Didn't You Kill My Brotha?!

"What're you lookin' at, pansy?"

Apparently, all the swans in England are owned by Liz. I don’t know how the swans feel about this, and I’m not certain if Queeny goes and pats them and talks to them, but I am told they are all technically hers.

This fair isle of ours is still under the aegis of HRH, and I would hazard then, that the swans here are therefore technically answerable to her as well. So now we’ve got a starting place.

Centennial Park offered up its usual brand of light hearted tom-foolery last night, when a swan took a disliking to Emergency Contact, and chased her around the park for a bit. It is hard to buy this sort of entertainment. The often quoted saying has it that, “a swan can break a man’s arm, you know!” EC isn’t a man, so I wasn’t worried.

When things had calmed down a bit, she had to go back to the trainer’s car to fish out a new pair of shoes he’d got for her. As she was lacing them up, the swan peered around the side of the open car door, waiting for her to stand up and move off, and present some juicy part of anatomy for a good pecking. The swan had impeccable timing and comedy instincts. EC wasn’t so impressed.

“Dear Queen,

It is time that you did something about your swans. Swan number 15,072 has a bad attitude and needs to be dealt with.

A light cull apparently is good for the vigour of a group. You should royally look into it.

Yours truly,

She Who Must Be Contacted In Case of Emergency

P.S. After a bit of research, I have discovered that you only own the mute swans. I cannot remember if the swan in question was mute or not, I was moving too quickly to hear anything other than the wind in my ears.”

It Can Be Done. I Am Living Proof

The Proof.









What you see above you represents the pinnacle of human achievement.

Many people ask me, “Nick, what do you consider your greatest moment on this earth is? Was it winning the Nobel Prize for Literature? Was it toppling a corrupt South American government using nothing more than a telephone and your wits? Was it losing you virginity without losing your self respect or the use of a limb?”

And I say, “While all those things are good, nothing beats getting Optus to admit they’re wrong, and then getting the refund out of them.”

The saga involves a number of pieces of genius on their behalf. Here is a tiny selection of highlights:

Getting my name wrong and instead of correcting existing account, squirreling away my payments into that account and letting me go into debt on the corrected account.

Billing me twice and refunding me once, for a service I didn’t receive and then arguing about it.

Blaming the faulty wiring in the street that ensured that when it rained, we went incommunicado, on mythical 'other things'.

Insisting the man who came to fix the wiring in the street would have needed entry to our place.

After a series of excruciating screw-ups, ringing me at work for a customer satisfaction survey.

Not reading my complaint email properly and ringing up to offer exactly the wrong thing as a fix.

And it goes on and on and I won’t make you put up with it… but; up there, you see that I have prevailed, I have my cheque. It is for the grand total of $47.19 Australian (for overseas readers, that’s equal to a small, flat, brown rock at current exchange rates) and represents an hourly payment of approximately 50 cents an aggravation.

I will never, if I have anything to do with it, do business with that lousy bunch of card carrying fuckknuckles ever again. I exhort you, dear reader, to not have anything to do with them if at all possible, too.

Optus. No.

Not Mozart, The Other Guy

Making lists, as a way of writing, is a bit of a cop-out. 

I'll do it if I think I can get a cheap giggle, make a point, get away with it, or whenever I feel like it. Apart from that, I'm dead against it. (Woody Allen knew how to throw together a list, now look at him.) 

It should never be used as a way of writing a song, unless you have just accidentally written Imperfect List, by Big Hard Excellent Fish, and that has already been done by the band, Big Hard Excellent Fish. 

I've linked to McSweeney's Lists over there on the right. They are of varying quality and taste and I won't try and sell you only the ones I like. But the good ones in the huge collection are as good as 30 second fun gets, and you should have a look. 

The enjoyment in a really good list is, of course, filling in the blanks that make the rest of the story. What happened off-stage, to the left of the list, that made the writer arrive at this important, fridge-mounted moment? 

