What a tit

The inimitable McPhee has beaten me to it but I was going to blog about boobs and, more specifically, last night’s viewing: Trinny and Susannah Undress the Nation. Actually I’m probably not qualified to comment on the latter, given that I missed the first half entirely and had to watch the second half with a barrage of alternatley lascivious and bemused remarks coming from the other side of the room. But I do feel I am qualified to comment on the former because, indeed, I do have an ample bosom.

Okay maybe not as ample as some of my dear friends but the girls are hanging in there, bless them, and I’m not sure I’d want it any other way. Having appeared myseriously when I was about 20 (yeah I know) they’ve since become about as part of my identity as, say, the fact that I have brown hair. I could dye my hair, of course, or get a boob job, but you’d all know I was faking it.

At least the girls would… and by that I mean there should be more shows like Trinny & Susannah but pitched at men so they can see what a real boob looks like. Okay so Trinny is annoying as fuck and I wouldn’t like Susannah fondling my rack, particularly, but they do, bless them, have their hearts in the right place. And quite frankly looking at a pair of giant, saggy cans onscreen instead of glimpsing an improbably perky pair peaking out from the chest of some waif or other, is rather nice. Boys should be forced to look and to study to avoid scenes like my frustration when a certain boy I know insists the perky boobs adorning a certain woman on TV or in a magazine are real.

“They’re NATURAL,” he has been known to insist, like a 15-year-old refusing to admit Santa Claus is a sham, despite the fact the nipples have their eyes to the ceiling and that D-cup is clinging tenuously to the emaciated torso of a 25-year-old twig.

I couldn’t care less if people want to have boob jobs and would try hard not to judge anyone who wanted one, whether going up or down, but the idea that everyone’s boobs should look like that, and should look like that without the help of a surgeons knife, is disturbing. My girls may end up around my belly button one day, and they may never have quite the sky-high gaze of their silicon sisters but they are a part of me: they are filled with fat and blood and my DNA. Plus, you know, they do distract the eye.

How to bag the rock and clinch the deal

F*cking mothers day again and the bloody Red Rooster ads start. Come on, kids, your Mum’s alright eh? You love her eh? So give her a break from the cooking she presumably does every night and come down to Red Rooster. Sure she’ll clean up afterwards and make your breakfast in the morning but just this once as a super special treat why not through her some some battery hen chicken, artery clogging chips and sub-par peas cooked from a packet? You know you want to. Or if that’s not her cup of tea why not buy her an iron? A saucepan? Just don’t go crazy and buy her something she doesn’t need to use in the kitchen cleaning up after her three ungrateful shits. Or, fuck me, why not just put a bullet through her brain instead – arguably cheaper and probably a fuckload more fun for Mum.

Yes, as regular readers will know, I’m not a massive of the bullshit sexist advertising that surfaces this time every year but this year it’s particularly got me ticked off and I have my reasons.

Partly it’s my slightly ill-advised decision to see chick-flick extraordinaire Made of Honour this week. If by ‘extraordinaire’ you mean ‘takes existing chick flick stereotypes to a bad place you never even dreamed existed’. The movie is dire, of course, but the attitudes it displays are much worse. The film’s insights into the female psyche include the fact that all women want to marry, preferably before they’re 30; that marriage to a man you barely know is preferable to ending up a spinster; that no woman can make up her own mind without a ridiculously stupid ‘romantic’ gesture and that it is better to deceive the object of your affection to woe them away from her fiance than to have a proper talk with her because she has a brain the size and consistency of a peanut. Whatev.

My fragile mind, already inflamed from the aforementioned ads and, now, the movie has been further incensed by a report from a friend, let’s call her Girl A, that a third party, let’s say Girl B, was outraged that Girl A’s boyfriend hadn’t proposed to her on a recent romantic jaunt. Actually angry outraged. Despite the fact that Girl A has no desire to get engaged or married and has never, in my hearing anyway, said anything to suggest otherwise (clever girl). Even so the assumption seemed to be, to Girl B at least, that she MUST have wanted to get engaged and was just waiting and HOPING her boyfriend would pop the question. Ew.

Last but not least I spiralled into The Black Rage while reading a very trashy magazine that told me, quite calmly, that women know within 6-9 months of going out with someone if they wanted to marry them while only men, bless them, dragged their feet and weren't sure. Uh huh. Of course we do, why wouldn't we? Let's face it, ladies, once we hit a certain age and the call to nest overpowers us all we're looking for is a mate. Hell according to this I knew FOUR AND HALF YEARS AGO (allegedly) I wanted to walk down the aisle to some cheesy fucking Pachebel's Cannon bullshit with Andy, right? Coming from the girl recently described by a dear friend as a massive commitmentphobe (thanks Johnsy) and who took two trips to the shops today to decide she didn't really know what she wants for lunch that's pretty fucking impressive. And surely the kicker must be said magazine's handy hint for, effectively, snagging yourself a husband. Hey, you can't spell love with ultimatatum - am I right or am I right?

So all this has been rattling around in my brain, stewing and festering until one day, quite possibly tomorrow when the advertising reaches fever pitch or during Better Homes and Gardens’ mothers day special (faaawwk me) I shall snap and go completely postal. Whether this will take the form of a ranting, raving 3am visit to my local red rooster, or merely a calm iron through the TV who can say. Only one thing is certain: there will be blood. Er probably mine, unfortunately as I'm either escorted off the premises or impaled by a large shard of flying TV screen but, eh, I have my principles...

The ghost of blogs past

Dead baby blog carcasses clutter up the files of my computer. And Jesus there are a lot of them. They are the blogs I started writing but tired of, the ones I just couldn’t make work and, worst of all, the truly dire rants that you – dear reader – were fortuantely spared by virtue of the fact I took another moment to read it and thought ‘hmm this might actually be complete bollocks…’.

Anyway, for shits and giggles I’ve dragged a few of these sad little dead bodies together and strung them into this blog to present to you a random snapshot of The Blogs That Never Were…

1. In which I tried to blog about business. Faaaawk me. That’s what happens when I get delusions of business competency.

2. This one starts simply “Nobody who describes themselves as ‘outrageous’, ‘witty’ or ‘unconventional’ is ever any of those things”. In fact it ends that way too – there’s nothing else. It barely even qualifies as a blog corpse - more like a finger that turns up in a McDonald beef pattie. Where was I going with that slightly banal universal truth? Eh, who knows-slash-cares…

3. Here we have approximately 300 (eh give or take) incredibly earnest ‘gosh there’s so much hardship in the world’ kind of baby blogs that made me want to take myself behind the bike sheds for a beating.

4. A blog about blogs. Billed as a scathing expose of a handful of really shit proper, fancy blogs around it was actually just a vehicle for me to rag on a certain blog written by a certain woman, mostly with the intention of allowing me to make a very stupid play on words and take the piss out of her Sex & the City lifestyle. Hmm, can’t think why it didn’t work out.

Thought for the day

When you're still feeling a bit sick, generally tired and sorry for yourself sometimes there's nothing to do but make yourself a giant cup of tea, buy a generous bag of chips and blog about it.

And sometimes when he comes through the window he's not wearing any pants...

Anticipation is a great thing. In fact it’s often the best part of life, in a way. Days of looking forward to a big occasion, for instance, probably add up to more happiness than the occasion itself. Similarly in the wonderful world of anticipation there’s (not yet) any disappointment or failure. When you’re only looking forward to something it can be perfect.

Which brings me onto Iron Man. I saw the movie at the weekend – while doped up to the gills on cold and flu meds – and days later I’m still not entirely sure what I think of it. Before I went to see it I mentioned as much to someone or other and they said they too were planning to see it in a hope-it’s-so-bad-it’s-good kind of way and all I could think was ‘hey it’s going to be so good it’s good, bitch’.

And that, right there, is my problem, I think: I expect too much. Bloody anticipation, eh? I knew there must be a drawback.

Because my problem is that I love superheroes and I always have. My brother and I used to record the X-Men cartoons every day as, er, youngsters (I hope) so we could watch them after school. Not only do I have a comic book collection I may or may not have tried to write MY OWN COMIC as a teenager about a group of crime fighting mutants who had come back in time to…. Ahem, aannnyway... I might also have died of pleasure when I heard there was going to be an X-Men movie and I even saw (god help me) Spiderman TWICE at the movies. I am, then, what scientists call (so far as I know) a dorkus maximus.

I also love, love – as has been well documented on this blog – Robert Downey Junior. I yearn for him. I pine for him. I dream of him flying through my window at night. I occasionally fantasise about his arrest however many years ago, driving naked down Sunset Boulevard with a gun and a stash of heroin and cocaine. He is, as some might say, a stone fox.

