Hating with Honesty Part Three

To be honest, I don't think I'm a really vehement 'hater' and this is only my third Hating with Honesty post in seven years: the first one was published in 2007 and the last one in 2008. However, a few niggles have started to emerge beyond the obvious ones such as why is Kim Kardashian the most Googled person for 2012 and are we allowed to punch anyone who says 'for the win' yet?

Here are the things that make me want to whistle air through my imaginary dentures and waggle my crab-like finger in the air.....

Ryan Gosling















I honestly don't see the attraction.  I even - and this causes me no small amount of shame - found a second-hand copy of The Notebook; read it to find out what the big deal was and suffered for my curiosity before suffering again through the exrementally soppy movie. What is the magic oestrogen-luring essence that this man has that I can't perceive?  He looks like he should be decorating the top of my latte, not headlining movie marquees....

Boston Terriers

I'm a dog person. When Milly's with me, I have to provide a wide enough berth so that she doesn't snap at her fellow canines in jealousy, but when she's not, my trips are always made longer due to the need to stop, ask 'Is he/she friendly?' before having a pat and a chat. But Boston Terriers repel me. They seem to have scored all the leftover body parts of a Corgi, Pug, Bulldog and the many unwanted mutant features of inbreeding, put into a fur-lined blender and tipped out with an unappetising 'glug' onto the ground with the final humiliation to be left without a tail.  Like X-Factor contestants raving on about how much they love their mothers, Boston Terriers always leave me shuddering slightly.

Apple tarts / Tarte Tatin

Cake. Cake. CAKE. The French Suisse seem to believe that everything tastes better in, on or under flaky pastry. But a dry croissant for breakfast or a sheet of pastry with some apple slices pressed into it gets boring very, very quickly.  Without moistness, self raising flour, chocolate, icing or custard it's just a brown rectangle of over-priced snooze; the Tom Cruise of bakery produce. 'Oh, goodie. Here's the eleven hundredth boulangerie selling tarte tatin. How exciting and creative.'  CAKE!

Channing Tatum



















I haven't seen any of his movies but even in my advanced state of ageing I'm not unaware of the various swoonings and droolings over this bloke that occurs with sickening regularity online.

He's sort of musclier and chunkier than Ryan Gosling, but the question is the same: Why? What is this flesh and bone replica of Mr Potato Head exuding that brings all the cerebrally-challenged chickadees to his chippery?  Shouldn't he be putting on my winter tyres and topping up my antifreeze?

Zombies and vampires

Buffy whooshed by without a glance. Twilight books were endured when my eleven year old was reading them and quickly summarised as cold blooded Mills and Boon for virgins. Vampire Diaries and the plethora of zombie telly shows and movies leave me about as excited as seeing tarte tatin on long haul economy flight menu.  Why not be done with it and have the vampires (sexy, boring and murderous), zombies (irretrievably stupid on all levels) wage war with the ridiculously cartoonish Marvel characters that also seem to hold so many movie-goers' attention?  Winner is the last man (or half robot or undead corpse in love with a wolf) standing!

Bushy beards on young blokes

Fellas, most of you, when you're in your twenties, are lovely to look at.  However, when the hipster urges take over and you decided to grow a bushy beard, you take me back to those oh-so-steamy photos of 1850s gold prospectors, upstanding Victorian philanthropists and men who ate each other when lost on expeditions.  Having to hold a brief conversation with a bearded bloke with cappuccino froth dangling from his Dastardly Dan moustache was not a heavenly moment for me last week.

Land agents to renters

We pay a small - no, large - fortune to rent an apartment that has not been updated since 1970.  The balcony turns into a small swimming pool when it rains and has since flooded the apartment downstairs. Sapphire's unused bidet develops a strong ammonia and mouldy pong that permeates the bedrooms at least once a week and we were sent three angry letters (in French) when our rent payment was not processed by the bank and was subsequently five days overdue.

So, with fairly frequent contact between my good self and the man who manages the property, it was a big surprise when he wrote back to my email last week requesting that someone come and look at our stove top (two out of the four hotplates have decided that being 'hot' is no longer their bag) and announced that he didn't know how I was.

"Pardon me, monsieur? YOU and four other men knocked on my door yesterday to come and see la piscine (the pool) that was my balcony for yourselves, checking the drain and taking photographs. Have I so little charisma that you have forgotten me already?"

But you are not in my records, he wrote back.

"Erm, I must be, buddy - because you send me rent slips every month with MY NAME on them and we've been transferring you money for over eighteen months now...."

Let me check, he replied, suspicion oozing from every keystroke.

"So, about the oven and the enormous whistling draft that blasts through our living room from the sliding door..."

Yes, you are on our records, he wrote, as though he was informing me of that fact.

I KNOW THAT, stupid rental man!  "So the oven...."

Please email me tomorrow when I'm available to read through tenant's concerns before forwarding them on to the owners for consideration.

Horrible ugly stupid rude rental man!  I decided not to email that as my reply.

BBC News channel

The Beeb is mostly known for being a stalwart for consistency, fair-minded reporting and for looking beyond their own borders.  Having a news-only channel would, we thought, be a brilliant way of keeping up with current events all around the world in a language we could understand (unless the story came from Wales).

Sadly not so, unless you are only capable of absorbing three stories at a time.  Even then, those three stories are repeated over and over and over for at least two days, so that breakfast time on day two will see the same video footage from the day before. No, not overnight so that muesli munchers can come up to speed with things that occurred while they were still snoozing in their doonas, but the day before.

Sometimes, the typer of the ticker tape thingy that runs along the bottom of the screen can only be arsed to write a single sentence on a single story that rolls by at a snail's place ad infinitum.  Surely, if sending reporters to all corners of the globe and footage and editing is prohibitively expensive, Tony the ticker tape typer can pop in a few more sentences for us to read?

