When my baby smiles at me...

Been a while, but yo, I'm on holiday fuckers. Back in Chile with a nice little cerveza aresanal after a whirlwind tour of this continent.

After an exceptionally enjoyable week in BA, la embarazada and I headed up to Iguazu to spent some QT with the world's greatest waterfall. Exceptional Q it was too, thousands of megalitres of water rushing over this small gorge each second, covering everything within 100 yards in fine spray and hurling rainbow after rainbow into the sky. Staying on the Argentinian side of this monstrosity enabled me to continue my carne endulgence—in the form of metre-long swords of meat barbecued to perfection—and to finally get my groove back with the lingo—in the form of a longneck or two of Quilmes and a good solid hour of smalltalk in the black market backstreets of Puerto Iguazu.

And then on to Brazil. Ah Brazil! Such a big thing, the nation, the concept. Strangely orderly buses, an obscure language that sounds like Russians speaking French, no smoking indoors, comunist stylee docket systems, and, unfortunately, a race that looks as you´d expect a mixture of short hairy Portuguese, native South Americans and strapping negroids to look like—not anything to rival their southern neigbours, that´s for sure. I'll say it now: Sao Paolo is a dump. 20 million odd people in a metropolis not much more than 120 years old. No street life, ugly grey highrises, undeciferable language. But the point of our excursion lay in this city, and it was exceptionally fulfilled:
And then onto Rio. Not a city I had much expectation of after the disappointment of our other Brazilian destinos. But low expectations are the easiest to exceed, and exceed they did. This is where all the Brazilian hotties hang out. On the streets. In their togs. Whiling away their hours sucking down sucos and playing hands-free volleyball on the beach. Do these people have anything resembling a job? Do they need one, these lithe latte-coloured laydeez and buff brown blokes? None of the class of their Argentine brethren, but what they lack in class they make up for in brawn. Even if their language is undeciferable. They pronounce the name of their city "Hee-oh" for fuck's sake.