Put together this love of superhero movies and a love of RDJ and what do you get? Well unfortunately you get a little bit of disappointment. I think. Maybe. I’m not sure. Andy loved it, and he’s not as prone as me to a fit of the RDJ’s and the reviews I’ve read are pretty much the same. The thing is I really enjoyed it too. I thought it was a genuinely well put together, well crafted and funny movie. It’s certainly the best superhero movie I’ve seen since… um, frick, probably X-Men. RDJ was brilliant in it. And yet. I don’t know. I don’t know what I expected. I remain confused. Is it the meds? Possibly.

This isn’t to say you should see it – you should. You should go right now just to line RDJ’s pockets, that he might snort them up his nostrils and/or claim the position among Hollywood royalty that he so richly deserves. Just come and talk to me about it afterwards – we can workshop it and you can tell me what to think. I’ll bring the comics.

Lessons learned etc

Things I have learned from being sick

- I hate being sick
- I am actually a huge pussy who requires constant pampering
- I miss my cat, who used to sit on my belly when I felt ill and breathe fish breath in my face
- I am actually a huge pussy who requires constant pampering

Thing Andy learned while I was sick

- I can be a smidgen extra sensitive when not at my physical peak - approach with caution
- I may or may not be a huge pussy who requires constant pampering
- Fetching my cold and flu tablets is more important than picking up the bike parts…
- … but a pumpkin pie and toblerone at lunchtime heals most wounds

I'm meeeelting

Many years ago my talented doctor Father saved somebody's life. Presumably doctors do this all the time, I don't know, but in this case it was quite something as the guy happened to be a friend of the family who had been over for dinner that night. He had left dinner early, feeling a bit poorly, and gone home. Later that night another fellow happened to drop past this guy's house and found him rather ill. Being (again) another family friend this guy called my parents. So my Pa trotted over there to check him out, was mildly worried and said something along the lines of it probably just being a bad cold but just to be on the ultra safe side he should go to hospital. As it turns out it was meningococcal and had the guy not gone to hospital he would have died.

I tell this story now not to talk up my Dad but to mention the fact that this little incident has made my life hell. By which I mean that every time I come down with a cold I believe I am on my deathbed.

Yes today I am home sick and it is my first sick day in... I can't even remember how long. I hate taking sick days - I always feel really guilty like I'm faking it, I always feel too rubbish to do anything anyway and it just means more work when I get back into the office.

Even so this one is particularly bad because I've got an achy cold that makes me feel super sorry for myself AND as though I'm not long for this world. Tingles up the arm? Oh I'm having a heart attack. Aching joints? Bloody meningococcal again.

To top it all off I don't even have a sympathetic parent floating about the house administering medicine and baked goods. All I have is an outwardly sympathetic boyfriend who has, it must be said, currently fucked off to buy bike parts.

Put a fork in me, kids, I'm done.

DEATH WATCH UPDATE THE FIRST: It is about oooh an hour and a half since the boy left with a promise to fetch me some drugs, a newspaper etc. Still he has not returned. Fearing the worst I call his mobile, wondering if I will be able to break up with him if he's been hideously disfigured and not be shunned everymore by society. He is well. He is alive. He is also at work. He forgot.

DEATH WATCH UPDATE THE SECOND: The time is approximately 2pm. I look at the cold and flu tablets to figure out when I can take another one and what do I discover? They are herbal pieces of shit with not a hard drug in there. Fuck me.

Er, do you come with the car?

As some of you know I have busily recruiting single Perth hotties over the past week or so - strictly for work purposes you understand. Friends, friends of friends and complete strangers have been on the receiving end of my pitch, which no doubt sounds incredibly sleazy and as though I am constantly on the pull ("Hey you're pretty hot - tell me, babe, are you single?) Even so yesterday I was chuffed to receive word back from a particular hottie I barely know but have always vaguely fancied to assure me he thought I qualified as well. Complete shite, I'm sure, dreamed up by my too-kind conduit, but it did it for me. Jesus it's lucky I use my powers for good.

Scenes from a morning hangover

ME: (Emerges from bedroom, bleary eyed with a throat that feels like something died in it. The scene is one of disorder, with a weird assortment of cheese and curry strewn about the kitchen. There is the smell of ginger, curry paste and potato in the air and an improbably high pile of dishes, indispersed with empty wine bottles/boxes) Did we... have curry last night?

Or how I learned to stop trusting and fear technology

I think somebody working at google is watching me. That’s all I can think of. And it gives me the wiggins.

Allow me to explain.

I have long been amused by the adds my gmail account choses to show me on a daily basis. Sometimes they’re scarily apt as to what I’m emailing about, sometimes they’re just scary, such as the slew of baby product ads I got when I was discussing the pros (?) and cons of breeding with someone or other.

But today someone is taking their job a little too seriously and going on the offensive. For instance, while replying to an email from my brother about UK radio personality Karl Pilkington, no less, I received the following displayed down the left hand side of my screen.

10 Skinny Rules
I lost 9 lbs. in 11 days, just by following these 10 simple rules.
FatLoss4Idiots.com

Trouble Losing Belly Fat?
5 Shocking Facts You Need to Know About Losing Belly Fat...
TruthAboutAbs.com

5 Tips for a Flat Stomach
Stop making these 5 mistakes & you will finally lose your belly fat!
www.BellyFatIsUgly.net

Broken Relationship?
Instant Relief From Break Up Pain & Fastest Plan To Get Your Ex Back.
GetYourExBackNow.com

At no point were the words ‘fat’, ‘diet’ ‘exercise’ etc used in my email, or my brother’s. Nor, come to mention it, ‘break-up’, ‘ex’ or anything that could prompt this sort of unwanted life suggestions.

The only solution I can come up with is that someone, somewhere, can see me. They work for google and they know what I look like. Hey, I don’t know much about computers or, you know, technology, so for all I know this is possible. Sure, I know how to MAKE it work but I have no idea HOW it works. As far as I’m concerned the big gmail icon in the corner of my screen is a portal to a US office where google executives lounge about in ridiculously comfy armchairs, snorting at my soft corners and the gentle ripple in my thighs when the wind catches them.

Cocks.

Food combinations I have eaten in recent days which, in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have.

1. Cheese with butter
2. Melted cheese. On a plate.
3. Crushed ginger + finger

Is this your nipple on the floor, Mommy?

Some of you already know what I think about the new children's book My Beautiful Mommy - a lovely little tome written by a plastic surgeon and aimed at helping 4 to 7 year olds deal with his or her Mum having bits snipped off or other bits blown up etc.

This wonderful publication - sure to be a children's classic - helps said young kiddlewinks come to grips with the fact that their Mum looks like she's had the shit beaten out of her face or has has her nipples sliced off and reattached a bit higher up through razor-sharp dialogue such as this: "As I got older, my body stretched and I couldn't fit into my clothes anymore. Dr Michael is going to help fix that and make me feel better".

.

Phew, is it cold in here or did someone just walk over C.S Lewis' grave?

.

Naturally the book has come in for its share of criticism but personally I think it's well overdue. Sure, I mean the society we live in has gotten pretty good over the years at making us all feel ugly but when does that process start? Age 12? 15? 20? Pah, why let them roll about, the fat little guppies, happily believing they're not bad as they are and that what you look like isn't paramount only to burst the bubble in their teens? Get 'em while they're young and by the time they're 12 they'll be lining up for Botox.

.

And I'm already looking forward to the sequel: Why Nobody Likes Puppy Fat and You Shouldn't Either.

Ho hum

I have just written and deleted a real diatribe of a blog about someone at work. Someone who everyone else apparently LOVES and who is perfectly nice, a good journo and funny except when he appears to HATE me, or at least hate my work, which is a lot.

I was writing said diatribe because I was upset about being given some unwanted advice regarding a story – advice I really wasn’t in the mood to hear. Why does he hate me? I wrote, and what can I do when he makes me completely miserable, even if he’s just trying to be helpful?

Oh woe is me. Anyway, I snapped out of it and deleted the big ball of whine because I had another look at the story and realised his suggestions had made it better. Not much, not enough (in my view) to warrant making me feel so shit, but a bit. I hate dealing with him, I hate discussing stories with him and I hate being given unsolicited advice but there’s not much I can do about it. And, if the net result is that my stories end up a little bit better it’s hard to be too pissed for long.

