Speaking of dangly bits.....

(Click to enlarge - the cartoon, that is!)

Bachelor Boy

As I write Mt is in the air on the return flight to Ballina and I am a bachelor boy again.

It was good to have company for the past week but having lived solo for so long it is also a relief to have the apartment to myself again. I can resume wandering around as and how I please without frightening the natives with the sight of my dangly bits or whatever else I might have on display.

My longest relationship was with En who had a fixation on my bits. His eyes were forever focused on them around the house and for a while I understood how women felt about men who talk to their breasts.

Written on the wind

Today is our fourth and last day at the Sydney Writers' Festival 2009. The festival which is mostly staged around harbour side venues has been battered by strong winds and plenty of rain, some of it quite heavy. Whilst we have been out and about a lot we have been very lucky to have missed the worst of the rain.

Mt and I have attended some sessions together but mostly we split up to pursue sessions in line with our individual interests. So I have been attending sessions with titles like Biography and Intimacy and True Crime Stories whilst the sessions Mt has been attending have titles such as An Evening with Germaine Greer and Is This the End for You, Me and Capitalism?

Mt is the serious thinker whilst I am only interested in the dirt. I haven't told Mt that half the sessions I selected were chosen for the cuteness factor of the speaker's bio photograph.

Yes, I am that shallow.

Archibald Prize 2009

I took Mt to the Art Gallery to see this year's finalists in this year's Archibald Prize.

I'm no expert on art and my tastes in portraits tends towards 'vanilla' rather than the abstract. I prefer portraits where you can make out who has been painted. I enjoyed this year's finalists far more than last year's when there were fewer identifiable images.

Even so I found this year's winner, Guy Maestri's portrait of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, too brooding for my liking.


I preferred Vincent Fantauzzo's portrait of Brandon Walters - the young actor featured in Baz Lurhmann's Australia - which won the People's Choice Award.


But if it were up to me I would have awarded the prize to Megan Roodenrys for her portrait of Australian footballer Ben Cousins for no other reason than that I could gaze upon Cousin's superb body endlessly.

Chicago The Musical

Taking Mt to see Chicago The Musical the day after seeing Guys and Dolls was like serving a hot Indian Curry after a Rice Pudding. The contrast could not have been greater.

Chicago The Musical tells the tale of two women in prison in the 1920s charged with unconnected murders and their scheming and dealing ways with a notoriety chasing lawyer and their manipulative prison warden.

Mt had never seen the show and knew nothing about it. I had seen the previous stage version in Australia ten years ago and the brilliant movie version and feared that it would no longer have that first viewing sparkle for me.


I need not have worried. This is a brilliant production. The witty songs and sensational choreography were as fresh as though we were seeing the world premiere. Caroline O'Connor and Sharon Millerchip are world class as the accused women whilst Gina Riley, of Kath and Kim fame, is a revealingly sassy warden.

The supporting ensemble is superb and even if they weren't it would be worth seeing the production for the men alone. Those fantastic bodies, the figure and package hugging costumes and their all round sexiness makes this one musical not to be missed.

A final indication of the impact of the performance on us was that it took both Mt and I hours to get to sleep afterwards simply because we were on such a high with the songs and images spinning around in our minds.

Guys and Dolls

Based on characters created by Damon Runyon, Guys and Dolls is set in New York in the post World War 11 period and tells the story of two gamblers, Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson. Detroit has been engaged for fourteen years without any signs of proceeding to marriage and he bets Masterson the challenge of winning over a Salvation Army missionary in the expectation of winning money to finance his moveable gambling dens.

Guys and Dolls is very much a musical set in its time and this production, like the show itself, must seem very old fashioned if not alien to current generations. I think for its slim storyline the show is far too long and up to forty-five minutes could have been trimmed from its length.

The gimmick of Magda Szubanski playing a male, which worked brilliantly in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, is a dud in Guys and Dolls. Otherwise, the Australian cast performs very strongly with the visit to Havana scene and Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat number standouts.

Sydney Writers' Festival 2009

Mt is down from Ballina for the week and we will be attending sessions of the Festival. I may not post during that time. If so, I should be back with more mindless jottings about my routine life from next Tuesday including a post about Guys and Dolls which we saw last night.

Keep well, everyone.

At least it was hard...

Do you take one hunk or two?

