Off the Leash

There's nothing like a Friday to bring out the school kid in all of us, and today is no exception. Apparently, though, it isn't just me. There are others out there being visited by their former childish selves today, as shown in this blog entry on a serious Melbourne paper - http://blogs.theage.com.au/allmenareliars/archives/2006/08/may_i_fart_now.html#trackback (Sorry, I seem to have lost the art of linking once more...what can I say? I'm still dealing with a fog of flu, or whatever I've had, and throw in the fact that I'm blond and it's Friday and I'm a lost cause)

It's reassuring to know that I'm not the only person out there who feels that one of the funniest things around is a good fart joke - the only thing funnier is, sometimes, a bad one. I know it's very bloke-ish of me to say so and that, if there are any girls out there reading this who don't know me personally, there are probably some shaking their heads in disgust right now at the idea that I could agree with all the guys who find farts hilairious. But at the same time, part of the attraction is knowing that it is completely inappropriate in so many situations.

There have been plenty of great comedians base thier early careers on a well-timed fart joke, and they live long in the memory...Benny Hill (OK, he was as much a sleaze joke as a fart joke, but it was there!) Ronnie Barker (and Ronnie Corbett as well, I guess). In fact, they seem to be mostly British, the ones who spring to mind quickest (unless you count the D-Generation, and their Bargearse creation. Giggles will threaten to overwhelm me if I linger on thoughts of the detective sergeant, however, so I'd better move on).

Social testing has confirmed that the fart is the most universally accepted joke. Almost every culture tested would laugh at a bit of trouser trumpet action - and the ones that didn't find it funny wouldn't laugh at anything. Even that great stuffed-shirt of all time, Queen Victoria, who gave her name toan era of prudishness and holding back, was known to giggle at gas from time to time. In fact, rumous has it that she was one of the first users of the "whoopee cushion" (OK, maybe not, but she did like a fart or two). Mind you, her grand daughter doesn't look any more likely to crack a smile (or let fluffy off the royal chain), and neither do any of the princes - although for some reason i suspect that Fergie would encourage it.

So why has this come up now (and how do I carry such arcane pieces of trivia in my head)? Well, it's Friday, isn't it. And if you can't have a giggle on Friday, well, there's no hope for any civilisation where youc an finish that statement in a way that doesn't include the words "when can you?" So, until then, God Save the Queen.

The Substance of Things Hoped For

There are many rules that have been observed here before. Here's another one: nothing ever works out exactly as you plan it. I'm sure the winners of darwin awards would agree. I'm fairly certain that none of them planned the dire accidents (or should that be acts of stupidity?) that landed them on the list of winners - or even honourable mentions. That said, I think there is a certain amount of inevitability in death following on from the idea to step inside a giant helium balloon with your girlfriend, but without the help of an oxygen tank. Foresight had nothing to do with last weekend, however - although it probably should have had a bit more of an impact on the four days of couch time I've just had trying to recover from, in part, my own stubborn stupidity.

Honestly? I'd been looking forward to the weekend for weeks - more than the normal "everybody's working for the weekend" type longings (incidentally, how great was that song?? Everybody wants a little romance? Everybody needs a second chance? Gold...). More like "Friday on my mind" - Wednesday just won't go, Thursday goes too slow, I've got Friday on my mind. Catch was the horrendous cough that sprang up somewhere between the never-ending Thursday night and Friday morning. Even the obliging people doing a presentation on a type of insulation used on pre-cast concrete buildings struggled to keep my attention (who would have thought? Bubble wrap as insulation! Wonder how much fun the builders could have with that? I've even met a profoundly deaf guy who loved popping bubble wrap) with the free lunch they provided. Little surprise that I was home and tucked up in bed long before the normal time for a night out.

I must be getting old though. Everybody in the bar we went to looked about 12, and neither I nor either of my friends could stop commenting on the indecent clothing the younger girls - or the apparently ill-fitting underwear, and how appropriate it was for the girls to be moshing like that. We sounded exactly like our parents did when we first started going out back in the day...given that my Mum dropped us off so none of us had to drive, we fitted right in, until the point where we walked in the door and realised we weren't flashing nearly enough cleavage.

