Who Said a Small Wet Dog Can't Learn New Tricks?

Mondex. Dishonourable Discharge From Navy Seals after it is discovered that the canine is not a seal at all.

"We were alerted to the problem fairly early on in the seaman's career when all we ever heard from him was yap yap gurgle, instead of harf harf." Said Navy Seal Captain, Clint Winchester.

Seaman First Class Mondex was said to be very upset at the news of his discharge and was looking around for other options. It appears that the NSW Public Service is considering the plucky dog to head up a team, investigating alternatives to the failed transport ticketing scheme.

"Lets face it" said Chloe (the Stranger Danger) Granger, parliamentary aid and advisor to the Iemma Government. "He did better on his exams than any of the current team, and we've seen him concentrate on one task (licking himself) for up to 11 minutes at a time. He would be a worthy addition to the team."

What's the Time Mister Wolf?

I had a dream last night that’s going to be the premise for my next short film.

There’s a game with a few variations that’s played across the English speaking world. It can be known as, What’s the Time Mr Wolf?, Statues or Dead Lions… whatever. It involves sneaking up on a kid as a group, anticipating when he'll turn around. When he does, you are all supposed to freeze. Whoever he sees still moving is ‘out’. The object is to touch him without being caught moving.

Anyway, my dream involved me being the turner/spotter. The game starts, I turn around once, no one is moving, I turn back and wait a little. I turn quickly, and spot one of the girls. I go back to my position, wait… and turn, spot one of the boys... and then notice that one of the other boys has gone. Tony has totally disappeared in a wide open playground. I hadn’t had my back turned long enough for him to have made it out of sight. Gone. Continue with the game and don’t remember how it ends.

Cut to 18 years later and I am woken at 2.30 in the morning by my front doorbell. I go down to see who it is and as I open the door, Tony leans in, touches me on the arm and says

“You’re it.”

I’m dumbfounded but impressed. Tony is willing to go a long way for a gag. I did have to mention to him though that his parents had ceased their search for his little murdered body, and the family had managed to move on. For years his face was on the side of milk cartons...

Maffs and Fizzics and Stuff

Finemann, Susskind, Galfard and Chandra – Some of the inheritors of the Newton, Einstein, and Planck legacy. These are brains that change how we perceive the universe. But only Einstein and Hawkings will be remembered.

Why? Because Einstein had great hair. But Stephen Hawking is even cleverer. He had a best seller that we all bought and read the first half of before losing interest, so there’s a start. But in a post Dr Who age, where we in the West are all dimly aware of the complexity of the universe – he captured our imagination not because of his maths, but because he looks and sounds like Davros.

Don't Pay the Wiseman's Ferryman

I didn't, not one cent. I've listened Chris DeBurg, and learnt.

Partner and I went to a little place sort of N'West of Wisemans Ferry for a party this weekend. Drove up to cable-barge that would take us across the swirling rapids to our destination, and the bloke in the hi-visibility vest just waved us on. Didn't ask for a drakmar or nothin'. I didn't even fix a price.

Suicide Tips

A friend of mine once said that she had decided how she was going to kill herself - so that it caused minimum trauma to those around her. She wasn't actually planning it, she just liked to consider these things. (Morbid little thing. When I was still new to the net, she used to show me the most horrific stuff that she had found, with a real expression of glee. I'd be staggering around her flat, covering my eyes and moaning "Stop it oh god that's horrible, just stop it." She'd say "Ok it's gone, but have a look at this." I'd fall for it and then be back to holding the vomit down and averting my gaze.)

So her plan was to take poison in a hotel room. The rationale is, I believe, pretty sound. You won't have the time to turn all soupy and wrong, because your room is checked daily, and you're not going to be found by someone who is related or married to you. See? Thoughtful and simple.

Two guidelines I think need to be added.

When you are ready to be dead, go to the toilet and/or don't hang yourself. I think it is just unfair to add a full pair of pants, to the already gruesome list of things your discoverer is already dealing with. If it is me that finds you, and you've got lumpy undies, I'm backing out of the room and pretending I didn't see anything.

A mate of mine who was a cab driver once drove a woman to Vaucluse. It's a posh suburb on the harbour in Sydney, where she threw herself off "the Gap". He didn't find this out until the police arrived on his doorstep the next day. He, of course, was shocked and upset. The thing that really upsets me about it though (he's too decent to admit it) is she didn't tip him for the ride. I think that if you are going to involve any sort of public service in your bid to top yourself - leave a little gratuity.