It's not so for everyone.

I know people who actually earn their living by filling in the blanks, checking, validating, verifying, researching and making the story credible. 

Pah.

Thanks and everything, keen eyed observers,  but how much more fun is reading the list I found Emergency Contact had made, without the tiresome rigour of sceptical analysis?

 

On this list, I meet a deadly, funky, sleek adversary. It simply reads.

• laser eyes
  
• hair removal
  
• dance lessons
  

Yeah, Baby!

May The Road Rise Before You, Dickhead

A.J. Mackinnon, a man who confesses that his interests include philosophy, conjuring and fireworks (and with that I would suspect no interests that include chasing girls, being chased by girls, or bumping into girls) has written an interesting, poetic, and at times genuinely amusing book, The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow.

He sets off in dinghy from Wales, and in the spirit of adventure and appalling navigation, pops out at the Black Sea over a year later.

The book is not an unalloyed joy. It suffers from a few too many adverbs at times, and there are passages where, if you were present in the boat, you would’ve beat him over the head with his own oar. The unending self satisfied delight in his own company, the ability to name every blinking type of flora, and the non-stop saccharine optimism, I find deeply suspicious. People like that inevitably end up on the news, with a neighbour saying something like, “Oh, he was always very quiet and polite. He kept to himself mostly. Although he did smell of ether and insect repellent.”

But, on the whole, it is a really lovely little read about a man who tells a good self deprecating story and paints the country side in engaging detail. It also has amusing little sketches thrown in. I quite like a picture every now and then. Except the pictures in my old, old copy of Peter and the Wolf. Frightened the poop out of me, but couldn’t put them down.

What it did infuse me with is the yearning for adventure and getting back on the water. To set off with not much of an idea of home-time, or indeed where home would be. To rely on, and connect with, the kindness and comfort of strangers. To float upon the world and be a leaf on its stream. That impulse lasted until 4.30 pm, 27th Oct.

Last night, five cars in front of me, a guy broke down and he was making a real hash of extricating himself. People were just driving around him on the crest of a hill, on double white lines. It was going to end in tears.

I got past him and backed up. I could smell the petrol from 6 meters away from where he’d flooded it, but first of all I said to him, “Pop your hazards on mate, and we’ll throw your hood up so people can easily see your not going anywhere.”

He was thankful for the help and I was devising a plan for backing him off the narrow road and out of harms way, when a passing motorist, leant out of the window, yelled at me that I was a "complete fuckwit", and threw an empty packet of cigarettes at me.

Being unable to even work out why I was abused, my need to adventure in the world and commune with the people in it, died. I'm just not up to it.

Waiting For Blogo (Future Projects)

Insult Your Doctor If Pain Persists

When An Irresistible Police Force Meets An Immovable Suspect

Tera-Byte: Big Memory or Fangs?

Movie Review of Jumper Without Reference To Sequel Cardigan

Things To Do In Iraq When You're Bored - Ba'ath Party!

This Means Nothing To Me. Ahhh, Map Of Vienna

My Word Is My Blond (Refutation of Roger Moore Biography)

Vampires Are So Trashy

Cultural Insensitivity - I'm Doing It Right

(Boy, those lolcats get under your skin don't they?)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah.

I'm sick of it. I've been a good kid. Well mostly. There was that time that I sang "I'm So Lonely" in a passable Kim Jong Il impersonation when the Korean delegation were muttering amoungst themselves for just a bit too long. That had my boss looking at me in a certain sort of way.

But, in general, I'm genuinely open minded about other cultures in an unconscious way. I'm not so enamored of my own that I think we're the bee's knees, or the ant's pants, or the cat's pajamas, or the wasp's nipples or whatever. Seriously, I took a 'how unknowingly prejudiced are you?' test the other day, and the results were that I was slightly positively biased towards people with darker skin than me. I don't know how that's possible, I can't remember the last time I even met one, but that sort of demonstrated what I'm getting at.

