Suicide by cocktail

Last week I marveled at my ability to use the word glockenspiel not once but twice in a story.  “That’s a once in a life time experience” I told myself.

But I was wrong.

Last night I went to an 80s party at Neeta and Jeff’s house.  Now being Americans, their 80s experience was somewhat different to mine here in Oz.  Jeff looked fabulous in ripped jeans and bad hair dressed, in his words, as any bass player or drummer from pretty much any 80s rock band.  Neeta had the leggings, black tutu, braces and lace gloves looking as cute as ever.  Jeff played Pretty in Pink, Top Gun and Footloose on various TVs.  So far, so good.  However the noticeable difference was the centerpiece of this party.  And here I am going to use a word I have never used before.  The centerpiece of this party was an ice luge.

Ice lugeI hear you ask (after you tell me it’s two words, not one)?

An ice luge is a very large block of ice, higher at one end with two channels carved into it in a sort of reverse V.  Fair maidens (in this case a pretty good imitation of Chrissie Amphlett and a famous children’s author dressed in full punk regalia) pouring a cocktail with the apt name of Kamikaze down the channels with party goers lips glued

Before

to the channels slurping down ice cold shots.  Nice concept.  (And also a potent reminder of why, lush as I am, I do not drink hard liquor.  I am having to drink a cold beer just to write this blog but such is my dedication to my blog audience that I shall sacrifice myself on the altar of love to get this piece out because I do have something important I want to share.)

After

Ice luge.  I’ve gotta say , as an ice breaker (Ha!  Ha!) it’s hard to go past the abilities of the ice luge to bring complete strangers together, share copious germs and then drink disinfectant in the form of pure alcohol.

So now I have added a new word to my vocabulary and one I am sure never to forget even though right now I would really like to.

But back to glockenspiel.  It has had another outing.  Before I went and trollied myself at an 80s party, I spent Saturday at Varuna House in the Blue Mountains edifying myself by attending Marele Day’s writing master class, From Rough Idea to Final Draft.  I’ve never done a writing course before and I had a ball.  Marele started by asking us write down the answer to 16 questions being the first thing that sprang into our heads.  To give you a feel for this exercise, here are a few of the questions and my answers:

1. The name of an object

knife

1. Write a simile or metaphor

rushing like a buzzing bee

1. the name of an exotic creature

ocelot

1. Write a statement that you do not believe

Gaddafi should not have been killed.

1. The name of an object that makes a sound

Bell

1. Make the object you named in 1 make a sound

The knife sings as it slices.

1. Write a statement about yourself that is not true.

I have always been attractive to short foreign men.

1. Write a description about where you live.

Blue, grey and green depending on the season.

Then Marele turned around and said we had to write a non-rhyming poem using our answers and we couldn’t change a word expect to add at, or, the or and.  Once we had written our poems, we went around the group and read them aloud and whilst the poems were quirky, what was really interesting was they made their own sense.  It struck me that because the ideas had come from a single source there was a connectivity between each answer.  Rearranging those answers into a poem did make more sense of those ideas but even apparent dissimilar concepts seemed to find their own logic.  Marele’s point was that we find images and ideas without critiquing ourselves and quenching our creativity (part 1 of the exercise) and by rearranging those ideas and putting them together in certain ways made sense of them (part 2 of the exercise)  Rough idea to structural edit in one exercise.  Brilliant.

The point is, don’t be afraid to express yourself, and don’t criticize what comes out in the process of creating.  Save the criticism for the edit.

In the interest of having a good laugh and proving to you that I have, once again, managed to seed the word glockenspiel into my story, I present to you my poem.  Enjoy!

Gaddafi should not have been killed.

Knife, rushing like a buzzing bee.

Is that the hospital who rang?

Crimson velour tablecloth soft enough to rest my head on,

Blue, grey and green depending on the season.

I have always been attractive to short foreign men.

The knife sings as it slices

The glockenspiel is an instrument often used in place of the human voice.

Children are the making of their parents.

I made my daughter Vegemite soldiers.

The death of Gaddafi is a cause for much celebration around the world.

Bell.

Deep, isn’t it?  I think it might be time for another Kamikaze.  I wonder if the ice luge has melted yet.

Will The Wiggles ever forgive me?

