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!’