Hating with Honesty Part II

An aspect of our culture that really busts my blisters is when we all think we have to like something just because everybody else seems to like it. I've developed a list of things I personally can't stand (aka known as the original 'Hating with Honesty' post) despite the rest of the world seemingly loving them to bits, and feel that it's time to add a second column.

Fashion. Speaking from the wisdom of being two decades older than the female market that most of the ridiculous styles of clothing is aimed at, I can also say that I'm relieved that I no longer feel the pressure to be 'in' or have the interest to be 'in'. Even today, on our way home after Yum Cha in the city, we popped into 'Trims' on Pulteney Street. The store is an Adelaide institution and you could always find a $15 pair of Levis next to some blundstone boots from the 1960s hidden behind the later models of thermal underwear.

Not any more. Levis are $149 *after* applying the 30% discount displayed all over the store and are in miniscule sizes or the unfortunate styles of 'low rise flares' or 'ultra skinny leg'. Not to mention witnessing the evil greediness of seeing decades-old converse sneakers priced at $89 -Trims, how could you?

Dr Who. Sorry Brit-nerds, I just don't get why this show has endured for so long. Lots of children were terrorised by the scary masks of various bad guys or the daleks but even at the age of seven, when Jon Pertwee was busy running around in his velour dinner jacket and frilled shirt, I could see the dodgy special effects and pathetic sets and felt contempt more than fright. Wobbly sets, ill-fitting rubber suits and monsters made of spray-painted loo plungers and egg cartons make it too hard to get into whatever ridiculous space-age, inter-dimensional delusion we were supposed to be involving ourselves in.

The latest doctor is the insane snake-like son from one of the Harry Potter movies and appears to be playing the role on intravenous doses of Red Bull and espresso. Any credulity is snapped further than a worn out bungee cord when a facelifted Kylie Minogue appears as the guest girlie and kisses him - could her forehead be stretched any tighter? Her eyebrows are in danger of meeting up at the back of her neck.

French manicured finger nails
















These obviously fake, square nails with the white bits painted on are usually worn by chicky babes a bit on the chubbo end of the spectrum. As with their tiger-striped hair highlights or lined lips, they seem to think that having tombstones on the ends of their fingers will detract attention away from the size of their arses.

Perhaps they're right, but they still look hideous. They also tell the onlooker that their owner does sweet FA work with her hands - those babies ain't fit for gardening, washing, chopping veges, scrubbing floors, painting or scrubbing pots and pans. Maybe that's why their arses are so large. Do the French really have nails like these? If so, I thought that French women never got fat?

Shuttered houses











These external roll-a-blinds seem to be favoured by home owners who want security and already own properties that lean towards the ugly side. Protection and privacy from what I'm not completely sure - sunshine and views, maybe? Let's face it - if a burglar wants to break in and steal your stuff, he (or she) will be able enter your home by more ways than just the windows. Plus, having them shuttered means that they'll be able to rifle through your belongings at their leisure without being noticed by passersby.

The place I've photographed here is in my neighbourhood and seems to be permanently closed to the world outside, resembling a face without any eyes. Not having the windows visible removes all traces of the house's character (what little it does have). Ugly, pointless and inadvertently dangerous. Not unlike Barry Hall.

Clearasil - it annoys the living crap out of me that, at age 39 and a half, I've recently had to buy a tube of the skin-coloured stuff to combat the colony of dots that have appeared on my neck. Unfortunately, it still pongs as badly as it did in 1983 and lingers long after the t-shirt or pillow has been washed.

When our daughter Sapphire reaches the puberty/zit infestation/interest-in-having-sex stage of her young life, I'll be encouraging her to slather her face in this gunk under the pretense of having pimple-free skin - the stench will hopefully keep any potential de-flowerers at bay. Along with Love Chunks' headlock-of-death and 24/7 chaperoning system of course.

Batman movies. Sling these into the reject bin next to the Dr Who episodes. Why the movies are made to be so dark and serious when he's a comic book character wearing a tight suit with a face-obscuring black balaklava/mask ensemble based on a BAT is beyond me. How the hell did he manage to sew that on his granny's singer hidden at the back of the bat cave?