'Rate me' Facebook photos



















Erk.  Any photo where the subject matter is one's self, especially holding an iPhone where the subject can gaze at one's self during the taking of it, is enough to make all prospective viewers want to heave and (fairly) surmise, "No wonder he's single, he's already found his life-long partner in love."

And the girls ...... oh dearie, dearie me.  Being friends of friends with buddies and acquaintances of Sapphire has shown me that the cleverly angled iPhone photo that enlarges the eyes, gives the duck pout credence and recedes the chin into the far distance - all done while pushing the shoulders unnaturally forward to produce a credible replica of cleavage - makes up approximately 98% of all photos loaded up onto Facebook pages by girls aged between eleven and twenty nine.

"Like my new winter hat," asks Bubble, which is sitting so far back on her head in order to show off the pulled forward shoulder length hair, off-the-shoulder tank top and double-handed upside down peace signs.  Or, "I'm so ugly today," says Twinkle, leaning forward in her black bikini, fluttering her kohl lined enlarged eyes and pouting in pink frost lip shimmer.

If I wasn't so old and supposed to be a role model or sensible mother or some other such tomfoolery thing like that, I'd say, "Yes, you are. No go and put some clothes on and turn your account off."

Nicki Minaj / Kei%$#a / Rihanna et al

Notes for all of you:

If you need auto tune, quit the business.

If you can sing - then for Lindts' sake go have a good scrub in the shower, put on some clothes and stop putting out videos that ram it down young girls' throats that it's only when you behave like nymphomaniac pole dancin' gang molls does your 'song' hit the itunes charts. Please.

Kate Moss interview in Vanity Fair

Ah, the chat that was going to reveal the secretive, never talkative Ms Moss. The one that would delve deeply under the surface to find out how she thinks, what her motives are, the life lessons learnt.  A quarter of a century in the spotlight; she must have some witty anecdotes to share. Vanity Fair will make sure that we find out what charitable causes are close to her heart; how she priorities her time to develop her skills as a responsible parent; the contribution to society that drives her to unselfishly devote her energy to further her knowledge and understanding of homelessness/poverty/discrimination/disability and people with bad dress sense.....

Hah!  The majority of page space was given to Kate's topless poses generously peppered with glowing quotes (in bold type) from various fashionistas and around six vaguely coherent sentences uttered by Kate herself. The end result was about as revealing as my triple-pile, 180 centimetre blue beach towel.  The much-touted hidden depths were the equivalent of the film that you peel off between a boiled egg shell and the egg itself.

Muesli bars

Why do they insist on calling them 'bars' when, unwrapped, they're about the equivalent of two teaspoons of sticky oats?  Why are they 'breakfast for busy people' when people usually like more than 21 grams of solid food to satisfy their hunger?  Why are the packets 15 centimetres long, but the 'bar' only eight?

Cup cakes

Like low rider jeans, saying 'swag' and Lady Gaga, you've had your fifteen minutes of fame, cup cake.  This obsession has escalated to ridiculous levels where icing has been pooped out from a great distance and is, in fact, larger than the dry/boring/tasteless cake itself.  Maybe the next craze will just be the icing and decoration without the cupcake underneath?

How I Met Your Mother

This show is on constant re-run on one of the British second-tier freebie channels, so even when I try to avoid it, it is manages to wedge itself into my consciousness at least once a day when I'm channel surfing to find things to record for later.  The lead guy possesses the same amount of charisma that I clearly do for my land agent and the little red headed girlie who used to be in American Pie is one of the worst actresses I've ever seen. No, cuteness doesn't make up for lack of talent.  The irony doesn't escape me that Neil Patrick Harris (Dr Horrible) plays Barney who, if the world was fair, would have his own sitcom and leave the other four 'characters' in the Seasons 1-8 remainder bin.

Fingernail 'art'














Apart from endless iPhone facebook 'selfies', nothing says 'I spend too much time on myself' than fingernail 'art.'  Painting cartoons, logos, flowers, stripes or dress-matching designs onto (usually) fake fingernails also implies that the owner of such tacky travesties does very little work.  Nails with mini sequins embedded into them are not going to be much use when zipping up a small child's winter parka, popping open a long life milk box or scrubbing off the scum around the plughole.  Oh, and they don't distract the viewer from less desirable body parts either.

There. That's enough for now.  Time for a trip down to the Dog Forest with Milly.

Swiss world problems

We've all heard of First World Problems like this:



...and not only recognised them, but also had a laugh at the wins:

....and now I think it's time to share some Swiss World Problems with you all.  Geneva is universally and consistently found to be the second or third (depending on the poll or survey) most expensive city in the world.  First, if just rent per income is taken into account. No wonder all of the nurses who changed Sapphire's IV drip in December lived in France and I haven't had a haircut since Christmas.

Milly and I did our usual walk in the park this morning and found a homeless man sleeping in the fenced 'Off Leash' area right alongside the clanking cranes and drills of the building site next door.  This unpeaceful doze was further ruined by his being barked at by a puzzled Alsatian who was accompanied an angry lady in a fur coat who'd just parked her brand new Beamer nearby and was gesticulating at a council worker to get rid of the unsightly sleeping sod.  A bizarre scene that set me thinking. 

What are Swiss world problems?  Here's a few that spring to mind:

Stupid government is trying to restrict holiday homes and ski chalets to only twenty percent of all the properties in each town. NO WAY!

Didn't get to see Arnold  Schwarzenegger speak at the Geneva summit last week - only 3,000 invitations were issued.  

Had to leave the Ferrari in the outdoor car park because of the crowds at the International Motor Show.