The only thing to make old bones feel better is a massage. Even if the masseur, who is charging you an insane amount of money for half an hour of absolute bliss keeps telling you that you need to come more often so she can work out the painful knots she's finding in your flu-affected shoulders. Bliss, I tell you, bliss. And lunch afterwards, with the nice eye-candy working behind the bar just proved that some things can, and do, live up to expectations.

Which makes it a shame that the night that followed was what seemed, at the time, to be a dismal flop.

In spite of being in full 40s glam hair and make-up, it turns out that I was somewhat less than perfect for the 1940s themed Swing dancing ball I went to. See, I tried to make a modern wrap dress do the job, and it simply wasn't made for dancing - or not for spinning, at any rate, becasue everytime I turned quickly, not only would the dress fly open to reveal a large expanse of leg, the ties holding the dress closed would wrap themselves around my poor unsuspecting partner. Combine that with one particularly uncoordinated guy(honestly, he was. He was worse than me - quite the achievement, generally speaking) and a fairly quick song, and you have yourself a nice little mix to keep the old guys on the sidelines fanning themselves everytime the move-challenged guy spun me around - which was a lot. I have never, ever been so glad of the little shorts (Ok, almost hot pants - on any other persont hey would be) that I normally reserve for wearing when I'm playing hockey but luckily thought to put on that night. It did, however, make a handy excuse to stop dancing for a moment and "adjust myself" to I was revealing a whole lot less!

As fun as that was, I was back in the car and on the way home by 10:30 - before the clubs on nearby Chapel St had even started to get interesting - although there were enough people out and about to raise their eyebrows at a couple of girls in 40s gear walking down the street.

The upshot of all this is the cough I'm still nursing. I'm not going to say that there's anything wrong with sounding like a 50 year smoker with emphysema - I mightthink it, however. It's more that the coughing does interfere with one's sleep so...and the redness subsequent to the coughing is awfully difficult to mask with even the best pressed powder. Not to mention what the other people in the train carriage with you of a morning think when they hear you bringing up a lung - or at the very least sounding like you're about to.

So things don't always work out how you plan them. I now have a quiet weekend planned for this one coming up. Only a couple of family functions and a whole lot of essay writing (any tips on last minute resources on either the representation of "otherness" Merchant of venice and Othello, or the works and influence of Edgar Allen Poe would be much appreciated). But who knows...maybe this weekend will exceed expectations? I'm certain it will all even out somewhere. And if nothing else, there's a miracle in the offing in the sporting world - my decidedly average hockey team looks like making it into the finals, and my football team has levered itself off the bottom of the ladder, and beat Collingwood into the bargain. What is the world coming to?

The Best Laid Plans

It's funny how things turn out. This blog, for example, was never meant to end up as a kind of diary, and yet look at it now, a regular catalogue of the things going on in my life, one way or another. Another is the birthday present of a friend. Actually, this friend has been mentioned on here quite a few times - it's theone who's getting married.

It was her birthday back in June, and she's a nightmare to shop for at the best of times. This time was even harder, since everybody was holding back a couple of good ideas to use as wedding presents later this year - also a hard ask. Another friend and I decided to band together and get her something girly and fun. Not easy. she wa so preoccupied by her wedding plans that she couldn't offer any suggestions herself, so we took that as our inspiration and created our own present - a wedding-free day. We'd take her out for a pamper session, a meal and drinks. It was all presented as a booklet that we made, giving her a choice of location (she chose local), type of night out (drinks and a boogie), variety of pampering (masssage - a good choice, since we also shout ourselves whatever she gets!) and the meal (lunch). She seemed to genuinely like the idea, once it was explained to her. Then she went off on holidays with her fiance and his family and promptly forgot all about it.