I am genuinely prejudiced about other things. If you're a dickhead, or you're deliberately stupid, I'm not going to like you, no matter what the shape of your face or the hue of your skin or the selection of genitals you are wearing.

With all those things in mind, how on earth am I expected to continually keep a straight face when I am dealing with two of my overseas colleagues, who rejoice in the names of Tan Kat Poo and Porn Tip.

It's not fair.

Park Life

I've had the good fortune over the last few years to spend a bit of time in Centennial Park, and I've seen some truly excellent things.

I've seen a woman, stark bollocking naked, being photographed draped around the roots of a tree. The thing that intrigued me about that, was where they chose to do it. The park is large enough for the local thug-class to dispose of bodies in privacy, so I wonder why these two decided to make their 'art' on the main drag, leading up to the main gate, near one of the main picnic areas. I'm not complaining. Just interested.

I've heard what sounded like a large water fowl of some description being stuffed unceremoniously into a bag. When I've looked up to see what on earth was going on, I've seen a homeless guy stuffing a large bird into a bag. Dude! It's supposed to be a jolly-jumbuck!

There's a pine foresty bit sort of thingy, up near the north east side of the park (I think it's there anyway). I've seen a guy with a full, five piece drum-kit, in the middle of the wood, doing his practice. Sort of sensible, but how the hell did he get it in there?

I've been able to turn around to my trainer and say, "Look out, you're about to step in dog."

To which he's anwered, "Don't you mean dog poo?"

To which I was able to say, "No... just dog."

It was the leg of someone's not so beloved terrier.

Last night was an appalling night in the park. It was about 11 degrees C, minus a windchill factor of approximately a thousand. The rain was sideways and the first couple of minutes standing around in your shorts and t-shirt make you wonder why more people don't die exercising - whatever the number, it should be more.

Anyway, this woman had all the answers. She's walking home in the diabolical conditions. She's got her suit on, but swapped the heels for a sensible pair of walking shoes, the rain's a comin' down in fits and starts, what else better to protect herself with than... a shower cap.

Centennial Park. Full of nutty goodness.

Organising Atheists is Like Herding Cats - Pity Really

In a positive move in a world of woe, this little story comes from Ol' Blighty. 'No God' slogans for public buses.

In synopsis, the British Humanist Association (BHA) has paid for ads on the side of bendy-buses which say, "There's probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

To pay for them, the BHA thought they would need to raise about £5,500, and Professor Richard Dawkins said he'd match them pound for pound, if need be. The BHA has now managed to accidentally raise £36,000 all on its own.

I like it. This is an indication of real sentiment. You can measure it and literally take it to the bank (if it's still there).

It means they have wandered into the street with a hat and said, "Hi, we're raising money for an anti-religion campaign, and we were just wond... oh, thank you very much!"

I suspect there are a lot of people who are alarmed at the re-emergence of dark-age thinking (travelling under the ill-deserved protection of 'belief' and 'conservatism') and are sick of being beaten over the head by people who think they know better.

But, by nature, they are a quiet voice. It's hard to organise those people into mobs - that's exactly the sort of thing they're suspicious of. You certainly can't get them up early on a Sunday morning to go and mumble at an invisible sky fairy.

Of course there's been backlash from all those 'right-minded' religious types (or, as we in the business call them, "People who lack the imagination to really think it through").

Stephen Green of Christian Voice said:

"Bendy buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large."

You can't argue with that. Actually, you can barely find a line of logic in it. When was the last time you saw an Atheist, or a bus, nail someone to a plank of wood or go on a crusade? I like his healthy self esteem though, thinking that somehow he contributed. He is someone who is never going to wake up in the dead of night worrying about the consequences of his actions or his contribution to the forum of human endeavour.

Rev Jenny Ellis helped out god with: "This campaign will be a good thing if it gets people to engage with the deepest questions of life." But Rev, your religion does the opposite. You obviously haven't been listening to your own brand of bullshit. You guys are saying that the answers are right here in this rather old, hard to understand book. Stop thinking and have faith. Don't engage, questioning might lead to apostasy.