Flying None

"Search crews in Brazil have found a bundle of balloons off the coast that were being used by a priest who went missing trying to set a flight record.
Father Adelir de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday strapped to 1,000 helium balloons."

This is a dead bat moment. You know you're not supposed to laugh...

Socks Appeal

Everything is being medicalised.

“It’s a shocking fact that 1 in 2 men will suffer from baldness.” (real TV ad.)

Well uhm actually no, at 1 in 2, that’s a quarter of the population and you can’t just suddenly tell me that’s a condition. Creating need where there wasn’t one previously is of course one of the tools of the trade for marketing types, but sub-groups of needs are now being created, and need to be addressed.

My socks make me feel insecure. They are socks developed to address the Deep Vein Thrombosis and Diabetes brigade. They’re nicely padded on the bottom and have firm elastic around the ankle that sort of gets less firm as they go up the leg. Now I’m not in the DVT Diabetes group and all this does to me is makes me feel like my socks are constantly falling down.

Now here’s a really shocking fact. I in 2 men let the gap between pant leg and sock show, when they sit. This is unforgivable and I try hard not to get caught in that unfortunate and unsightly position. My socks are leading me to believe that I am constantly on the brink. I am nervous. Where are my anti-nerve-no-gap-socks?

10 Things That Should Come From the 20/20 Conference

1. No child will live without a robot by the year 2009.
2. Learners licenses for jetpacks will be dropped to 17 years of age.
3. Holidays on the Moon will be subject to luxury tax.
4. Professional mind readers will stop fashion crimes before they are committed.
5. The Cahill Expressway will not only not be torn down, but widened and raised (I mean come on people, who’s ever seen a modern city without roads?).
6. No Australian will be taunted or mistreated for admitting that they don’t like most Australian cinema because it is in general, crap.
7. The wearing of an Australian flag as a cape will result in the flag being burnt, with the offender still in it.
8. Mix Masters will cut up food and pump out tasty beats.
9. People will be taught at school that you can’t have a “War on …..” and expect it to work eg. War on Terror – no, that’s a method. War on Drugs – no, that’s a war on a big percentage of your population and is a medical issue.
10. We have to start seriously working on being “Beamed Up”, “Going to warp drive” and the flux capacitor

Hunting and Gathering. Part 13547

Shopping. The last great cultural frontier. Although it should be said that not all Western Societies view it with quite the regard that English speaking countries do. Once, my partner and I were stuck for clothes in Paris, and the airline that had lost them told us to go and buy some more on their dime.

We set off without thinking, to Printemps (French version of David Jones/Macys/Harrods), and she and I were dismayed and a little impressed that the French don't open those sorts of shops on a Sunday. They think that sitting around drinking and eating is far better. I'm not certain they're not right, but a bugger when your crucial threads are on the lamb and the weather is starting to turn.

Anyway, I digress - An up and a down week dealing with the retail world.

Up: I dropped my watch in at the local jeweller, whose shop must be a front for organised crime. There is no way he is selling any of the crap he has in that joint. A colleague who was with me noted that a sign said,

"-Everything!- Special Price."

But how can you resist going to a jeweller called Hans Han. He's local too, so he's handy... with his hands... working on the second and the minute hand... oh stop, my sides, my sides.

Good one Hans. I Can't wait to go back and see what you've done with my watch. He claims to have pressure tested it, cleaned the inside of the face, resealed the bezel, improved the seal on the winder and buttons, and improved the seal on the back - all for $15.

Down: Partner and I arrived before the local supermarket had opened on a Sunday morning. So keen were we to get the shopping done and out of the way, that we ended up milling about with the window lickers for 15 minutes until the shop opened. I can't define the exact brand of embarrassment, but it is of the sort of "Yes my life has come to this. Cannot wait to get down the shops and cruise the aisles for bargains." type. In a graphic demonstration of my hidden shallows, I was trying to mill about in a way that suggested that I was important and busy and needed to get the shopping done post-haste, as decisions concerning large events needed to be made soon. In fact I needed to get home and watch the previous evening taped edition of Top Gear, but that probably doesn't show the right gravitas.

Bike Path Rules. Ok?