Next step: learn to stop being a pussy who can’t take criticism. Yeah, I know, good luck with that one…

Conversation in the back of a taxi

DRIVER: So what's going on here (waving at TV cameras etc)
ME: Oh it's the WA Newspapers meeting, um, with Kerry Stokes and everything.
DRIVER: Ah yeah yeah. So what happened?
ME: (Trying to cobble together 40-50cm in the backseat) Um he didn't get the seats on the board.
DRIVER: Ah hmm interesting.
ME: Yeah.
DRIVER: Right, right, well I think The West's a bloody good paper.
ME: Hmmm. I meant it might have its problems but...
DRIVER: Nah it's great - I've had it delivered for 17 years.
ME: (Distracted, trying to decipher shorthand)Um yeah well looks like enough shareholders agreed with you.
DRIVER: And some of the things Stokes was saying I just disagreed with.
ME: (Still fumbling with a snappy intro) Uh yeah, yeah. Who wants it to become another er Sunday Times, right?
DRIVER: What's wrong with the Sunday Times.
ME: Um...

Smokin' Token Hottie: Paul Newman

It's been awhile between Token Smokin' Hotties. What can I say? There is, sadly, only a certain amount of hotties in the world and I can cover only so many of them. But what better way to reignite the category with a surefire winner?

What is it possible to say about Paul Newman in his prime? That he was a slamming hottie? Check. That his eyes make me want to lock him in my basement? Double Check. The Gravitas? Oh yes - there's that.

There's the other stuff about him being lovely and charitable and responsible for darn tasty pasta sauces and salad dressings, of course. And there's his famous - and adorable - comment defending fidelity ("why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?"). Naturally one can't forget that he is a great actor capable of making the hairs on one's arm stand on end - even with his shirt on. But none of that matters here. This is the circle of token smokin' hotties in which only superficial charms are measured. I'm talking face and eyes and torso and the delicious thoughts they inspire. Luckily for him - and us - he's got them in spades too.

Meanwhile

I take back all I said about being excited to cover a big story. I'm actually quietly shitting myself. Or, in Dans words, I actually have to be a journalist. Sigh.

April audit: Lately I have been...

Slugging
Due to some self-induced illness of the booze and cigar variety I spent yesterday horizontal on the couch watching movies and drinking water. Once the desire to vomit receded it was awesome. I’m a sucker for semi-epic movies starring Meryl Streep so of course I was going to get a thrill from Out Of Africa,even if it was about 40 minutes too long and something of a downer (Syphilis? Come on!). It was, however, nothing compared to the brilliance of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, at least the parts of it I saw before Paul Newman took his shirt off and I passed out.

Going broke
Where is the money going? No seriously – do you have it? Do YOU?

Chipper
As poor Dans was forced to observe today I’m in a bloody chipper mood at the moment. Who knows why except that I get to cover an awesome/terrifying story on Wednesday to do with a certain paper and a certain person whose name may or may not rhyme with Perry Brokes. Will I still have a job afterwards? Let’s find out…

Getting back into board games
The tension, the competitive spirit, the fighting and the tears – I love it. Even better if the board game you’re playing has an awesome retro cover that looks vaguely like A Soviet Russia proganda posted for… something.

Learning to hate Facebook
Yes it’s still a guilty pleasure and I hop on when I’m in the mood but those ‘compare people’ updates that get delivered to my email inbox are killing my self esteem. According to this thing I am #11 most entertaining, #17 best listener and, worst of all #22 person with the best sense of humour. In other words I am viewed by my facebook friends as the equivalent of the best friend in a romantic comedy: comedic relief without having a sense of humour myself, incapable of listening to others and about as much fun as watching a stone grow. Who cares if it’s true but I don’t want to know about it. My only consolation is that the people who insist on rating their friends against one another are probably doucebags.

Weddings, Parties, Everything

Despite being - as I had to assure about 10 people at on Saturday night - Not the Marrying Kind, I love weddings. I love the dressing up, the festive mood, the copious booze and the combination of a large dancefloor with some cheesy music. I love the way everyone's in a good mood, I love the speeches and, god help me, I even love being thrust together with a bunch of old friends and relatives you haven't necessarily seen (or missed) since the last time you saw them several years ago.

However. Much as I love weddings and almost everything that comes with them not everyone seems to share my sense of How Things Should Be Done. I'm not talking Miss Manners' etiquette or who is supposed to toast who in which speech, I'm talking about wedding faux pas that should never, ever be made but, judging by Saturday night's experience, still really, really are.

Let's start with attire. Now I don't have a problem at all with people wearing black or white to a wedding (so long as you're not, you know, wearing a veil or in any danger of being mistaken for the bride). Black is about the loveliest colour ever invented and if people with more confidence than me feel they can pull off white then good luck with them. Furthermore I applaud those girls who go with fetching pants and a lovely top and manage to look both polished and incredibly relaxed - I don't know how they do it (pants of any kind seem to make me about 2ft 6) and to these people I raise my glasses. But to you - yes you Miss Cleavage sitting in the back row of the ceremony flashing your pink bits and your boobs at the same time, I do not. I'm not sure where you gathered the idea that a scrap of shiny black fabric, slashed to the navel and hiked up to just below your arse cheeks consisted of a good wedding outfit but sadly you have been led astray. Also - and you know I'm telling you this for your own good as it has to be sad - to be frank it makes your behaviour on the dancefloor later look, er, even more suspect.

Which brings us onto Things That Shouldn't Be Said at Weddings. Let's start with black dress who came out with a corker on the dancefloor, shouting in the groom's (and everyone else's) ear while the Choirboys' Run to Paradise was playing "YOU'RE PARADISE (Groom's name)!!" Hmmm. Yes, quite. The same memo should probably be circulated to the wedding guest who regaled those nearby with her own choice of stimulant on her wedding night. Smelling salts and a cup of hot tea it was not, which is all good and fine when it's going on somewhere else but not so awesome when she's cornering you to tell you all about it and you've only got a last gulp of wine remaining in your glass.

Which, again, leads neatly onto intoxication. Drinking, clearly, is encouraged if not mandatory at weddings. It's everywhere, it's a rather good drop if you're at a rather good wedding and it provides the sort of social lubricant that is necessary if weddings are going to end with hugs and tears of happiness instead of fisticuffs and broken collarbones. So drinking is brilliant and even getting so drunk that you have to stagger to the car and spend the following day horizontal on the couch is permissible. Less permissible is being rendered paralytic in the toilets with an equally dolled up friend holding your hair back. Lord knows we've all been there before but at a wedding? Really? You really want to go there? The same caution should be applied to anyone thinking about stuffing cocaine up their nose in the girls' - because, sweetheart, you're probably not being quite as subtle as you imagine you are.

Finally let's talk about Not Going Home Again. I don't mean at the end of the night I mean how you cope with those people weddings inevitably reunites you with. Ex-boyfriends, ex crushes, ex friends - they're all there, they're all drunk and they're all probably exactly like they used to be when you decided you didn't want to hang out with them anymore (or they decided they didn't want to hang out with you). Weddings are, therefore, not the time to pursue old ties. The booze, the romance and the vague apocalyptic sensation that is the unspoken guest of all weddings will either make you look upon this person as The One Who Got Away or will plunge you back into the rage/depression they last invoked in you. Keep it at friendly smiles, polite chit chat and then seat yourself as far away from them as possible and grab a stinky cigar to keep them at bay. Better yet seat yourself next to Slutty Black Dress and trust a cheeky peek at the inside of her womb will keep most pests at a safe distance until the Choirboys fire up and you're ready to go back to the dancefloor.

The necessities of having a perfect night on your lonesome...

• The house to oneself
• Engagements to blow off, ideally with no excuse at all bar "I'm sorry, I don't care for it tonight"
• Booze
• Nick Drake to play on the stereo
• A stereo to play Nick Drake on
• A hot bath standing by with a glass of wine and a book on the side
• A copy of any of the three most beautifully written books in the world (by which I mean E.M Forster's Maurice, F.Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby or Graham Greene's The End of the Affair)
• The ability to consume all of the above simultaneously while maintaining a glass in each hand

Miaow

"Cats, no less liquid
than their shadows
offer no resistance to the wind."
(ASJ Tessimond)

You know what terror is?

Terror is realising at 3pm, after fricking about all day and avoiding work, that you are not just supposed to be gathering a few quotes for a big story your boss is working on – you are supposed to be WRITING that story. As well as the other stories you’ve been putting off all day Fawwwwk.

I can't disagree...

Some of you have already seen this but it makes me snicker.

I never met a lentil I couldn't learn to love

Believe me or not I do try not to be one of those people who goes ON about vegetarianism. I mean I’m a flipping vegetarian and I loathe these people.

If pressed (or, okay, even just asked) I am happy to talk your ear off about why vegetarianism is the way to go but I do try awfully hard not to be one of those people who corners you in parties to ask if, with a certain drunken sincerity, if you know what the colon of a meat-eater looks like.