It's only this weekend that we finally get our chance to give her the present - most unlike her. Normally, she jumps at the chance to be the centre of attention, and the "no speaking about the wedding" injunction seems to be needed as well. Even though we've had to split the plans across 2 days (technically, it's still the same 24 hours, though) to work around her hectic schedule (we counted how many times we've beenable to get together without it involving family, wedding, or gym this year; we could count the times on one hand, and three of those were our own birthdays) we've all been looking forward to this since it was locked in stone 2 weeks back. I mean how often do you get to have a night out followed by pampering for a day, and no responsibilities? It's a dream, and we don't even have to go more than 10 minutes from home to do it, since the locations are all within a block of each other, and at a point that is roughly the same distance from each of our homes.

But, as the saying goes, the best laid plans can be laid to waste, and all through what seems to be an environmental issue. I'm asthmatic. No big surprises there, since almost everyone in Australia these days seems to have some kind of respiratory problem (but has anyone found out the reason why this is? Oh no, let's spend our tax dollars on a billion dollar advertising campaign to make the public forget that they hate the archaic new industrial relations laws, for example. I'm firly mild and haardly ever need to do anything about it, except take a preventer every morning. If I do that, I'm generally fine to do whatever I want, so much so that I don't really carry any medication with me anymore. So it came as a bit of a surprise today that I needed it - needed it enough to have to go out and buy some. Even bigger surprise that I wasn't the only one in this office to need it. Innocent enough in itself, and any other day, I wouldn't really mind. But tonight is not any other night. I was planning to go to a smokey pub and have a few drinks tonight, neither of which is easy when you're having breathing issues and have pumped yoruself with enough salbutamol to give you a fair dose of the shakes - it doesn't improve your chances of getting into the bar in the first place, given what the shakes can do to your coordination!

Longer term, other plans are suffering from other minor issues at the moment - clearly, issues of far less importance, as will become clear, than the fate of my night out with the girls. London - and by association, the US - is again under what the media keeps describing as a terrorist cloud, thanks to some people who thought it would be a good idea to plan to blow a few planes out of the sky over the Atlantic. There are many comments I could make about those people, but I think I'll refrain, since it does nobody any good to pass comment on the beliefs of others - you'll never convince them to think otherwise, generally speaking, and neither will they convince you. The upshot is that people are now unable to take carry-on luggage on flights out of Heathrow, unless it is their passport and ticket, in a clear plastic bag. Given the tiny amounts of whatever the substance was that the media say was required to make a bomb, You have to wonder if that's going to be quite as effective as they'd hoped. Whatever, it has messed with at least one of my plans in a big way. I have a large - alright, very large, enormous, could-fit-me-in-it size - case to take when I go on my big trip. I'm looking at having to pay an excessive amount of excess baggage just to be allowed on the plane. That amount has just increased fivefold, since I had planned to take things that are easily broken (and also quite heavy) on the plane as carry-on. Things you wouldn't want in your checked baggage like, oh, I don't know, a laptop, a book to read on the TWENTY THREE HOUR flight...and apart from that, any other items I might need in the course of the next 2 years that I won't be able to fit into the 20kg limit - which I'm tipping will be quite a lot. And now these terrorists have to go and spoil it all...I might just indulge in conspiracy theories here - or rather tales of dire coincidences. You see, my first solo overseas trip landed in London on October 5 2001 - within a month of September 11. My second trip to the UK was only a little more after the tube/bus bombings. I'd commented only Tuesday (Wednesday?) night that it was about the right time for something to happen in the terrorist way, since I was heading overseas again soon. And now, here we are...spooky, huh! It seems that there is a giant conspiracy to either keep me out of the UK (not going to happen, I'm afraid. I love it too much over there) or make sure that I never have to line up for any attraction (yes, that's right, I'm one of the few people to turn up at the Eiffel Tower at about 2pm and not have to queue AT ALL - I just walked straight up to a ticket window. Similar experiences all through Europe and the UK.) - or alternatively, it's jsut a way of making sure I can't smuggle in all the jars of vegemite and packets of tim tams and iced vo-vos destined to be traded for couch space once in London. I'm sure that's what it's all about. And once again, thebest laid plans...

In Search of Filthy Lucre

People might have noticed some themes in the posts here, if they've been reading them regularly (has anybody except the people prodded into it by me read this regularly? If you're out there, please let me know!). One of the recurring thoughts is my lack of money - while i have no shortage of either debt, or other ways to spend cash in a hurry.

