Why three-year-olds should concentrate on picking their noses

Arrr, 'tis a fine ship for a shanty adviser.

On Sunday I took my small boy on a child-sized odyssey. We had a great day and many things were learnt, including that if you drag a small child to a ticket window you can buy a 'family funday' ticket which gives you unlimited access to Sydney's buses, trains and ferries for a whole day for $2.50. Ker-ching (I've gotta run the numbers but I'm pretty sure I'm close to making a profit on this whole procreation thing).

So not only was I delighted to be walking around with the giant discount coupon that is my son (who also manages to get me onto planes first and into movies for half price) but he seemed to be having a ball too. He had chips and lemonade at Circular Quay, screamed "wow!" 47 times on the ferry across to Pyrmont and spent exactly six minutes running through the Darwin exhibition at the Maritime Museum; a pretty good three-year-old day.

It wasn't until we were leaving the exhibition that I thought perhaps we could have made more of the day's learning opportunities instead of pegging chips at seagulls and making foghorn noises on the ferry. A Dad and his kid (who looked three to me but could have been four to six years older) were walking in front of us back to the ferry terminal when the Dad said to the kid: "It wasn't until Darwin that scientific rationality and the concept of evolution entered the discussion of the origin of humankind," to which the child answered: "What did people believe in before evolution?" "God, son," came the answer, "divine creation".

They walked on in silence, no doubt deep in un-childlike thought.

Then the kid looked up and saw the sign on the restaurant we were passing. "Y-O-T-S," he cried, triumphant, "that's not how you spell 'yachts'!"

I looked down at my son and pulled a face. My son looked up at me and picked his nose. We said "wow!" all the way home on the ferry.

A sport for kings and kettles

Several years ago some friends of a friend of mine decided to pick a sports team to follow. The two halves of this couple had grown up in different cities so rather than having one ardent supporter and one meh-whateverer they decided the best and fairest thing would be to choose a new team to love and cherish together.

They spent considerable time figuring out the criteria for their new team, none of which I can remember other than the team had to have the potential for greatness but not actually be too great at the time of choosing (so they could enjoy its rise), and it had to be based in a town with a population over 135,000.

That's right, because they were going to move there.

These friends of a friend were looking for a little more than a team to support. They were looking for team colours that matched their skin tones, a supporters' club that knew a bbq wasn't about the sausages, and a place to bring up their kids. They were looking to fill the void of modern life.

It's possible I made fun of them at the time. It's possible I called them crazy nutbars, but now the void has come whistling around my neighbourhood so I too have decided to turn to sport for salvation. My sport of choice? Le Tour de France.

Sure I only just figured out it's started already (who knew?), and sure I know nothing about cycling, but what's not to love about a sport that uses words like 'peloton', 'rear cog cluster' and 'derailleur'?

But my desperate over-justification doesn't end there: I had a pale blue Malvern Star all through primary school, I enjoyed The Triplets of Belleville when it first screened in 2003, and I even saw what could have been Le Tour itself when I was driving around France in July 2002 (or else the French have a crazy habit of motoring through narrow streets in small towns with bikes on their roofs):

Note my nascent fandom peeking out from under the front tyre of the second bike on the yellow car.

So unlike my crazy nutbar friends of a friend I feel well qualified in my sporting choice. I'll report back on Le Tour's void-filling capabilities; what fills your void?

I object

What's a 'schlange'?

Having vented my most pressing whinges last week I thought I'd move on to my most pressing objections. Afterall, to whinge is human but to object is divine.

Indeed it is, so here I go on my path to objectionist divinity:

1. I object to bloggy friends packing up their virtual badminton nets and going home, like Squib and The Projectivist (I haven't yet given up hope, Ms P, but there was something very final about that last capitalised X). Surely starting a blog is like joining the army or having a child: you're in it for life, right?

2. I object to Herman Melville's Typee being such a boring book. What's not to love about Melville's tropical island and cannibals? Don't waste your time reading the book; I'll tell you: everything.

3. I object to silly James Fenimore Cooper calling his characters 'Chingachgook' and 'Natty Bumppo'. For chroist sake, 'Chingachgook' has been stuck in my head on a loop since 1994. It is the world's most annoying word. Ever.

