Ground control to Major Tom: you've lost us!

Our weekend has revolved around seeking medical and veterinary attention for our daughter and our rabbit respectively. Thankfully neither has swine flu!

Our bunny, Waldorf, has a torn ear and has been inoculated against myxomatosis and the calicivirus; our daughter has tonsillitis, had a severe migraine and has had a penicillin injection! Waldorf hopped the coop on Friday and was missing in hellish cold rainy weather for hours. We only recovered him, bloody eared, from a neighbour’s garden 5 minutes before the last episode of the US version of ‘Life On Mars’ was shown at 10.30 pm.

He must have squeezed out under the side gate (and grazed his ear in the process) at about 9.15 that morning when I left for work. Then, unbeknown to us, he had roamed the street – being spied by various neighbours throughout the day - and finally made his way to the house over the road (where Lesley came from and where 2 of Lesley’s siblings still roam free) in search of company and a chance to do what bunnies do best.I wondered, if cats have 9 lives, how many do rabbits have? It would have to be fewer I think and he is courting disaster by breaking out like that. My husband took him to the vet for the aforementioned inoculations and to have his ear tended to on Saturday morning

Within about an hour of his return to the bosom of the family our daughter was suffering visual disturbances and searing pain in her head that no kind of analgesia would touch. 1 GP visit and 1 penicillin injection later she was still in great pain and it was RPA Emergency here we come. It was 8.30 pm when her dehydration was finally overcome and the series of painkillers I’d administered earlier kicked in. My husband went in search of fish and chips which was what she fancied after eating virtually nothing all day. We consumed them while ‘Mr Blandings Buil(t) His Dream House’ (on ABC2) for the umpteenth time! Today she is feeling much better and Waldorf has been hiding under the house all day in protest at our curtailing his love life.

Shame about the ending of the US ‘Life On Mars’ – although not in the same league as its British inspiration we had been enjoying it. The dénouement was extremely silly. You had to feel for the actors neatly and sentimentally making twee sense of the series engagingly implausible premise. I am no enemy of the pun, but 'this is going to be one successful gene hunt'! Pulease!

Philip Glenister and Harvey Keitel (UK and US Gene Hunt respectively) look disappointed in the final episode of the US version of Life On Mars which was all wrapped up too cutely.

No saccharine for me!

I am not diabetic. I know because I had a glucose tolerance test at the weekend. A dear friend pointed out that I must be relieved to know that I am overweight completely as a result of greed and not any kind of imbalance! Of course I am; now I know that all I have to fall back on is my willpower (or a non-existent entity as I prefer to think of it).

The Eurovision Song Contest was a huge disappointment this year. I rely on it to provide me with endless cheap laughs at the expense of the gauche and tacky acts it generally showcases. Well, blow me down if most of them weren’t fairly ordinary and inoffensive. The only ripple of delight in the time I stayed with the broadcast came from the larger than life appearance and lack of musicality of one of the Israeli entrants (she was like an unflattering caricature of Paul Capsis in drag!) It was mild in comparison to the paroxysms of laughter I have experienced in past years. Globalisation has a lot to answer for!

Separated at birth?

Post script to my Perth visit: daylight saving has been defeated in the 4th (?) referendum on the subject and a Green candidate has unseated Labor in Fremantle after they had held the seat for some 80 years! I took an interest in these news items having been in WA so recently. Apparently the Fremantle outcome was the result of a protest vote where the only alternative to the incumbents on offer was the Greens; the Liberals didn’t field a candidate for some reason. Two of my hosts while I was in Perth explained why most Westralians don’t want daylight saving. One said they already have ample daylight all year ‘round and putting the clocks forward stuffs up early morning swimming and crayfish pot checking. The other said they’ll be damned if they do something just because the eastern states do. I suspect both are true.

Doin' Time in Freo

Thank god for WA CATS!

I have just had a week in WA. It was my first visit and it is unlikely I will get back in a hurry as even with cheap airfares and having to pay for just two nights’ accommodation, it put me back about $1,500! The trip gave me the opportunity to catch up with my nephew and a friend from my high school days - neither of whom I had seen for over a decade - and to meet their families. An absolute joy in both cases!

I flew over alone meeting up with my sister there but, as she was attending a conference for much of the time, I explored alone for the first few days. Perth is a logical grid of a city so I found my way around okay and when my legs got weary there was the CAT (central area transit) series of free buses operating in continuous figure eight routes throughout the city every few minutes.

I had one day in Fremantle (nowhere near enough time) which is not so grid-like in layout as Perth and where I meandered around without finding the Arts Centre/Museum for quite a while. Instead I found Fremantle Prison and thought I'd pop in for a squiz but ended up doing a 90 minute guided tour which was both fascinating and poignant. The gaol operated almost continuously for 150 years from the 1850s, first for convicts, later for wartime internees and later still for high-security inmates. Even in its 20thC phase it was harsh and primitive and the thought of prisoners’ long hours in those tiny un-sewered cells and an exercise yard that lacked shelter until 1968 was replete with sad and tragic associations. In the year leading up to its closure prisoners were allowed to decorate their cells (previously forbidden) and the preponderance of Aboriginal motifs and themes testifies to the high proportion of indigenous people locked up there.

Highlights of my trip were:

• dinner at The Indiana Teahouse on Cottesloe beach (quite reasonable in comparison to run-of-the-mill cafe prices in Perth) and the preceding sunset
• a day on Rottnest meeting cute tame quokkas and enjoying an ocean swim
• sampling the wines of the Swan Valley
• looking at the Yr 12 art in the state art gallery
• the Fremantle Arts Centre/Museum (which I did eventually find) with its great combination of sociological exhibits and avant garde art installations.
  

