hello

in space no one can hear you scream. in cyberspace no one notices your silence. i've just paid to 'own' this domain for the next two years so figured i better get back to posting. and i will as soon as i've bought something for my art director's birthday and decided whether or not i like porcelain raft or not (terrible name!)

spit it out

so i've just seen that i haven't blogged for more than a year. this is partly laziness, partly being sucked back into the world of the office and days spent in front of a computer, leaving little enthusiasm for the typed word and partly because of lack of anything interesting to say. i know, when did that ever get in the way of a good blog post? i sometimes think that if we actually only said the things that really mattered, really told someone something or imparted vital information we would spend much of our lives mute. and personally i don't think that's such a bad thing. a world without 'yeah, i'm on the bus' wouldn't be such a terrible place, would it? so, pet peeve number 1,320. chewing gum. actually not the gum itself but the people who seem to think i want to hear what sound it makes while it is being masticated. or that i might like to sit on a seat with a lump of wrigleys decorating it. or that my shoes lack a certain something.

dig it!

Despite my cultivated 'sophisticate' and indeed 'sophisticat' air, I admit I still have a rather schoolboyish (read Viz) sensibility when it comes to things 'toilet' related (yes, I know we say lavatory, but lavatory humour doesn't sound right).
I was recently on holiday with my fart obsessed neice and nephew and found, despite myself, their constant parping irritating because I was stuck in the back seat of a hot car with them, but also quite amusing.
Unfortunately, a cat, no matter how dear, evacuating its bowels on the carpet in front of you as you try to watch TV, or worse, eat supper, is neither grown up, nor funny. And so it was that we (as in my adopted household) decided that it was time to put poor Max to rest. Context: A spastic colon, pain, lots of drugs (him), lots of cleaning up (mainly me) and too many 'oooh, what's this?' toddlers running around.
It will be a chance for 7 year old Erin to learn about the cycles (and circle) of life, we figure. 'Erin. You know Max has not been well for a long time: we are going to ask the vet to come round and put him to sleep so he can go to heaven and feel better.'
Erin: 'Oh good. Does that mean we can get a kitten?'
So, the day arrives. I am at work and feel a pang at midday - the appointed hour.
I have agreed, nay insisted, that I bury Max, given that latterly, I was his refuge from screaming children, brown stains on the duvet a small price to pay for offering comfort to a creature in need (yes, I changed the covers!)
And so it is with heavy heart that I arrive back at a nearly empty home – Mylo, Max's brother is on the sofa as fat and uninterested as ever – to find the dispatched Max awaiting me. He is sealed in a plastic bag on the coffee table and still warm!
Forget finding the one you love entwined with another, this is heartbreak.
I take him into the garden and begin to dig.
Propers, btw, to grave diggers. Have you tried to dig any kind of hole lately? It's not as easy as the movies make it out to be!
As I am digging, fighting back the tears, young Erin and younger Molly decide to come out and jump on the trampoline.
So far, so vaguely annoying.
And then Erin starts singing: Happy dead day to you, Happy dead day dear Max, happy dead day to you.
From the mouths of babes and innocents, eh.
Please don't invite her to my funeral!

Dig it!

Despite my cultivated 'sophisticate' and indeed 'sophisticat' air, I admit I still have a rather schoolboyish (read Viz) sensibility when it comes to things 'toilet' related (yes, I know we say lavatory, but lavatory humour doesn't sound right).
I was recently on holiday with my fart obsessed neice and nephew and found, despite myself, their constant parping irritating because I was stuck in the back seat of a hot car with them, but also quite amusing.
Unfortunately, a cat, no matter how dear, evacuating its bowels on the carpet in front of you as you try to watch TV, or worse, eat supper, is neither grown up, nor funny. And so it was that we (as in my adopted household) decided that it was time to put poor Max to rest. Context: A spastic colon, pain, lots of drugs (him), lots of cleaning up (mainly me) and too many 'oooh, what's this?' toddlers running around.
It will be a chance for 7 year old Erin to learn about the cycles (and circle) of life, we figure. 'Erin. You know Max has not been well for a long time: we are going to ask the vet to come round and put him to sleep so he can go to heaven and feel better.'
Erin: 'Oh good. Does that mean we can get a kitten?'
So, the day arrives. I am at work and feel a pang at midday - the appointed hour.
I have agreed, nay insisted, that I bury Max, given that latterly, I was his refuge from screaming children, brown stains on the duvet a small price to pay for offering comfort to a creature in need (yes, I changed the covers!)
And so it is with heavy heart that I arrive back at a nearly empty home – Mylo, Max's brother is on the sofa as fat and uninterested as ever – to find the dispatched Max awaiting me. He is sealed in a plastic bag on the coffee table and still warm!
Forget finding the one you love entwined with another, this is heartbreak.
I take him into the garden and begin to dig.
Propers, btw, to grave diggers. Have you tried to dig any kind of hole lately? It's not as easy as the movies make it out to be!
As I am digging, fighting back the tears, young Erin and younger Molly decide to come out and jump on the trampoline.
So far, so vaguely annoying.
And then Erin starts singing: Happy dead day to you, Happy dead day dear Max, happy dead day to you.
From the mouths of babes and innocents, eh.
Please don't invite her to my funeral!

