NOT MUCH GOING ON

I've just found out that 2008 has been designated "The Year of the Frog". Caroline from Beelzebublog is thanked for the photo. (tried 3 times to put the link in and my brain is fried)

Next week is National Vegetarian Week.

And to go with that news is the fact that fruit, vegetables and bread prices are going to go through the roof because of the drought.

The African Jumping Spider is an equal opportunity mater. Both sexes can pick a mate, pick it on looks and size and have a post-coital feast. Virgin females have a tendency to go for a beefy male but females who've been round the block once or twice, pick smaller males. Much better to eat before being eaten. Don't you love the way females adapt?

To celebrate not pauperizing myself by buying cat food, I indulged with a fashion magazine. I'm getting old because my definition of fashion is not theirs. Picking it by the bold 'look what we've got inside' headings was a big mistake but since it was wrapped up I didn't have much choice.
I wanted it for the shoes and handbags for the next season. It didn't live up to the hype.

I don't mind high-heeled boots, not a real favourite as I much prefer cuban heels, but never in a million years will I ever look at high-heeled booties. The other emerging trend is for "dominatrix" shoes. High, very high, chunky, bloke-stomping heels, platform soles and extremely ugly uppers. I think fashion designers hate women.

Was Costello teasing us with the election date?

BAD MOON RISING

I've got a mouth ulcer. I hate mouth ulcers. I can't eat chocolate with an ulcer.

I've got a sinus headache. It's making half my nose bleed. Stupid north wind.

I woke up this morning with spots before my eyes. Took a while to figure out the spots were moving but my eyes weren't. A Daddylonglegs walking down my arm (I can't see without my glasses). I wonder how many legs he broke when he hit the floor?

I'm still recovering from having a shower about 10.30 last night. I like a shower at night, soothes the muscles and my spine. But not if the pilot light on the hot water heater got blown out by the wind sometime during the day. I'm standing there like an idiot with a toothbrush in my mouth and soap everywhere just waiting for the hot and nothing. I can truly say I froze my tits off and every other bit I had to sluice down with freezing water.

Bless Eric the mower man who not only replaces rubbery things on toilet pipes but can crawl on the ground and light pilot lights.

AT LAST SHE'S HERE

TO SAMANTHA AND KELLY PILGRIM-BYRNE
A BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECT DAUGHTER

CHARLOTTE KATHLEEN
7 POUNDS 10 OUNCES
51 CENTIMETRES LONG

QUICK OFF THE MARK

Usually when the council says a date, the rubbish is picked up about three weeks later but the truck was out bright and early this morning.
I'd found a few more bits and pieces but didn't make it and I wasn't going to yell out "hold the truck!" for a couple of place mates and tin trays.
I threw those in the recycle bin when a 'bing' went off in my memory. Something in the last jewellery book about beading trays. I went into shock. I'd almost thrown out something useful so it was headfirst into the bin and retrieve the trays. Mock velvet glued down and fraystop around the edges and I had two brilliant beading trays.
I didn't have any use for the two very big black spiders I found, in the laundry and in the pantry but not the white tail variety and I don't think I'll bother finding out what species. They were large. I put each one on a separate branch of the apple tree and watched the panic when they realised they were in the open. They're probably homing spiders and I'll find them back where they started.
I didn't throw out the expensive cat litter which he refused to use or the 12 cat dishes I found in the pantry or the spare carry basket. The minute I do, someone will dump a stray cat in my front gate.
I almost threw out the little round plastic outdoor table but anchored down with a four scoria rocks over the mouldering tree stump, a basin on top and the doves had a tolerable birdbath.
Sister took a walk around the Mirvac slum during her shift break last night. She couldn't believe the quality of their junk. Lounge suites, good chairs and a couple of pairs of skis. I never thought to have a rummage through there.
Next year, there's always next year.

IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

It was the dead of night until the gutter crawler dropped the stainless steel turkey roaster he was nicking from my pile of rubbish.
Perhaps I should have put a note on the huge stainless steel preserving pan to warn people that it was used for ten years of lace dyeing but it's steel so I suppose they won't poison themselves.
The spray arm from the old dishwasher went the first day.
And I don't think the broken ladder had time to hit the ground before it disappeared.

There's satisfaction in going out in the morning and noticing the pile has been reduced to a few items.

Tomorrow I'll put out all the little things children love to take home to mother.
Then I'll celebrate my junk-free zone.

SEYMOUR ISLAND

Seymour Island is right up against the Antarctic Peninsula which used to be connected to South America. It's remarkable for the deposits known as the K/T boundary which marked the 2nd greatest mass extinction in the world due to the impact of the Chixulub Meteorite. This marked the end of the Cretaceous Period and while it's debated, is generally thought to have also meant the extinction of the dinosaurs. The dark horizontal line in the cliffs below is the boundary. The Swedish explorer, Otto Nordenskjold, came here in 1901-02 and found fossils from the Late Cretaceous Period (65 million years ago), the Palaeocene (65-56 million years ago) and the Eocene Epoch (56-34 million years ago).

The Palaeocene fossils on Seymour are mostly plant fossils from a forest dominated by the Antarctic Beech. It still grows in Australia, New Zealand, South America and New Caledonia. 55 millions years ago when these trees were alive, the forest stretched from Brisbane to Buenos Aires in a continuous corridor.

By the Eocene Epoch, the island was back under the sea. The fossils found from this time are the oldest known whale and penguin remains. In fact Seymour Island has the fossils of numerous species of penguin dating from 45 million to 34 million years ago. The waters had warmed and changes in the fauna can be tracked over 8 million years. Fragile invertebrates flourished in the colder periods but as the temperature rose so did the hard-toothed fish and goodbye invertebrates.

The first of the Antarctic dinosaurs was found in the mid 1980s on James Ross Island. Then a variety of Cretaceous-aged plant-eating dinosaurs on James Ross and Vega Islands. In 2005, the remains of a meat-eating theropod dinosaur were recovered followed by fossil mammals and the world's oldest duck. In 1992 on Vega, a partial skeleton of a bird, approx 66-68 million years old, was found which belonged to the modern group of ducks, geese, and swans.

On the Antarctic continent itself, several dinosaur fossils have been recovered. These are major finds because of their age, the early Jurassic Period, around 190 million years ago. Fossil deposits of this age aren't easily found anywhere in the world. The latest find in the Trans Antarctic Mountains in 2005 was a large sauropod or long-necked dinosaur.

GRACKLE

That's a grackle in the photo.

Gorgeous irridescent black feathers. According to Wiki, the Quiscalus Grackles are even better than parrots for imitating human speech.

I don't care about that, I like the word grackle. That's what birds do, they mill about grabbing seed in the back yard and they grackle.

It sounds like the bird equivalent of gossip, they grackle. Ever heard Rex Hunt at a football match, he grackles. Politicians grackle. It's a beaut word, should be heard more.

ETHICS

"Those conditions are so horrendous that the only moral and ethical thing to do is to leave."

Psychologist Laurie Wagner on the decision by the American Psychological Association not to ban its members from aiding interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. Instead, the group approved a resolution reaffirming its opposition to torture.