Freshly baked bread was warm when I walked home, but stale by the time I wanted it for lunch.

L'Occitane almond oil hand moisturiser takes too long to rub in and leaves glittery specks of crushed pearls afterwards.

That unbearable feeling when you slip on your winter coat and your jumper arms ride up halfway through the sleeves.

You let someone cross the road at the yellow lines and they don't give you the nationally acknowledged and expected 'nod of thanks'.

One IKEA pillow is too flat but two are too high.

Bircher meusli is just too complicated to chew for breakfast on mornings when you're running late.

Chocolate blocks are on special, tightly-packaged in groups of ten. But there are only seven days in a week.

Only have a two hundred franc note in your wallet but tram ticket machine takes five franc coins.

Bloody husband forgets to bring back any duty free from his last overseas business trip.

Damn Victorinox knife cuts my finger again.

Hundred Years War

Love Chunks reckons that I'd have been brilliant living in the dark ages or mediaeval times, particularly in a heavily-fortified castle subject to a seige or two from invaders.

See, I like to keep spares of things, because nothing's more annoying than running out of an essential ingredient when the shops have shut.***

Put another way, it's always nice and shows a strong sense of care and consideration to have that second tin of chopped tomatoes behind the one you're currently using. For next time.

Right?

And, let's face it, in challenging circumstances such as Tuesday night's tuna mornay lacking sweetcorn or when the English are pushing their wooden slingshots towards the ramparts of Dunnottar's drawbridge, we could all use a bit of joy in our lives.

Riiiiight?

Right. Nobody backs Kath into a corner without her having access to the essential source of strength!

*** Which is far more common here in Switzerland than in Australia. NOTHING is open on a Sunday; there seem to be many mysterious public holidays and religious observances that are respected more by business owners than residents which explains why this country - famous for its Alpine dairy industry - sells at least 95% of its milk in UHT long life packs.

Sloppy Coffee and Clumsy Fumblings

Mrs Krups has let us down again.




















The first time it was my birthday and I naively thought that it'd be as easy as Maggie the magna's half-yearly service - a quick fiddle and back home again.

Alas no. Three weeks of to-ing and fro-ing from the Extended Warranty Wallahs and another couple to order the part in.

She returned home in good condition and was prepared to go back to work. Well, for a month. Our trip back from South Australia to Melbourne (yep, along with the three humans, the Christmas presents, a small rabbit and a dog, she also merited inclusion) must have literally rattled her, because when we plugged her back into the kitchen at Chateau Lockett, she defiantly whizzed all over the counter.

The second visit back to the Coffee Machine Centre took another four weeks; most of those spent liaising (or making many phone calls only to have none of them returned) with the Warranty Wimps.

The third visit was today, a mere two weeks after she returned. She initially seemed slightly quieter and a bit more defeated but had started dropping wet, sloppy pats of used coffee grounds in socially-unacceptable places which made the coffee weaker than a cup of hot water that was merely looking at an unopened jar of Nescafe.

The Warranty Wankers were unmoved. "Sorry Mrs Lockett," she said in that rushed and mumbled 'I couldn't care less' voice, "Your policy states that the product covered under our insurance needs to break down more than three times due to the same issue before you get a replacement model or your money back."

This time I didn't give Mrs Krups a small pat before they took her behind closed doors. I was dismissive and cold, whirling on my heel towards the gourmet food part of their warehouse, seething at possibly another five weeks without a proper Six-AM eye-opener.

Still, I pride myself on trying to see the positive side of things and was soon immersed in attempting to read the back of Italian talc boxes, German toffee slabs and figuring out that the French jars weren't holding albino Twistie snacks but were a creative interpretation of dissolvable anti-acid tablets and was thirty bucks for a pretty box of nougat really worth it and if so, why....

CRASH! My humble shoulder bag had brought down a stacked display of jars. Broken glass and sludge was all over the floor as I turned around to take a closer look at the product I'd just destroyed. 'Choc Ezy Nut-free spread.'

Ah. Perhaps it could be something I could review for GoneChocco, but I really didn't want....

"Are you going to pay for zat?" The assistant was at my side, smiling grimly.

"Er, I wasn't because it wasn't something I was going to buy, and I'm so sorry about this mess, but I have got some tea bags here and I've just dropped off my machine over there..."

He stared steadily at me as my voice trailed away. My hand groped for one of the few jars still intact on the shelf. "I might get this one." The word 'one' ended on a high note; more of a question seeking his approval and my escape.

He nodded. Things looked right in the world again but I had to do it.

I had to.

It was a question that needed - in my view - to be asked. "Um, I have a discount card for here. Can you please swipe it?"

He didn't bother to look at me this time, instead choosing to sigh loudly. "Is my first day on ze job. How do I do eet?"

I had no idea. "Hey, don't worry about it. I shouldn't have asked and I'm sorry again for the mess."

"Is okay. Enjoy ze spread."

Back in the car, I read the label. First ingredient: cheese. In a nut-free, chocolate spread that I'd just seen globbing slowly across a polished cement floor like an ageing brown bathmat. Great.

At Woolworths, my attention was focused on finding and buying foods that were slightly more practical. "Here darl, have a go at this, um, Antee Pasto here." The name plate said Cheryl and the pink lipstick slashed unevenly across the mouth said I'd rather drink the pickle juice than eat what it's preserving.

ACK ACK AAAAACK! The green olive - roughly the size of my fist - wasn't stuffed with red capsicum but a birds' eye chilli and my sample ended up being unceremoniously catapulted out of my shocked, coughing mouth and splatting somewhere in the open cheese cabinet nearby. Eyes streaming, I weakly pushed my trolley onwards, with Cheryl saying, "You get ten percent off if you buy three deli products this week, darl!" Ten points for optimism.

