Top Gear 'Straya

Top Gear Australia debuted last night and I have some observations to share.

Someone’s mother is always quoted as saying, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

My mother always said, “Are you growing a beard, love?”

Neither of those deliver a Grey Area piece though.

TGA looks the part. Tints, jump cuts, split screen moments and all the techniques that make the original so pretty are all there.

They had a nice selection of things to look at, sort of. If you cared about Soft-Roaders (the hairdressing younger brother of the Off-Roader) you were going to be well pleased. A strangely precise section of the car market to go and appeal to on your first show, but what the hey.

When they did show me something less run-of-the-mill, it lacked any detail that adds colour and meaning to all the close up shots of polished metal going by. I understand that they want to go softly on the rev-head stuff so as not to alienate the audience at launch. But I would guess that the original audience (the guys who watched, whether the girlfriend was in the room or not) are not going to hang around for that. The girls are not going to be interested enough to stay without presenters that are something more than guys who can drive - more on that shortly.

Top Gear UK did its own thing, and we came to it. TGA runs the risk of trying to please too many of the people and thereby pleasing none. Don’t pass over all the gritty stuff. I wanted to see a two clutch gearbox cut-away model, and I wanted it introduced by a man who wasn’t embarrassed about being able to pronounce the German word for it… and I am the original target market.

The guest was a local boy who called himself a wog, and then lived up to a few of the stereotypes (… coupla stolen cars moit!?) but he was as nervous as the new hosts and really, he just should’ve been more likeable. EC has always had a bit of a soft spot for the big lug, but she’s been put dead off.

OK, I am a snob. A really bad snob. I do not care what most of the local “talent” in the acting industry think about anything. I usually avoid a piece of drama if it says “Homegrown” or “Worldwide Premiere”. But I was usually half interested in the guests the original show had – let’s hope that TGA goes to more interesting professions than just actors.

If we called acting what it was - pretending. And rehearsals what they are -practising. We’d take it all a lot less seriously.

“I’m off to practise pretending dear. Hope I get a really important gold statue for it!” puts it in perspective, I think.

Back to being a snob and thinking about our hosts. Charlie Cox is what? Glen Wheatley’s spare-parts clone, accidentally animated from his slime tank to yell at us in a broad Australian accent? I wound the contrast knob on the telly to ‘more charming’ in an attempt to enjoy him a bit more and he totally disappeared from the screen.

He’s alright though, when placed in context. Charlie Cox in conversation with one of his other co-hosts, Steve Pizzati, is James Earl Jones interviewing Jeanie Little. To listen to Steve is to apply a cheese grater to the side of your head.

I know we are supposed to have left the cultural cringe behind and that we should embrace the natural Australian cadences and timbre – but holy fucking shit, Bat-Yobbo, does it have to curdle milk? I actually had to turn the telly down to stop the neighbour's dogs from baying in return.

I understand that Steve can really drive. I hope so. While he does it, can we just watch from outside the car?

Now to the guy who will be king. Warren Brown is going to be just fine. He is really likeable, relaxed, has a brain in his head and doesn’t sound like he’s just made a break from Pentridge. (In fact he made the only memorable joke of the night. After turning off the cataclysmically noisy Lambo’s power plant, he said, “Hear that? The silence of the Lamborghinis.")

I tuned into Top Gear UK for a few reasons. 20% was that I liked to see some proper Euro Auto Porn. 20% for James May’s dignified comedy (“I just don’t want the others to mock me.”). 30% for the three guy’s interaction and 43% to hear another set of superlative similes from Clarkson.

None of that was in evidence in TGA. The relationships are not real yet and we can’t care about things that have come into being quite so artificially. I am worried that they haven’t played on the native Australian laconic attitude to build steam with us. They haven't lost me though, I will give it another go.

If you are going to complain about my maths in why I used to tune into Top Gear UK – don’t. I do actually like it that much.

Straighten Up and Fly Right

Air safety and aircraft maintenance is again under scrutiny this week.

