He is the very model of a modern metrosexual

I was watching “Joe Millionaire” last night with four members of the Canberra diaspora in Sydney.

The end of civilisation is clearly at hand.

Anyway, they were down to three women and white-trash gum-chewing girl got the boot. (Yawn.)

The most bizarre part is that this guy can pass as a millionaire at all. Cretinous just about begins to cover the territory.

“Did you get that dr - breast in Paris?” he asks one date, staring down her tube top.

Another moment, a date comments: “You seem a really regular guy. Like you don’t have a lot on your mind.”

Friend on the couch: “Or a lot in his mind.”

“What do you look for in a woman?” white-trash asks.

“Legs,” he replies. “That’s who I am.”

Actually, who he is - is an underwear model. Well, his hands and feet are certainly huge.

It all put me in mind of Odalisk’s recent entry on the mixed messages of pop culture about materialism/capitalism: yeah, sure it’s bad – but don’t worry, everyone can aspire to be materially successful. Our culture makes some token condemnation of materialism’s evils, while remaining utterly in the thrall of its values.

So in this show, knowing the cruel comeuppance that this guy hasn’t a cent, we get to smugly deride these women for being mercenary and him for being a liar – yet the producers will engineer a happy ending by giving him a million dollars and creating (a much smaller scale) millionaire. Sure, this is no worse a final plot back-flip than the average Gilbert and Sullivan musical – but meanwhile the show sails on with the sexual politics of the middle ages: men need to be well-endowed providers with the profile of a Disney hero, and women should make no threatening intellectual conversation and just flirt and put out to get their man.

But wait - some media icons are challenging the gender mould, apparently. Ian Thorpe “loves Armani, is seen just as often near a catwalk as competing in sport, confesses an adulation for Kylie Minogue, even designs his own jewellery. But he's not gay” proclaims the Sydney Morning Herald.

“Men - of all sexualities - are taking a greater interest in their appearance. They go to hairdressers rather than barbers, avoid using soap because it's too harsh on their skin, visit the gym instead of playing sport and even have difficulty deciding what to wear. They're spending their time differently - not only occupying more of it in front of the mirror but also shopping at boutique stores, drinking at bars rather than pubs, enjoying a dance at a nightclub and going to beauty salons. Cosmetics brands such as Ella Bache say men make up as much as 40 per cent of their salon customers in some areas.”

And the Brit Tabloid term for these modern men? “Metrosexuals”.

I’m not gay, I just shop that way.

Again, what frightens me about this article is it is not about social choices or gender structures – it is about consumerism. Everyone interviewed is a retail-chain purchaser or an advertising guru. We are not the sum of our choices, but the sum of our purchases. Modern sexual equality means making men beauty-obsessed consumers and sexual objects also. Hurrah. (Still it is only the Sydney Morning Herald, analysis or insightful social journalism would be a little much to ask.)

“Joe Millionaire” is also a constructed product, a consumer good, not just to those of us watching – but the women throwing themselves at him. He is a brand name, a status-good, a big wodge of purchasing power. In a grim kind of final equality, we are all consumers now. But, of course, some consumers are more equal than others …

Anyway, you’ll have to excuse me now. There are rumours of 60% off brand name business shirts at a store in Martin Place.

Confessions of a former skanky corporate ho

Being back in Sydney has been interesting. Much less of the nostalgia-mixed-with-fear semi panic-attack of my last trip through the CBD. Feeling a bit tired though, which I imagine is the socialising and tearing round trying to catch up with people rather than the eminently reasonable office hours I’ve been keeping.

Last night was good. Went with a few work colleagues down to the Lord Nelson in the Rocks (Australia’s oldest pub), then walked round circular quay to the Opera Bar on the lower concourse. Gorgeous night view of the Harbour Bridge, the ferries, the giant ocean-liner “The World”, the city scape and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Some fine sounds too: Mosaic Sonique were playing, a two-man lounge-jazz/techno-funk sort of combo. Not much more than chill-out music, but it set the mood nicely. Ah, Sydney Harbour at night and in summer. I miss that.

That said, I am also remembering why I got desperate to leave a large commercial firm and the Sydney-corporate environment (“the world of corporate-whoredom” as a number of my friends used to refer to it. In this set confessions as to ludicrously excessive stints at work would be greeted with an admiringly-disparaging “you ho!” This reaction greeted my marathon thirty-two hour stretch in the office … admittedly an office with harbour view, but sometimes dawn just isn’t that exciting …)

Anyway, no-one I know here can leave the office before 6.30 pm at the earliest. If they can, they can manage one drink and then need to go back afterwards. Pressure of work means you always have to accept people might not be able to make any given commitment: indeed, many who were hoping they might be able to see me Tuesday night got caught back at the office.

Which was just fine, I knew from personal experience that that might well happen. But the scariest of my Tuesday messages from those who couldn’t make it was the text message I received at 11.20 pm reading: “Just left the office! Sorry to miss you, are you around for the weekend?”

Also on Tuesday, one of my hosts stopped by the bar where I was drinking (perhaps too many) cocktails with Rob to announce: “Yay, I’m so proud – it’s eight o’clock and I’ve left the office! … I’m going home.”

Then there was the poor chap who couldn’t meet me for a drink last night before 9 pm, then missed by minutes his ferry from North Sydney to Circular Quay where I was hanging out with the gang at Opera Bar …

Anyway, I have nothing but admiration for the people who can sustain the pace as lawyers up here (let alone that pace and successful relationships with other lawyers, and I know half-a-dozen couples in this category) – but I’m just not one of them anymore.

Morning coffee with Elliot anyone?

New Naylor today, the fourth installment and beginning of the second chapter!

"When I don’t know what I’m doing, the only thing to do is speak to Eva, the world’s best flatmate. Besides, I needed to scour Sarah’s hippy tea out of my mouth with something black, bitter, and teeth-rattlingly sharp."

New readers still have plent of time to get aboard, as I'm only posting 1000 - 1200 words once or twice a week.

Thanks to those who are supporting the project by reading or with comments!

Potentially un-Australian, and a threat to our way of life

I must admit to having a somewhat hypocritical outlook on this one. I disapprove of them, yet have accepted their growing role in daily life. After reality television, I think they’re doing more to hasten the collapse of civilisation than just about any other aspect of modernity.

I’m talking about mobile phones. (“Cell phones” to those operating on US-standard English).

I was inspired to think about this by missjenjen’s reflections on modern manners yesterday. Here’s my top five ways in which mobiles are destroying our way of life:

1. The total collapse of privacy/dignity inherent in people having intensely personal conversations (at the top of their voices) wherever they happen to be. This is the big public transport no-no. I do not want to know about your relationship problems. Nor do I want to be stuck on a bus for several hours while you test two-dozen new ring tones, you freak.

2. A false sense of safety. No you morons, going hiking in wilderness with no emergency equipment other than a mobile is irresponsible and the rest of the public should not really have to pay for you to be rescued – that is if you don’t die for lack of warm clothing before anyone gets to you. Also, lady, it is not cool for your five-year old to be wandering the streets unsupervised just because you can call him and check he got to the movies OK.

3. Hideous lack of manners. If you are having dinner or a drink with me, you’re having it with ME. Not anyone who phones to shoot the breeze. Switch it to silent, check who your missed calls are from once if you must, then ASK the people you’re with if it’s cool to quickly return a call. Do not leave someone socially stranded and sitting at a table drumming their fingers while you ignore them to talk with someone who hasn’t made the effort to come and meet you.

4. The end of social planning and the rise of plans-to-have-plans. Just because people can be contacted at the last minute is no excuse for leaving arrangements loose until the last minute and then having to run around like mad things. “I’ll call you on the weekend” creates much more stress than “how about brunch Sunday?”

5. Rude last-minute cancellation. If you have a mobile people feel entirely free to either not commit to an event until the last minute, or cancel as you arrive at the venue. For genuinely unexpected circumstances that stop you turning up, fine. However, a last-minute decision that you don’t feel like going out is just not cool. If you’re going to cancel, try and call when people are still at home.