I think I might resume drinking coffee.

Batman does Robin?

My blogger mate Sean might be able to tell me what Batman is doing to Robin in the above frame?

Angels & Demons

Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code, was an international bestseller which Ron Howard somehow managed to turn into a dull movie.

Now Howard has had another go at a Brown novel, Angels & Demons. Whereas I had read Da Vinci Code, I haven't read Angels and therefore have no basis for comparison as to how well he has adapted Brown's novel.

In Angels & Demons the Pope has died and the College of Cardinals is gathering to elect a successor. During this period of mourning and the interregnum, an ancient rebellious religious group has resurfaced and is threatening to kill off Cardinals and the future of the Church itself.

None other than Ewan McGregor is effectively Acting Pope in the mean time. The thought of McGregor, with his extensive body of naked work in movies, as the principal Fisher of Men is gob smacking but I heartily approve.

Who better to call on to hunt the group down than Tom Hanks? Hanks' uncanny ability to find crucial street gratings and floor murals in this movie, even under the feet of thousands crowding St Peters Square, is truly jaw-dropping.

It seemed to me that Howard has improved on his effort with Da Vinci producing a more exciting and energetic work this time but it is weighed down by its increasing implausibility the longer it runs.

At least there are plenty of scenic views of Rome, its side streets and monumental buildings.

Nine

A trailer for the forthcoming film Nine; the musical based on Federico Fellini's film 8½ and directed by Rob Marshall who also directed the Award winning film version of Chicago.



With a cast that includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson and Sophia Loren - count the Academy Award winners and nominees amongst that lot - I'll certainly be lining up to see it.

Star Trek

I was never much of a viewer of the Star Trek television series and therefore not too familiar with it although I was aware of the multinational nature of its character list and of the half human, half whatever Spock.

I saw the early instalments in the movie franchise series but then lost interest and did not bother to see the later films. Now comes 2009's Star Trek complete with rave reviews.

This latest instalment takes the characters back to their beginnings with the birth of James Tiberius Kirk, destined to be Captain of the USS Enterprise, even as his father George Kirk is about to lose his life in confrontation with the villainous Nero. We see James Kirk's recruitment to the space academy, his somewhat rebellious nature and his rivalry with the young Spock. Eventually Kirk, having achieved his destiny, goes into battle with Spock against Nero.

Basically, as most of these films tend to be, the tale is of good versus evil. I won't spoil the surprise by revealing who wins.

Most of the dialogue is packed with Star Trek 'speak' delivered with the gravity of a declaration of war against a noisy background. I could get the gist, if not always the substance, of what was happening.

The film is superbly designed and the special effects as Eddy would say are 'awesome'. No kidding, those effects seemed seriously good to me.

I didn't always understand what was going on but the trip sure was fun.

By the way, Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are very easy on the eye.

Dawn

Sydney a few minutes ago as the sun rises.



(Click on photos to enlarge)

Charles 'Bud' Tingwell (1923-2009)

Noted Australian actor Bud Tingwell has died aged 86 years.

Scenes from home...

Guess whose three years' old refrigerator suddenly developed 'a problem'? The freezer door (upper section) started to pop open when the refrigerator door (lower section) was closed.

Guess who called in a technician to repair 'the problem'?

Guess who was mortified to realise instantly when the technician opened the freezer door to examine 'the problem' that 'the problem' was a stocked item jutting marginally too close to the door?

Are YOU looking at ME?

He can ride my horse...

This is Chuck Wicks, a country music artist. I don't know him and I don't know his music but I saw photos of him elsewhere and couldn't resist posting one of him here.

He can serenade me anytime.

Courthouse meeting

After my 'almost meeting' with James the other day I finally have knowingly met another blogger.

Last night I had drinks with blogger Evol Kween who is on a brief visit to Sydney. It was lovely to meet him and share a few stories although on reflection I bored him with my entire history from womb to blog and I'm sure he must have gone away with a headache.

We arranged to meet outside the Courthouse Hotel at Taylors Square (pictured above) because Evol said that the Square was one of the few places he was familiar with in Sydney. Having met there we found it convenient to step inside rather than wander elsewhere for a drink.

My only surprise in meeting Evol was his height. I had imagined him to be of average height or even a little on the short side but he is very tall. It is said that television makes people look bigger than they are in real life. I can only imagine that blogs might make their authors look smaller.