push it real good

i've just come back from a tour of the Sydney Opera House. i figured that as this was my third visit to the city and i had never actually walked up those stairs and into the place was a situation that needed rectifying. that today the opera house was free to enter was a situation that facilitated this.
cleverly i had signed up for email alerts about the open day, which i'd seen in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago. this meant that i was in possession of, if not a golden ticket, a pretty good 'priority pass' which meant that i did not have to join the initial queue to get in.
now, i'm not sure at what point a queue ceases to be a queue and turns into something much harder to control but what was happening down Circular Quay this morning must have been pretty close. to say that it was heaving is an understatement along the lines of saying the Pope rather likes the idea of Catholicism.
anyway, skipping my way up the steps i headed for the priority pass gate and did, to my delight, make it into the house (as we natives like to call it, before going on to talk about tinnies, joeys, vegies and anything else that can and therefore must be abbreviated). and then, the queues really started.
it seems that the whole of Sydney is, like me, to quote my friend Stephanie, 'careful with money'. obviously by this Steph means 'a tightwad', and i can't argue, my feeling being, you can't have your nest egg and spend it, as there were seas upon seas of blank faces waiting to move from one foyer to auditorium to foyer to auditorium.
i very soon turned into one of those people that really irritate me: a queue jumper.
i know!
i blame it on the crumpled up 'priority pass' print out in my pocket - i almost felt it was my right, no my duty, not to stand around for hours, prefering instead to insinuate myself amid large groups of tourists by way of making out i was with the person asking a question of one of the guides.
i was, i admit, quite shameless.
i also tried the 'oh where have you got to?' look as i sailed past the patient hordes. you know, the 'why of course i'm not jumping the queue, it's just that i've lost the people i'm with look.'
i was introduced to a version of this by an old friend back in Spain at a Madonna concert (I'm talking pre-Brazil surgery, popeye bicep Madonna, circa 1990). arriving fashionably late we pushed our way all the way through the crowd until we were just 3 bodies away from the stage. the whole time Eduardo was calling 'Mercedes!' to our imaginary friend up front. it worked a treat (not counting the trail of abuse we no doubt garnered in our wake).
so, i saw the inside of the house. and very nice it was too: exactly like i was expecting it to look. stages, seats and those weird mushroomy things on the ceiling that help with acoustics.
i will try and remember my barefaced cheek next time someone pushes in front of me, accepting it as karma earned.
as i left the queue had got even longer!

only me. again!

avid readers can put those tissues away now. the bitch is back!
i've had a blog-block since doing a silent retreat back in May: everything, twitter, blogging, hotmailing, botox, hair dye, deoderant, clean underwear – felt unnecessary and just more noise. but man cannot live on lotus positions and good will alone and besides, i saw something at the gym today i wanted to comment on.
not the woman who was so thin she could barely actually climb onto the stepper - the fact that her lips had been enhanced to life-raft proportions didn't make it any easier for her, radically moving as they did her centre of gravity but the amount of muscle marys in SUNGLASSES.
yes, first there was the jewellery - Lord Mayor stylee chains worn outside of the wife beaters. now we have sunglasses. inside.
i looked for white sticks and labradors in the lockers but found no evidence to suggest that these people were visually impaired so can only assume they were labouring under the illusion that they look 'cool'.
it is surely only a matter of time before someone opens a branch of Claire's accessories in the shower!

from the mouths of babes....

'Steven,' says young Erin last night. 'You like glasses of wine, don't you!'
And she's right, I do!
Fortunately I'm going on a 10-day dry out, I mean retreat, next week so you'll just have to wait for the clean, serene me

bouncy bouncy

i went to the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art (which, given that EVRYTHNG is abbreviated here, i'm surprised isn't referred to as the muso-compo-art) to see a very good exhibition by a bonkers Japanese lady who's been 'happening' in various ways since the 60s (haven't we all!). there was some really interesting bits, my favourite was a room full of dangling coloured light bulbs. the room was totally blacked out and mirrored, with water on the floor so when you shut the door behind you all you could see was your reflection and an infinity of coloured lights. it was what i imagine sky diving in outer space must be like (something i think about a lot).
after the exhibition i had an obligatory wander round the gifte shoppe. there, along with nice arty books, back catalogues and a few arty bits and pieces there was a selection of random, non-exhibition or indeed art related goodies – Chinese pin cushion anyone? the weirdest thing though, was a container of 'super' bouncy balls - you know, those hard rubber ones, that sometimes have things in the middle or are a bit glittery.
well, all i could think about was picking one up and giving it a good old bounce. then i remembered when i was little and we used to have them at home and, obviously, throw them really hard and watch them ping around the room (or dogs used to go mad at them!). and all i could think about was how hilarious it would be if i bounced one REALLY REALLY hard and it went into major bounce mode around the shop, smashing everything breakable, ricocheting off glass shelves full of limited edition ceramics and into the path of horrified onlookers.
fortunately i managed to restrain myself and left, to catch a bus to Bondi beach. which was nice. it was different.

trains and boats and names

today on the train back from lunch with my dad i found myself staring at a cute pre-teen. He had that fresh, plumped faced thing going on that only the young ever pull off. he had black curly hair, sparkly eyes, the start of bumfluff and an oddly attractive missing tooth (the look was attractive, that is, not the tooth, which i assume was probably a bit manky hence its absence) near the front of his mouth (though not one of the front one).
He's alluring, i thought to myself. Far too young for me by a good few years but give him time...
and then he started talking to the person next to her, yes, her, for i realised in an instant that as Lou Reed so lyrically put it 'he was a she'. i had been oggling a pre-pubescent girl!
next week, i marry a fruit bat.