So this from the country that puts itself out as the leader of the free world.

CRYSTALWORKS

Everyone who wanders by here knows I love gems and crystals but they don't have to be set in jewellery to be appreciated. The photo below shows natural Selenite crystal on Bronze. The crystal weighs 120 pounds and the sculpture is called 'IBEX'.

Lawrence Stoller is an internationally recognized award winning artist who has pioneered the art of sculpting spectacular megagems, including several of the largest gemstone sculptures in existence. He lives with his wife Sunnie in Bend, Oregon where he also works and teaches.

His collaborative work 'BAHIA' stands as the cornerstone of the museum collection at the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, California.

Lawrence Stoller and Glenn Lehere sculpted Rutilated quartz and placed it in a gold plated steel frame by Pepe Ozan.

The overall height is five feet and the crystal weighs 450 pounds.

In 2003, Stoller completed a commission for American Express, creating the centrepiece of the 9/11 Eleven Tears Memorial, located across the street from Ground Zero. I think this is one of the most beautiful memorials ever created. It was designed by Ken Smith and is a sculpted eleven sided quartz hendecohedron held in a stainless steel frame and cable. The crystal weight is 600 pounds.

This close detail shows the wording on the floor directly below the crystal.

These are Stoller's own words from his Crystalworks website.

The Crystals will be my books,

Reading into them to discover life

beyond the margins.

Journeying from primal Earth,

past ancient civilizations,

From the timeless technologies,

to the inside of matter,

Through the gates of knowledge,

and into the terrains of Wonder.

My attempts to translate these

experiences into words

Are but record keepers

Of the magnificient remains of Frozen Light.

THE VERY THING

A few posts back I made a remark about "a boot kick away from agony". Don't you just love it when you find the very thing that would make that remark even better.
The shoes are by Rodarte. I don't know who belongs to the ugly toes.

BIG BIG GIRL

I am allowed to make remarks about big girls, being built like the proverbial concrete crapper myself.

So walking behind big girl at Westfield watching her tatoos fight across the broad acreage of her naked shoulders had me making remarks in my mind.

Why does anyone wear a white shoestring top with a floaty bottom that covers the big bottom and mixes it with navy blue shoestring bra straps? The top was nice, black pants okay.

For the want of a sleeve on each shoulder, she looked just okay. A bit of posture and a smidgeon of material, she would have been striking.

Her face was lovely and animated. She was obviously quite at home in her body, enough to go with the current fashion and show it all. What I wanted to do was polish the rough diamond and make a gem.

I thought about this after I'd posted and I want to make it clear that I'm not patronising this girl but I felt if she hadn't been dressed in the Britney/Paris/Lohen uniform then she'd have been a walkover in any contest with the skinny models thrown at young girls these days.

Nope, it still hasn't come out right so I'll leave it to you to know what I mean.

MURPHY'S LAW NO. 308

This is what happens when you max out the credit card making sure the cat has a good send-off.
The vet sends a very expensive condolence card.
The kitchen light decides to fritz itself.
And my feet get wet.

The last was a bit of a worry since I was sitting on the throne at the time.
I mean I'm not a bloke and my aim is usually pretty spot on.
So where were the lapping waves coming from?

Oh just look at that!
Who'd have thought a little flangy rubber thing holding two pipes together could disintegrate faster than Costello's dreams of leadership.

Fortunately lawn mowing man also doubles as handyman so he's putting in a new one tomorrow.
Not worrying about the kitchen, the dirt looks so romantic in candlelight.

IMPECCABLE TIMING, TASTE.COM

Twas the night before payday and all through the fridge there was bugger all. Cold Tofu, one apple, some cheese and a PepsiMax.

Eggplant, tomato and parsley salad with mint yoghurt dressing.

Spiced orange roast chicken

Pasta Primavera

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

And to top it all off, The Cook and The Chef is about to start.

NOT SO INTELLIGENT DESIGN

After reading this article in New Scientist I'd have to say any intelligent design involved in humans was done by a alien mutant with an insane sense of humour who is now sitting in the middle of a galaxy far, far away and laughing his two of his three heads off.

Birds have better lungs. Our DNA makes mistakes all the time. Or genes don't last the distance. Our eyes are wired back to front so if we wanted great eyesight we'd have had to have been born a hawk.

The female Pelvis: Walking upright has made giving birth more dangerous for women than for any other primate.

Linear Chromosomes: The ends of linear chromosomes erode as cells divide, something that cannot happen with circular chromosomes.

External Testicles: In harm's way. I don't know about this. What's wrong with them being just a boot kick away from agony?

Vagina and Urethra near anus: Leaves women prone to genital and urinary infections. Going with the pelvis, I'd say the IDer was prone to misogyny.

Wisdom Teeth: Many of us have jaws that are too small for these third molars.

Mutant GLO gene: Like most primates, humans cannot make vitamin C, rendering us vulnerable to scurvy unless we get plenty in our diet.

The Appendix: No known function but if it gets infected it can kill you. Mine tried to kill me.

Windpipe next to the Gullet: Means choking is not uncommon. Even I have trouble swallowing, talking and breathing at the same time although I've tried.

Ulnar Nerve: Runs behind the elbow, where it is unprotected (think funny bone), instead of in front of it. There's nothing funny about getting whacked in the funny bone with a tree branch. I can testify to this.

Vulnerable Brain Cells: A few minutes of oxygen deprivation causes permanent brain damage in humans, yet an epaulette shark can survive for over an hour without oxygen. I reckon even the shark would have trouble surviving question time in Parliament.

Parasitic DNA: Our genome is littered with "jumping genes" that can cause genetic diseases.

Odontoid Process: This extension of the last neck vertebra can easily fracture and damage the brainstem.

Feet: After coming down from the trees, we ended up walking on the "wrists" of our lower limbs, leadin to all sorts of structural weaknesses. This one did tickle the funny bone.

The Y Chromosome: It is gathering mutations because it can't swap DNA with the X chromosome. In other words, men are on the way out and THE WOMEN WILL RULE, ahem.

Vulnerable Hearts: A little heart damage triggers a disastrous cascade of events that causes further damage. Like Dr. Who, we should have had a back-up pump.

And my all time favourite besides the kickable testicles,

Hairy Bottoms: Who needs them.

See what I mean about an insane sense of humour.

Any intelligent designer would have designed us with a self-destruct button if we even had one small thought of war or killing our own kind.

WISTERIA

I've left the car in the photo to give some idea of how far up the tree the wisteria has grown. Just after I took this we copped a monster of a storm and every blossom disappeared.

HOUSE PRICES EQUALS CRAZY

"Her nextdoor" came in this morning to check if my phone was working. She's on Optus so they were down.

I told her about the cat. She told me not to get another one as I'd had so many. Hers is on it's last warning about scratching the furniture or it's off to the big litter box in the sky. How sensitive she is.
My furniture is shredded and I'm leaving it like that.

Anyway, about the house prices.

The house on the corner went on the weekend for $460,000. I have a photo of it somewhere because it has the most fantastic Wisteria display in Spring but $460,000 for wisteria!
According to "Her nextdoor" our house prices around here have jumped $60,000 in the last 12 months. Sometimes I think she tells me this so I'll sell up and move.

