Go-bama

I can't believe I used to find current affairs uninteresting. What was I thinking? As I write, Americans are (hopefully) voting in their first ever BLACK PRESIDENT. I can hardly contain myself. Well, I'd hardly be able to contain myself if I wasn't:

• Crazy busy at work;
• So hungover from emotional crying session last night that I look like a hideous, 50-year-old alcoholic;
• Umm, that's it.

Anyway, EXCITING! Go Obama!

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

I thought I might fill this post with platitudes and have a big wallow in misery and self-hatred, but I've decided to be strict with myself. May as well not write the damn thing then.

Bad Food Experiences

'Faeces in Gelato' - this is one headline which pertains to the charming news story that broke yesterday, on the grisly allegation by a family that they were served ICE CREAM WITH HUMAN FAECES SMEARED ON IT at the Coogee Bay Hotel. The funny thing is, I was at the Coogee Bay Hotel yesterday and saw the news crew. I didn't know what the story was about, but luckily I didn't have any shitty ice cream (I was there to use their ever lovely toilets - thanks, CBH.) Anyway, this story is CONSTANTLY on the news, and the news is always on in our house, and I feel a bit disgusted every time I hear it.

And talking of disgusting...I blearily thudded my way into the kitchen first thing this morning, and as usual, blindly grabbed the nearest vessel of water which had been proving nicely since the night before. As I was greedily gulping it down, my peripheral vision caught a glimpse of all this black detritus at the bottom of the glass. I sprayed water everywhere as I realised the water was full of ants. Eeeeeuwwww!!!

So anyway, that's enough yuck for one 24 hours.

A Day Out in Minto

Yesterday the Man I had the exciting good fortune of being out and about in the NSW town of Minto, some hour and a half's drive (if you include the time I was pulled over by the cops for L-plate related crime) from Sydney. We had just turned the car around for the journey home when joy of joys, we spotted the Minto Festival!


Now I'm no small fan of bucolic revelry, reminding me as it does of my childhood, so when the Man suggested we stop, I was all, "Hell, yes!"

We found a parking spot that was sort of in the shade and got out of the car, me at a quick trot because I suspected a sausage sizzle couldn't be too far away. I was enthusiastically (ok desperately) scanning the stalls for signs of a barbecue when the Man pointed out that there was some local dance school performing on the stage. Now, I get a rather morbid enjoyment out of seeing my favourite art form mangled, and I was pretty sure this one-horse town was going to serve up a real treat, so to speak, so I temporarily abandoned my gastronomic plans and dragged the Man over to the stage where 'Rhondelle's School of Dance' was entertaining a huge crowd squashed under an awning.


Imagine my surprise, they were actually pretty good! It was all hip hop and tap, at least when we showed up, and they're not my favourite dance forms by a long way, but yes, they were pretty good. To the point where, if some unspeakable disaster caused me to be washed up in Minto with a husband and kids, I'd actually consider enrolling them (only if they really, really wanted me to, of course. Let's not go too far.) I'm a veteran of a couple of backwater 'dance schools' myself, and I'm frankly astonished at what this Rhondelle has managed to achieve. Even the small kids were really dancing, all sharply choreograped, and all spot on in time to the music. Wow.

Anyway, to get back to the most important part of the story, we located a sausage sizzle. There was a long queue so the Man inspected the halal meat stand next to it. There was a visible Muslim presence at the festival, and apparently eating in Minto is ethnically segregated. The halal stall couldn't beat sausages and white bread, so he gave me the thumbs up and I paid the lady who was collecting money and issuing tickets. They were only $1 each. It was for charity, so being the cashed up Sydney city slickers that we are, we donated extra coins, and the lady swooned at our generosity. I guess they don't see big spending like that out there very often.

We were still waiting, me salivating, when Rhondelle's kids finished and a lady led a train of very obviously Islamic schoolkids (little girls in head scarves, trousers and skirts) to the stage. It was pretty obvious they weren't there to dance! I said to the Man they were probably going to recite from the Koran, and bugger me if that isn't exactly what they did. (Actually, I'm not so up-to-scratch with my medieval Arabic, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was.) Predictably, the Man couldn't stop giggling and making lame jokes. You'll be pleased to know I reprimanded him severely, then suggested they might be going to blow themselves up as an encore, so we'd better not get too close. As it happened, they kept up the chanting for 2 or 3 minutes and then launched into a truly appalling rendition of the national anthem. I think it says a lot about community relations in Minto that a) the school thought it was appropriate to have the kids preach religion at a fun, multi-cultural, secular festival, b) the school felt it necessary to have the national anthem sung/butchered at the end, presumably as a sort of "please don't lynch us at the end" kind of gesture, and c) that everyone took the national anthem butchering so well! Come on, school! Couldn't we have had some rockin' Arab tunes instead?

After that, we re-joined the audience at the stage. Most of my onions slithered out from my sandwich, which was disappointing, and some girls and young women did an Aboriginal dance, and then the Man and I hit the road.

Another Thing My Mouth Can't Do

Another thing I can no longer do now I have braces...whistle. I had the urge to trill a little tune last night, puckered up and was shocked when nothing but 'pfft' came out.

I'm not a big whistler, but it's nice to have the option, you know?

My Golden Book of Bible Stories

$86 million! That is what World Youth Day cost us NSW tax payers, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. And that doesn’t include another $42 million for use of the Randwick Racecourse. Ouch, ouch, ouch! Why don’t they just give the money to ME?

Do they think that the benefits of having these visitors here will outweigh the $128 million spent? I heard they hardly spent anything here at all. I wonder what the thinking was behind that.

Still, there’s been lots of fuzziness and good spirits around. As soon as you got into the city last week you saw clusters and brightly dressed youth, waving flags, and singing and squeaking excitedly. You’d have had to have been a massive jerk not to be happy for them, really. It was kind of heart warming.

So now the Pope has gone, the Press is slowly discontinuing its fawning coverage, and the young geeks of the world – instantly recognizable by the orange backpacks and the obligatory acoustic guitar player issued to each group of pedestrians – are going home. I mean seriously, what is wrong with these kids?

My own religious education was confined to a lone Jehovah’s Witnesses’ publication. (I know, it could have ended really badly). When I was around four years old, my parents hired a builder called Barry to do some work on their lovely London home. As they told me some years later, after he’d finished his last day of work on the house, he told them he was a Jehovah’s witness, and asked he could give their daughter (me) a book of Bible stories. They said “All right then”, and so little Sprite was presented with a gold coloured hard-back book, with the words ‘My Book of Bible Stories’ etched on the front in shiny red letters.

I don’t remember really reading the book until I was several years older and living in Saudi Arabia. Due to its size, it sat on the lowest level of my bookshelf with the other hardback books, mostly fairy tales, Care Bear stories and illustrated ballet books. Now, I didn’t get it out very often, but every now and then I’d scan my big selection of books, looking for something a bit different that I hadn’t already read three times in the last year, and maybe I’d be in the mood for something a bit different, a bit off the wall so to speak, and I’d reach for the golden book of Bible stories.

This book held a bit of fascination for me. It started with the cover, plain and tasteful, with no pictures or hints of what was inside. It seemed so adult and mysterious, not aimed at children at all, or at least, aimed at children of another age. So many things were weird about this book. The forbidding, adult tone. The drawings, the good guys in pastel colours and the bad ladies who all looked like the original Charlie’s Angels, perpetually laughing drunkenly, flashing tiny white teeth. I had so many questions. Why were they all Arabs, and yet so different from the Arabs I knew? There wasn’t a mosque in sight! And why did the Paradise on Earth that God promised look like a Safari Park? I didn’t know anyone who’d like to spend eternity in small nuclear family groups, crouching behind bushes and pointing at lions. (I still don’t).

Even at seven or so, I could tell from the tone of the book that it was somehow meant to convey a moral message. But the God in these tales was angry, spiteful and capricious; the messages went against much that I had been raised to believe was right. I also sensed that whoever had written it meant it to be a historical record. Yet I had never heard a whisper of these stories in history class at school. Surely historians conferred occasionally??!

But I was willing to suspend disbelief. It was, after all, shelved with my fairy tales.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the book was the mysteries it held. I just didn’t understand a lot of it. One story stands out in my memory, though I don’t remember the details. (Folks, I really don’t know my Bible). A 70’s looking couple were lying together on a sofa, asleep in smug abandon. Jehovah, tirelessly interfering bastard that he was, got enraged (again) and smote them, or something like that, or condemned them to perpetual crop failure, or something, I really don’t remember. The point was, God had forbidden people to lie together unless they were married. (The whole thing was so deliciously unsuitable for innocent children!)

Boy, did I ponder that one. I would look at the picture of the sofa, and remember the many times I had spotted my mother catching an afternoon lap in the living room, and quietly curled up beside her. I assumed that the author was getting at stuff like that. But what in the world were they talking about? I thought and thought and thought!

God – ‘Jehovah’ – seemed so vindictive and evil. He only liked incredibly obedient people, who farmed a lot and stood around gazing adoringly at young children and animals; men with salt and pepper beards and women with big eyes. He really hated shorter bearded men and brassy haired women, who sprawled around in large crowds in Roman-style villas, waving goblets in the air and flashing tiny teeth in slack smiles. I couldn’t imagine wanting to be in either group, but I reasoned that if I had ‘Jehovah’ breathing fire down my neck, I’d surely join group #1 out of self-protection. For me, group #2’s only real wrongdoing was their criminal stupidity!

Who wrote it? Where did it come from? Was it old or modern? Did someone somehow actually still believe in it? (My mother taught me basically that Christianity was something people used to believe in Olden Times, but it was now only relevant as a shared cultural background). But it seemed like somebody did, because it was always asking questions like, "Wouldn't it have been better if so-and-so had listened to Jehovah?" (Me: "It would be even better if Jehovah didn't have anger control issues") and "Wouldn't you like to stand around for eternity stroking a sheep?" ("No"), etc. And what did it mean when it said people shouldn't 'lie together'? Baffled, I’d think and think and think.