Dale Winton, start panicking

Quite often (approx once a week in fact) I speak to my mum on the phone. ‘What are you doing today?’ I enquire.
‘Going to the supermarket,’ she replies. I no longer wait for her to continue ‘then…’ because that’s all she’ll have on that day (usually a Thursday). It’s the one time of the week that my ageing gran gets out of the house, and is, according to my mum, an extremely tiresome and time consuming task. nan has turned the weekly shop into a royal walkaboutesque affair, and apparently lingers infuriatingly over items she has no need or desire for (step away from the tampons, we're about to get a parking ticket!)
Having visited one or two Australian supermarkets of late, I think I am turning into my mum (or worse, my nan), because doing the shopping here could quite easily now take me best part of the day.
I cannot believe how badly laid out and signposted the supermarkets are in this country.
Now, whenever I write a shopping list I almost feel like adding binoculars and a step ladder: binoculars because none of the aisles are signposted at the end, instead there are tiny labels half way down each one with, in tiny letters, a random selection of SOME of the things you’ll find there. A selection mind. How anyone with less than perfect vision manages to do their shopping in less that four hours is beyond me as you have to wander half way down each aisle before you can read that actually there’s nothing there you want.
The step ladder is to help me get stuff from the top shelves – this is normally where anything you might actually want is kept. I am relatively tall but even I struggle to reach some of the stuff kept way on high. The other day, no word of a lie, I came across a granny pushing stuff along the top shelf with her walking stick. ‘Can I help?’ I asked, suddenly coming over all ASDA advert. ‘No, I’m fine thanks, that’s why I brought my stick.’!
There is also not the ready meal culture here that us Brits have embraced. Which is hardly a wonder given that the few just heat and serve options that are available come in transparent vacuum packed bags, meaning that the lentil and back soup and chicken stew look like they’ve already been eaten and thrown back up again.
And as for shopping logically, forget it. The other day, unable to find a hairdryer anywhere in the ‘small domestic electricals’ section of our local superstore (not for me, natch, I have no thatch) we asked one of the assistants, who, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world asked us ‘have you looked next to lipsticks?’. Weird. Weirder still was that the hairdryers were, indeed, right next to the lipsticks. Which were next to magazines.
So, did the visual merchandising team think ‘let’s put the stuff our shoppers use together in the same place’? If so the missed out on some great ‘double selling’ opportunities. For example, laxatives could have gone next to toilet paper also next to the magazines (though you may have to relocate the hairdryers) and milk could nestle next to the cereals along with the morning after pill and pregnancy testing kits…

there's gotta be something better than this...

A friend of my mate Veronica’s has a special exclamation that he likes to treat strangers to at historic landmarks and places of interest.
When, for example, he visited the Grand Canyon, in the middle of a group of tourists, he shouted loudly, in a tone of acute disappointment: ‘IS THAT IT!’ before wandering off.
He did the same at that famous sandstone terrace in Bath and in front of Big Ben.
The effect is, I’m assured, hilarious.
He came to mind yesterday when I visited Sydney’s ‘world famous’ Luna Park fun fair. Luna Park has a chequered past and has opened and closed more times than the proverbial prozzy’s legs, including one unfortunate incident where a group of kids were frazzled to death in the Ghost Train, which is pretty grim.
It’s been open in its current encarnation since about 2000 – after years of being consigned to history. Which I’m sure all the people who had spent A LOT of money on swanky apartments overlooking it were delighted about: who wouldn’t want a screaming rocket attraction whizzing past their window 365 days a year?
We went yesterday, it being Easter holidays and all. I’d wanted to go since I first saw the entrance from the ferry. It’s very 1920s – a huge face with bulging eyes and a mouth you walk through to enter.
So, in we go and we buy a ‘freedom’ pass. $30 for unlimited rides.
Which sounds like good value until you get inside and realise that the rides themselves are extremely limited. The ones you actually want to go on even more so. And most of those are closed. Which is why I remembered Veronica’s mate because, having wandered from one end to the next, dodgy groups of chip-munching, pierced-faced youths, I was temped to shout ‘IS THAT IT!’.
We went on a mini roller coaster, which I liked. Shame that the pleasure:pain ratio was so off kilter. After queuing for 50 minutes the ride was over in 30 seconds. (A bit like bad sex, where mediocre foreplay goes on forever, only you’re actually grateful that the main event is over in the blink of an eye.)
We also went into Coney Island (nearly wrote Canvey) – a ‘fair within a fair’ where there was a maze of mirrors (I counted 3 actual mirrors!), some of those funny cake walk things (if you know what that is please look up You’ve Been Framed best ever clips – number 1 is a woman having an unfortunate incident at a fun fair and makes me weep every time I see it) and those big bumpy slides you need a sack mat to go on.
I was unfussed about all of the above, but my mate Gerry was eager to try the slides so I offered to join her on the junior slope. So, we take our sac mats up the stairs and down we go. REALLY FAST.
I was totally unprepared for the speed at which I hurtled down the metal death trap. So unprepared, in fact, that somehow my arm slipped of my sac mat and scraped along the slidy surface, giving me some rather juicy friction burns along the underside, which took with them most of the skin.
So, $30 for one ride and a seriously grazed arm, which still stings today.
Today, fortunately, my adventure spirit was better rewarded. I went on a ‘bungee trampoline’. This is basically a giant elastic band with an airbed under it. You are strapped to the elastic band and whiz merrily up and down, like Wallace in the Wrong Trousers. It’s fun, in that slightly out of control, it could all go horribly wrong at any second, way. I was particularly thrilled that I managed not one but two backflips. Which were actually quite hard – the kid next to me couldn’t do one!
‘Good backflip,’ said the assistant as she unstrapped me. ‘I had a 59 year old lady from Manchester on yesterday she did one, too!’