This house is only small, 13.2 squares with a carport added on but I made the decision (expensive) to extend the tiled roof over it so it doesn't look added on. The land is fairly large compared to the McMansion blocks in the Mirvac slums nearby. The builder made a mistake and forgot to tell his workers that we were having a concrete slab poured. They'd already put down four courses of bricks for a wooden floor so that is the depth of my concrete slab not the usual six inches. I could build three stories on this and nothing would move.

The point of all this is that this small house with a now big price, was home to two adults, two kids, (son & nephew) 9 cats and three dogs. So why aren't builders building more?

MY OLD MATE

My dear old mate, 21 years old, died in my arms today. I thought I might get him through the weekend and get him to the Vet on Monday. A weekend to eat his gourmet food and maybe hack up a furball on the newly cleaned carpet. I only noticed the swelling on his jaw two days ago and I'm sure it wasn't there or not big enough to feel a month ago. He loved having his chin scratched so I would have noticed. He cried that funny yodelling cat sound when he tried to eat his breakfast so I rang the Vet at 8 o'clock. Rang the taxi and asked for a cat loving driver and got one. Thank you, lovely man, for the careful driving. The cat never made another sound, not in the car or in the surgery. But I can hear him now and twice I've gotten up to fill his food dish before I remembered he wouldn't be eating anymore.

He waited a long time to be top cat and had it for nearly two years. He survived a dog mangling, dragging himself home with his useless leg. That was three years ago when he spent 4 months on a feather cushion in front of the fire until he was himself again. Survived all his teeth out last June and survived the brain seizure that had him flying around the lounge floor uncontrollably until he stopped, went to sleep, woke up and headed straight for his food dish.

He was a motley boney headed old twit who loved to butt my shin to get attention. I've put everything away except his collection of tennis balls. I never did find out how he brought them in from the yard. He was the last living reminder of a crappy marriage. I'm going to miss him more than I miss the marriage.

HABITS

"When a male grizzly rubs a pine tree with his backside, it's not to satisfy an itch but to ward off competition while he looks for a female, according to research to be unveiled next week.
By leaving his scent on a 'rub tree', a male bear may be trying to avoid a tooth-and-claw fight with another male on the prowl, says ecologist Dr Owen Nevin from the UK's University of Cumbria.
When bears clash, it can lead to debilitating injuries, even death, so bark-rubbing is a safer alternative to a showdown."

Feel free to use the comments section to speculate about why blokes rub their balls.

FRIENDS AND RELATIVES

I'm sure I've blogged this saying before.

"Friends are God's apology for relatives!"

After dealing with Aunt Patty and Aunt Selma this week, God better come up with a bigger apology.

Aunt Selma called me an absolute disgrace of a daughter and told me to get off her phone. She hasn't bothered to see her twin for two years.

Aunt Patty said I should do more for my mother. She hasn't seen her sister for 6 months.

My mother after listening to the Bouvier sisters said I should be grateful that she's alive to look after.

Since I have been delegated to write the eulogy for the whenever funeral I will have my revenge and those two will not be named. Not one mention of the loving sisters, nothing. In fact if I had my way there wouldn't be a funeral at all. If you can't turn up when someone's alive, don't turn up when they're dead.

Now God, about that other apology, Tattslotto tomorrow night wouldn't be a bad start.

GREEN DIAMOND

There's been talk of a discovery of a very large chunk of green diamond. While the colour is uncommon there have been a few found. Some like the caterpillar's eyes above are small, but in the photo below, this is one of the very large ones.

This is the Famous Dresden Green Diamond. It gets its name from the Capitol of Saxony where its been on display for over 200 years. The Gemmological Institute of America examined the stone in 1988. The quality diamond was found to be a rare type 11a and the clarity grade determined by the GIA was VS1 (first grading is flawless, then VVS1 and VVS2) and could be internally flawless, that is, extremely, extremely slight inclusions.

The symmetry of the cut and polish is very good for a diamond cut prior to 1741.

It's an almond shaped stone of apple green colour with a weight of 40.70 carats and set in an elaborate shoulder knot. It has a natural green body colour, not a green skin or scattered green patches.

It's believed to be of Indian origin and was purchased by Frederick Augustus 11 of Saxony at the Leipzig Fair in 1743.

Noice but for really noice, check out the pear shaped Millennium Star below which took three years to be cut with lasers.

This is the world's only internally and externally flawless 203-carat pear shaped diamond. It belongs to the De Beers Millennium diamond collection which includes eleven equally rare blue diamonds totalling 118 carats. Now that's flashy.

THE DARK SIDE

I do have a dark and evil side.

It arrives at the same moment that I reach the rise of the T section of my road and the busy main road.

The lights take forever to change.

So when I'm walking past all those cars waiting, waiting, waiting, the drivers begin willing me to push the button for the lights.

Well I won't do it. You're all sitting on your backsides in your swishy cars while I'm trudging up the hill on my tin knees so you can all sit there until your wheels fall off.

Unless the first car is turning left. I'll push the button then because they have to wait until I cross and I cross very very slowly on my tin knees.

Bwahahahahhahahahha!

THE MIDDLE CHILD MEME

1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.



2. You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.



3. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don't forget to leave a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

(yeah, right, like I want to get ostracised by the entire blogosphere)



J is for jewellery. I love looking at it, designing it, making it and owning it.



E is for energy, very low on it. If I could walk sitting down I would.



N is for never being petite in my entire life.



N is for never being envious of anyone's petite figure but there's a few intelligent minds I would have liked to call mine.



I is for indecision, my downfall. The ice-cream usually melts before I choose between chocolate and raspberry.



F is for being frightened by a Scottish Pipe Band when I was three and eating a sardine sandwich at the time. The two are so entwined in my mind that I can't smell a fish sanger without hearing a Highland reel.



E is being ever ready to see the ridiculous side of life. I mean you have to be like that to survive our beloved PM in those tracksuits or that Akubra hat.



R is for believing in re-incarnation. I can't see the point in having a life of experience and learning to have it disappear, never to be useful to anyone. I've never been Cleopatra though, just one of the lower ranks, poor and miserable. It's about time I was a princess, petite and rich but with brains. One must specify or one might come back as Paris Hilton.



And this is my middle name which I use for my first name because my first name is horrendous and government departments insist on using it but it will never pass my lips.



This meme is free to anyone who is desperate for blog fodder.

7 DAYS AND I'M STILL SILENT

Not for long.

I had a "Clayton's breakdown", the kind you have when you don't go all the way over the edge. My body was walking around but my mind was snivelling and hiding in a corner somewhere and didn't want to come out and play. It took a lot of bribery and hysteria pills to coax it into some order and out of the blubbering stage.

It was my fault for trying to meditate and lower the stress levels. It appears that tension is the only thing holding the cells together. I've forgotten how to meditate anyway. The only time my mind shuts up is never. One half tried very hard to be still and calm, the other half was like a yapping dog looking for its bone.

I think I'm okay now but I did pass the chocolate aisle yesterday and didn't want any. That's a worry. I've also stopped perving on guys in tight jeans, although that could be age not depression and a dearth of decent perves.