Mobiles are also, apparently, destroying our literacy.

That said, I am absolutely, hypocritically addicted to mine and doubt I would have a functional social life without it … and given how often I move it’s the only stable contact detail I have.

Anyone want to speak in their defence now?

The one-eared beagles of insomnia

Since I started writing again on a daily basis my psuedo-insomnia has returned. It’s as if now my imagination has woken up, turning it off at night’s a challenge.

I’ve always taken quite a while to get to sleep though. Most human beings take less than six minutes to fall asleep, if that. I often take over half an hour. In that six minutes, most people spend less than a minute in a hypnagogic state – that floating not-sleeping not-waking consciousness. I can spend quite a while there. I rather like it, until I have to face the next day realising I never dropped into deep sleep.

All that to say, on top of taking a while to drift off, I wake up during the night a good deal as well. I’m a light sleeper.

At the moment, while in Sydney, I’m sleeping on a particularly comfy single bed owned by some friends in Edgecliff. It folds down out of the wall near the front door at the top of their stairs. It's cubby-house cozy. My friends are both lawyers and other than renting in a fab little inner-city suburb they have one other conspicuous consumption item: Russel the Six Million Dollar Beagle. Russel is sweet, quiet dog who is allergic to most of Sydney. His most recent trip to the vet, yesterday, involved removing some sort of cist from his left ear, giving him sixteen doggy-sized stitches and bandaging the ear back to his head for two weeks.

He now looks like a slightly mournful canine Van Gogh.

As a special treat, he got to sleep indoors last night, in the downstairs area. While having a little waking moment at 1 am (when my body had decided I was too hot and rearranging all my bedding was in order), I heard a pam-pam! rattle! pam! rattle! pam-pam!

Russel was asking to go out onto the downstairs rear balcony and pawing at the loose, but not open door. I padded downstairs and let him out for a drink of water. I left the door open and went back upstairs to bed.

Shortly thereafter I heard a skritter-skritter on the stairs, and some sonorous canine breathing.

“Russel?” I asked.

I stuck my head under the bed and was greeted by moist canine jowls. It appeared I’d made a friend.

There’s something reassuring about the sound of a dog breathing while you fall asleep.

Up until the snoring started.

Then I had to coax Van Gogh back down the stairs and into his basket. From a distant room, his snoring was, once more, kind of reassuring.

I miss having a dog, but my lifestyle at the moment is too peripatetic to justify even keeping my lovely wardrobe, let alone dragging a living creature around in my wake.

Weekend in Canberra, working week in Sydney: Donnie Darko

I was having drinks and dinner in one of the suburban centres of Canberra, Woden, on Friday and had another weird experience of adolescent mall culture. There was, basically, a promenade of fifteen year old girls (if that) walking to and fro at half hour intervals on the pavement outside the cinema. (We were in a good position to observe, spending some four and half hours eating and drinking - mostly drinking - at the outdoor seating of a nearby bar/café.)

Unlike Christina Aguelira they still had the crotch in their jeans, so I guess that was a start – but the average fashion statement for tweens and teens appeared to be “ho”.

There comes a point when you realise you really are getting older: it’s the moment when you realise teenagers are utterly incomprehensible – their clothes, music, speech, the works. Given what a generally ghastly, self-obsessed and conformist experience being a teenager is, this should come as something of a relief.

So watching “Donnie Darko” on Saturday at Marissa’s – it is at least set in the relatively familiar landscape of being an eighties teenager. (Imaginatively familiar really, I began high school in ’88.) However, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” it is not. It is weird, at times surreal and working out if the protagonist is mad or not occupies a good part of one’s concentration during the film. It also has the most sinister bunny suit I have ever seen in cinema. It’s great strength is in not revealing what the hell was really going on, and leaving you to theorise. The soundtrack is brilliant, and the small Drew Barrymore role is refreshingly good.

Anyway, in Sydney for work today and the rest of the week. Forgot how hot and humid this town is. Not really a city that is good for suits. Monday morning, at work, nursing a dehydration nosebleed … still, the working day can only improve, right?

The yoga craze and me

Yeah, posting from an internet terminal on my day off and my way to Canberra. That's commitment to daily blogging (well each week day at least ...)

Anyway, I think yoga is getting passe. Pilates is now the new yoga, rather like Thai restaurants for a long time now have been the new Chinese. Not having done pilates and having nothing to run on but prejudice, it seems to be yoga for gym junkies: people who really need equipment and weights to feel they’re exercising.

I’ve been going to yoga for two years now (all hatha not iyengar), and have been to three different venues, all based on convenience.

The mega-firm in Sydney has yoga for stressed lawyers twice a week - a 7.45 am class (which was too early even for me) and a 6.00 pm evening class. The evening class was often a bit earlier than I could leave work and would result in me padding back to my desk barefoot in t-shirt and shorts to put in a few more billable units. We had a lovely, encouraging, tiny English instructor who took classes in the big conference room with harbour views.

The best classes were in winter, when you could watch the inner city lights come out in the darkness.

When I did my government-law temping gig in Sydney I worked close to the Queen Victoria building and went to the City Yoga studio which is on the third floor of a building across from the QVB bus interchange. (The mix of businesses out the back of the oh-so-classy QVB always sort of amused me: restaurants, electronic wholesalers, Abbey’s Bookshop, accountants, a shop, and yoga.) It was more expensive than going to the subsidised firm class but you could get a discount rate if you bought ten class tickets in booklet that was only good for the next ten weeks. The use-it-or-lose-it system worked well. The instructors were good, incredibly relaxed women (surprise!) - but the floor space was occasionally at a bit of a premium - and some classes were a bit over-attended.

Still, it offered nine sessions a week, and I liked being able to go after work, or at lunch.

On moving to Melbourne I found a local gym with a yoga sign and decided to give it a go - casual drop-in classes were $10, but I figured if I liked it enough I might join.

I was a little skeptical of the class at first - my Sri Lankan instructor seemed a little too jokey, and a little over-the-top. It also took me a while to adapt to his slight accent. I soon realised that growing up with the discipline he had a far more relaxed and practical attitude towards it - including its meditative/spiritual side. He’s easily the best instructor I’ve had. (He also works as a chef at an inner city restaurant.)

I joined the gym on a membership special and have been going every Sunday morning at 10.30 as a minimum, and try and get along on Wednesday evenings too (when not off drinking with bloggers …) Once a week is enough to feel I’m treading water, twice a week and I feel I’m making progress.

Okay, observations about yoga:

Yes, it is a risky activity if you have back injuries. You should always tell your instructor and take it easy early on.

If you’re a guy, expect to be one of the girls. It’s a very female activity. This is not the social-life boon some might think, as in most classes you’re basically in your own private cocoon and are pretty spaced out afterwards. It’s not a chat-fest.

What do I get out of it? Going twice a week, I definitely feel fitter and stronger. It’s light exercise, but you do often have to support your own weight, and holding postures can be a real bitch. My balance has also improved a fair bit, and my flexibility is slightly better.

Also, as I said, there’s the meditative side. Call it New Age bunk, but it is a mental discipline as well - and I do enter quite a different headspace after class. Once or twice in wind-down meditations I have felt, well, something quite different. It works, and I often feel clearer about my feelings and priorities afterwards, as well as more relaxed.

Best of all, though, I think it really caters to those who (like me) are a trifle intimidated by the whole hard-bodied gym experience. (Remember the Sienfeld joke about getting fit so you could look fit enough just to go to the gym?) Yoga classes often have a real range of ability levels and body types and I love that sense of inclusiveness.

I think this exercise fad will do me, and the other potential benefits of my gym membership are just going to go untouched.

Though it would be cool to go indoor rock-climbing again …

Reconstruction in Iraq

I promise this will be my last war blog for a while. If I can post tomorrow, given I have a day off and will be travelling to Canberra, I will post on my love affair with a current fad.