Samson & Delilah

Samson and Delilah are indigenous teenagers living on an Aboriginal reserve in Central Australia. Samson is mostly indolent spending his days sniffing petrol or whatever gives him a high. He is most active when he gets a chance to play his brother's electric guitar. Delilah lives with her grandmother who she assists in creating dot paintings which the white local store manager sends to the city to be sold.

When separate events lead to their abandoning the reserve, Samson and Delilah find themselves homeless and penniless in Alice Springs.

Cast pretty well entirely with inexperienced performers Samson & Delilah is a slow moving depiction of life and challenges for Aboriginal youth.

There is little dialogue in the film. Much of the story is presented through visual clues. A glance here, a subtle movement of the fingers there and the messages given out by body language.

Not everyone's cup of tea, My didn't enjoy the film at all but I found it quite interesting although not as outstanding as some local reviewers have described it.

Gotta trust that geiger counter...

They don't test products nowadays like they used to. Imagine how much more comfortable you'd feel buying a new product that had been as thoroughly tested as this.



You'd also be so confident in a product whose contact address is a post office box at a railway station!

Mother's Day

Happy Mum's Day to Mums everywhere.

The Conversation

It's odd the things that come into my mind when I am showering, most of it seemingly unconnected with what is happening around me at the time.

This morning whilst showering I started to reminisce about my days of puberty and 'the conversation'. You know what I'm referring to; that occasion when your father sits down and tells you about the birds and the bees or how the stork really makes it delivery.

My father never engaged me in 'the conversation'. There I was, hit fair and square by puberty and responding to a strong sex drive at a very early age and yet incredibly naive about sex. I was an only child and therefore had no siblings to educate me about these matters. Perhaps sensing my sexuality or difference early on, I had few friends who might have educated me with their childish knowledge. I was blissfully ignorant about what it was that I was doing with, dare I write it, such gay abandon.

My uncle once attempted a version of 'the conversation' whilst he was driving me somewhere. Goodness knows why he attempted it as my father probably would have murdered him (metaphorically) if he had known. I don't recall much about what my uncle said except that he drew upon the work of some Psychiatrist or other (Freud, maybe) and mentioned something to the effect that humans were so distinguishable from other species because we were the only ones who made love face to face. In my naivety I found this quite a peculiar notion because face to face love was the least of what I was engaging in then.

I must have said something in response to my uncle that alarmed him because I recall he abruptly ended the discussion at that point and the remainder of the trip was completed in stony silence.

Formal education was little better for me. I went to an all boys school. More than a thousand boys at our school and the entire faculty bar just one also male. You can imagine the level of testosterone simmering away in that hot house. Ironically, the one female teacher in the school taught biology and it fell to her to deliver the sex education program to us all. This woman, Mrs L, looked like the archetypal crone and seemed to our youthful minds to be aged about 125 years.

I remember little of the day when it was my class' turn to receive the session except for her closing comment. We were aged about 13 years. That final memory clinching comment to the class was;

"By now boys all of you should find that your testicles have dropped. If any of you still hasn't had your testicles drop then stay back after class and see me."

Ahem. You've never seen such a rush for the door as when the bell rang to end that class.

Necropolis

I always try to visit my grandmother's grave around Mother's Day (this Sunday) both for myself and on behalf of my mother who no longer is able to make the visit to her mother's burial site. My grandmother's grave is at Rookwood Necropolis; also the resting place of my father. In time it will be the final home for my mother and myself too. The name Necropolis always makes me think of Dracula for some reason but it is the formal name of what is commonly referred to as Rookwood Cemetery.


(The old Rookwood Mortuary Station)

I try to avoid making the visit on Mother's Day itself because that is the busiest day at Rookwood with crowds resembling what you might expect at a football grand final. It is not surprising considering that Rookwood is one of the largest burial grounds in the world covering 283 hectares (700 acres). Established in 1868, more than 800,000 people are interred in the grounds.

I drove out after finishing work at the hospital at 3pm. Friday afternoon peak traffic may not be the smartest time to make the trip but it was still worth the crawl out and back rather than battle the numbers that will visit on Sunday.

I left flowers on both graves.