I find these oh-so-dark films unintentionally hilarious - Michael Keaton's camp pout had me sniggering and at one stage I wanted to know just why Gotham City didn't seem to know of the existence of fluoro tubes or decent over-head lighting (same with the couple in X-files: why use a torch to investigate a crime or UFO-scene when you can flick a switch, or better still, wait until daylight?)

Claire Hooper



















I'll say it first - she's way younger and a damn sight prettier than I was, or ever will be. However her 'humour', especially when I was first 'introduced' to it by Paul McDermott on ABC's 'The Sideshow' was obviously so subtle and subliminal that I didn't even notice that its presence (is she his niece?). Granted, she's improved a wee bit on 'Good News Week' but somehow she seems to think that she's cute and this will therefore add 99% more hilarity to her act. Not for me it doesn't. It just makes me want to smack her smug horsey face and send her to Woolies to be their cheerful, free ranging 'price check' girl.

That Ryan Shelton guy from Rove


This tool should marry Claire so that he can be the bloke who sprays the lettuces in the fruit-and-vege section. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice chap to have a coffee with, or to collect up all the stray shopping trolleys and put them back in the special parking bays nearer to the shop's entrance.

Like young Claire, he obviously thinks he's funny, but surrounding himself with Rove and Hamish shows him up to be about as amusing as a dead kitten at a christening.

His little 'how to' segments on the show are painfully, get-a-brazilian-wax-in-slo-mo weak. Piss weak. If he's the future of funnydom in Australia, then let's bring in some of those hilarious Belgians, Uzsbechishtanis and Norwegians instead.

Justin Timberlake



















All I want to say to Mr Timberlake is, "No, you're NOT bringing sexy back. Quite the opposite in fact."

Sexy is NOT a high-pitched, pasty-faced Michael-Jackson wannabe wearing a vest with blue jeans. If it was, the world's librarians would all be dating supermodels and promoting their own line of cardigans and pocket pen holders.

Frickin' FM radio stations - there are two reasons:

1) Deciding to stick with 'classic' songs but selecting only twenty of them to play ad-infinitem for the next two decades. There's only so much Barnesy, Farnesy, Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Guns-n-Roses, John Mellencamp and Cold Chisel one can endure, and that was back in 1989. Nor, when they advertise a 'back to the eighties lunchtime mix' do I want to hear the same "ten songs that'll take you back". I swear that SAFM play 'Don't you forget about me,' 'Always something there to remind me,' 'What I like about you' and 'Let's Dance' as often as anything on the mushroom record label dating from 1980 to 1987.

2) Not bothering to tell us the name of the song or the artist/band who made it. We seem to get our 'fifty minutes of music without ads' peppered with the DJ reminding us that we're getting our 'fifty minutes of music without ads' between each and every song, but if a song pops up that sounds good - a rarity for me these days - I'd like to know what it was. But that's information they'd be giving away for free, isn't it? They want to me SMS them for the song info or visit their website in order to be bombarded with more advertising whilst searching for the playlist. What they've forgotten is that, unlike the 15 year olds who can watch 'Rage' on Friday night and Saturday morning without having to turn it off before their nine year old daughter sees it and learns that being famous means wearing a string-bikini and writhing suggestively over a gansta rapper - we have more disposable income and are likely to buy an album rather than a song download.

Actually, I have a third reason - 3) employing semi-retarded, no-talent, ex-reality tv 'stars' as zany breakfast show hosts. Why bother with wit, talent and the ability to think quickly on your feet if you can have someone who snogged a transvestite in the pool at the Big Brother compound or who was once the eyebrow plucker to a Hollywood star?

Whew. I think I'll go and have a GnT and a lie down now......

A pox on both your brain cells!

DeepKickGirl aint one to hold back when it comes to an angry rant (and I mean that with the very deepest respect, from the heart of my bottom) and her latest is one that we can all identify with. Gym Gonads.