The Anglicans (Methodists to be precise) have my favourite response. They thanked Dawkins for encouraging a "continued interest in God".

I snorted my Weet-bix back out my nose at that one (they were really soggy so I'm okay). It's so pathetic it's kind of endearing. They've taken the 'no such thing as bad press' maxim and applied it to their supposedly omnipotent being. If it was required, you'd think god would be able to raise interest in himself .

Do you ever get the feeling that, any day now, the C of E is going to throw their collective hands up and go, "Yep, awright, you got us. It's a crock. But can we keep the pretty clothes and buildings?"

The Princess And The Penis

Fussiness is in the eye of the beholder.

I say, if the damn sheets are too noisy, the damn sheets are too noisy.

How is that achieved though? Noisy sheets. They should be roolly nice, what with their luxurious thread count and all, but they're not. Every time Emergency Contact turns over, I wake up thinking someone's breaking into the house.

Once, a tour guide came to pick me and EC up from a luxury hotel in Tasmania. We were going to Maria Island for a picturesque walk through the wilderness, a tour of the facilities and a lovely meal. She came into the stunning B&B looking around in appreciation at the surroundings, the art collection, the deep shag pile, the interior garden in the dining room, all that, and asked what it was like to stay here.

"The sheets are really noisy." I said. I'd had a particularly crap night's sleep.

It was accidentally the right thing to say in the situation, I think. Rather than looking at me like some sheltered and swaddled city slicker who was now going to make a day of bushwalking difficult, she looked at me like an engagingly idiosyncratic person who was going to take a different slant on life and turn the day into a thoroughly interesting one.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

(No really, we did get on very well. Even though she did have kind of noisy hair.)

Just A Walkin' The Blog

Those of you over the age of 30 might have seen these in the street when they were popular.

Funny for 30 seconds. I think I can rejuvenate the market. See "Finally It Has A Use" below.

Finally It Has A Use

Ok, now these things are called 'Segway', and they have been the most monumental failure of all time.

They are a spin-off from a really good invention; a wheelchair that stood up on its back wheels and allowed the person in it to operate at mobile-person-head-height. Something that only insanely-rich, paralysed people could afford, but hey, you've gotta start somewhere.

I accidentally read a book about the Segway's invention, planning, marketing, failure, and the acrimony that surrounded the machine and it was informative... about journalism at least.

The inventor, being a media animal, hired a journalist to follow him and his team's every move as they brought this thing into the world. In a fit of pique, the inventor fired the journo about halfway through the venture, but the journo had invested too much time in the project to give it all away, so went on and did the book anyway. It just didn't have the flavour that the inventor would have preferred. Good one, media savvy inventor turkey.

The pre-launch of the Segway was one of the first times I became aware of manipulated internet hype, when everyone on the web was supposedly asking "What is Ginger?" (It was called Ginger because the wheelchair prototype was called Fred.) 

After all the manufactured hype, several of the unveilings on US talk shows had the distinct air of let down. The saturated stink of fizzle, if you will. I think it was Cathy, or Regis (maybe not, who cares? One of those anyway) who necessitated a re-take by blurting out, "What? That's fuckin' it?!" as the curtain drew back.

The whole idea is daft anyway. It was supposed to be a really good way of getting around, and it's not. They have to be limited in speed because the manufacturers wanted to make it legal on as many footpaths as possible. But they weren't. It didn't have much range. It still had to be charged up so it wasn't as though it was carbon neutral. They envisaged the entire Chinese population riding one... at thousands of dollars US a pop? Ah yuh. And just what we needed anyway. Another way for American citizens to avoid physical movement.