At the check out counter, an elderly lady was struggling to load her groceries onto the conveyor belt and keep hold of her walking stick. "Let me help you," I said, flashing her my 'I'm a Nice Person and Not a Robber or Rapist' servant-of-the-people smile.

She hurriedly looked away, muttered "I'm okay thanks," and promptly dropped a 2 kilogram bag of baker's flour on her own foot. We narrowly avoided clanging heads as I beat her to the bag, miraculously intact. "Here."

"Ta." Her posture made it clear that she wasn't comfortable facing or making eye contact with me and my smile faded. Ah well, let her fend for own fussy self then.


















Fussy Flour Femme was forgotten a few minutes later when I was pushing my own trolley down the slope towards the car. It was spitting slightly and I'd forgotten my sunglasses. Damp and glare with a side order of unpredictable wind gusts made the trip dodging commuters just off the nearby train platform and impatient drivers looking for a carpark particularly challenging.

I cursed. Poo Bum Bugger Shit Fart; the stupid damn key wasn't working in the lock.

I tried again. Still no luck. Dumb, hopeless, poxy crappy key. If this was a sitcom I'd be tempted to let the trolley wheel away and start kicking at the bloody ...

Oh. It wasn't my car.

Mine was three parks away.

As the engine was warming up, the rear vision mirror showed that several angry red chunks of chilli were smeared across my teeth like leftover entrails. Instead of smiling, servant-of-the-people it was more akin to dead-baby-brains-for-breakfast. No wonder Flour Femme got across the carpark with such unusual speed.

It was time to slink off home and see if I was brave enough to open the jar of unwanted Choc Ezy.

Snappy September - Day Twenty Six - Learning for myself

We know that billionaires and millionaires and playboys and heiresses and internet marketing genuises and falled movie stars always tell us that money can't buy happiness but I'd really like to find that out for myself.

I'd also like - during those heady times when the price of passionfruit goes down from the ridiculous $1.69 each to a crazy and Kath-affordable-every-now-and-then-as-a-treat-and-departure-from-chocolate-price-of-$5.99-for-a-bag-of-ten - to cut them open and find that all of them have actual, well, fruit in them!

Job searching for violence, poisons and Julia Gillard

Actually, none of the above is true, but seeing as I write for the Careers section of a pretty decent and respected newspaper, sometimes when I'm sipping that second coffee on a Saturday morning and hoping today might finally be the day when Love Chunks sneaks an admiring glance at me, nods approvingly and says, "You know Kath, you rock that creased pillow face and brown dressing gown look perfectly. I insist you stay in that all day," I idly scan through the job ads.

Four leapt out at me as having titles that would make for some pretty fearful business cards and intriguing chats at conferences and coffee breaks. Yes, they are all real advertisements:








Oh hi, Terry, nice to meet you. Your presentation was very thorough, very thought-provoking. Here, take my card.
What's that?
Yes, it does takes a bit of thinking, this role. After all, we've got to go beyond the usual aggro and develop strategies that veer way, way outside the box. Like THIS!
No, don't back away, Terry, it was just a quick demo and you've got another eye! I was hoping to interest your unit in participating in our latest experiment: surely you've got a couple of cardigans you can do without, who live more for flex days than project work?
TERRY? Come back? Don't you want to see our solar-powered catapult? We won a local grant for it!
.......Stupid jerk is too up himself to handle other people's success....







Sarah! How ARE you? It's been too long, hasn't it? How's Rory going?
Ah well, he always had a bit of a wandering eye didn't he?
Oh. No, I didn't hear about the funeral, I'm so sorry....sure, I've got a tissue here somewhere. Sorry, it's got an old butter menthol stuck to it....
Anyhow, onto other things - did you hear about my new job?
Yeah, it's with Julia. That Julia. Our Julia - Girrrrrl Power!
It's part-time until the end of July and then ramps up to full time then on.
I'm not sure actually. I probably have to put my hand in the small of her back so she doesn't have to stand still and discuss any policy issues. Or go power-walking with her in the mornings around Altona. That reminds me, I better go and see if I've still got my 'Moscow 1980' tracksuit and hope that her hairspray and my striding thighs don't cause it to ignite......







I'm loving this job Alex, L-O-V-I-N-G it man!
Who knew, after being expelled from Pharmacy school, Chem-mart warehouse and the Hells' Angels compound that I'd land on my feet like this?
Sure, the last guy died but that's all part of the risk, right?
The weather has been amazing since I started here - double rainbows everyday and my lab assistant is a unicorn! He tried to shag me once, but I fended him off with a chocolate canoe and a sitar. Elvis crapped himself laughing.
That reminds me - I need to discuss with my manager the possibility of ordering a crate of Snakes Alive, BBQ Shapes and Tim Tams for afternoon tea every day because I've been working up one heck of an appetite.
Are you sure you're OK because you have breasts where your eyes should be and I swear I just saw a red monkey jump into your briefcase and the floor is suddenly rising up to meet me....

Miiiiiiiike, baby! How did you pull up after Friday night?
Me either - that Krazy Kebab van won't be inviting me back any time soon, heh heh. Nor will Delilah, come to that... Anyhow, did you see the vacancy?
No no no, it's not like at all - no, we're for the Aboriginal people. Giving them extra jobs and training and all that. Involving the kids as well.... That's an interesting question, Mike, and to be frank I have noticed that they prefer to test their theories out on me rather than their own families but the salary and the perks are worth it. Yep, my own office, Exec Assistant and car.

Of course I'll have to wait until the cast is off before I'm able to drive it.

Luck Sucks















Despite considering myself reasonably intelligent, I still buy a ticket for the Saturday night tatts-lotto draw every few weeks or so.

