Cadbury Crème Egg

Oh dear, sweet, accessible Cadbury Crème Egg. My fillings ache just by glancing over at you, glistening in your primary-coloured foil, stacked in a fetching pile near the check out.

Easter may have just ended, but you manage to linger on. Why is it that you, of all the commercial holiday refuse, remain at full price and all of the other pretenders to your throne (Red tulip, Cadburys, Heritage, even Lindt) are now thrown into a cardboard box emblazoned ‘50% Off'. They're not fit to be seen next to you. All are disfigured - crudely broken, holes picked into their sides from sticky little fingers, smashed into fragments or their boxes dented unbecomingly.

I may have spent the four days of Easter long weekend dreaming of you, but you were never made a reality. No-one gave me any of you - I would have smelt and sensed you long before you were plonked out on the kitchen table for Sunday morning anyhow. Don’t fret, little egg: I made do with many mournful mouthfuls of rabbit ears, dark squares, M&Ms and anything that my daughter Sapphire wished to share. Of course it wasn't enough: it wasn't what I really craved. That, dear Creme Egg, was you.

And so, two weeks later at the supermarket I now find my hands excitedly fumbling for my wallet; coins spinning on to the moving checkout belt. My surrender is now complete. The family groceries are paid by credit card but the pack of six Cadbury Creme Eggs are paid in cash, like a guilty secret, and shoved into my backpack before anyone else can see. Like a true addict, I fidgeted nervously and looked around for a secluded spot to eat one. Not out in the sunlight where it would be too public and possibly offensive for people to see, but in the shade, at the side of a building or beside a........ the alleyway by the cinema! My feet were yearning to run like the wind instead of badly act out the casual saunter my brain was imposing upon them. It wouldn't do to have someone else guess my purpose; I was never ever going to share.

A quick glance around revealed no other passersby, just bird crap-spattered cars, takeaway containers and cigarette butts. My shaking hands ripped off the foil as I eagerly hunched over the egg, shielding it from view. My eyes closed as my two front teeth bit hard into the thick chocolate. The egg white fondant poured out of the top and ran becomingly down the sides of my mouth, but I was already far away from my grimy spot on earth to care. Another big bite saw the fondant turn into a yolky yellow as I greedily gulped it down and chewed the chunks of chocolate at a more leisurely pace. Blood was now pumping warm in my veins and successfully insulating me from the wind and cold of the dull day. After only three precious mouthfuls, I had reached the last morsel - the bottom of the shell. No fondant, just a thick layer of Cadbury dairy milk chocolate. A cruel consolation because it left me wanting more.....

No thoughts at all for other people, my reputation or for finally making my sad little addiction general knowledge I continued in my quest for fleeting pleasure. The wrapping was ripped off in hurried, impatient movements as I crammed the top of the second egg between my teeth, not about to waste one more precious second before consummating the consumption. The foil remnants caused my fillings to buzz in dismay, but who cared - I threw the second half of the egg almost casually into my far-too-willing mouth. It was sheer heaven to lean up against the wall and chew the chocolate chunks and fondant into a dreamily delightful mouth mess....

As my eyes slowly opened, they revealed Debra, a research assistant on the floor below, shopping bags in her hands, gaping at me in disgust. "Ummf, ummf, chomp chomp, Hi there Deb," I called out, wiping the melted chocolate and fondant drool from my face with the back of my hand. Her answer was indecipherable as she spun on her heel and clip-clopped away from me as fast as her stumpy little pins could carry her.

I too made my way back to work, but with nowhere near her frenetic pace. It is disgust and not delight, that makes you do that. Instead, I was reliving my two brief-but-beautiful encounters with you, dear Cadbury Creme Egg, and feeling satiated. For now. There were still four of your comrades left, burning a hole at the bottom of my bag. My mental jury was out as to whether they'd survive the journey through the carpark, across the lawns, under the bridge and up the stairs..... Damn you, you ninety-nine cent oval object of evil !

Is it possible to fall in love with an appliance?

(Figuratively wagging my finger at you, dear reader): No no, no, I don't mean that appliance used mostly nocturnally by the lonely and lustful - but a dishwasher!

Love Chunks and I partially renovated our kitchen earlier this year and felt that our island bench deserved a state-of-the-art dishwasher inserted in it. We were hesitant: would such a box really be capable of cleaning cutlery as well as a pair of hands in pink rubber gloves? Admittedly I was the most skeptical. In 1988 when I was single, sharing a townhouse in Hackney and still convinced that a shaggy spiral perm was the epitome of sophistication, it was also the last time I had ever used a dishwasher.

It was a lovely poo-brown monster, with bright orange knobs on it in homage to the era that fashion, common sense and interior design forgot - the late seventies. However, for us it was only a few years old and certainly seemed a much fun-ner way of getting our plates clean than one of us doing it. Besides, we were diligent university students. We were much more focussed on drinking, finding money for drinking and learning how to cook (usually in that order), and these pursuits left little energy or will for doing anything as sensible as filling the sink up with palmolive and finding the green scourer thingy.

Therefore, the brown monster's first operation for us three girls was an important one: what luxury to have a dishwasher and how remote those arguments with my brothers about whose turn it was to do the dishes seemed. Jo, as the sexy but sensible geology major, read the instructions etched on the front and Fiona, the scatter-brained but creative writer flung in some dishwashing powder. I made all three of us my Tuesday night dinner specialty - toasted tinned spaghetti sandwiches with additional slices of cheese.

Our laboured chewing of the charcoaled squares of mostly inedible filling served only as a coincidental background percussion to the sounds of fury emanating from the kitchen. The windows rattled in sympathy as the machine seemingly sprayed, shook and blasted it's way through the 'regular wash' cycle. "Jeez, I thought that they were supposed to be gentle on your dishes," I remarked, giving up on my sandwich and venturing into the kitchen for a look.

There were some foam and bubbles oozing out of the bottom but what did I know - that also happened when Mum put on a load of washing and the drain in the laundry floor vomited the froth back up. Tentatively, I placed my hands on the counter directly above the machine, noting that the volume had now moved beyond eleven. The formica felt hot, but hey, what did I know - dishes had to be cleaned in hot water didn't they?

My head was starting to throb from the noise, so I grabbed three bottles of cider and backed out of the room into our living area. No respite there, seeing as it was all open plan. "HEY JO," I mimed, "CAN YOU CHECK IT? IS IT WORKING OK?" She bravely skulled her bottle and did a rather good impression of a muscle-man swinging his arms in determination. Good old Jo would know what to do. All of a sudden, the noise stopped. "Thank Packets of Panadol for that," Fi sighed. "At least now we'll be able to put on the telly and...." WHOOSH! WHOOSH! CHUGA CHUGA CHUGA WHOOSH!