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

So Buenos Aires eh? Awesome town. Shame about the location of my hotel, but hey, what can you do when all the really nice hotels you wanted to stay in are all booked out three months in advance? Downtown was where we were, a quaint little nod to our friends further north on the same landmass, I think; better than our own terminology, as an English mate of mine recently pointed out—CBD isn't really an appealling term. Nor is downtown. So I'll go for the actual district, which was called Monserrat. Whatever, we were 5 seconds from the Plaza de Mayo, which is probably the third biggest tourist site in BA, and its Casa Rosada, of Evita, or if you prefer Madonna fame (I am and always will be an Elaine Paige man myself), and that's smack bang in the middle of BA. Its focal point, if you like. Which, paticularly as far as bus routes and the underground system go, is quite important.
Now this town. This town. Initially, I was somewhat miffed by the place. Big. busy, high-rise, 35 degrees. Filled with buses and smog and hotties and ATMs and not much more.
So after running the gauntlet of the leather touts in Calle Florida ("Sir, our leather, direct from factory, very good prices"), I decided that if I was to enjoy this city at all, we had to go out on a limb and discover some suburbs. And discover we did.
A happening little area called Palermo Viejo, a suburb straight out of a wallpaper* magazine. And I'm serious when I say I reckon they started that magazine after a stay in Buenos Aires. This place is on the money. Spot on. Hardly a thing I can fault. Given that every fourth man or woman in BA is a dead-set head-turner—seriously Riza, forget Europe or a car, you gotta get yo' ass down here—they also dress well, they speak Spanish (which is dead sexy in my book, never mind that I don't understand them and it's at 100 miles an hour), they drink their beer outta 750ml bottles (a tres-cuatro, I picked that one up quickly), they smoke in their restaurants, they like their beef, they look you in the eye, they dine not before 10pm, they specialise in leather. Did I mention they are all hot? Palermo has that edgy-established feel to it: enticing cafes that double as restaurants and triple as bars, shady streets packed full of chouette shops, small designers charging Argentian pesos. Being a man who hasn't bought a stitch since April 2005, this was something akin to heaven. You know how it is when that inner fashion slave is let out? And when everything is half price, seriously half price? I mean the tag says something you think is a reasonable price, and the you convert it, and it's a pair of white leather shoes for 99 bucks? Or a cream suit for 230? Or hand-made leather wedges at 115? Particularly when travelling with someone who works in the fashion industry, it's hard to tear yourself away from all this.
And so we shopped. And ate. And shopped some more. Then, after a swim and a few more beers, we returned the next day to pick up the things we were still thinking about. Hard to think I'm only 600 bucks worse off for all the shit I'm now carrying.
But we didn't just shop. Asid from sweating our way around the bars and boutiques of Palermo, we actaully did get to tyake in some sights. The Cementaria de Recoleta and Evita's crypt. La Camiñita and the coloured houses of the docks area. General San Martin's monument. More admiring of 'historic' buildings. And so it goes.
Another bunch of observations, this time on BA:
Their legendary reputation as night owls is correct. These fuckers don't go out before 10. So for someone on an Australian timetable, and slave to another timetable (that of la embarazada), looking about for somewhere to have a drink near our hotel, round say eightish—before dinner, GnT time in the mother country—nothing is doing. They catch up for late lunch like 6ish, and then disappear from the streets for four hours. There's a lot I like about that, except that it doesn't do well with a) jetlag and b) pregnancy.
The right shops open at 11 and close for lunch at 1pm, to reopen at 3, and close at 8. the wrong shops open at 9 and close at 9.
The Porteños, as they are known, dress well, but they do dress conservatively. In Monserrat, it was fashionable suits made of unfashionable 80s materials. On women. Elsewhere, it was polo shirts wall-to-wall, much like home, only tucked in (and yes, I was succumbed after a while).
Smoking! The epitome of old style chic. On entering the country, the woman at customs, sitting there next to her big fuck-off baggage scanning machine, long painted nails with a fag between them. I punched the air.
These people love a rally. Almost every day we were in BA, there was a rally of some sort in the Plaza de Mayo. Drums a-banging, banners a-waving, peeps a-marching. The first one involved children dancing, the last one demanded Justicia for the victims of the Cromañon fire, a nightclub fire a year ago that killed 193. I don't know what sort of justice one can demand for victims of a terrible accident, or what a government who has since clamped down on nightclub facilities and capacities can do, but there were thousands of them outside our hotel demanding Justicia.
But then there was New Years Eve. And there was not a soul on the streets. I'd expected something like home, like most capital cities in most coutries around the world where some sort of public entertainment is laid on and there are people thronging the streets. But we left our hotel at nine, looking for trouble, and found none. It took us 45 minutes of walking to find one place serving alcohol open. Just one. The streets were empty, just people carrying food, getting into taxis, which were surprisingly easy to find. Not even the dodgiest kiosco was open, unless you wanted fireworks (which they call cienfuegos, reminding me of dear old Camilo). Noone. Niente. Nada. Thank god for the little place that we found. Heaven sent. And the best pizza BA has to offer. Pity I can't remember its name.
Time up. Hopefully you'll get photos next time.
Happy New Year y'all.