Sitting in a car with children aged 5 and under can be a sure path to insanity.  Knowing said journey involves hours of travel can be enough to make the most even-tempered parent turn pale.  Since drink driving, pot smoking and gaffer taping their precious little mouths shut is illegal, there are not of legitimate options left to stop children driving you insane on a car trip.  And this is the precise reason why pre-school rock icons The Wiggles are rich and I am not.

This thought came to me driving the kids to school this week.  Since our recent jaunts in Bermagui and Orange, I have been working my way through the Warringah Library’s Children’s CD collection.  And what an eye-opening experience that has been.  On the upside, I enjoyed Dame Edna Everage narrating Peter and the Wolf but the downside, oh me oh my, is a long and slippery slope.

What drugs was I on when I borrowed The Rolling Stones for Kids.  I read the cover and noted the lack of such classics as Sympathy for the Devil as acceptable and appropriate omissions on such a disk.  I was a little dubious about the merits of including Beast of Burden but then thought that perhaps the little darlings would assume it was a song about mummies.  However, with such classic Stones numbers as Under My Thumb and Get Off My Cloud, I was sure we were in for a rollicking good car ride.

Alas, what I had failed to observe was that this wasn’t THE Rolling Stones or even an erstwhile cover band but some Muzak interpretation of these rock genius’s songs using generous amounts of glockenspiel in lieu of Mick’s pouting lyrics.  Keith’s guitar was subbed by a string quintet and in every way the producers of this gloop could think to desecrate the sanctity of The Rolling Stones they found it.

Having now learnt such a valuable lesson, I have steered well clear of The Who, Jimmy Hendrix and Madonna.

The unfortunate side effect of this is that I have been picking CDs with chirpy titles such as Fairy Fun, Dinosaurs and At the Zoo.  A glance at the back cover revealed the comforting sight of such classics as Wheels on the Bus and Five Little Ducks.  But boy was I wrong.  These people should be sued for false marketing.  If I thought the glockenspiel was bad (who would have thought I could use the word glockenspiel twice in one story!) then the one-man band with a synthesizer and a drum kit is much, much worse.  Tinny four track recordings, with variations coming at the touch of a button.

Baa Baa Black Sheep with a Calypso beat?  Why not.

Torturous car trips accompanied by a soundtrack created by a husband and wife team recording nursery rhymes in the front lounge room one rainy afternoon when they were bored (and surely stoned?) are not my idea of a good time.

So when I finally relented and allowed the kids to borrow a Wiggles CD, I had what can only be called a Wiggles epiphany.

The sheer joy of listening to Big Red Car or Hot Potato, songs accorded production values befitting Australia’s top earning entertainers.  With real musicians playing trumpet solos, guitar solos and real people singing four part harmonies.  That’s why The Wiggles earned $45million in 2009.  That’s why they have collected 17 gold, 12 platinum, three double platinum, and ten multi-platinum awards for sales of over 17million DVDs and four million CDs.  They are a pre-school icon because they treat pre-schoolers as an audience of discerning musical taste who appreciate a decent tune to shake their booty to.

For years I focused on the naff primary coloured skivvies, the annoying voice of Dorothy the Dinosaur and her stupid obsession with rosy tea and all the snotty nosed 3 and unders running around dressed in Wiggles merchandising.  But I take it all back.  I see it now.  There’s nothing like being locked in a moving vehicle with truly awful toddler pap to realize the benchmark set by these guys.  They are consummate professionals and their success is living proof that toddlers might only come up to our knee caps but that’s no reason to talk down to them.

*All facts and figures were sourced from Wikipedia

Losing my Thanksgiving Virginity

Today, I shall be doing something I have never done before in my life.  Our lovely new-ish neighbours have invited us over to share Canadian Thanksgiving with them.  I am about to lose my Thanksgiving Virginity.

Living Down Under, Thanksgiving is one of those North American curiosities.  Something from those chuckly comedy movies where characters are rushing home from every State to be with family and friends: characters missing planes, being snowed in, fighting with siblings, bringing the new boyfriend home to meet mom and dad and disastrous incidents involving turkeys.  In fact, everything that Christmas represents for us.

I have no idea what the differences are between Canadian Thanksgiving and their southern neighbours.  Maple Syrup?  Better bacon?

Mmm, quick check of Google reveals that Canadian Thanksgiving is a celebration of the harvest rather than the arrival of the pilgrims.