Seen here, a fairy (Either Tooth or Bottom-of-Garden variety) flying in Newtown, Sydney this weekend.

The wings have been obviously attached at an unsafe angle, but it is still sent into service.

A spokesgoblin from the Fictitious and Make Believe Characters Union (FMBCU) has been quoted as saying that,

“It’s a disgrace that the maintenance and upkeep on these characters has been outsourced to the lowest bidders in countries where the standards are not as strictly enforced as they are in Australia. We have been stressing to management for a long time that we can’t just rely on Luck Dragons and Money Spiders to get us through this. The results will inevitably be tragic loss of imaginary life.”

Don't Misunderestimate Me

My fellow Americans,

I had a day-dream.

In this dream, I reduced this great nation's disastrous ecological footprint on the planet, by WinZipping between the Pacific and the Atlantic.

These are desperate times, but I am proud to say that these United States of America can now be found, just over there, on the R: Drive.

If you are travelling overseas, you will be able to travel home by mapping your ticket to

R: USA\\Lonely\head_up_arse\no_excuse\restoftheworldwillpay

God Bless Me...

An Open Letter to Noisy Miners

Dear Noisy Miners,

Chirp chirp chirp chirp familiar.  Chirp chirp chirp chirp 11 months of the chirp. Chirp brief respite. 

Seasonal chirp chirp chirp chirp. Chirp native chirp chirp chirp. No chirp evidence, chirp chirp endangered chirp chirp. Chirp plot, chirp ucovered. Chirp chirp chirp chirp missed at all.

Chirp chirp cavalier disregard chirp. Chirp tolerated chirp chirp chirp, but chirp chirp chirp a friendship beyond chirp chirp.

Chirp hello to my chirpy friend. Chirp chirp medieval on your chirp.

Prepare to chirp to your chirper.

Yours feeling a lot chirpier,

Nick.

Nap Sacked

“Two commercial airline pilots who fell asleep in the cockpit and overshot their landing by 15 miles have been cleared to return to work.”

This comforting little gem comes to us from the Beebs. Article link.

Captain Sleepy and First Officer Snoozy were suspended for 60 and 45 days respectively.

How much of a punishment is that? Two guys who are so bored and disenchanted with their jobs that they can sleep through the really important bit (coming down), are sent home and told not to do their job.

Up there with being suspended from school. A punishment I have never understood.

You have been mucking up. You are misbehaving because you really don’t care about school that much. As punishment, I want you to stay home and play Nintendo.

I’m still working out what it is I have to do to get that kind of treatment at my place of employment. I’m not saying I get sent there often, but I do have my own chair with a brass name plate on it in HR – this apparently is not enough.

Time is a Subjective Dimension

A colleague in the US asked me, “How long since you were here?”

I answered, “Not sure, but I’m still wearing the underpants I bought when I was there last.”

Silence.

I realised where I went wrong and hastened to add, “No, like, I’ve taken them off and washed them and there were others in the pack. I was just trying to illustrate that it can’t have been decades because undies just don’t last that long and I’m still getting use out of those ones.”

“Ahuh.”

“You see, the airline lost my luggage between LAX and New York and I was at the end of about 48 hours in the air and I had to go up the road to a Target in the middle of a car park you could see from space and when I was there I bought some Fruit of the Loom undies because I could understand the language on the front of them compared to the other ones that had strange American terms like bikini briefs and shaped banana hammocks and stuff, so that’s why I’ve been able to place where those undies come from and therefore date how long it’s been since I was in the States.”

“So how old are the underpants?”

“They’re a bit younger than the socks I was given while driving a bus…”

Schpelling

So, let's have a civilised little chat where I open up a little and you learn something about me. You may have noticed that I spelled pigeon incorrectly in the little cartoon I did below. I'd like to pretend that it was intentional and that I was making some very droll comment on English.

Nah.

At best I can apologise and say that it is to my unending shame and embarrassment that I cannot spell. I also feel this is particularly unfair. I read, I like the language I live in, and I really do try to improve (This blog is part of the exercise). To no avail. It just doesn't get any better and I've been working on it for quite some time now.