As someone who used to drive public transport as well as years spent on the road as a run of the mill car owner, I recently had what I thought was going to be a lucky break with Sydney traffic. I moved into a house a few metres from a bike path that ran to within a few hundred metres of my workplace. This is almost unheard of. How many people in Sydney can genuinely commute on a bicycle using only bike paths?

In the first instance, the path was simply too good to resist. It was a chance to safely put one in the eye of one of the banes of modern existence: traffic.

Secondly, it beats the gym. Sometimes I find the idea of exercise off-putting simply because it gets in the way of other activities. Also, if structured exercise is all I’m doing (unlike a sport) I tend to concentrate on how uncomfortable it is. Lastly, my image. Alone on the path, I could ride without being mistaken for one of those Critical Mass turkeys.

I used to ride as a teenager and would go serious distances fairly quickly because the bike represented economic as well as actual freedom. No bus timetable or fares. As a teenager I would think nothing of riding tens of kilometres to then play a sport, and ride home again. I was hit by cars on two occasions and had doors opened in front of me more often than I can remember. I walked away from every incident with barely more than a scratch.

So let’s peddle forward few years and imagine a man closer to 40 than 30, a man who while not an eco-nut, wouldn’t hate reducing his clod-hopper like footprint. A man who actually quite likes the way bicycles look and appreciates the leaps and bounds the technology has offered the transport. To be honest, a man who also likes spending money on gadgets, and bikes offer an almost limitless opportunity to throw money around.

So I started commuting to work over a route that was 99% bike path. It hasn’t been perfect. I had to step off my bike the other day at a measly 24 km/h. How so precise? I was looking at the speedo rather than the trench – I didn’t even fall, just decelerated on my feet. I was laid up with a badly sprained ankle for a week. It was also another one of those in-your-face-mortality moments. I used to do that as a joke, now I break.

After regaining my confidence and more importantly the ability to walk, I jumped back on my bike and on the first morning out, the very first, was bitten fairly comprehensively by a dog. The owner had one of those retracting reel leashes and didn’t have it on the lock position. As she waved her arm in the air ineffectually she looked more like she was fly fishing, with her mongrel as bait. She managed to land a punctured and angry bicycle commuter.

After regaining my confidence and the normal shape back to my right leg, I set out again to ride to work the economically and ecologically friendly way. While the following incident didn’t result in injury, it did leave me looking around for the camera crew from Australia’s Most Violent Home Videos.

I was cycling on the left as a man and his child walked towards me, on my right. I slowed and made my intentions clear- I will be over here minding my own business, you should stay over there and do the same.

I got to within six feet of this super genius when he turned side on to me and looked back at his kid. In the normal course of events, someone side-on presents less of a target. Not, however, when they are carrying a trombone. An instrument measured in units of bike-path.

So it is with a series of accidents and incidents that I present to you my rules and observations for the bike path, garnered from real life experience.

1. Tai Chi is healthy. Tai Chi is not healthy when you sway hypnotically into the path of the oncoming cyclist.
   

2. When a cyclist approaching from behind dings their bell (as they should) this should not be taken as a signal to panic, dart to the right, back to the left and then freeze in the middle.
   

3. I don’t care what rich heritage your European home country has, it has no place on the bike path. And we do it on the left here.
   

4. Dogs; man’s best friend. Probably woman’s too. When you hear that ding, your animal needs to move with you. Stretching the leash across the path is funny in that WWII-movie-unseat-the-Nazi-motorbike-rider kind of way. Not when you need to arrive at work conscious.
   

5. Kids are cute too, the way they wobble around and their helmets are too heavy for their giant heads and the way they fully comprehend concepts like left and right, slow and fast, near and far…
   

That’s it, no more from or for me. I’m back in the car with controlled temperatures, my iPod, my phone and I’m arriving dry and in breath and… okay, one more go on the bike.

Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw, and Face

I got in trouble for talking about dead bats as though they were funny, so just so you know - I think nature is wonderful and interesting and awe inspiring and some of the best comedy around. So some topics I promise to cover in the future are:

> Barrel role eagle takes sloth by surprise.
> Panda gets scared by own offspring.
> Panda gets scared by being released into the wild.
> Panda gets scared by rangers returning to site of release one year later and it hasn’t moved an inch.
> How gophers communicate danger to each other, but are also nasty little voyeurs.
> When walruses fall off a slope onto each other, tusk first, in heavyweight hilarity.