Of course, since there won’t be any Canadian Football, the lads will have to content themselves with Australia versus South Africa in the Rugby or Holden versus Ford at Mt Panorama.

In the movies, they always give lots of presents at Thanksgiving but Jenny said “just bring yourselves.”

I’m not falling for that old trick.  After much wracking of remaining brain cells and coming up with nothing more imaginative than flowers and Champagne, I decided to make something.  Homemade spells e-f-f-o-r-t which is worth a lot more brownie points than off-the-shelf nice in my books.  The question was, what?

Aha!  Annabel Langbein’s Chocolate Truffles with Cointreau.

My version of Annabel's truffles

I’ve never made truffles before but her recipe made it sound so easy I thought I’d give them a whirl.  After all, guests bearing chocolate can offend no one, can they? (Oh yes- they can offend diabetics.  And I forgot to check if the chocolate was Fair Trade.  Damn!)

Mmmm….an awful lot of the chocolate stuck to my hands and I had to use mountains of cocoa powder to make the balls.  They’re a bit wonky I know.  But I figured that by sifting even more cocoa powder over the top, no one will notice.

It’s the thought that counts, right?

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving all you Canucks. (That’s apparently a Canadian term of affection, like we call ourselves Aussies.)

Right?

I think I should shut up now.

Grand Final Fever Soars Like a Sea Eagle

On this tempestuous Spring day, the truth is told.  Are The Manly Sea Eagles the best team of the season?  Or, (I say this only in the interests of feigned fairness) will the New Zealand Warriors triumph?

I love the pointy end of the footy season.  HG Nelson and ‘Rampaging’ Roy Slaven famously call it The Festival of the Boot and it is.  There is AFL, Rugby League, Rugby Union (Shute Shield) and the Rugby World Cup.  It’s kind of irrelevant what code you follow or what tribe you belong to, when September arrives, fans emerge from the woodwork.  The beauty of finals season that even if your own team was knocked out there is still another team you can barrack for.

It’s been a cracker of a season for League fans.  A regular State of Origin build- up except this time it really has been State against State, Mate against Mate.  For the Manly Sea Eagles to reach today’s Grand Final they have had to beat the Brisbane Broncos in the process denying Darren Lockyer his chance to end a stellar career with a Grand Final win under his belt.  Poor Dazza!

The team everybody loves to hate, the Melbourne Storm, was defeated by the New Zealand Warriors and suddenly today’s Grand Final has been transformed into a match of international proportions.  Footy fever has reached levels requiring hospitalization in an isolation unit with a priest present to read your last rites.

Name any sporting code and every time Australia meets New Zealand, it is GAME ON!  Rugby Union, Rugby League and Netball are the troika of sporting contest for these two nations.  The only time an Aussie will barrack for a Kiwi is when they are playing the other Down Under sporting great that we hate even more then each other- South Africa.  (If you have no idea what I’m talking about go and watch the Clint Eastwood movie Invictus.  He though it had enough dramatic appeal to make a movie about Rugby Union and some bloke called Nelson Mandela who knew very little about Rugby but turned out to know quite a bit about coaching.)

This week has seen people descend on the northern beaches from all over the country, bedecked in beloved maroon and white of the Sea Eagles.  People who would normally spit on us Silvertails are grudgingly supporting the only remaining NSW, nay Australian team, left in the Grand Final.  Bitter rivalries have been shoved aside in the face of pragmatism.  Manly must win today’s game, it’s a matter of national pride.

Dessie’s Destroyers declares the front page of The Manly Daily.  Sports commentators

Front page of Saturday's Manly Daily

tripover themselves in the search for superlatives, sayings things like,

“This will be a superb contest where only one team will walk away victors.”

No shit Sherlock.

Players become gladiators and ex- greats become godfathers.  Even before the first try they are heroes and their antics are the stuff of legends.  Once the whistle blows for kick off, the hyperboles will fly almost higher than the ball.

Barely pausing to draw breath, will be the post match post mortem where every kick, run, try and conversion will be analysed; lauded or lamented.  No doubt there will be at least one dubious try, replayed from every conceivable angle including “ant cam.”  If we win, it will be forgiven but if we lose, we’ll be robbed.

Man of the Match will go to the bloke with the most injuries who kept playing even though he had a broken leg/ jaw/ half his brain hanging out.