Then I’d put the book away and forget about it for another year or so, when I’d tackle it again with the benefit of a little more age, with a slightly different take, and the whole process would begin again.

P.S. After writing this, I did a quick search of the Internet, and guess what, the book’s on Wikipedia. You can check it out here. Go ahead. You know you want to.

World Some Youth Day

So, World Youth Day is coming to Sydney next week. The Sydney Morning Herald tells us the faithful have begun to arrive in droves. Today’s lunch - tomato soup - splattered over the following:

“THEY packed their Bibles and rosary beads along with their bedrolls, sleeping
bags, guitars and woolly beanies. Loudly and proudly they proclaimed their nationalities, wearing vibrant national colours and carrying flags with the
broadest of smiles.

There were 24 pilgrims from Poland, another 24 American Catholics living on the Kadena US military base in Okinawa, Japan, 15 including a choir from a group of 700 coming from Holland, 21 from the US diocese of Manchester in New Hampshire and 117 from Germany who burst into impromptu hymn singing.”

I don’t know about you, but I find that kind of adorable. Especially the bit about impromptu hymn singing. How adorably dorky and gauche these people must be!

You may have thought, based on my general outrage around the time of APEC, that I’d be donning an ‘offensive’ T-shirt and doing my best to ‘annoy’ pilgrims at the big event. Yay for controversy! But actually, I also believe in good manners. I believe we should welcome the visitors with good grace as well-meaning visitors to this country.

...Though I am just a little bit tempted. As usual, the NSW government, Sicilian peasants that they are, decided to trample all over civil rights like a bull in a china shop and make a new law forbidding people to ‘annoy’ and disrupt people attending the event, or risk being executed by firing squad. Heil Mussolini!

I really don’t believe in discomfiting nice people who are just trying to have a good time. I may not be a Catholic myself, but the pilgrims are all basically decent, well-meaning people, who do their best to live by a righteous moral code. Let them have their festival. Tolerance! They’re harmless, right?

…Or are they?

Let’s take a closer look. Starting this weekend, Sydney will be crawling with thousands of people, who believe, literally:

1. The world was created only a few thousand years ago, in six days, by a God who decided he needed a rest on the seventh day. Despite the evidence to the contrary. We know all the scientific evidence is wrong because God said so. Or at least, he told some peasant a long time ago and then eventually someone wrote it down.

2. There used to be a place called Purgatory, where everyone, including unbaptised babies, went to suffer before they could go to Heaven, and this was all moral and good. And now there isn’t. This is also moral and good.

3. You used to be able to give money to the Church in exchange for your sins being forgiven. Now you can’t. Presumably this has nothing to do with politics and the changing spiritual attitudes of society, because of course God is above all that.

4. God causes miracles to happen, like a shadow of the Virgin Mary appearing on a mountain. Of course, the latter could actually be explained as a mass hallucination, or wishful thinking, but it’s far more likely the Virgin Mary actually was appearing!

5. A lot of this religion seems irrational. In fact, it is. In order to believe, you have to suspend reason and have faith. And this is a good thing! Forget common sense, just BELIEVE, and you will go to Heaven. And we know Heaven exists because…ummm….because it…er…does?

6. God created us with free will. He also created us flawed, and with the capacity to do bad things. But if we do bad things, he is enraged. He also created us to be rational, but if we are rational and don’t believe in him, he will be very angry.

7. God may have created the entire universe, but he is not above being enraged if you do not believe in him! Even though evidence and reason points against his existence (at least for many people). He could solve this problem by revealing himself in an extremely obvious way to everyone, as often as is necessary, but that would be too easy and not nearly so much fun. He preferred to have his Word dictated to illiterate and superstitious tribesmen two thousand and more years ago. If you do not believe in God, you will go to Hell.

8. If you believe in the wrong god, you will also go to Hell. It’s ok to work with atheists and followers of other religions, and even be friends with them, but your non-Catholic friends will roast when the time comes. And that’s good!

9. It’s ok to kill people in the name of religion.*

10. This religion, which sounds so obviously man made and medieval, which would make sense given that it was formalized in the Middle Ages when people really thought and acted like that**, is in fact the real deal! Because!

*and if they don’t, then they must think they know better than various popes who were appointed by God.
**that = everything that happens in the Bible

So, I don’t know, harmless, barmy loonies? Numbers 1 to 6 just sound ridiculous, the sort of thing people do believe when they’ve been brainwashed from childhood and haven’t really thought deeply about the issues for themselves. Nevertheless, harmless. But numbers 7 to 11? I’m not sure how I feel about people who think like that wandering my city. Should I bolt my doors at night and keep the cat in for the next fortnight? I do wonder!

Folks, I do respect your right to believe and worship as you see fit. But I don't respect your beliefs.

But anyway. Welcome!!!!

P.S. Another thing that bothers me is the name - 'World Youth Day'. Why not 'Catholic World Youth Day', to be more accurate? It breaks my heart to think of some Muslim, Hindu or atheist youths turning up, thinking it's for them, and being disappointed!

Brushing, Brushing...and More Brushing

Twenty two minutes. That is how long it now takes me to clean my teeth.

Here is how I used to clean my teeth:

1. Rinse and spit,

2. Brush with electric toothbrush, including tongue, and roof of my mouth if I remember,

3. Floss,

4. Rinse and spit.



Taking a total of 3 or 4 minutes depending on how much I could be bothered.

Here is how, seemingly, I now have to clean them:



1. Brush with electric toothbrush, concentrating on gums, tongue and roof of mouth,

2. Floss (takes about 15 minutes)

3. Brush with orthodontic toothbrush

4. Brush with teeny little brush thingy the dentist gave me, getting into all the little nooks and crannies around the braces,

5. Brush with electric toothbrush again, using only water,

6. Put wax on. Orthodontic wax! My new best friend! (My second new best friend is minty mouthwash. I have a morbid fear of the braces giving me skunk breath).


All that effort to make my mouth nearly as clean as it used to be!

I have worked out that at this rate of cleaning, if you add all the minor brushing incidents and gargling I'm doing at work, then over the coming year I will spend two weeks cleaning my teeth. That's two weeks of nothing but cleaning. My teeth may well be worn away by then.

I will try not to blog any more about braces. But it's hard to think about anything else when your mouth feels like it's full of barbed wire.

Nice Work, Blogger

Thank you Blogger for losing my last post! Thank you!

I'll Never Smile Again (Not for 18 months anyway)

I believe I may have mentioned last post that I was getting braces on. Well, they're on now, and unless I tear them forcibly from my mouth in a moment of desperation, that's how they'll be until I'm in my thirties. Gosh, I'm old.

So now I have the pleasure of allowing everyone I know to acquaint themselves with my new look. Everyone I talk to looks at me in a "Something's funny with Sprite's face, but if I keep talking at the same speed she won't notice I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with her" kind of way. How attractive I feel! I did alert some people beforehand that I was going to have them done, so I wouldn't have to go through that with everyone. And you know what's kind of weird? The number of people who said to me, "So what exactly are they going to do? Which teeth need straightening? Let's have a look!" - and then start to lean forward as if I'm actually going to open my mouth and give them a guided tour of my sickening dental abnormalities. Freaks!

My dentist is really nice, and it wasn't an awful experience, but it wasn't comfortable either. I had to lie back with my mouth open for ages while dabbed stuff on my teeth, squirted stuff on them, dried them off, and said confidence-inspiring stuff to his assistant like "Be careful not to put too much glue on the brackets. There was too much on the last one. It went everywhere!" Suddenly an image flashed through my mind - the dentist was Hannibal Lector and was about to perform an intricate and creative work of torture on me. But I lay there obediently with one side of my mouth stretched open, hoping I wasn't going to be left with too many permanent mouth wrinkles, and tried not to swallow anything toxic.

After the dinky little things had been attached to my top layer of teeth, he told me I could rinse and spit. I sat up and tried to return my top lip to its normal position, but it felt like boulders had been attached to my teeth. Would I ever close my mouth again?!!

Then it was bottom teeth time. The highlights were when he thought he may have glued two of my teeth together (well, that would solve the problem of flossing!) and when something small and vicious clamped itself to my top lip! I don't know what it was and I wasn't in a position to find out, but it did get removed after I pointed it out through a mixture of gargling and singing.

So, the big moment. The proud dentist handed me a mirror. Now, just remember my lips had been pulled about for the last hour, and when I sat up and looked at my reflection, my first thought was "Oh my God! I have a MUZZLE!" I swear my heart broke just a little bit.

Fortunately my lips settled down a bit and although I do look a little like I've got a mouth full of marbles, at least they're small ones!

By far the worst thing of this whole braces things is, I can't bite down properly. The dentist stuck hard lumps of stuff on my back top teeth to stop me biting down all the way and knocking the braces, and it's very sore. Try biting some pebbles and you'll know how I feel. My poor front teeth are tender too. I'm told I'll get used to it. I also hope I'll get used to spending half an hour bloody brushing them every morning and night, plus power cleans throughout the day!

On the upside, I can't eat anything except soup and mashed stuff. So I'm going to be very slim very soon, I hope!

Bracing Myself

I am getting braces in an hour and a half. I don't really know what to expect, but here goes!

Bowser Grousers

I'm back, having decided that if my work load doesn't ease off and allow me to blog, well, I'll ditch the workload. Bastards gave me a ridiculously paltry payrise at payrise time recently, so I'm sure they won't mind me slowing down and slacking off. You get what you pay for, right?

It was a pretty traumatic weekend. The Man and I have been having Talks. We've sort of broken up, only, we're still going on as usual. Look, I don't know what the hell's going on. It's all too complicated.

Anyway, on with the topical chit chat.