4. I object to my blog template, all bally and bouncy and colourful and sweet. Blech. In addition, I object to my lack of graphic design who-dit and computer know-how which prevent me from installing a less poxy template.

Hmm, I have less objections than I thought, which is surprising and slightly disappointing.

So help me cover up my shortcomings by telling me something you object to. And Squib and Ms P: you can't object to being objected to!

And another thing

Ooh look! Some bright and shiny things!

I've sat down several times over the last few days intent on writing a few bits and pieces about my new job but I keep getting distracted with little non-job whinges. My ramblings keep coming out like this: "Whinge. Whinge. Whinge. Whinge. Whinge. Oh yeah and I reckon my new job is going to be ay-okay."

So I've decided to embrace the whinge because clearly whinges distract me like bright shiny objects so hopefully once the whingeing is out of the way (stop saying 'whinge' in there) I will have some insightful things to say about starting a new job in a fractured economy.*

Where shall I begin? With whinge number 1:

1. It's cold in Sydney and I keep doing stupid things with powerpoints and power cords that mean I turn the heater off and the toaster on. Stupid stupid stupid.

2. I got a traffic infringement notice for turning left at a 'no left turn' sign. I think road rules can be divided into two groups: essential (stop at red lights) and suggested (no left turn). Unfortunately the constabulary at Newtown Police Station disagreed so made an example of me. I hate being made an example of because no-one learns a thing! The only person who knows I got busted for breaking a road 'suggestion' was the chap in the blue car behind me who did the same thing and got the same infringement notice. For our fines no-one is any wiser.

3. My son keeps waking up between 3.47am and 3.59am. Apparently he's not convinced the day doesn't start then. This is made doubly worse when I keep doing stupid things with powerpoints, power cords and heaters.

4. I got an email from the RTA about my toll pass with the subject heading "Easytoll Account Notification - Account Blacklisted". I'm not sure that my account balance reaching $0 makes me a person or organisation that has incurred disapproval or suspicion or should be boycotted. I would much prefer: "Minimum Account Balance Reached - When you've got a mo', pop over to our website and put some more clams in your bucket. Good on you."

5. To the person who squashed into the inch of space next to me on the train on Friday: squashing does not two foot of space make.

Ah, that's better. And my new job? I reckon it's going to be ay-okay.

* Unlikely.

A moment

I start my new job on Monday so this moment, sitting here with my late-afternoon vegemite toast and cup of tea, at home in the quiet on a Friday afternoon, is the last such moment I'll have for a while.

When I was a kid I used to think there was something magical about 2pm on a school day when you were home sick. You were in a place you wouldn't ordinarily be at that time. Somehow the light was different, and the neighbourhood didn't sound the same as it did on the weekends.

I've got that feeling now.

Afternoons like this have been such a pleasure over the last two months. As I've sat here fiddling around on the computer, making plans and writing up lists (such tremendously enjoyable things to do) I've been struck by the absurdity of going to work. I have, quite simply, been free. My time has been my own. It's been a shock to realise how little this is ordinarily the case.

I can but apologise for the banality of these thoughts, but as simple and dull as they are it remains that in a moment when I head off to collect the members of my family from their various places around the city the weekend will begin, then the week will begin, and Monday afternoon at home will pass without me.

So dear tea and toast and afternoon sun and random school-day adventures, thank you and see you in the next redundancy.

How I learned to stop worrying and love writers' festivals

I've just spent a long and fabulous weekend at the Sydney Writers' Festival. Sure there were hoards of those snobby rich-type people from the Eastern suburbs who only recognise books as those nice flattish statues they have on the glass-topped mahogany coffee tables in their north wing sitting rooms, but the Festival had more delights than even the high concentration of cats'-bum-faced women could diminish (apologies to cats and their arses everywhere).

So what were these festival delights? Let me share some with you.

