dolly pond

is tremendous.

nights

aren't just for sleeping.

whatever the english may say

oz soaps are awful. just awful. be thankful you don't have them.

more mornington

look, no camera flare.

if you're wondering that's a kite-surfer.

weary sigh

yet another book has been published making heavy weather of leni riefenstahl. are communists like sergei eisenstein or pasolini similarly reviled? no. why? what's the difference?

riefenstahl was a careerist, not a nazi. she was only interested in her own professional advancement. just like françois mitterand. when the war began and the germans were ascendant mitterand was a fascist. at the war's close when the germans were losing mitterand had changed sides. i guess riefesntahl never had the tact to change sides soon enough.

riefenstahl is over-rated as a film-maker. as propaganda "triumph of the will" is a failure. it is boring and strangely static. i doubt anyone was converted to nazism by sitting through its grandiose longueurs.

find another subject.

he said

"personally i don't like a girlfriend to have a husband". (orson welles in "the lady from shanghai").

to avoid confusion

from now on there will only be two colours orange and not-orange.

officially it's one week from winter

but after looking at the photo-graphic evidence you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise. pix taken this afternoon.

is there anything as jejune

as porn viewed for the second time? one look and it's stale.

i've just met

miss wrong (for me, anyway). i caught her blog profile in passing. scary stuff. her interests are astrology, vampires, mythology, paranormal, tarot, crystals, the moon" et al. i think i'd rather be with that woman from montebourg.

how utterly french

read an interview with the military historian antony beevor: author of "stalingrad" and "berlin: the downfall 1945". during his researches into a new book on the allied invasion of normandy he found an interview with the wife of the mayor of montebourg. according to her "the americans destroyed everything, the invasion was the start of our miseries and life was much better under the germans". it's amazing how little things have changed.

i remember when feminist groups used to hand out "yes means yes, no means no" anti-rape material. maybe someone should do the same for the european union? how many times do member states have to vote "no" before the brussels realises it doesn't have consent?

i'm dying to meet

a woman who hasn't read sylvia plath's "the bell jar". does such a person exist? and will i be able to spot her? will she be the only person smiling in a room full of long faces?

is it october already?

oh goody. just received my first reminder notice from the organizers of the melbourne marathon in october. so much to look forward to. 5am winter runs. the cold. the dark. the rain. the hills. the lost sleep. the angry beeping of the heart-rate monitor. the occasional ice-bath. i'm surprised this isn't more popular.

a woman's most enduring relationship

is with her telephone.

ouch

wisdom teeth.

that joke isn't funny anymore

i wonder, what would be the musical equivalent of the turner prize? the j. s. bach prize for the sound of someone throwing up in the morning? or the hateful noise made by a muezzin calling people back to the stone age? grow up, england.

forget ferris. save lindsay.

as lady bracknell said: "i don't approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance".

no moore rubbish

please.

sooner or later

the doctor said: "you have 6 months to live, if you're lucky. or 6 days. in which case everyone else is lucky." prognosis uncertain.

something to celebrate

at last. england gets to retain its imperial weights and measures. at least for a little while longer. this is unexpected. europe is a funny place. they do things differently there. usually by executive fiat. the people are seldom consulted—democracy being considered somewhat vulgar. in all unimportant matters brussels is usually wrong. in all important matters brussels is always wrong. so, for now, the pounds stay on.

single goy

what? he's doing jewish jokes now?

astronomers are idiots

pluto is a planet, poindexters. it's also a convenient way of delimiting our interest in that vast, boring, uninhabited region known as outer space. no one cares what happens beyond pluto. that's as far as we care to see. restore pluto to planetary status!

there's something about segways

i find inherently funny. (maybe it's the price? which is preposterous.) i saw my first one in melbourne last february. it had an indian on it. that made it even funnier. anyway now i see new york's police come armed and segwayed. the "simpsons" writers find them funny too. i recall kent brockman reading a news item: "…bringing this year's segway fatalities up to 1,000". i think new york's criminals are probably laughing too. look out! here comes segway squad.