Some asinine breakfast show was on this morning - that's all they show in the mornings, somebody's mum and dad from the suburbs sitting on a sofa and twittering about the light news, and cartoons - and they were going on yet again about the petrol prices. It struck me not for the first time that while these people love shock news items about climate change, Antarctica's melting ice, the plight of poor cute polar bears etc, it doesn't stop them having self-pity parties whenever petrol rises a cent or two and they might be forced to *gasp* economize on driving just a teensy bit. You'd think that it might occur to them to say, "perhaps rising prices at the pump aren't such a bad thing, as we all know we should be cutting energy use and finding cleaner sources". I mean, cutting edge analysis might be a bit challenging at 7 in the morning but I'd appreciate some indication of intelligence. As it is, the idea that high oil prices might be a good thing for the environment doesn't get within in a mile of being mentioned. It's just greed, greed greed. My breakfast cereal is probably cannier than these stupid, smug, westie TV presenters.

Ah, rant rant. Is it nearly time to go home yet? Half an hour to go. Should be able to waste it somehow...

A Break in Melbourne!

I just came back from a very lovely very long weekend in Melbourne. (Well, not just come back, long enough to have done a million things at work).

I have come to the conclusion, and excuse me ladies and gentlemen for being indelicate because you know I just hate that...that Melbourne completely shits all over Sydney. And I am going to move there at my earliest possible convenience!

Melbourne is cleaner, friendlier, better mannered, far more intelligently designed, more cultural and more beautiful than Sydney. It was wonderful to spend five days away from the ear-splitting traffic noise I usually have to put up with (I'm talking about the buses here) and to be able to cross a road without having to wait ten minutes. There was also considerably less spit all over the pavements. In Sydney I often feel queasy about walking the streets even in my stinky old trainers!

It was especially delightful, as I was strolling to the theatre to see the ballet (also delightful!) to come across a stage with a band playing, free, for the benefit of all and sundry on Friday night. I had the strongest feeling of being right in the centre of a city with a real vibe, a social life and a real focus on people. It reminded me of the month I stayed in Krakow, Poland. What a change from Sydney, where as a pedestrian you feel like you're an unwanted nuisance who's in the way of all the cars. OK, so we have some nice places, such as Darling Harbour, but you've got to take a little footpath over a motorway to get to it! Hardly the vibrant heart of the city! On the other hand, I felt like Melbourne is a city where you could actually meet people, walk around and have fun.

Top travel tip from me: Have lunch at Joe's Garage in Brunswick Street. You get an enormous pizza or pasta dish, plus a glass of wine, for just under $10! You can then order an obscenely big piece of gorgeous cake for dessert. (Hint - share it with someone!) I was all set to go there every day, but the Man wouldn't let me, so we only went on 3 of our 5 days there!

My bags are packed!

Oh Dear.

Here’s my dilemma.

There’s a guy at work. He is giving off definite vibes of liking me. You know, like that. He is very nice and personable and kind of hot. And at some point – soon – I really should drop into the conversation something about the Man. Like, really soon. And yet whenever we pass each other in the office and he stops and starts talking to me, asking me how I am, etc, I just can’t bring myself to do it. It’s awful! I’m worried that soon he might ask me out and I’ll have to formally tell him, and he’ll be thinking I led him on. Which I have done.

Did I mention how long it’s been since the Man and I were…you know…physically intimate? It almost feels like cheating wouldn’t even be cheating!

I kind of want to leave my job now so I don’t have to deal with this. Either that or leave the Man, so I can pursue a romantic relationship again, butI can’t even begin to think about the pain that would cause both of us.

What do you do when someone you totally fancy starts hitting on you, and you're not free? Why do these things not happen when I'm single?!!

A Nauseating Dream

Last night I dreamt I was helping a woman - my neighbour, I think - to give birth in the home section of David Jones. She was leaning over and doing that panting thing that women apparently do when they're giving birth, and I had to catch the baby. It popped out all in one go, with a slimy splash, and I did catch it. The other person who was with me told me watch out for the afterbirth. I thought I was going to be sick, and frantically tried to repress the urge. I mean, it's ok to faint in the delivery room, but not vomit, right?! I thought, my neigbour will never forgive me if I spew at the miracle of her child's birth!

Good job I'm not a midwife, right?

I'm wondering what the dream means to me. It was memorable but I don't feel it has any immediate relevance to me.

Movie Review Time! - The Kingdom

Last night the Man and I watched ‘The Kingdom’. I’d been excited to see it for ages, despite the bad reviews. It’s not often you see Saudi Arabia on the big screen so it’s a big deal for those of us who used to live there. I loved it right from the first moment, when they showed grainy news footage of Saudi streets and shopping malls, and women in top-to-toe black. Saudi Arabia at the movies!!! Yay!

The story ran thus: Oil company workers and their families are having a softball game on their compound in Saudi Arabia. It was meant to be in Riyadh but looked awfully similar to where I grew up in the Eastern Province. Terrorists posing as security guards then drove into the compound and blew themselves up in the middle of the softball game. I found it pretty uncomfortable viewing. The rest of the film was about some American FBI investigators who went to Riyadh to try and find the man behind the attack and bring him to justice, in cooperation (supposedly) with the Saudi authorities.

Now, as a former expat in the Kingdom I can tell you, one of the top favourite western expat (and non-western expat too, I shouldn’t wonder) activities is laughing at the Saudis. Closely followed by, laughing at Americans (unless of course you are American). I left some time ago, but I still enjoy it! And this film certainly delivers - there were plenty of laughs to be had at the expense of the boorish, arrogant Americans and the bungling, idiot Saudis. It seems the Saudis had the idea that they were going to get the Americans to ‘help’ them because this would look good on paper, and but they had no intention of letting them do anything, not even handle evidence at the scene. Typical – a Saudi with power somewhere in an organisation makes a decision, then it sort of goes ahead, but warring factions above do their best to make sure it fails in a ridiculous and expensive manner. That’s the Saudi Arabia I know and love!

For their part, the FBI agents were extremely pissed off, and instead of taking a moment to work out the best way to tiptoe round the stew of egos and cultural sensitivities they had just stepped into, they threw tantrums and swore a lot. The Saudi colonel (who turned out to be one of the main characters) got upset a couple of times and ended up shouting over and over again, “Why you use these bad words?” What was standard macho posturing for the Americans was genuinely upsetting to the conservative Saudis. You’d have thought somebody could have briefed the idiots, but no, that’s Americans for you.

So, we have the Americans and Saudis at loggerheads with each other, until finally the Americans (though not the woman!) are invited to dinner with the fantastically indolent local prince, a character who was SO REALISTIC it was like watching a documentary for a moment. He decides to take their side, and lets the good guy Saudi Colonel take over the investigation, which ensures the Americans can now do what they need to.

Talking of realistic, the residents of the compound who’d survived the attack weren’t. They were portrayed almost as poor white trash, which is a little unlikely, and their houses looked tiny badly air conditioned. Believe me, the Americans in Saudi Arabia luxuriate in big houses, lushly carpeted, humming with air conditioning, and dripping with expensive furnishings, Middle Eastern art and the latest in top of the range entertainment systems. And as for the man whose wife was killed in the attack, he wouldn’t have been left alone in his company accommodation, free to shout abuse at passing Muslims. He would have been on the first flight out of the kingdom at Aramco’s (the oil company’s) expense, and given extended leave. The Saudis may be morons at times (many times) but if they really want something done, boy does it happen. The last thing the authorities would want in the country is an American mad with grief and fury. The place has got enough live wires on the loose as it is.

While I’m attacking the film on points of realism, I should also add, Saudi Arabia is nowhere near that dangerous as that on a day to day basis! I say this because people generally visualise me going shopping in a bullet proof jacket and dodging land mines. Now I won’t say I always felt safe there 100% of the time, but nothing in the movie ever happened to me. (With the exception of the car chase scene, for that is normal driving in Saudi Arabia.) Having said that, there was a terrorist attack on a compound near us, three or four years ago, and the Man reckons this movie was based on that event.

It was a compound I’d visited a few times with my boyfriend at the time, as they had impressive facilities that were the talk of the expat community. As I understand it, some terrorists dressed up as officials got onto the compound and went from house to house asking people whether or not they were Muslims, on the pretext of gathering data for their own protection. Later that day they returned, and went from house to house shooting people who’d registered as non-Muslim. The Man has friends who lived on the compound next door, and when they heard the shots and explosions they locked themselves in their laundry room. I can only imagine how terrified they must have been, not knowing what was going on. (Though it might have been worse if they had known).

The terrorists then left the compound, shot a westerner on the street, tied his body to the back of their vehicle and drove around the city streets with it dragging around behind them. I saw the man’s picture in the paper later and realised I vaguely recognised him. It turns out, I went to his house once for a party after a concert I’d played in. I hardly remember him, but it was a lovely villa.

Bad memories. Luckily for me, they are not my memories.

When the Americans were in the plane on the way over to Saudi Arabia, at the beginning of the film, one says to the other, “So what’s it like on the ground there?” The other thinks for a moment and replies, “It’s like Mars.” I think that description is pretty close to the mark, and the movie did a very good job of showing how bizarre the country actually is. But it also did a good job of showing the better side of the country, embodied in the form of the quietly talented Saudi Colonel who was able to take over the investigation and help the Americans. There are many passionate and intelligent people in Saudi Arabia, who are constantly in danger of being crushed by the system. I find myself incredibly impressed by their achievements, particularly some of the women, who are success in spite of all the odds, instead of being encouraged as we are in the West. The Colonel’s character was again a very believable one, albeit one in an extreme situation. He was a great guy, which of course means CAUTION, SPOILER AHEAD…that he was doomed for death right from the beginning.