In DKG's case, these are the selfish gits who take up 'ten minutes only' parking zones out in front of the next door childcare centre for over an hour in order to make their necks fatter than their heads whilst preening in front of floor-to-ceiling mirrors in a sweat-soaked, 'roid-rogering orgy of time wasting.

Frazzled and time-poor working parents and carers simply want to rush in, collect their little under-age treasures and get the hell out of there. They only need a brief Stop, Dash In and Drop Off zone before moving on to the next item on their 'to do today' list.

DeepKickGirl saw another frustrated mother, waiting for a spot to park only to have a couple of muscled meat-heads pull in ahead of her and enter the gym for what she assumed would be for at least an hour. In a spot clearly marked 'childcare centre park - ten minutes only.' An angry discussion ensued and the mother was insulted and sworn at - in front of her toddler - and eventually had to leave to find a park much farther away.

Must we give in and instead force ourselves to behave as piggishly and as badly as the Gym Gonads, or should we heed our grandmothers' advice and continue to live courteously and considerately? My own mantra - whispered fiercely to myself on far more occasions than I'd like to admit to - is to live well. Living well is the best revenge, as the wise (and often the senile or very drunk) enjoy telling us.

Or mostly. For social suckheads such as the Gym Gonads, there is the luxury of time.... lots of it and opportunities...... You know that the Gym Gonads are inside trying to emulate the famous 'condom full of walnuts' look that Clive James ascribed to Arnold Schwarnegger in the eighties, and that takes at least an hour or two. One hour for the actual weight lifting, and another for the posing, flexing, mirror-gazing, self-congratulation and crotch scratching that goes on between sets. Or 'reps' or whatever it is that they do with their pecs.

So, if you're a mother driving a kid-friendly station-wagon or people mover, it is likely that there'll be a stray banana, caterpillar-made-from-an-alfoil-roll or cricket stump handy; rolling on the floor under the front seats, hidden underneath used tissues, empty freddo frog wrappers and finger paintings John West rejected. They all make ideal exhaust pipe stuffers.

For those of you that have managed to find a carpark and are brave enough to leave your cars, there's the good old car key scratched along the sides of their turbo-twat-mobile or even a hastily hammered nail in the front tyre. And don't ever forget the raw prawn slipped into the windscreen wiper grille.....

DeepKickGirl is, amongst many other things, a budding scriptwriter. Living in Sydney. It is therefore almost a dead certainty that she'll know a few out-of-work actors who could pose as a humorless parking inspector directly out in front of the gym and childcare centre. That'll get a gaggle of Gym Gonads out of their comfort zone faster than a well-oiled AFL player from an opponent's squirrel grip in the goal square.

Alternatively, she could get some stickers printed and when they're inside unleashing their lactic acid she could slap a sticker on the back of their cars. It'll be ages before they'd notice it, and in the meantime they'll be read and laughed at by quite a few childcare customers and drivers idling behind them at the traffic lights.

One day I'll find the spare cash to print out sheets of tiny stickers that I'll be able to whip out from my backpack in various annoying circumstances and slap on the back of offending vehicles. Here's a few that readily spring to mind:

• Parking rules are for everyone else except me.
• I am a mono-synaptic, poly-cretinous half-wit who can't read parking signs.
• I have more money than sense which is why I'm begging for a parking fine.

For those who display truly execrable bumper stickers like 'If it has tits or wheels it's gonna be trouble' or 'no fat chicks, the bumper will scrape' or even the 'Here's the posh coat of arms from the private school I send my kids to so you better be impressed' bumper sticker - try:

• I have the sophistication and intelligence of a rain soaked budgie smuggler
• I am a virgin with halitosis, and destined to remain so
• I have lots of money and have spent it on this car instead of donating it to a worthy cause
• This 4WD has never been off-road and is never likely to
• I voted for John Howard

To let you know that my actions speak louder than my words, I really let a bloke have it today. OKaaaay, so he was only ten years old and attends Sapphire's school, but the little ape was trying over and over again to fling a swing up and over the top of the support bar, thus making it useless.

I strode over the bark chips (which is quite difficult to do when you're in a fast-paced huff, holding a viola case, two terms' worth of school books and a fruit platter) and snatched the swing from his hands.
"Get out of here before I call the principal. Oh and I'm a TEACHER in case you didn't know."