A couple of observacions

OK, so I´m still suffering a bit of jetlag, but that happens when you venture halfway round the globe. Spent last night in Santiago de Chile, the capital of that slender nation, and now your correspondant is hunkered down in an internet joint somewhere in Buenos Aires, trying to get a handle on these weirdarse keyboards. So cut it with any nonsense about dud keystrokes and dogy spellings. I´ve got this far, but that´s because I´ve already knocked out a swift one to the olds, and am getting familar with the strange shift key and the ñ. Kinda like in Turkey, when the i key wasnñ the i key and I had terrible trouble just logging on to my hotmail account. Those were the days.
¿So, what has impressed me so far?
Chilean food is the pits. As far as I could tell, the national dish id the sandwich, or a variation thereof. Or many variations thereof, stuffed full of strange looking hams and vegies. Mind you, I was only there for 18 hours. And all I could get my hands on was the ol´reliable cheese and tomato number. They did have some nasty looking hotdogs smothered in mayo (the guidebook aptly described it as a blanket of mayo), and it seems to be what one scoffs with a cerveza, but I´m waiting till I return there in a coupla weeks to sink my pearly whites into one of those. Or more.
Fast food joints must outnumber restaurants in Santiago by about 6 to 1. And most of them sell these hotdogs. Or atleast are named things like "Doggis". Otherwise you´re next best bet is ice cream, which they seem to dig over there.
Santiago wasnñt what I expected of the richest and most westernised nation on this here continent. Way more dirty and traffic-clogged and low-rise that I´d expected. And that magical view of the Andes wasn´t visible through the smog. Though I did get an awesome view of the mountains as we flew over them this morning.
And while Í´m on flights, the Auckland-Santiago leg was hell for a fairly big bloke like myself, wedged there in economy, with, as always, the person who immediately puts their seat ALL THE WAY BACK as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off. Ho`pe your trip sucks dogs balls bitch.
But all was redeemed when checking in this morning the requisite two hours before departure, when a lovely Chileña sidled up to us asking what time we were departing, only to suggest the next flight was available, leaving us with just a half-hour wait at the airport AND bulkhead seats. The clanging of the spheres or just my own hapless charm? I´ll go for the latter.
BA on the other hand is an amazing looking town. Just like Paris or Barçelona, only warmer and with madder drivers. And yes, it is true what they say: this city seriously sports the best looking men and women on the planet. Itñs a constant battle not to phwoar and turn your head as they amble past...
talking on their mobile phones as though they are two-way radios. They hold them to their mouth to speak and then to their ear to hear. As opposed to holding them in the one place to get both things happening at once, they talk into it with not even the slightest pretence at listening to the other person.
Beef. Bring it on. I´ve always been a red meat man, and this place is meant to slice and char the world´s best. So look out parrillas, here I come.
Now it´s time to sample the local ale.
¡Hasta luego amigos!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night

First the heavy news:
Today it was confirmed that a little cancerian skander will be joining the world in 2006.

And on a lighter note:
The work Xmas do is tonight, and I have a rather fetching seersucker safari suit to impress the crowd with.
Then I leave for South America on Monday.

Bucking the trend

I have attended a bucks do on almost every Saturday night so far this December. Bucks parties are strange beasts, the sort of thing you look forward to with equal parts trepidation and and fervour. There's the prospect of copious amounts of piss, of naked, dancing bogans, of being stuck with the bride's best friend's fiancé who works in behind a service counter at a university, of barely seen old mates, of illicit drugs, of casinos, of obscure family rituals. My main motivating factor is, frankly, the booze. Then again, as many would suggest, it is perhaps, my only motivating factor. Ever. My love of the demon is well-documented, and it is my understanding that, yes, he loves me back.

Nonetheless, bucks parties are strange events. All that testosterone in one place, all these fathers and husbands and boyfriends and lovers all sitting round the same table/standing around the same bar. And it always begins with the small talk:

"Ah, Chook, it's been ages mate, what's news?"
"Well, I've got three kids and work's kicking goals"
"What it is you do again? Last time we saw each other it must have been, oh, seven years ago mate, and you were still working in that pub/agency/factory/building near the train station."
"Well, I'm still there mate. Loving it, been working my way up. I'm running the place now. Here, have a business card."
"Ah, so the concrete business is doing okay these days?"
"Well, Katie and I have just bought a place in Pakanham, huge land, and, yeah things are looking good. What's your story mate? Do you ever catch up with Macca these days?"

or

"Hello Mr Spack!"
"Hello Skander! I haven't seen you for years, not since that time we had to drop you home after you'd had too much to drink at that party all those years ago"
"Yeah, well, older and wiser, you know what they say"
"I hope so. And what are you doing with yourself these days? Something creative/high-powered/to do with cars, I'm sure"
"No, I'm doing well, everythings going just fine. I'm off ot South America for five weeks in Jan, so I'm really looking forward to that"
"Oh that sounds wonderful. I've always wanted to go to South America. Tell me are you going to Capetown? I hear it's lovely."
"?"
"Oh, silly me. Now, tell me, how are your parents? Judy and I would love to catch up with them someday."