So I feel I've made my case: it's not a winner. But I've hit upon an idea that's going to make the Segway, if not useful, at least entertaining for four and a half minutes. Some of you will remember the novelty item, the invisible-dog lead. If you attach a few of them to the front and take a few of them down to the Circus Maximus, it will look like a crazy 21st Century chariot race. 

Spring-loaded, comedy retractable acting daggers spinning on the wheels is the next step.  

Cocky Bastard

“You’ve been hanging around cars for too long.”

That was Emergency Contact’s response when I straightened up from the kitchen sink and said, “I think someone just ripped my rear vision mirror off!”

What made her say that was the length of the house, the one storey, and the several closed windows between the car in question and me. She was sort of right. I had hung around cars for long enough (and done enough damage to them) to know exactly what a Ford rear vision mirror hitting the cement sounded like; and I had just heard it.

Racing down to the end of the house and peering out the back window, I could see my mirror lying on the ground. Perched on it, admiring himself as he set about removing the plastic lip and backing on the thing, was a rather magnificent and self-satisfied cockatoo.

If you’ve read any of A Grey Area before, you will know that I have a very special relationship with birds. I like them, on the whole I admire them, I find them interesting and they in turn treat me with disregard and contempt. (Documented under the Natural World.) 

I can take this. Not because I have a rugged ego and an unerring sense of universal justice, but because I know that they are usually pea-brains and they are just doin’ what they is born to be doin’.

Not so the cockatoo. Cockatoos are smarter than your average four-year-old child and somehow manage to mix that with the personality of an irascible old man. They are airborne bastards. I love them. But knowing how smart they are meant that I had no hesitation in launching into a stream of choice invective at the white wanker on my mirror, and he knew exactly what I was on about too, because he stopped and gave me one of those looks. Right - gloves off.

I race out of the front and around the side to really give this guy a fright. I’m pretty sure that I can get the mirror back on without the need for adhesives (and therefore retaining its remote-control feature) but if he really takes a shine to the practice, that car is toast.

A cocky with a will can reduce vegetable or mineral to its composite atoms in very short order. They keep themselves in shape by destroying things and this guy was in tip-top nick.

Screaming around the corner to insert the fear of a feathered god into him, cocky takes a leisurely look at me, takes a lazy hop into the air and with two flaps is on a neighbour’s shed, about four centimetres out of my reach but completely within view so that he can really giggle at me. A good squawk, flip of the head and one insulting raise of the crest and he settles in to preen himself with the inherent underlying message - You gotta go inside for lunch sometime buddy. Just leave the mirror somewhere nice, ok?

No. I go inside with the mirror, find a pair of socks I don’t care about, go back out and reattach the mirror. Then I pull the socks over both the rear vision mirrors. Cocky looks at me, impressed; one squawk and he’s gone. 

Nick - 1. Cocky - I’ll give him a half. (It’s only fair. There’s a good chance this animal’s nearly a hundred years old and cunning as a cunning bandicoot who’s just been made Dean of Cunning at Macquarie University. [Apologies Ben Elton])

Pulling the socks on and off the rear vision mirrors before and after driving grows old faster than you can say “You don’t even wash the car, how long is that chore likely to last?” and within the week the socks are back inside and within six hours of them being off I hear a squawk and my mirror hitting the cement. I’m impressed this time. Patience and daring. Such a rare combination.

I’m out round the back yelling and he’s squawking and nodding from the safety of the shed and I realise that it is now Nick - 1. Cocky - 1 ½ .

Seeing that the bird always goes to this one shed, and that he’s been keeping an eye on my car, I wonder if he’s not actually a resident of the house that owns the shed. 

Walking around to the front of the house, I see a nice, old, miniature Italian couple sitting on their front steps, holding hands. I say miniature because they are of that generation where Europeans of five foot height would not be so extraordinary, and with a little Australian weathering and desiccation, you’ve arrived at this compact appearance.

“Hi, uhm, I’m your neighbour out the back and I was just wondering if you own that big cocky who’s sitting on the shed over there?”

The man answers in a booming, accented voice driven by deafness and small contact with Anglos.