To anyone who cares about this sort of thing - I'm also a left hander. There seems to be a higher incidence of this sort of thing in south-paws. We also occupy disproportionately large lumps at the bottom and the top of the intelligence bell-curve. Guess where I sit.

Anyhow, this is an open letter of apology that I would like to be ongoing to the language picky and pedantic. I feel your pain, I really do. Know that, when I blunder, I do care. I get people with better skills than I have to correct me where possible. I'd like to thank you, the reader, for not bombarding me with corrections and rude notes. I admire your restraint.

Now back to the yarn spinning. It was intentional that the hospital in the cartoon has two slightly different names. I want there to be the possibility that the roving reporter has gone to the wrong place. 

How about you? Got to a ripe old age and still unable to complete some of life's more ordinary tasks?

Thanks.

Nick.

In a More Caring World

If you can't read it, just click on it for the full size. (I'm new to this)

It's Not You, It's Me. I Just Need a Little Space

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Skate and Die

Names have been changed to protect the insane.

Beacon Hill, in the Northern Beaches of Sydney NSW, was named because it is a hill with a beacon on it - to stop ships running into Australia.

It rises about 500 feet above sea-level and the Governor Philip Lookout is high enough for the skateboarder-about-town to see the curvature of the earth before he sets off down one of the lethally steep inclines that pass for suburban streets in the area.

Elliot Street, Beacon Hill remains the place of legendary stacks and heroic deeds, particularly those ill-conceived efforts of the kamikaze-like Terry Aims.

To look at Elliot Street, side-on, is to look at a tar incarnation of the letter U. Letting your car roll down the hill left one with the impression of having “pulled some Gs” as you bottomed out and made it up the other side of this accidental big dipper. But letting a car roll down it was something that happened to you later in life. For the most, you were skating or riding home from the top of Beacon Hill; and there was aesthetic joy in doing it with as little movement as possible.

Ryan Pl entered perpendicularly from the bottom of the U, and that was where we all lived. We were always in the process of perfecting, either on bike or board, the terrifying right-hander you would have to take as your transport neared Mach 1. The payoff was not having to pedal or put your feet on the ground again until you got to the front of your house; a kilometre away. 

If you got it right. If you got it wrong, they were fishing you out of the cactus plants the old bat on the corner had planted in what can only be described as a fit of pique.

But all that was to assume that you had taken E Street from the top. That didn't happen instantly. That was uncharted territory for a long time. That took a pioneer.

Terry was one of those kids you're always surprised to hear made it to adulthood. The call would go out to the various kids playing in the bush and lantana throughout the neighbourhood that Terry was going to attempt one of his stunningly dangerous, highly entertaining and badly thought out stunts, and we would flock to the spectacle.

On one occasion Terry built a bonfire. It was the early 80s, so no mobile phones. Maybe it was that semi-psychic link that kids have to each other in times of disaster causing mischief. Whatever it was, by the time Terry had finished throwing all the accelerants, nuts, bolts, wood and other projectiles onto the pyramid he was going to light, there was a crowd of about 20.

The mound of flammables included every bit of building off-cuts from the private building project going on up the street; most of the things he found on a council clean-up he suspected would ‘go up’; and all the dry wood he could find in a bushy area. 

Some of us who knew Terry better than the others were standing well back, at a nice elevation, to really appreciate the full effect.

With the crowd either cheering him on or hunkering down into the traditional ready-to-scarper position, Terry threw a match onto a pyre taller than him.

My memory of the event is that my eyes failed to adjust for the sudden increase in the amount of available light and that there was complete silence for a couple of seconds followed by a rush of wind, then car alarms started to go off and the pattering of falling objects all around let us know that something truly tremendous had just occurred.

What was left of the fuel that had been in the pyramid was burning well, and Terry was standing within the blackened shockwave crater of the initial blast, with a couple of obvious injuries.