Well, I've discovered the internet as a way of making money. It is with that in mind that I now have Google AdSense ads on this page. I'm not going to ask people to click on them for my sake - that would only get me in trouble with the every so lovely people at Google, not something I'm wanting to do. I'm simply going to explain how they got there in the first place. This is a no-names no-pack-drill type of exercise, so the only thing I can say with absolute honesty and clarity is that I am not talking about myself in the following story. This isn't one of those "my 'friend' " stype stories. And now that I've got all the disclaimers out of the way, on with the show (which may prove to be a bad way to lead into this particular story...).

Let's just say, I have a friend. I have several, actually, but we're talking about a specific one here, not just the generic 'friend'. She's come upon harder times than I have, to the extent that she needs to find $2000 in a hurry - within the next 2 weeks, in fact - or she won't have anywhere to live. She's getting desperate for ideas and is heartened by the idea that her cousin has just announced to the family that she works as a stripper while she finishes her medicine studies - there are many crude jokes here that could be made, but I'm trying to resist the temptation to mention anatomy lessons. Apparently, the cousin has been encouraging her to take up the craft as well, promising her that there's no touching, fantastic money, and that the places look after their girls. I don't doubt any of that, but I've spent the whole day sending her messages and alternative suggestions for how to make the money in the sort of time frame she's looking at, or alterntive arrangements that give her a bit more time to get it together. Don't get me wrong; I'm certain that there are perfectly respectable women who work in strip clubs for a living. I've heard that it's a not uncommon way to support yourself while at uni, although I've never known anyone who admitted to it. So I've encouraged her (I can't even give her a nickname here, since I promised her not to tell anyone. Does this count?) to look at every alternative before acting, and tried coming up with a few myself.

In the process, I kind of evaluated a few of my own financial decisions that have led me to my present get-cash-anyway-that's-legal-and-lets-me-keep-my-clothes-on state of mind. I've signed up to do surveys, I've auditioned to go on gameshows - unsuccessfully, incidentally. I answered enough questions right to get onto Temptation, but it appears I wasn't "quirky" enough for them at the moment. Not bitter at missed oportunity to get stuff for knowing useless crap simply because I wasn't willing to come up with a goofy style of buzzer pushing on a smart people quiz. Not bitter at all. Huh! I say to their casting people! Huh! And on top of that I'm selling various bits of old tat on ebay. Anything to make sure that I never, NEVER end up in a situation where I'm seriously willing to consider taking my clothes off for money as a serious option - if only because I'm fairly certain that there are far more people out there who'll pay me to keep them on.

So, in the name of selfish self-promotion, yes, I'm in search of ways and means to get my website out there...spread the word peoples!!! (And yes, that s was deliberate. I'm certain there's more than one of you out there, I have faith!) Help me to keep my clothes on - and those of my friends!

Navel gazing

There is a certain amount of self-absorption required to write a blog, it seems - and yes, this is going to be another post about a foray into the blogosphere. It's not just that you seem required to give more thought than most people wuld contemplate to tiny details of your life to create a post (well, not so much HAVE to as choose to, if regular posts are needed. OK, wanted), it's also the fact that, in all honesty, inputting your thoughts, feelings, actions, reactions, whatever out there, there's a kind of expectation that someone will care enough to read it. Yes, I started this particular blog out of sheer boredom and, admittedly, that's part of the reason why I keep posting so regularly, but part of the attraction of the idea is the thought that, somewhere, out there, someone (other than you Ralphie, sorry) will find this blog and decide that it's worth reading - not just once, but worth coming back to. Of course, if that person happens to be a publisher willing to take a punt on a person who can barely write a sentence without typos, let alone have an attention span long enough to write anything longer, even better - anything to get me out of my current task of designing a car park layout for a soccer field.

So, with that knowledge, be prepared for something of a bombshell.

