my friend marco is smart. (so smart as to occasionally unintelligible, but i do my best).   it occurred to me recently whilst sharing a meal with him that his super computer mind would be an invaluable tool for those wishing to lose weight by being put off their food .   in the way of all highly intelligent persons, marco is unable to ‘dumb it down’ for us mere mortals and will tell me (as i am trying to ingest an unhealthily large portion of fried eggs) that i am...

    I’m a city girl, born and bred, that cannot be denied. For 33 years I occupied one of the busiest and most cosmopolitan cities in the world (okay, the country), Sydney. I never realised that anything was missing until we moved to what Sydneysiders call ‘the North Coast’ 3 years ago.   My tolerance has since gradually dropped for things like road rage, pollution, queues and ill-mannered people. When I visit the city now, these things seem magnif...

  Is it just me, or is the world beginning to resemble a giant penis ?.   It seems everywhere I look these days, some new tribute to the male genitalia is being (pardon the pun) erected .   Just last week, a sculpture which had been commissioned for a park in my area was ‘unveiled’.   I had occasion to drive past said sculpture yesterday.   And it’s a giant penis .   The creators are calling it a ‘monument’, but ...

  I heard a guy on TV the other day say that the world was ‘basically divided into three types of people’.     (This made me wonder what world he lived in, because in my world there seems to have been, oh, at least forty-seven types so far, and counting).   He further went on to say that these three distinct types could be identified solely by the way they behaved in traffic jams.   (Oooooh gawd, really ?. Well shucks, what’s ...

    I have a clown phobia. They terrify me. I place the blame squarely on every awful 80’s ‘horror’ film I ever watched.   I spent my formative years viewing movies about clowns that would sit, smiling and apparently harmless, on a chair in a corner of your bedroom ... until the lights went out.   At which point they would suddenly grow very long arms and strangle you in your sleep.   Or produce an enormous meat-cleaver from the folds ...

  I have briefly disengaged myself from the throng of houseguests to make the following announcement: Somebody ate all of my Cornflakes . I can handle the endless snoring from bloated corpse-like guests passed out all over my house. I can handle the giant electricity, phone and grocery bills we inevitably get lumbered with. I can handle the utter disregard for my privacy and desire for peace. I can even handle cooking for seven ravenous people in two sittings every n...

  I used to work with a fellow who had a younger sister with cerebral palsy. He often spoke with pride of her high intelligence and academic achievements, and also of her occasionally mischievous nature.   I remember one occasion when he told me, with some excitement, that she had been chosen to be interviewed by a journalist from a major magazine on behalf of the students at her university.   The day of the interview came, and he waited for her phone call ...

I cannot keep still in my sleep.   I for some reason assume a sleeping position my husband has named ‘the starfish’ (arms out, legs out), thus occupying the entire bed.   From there, I for some reason like to hurl the blankets across the room with great force and smash the bedside lamp, occasionally followed by bestowing my sleeping husband with a thump on the head.   (Neither of us has any idea why I do this. Happily, my husband ch...

  When I lived in Sydney and went to work every day, I was what one might call ‘well-groomed’. (Okay, technically, I was what one might call ‘groomed to within an inch of my life’). At the time, I never gave my intensive self-cleaning-and-preening a second thought. It was as much a part of my routine as eating or sleeping.   I had a job. I worked in an office building. Every other person that worked there did exactly the same thing. Looked exactly the same way. That the...

I read a while ago about the concept restaurants “Dinner In The Dark”, and although there are none located anywhere near us, I was intrigued by the concept. Basically, there are no lights at all in the restaurant, and the staff are visually impaired. Upon arrival, you are guided to your table and seated by the maitre’d, the wait staff read you the days’ menu choices, and you make your selection. (Of course, Braille menus are available on request). Imagine it: yourself and your comp...

I was watching the (Australian) television show 'The Panel' last night, and the subject of 'mooning' came up. Specifically, they were discussing the fact that an Australian Olympic swimming medalist had begun to pull his track bottoms down during an athletes' celebration with the intention of 'mooning' the other athletes, and had been 'removed' for questioning about the incident. Apparently, Olympic officials has not been sure what the swimmer was 'planning to do'. As 'mooning' is kn...

Art imitating life ?. Uh, make that death . Although I can't say I have much interest at all in art auctions, I found a recent example of art imitating life that I loved in spite of myself. British auctioneers 'House and Son' recently auctioned a figurine of Anne Boleyn, 2nd wife of Henry VIII, who was beheaded in the Tower of London in 1536. After the successful bid was made, a member of the auction house staff, whilst attempting to remove the figurine from display, accidentally k...

Snail sex. No, this is not about some weird sexual slow-breathing palaver for humans. It’s about sex, snail style. Snails, as in molluscs. Slimy, icky little molluscs ... ew ... but I digress. The common garden snail, Helia aspersa (native to Europe and also found in California and South America), is a hermaphrodite, meaning that it can assume either a male or female role in reproduction as required. (Yes, of course this story gets better). Garden snails court from between 15 minutes ...

They say that the car you choose to drive says a lot about your personality. If that is true, I am obviously some type of deranged weirdo, because every single person that sees my car says exactly the same thing: “THAT thing is your car ?”. Now before I go any further, let me explain that I love my car and plan to keep it for the rest of my life if I can, but it’s already as old as I am, and to be frank it looks like shit.   I’m not kidding. It’s painted...

(This was sent to me by a friend and I can't find the original source, but I thought it was worth passing on. Mig)   Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life...