All that said there’s a bloody interesting article in The Guardian today which looks at the effect of the carnivore lifestyle on the rest of the world, by which I mean the third world, as well as the environment.

“Never mind the economic crisis. Focus for a moment on a more urgent threat: the
great food recession that is sweeping the world faster than the credit crunch.
You have probably seen the figures by now: the price of rice has risen by
three-quarters over the past year, that of wheat by 130%. There are food crises
in 37 countries.

One hundred million people, according to the World Bank, could
be pushed into deeper poverty by the high prices. But I bet that you have missed
the most telling statistic. At 2.1bn tonnes, the global grain harvest broke all
records last year - it beat the previous year's by almost 5%. The crisis, in
other words, has begun before world food supplies are hit by climate change. If
hunger can strike now, what will happen if harvests decline?
There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13bn tonnes likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn, according to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation, will feed people…

While 100m tonnes of food will be diverted this year to feed cars, 760m tonnes will be snatched from the mouths of humans to feed animals - which could cover the global food deficit 14 times. If you care about hunger, eat less meat.”

It goes on here and it's actually pretty interesting. It's also written by a wishing-he-wasn't meat eater so the chances of getting corned by him at the fridge when you're really just looking for your beer are pretty minimal.

Not mentioning any names...

Have you ever been in a fury, a real fucking fury with someone who doesn’t even know it? I don’t mean when the daft bint in front of you in the line for the ticket machine at the train station is gaping gormlessly at the display with no understanding of a)what it is b)where she is c)what a train is and you want to push her onto the tracks, I mean those situations where, as far as you’re concerned, you’re giving someone with cold shoulder while, as far as they’re concerned, everything’s all fine and dandy? Like that? Yeah of course you have. Don’t you fucking HATE that?

The week that was: a recap

The week that was did not go entirely to plan. Oh sure I did, in theory, finish draft number two of TCNTDNSIN, I did have a Swedish massage, I did watch some old movies and get drunk improbably early in the afternoon but I don't feel I have actually achieved much. The number of museum or gallery visits, for instance, are not so much low as non-existent, while the number of books read is smaller than the number of books reread. I have also managed to spend entire afternoons flaked out on the couch eating crisps out of my belly button and calling (to nobody) for more wine. All in all though? Fucking fabulous. Barkeep, another of your finest ales, please.

Interview

The ladies men admire, I've heard,

Would shudder at a wicked word.

Their candle gives a single light;

They'd rather stay at home at night.

They do not keep awake till three,

Nor read erotic poetry.

They never sanction the impure,

Nor recognise an overture.

They shrink from powders and from paints.

So far, I have had no complaints.

(Dorothy Parker)

And don't get me STARTED on internet porn...

First it was amazon - now it's my computer that's trying to run my life for me and make me into a better, more efficient person or something. Bastard.

You see this week I've dragged the ol' desktop out of retirement and set it up in the living room with the dim hope that it's constant presence might inspire me to do some proper writing. And it certainly does inspire to me to log on in, though lately 'writing' has been replaced by 'browsing blogs' and 'looking up random terms of wikipedia'. And apparently the computer has had enough.

Always a temperamental beast for the last two days it has been randomly closing internet browser windows at random. Or perhaps not at random. My word document, for instance, is never touched. Neither does it seem to interfere if I am quite genuinely looking something up for 'research purposes'. However, open an innocent window to google some gory celebrity deaths (I got no further than Jayne Mansfield... ouch) and the fecker is closing things down all over the place.

What's more it doesn't even give me the courtesy of an error message, just whips one window closed and transports me into another. Then when I try to return to the gory celebrity death window it blinks at me winningly, thinking, (I assume) I can't do that, Dave. It's almost enough to inspire one to, um, work, or something.

Daily displeasures

The sick feeling in your belly when you realise you have inadvertently and possibly under the influence sent someone an email which which seemed, in your mind, terribly witty, but which reads, in the light of day, like a drunken insult. The real displeasure comes when you read the (insulted) reply.

UPDATE: I may be, on occasion, a drunken mess but better a drunken mess than an uptight fuck, no?

Daily Pleasures

Sitting on my lonesome after my luncheon companion has gone to work to have a drink and read Martin Amis' compelling London Fields at The Queens. Ahhh.

We'll file this under 'nutbar'...

A friend of mine likes a boy. The boy likes her. However recently she received a double-digit number of calls from him over a two-day period when she had said she wanted to be on her lonesome. The word 'fruitcake' was used and my first instinct was to agree.

Then I started to remember some of the frankly batshit crazy things I have done over the years because I liked a boy just a little too much. In my case the difference was that these boys didn't (I hope) know about any of it but does that really make it any better? Well why don't you be the judge. Because I'll tell you right now I have done more than one but less than five of the following to the objects of my affection over the years...

• Photocopied a boy's photo from his yearbook, cut it out and stuck it in my diary.
• Googled him mercilessly until I believed I had found a sort-of blog written by him. Turns out it was someone completely different with the same name but I read it religiously for several weeks.
• Visited his place of work unnecessarily on a regular basis.
• Pretended to live about 20ks away from where I lived so we could catch the same train.
• Drugged, kidnapped and had my way with him.

She said, consumed with jealousy

Since my last giddy post about The Crappy Novel That Dare Not Speak It's Name things have gone, er, downhill. If I'm honest I could say that while the first three or four chapters are quite decent the rest is a huge pile of slush with more plot holes than plot and generally squirmingly bad. I can barely look at the thing at the moment. So that's all pretty depressing. But although my 'writing' 'career' may appear to be a pipe dream, for any other would-be writers out there The Australian/Vogel Literary Award is now accepting entries for 2008. If you don't know this is the richest award for an unpublished manuscript by a writer under the age of 35 and ol' Mr Winton is among its former winners. Anyway deadline is May 31 so if anyone has a manuscript collecting dust or reckons they can finish one off my then check the details out here and good luck.

Mission accomplished?

Things I had told myself I would do but have not actually done on the first day of my lovely week off...

• Worked super hard on The Crappy Novel That Dare Not Speak It's Name
• Brushed up on my almost non-existent Italian (spiacente)
• Gone for any sort of invigorating run or, indeed, done exercise of any kind.

Things I have done on the first day of my lovely week off..

• Eaten a jam doughnut
• Had an (awesome) massage, even if it did involve a little unwanted arse-crackery
• Spent a good hour prone on the couch watching Black Books and drinking wine at (cough) 3pm (cough, cough)

Quotable Withnail

"I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promotory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this mighty o'rehanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire; why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, how like an angel in aprehension, how like a God! The beauty of the world, paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dusk. Man delights not me, no, nor women neither. Nor women neither."

(Withnail's final speech to the unimpressed wolves in

Withnail and I - obviously originally Mr Shakespeare)

So's your face

Generally speaking I'm not the beauty industry's biggest fan. I think there's something a bit messed up about any industry that thrives from making people feel bad about themselves and pretty much has to make people feel unattractive in order to thrive. In my book Naomi Wolf's brilliant The Beauty Myth is pretty much on the money. I don't want my face to be one uniform colour and I don't think every 'flaw' has to be covered up or concealed.

But at the same time I'm not walking around in a hemp sack rubbing my face with a papaya or anything. I don't think cosmetics and things that smell nice and come in jars are the worst thing in the world and I don't necessarily think the industry that surrounds them is responsible for everything from eating disorders to body dysmorphic disorder. So I have a fair collection of wee bottles of gloop in my bathroom cabinet. '

Even so because I'm a tree hugging hippy I generally buy my gloop at somewhere like The Body Shop - it smells pretty, it doesn't come with a hideous marketing campaign involving supermodels suggesting with a wink I could look like them if I tried hard enough and it doesn't involve squeezing shit into fluffy bunnies' eyes. Plus, I like to think, it has more of a positive vibe than the clinical white floors of, say, the David Jones cosmetics counters where hungry-looking wenches with severe hairstyles try to spray stuff in my face.

But today I had an experience that made me both angry and paranoid and I have some stupid bitch at The Body Shop to thank for it.

The scene starts when I pop into pick up some moisturiser, having run out of my last bottle. I know what I want so I avoid making eye contact with the shop assistants, grab the bottle and head to the counter. Then Blondey McFuckface comes up to serve me, all too-much-make-up and suspiciously perky tits. Naturally she immediately puts me offside both by being an insecure, patronising cunt to the middle-aged woman standing next to me ("Oh honey you do NOT have to wear make-up - you're so BEAUTIFUL") and by bullying me into trying out some shiteful crap labelled 'tester'.