The there’ll be the underhand tactics as players see how much they can get away with knowing any suspension will only interfere with the first few games of next season.  If we’re really lucky, there’ll be at least one moderately serious punch up as tempers flare and blood runs high as each team fights for supremacy in this ultimate test of endurance.

And because no Grand Final is complete without the touching elements, we will hear the commentators reflect on how great it is to see little Bretty Stewart see some reward for all the hardship he has endured over the last year or so.  We’ll wish a fond farewell to Will Hopoate as he heads off to the States to Bible College leaving a lucrative player’s contract behind.  And surely, someone must announce a surprise retirement at the end of tonight’s game?

Yes when Choc and Snake take the field (sadly Wolfman is out due to what could have been a fatal injury) we will scream ourselves hoarse, as the “lethal scrum base combination” of Foran and Cherry-Evans shows what it’s made of, we will be apoplectic with excitement.

Not since Manly’s 2008 40 zip drubbing of the universally despised Melbourne Storm has there been such a buzz on the northern beaches.  This Grand Final transcends parochial passions and has catapulted us into the stratosphere of international battle.  Suddenly all Australians are behind the Sea Eagles urging them to smash the Warriors sending them back across the water to the Land of the Long White Cloud carrying the ignominy of a crushing defeat on their shoulders.

….whereupon, they’ll pop on a black jersey and avenge themselves by crippling the Wallabies and winning the Rugby World Cup.

Sigh, isn’t life grand?

Orange is not just a colour…..

Image via Wikipedia

I am writing this blog on the fly, as today we are off to Orange for a few days.  Yeah!!

After our Bermagui jaunt, I am much savvier about packing a family of four in the Volvo station wagon and heading West.  This time Clever Socks (that’s me) has borrowed some CDs from the local library.  We can sing along to The Wheels on the Bus and other pre-school classics and I am especially looking forward to Dame Edna Everage narrating Peter and the Wolf.

This time I know the kids will be all excited when they jump in the car which will last until about the Roseville Bridge (15 minutes from home) and for the remainder of the journey they will squirm, whine, kick the back of my seat, say they’re car-sick until we are about 5 minutes away from our destination.  Hence the CDs.  I’m hoping to delay the tedium.

Not that I blame kids.  At least when you’re the driver there is something to do.  As the front seat passenger (or navigator if you will) you have a map to twiddle and you get to say things such as:

“It says not suitable for caravans.”

Or….

“If we take a right at Rydal we can go the back way.”

 

Perhaps its our own fault for not hooking the kids up to a DVD players as if on life support.  As far as I’m concerned, you make as well give the kids a massive dose of Valium as plug them into the DVD.  After all being bored, a bit car sick and completely over the novelty of counting sheep, cows and horses is what a road trip is supposed to be about.

I’m not saying I’m against entertaining the kids in the car, just not at the expense of shutting out the passing world.  I love how the landscape changes from cramped city, slowly stretching itself out until the gaps between houses can be counted in kilometres and traffic lights disappear behind you.  How you go from 110km an hour to a sudden crawl of 50km because you’ve hit a town that appears to have only ten houses but still signposts a residential street speed limits.  All this would be missed if immersed in Toy Story 3.

Apart from packing the CDs, the other trick to travelling with small people is food because as we all know food fixes just about every problem from a broken heart, insecurity to boredom.  The lemon slice that proved such a huge success on the Bermagui or Bust trip shall be baked again (here’s the recipe– its easy and delicious) and I’ve made chocolate slice.  In fact, I shall be packing enough food to feed a small army just to make the four-hour trek from Sydney to Orange.  Ridiculous I know.

But even more ridiculous is the slightly panicky feeling about what books to take.  Last time I took three books and ended up reading the Pears’ Cyclopaedia.  This time we are only away for 3 days and we’re staying with friends so it would be pointless to take more than one book.  The question is, which one?

I’m reviewing a book at the moment that is 650 pages long if you don’t count the other 50 odd pages of bibliography.  Not exactly a light read nor suitable for the holiday frame of mind.  I borrowed The Writing Book by Kate Grenville and The Maeve Binchy Writers’ Club (yes I know, talk about both ends of the spectrum) but surely I should be treating a mini break with the family as a chance to step back from writing and live rather than anxiously clutch writing craft to my chest like a well worn teddy bear?