She spoke too soon. Our few seconds of peace was merely the eye of the sudsy storm. It was decided that we three needed to escape the din and instead walk around the corner to the pub for a while. Several hours later we came home, full of spirits that produced a lot of good cheer. Had the dishwasher finally finished? Was the kitchen still intact? Yes it was. Jo opened the poo brown door of the dishwasher. Sediment from the detergent was still smeared down the walls and all over the glasses giving them a somewhat festive look. The crockery on the other hand resembled a basket of shattered easter eggs that sat mournfully in a puddle under the sprayer. "Stupid bloody thing," I muttered, giving the door a kick. Ooops - this last movement caused the three vegemite jars we used as drinking glasses to topple over and crack. "Er sorry Jo, I'll get you another couple...."

........... Eighteen years later, I read the dear old Dishlex's instruction book from cover to cover. It was quite an education let me tell you. I'd never even heard of internal fresheners or rinse aids and needed to phone a friend for pasta bowl packing advice. After a busy day of eating (for the dishwasher's sake of course) our first load was ready. Love Chunks popped in the block with the 'magic ball' (it just looked like a common old jaffa to me) and I shut the door. We agreed to select the 'economy cycle' and went to bed.

The morning dawned warm, balmy and bright with hope. Dear sweet Dishlex's door was opened to reveal a gleaming top and bottom drawer full of clean, streak-free and intact dishes. Perfect plates, gorgeous glasses, nifty knives and terrific tupperware. Blinking back tears - either from emotion or from sticking my head too far inside and bashing it against the stainless steel roof - I closed the door, leaving all of the magnificent dishware inside. I quickly looked to my left to make sure that Love Chunks and Sapphire weren't about to enter the room, and I gave the Dishlex door a kiss of gratitude.

Reality then set in - I really felt like a coffee, and the dog was pestering me for her weetbix breakfast. What a bugger - I'd have to unpack the dishwasher.

Blood in the Boardroom

My boss, Dr B, a respected university professor, was hosting a roundtable discussion on an extremely important issue last week (and no, I don't mean the introduction of fat-free chocolate with added fibre and selenium). As the newbie to the centre, it was my role to ensure that it was all catered for, set up properly and that all the visiting egg-heads could insert their data sticks and direct themselves towards the baguettes and fruit on the table.

None of the above responsibilities are difficult, unless it happens to be required of me, the clumsiest and most un-smooth person in the southern hemisphere. On this particular day however, things seemed to be chugging along rather swimmingly. The caterer had arrived a half hour early to set up the coffee machine and fill the long oval table with baguettes, fruit and carrot cake and I had already made enough copies of the program and discussion papers and put them on every chair in the room.

Midday saw the data projector working nicely, the whiteboard pristine (hint to youse all: baby wipes gets rid of the old faded scrawls that the eraser can't rub away) and a beaming Dr B exhorting me to stay and join her boffin buddies for lunch. "You've done an amazing job MillyMoo. I'd like to introduce them all to you as I'm sure you'll be forging some pretty productive working relationships."

Reddening, I accepted her invitation even though I felt rather sweaty and dishevelled after wrestling in the doorway-sized rat-hole that served as the boardroom's kitchen. I needn't have worried - of course, these were academics we were dealing with here, the kind of people who dress themselves in the dark and who think the Twist is a crazy new dance that all the young kids are doing.... Academics are a unique breed who are often world authorities in their particular fields of expertise but struggle to comprehend the workings of velcro. Naturally then, the baguettes and fruit were enough to impress - most of them would have been functioning on fellowships and grants that would have made a jar of international roast a daring luxury.

It was then that Bernard's keen eyes fell upon the plate of carrot cake. "Oh wait a second," I piped. "Let me go and get our new bread knife so that I can slice up some pieces for you." Off I trotted to our little treasure trove of kitchen implements. The rancid rat hole only possessed a bolognese-splattered microwave, a paper towel dispenser and some poo brown 'cafe bar' cup holders originating from the late seventies. Hidden in the corner behind the unclaimed shelf of warped tupperware lids, was a reflex paper box, and in it were our newly-purchased-from-KMart platters, glasses, serviettes and knives. Full of pride I scuttled back to the boardroom with the new Wiltshire glinting evilly by my side.

Off went the gladwrap as my right hand prepared to sink the knife into the glisteningly moist cake. Somehow, in less time than the blink of an eye, the blade skimmed the top of the cream cheese icing and instead sliced into my left index finger. Two seconds later when the pain finally reached my nerve endings and my eyes registered the cake being redecorated in red splatters, I dropped the knife, muttering something like "BLOODY HELL!"

This naturally brought the entire roundtable discussion to a standstill. "Oh, sorry folks, it's OK, I'll just um, pop out and find some, um...." Leaving an MA18+ rated trail of bright red drops behind me, I found myself again in the rathole, frantically pulling out papertowels and wrapping them around my finger. "POO BUM BUGGER SHIT FART!" I screamed at the bar fridge, giving it a kick for extra emphasis. "Why do these things always happen to ME?"

Dr B tapped me on the shoulder. "MillyMoo are you all right? Should I take you to see a doctor --- oh dear, it's seeped through and it's running down towards your elbow!"

The blood plop plopped on the floor in a steady stream. "Oh never mind, it's a good thing I'm wearing black," I said, smiling weakly. "You go back to your egg-heads ----- sorry --- colleagues --- and I'll find myself some decent band-aids." Such hopeful, naive words were rarely spoken in the heritage listed hellhole known as our Research Institute before. There was no first aid box, no-one in their office who'd been clever enough to stuff a bandaid in their briefcase and nothing other than toilet paper that was even remotely absorbent. (Actually that's not strictly true, but I don't think that sticking my hand in the brown berber modular settee abandoned in the front hallway would have been a particularly successful look either).

After ten minutes of much cursing, fumbling and dripping later, I tried to slip back into the boardroom quietly and unnannounced. No such luck. "Give us a look at your finger MillyMoo! Has it stopped bleeding yet?" "Do you feel dizzy from the blood loss?"

"Well actually yes I do come to think of it---"

"Have you filled out the OHS 'Incident and Accident Report form'?"

"Um no, I've been a bit waylaid----"

"We've sliced the half of the cake that wasn't tainted by your blood spill. Wanna piece?"

In my haste and greed to say yes, the triple layered paper handtowel came loose and more claret splashed onto the table, my elbow and the cake. As I dashed from the room in an aura of disgust and disappointment, I hoped fervently that the baguettes and tim tams made up for the desecration of the cake.

Old Boilers' Night

My dear friend Bec is getting married to her longtime love and co-creator of her two daughters, Phil. Whilst the nuptuals will occur next month, a friend decided to organise a Hens' Night for her on Saturday night.

Bec approached the idea with a fair amount of (quite reasonable) trepidation: "Look Pam, I'm thirty six years old. I don't need to wear a veil or have any condoms pinned on to my skirt, OK?" I don't know who was more relieved when Pam quickly agreed - Bec or me. No, it was simply to be a night out with the girls - food, wine, laughter and - if more wine was consumed - dancing.