Yes, my life is being put out there to a certain extent, even if it is a bit anonymous. And there has been a fairly large amount of navel gazing involved in putting those posts together, mulling over the advantages of writing about my love of all things red, as against my anger at some injustice in the world (the red won, of course. Far more interesting than the fact that the world is in a complete mess - everyone knows that! Ooh, and incidentally, Nad, you remember the night I predicted that red was going to be huge a few months back, and how much I wanted a pair of red shoes, and you laughed at me? Well, the pair of gleaming shiny red patent leather peep toe wedges I saw in Myer on the weekend says I was right...). None of that is terribly surprising though, and certainly not worthy of the title of bombshell. No, my confession is much darker than that.

Not everything on this blog is the entire truth.

There, it's out there. There are lashings of truth in here, yes. My Mum did get an 80 cent tax cut from the last federal budget. Yes, I do, really, REALLY like red at the moment. But while it is mostly true, I also use that old tool, exaggeration. For example, I like to make out like I lead an exciting, party-going lifestyle. Sorry, to disillusion anyone here, but unfortunately, my life is not that exciting. Why else do you think I wrote about the morning routine of train girl? Equally sadly, I don't hate my job as much as I sometimes claim - I think I would have fallen asleep long ago if I really did hate it that much. That's not to say that I like exchanging emails four times a day with a guy working for the council because I foolishly left a couple of trees showing in the car park layout I'm working on right now - or rather, supposed to be working - but there are moments when being in architecture - and I hate to say this, but there's nothing else for it - it rocks. To see something built that you had a hand in might seem boring and mundane, but trust me, it's a bit of a buzz. On the flip side though, to see something that you designed, that looked delicate and beautiful when you handed the design over the council hacked and turned into something that looks like a children's carousel is a soul destroying experience. So yes, I do engage with my work far more than it would seem from what I write about it. That said, if someone was to offer me a bt of casht o do something else, just try and stop me. Studying architecture has already done its bit for changing how I view the world. I think it's time I was able to go on holidays without coming back with hundreds of photos of buildings, or construction details - visiting the cathedral being built in Barcelona (La Sagrada Famiglia, sorry about the spelling issues, I can never get it right) was a revelation worthy of the entire 8 weeks living on a shoestring by itself. But enough already.

So no, not everything I say is the exact truth, if I decide to be perfectly honest for once. It's a stab in the vague direction of true but really, who would want to read the thoughts of the person who spent last weekend curled up on the couch at her parents couch (because yes, she is in her mid-twenties, but has yet to leave home for many reasons)? Not me, that's for sure...

Monday Strikes Back

The Evil Empire that is Monday has struck again. Not satisfied with plunging the temperature so low this morning that my windows on my car were iced over thick enough to take a good few minutes of blasting with heat from the inside and pouring water from the outside, Monday has continued to strike over and over today. Somehow I managed to drop five minutes between going into the bathroom and getting into my car, which meant I should have missed my train. It was one of those things, I guess. Time vanishes into the ether, without explaining itself before it goes.

Imagine my surprise then to get to the station and see the platform still crowded with people. Seems my car wasn't the only piece of machinery struck by iciness this morning. Apparently, the train network was also suffering - or it was on my line, at least. Two trains were cancelled in a row apparently - the one I normally catch and the one before it. Seems that the trains were in such a bad way the Connex were forced to resurrect one of the old trains, that's about twice as old as I am, in order to have any train come through about half an hour after the last service to run normally. I don't agree with the fellow traveller who called it "inhumane" to cram us into that old rattler, but I do think that there should have been a solution. I'm guessing anyone at the many stations after mine wished for some alternative as well. I was crammed into the standing room, and I get on at the fifth station on the line, and ride for half an hour from there to get to the city. There were many disappointed faces outside the train as we moved through the stations.

But Monday still had worse in store for me this morning.