Even so I was doing okay until, somewhere along the line, this happens...

HER: Tell me, what kind of eye cream do you use?

ME: Uh, I'm not sure. Some random brand.

(This was a lie. Since an incident several years ago when my face blew up like the flipping Hindenburg my undereye skin has become super sensitive and I don't put anything on it. In this case, however, I didn't want to have to tell her the story and I didn't want her to try and pimp me some under eye stuff.)

HER: Well you know those little white dots under your eyes?

ME: Uh... yeah? (Thinking: white dots?)

HER: Well those dots mean that the stuff you're using your under your eyes is too rich.

ME: Hmm...

HER: So you should use something a bit lighter...

ME: Right...

Immediately I felt insecure and hoped nobody around me was trying to check out my under eye skin and/or reeling in horror. I bought what I had come for and got out of there but the whole experience brought me down in a big way and I spent the next hour or so trying to catch a glimpse of my under eye area in the reflection from shop windows.

Part of me thought the stupid bitch must be out of her tree because surely there's nothing 'too rich' about, you know nothing but the other part of me thought white dots? And then, of course, I started to think that perhaps I really ought to start looking for an under eye cream that doesn't react with my skin to avoid looking like some sort of white-dotted eye freak.

The issue is not whether or not I have white dots or something under my eyes it's why some stupid shop assistant thinks nothing of pointing out the facial failings of complete strangers under the guide of, I don't know, helping out I suppose. Maybe I want fucking white dots. Maybe I love the way they make my poo-brown eyes pop, or something. It's none of your business you white trash fuck. Would I tell an overweight stranger with a bun in her hand that it'll make her fat? Would I tell the blonde Body Shop tool that her makeup looks like it was applied by a cement mixer? No and... well probably no.

The net result: I felt paranoid, insecure and in need of a fancy cream brimming with the blood of the animals it's been tested on to make it all better. Score another one for the beauty industry, I guess.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Most of you probably know the plot even if you haven’t seen the film: The charming, kind of womanising editor of French Vogue suffers a stroke and wake up in hospital three weeks later. He can see, hear and think completely normally but he can’t speak or move his body at all. This is so-called ‘locked in’ syndrome and it’s the premise behind The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a film based on a book of the same name.

The book was written by the editor in question one letter at a time by blinking one eyelid – his only mode of communication.

It sounds like a right-old sap fest but I saw it the other day and it’s fantastic: funny, beautifully shot and painfully sad, by which I mean everything a movie should be. I wept like a bitch but it was brilliant. See it. No, go on, do.

NOTE: The film's not in black and white. The above picture, I understand, is of the actual editor.

I think James Franco MIGHT have the upper hand but it's only a matter of time...

I tend to read Sam Britton’s All Men Are Liars Blog from time to time. And from time to time I want to blog about something he’s blogged about but somehow I never do it. But his most recent blog, on whether it’s better to be the one in the relationship who loves the other more or visa versa is something that has always interested me so I thought I would actually get around to it this time.

To hear his arguments, which are more amusingly put and far better articulated than mine, you should go here. Among his points is the interesting one that ‘who cares less, wins’ – meaning the more ambivalent partner inevitably has the upper hand. Which is pretty much true.

I’ve been on both sides of the fence and it might fly in the face of popular opinion (I’m not sure what everyone else thinks) but I think I prefer to be the one who is more into the other person than being the cool, slightly distanced one. Perhaps this is some sort of weird flaw in my character or something but I’ve tried both and this one makes me happier. Er, I think.

When you know the other person is just that leeetle bit more into it than you spend half the relationship feeling guilty. At least I do. I wonder if I should break up with them so I don’t lead them on, I find myself being a bit cruel just to dampen their expectations and I have found myself saying things I didn’t really mean just to please them.

Being the one who is more into it, however, isn’t so tough. Sure sometimes you might feel a bit neglected or wish you could have their cool detachment but at least you’re not swamped by guilt and having to poke them away with a stick. Granted you get sporadic flashes of rejection and wind up wondering what’s wrong with you but at least you don’t waste time rehearsing ‘I’m just not that into you’ speeches. I'm not talking about being madly in love with someone who couldn't give a shit - I'm talking about being so crazy about someone you sort of suspect they can't feel quite the same but, even so, in your head you're going to be 2Getha4Eva.

And there is hope. Again: er, I think. At least I’ve found, over my many years and (cough) extensive experience with relationships (cough, cough) that the dynamic can change. While, in my experience, it’s fairly rare both of you are at exactly the same level of lovey-doviness at the same time, in a good relationship you tend to switch roles: one of you goes through a ‘eh, whatev’ period while the other is sketching potential engagement rings. This sounds a bit wrong and destructive but I think it’s a good thing: you get to try both sides of the equation and one of you is usually sufficiently invested in the relationship to keep in on track when things get a bit bumpy.

In an ideal world this is how I would live – not always on the top, not always on the bottom but sort of jumping about the place and in a constant state of either insecurity of ho-huminess. Healthy, yeah, I know.

But what about you readers? Am I talking tosh? Has the pressure gotten to me and I’ve finally cracked? Do you think anything but being on top, so to speak, and in control is wrong? Please, do tell.

Mt Efexor

Just looking at this picture could help cure depression, apparently.

I'm not going to go all magniloquent and suggest the daily email is supererogatory but HONESTLY...

Some time ago I signed up for some handy little daily email that sends me a word for the day. The idea being to increase my puny and frequently inaccurate vocabulary. Mostly this is good. Oh okay so I ignore the fast majority of them and can remember exactly um… one (but that one is “jollification” which means what it sounds like and it brilliant) but still. Even so, I’ve started to suspect the system has run out of words I can be reasonably expected to use in conversation or writing and is now just taking the piss.

Take today’s word: deus ex machina.

Okay it’s pretty, yes, but what’s its meaning?

“In ancient Greek and Roman drama, a god introduced by means of a crane to unravel and resolve the plot.”

Great, that’ll come in handy, then. Can't think how many times I've been at a loss to describe just that.

And I hear Heidi Klum is aching for cowlicks like mine...

As I lay in a hot bath at an ungodly hour this morning watching an episode of America’s Next Top Model (shut up) on a laptop balanced (not at all precariously, Andy) on the toilet seat I found myself overcome with jealousy. Not, as you might imagine for the long legs, bellies you could bounce a coin off and jagged cheekbones but for the ability some people have to become BFF with others apparently immediatley.

You know what I mean: the girls move into the house, they spent about 2 days flounching around performing whatever ridiculous challenge Tyra has cooked up and then they’re all braiding each others hair and having pajama parties.

It’s not just on the show, of course, or any of these sorts of reality shows where people are thrown together – it happens all the time and I’ve always envied the easy familiarity some people seem to have with others even as it shits me when people waltz in only to become on nickname terms with people I, by virtue merely of our longer acquaintance, am still on ‘hey how’re you’ terms with.

It’s not that I’m not awfully happy with the lovely friends I have right now thankyou very much but I’d love to have that feeling, if that’s what it is, that every stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet and be self confident enough to blithely assume everyone is just dying to come over and have a pillow fight in their underwear with me.

And, I mean, CLEARLY this is the only obstacle not only preventing me from being a more well-rounded member of society but preventing me from being on America’s Next Top Model myself. Because round heads and soft corners are in, right? Um, right? Yeah So Is Your Face.

Have you read my book The Great Gatsby? Yeah just took me 3 weeks.

I don’t understand how anybody can bear to intentionally plagiarise anyone else's work because today I sort of (inadvertently) took credit for what someone else had done and it made me feel completely sick. It was a matter of a story that should have had a triple byline but instead just had one (ie: MINE) and it was one part a cock up on my part and one part someone else’s but I felt truly wretched and guilty, as though I had run about and done it on purpose.

So I just don’t see how people can do this kind of thing intentionally, or perhaps repeatedly through laziness, and not feel terrible. Because people do. A surprising amount. Ripping crap off press releases, or off the wires, and putting your name on it does get done and it’s embarassing to see and painful for those who have their stuff ripped off. Maybe the people who do it do feel bad about it, as I do, but... eh, I don't know. Personally I’ve learned my lesson (proof EVERYTHING and if in doubt proof again) but to would be plagiarises out there: gah, just say no, kids.

It is not enough for us to succeed, others must fail

Between you and me I’ve been feeling pretty sorry for myself over the past 24 hours. Nothing exciting, I'm afraid, just a sttupid string of reasons: bit stressed/depressed at work, yet to tackle my complicated and stupidly all-my-own-fault wisdom teeth related woes, having vague flashbacks to events of the weekend I only just remember and facing the fresh possibility I will NOT be seeing The Jesus and Mary Chain this weekend I have been stewing in my own juices at approximately 180 degrees.