Okay, so I’ve argued we should not enter a war in Iraq, especially without Security Council backing, unless we have a plan for post-War humanitarian relief and national reconstruction. It has been pointed out to me that the Bush administration is working on a post-war plan, and mightn’t this imply my position have a problem?

First off, my main contention is that the “humanitarian justification” for the war is bankrupt without such a plan. I mean, if you wanted to alleviate suffering in Iraq you’d lift sanctions. Yes, I know that would give Hussein oil money to re-arm, I’m just saying there’s a calculus here, competing objectives to balance.

Here’s some food for thought:

It’s pretty hard to argue that going in without UN backing is anything but illegal at international law. Pre-emptive defensive strikes are, legally, bunk and unjustified on the facts. Hussein is presently contained.

Also, even East Timor’s José Ramos-Horta, who - unsurprisingly - supports wars of liberation against oppressors, favours giving diplomacy more time:

I agree that the Bush administration must give more time to the weapons inspectors to fulfill their mandate. The United States is an unchallenged world power and will survive its enemies. It can afford to be a little more patient. Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, has proved himself to be a strong mediator and no friend of dictators. He and a group of world leaders should use this time to persuade Saddam Hussein to resign and go into exile. In turn, Saddam Hussein could be credited with preventing another war and sparing his people. But even this approach will not work without the continued threat of force.

Read his enormously sane article for the NY Times on unfolding events here.

I am also concerned that the US, going in alone may not have the will to stay if reconstruction gets difficult. After all, the US had to stay in Tokyo for seven years after Hiroshima. As the NY Times puts it:

If America acts virtually on its own, it is hard to imagine either the Bush administration or the American people having the staying power to make things right. Washington may be counting on Iraq's oil revenue to pay for rebuilding the country after the war, but the oil wells could be damaged in the fighting. It seems certain that an administration that will not give up tax cuts to pay for the war itself is not going to inflict economic pain at home to pay for the cleanup. And while Americans have always shown themselves willing to risk anything, even their own children, for a critical cause of high purpose, their support for this particular fight is thin as a wafer and based on misapprehension that Iraq is clearly linked to terrorism.

This must particularly be the case when the war has dubious support among the US people, and many town and city governments are passing resolutions against war.

I am also very concerned that anything other than a UN administered post-war Iraq would be easily painted as “Mc Iraq”, a US client state, which would undermine its ability to become a credible force for stability and democracy in the region. I think this would particularly be the case under a “governor” appointed by the US military. There is already a brewing PR disaster in this war, which will inevitably be seen as a western war on Islam. (If our taxi drivers think all Muslims are terrorists, I imagine subtle distinctions will be lost on the often extremely anti-American populace of much of the Islamic world as well.) At least the Australian government is trying to persuade the Bush administration to take a multi-lateral approach on this one.

The point is, we don’t just need any plan for reconstruction, we need one that will not compound the inevitable damage to world stability done by any attack and that will not heighten the risk of alienating moderate Islamic opinion. Horta is right: there are other options worth trying first.

Craven cowardice?

Excuse me if I see a risk that bombing civilians this year will create a decade of extremist suicide bombers.

Comments to the guestbook, unless backblog is up again.

If it's Thursday, it's Naylor Day

"It seemed I’d been in her room an age: glaciers had swollen, scoured the earth and melted while I crept about shame-faced, ransacking the life of someone I’d once slept with."

New Naylor here.

Argh. The Naylor's Canberra site has been causing me some grief. I have the table of contents links working properly now, and the "next" link at the foot of each instalment is now finally working. Thanks to those who are reading it!

(For those who just want the regular blog, there should be something up inside half an hour. Meantime, why not check out Naylor?)

And yes, comments are down. Remember the guestbook, though?

It’s, like, Alanis-ironical

Odalisk a few weeks ago had a debate running between her entries and some guestbook comments on whether “ironical” is a word. Despite being ugly, and redundant (sarcastical? minimalistic?) it is apparently a legitimate, archaic usage.

I think, though, the word could be subverted, redefined and redeployed in our post-90s world.

I suggest that “ironical” could now be used to describe moments of Alanis-irony - after that fabulous cultural moment in which everyone woke up to the fact that few, if any, of the inconveniences of life described in Ms Morissette’s song “Ironic” were, in fact, ironic.

The song could more aptly have been titled “Isn’t it a bugger?” or “Murphy’s law - it nails you every goddamn time.”

Moments of recent Alanis-irony in my life:

1. Moving to Melbourne in part because my best friend from high-school lived here, only to find he would move to Japan before I arrived.

2. Being a homebody who loves stability, and moving house twice a year, every year, minimum.

3.Organising a visit to Sydney on a long weekend and planning to see some old friends while there, then discovering they had out-of-town holiday plans. (Could only have been more “ironical” if they’d in fact been going to Melbourne.)

4. Going from complaining about being too tired from a work trip to socialise, to complaining about being too tired from socialising to work effectively.

5. Missing out on a cheap airfare by minutes because I thought it would be smart to shop around. (“No-one will want the last internet-deal seat to Canberra in the next five minutes, surely?”)

I think these rank with “it’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife” - although I still contend “it’s a free ride when you’ve already paid” could be an example of dramatic irony (where a character is unaware of circumstances of which the audience is forewarned, resulting in a mocking discrepancy between appearance and reality) - but maybe I’m trying to hard here.

Anyhoo, generate your own Alanis Morissette song lyrics here.

Please, let’s just be honest about this war for a moment

I really should stop boiling at The Australian’s beating of war drums, but its continued conflation of the protest movement with selfish-psuedo-humanitarianism, and its Saturday headline “As Aussie troops prepare to invade Iraq … Saddam rewards protests” is really too much for me. I thought I’d calm down and avoid this blog, but no.

Basically, the paper’s editorial line (see the second article on this page) is that anti-Bush puppets and street-theatre, “no blood for oil” banners, and the speeches of John Pilger and Senator Natasha Stott Despoja have demonstrated, as it predicted, that protest would be “hijacked by the far Left”. It then paints Opposition Leader Simon Crean’s “reasonable, pro-UN views” as “too mild” for protesters, as he was heckled in Brisbane. (Imagine, a politician heckled! At a rally!) Thus, it undercuts its own concession that the rallies represented “a very wide spectrum of opinion”.

So, The Australian - echoing our Prime Minister – is running the line that while protest is a democratic right, it is irresponsible to allow Hussien to see a divided west, because it will give him comfort (increasing his intransigence) and therefore protests are only “counter-productive to efforts to peacefully disarm Iraq” and likely to prolong the suffering of the Iraqi population.

Well, fuck me.

By opposing war I am increasing the chances of it.

By marching for my own “reasonable, pro-UN views”, I provide comfort to a loony Left which wants to keep Australians out of a foreign war - regardless of the suffering in Iraq.

The only responsible option, is, apparently, to back war whole-heartedly and without dissent.

Right, let’s be clear on something here - I have no doubt that Hussein is, at international law, a criminal. I have no doubt he has committed acts of genocide. I have no doubt that his draining of ancient Iraqi marshlands was a deliberate act of eco-vandalism to punish a people who rose up against him twelve years ago. I have no doubt that his regime runs a police-state top-heavy with enforcers, informers, torturers and disappearances that would make Pinochet weep. I have no doubt that many human rights agencies, that would never sanction any war, would privately welcome his being deposed.

But I have not been hearing this from the political leaders of the US, Britain or Australia. At least, not until recently. What I have heard is a shifting mass of justifications emanating from Bush and parroted by “the willing”. First, Hussein was linked to Osama Bin Laden, then he wasn’t - but he was prepared to sell weapons to terrorists. Then there was no proof he sold weapons to terrorists, but he was accumulating weapons of mass destruction. Now there’s not a lot of proof of that he has WMD (delivery systems aside) and the pro-War camp are now just beginning to say he’s a dictator who abuses human rights.

