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We apologise for this break in transmission.

It has been brought to our attention that Ms Kettle's household clutter has reached dangerous levels. In order to ensure the ongoing safety and well being of her nearest and dearest she has been instructed to get rid of some of her crap, or at least put some of it away (for God's sake).

It has been reported that as little as a 10% reduction in her clutter will increase the lifespan of her fellow inhabitants by five to eight years.

Please forward any suggestions regarding the treatment of surplus books and novelty moustaches to the comments section below.

Thank you for your co-operation.

The Crap Police

PS, we understand that any instructing, implied or otherwise, mentioned in this post is entirely the product of Ms Kettle's internal Doris Day (the surly Doris). Mr Kettle and Little Kettle couldn't be reached for comment (presumed buried under magnetic travel games and spherical jigsaw puzzles).

Just call me 'Sadie'... or not

I had occasion to clean yesterday, and it was less fun than I anticipated. As I shifted piles, dusted, sorted crap, re-shifted the same piles, got tired, then bored, then wished I'd never started, I started thinking about the things I'd rather be doing. The top five were:

1. Not cleaning.
2. Sifting through the 'Work Wanted' column looking for someone to clean up my crap for me.
3. Having my tonsils removed.
4. Eating raw eggs (with or without tonsils).
5. Creating a new library classification system (actually, that could be quite fun).

My day of cleaning also led to the following realisations:

1. Paper is a life-form and multiplies when left alone in warm places out of light.
2. There are no prizes for being the messiest person in the house.
3. The underside of the couch harbours many wonderous things.
4. Moving piles from one room to another doesn't fix the problem.

On the plus side, my day of cleaning led to the following delightful finds:

1. A mountain of bull dog clips.
2. Um, actually that's it on the plus side, just lots of bull dog clips, but that's cool, they're great bull dog clips.

On another note, the second Kettle Collective Story is simmering along beautifully here! So far John Howard's son, Baron Bruno, has climbed onto the COLORBOND® Pale Eucalypt® roof and won't come down following a sticky episode with some snailmeal porridge; Janette is despairing about having John about the house all day so has called Blanche D'Apulget for some advice about dealing with deposed leaders of small to medium Pacific nations; Blanche has suggested Janette do something with computer games and pumpkin pie to fix the situation.

So don't leave us hanging! Won't someone bring this story home! Of course, fame, fortune, public adoration etc guaranteed.