Good old Saudi Arabia. I can never decide whether I love it fiercely, or despise it fiercely. Either way, it’s something fierce! I felt a bit emotional the film ended, having seen the familiar streets and faces once again. (I’m sure it wasn’t actually filmed in Saudi Arabia but in a nearby Gulf state, but it was still convincing). After it was over I told the Man we needed to go on holiday to Bahrain a.s.a.p!

Bookcrossing

Today I released my first two Bookcrossing books into the wild!

One day about a year ago, I was wandering around the Centrepoint building in Sydney, needing the toilet if I remember rightly, when the Man exclaimed, “Oh look, a book over there on that bench!” I tried to hurry him past, feeling embarrassed. I get embarrassed over stuff like that. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a knee-jerk reaction to his habit of picking up rubbish all over the place and bringing it home. But you can’t stop the Man on a mission, so I followed him to the bench. There was a book with a yellow post-it note on the front. It said ‘I am not lost! Please read me! See inside for details!’ Inside there was a sticker that said this was a ‘bookcrossing book’ that was travelling the world, and could the person who picked up the book log on to bookcrossing.com and register their find.

I was instantly completely charmed, because that is also the kind of person I am. It wasn’t my genre – murder mystery – but I was determined to read it anyway. I mean, isn’t that the cutest idea? I read the book and eventually re-released it.

A week ago I decided to register some of my own books to see where they’ll end up. I ordered some stickers from the website, generated some unique identification numbers and labelled up the books. And today my first two babies made their maiden voyage into the wild. Possibly the MacBogan Centre* wasn’t the best choice of venue, but it’s always possible that someone there can read!

I’m so excited to see if someone will pick them up and leave a message on Bookcrossing.com. That is exactly the kind of nerdy crap I adore!

*Macquarie Centre

Fancy That

This headline in today's Sydney Morning Herald made me laugh: 'Cut Cannabis Use by Selling It At the Post Office'. Clearly I'm not the only one with a low opinion of the Post Office!

The Wedding Bell Tolls

Today I received an e-mail from my parents to say that my cousin is getting married. My prettier, spoilt cousin, who never did quite as well as me in anything when we were children, yet somehow managed to go to Cambridge University, land herself a plum job in finance, and is now rich and successful. My cousin is also the first in our generation of the family to get married. I'm pretty sure it should have been me, as the oldest. Thank God I live in Australia and don’t have to go!

I haven’t been told anything about her fiancé, but already I know he is tall, white, good looking in a bland, upper class way, mid to late 20s, athletic and highly-paid. Ahh, the bitterness! I am like a twisted old maid already! Maybe I should attend the wedding and give her an apple for a wedding gift, one part red, one part green.

Still, it could have been worse. When I saw the title of my dad’s e-mail, ‘A Wedding’, I instantly thought of my brother and Psycheau. The day they tie the knot will be...challenging.

I Actually Have a Job

What is it with people in shops and businesses telling me to come back in the middle of the day? Do I look like someone who doesn't have to work for a living?

Let's start with the Post Office, though really, I don't expect too much from them. Obviously it's in their customer charter to be as obtuse, stupid and unhelpful as possible in their dealings with the public. I no longer bother to get annoyed when they tell me to either go there between 9 to 5 to collect parcels, or send a delegate (ie a wife). I've now accepted that Post Office procedures were laid in stone in the 50s when you were either a) a housewife or b) someone who is married to a housewife. "That's ok," I say pleasantly to to the Post Office worker on the other end of the phone. "I'll send the little woman to collect it when she's doing her errands." Don't worry, they don't take offence. They either don't speak any English anyway, or don't give a shit - normally both.

But as I said, it's not just the Post Office. Last Wednesday the bus dropped me at my stop at around 7:00, somewhat later than usual, and I dropped into the beauty place just across from the bus stop, to make an enquiry. The girl at the desk was only a trainee, and couldn't help me. "But come in during the day, there'll be someone you can talk to then!" she said. I let that one by, but she kept saying it as if it was going to totally solve everything for me.

I don't understand. It's a mostly residential area and it was late in the evening, so if she'd wanted to make any assumptions at all, surely she would have assumed I was on my way home from work (which I was). I was wearing pinstriped trousers, for God's sake. I don't think the situation screamed 'housewife who's free to pop in at any time.' I suppose she could have thought that maybe I work really close by. But why would she assume that? I itched to explain the concept of 'employment' to her.

Am I seriously that well-dressed that people think I'm an heiress or a trophy wife? Or maybe I look unemployed. Uh-oh.

I guess my best option is to take the afternoon off so that I can pop in for a quick consultation with the daytime receptionist. You don't even get paid maternity leave in this country, but I'm sure work will understand when I explain my skin needs a beauty treatment. Thanks for your help, lady in the beauty parlour!

Anzac Day

On Friday I was optimistic enough to board a bus with the intenton of going to the markets. Of course, being Anzac Day here in Australia, the bus detoured before we got to the centre of town and started heading somewhere entirely not near the markets.

I got off before I ended up somewhere in the remotest suburbs where I believe they still worship the sun and eat people*, and found myself in a square in the midst of a bunch of boys in kilts. The Anzac Day parade! For a moment of horror I thought I might actually be in the parade, and flattened myself against the nearest building until they'd gone past.

I think it was getting started just as I arrived. Pretty soon the boys in kilts were marching in tight formation and playing the bagpipes. They were wonderful! I called up the Man who was still out of town, so that he could hear them play. I think he could; I certainly couldn't hear him over the din! They really were fantastic. It quite brought a tear to my eye, to imagine all those sweet, fuzzy-cheeked teenage boys practicing earnestly in their bedrooms for the big day. My Scottish grandmother would have loved it.

Actually it brought more than one tear to my eye; I could feel myself getting all choked up and emotional and it was pretty embarrassing. Remembrance Sunday and Anzac Day parades and services always get me worked up. As I wandered the streets with my shopping bag, trying to find a way through to the markets and pretending I had something caught in my eye, I wondered why it was affecting me so much. Then I realized - it reminds me of my grandparents, now all dead. (Either that or I'm a big softie.)

My paternal grandmother - the Scottish one - never showed much interest in World War 2 nostalgia, but she did had a soft spot for the bagpipes. Grandma was not the most refined of ladies, and my mother, who came from gentler stock, would marvel at her brashness. My mother was especially tickled to discover the two greasy cassettes (stashed away in a greasy drawer) of bagpipe music, the covers depicting some Highland dragoon in full dress uniform, playing with gusto. I never heard Grandma actually play the tapes, or any music besides the radio, but I liked to imagine I inherited an appreciation of bagpipe music from her. (No, I don't have any in my music collection. Be realistic now.) If she'd been standing next to me on Friday, I imagine she wouldn't have shown any outward pleasure but would have started earnestly telling me all about the Scottish National Guard, if there is such a thing, and naming the songs with a knowledgable air.

My Grandad on my mother's side was an avid viewer of World War 2 films, and enjoyed recounting yarns from the war to my two brothers, who just loved his stories. We never heard anything from the 50s, 60s, or 70s, but boy did we hear about the 40s! He didn't bore all and sundry with his memories, but if you were at my grandma and grandad's house in the late 80s/early 90s, and everything had gone quiet and my brothers and Grandad had disappeared somewhere, you could bet you'd find them in the study, Grandad slowly and thoughtfully telling some tale, and the two little boys happily playing Lego at his feet and occasionally asking for clarification of some detail of the story. Grandma Baines wasn't all that bothered about the stories, but there was one she loved to tell jointly with him, about the time when they were newly married, and she'd gone to visit him when he was stationed nearby, and she drove out of the barracks with him hiding in the boot of the car so that they could enjoy a day out together! It's an especially good tale if you know how upright and ladylike she is. I can just imagine the soldiers at the gate letting her out with a respectful wave, and no idea about the illicit cargo in the back!

On Remembrance Sunday, Grandad would sit in his armchair in front of the television watching the parade, televised live from London. Grandma also seemed to enjoy it. Sometimes they'd exclaim in recognition as the BBC presenter introduced yet another set* of marchers, and Grandma would reach across her armchair to his and he would clasp her gnarled old hand in his big strong one and they'd smile at each other. My brothers would comment knowledgeably whenever they could - they still have an amazing knowledge of World War 2 trivia! It must have been very nice for grandad to have such a receptive young audience for his memories, but then, he was a good storyteller.

I never really wondered why Grandad never went to London to march wearing all his medals. We were Oop North, and London was a long way. Grandma and Grandad never went out much anyway. Then my mother told me some time later that he wouldn't have wanted to march even if he had lived closer to the capital. He may have only told my brothers about the fun stuff, the camaraderie and the cool planes and the generals' cunning tactics, but he had a lot of bad memories tucked away in his head too. Once after we were all in bed, he'd become very maudlin and told her about his friend, who'd been sitting right beside him wherever it is they were (my mother doesn't remember the details) and suddenly his head was blown off. I think he may have had a lot of anger hidden away in him, and marching in pomp and circumstance with his shiny medals and being congratulated by the establishment would have seemed hypocritical. Grandad was a bit of a philosopher and had quite the rebellious streak in him. I wish I'd had more time to ask him about stuff like that, but I was 18 when he died, and had only just stopped being obsessed about my belly fat and wondering if I was ever going to lost my virginity all the time.

Grandad's ambivalent attitude towards military pageantry and the Man's rabid pacifist stance I guess help explain why I am rather uncomfortable with the whole Anzac Day thing. Sure, I get all teared up when I see the shrivelled old men walking slowly but with such pride in their old uniforms, and I think of all their young pals who didn't make it, but are not forgotten. But I feel a deep discomfort every time some smug politician pontificating about how 'the Legend of Anzac Day will live on'; it feels like the tragic event of thousands of young men being sent needlessly to their deaths is being used to justify the rather boorish nationalism that is popular in some circles of Australia right now - and why?