“No. Why? … do ya wan’ ‘im!?”

That wasn‘t where I’d predicted the conversation would go, but no matter. “No, I really don’t, thanks. It’s just that he keeps pulling my car apart.”

Tiny old wife joins in, “Ahhhhhhhh, he’s not a bed bird!” After a second, I realise that she quite likes his rascally tendencies. Not bed at all. Bad.

She grabs me by the hand, he leads the way and they give me a noisy and confusing tour of the destruction that the cocky has wreaked. He’s pulled their car apart: both bumpers, the mirrors, the windscreen wipers… to name some of the choicer parts. He’s removed all the window frames from the house, the screens, and countless other weatherboard pieces. They’d ended up putting in double screens fronted by metal bars to hold everything together. 

As I’m gazing in wonder at the wreckage, she yells me a question that sounds like, “Waddya gonna do towim? Just mebee kitchen?”

“Kitchen?” I don’t want to be rude. I hate it when I don’t instantly catch on, but there’s been a lot going on and I’ve been making polite nodding and uh-huh noises through most of it.

“Yeah, maybe kitchen and taik ’im somewhere and led ’im gow. You know. Don killim. His nod a bed bird.”

I promise the old couple that I would never kill him and that if I did get my hands on him, would think about relocating him. I would never bother with that either. Relocating an animal that can fly is daft. If he wants my mirrors, this is going to be a battle of wits (with an unarmed man, sure, but It'll be good for his self esteem).

The challenge never eventuated. I think he saw me doing the un-Australian dobbing thing (in his cocky mind was probably some monologue that went like, “Well, now you’ve gone and involved Mr and Mrs Pushover, pal. That’s taken all the fun out of it“) and he never did it again.

Not long after, I saw him up the road with parts of shiny Beemer in his beak. I nodded to him. He nodded and squawked back, and I politely steered around the bolshy bastard and let him get back to work, smack bang in the middle of the road.

When I told my Dad the story, he relayed it to my half-brother Josef who was 12 or 13 at the time. It inspired this poem from him, and I’m proud to include it in A Grey Area.

The Air Lout

By Josef  

As he spreads his white wings and gives chortling squawk,

With pale yellow armpits and feathers like chalk,

But most impressive of all is his great golden crest,

Which stands erect above all the rest

With gnarly grey fingers he grips onto the frame,

His hooded beak striking again and again,

His beady eyes become really quite savage,

As the car’s side mirror becomes more and more damaged

Can any phrase describe this odd bird?

Whose daily antics are rather absurd?

“Love Him or Hate Him” I think would suffice,

No other saying could be as precise

Can one ever know what goes on in his mind? 

Of the one which many a once quiet street may be lined

Who can say that we may have a lead,

Into the brain of the eater of seed?

Mysterious, Majestic, some say aloof,

But I don’t think anyone will ever have proof,

And many a man still gives a great shout,

At the presence of the beautifully annoying Air Lout.

Breast Wishes to You

Reading the side of the water container in my hand, I see that Mount Franklin and the Pink Ribbon mob have conservatively set their sights on making $250,000 for breast cancer research. This is apparently a Diamond Partner arrangement between the foundation and the water mob.

I don’t think they’re putting their back into it.

Raising money for breasts would have to be the easiest job in the world.

I remember that there used to be a lot of bad blood between the Guide Dogs and all the other charitable foundations around here. It was considered too damn easy to park a puppy on Pitt St with a bowl in front of him, and come back at the end of the day to find the dopey fur-ball drooling on $3,000, and as happy as a Labrador who’s been patted by adoring strangers all day. The odiferous homeless guy selling you The Big Issue didn't stand a chance.

Well, I can think of a couple of things that I like more than an adorable little Labrador puppy sitting on a blanket in town, and they’re riding around on the front of 51% of the population… and I am pretty sure I’m not alone. I think even het girls tend to like and appreciate them. As far as what to put out on a blanket to attract passersby is concerned, you can see where I'm going with this.