If this had been a moral argument from the outset, there might be some public support for this war. But at the moment, conflicting justifications just make a cynical public look for hidden motives.

The case for war has really been made as one for world stability - in the most general, nebulous sense. “He very probably has weapons of mass destruction, and being a very bad man may give them to other very bad men - who could use them against us.”

The case being argued is self-interest. And while thinking of self interest, please - let’s acknowledge what everyone knows - oil is a factor here. British foreign policy expressly includes as a goal “energy security”, which highlights the need to help create a “stable” Middle East. Now, true it is, Hussein would not have invaded Kuwait to begin with if it were not for oil, and allowing his regime to grab a significant slice of the world’s oil production would have been a bad idea.

But - at the cost of staggering civilian suffering, denounced by Medicin Sans Frontiers - he has now been successfully contained by a regime of sanctions and the (basically illegal) no-fly zones. This man is not Hitler. Hitler was never successfully contained within his own borders.

The Right’s belated adoption of the human-rights justification for war leaves only two explanations: a genuine concern for world stability, or economic self-interest. Bush cannot have it both ways on world stability: you cannot use existing UN Security Council resolutions as a justification for war, but deride the UN as “irrelevant” for withholding a further, clear authorisation of force.

I think there would be a case for war if it was genuinely being justified on humanitarian grounds. However, until I hear that case made by our leaders - and backed with a commitment to stay in Iraq and assist with national re-construction, I will remain sceptical and harbour suspicions about the real motives. Removing Hussein is worthless as a humanitarian result if: (a) nothing is done to ameliorate suffering on the ground once our troops withdraw; and (b) nothing is done to prevent a son, nephew or crony of Hussein’s taking the reins.

Until there is a real humanitarian commitment and a clear set of objectives for intervention in Iraq, you’ll have to forgive me for opposing war - even if I am bringing comfort to a dictator.

Life admin day

If I had my time over, I’d still do the eighteen months I spent in Sydney with my first two jobs again. I was glad to have had the experience - but all I miss about the town is a handful of good friends and the mornings I used to commute to work by the Balmain ferry, sipping my coffee from a Kathmandu thermos on the back deck and watching the water.

The rest I’ll live to the ambitious, the natives and ex-pats who love the weather.

I enjoy the slower, less commercial, more European pace of life in Melbourne - but let’s face it, any office job, no matter how good, makes you feel as though you never have enough time to tackle those little, irritating errands. (Check out the Dilbert view of the lunch time errand-run, too.)

I propose a nation-wide working standard of at least one fully-paid day off a month to deal with life maintenance and administration issues, if necessary with the full power of your office’s resources behind you. With such a Scandanvian-socialist-utopia measure behind me I might this year have managed to:

1. Replace the distance-vision glasses I lost new year’s eve. I know this seems ruinously slack, but I only need them for reading signs in the distance, the restaurant specials board, watching movies from a point behind the first five rows, and being able to read street-signs when driving at night. Also, it breaks down into the four component steps of: get new prescription, chose new frames (part with hideous amounts of cash), have prescription made up, make claim on my health insurance.

2. Consolidate my frikken superannuation plans - before management fees fritter it all away.

3. Claim what I can back on health insurance for the re-upholstering of my orthotics that was done last November.

4. Get a new internet banking password for the account I accidentally locked myself out of a while ago. I only use it to manage my travel fund and back-up credit card - and why would I want to know how much I owe/how poorly my saving program may be going?

5. Schlepp over to the Victorian Writers’ Centre and find a writers’ group. I loved the one I attended in Balmain and miss regularly reading other people’s draft novels.

6. Get a dental check-up. (It’ll be the same advice as always: “You’ve got good brush technique, but should floss more.“)

7. Get my grandfather’s fob-watch serviced so it runs for more than a few minutes, and have a new watch-chain attached to it.

So many irritating things I should have done by now. Who’s with me on this one?


PS. Visit Elliot on an easy day for lying

“I hit the street, a cheque bearing a five hundred dollar advance in one bewildered hand. David Carmichael gives away money with the promiscuity most people part with teeth and organs. He was seriously worried ... “

Get your freshly squeezed pulp noir here.

New weirdness

Sure, sure I've already posted a long rambling entry for the day.

But I'm (naive and novice enough to be) excited over my first google referral to my site - the combination of search terms "animated avatars funny" brings up my recent Sims entry. (I imagine they were a trifle dissapointed.)

Someone also seems to have been referred here by a legal publishing house. Damn scary.

Week in review: something old, new, borrowed, blue

I’ll tackle the week backwards, I think.

Friday morning: I like rain, I like waking up to it. I also like lying half awake for hours in the night listening to it – until I have to crawl out of bed half-slept and schlep into work on a late train full of wet people. Still, I was amused to be swaying to the train and listening to Oscar Peterson’s “Night Train”, I’m easily amused.

Thursday night: a Book Club member’s “quiet birthday drinks” and pizza. Lovely people, mostly professional writing students busy getting contract work or finishing novels. I had a lot of fun, but was suffering wage-slave fatigue by 11.

Wednesday: the great Blogger meet up! Damn I should have introduced myself to more people rather than just lurk in the “harem corner“ at the Gin Palace with the other early arrivals. Beth and I met for a quick drink and dinner before hand (dinner at the Dumpling restaurant on Tattersalls Lane – so good! So cheap!). On arrival I added a glass of Riesling straight into the mix, but the killer was drinking a Toblerone with missjenjen.

I sometimes get a little loud and take up a lot of conversational space after a drink. And a Toblerone is a drink: cream, Baileys, Kaluha, twist of honey, crushed ice - lethal. Goes down like lime cordial but sneaks back with a sledgehammer. Anyway, I was wearing my new jeans and casual-shirt-that-needs-cufflinks, so I was fine (see Saturday, below). Which compensated for being the guy who so often spoke immediately before a long, awkward silence. Fluke, surely.

So I met funky new people! Sqeeshee has a vibrant orange blog, and a story that shows not even illness was enough to escape last Friday’s protest march zeitgeist. Dee of viscerate has a funky head-to-head, coffee-stained two author blog. A fine addition to the Melbourne blog scene and the general Canberra diaspora down here. She also thought the night was full of witty conversation, and I hope I might just manage to crawl in under that banner. Daniel, blogger Methusula, one of the earliest and most written about was there – and a lovely guy to boot. Erin, the American expat (no not odalisk, another American expat Erin), who was a riot to chat with.

And of course everyone I met last time: missjenjen, Marcus (who’s technology all of those who understood it, wanted – and who better reviews the evening than me), Natalie(who took photos …), Andrew(a mainstay of the scene) and Michael( who I didn’t really say more than “hi” and “bye” to, sorry!). Heaps of people I didn’t really get to speak to, including Vlado.

Tuesday: relatively quiet, a couple of drinks after work with one of the guys visiting from the interestate offices this week at Troika, dropped him at his work dinner, home by 8.

Monday: I organised dinner for the inter-state visitors to the Melbourne office from Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney. Good turn out from my local workmates, too, so we had about nine for a good dinner. Drinks at the Mint, dinner at the Supper Inn, tea and coffee at Sarti near the Gin Palace. Karaoke was averted, to the relief of all.

Sunday: I went to yoga. I tried to be centred. I mostly succeeded. My instructor’s brother, though, is about to be deported ... and some days some of my classmates are distractingly pretty.

Otherwise, I wrote.

Saturday of rampant consumerism: In search of a decent wine shop (futile! doomed!) I went out to my nearest mega-mall Northlands shopping centre and wandered straight into the Myer menswear sale. One shirt was the cocktail hour in-betweener extravagance I wore to the meet-up. It’s allegedly a work-shirt, but has big blue and green candy-stripes on a white background, french cuffs and a collar too loose on me to really wear a tie. It needs cufflinks, but doesn’t support a tie. Too formal for casual, too casual for formal. Loved the colours, bought it anyway.