Australia's population is approaching twenty-two million and any mathematician (ie Love Chunks) will tell you that the chances of selecting the winning six numbers from a combination of 45, is well, about 123,456,789 to one. Most of us would have either created a program or seen a friend create one that compares the success of choosing the same six numbers every week to varying them each week - with the same six winning by the mere skin of a cooling custard.

To complicate things further (at least for a numerically-challenged meathead like me) is that most people tend to select their 'regular six' using birthdates which means that numbers above 31 are unlikely to feature on their tickets. Whether any boffin has bothered to work out the odds of selecting numbers 32 to 45 to increase the chances of winning is probably still being undertaken by science undergrads seeking a wild and crazy change from spending their Saturday nights translating the Old Testament into Klingon.

















Yet, as admitted to earlier, I avoid logic and willingly buy a ticket and, before I've even left the newsagent, idly waste about ten minutes of my life indulging in the 'What if I Won Lotto' fantasy. Yes, the most unoriginal, unrewarding and unrealistic daydream that every person above the age of seven has entertained at least once in their lives. It is sadly pathetic and even though I'd like to think I am above all that, I still do it. It's a bit like believing that an orange eaten after a Kit-Kat cancels out the wickedness of the chocolate, and I still do that too.

On Sunday mornings I flick to page two of the newspaper, write down the winning lotto numbers (and the two supps - any money is good money) and then meticulously check my ticket. Nope, not even a division six prize, dammit. But do I throw the ticket away? Of course not.

It stays in my purse until Friday morning. On my way to the supermarket for the weekly shop I'll pop into the newsagent, flash a hopeful smile and ask them to run the now-slightly-tattered ticket through their computer, vainly hoping that I've mis-checked and the numbers will tell a better story.

The bored shop assistant slips it into the slot, counts to three and hands me back my ticket and a slip and tells me, "Sorry, not this time love."

And here's the killer: the slip says 'Not A Winner,' as if to rub salt in my already pus-infected wound of disappointment.

Why don't they just go all out and say 'YOU'RE A TOTAL LOSER' instead? Perhaps they could also get a bit creative with the rejection slips and have a different one each time: 'You're still poor. And ugly'. Or: 'You should be happy that you even had the guts to turn up here today and not frighten any of our customers'; 'Hell, a face like yours would be able to sand down a log,'; or 'Trust me, you didn't win last time, didn't win this time and will never win. Rack off.'

This would be the one I'd get: 'You lost. Now get out of here; you make the place look untidy.'

I blame the work lotto club for introducing me to this world of unrealistic hope and crushing reality. We would all chip in our $2 for the week and get a group ticket. However, as soon as I joined up, we didn't win a brass razoo. (What is a 'razoo' exactly? Well whatever it was, we never won it).

Our statistical analyst suggested that the odds would be far more favourable if we tried putting our money on the gee-gees, taking it in turns to select the race and whichever horse's name appealed to us. Twelve months of that and still no pot of gold.

How about the greyhounds? Zilcho. Our other stats guy helpfully pointed out that if we'd invested our weekly contributions instead we'd have fully paid for our christmas lunch, endless drinks and taxi fares. He was promptly shoved into the photocopier room and ignored until the deadline rush for the unit's monthly finance reports.

Scratchies were our last resort. Again it was two bucks each and we'd buy a whole toilet roll of them and take it in turns each week to scratch them all. It was absolutely tragic - our biggest windfall was $3 and we'd only spent $28 to 'win' it.

Is there a message in all of this? Well obviously it's to keep your money in your wallet or the bank, but we don't do we? We all like to wish, hope and fantasise. My naive little gambling bug also extends to entering competitions. Thankfully I'm not like my friend Bill's sister who ended up buying 16 jars of mustard for the entry tokens, but I am prepared to pay for a 55c stamp to enter a competition on the back of a packet that I'd ordinarily buy.

And what have I won? Well, I wanted to win the First Class around-the-world tickets on offer, but got the consolation prize of a Deeko paper serviette holder instead. It's actually rather useful and is a quite attractive wrought iron design that can withstand most windy days when we're having lunch outside.....
















I also wanted to win the Cadbury $250,000 cash promotion, but got a blue plastic 'Time Out' watch instead. To be fair, it proved handy for gardening and swimming in the three-month life span it provided and getting some facial cleanser and toner from Jurlique was OK but I felt a bit shortchanged when what I really wanted was all-expenses paid fortnight's health and beauty retreat at the Golden Door in Queensland....

At the time of typing this, I'm still hoping to come up trumps for the Schweppes 'Magic Moments' win two-grand per week for a year competition; the Woolworths/Safeway Honda Odyssey/Fiji holiday/free groceries for one year in the 'Read it - Win it' magazine promotion; Home Beautiful 'Aussie Home' photography awards; Epilepsy Association BMW raffle; Flemington Traders' local calendar shots, the Grand Angus $50,000 cash first prize...... Oh, wait. I actually have to buy - and possibly eat - one of those to be in the running, don't I...?

Overly optimistic and pathetic, yes. But the day I stop hoping is the day I'll stop living; regardless of the mathematical logic. And I ain't a logical gal, as Love Chunks and the general population will readily tell you.

Yep, I dialled......

Have you ever been washing your dishes or eating your breakfast cereal and then found yourself automatically reading the entire label on the bottle of detergent or packet of bran flakes?

Not just the 'serving suggestion' ideas (ie a photograph of weetbix in a bowl with milk - who'd have thought), the ingredients (yum, it's got emulsifiers and vegetable gum in it) or the ridiculous promises made by the product (NEW! IMPROVED! How can something be 'improved' if it's new?), but the tiny print that says "Comments? Questions? Call us on 1800....."

Who rings these numbers? What on earth do they want to comment or ask about? How bored and lonely and clueless would you need to be to even consider making such a call? Well, I made a few calls.....