His hair had gone, neatly to the halfway line on the top of his head. His left eyebrow was gone, burnt off, but his right was hanging off his head where some chunk of debris, leaving the pyre at orbital velocity, had bounced off his eyebrow ridge before continuing on to Mars. It was a neat cut and the brow and skin were hanging by the outside two millimetres. It looked like a caterpillar biting his face.

Terry’s long-suffering Dad came screaming out of the house, yelling like a man who knows when he’s heard another damage bill wink into existence.

“What the bloody hell was that and what the bloody hell is going on here you bloody little…”

His Dad decelerates and brakes in front of Terry and peers at the caterpillar...

“And what the bloody hell is that?!” he yells.

Knowing how dangerous anything alive and attached to your face is (in Sydney pre-funnel web antivenene) he acted quickly, reaching out and ripping Terry’s lone eyebrow off and throwing it into the bonfire.

It was the best thing we had ever seen.

Months later, the word went out that Terry was going to do Elliot St from the top. We all gathered around the various parts of the hill we thought best. Some stood where they thought they would be able to appreciate the whole thing, others where they felt they were safest. 

It was inspired to even use a Californian Arrow skateboard for the attempt. They were the best there was at the time and that means they were crap. Thin, narrow, unstable and highly flexible, the danger of the mode of transport was only beaten by the chosen garb. Being the consummate showman, Terry's Elliot St attempt would be done in nothing but Speedos.

When he got out of hospital, he immediately got back on the board that had bucked him and did it from the top with no hiccups. Like one of those world record barriers, or apparently the Times Cryptic Crossword, once one person has done it, everyone’s doing it by lunch.

Yes, I have done Elliot Street from the top, on countless occasions, on various wheeled devices and always wearing quite a bit more than budgie-smugglers, but I wasn't the first. That's where the immortals are remembered.

Frills and Spills

As the states south of NSW look through parched, tearless eyes at the dry puff of sand that comes down the Murray Darling river, and we say, “Whoops. Sorry, we used it all,” I’d like to address an important matter.

But first, some of the techniques and ideas I mention below, were employed in earlier times. Please contextualise them with the knowledge that I invented some of these when it was normal to move leaves off your lawn with a hose, and that washing the car was considered a bit of a family activity. Try to put out of your mind a world where people are routinely punched to death in their front yard for possibly watering on the wrong day.

Shower Curtain Management.

The problem: The shower curtain that would react to the slight low pressure in the stall and float in towards me. Now, you might already have the melody of “I lied about being the outdoor type” floating through your head, and that’s ok. There are some things I’m good at, some things I’m not. Coping with the clingy, cold, wet, nylon shower curtains as they wrap around your legs on a winters morning is not one of my long suits.

Solution: Wet the other side of the curtain and seal it to the tiles and walls. It’ll puff in at you like spinnaker, but won’t actually bind you up like a soapy mummy.

The problem: The stiff plastic curtain that bends in at you the wrong way, won’t go all the way to the edge of the wall, or resists you and bounces back from where you want to put it.

Solution: Temper the curtain. Hit it with a super hot blast of the shower head. No cold. If possible make the thing borderline molten. Then mould it to your will. When you’ve go it exactly where you want it. Hit it with the cold. It is now ‘set’ in the correct place.

I am currently in possession of a curtain rod that is not permanently mounted on the wall - and this has led me to an invention of sorts.

The curtain rod has a rubber grommet on each end, it is extendable in the middle and is designed to stay up by jamming it into place and letting the grip of the rubber do the rest.

In general, the place where the curtain needs the most cleaning is at the bottom. It’s not a huge area, maybe two centimetres height at the most. Keep a little knife in the bathroom (it’d give those murderers a fright too, when you start to stab them back through the curtain at the same time. A Face Off meets Psycho kind of arrangement.) and just cut the yucky bit off. When it starts to get close to being too short, lower the curtain rod. You’d get years out of one curtain.

I’m not just here to point out the obvious stuff, people.

Land of the Free and the Homeloans of the Brave

With the steady move towards socialism in the United States, President Shrub has announced that he will be setting up a government body to oversee the bailout and support mechanisms being put in place to stop Wall St bankers from throwing themselves into the streets, Batman style.