When I see Mum on the weekend I'll tell her about the visit but as is pretty always the case nowadays the information will mean nothing to her but I will know that the visit has been on behalf of us both.

Thailand to Peru

We had a beautiful day in Sydney today, surprisingly mild - in fact warm in the sun.

I had lunch with Ae, Hn and Ba, the last having just returned from five weeks in South America and the USA. We had lunch at the Thai restaurant in Victoria Street just up from the hospital in Darlinghurst paying the ridiculously low price of $10 each for our four dishes and entree apparently charged the lunch time special rate although we had chosen dishes from the regular menu not from the specials.

Then it was back to Ba's for coffee and a computer slide show from Ba's trip including her stays in Lima, Cusco (pictured), Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands. I was rather taken with the images in Cusco, a place I had never heard about previously.

Ae is pressing ahead with plans for us (Hn and I) to do a South American trip next year.

The Wonderful World of Dissocia

Mk and I saw this Sydney Theatre Company production last night.

Lisa has lost an hour of her life through a quirk of timing whilst flying home from New York at the precise moment that Daylight Saving time ends. She travels to Dissocia to retrieve her lost hour but finds the task more difficult than she anticipated in this Alice in Wonderland type world.

I doubt I have ever seen a play whose two acts are as different from each other as this one. To explain why would be to give away too much information about the play's underlying theme although that may well be guessed whilst viewing Act 1.

Justine Clark whose costumes almost successfully disguise her heavily pregnant condition is superb in the main role and she receives great support from the likes of Socratis Otto, Russell Dykstra and Matt Day.

I enjoyed the work although that was not the universal view of last night's audience judging by the number of non returning members post interval.

Elegy

Celebrity Professor and womaniser Ben Kingsley sets out to seduce his student Penelope Cruz in Elegy only to find more than he bargained for.

I love films set in New York. The apartment, restaurant and cafe scenes always are very attractive to me. How you react to this portrayal of a relationship across the generations will be a matter of personal taste but I think most people will be impressed by the performances of Kingsley and Cruz. Kingsley is always so convincing playing a range of characters and personalities regardless of whether he superficially has the looks for the part although in this film I think he very much looks and sounds the part. Cruz is impressive in a more restrained performance that I can recall seeing from her.

Peter Sarsgaard has a small role as Kingsley's son. Sarsgaard's sleepy eyed sonambulant acting style will not suit everyone. I have thought him very sexy even before he rather thoughtfully revealed himself full frontal in Kinsey and therefore I am happy to watch him in anything. However I felt several of his scenes with Kingsley seemed quite at odds with the rest of the movie.

There is something French about the style of Elegy, a tale of relationships and not much action.

Driving Miss Ditsy

On Saturday afternoon I was driving to Newtown to go to the movies. As I passed through Darlinghurst it suddenly occurred to me to run my camera and capture the drive.

That is the video below. Fifteen minutes of driving through suburban streets of Sydney. Nothing of any consequence happens. The camera falls over twice. You can hear a sports program on ABC Local Radio, the sound of my turn indicator blinking, my occasional coughing and the almost constant tapping sound of the camera as it bounces against the windscreen.

At about 5 minutes 40 seconds I am turning right at Bar Cleveland and suddenly notice James, whom I have never met but recognise from his blog photo, standing on the right footpath (out of vision). I attempt to open the window and shout out my introduction but miss the opportunity.

At about 10 minutes, as I drive past Sydney University, I notice almost too late that I am about to drive through a red light which fortunately for me turns green at the last moment.

At about 12 minutes and 20 seconds, the ABC Local Radio program starts to interview three Irish Priests who are to perform concerts in Australia.

The memory card runs out just as I reach Camperdown Park where I will park my car before walking to the cinema.

If you happen to want a virtual drive through Sydney or, for overseas readers, a sense of what it is like to drive on the left hand side of the road, watch the video. Everyone else may prefer to move on to the next item.

Mother of Dorothy

The highs and lows of parents with dementia.

Yesterday I visited Mum at the nursing home which is a regular Saturday morning activity.

Her smile as I approached indicated this was a day when she would recognise who I am even if it has been fifteen months since she last called me by my name. Within moments of joining her I noticed, by the smell unfortunately, that Mum had soiled herself. I called a carer over who took Mum back to her room to tidy her up and dress her in fresh clothing.