I also feel uncomfortable when the sacrifice of that (WWII) generation is held up as an example to us younger people of how we should obey our politicans and the Establishment - Anzac Day is a military celebration after all, and the military is not known for its accommodation of dissent and free spirit. But didn't most of those boys (and girls) go to war because there was little choice? Wasn't the war for them mainly about survival, and making sure their friends survived with them? My Grandad's favourite tales were of the times he and his pals had adventures where they got one up over their superiors, and had fun under the radar of the authorities. He was no lover of military hierarchy.

I also hate how politicians of all persuasions use these events as an opportunity to puff themselves up and make themselves look good. I hate that they use the tragedy of war to make themselves look good and raise their popularity ratings.

After I'd extricated myself from the parade and done my shopping, I met one of the Man's friends for a couple of drinks. He was in town to participate in the parade, as he's a fighter pilot. We talked a bit about Anzac Day and Remembrance Sunday (the British version, a dignified event that doesn't come with gurgling voice-overs about 'The LEGEND of the ANZACS!!') and he told me what it was about for him. It was simply about remembering the fallen, and the lost friends. Politicians may enjoy the opportunity for posturing, but when don't they? They kiss babies and smile for the cameras every time they open a hospital, but it doesn't mean that hospitals shouldn't be opened, or the war dead shouldn't be remembered.

I did feel a bit better about it after I went home from the pub. And I've never had a problem with there being a day to remember those lost in war. I just hate when it's hijacked by people with another agenda, and when it's used to make war seem glorious. I feel it's used to justify a rather silly nationalism.

Yet, Australia's ability to celebrate and express patriotism is one of the things I admired most when I first got here. The British are so whingey and desperate to make themselves sound sophisticated that they are terrified to express any love for their country. Can poor Australia ever win?!

Anyway, it's all over now, and I have to go finish cleaning the oven. It really stinks!!


*I'm a city girl!
**Platoon? Division? Troop?

Feline ill

Poor kitty is sick.

I woke up this morning and opened the front door, as usual, expecting to see her happily trotting halfway down the hall by the time I got the door shut. She was there all right, curled up on the doorstep, but she didn't get up right away. She got to her feet slowly, poked her head through two of the bars on the outer door (just a metal grille), then another two. It was as if she had decided she couldn't fit through, which she normally does with no problem at all.

So I opened the outer door and picked her up. She give a sad little meouw. The fur round her throat was all bloody and matted, which gave me a scare, and she had a cut above her left eye. I carried her to the lounge room and she just sat huddled up, not making any move to her food and water. I brought the heater into the room and switched it on.

The Man is away for a few days (Hurrah! The house is mine!!) so I had a panic for a few minutes in the shower. We don't have a cat carrier, I can't yet drive, I didn't know when the vet opened, was Kitty going to quietly expire while I got ready in the bathroom, etc.

In the end I called my neighbour, her 'real' owner, who lent me the cat carrier and drove me to the vet at 8:00. Luckily we were seen right away. Kitty had a shot of antibiotics and another for the pain, and her bloodied fur was shaved off. Wewent home on the bus because I couldn't find a taxi. She let out a little sob every now and then but was very good, though it must have been a traumatic 12 hours for her.

I was so late into work! I am also not going to ballet this evening, in order to take care of the convalescent. That is a very big sacrifice for me, so you must know I love this cat.

Meanwhile, the Man is plotting Revenge against the cats who did it to her. We know who it was because these two cats are contstantly round our house bullying her. They don't even live on our side of the street; they just come to torment her. They were especially bad last night. I had to chase them off the roof with the hosepipe early in the evening as they were ganging up on her. Then soon before I went to bed I caught one of them sitting on the ledge at our front window. I half expected to be woken up in the night to hear yowling on the roof, but I never expected to find poor little beaten up Kitty sitting quietly on the doorstep the next morning. Apparently this Revenge involves fire crackers, air rifles and cat traps, or so I was told over the phone line from Queensland.

$148!

(I thought that merited its own paragraph.)

I can't wait to get home and check on her. I really don't want to be here at work today.

Pretty Thin?

Lately I’ve been enjoying reading the Sydney Morning Herald with my lunch, in the communal area at work. You can tell this by all the tomato-coloured stains that spatter its pages after 1 pm every afternoon. I have learned many exciting things. On Thursday, as I was shovelling pasta down my throat as fast as I could, I read an article about pro-anorexia websites, and how they’ve been damaging teenagers’ delicate young minds. What a melting-pot of the bizarre the Internet is!

I decided to investigate. (Hoping meanwhile that my employer doesn’t actually that employers’ regulate internet use – it would be so embarrassing to be caught surfing for bulimia tips. I can just imagine them thinking “so that’s why she eats so much”) I discovered an exciting world of pro-anorexia websites (or the jauntier ‘pro-Ana’, as The Kids are calling it these days). I was looking forward to being shocked, appalled and disgusted, and I must say it only partially fulfilled my expectations.

Mostly I was left feeling baffled. The sites included lots of the kind of mad diet tips only teenaged girls will consider - I think we’ve all been there – and many pictures of the skinny actresses, pop singers and models that fill mainstream magazines. But I couldn’t find commentary on the dangerously skinny, or on anorexia to the point of hospitalisation, either for or against, so I have no idea what their opinions are on such extreme self-starvation. Mostly it was just typical young girl babble along the lines of ‘I want to be thinner’ and ‘Oh my God Paris Hilton is so thin and pretty…!”

So, what the hell is ‘pro-ana’, anyway?

This site, which was featured in the Sydney Morning Herald article, http://www.prettythin.com/proana.htm was obliging enough to have a page actually entitled ‘What is pro-ana?’

This is the first sentence on the page: “Pro-ana was the term used to describe sites that catered to eating disorders (usually anorexia)”.* Now, on its own, I don’t find that terribly enlightening, but that’s about as specific as it got. It then continued:

“…it brought light to the whole movement and the anorexic rights issue, and
others who wanted to reach out for help with no where to turn was now able
to seek out others. Bad in that a sudden wave of people wanted to get
anorexia, and thought that being on the forums would give them the "ana diet."”

The writer talks about enabling people to reach out for help. Does that mean she thinks it’s good that anorexics were able to find help with their eating disorder? In that case she can’t be ‘pro-anorexic’, right? She says it’s bad that people wanted to ‘get anorexia’. On the other hand, she talks about ‘anorexic rights’. What the hell is that? There’s also this on another page:

“Anorexics usually have low self-esteem and sometimes feel they don't deserve to eat. The anorexics usually deny that anything is wrong. Hunger is strongly denied. They usually resist any attempts to help them because the idea of therapy is seen only as a way to force them to eat. Once they admit they have a problem and are willing to seek help, they can be treated effectively through a combination of psychological, nutritional and medical care.”

I don’t see how the Sydney Morning Herald can take offence at this site’s description of anorexia.

On the other hand, other parts of the site are devoted to dozens and dozens of pictures of skinny to dangerously skinny women. There are self-hate lyrics from Radiohead, the kings of dirge, and other emo poetry. The site’s visitors also send in ‘beautiful’ pictures of themselves looking skinny and bony. I imagine they spend hours and hours lying around at home, weak from hunger, studying themselves in the mirror and alternately hating/loving themselves. The narcissism of it all! Some sites talk about ‘haters’- presumably the people who scorn anorexics. But can they really wonder why other people despise them? These girls idolize ‘celebrities’ such as Angelina Jolie, Liz Hurley, Paris Hilton – those vain, greedy**, self-absorbed women who exemplify so much that is wrong in the West today. Take Nicole Richie, a woman whose luminous, inner ugliness is practically visible to the naked eye. This is the kind of woman whose picture they swoon over at Prettythin.com. To me, these super-rich celebrities may look thin, but I think they are obese in spirit. Anyone with such a big carbon footprint is fat in my book.

Now, I’m not trying to say I think it’s good to be overweight, or that an over-abundance of body fat is attractive. I don’t, and I think it’s a great idea to watch what you eat. Let’s think about food for a moment. Where does it come from? What is the relationship between the food we find on the supermarket shelves, and the environment? What impact do the all those cookies, flavoured drinks, instant this and instant that have on our planet? It’s no secret that if everyone had the same eating habits as we in the West do…well, it just couldn’t happen. There wouldn’t be enough land and resources to feed that many greedy mouths.

Food is indeed political, and I respect anyone who eats both healthily and ethically. Why not give up eating cage eggs? Refuse to eat pork and chicken unless they’re free range. Or even give up meat altogether – who knows how much rainforest has been destroyed so we can eat burgers?*** And what about milk? If you really think about it, dairy is a pretty morally disgusting industry. They forcibly impregnate animals over and over, then remove and slaughter their offspring, then do it all over again, just to keep the animals lactating. And as for convenience food…where does all that packaging go once you’ve eaten the contents? The easiest solution I can see is to buy locally grown fruit and vegetables, prepare your own food, eat meat and animal products sparingly and make sure you buy from humane sources.

I believe that anyone who starts to care about all this stuff and eats accordingly will not only be a better person, but will become slimmer too. That’s the kind of diet website I would like to see. I may not follow all or even many of the above suggestions, but if these girls on PrettyThin.com did, I may not want to go to dinner at their house (would there be anything to eat?!) but by God, I’d respect them. They would deserve to be slim, and they would be beautiful. But if you pore over celebrity magazines, obsess over how hot Calista Flockhart is and how she wish you could be like Paris Hilton, gorge yourself on fatty foods then throw up afterwards, you are not beautiful. The whole ‘pro-ana’ thing looks pretty pathetic to me.

But who am I to judge, anyway? The best explanation I can come up with for the puzzling jumble of inconsistencies of the ‘Pretty Thin’ website is that it’s written by and for teenage girls, a group not noted for their common sense or indeed sanity. God knows I did some stupid things myself at that age. (Though I didn’t launch insane websites). Perhaps I – and the Sydney Morning Herald – shouldn’t take it so seriously. It's just a bunch of silly, incoherent little girls.