I know the decision must be which work of fiction I will take but this too fills me with anxiety.  What if I take a book and don’t like it?  Then what will I read?

What if I love the book and can’t put it down thus resenting the demands of my family to spend time together every time they drag my attention from the riveting page?

Of course, there is the possibility that I will take book and never open the covers.  Slender I admit but still a chance.  I’ll let you know what happens.

PS Very excited to see a Sea Eagles/ Warriors grand final.  Go Manly!!

A Weekend of Wickedness

Well, you know the old saying, “when the cat’s away, the mice will play.”  Paul is away on a boys own weekend with a group from the Dee Why Icepicks.  The lads have gone to Wagga Wagga to represent their winter swimming club in the National Championships leaving me at home alone.  Squeak!  Squeak!

Okay.  Alone, if you don’t include the 5 year old and the 3 year old.  But hey, I’m not complaining.  For the last 9 months hubbie and have been in each other’s company pretty much 24/7, so 2 nights and 3 days apart (who’s counting?) is just what the doctor ordered.

I’m sure the doctor also ordered me to indulge myself in his (the husband’s not the doctor’s) absence.  This is why, as soon as I dropped Paul off, I went straight to Coles and stocked up on

• strawberries
• ham (for pizza)
• eggs (for pancakes)
• two family size blocks of milk chocolate
• one tub of Maggie Beer’s Burnt Fig, Honeycomb and Caramel ice cream and
• on e tub of Coles Finest Date, Caramel and Pecan (I couldn’t make up my mind.)

Despite having come down with some dreaded lurgy that left me alternating between dizzy and faint (and that’s before I drank any wine) I was determined to make the most of this leave pass.

What’s that I hear you say?  You think my husband had the leave pass, not me?

Oh no, no, no, no, no!  My poor husband is staying in some budget motel sharing a room with another bloke, (boys hate sharing), swilling vast quantities of lager and playing pool before waking up feeling dreadful, hopping on a bus and going wine tasting.  All this before competing in the 50metres and swimming his leg of the relay in a freshwater pool.

Does that sound like fun to you?  I tell you what, if he hadn’t already chucked his guts up after all the beers, wine and travelling about on a hot bus, I reckon the fifty-metre dash would have just about done the job.

Meanwhile, here am I, chez Jaffé doing whatever I want.  The kids and I have enjoyed homemade pizza for dinner.  We baked mountains of scones, visited friends, consumed said scones,more pizza and savblanc for me.

As I did at her age when dad was away, Matilda has shared my bed.  And whilst the kids have been up at 6am each morning, they’ve played nicely, watched TV and left me to wallow in the ultimate indulgence.

Forget the strawberries, wine and two tubs of premium ice cream ( did I mention I’m leaning towards the Maggie Beer but I have to keep going back to the freezer and taste testing each tub just to make sure) there is one thing that has made this weekend absolutely perfect.  I have lounged about.  I have not only finished reading one book, I have made a good stab at completing another.  I have stayed up late editing my novel reveling in both the solitude and the silence.

Agatha Christie was right when she said, “The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.”  But as any mum will tell you, you need precious quiet to be able to creep into that box in your head and fish out the scraps in the vain hope you can thread them together and make something beautiful.  This has been the true gift of my weekend alone-ish.

But you know, tonight when my husband walks in the front door, hopefully victorious and not too the worse for wear, I will be glad to see him, share a meal and some chatter before curling around him and falling asleep.  No reading, no writing just being.  Because as another of my favourite writery quotes goes:

“The good writers touch life often.  The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her.  The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.”  ~Ray Bradbury (best know for his novel Fahrenheit 451)

A Modest Proposal on Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Prosperity

I’ve had this amazing brainwave.  In fact my solution is so brilliant, so well conceived and absolutely faultless that I just have to share it with you.

Every day the news is full of doom and gloom for poor old planet earth; climate change, energy crises, imploding economies, corrupt regimes, starvation and obesity.  But I’ve figured out how to fix it.  It’s so easy that I am surprised all those scientists, economists and so-called experts have failed to see the proverbial nose in front of their collective faces.  Wait until I tell you, you are going to love it.  It is elegant in its simplicity.  The

American Cherries

answer came to me in the shape of an American cherry.