It's scary that I went this way when I haven't had an episode for years. I've been so happy ever since the Blight left that I haven't had time for meltdowns. Fortunately I'm always prepared and have a drawer full of chemical assistance to get me through the night, day, week, month, however long it takes.

It wasn't trying to clean up the desk either, the papers are still hovering. I have finished a meme and knitted a scarf (badly). Sense of humour didn't dessert (desert, spelling might have) me. I laughed at a small child who dropped his ice-cream and stood in it at Westfield yesterday.

I believe we're having Spring already. The north wind can piss off for a start. Influenza A is bringing down oldies, Equine Flu is raging through horses and Howard the Wart is still at Kirribilli. George the Looney is looking to notch Iran on his gunhandle before he goes out in a blaze of glory.

Dearie me, the mind is starting to edge towards its hideout again, better go bribe it with food.

AUGUST'S GEMSTONE

The luscious apple green Peridot is the gemstone for August. It's found near volcanoes and Hawaiian legends called this gemstone the tears of the Goddess Pele.

This is the stone that helps heal and drives evil spirits away. So Happy Birthday little August person, who know who you are.

Believe me, this is as good as the blogging gets until I recover from four straight days with Mumzilla.

MY DESK

I measured the desk. It's 80cm by 131 cm or 31 inches by 51 and a half inches for those who refused to change brain function to metric. I'm not maths minded so I can't work out the entire surface to be explored.

I told you it was big. The highest pile of paper is 21 cm. I'm too scared to look at the date of the bottom paper.

Yesterday was Mummy day and I was almost killed.

What stupid male thought he could pile long steel pipes into the back of a station wagon, tie them up with a rag and not think one or all of them would fall out when he hit a bump?
Fortunately the pipe went under the following car not through the windscreen but turned direction and headed for me, large target. I hadn't even stepped off the footpath at this stage. I'd like to say my life flashed before my eyes but I don't have one. Cute guy got out of his car and picked up the pipe with one hand, I'd have needed a forklift truck.

Today was Mummy day again and paying the house insurance day and looking at the desk piled high with papers day.

Tomorrow, I will start the expedition into the unknown. The known is a dead spider because I sprayed the rocks last night. I haven't seen "Arachnophobia" eight times for nothing.

SYNCHROTRON SUCCESSFUL

More than 40 scientists have lodged research proposals for the first round of synchrotron use which begins next month. These applications are higher than expected and at least 30 of the proposals will go ahead with some being directed to overseas synchrotrons.

One of those experiments will be seeing how algae performs under starvation conditions and I thought to myself that this would be a good time to tell you about acoustic levitation which is how the scientists handle microscopic living cells using synchrotron light. My notes are on the desk behind me, yes, right, okay, I'm in trouble now.

I am talking about a very large desk, a very old large desk which I bought in a sale of very old office furniture for $25. It's so big that the twice it's been moved, it had to go out through the window and in the other window. I might add it's never being moved again.

So, my notes are on/in/over/around about that desk. If the thing was a black hole, the event horizon of paper is expanding. The tower of wood pulp has reached critical mass. Why haven't I noticed this every time I come in the door? I'm going to have to sort, catalogue and chuck papers for the next week before I even see the surface. I will be alert and not a little alarmed at what or who I find hiding under there but I will have those levitation notes for you soon. Don't go away, I'll be baaaack!

Damn, I just noticed the layer on dust on the book shelf and there's a spider web over my rock collection. Have a holiday, this could take longer than I thought.

I'M MISSING

Sorry to anyone out there who thinks I'm ignoring them on Facebook.

I've de-activated my account on account of I don't know if I want an account.

Even when de-activating an account they want you to answer a list of questions about why you're doing it.

Because you're a bunch of bloody stickybeaks, that's why.

SHEEP

These platforms for feet are designed by Giambattista Valli. His instruments of torture are favoured by the flesh-challanged Beckham lollypop. Since anybody breathing on her would knock her over I suppose they serve a purpose as anchors.
According to Hello Magazine, heels of 125mm are becoming the norm for any celebrities who can't be out of fashion even for these monstrosities. According to Hello, "Women love these killer heels because they lengthen your legs, make you look slimmer and add a flirtatious vulnerability as the wearer teeters about on the red carpet."

Now I love shoes, evening shoes, walking shoes, beautifully designed boots (haven't seen a decent pair lately) and my one desire as a teen was to own a pair of beaded Roger Vivier satin evening shoes. But these are not only ugly but downright dangerous. I did own a pair of high heeled platforms the last time they were 'in'. They had the most comfortable soft gold leather cross over front straps and I topped 6 foot in them. I felt wonderful as long as I stood still. I could still walk slowly and elegantly on a flat surface but walking down Collins Street after a night at the theatre and I was comedy in action. The soles don't bend so walking downhill is impossible unless you grab a bloke or stagger from parking meter to parking meter like a drunken sailor on shore leave. The useless ex had parked the car miles from the theatre as he thought it would be nice to walk through the city on a summer's evening. He was wearing flat shoes wasn't he.

SCIENCE ALWAYS MOVING

A meteorite smashed into a valley in central Italy in AD 312 and a Swedish geology team thinks it might have benefited the Christian church. To the Romans, the meteorite would have looked like a bright flaming object in the sky, even in the daytime and would have struck Earth with the force of a small one-kiloton nuclear bomb and may have even looked like a small nuclear blast with mushroom cloud and shock-waves.

The geologists think the formation of the crater coincided with a celestial vision which church history recorded as having converted the future Roman emperor Constantine to Christianity. Old records say that Constantine was praying when he saw a cross of light in the heavens, above the Sun, inscribed with "conquer by this". This event was witnessed by him and his army just before a decisive battle in the civil war with Maxentius for control of the Roman Empire. Constantine took this as a sign of divine help from the Christian God. He later stopped the persecution of Christians and officially approved their religion.

The geologists were exploring a small crater lake in the Sirente Plain and determined that the round depression had been created about 1700 years earlier. The geologists found the main crater surrounded by numerous small secondary craters gouged out by debris ejected when the rock smashed into the ground. Magnetic anomalies detected around the secondary craters were probably magnetic gragments from the meteorite.
The Sirente crater field consists of about 30 depressions with a main rimmed 120 m-diameter crater. Seismic data from the main crater support the meterorite impact interpretation but there have been other hypotheses.


A close field inspection found that metallic fragments could be sampled in great quantities (photo above) and the sampled iron splinters looked like exploded ordnance. The main crater has been dated but there is still debate about whether some of the smaller craters were the result of WW11 bombing. The ground around the Sirente area is soft and muddy and exploded and unexploded ordnance would penetrate to some distance and show up as magnetic anomalies. This complicates any attempt to retrieve meteorite fragments as digging or drilling anywhere near unexploded bombs would have only one result.
Further magnetic surveys will have to differentiate between these man-made anomalies and rocks from space before a conclusive decision on this crater field is made.

I'VE BEEN ANNOYED THIS WEEK

I hate people who are rude especially in small petty unnecessary ways. Shoving a little old lady aside to grab a taxi when the grabber is able bodied enough to wait another 5 minutes.