Yes, I was a teacher. Once. Back in 1993, and certainly not at his school; but for all he knew I was an undercover educational agent prone to turning green if made particularly angry.

For the first time in ages, Sapphire looked impressed instead of embarrassed.

Bugger it; maybe I should find a local printer who'd be interested in putting together my sticker idea.

Hard Rubbish Hatin'



















In most councils in Adelaide, you're given one or two days a year to leave out any unwanted 'hard rubbish' on the kerb for their truck to come and take it away for you. Every September, my neighbourhood is festooned with ancient dryers, dead VCRs, dodgy gas stoves, busted rattan chairs, mattresses, Commodore 64 computer monitors and broken card tables.

This annual event is closely followed with the nocturnal visits by the trash-n-treasure trolls, who apprise themselves of the 'nicer' council districts' hard rubbish weeks and have an opportunitist sift through the debris. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - if things can be used by another person/household/shed and not end up in landfill, but it was a bit awkward a couple of years ago seeing two beanie-clad bogans nearly end up in a fist fight over who was the first to clap their occy-straps on an ancient sideboard. (I had to offer them each a handful of mandarins from the tree in the front yard to distract them).

As such, most of us are happy enough to see the streets looking shabby for a couple of weeks a year, but not when slackos dump their useless crap out every weekend hoping that someone will find it attractive enough to remove for them.

Every street has such a neighbour, and our amiable avenue is no different. He is, though. A very odd little chap. He lives with his rarely-seen wife and two tiny daughters in a corner house with a backyard just big enough for a clothesline and his kids' swing set out in the front garden, along with a dozen water-filled coke bottles strewn on the lawn to deter dogs or cats from excreting there. Not that he'd catch them in the act as each window has those oh-so-gorgeous shutters with the wind-up handles and they are always closed. Like Nicole Kidman's character in 'The Others', no daylight is to touch them or they instantly turn into dust, or become sane or attain the ability to visit the rubbish dump or something.

Anyhoo, it is he who believes that he can place four broken chipboard drawers from a 1970's dressing table out on the footpath in May and hope that someone takes a fancy to them. Or as the above photo attests, his clapped out air-conditioner with a dud DVD player placed on top of it as an added bonus.

Perhaps I should not have particularly high expectations of someone who drives a lime green Gemini that he leaves out in the street in the evenings with each door locked up but with all the windows open. Sure it's a vehicle that doesn't appeal to the average auto thief (or functioning human being), but it sure as hell encourages the average drunken derro on his way back home from the pub - via a pit-stop at our nearby Maccas - to sling his half-slurped thickshake and McChicken wrappers into what appears to be an electric-booger-coloured rubbish bin.

He never says hello to me, so I now make an even greater point of cheerily calling out 'Hello there' every morning as he walks his daughters and I walk my daughter to school: we're only two houses away from each other for Lindt's sake! This gregarious Gonad frowns at my dog and pulls his kids closer to him if Sapphire so much as glances in their direction. Despite this and his hard rubbish 24/7/365 tendencies, he certainly doesn't arouse anything remotely as interesting as dislike or anger within me. No, I reserve that for folk like David Koch, Brian Harradine or that funny-as-death git called Ryan on the 'Rove' telly show.

However Gonad Guy had clearly got right up the nose, firmly into the sinus cavity and was tapping on the back of the eyeballs of the man on the next corner block. From what I know, this man is extremely well off - his primary-school aged kids attend the poshest establishment in Adelaide even though their home - a brand new, sickly cream brick, boxy monstrosity known all over as 'The Mausoleum,' looks directly out on to Sapphire's beautiful school oval. He owns a famous continental gourmet store that frequently gets media attention and raves from famous chefs, and seems to have more than his fair share of childcare, gardening and cleaning help.