But today’s topic is the perennial favourite.

When I was a little kid, I went to the zoo with my classmates, and it was in the days before bullet-proof glass separated you and the gorillas. We were admiring the gorilla family, the silver back’s size, the human-like expressions, the intelligence in the eyes, all the normal stuff that fascinates you when you see something amazing in the flesh, when one of them got tired of the attention, wandered over to the nearest steaming pile of poo and threw it at us. Now here’s the thing, it hit Polly… every class has got one of these. The terminally shy little girl who does all her homework and has a face always stretched to a slight grimace because mum did her plaits a bit too tight. It hit Polly and only Polly. It was the best thing we had ever seen and we fell about in horror and delight. From then on she was “Gorilla Poo Polly” and you just know that the name would have stuck, like the emotional scaring that went with it.

“Do you, Gorilla Poo Polly, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband…?”

Ahhhh… good times.

As Shakespeare Surely Said: Kill All Baristas

At a café in a salubrious part of town recently, I asked for my coffee to be taken back and made hot. It simply felt like it had been forgotten, picked up half an hour later, and served by accident.

“I’m sorry but the barista does not make it any hotter, it’s not good for the coffee.”

“What!? Are you telling me that the dreadlocked and pierced 20 year old twerp at the front counter is telling me what I want?”

“Well, he is a qualified barista.”

I have run into the above fiasco with slightly varying script, always implying my own lack of self awareness, on other occasions as well.

And I’ve witnessed the growing ersatz importance of this no-skill, demonstrated in other ways. I recently drove past a pub that was re-opening in, wait for it… Redfern, that has clearly misunderstood what it should be doing. It said proudly on the sign out the front “Opening Soon Under New Management. Qualified Barista On Site.” In a pub in Scumbagsville, inner city Sydney, you do not need a coffee. You certainly do not need it served to you by some semi-employed upstart, with the unmitigated hide to think that’s something you need to get a qualification in.

I’ve even seen a twit with an exploded diagram of a coffee steamer tattooed on his arm. Well congratulations super genius, you must be very proud. You have learnt how to force high pressure hot water through granulated beans – your Nobel awaits. Barista is pronounced in a way that is not supposed to be confused with Barrister. Someone should mention this.

Oh, and if you think I’m talking out of my hat, I learnt to make good coffee by watching the girl at the first café I ever worked in, do it for 3 minutes and off I went. Some things just don’t need to be explained.

Beat Your Tom Tom

There's a brand of talking Satellite Navigator here called 'Tom Tom'. My mother is a grey-nomad out on the dusty highways of Australia, torturing her Tom Tom. I expect her to pull into her driveway at home in Sydney some months from now, and hear that the poor piece of equipment sighed - and then burst into flames.

She has left it in 'find my way home' mode as she drives around the country. She rang today to say that out in the middle of the Nullarbor Plain the thing is becoming slightly hysterical.

"At the next available opportunity, please turn around."
"Please turn around."
"Oh for the love of all that is right and holy turn the damn vehicle around"
"We are in the middle of one of the most arid parts of the goddam world, moving further away from civilisation and your home and you just keep going. Turn around turn around turn around."
"...."
"Are we there yet?"

In the future, you will be collared by the RSPCAI for Artificial Intelligence Abuse. The sad thing about that is that I think it is likely that we will get artificial intelligence before we get a republic. (See 'cause the "R" in RSPCA stands for Royal and we... oh never mind.)

Until that time, keep torturing your white goods.

Get Me Red Hooked and Spooked

I was thinking of keeping this little gem to myself, but it's too good not to share.

First things first, if you are at all convinced that ghosts exist, the new world order government is trying to kill you on a daily basis or that religion is a good idea - forget this blog. I have to stake my position as a sceptic. Don't read that as cynic, just don't spoon-feed me garbage and expect me to smile, chew and swallow.

Buying some science mags for a sick mate the other day, I came across a mag placed amusingly in the same section called "Uncensored: Warning Contents May Open Your Mind." and you know, they might. They might open your mind right up and let the contents spill out onto the floor. I have learnt from this priceless publication (actually not priceless - $7.95 and it's a bargain. I have rarely got so much enjoyment for that money.)