I remained in the general lounge reading whilst I awaited Mum's return. When Mum walked back down the corridor a short time later and sighted me as if for the first time that day she immediately broke into spirited humming of Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

My mother may not always recognise me but even in the fog of her dementia that is a mother who knows her son!

Stephen Spielberg...definitely not

I finally managed it; and yes the problem was the file was too large. I've taken and now publish my first video. Here it is. Bear in mind this was just for test purposes and is of no sophistication whatsoever.



So what is it?

A cloudy, cool Sydney day as seen from my balcony last Wednesday. The harbour looks better in the sun than it does here but never mind. You can hear the traffic noise, the tweeting of birds and only those with the best of hearing might make out the sounds of The Ellen De Generes Show which was playing on my television in the background.

And, oh yes, the zoom on my camera stinks.

Stephen Spielberg...still not

Thanks for the suggestions to my previous post. I tried resaving my video through Windows Movie Maker then publishing it on Blogger but still didn't succeed. I'm doing something wrong and will have to work on it some more.

I have tried Blogger Help, as suggested by Evol Kween but find that Help facility exceptionally difficult to fathom. I rarely find the form of words for the input question that produces the help answer to the question in my head.

Stephen Spielberg...I am not

It is time that I broadened my range of blogging skills so yesterday I embarked on a test run of creating a video for downloading to this blog of mine.

I don't have a video camera but my Canon Digital IXUS70 camera has a basic video facility which I used to create a simple video which I saved to my PC. Then, using the steps spelt out in dialogue box below, I attempted to download (or is it upload, as the box informed me) the video into a post that I intended to publish.


Five times I attempted the video download and five times it failed. Several times a message informed me that contact couldn't be made with Blogger and the other three times the 'upload wheel' spun around seemingly forever until eventually a failed message appeared.

My video opens in the Windows Video format on my PC and I assumed it's format would be acceptable to Blogger. But maybe it isn't?

Can any readers help me out?

My body has been corporatised...again

I've owned my apartment since 1990. I was 41 when I moved in to a building with a high proportion of owner occupiers and even higher proportion of geriatric residents. It was then, as now, a well maintained building with a stable Executive Committee whose composition only seemed to change upon the death of a committee member.

The two neighbours on my floor when I arrived were widows aged 92 and 77 both of whom departed the building through death. Over the years another two neighbours on my floor also ended their residence there through death, both aged in their late 80s. You can imagine the shock to the system when a married couple in their 30s spent a year on my floor and had a baby in that time. It was, I think, the first time in my nineteen years that a baby had lived in the building.

Well, going back to 1990 I was dragooned onto the Executive Committee within months, no doubt seen as young meat to bring innovation, energy and new thinking to the place. It was never likely to be. I am not an innovative thinker, I am not domestically inclined or aware and I have no aptitude for handy man activities and therefore not someone to come up with interesting ideas for building maintenance and improvements.

I muddled along on the committee for about fifteen years being re-elected, along with the rest of the committee, without opposition each year. The only way of leaving the committee seemed to be death; one committee member finally departing aged 101 and another at a relatively youthful 88. Despite its average age and the lack of any meaningful input from me the committee has always been active and effective thanks in great part to the President, a retired University Professor, the Secretary, a spinster retired school teacher and a third member, a retired Commonwealth Public Servant who, no doubt by virtue of his former career, is right into systems, detail and regulations.

Then, three years ago I did the unthinkable and refused to stand for re-election. It was an awkward moment mostly because no-one had done so in living memory and no-one seemed quite sure how to react. The remainder of the committee was duly re-elected and they continued on for three years until last month at the AGM when the now youngest committee member evidently emboldened by my precedent declined to stand again for this year.

I sat there at the AGM silently mulling over this show of bravery and minding my own business when I was I brought back from the reverie to discover that in that moment of day dreaming I had been nominated and elected onto the committee again.

Drat. Here I go again.

Size Queen

Assured Technical Madness

Don't you just love the convenience and efficiency of those ATMs?


There I was at my local bank this morning withdrawing money from the ATM to pay the plumber who was expected at my place just twenty minutes later. The ATM thoughtfully swallowed my ATM card without warning at the same time failing to produce any of my requested withdrawal.

