some terribly brilliant advice given by a career woman in an english broadsheet

"my advice to career women is to get into the habit of rubbing really expensive body cream in after a bath."

and that, i expect, will solve everything.

economic indicators

nevermind the consumer price index, inflation, cash rate, new jobs advertised, or the price-per-barrel of crude oil. it's time for a new econometric measure. an instant guide to economic boom or bust is the s.p.i.: spam frequency index. the current influx of lottery-themed unsolicited emails floating around is a sure sign of economic gloominess ahead.

fool's gold

what a wheeze. best selling authoress, katie price, has casually disclosed she doesn't actually bother to write her hugely popular entertainments. instead she farms the actual writing aspect out to a thankless factotum or amanuensis. quite enterprising, that. price "merely thinks up the plot - leaving the complex task of conjuring up the golden prose to an assistant," is how one "daily mail" journalist tremulously put it. gold indeed. i wonder if any of her hundreds of thousands of readers feels a little swindled?

goodbye to "east angular" and all that

after 8 cruel, neuron-busting years it looks like those zeros at channel 10 are finally pulling the plug on "big brother". i think hosanahs are in order. though i can't forget the collateral damage. in particular, how "bb" shattered the illusion that people are basically decent and moderately intelligent. on the evidence of those in "bb" captivity they're not. not by a long way. its only contribution to the culture is adding the phrase "turkey slap" to the lexicon. not much to show for 8 years work, is it? anyway, now that the queen bee of reality tv is gone, maybe all the others will likewise disappear. roll on that happy day.

bloomin' marvelous

a tremendous pair of queen victoria's knickers, with a truly majestic circumference of 50 inches, are being flogged by the english auction house, hanson's. this garment belongs in the british museum. it's an ornament to the nation. and in churchill's words "makes you proud to be british".

england is in a dreadful way these days. the titanic proportions of these bloomers (made for a woman not quite 5 feet tall) will put a smile back on english faces. and restore some much needed national pride.

so much for price parity

one of the unexplained quirks of oz is the jumbo price differential for consumer goodies relative to the rest of the civilised world. what something costs in america usually costs two or three times as much here (irrespective of exchange rates). no one seems to know why this should appertain. so when telephone companies promised "comparable" pricing for the apple iphone 3g, i didn't hold my breath. this gizmo is $200 in america and, presto-changeo, $700 here. it must be magic. or a suitable matter for a parliamentary inquiry, i think. still, it's good to see the epidemic of apple iphone fever. no one, i notice, is queuing at 6:30 in the morning for a beige "windows" phone.

snacktacular

over the other side of melbourne, at queenscliff, the latest tourist phenom involves hand-feeding the giant stingrays (2 metres across) which glide into the shallows under the pier. what fun.

going caravaning

taste buds are in mutinous revolt against the host organism. i've gone off coffee. all espressoed out. desperate measures required. reverting to tea in the interim. russian caravan tea, to be precise.

a boost

as a consequence of the sclerotic world economy 600+ starbucks outlets in america are closing. hooray. hopefully the dozen or so in oz will be next.

mcfood

in an ill-considered attempt to defibrillate flagging sales, mcdonalds in oz has released a "mcafrica" burger. hmm. now africa has certain things in abundance: corruption, famine, war, disease, poverty, ignorance and aids. but food? not so much. now if it were a true mcafrica burger, reflecting the diet of the continent, it would be comprised mostly of africans.

brilliant

this lovely poster has been designed by the local authorities in england to publicise the necessary work they do. like spew removal. nothing like puffing up one's image, i suppose. perhaps this isn't quite the endorsement they were looking for? though re-addressed, as it were, this poster would do excellent service as a "welcome to liverpool" emblem.

though not intended as a piece of social commentary, this image is a nice summation of contemporary britain: a place awash with illegal immigrants, terrorists, binging, crime, yobs, and a general unseemliness not seen since hogarth's day.

the councilors have unwittingly caught the "very pith and marrow" (to steal from hamlet's phrasebook) of "cool britannia". it's been an astonishing cultural reversal.