And then I went to The Guardian website for some light relief and read this story.

“For most of his life John Smithers was a respected family man who ran a successful business. Then he started paying for sex. Now, in his 70s, he explains how his behaviour has left him broke, alone and tormented… “I am 70 years old and used to be respectable. I was a magistrate for 25 years, and worked hard to feed my children and build up the family business. I was not the most faithful of husbands, but I tried to be discreet about my affairs. Now I seem to be a liability. Over the last two decades I have spent a fortune on prostitutes and lost two wives. I have made irrational business decisions that took me to the point of bankruptcy. I have become an embarrassment to my nearest and dearest.””

It’s pretty grim stuff and compelling reading. And while I wouldn’t say I’m not completely aware of just how sweet I have it and determined never again to feel sorry for myself I am feeling distinctly perkier, with a bounce in my step and a sort-of smile on my mug. Or is that the diet coke speaking? Ahem, you be the judge...

Sexy Boy

Would you please, a friend recently asked me, help me understand why I like this song.

The answer to this particular question was, I felt, simple: very good tune + vague Souxsie and the Banshees meets er someone else vibe + hotties = your listening pleasure.

In this particular case this was very true. But can I say say so easily exactly why I found Air's performance in Kings Park so completely amazing tonight? Was it the three bottles of wine? The presence of one of my favourite people in the world? Heaven forbid the fac that they played my favourite soongs? All of the above and more. Plus? Did I mention they were French hotties? Oh yeah...

Career schmareer

WANTED: One life coach to make all my big decisions. Ideal qualities will include the hide of a rhino, the ability to disregard my flipflopping on all matters and a cold and ruthless mind. Please start immediately.

UPDATE: Who needs a life coach anyway? I can make my own decisions, right? Er right? Right? Oh fuck have I made a big mistake? No, no. I'll settle for a big fat drink instead thankyou.

The Debauchee

I rise at eleven, I dine about two

I get drunk before seven, and the next thing I do;

I send for my whore, when, for fear of a clap

I fuck in her hand, and spew in her lap;

Then we quarrel and scold, till I fall asleep.

When the jilt growing bold, to my pocket does creep;

Then slily she leaves me, and to revenge the affront

At once both my lass and my money I want.

If by chance then I wake, hot-headed and drunk

What a coyl do I make for the loss of my punk?

I storm, and I roar, and I fall in a rage,

And missing my lass, I bugger my page:

Then crop-sick, all morning I rail at my men,

And in bed I lie yearning till eleven again.

(Earl of Rochester)

They do, however, permit some gentle weeping, though you can tell they don't approve...

My lovely (older) sister celebrated her 30th birthday at the weekend. Which: hurrah. And while I was happy to be there and had fun, at the same time I couldn’t get rid of the sensation I was looking through a wormhole 5 or 10 years into the future at what my own life would be like and it filled me with a nameless terror I couldn’t quite explain, coupled with the desire for an emergency hysterectomy. By which I mean there were A LOT of babies at this party.

I have always identified with the Peter Pan-Jo March school of thought that said growing up was bad and change was awful. This is stupid, of course, because there are loads of good things about the changes that come of growing up (legal drinking, knowing better about lots of things, feeling ok about staying home on your own on a Saturday night) and you can’t stop it anyway so what’s the point in fretting? And yet seeing these writhing, squirming brats and their exhausted-looking mothers wiping snot from their noses I had the strong desire to pop off to Never Neverland and start a new life with Captain Hook and that sort of hot Native American chick.

I’m not, as you may have gathered from one or two things I've let slip over the years, a baby person. I don’t particularly like them, I don’t particularly want them and although my views may change when the hormones come (at least so everyone from family members to almost strangers assure me) I had always assumed I had the option of avoiding them for life. But oh no I don’t. Because once you reach a certain age, whatever happens, babies are a part of your life. Your family members have them. Your friends have them. They crawl over your feet at parties, demand to be looked at and, if you are me apparently, try to stick their chubby fist in your wine.

All of which might be okay if I knew what the baby rules were. But I don’t. I mean, if I'm honest I rather like fat baby limbs when you get those big creases where two fat rolls meet and, if pushed, I confess, yes, their skin is awfully soft. I was even once captivated – yes CAPTIVATED – by a blue eyed baby I saw in a church. I could barely take my eyes off this thing (it was nearly as cute as a bloody kitten, I swear it). So I can take babies. Sort of. From a distance, obviously. But what I don’t get is what I’m allowed to do and say around babies. I have no younger siblings and none of my older ones have yet taken it upon themselves to breed so I just don’t have the experience in dealing with new parents or their progeny. Miss Manners doesn’t seem to cover this crap so for the benefit of everyone in a similar predicament here’s what I’ve managed to pick up so far, mostly between drinks at the party:

1. Swearing is not encouraged. It doesn’t matter if you have just cut your arm on a particularly prickly bush or poured wine down the front of your top. Using the c-word is frowned upon if there is a pair of three-year-olds present.

2. It is not polite to call attention to a baby’s inability to control its bodily functions. No matter if this includes an absolute fountain of snot cascading down the front of the little shit’s face – apparently you’re supposed to ignore it and coo about the fact its head looks slightly less like a potato than it did in that photo its parents sent you months earlier.

3. Do not engage with a new mother about how great her post-baby body looks. Although to the uninitiated this might seem like a compliment it will, in fact, throw you into an uncomfortable round of self deprecation in which she insists she’s still fat as a cow while you shovel fried goods into your mouth and wonder if that wet patch on her right boob means she is breastfeeding.

4. No matter that practically EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON EARTH has mastered the various arts of sitting up straight, crawling, talking etc. When a new baby does these things for the first time it is a matter of great importance that potentially signifies some sort of prodigy in the making. Bystanders are expected to applaud and/or shout ‘encore’ as these amazing events unfold before their very eyes

This is the future. Get used to it, er, I suppose.

Or at least a bloody glass of wine, please

The shit thing, and the brilliant thing, about journalism (at least on a daily) is that every day is a new one. Oh vomit I sound like I’ve just come over all Pollyanna but what I mean is that you write a story, file a story, it appears in the paper the next day and you get on with it. Sometimes there are follow-ups and repurcussions, of course, but when things are bad you can grit your teeth and mutter darkly to yourself ‘this too shall pass’. Of course the flip side to that is that you have to write things EVERY DAY, thus opening yourself up to crippling self doubt and it’s twin: constructive (or not) criticism. No matter if you don’t feel in the mood for writing: you have to. Tough luck if you’re having a shocker and just want to go home: you can’t. Sit at your desk and write bitch, write, No, no, that’s not good enough. That’s not long enough. No that’s too long. Here, write this instead. Oh actually we don’t need that after all. Today I have had enough. I am writing utter shit and doing no good at all. The only thing I want to do is get out of here. A hot bath, a glass of wine - and possibly a new career as a goat herd - call me. I know I sound a bit pathetic but I’m sick of every day being a new bloody day. I want to come into work and zone out sometimes, waking from my reverie only when I decide I want a fresh cup of tea. I want long lunches and early finishes. I want a break, pretty please.

Step Up

You may gather from these posts that I have frittered my long(ish) weekend away watching movies. You may be right. But careful how you use the word 'frittered' because this might seem to suggest I've wasted my time and to suggest I wasted two hours of my life watching the (unintentionally?) hilarious Step Up 2: The Streets would be very, very wrong. In fact this movie is such a classic I've decided to use it as an instructive example to all other would-be cheesfests to show you how it's really done.

1. Start with a moody voice over on top of some gritty scenes of 'the streets'. This is not merely the only chance you will have to display any sense of realism it will also effectively dispense with any need for plot or characterisation for at least the first hour of the movie, thus enabling it to become little more than a glorified rap video.

2. Indisperse dialogue with long dance sequences, ideally when least expected. The more complex, tightly choreographed and improbable the better. Ridiculous masks are good. Oh and turn on the fake rain anytime anyone so much as thinks about dancing outside. Assuming by 'anyone' you mean a hot chick in a white top.

3. Hot boys onscreen longer than two minutes are required to take their shirts off. Unless they are supposed to be evil.

4. Hot girls (read: every flipping girl in the movie, unless she is supposed to be evil) onscreen are required to a) tear the lower half of her top off, b) wear a gravity defying push-up bra, c) spontaneously decide to wear a hat half over her eyes in order to allow her dance double to step in for the trickier dance sequences.