Honestly, raising money for boosies has got to be the doddle of the century. Spare a thought to the poor person who has to promote Movember. It used to be primarily about a hideous little gland, and is now forced to rope in other man-killers as distractions - they use clinical depression as a sort of padded bra for prostates.

The Many Moods of Amanda Keller

Ode To The Roiling Subcutaneous Disaster Brewing on My Face

The skin
On my chin
Is not so thin
It'll need a pin
Before the flow
Can begin



Enjoy breakfast.

Another Mystery Solved (you're lucky to have me really)

At first I thought this person was just bragging. You know, job well done, no-one to share the triumph with at home because they've all left on account of the constant needy, attention seeking, might as well put up a sign and let the suburb know all about it...

Then it hit me.

World wide, the bees are disappearing. I think if we were to follow this lead, we might be on to something.

Flash as a Rat With a Baby Bonus

Recently there was this ABC News article 'Baby Brain' Myth Debunked .

In and of itself, the study is not particularly ground-breaking. It found that cognitive function in mothers aged between 20 and 24 didn't decline during pregnancy in the 2,500 women they studied. I don't know if that's here or there. So many people report it being something of a phenomenon (say it like you're singing 'White Lines', it's more fun that way) that I would like to see other methods of measurement looked at before we write the whole thing off.

Anyway, that isn't what captured my attention.

"Rodent data shows that mother rats have improved multi-skilling capacity and less fear responses than non-mothers."

Rodent data. Multi-skilling rats. What the hell is going on up there? How do you measure a multi-skilled rat? See if she can still read whilst doing a black diamond ski run? A super rat demonstrated that it was capable of breast feeding and filling out questionnaires whilst riding a bus to work?

And, what was illuminated by doing this study anyway? The question was "Are people a bit more vague when they are pregnant?" Who cares? What would you do to stop it if they were? If you were building another human being, wouldn't you be a bit distracted? It's just stoopit is what it is.

Ahh I'm sorry. I'm just a bit bad tempered... could be the hormones.

Flushed and Embarrassed

As I enter the toilets at work with the usual trepidation of someone who really only goes there under sufferance, I hear the super-genius of our department on the toilet and the phone at the same time.

I cannot get over this. I might be hopelessly behind the times here, but I just do not think that issuing commands from both ends at the same time is the done thing.

I mentioned this to a trusted colleague and they said, “Yep, they’re all like that. I once heard a girl from my department doing number twos and giggling to the person on the phone every time she made a decent splash.”

After I had picked myself off the floor and had controlled my retching, she continued, “And when she left the stall, she said goodbye to her friend, said hello to me and walked past without washing her hands!”

I’m back on my knees gagging anew.

On my planet, this will not be allowed.

Which reminds me of my second favourite piece of graffiti.

In a scrawled hand on the inside of the toilet door, “I fucked ya mutha.”

In a neater hand underneath that, “Go home Dad, you’re pissed.”

Maybe Next Year

I come from a very musical family but it hasn't been handed down.


I recently failed my sixth grade musicianship exams by buggering up 4 Minutes 33 by Philip Glass.

I wasn't able to hold the intensity and told a bad Irish joke in the third minute, started laughing and then got my fingers caught in the piano lid.

Socks and the City

There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of half things we don’t know.

It is almost impossible these days to come across true innovation. Most that appears fresh to us is merely the sharpening of a preceding idea - a development of a well established principle. It is truly stunning to see something come out of the void.





When it does, it bites you on the bum and it yells “Look at me! I am born of raw invention. I am a pure, unadulterated flight of creativity. I am man’s indomitable, unfettered imagination given shape.”

From out of the wasteland, I present to you:

Half–Sockin’.

(The background music in your head for this unveiling should be 'Never Stop the Body Rock' from the Electric Boogaloo soundtrack. [The phrase Up-Rockin! replaced by Half-Sockin!])