Love Chunks and Sapphire drove Bec, Deb and myself into Rundle Street and were even kind enough to slow down to a mere 25km to let us roll out onto the tarmac unscathed. It was hard not to look after them with a droopy bottom lip as I longed to be with them at home, on the sofa, in my ever-reliable grey marle trakky daks, cuddling the dog. Nevertheless it did not take long for the top floor of the LemonGrass restaurant to fill up. There was about twenty of us 'hens', all frocked up and made up, and all a-chattering, a-clucking at Samara's 7 month-old belly and a-slurping the too-easy-to-inhale sparkling burgundy. Once again, the current trend in restaurant decor (hardwood floors, chrome and glass) made conversations only audible if screamed directly into my ear or drunkenly mimed in front of me.

The night was going along marvellously - as well as a moth at a lighthouse. I got to know a few of Bec's friends that I'd heard about for years and found that we all got along like well, the moth who found the lighthouse and then caught on fire because it was too huge and too hot and set him alight..... Or something like that; the sparkling burgundy was starting to play with my ability to pronunciate. Helped me hear a lot more though, I was sure of it.

Having ordered a Thai banquet for 20 was somewhat of a logistical challenge, especially when we were now onto white wines and vodkas. King Prawns scuttled away from my tenuous grasp with the chop sticks and the hokkien noodles were more slippery than a timeshare salesman at a seaworld smorgasbord. It was delicious though and made me very grateful to have worn all black for the evening so that the pesky beef strip escapees taking the perilous Cleavage route to the freedom of Skirt Valley could not be spotted.

"Whaaa-a-aaa? Oh, we're goin.... where are we ah goin to.....?" It was hard to tell whether I asked the question or heard somebody else holler it over the packed room of diners. It was easiest to follow the leader; the very decisive, tall, elegant and glamorous Kate. The Botanic Hotel.....!? My face glowed redder than the raspberry vodka I was holding as I remembered the last times I had been at the Bot. 1986 with Sean in the underground restaurant. Uber posh meal for us two students, of prawn cocktails (yep, resting on lettuce in wide champagne saucers), rump steak (with peppercorn sauce and chips thank you very much) and a chocolate mousse - hopefully not in a hastily-rinsed out prawn cocktail glass. And then, a few years later, on a date with Ian, the hopefully gropey geology PhD dude. His ancient Mazda smelled as though a flatulent jersey cow had slept in it, and Ian wasn't much better. My mature solution to avoid the inevitable octopus-wrestling conclusion to the hellish date was to liberally flush out my system with $4 bottles of champagne and then wind up - or should I say on the floor in the special room that flushes....

Looking around the velvety, funked-up interior didn't fill me with any sense of nostalgia, nor relief about the obvious design improvements. The front bar and pool room were jam-packed with hot, sweaty, 20-year old bodies - all of whom could have been my children, I realised glumly. My long black top, pink skirt and black boots had felt rather nice as I dabbed on some lippy in front of the mirror at home, but here I felt like I was looking for my young lad Nathan who had outstayed his curfew by two hours and had told me he was at choir practice.....

Poor Samara's difficulties squeezing past people with a Snoopy-like stomach forced the Hens to try the Stag hotel. Downstairs was much like the Botanic, but less velvet and more wood; and therefore much more spillage. This was all realised by my brain after my legs suddenly slipped through the beer slop, determinedly on their way to a full split if not thankfully stopped by the sides of the beer tables either side of the doorway. Any cool credibility I had was now gone, so I meekly hobbled after the rest of the hens up the stairs.

It was rather flattering to have our hands stamped by the bouncer and see him refuse a group of young girls and a larger bunch of young blokes. Why us? Did they want to increase the average age of the upstairs punters? Was it out of pity? Nah: after half a bottle of burgundy, a glass of white and two raspberry vodkas the answer was clear - it was because we were GORGEOUS. Our husbands didn't know how LUCKY they were to have such hot, intelligent, switched-on, sophisticated.....Oooops sorry about that Pam. I'll see if I've got some safety pins in my handbag when we get upstairs - I'm sure I'll be able to re-attach the bottom of your skirt somehow... these boots are longer and pointier than I thought.....

After venturing up the bar and having only been ignored by the groovy young bartender with Dumb Hair for ten minutes, I managed to scream out my order for a drink to make Pam less aware of her clothing troubles - "A double vodka with lemon and lime PLEASE, and I'll have a raspberry VODKA with...." My twenty buck note was eyed with disdain; not a bad achievement for someone with four eyebrow piercings: "It's twenty TWO dollars love."
LOVE? How dare he assume that because of my age that I'd accept being called such a patronising....... Hey, wait on a second - TWENTY TWO DOLLARS FOR TWO DRINKS?
Maybe I should have drunk up the spilt beer on the floor by the door instead of doing the splits.

Several drinks and giggles later, the other hens pushed their way through to the dance floor; a sticky wooden square wedged directly in front of the epileptic DJ. Samara sat with her hands on her in-vitro-vestibule looking weary. "They're all dancing, which is my sign for going home," I yelled into her ear. "Wanna go and find some taxis?"
And we did. Well, after taking another quarter of an hour hugging everyone goodbye, telling Bec we loved her and squeezing our way back through the sweaty youngsters - a 7 months' pregant Mum of three and her Nana, ready to jab someone in the buttocks with her automatic brolly if they didn't move along quick and sharpish.

I had a good night, honest I did. It's interesting - not fun - to do it occasionally, because it makes me realise just how grateful I am for what I have at home, which is the best nightspot in Adelaide in my opinion. The house was dark as I dropped the keys on the floorboards, gallumped around in my boots and dropped the eye-make-up remover jar on the bathroom tiles. All around me they were sleeping - Love Chunks, Sapphire and the orange dog. How I missed them that night!

My left ear hole

As my regulars know, I’m 37. And a half. Normally the reality of careening towards the end of my thirties like a greased up luge victim travelling faster than the speed of light really doesn’t worry me too much.

However, at my age, I thought I was long past the stage of getting pimples. I’m getting wrinkles instead: crows’ feet, laugh lines, frown furrows and even the marks made by my face scrunched up on the pillow take hours to disappear. Therefore it's extremely frustrating to wake up one morning - with a visage that will take until lunchtime to fully unfold – and see a zit on my neck; another hiding in an eyebrow and a mini-Mars gravitated on the flap of skin/cartilage by my left ear hole.

OK, so they may not be on my nose, chin or cheeks but with my fluorescent skin they stand out like angry red texta squiggles on a whiteboard. I mean come on….! It’s hard enough dealing with ageing without also having to endure the indignity of pimples as well.