from the archives

found this from back in the day. i made myself laugh. imagine!


Some people have combination skin. A greasy bit, a flaky bit, a spotty bit. I have a combination body. I have the arms of a Barbie doll, OK, they’re a bit longer but not much fatter. My legs could belong to a long-distance runner. A 14-year-old long-distance runner. A 14-year-old girl that is. You wouldn’t notice the difference if I stuck my chest and shoulders on to Mr Bean (though you might think he’d got hairier) while my belly does a very passable Giant Haystacks impression. It could be worse, I know, but I dread to think what that would look like.
It hasn’t always been like this. Oh no. In fact I suspect that if, somehow, I could fit myself in one of those clever machines used for crushing empty drink cans I would return to the me of 20 years ago. In those heavy (I mean heady) teenage years, I weighed about 4 stone more than I do now and rather than pear-shaped, I resembled a pineapple atop a couple of marrows, with asparagus tips for arms.
Don’t ask me what happened. Who knows? If we were in Ancient Greece I could proudly boast that I was a toy of the gods. Oh mock ye not, for I am a plaything of the divine. I am Stretch Armstrong, see how Zeus and Venus pull at my limbs. As it is, I can only guess that as I got taller, the puppy fat heard that there was a party going on round my midriff and decided to gatecrash. It’s obviously one of those great parties that no one ever wants to leave.
I’d love to be one of those people who just doesn’t think about their physical appearance, but I think if I did I really would turn into a vegetable. So much of my waking life is spent worrying, measuring, catching sight of, feeling unhappy with and obsessing about what is under my clothes that the fact that I hold down a decent job and have a healthy social life is a minor miracle.
Actually the healthy social life is partly responsible for much of the fretting. You see, I am at that stage in my life where my diary is beginning to read like a restaurant guide. Dinner at such and such with so and so. Lunch here with her. Dinner again with them again. And on and on and on.
And I know I’m my own worse enemy. If it were true that you are what you eat, I would be a bucket of cheap red wine with a mouldy old salad floating in in.
Invariably an evening out will start in some bar or pub. Now, I stopped drinking beer years ago, after the instructor in the gym I used to (until that day) go to, saw me in the changing room and declared, for all the world to hear – what is it with you English guys and beer? (I was abroad at the time) How do you say, beer belly? Ha ha. Beer and I have not been seen together since.
I will usually start the evening with a Bloody Mary, particularly if I am out with a certain friend of mine, who, after her first BM is literally struck dumb. We affectionately refer to this phenomenon as her turning into ‘Marcel Marceau’. She usually recovers her capacity for speech at some point during the evening, but it does allow me to say everything I want to uninterrupted.
While I am on the subject of Bloody Marys (if you follow the rules of grammar you end up with Bloody Maries which sounds like an Osmond after an axe attack), never order one in Australia or you will be served a tomato juice rendered undrinkable by the addition of several bottles of Worcester sauce and little more. But I digress.
Anyway, I shall then move onto wine, or, if I am feeling particularly restrained, a spritzer. Now I can speak a foreign language, I can drive a car, I can touch type and I can swim, but if there is one thing I have never ever managed to get the hang of, that is pacing myself when drinking alcohol. Actually it’s not just alcohol. Whatever I am drinking, no matter how hot, cold or intoxicating, it is almost as if someone has shouted ‘go’ and I have to empty my cup or glass or whatever as quickly as possible. Obviously, this is by the by for other beverages but with alcohol it does seem to mean that I get pissed in no time at all. So the spritzers soon dump the soda water and the glasses of wine soon add up to the odd bottle or two. And off we go to dinner.
For me, reading a menu is never an easy task. I go through each dish thinking, ‘cheese, no, fattening’, ‘avocado and mozzarella, couldn’t possibly, straight to my belly’, ‘duck, more like run and hide, all that fat’, ‘creamy…’ I don’t even bother to find out what. And on I go, eliminating anything that vaguely smacks of grease, calories and body. In the process I usually manage to eliminate anything vaguely appetising but I can’t help myself. By this time I will have reduced the menu to its two or three blandest, least tastiest dishes and it’s just a matter of deciding which of them I want least. Invariably when the waiter or waitress comes this will be the dish I order. I don’t know why, after my habitual 20 minute elimination run through I will be convinced of what I’m going to ask for, only to be totally bewildered at what comes out of my mouth. ‘I’ll have the garden salad, no dressing thanks, and could I have a bread roll with that please, no butter.’ Why I bother to torment myself with the menu I shall never know.
I wish I were one of these people who wasn’t particularly interested in food. I’d have so much more time to think about other things. Who knows, maybe I’d write a novel or discover a cure for cancer or something. As it is I am far too busy reading recipes for dishes I’d never let myself eat and wondering how fattening that sandwhich I had for lunch was and whether to have tuna with my jacket potato this evening (I’m having an evening in) or to go for cottage cheese.