I have a suggestion for a name for the new insititution. United States Stockmarket Regulators. The acronym is catchy.

I Want The Accident to Happen Waaaay Over There

Environmentally sensible cars like the Toyota Pie-Arse have a crap look. The sleek aerodynamic lines of the electric car are a lie. They don't go like the look promises. They're tiny and can't carry anything.

There are very few of us who don’t imagine ourselves at the wheel of a giant Dodge or Cadillac, especially when one passes by. The bonnet alone on one of those suckers is a quarter-acre block, so there's your Australian dream right there - behind the wheel of a large automobile (sing it like Talking Heads. It's more fun that way.) 

A great opportunity for the rev-head electrical engineer greeny exists in this yearning void.

Beat Peter Garrett to the punch and put photo-voltaic cells all over the giant bastard and be driving the most environmentally sensible car in town. … lookin good while you do it.

Local Fuzzies

I don't always take an international approach in my wildlife interests. Sure, I deliver seminal treatise at international fora concerning pandas, elephants and ibis, but sometimes I like to bring it back - local school styly. As the great naturalist and wildlife molester David Attenborough once said, "Think global, drink local." I think it was him anyway.


The animals in my area are an endless source of amusement, apart from the Noisy Miners which are making my life hell, but I have already addressed that in Miner Disturbance so I won't re-hash.


The dead bats on the power lines are always fairly amusing. Emergency Contact likes to rate them by how angry the expression on their faces are, combined with with how fuzzy and orange their fur is. It's a complicated set of formula, and I don't pretend to understand the whole thing, but you know she's admiring a particularly good one when you hear, "Ooooooooo. He died angry."


On that theme, we are both admirers of two cats that we pass on the way to the train station, Missus Angry Head and The Gonk. I don't actually think they're their real names, because that's what EC calls them and I don't think she asked. But they have got their names because they absolutely deserve them.


I want to know who it was who first set out to breed a Persian, but then said, "Yeah, look, it's as fluffy as hell, but can we get the head looking a bit more pissed off?" Missus Angry Head makes Winston Churchill look like he was permanently on happy gas by comparison. She has been made no happier by the arrival of her little chum, The Gonk.


The Gonk looks like he is a careful blend of Nermal, a tennis ball and a Tribble. He's almost spherical, static charge fluffy, and with a perplexed and surprised, wide-eyed look on his fuzzy round head. They make us happy.


Actually, if you are into random fuzzies in the street, my area is an absolute goldmine. We live opposite a big big park which runs from Mascot to the Olympic Park, so there's all manner of beastie roaming around out there. One bloke has told me he's even seen a fox quite regularly come out around dusk. I'm not going to pretend I think that's no good, and that the animal should be caught and done away with. I used to see a fox quite regularly up on Mona Vale Road and I liked it. They're cute and interesting and the odd fox is not going to do much more damage than a lot of people's badly behaved domestic cats. Except Missus Angry Head and The Gonk. I know them. They wouldn't be bad.


We have a collection of semi-wild, semi-domesticated cats that live under the cars out the front. They hang around in a criminal little group, and I have named them the Local Band of Ruffians. When you round the corner at night and the headlights hit a certain spot under one of the cars, you will see about 15 pairs of eyes reflecting back at you. You just know they're up to no good. I was wondering how so many of them got to be a clique until I witnessed our local version of 'Crazy Cat Lady'. She's indulging her madness bit by bit, rather than going for the whole urine soaked nightmare in the home.


Every day, this woman drives down to the park, from I don't know how far away, and feeds all the cats. I think she's really hit a good place with her problem. She's still hoarding wildlife, but it's not going to take men in bio-hazard suits to clean out her deceased estate.

You Gotta Bike, For Your Rights

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you - a deadly future.

What you see here is something that is nearly the size of a Vespa. It is nearly the weight of a Vespa, and goes nearly as fast as a Vespa.

Let's face it, it looks like one of the new Vespas or Lambrettas that you always see the terminally cool in the Fourth Arrondissement tooling around on. (Squinting, to keep some of the cigarette ash out of their eyes.)