I was dying of tiredness and thirst by the time I finally made it into work, havng stood for another 15 minutes waiting for a tram, only to have to cram into one without any seats left, or be even more late for work than I already was - another half hour or so on my feet. So, naturally, I needed a trip to the shops for a drink not long after I got here. There are perks to working in this area. there are a lot of coffee shops, and pretty boys in suits who go to said coffee shops at certain times of day. It's almost enough to make me get up early enough to try and look pretty for work - but no, not quite; I like my sleep too much for that. So off to the coffee shop I trekked with our lovely receptionist. We normally go at about 10:30 lately. Ever since we discovered the existence of someone we now call "Open neck guy". No, his neck doesn't open. He was wearing an open necked shirt the first time we saw him, and no viewings since then have been able to break the name. But the thirst inflicted on me this Monday was too early. Not only was there no open neck guy, there were no suits there either. And I don't even drink coffee, so i had to trek into another shop for the required burst of caffeine and sugar in the form of a coke bottle.

But Monday still wasn't done.

I once worked in an office which was the architectural equivalent of the United Nations. The boss was an Englishman by choice, if not by birth; there was a Malaysian, an Italian (who has since married an American and moved to Korea), a half-greek half-irish Australian, a south Australian (technically Australian, I know, but everybody except the Tasmanians would probably dispute the fact), a pole and me, the token local. It came as something of a shock to me to find the ever-chatty pole coming into this office today to be interviewed for a job, which she got. I was asked about her - which I hated, since I wanted neither to tell the truth about what i thoughtof working with her again, nor to destroy her hopes, since I know she supports her family - and she has been offered the job. So I'll have her back in the same office as me again. Not something I'm overly thrilled about to be honest. It's something that could only happen on a Monday.

So it's with understandable trepidation that I face this afternoon and wish, whole heartedly, that the day was over. If only Monday could pass as a half day, easing into the week in a way that would be far less painful, I'm sure I could bear it. But until such time as someone is foolish enough to pay me money to set my own hours, I'm stuck working for "the man" - two of them, in fact - and putting in the hours that he (or in this case they)demand. Monday, bloody Monday.

Katie - for Ralphie

For the past (insert disturbingly large length of time in here) I've been working on - well, I'm not quite sure what to call it to be honest. Like all aspiring writers, i tend to think of whatever I'm working on at the time as a novel, but I'm not sure that the six chapters of waffle so far written would really qualify for that description. One thing's for certain - there is at least one friend who is getting very impatient for the next installment in the life of Katie Barnes.

So Ralphie, just for you, here goes...for anyone else, I truly apologise for jumping in at the middle like this. In fact, I just apologise in general for what is to follow.

Standing nervously in the corner, Katie looked at her watch again. She didn't have long to get from the party to be sitting on her father's couch when the football started. She knew from past experience that if she was late, she wouldn't get let in until quarter time. Nick might have loved his daughters, but he hated to be interupted during a football match. But that aside, her general was running late. And it was his own party. The crowd of familliar and unfamilliar faces continued to shift around her. Out on the dance floor Emily was in the process of ebarassing herself - her favourite party past-time. Distracted by the movement, she didn't notice when someone spotted her from across the room and bagan to make his way towards her.

"Katie, you told me fibs," accused Wasim. Katie jumped around and smiled inspite of the lemonade now dripping down the front of her dress.

"Not nearly as big a lie as you told me," she joked. "And if you don't like the surprise, I can go?" She smiled again when Wasim shook his head in a happy no.

"Hmm, I didn't think you'd say that. I can't stay long though. I really do have to go to Daddy tonight. I can't leave him alone all night."

Wasim sighed, long used to the idea that, whatever anyone told her otherwise, Katie would always be happiest curled up on a couch somewhere, whether she had a book with her or the football on the television. He remembered the struggles he used to have to get her out on a Saturday night, and wondered what could be so important that she'd be out tonight. It might have been a party to celebrate his wedding, but he was under no illusions about her priorities.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked her.

"What, I can't jsut turn up at a friend's wedding celebrations?" Wasim raised an eyebrow.

"OK," she confessed. "I need your help on something. I declared war on Meredith."

Katie should have known better than to just spill information that large. Wasim's face told the story of his shock at the idea that Katie would even think of taking on her mother. His face fell even further with the realisation that she wanted his help to do it. Katie explained the situation, feeling that she owed it to him to expand on her reasons and to let him know just how awful Meredith truly was - how much worse than any of them had ever thought possible, that she'd been living a lie propped up by blackmail for the whole of Katie's life.

