Not Drowning. Or Waving. Emoing

The lack of recent activity on this blog here can be attributed to my odd decision to spend almost all of the past week emoing like I've never emoed before. If it ever becomes an Olympic sport, I am confident of at least a silver in the 'long slow luge into self-involved whiny despair'.

So, to spare you from having to read any of the self indulgent nonsense I have been writing over the past few days, I'm taking a brief break from posting. If I happen to bump into my sense of perspective in the pickle aisle at Coles, I'll know it's time to write some more.

If the past week is a guide, I suspect it's not going to happen any time soon.

I wouldn't mistreat you/ For my weight in gold

I simply cannot lose weight when there are cakes and cookies in my house. No matter how much time I spend exercising incredible self restraint,* at some possibly alcohol fueled point, the sugar cravings will go critical and I will eat this stuff.


So, the only solution is to get these things out of my house as quickly as possible. Since all my friends are dieting and I was always taught that wasting food is utterly unacceptable, the only way to get the cookies to go away is to eat them.

This means that my current diet plan is to eat every cookie in sight, really quickly.

Popular? Yes

Effective? No

Meanwhile, the people I work with like to help out by leaving massive double chocolate chip muffins on my desk any time I'm not looking. I am not fond of these people any more.

I am also fairly sick of those Biggest Loser ads on the sides of buses. You know, the ones where two reasonably fit looking people grin at me whilst announcing some fun fact like "To burn off a can of soft drink, you have to walk 3 kilometres".

This may be true. However, I'm betting that I could burn off the same can of soft drink by sitting on the couch watching sport for three hours. Or by sleeping for seven.

By that logic, if I start drinking a can of soft drink immediately before bed every night, I won't gain any weight. This sounds like an excellent plan to me.

Still, there is reason for celebration. Until I saw that ad, I had no idea how lucky I was to be living exactly 1.5km from the nearest milk bar. If it wasn't for such excellent local town planning, I'd probably be dead by now.






* as opposed to, say, just exercising

We do talk about our ancestors

Or, This May Answer Some of Your Questions About Me

Spending a day with my grandparents is always a fascinating experience. I don't need to do anything except sit, listen and enjoy the spectacle.

Today, they spent some time discussing their trip to a lavender farm and, in particular, the lavender scones that they ate in the cafe, which did not taste at all like lavender. The cafe is called, of course, Purple Haze. Unsurprisingly, there's a bit of a colour theme going on, which was described like this:

Mum: They had purple table cloths, purple curtains...

Grandma: But I didn't see a purple cat go past

Mum: Um, were you expecting to see a purple cat?

Grandma: Well, not at the time. I've only just thought of it.

INC: [tries not to damage internal organs from laughing]


This was followed by a lengthy discussion of purpleness. My mother informed us that too much purple was not a good thing. In fact, in Russia, they used to paint the cells of political prisoners entirely purple because that was the colour that would drive them mad the fastest.

This is the sort of stuff my mother knows.*

My grandparents, perhaps surprised at how fast we had moved from scones to psychological torture of political prisoners, asked a couple more questions, which led to this:

Grandpa: So, having the colour purple around makes you go mad?

Mum: Well, yes.

Grandpa: [taps the sprig of lavender in his buttonhole] Well, watch this space.

Later on , my grandmother showed me some of the original documents from when the family moved to Australia inthe 19th century.** Particularly entertaining was the story of my grandmother's great grandfather. After half a page or so of general historical stuff, it suddenly took a sharp left turn into amusing anecdote territory with the story of two of his daughters. I didn't write it down but it said something like this:

"Lydia and Cynthia worked for Mrs Aldergate, performing tasks including ironing the clothes. Being rather young, they folishly reasoned that they only needed to iron the front panels of each shirt, as that was all that could be seen under a gentleman's waistcoat. This practice came to an abrupt halt when they received a curt note from Mrs Aldergate saying "The whole of the shirt is to be ironed."

When reading this to my lovely wife, I prefaced it by saying "See, it's genetic".

She agreed wholeheartedly. And laughed for quite some time.








* or, just possibly, makes up. I can't tell.


**We enjoyed this so much that my particular branch of the family did it again in 1977.

A truly great day

Our Prime Minister said:

I move:
That today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.


I just watched the full speech and I am too wrecked to do anything but sit in awe and let the tears of pride flow freely.

The night that Anna Bligh stood before a jubilant crowd in Brisbane and introduced "the Prime Minister of Australia... Kevin Rudd, I felt hope for the future of our country for the first time in many years. Like everyone, I hoped our new leader could live up to the weight of our hopes, our dreams, our dearest wishes and our highest of expectations.

A few short months later, on the first day of this new Parliament, my expectations have been exceeded in ways I never though possible. I have never, never been so proud of our country as I am now.

To all my indigenous brothers and sisters, I proudly join our Prime Minister in saying just how sorry I am. And to anyone who ever reads this, I say let us always keep the faith, for this, more than anything that has come before, was a great victory for the true believers.

The most important part of acting is re-acting. This does not mean acting again

There is a long and involved explanation as to how I got to that title but since it makes no sense and even if I successfully explained it, it still wouldn't be funny, I'm going to move on to the results of the least popular internet quiz the world has ever seen.


First of all, thank you to Mizanthrop, Actonb, Leilani and Meva for actually sending in entries, thereby saving this from being a complete debacle, even if it was still quite a big one. Thanks also to MelbourneGirl and Gigglewick for giving it a red hot go, and to Adam who was involved in some manner or other.


I have considered feeling despondent about how bad an idea this was. I probably should have realised that, as actonb correctly pointed out, bloggers are by their very nature anonymous personas. Or, as I would put it, we're all so used to being mysterious that this competition was always going to be impossible.