It is, as you can see by the surrounds, for sale in my local hardware store. It is electric and because of that, the ad on it proudly proclaims you don't need registration or a licence.

Brilliant.

I need to nip this in the bud. Right here, right now.

Addle-headed young greenies are going to look at that scooter and think, "Yes! There's my answer! I've always been a bit of an uncoordinated thing, and the RTA keep knocking me back on my licence, but I don't need one for this... besides it's my duty. Look! It's electric. It's good for the environment!"

This is only a semi-hypothetical situation. I actually know people who fulfil all the criteria it takes to think that last paragraph.

First. You don’t have a licence for a reason. Driving or riding something that can go faster than you can peddle is a privilege not a right.

Second. You have rego on fast moving heavy bits of metal, being steered by twits, for a reason. When you inevitably knock someone down and ruin their life, the only thing that is going to make any part of the situation tolerable is that there will be some state-backed insurance to help out.

Thirdly. You will, inevitably, knock someone down. The thing will be terrifying to ride on the road. The addle-heads will then think to themselves, “Hey wait a minute, if I don’t need a licence or rego… I can ride it on the footpath or bike track.” Add to this the fact that it will be silent as it approaches people from behind at 30km/h. Hey presto, street pizza!

Fourth and maybe finally. It is electric; sure. Where does that come from though? Follow that power cord all the way to the wall, and behind it you will not find rodents in a wheel, running for their lives just to charge up your scooter.

(While I’m at it, the next person who says, “… the new power station uses clean coal technology,” should be struck by lightning, hacked into small bits and buried in an unmarked grave.) Ahem…

I applaud the search for the new transport. Whilst I love cars to the depth of my being, I also realise what an unmitigated disaster the motorcar has been for this planet. 

But the answer my friend, is not down at Mitre 10, the answer’s not down at Mitre 10. (You know how to sing it. It’s more fun that way.)

It's Worth Two in the Boosh

People often ask me, "Nick, what is the best performing suburb in Sydney in terms of value for money in the real estate, versus actual livability?"

And I say to them, "Whadoowhylooglike, Jamie Fuckin' Dury!?"

I then follow up with, "I'm only kidding, you're alright." in my best Bender voice, and we start all over again.

I tell them that really, for my money, the sneaky overperformer in this overheated market is the undersung suburb of Dulwich Hill. Which is now so freakin' hip, it has The Mighy Boosh posters on its train bridges.

I Really Struggled With This One - I Pre-Apologise

Pretend you know and like me. 

Pretend that you and I are in a pleasant cafe or pub, just shooting the breeze. 

Pretend that I say to you, "On the way here, I heard the most awful story I have ever heard, but after I got over the initial revulsion, I was left wondering."

Pretend you are intrigued and you can see that I am not being flippant. I want to give the story the full weight of my of my moral outrage and disgust, but I am puzzled and I don't know how to deal with it. It seems so goulish.

I then ask you to estimate the internal size of the largest microwave you have ever seen in the domestic Australian market...

Someone was sentenced to life in prison in the States this week, for microwaving to death her one month old child. The trigger was an argument with her boyfriend.

I am not joking. This is one of the most appalling things I have ever heard. But I cannot get over the stumbling block of - how the hell did she get the poor child in there!?

Go look at your microwave, it just doesn't compute.

Christ! Here He Comes Again

If he were to turn up for a Second Coming, I don’t think I would recognise Jesus.

I should be polite and mention that there are two potential plot spoilers following here.

First: The Second Coming - never going to happen.

Second: Dexter - episodes five and six of series one. If you’re watching it on free-to-air in Australia, they’ve already aired, so read on. If you’re watching them at your own pace though, because you’ve given up on the bastard free-to-air broadcasters and haven’t got to these episodes yet… turn away.

To the problem of recognising the Baby Cheeses if he returned.

Dexter is about a serial killer who murders other serial killers.