Safcol Tuna

'Our operators are busy or unavailable. Please leave a message and we will get back to you.' Which they did.

"Errm, I'm not your usual caller, but I got curious and would like to know....WHO rings you?"

The pleasant-sounding Pamela told me that most of their calls were not concerning the tuna, but their catfood brand, Snappy Tom. She'd had complaints about how the packet looks and that one chap was not going to buy the new dry catfood in the box because the spout was too small. As for the tuna, the calls mostly concerned where they could get certain lines and flavours if they couldn't be found at their regular supermarket.

Pamela also told me that consumers often confused herbs and spices in the cans of flavoured tuna as 'foreign bodies' and would ring to complain or demand a refund. "We have some fact-sheets we work through to explain that what they think is a stone is a peppercorn."

She receives around twenty phone calls a day and "....at least one or two of them also end up telling me their life stories." Despite my encouragement, she was not allowed to share any weird and wonderful tales with me because "Everyone is a consumer and we mustn't laugh at them." Fair enough, especially if your calls 'may be monitored for quality assurance and training purposes.'

Sakata Rice Crackers

"Oh you'd be surprised. We get heaps of calls," said the helium-inflected voice on the other end of the phone. What about? "Mostly about questions about the ingredients - what they mean and if they're safe for coeliacs or diabetics to eat." Any complaints? "Rarely. Except for one guy, who thought the seaweed was grass. He'd picked them up by mistake when he really wanted the BBQ ones."

Colgate Toothpaste

Automated answering machine. 'We welcome your questions and comments and keep it all confidential. Please press '1' on your keypad to hear about your rights to privacy. Please hang on the line if you wish to speak to a consumer service operator.' Justin came on the line.

"We get a lot of feedback about our cleaning products, shower gels and soaps mostly," he said. What about your weirder calls, you know the ones that you laugh about in the tearoom? He stayed professional: "We deal with people who can't find particular products in their stores and dispense oral care advice."

Hang on - oral care advice? Like for people who don't know how to use their toothpaste? "Sometimes. We're not dentists but we do have fact-sheets that we can post out to them."

Come on Justin, give me something here! "Actually we do get a lot of calls complaining about how one of our products might have damaged their clothing. Again, we have factsheets on how to remove particular stains, mostly using all that old stuff like lemon juice, breadcrumbs and borax that your grandmother would have used."

Now he was starting to enjoy our conversation. "We also get a lot of single guys who ring us, wanting to know how to do their washing. I had one guy once who'd used the antiseptic hand soap as a shower gel, and complaining he'd broken out into a rash. When I told him that it wasn't mild enough for showering with I then had to spend about an hour going through his entire bathroom cabinet of our products so that he knew what he had to use for where."

Now there was no stopping him. "I've had fifteen years of experience in customer service call centres, most of it at Telstra. I can tell a story from there if you like," he offered.

Yes please. "Cool. In the very early days of mobiles and SMS, I had a call from a very worried lady. She'd been getting SMS messages telling her to check her mail box. She told me 'Each time I go outside to the letterbox, there's nothing in there. After the sixth message, I got so worried I drove to our beach house to check the letter box there, but there still wasn't anything in it.' That's the only time I had to put down the phone to have a laugh," he said.

"Oh and there's one thing we all notice when working on the info ling; we get a helluva lot more weird, sad or bizarre calls on a full moon." Really?

"Oh yes. We've been able to document it, it's very noticeable."

What about the consumer centre for Band-Aids?

Rosemary tells me that they deal with calls from consumers about all of their products made by Johnson and Johnson. She answers a lot of enquiries about what adhesive is used on the bandaids from people who have sensitive skin. The only complaints she's received about the innocuous little plasters has been about the gauze pad being stuck in the wrong position. "No, that's not right", she said, warming to the theme, "We also get loads of calls from people who have counted the number of bandaids in the box and aren't happy if there's only 24 instead of 25." She considered that those calls were pedantic but fair enough.

"We also handle the Splenda Sweetener product and apart from calls about their suitability for diabetics and requests for recipes, we've had calls complaining that there's only 299 in a 300 packet." Now that's a canny consumer - sitting at their kitchen table counting out sweetener tabs - thank goodness some people are spending their time wisely.

What about the 'Full Moon' effect? "Oh yes, there's definitely an increase in calls at that time. We get heaps at night asking us how to put on a bandaid or whether they can go for a swim wearing a sanitary pad."

On to our great South Aussie icon, Farmers Union Iced Coffee. As an interesting aside, did you know that South Aussies are the largest consumers per head of milk in the world? It would also be interesting to find out, therefore, if our rates of osteoporosis is lower than the general population too.

The lovely Lyn said that the most calls they receive about FUIC is from homesick South Aussies who are desperate to know where they can buy it interstate or seeking more information about its magical nutritional qualities. "We had one guy last week who thought that the package number at the bottom of the carton was the number of fat grams in the product." Any complaints? "No, never about our iconic iced coffee and flavoured milks, but we do get a few about runny yoghurt or milk that seems to have gone off before the use-by date."

The 'Full Moon' effect?

"Definitely."

And lastly, Libra Invisible Pads. 'Welcome to the Tena and Libra customer service line. All of our customer service officers are currently busy. Your call is important to us, so please leave us a message and we will return your call as soon as possible.'

OK then, I left a message. No-one called in the past three days, so I can only assume that they're run off their feet with pesky little enquiries about wings versus no-wings.

Cake-hole Chaos

We've all had 'Dyslexia Days' where whatever we type comes out lal worgn and causes a tol of imstsakes or had embarrassing bouts of 'Erroneous Eyes' when you'll see one person but be thinking of someone else and greet them with, "Hi Tracey - sorry, I meant Neil, honestly I did, but y'see I was just talking to Tracey on the phone and ..."