stealing outside

in a sunny moment for a coffee when a woman pulled up alongside the café. she had a large, strategically-placed tear in her jeans. so that when she bent over to prize junior out of the back of the car, the whole left side of her arse fell out. (she was wearing a thong, naturally.)

but why? i guess it's something to do with being a newish mother. and wanting people to think she's still hot. (or not).

it's like the major said in fawlty towers: "strange creatures, women".

singin' in the rain

it's finally rained in this stupid country.

is it wrong

to buy your girlfriend cellulite cream if she hasn't asked you to?

calling dr gregory house

for some reason the veins in my arm have all come to surface, forming a kind of creepy bas-relief. strange.

either i'm going to explode or i'm actually spiderman.

love and death

this is squeak. the neighbour's cat. he's been mooching around here for most of his life. enjoying extra breakfasts and sleeping off hangovers under my bed. unfortunately he's curtains. his mother is a mean english cow. with the heart the size of a lentil. consequently he spent most of his life shut outside. whatever the weather. i found him the other night under a camellia. he had a mass on his face. the next day it was worse. this time she took him in. but ejected him at 2:30 the next morning. when he was eventually found 36 hours later it was too late. now she's upset. but not quite as much as she is about the dent in her garage door.

just life. as usual.

knocking at heaven's gate

i wonder how the heaven's gaters are doing now. have they turned into pure plasma yet? or are they bouncing around the universe as microwave energy? ten years ago 39 dweebs belonging to the heaven's gate cult committed mass suicide so as to rendez-vous with a spaceship believed to be hiding in the tail of the hale-bopp comet. (well, where else would jesus park his spaceship?) they made all the necessary preparations. they had five dollars in their pockets, new trainers and matching tracksuits. (what else would you wear to the afterlife?) this is why it never pays to get too involved in computer science. stupid geeks.

the eurovision song contest

makes las vegas look tasteful.

all gauloises and faux pas

after sartre…

hell
is the smell
of other people.

intelligent design

none of the three browsers on my computer will open facebook. thank god.

la crise

broke my coffee plunger yesterday. kitchen chaos. thankfully i had another plunger i could detonate. and if that failed, a back-up percolator. when it comes to coffee i'm not taking any chances.

the road less travelled

is full of pot holes. frost forgot to tell you that. poets are awful guides.

pure azure

11 a.m. saturday. wandered outside and pointed camera at sky. not a trace of canada (cloud/rain) anywhere.

this
is
oz.

great moments in western civilization #1264

from the tv show "clueless".

looking over her classmates attempts at achieving the 'cool casual' look, cher horowitz says to her friend dionne: "unless you've got the body for it, you can really make armani look like armani exchange".

the world

is not so bad for a first draft. it just needs improvement. lots of improvement. before it's ready to be released in a published form.

nsoh

no sense of humour.

life is

mostly longing. interspersed with moments of boredom.

primary considerations

barak obama
is not the answer.
but i'd sooner he
than hillary.

a friend of mine says

the only time men should touch is when they shake hands. that seems about right.

zyklon b

no one deserves to die in a gas chamber. except those involved with "big brother".

nasa

has just released close-up images of jupiter for the first time. and you'll never guess. there's no elaborate highway system, no delicatessens, no all-night chemists. not even a lost umbrella. nothing, in fact. we are alone. we have no neighbours. why is that so hard to accept?

outer space is just a giant screen-saver which comes on when the sun goes down.

spend spend spend

there's no stopping
her shopping.

children know best

jesus was onto something when he said "suffer the little children". because children are right about so many things. like crocs. they're comfy. they come in bright, smiley colours - like wearing smarties on your feet.

it's a simple syllogism:
children like crocs
children are good
therefore crocs are good.

who can gainsay that?

pomegranates

are over-rated.

more of the same, please

you're crazy
if you think sarkozy
will change anything.

although france is famous for elastic morals and easy amours, politcially and economically it is the most inflexible country on earth. the riots and demonstrations are only hours away. france remains an ancien régime.

i don't want

to spend a wet weekend at tenby. spare me.

you can be

shallow, or self-centred, or selfish, and not return my calls, and never say thank-you; you can always eat the last yoghurt in the fridge, and even get the wrong coffee. i don't care. you can be anything…

just
don't
be
boring.