Two shirts and a woven tie later I was out in the mall. It’s been a while since I mall-surfed, dodging the packs of home-boy teenagers, and Brittany/Christina cast-off adolescent girls. Spooky.

Then I hit a jeans store and a run of good luck. Finally, I found new jeans that fit me without being ludicrously baggy or ludicrously tight. Big issue for a slim man, the answer: Levi 502s, boot-cut. Perfect. A smaller waist than usually fits me, but perfect. Sure, consumerism sucks – but sometimes, it’s just so fulfilling, and the rat race’s only payoff.

And I found a fun DIY carwash! (I've been good through water restrictions, only washing my car once in the last three months, so I kinda went crazy.)

Then Beth and her flatmate made me dinner, I got to drink wine and pay out “Grease“ on TV.

And be totally freaked out by the fact the Mrs. Bartlett of the “West Wing“, sexy-brained Stockard Channing herself, was Rizzo. Freaky.

God, no wonder I’m tired this morning. Maybe at 27 I'm just too prematurely middle-aged for a social life ...

Nah.

And now for a cunning plan …

Last night was my second Bloggers meetup, held at that most splendid of venues, the Gin Palace. This time, we commandeered the “harem” area filled with cushions and there was nary a business-wear karma sutra performance in sight.

But more about the blog meet-up and cool, new (to me at least) Blogs tomorrow. This is my Blog – and today is a massive exercise in self-indulgence.

Okay, yesterday I mentioned a cunning plan to force me to finish writing one of my hobby projects.

This is it: Naylor’s Canberra.

Once or twice a week, and certainly every Thursday, I’ll post 1,000 words or so of the Canberra crime novel on-line on my alternate site.

I’ve tried to set it up to be easy to navigate with a table of contents links more than an archive. But we’ll just have to see if anyone reads it. If so, and I if keep to a once-or-twice weekly schedule, I may finish the damn thing.

Hope you read, hope you comment.

A lawyer's unwritten novels

Most lawyers are frustrated writers, actors, comedians or performers of some bent or another. The number of “unwritten novels” per square foot of floor space I suspect is higher in law firms than any other place on the planet.

So, in the spirit of Neil Gaiman’s library of dreams (which holds all the novels you never wrote, but day-dreamed of writing on the bus), here are my four “concept novels”:

1. A crime novel set in Canberra. Obviously, being the seat of Australian government, there’s the potential for political intrigue. But let’s not forget that Canberra is our very own Scandinavia, where nothing is illegal, just taxable. Prostitution and pornography are both “light industrial” land uses, and possession of marijuana for personal use is the equivalent of a parking offence.

Canberra has Australia’s highest average per capita income and education levels (basically reflecting government jobs); but also the highest rate of heroin overdoses. There have been a number of prominent murder cases, including the shooting of an Assistant Police Commissioner in his driveway, and the decapitation of a diplomat. Then you have the weirdness that comes out of the universities, diplomatic corps, intelligence services and the defence force academy – as well as the fact that with just 350,000 people, it’s a large country town where everyone knows everyone else’s business.

A plot? I see a semi-employed legal librarian, Elliot Naylor, being asked by a barrister to find the barrister’s daughter Marina, Elliot’s ex-girlfriend. Marina’s a ministerial staffer who has failed to return from leave. No one wants the embarrassment of a police investigation. Before too long, Elliot is investigating the barrister’s shady business connections and is implicated in a murder investigation. There would also be a back-plot about why he was refused admission to legal practice and is scaping out a living in a library and not as a solicitor.

2. A late nineteenth century London historical novel. (I did my Arts honours in nineteenth century British social history, okay?) Sure it’s a hackneyed genre: all those “clever” novels with “guest appearances” by the literary and social luminaries of the day. But I still think there’s plenty that can be done with a society so riven with contradictions. My angle? I’d like to write something based around the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a group of occultists that contained several infamous or influential figures including Aleister Crowley, W.B. Yeats and Mrs. Constance (Lloyd) Wilde (yes, he had a wife). The Order was one of the more successful Freemason-offshoot secret societies of the 1890s. (Two members put together the modern design of the Tarot deck – like clan tartans, the present “ancient” design of the Tarot is a Victorian piece of instant tradition.) The Order also included respectable scientists, including a London coroner. The fact that this late in the emergence of modernity, the line between science and magic could be blurred under the rubric of “magnetism” or “invisible forces” fascinates me, as does the spiritualist craze of the time. Several members were also self-invented Scottish aristocracy and all-round frauds.

3. A fantasy novel set in contemporary Sydney that draws on Irish mythology. Whoa! Weird fusion of concepts? Not really - the Irish gods were basically people and they interbred with all and sundry. Practical upshot - I see no trouble with a large family of god-descended Irish folk, called the MacLir (literally, “the children of Lir” as in the fairy tale), having been transported as convicts to Sydney. The novel would revolve around the clan’s internecine conflicts, and hereditary succession to certain positions of influence associated with the various pagan festivals. There are easily enough to fill out a calendar, but instead of calling people Sahmain, Beltaine, etc, I think I’d short-hand them by naming them after months of the year. The pivotal character would be the “youngest of the elders” November MacLir – a girl who’d much rather finish uni than join the family business and spend her life scheming against mad relatives.

4. Along the lines of The Fraudsters, a light comedy of manners set among twenty-somethings in the legal industry. Sort of “Carry On, Jeeves!” meets “This Life” with the plot revolving around a Jeeves and Wooster pairing of brains with endearing haplessness. A bit thin? Well, that sort of novel always is. As P G Wodehouse put it, musical comedy without the music and singing.

At the moment I’m far more motivated about blogging than hobby-creative-writing, but I may have a cunning plan to get myself moving again.

Tomorrow, something different.

Virtual communities, or on-line suburbia?

Blogging, it seems to me, is a community activity. There’s the imagined community of blogger and readership, often made relatively responsive through the medium of comments. (Indeed, comments sections often take on a life of their own, fostering discussions only tangentially related to the post.) Further to that, there is the cross-pollination of bloggers linking to or commenting on other bloggers’ sites - as well as the phenomenon of the blogger meet-up (where geographically coterminous blog authors can perform the anachronistically embodied act of gathering together as flesh-and-blood avatars of online personas in a physically co-located “offline” space.

Usually to drink beer.)

In fact, I started blogging mere days before going to my first blog meet-up (under the kindly wing of blogger-of-standing Beth) - so I’ve always been able to put faces to certain blogs.

Anyway, if blogging has the capacity to invoke “communities” that may transcend boundaries (is there a time-zone where there’s not someone reading minderella?), what about creating your own virtual suburb?

That’s exactly what the on-line version of "The Sims" is apparently doing (as written up in last week’s "The Weekend Australian" magazine – no online text available). For a wallet-lashing US$50 for the initial game and a US$10 monthly subscription you can join a huge cyber-suburban landscape, your own bourgeois simulacrum. You design your “Sims” inventing personas, or modelling them on people you know, and unleash them into a cyber-social world where they will chose a house and furniture, make friends, go to work, go on dates and have to remember to relieve full bladders, get the kids on the school bus and set out the garbage.

The are, apparently, a gazillion shareware sites with extra clothes, physical appearances, tattoos, lamp-shades and gee-gaws you can select for your little creations. There are no rules and no objectives, unless you want to make the 100 Most Liked characters list. People apparently even set up on-line share houses to act out their little soap-operas and sit coms (DIY “Friends” episodes).

I have to say I find the idea eerily compelling. And am only restrained from hurtling headlong into this experience by (a) expense; (b) the lack of a computer of altogether my very own; and (c) the pressing need to reduce, not expand, the number of distractions in my life.

Perhaps the politics of it should worry me, the rampant consumerism of it, the emphasis on “popularity” and the risk of it becoming a substitute for “real” interaction with people. But frankly, none of it does.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Sim games - going back to the early, primitive black-and-white Mac edition of Sim City which I would play endless hours of, often at Jason’s house, as we’d advise each other on the finer aspects of urban planning, or mopping up after a nuclear power station meltdown.

