The Nickel Queen

Wednesday afternoon in the orifice, and I'm completely out of inspiration. Surprise, surprise. The only thing that has really been keeping me going all week has been specualtion as to who will die on Neighbours in 2005. Yes dull, isn't it?

TVWeek had this little snippet in it on Monday: "Be watching Neighbours next year when one of the most-loved and longest-serving characters dies of a heart attack! We can't tell you who it is, but we can say it's a guy", and so all week, it's been:

"Lou!"
"No, Harold"
"Maybe it's Karl or the Toad"
"The Toad is too young to have a heart attack"
"He's a fat bastard though, and they have heart attacks"
"Hmm"
"They wouldn't kill Karl off, not since he's just left Susan for Isabelle"
"Yeah, but she'll leave him soon too, she's admitted she doesn't love him and she stood him up at the alter"
"Exactly, too much story. It can't be Karl"
"No, it's definitely going to be Lou who carks it"
"Well, Lou's got no family in the street, so he's no loss really"
"But Harold has got a family now, so we get to see their reactions. Isn't that the point of a soap death, all the tears and hand-wringing and stoicism?"
"It has to be Lou because Paul Robinson is back and he'll need his house."
"But Valda owns that house now"
"Where is bloody Valda? Her husband has just died and she's nowhere to be seen"
"Yay, now she's free to marry Lou"
"Well, there's a storyline then. As long as he's divorced from Trixie"
"What a waste of screen time that was. And then the Rocco storyline"
"They were both Lou storylines, his biggest two of 2004."
"And they were both shit"
"Yeah"
"Maybe it is best they kill Lou then?"
"Maybe it is"
"Yeah, I hope it's Lou"
"Always liked Tom Oliver though, ever since his sterling performance in The Nickel Queen"
"The what?"
" Aussie film, 70s, starring Googie Withers, John Laws, Ross Thompson and TO. Don't worry. You'll never be able to find a copy. Bloody funny though"

And that has been pretty much the intellectual high-watermark of my week. Sad isn't it.

There is something that I have noticed slowly creeping onto my 17.1" TFT screen with alarming alacrity (if you don't know what alacrity is, checkthis—I had to) and it is giving me the shits. It is the mis-spelling of definite. Well, it is actually the mis-spelling of DEFINITELY that I notice all over the web. No you bastards out there murdering the English language, although you might slur your words and dribble when you speak so it sounds like "definately" , that is not right. There is no A in definite, just like there is no fucking I in team.

W O A H

That was a long time ago, then, wasn't it? 2 years, 4 months and five days, and half a world away, give or take the 11 hours in difference between Clapham Old Town and Melbourne. And certainly a prophesy unfilfilled. And, for that matter unpublished, until today. Until the likes of Darp and Dawei reminded me that I had, somewhere in the damp swirling mists of my past, entered all the right details into yet another database, and all I needed was to choose a template. Et voilá!

Not that this particular template will be around for long, but I have a spooky feeling I may have made a similar idle promise before. But I really and truly am hoping to be a little more conchy this time around, despite the facththat there is SFA going on in the world that warrents my comment at this time on a Friday afternoon. And a Friday afternoon when beer beckons.

Thank god The Coffeeshop and " Lou's Place", the mingingly titled "A Good Hair Day" and Dr-Karl's-surgery-slash-Toadie's-legal-consulting-room burnt down last Friday, or there really would not have been anything at all to talk about for the past week.