Ipods loud enough to deafen everyone on the train or bus is a bitch unless they're drowning out mobile phone yappers.

Idiots who tell me to have a nice day when I've just paid their over-inflated prices. Another revolting import from America and its constant repetition is becoming nauseous.

Militant vegans and carnivores. We have enough wars in the world without another one. They go in the same sin bin as religious zealots wanting to save my soul with their particular brand of twaddle.
I don't have any firm beliefs and I don't want any. Today I believe in reincarnation, tomorrow I may not. Today I'm having Tofu, tomorrow I might have KFC. Whatever, it won't save me for Heaven or from Hell.

People who crowd me are going to get it. Twerps, I know I'm big but there's still room on the footpath to pass me without stepping out onto the road.

They haven't annoyed me this week but since fanatical house cleaners have been annoying me for years, I might as well have a go.
A sparkling house is all very sweet to the eyes and to the nose and if I had a house elf, mine would be too.
It annoys me when I spend time cleaning and polishing and the house is so ungrateful as to not stay that way for more than two days.

POISE

One of the best things about tidying up the bookshelf is finding bits of paper where I've copied down some item that must have meant something to me at the time. I mean I know exactly what I was thinking when I wrote down the recipe for Hemlock cocktail.

This was an excerpt from an article "In Praise of True Poise" by Jeannie Larmouth, Victoria Magazine - May 1994.

"Poise is manners and movement with a light tossing of charm, the ability to stand silently and to speak with softness. Poise is a grace of posture, a smoothness and flow. Poise hints at aloofness, at a cool yet gracious distance. Poise can be taught, it depends to such a degree on movement. Poise requires much of the actress making her entrance or the ballerina becoming half-music as she twirls en pointe.

Poise disdains all awkwardness, mental and physical, and composure becomes second nature. True poise is not a surface but a suppleness and resiliency of mind and body. To be able to create an impression of tranquility and in a crowd, a sudden quiet. Manners can be displayed then forgotten, poise is an inner discipline."

Jeez, crikey mate, if that don't sum the old witch up right nicely and why did I keep thinking of Steph as I read it?

MY NEW MOTTO FOR LIVING

"Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart."

Erma Bombeck, 1927-1996

SATURDAY'S GEM

The gemstone for Saturday is Amethyst. This durable variety of quartz, which ranges in colour from palest lilac, to violet to the deepest purple, has always been linked to the thinking process, ensuring clarity of vision. It inspires creativity, courage and valour. The gems below are a combination of amethyst and citrine. Exposing them to extreme heat would alter the stone completely to citrine.
Amethyst was comparatively rare until the vast deposits of Brazil started to be mined. The amethyst geode below is prized by New Age crystal healers.

The one of a kind jewellery pieces below were designed by Gregory Pyra.

This is gold worked by hand. It has a faceted amethyst and an opal set on a piece of amethyst geode and hung from a string of pearls.

This is also gold worked by hand as against being cast in a mould. It has an oval faceted amethyst with a baroque faceted ametrine (amethyst/citrine combination).

I always did like Saturdays.

THE MEMORY

THERE WAS THE DOOR TO WHICH I FOUND NO KEY
THERE WAS THE VEIL THROUGH WHICH I COULD NOT SEE

SOME LITTLE TALK AWHILE OF ME AND THEE
THERE WAS - AND THEN NO MORE OF THEE AND ME

ACCIDENT PRONE TODAY

I snapped the fancy can opener shut with my finger in it and couldn't get it open with one hand.

My sister gave me a block of chocolate and said, "Enjoy!"

You should see me getting that open with one hand.

IT'S OFFICIAL

I have had to go back through my 2004 diary looking for some information about my computer so I thought I might as well start at the beginning of the year.

So now it's official, my mother has been emotionally blackmailing me for three years.

There's a lesson in this, don't go back and read old diaries.

You see the old girl nearly checked out in November 03. I mean who comes back from Pneumonia and pancreatitis when you're given no chance at all.

So she was still riding the sympathy train in January 04 and it appears that I should have jumped out of the carriage then instead of riding it to the 2007 station.

She told me today that she wants to be alive to see JHo lose the next election.

Please Lord for the sake of any future life I might have, shove the Liberal party off a cliff, and make it soon.

NOT EVEN TO WEAR THIS...

.......would I ever contemplate getting married again. I love this, very Grace Kelly and so elegant.
A Dress A Day blogspot and I share the same horror of brides who marry in the middle of winter in spaghetti strap or strapless gowns and we both can see this in velvet.

I can not only see this in deep burgundy velvet and matching guipure lace (I happen to have a metre of such) but I can see it on me. The waist is a bit of a problem, I don't have one but I'm sure I could fake it. I've certainly got the hair and that high neckline would cover up a few saggy bits. It's also long enough to cover the grannyboots and footy socks. I can take sophistication only so far over comfort.

HIS LORDSHIP NAILS IT

Always count on the aristocrazy to send the right birthday card.

Thank you Lord Sedgwick for the portrait of St. Tena, Protector of the demented and the incontinent.

My life in sanity.

IT'S THAT DAY AGAIN

It's definitely that day again when everyone can tell John Howard and Phillip Ruddock to shove their outdated views on same-sex love and marriage. It's the anniversary of the day that an elected government (not by me) told gays and lesbians that their love was worthless in this country. By all means pay your taxes and contribute to Australia's economy but don't expect to be treated with anything but derision when you ask for the same entitlements as a heterosexual couple.
It looks as though I won't make it again this year but hopefully the weather will be as sunny as it was last year. But the Heavens will be putting on a display for the side because on the night of the 12th August, the Perseid meteors shower will be on show in the dark sky of a New Moon.

The sky will be full of meteor streaks which will appear to be shooting out of the constellation Perseus in the northern hemisphere. Earth's orbit takes us through the tail of the Comet Swift-Tuttle which orbits the Sun every 135 years. The last time it was in the inner solar system was 1992.

In the Middle Ages, the Perseids were known in England as the "tears of St. Lawrence" after the third-century archdeacon of Rome. Meteors streaked through the sky on 10 August 258, the day of his execution by order of the emperor Valerian, and reappeared every year around St. Lawrence's feast day.

In the 1860s, Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli figured out that the path of the Perseids followed that of comet Swift-Tuttle, making him the first to connect meteors with comets.

You can find more here.

IT'S OPEN!

You can't have too many photos of our lovely synchrotron which opened on my birthday, now that's what I call a present.

It's taken 6 years and $220 million to build next door to Monash University in Clayton. Five beamlines are operational with four more coming online next year. Eventually there will be 20 beam lines running by 2017 and each beam line costs approximately $5 million.

Is it worth the money? A big resounding YES. Even with air travel, Australian is still a long way from the world's largest synchrotrons and scientists have to waste valuable time to get to them. Time on the machines' beam lines have to be booked months or a year in advance, add costs of travel, accommodation and wear and tear on the scientists themselves and it's worth every cent.

Australia has some of the best scientists in the world and this is going to make them better.