For some months now, I have noticed that there is an abundance of cherries in the shops.  Shipped in from the United States, they are big, plump and juicy.  I have resisted all temptation to buy these $12.99 a kilo cherries because here in Australia they are out of season.

“Think of the food miles!” I’d remind myself.  Anyway, I won’t even buy Aussie bananas at that sort of price.

Until yesterday.  Telling myself how much the little guys love cherries, I bought a handful.

It was barely a few dollars worth.  To soften my guilt, I took the bag of cherries to the park to share on an after school play date.

I said to my girlfriend, who hails from Philadelphia, “They’re American.”

She gave me a weird look.

“You know.  Food miles?”

And then we both laughed.  “Oh no!  Not American cherries.  Not nasty Yankee red delicious yummy cherries.”

And they were good.  But there is such a social conscience about everything we consume these days.  It’s hard not to feel the nip of consumer guilt every time you shop.  Whether it is bottled water or disposable nappies we are committing a sin.

And that’s when I had my brainwave.  If we were truly serious about saving the planet, we wouldn’t fiddle around the edges with some namby- pamby “eat seasonally and buy organic” bulls**t.  We would do something meaningful, edgy, which involved pain.  I’m talking about banning soft drink and cream-centred biscuits.

What value does a bottle of cola or a shortbread cream add to our lives anyway?  Imagine all the plastic packaging that would go unmade, machines that run on electricity generated by coal fired power stations left idle rather than churning out millions of biscuits and fizzy drinks.  In fact we wouldn’t just be addressing the carbon problem we would also be

applauded by the AMA for simultaneously tackling the obesity issue.  Yeah alright our kids’ bodies would probably go into some sort of shock without a regular supply of junk food and flavoured “health” water but they’d live a lot longer.  Remove potato chips, flavoured milk and confectionary and whole supermarket aisles would disappear overnight.

How easy would grocery shopping be then?  Imagine half-full trolleys gliding over the linoleum on wheels still in perfect alignment.  Imagine arriving at the checkout and the pimply-faced school kid says “That comes to $99.85 thanks.  Have you got Fly Buys?”  We’d hand over a crisp $100 bill knowing we’d fed a family of four for a week and, our purses bulging with unspent cash, done our bit to save the ailing economy.

As long as they keep Tim Tams and the family size block of Dairy Milk for That Time of

The Month, this is the plan guaranteed to combat climate change and rebalance the global economy.  Plus we would all live longer.

Oh wait; maybe this isn’t such a great idea.  If we all live longer we will consume more energy.  Hang on a minute though; we might need fewer medicines because we won’t be suffering from obesity, heart disease or Type 2 diabetes.  This could really work!

It takes Think Global Act Local to a whole other level.  The experts keep telling us Westerners that we produce enough food to feed the world ten times over and what do we do with it?  Turn it into food that has little or no nutritional value, making ourselves so fat in the process that all we feel like doing is collapsing into the Jason recliner and watching other people cook, exercise or renovate their kitchens.

If we did what personal trainers and nutritionists have been telling us to do for decades and empty the pantry we would be saving our own hides.  In actual fact, it would be an act of pure selfishness to send all that wheat, beef and potato to somewhere where they are genuinely hungry.

Not buying crap could take us from the vicious cycle of prosperity to the virtuous circle of austerity.  If, in the process, we save millions of people from poverty then yay!  That’s just another plus!

It’s perfect, isn’t it?  Who would have thought that something as humble as an American cherry with more frequent flyer points than an IOC official could provide the solution to world prosperity?

Some Humour is about as Funny as a Fart in a Spacesuit

One person’s hilarious joke is another person’s insult.  Humour is as individual as our DNA and, whilst it might not be part of our genetic code, what makes us laugh starts with our first baby smile.  Think of all the different kinds of humour:  satire, farce, slapstick, sarcasm, puns, jokes, wit, and wisecracks.  Why does someone love Chevy Chase or Benny Hill and others detest them?  Do you think Jackass is funny or is The Office more your style?  What about Elmo or Shaun the Sheep?  See what I mean?  The humour club is a broad church.