"Jack told me to get as much information as I can. But I don't know what to do with it," she finished. Wasim knew exactly what he wanted to do with such explosive information as she was bound to find - run away from it, as far and as fast as he could. He knew, however, that he couldn't run away from a fight like this.

"OK, Kat. I'll help. I know someone you need to talk to. But go, find your information,then come back to me. I'll set it all up." A light of mischief came into his eyes. "Actually, this could be interesting."

Katie hugged him, and moved towards the door, waving to Emily on her way out. A quick thumbs up to her friend, and she was gone, on her way on her first information gathering mission.

* * * *

So there it is...probably the scrappiest bit of writing I've done in a long time, thanks to the idea of actually having to do some work sometime today (although taht idea wasn't helped along by beer o'clock striking the office at about 2pm this afternoon...or the attack of the munchies that hit at about 4...). Comments? Thoughts? Opinions? Wish for more? Wish that Katie and her friends would land at the bottom of a very deep hole and never climb their way back out? I'm open to ideas!

Green with envy and blue with cold

OK, for all the northern hemisphere people out there...we know it is now officially hot everywhere. I'm understanding that. However...I have to say that, since my fingers are currently blue from being foolish enough to use a tap in the bahtroom and NOT waiting to required 15 minutes for the water to get above the freezing point, I see no need for rubbing in the warmth and sunny-ness that is the heat wave sweeping the northern part of the world right now, like in this blog, the cupcake tent

It's especially harsh when I'm not going to be seeing any sun until next April...So please, people, think of the poor pasty sun-deprived Australians out there before writing about how stinking hot you are...

History never repeats - or does it?

You've got to hand it to the Australian government for sheer ingenuity, and for the wide-ranging research they clearly do to find solutions to percieved problems. In the latest bid to control the touchy issue of border security, the idea of a floating asylum centre has been - and I hate to say this, but feel I have to - floated. Yes, that's right. Not content with processing those who arrive here illegally in off-shore centres on nearby islands like Nauru, it has been decided that these people don't even deserve to arrive on land, instead shunted straight to a mobile, floating dentention centre. Clearly, the federal government have turned to 18th century England for inspiration on how to treat a mass of desperate people, many of them pitifully poor - especially when compared with the people who are telling them they can't come here.

The floating detention centre is intended to limit the back-tracking required by boats that are rounding up the boat-people and illegal fishermen poaching in Australian waters. Where once they would have been taken to a northern Australian port, or to Nauru or Christmas Islands as part of the "Pacific Solution" (the name of the enormously costly program of keeping people from Australia unless they are willing to work for peanuts in factory jobs that the locals are apparently considered unqualified for - but I digress nto other controversial waters), the proposal would see them off-loaded onto a boat. Civilian tenders have been called for to supply the boat.

Can anybody else say "prison hulks"? Because that's what I'm thinking.

A little history lesson might not go astray here, for those people who never read any of Colleen McCullough's book Morgan's Run, or Dickens' Great Expectations (not to mention any o the many texts written about the convict transportation era). Not too long after America declared its independence, and therefore stopped being a dumping ground for the flotsam and jetsom of English society, a decision was reached to relieve the overcrowding in jails by putting some old ships to a new use, anchored in a river, housing prisoners until such time as they could be shipped off to that other great big prison, Australia (OK, I know,I've taken quite a few liberties with this version of history.I know the hulks were around before Australia was even considered as the new dumping ground for convicts. I know lots of things that don't get included here. This is an overview. Anyone wanting more information is refered to Google or Wikipedia for much more accurate impressions of prison hulks and transportation.) Sure, this version won't be anchored in the Thames like the original hulks were, and I'm sure we won't be hearing any horror stories about disease and over-crowding (although that doesn't mean it won't be happening, just that we won't hear about it). It seems to me that, after looking to the 1950s for inspiration for so long, the goverment has finally moved past that era. Well past it, in fact, and have found the ideal solution to dealing with large numbers of unwanted people who have somehow transgressed - mostly by wanting something better for themselves and their families.