It’s more than just ‘Getting around the house casual style before both slippers are located.’

It’s a statement beyond refinement. When you do this, you are announcing to the world that you are an independent axiom-buster, ready to cross artistic and aesthetic lines. You are broadcasting, at ankle height, that:

You won’t be tied down to the fascistic expectations of the ‘manlady’.

You won’t take the thought hate-crimes of the fashionistas.

Through your fearless innovation, a standard item of clothing has reached a new level of utility by being used for a subtly different purpose than the one it was designed for.

I hear you ask, “Nick, how do these quantum leaps in societal behaviour happen?”

And I answer you, “I’m not sure. But as it must have been when they went from bronze to teflon, from steam to lightly-pressed, from unsliced to sliced, it is better if someone is there to document it. Later, great minds can ponder the import of the evidence.”

History

“You’re a heel with soul.” Churchill to Wing Commander Botherington-Smythe (Found Half-Socking through the MOD during the Battle of Britain’s final hours. Desperate times, desperate measures.)

It was accidentally introduced to me by Gooby (Rare live action shot included above. I decided to try it out. Incredible) who’s been doing it for a long time.

I was blissfully unaware that I was in the company of such revolutionary innovation, and his girlfriend must have been too. She walked past him and asked what the hell was going on with his socks.

His explanation was intriguing and illuminating. One of those moments of apotheosis.

To quote 2001: A Space Odyssey, “Something… wonderful.”

“My toes need to be kept warm, my heels don’t need that much attention and it allows for more grip on the tiles. Also, I’m not wearing out the heel of the sock when I’m walking around the house”

It’s more than just a practical second use for the sock. It has the feeling of zeitgeist change.

There’s no fence sittin’ when you’re half sockin’ people.

It’s another half socked country out there. Wear it if you dare.

You Called Your TV Show WHAT?

There are certain words and phrases that will amuse me for a while

Like little bits fashion, that always bring a smile

It was "nifty" in 80s and "Weapon Head" of late

But there's a current winning term that I picked up from a mate

If someone is a loon, and it's obvious to tell

That there are bats nesting in the belfry

And there's only one brain cell

The word that's in use now, and I'm sure you'll get the gist

If you're ticking all those boxes

You are called a mentalist

Memo to Emo: That's Not Self Harm. Now This...

People often ask me, "Nick, what's the most embarrassing way you've ever injured yourself?"


I usually tell them to get comfortable, pour themselves a drink and settle in for nice long night's entertainment, because there are three important elements to hurting yourself, and I have mastered them all.

It has to be injurious physically.

It has to be murderously embarrassing.

And it has to be repeatable in polite conversation.

A small sample below.


As a very young teenager, I once fell into a ladies hat stand in David Jones from a good height. My date and I were cutting through DJs on the way to the movies. I oh-so-nonchalantly hitched my bum up on the rolling handrail of the escalator as we were heading for the first floor. Half way up I managed to lose my balance and fell backwards, head first, into the ladies hat stand below, destroying the shelves and display on the way down. It hurt a bit physically, a lot ego-lly. My date was standing at the top of the escalator, trying to pretend not to know me, but also unable to tear her eyes off the scene below.


Once while getting into my car in a really cramped parking spot I almost ripped my own ear off on the door. I managed to get the corner of the door caught in the top fold of my ear, and the door frame was quite sharp.


In my early 20s, when I had long hair, I once accidentally shut a good amount of it into the window of the taxi I was driving. I pulled into the driveway of the family I was about to take to the airport and threw the door open to help them with their bags. Once I had picked myself out of their rosebush, questions were being asked about my sobriety.


Another car-related stupid injury occured last night. I was walking down the driveway in the dark, keys in hand, when I walked through a spider web. Reaching up to my face to sweep the web away, I jammed the car key up my own nose. It hurt too.


I'm just glad I didn't turn the key and accidentally start my own head up.

Music Dreams