or worst of all

"G'day Ando! Man, it's been ages. How's things?"
"Oh, they're alright. Chrissie is letting me see young Oscar again these days, so I guess things are looking up"
"Oh, that's good news. I didn't know you guys had been having trouble?"
"Um, yeah, she started seeing this other guy a couple of years ago, and you know, neither of us thought they were serious. Just after Ollie turned two, she felt she wanted a fling, and so, whatever. We had an arrangement. And then one day, I just come home from work and all her stuff, and all of little Oliver's stuff is gone. She'd even put a restraining order on me! Can you believe it?"
"?"
"Man, it was tough times. But I'm doing ok now. Doc tells me I'm almost ready go off the prozac soon."
"Oh, and do you find they've helped?"
"Well, as I said, it was tough times. But since I've been allowed to go back home, I have really been finding that I'm on the improve. I spose the drugs help. Yeah, and Mum still drops round and cleans the place up n stuff. Cooks me dinner."
"Oh really, how is your mum?"
"Great."
"Oh good. Now, do you know where the bathroom is mate? Cool. I'll be back in 5."

And so it goes.

But the oddly defining part of the last two bucks affairs I went to were that the first buck organised his own stripper, and the second one was a play-by-play copy of the best man's bucks party held 3 months prior. To the minute.

And that's kinda wierd. Well both of them are. You don't bloody well organise the stripper at your own bucks party. If you have one at all, and I'm not averse to the bucks party that does not have strippers—in fact, I'm rather partial to them. But like, greeting and looking after the stripper, like, "I'll be sitting here, so you come in from over there..." is all a bit strange. I mean, it's supposed to be degrading and somewhat embarassing, not all familiar and like "Hi Joanne, welcome" And the groomsmen are meant to pay from a hat passed round (preferably before the event), surely? Not the groom chasing her after her routine with a wad of cash...

The second one, on the other hand, just seemed completely and absolutely unoriginal, and by that, was rather uncomplimentary to the buck. I kinda believe that bucks parties are tailored to the buck, to the sorta things he's into, be it paintball or horse-racing or strippers or fuck-off expensive wine. But to just regurgitate what this bloke did for you a couple of months earlier is a cop out. It was a frame-by-frame remake: first go-karting; then lunch in Port Melbourne; then a room at the casino; with a pair of topless waiteresses; everything.

Which is not to say I did not enjoy myself at either of these events. Indeed, I am sure I was not making any sense whatsoever when I finally disappeared out of the casino from the later party. Sure, because I couldn't stand up straight either. And because I was having trouble seeing anything in the singular. As I said, I love that demon alcohol. And he loves me.

Best Neighbours News EVER!

Patrick Harvey is pulling up stumps in February, and taking his character, the shite and balding Connor off our screens. Have you ever heard anything more exciting?

Is this woman the devil incarnate?

Condi yesterday refused to either confirm or deny the existence of the CIA's supposed network of secret torture prisons, or Black Sites, across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Let me paraphrase: I'm not saying they exist, and I'm not saying there don't exist, but, were they to exists, they would be a very important instrument in the War On Terror®.

Now, aside from the fact that she seems to have been taking lessons from our very own Dear Leader, there is only one problem with her refusal to state categorically whether the US has broken international law by setting up these clandestine gaols. Our Man in Bangkok (or alternatively, My Favourite Mogul) Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has vehemently denied reports that a Voice of America relay station in Udon Thani was operated as a Black Site by the CIA, before he had it hastily closed down after a reports surfaced in the Washington Post.

Still, Condi's line seems to be the standard one: I'm not saying yes, and I'm not saying no, so at no time in the future can anyone accuse me of lying. But it does sound to me like she's already making a play for the Republican candidate for the 2008 Presidency (and who better to take on that lesbian beeyatch Hillary Clinton?)

My thoughts precisely

As enunicated by Dr Scott Burchill.

See, the Left can be coherent.

Welcome back Jess

Where on earth do you find this stuff?