Sometimes we’d leave a game running over dinner and return to find half the town razed by an earthquake and the ensuing unattended fires.

Ooops.

I can recall playing so long, I could fall asleep visualising the chunkily-animated B&W visuals behind my eyelids.

I have no idea if they occur, but I also find the idea of “Sim meetups” really funny. I can easily imagine people who have shared a Sim dwelling with a player from another country eventually winding flatmates.

“Damn, why can’t we just download some better wallpaper?”

The real risk, however, seems that a large number of players are just … well, kinda dull. From the Weekend Australian article and the little I’ve seen on-line, there’s lots of bikini babes and bench-press perfect animated guys churning out dialogue that would scarcely pass in a bad 80s teen movie. Like everything in our great trans-national electronic state-of-nature, it’d be a question of sifting through the (what is for you) dross to find (what you consider) a community worth participating in.

Still, it’s one more step towards the world where we truly telecommute to the office, even social occasions, by donning our VR helmet and goggles and entering a dedicated virtual space. I think office jobs would be much easier if it could all be done in one’s PJs sitting up in bed. The Sims may have to relieve full bladders, but I doubt they have to iron shirts.

PS

On the theme of trans-national communities, a cheery “Hello!” to whoever is reading at Berkeley and McGill universities. I have no idea who you are, but I’m sure you’re cool.

The compulsory rally report, and The Australian’s editorial

So, I went to rally for peace on Friday in Melbourne. As everyone whose followed the coverage will know, they were expecting 10 - 20,000 and got well over 100,000. The rally was to meet up at 5 pm in front of the State Library and then walk the length of Swanston Street down to the crazy cubist delight of Federation Square by the river. Well, at 5.30 the closest I could get to the State Library was about a hundred metres down Little Lonsdale Street on the wrong side of the road. (For non-Melbournians about a block away.) There was absolutely no hearing what was going on, which sort of robbed a participatory element from proceedings, but not really. Even if I was just another suited lawyer there “making up the numbers”, it was a great experience.

What really impressed me was the diversity in the crowd. Yes, it was predominantly under-35s - but there were Fransiscan sisters, aged hippies, families with strollers, school kids, badge-sellers, suits and the usual uni-campus fringe lefties with loudhailers. There were puppets, including big doves, white banners, and little kids with paper cranes on sticks.

Oh, and of course the inevitable, ignored vendor of Green Left Weekly desperately trying to raise consciousness of those desperate to avoid the Green Left street press.

But you get that.

It seriously looked as though marching to Federation Square was going to be impossible, the city’s central axis was already thoroughly clogged with people. Sure everyone could manage to squish up a bit - but march, let alone fit in the Square?

When the walking began, those I was with slipped down a laneway and came out at the next major intersection to see what was going on. Delightfully, there was movement. Even more delightfully, we slipped into the march for peace.

Well, strictly we were ambling for peace. It was an enormously relaxed affair: people were climbing public phones and lamp-posts (I suspect there are people who’d do this all the time if they could, but can only get away with it at a demo), laughter, bad improvised protest songs, and a lot of positive comments flowing to the women in traditional Muslim dress who were walking.

I ambled as far as the Square, which it seemed was going to hold a lot of people - as was the intersection of Flinders and Swanston and a good stretch of surrounding road. We could sort of hear what was going on, and found a view from the front of St Andrew’s cathedral of the big TV screen in the square so we could see what was happening - but after two hours on our feet, including Marching for Peace, it seemed time to Sip Beer for Peace, and then Go Out for Lebanese Food for Peace.

As Valentine’s Day could go - not bad.

Then I opened the weekend paper to check out The Australian’s coverage. I knew the paper had lurched to the right recently, but good god damn. Writing on the marches organised internationally this weekend the editorial said:

If Australia is any example, the protesters will be drawn from every part of the political spectrum. Unfortunately, if Australia really is an example, their humanitarian concerns are likely to be hijacked, as so often before, by the far Left. While there is mainstream opposition to war, people who seriously believe Saddam Hussein is no worse than George W. Bush have in effect lost contact with mainstream political opinion and therefore desperately rely on protests such as this to create the temporary illusion, for the world and themselves, that they are part of a broad-based social movement. They are not.

This woolly-thinking verbal sleight-of-hand really makes my blood boil.

While acknowledging the protest has support from “every part of the political spectrum”, its legitimacy is not-too-subtly impugned on the basis that this creates a “temporary illusion, for the world and themselves” that the far Left have a legitimate point to make, supported by the mainstream. Indeed, these dangerous lefties are likely to “hijack” legitimate protest. Subtext: this sort of protest provides false cover to dangerous elements, and gives them some sort of standing in the “world” media. In fact, the protest can be constructed as not represent a “broad-based social movement” (despite the huge turnout) because those articulating its aims are out of touch with the “mainstream”. While paying lip-service to what it dubs the “fine and honourable thing” of opposing war in a democracy, it basically implies that the protest movement is not in the hands of people with a responsible view of the facts.

It underlines this point with a pathologically brilliant piece of scare-mongering:

And for those who believe the US-lead initiatives are serving only to “radicalise” elements within Islam, this week’s message from Osama bin Laden should have been a wake-up call. It expressed the credo of a movement that is racist, misogynistic, bloodthirsty and already “radicalised” to the very heart of its being.

I think they mislaid the obvious concluding paragraph advocating the internment of all Muslim Australian citizens and residents for the duration of the War on Terror.

To judge Islam by bin Laden’s missives makes is as cretinous as judging Judeo-Christian Western society by the pronouncements of a Grand Imperial Cyclops of the Ku-Klux Klan. On a purely pragmatic level, where are Western nations going to get intelligence agents from if this is the line we take? Oh, sorry, terrorists are Evil - we don’t need anyone who might know something about their languages, cultures or real or perceived grievances.

Bombing the crap out of an innocent civilian population, by contrast, will not “radicalise” anyone. It is a responsible move that will not spawn future generations of terrorists and suicide bombers with real, immediate grievances against the US, Britain and Australia.

But the Prime Minister isn’t convinced that the rallies represent popular opinion, which he intuits is still undecided. So rest assured that the Australian’s editorial staff is a “mainstream” voice, keep a tight hold of your Terrorism hotline fridge-magnets and Prime-Ministerial pamphlet and remain “alert not alarmed” – democracy is presently experiencing turbulence and it may well be a bumpy landing.


Marcus covers the protest with some pictures. Beth also writes on being part of the movement in Melbourne. Canberra coverage by blogger Shauny here.

Just a free-rambling fool …

Once more, I'm stepping off into the unknown. The death knell has sounded, my landlord has confirmed the auction for 24 May and a sixty day settlement period thereafter to vacate the premises.

Even if I’m only in Melbourne until the end of my contract on 15 October, that still leaves me two and a half months without a place, looking for some share-household crazy or desperate enough to take me in on the understanding I may have to do a runner after ten weeks. Bugger.

Okay, I’m no John Birmingham, but in the period November 2000 to October 2002 I moved six times and had seven addresses. Let’s recap:

1. The First Flat of Brunch. Lovely little place in Curtin, Canberra I shared with Marissa of the ruminator for, what, two years? Best rental I’ve ever had. But what was great was the people who lived near by: we evolved a weekend brunch and frisbee group of friends and neighbours that set the tone for each weekend with a cook-up, coffee and banter – and exercise later in the day.

2. The temporary move home to my parents place for the Summer of Unemployment before moving to Sydney.

3. Coogee Beach I: The Hideous Flat of Doom. Certain combinations of people are just not meant to share close personal space, but when I first moved to Sydney, despite the corporate cash I was soon to be pulling down, I was flat broke. I needed a cheap place and sharing a modest flat with two cheerful women for $115 a week, two blocks from Coogee beach and a half hour from work seemed ideal.

It wasn’t.

