How to survive a dust storm

So there are dust storms all over NSW today, as you may have seen reported in some of Australia's finest news outlets. Because this kind of thing shits me (the melodramatic reportage, both from media outlets and the population generally) I thought I'd put together a brief 'how to' on surviving the dust storm who-ha.

1.Watch out for people who show you pictures, thus:



then say: "Seriously, it really looked like that."

They are stupid and don't understand that, provided your white balance is right and your shutter speed ok, a photograph can be a realistic representation of the external world.

The best thing to do in this situation is avoid all people holding cameras or phones with cameras or indeed any device with a screen. Just to be safe you might like to avoid all people with hands that could hold such devices or gesture to such screens, as well as those with mouths that look capable of forming the first 's' in "seriously".

2. Or, if you can't escape having images of the orange sky thrust before you, make sure you don't look at cropped images like this:



Ask to see the full image, thus:



If this is the Armageddon I want to at least have one last look at a hot guy.

3. When you hear soundbites from people across NSW using the word 'Armageddon' to describe the orange sky, throw something disrespectful at the tv or radio, like a tampon* or a used tissue.

Or, for those of a more verbal persuasion, when they say "When I looked out the window this morning, oh my! It was just like the Armageddon," you say "When I looked out the window this morning it looked like what I imagine the Armageddon to look like, because of course I haven't actually experienced any Armageddons myself."

Ach, don't listen to me. I'm just sore that I don't own a dust removal company; this could have been my lucky day.

* I've got nought against tampons per se, power to them; I just suspect it would be disrespectful to throw one at someone. Similarly lolly wrappers or cotton buds as well as shoes and boom mikes.

From Ramones reject to t-shirt queen in 15 easy years

The first time I went to Homebake I had t-shirt issues (as you do) so a friend lent me one of hers. It was black and fitted, with a rather nice design on the front. It was for some band called the Ramones; I hadn't heard of them but my friend assured me they were quite good, as far as bands go. So on went the t-shirt and off we went to Homebake.

That I was wearing a t-shirt for a band I didn't know apparently incensed my friend's younger sister who said (quite rightly, I see in hindsight): "You can't wear that. You don't even know who they are."

To which I answered:

"Well... um... so what? Yes I can."

Not my finest moment, that. So over the many years since then I've had this thing with t-shirt authenticity. Since that moment I've wished, wished for a chance to right my karma in the t-shirt universe.

Finally, my moment arrived last week.

I was in the park with my boy. We were hanging out on the swings and beside us was a gorgeous Goth chick, dressed head to toe in black just like her gorgeous Goth baby. We got chatting, as you do in the park, about parenting and tv and what we did before our sticky, busy children arrived.

It turned out she had studied Comparative Literature and Classics at uni in South Africa so we nattered about the books we'd read and the poetry we were forcing on our poor children. We chuckled about how great but economically worthless our liberal arts educations had been.

We laughed, we sighed, we smiled at our kids.

Then it came to me, in a flash of t-shirt brilliance. I knew exactly what to say. Never before had the stars of conversation come together like this. I turned to my new Goth friend, straightened my t-shirt and said: "My worthless degree means I can wear this t-shirt and mean it."



Lame? My lordy yes, but for that moment I ruled the t-shirt universe.

So tell me, how do you get on with the T-Shirt Gods?

Democratically challenged

The votes are tied!

Danielle Steele's scholarly masterpiece, A Bon Port, and Victor Hugo's piece of fluff, Les Miserables, have matched each other aye for aye carumba throughout this exciting electoral process.

Which will be the ultimate winner? Which will claim the mandate to delight and entertain? Only you know.

One more vote, peeps, that's all we need to break this never before seen deadlocked pairing. What'll it be?

[I'm very tired and a little nuts. Can you tell?]

Un Vote

I had lunch with a dear friend this week who, after the avocado and bean salad but before the jaffa slice, excused herself and took a call; "Ah bon jour, ma cherie!" she answered, pricking my newly Francophiled interest.

[Please note, I've left the acute accent off the first 'e' in 'cherie' for authenticity as she was speaking rather than writing and I thus couldn't see it. Also, I can't figure out how to do it in blogger.]

My friend, it turns out, speaks and reads French fluently and has taught her daughter the same during long car trips and chilly winter evenings. They now converse, entirely for fun, entirely in French. They are my newest dual heroes.

I asked my friend if there was any merit to the idea of learning French by translating a novel and she answered enthusiastically "oui oui!" (sorry, I promise that's the last bad French-word joke; it's also the end of my current French vocab). My friend said that she knew of someone who had translated all seven parts of Proust's In Search of Lost Time into English for precisely that reason.

Happily I'm nowhere near that masochistic so have shortlisted but two novels:

1. All those who vote I translate Hugo's Les Miserables, say 'aye'
2. All those who vote I translate Danielle Steele's A Bon Port, say 'aye carumba!'

So, what'll it be?

Frenchy, Frenchy, haw haw haw

I was 21 when France conducted what turned out to be its last nuclear 'test' at Moruroa in 1996, and I remember saying (with all the wisdom of a gangly-legged 21 year old): "No-one's gonna wanna learn French now," like that was the most important part of the whole ugly situation.

[When I first launched into that sentence I wrote "I was 11 when France conducted..." then I ran the numbers again and realised that I was in fact 21 at the time. I don't know what's worse: that I can't add up or that I was 21 when I made such a lame comment.]