Surely my posh Ella Bache ‘Purifying Emulsion for oily, sensitive skin’ (at $69 – Love Chunks will kill me) should be able to keep both wrinkles and pimples at bay? Just to be sure, I checked through the list of ingredients. In order of quantity, they are:
Water
PEG-8 Beeswax
Octyldodecyl Myristate
Caprylic Triglyceride
Cyclomethicone
Glyceryl stearate
PEG-100 stearate
Propylene Glycol
Tomato extract
Butcherbroom extract
Hydroxyethylcellulose
Carbomer
Triethanolamine
Methylparaben
Propylparaben
o-Cymen-5-ol
Trisodium EDTA
FD&C Red 4
D&C Red 33
FD&C Yellow 6
Fragrance

(Affecting crazed, Jim Carrey-like) smile: Well isn’t that nice. Don’t they sound all-natural and enticing! No wonder my skin is confused about being either a spotty adolescent or a particularly sprightly pensioner – it’s trying to deal with tomatoes, wax and something called o-Cymen-5-ol. Have you ever heard of anything called ‘o-Cymen-5-ol’? Me either, yet I’m willingly rubbing it onto my face…..

And for future reference, the exclamation ‘Crikey!’ isn’t just the sole property of fellow Aussie Steve Irwin. Forget the potential chemical cocktails or carcinogenic concerns of the emulsion and let’s focus on the money. This stuff cost me sixty nine hard earned Aussie dollars (about $10 bucks American, or one English pound) for what - a gloop of water and beeswax? Perhaps I should just go back to the sorbolene that ‘Ned’s Crazy Bargain Store’ sells for $2 per half-litre. If it feels too sticky, I could keep my eyes open for whatever slippery unguent is cheapest at Coles.

All this was tumbling around and around in my brain as I drove into work and gleefully found the well-hidden free car-parking spot this morning. ‘Free’ means that the ‘three hour parking ONLY between 8am and 6pm’ sign has been flogged, leaving just an empty pole. There’s six of us in a row that are willing to risk it and challenge any parking tickets that have yet to materialise.

Anyhow, I was feeling OKish. Still not thrilled about the face – Wrinkles and Zits give me the Sh---- sure-fire excuse for a blog; but OK enough. Until a fierce, cruel autumnal gust of wind swept through the gum trees, across the carpark and ……….straight up my skirt.

Of course I would be wearing a floaty, three-tiered peasanty skirt today wouldn’t I. Generous volumes of material and lace edging that so very easily enabled the breeze to blow it right over my head. At least it momentarily covered my face and my look of sheer horror and humiliation. Unfortunately it didn’t muffle my ears and so I heard a huge guffaw from the fat guy delivering a tray of focaccias to the Italian restaurant behind me. A sixty-something admin lady walked past me as quickly as she could; her eyes downcast but her mouth pressed shut in a grim line – clearly trying not to piss herself at my misfortune.

Actually on further thought, there was a bright side – my wrinkles and zits were hidden.

Death or Debts?

In the Age newspaper today there was an article about inheritance. Cheerfully they're warning us that if we’re counting on landing a large inheritance to pay off the mortgage and fund the world trip then we have not bought ourselves a ticket to Reality Land.

Researchers have found that the odds of someone landing a large bequest are small, with only one in every 100 inheritances big enough to buy an average house in Sydney. (That high? I thought only one in every 10,000 people could afford to buy a house in Sydney). The University of Canberra's National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling has found that more than half of all bequests in Australia are less than $20,000 and just 18 per cent worth more than $100,000.

Their study also found that people on higher incomes have a better chance of inheriting. "Those with the least need have the greatest chance of inheriting a significant amount," they say. Only 1.4 per cent of adults receive an inheritance in any given year. The boffins are at pains to stress that even though the average inheritance is currently $64,000, that figure is artificially inflated by a small number of very large inheritances that went to those who were already wealthy. (Typical isn’t it? Smug rich bastards just get richer when Grandma carks it, and they’ll be the ones who end up emulating Kerry Packer’s ‘achievement’ of only paying $100 per year in personal income tax and calling everyone not a billionaire a bludger....)

Sorry, off my soapbox and back to the subject at hand. With the typical inheritance beneficiary aged under 50, and the majority of bequests less than $20,000, the study concludes most inheritances will probably be consumed well before retirement. Therefore most baby boomers, Generation X-ers and Y-ers will not be able to depend on that increasingly mythical 'big inheritance' to see them into debtless retirement. If anything, all they’ll be able to do is buy a brand new Hyundai Getz and spend a week at Surfers Paradise.

Well, well, well…. The above article would be the paper evidence to flash under your folks noses, wouldn’t it? That’s right, those selfish early baby boomers (born in the forties) who all took packages at 55 and immediately splashed out on a new 4WD and matching caravan. Open your eyes: the roads are full of them – beaming Bruces and permed Pams in their gleaming road trains: hogging the highway as they tootle leisurely along at 80km p/hour on their merry way up to Queensland to avoid the chills of a southern winter. Whilst we are roughing it in our tents at the non-powered sites, the Bruces and Pams only leave the comfort of their 5-star mobile homes to squelch across the gravel in their rockports to use the ablutions or go buy some steak for their min-webers.

Not that I blame them – my mockery is just an obvious sign of jealousy. My parents are part of this generation – the SKIPs – Spending the Kids’ Inheritance Pronto. Dad was a highschool teacher (and a market gardener in his spare time; also a cricket coach, cricket player, tennis player, golfer, marathon runner, champion basketballer and art-class devotee), who decided that thirty years of teaching sullen teenagers the mysteries of chemistry and biology was long enough. Mum was a clerical assistant (after fifteen years full time mothering of three children; also reading newspapers to the blind, helping in the school canteen, Meals on Wheels, listening to children read, being the wardrobe mistress and costume designer for the local dramatic society, playing tennis, umpiring netball) who stuck at her job until she was 63 before receiving her Seniors’ Card in the post. She was the lowest paid in her office but could run rings around her supposed superiors - they were just 20 years younger when they entered the workforce.

My parents deserve to be SKIPs and I think I can confidently say that my two brothers would heartily agree with me. They managed to raise us on one piss-poor teachers' income when we were young and we always went away somewhere every single school holidays. We had our very own cricket pitch in the back yard - complete with nets - and somehow managed to survive on the tragic Australian dollar conversion rate when Dad transferred to Aberdeen Scotland for a year. (Although I never want to see another digestive biscuit or turnip-loaded anything ever again). Later they put all three of us through university with the staggering expenses that it entailed, especially the accommodation costs for three country bumpkins experiencing pub crawls, toga parties and skullduggery for the first time. At term holidays, their street was full of gas-converted early 1970s volvos that Dad had found for us: safe and cheap.

When we were finally off their hands, they must have sighed with relief, kicked up their heels with joy and whilst rubbing their twanged back muscles then looked around their house with dismay. Picture the scene: "Oh this is juuuust Great – we’ve got a house built in the 1960s that we’ve decorated in a late 1970s style in time for the 1990s. Our volvo is approaching 30 and the toyota has a beehive flourishing amongst the rust-encrusted back fender. The caravan is a bright-orange 1976 leaky nightmare and we’ve only been overseas once: 20 years ago. We've both shopped exclusively at Target - (Mum to Dad) - and you've essentially bought the same brown shirt, jumper and trousers since 1973 and I've either sewn my own or rustled through the sales racks."