The ATM beeped at me, closed it's shutter and cheerfully informed me I was 'timed out' and that it had retained my card. I raced into the adjoining bank branch and joined a suspiciously unhappy looking queue for service. I quickly learnt that most of those ahead of me had also had their cards retained by the recalcitrant ATM and what's more those joining the queue behind me were newcomers to the list of annoyed card retained customers.

A teller appeared after a while with a handful of retained cards which were returned to us once we proved identity and then we had to wait whilst they checked our unsuccessful ATM transactions one by one.

You'd think the Manager would have shut down the ATM in the mean time but when eventually my transaction was checked out and I left the branch I noticed it was continuing its card chewing ways with newly arrived customers.

Beatrice Arthur (1922 - 2009)

Golden Girl and gay icon Bea Arthur dies from cancer aged 86.

Safety First

Observing the instruction in this road sign in the Northern Territory of Australia could be interesting.

Anzac Day 2009

Mycoplasma Pneumoniae

...is the jazzy sounding bacterial infection that has laid me low for the past few weeks. This was the findings of the blood tests I undertook the other day.

Here is a pretty colour photograph of the bacteria.


It seems there is nothing much I can do about this but ride it out. Symptoms can persist for than a month and the doctor reckons I have a couple of more weeks to go.

Knowing

Is life on Earth a concoction of random, coincidental circumstances or is everything predetermined and calculated? This is the interesting premise of Knowing.

A fifty years old time capsule is recovered from a US primary school and one of the documents from it contains a mass of numbers. Do the numbers mean anything? As luck would have it (and indeed as part of the movie's premise) the document falls into the hands of Nicholas Cage who with remarkable clarity and skill during his drunken moments twigs to the fact that the numbers seem to relate to cataclysmic events in world history. Are there more to come and what can Cage do about it?

For about two thirds of its length Knowing remained entertaining and just about close enough to remote believability for me to care about what was happening. As always with this type of film, the longer it goes the closer you get to wondering how on earth they will bring it to a resolution. In the case of Knowing, the answer turns out to be - not very satisfactorily. That is a pity because until those last twenty minutes or so, I was having great fun going along for the ride.

Degrees of Separation

You probably know about the 'theory' of six degees of separation whereby everyone in the entire world can be linked to the American actor Kevin Bacon with no more than six people in the link.


You know the sort of thing. A lives next door to B who once sat next to C on a plane who once saw saw D across a street etc, etc.

Well, I have a bona fide four degrees of separation with both Glenn Close


and, better still, Brad Pitt.


My co-worker (one degree)
has a son (two degrees)
whose girlfriend (three degrees)
has acted with both Glenn Close (four degrees) and Brad Pitt (also four degrees).

There. That's my spurious brush with fame claim.

Jerry Springer The Opera

Anyone who has seen Jerry Springer's television program will have an idea of what to expect from Jerry Springer The Opera; at least in Act One which recreates the frenzied, bizarre atmosphere and characters for which the small screen version is notorious.

Act Two moves into different territory as the Devil draws Springer into a battle with Jesus; an African-American Jesus who 'feels a little bit gay'.

This Opera, which at times sounds like an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, is not exactly Puccini, let alone a Verdi or Mozart work. There are some catchy, at the moment, tunes. The lyrics (libretto?) are packed with uncountable instances of 'fuck', 'cocksucker' and the like.

In case you are still not sure what to expect if you see this show there are early references to 'twin lesbian dwarfs who give excellent head' and the situations progress (or deteriorate, if you prefer) from there.

A fair proportion of the capacity first night audience whooped it up in the style of American television audiences. I found quite a lot of the show funny but I also was a little uneasy about aspects of it.

If you like your religion or are serious about it then you might want to give this show a miss.

Open a new window

Our Body Corporate is looking at a proposal to replace all the window fittings to our apartment block. The building is forty years old and most of the windows are the originals and no longer suitable for our environmental conditions. A significant proportion of the windows are subject of regular and ongoing maintenance and repair.

The proposal involves hundreds of thousands of dollars of expenditure and the Committee has put several options to owners as an initial survey for consideration and discussion.

I would have thought a proposal that involves major expenditure would generate keen discussion and that most owners would want a say. Just one third of all owners have responded to the survey. Two thirds of owners have not provided any response or input at all.

It is amazing to me how many people apparently have no interest in what happens to their home.