......Haven't we?

But have you ever had a Mangled Mouth Day?

No? You're probably shaking your head and wondering, 'Kath's a bit odd at the best of times, but this time I have absolutely no idea what she's on about and am going straight to Cute Overload to clear my mind right now.' If so, let me tell you about my morning so far.

I think my lips have gone on strike. No, before my husband Love Chunks interjects and says, "YOU - SILENT? That'll be the day," a bit more explanation is required. By going on strike I mean my actual lips seem to have forgotten how to drink things properly.

Several times this morning whilst expecting - as per every other morning of my lengthy adult life - to absent-mindedly slurp my coffee and remain dry, the exact opposite has happened. Like a root-canal victim still under the influence of dentist chair anaesthesia, the hot brown liquid splashed all over my top like a shower head. And not just once.

Later on, I decided to treat myself to a glorious chunk of almond nougat. It goes down a treat for morning tea when my sugar levels are merely at Diabetes Level 2 Lose-a-Limb stage and not at the Optimum Working Conditions for Kath Lockett range. Chewing away happily, I sang along to the iPod - "I am Milk, I am red hot kitchen; I am cool, Cool as the deep blue ocean" until twinkle time. As I washed my hands, I did my (sadly) usually jokey muscle flex at the mirror, only to discover with horror that partially-masticated almonds and white nougar had inserted their ugly selves into every single gap in my teeth.

Oh Jeez, no wonder the parcel guy was leaning so far away from me as I signed his receipt pad and Stuart next door now thinks that not only am I a terrible singer but also enjoy rinsing my my dentures in oatmeal.

No matter, a quick do-over with the floss and I was sparkly white and socially acceptable again. Now, where was the rest of that nougat.....

Did I tell you that it was rolled in a generous sedimentary layer of Bolivian cocoa? And that when I popped out to the shop to get some milk and had what I thought was an engaging chat to Narelle I got home to discover that the dust had settled on my upper lip, making me look like an Albino Mexican bandit in dire need of electrolysis? ~*Sigh*~

Clearly it was time to stay inside and away from innocent civilians. Besides, I'd discovered an ulcer in my cheek, and whilst tapping away on the laptop I had another touchy-feely festival going on inside my head as my tongue continually flicked at and worried the ulcer. Why oh why couldn't I just leave it alone?

Actually, I did, because it was then I noticed that my tongue had one of those annoying little pimples on the end. I then wasted a fair bit more time, effort and imagination by trying to bite the little bugger off by wedging it between my top and bottom front teeth. This was not successful and just succeeded it making it swell up and hurt a bit more. Now it's impossssssible to ssssssay anything with the letter Ssssss in it without ssssssound like SSsssssir Hisssss from Robin Hood. And it hurts too.

Then the blister on the roof of my mouth started to sting and throb and reminded me of the dangers of inhaling hot coffee straight from the kettle instead of being patient and waiting for it to cool, as I neglected to do so earlier in the day. The crinkly, wet skin that remained protested painfully as my pestering pimple tongue started to explore it.

And thus, here you find me, suffering from a Mangled Mouth day. Stuff It: I'm off to create total mayhem by cleaning my teeth with ultra strong mint and then glug down a glass of unsweetened orange juice..... Living on the edge baby, the Edge!

World Day of World Days

Have you noticed how many World Days there are these days? I mean most of us know about World Tobacco Day, World AIDS Day and International Women's Day, but a quick visit to the United Nations shows that there's a truck-load of Days out there.
















Most of them are unarguably worthy, but do make me wonder what kind of celebratory festivities would be involved, particularly for these ones:

• World Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
• World Day in Support of Victims of Torture
• World Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
• World Day in Support of Innocent Child Victims of Aggression
• World Day in Commemorating the Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust

....so I'm boldly assuming that there wouldn't be too many plates of cheezels, balloons tied up into poodle shapes or quirky Peruvian pan-pipe bands urging everyone to kick up their heels and dance.

Some of the other World Days might be worthy but are also very dull-sounding or keen to set themselves up for being completely ignored:

• World Day for Natural Disaster Reduction - and how might this come about, pray tell? Buy a ribbon and somehow Krakatoa and Mt Etna will behave themselves? The teutonic plates under the earth's crust along the fault lines will be good and stay still?


• World Development Information Day - did this get slipped in by a Cardigan from the Corporate Planning Unit wanting to justify their job? Zzzzzz......


• World Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict - yep, that's what'll be first thing in the minds of guerilla soldiers as they're laying on their elbows in the mud of the Amazon jungle or running away from seven year old snipers in Africa.


• World Civil Aviation Day - sorry, was I supposed to be riveted? Besides, there's nothing civil about airline service or airport queues from what I've observed.


• World Anti-Corruption Day - yep, this one'll work and change the world - who paid to get this one the official tick?


• World Book and Copyright Day - fascinating; no really - utterly fascinating the swirling hotbed of copyrights must be in order to have a world day to commemorate it

Some that sound rather questionable as to why the entire World needs to stop and observe them as an entire day for themselves include:

• World Television Day - Oh Please......


• International Mountain Day - Yep, we have mountains in the world. Yay!


• World Human Solidarity Day - Um, okay; I guess we could be nicer to each other.


• World Telecommunication and Information Society Day - What the - zzzzzzzzz......


• International Mother Language Day - Mother Language? I didn't even know we even had a Mother Language. Did we vote on it when I was out?


• World Day of Cooperation - Sure, it's a nice concept but Sesame Street already do this exceptionally well.


• World Day of Families - Fine. If they're too busy to call, you call.