So, for the first time in their lives, they started to live, really live. You know – buy a chocolate mudcake instead of the dried-out ‘butter cake’ from Balfours. The strong green canvas ‘designer’ chairs instead of the slatted plastic shockers from K-Mart. Most surprisingly to me was that they even started to go to the cinema – virtually unheard of before. The last time my olds went to see a movie not playing on TV was when they had just paid off the house - Mrs Mableson offered to babysit us and their idea of letting their hair down was to see 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'. In 1974. I worried about what Mum would make of the language, nudity and violence that would assail her delicate sensibilities. Obviously not much because she now goes every week and has been hassling me to see ‘Miss Henderson Presents’ because it has “tasteful full-frontal male nudity…”

And yet….. there’s a part of me that thinks: Oh Bugger. Sadly for Mum, both her parents had died when she was only 38 years old – exactly my age right now. Her share of the inheritance was enough to buy a brand new toyota landcruiser, a 23 foot long caravan and various other bits and pieces. It’s difficult to stop myself mentally calculating what that would cost me now: $85K easy for the ‘cruiser and at least $50K for the ‘van. Whoah, what we could do with $135,000 right now – pay off the mortgage!

Isn’t that absolutely pathetic of me? I’m exactly like the over-anxious losers that the Uni of Canberra’s research so clearly shows are NOT going to get anything like that and shouldn’t be expecting, well, anything of note moneywise.

The nice MillyMoo beams and says: “Go for it Mum and Dad! Travel, enjoy yourselves, entertain, buy heaps of stuff – you’ve earned so you should spend it! You did it hard to raise us, so now you should be spending hard!” The evil MillyMoo curls her cruel, thin lips and snidely mutters: “Yeah great, good onyers. It’s all right for you guys to be able to buy what you liked at our age but don’t worry, we’ll get by, we’ll somehow muddle our way through…..”

I want my marvellous, kind, funny, generous and creative Mum to live to 100. I want my perceptive, intelligent, funny and broad-minded Dad to live to 99. (That’s just so he’s in rigor mortis the same time as Mum). Therefore, I’m realising, only whilst I’m sitting here typing this, that I don’t want $135,000 to come my way this year.

.......Well, I do, but it’ll have to be via a lotto win. Or a scratchie ticket. Maybe a gold nugget, mysteriously buried in our geranium patch, dug up when I do my annual (and much-resented) weeding. A $2M overdraft from penguin books, simply on the strength of my dazzling personality, intellect and typed up chook scratchings...... I think I'm worse than pathetic!

Desperately seeking Sanity

Yes dear reader, it's been a few weeks since I've become enraged enough about the clothing worn by our so-called celebrities. Here's a few that have given me cause to shake my head ruefully before cacking myself with laughter.


First cab off the rank, Yasmin LeBon, was recently voted one of the UK's style icons.

(Invested with as much weariness as possible): *Sigh*. Those stupid little capelet things are about the dumbest things worn by sartorial slaves everywhere since we convinced ourselves that ----

Yassa's blouse reminds me of what my Mum's choir group used to wear with their black skirts in the mid-seventies and her skirt was clearly swiped from the satin and candlewick bedspread at my grandma's house.

Is it just me, or are you also disturbed by the trend in recent years to wear nothing that matches whatsoever. 'BoHo' is more 'Hobo' . If I dared wear this tragi-pastel ensemble out, I'd be compared to 'Mary' the rehabilitated mental patient from the fabulously funny TV show 'Little Britain'. Chances are I'd probably then lick your face as well "Eeeh eh ehhh...."



This uncoiled strip of twine is all that remains of Anna Kournikova these days. Any chunky muscles from thwacking a fuzzy yellow ball around have completely disappeared - instead she's gone for the standard, 'Welcome-to-the-US-of-A' emaciated starving starlet look.

Dunno why she's looking so pleased with herself: perhaps she spotted Nicole Richie across the room and called her a Big Fatty Boom Bah Lard Arse. Or asked her for diet tips.

Anna, Anna, Anna - go inhale (and keep it down) a big bacon sarnie right now. Then cram in some large fries, a huge chocolate milkshake and a KitKat chunky. Maybe I'll have one on your behalf.


I have never understood the world's fascination with the Moulding Bones or in particular, their lead wrinkly, Mick Jagger. He is simply a brittle little breadstick with a set of lips that could suck the juice out of a lemon in the next suburb.

So here he is: his latest model's very own ventriloquist's dummy, who unfortunately still gets the opportunity to sing for himself. His minders have to carry around a stepladder and a support shelf for him to climb up and rest his lips on in order to kiss her occasionally.

Anything more intimate than that is an impossibility: she'd slice him with her shoulder blades and any physical friction created by Mick would start a fire.



From crap rock to crap lit: Salman Rushdie with his 6 foot wife. Another case of mid-life, mid-multi-million dollar crisis.

....and I'm sure he married her for her exacting editing skills and insight into the issues facing modern muslims today.....

He looks so damn smug - I just want her to reach down and slap him rapidly on the head like Benny Hill used to do to the short bald guy on his show.... or just slap him, full stop.


Aw, bless him - Rogerin' Rod Stewart's opted for homespun comfort wearing a Scottish dressing gown and his wife Penny has gone for a sequinned stick of liquorice.

He's actually looking pretty grim because Penny just whispered, "Now you look here you sleazy little bugger - one flirty move from you at my niece's 18th birthday tonight and I'll hang you up on the coat-rack behind you and use your willy as a shoe shiner"

But wait, Rod's always lagged behind dear old Tony Curtis, here pictured with Wife Number Seven who is about 40 years younger.

Again we have the cleavage, the one-foot height difference and a look of total self-satisfaction from both sides: "I've got me a hot young gal....." and "I can close my eyes when we shag and think of my brand new BMW..."

Tony's gone for the RainMan look with the waistband up around his armpits, cutting him in half like a human humpty dumpty. Number 7 isn't any better unless she's actually a Marilyn impersonator in drag?

And finally, I present you with a photo of Gary Glitter, recently sentenced to three years in a Vietnam prison for sexually abusing two young girls. He's done a sterling job of visually convincing us that he's pure, innocent and absolutely able to be trusted with the local girl guides' regiment.

Dreams had better not come true

Admittedly I’m never too excited when the first sentence of a blog states: “I had a really weird dream last night.” But tough luck; I really did have a weirdo dream last night.

It was one of those dreams that your brain sends you to let you know that your bladder is full and it’s high time you woke up, staggered down the hall in the darkness and emptied it; all the while praying to yourself that, because your eyes are still closed, you are still asleep and NOT going to lie awake scratching yourself for the rest of the night. In this particular dream I was wearing one of those pointless Nascar racegoers’ hats that had a siphon running around the brim and a tube that fed beer directly into my mouth.