I dined out for months on how awful one of my flatmates was. Her best effort? The night I came home to find her spilling drunk into a taxi with a few of her mates, my CD player broken and all my wine drunk cinched it. I tried to believe she was a nice person by her own standards, with whom I just I had communication issues.

I eventually had to face facts - she was a demon from an alternate universe designed for my personal torment. I slapped down three weeks notice and bolted to the first place available ...

4. Coogee Beach II: The Lads Pad. A friend was posted to Korea and I moved into his room on a temporary sub-lease. My new flatmate was Rob, who I’d met maybe three times. We had nothing in common: I drank, he didn’t (he’s since come back to the fold); I read fiction, he read business texts and Bertrand Russell; he loved the corporate life, it was eroding my sanity; he could cheerfully get up at 6 for a long jog every morning, I liked once-weekly yoga – we had nothing in common.

Except the most immature sense of humour imaginable.

It was silly: there were bad jokes, film clips were watched in boxer shorts, we debated the merits of ironing, we laughed ourselves stupid and wrote our worst witticisms up on a corkboard. (An example - Doug: “If I have any more coffee today, you’re going to come home to find me naked, licking the wallpaper.” We did not, of course, have wallpaper. We were living in our own surrealist sketch comedy.) Along with Marissa, one of the greatest friends and most easy-to-share-with flatmates I’ve ever found.

Unfortunately, Korea guy came back from Korea and wanted his room back.

5. House-sitting in Drummoyne: five weeks, no rent, a place to store my stuff while I looked around. Perfect, other than breaking down the middle of a major intersection on Oxford Street while moving there ... some tow truck drivers are just psychos.

6. This Life: Balmain. Living with three other lawyers is much less exciting than it might sound. We had a staggered start and finish to the day: people got up between 6 and 8.30 am, using the bathroom in pretty strict sequence. We got home between 7.30 and 11.30 pm at equally precise intervals. Then I became a public servant for a bit and started getting home at 6 – it was like living on the Marie Celeste some nights.

Fabulous, fabulous guys to share with – shame we never really saw each other. Still, if I had to go back to Sydney, I’d happily live in Balmain again. Catching the ferry across Sydney harbour to work is an unbeatable experience.

7. Digs in Thornbury/Northcote with the Gentleman Academic. The best thing, other than my peppercorn rent, was not having to look for a place in Melbourne - before I’d even started looking, a mutual friend e-mailed me to say the Gentleman had a room, was I interested? Damn right I was, and any day I haven’t locked myself out of the house has been a good one here.

It’ll be a shame to move again.

I’m not sure my massive century-old wardrobe can handle any more nicks and dints from “careful” removalists.

What do you mean I’m a threat to national security?

I should start off with a bit of context for those who don’t know me.

I am not a threatening-looking guy.

(Those who know me can stop laughing any time now.)

I’m tall-ish without being really tall, and pretty thin. I have a narrow oval face and ears that stick out a bit. My eyebrows naturally flick up into slight devil’s peaks, but that’s the only thing about me that’s even remotely villainous, and even then I could at best manage a sort of young, close shaven Vincent Price, as opposed to say anything as menacing as a psychotic Edward Norton.

I do not resemble a celebrity, any celebrity at all. I’m not even square-jawed or homespun-bumbling enough to pass as a pre-war Jimmy Stewart. (Although there is a photo of me when I wore more hair a lot thicker which some think has a resemblance to Peter Carey. I can only wish.)

Anyway, my point being - I am not used to being hassled by security, bouncers or police. I am just self-evidently not a threat to anyone. Particularly when I’m in a pin-stripe, double-breasted work suit. Not even my vaguely cool grey suit; just my first-ever business suit, respectable but hardly gangster-sharp.

So, I was catching the plane home from Adelaide last night. Adelaide is apparently an international airport, but you still walk across the tarmac and up steps to get aboard a domestic flight, like something from a 1940s film, which might explain my Vincent Price/Jimmy Stewart ramblings. It is not a place where you expect security to be tight as those snug jeans you threw in the drier once too often.

Having made seven or eight round-trip domestic flights this year for work, and being accustomed to moving in and out of court buildings - I am entirely used to metal detectors. I’ve never had a problem with them.

I usually have all my metallic items into my hand luggage by the time I hit the x-ray machine so I don’t have to go through the whole frisking-yourself for spare change and keys routine: you know there’s always the one, hapless men in a suit clogging up the line while he empties his pockets and then slows things down again on the other side re-pocketing all his trinkets. Much better to drop the bag off glide through, pick it up on the other side and keep going.

My hand luggage was actually too stuffed with work documents last night to do that, so I used one of those little scuffed white-plastic trays. I stepped through the metal detector and it beeped at me.

Bugger, I thought, what have I forgotten?

“Sir,” says the security guy with the wand and the standard-issue facial expression, “do you have a watch?”

“Yep,” I said removing it, “and some sunglasses. They haven’t set it off before.”

He rattled another little plastic tray at my like a collection plate, I deposited my items and he ushered me through a second metal detector (the back-up unit?).

Alarms again.

“Let’s have a look at your belt buckle, sir.”

Now, did I mention I was travelling with my boss, a man who’s been a senior lawyer since at least the time of my birth? He’s an extremely patient man.

As I was removing my belt he was standing two meters away with both our bags, waiting for me at the end of the x-ray belt. This didn’t make me at all self-conscious. Not at all. Nope.

I glanced at my boss and decided to get this whole farce over with by removing all metal on me for a final run through the metal detectors. So I removed my cufflinks as well in the hope this would spare me a meeting with Rover the sniffer dog and a big man with gloves called Guido. My person was now metal-free.

I walk through the metal detector again - again the alarm goes off.

At this point I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t believe there was any metal left on me except one filling and the zipper in my pants.

I certainly wasn’t expecting the next request.

“Sir, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to remove your shoes.”

“What?”

“Your shoes. There’ll be a metal support bar in the sole.”

“You think my shoes have metal in them?”

“Seen it dozens of times. There’ll be a metal bar running across the sole. It’ll show up in green when we put it through the x-ray. Could you just sit down over there and take your shoes off?”

I sat on a US-penal-system-orange chair and took off my nice lace-up boots and put them in the plastic tray with my belt, cufflinks, sunglasses and watch.

I was walked back through the metal detector in my little socked feet (finally, no beeping) and then I dutifully padded up to the x-ray (one hand at my belt-less waistband) to confirm that yes, indeed, there was a little green stripe in the silhouette of my shoes.

Yup, right there. A green stripe.

I was returned to my boss like someone straight out of the drunk-tank at a local lockup: sock feet, shoes in one hand, my belt, watch, cufflinks and other possessions in a little plastic tray in the other.

I looked at my boss, grinned and said: “Bet you never thought you’d have a shoe-bomber working for you.”

Blogging by popular demand

Having fielded some flack for not having my usual 600 to 1,000 words up by 10 am, I offer some random observations about Adelaide and business travel.

1. Flying in it looks as flat as Melbourne and even more suburban the Canberra: lots of tidy suburban homes in grid-perfect suburbs crowding in around the city. The city centre is, however, much cooler than that. Lotsa old colonial buildings jumbled in together, and they fly the aboriginal and national flags in the centre of town. Goucher Street, the China Town/Central Markets area, is great for eating out too - really lively, yet still very big-country-town relaxed.

2. The water is not the colour people warn you about, but it does taste kinda chlorine-treated.

3. Next time I book myself in somewhere I'm going to phone ahead and check I have a window that opens. I hate waking up adozen times a night because it's so stuffy I can't breath and the air conditioning doesn't seem to help.

4. I'm only just beginning to have childhood memories of this region triggered. I used to visit occasionally while my family lived in Broken Hill. I stumbled across a tourist brochure for the "giant rocking horse", a huge painted metal construction over a wooden-toy factory in the Adelaide hills. We would stop there on the way into town to pacify me and my sister. The Australian obsession with novelty road-side attractions that are "big" things is astounding. The Big Merino (a giant concrete ram the size of a four storey building) in Goulburn outside Canberra being another example.