HAVE A PIECE OF CAKE WITH ME

Not this cake though. It's a fungus cake made from spores and incubated at 70 degrees fahrenheit in a glass jar. After it's carefully turned out, it begins to fruit and smell mushroomy.

Now this is more me. Wide at the bottom, skewiff at the top but with stars in my hair and spots before my eyes.

The young don't know how to celebrate a birthday properly. Dancing around and getting drunk is no fun.

When you're old just waking up on the day is a highlight.

You get to check if the other half of your teeth are still there.

You map the new wrinkles that appeared overnight.

You pluck the white hairs from your chin.

You jump up and down on the scales til they beg for mercy.

If you feel up to it, you can go for a jog and count the stress fractures.

And if the universe is kind, the birthday falls on half-price movie day and you can sneak off and watch Harry Potter again. You should do this without the birthday excuse, it's better the second time round.

Help yourself to cake and have a glass of Moet&Chandon.

MORE SPANISH GARDNER

As if I didn't do enough manual labour yesterday.

Today I was carting bricks, four of them. The same number as in chair legs.

It wasn't just positioning the bricks (I'm blaming nailpolishblues for this) but I thought I might as well vacuum the carpet before I put the chair back.

Putting the chair up on bricks was fun. I had to lift and carry the bloody thing. It weighs a ton even without me in it.

The wheel fell off the chair a month ago so the leg's been happily sitting on two books since then. This morning the other wheel fell off and broke the leg and so it riccocheted around the remaining two.

The bricks are working well but given Murphy's Law, I'm expecting the bum to fall out of it any day.

ADVICE FOR THE FUTURE

This truly awesome advice is........don't eat Darryl Lea rocky road after Black Ice Vodka and 6 dry sherries. I'm not feeling well.

I'm sort of tired, proping my head against the computer screen tired. It's all due to my mother, the L.O.L who shall be henceforth known as the B.O.B and she was a bloody old bitch today.

First phone call 7.45, second phone call 8.45, third phone call as I was leaving the house so I didn't answer, got it off the message bank when I crawled home tonight.

Walk 3 kms in the rain. Listen to lying bullshit and make her have a shower.

Put the washing in the machine and start to drag crap out of the laundry cupboard which hasn't seen the light of day for 10 years. Realize where I get my pack-ratting genes from.

Take delivery of new refrigerator which she is not going to like because she didn't get to pick it.

New fridge is 8 inches taller and 6 inches less in width than the old one so doesn't fit in the hole under the stupid unusable cupboard where the cockroaches hold barn dances.

Grab builder from next door to dismantle cupboard which weighs a ton and I know this because I'm holding it on my head while he turns off the power because the power point is inside the cupboard which we are dismantling.

Pilot light on the space heater goes out when the fan cuts off because there's no power so I make him sit there and re-light it. I graciously thank him without swearing even though my neck is 3 inches shorter.

B.O.B. says the men have made the kitchen floor filthy. Good observation since I'm bent in half washing the tiles at the time. She points out where I've missed a tile.

B.O.B refused to look at the fridge.

I finish the washing of clothes and floor and B.O.B. and stagger to the shop to fill the fridge. I stagger home carry two litres of milk and two litres of orange juice and food.

I pilfer her sherry and buy can of Black Ice and sneak off to my sister's. I ring friend to take the contents of laundry cupboard to find B.O.B has already rung him to do just that and also buy her some milk as I've left her without any for her tea.

I didn't win Tattslotto either.

ALMOST BIRTHDAY TIME AGAIN

It's that time again, when I get out my list from 2000 and see how far I've come towards my 2008 goals.

Not far.

Not once in seven years have I been free to celebrate my birthday in a restaurant. July, it seems, is disaster month but I have enough to sneak in another viewing of 'The Order of the Phoenix' next week. I shouldn't have said that out loud, Fate is probably listening.

Divorce from husband, finalised. Goodness negated by apparently ending up married to my mother.

Freedom to do something with my remaining life. Nope, held captive by two little old ladies for six years, still in captivity in the seventh.

Subjects passed at Open University. Big Zero here but I did get the enrolment forms and the handbook so I tried.

Weight. Lost 20 kilos, regained 10, lost 6 and still trying. A definite possibility of success for this one.

Diet. Extremely good. 7 years a vegetarian. ???? years a chocoholic. Throw in a drop of booze and there's my three basic food groups.

Travel. I got off the mainland of Australia if you count going to Phillip Island to see the penguins. I did take a train and a bus in 2005 and survived the panic attack so I continued to ride.

Debt. I can't remember if I was supposed to get in or out but in up to my neck mainly vet bills since I was left the sole parent of four ageing cats. One left, hanging in there by a thread only because it's cheaper to feed him than make that last visit to the clinic.

Health. Improved. I walk, fall over, bounce. My teeth are fixed although I haven't been back for a year due to little old lady. Pinched sciatic nerve almost fixed but not quite due to l.o.l. Eyes haven't been tested due to l.o.l. I really need new glasses or a repairing spell. Nerves and blood pressure are in tatters due to l.o.l.

Personality. A work in progress. Some days I feel as though I should be wearing a sign that says "Do not prod the Viper". I still swear a lot and like to kick small children.

Love, marriage, partnership. Still a big NO. I'd rather open a vein. Become a hermit. Anything but those three.

I think I'd better extend the wish list until 2010. According to the New Age pundits, the world is due to end in 2012 so I've still got time to become ruler of the universe.

LOOK AT ME, HOW GOOD AM I

That's because it's Tuesday and I haven't mentioned 'that book' or the film. I've been reading other blogs and what they think. Thinking about anything has been hard since Saturday and not because of 'the book'. I wasn't even thinking about buying it until I had to race to Westfield to buy a new heater for Mum's bathroom and Big W just reduced the books to $25 and I needed some tranquilizing.

I also need to start drinking, her fridge stopped working yesterday and I had to run over and cook as much food as I could save. It wasn't much and the front yard looked like a publicity run for Alfred Hitchcock as every bird within a 20 mile radius descended on the feast of thawed out pies, pasties, fish etc. Now I have to find a replacement fridge before Thursday.

To the book, which I read until 3 a.m. and enjoyed. Only Pavlov's Cat mentioned in a comment thread how J.K. Rowling writes about death, a subject adults tend to avoid with children. Another commenter said how it give children a sense of community and that is something I can identify with. I have limited contact with my granddaughters but Harry Potter is the first thing we talk about, books and films. I try not to pry into their lives unless they want to tell me about what they're doing so this is a bridge between us.

Now I'm re-reading the Order of the Phoenix, going on to the Half-Blood Prince before I start on the Hallows for a very slow read. There's a lot of people in the world who can't see the point in all of this but then I can't see the point in pornography or football so pardon me while I curl up in a corner with my tranquilizer.

ARE YOU HAPPY BEING SINGLE?

I took that test over at http://www.blogthings.com (shut up Link) and for once it was right on the ball.

YOU ARE VERY HAPPY BEING SINGLE.

You are not anti-relationship.

You just don't need one to be content.

You find happiness from your life as it is and if you find someone you love, then that's just icing on an already decadent cake.

