat papal arse on the emerald city.

World Youth Day is an international convention of young Catholics organised by the Catholic Church. It occurs every four years and is kind of like a Catholic Woodstock…….except there are no drugs, no sex and no alcohol…..so really it's more stock, less wood. I have no idea how long the concept has been going but this year it is Sydney's turn to host the event. It is actually the biggest convention ever to come to Australia…even bigger than the Olympics in 2000.

The Pope touched down on Sunday and since then an estimated two hundred and fifty thousand "pilgrims" have followed. Consequently Sydney has been turned into some sort of Las Vegas styled Catholic World. Suddenly the streets are awash with peddlers selling Glow in the Dark Virgin Maries, Flying Jesus's and Stick on Stigmata. It is impossible to catch a train, buy a bottle of milk or tend one's garden without a pilgrim popping their head up and singing a ditty about Jesus. And that's the thing. These pilgrims cannot seem to stop singing. I'm wondering if somebody is spiking their holy water. They all think they are the Van Trapp Family singers continually bursting into song in public locales. The city streets and offices are full of the echoes of hymms from my Catholic youth. Sitting in my office I continually feel like I am in Church and find myself accidentally genuflecting every so often.

So yeah being brought up a stiff upper lip "don't clap your hands" Catholic, I'm finding the evangelocal Jesus rocks attitude a little nauseating. Having said that though, there is a great atmosphere in the city at the moment. After gym last night I went for a walk around the city and Darling Harbour. There was a fantastic vibe with people having an awesome time. Earlier in the evening there had been a mass to over 150 thousand people (how many barrels of holy wine would you need for that) at Barangaroo: Sydney's former wharf otherwise known as the Hungry Mile. This mass was then followed by a rock concert. The aerial pics looked amazing. It certainly has been a great introduction to Barangaroo as a public space particularly a concert area.

It was all good, until my journey home on the train which was pilgrimmed wall to wall. As per usual, they did not stop singing. Hymn after hymn of waiting for the lord, saying hello to the lord, saying goodbye to the lord and wondering where the lord has gone. No wonder Jesus sacrificed himself…he did it to get some peace and quiet.

CRUNCH

2008-07-10T10:58:00.000+10:00

Ok I take everything back about summer being absent. Winter slapped me in the face this morning. It was absolutely freezing …a big fat zero on our balcony thermometer. It's still absolutely freezing although am now very cosy in my office looking at the grey freeze outside munching on a pie which contains about 5 million calories. I'm going to have to run to Melbourne and back to burn it off. Remarkably I got to work early this morning. I would like to think it is my enthusiasm for a Thursday but it was more to do with Ross Greenwood on the Today Show. He advised that my generation would require at least one million dollars in super to retire and to achieve this we must begin self-contribution around the age of 30. Thanks Ross. I'm almost four years late; just what I wanted to hear over my porridge. So in my old age, not only will I have to deal with rising sea levels, widespread destruction and the odd climatic refugee on my doorstep, I will most likely have to be running some sort of fraudulent carbon trading scheme just to pay for the milk and a night at the disco. Such things should not be discussed on television before midday. Accordingly I switched Mr Ross off, left my upset porridge and catapulted myself outside. It's payday today and I receive my tax cut from Kevin Rudd. Thanks Kevin. I also no longer have any university debt munching at my salary as I finally paid it all off in June. I was quite excited about the prospect of having a nice little sum of extra cash around; that was until I received a letter from the bank last Friday advising that they were putting our mortgage interest rate up not once but twice in one month. Merry Happy End of Financial Year! Don't you just love a Credit Crunch? I hope they give me the dates for the next one. And of course no Credit Crunch is without an Energy Crisis is it? Petrol today is $1.73 a litre. So unless I buy a horse, there goes all my extra money and more. Enjoy your tax cuts everyone!

An Absence of Summer

2008-07-09T15:09:00.003+10:00

Well July announced its arrival this morning. It was 2 degrees in the hills of Dulwich at dawn and I kept hoping that my bed would take me to work. It didn't. I hate winter in summerland. Like a regretful e-bay purchase, it arrives late unannounced and you wonder why you ever looked forward to it in the first place. Those of you tanning your asses off in the Northern Hemisphere must be choking on your long island iced teas right now saying "Winter? Australia? You guys know nothing". Yes I know a top of 12 degrees in the mother country is enough to cause random breakouts of nudist colonies amongst our British brothers and sisters. Whereas a top of 12 degrees in Summerland causes the average antipodean to hit his or her snooze button several more times, make a pot of tea and put on a suitable scarf. There is no widespread panic. Not a lot happens at all. And herein lays the problem. Winter in summerland is bland. There are no blizzards, ice storms, winter wonderlands or messages from the Queen. No sons of God were born in June, July or August and there is no Auld Lang Zyne equivalent for the End of Financial Year. The closest we get to a cultural event is a half yearly clearance. The light is never turned off; it is simply turned down. It's not cold enough to wear a mink but not warm enough to find a beach. We are left for three months on our couches in our seasonal waiting rooms. There is no winter in summerland, there is simply an absence of summer.