I should add that I do feel sorry for anorexics and bulimics and I hope anyone suffering from this seeks the help they need. I’m sure they’re not all awful people by any means. I just don’t think anyone should be glamorizing their eating disorders on the internet, or to themselves. An eating disorder is an ugly condition. They need to learn to love themselves, but not the disorder. And let’s not forget, for every teenage girl who martyrs herself to thinness, there is an awkward, overweight and unhappy classmate who is made to feel like even more of a fat cow. It’s pretty difficult to learn to like your budding woman’s body when your skinny peers congratulate each other over every pound lost and act all grossed out over their barely-there hip fat.

I will leave you with this thought from Pretty Thin.Com:

“Over time the media has blown this term way out of proportion and making it out
to be such rediculous ideals as "cults" and that the owners were "recruiting"
others into an anorexic lifestyle. The very notion that the internet will give
you an eating disorder is lewd to begin with.”

Search as I might, I could not find any lewdness. Foiled again!


*Catering to anorexics?? You could go broke doing that!

**though obviously not greedy for food
***I’m sure somebody knows, but I don’t

The Dumbest Thing

In case anyone's interested, the Man and I did resolve our differences. Sort of. I was woken early on Saturday morning by the sound of hammering - he was fixing up our car - and he asked me what time I wanted to leave. I told him as frostily I could manage that I'd made other arrangements since he'd refused to take me, and he said he hadn't refused to take me...blah blah...so I ended up going with him and not with the nice lady from the orchestra. I never did get to tell him how furious I was, though, so revenge is still on the cards.

On Friday night, while we were still not speaking, I had the house to myself as the Man was at the pub watching footy. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to watch that evening's chick flick on TV 'The Sweetest Thing'. The announcer said that this was a movie for the girls. "Oh goody!" I thought.

It was clear pretty early on in the piece that this was the lamest movie ever. It starred Cameron Diaz and some other woman. Apparently they were supposed to be 28, but they looked at least 35 (especially craggy-faced Cameron Diaz) and acted about 16. A dumb 16. (Though that does average out to be 25 and a half…)

It started off with the girls going to a club, squealing a lot and telling their friend she needed to get out there and have sex with someone (I guess they haven’t heard of the HPV virus or other STDs, and at their age too, you really wonder). They knocked back drinks and talked about the men as if they were meat, kind of like men do about women. Only not all men, only the really slimy ones.

Are we supposed to warm to these characters? Who exactly is this movie’s target audience?

Cameron Diaz grabs a guy’s bum and when he takes offence, calls him an ‘asshole’. It is obvious that this is the film’s hero as he is tall and has twinkly eyes, and pretty soon she’s apologising, he’s apologising for having been offended at being molested and called an asshole, they’re grinning at each other stupidly and having conversations at a normal volume and apparently being able to hear each other even though they’re at a nightclub. He asks her to come to a party later that evening, and she says she might drop in. She doesn’t, and the rest of the movie is about her obsessing over him and trying to track him down, poor bastard. You can imagine how dismayed his mother will be when he ends up this white trash!

It wasn’t too long before I was seriously wondering if this was a chick flick or actually one for the guys, in disguise. Share my reasoning, if you will:

1. Gratuitous states of undress. Because of course, girls can’t wait to get naked together. It’s what we do when men aren’t around, right? We strip off and talk about men and simulate sex, and giggle. It’s not just a male fantasy, it’s actually true!

2. All the women were tall and thin and had shiny hair. Now I would have been ok with this if they had made an effort to explain why they didn’t look like normal people. Like, maybe everyone in the friendship group was a model? That would be a bit contrived, but this is a movie after all, doesn’t have to be completely realistic. A token effort at least would have been nice. As it was, it was clear they were just meant to be eye candy for the guys. A film aimed at women would surely have had characters of different shapes and sizes – though still pretty – to appeal to us and imply that we are attractive whatever shape we are (that may not necessarily be true, but it would appeal to a FEMALE audience). Skinny women acting like porn stars trying to turn men on are not sympathetic to us ladies.

In one scene, the two dumb heroines are standing in their underwear, side by side in front of a changing room mirror. They lament being 28, and wonder where all the time has gone (I could have told them, don’t worry, your brains are still adolescent). Other Chick – the one who’s not Cameron Diaz – sticks out a skeletal arm and wobbles the flap of loose skin that she has where most people have arm fat. “Look! What is that?” she cries, and the audience is presumably supposed to laugh knowingly in a moment of shared sisterhood. It was at this point I started to talk out loud to the TV set. "You call that arm fat?" - shaking an arm - "This is arm fat!" And I've had it since I was about 16. And I have a perfectly normal BMI. I guess arm fat is a sensitive subject for me.*

*Note to the director: Women do not appreciate hearing skinny bitches lament how fat they are. Trust me on this.

3. Endless crass, crude sex jokes. These were not normal women, like your friends. They were boorish men in women’s bodies. Again, male fantasy! Women who will not only tolerate your bad behaviour but join in, and you can have sex with them too!

I don’t think I have ever seen supposedly 28-year-old women act so immaturely (except perhaps around Paddington). They weren’t fun-loving. They were retarded. They must have giggled vacuously until their throats bled. Not attractive in anyone over 20.


So I think we’ve ascertained that I was Not Amused. OK, I had a couple of laughs, but that was it. I am glad the Man was in a huff at the pub because I would have found the film even more embarrassing and cringe-worthy if I’d had company. And there was nothing else to watch except black and white documentaries and stuff like that so obviously I was trapped into watching it.

I will now leave you with some suggestions of some actually good chick movies:

How to Make an American Quilt
The Color Purple
The Truth About Cats and Dogs
Boys on the Side
Charlie’s Angels
Never Been Kissed
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café
Thelma and Louise
Clueless

Skirmishes on the Domestic Front

I am furious indeed this morning. I’ve just had a fight with the Man. Or rather, he threw a tantrum while I was getting ready this morning. Then I got all teary eyed and couldn’t speak, not because I was upset, but because I was so livid. I get like that when I’m furious. I start crying, and people think I’m soft. But I’m not, crying for me is just a knee-jerk reaction. So inconvenient.

So anyway, I sort of sensed last night that the Man was spoiling for a fight when I got in late last night (after ballet class) and he was about to tackle the washing up. But please don’t imagine he stayed in alone all evening cleaning. Actually, he was motorbike helmet shopping. Bikes are all that he has talked about for the past three weeks or so. So either he’d just got in himself, and decided to tackle the washing up, or he’d been waiting for me to arrive so that I could feel guilty watching him do it. So I was all, “no, let me do it, a lot of this stuff is mine” and I said this several times, but he insisted. And I probably washed up the last time, so I let him do it, and went to bed before he decided to start a fight, because I know what he’s like.

This morning, he woke up apparently in a perfectly good mood. Then he called out that he couldn’t see the little jug thingy for using with the iron. I said something vague and went back to what I was doing. Only thirty seconds or so later, he’d found it, but was going off about how he would have helped me if I’d lost something, and how it must be nice for me to have someone who:

a) posts stuff for me at the Post Office
b) hand delivers a document for me to DIMIA. (Which is kind of on the way home from work for him.)
c) and erm, I think that was about it;

all of which he has done for me this week. Because he offered. Because he often finishes work around 2 or earlier (and we both start at the same time) and it’s more convenient for him.

I basically ignored him because there’s nothing I can do when he’s in such a jerky mood, and I’m damned if I’m going to apologise for accepting the help that he so happily (or so it seemed at the time) offered.

Though maybe I should have responded the way he wanted, because he then said he wasn’t going to drive me to my concert this weekend. Now this concert is way out of Sydney, and I wasn’t originally going to do it, but he encouraged me to, saying we could go down the day before, visit some wineries he’s been wanting to take me to, and stay with a friend. So I told the organiser I’d do it. And now he’s bloody pulled out at the eleventh hour, because he doesn’t feel like taking me now (said all prissy-like). I’ve had to text the organiser asking for a lift, and maybe accommodation if I have to go down the day before. I’ll probably have to stay with old, nerdy orchestra types, that is, if I can go at all. If I can’t, I’ll feel hideous for letting them down. Did I mention, I’m furious?

The weird thing is, apart from being angry about the orchestra thing, I almost like being furious with him. It makes it easier not to love him. OK, so maybe I don’t love him less just because of a fight, but I certainly like him less. And that’s good, because it’s not that great being in a relationship whose sex life took its final, tortured breath in March 2007. Yes, that’s right boys and girls, it is possible to not have sex for 13 months and not die. I'm living proof! Maybe I should donate my body to science?

So when he’s finally speaking to me again, and starts whining and accusing me of not caring enough, and only thinking of myself - instead of crying and saying he was completely wrong, like I used to, maybe I’ll tell him he’s right. I really don’t care that much.

In some ways I would so love to be free and single again. The only problem is loving him, and if I could get over that, it would be just fine.

I woke up feeling a bit guilty over a dream I’d had where I was having an affair with a guy at the office who I’m kind of attracted to. But now I don’t feel guilty at all. Hah!

Bike? What bike?!

It turns out The Man has just bought a motorbike.

I knew he was looking to buy one, but the first I heard that he had actually bought one was this morning, while we were chatting at the bus stop. He said, "blah blah blah helmet blah blah Ducatti blaaah blah..." (I'd tuned out for a while, you know what it's like) "...blah blaaaah, and the funny thing is, I ended up buying it from the other guy!"

"Uhh, bought what, Honey?"

(Happily)..."My bike!"

So apparently, he bought himself a motorbike last night and never thought to bring it up in conversation the entire evening that we were together. Though he did send me a text while he was negotiating it. Actually, he sent another woman a text by mistake. What great communication.

So now I'm a biker moll, apparently!