In all honestly, there’d certainly be a fair few Aussie car watchers (Grand Prix, Clipsal 500) that would regard such a device as being the best thing since getting a sun-browned butt-crack whilst still fully clothed. Anyhow, I was sipping away on the tube happily, feeling mightily pleased with myself and life in general.

A quick glance around me revealed the location to be the university: lots of tall, elegant gum trees, green grass and winding paths. ‘What was I doing here wearing this hat’, I wondered idly, noticing that no-one else walking by had one. ‘Perhaps it’s a concert or an all-day family event’, I guessed.

However then I looked down towards the blurry thin outline that was the drinking tube. That cloudy plastic python stealthily wound itself down around my waist, further down around my hips and disappeared into – well, gulp – an area that no-one would wish to drink some yellowish liquid from….. As I sat up in bed and brushed my sticky fringe out of my eyes, it made me realise that it put a new spin on the phrase: “I tip my hat off to you.” It also explained why I've never ever liked the taste of beer in my waking/sane hours.

Unlike the other bloggers, I very rarely have dreams that I can remember. If I do remember them, they’re normally recurring ones that are mundane: many’s the time I’ve been dream-running for my life/bus/partner/Frisbee/nearby toilet and woken up to find the sheets all twisted into a fabric plait and my legs still kicking along.

The other regular nocturnal nightmare is one where I am prevented from getting to where I desperately need to go. People call me, intercept me, accidents happen, I fall over, get caught in a traffic jam or asked to do more work before I can leave. This normally finds me clenching the sheets and quilt so tightly that I’m covered in sweat and still feeling unaccountably angry long after I’ve woken and skipped to the loo and back. Love Chunks once had inadvertently woken me up during this nominal nightmare so that he could have his share of the sheets and I yelled at him to “LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU HOLLOW-HEADED MOOSE MUNCHER!” No, I don’t know what it means either, but he seemed content to lie on his side of the bed without any covers.

Love Chunks has thumped me in the face on more than one occasion. Put the phone down, we don’t need the Domestic Violence unit; he was asleep at the time. He tends to nod off on his side, with both arms raised to his chin, ala Rusty ‘Cinderella Man’ Crowe. Unfortunately for me, when his muscles go into their psychotic spasmic dance, one of the fists shoots out and pops me a sharp one on the nose. Needless to say, we don’t tend to sleep face-to-face much any more. Also the thought of waking up to each other’s Morning Butt-Breath isn’t convincing us we’re missing out on anything either.

Love Chunks, like me, doesn’t have much to report inside his noggin’ at night-time. Well, maybe that’s a bit harsh, because he also has a recurring dream. In it, he’s sitting on the toilet, feeling OK, feeling comfortable, doing what a bloke has to do. Laying a cable; Dropping John Howard off at the pool; Posting Osama a letter...... All is well and good until he realises that he’s not in a stall or at home, but is instead plonked right in the middle of Rundle Mall, right by the Silver Balls sculpture. No-one is noticing him, but his embarrassment is enormous. Does he finish what he’s doing and walk away with confidence? Stay seated so that nothing pops out and scares the old gals on their way to Harris Scarfes? Ah, if only we had the foresight and lateral thinking we (mostly) possess in our waking hours – he should have put his cap on the ground in front of him and convinced some shoppers that he’s a living art busker. Might be more money in it than meteorology….

Perhaps I should try what my buddy Jillaroo recommends - Dilmah decaffeinated tea. Both she, hubby Kent and their friend Ingrid have all sworn that they’ve had the most psychedelic and off-the-planet dreams the night of slurping one of the dilmah decaff bags. I’ve forgotten all of the details, but I know that in one part of Jill’s jolly nocturnal journey she “did something to anger a nearby ferret, who rode his bike over and…..”

I'm not yet convinced though. Couldn't I sniff a few whiteboard markers here in the office and then go home to inhale a full family-sized block of Nestle Dark Cappuccino chocolate and get drunk on Bailey's irish creme instead?

Have hole-punch, will settle

For too many years I've been the victim of many a post-it note troll.

Yes, troll. Those particular ladies who are the keepers of the keys to the stationery cupboard. Said trolls have tended, in my experience, to be older females who clearly modelled themselves (at the start of their so-called careers) on the hard-faced screw guard from Prisoner. They prefer not to be involved in a specific project or through actively serving any real member of the public but instead get their gnarly nails into the head-office essentials. This strategy serves their purpose well - everyone has to grovel to them and they can pretty well make up any administrative permission form or approvals process up whenever the mood takes them.

There is also a male version of the Office Troll, and he is known (in my reality at least) at the Back Office Bore. He's about the same age as the post-it note princess but a fair bit more bitter about the management who have overlooked him. Feeling powerless to a) get the executives to change their minds and promote him; b) deal with his halitosis or c) try working harder; he finds it more rewarding to take his frustrations out on the lower links of the food chain.

People like me. People like me who, after only five days, slam their own heads in their lower filing cabinet drawers just to reassure themselves that they are still on planet earth and that some things - like searing pain - remain a reliable constant.

People like me who, whilst not claiming to be a Rhodes Scholar, are not total meat heads either. People like me who must forget that Joe from the IT help desk at a different office 35km away may indeed sound like a poly-cretinous, mono-synaptic, defective dickhead with a fetish for forms but is no doubt a really nice guy. To his family. On weekends. Away in Noosa. And we must remember our mantra when the troll asks for each post-it pad to be itemised separately: she may appear to be virgin with about as much warmth as a fishfinger but I'm sure she's a hard-working helper at her local Salvation Army shop and is loved by all neighbouring children. Before she lures them into her garden shed. Bites their heads off. And eats them!

I've found that the only way I can cope with these Losers who Lust for Little shots of Power is to suck up to them. Sad, isn't it. If you don't smile and laugh at their weak, funny-as-death jokes or smile and nod seriously when they waffle on about the forms that you should have completed instead of the one you actually completed, you'd be without:

• a functioning computer
• a chair, filing cabinet and bookshelf
• a bin that empties every night
• stationery
• air conditioning
• long distance access on the telephone
• diary access or invitations to free morning teas and lunches; and
• toilet paper.

The disappointing reality is that you will be worse off by doing what you want to do, namely:

• Getting Eunice is a headlock and choking her with her own beige cardigan sleeves
• Yelling: "GET YOURSELF A GOOD, HARD SHAG YOU WITHERED OLD WENCH!"
• Calling her bluff and hoping that her own natural stupidity will get you what you want - Um Dorothy, are you insinuating that I should be inured to tolerate such unacceptably moronic and ludicrous conditions that can only be viewed as utterly insolent to the overall mission of our corporation you minute specimen of humanity?
• Kick over her desk, shove her out of the window (with those godawful vertical drapes swinging dramatically) and steal however many fluoro markers you bloody well need.
• To Darryl, the IT Drone - GET OFF YOUR FAT ARSE BEFORE YOUR BUTT CHEEKS SUCK UP THE STOOL FOR GOOD AND TURN MY COMPUTER ON
• Slapping the top of his head rhythmically like Benny Hill used to do to the short bald bloke
• Flashing your boobs at him, announcing, "As if you've ever got your hands on anything like these' and
• Poking his eyes out with your kilometrico pen, clipping his nose shut with a bulldog clamp and threatening to paint his mouth white with liquid paper unless you're connected to the internet.