One day, Gonad Guy left a cheap plastic outdoor chair out on the footpath with the lazy hope that some poly-cretinous, mono-synaptic half-wit would take it. Said chair languished there for weeks, getting gradually covered in a fetching coat of Magpie droppings, bottle-brush strands and street dust. Not surprisingly, one of the Maccas-munching drunkards picked up the chair one night and, eventually discovering that it only had three legs, staggered onwards a few paces and discarded it in front of Mr Mausoleum's property.

Surely Mr Mausoleum's 'help' would dispose of the chair, or find room for it within their expansive garage/indoor pool/outdoor gym/entertainment/mini-skip storage area? But no - Mr M flung the chair back to Gonad's house, with a hand-written message on the back of it:

Closer inspection reveals the extent of his annoyance:

Crikey! I'm bloody glad he didn't see the sneaky crap that Milly did in his agapanthus plants....!

Technicolour Yawning

Waaay back in the dark mists of time when I was pregnant with Sapphire (whom we named Lucy Lawless Lockett in-utero) I suffered ‘morning sickness’ all damn day and for the entire 40 weeks. Earlier today I was sorting through my old files, and found this diary entry from that period. Although perhaps it's best forgotten?

14 weeks

The train trips in the mornings are the worst part of my working day. I feel queasy when I get up, and am unable to force myself to eat anything. Friends and well-meaning colleagues have all suggested that you’re meant to eat a cracker before you get up (makes for itchy sheets) which should quell the queasiness, but it just hasn’t appealed to me.

I have what is normally a ‘refreshing’ one-and-a-half kilometre walk from our house to the train station. It helps me to wake up and also get a bit of free exercise in each morning. Now, however, I walk in agony, chain-sucking boiled sweets the entire journey - I’m normally on my fifth by the time I shove my ticket into the validating machine. Each colour and flavour is carefully selected before I leave home - orange or raspberry ones today?

Is morning sickness directly related to a sudden increase in sensitivity to smells? We all know that trains aren’t exactly akin to fields of lavender, but never before had I noticed the BO, morning breath, smelly feet and general unsavoury ponginess of the average train carriage. Even aftershaves and perfumes seem over the top and dominating. They almost take on an active physical presence - so much so that it seems as though the carriage has a vague brownish fog of odour inside.

I rely rather heavily on the air sickness bags that I’d been prophetic enough to take from the plane on the way home from Malaysia (where we 'made' Sapphire), and always make sure that I have a couple in my back pack at all times. So far, I’d been sick in the train station toilets, but not actually on the train.

By today, my precious stash of airline bags had been used up and the closest thing I could find (apart from a sealed Tupperware container) were those clear plastic snap lock sandwich bags.

The various offensive smells of the train were mingling hostilely around me, and the rocking motion of the carriage was encouraging my stomach to do some unwelcome swirling of its own. Only six stops to go - I was positive that I could last the distance and heave somewhere on the platform or in the station toilets - the blue lights installed there to deter drug users would make my pallid face look particularly attractive.

Beads of sweat formed on my upper lip and under my eyes, and my stomach began to develop it’s now-familiar bilious heartbeat. Reluctantly, I reached into my back pack and felt for my plastic bag. It was within easy reach - good. Another stop went past. Another milestone of non-vomit. I touched the back again for good luck, fingers sweating against the plastic.

Three more stops to go. I hastily unsealed the top of the bag. No time for prayers or to wait for doors to open now - “BWAAAA!” - straight in, no spillage. This would have been something to have been proud of if I was in any mood to care. I heaved three more times, wiped my mouth with my hankie, and sealed the top of the bag again. It was then I looked up from my lap and noticed the stares of my fellow passengers.

The blush I experienced was so deep and so red that I felt as though my internal organs were on fire. I muttered my explanation to the passenger on my left, “morning sickness,” but the look he returned was so devoid of sympathy I pretended to rummage for something in my back pack - my dignity had a good chance of being in there, next to my work shoes, buttered vegemite crackers and additional glad plastic bags. I could not look anywhere or meet the stares of anyone. The entire carriage was disgusted and their collective opinion seemed to be a derisive ‘Alcoholic.’

It was then that I longed to have a big belly and be hugely and obviously pregnant. My size 12 trousers still fit me and no-one offered me a seat when all were taken as I looked like everybody else. I just didn’t feel like everybody else.