Brain Death By Chocolate

The dear man reached a ridiculously large age on Tuesday. His loving nephew bought him a chocolate cake from David Jones, as I didn't have time to make him one. Though I did provide the magic* candles.

Now, I am such a huge lover of chocolate that it was to be expected that I'd be the one to do the majority of polishing off the cake over the ensuing days. But in this cake, I may have finally met my match! It has a top layer of very, very thick fudgy chocolate. And the chocolate is so incredibly strong I can barely eat it without being overwhelmed. It's like eating cooking chocolate, its cocoa content is so high.

I had my first, post-Man's-birthday slice last night. I tried drowning it in cream, but it was still pretty hard core. With the next slice I'm going to try melting it slightly in the oven before I pour on the cream. Vanilla ice cream may even enter the scenario somewhere.

Perhaps my system will adjust to this new, high-risk level of chocolatiness, my tolerance threshold will rise, and I'll be able to eat it neat. But how I'd love to be able to just melt it down and make it into two cakes. It's like someone concentrated the recipe accidentally.

Time to go home. I think my brain is rotting. Maybe it's the chocolate?


*The flames burn the same colour as the candles. Cool or what!

Food and Things

Poor, neglected blog. What can I say? They've been working me like a dog at work. I work like crazy all day, then go home to soak in the bath and try and feel human again, then start the whole thing over again the next day.

Of course, I could have written over the Easter break, but I was too busy cooking. I don't cook anywhere near as much as I used to, so every now and then my need to make food builds up and I have to get it all out of my system. The Man will be innocently watching football while behind him in the kitchen area, massive amounts of food begin to gather, pizzas covering every work surface, cakes and pies teetering on ledges. Every time he turns around to describe the finer details of the latest pass or try, a new creation will have popped up. "Yes, dear!" I say, ignoring him happily and coaxing yeast along.

This Easter I made:

pizzas (sauce and dough from scratch) - and can I just ask, why is it so difficult to get hold of free range pork products? I won't buy pork if it's not free range, after seeing all those ads the animal rights people put on the buses and on TV. Yet it's so difficult to buy free range, even in David Jones. I ended up with some free range bacon, but no ham. Anyway, where was I...

pasta sauce
minced beef and vegetable stew
vegetable soup
chocolate mousse with ganache topping

And lots of it, too!

Days like those really are some of the happiest in my life. I think they're the cat's happiest days, too. She relaxes happily next to the Man on the sofa, content in the knowledge that both her people are close by and happily engaged in domestic pursuits.

Talking of the cat, I was awoken in the small hours last night by the sound of the cat leaping around the bedroom knocking stuff over. I stumbled out of bed to see what was going on. She was leaping about in the dark, being playful, or so I thought. I even crouched down to give her a rough petting, and made "grrr!!" noises. Remember, I was half asleep, so I must be pretty nice.

Then I thought I heard a tiny squeak. Alarm bells. I stared a bit more closely at where she was crouching, and as my eyes adjusted to the dark I became aware that there was definitely something next to her...something moving. Of course I screamed for the Man, and ran into another room.

The upshot was, it was a little mouse. The Man put it in a box for the night, then we went to release it this morning. When we opened the lid we found it still alive, but twitching in a most unhealthy way and unable to run. We left it in some undergrowth (well away from our catty area), knowing we should have just killed it to put it out of its misery, but unable to do so.

I've had a bit of sadness about the mouse hanging over me all day. It looked so sad and broken.

Girlfriend from Hell

You may think that as a straight woman, I don’t have to worry about psycho girlfriends. But if you thought that, you would be wrong.

When my darling youngest brother first told me he had a new girlfriend, who he’d met in France, I must admit I was rather proud of him. My little brother, with a sophisticated French woman! And an academic high-flyer, no less. Mon dieu!

My family all speak varying degrees of French (mostly very small degrees!). With a bit of practice, I imagined we’d become one of those families I’ve always envied, who speak different languages at home, and are all multicultural and stuff. I imagined taking phone calls at work from the girlfriend (who in time would have become a close friend), chattering away to her in French while my co-workers nudged each other in awe (I have fantasies like that. I am sad). And think of the bilingual nephews and nieces! I’d be practically part-French myself by association – fancy that, stodgy old English me! I saw myself in the future, studying part time and sharing university anecdotes with her over the kitchen table while my brother rolled his eyes and joked that I got on with her better than he did.

I admitted to myself that it might be a bit hard at first to adjust to the fact that my brother had a new woman in his life who, if everything worked out, would be more important to him than his doting big sister. A woman who was possibly cleverer and prettier than me. Gasp! But since I don’t have any major personality disorders, and in fact have a life of my own, I didn’t think this would turn out to be a real problem.

So, all good, right?

Mais non.

I first met her about a month or so after she and my bro started going out. She seemed very nice, a soft and pretty in a studious sort of way. A few days later they both left, to go live in France, so that was all I saw of either of them that year.

The first sign of trouble came a few weeks afterwards. I called their house in France and asked to speak to my bro, who was out. He called back later and said that she was upset because I hadn’t asked her how she was, or chatted at all. Apparently I’d been abrupt. I bit back my pride and apologised. Later, I reflected with a little embarrassment that she was probably right, and I’d been pretty thoughtless. So I made a point from then on to always ask after her when I was talking to my brother, or have a nice chat with her if he wasn’t in. See - I can do this sister-whose-brother-has-a-girlfriend thing!

Moving on.

Some months later. My goody-two-shoes little brother has an STD! Uh-oh! He and the (soon to be revealed as psycheau) girlfriend are both taking of course of little pills to clear it up. I had a long chat with him, and agreed that he must feel bad about passing on something nasty that he’d caught from the skanky girl he’d been sleeping with before, to his respectable current girlfriend. I told him gently, that teaches you not to sleep with skanks! - and a bit more big-sister sex ed – and agreed that he had to take care of his girlfriend. After a while, though, I began to feel kind of bad about it, as he really was wallowing in guilt. I pointed out that at the end of the day, unless she was a virgin when he met her, it could even have come from her. It could have come from either of them. I reminded him that I myself had caught something like that not long before, and of course I am a paragon of moral virtue. The important thing was, I said, not to lay blame, but to get healthy again, and keep it in mind in the future if contemplating promiscuity.

And so to the trouble…

I got call from my brother some months later. He told me, in an odd voice, that he had something rather unpleasant to talk to me about. He said I wasn’t being nice to psycheau girlfriend. I wasn’t treating her like one of the family. I was ignoring her. I was appalled and mortified. The only interaction I’d had with either of them for almost a year was on the phone, and as I explained above, I’d been making sure to always ask after her and have nice chats. If I’d done anything to upset her, I was very sorry and didn’t mean it.

It didn’t end there. I received several more stilted phone calls from my brother over the course of the next few weeks, mostly after I’d got home from work and wanted nothing more than to climb into the bath with a bottle of wine and a bad book (I like trashy literature). Eventually I was accused of insinuating that she was a slut. I was amazed! I said I couldn’t believe that I would have done such a thing, principally because I’d never even thought it as I liked the girl, so it’s not like it could have come out like a Freudian slip or anything. My bro couldn’t tell me exactly when or in what context this had happened, so it was practically impossible for me to defend myself. Days later, after a lot of bemused thinking, it occurred to me. It was because of the conversation we’d had about the STD. I shouldn’t have suggested that the STD could have come from Psycheau!

I finally gave up being polite and apologetic and told him to stop being such a complete twat. I didn’t invent biology, God did. I was relieved to have figured out what the slut thing was all about, because I knew then that I hadn’t done anything wrong.

That European summer I went to visit them in France. Oh, bad idea. From my first full day there, they made me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. There were strange silences. Disappearances into the bedroom (not for sex). I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I was walking around on eggshells. (I was particularly aware that although my baby brother lived here, it was also another woman’s home, and I didn’t want her to feel trampled on.) Soon after my arrival, Psycheau Girlfriend sat me down and patiently said we needed to talk because I’d been upsetting my bro, and I was sure if I talked about it I’d be able to work through my issues and behave respectfully towards them. I really, really tried to please her, but it’s a bit difficult to have a frank talk about your issues when as far as you’re concerned, you don’t have any. Up until then, I had thought that maybe the problems were being caused by my brother. Maybe she’d been complaining about me, as you might do with your boyfriend, without realizing he was going to repeat it all back to me. Maybe she hadn’t said anything at all, and he was just being weird. But now I knew it was definitely coming from her too.

Believe me I was relieved to leave France at the end of my visit! I was counting down the days. It’s horrible to be an unwanted houseguest.

I’m going to fast forward over the rest. I think you get the picture. I thought the overt problems were settled until I got another whiney phone call from my brother first thing in the morning on Boxing Day (cheers). I lost it and screamed the house down at him, and told him not to bother calling me ever again if he was going to continue to be such a tosser. He has never again accused me of being horrible to Psycheau.

I’m writing this because she’s recently decided to turn on my parents. While I was in France she’d told me, in sorrowful tones, that they were having problems with my parents. I felt a bit uncomfortable at being told this, but frankly, I’ve got so many issues of my own with my parents that I couldn’t really be surprised. They are pretty eccentric and difficult to get on with sometimes, but they mean well, so I was a bit surprised that my brother hadn’t explained this to her. Whenever my parents mentioned her to me, they seemed pleased and fond, so I assumed that bro and Psycheau hadn’t actually said anything to them about their ‘hurt feelings’. I didn’t tell my parents about my problems with Psycheau. It didn’t seem right at the time, especially they weren’t seeing eye to eye with me over my decision to live in Australia.

December 2007: My parents and I went to visit bro and Psycheau (now in England) a few days after Christmas, for two nights. On day #2, Psycheau girlfriend decided to go into sulks over something my father had supposedly said. She wouldn’t come out of her room until he went to see her with an official apology. He went along with this, keen to keep the peace. Though not until I threatened to walk out and go back to stay with my friend in the Midlands if she didn’t stop being such a spoilt cow. (Interestingly, my brother seemed embarrassed and almost admitted he agreed she was being unreasonable). So things were – sort of – smoothed over. She came out of her room, I pasted on a bright smile and offered everyone a glass of wine, and we went out to dinner and all was well.