Skin a bunny-rabbit

Dorset Deep Dish Rabbit Pie

Half a kilo of rabbit fillets, seasoned flour, fresh sage or thyme and streaky bacon; breadcrumbs, rind of one lemon, one egg, pepper, salt and one cup of milk

Preheat oven to 160°. Dredge rabbit fillets in seasoned flour an pack tighly in a deep pie dish, no more than two layers deep. Snip bacon pieces over the rabbit and scatter with freshly-picked herb leaves.
Pour in milk to just about cover the rabbit. Mix Breadcrumbs, lemon rind and egg, season, and press firmly over the meat to form a crust. Bake for 1½ hours.

YUM.

With thanks to Artbyelaine, The Collingwood Children's Farm Farmers' Market and The Bible.

I want to ride my bicycle...

A few months ago, right, well, half a year ago, I was happily riding my bike to and fro the workplace. It's only about 20 minutes or so, a coupla hills, a park, some tramlines and I'm there. It takes about the same amount of time as driving—unfortunately for my route, PT just doesn't cut it, and couldn't unless someone were to drill a whopping great tunnel under the Exhibtion Building. It's kinda sad, because I love me my PT, ever since that rockin' LGB train-set I had as a little skander. I have been a slut for infrastructure ever since. [Note to self: locate old train-set.][Note to LGB: Why the fuck do you need a massive flash intro with techno soundtrack for a manufacturer of model trains?] But, taking a tram (yes, non-Melbournites, a tram!) would take me about 40 minutes and entail at least 2 changes. Shite.
So, earlier in the year, I was cycling. Doesn't that word sound genteel? All boater hats and picnics. I didn't have a pushie of my own, and my olds had just moved house, and unearthed a really nice bike, a Giant mountainbike, that my mother had given my father a few years earlier in the hope he might do exercise with other parts of his body besides his elbow. No luck there.
So this bike is in very good nick (hardly used, one gentleman onwner) and about the right size for me. Bingo. I drop round to my olds to pick it up before the removalists do and find my brother has taken it and attached a kids chair to the back. No biggie, he's got a bike of his own, a road bike which he rides around Port Phillip Bay no less, a bike that reportedly set him back $8k no less. I'll get this one soon.
Eventually, after a shitload of hassling and finally turning up at his place and pretty much demanding this (let's get with the program here) MTB, I wrestle it back from him, to a soundtrack of his wife harping on, in another room but well within earshot, about how I should buy one of my own as they only cost about 400 bucks. At this point it is important to note that I had my father's blessing in this; something like "Your brother already has his own bike, yes, you can use mine, just go and bloody get it off him. It's not his, it's mine"
So there I am for a good coupla months, little flashing lights and all, pedalling off to work and back. Until the horrific incident that required a podiatrist (shout out to the lovely Anne-Marie if you're reading this), ergo no cycling for a while. It's coming up to the coldest months n shit weather n I'd worked out how to get a lift to work.
At some stage during injury time, the brother rings up to borrow this bike—his being way too flash and expensive to want to put a kiddie seat on.
"Sure" I tell him, and dutifully let him borrow the bicycle one Sunday morning. Monday arvo he asks if he can return it. "Sure" I say, "You know where the key is". Like you do.
It's there when I get home. I don't pay much attention to it. It's cold n wet n I want to get inside to the warmth and the red wine and pallet full of DVDs I have to watch for work.
About a week later, as I wander past, I notice that the bike has suddenly sprouted a pannier. Odd, why would my brother want a pannier when what he wants it for is a kiddie seat? So I look closer. The colours look the same, silver and blue. Yep, it's a giant. Something's odd. The grips are all old and worn; there's suddenly a bell; the clips for the lights are all in the wrong spots. He's returned the wrong bike.
I shrug my shoulders, and mention it to the olds the next time I see them:
"Frére has returned the wrong bike"
"What do you mean the wrong bike?"
"It's a different bike. It looks really similar, but it's not the same bike"
My mind drifted back to the time I first collected this bike from him, and thought, oh well, they must have gone and bought another bike for me so they could keep the other one. Crafty. Not too worried at this stage as it's still wintry and I sure as hell aint riding for another coupla weeks at least.
And then he rings up: "Hi Skander, can I borrow the bike again, I want to take jeune nephew for a ride."
"Sure" I say, "But it's not the same bike."
"what?"
"It's the new one you returned, not Dad's one"
"What do you mean?"
"It's the bike you returned to my place, not Dad's one that you borrowed."
"But I returned Dad's one"
"Oh no you didn't"
And so it progressed, as any conversation between brothers does. Some of you will know more about that than others, I'm sure. And so he's swearing black and blue that he returned the correct bike, and that therefore, the bike at my place, I dunno, just morphed into a similar looking but very different bicycle. Or, his logic runs, someone has broken into my house, taken one bike out of the two that are standing there next to my front door, leaving the other one, and then come back and replaced the bike they have stolen with a similar looking one, still leaving the old green Raleigh that doesn't get used, and locked the gate again on the way out.
This, strangely enough doesn't make sense to me. But I argue and get no where. And eventually it results in one of those huge family arguments where everyone has something to say and an opinion to contribute and no-one gets anywhere and everyone is talking over one another. You know the drill.
Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago. I reckon I'll give this imposter bike a go—I haven't got anything else now have I? So off I trundle, and my lord, this bike is shit. The gears don't work, the deraillieur won't even look at pulling the chain in the way I want it to, the handlebars are loose (and of course I haven't packed the allen keys) and I realise that it's a woman's MTB and about 4 sizes too small so I can pedal like hell and hardly get anywhere. True.
So, it's a dud. It's no use to me, and probably only needs a good hour or two with the mechanic and I might be able to get some money for it. But it means I have to go out and get an new bike for myself. And where oh where do I begin?
He still swears he left the correct bike at my place. I'm lucky I mentioned it to the olds as early as I did or my story would have no credibility. No credibility? Like supposing someone broke into a house, stole a bike and replaced it with a replica has credibility. Ha!