After you banish the above thoughts and actions from your mind and complete your squirmingly-awful suck up routine, just comfort yourself with this - you got your stuff and can settle into your job and move on but they still have to be themselves, day after day after day after day after day.....

“There’s a form you have to complete first….” Only four days into my new job at a large university and I still keep hoping that once, just once, someone will be able to say to me, “Yes, sure, you’ve come to the right person. I’ll do it today.” But that’s about as likely to happen as my being able to wake up in the morning without first grunting "Ooof, Ooooh" like a Fight Club survivor. Before you accuse me of being unrealistic in terms of expectations from bureaucracy, let me apprise you of the steps I’ve taken so far: Glanced through my induction papers. Oh that’s right I don’t have any. Nor did I get a welcome chat with any insect from HR. Asked my boss, the Queen B who is actually a very generous, fun, driven lady. “Um, I don’t really know. You could use all of this information-seeking to help you when you induct our four new research fellows who are starting on Monday.” Fair enough. I trot gaily down the stairs and tentatively knock at the unit’s Administration Assistant’s office door. I plaster a friendly-but-determined smile on my face as I introduce myself, throw in the requisite amount of flattery “My boss B has raved about you, so I thought it was high time to come over and meet you….” and then beg for some help. Deb proves to be warm and accommodating. “Have you completed the forms via the intranet…?” After thanking her profusely and promising to meet up later for a coffee, I trudge back upstairs to search for the afore-mentioned form. It’s there all right, but the system won’t let me download, print or email the damn thing. Oh that’s right, I don’t exist yet. How can that be – HR interviewed me, sent me out an employment contract and will presumably pay me next week: shouldn’t they know what the hell I should be doing? Bugger it; I’ll call HR if they won’t call me. Voicemail. Stupid, useless, bloody voicemail. We were forbidden it at my old government job because the CEO considered that someone else should be able to take the call and deal with it. But no, here, with a staff of 3,000 and 45 in HR, no-one is skilled enough to help. I leave a cheery message and stammer as I glance frantically down at a post-it note with my phone number on it – I’m not on the directory yet, so that yellow rectangle that keeps falling off the edge of my monitor is my lifeline, my only evidence of existence. Hmm, I’m sure that she’ll call back sometime today. Obviously not. It’s now Thursday. I’ll try – Graham, Lindsay, Karen, Vicki – well at least they’re getting value for money out of their voicemail. I don’t want to bother Deb again about this – I’ve already used her fax machine four times; pestered her for a list of conference caterers; shadowed her on a mail-run in order to find my way to the campus service centre; and forced her (out of sheer pity) to rescue me from being lost in the psychology department. Instead of Deb it is time to try one of the Liz’s – the most approachable one. This Liz has just been through her mid-life crisis and returned from working on a yacht in the Bahamas with her husband. If she was any more laidback she’d be the living personification of the Reach toothbrush’s ‘Flip Top Head’ cartoon guy. She suggests the intranet. Oh. Then contacting HR. Right, they’re often a bit hard to catch. Maybe Deb would know? I thank her with a cheery wave and get the hell out of there before she sees my chin wobble and my eyes go all watery. Queen B, is back from her seminar. “Have you organised the paperwork for the PhD students and research fellows yet?” Even though she is a world-renowned academic and about to publish her fourth book, she nods understandingly when I, red-faced, garble out a few sentences with words such as ‘Annoying Cardigans’, ‘Useless Bastards’, and ‘Who do I have to shag to get a friggin form to complete, be approved, be allocated a job number and actually be – *gasp* – done?’ We have a good laugh at that – most of the cardigans are puny enough for a fit gal like me to snap over my knees like kindling. It was time for the big guns – “I’ll call Info Tech.” On hold. Messages left after the beep and remember, to log your job via the intranet or via the forms. Voicemail. Email. Deb taps me on the shoulder, scares the living crap out of me and causes my glass of water to spill over the keyboard. “I just thought of something. Did you know that the IT guys are just downstairs on the other side of the wall?” NO I DIDN’T. I’m there hanging around their door like a groupie at a Strokes concert. Several minutes later, a young bloke in a Best’n’Less checkered shirt and an Adam’s apple larger than his head strolls in, can of Pepsi MAX in hand. “I was wondering if you could help me….” He listened. He nodded. He even made some eye contact with me. Then, he said it: “What you need to go is log the job via the internet with the form….” YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, JEFF. It is Jeff isn’t it? The look of desperation in my now slightly-deranged, snot-green eyes flecked with broken blood vessels effectively penetrated his disinterested demeanor. The little nerd could clearly see that he was in danger of having his can of Pepsi rammed up his nostril if he did not DO first and SORT OUT THE FORMS LATER. The situation finally resolved, I head back to my office with a small feeling of accomplishment at having beaten the system (if only through indirectly threatening somebody else with a beating). My smug cocoon is soon torn open when I review my task list for the day. It is now 4pm, and two of my 16 tasks have been completed. All of the others need forms printed out, approval by the elusively-busy Queen B and logged as jobs on the intranet before any work is allotted and undertaken……

If in doubt, ask for Liz

I’ve just started a new job at a university campus close to home and have returned, eight hours later, with a head that is aching from all of the smiling and nodding I’ve done today.

First days at work are all the same, aren’t they? The desk assigned as yours is the butt-ugly one that none of the existing staff will touch with a jousting stick and the computer should have arrived last week but has been swallowed up in the IT office paperwork at the West campus. Smile and nod, smile and nod: “Oh that’s fine, it’s OK.” It takes nearly all day to find a useable phone that’s firstly not covered in some unidentifiable sticky stuff and is also acceptable by World Health Organisation Standards. Then the final hour of the day is used to work out just what your own phone number actually is. Pens, post-it-notes and finding the kettle can wait until the second day.

As such, I was not fazed. Well, perhaps a little by the fact that I was sharing my office with the boss – a highly respected, internationally-renowned professor – and that our domain used to be the ladies’ toilets. Smile and nod, smile and nod: “Oh that’s fine, it’s OK.” We are right next to the male toilets and have decided that it’s worth the risk to dash in there for ‘getting things off our minds’ rather than go down two flights of stairs and around the corner on the ground floor.

The kitchen is less than a doorway in width and is about as modern as a butler’s pantry in the pre-Boer war years. It is clear that no-one voluntarily ventures into this hellish little vestibule, so I have hazarded a guess that coffee, water and lunches are hidden in offices upstairs. There is one male in our building, supposedly, but his door remained firmly closed today. He may still be cowering in there under the desk with his hands over his head for all I know. Perhaps he knows that Barb and I have taken over his only true refuge, the toilets. What if I walk in on him at the – ahem – trough? Of, course: Smile and nod, smile and nod: “Oh that’s fine, it’s OK.”