In the episodes in question, Dexter perforates some evil-doers because they were holding Cuban refugees in a lock-up. They intended to drown the refugees when the inflated smuggling prices weren’t met. Dexter does the right thing as he leaves the sauce spattered scene, and sets the new Americans free. A kid, locked in the boot of a car nearby, witnesses all of this.

Dexter is a forensic scientist attached to the police department, and finds out later that there is a witness. He spends a very uneasy couple of days as the kid is coaxed into giving the police artist a description.

The kid is exhausted and only gives a small amount of a description before dropping off to sleep. Our Dex sneaks a look at the picture in progress, and there is no doubt that it is his own eyes taking shape on the sketch pad.

Later, certain that he is going to be uncovered in front of all his colleagues in the police station, the fully finished portrait is revealed, only for us to giggle in relief. The confused Cuban kid has described Jesus, with Dexter’s eyes.

We all get the point about the kid being a bit delusional and mistaking the refugees' saviour. We can add a bit of habitualised religious thinking and blend it with post traumatic stress and you've got your own... personal... Jesus (Do it like Depeche Mode, it's more fun that way).

But…

There can be no mistake that the picture is of Jesus. But it has Dexter’s eyes, so why is it Jesus?

When I come to think of it, I have seen countless representations of JC and really, I couldn’t tell you what he is supposed to look like - other than shoulder length hair, beard, and often a faint glow behind the head. That’s not going to wash in a police line-up, or deliver a particularly helpful identikit portrait.

If he returns and decides to update his look (nice little brushed forward emo number. No beard) he will pass unnoticed. (Probably a good thing. Saves him getting nailed.) For all we know he’s been and gone and couldn’t get anyone to believe him.

I’m not the only one fuzzy on what he should look like. The following is a true story and occurs on an international flight.

To pass time on international flights, I go about things really slowly.

Would I like a cup of tea? Maybe yes. I’ll think about it for a bit, then have one in half an hour.

In this case, the hour was going to be passed by watching someone struggle with the door of the toilet I was sitting opposite. They had pushed and pushed, made all the wrong moves, and got the bottom of the door off its runner and made things worse for themselves. I gave it a few minutes, and when the struggling and banging had the real look of panic about it, I went over and pushed the door on the bit that needed folding. It popped open deceptively easily. Sort of like I 'had the touch’.

The Spanish speaking woman on the inside collapsed to her knees, genuflected and said several things including thanks, praise and Jesus.

During the rest of the flight, she would not stop looking at me, genuflecting and giving thanks. There were many references to lords and saviours. She walked past my seat and touched my elbow a number of times. In a final embarrassment, she asked me to bless her as we left the plane.

I’m certain her high altitude confusion was worsened by the fact that I had long hair and a two week growth at the time. The lights in aeroplane toilets turn off when the door opens, so I would’ve had the light behind me too when I had magically touched the door.

Here was a devout Catholic woman who was confused about what her Lord and Saviour should look like. I’m an atheist, what chance do I have of correctly identifying him?

He's going to have a bugger of a time.

Full and Frank Disclosure

It's not like it's a bad place. Quite comfortable... and the food's okay.

But the waiters... man... they spill the drinks a lot.

Lookin' Good. Both of You

I saw a woman with a split personality last night.

I don’t mean the common and fast disappearing (I’m delighted to say) misconception about what schizophrenia is. (Remember the bumper sticker? Schizophrenia means you’re never alone. Yeah, well, not like that.)

No, this woman must have genuinely had a couple of people living inside her.

I was at a shopping centre with Emergency Contact, doing the weekly shopping. Broadway shopping centre is big and busy. It has a lot of people in it. So many people in fact, that Coles thinks it can pack more in by making the aisles 1.8 trolleys wide. Another time to complete that particular gripe perhaps, but what I’m getting at here is - this woman was not alone. She was not alone in a way that, say, by accidentally looking in the wrong direction for a second, she could think she was alone.