'Decadent cake', make that decadent triple chocolate fudge brownie cake with whipped cream on top and ice-cream on the side. I love being single.

CATCHING UP

I've been catching up on my reading by working backwards to April's editions of New Scientist. This is actually working better than trying to read forward from that month. So in the middle of the thunderstorm we had here yesterday, mother rang and told me to get off the phone because there was a thunderstorm. At the time I was reading about a by-product, as it were, of lightning.
This pretty specimen is Fulgurite. A tree might be blasted apart by lightning but when it goes straight to ground in sandy soil, given the right conditions of that soil, it melts a path which is preserved in glassy tubes called Fulgurites. The name coming from the Latin - Fulgur- meaning lightning.

The longest know specimen was found in Florida and consisted of three branches totalling 38 feet. The best place to find them is in desert sand where the wind can uncover the fragile branches.

When they're preserved in deserts for thousands of years they can provide scientists with past climate information. Researchers have analysed bubbles of gas in a 15,000 year-old fulgurite from the Libyan desert. The gases have suggested that the soil conditions at the moment the lightning struck were similar to those in the southerly Sahel region of today.

Geologists discovered another type of fulgurite in Greenland which ran down a rocky hillside transforming the rock surface into a smooth glass. The glass was coloured blue, red and yellow and the lightning was attracted to this place because of its iron-rich rock formations.

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Something else that caught my eye considering the looney times our family is going through was this:

"All emotions affect our thinking and motivation, so it may be best to avoid making important decisions under their influence. Yet strangely there is one emotion that seems to help us make good choices. In their study, the Chicago researchers found that sad people took time to consider the various alternatives on offer, and ended up making the best choices. In fact many studies show that depressed people have the most realistic take on the world. Psychologists have even coined a name for it: depressive realism."

Okay, I'm with them on that. I am taking a very depressing realistic view of losing any weight off my lardarse considering the weather which makes me want food, dealing with a parent who makes me want to eat in large soothing quantities and aversion to exercise in freezing cold conditions where I might fall over except when I stagger out to buy chocolate.

Mind you I don't have to go out to fall over. I fell off the blanket box yesterday, that would be half fell off, since one foot remained on it while the other went skidding down the sharp edge. The bruise is a ripper, black and blue shin. Here we go with the depressive realism again, I've lost my ablitity to climb anything so there goes the plans for abseiling next summer.

I'M BACK

This was the only bright spot in my week. My snowdrops are up for the fourteenth year in a row. The statue is standing on what's left of the Blue Spruce I had cut down last year.

Tuesday until Sunday, that must be a record for me keeping quiet but it was a bad week with Mater doing everything short of spinning her head 360 degrees and spewing pea soup at us. Bitch phase ended yesterday, morphing into nauseous terrified little old lady phase. This change of personality is shortening to fortnightly cycles and increasing in duration. It's never gone on for five days before.

The only dish that's been washed is the cat's since he has a habit of hooking his food off the plate onto the floor if the plate isn't clean. Good thing he's old and can't see the state of the floor. I have two shoulder bags half cut out and left where I dropped and ran. Half finished blog posts are hiding in the bottom of my bag, written on scraps of paper. I managed to change the bed at midnight on Friday. To give myself a treat, I decided to put on the flannelette sheets that took me so long to pay off last year that summer hit before I could use them. Bottom fitted sheet seemed a bit snug so I clipped the elastic only to have the whole corner rip. It was nowhere near a queen bed size, only a double so I checked the top flat sheet and it's so big it would qualify for king size. Waste not, want not, pillow cases and a nightdress coming up, not that I wear a nightie but there's always one on the bedpost in case of fire.

The fat bashing continues with articles in magazines, newspapers and on TV. My own scales contribute this morning with me throwing a John McEnroe and screaming, "you've got to be kidding!!!" We'll just forget it until next week. Dr. Rosemary is at it again, calling for a fat tax on unhealthy food. She says the proceeds of the tax should fund education and subsidise the exorbitant cost of fresh fruit and vegetables for rural people. Crap, I'm suburban and I haven't noticed I'm getting cheap vegies. According to a study by Curtin University, a 15 per cent tax would net the Federal Government $1.5 billion a year, 30 times the amount spent on health promotion. More statistics, obesity cost Australians $21 billion in 2005 in direct spending (on what?), disability and premature death. Obesity-related illnesses kill 17,000 people each year.

And if that's not enough, I read in New Scientist of a link between the obesity epedemic and global warming. Apparently fat people not walking means more car use. Fat people eating more food means a heavier (haha) carbon foot print because we eat food with more fats and refined sugars. Greater food consumption means more organic waste producing more methane. Then, like Dr. Rosemary, the article starts on health. Fat people have more back pain, arthritis, shortness of breath, increased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoarthritis, infertility, gallstones and several types of cancer. I'm sure if the author had tried harder, he could have blamed us for the Iraq war because more oil is required to fuel the trucks to bring us the food.
His final words, "pandemic obesity is an energy vortex. It is time to treat it as the potential global environmental catastrophe that it is".

Lordy, that's made me so depressed, I'll just go and have a block of chocolate and a quick vodka to recover. Just to be totally and politically incorrect, perhaps I could sponser an anorexic to offset my carbon blubberprint. Don't bother leaving anonymous comments about being cruel and unfeeling. I'm fat and annoyed and want to pull the arms off thin people. How long before we're rounded up and shipped off to those vacant detention centres for a 1200 kilojoule and 20 km hike life style change. I wouldn't put anything past this government and I expect Joe Hockey to be on the first bus inland.

Don't leave yet, the griping isn't finished. Next on the list is the electronic card to be given to families on welfare support. This is supposed to stop parents (lazy or irresponsible parents according to my other favourite nerk, Bill Muehlenberg) gambling and drinking the money that should be spent on food for their kids. Dumbarse morons in high places, as though the parents wouldn't sell the food as fast as they bought it for booze and gambling. I know this would happen because in my extended family there exists some of the most professional welfare rorters in history. Don't forget either that this same government taking this measure to protect little children is the same government giving away thousands of dollars to parents to have children in the first place.

Done with the rants, let's go back to the snowdrops.

MY POVERTY AND PATRIOTISM

This is brilliant.

I'm going to show how patriotic I am and remove my poverty crisis.

I'm selling my mother to Asio.

If a terrror suspect survives in a locked room with her for twelve hours then you'll never break him.

An innocent man will be clawing at the door in 15 minutes.

Alternatively Asio could use her for training operatives. If they survive in a locked room with her for twelve hours, the enemy will never break them.

I'm not greedy, 1.5 million in gold bullion should see me right. Gold bullion, none of that unmarked bills rubbish, gold in the hand.

THE DAY OF WEIGHTING

130.8kgs
Don't look at the 800 grams, it's irrelevent, it'll go eventually but all hail and welcome to the 130's.

I've always had a lot of time for Dr. Rosemary Stanton but she's wigging out a bit these days.
Her latest theory is that we should go back to wartime food rationing as she thinks a 1940's diet could control the epidemic of obesity afflicting Australia.