• The Twin Towers were brought down by small nuclear devices, most likely planted by the US.
• We are on the brink of a genetically engineered disaster.
• Contrails from domestic aircraft are actually "chemtrails" that are designed to kill us. (Why a domestic airline would be involved in a campaign to reduce its customer base, I'm not sure.)
• If you sort of do a strained join-the-dots on photos of moons in the solar system, you can sort of get polygons every now and then.

Some of the articles include:

• The Man who can Burn Salt Water
• Twilight of the Psychopaths and
• Why Doctors are Idiots

So if you wanna get into the fun, start with:

• http://educate-yourself.org/ct/ or
• www.exopolitics.org.uk
  
• http://uncensored.co.nz

and sort of follow the lunacy from there. Note that the home address of the magazine is from New Zealand. So you know it's good.

Na na na na na na na na Bats Man

There's a type of bat here in Aus that is not even really a proper part of the bat family. We call it a flying fox, but I am reliably informed that it actually is a closer relation to primates than foxes. Anyway, they're large and sight oriented, rather than with sonar, and they're kind of cute in a flying leather and teeth kind of way. Actually the more I look, the more I think that you won't see a flying fox or Dobby in the same room at the same time (apologies to Harry Potter fans.).

What I really like though, is tracking the decomposition of one on a power line. It's tragycomedy for the discerning weirdo around town. They land on power lines every now and then and grab two, or touch one other than the one they're on - and they die. But they die and stay there. Little angry faces and standy out orange fur. You're not supposed to laugh but...

One of my favourites some years ago hung on for so long into his disappearing act, that he was just two gripping legs, nothing more, gradually making their way down the slope to middle of the line between two poles. They'd just swing back and forth and keep me amused at the lights. Well I am told that up near the station there are two that have died hand in hand. I will get some shots if possible because I know that this is the type of stuff that can't go undocumented.

A Cross Street to Bear

Everybody’s favourite ex-Nazi and current large cult leader is coming to town and he’s upset the jockeys and the traffic.

I do not find it a genuine separation of church and state when my taxes are being used to help a religious organisation to run their recruitment campaigns. Another thing a find a bit sneaky about the “World Youth Day” is that it’s not called the “World Religious Zealot Day.”
According to one of the super-geniuses in the State Parliament, we should all take leave during this period if we can. How about this, wonder boy, if it’s going to be that big a pain, why not make it a public holiday. Why not make it a religious holiday where we celebrate a complete absence of people being nailed to stuff and the blocked of George Street can be a road to Damascus. We'll all have an epiphany at the Manly Ferry and then have an ice-cream.

Vet Your Behaviour

There's a kid where I work who thinks he's a black D.J. rapper-gangsta. He's anything but, but like Offspring say - "lets get some more wannabes, the world loves wannabes." This is Australia too. Certain groups who are manifestly not black, have had to fill the niche of disaffected minority youth who are going to come round to your 'hood and lower your house prices.

So this winner has made a sign on his desk that says:

"What Up Dogg?" (sic, no really - fully sic)

To which a mate of mine answered.

"Thermometer."

A Poke in the iPod

My iPod has entirely too much personality. It goes on binges and it's trying to convince me I'm senile.

The other day it played me nothing but metal. I was driving along looking at the thing every now and then thinking "Who the hell do you think you are? You've come over all Chris Cornell on me. Just one electronic tune would be nice!"

Someone I know has one that is a bad tempered feminist. It will play nothing but P.J. Harvey, followed by Hole, followed by Fiona Apple, back to some other mistreated angry lady, and then just to tease you... Jeff Buckley. He's a bloke sure, but... well you know what I mean.

But its latest trick is the worst. It is hiding music from me. It's like it doesn't want me to know my own collection. Some artists it just considers I shouldn't have access to. "Oh so you think you like Telepopmusic do you? Well if I remove them from the Artists list, you're never going to find them because their song titles are all in French and you don't remember them anyway. In fact old man, did you ever have a Telepopmusic album in the first place, or are you just imagining it?"

Macaque Your Daks Front and Back

So in a completely unsurprising but still delightful turn of events, it appears that monkeys like porn.

A study reported on the ABC website has shown that they will forego cordial and fruit in return for alluring shots of monkey behinds, and will even shell out more, for shots of famous monkey bums. An orang-utan once paid over 14 bananas for a shot of King Kong’s clacker - taken from ground level. It’s a sort of up-fur arrangement.