I also suffer dreadfully from menu envy. Basically if it’s on someone else’s plate and not on mine (which it never is, obviously) I wish I’d had that. Even if I hate one of the ingredients. Even if I hate all the ingredients!. And I have to try it, to confirm how much nicer it is than mine. It takes a Herculian effort to stop myself from eating off other people’s plates. People are usually only safe the first time they meet me, or, if they’re lucky, if they are sitting at another table and I don’t know them from Adam.
And so my dinner will come and go and all the while I shall be glugging away on wine, drinking it like there is no tomorrow so that when tomorrow does actually arrive, not only will I have a shocking hangover, I won’t be able to remember much about the evening. Oh, I’ll remember who was there and where we went, but don’t ask me to recall conversations or times.
One of my best examples of ‘self-inflicted amnesia’ was the party I went to wearing a white T-shirt, nothing remarkable about that I know, except that I returned home wearing a blue T-shirt with Cuba emblazened across it. To this day, no one knows where I got it from or why I had to change. I have managed to piece together the fact that after the party we all went on to a club, though no one remembers if I had changed by then or not – Luckily I am surrounded by people who match me drink for drink and dead brain cell for dead brain cell.
So that’s me, Mr watermelon with matches for limbs. Drinks like a fish (a fish out of water, gasping for dear life, obviously) but restraint itself when it comes to food. Except of course at parties, gatherings and anywhere else where, rather than my own plate in front of me with what I ordered (but didn’t mean to) set down before me, I am faced with a ‘running’ buffet or finger food. Now I suspect that a running buffet may be so named because upon my arrival, my host or hostess will shout at the other guests to ‘run and get it while you can, He’s arrived’ though I have no proof of this. What I do know is that whenever I see a table laid out with food (a spread), something very strange happens and my understanding of the words hunger, want and full goes out of the window. I will start modestly. Celery, no dip. Carrot waved above a bowl of hummous (oil, too fattening). One seventy-fifth of a crisp. Then the alcohol will kick in and before I know it I am trampling over small children and old ladies to get back to the food table (which I will only have left when the need to go to the toilet or replenish my glass becomes unbearable). Back at the table I will begin tearing off hunks of bread, smearing them with butter and stuffing them with as much cheese, salami and whatever else I can think of, before stuffing them down my neck as if they were illicit substances and the police had just kicked the door down. I won’t only do this once or twice, but over and over and over and over again, through fullness (what’s that?) and beyond the pain barrier. I am quite convinced that one of these days I shall wake up in hospital, to be told, much to my horror, the story of my collapsing on top of the buffet table and being stretchered away to have my stomach pumped, much to the amusement of all my friends.
Well, it could be worse. I could take no steps to counteract my excesses.
You see, as well as having Betty Ford’s appetite for alcohol and a Pacman like ability to eat, I am something of a fitness fanatic.
Whether I go to bed at 9pm, sober as the day I was born or at 3am, drunk as a lord, at 6am sharp I shall be out of bed packing my bag for the gym.
I like to start my exercise with a run on the treadmill. Now, work hard play hard, no pain no gain. Or in my case, no pain, no calories burned. So off I trot. 1 mile, 2 miles, 3 miles and suddenly I’ve run the equivalent of London to Brighton. Apparently I look like a praying mantis in a hamster wheel. No matter how far I run though my belly never seems to get any flatter. It never ceases to amaze me how other people can stuff their faces on crisps and chocolate and never gain an inch, while I just have to see an advert for Pringles and an extra spare tyre appears under my T-shirt. I am like Jesus on a running machine. I run so that they might snack. Or maybe I get other people flab by some weird kind of osmosis.
By this time I have usually worked up a bit of a sweat (and gone an alarming shade of yellow) and am ready for some weight training. To say I am a ten-stone weakling would be underestimating my weight by a couple of pounds, but my puniness is something even I cannot deny. You know how sometimes you read in the paper or magazines about mothers who have lifted cars off of their infants or men who dug through tonnes of rubble to free trapped relatives? Well all I can say is that if something terrible like that happens to you when I’m around, don’t expect me to be of any use. I never cease to amaze myself at how little physical strength I possess. Now if it’s stamina you need, I’m your man. I’d be a great friend to have if you lived in a house powered by a dynamo linked to a bicycle. I’d merrily keep those pedals turning for hours, in fact I could probably power half of the national grid for hours on end, but don’t expect me to lift anything heavier than a bag of sugar. I’ll willingly try, but it won’t be a pretty sight. Particularly scary is the way my mouth starts tugging in a Bette Davis kind of way, mid-strain.
Which I suppose in part explains my combination body. Apparently the first place where we accumulate fat is the last place we shift it from. Hence my Ally McBeal extremeties and Humpty Dumpty middle.
So next time you’re feeling a bit down on yourself, like Mr Self-Esteem has tired of your company, just think, it could be worse. You could be me.