Anyway, now that I'm older and heavily under the influence of cliches I must tell you I'm all hot and bothered (in a va-va-voom way) about France. I bought the corniest two-CD set today, Cafe De Paris: 50 Grands Succes Francais, which I think translates to If You Are Suffering From Brain Softening, Buy This Product. In my defense it only cost $10, but that aside, it's all part of a new project: I want to teach myself French.

I've always been put off learning a language because I have zero capacity for mimicry, but today (around the time I bought the CD) I thought maybe I could learn to read French and never have to utter a word. Sure it's a weird and isolating way to do it, but it might just work.

So of course I rushed home and pulled out the kids' French book my darling Mum gave me last time I had a wacky French language-related idea and came across this on page one:


This is my kind of learning! I was pretty sure I knew what "Waf! Waf!" meant, and absolutely positive I was on top of "Krwak!" having uttered it myself in similarly corn-ball situations. This language learning thing is going to be a breeze. I reckon I could skip straight to Les Miserables, provided it's illustrated.

Darwin rolls over in grave following gross trivialisation of life's work

When I was in year 10 I spent a week at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the ANU. It was work experience, you see. I have no idea how I ended up there; I have a vague memory of not wanting to do hairdressing but I'm not sure how that made medical research the only other choice.

I suspect my week's placement may have had something to do with my childhood love of all things science and vet-related thanks to the triangle of happiness formed between Vicky from A Country Practice and Rob and Dean from The Curiosity Show but I really can't be sure and I don't want to lead any future biographers (especially of the psychoanalytic kind) astray with wild triangle-related speculations.

Whatever the origin, I'm pleased to say my early foray into science has served me well in the conundrum my wardrobe presented me with earlier today.

You see, this morning I pulled on a top I haven't worn since last year and found that the sleeves are now half-way up my forearms.

I understand, as a basic principle of biology, that carbon-based life forms experience periods of growth throughout their lives. I understand, also, that these growth spurts may be augmented by too-frequent trips to Portuguese chicken shops on Marrickville Road. But while these additions may increase my girth, are they also responsible for increasing my arm length?

The most plausible explanation I have come up with is that over winter I have experienced an accelerated, intra-seasonal evolutionary advancement. Sure it's improbable that such an advancement could occur over the course of three or four months, however it's not impossible thus I maintain that I am now a more highly evolved version of the me that I was in the late days of autumn.

You may be wondering what kind of evolutionary advantages my longer arms have delivered to me (you and Darwin alike), but clearly my new-found abilities to carry Ikea flat packs and lift suitcases atop my wardrobe make me a very desirable catch for, um, short-armed men everywhere. Go me.

What wacky scientific explanations have you been tossing around today?

Are we there yet?

I've just made a flying visit to Brisbane and couldn't be happier to be back in the smoggy environs of my beloved Sydney. While I'm sure there are many travellers who revel in the getting there bit (like those crazy brother and sister/re-united divorcees/large-breasted cheerleading best friends on The Amazing Race) I'm more of the "thank flippin' chroist we're there" persuasion; enough with the trains and timetables and hoo-flippin'-rah we got ourselves from Cooma to Budapest without a lick of English.

(Actually that's not really true, or at least it's only partially true. With sufficient time and imported beer I'll look back with fondness on my 48 hours of planes and automobiles; "what a journey," I'll say, "it's all about the getting there, isn't it?").

But at this post-immediate minute I can say with certainty that I would have had more fun listening to John Howard performing Equus (all parts) non-stop for the last 48 hours than I have had. But happily the flight home provided three delights to unfurrow my deeply furrowed brow.

Travel Delight Number 1
The woman sitting in front and to the right of me was reading a book called The Artist's Way. What caught my eye was this italicised heading: "Crazymakers are expert blamers". Perhaps they are, I don't know; who can say? But crazies reading crazy books make me smile so a big thumbs up to the lady in front and to the right.

Travel Delight Number 2
I love those maps with the little aeroplane marking your route so you always know where you are during the flight. I love that on domestic routes there's not enough distance to fit the aeroplane in between the origin and destination so at one point of my trip the tip of the plane was indicating we were in Dubbo while the tail was suggesting we were in Armidale. When we landed in Sydney the tip was in Canberra and the tail in Newcastle. Mercy!

I'm all for miniature vehicles of all descriptions marking routes on maps (after a happy childhood with such maps from the Indiana Jones franchise) but perhaps a little work needs to be done on scale.

Travel Delight Number 3
The chap two rows ahead on the left swiped his credit card and paid $4.90 to watch an entire episode of Jerry Springer. I tried desperately to read the issue of the day but the tiny screen and my myopia conspired to deny me comprehension. It could have been "Meet and Kill Truckers" or "Matt and Lynn Thingos" but neither a. made any sense or b. fitted the footage they kept showing of a rather muscular woman barging into a pole dancing joint and throwing a bottle of red liqueur at the guy behind the bar. At one point she started swinging a baseball bat but that didn't make the situation any clearer. Oh well. I love that there is someone left in the world, and on my plane no less, with absolutely nothing better in the world to do (work towards global peace, cure for cancer) than watch an entire episode of Jerry Springer.

From this handful of travel delights allow me to turn to one quick travel suggestion and one even quicker travel directive:

Travel Suggestion Number 1
I wish the plane speed was displayed in kilometres rather than miles. A speed of 507 miles per hour is, yawn, pretty unimpressive, but a speed of 815.937408 kilometres per hour - wow!

Travel Directive Number 1
No ad, displayed on the ground or at 40,000 feet, should contain the word 'chillax'. 'Chillax' is not cool; 'chillax' is lame. No more 'chillax'!

Hurrah for homecomings. Where would you rather be: home or away?