On closer reading of the article it turns out it’s not famous monkeys, but high status monkeys. Monkeys with crazy comb-overs and plazas named after them. I once went skating at Chimp Plaza.
If you don’t believe me www.abc.net.au/science/news/enviro/EnviroRepublish_1298389.htm

Teddy Triptych

When to Get Hip Replacement: Problems Facing the New Older Man

I am at logger heads with my culture. I have reached a point where the only place to get away from it is in bed. I am afraid to go out. I am not hip.

O.K., that is over selling the point a little, but how else am I going to get your attention in a place where even your toothpaste is ‘extreme’ and if your fast food meal has not been reified and mediated by a superhero or sports event, it doesn’t cut the mustard.

I am a white, male. I am well over six foot tall. I am pretty well educated and live in one of the richest (per capita) countries in the world. Whilst I’m no George Clooney, they don’t run from the room screaming either. I have no disadvantages. Why this moment of angst in someone so manifestly engineered to be one of the monsters of this environment?

A certain sort of rag, of which there are two in regular competition in Australia, creeps into my abode every now and then. Your girl reads them because they love nothing more than the fab star, caught with their breasts out, the last face job on the turn and an inappropriately aged toy-boy on the arm. You read them because they’re in the house and you stand a chance of seeing a fab star with her breasts out. As delicious as all this schadenfreude is (almost as much fun as the failure of a close friend) I was delivered a nasty shock when leafing through one of these mags the other day and I instantly recognized less than half the photos.

So what? Well let me put this in perspective. I pride myself on being a half decent generalist. Renaissance man is too strong a word for it now because the ideal of the Renaissance man is not achievable any more. There is simply too much to know. But I feel it is possible to be conversant with major themes. I am not lost at the opera or the Big Day Out. Teleology or Tic Tac Toe is fine by me. I’m happy to probe the big questions like, ‘Are animals self aware?’ or ‘Is Paris Hilton self aware?’ and part of this ability to play a half decent game of trivia down at the pub, is my awareness of famous people.

As I’m sure you all know, people used to get famous for being very good at something. Now that that is not a requirement, it is hard to keep track of people who suddenly rise to prominence for seemingly no more reason than some random choice of ‘leaked’ home footage on the internet. It is astonishingly hard to keep abreast of the fabulous famous nobodies, without the aid of defining careers or events to pin their fame too. It turns out I’m an old fashioned kind of guy. I keep asking what they do. There seems to be an amorphous sort of haze of timeless, meaningless party type glamour out there that it is possible to tap into and live off if you are one of those types.
I am officially unhip. To quote Zaphod, I’m so unhip it’s a wonder my bum doesn’t fall off. I’m so unhip I quote Zaphod. I have turned a page on a magazine and turned a corner in my life, I don’t know who they are and I don’t care.

I'll Lie Again... I Promise.

Short Sharp Lesson in Love

Lisa had the flattest nose I had ever seen at the age of 8, and that made her the cutest girl I had ever seen. When I think about it later I realise she probably would have looked like something out of a Miffy book, almost totally devoid of prominent facial features. Anyway, she once asked me,

“What do you get when you fall in love?”

“I dunno.” Hoping that the answer was something like “YOU”.

And she said,

“Dog food.”

And I didn’t get it ‘cause we didn’t have pets at our house and I wasn’t allowed to watch commercial telly so I didn’t know there was a big brand of yellow can with a dog on it that said Luv.

She walked away saying something like “That was the biggest spazzy I ever told a joke to.”

And I blame her for one of the worst nut-jobs I ever got. I was running around the corner really fast and she was skipping rope with her mates and even though she said it wasn’t on purpose, she flicked her wooden handled skipping rope, so that it got me right in the balls. That was the first time I ever threw up at school.

Eyelash Dramatisation

Rather than just coming out and saying "Look, this is false advertising alright?", which I would find more palatable, cosmetic advertising has hit a new high in lows.

If you are buying something that promises to make your lashes longer and more lustrous - you can't choose by looking at the vision on the ad, because they are (according to the painfully small caveat at the bottom of the screen) Eyelash Dramatisations.

On the upside, there's an ad around at the moment for tampons with a pleasant looking girl carrying around a beaver and showing it a nice time (hair appointment, manicure, time at the beach and a little present) with the tag - "You've only got one, be nice to it."

Beaver dramatisation.