esther rantzen where are you?

so, new me, new household. the people i am staying with share my bizarre sleeping patterns. this is largely down to Molly, their 15 month old baby who thinks nothing of screaming the house down at 2am and even less of demanding food and attention at 5am. regular readers (hi Jezza!) will know that 5am for me is like 8am for everyone else (i specifically avoided the word normal there for the sake of all the farmers who follow my blog) and so isn't much of an issue.
the Molly routine goes like this: Molly moans. return to silence. Molly cries once or twice. return to silence. Molly screams house down until Dad comes to get her and take her to parental bed for breast and extended sleep (I know A LOT of people who would pay good money for that!).
sometimes there is a further stage to the process. this is six (AND A HALF!) year old Erin screaming at Mum and Dad that 'MOLLY IS AWAKE!!!!!!!' I'm sure the neighbours are just dying to add 'AND SO ARE WE!!!!!!!' at this point.
last week there was a funny moment during this last stage where, as well as shouting that Molly was awake Erin began enquiring, in a whiny voice she has perfected since I arrived: 'Daddy, did you take my pants off? Did you take my pants off? Why did you take my pants off?'
fortunately i heard an earlier visit to the loo when, delirious with sleep, she refused to put said pants back on again but goodness only knows what those neighbours must think.
laughing about it (as in how we laughed) at breakfast the next day Gerry (mum) told me about the time Erin had caused raised eyebrows at playgroup, informing the teachers that 'Daddy is always fiddling with my bum!' - apparently there had been an episode of worms in the household.
but that's a whole new post.

pump up the volume

on the train home today i found myself being shaken from my Zen like calm by the irritatingly tinny sound of a young girl's headphones. i tried and tried to rise above it but it REALLY STARTED TO GET ON MY NERVES. of course i didn't say anything, favouring instead the withering look technique. it worked - she got off shortly after i started flashing evils in her direction (not directly AT HER, natch! i'm too passive aggressive for that).
and as she got off, i realised that the REALLY ANNOYING noise was still on the train! it was a bit like taking off a squeaky shoe only to find that it wasn't actually the shoe that was squeaking.
anyway, after adoptig the 'what the hell is that noise' stance - a bit like a meerkat but with a nasty smell grimace - i track the noise down to a pair of young, pierced-faced girls playing really tinny music out loud on a mobile phone. they were having a right old laugh, doing their makeup, chewing their chewing gum and playing their phones too too loud.
i was far too whimpy to say anything (though i know other people in the carriage were feeling annoyed) but it did occur to me that it would be funny to walk up to them and say 'oh, i love this one, can you turn it up a bit' and then embark on some mortally embarrassing dad-stylee dancing. i'm sure it would have them turning their shxtty music down in no time!
did i tell you i went to the beach today and had a totally lovely time?

a bird in the hand

Today my mate Gerry and I took six (and a half!) year old Erin for a ferry trip to the beautiful souding Cockatoo Island - an island (but you'd already guessed that, right) just outside Sydney harbour.
So, onto the exciting ferry we hop and 20 minutes later we do indeed arrive on an island.
Now, it being Easter and all we were slightly apprehensive about the trip as the transport timetables were gappy and the next ferry was two and half hours after ours and we knew from the good old internet that C.I. is a mere 500metres long.
But it's got a campsite on it so how bad can it be? Well, let's just say quite bad. In fact, let's just say that if they'd called it 'Bugger All to Do and Loads of Random Cranes Island' it might have been less of a trades description violation.
The island was originally a penal colony (as everything here in Oz seems to have been thanks to us) before being converted into a ship yard. It must have been quite grim. (must have been? like it's changed). Remnants of its building past remain - hence all those cranes, along with lots of rickety old outhouses, the odd barracks and, weirdly, a tennis court, which I suspect wasn't there when the Pomms were over serving time for nicking a handkerchief. 20 years hard tennis doesn't sound right somehow.
There is, as I say, a campsite too. Even this had a military feel to it - the tiny tents were all lined out on a grid and terribly close together. The shower block was nice though.
So, after 35 minutes we'd seen everything there was to see and done everything there was to do. Twice. And still a two hour wait for the next ferry. But no. Behold, a boat! Luckily Gerry had misread the timetable and we were saved. In no time at all we were back on dry land and ready for our next adventure.
Which was a walk round the Botanical Gardens. Which are a total delight and could, coincidentally have been called 'Lots of Cockatoos Gardens', for no sooner were we through the gates than we found a tree full of the yellow crested beasties. I am still blown away by the fact that flocks of bright green parrots hang out in my back garden, that ibises walk nonchalently down the street and that the parks are full of cockatoos.
'Please can we feed them,' says Erin. And, because we have not yet seen the sign that says PLEASE do NOT feed the birds, it makes them aggressive and dependent on humans' I say, 'why of course we can, little innocent one, have some of this bread that I have bought, thinking that Cockatoo Island may actually be home to some hungry nature.'
To cut a long story short, Erin was soon channelling the spirit of Tippie Hedron as we were divebombed by some rather scary cockatoos. Erin, quite sensibly ran off screaming 'I don't like them', while I fended them off with morsels of mouldy bread.
Our next brush with nature was to watch the flying foxes waking up in the trees. They always sound like they are having a row: 'I'm trying to sleep, get out of my face', 'it's your turn to hoover' type thing.
We then try and explain to Erin why the flying foxes and indeed all other bats sleep during the day and go out to feed at night. This caused Gerry to remember the time, shortly after arriving in Sydney, she went to a bat sanctuary and breast fed an orphaned baby!
How we laughed. I was mildly disappointed when she corrected herself to bottle fed.