Still, we learned a few things.


The award for most surprising fact must go to Gigglewick for her under 17 kayaking exploits, although there were strong challenges from actonb with her love for skodas and Leilani's three metre high bamboo teepee, which should be a great timesaver for her legion of internet stalkers everywhere.

Meva wins cutest fact for the student union one and her cat runs a close second for "most gross" with the 4am weeing incident.

Adam wins most recognisable blogger since he was the only person to have all three of his facts correctly guessed by the same person (well done, Meva).

I was intrigued about which ones people would think were mine. Two out of four people thought I had won an egg throwing competition. That was, in fact, MelbourneGirl. A different two out of four people thought I used to be able to do a 360 on a skateboard. Again, that was actually MG, so let me take this opportunity to point out that we are not in fact the same person.

And yet another two out of four people thought I had no opinion on Nicole Kidman's pregnancy. Actually, I think it's nice for the Urban and Kidman families and everyone else should find something else to talk about. Sure, it's not a very interesting opinion, but it will have to do.

I wasn't surprised that people were unaware of my (mixed) netball playing past with the lovely and talented Ms Redpath, and I am eternally grateful to actonb who, despite knowing what I look like, still didn't guess that my brother thinks I have a big nose.



Congratulations to Leilani and Meva who were the only two people to guess any of the ones about me. They both figured out that my favourite cafe in the world is in Chattanooga. This is either excellent research (I did blog about going to Tennessee once) or a heck of a guess. For the record, the place is called Rembrants and the baked cheescake is so wrong it's right.


And finally we come to the one that seemed to capture everyone's imagination. Unsurprisingly, it was number 6, being the 'icecubes' one. Gigglewick, Meva and Mizanthrop may be interested to know that they each got one vote on this one. Leilani was the only person to get this right, but no extra points for guessing there, for she was the one who did it. On the bright side, Leilani now gets to be MelbourneGirl's instant hero, and does it get any better than that no it does not.

For those who want to know the correct answers in full, here they are:

1. I have never owned a car. Adam
2. I grew up in a Angelina Jolie style 'rainbow family'; both my sibs were adopted from different countries, in fact I'm the only member of my immediate family, (aside from my child/ren) to be born an Australian citizen. Miz
3. When I started uni at 17, I wouldn't go to the Student Union for the first week because I thought I would have to show some kind of card to prove I was a Unionist. (And, no. Tony Abbott isn't my uncle.) Meva
4. Once I drove to Sydney with 2 girlfriends in a VW beetle. We stopped in Albury for the night and went to a pub and met about 8 guys and we all then squeezed into the beetle to go to the local disco. I kissed one of the boys later. MG
5. I have not eaten McDonalds since 1991. Giggles
6. To get back at one of my brothers I once froze my own wee into ice cubes and served it to him in a glass of lemon cordial. (I was nine years old) Leilani
7. I went to primary school next door to Pentridge Prison. Through clumsy ball play and schoolyard bullies I lost a football, basketball and 4 tennis balls over the bluestone wall and in the 6 years I was there we had our lunchtime cut short twice while police scoured the area for escapees. Adam
8. I used to be able to do a 360 on a skateboard. MG
9. I once told my Christian best friend that Greek Mythology makes more sense than christianity. actonb
10. I was the under-17s doubles-kayaking champion in my state. Giggles

11. My elderly cat pissed on me while I was sound asleep in bed at 4am last week. Meva
12. Once I won an egg-throwing competition. MG
13. Paul McDermott once sat on my lap. I think this caused permanentdamage to my sense of smell. Miz

14. My brother used to sledge me by singing "You’ve got a big nose" to the tune of 1927’s "You’ll never know". INC

15. I never finished high school. Miz

16. I got a massive and extremely well done line stroke painting of a samuraislasher for Christmas. Adam

17. My favourite café in the world is in Chattanooga. This is irritating. INC

18. I didn't get my first car until I was 26. It was a 1968 Merc with a fold back sunroof, I thought it was so cool, until it died. Leilani

19. I have no opinion whatsoever on Nicole Kidman's pregnancy. Giggles

20. I have a three metre high bamboo teepee in my front garden. Leilani
21. I have played netball with the daughter of Australian cricketing legend Ian Redpath. INC
22. My favourite car ever is a Skoda. actonb
23. Both of my parents seriously considered joining the Communist Party when they were in their early 20's. Meva
24. I still harbour a grudge against my mother for not letting me learn morris dancing while at Infants School. actonb

And so we come, at last, to the results. Mizanthrop lead early through the clever strategy of being the only person to enter. She was eventually knocked out of first by place by Actonb. Leilani tied with Actonb for first and we remained deadlocked for a week while I hoped someone else would enter so we wouldn't have to do some sort of fire making challenge.

A last minute entry from Meva looked sure to solve the problem, but Meva's excellent guesses came up heartbreakingly short by a mere one point, leaving Actonb and Leilani to share the honour of being the first and only winners of this competition ever.

Seriously, thanks for playing everyone. I'm not sure if anyone else enjoyed this, but I found it fascinating.

Why can't I write like this?

ONE DAY when the sun had come back over the Forest, bringing with it the scent of may, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but it didn't matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher Robin whistled in a special way he had, and Owl came flying out of the Hundred Acre Wood to see what was wanted.


Once again, this proves my theory that, some days, the only effective cure for a slightly bruised soul is a good dose of the beautiful and whimsical writings of Alan Alexander Milne.

This week can end any time it wants to. Right now would be good.

UPDATE: It did. Happy again now.