But what was I to do for the remaining five minutes of my journey? I forced a contented smile on my burning red face, and primly clutched the sick bag in my lap. I could hear a faint ‘sloosh sloosh’ of my vomit each time the train entered a tunnel, and realised for the first time that perhaps clear plastic wasn’t the best way to hide the ‘ol regurgitated peas and carrots from my fellow passengers.

The smile remained on my face for the longest five minutes of my life. I would prefer to do nude cartwheels down Burke Street Mall than go through that again. I'm now take the 7:09 train to Spencer Street instead of my usual 7:18.

Ah the memories!

Danger Danger Will Robinson - there's a full on RANT heading our way!

Geez it's disheartening to be a reader sometimes. According to the enlightened, cashed-up, metrosexual, pro-feminist, militantly male readers of FHM magazine, a third of them want to marry a virgin. Yes, when they grow up. *Sigh*

Caroline Marcus of the Age writes that "Of 57,000 men polled by men's magazine FHM, 28 per cent hoped to marry a virgin, while 41 per cent wanted a bride who had five partners or fewer, and just 5 per cent wanted a bride who had slept with more than 15 men.

The survey, which ran on the magazine's website for two weeks last month, attracted mostly men in their late 20s, who had jobs and were university educated."

Hmm, would these survey sods be smug little Generation Y Gits who still live with their parents, don't pay any rent, don't help out around the house and still have their meals cooked and washing and ironing done by Mummy perchance?

Tertiary educated? What did they study at uni - abstinence and chastity? No, wait - that's what the girls should have been studying, according to these unworldly wankers. But hey, aren't these the same girls that they would have pursued, caught and slept with (albeit in a beer bong fug) at uni? The same ladies that, several years later, these boofhead blokes assume are not only also grown up, educated professionals but have somehow magically converted back to being virgins?

Marcus goes on to point out - but hey, let's face it, any FHM readers would have turned the page after the first paragraph in order to read their horoscope and see if they understand the day's Calvin and Hobbes comic by now - that findings from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Health and Relationships show that only 11% of women and 5% of men in the FHM readers' age group had slept with just the one partner.

Instead, the Australian Longitudinal Study of Health and Relationships shows that Aussie blokes had an average of 9.5 bedtime buddies (the 0.5 was a fellow FHM reader during their 'experimental' phase) and women had 4.7 (the 0.7 was an FHM reader after staying the night and holding a semi-intelligible conversation with their random root).

So whilst a lot of females might be flocking to the cinemas to see an increasingly haggard Carrie and Co get it on with shoes and shags in 'Sex and the City', their blokes are NOT going to actively pursue such gals for longer term activities such as marriage, motherhood or weekend trips to Bunnings.

It also seems to say:

a) some men might lie a teensy weensy little bit about how many women they've bumped uglies with; or

b) there's a much smaller pool of women who shag a great deal more blokes than they're prepared to admit to in surveys; or

c) a bit of both?

Why the emphasis on virginity? Do you buy a house purely from the photo in the Real Estate section? A car from seeing it flash by for five seconds on TV? And what if you survive the courtship, spend your parents' live savings for the bloated wedding reception and find that you're both duds under the doona? Whatever happened to 'try before you buy' and 'practice makes perfect'.

I look to my own experience for evidence. Even after a relatively low-key wedding in my parents back yard, no speeches, $12 worth of material for my outfit and 60 guests, we were so exhausted by the end of the night that our ~ahem~ 'sexual celebration' was a fairly perfunctory effort done only out of duty. It certainly wasn't the most memorable, erm, session, and to think it might be the first foray into fooling around for someone is so very sad, tragic and desperately wrong.

But what do I know - half of marriages end in divorce anyway.

So girls - the first question you ask a bloke who catches your eye is not 'What's your name' or 'What do you do for a crust', it's 'What magazines do you read?'. If 'FHM' is the answer, fling your alcopop into his eyes, angrily thrust the empty into his crotch and get the hell out of there.

End of rant. Off to find Love Chunks and give him a big, grateful and heartfelt hug.