time rich blog poor

'how busy can you be that you don't have time EVEN to send an email?' i used to think when friends would move overseas and suddenly become totally incapable of maintaining contact. well, blow me, i've turned into one of them. never underestimate the role that your daytime job plays in keeping you in touch with your mates - it is infinitely easier to incorporate emailing buddies into your working life than it is into your non-working existence. which is why i have a very long list of people to email.
anyway.
i've been keeping myself entertained with the different ways that the aussies use to describe things. Grass verges, for example, are referred to as nature strips. garbos are binmen, ambos are ambulance drivers etc.
my favourite is 'bashing'.
when i was little, my granddad used to call me Basher because i used to 'smack'* people a lot.
in Australian English if someone is 'bashed' it means they've been mugged.
i know that that isn't funny but it tickles me when i hear a news snippet saying 'a man was bashed in a shopping centre yesterday'. it's like saying 'an old lady was pinched as she made her way home last night' or 'a young man is in hospital having sustained at severe Chinese burn in a nightclub brawl'.
anyway....

from the mouths of innocent

so i am currently adding a certain 21st century spin to the nuclear household. i am staying with my mates Gerry and Neil and their kids. we are, officially an SITKOD – a single-income, two-kid, one-gay-man family,
Erin is six going on 18 (she keeps looking at herself in the mirror and saying 'Am I pretty today?' a girl after my own heart.
Molly is a year old and delight, but can be a screamer when the mood takes her.
Yesterday Gerry and I were talking about possible films to rent (as you do on Saturday nights when you reach a certain age). When she suggested Mamma Mia i said 'i'm not watching that s.h.i.t.' because in a house of children you have to spell out naughty words.
'Oh!' said Erin 'You spelled shit!'
how we laughed!
we finally settled on HSM2, which as i'm sure you already know is the follow up to the searing social realism classic High School Musical. the highlight for me was when Troy channelled the Zen masters by announcing to Gabriella 'let's not think about the future, let's just enjoy the here and now'. for Erin it was one rather melancholy (and so unremarkable i can't even remember its title) song about having to part and go off alone etc etc. 'I like this song,' she said in a tiny (as opposed to tinny) voice 'but in my heart it makes me feel sad. like i want to cry.'
i said that it was ok to cry but Erin rallied round: 'i'm only going to cry happy tears!'
that's the spirit!

junior gaydar

i was once in the park with my mates Louise and Lee and their then five year old son Jack. out of the blue, and apropro of nothing Jack suddenly announced: 'your favourite colour is pink'. i asked him how he knew and he seemed bemused that i'd even bother to ask. i was reminded of this incident recentwhen Gerry came home with six year old Erin (they are my hosts during my stay in Oz). Erin had had a 'news day' at school (i know! whatever happened to good old show and tell?) and apparently she was very excited to tell the class about her new houseguests, one of Mummy's old old friend from England: 'Aunty Steven'!
I also recently spent the day with some other friends and their kids, one of whom asked coyly: 'how old are you?', when i asked her to hazard a guess she said '16'. bless!

so, new town, new gym. cutting down my attendance from every day compulsive to three-times-a-week almost normal, which i am enjoying, though Fitness First may be going into liquidation if i reduce my gymgoing any further. actually it's two new gyms - one top notch, full of heavily 'enhanced' ladies who like to work out before their salads one full of ozzie meatheads, lifting far too heavy weights and grunting. the other day i made myself giggle by imagining walking up to the bulkiest one there and asking if he could spot me. when he reluctantly agreed i would lead him over to the bench press onto which i've already loaded 2.5K weights and make a real song and dance about completing a set of 10. well it made me laugh.

you can come too!