Festival Delight Number 1
Bob Ellis was there talking about his new book And So It Went. He sat behind us at the restaurant on Saturday night. This is possibly my favourite festival photo of all time:


Festival Delight Number 2
There was a panel on erotic fan fiction. Marieke Hardy was on the panel and she read a piece on her lust for Brian, the dog from Family Guy. It ended, wink wink nudge nudge, with how she knew how to "throw a dog a bone".


One panellist read a piece on Inspector Gadget, describing, in detail, the Inspector's colouful feelings for Penny; another panellist described how Jennifer Aniston might be filling those lonely hours post-Brad by imagining what Brad does to Angelina under the table at all those gala dinners they go to. But the best piece of the night was based on the characters from Cluedo, which from the very innocent "'Lick my beard!' yelled Mustard to Green" descended into all sorts of delightful filth.

Festival Delight Number 3
My friends, undoubtedly against their better individual and collective judgements, let me do a festival quiz over dinner. Weren't they pleased with the quality of my questions:

The weather forecast for the festival was rain all weekend. Has it rained today?

The man who attempted to heckle George Friedman on Friday night was wearing what coloured scarf?

The Sydney Writers' Festival is held in which city?

Festival Delight Number 4
There was a session on the Booker Prize and the panel included a writer who had been short-listed and another who had been long-listed for the award, neither of whom had 'progressed' further in the competition. I enjoyed watching the facilitator rush headlong into a sentence that, as it started to unwind, could go nowhere but to the rather damning end of describing the two writers (of excellent, engaging novels) as 'Booker Prize losers'. It was an awkward moment. I'm pretty sure I saw one of the writers look at his/her watch.

Festival Delight Number 5
My final festival delight was the discovery of just how nimble old people are. There's no need to worry about old people getting worn out and feeble; the writers' festival has shown me that physical deterioration in your advanced years is a myth!

This weekend I saw more old ladies duck, weave, shoulder and side-step their way up queues than I could count on an abacus. One moment I was sure I was at the front of a queue then I'd blink and there would be fifteen thousand wrinkled faces with 1950s lipstick in front of me. What ho, I would think to myself, where did these fifteen thousand people come from? Then I would marvel anew at the speed with which fifteen thousand old ladies can duck, weave, shoulder and side-step, as they did within the blink of my eye (300 to 400 milliseconds), to get themselves to the front of the queue. I no longer fear getting old.

How much are tickets to the Byron Bay festival? I can't wait to see what the old hippies are up to.

Whoops! I forgot to put the safety on

I've been to the Opera House twice in the last few weeks (bringing my life's total to two visits). On both occasions the foyer was full of more bare shoulders and angular-cut skirts than my year 10 formal, but I felt perfectly at ease in my jeans (don't worry! They were my dress jeans! It's not like I went day casual).*

Anyhoo, so there was lots of quality time spent people-watching, friend catch-upping, and lining up at the bar for drinks and snack foods (like Toblerone? I'm still completely mystified why they'd sell Toblerone at the Opera House bar?), which was all lovely and fun but what I enjoyed most was the awesomely dangerous architecture.

Having grown up in a golden age of litigation, I most expect, when I head into the city on the train, say, to see at least 25 signs warning me not to cross the yellow line, not to prevent the doors from closing, not to crowd into an already crowded carriage, not to jog (or even walk quickly) down the escalator, not to wear shoes with loose shoelaces on the escalator, not to let anyone I'm travelling with who might have shoes with loose shoelaces and a penchant for jogging (or walking quickly) down escalators do so, and by crikey not to shriek and point when I see three-foot rats baring their teeth then gnawing on the rails that we're about to travel on!

So what a relief to visit the Opera House, sans safety signs, and find all sorts of delightfully dangerous architectural death-traps that are, no doubt, keeping the local council awake at night. Take, for example, this breezy external staircase that has thrown off the shackles of its railing:


Or this marvellous internal staircase litigiously connecting two thin 'platforms' on which drunk people congregate to partake further in the purchase and consumption of alcoholic beverages:


Surely leading to:

But I think the thing that made people most truly fearful was the 'click' sound my camera made when I took a photo in my toilet cubicle:

Ah, photos in toilets, now there's something to sue about.

* I haven't the faintest idea whether dress jeans actually exist, and thus clearly own none. I did indeed go day casual.