don't ever talk to me about "saving africa". sheesh.

mrs jellyby
is not for me.

says it all, really

you for scuba?

not today.

why ponder life's complexities?

when the wheels run smooth on your inline skates.

love is a duet

two people harmonising and syncopating together. there's no occasion for others to scramble onstage to join in. there's no occasion for what samantha, in "sex in the city", calls "guest stars". it doesn't need backing vocals. the act succeeds or fails on its own.

one
plus
one
equals
fun.

from a hillside desolate

the united kingdom
is a polite fiction.
great britain
is a euphemism.
the only thing
worth saving
and celebrating
is england.
the rest is superfluous.

where the boys are

if the girls are all gravitating to the chocolate shops, this sunday—cinco de mayo—the boys will all be immersed in the most important event of the year. oscar de la hoya versus floyd mayweather junior. she likes oscar. naturally. (she's easily aroused). i see mayweather winning on points. just too slippery. really, nothing else matters.

quelle surprise

it's silly
really
but me
miss she.

if you're thinking of taking up golf

don't.

there are fashion implications. like plaid.

tepid, at best

me
hot?
not.

obsolescence

it was fun while it lasted. now it's just another dead shibboleth.

i'm moving

have to find a new place. something more suitable. somewhere under a bridge. "you are a troll," she said. i'm still laughing.

very selfish drunken clown

she said. made me laugh.

is it just me?

or does ireland's national airline, aer lingus, sound faintly pornographic?

apologies aren't necessary

i'm australian. we don't have feelings. say whatever you want.

because i can

saw a film recently with the fetching title "she couldn't say no". sounded promising. but proved a disappointment. it wasn't about 'that' subject at all. it never mentioned chocolate. once. what is it about that stuff? why can't women say no? to it?

as you can see it's piling up around here. uneaten. that box at the back arrived at christmas. it's destined for re-gifting elsewhere. (i always pass on pralines.) the egg arrived at easter. it still hasn't hatched out of its box. and the slab of koko is an intended gift. i still can't believe that stuff is $75 a kilo.

how come it's still here? how come i haven't eaten it? because i can. say no. that's the essential difference between the sexes. men aren't easy.

there's recently been a breakthrough

in fruit toast technology. down here. toast now comes with citrus and cinnamon accents. it's a welcome change. saved my life. i now have a reason to get up in the morning.

i'd rather be

in madrid. looking at the tintoretto exhibition at the prado. you can get an inkling from "new york review of books" here. "nyrb" are incorrigible surrender monkeys, i know. but they do take the trouble to notice the finer things. like art. so hat's off.

tintoretto
just goes to show
why the west
is the best.

i'd rather be

someone else.

running isn't a hobby

it's just a 50 minute detour i take most mornings between leaving bed and entering shower. it's the scenic route. here is the scene (pictured) as photographed by me.

actually the running is just an excuse to eat more grapefruit. without which, i am like roger ramjet without his proton energy pill.

where the girls are

in melbourne they can be found in one of two places: either koko black or haigh's in the national trust listed block arcade (pictured). they are melbourne's swishest chocolate shops. koko's is also a café selling chocolatey foods and drinks. last christmas and easter haigh's had a security guard on the door. can't think why. does too much chocolate make women violent? i thougtht the opposite was true. wouldn't a nurse be more helpful? to treat cases of swooning.

i have a soft spot

for the black dalek. he doesn't get the credit he deserves. he has a certain savoir-faire. is more urbane than the others. better read, i think, too. more cosmopolitan. the cary grant of daleks. looks like he rolled off coco chanel's sketch pad. whereas the gold daleks. reek of versace. all "look at me! look at me!" tackiness. too nouveau riche. (yes, i can even be a snob about science fiction.)

so daleks
like women
look better
dressed in black.

love in a cool climate

when the waiter buzzed up to take her order she asked for "fun, a big bowl of fun, and no extras". and when he came back with her order—it was wrong. (how could they get it wrong? she was quite clear about what she wanted.) it came with a side serving of feelings. which she didn't want. and now she's not sure. does she pick at it? or send it back to the kitchen? either way, her evening has been spoiled.