No trumps

For a variety of reasons I've missed about seven successive sessions of bridge.

First there was the CBD blackout which induced a traffic jam preventing us getting to the club on time. Then Ce went off to Hahndorf for a Doll Club Fair or some such frivolity. Later I had a family commitment and then Ce and I took it in turns to be sick.

I am scheduled to play again tomorrow evening and that will be my first game in weeks. I'm not certain that I want to play. I used to look forward to the games but am finding it harder to feel motivated nowadays although once I'm at the club I usually enjoy the game. I suppose having played 2/3 times a week for nearly twenty years now, the novelty has worn off a bit. Especially as I play mostly with the same partner. A bit like having sex exclusively with the same person for twenty years.

Of course, if there were the occasional streaker at bridge, my motivation would be far higher.

A toe back in the water...

...metaphorically speaking.


After a week mainly couch and bed bound nursing my chest complaint I joined friends for lunch yesterday at the Coogee Legion Club. I have written previously about lunching there. The club's restaurant has a great position on the balcony looking across at the beach and surf.

Once again we were blessed with terrific weather for our lunch. It might be Autumn and heading towards to Winter but yesterday was a flawlessly sunny day with temperatures in the mid 20s centigrade. There were plenty of sunbathers and surfers at the beach as you might just make out from the photograph above taken from our table towards the end of lunch.

Ce and Je had Blue Eyed Cod, Ae and I ordered Veal and Prawns in a Light Mustard Cream Sauce and Be stuck to his favoured Chicken Schnitzel. I was starving by the time lunch was served having fasted overnight in preparation for blood tests earlier in the day and gobbled my meal down as though I had never eaten one before.

All in all a very pleasant afternoon.

Doctor Matchmaker

I went back to the doctor yesterday having completed the course of antibiotics he prescribed but still suffering cough and sweating symptoms.

He checked my temperature which was OK and then poked and prodded around again as I breathed in and out for him as artistically as I could manage. In his view my infection was under control and what I was experiencing now was some left over inflammation and throat irritation. 'I am very happy with you', he pronounced which was all well and good for him but still left me with a discomforting cough.


You'd think that one of the perks of having a gay doctor with a practice in a gay area of Sydney would be a waiting room packed with attractive gay patients. I've been attending this Doctor for years and am constantly disappointed by the attractiveness quotient of his patient list. No doubt his other patients think the same when they find me in the waiting room.

That's not to say that there isn't an occasional stunner but I can only assume that the really good looking ones save themselves for appointments much later in the day. It seems mostly old Queens like myself in the morning and early afternoon appointments that I frequent.

So there was some relief from my coughing bouts yesterday when one quite attractive man was in the rooms for a while. I stole glances at him but he seemed less interested in me. Nonetheless he rather thoughtfully stretched several times to display some abdomen for me; not exactly a six pack but more than enough for me to be in his bed before he could say 'hello' if he had been so inclined.

From bits of conversation he exchanged with Doctor and receptionist I gleaned that he is from North America and probably only visiting so there is no chance of me building on the one-sided relationship I was developing in my daydreams.

Oh well, there will be other illnesses ahead to draw me back to the Doctor's rooms and the always hoped for dreamboat patient waiting there to sweep me away.

Bang bang

Two very cute tradesmen are banging away on my landing at this very moment.

Errr no, they are not having sex. Our apartment block is installing new lighting and exit signage in the common areas and these two are doing the installation.

I wouldn't mind plonking myself down in a chair on the landing and admiring them from close-up but that might be a tad obvious.

Departure gate

For those who wait and wait...


(The New Yorker)

"Shooting through...

...like a Bondi Tram".

No, not some gay metaphor but what used to be a common saying in the days when Sydney had an extensive tram network which included a service on which these old rattlers raced down the hill to Bondi Beach. The saying went the way of the network which was closed down in 1961.

The Museum of Sydney has a small exhibition on Sydney's old tram network which I looked through this morning. It was fun to stand in the cabin of a tram and play with the driver's handle and to press the conductor's foot pedal bell. Apart from me only children played with the bell whilst I was around but I wasn't about to let embarrassment prevent me having fun.


(The foyer of MoS with the old tram destination rolls hanging from the ceiling.)