I started thinking about this because yesterday whilst tootling about on Twitter I stumbled across this post from BBC News.  The article, promisingly entitled Nick Helm’s Password Joke is Edinburgh Fringe Funniest, listed the 10 jokes judged to be the funniest.  This is the Nick Helm’s winning joke:

“I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”

Clever but I didn’t laugh, more of a Boom!  Boom! Than a Ha! Ha!  It reminded me of those terrible stand-up comics who’d say things like “Take my wife- please!”  Invariably these jokes told in boozy clubs full of middle aged men would raise a chuckle, if for no other reason that the drummer in the band would provide the Boom! Tish! to accompany the punch line. (There is something so Pavlovian about that, isn’t there?)

I found this joke at # 3 by Hannibal Buress funny: “People say ‘I’m taking it one day at a time’. You know what? So is everybody. That’s how time works.” but suspect #10 probably only worked if you were there:  DeAnne Smith: “My friend died doing what he loved … Heroin.”

Stand up comedy is meant to be digested in situ, to a greater or lesser extent, it’s interactive.  Stand up easily translates to the slapstick comedy of movies and sitcoms.  But humour written down is a much trickier beast.

So much of what we find funny is in the nuance.  Take a book like Sh*t My Dad Says.  The joke isn’t in the swearing, it’s in the characterisation of Dad and how he sees the world.  The fact he swears like a trooper is secondary to what makes this book a bestseller.

Or compare Anthony Kiedis’ Scar Tissue to Russell Brand’s Booky Wook.  One is a serious exploration of a man’s journey through drug addiction, sexual exploits and bad behaviour on the road to becoming super famous, and the other is, well, a serious exploration of a man’s journey through drug addiction, sexual exploits and bad behaviour on the road to becoming super famous.  Only one of them was funny, the other one just sounded like a self- centred twerp.

Nowadays what with tweeting and facebook we are all potentially sailing close to the wind on the sea of humour.  Exclamation marks are sometimes all that separates us from being perceived as mean and spiteful rather than handy with some sharp repartee.

Since my comedic skills are stunted by my inability to remember jokes or the punch lines to rambling stories and I missed out in the genetic lottery in inheriting a funny face, I decided I’d share this list entitled Top 10 Funniest Books According to the British (check out the link to see other funny books)

1. Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (1933)
2. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
3. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
4. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (1889)
5. Wilt by Tom Sharpe (1976)
6. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980)
7. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (1953)
8. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse (1938)
9. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding (1996)
10. Adolf Hitler:  My Part in His Downfall by Spike Milligan (1971)

To which I would also add Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and anything by Carl Hiaasen and I really think Roald Dahl deserves a place in the top 10.  But who do you think is missing?  And, what makes you laugh?

Bum Cheeks, Paunch and Running from Demons

One of the advantages of living on a main road, and there are a few, is that I get to see the world pass me by.  Here is a photo of my desk and the view outside.  At any given time of the day or night, I can tap away at my keyboard with the world’s rich tapestry of life walking, bicycling, and running past my window.

Last night, for instance, teenagers descended on the car park across the road from the beach.  It’s a little early in the season for nocturnal teenagers.  They usually arrive in vast numbers in the summer, like a flock of migratory birds.  They fly in to the beach, performing courtship dances and, the lucky few, mating under the light of a full moon.  At four in the morning we can hear their whoops and hollers, the background beat of doof-doof music and the regular acts of youthful bravado.  On the odd occasion when one of the neighbours (not always us) gets tired of listening to the staccato beat of teenage entertainment, the cops are called and a van appears, dispersing the flock of brightly coloured adolescents, gently suggesting they return to the familial nest, or at least, I hope that’s what they say.

At five in the morning it’s the packs of middle aged cyclists, paunches covered in gaily shiny lycra wicking away the sweat generated by cycling up our very own mini heart break hill.  I read somewhere that cycling is undergoing a resurgence particularly amongst men of a certain age who should know better.  Apparently heaps of them end their cycling adventures in hospital emergency departments as the old body lets them know in no uncertain terms that this sort of tom foolery might be alright for Cadel Evans but not for fifty something accountants who haven’t ridden a bike since Dragsters were all the rage.

Every day, rain hail or shine there is the dog lady.  I’ve heard she is a hairdresser.  She bounds past with this German shepherd loping alongside.  She ran until her pregnancy was well advanced, she ran with a baby buggy, she runs with the dog.  I don’t where she lives but I’ve seen her kilometers away, she must run for miles.  I always wonder if it her demons that make her run so far and so fast.