You know when you think you’re in an aisle by yourself and you take the opportunity to straighten your arms over the shopping trolley, suspending yourself above the floor, so you can make huge exaggerated steps and then launch into a Neal Armstrong monologue in faux 1960’s radio voice, and when you stop to reach up for a jar of pickled herrings, there’s a small teenage girl looking at you with the type of withering look that only a teenage girl can muster? We’ve all been there. Well, that moment would not be possible in the shopping centre we were in. People. Everywhere.

So, one of this woman’s personalities is vain enough to think that her life will be improved by having her hair dyed. Being a four-foot-nothing, spherical, middle aged dowager, with pigeon toes and a squint, the attempt to cover the odd grey hair with mound of mission brown hair dye was going to improve her life.

The other personality was a lot more matter of fact. In a bold “who gives a rat’s patootie” move, this personality decided it was perfectly ok to stagger around a shopping centre with the cling-wrap (complete with steaming dye underneath) still wrapped around her head.

Oh Limp Dicks

We, as a sporting nation, have lost our sense of fun and feel for the future.

Would a winged keel be shouted down now? Would a solid wheeled sprint bike get laughed out of court? Actually I don't know. But...

I’ve been listening to people carrying on about the last Olympics. I’ve been hearing a lot of “It’s an outrage!” (say it like Tony Harrison from The Mighty Boosh, it’s more fun that way.)

I think that the Chinese set an interesting precedent for the Olympics, and all the whinging that we're hearing is just a bunch of reactionaries who’ve got all caught up with “tradition” and fusty old ideas about “level playing fields”. They should be roundly ignored.

The obvious future of the games are drug and CGI enhancements.

Allow doping. I mean all sorts. EPO and ‘roids, caffeine and hormones; the lot. Blood storing and red-cell manipulation. Thinly disguised man-ladies in one-piece cosies, really dropping the times and a goolie in the pool. Let’s really see, when we say “higher, faster, stronger”, if we can’t actually take into account all that science can offer.

We allow sports psychologists to fiddle with the athlete's mind. We get people to insert Thorpy and his creed into wind and water tunnels and sew them into suits designed by intergalactic sharks. Their movements have been analysed to such a degree that natural actions are trained out of top-flight athletes. They go back to running and swimming school. With all of this good basic science, why is chemistry banned?

And when I say allow all doping… I mean all.

If a snowboarder reckons he can mix it with the world's best whilst ripped off his tits - Go for it! I wanna see a guy in the half-pipe with a slice of pizza hanging out of his head. It would dispense with that silly, invasive, expensive, inaccurate testing regime.

The games are supposed to be about how well a country can do – let’s make it an all inclusive effort. CSIRO should be out the front with the flag in one hand and a hypo in the other. What are a few pimples on your back, uncontrollable rage, and a beard between girlfriends?

As for the other ‘so called’ scandals of the games.

Fact: The girl singing was ugly. We still heard her sing. Fact: The pretty girl got a crack at the camera and world is aware she can’t hold a tune. One knows she’s ugly, one knows she’s talentless. Thus nature balances itself. They’ve still got it made in the shade – they are girls - in China. They have 300,000 men between them to choose from. They are never going home alone if they don’t want to.

And what's with all the faux outrage over faked fireworks, CGI improvement of what was happening on the ground, and weather manipulation by the Chinese to make everything look better than it was? It’s only polite. You tidy up and sweep things under the carpet before the neighbours come around.

Actually, they didn’t go far enough. Let’s really think this through.

Why truck in noisy, dangerous, germy volunteers when the crowds fail to turn up because they are scared of the security?

In the future, we won’t need stands and stadia. Just CG the whole lot in. It will be less disruptive and cheaper for the host nation. None of the rest of us were going to be there anyway. They could even sell rights to the individual country's broadcasters, to CG in more of the crowds they want to see. Every crowd’s a home crowd. Those with a love of the underdog could even request an entirely hostile crowd!

I don’t think this is dodging the truth. The minute that we get glasses that pick up the 3D internet and layer it over the reality that we’re walking through, we are going to demand these everyday enhancements anyway.

Why not perfect the technology that will make a Chinese woman gymnast appear to be a woman, now?