Information panels provided some indicators of the size and capacity of Sydney's old tram system which in it's day was amongst the largest in the then British Empire and, by extension, in the world.

I was amazed to read that at King and George Streets in the city 564 trams crossed the intersection every day between 5pm and 6.30pm. As the panel states that is a tram every 10 seconds!

Elsewhere the MoS was screening newsreels from the 1930s and 1940s about Sydney Harbour and the Bridge. One quaint reel showing activity on the Harbour on opening day of the Bridge in 1932 stated that the pageantry included gay sailing boats. Mmmmm, I'd like to see that.

Thinking of that noted tram aficionado High Riser I picked up a souvenir, so Andrew if you would email a postal address I'll pop that in the mail to you shortly.

Explosive diplomacy

One of the explosive untold stories from the recent G20 Summit in London, now revealed.

President Obama arrives in London for the G20 Summit, and is met by the Queen.

She escorts him to the Royal Carriage, where they travel to the Palace.

As they are travelling along through the streets, one of the horses lets fly with a tremendous fart - so powerful the entire carriage shakes violently. Both the Queen and the President do their best to remain composed.

After arriving at the Palace, the Queen says “Mr President, please forgive me. But there are just some things that even a Queen cannot control’.

Obama replies “It’s fine, Your Majesty. In fact, if you hadn’t said anything I probably would’ve thought it was one of the horses.”

(Stolen from Spatula City)

Piece! man...

Advertisements for a forthcoming concert tour trumpet that the artists are backed by a thirty piece orchestra and....a twenty piece choir.

That must be some new fangled type of choir if it comes in pieces.

How may I help you?

So there I was today at the bank waiting for my number to appear on the screen and for the electronic voice to direct me and my number to a teller. Which bank was I at? I'm not saying but Sydney readers may recognise the heading of this posting as the form of words this bank once used to greet customers in the days before screens and electronic voices provided a less personal greeting.

Whilst waiting I perused the range of available tellers noting that only one male was amongst them. But he was enough for my antenna to beep SAMAQ in my head; ie Somewhat Attractive Mature Aged Queen. My intuition seemed immediately confirmed when I noticed his eyes carefully appraising his next customer as that young man approached his counter. My gaydar clearly was working.

And I continued to wait my turn. I was waiting to deposit two cheques. One cheque, made out to my name, into my account and one cheque, made out to my mother's name, into her account. Should all be easy peasey I thought as I wondered whether the screen and electronic voice would allocate my number to SAMAQ.

And so it came to pass as screen and electronic voice summoned me to SAMAQ's presence. No appraising eyes scanned me as I approached SAMAQ but I wasn't disappointed as I didn't really expect him to be waiting for an EOMAQ; ie Even Older Mature Age Queen. SAMAQ proceeded to tap away at his computer processing my cheque with quiet and effortless indifference.

Then SAMAQ turned to my mother's cheque. At that point I apologised for not providing her account number but I added, somewhat dangerously, I assumed he could confirm this from the bank's computer system.

At this point SAMAQ transformed into MAQWA; Mature Age Queen With Attitude. MAQWA informed me archly that my mother's cheque couldn't be deposited into my account; only into her account or a joint account. Now the deposit slip I was submitting clearly stated that the deposit was for her account by name and I could have been equally arch in response by drawing this to MAQWA's attention but I held my discipline and simply said 'yes, I do want it paid into her account'.

MAQWA now pounded his keyboard with pouty irritation as he took on the onerous task of obtaining my mother's account number from the bank's computer system. This took all of several seconds to accomplish at which point he hissed back at me that 'she has two accounts'. I hesitated momentarily to absorb this news, which was all that MAQWA needed for a sneer to appear across his face until I realised and commented 'well, one of of those is her account and the other is the joint account with me.

MAQWA's sneer disappeared as he said 'yes, that is correct'. My head was now saying to him 'look dummy, I've told you twice now, once in writing and once orally, that I want the cheque deposited to her account so why mention the joint account' but my discipline held again and I said 'into her account please'.

MAQWA completed the transaction with every inch of his body language shouting 'why do I get all the loony customers?'.

My discipline held to the end when I told MAQWA that 'I will make sure I have my mother's account number with me in future' whereas what I was actually thinking was 'next time dickhead I will bring the number to save you the trouble of putting yourself out to assist a customer'.

How may I help you indeed!