See pictures of some of this in my Picasa album.

Lancashire Lads

Seeing Eric Sykes as a cadaver in 'The Others' (above) got me all nostalgic.

I lived in St Anne’s, Lancashire for a couple of years when I was a young kid. I always knew that my affection for Morecambe and Wise partly sprang from their north country personae, especially Eric's. (Although it obviously mainly sprang from how bloody funny they were).

It wasn’t until I picked up Eric Sykes’ memoirs in a remaindered bookshop this week that I realised that he too is Lancashire born. There is a funny mixture of innocence and jack-the-lad about both the Lancashire Erics. They make me feel sentimental.

Eric Sykes, like many of the comics of his generation, got his confidence and honed his sense of the absurd in the forces. There has always been a whiff of sadness or resignation about him and when you read that he didn't realise his real mother died giving birth to him until he was five and that he went through his entire childhood cold and hungry, un-hugged and un-kissed, you're surprised it isn't a full blown stench of despair.

I am only up to 1944 and Eric has just experienced fleshly passion for the first time and liberated Germany but the lovely mix of mischief and naivety is there on every page.

The Oestro Weekend

The ultimate depiction of the crucifixion as sheer human suffering - Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece

Well, of course, Easter is a weird conglomeration of Christian martyrdom/sacrifice mythology cobbled together with pagan fertility rites and CHOCOLATE! So basically something for everyone! Chocolate will never be irrelevant but reproduction (at a personal level) is for me now. The Christian story still has the power to move me amazingly. Last night I listened to something sublime called Gesualdo's Responsoria Feria Sexta and today I heard music by 7 different composers interspersed with texts by 7 different poets read by Sir Peter Peers all based on the 7 purported last statements uttered by Christ on the cross (known as the "seven last words"). Donne and Sitwell were standouts but I loved it all. I found myself in (very rare) agreement with Peter Jensen that creeping (I think he used a different word) secularism means it is somehow these days not quite proper to be familiar with biblical stories or to absorb the dignity and beauty of such images and messages. I am a card carrying atheist but I would never deny the poignancy and nobility of the Christian myth and the rich emotions of betrayal, sacrifice, suffering and transcendence the Easter story embodies. It has also inspired some pretty good tunes and pomes!

Our rabbit Waldorf appears to have been doing quite a bit of freelance modelling behind our backs. He is in Natalie Ambruglia's arms on page 16 of this weekend's Good Weekend magazine and was in DJ's Easter Treats feature in last weekend's edition of the same magazine! It is quite nice owning a cute bunny at Easter - feels like it gives you some inside running! We have enjoyed our fair share of chocolate already as my sister gave my husband a box of Adora's handmade choccies for his birthday last weekend and we have been steadily nibbling our way through them.

I have just read that the ever irreverent and politically flamboyant John Saffran had himself nailed to a cross in the Philippines yesterday for an upcoming ABC TV series. It is his prerogative as a Jew, a satirist and a curious human being to do so. I am keen to see how he uses the experience in his program.

Catch 22, subsection 3A

Well my claim has been rejected - I am not crazy enough to get Workers' Compensation! Like Yossarian (Catch 22), if I was truly crazy I would want to fly missions er, work with the moronic misfit yoyo I have been shackled to for 3 years! I can feel an anti-public service rant coming on but 'Jonestown' (which I have just finished) reminds me that insanity & manipulation are a given in most arenas of life. Why should my place of employment be any exception?

I have just seen a raw, poignant exploration of our need to love and to experience loss and pain, 'Elegy' Isabel Coixet's film based on Philip Roth's novel 'The Dying Animal'. Exquisite performances from Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz and a support cast including Dennis Hopper and Patricia Clarkson. Thank goodness that there is always art to upstage tawdry old reality!

Not feeling particularly inspired this Monday night. It looks like the only escape will be for me to relinquish my current job, hard won after 5 years of insecurity and freelancing, because the public sector's commitment to 'due process'* (which admittedly I've always championed) for one needy, squeaky wheel trumps its commitment to my well being and the contribution I could make untrammelled by the lunatic saboteur!

Well hush my mouth. I am living up to the epithet 'Queen of Indiscretion', conferred upon me in another life when I had a bit more to be discreet about. But honestly, I am a tad FRUSTRATED.

* 3 years is a bit overdue for any process to bear fruit in my opinion!

Need a good old fashioned larf? See Dustin Hoffman tell The Flea Joke - a complete joy!

Leader and the (dying) Swan

CAPTION CONTEST - Boolomo wins with his tribute to Eric Morecambe: 'Gottle o'geer'

Get Peter Costello! Is he going to hang about endlessly on the whiff of a chance that a delegation of desperate Liberals will come to him one day soon and simply beg him to stand as leader? How much credibility is he going to have any way after frittering away the time and opportunities he has over the past few years? I thought he had some well heeled consultancy role or Board membership to go to in the private sector but here he is still clogging up the newspaper pages over a year after he eschewed the Howard anointing! The picture above appeared in the SMH on Saturday (I can't say in what connection as domestic issues - and I mean really domestic issues - prevented me from reading the paper this weekend, as they do most). Is it an old picture or has he been Jenny Craiging? Any way it has his hallmark smirk albeit mediated through some rather unsubtle dental enhancement. Suggested captions please!

I never used to mind Malcolm Turnbull all that much. He was never warm or profound but he seemed reasonably sensible and intelligent, his current reactionary populist posturing is just cringeworthy!

I have to go now because 'Lie To Me' is on, but watch this space for more musings on telly, shopping, raising teenagers and the wonderful workings of the bureaucracy soon!

POST SCRIPT: He's ahead of Malcolm in the polls, looks like he is waiting to be cast in the role of selfless saviour!