5. If the studio REALLY requires the main character's love interest to be played by a blonde-haired blue-eyed boy so bland he may as well be a mop in a funny hat do be sure to wedge a full blown hottie into another part of the movie, ostensibly as an arsehole-with-a-secret-heart-of-gold but really so the rest of us can imagine him tearing his short open in the fake rain while back-up dancers straddle his torso.

6. Make Step Up 3. Please.

But I don't wanna be a cowboy...

I'm often heard complaining about the fact that it's very bloody hard these days to go to a movie with few expectations, if not a complete synopsis of exactly what's going to happen and how it's going to go down already in your head.

You know what I mean: you see the previews, you read the reviews and if you're a dork like me you even read the websites. So by the time you schlep into the cinema there's not much left to be surprised by. Oh, sure, you might be pleasantly surprised by how good something is (I mean the original Step Up certainly delivered but I must confess I had my reservations about whether Step Up 2 could deliver on the same cheestastic scale ... until I saw it, of course), or shocked by how really godawful it is (seriously I know there are loads of people you liked, nay, loved Transformers but My. God. Sex on the car-bot? Really?) but it's pretty hard, in my experience at least, to be really taken by surprise these days when it comes to movies.

So imagine my delight - in theory at least - when I was surprised not once but twice this weekend by two among a handful of DVDs I had borrowed out to help me pass the pleasant long weekend in a daze of hangovers and movies on the couch. Of course I'm not really a delightful person so as you'll swiftly notice, if you keep reading, this is A Cautionary Tale along the lines of being careful what you wish for.

Let's start with Midnight Cowboy. Okay, okay I should have known more about this movie - it's a 'classic'. But somehow I'd managed to avoid knowing anything about it for 25 years. All I had to go on was the picture on the front of a young Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman (a nice moody sort of a shot), a vague sense of some homoerotic overtones (can't be a bad thing) and that song Everybody's Talkin' At Me stuck in my head (fuck now it's stuck in there again). In my mind the movie was a sort of Brokeback Mountain meets The Sting. I don't know why. So I borrowed the movie, got stuck into it and My. God. Not the most upbeat movie in the world for a lazy Sunday. I must say I would recommend this baby because it's a classic for a reason but you might want to remove the razorblades from the house first. The entire thing depressed Andy so much we had to go for a two hour drive in the middle just to resist the temptation to end it all in a joint suicide pact.

Even so: a mostly pleasant surprise with only a light slathering of life crushing ennui on the side.

Onto my second choice, carefully chosen to follow Midnight Cowboy by virtue of the fact it was light, fluffy and starred Marilyn Monroe. Ms Monroe (AKA: jelly on stilts) may not be my favourite actor in the world but she has earned my love through association with Some like it Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes so I had some expectations for the Seven Year Itch. Plus, you know, it's the one with the white dress.

What I didn't know is that it's also the one with the 'wacky' dream sequences. And the one with its 'hilarious' endorsement of widespread infidelity. And gee whiz gosh don't even get me started on the 'bawdy' 'humour'. My. God. I turned it off hours ago and still all I want in the world is that hour and a half of my life back. Sure Midnight Cowboy filled me with a kind of soft, existential despair but it did, at least, turn in some very decent performances, a killer soundtrack and succeeded in wringing a few reluctant tears from me (c'mon - the end scene? Am I made of flipping STONE?). The only tears The Seven Year Itch got out of me were tears of frustration and the tears of pain as I repeatedly stabbed myself with a kitchen knife just to be sure I hadn't died and gone directly to hell.

To conclude: the fact that it's a rarity these days to go to a film with only the vaguest idea of what it's about and who is in it is a shame. A delightful film is made doubly delightful when it takes you by surprise and you have no expectations it is required to live up to. If I think about it most of my favourite movies are the ones that have caught me unawares or slowly crept into my life: not the ones I have hotly anticipated only to be disappointed by. On the flipside, if I had the opportunity to see a preview for The Seven Year Itch I would have been able to make up my own mind that it was a piece of dull, unfunny and slightly misogynistic claptrap for myself instead of being required to take the opinions of the many film buffs apparently part of a wildworld conspiracy to pretend this shit is comedy gold. Dammned if you do, damned if you don't I suppose. What. Ev.

..slowly, mate

Because I am a politically astute member of society, never happier than when watching Parliament Question Time and certainly not an ignorant boob who gleans her political insights from talkback radio and pages of the newspaper left by the bog roll I recently had a bit of an argument about our former Prime Minister Paul Keating. Yes, that’s right, and when I’m not having intelligent conversations about politics I’m reading books with long works in them and listening to Wagner while I do it.

Keating, as regular readers will know (Hi, Mum) is a favourite of mine for a slew of reasons, at least one of which is the brilliance of the Keating musical which might strike you as wrong but is nevertheless The Truth. Anyway, this argument centred around some of Keating’s notorious put-downs. He’s not, my opponent who shall remain nameless to protect his identity but two drinks will buy you his name and address, a very nice guy. Look, my opponent said, have a look at some of the things he says to other people. Some of it’s kinda personal - who SAYS that in Parliament?

This, to my mind, was no argument. In fact my opponent seemed to be arguing my point, if somewhat circuitously. I have always had a soft spot for smart bastards. I don’t mean just guys that are smart but guys that are smart and… well possibly kinda smarmy or arseholey about it. I know, I know, this isn’t healthy thinking but it’s about as close as I get to fancying Bad Boys. Give me Keating in a suit with a crisp comeback over some tool with tatts and a bike anyday. So Keating’s smack talk and his ability to run rhetorical circles around most of his opponents delights me.

Is this a good reason to like a politician? Maybe not. Is it a good reason to like a boy? Oh C’mon, it’s practically the ONLY reason to like a boy.

But what do I know – most of The Keating Years is filled, for me, with memories of trying to find a pair of glasses that made me look less, rather than more, retarded than I am; lusting after my brother’s friend for an embarassingly long time; and pretending I understood integration in maths. Over to you, readers: what do you think? Argumentative bully or genius? I give you Keating…

On John Howard:
1. “What we have got is a dead carcass, swinging in the breeze, but nobody will cut it down to replace him.”
2. But I will never get to the stage of wanting to lead the nation standing in front of the mirror each morning clipping the eyebrows here and clipping the eyebrows there with Janette and the kids: It’s like ‘Spot the eyebrows’.”
3. "I am not like the Leader of the Opposition. I did not slither out of the Cabinet room like a mangy maggot."

On John Hewson:
1. This is the sort of little-boy, stamp your foot stuff which comes from a financial yuppie when you shoe him into parliament.
2. Like being flogged with a warm lettuce.
3. I was implying that the Honorable Member for Wentworth was like a lizard on a rock - alive, but looking dead.

To Richard Carleton:
"You had an important place in Australian society on the ABC and you gave it up to be a pop star…with a big cheque…and now you’re on to this sort of stuff. That shows what a 24 carat pissant you are, Richard, that’s for sure."

To Former Labour politician, Jim McClelland (on the phone):
"That you Jim? Paul Keating here. Just because you swallowed a fucking dictionary when you were about 15 doesn’t give you the right to pour a bucket of shit over the rest of us.”

Meanwhile...

I never thought I would say such a thing but The Financial Review has a really interesting article on page 62 today (the long weekend edition). It’s nothing to do with finance or anythign related to my day job, it’s about relationships and whether the idea of 'settling' is actually a really good one that will probably bring you more happiness than not. Whether it’s the three glasses of champagne I’ve had or my current mood I found it fascinating and I've been thinking about it all day. I've always had to fight the 'grass is greener' side of my personality and, like most people I know, abhore the idea of 'settling' for someone who doesn't tick most of the boxes. But, again like most people I know, I've come to realise this idea throws up a bunch of complications all on its own and generally leads to you doubting yourself and having long, dull conversations in the pub with friends who keep looking at their watches.

Anyway, read the article if you have the chance – genuinely interesting stuff that I would reprint here if I had the energy (read: if I hadn’t had those three glasses).

Quotable Quotes

"One is never as unhappy as one thinks, or as happy as one hopes to be." (La Rochefoucauld

Yeah the crisps drift into my belly button sometimes - whatcha going do about it?

When I was a youngster it was my parents’ habit to routinely threaten to get rid of the TV. This warning would usually come on the back of some sort of marathon Simpsons session or, perhaps, after that night before my Intro Calc exam when my father caught me watching a late night movie instead of studying (I assure you I needed the extra study time). It was an idle threat (whatever they said they loved a good Friday Night crime night on ABC as much as anyone) but it always struck me as ridiculous. Because although I was one of the few kids I knew restricted, at various times or other, to a mere half hour or TV on a weeknight (criminal by a 12+ year old’s standards) the prospect of doing away with the TV altogether was unthinkable. What the hell would I sit on the couch and watch?