i recently spent a week in sunny Spain, getting used to the fact that i also recently left my job and am now one of what my friend describes as the idle poor. i know - who leaves a well paid, perk-tastic, long term job in the middle of a massive world economic downturn? anyway, there i was in sunny Spain enjoying a walk around the park i used to love running around (confused? you will be) when my friend Xavi called me and left a message (i always have my shitty Nokia on vibrate, which i can never feel, and, despite the fact that i always cancel my diverts it always goes to extortionate-to-collect voicemail). the message told me that he had to work through lunch and couldn't actually meet me for lunch. so, a lovely sunny day stretched before me with 'nothing to do, nowhere to be' (as my yoga always says). what to do, i wonder? i then remembered that that very park also housed the city zoo and so in i went.
as it was early Monday morning i had the place pretty much to myself at first, which was nice. i liked the monkeys and the big cats but my favourites were definitely the dolphins. i arrived at their enclosure (called something like seaworld) just as they'd been let into the pool and they were in frisky moods. walking into seaworld i was greeted by lots of darkness illluminated by big glass windows onto the azure blue pool beyond. to say that the dolphins were pleased to see signs of life is an understatement. you know how grateful and pleased to see you a dog is when you've left it outside a shop or on its own all day? well, imagine that but without the fur and a window between you and that's what my reception by the dolphins was like. three of them kept rushing up to the window where i was staniding and rubbing their faces against it. i swear to god they had the most massive smiles! after bobbing up and down in front of me for a while they would swim off again only to repeat the procedure. all the while they were blowing bubbles and making that funny dolphin eek eek eek noise. if i could speak dolphin i'm fairly sure they were saying 'Steeeven, wee love you! weeere soooo pleeased to seeee you! come play with us!'.
After enjoying hanging with my mammal homies i then went upstairs as it was time for their 11.30 show!

By this time, of course, busloads of children had been dropped off, so walking up to the sitting area i was careful to avoid sitting among the school parties - I'm aware that as a bearded 40 year old man ON HIS OWN in a zoo i score high stranger danger points. my old art director (check him out on www.monkeysinc.co.uk (which, with a little bit of luck he might FINALLY have updated!) used to rib me about my peodo-potential whenever i would show him pictures of myself on my mobile phone. NOT THOSE KIND OF PICTURES! for a while now i've been hankering after a pair of transparent-framed glasses so used to go into opticians and try on various pairs. i would then take snaps of myself in order to get other people's opinions. I admit these photos aren't the most flattering - especially if i'm not wearing my contact lenses in the pictures and so am squinting attractively*) but Andrew (art director) used to think they belonged alongside my profile on some register somewhere.

So, i sit alone ready for my new friends to come out and show us what they're made of - slightly worried that, on spotting me, they might try and dash over, beaching themselves in the process in front of hundreds of school kids but fortunately they manage to contain their excitement at having their new bezzy mate so near - and literally seconds before the show is about to kick off a coachload of latecomes arrives. Six or seven year old late comers, and, youguessed it sit around me. not near me. oh no, like an ameoba extending its false foot to lunch they surround me. in front, behind, to the left, to the right! so there i am, a giant among future men feeling slightly uncomfortable when suddenly, one of the dolphins jumps high in the air, causing a general whoop of excitement in everyone, and a particular thrill in the young girl sitting next to me, who is so overcome with the thrill that she cheers, raises her hands in the air and then collapses happily INTO MY LAP! don't you just love kids and their utter lack of personal space issues.
anyway, how we laughed - once i'd managed to gently extricate myself from her!

* i used to be outraged that the petting zoo in barcelona had illustrations next to each animal telling us not only where they came from and what they ate but also what meat they gave us, and, in the case of the cow, what accessories we had to thank them for. Yes little one, those shoes on your feet come from this gorgeous creature's relatives, as does Mummy's hand bag. Pet it and weep! so i was only vaguely surprised when the dolphin show took a sudden turn for the serious so that the handler could point out the difference between male and female genetalia to all the kiddies. bless

dusty (no, not springfield)

i have turned into one of those people who talks about the weather a lot. not with everyone you understand, just my mum and my nan. it used to drive me bonkers that whenever i phoned her her first question would be 'how's your weather?' but now i find myself beating her to it. so whereas i used to cal and say 'hi nan, it's steven', i now find myself saying 'hi nan it's steven how's your weather?' i can't help myself (when my grandad was alive he used to answer the phone by saying, 'i'll get your nan' which used to irritate me too.
anyway, so, i talk about the weather a lot with my mum and nan. but with nan i now have a new topic of conversation - her wheelie bins!
there are two of them and i'm beginning to worry that my nan actually thinks they are alive. she talks about them in much the same way as other people might talk about their cats.
'steve, it's really windy here today. do you know i got up this morning and the wheelie bins were in the middle of the lawn, bold as anything'.
'steve, i woke up in the middle of the night thinking "what's that noise!" so i went outside, and do you know, those wheelie bins were rolling up and down the drive like no one's business.'
i'm half expecting to turn up at nan's one day and find the wheelie bins indoors, one on the sofa reading Woman's Own (AKA 'my book', which is how nan refers to her weekly issue) and the other at the table relieving nan from curtain twitching duty. nan of course will be on the phone to me talking about the weather!

i've been 'gently encouraging' my friend Jeremy to read these posts. he finally got round to it and last night sent me a text saying 'i've just been laughing at your clog!', it took me a while to work out what he actually meant.
the joys of predictive text, eh?
i once sent a friend a text saying 'i'm waiting in for a slumber' instead of plumber. they couldn't work out whether i was having a duvet day or had just overdosed on valium.
how we laughed, we nearly SMP. nearly