And some that aren't officially recognised by the UN might find themselves struggling a bit for worldwide acceptance, let alone interest:

• World Reiki Day - get your hands off-a me!


• World Audio-Visual Heritage Day - sounds about as exciting as searching for toenail clippings under the sofa cushions.


• World Rotaract Day - come on, the world needs more adventure playgrounds and BBQ areas.


• World Wetlands Day - sure, sure but it just doesn't sound anything but soggy.


• World Hospice Day - as with mountains, they exist. Yay hospices....


• World Bread Day - Ohferpharkssakes, BREAD day? What about Cheese Day? Ice-cream Day? COFFEE day?

Of course, I have - MUST ask - where the hell is World Chocolate Day??

There's a lesson in here for all of us

The other week, Sapphire, Uncle Robbie and I visited the Melbourne Zoo. After recovering from the shock of the entrance prices and the costs of sub-standard sandwiches, I then eased into enjoying the stroll around on a warm sunny day and seeing each and every animal on display.

It made me realise that despite the ever-present pong of poo in the air these creatures have a great deal to teach us.

For instance, the white-cheeked gibbons. (By 'cheeked' they mean the face, not the butt). Mr Gibbon was hanging from the topmost branch by one arm which, extended, was twice as long as his body. He languidly hung in front of us - by just two fingers - for the entire time we stood in front him and appeared to be as interested in staring at us as we were in staring at him. I'm not promoting the idea that we adult humans should try hanging from a tree branch by just one arm (if you've ever tried to have a go at the monkey bars at your child's school, you'll appreciate that every single muscle down the side of your body will immediately snap like the elastic around Piers Akerman's fat pants); but that we should at least take some time out to relax. Enjoy the scenery. Take an interest.

The elephants reminded me of dairy cows. The male and female both waited patiently at the entrance of their huge 'run' near their warehouse-sized evening shelter. Would they be changing the gates across the pathway so that the elephants could walk to their swimming pool? Would the keepers be transferring them to their walkway so that they could do a lap of the replica Indonesian village? Nah. Instead, they were each handed a small, leafy branch which they both happily took away with them to chew with obvious enjoyment. Right: it can be the very simple things that can make you happy.

Over at a considerably more odorous enclosure the pgymy hippopotamus was basking in the sun, yet also partially submerged in her pond. The water was dark green, cloudy and very smelly as they apparently do 'everything' in it. Yet she looked the picture of contentment and completely oblivious to the chattering school kids studying her through the glass. It looked like a squalid swamp to me, but she was obviously enjoying being home.

Two seals, on the other hand, were far more active, swimming graceful laps of their pool. Upside down. At the end of their individual laps, they'd float peacefully up to the surface before frolicking together. Then they'd climb on to the bank and sun themselves. You'd have to be very hard-hearted not to admire their beautiful large eyes, sleek fur and cat-like whiskers. Two seconds later, they'd slip into the water and go through the entire process again. They were loving just being themselves.

My favourite animals have always been the meerkats, and we spent at least half an hour observing their entertaining activities. One was on sentry duty and the others were continuously digging to find the hard-boiled eggs hidden in the sand by the keepers. Even when a meerkat had found an egg, he'd put it aside and keep on digging or scamper off and find a new spot to dig in. As our visit with them approached thirty minutes, a second meerkat stood on its hind legs in the sentry position. The original sentry immediately noticed this, and dropped down into digging mode. I'll make no apologies for making these little creatures far wiser than they really are by applying a trio of observations to them:

1) Keep an eye out for your family;
2)Take turns to help out; and
3) Eat to live, don't live to eat.



















No friends of meerkats, the tiger was at first very difficult to spot in her jungle-like enclosure. Then we saw her at the back, impatiently pacing back and forth along the farthest fence behind the bamboo. My first reaction was to feel sorry for a wild animal that was bored and frustrated until I read the sign that told us she was 'pacing with excitement because she is aware that the new male from ---- zoo had arrived in the neighbouring enclosure.' Aww, bless her young heart: Keep the thrill of romance alive (in any way you can).

It was time to have an ice-cream and get out of the sun, so the nocturnal/amphibian exhibits seemed like a good idea. The green tree frogs were still, quiet and cool. Pretty well what we should all try to be really.

Over at the 'Rice Paddy Field' exhibit, we saw two birds called stilts. They were paired together side-by-side and both were standing on one leg. Just before we all started to wonder if they'd both been victims of a marauding rice paddy pirahna, one lowered its second leg. Then the other bird did. Two seconds later however, they were both standing on one leg again. Was it a competition to see who could stand on one leg the longest? Whatever the reason, it's always good to have a spare. (A spare anything).

On our way out, we spied the Nepalese red panda. A rather gorgeous creature that looked like an adorable combination of a fox, teddy bear and a cat, it gave a huge wide yawn and did two huge 'salute to the sun' and 'downward facing dog' stretches to ease itself awake. It's 'morning ritual' was most luxurious and entertaining to watch and reminded me that most of us do not take the time to enjoy your sleep and also to take your time in waking up properly.

What visit to the zoo would be complete without the babboons? Whether us parents like it or not, every child is going to have a good old giggle at their bright pink butts, and our visit was no exception. Once the cackling school kids on excursion had moved on, we three stood behind the glass for a closer look. Most of them were bright pink, but the dominant male's was a kaleidoscope of pinks, purples and blues. He was clearly an old pro at this zoo caper because, like the gibbon, he sat there and stared straight back at us. His final gesture was a classic - he turned around to give us a beautiful view of his butt and then pressed it up against the glass before walking off in a rather surprisingly dignified manner. Uncle Robbie thought that the only lesson we could possibly learn here was: You may think you call the shots, but you can kiss my arse.

I then told him off for swearing in front of Sapphire.