5. The guys in the Adelaide office are fantastic. Had a wonderful dinner at an Indian place with them in North Adelaide last night, then drinks at The Archer - where the beer glasses are of frightening size. I'm looking forward to repaying the hospitality. One of them is up in Mlebourne next week.

Time to pack up my stuff and dash for the plane.

Do you just play one character, or is it me?

Busy day in Adelaide, so here's a little something on "About Schmidt" Marissa e-mailed round last week. One for the Buffy fans.

"Don't you find it wierd sometimes when an actor's appearance in one film or show is disconcerting because of his previous performances. For instance, I saw 'About Schmidt' last night. It includes a small appearance by none other than Sunnydale's Mayor Richard Wilkins III.

And his character was pretty much just like the Mayor. Or at least, apart from the part about worshipping chaos and evil, intent on subjugating the world and turning all humans into playthings/food for his unholy desires. Not that they showed anyway.

I mean, this was a man who greeted somebody travelling in a land-based vehicle with the words 'Well ahoy there. Permission to come aboard Captain?' And that cheesy smile, head on one side, you know the one I mean.

So I was a little distracted, in a movie about a man in his mid-sixties confronting the empty and meaningless nature of his existence, waiting for this guy to turn into a giant snake and start eating people. I don't think I am spoiling the movie for you when I reveal that this did not, in fact, occur."

Check out Marissa's other reflections on her brand new blog here.

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing

I mentioned yesterday that I went out for jazz Thursday night with my landlord, just after I had the pleasure of chatting with Minderella. We went to see the Julie O’Hara quartet at Dizzy’s in Richmond, apparently one of their first Thursday night gigs.

I had a truly great time. It was billed as a night of Nat King Cole popular tunes, but ranged a little bit more broadly over the swing era - toe tappin’ fun numbers, but performed with a lot of flair and personality. It was exactly the sort of stuff I used to play during my year of community radio in Canberra, before I learned to listen to jazz after be-bop. Particularly infectious were “Hit that jive jack”, “Goody Goody” and “If it ain’t got that swing”. I got pretty tired, pretty early though (hot nights and sleeping has been an issue lately) and left around 10.15 when she was just launching into “As time goes by” towards the end of the second set.

Julie’s voice was simply lovely: strong, dusky without being too low, great range and an infectious sense of fun. She would also pinch her nose and cup her hand over the microphone while scatting occasionally, producing an uncannily convincing, and rather humorous, baffled trumpet imitation.

The most impressive thing was the way she and the ensemble could really swing. I wish I had noted the names of the other musicians, because they really were rather impressive. The Englishman on double-bass managed to produce a number of compelling solos which I could feel in my chair. The guy on old-style mellow electric guitar had some great moments, particularly on the blues numbers which I suspect may have been included for his benefit. The pianist I took a little longer to warm towards; at the risk of offering an opinion informed by neither musical training nor talent, I found his left hand a little muddy and slurred - but that was probably not his fault. It was discovered during set-up that the house piano had two broken strings (!) and he would be playing around them. I also think his mike wasn’t that well adjusted. His higher notes were certainly cut-glass lovely, just the way I like my jazz piano.

We arrived much earlier than needed for the eight-thirty show, at eight the limited tables were still only half-full. Number would have peaked in the forties around 9.30. Nothing like the packed venues I’ve struggled with in Sydney where arriving an hour in advance was the minimum needed to get a seat, let alone a table.

Dizzy’s is a great venue: it’s the original Victorian-era Richmond post office, with high ceilings of fabulous carpentry. There are some great little rooms or spaces off the main area with its small stage, and a cheerful beer garden out the back. It is virtually below the railway line, but miraculously unaffected by any noise. There’s no tap beer, but for a boutique bar the wines and bottled beers aren’t badly priced, and you certainly couldn’t complain about ticket prices. I’ve been to one ticketed show, and the Saturday afternoon open jam session twice (which is free and remarkably good). I’ll certainly be going a lot more in future.

Especially any time Julie O’Hara’s singing. She rocks.

(I may also have to go to a Wednesday night big band session. How they fit a twenty piece jazz orchestra on that little stage will be a sight to behold - and it’s only a $5 cover.)

In other news I am presently in Adelaide, but more about what I think of the City of Churches some other time.

Why do these people all look so young?

I will not disclose the occasion or the company, because if I imbibed excessively, it was entirely my own doing.

My real mistake Friday night was mixing drinks. I do not mean that I artfully constructed cocktails with an elegant backhand flip of the shaker - I mean that I mistakenly thought the following sequence of beverages appropriate: beer, beer, beer, lemon squash, white wine, red wine, toblerone cocktail, tequila shot with beer chaser, beer, beer and very possibly more beer. (My memory gets hazy towards the end.)

It was a bad, bad combo.

I should have been more responsible.

I really shouldn’t have had the lemon squash.

Anyway, the accompanying sequence of venues went something like: the Mint beer garden, the obscure (but fantastic!) Café Baloo on Russel Street for curry, catching up other friends at the Supper Inn in Chinatown, going to the Gin Palace for the first time (!) and then ending up at Charlton’s in a search for free karaoke.

What is beginning to weird me out about a night on the town is my perception of the age groups around me. For instance, Thursday, when I was walking back to my car in Richmond after going out for jazz with my landlord we noticed that the crowd queuing to get into bars and clubs along Swan Street all looked to us as though they’d need fake ID.

At 27 I’ve reached an age were anyone younger than 22 looks about 12.

The crowd at the Gin Palace Friday was very, very late twenties/early thirties and lookin’ to hook-up. Desperately amusing, particularly in such a wonderful venue. (The place has the plush vibe of a 70s Bond villain lair.) There was a couple performing what I dubbed “the business wear karma sutra” in one corner: fully clad but snogging in a series of weirdly contorted poses. I had thought most people got over that type of fierce, drunken public groping by the end of first-year uni.

To each their own.

After the Gin Palace, Charlton’s felt like the year 10 party of urban legend you never got invited to: I’m sure everyone in the room was of drinking age in this country, but to me they looked about 14 - if only because we were so obviously so much older than they. I certainly felt the most confident I’ve ever done going out and dancing badly with mates: we simply had no peer group in the room who could judge us, we were self evidently the oldest people there and we ruled the joint.

Though that’s probably the tequila shot and beer chaser talking.

I never go out dancing. Well, maybe three times a year. The last time was New Year’s Eve, and like NYE I was still home by 2 am.

Unlike New Year’s Eve, I did not manage to lose any expensive personal items.

I did lose my security pass at the Mint though. We all remember the havoc that causes me. Fortunately, the gods were smiling and it turned up again in a friend’s hand at the Supper Inn.

I also have a feeling I sent text messages last night I may live to regret. I think the last, unpunctuated SMS was “i am going out now i may be some time do not expect further missives”. Yeah, me, Captain Oates, wandering out into the Antarctic wilderness of teeny-bopper karaoke.

At time of writing, Saturday morning, I am meant to be going to the Dali exhibition with friends. I am too hung over to confront burning giraffes, melting clock-faces and lobsters, lobsters, lobsters. I will read about Dali’s tennis performance in my new copy of “The Tournament” instead.


And in other news: League of Extreme Dating Sports, DOA

Despite the chronicles of the cocktail hour of madness, and the idea of the kris kringle dinner party – the Book Club of Intestinal Fortitude appears now to have resolved unanimously not to have anything to do with the dating lives of its members and we are collectively piking on all our ultimately light-hearted dares, ideas and deadlines.

I think this comes as something of a relief to all of us. Amusing as it was to hatch schemes best confined to the realms of musical comedy over drinks, none of us had the appetite for humiliation the process would have entailed.

Also, this is not the kind of blog that is ever going to be so confessional as to comment on such events. Failure and mad schemes make for far more amusing reading than success ever would, anyway …