Workplace Wevenge

Co-workers are a great deal worse than family. Yes, we know that you can pick your friends and you can't pick your family - and co-workers in this scenario firmly fall into the 'family' category. Sadly though, it's even worse when you consider that you spend more of your waking hours at work. The last thing you need is to spend that time with colleagues who possess the personality and intelligence of bathroom tiles and IR laws prevent you from giving them a hen-peck or dead leg like you could do to your siblings during times of frustration.

You know the types: the frustrated old Cardigan who guards the stationery cupboard with his life; the Girlfriend at the pub who backstabs you at the office; the graduate know-it-all with an attitude larger than his IQ; unflappable old lag whose age you can guess by counting the rings around her coffee cup; and the evil egomaniac boss who was born, raised and trained in the fiery caverns of hell. Just to name a few.

Getting revenge on these office anals can be a very tricky business. Firstly, you don't want to appear like an unhinged bully or mentally deranged stalker. No, revenge office-style requires patience, delicacy and careful planning. Here are a few ideas for those of you who wish a great more than a paper cut on your comrade cube citizens:

The Raw Prawn. Legend has it that Aussie soldiers in World War II would snort, "Ah, don't come the Raw Prawn with *me* mate," if they felt they were being treated like a fool. Well this is the time to make your *co-worker* the fool instead. Unlike ex-boyfriend's apartments, it is the rare office that has curtain rails to hide raw prawns in, so you'll have to practice your long shots at home with a long-dead crustacean and the slot of your toaster.

When you think you're proficient enough, simply stroll past your victim's car, whip out your prawn and aim it at the grill directly between the windscreen wipers and the windshield. Remember, it is vital that your shot gets the prawn in there first time so that you don't leave any incriminating fingerprints. You probably won't be there to witness it, but the mind-numbingly awful odour of a prawn slowly going bad especially when dispersed via the air vents on long, hot drives home will be severe. Rest assured too that the suffering driver is very unlikely to discover the source of the smell.

Cost one prawn.

The Nigerian Talking Clock. This is a classic, beloved of all wronged people everywhere. Except maybe Nigerians of course. Spend a few valuable minutes looking up the international dialing code and number for the Nigerian talking clock. "After the second stroke, the time will be.." When your co-worker has left their desk for the weekend, dial the number and leave it off the hook until they arrive back on Monday. Said co-worker will be struggling to explain to the accounts department just why their outbound calls increased by seventeen thousand percent in one week.

Cost: 2 minutes of internet search time.

The Audio Assault System. This requires a great deal of technical proficiency, so may only appeal to true cyber geeks (like my darling husband Love Chunks). He has informed me that there are ways of rigging a computer so that the sound is unbearably loud and can blurt out all sorts of unfortunate pieces of information like "I'M DOWNLOADING PORN!" at the most inopportune moments.

Cost: sleeping with an IT guru. Try it, you might find that you like it.

Sugar Substitution. If you're a regular dipper into the shared, coffee-crumb-infested sugar bowl in the office kitchen, you will need to ween yourself off the evil stuff for this to work without your own taste buds being blasted into smithereens. Before your co-worker slumps in for their regular cup of java, substitute the white sugar for salt. Trust me: the totally unexpected taste of salt mixed in with coffee is likely to leave the sipper with a hairstyle they hadn't planned for when getting ready that morning.

Cost: a bag of salt.

Finally, for those with no social life and lots of newspaper, we have the Scrunch-a-thon. A lot of office doors are left open so that cleaners can get in and empty the bins over the weekend, or, failing that, have windows above the door that can be jemmied open. Get yourself a nice selection of beer and chips and tear a page out of the pile of newspapers in front of you. Scrunch, and throw in. Yes, your aim will get better the longer you try. Hopefully you will stagger home in a jolly mood and leave your co-workers' office filled with an ocean of black-and-white balls of paper to wade through.

Cost: your time.

There's plenty more where THOSE ideas came from.....

Oooooh, Anonymous's Knickers are in a Knot!