That's right. Put them in a boat, and nobody really needs to care about them for years at a time. They've one-upped the 18th century English with this plan though, the the boats they're talking about now aren't dis-masted naval vessels anchored in the Thames where the stench was apparently appalling. Instead, this incarnation combines the best elements of the transportation system with the hulks - civilian contractors (in the original version this offered a handy opportunity for those who were finding the slave trade umprofitable to have government sanction for the moving of large numbers of people with little or no sanitary precautions and even less food) supply the vessel, and by keeping it far offshore (for the convenience of the navyand customs officials, obviously) asylum seekers get taken right out of the media spotlight to be treated as they so clearly deserve - locked up in conditions in breach of humanitarian regulations for years, left to rot, before being shipped back to countries that, for whatever reason, are unable to provide healthy living conditions.

So hats off to the Australian government for proving, once and for all, that a democratically elected government can embarass so many of it's own people. And apologies to anyone who thought that I was going to be able to keep my own, decidedly leftist leanings completely out of the equation when maintaining a blog...

Of Mice and Men...(or chocolate and fried foods, at any rate)

There are rules that govern the universe, and they all seem to be coming to bite me at the moment. The latest one is the rule that says as soon as you aren't allowed to have something - and it can be anything at all - straight away that's a thing that you want. Desperately. More than life itself. And there are so many things in the world that fall into this category for me, that I thought I'd indulge myself in a little materialism and go through a few of them, in the hope that there will be some relief from the wanting that seems to take up not only my time (like my love of reda for example. And I'm hoping like crazy that the link comes out on that properly, because I've never tried one of them before, and I have no idea what I'm doing. But that's another thing I'm quite often wanting - a clue.)

So, here goes.

I'm not allowing myself to eat junk food at the moment. This comes out of the sudden realisation that it's a little over 2 months until I'm going to be immortalised on film at my friend's wedding. Given that it's my brother doing the photography, I have very little faith in him wanting to catch me from a good angle. And then there's the fact that the bridesmaid dresses, lovely as they are, are satin. Teal satin. Not necessarily the most flattering look for anyone above the miniscule-can-fit-into-the-clothes-of-a-small-child size that one of the other bridesmaids is. The catch is, as good as this resolution may be for the wedding photos, it simply isn't good for my mental state. I work in an office that is basically above not just one, but two take away food outlets, next door to a chinese takeaway, and up the road from a whole host of other junk food suppliers. They have been, if not my firends, certainly my comfort on days like today, when I have the feeling that a cold is about to descend on me in full force and I crave chocolate or, more particularly, donuts or potato cakes. None of the others in the office are under the no-junk-food injunction, so they're free to bring in whatever they choose. And bring they do. This morning we've had chips, potato cakes, battered savs, dim sims, donuts and coffee scrolls moving through the office. There's only 10 people who work here. And five of them are in a room next door. This is an office that loves junk food, make no mistake. And it is torture - kind of like chinese water torture, actually, where you get pinned down and forced to listen - in this case smell - but can't do anything about it. It is a serious test of my will power. And the most miraculous discovery of the week is that I actually have some. The clostest I have cme to caving in was the desperate need for caffiene that could only be satisifed by fizzy drink, since I drink neither tea nor coffee. But I was good. I went the Zero otpion, no matter how loudly and seductively the sugar-packed alternative called my name. And it was certainly yelling fit to burst as I closed that fridge door.

YEs, it's indulgent to sit here and rant about how much I hate having to denymyself these luxuries. I know. There are people starving in the world. Some of them are probably jsut down the road from me,in fact, being housed in a shelter not far from here. Believe me, I know this. Knowing it, and stopping myself from the wanting, and the whining, are completely separate issues, however. So, until they decide that the delights of the take away food outlet are to be shared equally throughout the world (and the coinciding concern about the expansion of waist lines is also shared in a more equitable fashion), I'll keep on with the wanting - and probably the whining at the people who make the wanting that much harder to bear. It's another one of the rules. Life isn't fair. If it was, I'd be able to have my cake and eat it too. And then be able to walk down the aisle in front of my friend without any concerns about popping a seam or falling out of my dress. No, life is most definately not fair.