Now the typical wartime weekly diet was:
Meat: 900g
Butter: 450g
Sugar: 450g
Vegetables: Unlimited

Today's typical weekly diet:
Meat: 1.9kg
Butter: 1.1kg
Sugar: 1kg
Vegetables: less than 600g

I suppose she means 1kg of sugar not just in the sugar bowl but in all the processed foods as well. I would buy 1kg of sugar every 6 months for the pantry.

Dr. Stanton says, "There was very little incidence of heart disease or diabetes during the war years, and obesity was almost unknown."

Probably because people didn't look for heart disease, diabetes killed early and obesity was just called fat and nobody took much notice. There was a war on, don't you know.

It would be nice if we could go back to growing our own vegetables, fruit and kept chooks in the back yard but who's going to look after them. Working mothers in their few spare minutes not being superwomen, working fathers, wearing a light on their heads as they weed in the dark, or maybe use the kids as slave labour as a break from a homework load that would break a professor's back.

Okay maybe a bit exaggerated but people don't have the time available these days nor do some have the ability to grow edible stuff. The fruit trees around me produce without help but everything else I've tried to nurture has withered and crawled away to die in some dark corner. My greatest triumph, six cherry tomatoes in seven years of growing the rotten plants.

Nice try Dr. Rosemary although I'd really like to try the recipe for chocolate cake that substitutes pureed prunes for butter and eggs, reducing the amount of fat to 1gm in a slice compared to 80gms in a normal cake. A pureed prune chocolate cake, sounds so yummy, praise the Imodium and pass the toilet rolls.

HOW TO LAUGH AT MEN IN CHARGE

I loved this when I read it at Phil's blog http://www.venividiblogi.blogspot.com/ so I pinched it.

Guy Rundle on our favourite revered leader,

"Howard is a cynical professional politician and the polls would seem to indicate that most people now share this belief. Part of Howards' problem is that public dislike of him is now categorical - if he donated blood folks'd say he did it to get the free biscuit."

That is so true but unfortunately you could put any politician from any party in that mix and it would seem right. It doesn't have to be John Whineston Howard or P.Smirk Costello, it could be anyone, even Kevie. Thanks to the evil Bwca Dysthemia blogspot, I'll never be able to take him seriously. For ever more he will be the bland twin brother of Nigel Molesworth, the curse of St. Custard's.

BIG, WELL COVERED, ANYTHING BUT FAT

A subject dear to my heart, my lardarse and my gravity challenged bazoombas, FAT.

First from the A-Z of Consumer Pleasures, 1994.
"For women, beauty carries a moral overtone. The current ideal for women is that they should be thin, while the ideal for men is that they should be tall. Being tall is seen as a happy circumstance over which one has relatively little control, but being overweight is deemed entirely of one's own making. This has the effect of making women far more responsible for their physical appearance than men. A short man is considered unlucky, but an overweight woman is blamed for her size and becomes a target of derision. It is assumed she is irresponsible, self-indulgent and weak, a person of flawed character who cannot resist the temptation of food. Being fat or, for that matter, beautiful or wrinkled or dowdy, has become a statement of character."

Fast forward to April, 2007 to another book, "Neris and India's Idiot-Proof Diet" by Neris Thomas and India Knight (Penguin Figtree). The two woman also have a blog and a forum to help other women lose weight http://www.pig2twig.co.uk and the women using the forum and following the diet have lost 905 lbs.

But the women have critics, other women. Zoe Williams wrote an article called "You're Vain and Stupid", saying that weight was a funny old thing for an intelligent woman to be concerned with. "The real mystery is how people get away with fixating on themselves like this without relinquishing their right to be taken seriously."

I don't understand this view by feminists and I've come across it before. Why is it considered frivolous to want to lose weight, apart from health reasons, to please yourself by regaining some self esteem that judgemental people like to strip away, see first paragraph. The 1994 attitude to fat women (men too) has become more malevolent in 2007. Of course, we'd all like it if our appearance and self-esteem wasn't tied to body type but it is and women who criticise other women can be the biggest enemy.

I really don't care one way or the other about weight since I make my own clothes and whip up a piece of jewellery to match but health wise I've got to drop it. I'm doing it for me and I wouldn't like any feminist fellow traveller to tell me I'm vain and self-obsessed for doing it any more than I'd like someone to tell me how good I look when I've lost the flab.

IT'S JULY - SALE TIME

It's also school holiday time and half of Melbourne was at Westfield having photos taken on the Simpsons' couch for movie publicity. My head....the noise....kill.

I hate sale time when July is always short of money time but this year, bargains.

I now possess 'The Princess Bride' and 'The Abyss' for $3.92 each.

If I could just find the money for the plasma TV and DVD player, I could watch them but a 7 inch viewer will have to do.

I didn't buy chocolate and I'm going to hate myself for that about 9 0'clock tonight because I cannot spend three days with my mother without the assistance of illicit drugs, booze, cigarettes or food. I don't do the first three so hand to mouth it is.

Conversation from yesterday:

Mother: Did you just ring me?

Me: I've been here all day, how would I ring you?

Mother: I heard the phone ring, I thought it might be you.

Me: I'm in the house.

Mother: The phone rang. Did you answer it?

Me: It was a wrong number.

Mother: Good, then I didn't miss you.

I'll save the story about the rubbish bin that hasn't moved from the nature strip all day.

SNEAKS

According to Sam at http://queerpenguin.blogspot.com our beloved Prime Weasel might be considering an August election.

Since the enrolment time has been revised or should that be sneakily altered to favour certain political parties who wish to remain in office til the cows come home and means that anyone turning 18 the day after an election is called can't vote.

So if you're 18 now, or moved home or are roaming the countryside in some quaint hippy fashion, settle down for a few months and register to vote.

I would like to add the losing expression on JHo's face to the memory of Jeffery's losing face and have bookends made.

Register now or I'll rip yer bloody arms orff!

DAMN BUREAUCRACY

First gripe not strictly bureaucracy but crappy taxi driver who told me if he'd known I was only going 3kms, he wouldn't have picked me up. He was also furious that I had a taxi directorate card. My regular drivers know I always tip well because of the shortness of the trip and I hate myself for tipping this pile of merde. On the good side my allowance has started again so I'm not chewing my fingers every time the fare comes up.

What really got me going today was AustraliaPost. They've decided to stop their BillManager payment system because not enough people were using it. How many people are not enough? I couldn't ask them because they sent out the letter with the wrong phone number for enquiries.

My squeal is that our council, in the only intelligent thing it's done in years, arranged for the rates to be paid fortnightly by the BillManager system. It's been a weight off my mind and almost the only way I've been able to keep the house. Complaint to the Rate department was heard politely but the council haven't put anything in place to carry on this arrangement. It's back to full payment or four equal amounts. He did tell me that the four equal amounts can be paid off weekly but after a bit of arithmeticking, that's going to leave me more than broke.

Tomorrow, more phone calls to my council rep and she had better earn her money. My mother and I can't be the only people using this system. The guy told me they can't do Direct Debit from the bank either because people don't leave enough money in their accounts. How dumb is that, DD's mean you leave the money in the bank and use what's left which is what I do with all the other bills. I tell you this is going to end in swearing, a lot of swearing.