odds n ends

I cried at Neighbours last night.
and
Ned Zelic: dude, what's doing? I don't reckon you could'nt've had your knees any further apart. Shave around your goatee and straighten up and I shall accept your slavic testosterone seeping through my screen with much more readily.

La Salle d'Attente

A quick shoutout to John Fowles who died on the weekend. This man was responsible for one of my earliest journeys into literature, with the engrossing entrapment that is The Magus. Just the thing for a boy of 19: sunkissed, mysterious, and ever-so slightly erotic.

It's all about the sunnies

Thank god that's all over. But golly it was fun while it lasted.

The statistics:

• 216 stubbies of Melbourne Bitter
• 48 bottles of San Pellegrino
• 30 regular bottles of Trilogy
• 6 Magnums of Trilogy
• 1 bottle of Pimms No 1 Cup
• 3 bottles of lemonade
• 2 bottles of dry ginger ale
• 4 bottles os Schweppes 'lemon lime & bitters'
  
• mint, cucumber and ornage to garnish
• 20 bags of ice
• 2 grams of cocaine
• 162 baby chicken, coriander and almond sandwiches
• 36 mini prawn and butter lettuce baguettes with a lime mayo
• 60 sticky BBQ pork rice paper rolls with hoi sin & peach dipping sauce
• 60 middle-eastern spiced lamb meatballs with red capsicum dipping sauce
• 60 mini felafel with hummus, tahini & yoghurt sauce wrapped in flatbread
• 3 Mediterranean moulles
• 2 sides of smokin' Tom Cooper's smoked salmon, smoked the day before
• 1 fillet of beef
  
• 1 bag of chips
• 1 market umbrella
• 1 tressle table
• 2 table cloths
• 50 champagne flutes
• 2 red tin buckets
• 1 red tin jug
• 100 plastic cups
• 4 eskies
• 1 bunch of yellow roses
• 2 packets of serviettes
• 4 platters
• 2 car spaces
  
• 38 satisfied punters
  
• 32 degrees celsius
• 10 horse races
• 1 historic event

I heart this T-shirt design

and have for quite some time. From those crazy cats at Tshirt Hell.

And more Neighours...

BEST EPISODE EVER.