Today my parents sent me an e-mail. It included a long clip from my brother’s e-mail to them, when he told them they’d misbehaved when they came to see him at Christmas (and I was there with them for every minute of the short visit, so I know they were nothing short of wonderful on that trip). He said how they had to earn his and Psycheau’s respect again, etc. My parents were very upset. It’s like a repeat of what they did to me in 2006. I told them about what I’d gone through and said my advice was not to bother.

So what do you do when your family is split up my some high-maintenance, spoilt little bitch? Why exactly is she so psycho? Why won’t she allow us to like her? Why has my brother decided to take her side against all of us? And when are they going to split up?! This is painful to me so I wish I knew!

Pencils Ahoy!

It's been all hands on deck here at the Stationery Cabinet. I have been very, very busy. Some days I have been working through lunch and not leaving until six. Until six, I tell you! I am tempted to set my e-mails to out of office just so that everyone will sod off and leave me alone.

I'm also a bit sick. I can't seem to get enough sleep, and when I do have an early night I have lurid dreams (thank you, RSPCA Rescue) and keep waking up in the night. It doesn't help when Kitty claws me with a playful "Mow?", shocking me out of dream sleep in the belief that the Man and are being knifed by home invaders.

Here's hoping that next week will be better - ie, I'll have bugger-all to do, and can spend my afternoons in the gym admiring myself like I used to before I got so busy.

Have a good weekend!

Is It Coz I Is Black?

This morning on the bus someone had the most foul loud music playing - they don't call them personal stereos any more and it's probably just as well, as they're not terribly personal when you blast them at a million decibels. It was so loud, you couldn't just hear the tinny sound of the beat, but you could even hear the wailing women's voices too. It was putrid. Such things are never good for one in a delicate morning state. I could feel my cereal shifting ominously in the pit of my stomach.

I had a look around for the likely culprit and settled on the young man who had a seat next to where I was standing. I gave him the evils for a while, hoping he'd look up and go "Oh God, sorry, is my music bothering you? I'll turn it down right away." Because of course, that's likely to happen on public transport in any city.

It turns out it wasn't the man at all, it was the young woman sitting behind him. I know this because the man in front of me, also standing, said to her, disapprovingly, "Is that your stereo?" Then it all got a bit weird. She started ranting "You're just saying that because I'm black!" (She was black, English I think. I think he was English too.) And "Do you say that to all foreigners in this country?!!" and "Why can't I go for a jog in a morning? You are RACIST". He was, of course, perturbed, because none of this made any sense whatsoever, and an argument ensued.

Meanwhile, other bus goers were saying to each other, "I'd like like to congratulate that man!" and "I'm glad someone said something," and gave him kind words when he got off the bus.

It was kind of weird. I was really taken aback by her aggression and that her immediate reaction was to go on about racism and the fact that he was attacking her because she was black. I mean, as if her taste in music wasn't enough. I thought, if I was black I would be blushing to hear her. Especially if I was black person who actually had been a victim of racism. It kind of trivializes their suffering, I think. If her ancestors were slaves, I wonder what they'd think if they could hear their descendant's bratty fit.

Anyway, I had to work really late today and I am exhausted. I am off for a bath and a(nother) glass of wine. Just sooooo tired....

Rieu The Day

From the moment I first heard the name Andre Rieu, I had a bad feeling about the man.

My boss was pretty excited to find out that I play the violin. He immediately asked me enthusiastically if I knew of Andre Rieu. I said no, and immediately had a little panic that this was a top class soloist who I somehow happened to never notice existed, thus making myself look stupid. (I am pretty ignorant, even about things I’m supposed to know a lot about). He enthused for a few minutes about this Andre Rieu guy and said he was going to buy me his CD. I was a little worried that my boss was more knowledgeable about classical musicians than I was, but mostly I was just worried. I mean, a violinist that my philistine co-workers have heard of? Wah! Wah! Wah! (That’s the sound of alarm bells going off in my head).

My boss brought up this Andre Rieu character several more times, but each time I had to tell him I’d been too busy to look him upon the internet. Then one day, I was in a CD shop and almost walked into this big display of Andre Rieu CDs and whatnots. It confirmed my worst fears – packed out stadium tours! Pictures of Andre with cute children! CDs and CDs full of easy listening tracks! This guy was the Daniel O’Donnell of the violin world!*

Now it’s not just my boss plugging the Andre Rieu tour. Andre Rieu is seeping into my real life. On Sunday I was hanging out laundry on the back deck when my elderly neighbour called out hello from her back yard. She asked me how I was, and I told her I was tired as I’d spent the day in rehearsals with my orchestra. Her face lit up. “Have you heard about that Andre what’s-his-name?” she asked me. I answered politely and hoped she would not hear my teeth gnashing.

I can tell that as this guy’s Australian tour draws near, this is going to get worse and worse. I don’t think I’m alone in not having heard of him until like, two weeks ago, but as always happens in Australia, once a performer books their ticket to Sydney we can’t stop hearing about them. Remember Dita von Teese? (I blush to type such a ridiculous name on a work computer). How a few months ago her face was everywhere? The trash press was full of what lipstick she used, her romance and style tips, etc etc. All this just because she came to Sydney, and Sydney was so flattered. Because I doubt that many of these magazines’ readers actually went to burlesque shows and really knew who she was. It was all down to the press, and how flattered they were to have a Famous Person to write about. Seriously.

But back to Andre. I love many, many types of music, but easy listening is not one of them. (I would especially avoid anything that could be termed ‘inspirational’.) Now I may be jumping to conclusions here, but I’m betting this guy has music videos where he’s on hills with the wind blowing through his coat tails (and there will be coat tails). You just know that he makes stage entrances where he flies in over the audience suspended from a cord. It will be ‘magical’. Disney will probably get involved somewhere along the line. He has a show. My conservative little musical soul shudders!!

Look, really, I don’t wish the guy any harm at all. I’m sure he’s a very accomplished musician. There are not many well-paid jobs for musicians, and I guess he’s found that this way he can achieve fame and fortune instead of starving as yet another rank and file musician who couldn’t make it as a classical soloist, assuming he even wanted to. So he marketed himself in the populist mould, he’s done very well out of it and brought music to a lot of people who’d never otherwise have dreamed of going to see a violinist in concert. I know all this. I am happy for him and his fans, as long as I don’t have to listen to his CDs or see him in concert.

Yes, it’s a real fear that my boss will buy me his CD and then I’ll have to listen to it. I am even afraid I might have to fork out $200 to go to the concert, just to suck up to my boss. Nooooo!!

I’m going now to look him up online to see if the mountain top/coattails/entrances from over the auditorium thing is accurate. Wouldn’t want to get sued.

And Andre, if you are reading this and I am wrong about you, I apologise.**



*I realize that some of my readers may be under 75, so I should explain that Daniel O’Donnell is this sappy pretty-boy crooner who my grandma used to love. Generally filmed singing on picturesque mountain tops for ‘Songs of Praise’.

**But I still don’t want your CD.

What a Wheeze

I believe in my last post I may have mentioned that I recently had my cholesterol levels measured, and that I scored ‘super excellent’. My work’s put on a ‘health expo’ where all week, you can get stuff like that checked. I also scored very well on blood pressure, blood glucose, and BMI (ok, not very well on BMI. Just well.)

So with all ticks next to ‘ideal’ on my scorecard, I was feeling like a pretty hot specimen, until I decided to get my lungs checked. Oh deary dear.

Lung function is measured using a test where you wrap your lips around the mouthpiece of a little hand-held device, breathe in as hard and fast as you can, exhale as fast as you can, hold the exhalation for several seconds, then breathe in sharply again. It took several goes as the nurse kept saying, kindly but disbelievingly, “Can you exhale a bit faster this time? You didn’t blow out all the air that time.” I felt like a real dunce by the time she was satisfied.

Then the computer did something enormously clever with the results and spat out a one-page report which the nurse patiently took me through. The report showed the minimum, average and maximum expected scores for a healthy woman of my age, height and race. (Would you believe, race makes a difference? Apparently we Caucasians have the biggest lungs of all the races. I beat my chest upon receiving this piece of information. Rarrrrr! Big lungs!) I scored just a little below average. And remember, we’re talking below average for healthy people.

So how unprepared was I for the last line? I have a lung age of thirty six!!!!!!!!! And I’m only 29! I nearly went into cardiac arrest! (She should have checked my inhalation speed then – I’d have been off the charts!) The nurse meanwhile seemed supremely unbothered and seemed to think I should be happy about this result! She even had the cheek to say that thirty six isn’t that much older than me! I mean, helloooo???!!!!!

I asked her what I could do to improve the situation, expecting her to tell me to take up running or something (I have no intention of doing any such thing, but it would be nice to know there was something I could do if I could be bothered) but she told me, pityingly, that once you’ve damaged your lungs there’s not much you can do about it.

Damaged lungs? This is me we’re talking about, not some fifty-five year old, coal mining chain smoker. Check the damned equipment! I demand a re-count! I’m the owner of 4.09mmol blood cholesterol and 4.7 blood glucose. Don’t tell me my lungs are middle aged!

Of course the real question of the hour is, what have my lungs been doing that the rest of me hasn’t? Have they been taking holidays in China behind my back? Do they have a secret 40-menthol-slims-a-day habit that I don’t know about? Does my house have a leaky gas fire like you read about in the tabloids?

Did all those rebellious fags* behind the bike sheds at school really mean so much?...Children, take heed!

Sorry for all the exclamation marks. But suddenly I feel…short of breath.

*Fags = UK slang for cigarettes