Induction. Ah yes, the induction checklist that requires one’s boss (or assistant, which is me, so it’ll be my job later on) to take you all over campus and tell you in great detail about the people they’re going to introduce you to. If they were actually in their office that is. Smile and nod, smile and nod: “Oh that’s fine, it’s OK.” We have some luck however - the security guys for the building keys, the library team and the PhD students across the hall working on studies relating to child protection who have spent most of the day talking about their dogs and laughing hysterically are all in. We also found Liz, the vice-chancellor’s PA and therefore a very powerful woman – I’ll just have to try my hardest to not call her Mrs Doubtfire. I also met Elizabeth, a fellow administrator on the next floor who has offered to buddy me through the bureaucratic maze and Libby, a new starter and bright-eyed PhD student. I’m still too afraid to ask her what PhD actually stands for.

As I was struggling to log on to the computer and on the phone to Help Desk, another cheery face popped its head through the door. Female, of course. “Hi MillyMoo, heard you were starting today. My name’s Liz. I’m on the ground floor doing my research into….” Another Liz. Smile and nod, smile and nod: “Oh that’s fine, it’s OK.” The phone suddenly rang, jolting me out of my seat. God, who wants me now? “It’s Liz from Switchboard. Can I just check through your details for our records?”
“Sure, as long as you tell me my phone number Liz,” I replied. Smile and nod, smile and nod; your new-but-willing attitude comes over across the phone lines you know.

My boss had already left for an afternoon appointment and then on to home. Her only instruction was to ensure that her filing cabinet was locked and the office door locked. Oh dear, it might have helped a bit if I’d been given some keys. Tentatively, I phoned the security bloke I met a few hours earlier, praying that he answered with his name so that I didn’t have to admit I forgot it after my first smile and nod. ”Hello, Security help desk, Liz here.”

Of course – this was a parallel universe in which everybody except my boss and I are called Liz – even the blokes answer their phones Liz-style! She clumped over, clad in serious security gear (how often does she get to use her truncheon at a centre of learning?) and locked up for me. “Thanks for that Liz.” Smile and nod, smile and nod. Time to go home before my cheeks split open and my head rolls off.

The Circus is leaving town

…….and boy, am I relieved. I never ever wanted to go to a circus as a child or as an adult. Love Chunks however, was keen to ensure that our daughter, Sapphire, (6 going on 37) got the opportunity to attend at least one event during the final day of Adelaide’s Fringe Festival.

Naturally, the title of the festival gives you a good clue as to what it’s about – not dodgy childhood hairstyles involving bowls, sticky tape or your mother’s shaky hand holding a pair of scissors; but acts that consider themselves on the fringe of mainstream. Admittedly, we have avoided the shows such as ‘Elbow Skin’, ‘The Bubonic Play’ and any form of movement that is categorised as ‘Modern Interpretative Dance’. Instead, we have opted for a well known comedian (the gorgeously cheeky Scotsman Danny Bhoy), the free (Buskers’ Street Festival) and today’s family-friendly ‘Circus Oz.’

As with the majority of (mostly talented) buskers, the circus performers always look like drama school drop-outs who like the alternative life and want to get ‘out there’ and live life on their terms. In packs of other like-minded alternative performers of course. So when we strolled – expectantly in the case of Love Chunks and Sapphire, and with dread in the case of myself – into the tent foyer, I was not surprised at the scene before us. A dominating smell of patchouli oil, greenie seat cleaner and BO floated in the air, managing to cover up the smell of hot popcorn and the tent’s own rubber lining.

There seemed to be at least a dozen performers working the stalls – ice-creams, drinks, popcorn, key rings, t-shirts and the traditional clown game. It also seemed to be a contractual obligation of their employment to wear either a frilly skirt (the boys) or a kilt (girls), showing us the tattoos on their stomachs, arms or cleavage. Now, I hate generalising as much as the next person, and far be it for me to embrace stereotypes, but it did appear as though the lesbian fraternity was overly represented inside the tent. OK, so shaved blonde buzzcuts atop muscular shoulders and heavily tattooed necks might not be the sole domain of the girlie-loves-girlie crowd, but the hairy armpits, doc martens and the snogging certainly convinced me that I wasn’t too far off the mark.

The blokes were a bit more mixed, although they all seemed to be happy enough in their short little skirts and their mid-riff military tops complete with epaulettes. The seventy-five year old spinster called Eunice within me started leaping to the fore: Hmmm, those uniforms are rather grimy and just need a nice long soak in napisan to get them bright again. The boys could do with a good thorough scrub down as well…..

Soon it was time to find our seats on the benches and get on with the show. My aversion to circuses had not abated as I found myself gasping for air amongst the sweat of the crowd. The lighting guy nearest us clambered expertly up his pole, all the while giving us a rather unwanted view up his skirt – he was definitely of the Fat Bastard fraternity, yet happy enough to let his fat back flaps hang over the back of his seat amongst the scaffolding. The ringmistress introduced the acts and looked about as wholesome as Paris Hilton in front of a bedroom videocam. She was clearly a frustrated cabaret singer (the ringmistress, not Paris) and liked to add more than just a subtle touch of sex and the macabre to her actions and her movements. At one stage she wore painfully high stilettos that surely could only have been purchased from a fetish shop and later, a black vinyl bodysuit that fully embraced the word ‘mistress’. Lord knows what she did with the poor clown after the show ended.

The circus band, too, preferred playing on the edge of chaos which resulted in a nightmarish clash of sounds that made Sapphire cover her ears with her hands, shouting, “This hurts me!”

As for the performers, they were brilliant. The acrobatics, gymnastic lifts, bike-riding and even hula-hooping was incredibly skilful and left me admiring the strength they must all have in their upper arms. And yet…… and yet there was still something missing; some special oomph and sizzle that should have utterly dazzled the audience. Eunice reared up again and explained that: Well, it’s all very nice to be able to keep 20 hoops a-wiggling around your body, but what good is that to you when you’re 80? You can’t tell me she’s on a decent superannuation plan and how on earth is she going to meet a fella doing that for a living?… Thanks Eunice, it might not be the fellas she’s hoping to attract. The old spinster may have had a point though – a lot of the physical stunts had been performed a week earlier in Rundle Street by some buskers from the UK and Sweden – without music, lighting, fancy costumes or slightly weird ringmistresses to introduce them. The cacaphonic music and the blackness of the big top only served to distance them from us and make their efforts appear kind of un-exciting.

Circuses have always seemed very old-fashioned to me – this one may not rely on animals or painted-up clowns, but the slightly seedy air of the performers and their choice of costumes reminded me of the annual Adelaide Show where the sideshow alley workers always looked as though they were on parole. Or maybe remand, which explains how they can pack up and move on at night so quickly.