I know which day one neighbour’s cleaning lady comes and the other neighbour’s gardener.  I watch our postman put our mail in the box or when there is a parcel he will toot the horn on his motorbike and wave at me to come collect the oversized delivery.

On weekends the roadside fills with cars.  I watch surfers toweling off, a flash of naked bottom as they pull off the budgie smugglers and pull on the boardies.  There are families laden with beach umbrellas, boogie boards, eskies and towels trudging towards the sand dunes in single file.  Windy days bring kite surfers and wind surfers swooping and diving in the sou’ easterly.  September brings whales and when the lagoon breaches the pod of dolphins swing by to chase salmon so plentiful they form a thick shadow in the waves.

On impossibly hot summer evenings, we sit outside on the balcony enjoying a wisp of a summer breeze.  Down the far end of the beach, the water is thick with people escaping the heat until long after the sun has gone.  The cafes light up and salty-skinned sunburnt people drink cool cocktails and bottles of beers covered in condensation.  They eat salt and pepper squid and thai beef salad staying up late until its cool enough to sleep.

All this I see from my window.  When I can’t think of the right word or I need to play a scene in my head before it hits the page, I stare out at this parade of humanity.  Some famous writer whose name escapes me said that everyday there are a thousand stories.  A writer may pick up on four or five of them where a non writer may be lucky to notice one.  I often wonder how many stories are passing me by.  The dog lady, skateboard dude, the fishermen, the surfers.  All these lives being lived, all these dramas being played out, all this right outside my window and yet I know not one of them.

Sleep and Sex- which do you do in your bed?

Sometimes I’m amazed how the most miniscule inconsequential snippet of conversation or line I’ve read stays with me all week.  Case in point, Sunday’s come around and here I sit writing this week’s blog about Sleep and Sex (although not necessarily in that order).  Why? I hear you ask.  Here’s why.

I was tootling around a Holistic Health website and the author made several terribly good points along the lines of drink plenty of water, get moving (exercise has such negative onerous connotations), crowd out the bad foods with plenty of fresh veggies and do something in your life that you feel passionately about.  Yep.  That ticks all the boxes.  I can incorporate all of those into my day.  I can’t speak for you but I know I need a bit more balance and positive energy in my life.  Then came this piece of advice, and I am paraphrasing here:  Your bed should be for sleeping and sex; nothing else.

Mmmm, I have a problem with that.  There are many wonderful things done in bed that have nothing to do with sleep or sex; reading being the first thing that springs to mind.  If you’ve ever read the right hand side of this blog, you will note the extensive pile of reading material that perpetually teeters on my bedside table.  I don’t watch much tellie and in these cooler months, curling up in bed with a book for several hours provides me with deep and abiding pleasure.

There are quite a few famous writers who penned their opus (opi?) propped up on a few pillows.  The Irish writer Marianne Keyes spends her days in bed tapping away on the lap top.  Mark Twain wrote in bed even though he claimed it was very dangerous as people died there.  Mae West penned her autobiography horizontal and once he gave up the grog, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote prone too.  Truman Capote is famous for asserting that he was the “completely horizontal author”, claiming he had to write lying down, in bed or on a couch, with a cigarette and coffee. The coffee would switch to tea, then sherry, then martinis, as the day wore on. He wrote his first and second drafts in longhand, in pencil. And even his third draft, done on a typewriter, would be done in bed — with the typewriter balanced on his knees.

But apart from reading and writing there are other things to do in bed apart from snoozing and bonking.  How about watch television, surf the net, chat on the phone, nurse a hangover or do the crossword.  What about breakfast in bed or a midnight snack?  My youngest play hide and seek under the doona giggling like crazy cats.

Okay, it may not be the right place to do all those things but then who doesn’t love a nap on the couch or falling asleep in the sun?  And does sex really have to be confined to the bed let alone the bedroom?  Admittedly it is convenient and comfortable but so is a ten year marriage.

I don’t know.  As someone who sleeps half the night in my marital bed and the other half in a rather small wooden sleigh bed with a restless three year old who insists on tucking his feet between my thighs and shoving his stuffed cat Meow in my face, I’m too tired to care where I sleep.  Frankly, anything more than four hours straight is a good night and I’ll leave it to you to imagine what that does to my sex life!