So I’m as surprised as you are when I realise I have now been without a TV for about three months. Or rather, let me clarify: I have been ‘without TV’ rather than ‘without A TV’. I do have a TV – it just isn’t hooked up to the aerial. This isn’t a deliberate choice – just a combination of my laziness and Andy’s desire to stop me from watching what he calls trash and what I call brilliant. But when I say I have been sans TV for three months you mustn’t imagine this has opened some sort of cultural door for me. In your mind, perhaps, I’m in a leather recliner with a pipe, a glass of wine and Chopin on the CD player. In reality I’m smooshed down on the couch, eating crisps off my stomach and watching Series 2 of Peep Show. Again. Yes because although TV is off the agenda DVDs aren’t. In fact they’re bloody better than TV. There, I said it. Why should I watch crap when I can watch something I know I will like? Why be a slave to programming when I watch what I want when I want?
All good points.

Then why do I miss TV? Because I do, you know. At least I’m really starting to and it’s not any particular show I miss (partly because I have no idea what the hell is even on TV these days) but the idea of interconnectedness that TV does give us. Orson Welles said TV was a medium that allowed millions of people to watch the same thing and still feel lonely but I sort of disagree. I like overhearing people talk about some show or other and knowing what they’re talking about. I enjoy having an opinion on some ridiculously insignificant development on another show. I miss being able to call someone I know will be watching the same show as me purely in order to take the piss out of it. It’s a pathetic way to feel like part of a community but it’s better than, you know, taking an interest in peoples’ LIVES or something. It allows social lepers like myself to feel like we know what social interaction means.

So, dear readers and friends, when your phone rings in the next episode of this cheesy reality TV show or that ridiculously farfetched drama (*cough* Moonlight *cough*) please pick it up – I’ve got three months worth of semi-drunken TV critiquing to get off my chest…

Keep smiling, I'm reloading

Aren’t happy people the absolute pits? Oh Christ are they ever. Skipping about with their sugar-coated grins singing about flowers and unicorns while the rest of us shuffle about in the Valley of Ashes just waiting for a bullet between the eyes to put us out of our misery so we can lie down, oh fuck could we please just lie down, for a minute. Their presence offends the rest of us, actually deprives of the teensy little part of us that still retains a vague will to live. The depressed and the disillusioned, however, oh they’re the best. Striding about with their black berets, making cutting remarks about strangers and only stubbing their cigarette out long enough to make a suicide pact over the internet. These people never have to get let down because they never have any expectations. They never have to be nice to people because they’re Depressed Don’t You Know and, best of all, they never get disappointed because they’re already expecting the worst. That, my friends, is living.

But just quietly, strickly between you and me, you understand, I’m sort of having fun. I’m actually rather happy. God knows why – I’m poor, sleep deprived and may have some semi serious dental/financial problems all of my own making. On top of that my body is falling apart, potentially because the last time I did any proper exercise was around the time that fucking annoying/incredibly catchy Outcast song was at the top of the charts. Slip in a little no-home-for-Katyitis-today-or-ever and surely I should be reading Sylvia Plath and slitting my wrists in a bath somewhere.

But am I what? Am I never. So maybe the bitter twisted cynical part of me says this is because it’s nearly the end of the work day, it’s a four day week and I have a week of holidays coming up but I don’t care. I’m rather happy. And just to stuff all this disgusting syrupy shit further down your throats until you choke let’s have a look at some of Katy’s current favourite things. You may open your vomit bag… now.

Card making. Ah yes look at the time – it’s 1894 already is it? Yes, yes, there is something a little bit quaint and a whole lot twee about getting ones jollies making cards but I’ve just started getting back into it (after a glue drought-imposed break) and I find myself right now, as I sit at work waiting to be released from servitude, actually looking forward to start working on some new ideas. That’s right readers – I live the sort of wild, hedonistic life you can only DREAM about.

Cadbury Crème Eggs. What IS that shit in these eggs? Is it pure sugar? Is it unadulterated fat? And why is the idea that it resembles a raw egg yolk supposed to be a GOOD thing? These are rhetorical questions, as I don’t really care, because I love them. Mmm mmm, pre-Easter is my favourite time of year.

The weather. Not all among us are flattered by a stringy summer dresser or a strappy little singlet. Some of us, dare I suggest it, look like trussed up hams loafing in supermarket refrigerators if we so much as try. And every year, as the summer sloooowly gives way to the best season of the year, Autumn, I Thank Fuck and pull out my collection of fetching cardigans and fluffy hats. Hurrah. Hot cocoa for all (if we put the air con on first).

Entourage. Oh sure it’s sort of stupid and there’s the sound of ten in-jokes a second I don’t understand flying over my head but Adrian Grenier has the face of an angel and Jeremy Piven has the mouth of a sewer. Brilliant, schlocky fun.

Aaan that's it for now, kids, we made it through together and my reputation as a cynical biatch is ruined forever. From here on it’s all yoghurt for breakfast, drum circles at midnight and the dumb grin of a harmless puppy adorning my stupid mug. Ask me if I care? Yeah, that’s right, So’s Your Face.

Chin chin

I have friends who don't drink and while I respect their choice and only sometimes corner them at parties to verbally harass them for being what I disgustingly refer to as pussies I find myself utterly unable to understand it. This is because, obviously, I am a drunken boob and these sober friends of mine possess qualities like restraint and self esteem that I am clearly lacking. But still.

I do understand why some people might choice not to drink, sort of. The hangovers, the drunken remorse, the need for extensive forensic partying - none of these things are incredibly desirable. But how, how can somebody turn their back on all that booze has to offer? These are the thoughts that keep me up at night.

Let's start with its social lubricant qualities, perhaps better described as some dutch courage for the partying set. How can somebody attend, for instance, a party where they don't know anyone well and do so sober? That's a genuine question. I salute those who can do it because they have at least three and possible seven more balls than me but I couldn't do it. At least not all the time. I'm not a social butterfly, I don't really enjoy meeting strangers (as an aside to self: yeah nice career choice then, you muppet) and if I'm brutally honest the only way I can really consider putting myself in that sort of situation is to get boozed and let that fourth glass of wine do the schmoozing for me. Faced with the prospect of going out with just my sober wit to rely on I'd curl up on the couch with the March Sisters (yes that's a Laurie shout-out, Linds, hope you enjoy it) every time.

Meanwhile booze-free I'd like to know how anyone plans to repopulate the earth. Oh, okay that sounds really bad so let me assure you I don't require a cheeky quart before hopping into bed. What I mean is how the hell do sober people take that first step from 'eh I quite fancy you' towards domestic bliss? Again that sounds sort of bad but, really, if you take that first drunken snog/shag out of the equation how do these things actually get achieved? How else does one buoy up the courage to send lascivious texts to the object of one's affection, or slur 'your buttocks look like two furry peaches in a bag' into anyone's ear? Honestly.

It may or may not have been Bertrand Russell who called drunkenness a temporary suicide, I'm terrible with quotations, but whoever it was I think he had a fair point. Depressive drinking, or drinking to escape oneself isn't one of those things it's quite right to talk up but it does have its good points. Namely, it does achieve what it promises and gives the boobs among us a little respite from a sober life of boobery. Let's illustrate with a story shall we? Years and years ago, for instance, I was about to go out one night and waiting for a friend to pick me up on the way when I learned that the then object of my affection (later to become Just Andy) wasn't going to be at this party, as I had expected him to be. Being a young slip of a thing and a bit prone to histrionics at the best of times I decided this was a tragedy and proceeded to drink myself into the floor - almost literally as Alley Cat can attest if she still recalls watching me perform gravel angels in a petrol station car park. That night and the hangover that followed were not pretty but I maintain they were preferable to being alone with being miserable, and once the worst of it started my mind was actually quite preoccupied from all thoughts of boys.

And finally, there is the simple pleasure of a crisp, cool drink on a warm day or a cold night and the warmth in one's belly it provides. It's not drunkenly cracking onto someone, texting a (soon to be former) friend to tell them they have a head like a toby jug, vomiting into a plastic bag held by a friend (yeah thanks again for that) but it's just about the best reason to drink that there is. Bottoms up.

I iz a grate spella, what iz you sayin'?

I have just noticed an atrocious number of spelling areas or typos on this page. I… I apologise. Particularly to those among my readers who are spelling and grammar nazis. I have always had terrible spelling and terrible typing but I do, I assure you, know how to spell ‘advice’ and ‘quiet’. Honest. I’m not going to go back and correct the fuckups, however, because that would effectively be a lie by omission in that it might suggest I’m a decent speller. Which I am now. Alrighty, that is all.