Leaps and bounds ahead of Tuesdays, in my books. This is what soaps are about—trauma, and the way this affects the relationships between people. This is what Ramsay Street doesn't do well. It is something the British soaps are very good at, getting everyone together for the bubbles of emnity to rise to the surface and create divisions between characters. A la Max and Karl, previously pretty good mates, at each other's throats. I hope they keep this sort of tension going.

And Neighbours was blessed the day they wrote and cast Janelle Timmins: "I've always said that man was a cockroach. He'd survive anything". PURE GOLD.

The only negative aspect to the episode is that Connor survived.

The Holy See

And so we have seen the last of everyone's favourite JAP, the ersatz Serbo-Australian Serenna Bishop. Yes, after the tumultuous time she has spent in Erinsborough—snapping up the storyline Delta ditched featuring the oddly attractive internet soft-porn-meister, Chris Cousens; heavy-petting her heavy-breathing half-brother; A whole bunch of excuses for her to wear a bikini (whihc we don't mind at all); and well, not really much else. For one thing, at least poor Lara won't have to lock lips with Australia's leading example of premature balding, Connor O'Something Oirish. Perhaps that is the reason why she decided to 'jump ship'.

And so we've seen the end of wanton hussy Ljiljana Bishop and her sap of a huband, dorky Dave—Dave, who's not done much except lose all his cash in his opening weeks, and have one great scene where he finally had a go at his wife for shagging Paul Robinson. Where were all the holier-than-thous when poor Dave got cuckolded, Susan and Lyn? As for Ljil, well, pfft.

What shits me about this aeroplane tragedy, what really shits me, is that off all the characters who have been killed, they are all from the same family, and at least two of them had potential. Why the fuck wasn't Stuart Parker on that plane? Why the fuck did Connor have to survive? He can't even read, he's balding, he's hard to understand, and he's ugly. If I'd had three characters to axe, it would have been Chooka, Connor and Ljiljana, no questions asked. All three of them are superfluous wastes of space in my opinion.

But back on topic: Harold has to be the unluckiest guy in the world. Everyone around him dies. And not just dies, but dies spectacularly. I understand the arguments the Neighbours producers have put around that they wanted some drama, some grief, and a few less characters, but to strip Harold of three of the only four people in the world who are releated to him is altogther too cruel. Why not share the grief around? We could all have done without Dylan, and the Timminses could outmourn any family, I'm sure. Or Bobby Hoyland, even, if we wanna extend the circle. Hell, there's an army out there with its sights firmly set on Lyn Scully—a character with so much potential as the new busybody in my books, and yet gets thrown so little. Surely the Hoylands are due a tragedy? Perhaps it could have been Summer? make that Boyd, he's more of a sap. Wouldn't a whole street in ourning be better than the chance to alter Harold's personality YET AGAIN, this time so he can attempt to murder Paul Robinson?

I dunno. The logic behind the murder of these three characters is beyond me. I saw so much potential in spoilt brat Serena and have held out hope of a hottie Serb family from WA leaving the vineyard to join aunt Ljil, whether she's there or not. And now, no. Although I can still hope to see crazy-eye Sventanka Ristic again, can't I? Can't I?

Terror-fied

Once again the Premiers are barking up the wrong tree. It's not some vague Howardian "shoot to kill" clause—a right most Australian police forces already have—that is the most disturbing part of this so-called "anti-terror" legislation. It's the restrictions on freedom of speech implied in the sedition clauses. The sort of clause that that could have someone who may support the Palestinian struggle against the brutal, illegal occupation of their lands by a foreign military force, 'detained' without charge for up to a year.

Now that's scary

And while I'm at it, good on John Stanhope for being the only Labor leader with any spine.

Blatantly Stolen Content

I came by this work for a Brazilian artist called Icasro Doria. It rocks. And there's more. But never enough. I love this sort of shit. It's the type of stuff that led to me having a big stack of COLORS magazines a few years back. Man they were good. My sister still denies nicking them, but she has a history of poking her nose into places and not owning up to it. That's what sisters are for, isn't it?

GRR

Two things that have got my goat this morning:

• emails that begin "This actually works!!!": FUCK OFF.
• and people who do not refill the kettle and turn it back on, when they have used the last of the hot water. ARSEHOLE.