Oh dearie me. The ever-so-brave 'Anonymous' (the weak-spined commenter that all bloggers love) has taken issue with my review of 'Hey Hey it's Esther Blueburger.'

He or she said: Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Oh Dear, there’s a Poo in the room but no-one want...":

People will naturally have different views on the merits of this or any other film, but having seen this film I can't understand why it's offended you so much. I think David and Margaret are spot on about this film - it's very clever, it's well acted and looks beautiful.

One thing David and Margaret failed to mention that the music for this film is simply outstanding. Normally a review of a film doesn't bother me, but I must say that I found your rant on this film highly offensive. Of course you should be free to express your opinion, but to question the integrity of anyone who happens to have a different opinion than you, as you do in your rant, is totally outrageous and disgusting. David and Margaret have the right to express their opinion without it being slanderously suggested that they are only reviewing a film positively because they are on the take ("how much did they say they'd pay us for saying this nice stuff?").

You also seem to suggest that it's only David and Margaret that have reviewed the film positively (or could possibly review the film positively). This is complete rubbish. While the film hasn't been released yet and therefore hasn't been widely reviewed, if you'd bothered to do your research, you would have found a number of positive reviews from overseas (try the highly reputable Screen Daily for example). Further, the initial audience reviews (with the glaring exception of yours) from the At the Movies website are very positive.

I could pick heaps of issues with your writing on this film. How can Toni Collette be terrific at one point, yet the acting be unconvincing at another? Why should "the other guy in black" in the cinema "in the piss stained end of Hindley Street" be the authority on whether this film has reached its target audience? Why on earth would he know what kids think? And your admission that you commented loudly throughout the screening is an indictment on you, rather than the film. How can you possibly review a film with any objectivity when you're not watching it?

In short, you've provided an unbalanced rant with not a shred of credibility, rather than anything that could even loosely be termed a review. I really think you don’t know enough about film to comment in any meaningful way, so instead can only resort to a vitriolic tirade of abuse. So excuse me if I continue to place more weight on the views of David Stratton over someone who lists Sixteen Candles in their list of all time favourite films.PS I am not associated with the film and have not been paid to make these comments.

Posted by Anonymous to Blurb from the Burbs at 9:15 PM

Hmmm. I couldn't let that slide. So, I wrote:

Thank you for your comment - nay *rant* Anonymous. What a shame you won't reveal your real name.I stand proudly by my opinion that 'Hey Hey it's Esther Blueberger' was an embarrassing mound of crap that only serves to send the already-struggling Australian film industry back into the dark - no dank - ages.

Oh and 'Anonymous'? I *did* do my homework - the only reviews I've found to date were from 'aintitcool' news re the Berlin film festival, Dave and Margaret, and, just yesterday, Empire (who gave it 2 stars by the way). The point I was *trying* to make was that no South Australian publication has seen fit to publish a review. The Traumatiser has merely put in a few puff pieces about Toni Collette's tiny pole dancing scene or Daniela Catanzariti's nerves before opening night. I'm pretty sure that the positive reviews on the 'At the Movies' site are those from participants in the celluloid piece of shite itself.

Hmmm, perhaps I've offended you because you or your darlings went to the private school featured in much of the background scenes?
If you find my views offensive that's tough luck. Go surf somewhere else. And if you think that listing 'Sixteen Candles' as one of my favourite TEEN movies is a negative, then I'd gladly act out the 'Farmer Ted' role than anything in Esther any day: at least it's funny, endearing and well acted.

If the best you can say is that the music is good, then that's pretty tragic. The 'guy in black in the cinema at the piss-stained end of Hindley street' - along with the other two people present - were also REVIEWERS. Four out of four of us hated it. YOU do the math, Anonymous.

Go find yourself a life, Anonymous, for if you find this review "outrageous and disgusting" you clearly don't get out enough.After seeing 'Gallipoli' on DVD during the weekend and seeing what the SA Film Corporation has supported in the past, PooBurger made me want to weep. And it makes me angry that such crap is being shoved down our throats as 'representing the travails of teenagers', 'quirky', 'it made me laugh and cry'..... This movie is about as clever as a failed Big Brother contestant.

There. I feel better now.