If there is one thing that could tip me over the edge, it would be that modern phenomena; the mobile phone. I have always been a difficult customer, perhaps not meant for anything much more complicated than opening an umbrella or rinsing out the tomato- sauce bottle.

Perhaps my inherited frugal gene is to blame, forever ferreting to save and scrounge for the maximum that costs the minimum. My days of hanging around a phone waiting for calls from friends have long since gone with most calls now coming from unknown sources urging me into the world of a Black-Berry or some other mysterious device. Change your plan through us, they text. “You’ll save with us”, is the lure that got me last time and is now the cause for ‘over the edge tipping.’

I have become a victim of a device that connects five other devices. It does so wirelessly but not effortlessly. All you need do is insert a little card and you get connected to all those devices. That card is called Sim-card. Don’t be fooled by its short name. It’s holding the whole world to ransom. It’s a terrorist in disguise.

My own aim has always been to seek simplicity and certain disconnectedness. This aim is probably steeped in wanting as little responsibility as is humanly possible and… A kind of laziness not to get involved in anything distracting me from …whatever it is that fills my head at the time, most likely, nothing much really.

My dream still is to live in a square room made of straw bales. It would have a wooden floor and a cozy wood heater in the middle. I would live out of a suitcase and eat simple food, may be lentils or smoked pork spare ribs with apples cooked with rhubarb and crumble on top, a simple glass of red wine afterwards…Sleep on a kapok mattress and read Patrick White’s Voss under a kerosene light.

With the $30. – Pre-paid mobile connectivity, it kept me reasonably in touch with any emergency that might pop up. The emergency might be a call from the hearing-aid centre for an appointment or a cheerful reminder that 80% credit has been used up, nothing much more than the most mundane of calls.

I often wished I could get an insight why so many are glued to those devices. If not held to their ears they have them in their hands and they are so busy flicking up and down, even sideways. What am I missing out on? What sort of fascinating world is escaping me?

I believe that undertakers are flat tack with people having been run over by semi-trailers while crossing the road and stroking their IPods, IPad and multiple other connect devices with numerous Apps and Blackberries stand alone. What a riveting world it all has come to!

My latest sojourn into that, to me denied, world of devices was an invite on my $30.- pre-paid for a WeiWah wire free Wi Fi modem that would connect up to five devices. Can you imagine; five devices? It was guaranteed to open a world hitherto unknown to me. Not only that, for a mere $49.95 a month it was going to give me 10 gigabytes of this ‘open world’. It was just too tempting.

Of course my ignorance in those matters I keep close to my chest. Not wishing to show my ignorance and lack of confidence in general, I quickly nod in agreement when experts try and inform and instruct me on device connectivity. Any gadget that uses electricity, especially if it has a screen with options and menus instantly fills me with dread.” Open up tools, please”, they tell me. “What tools”, I ask. I then quickly resort to seemingly understanding it all.

I can’t tell you how close I came to tipping over the edge. Optus must now be having conference calls over it. I became the despair of the Philippines call centre. India gave up on me a long time ago. No matter how patient they all were, nothing connected, nothing worked. I removed the dreaded Sim-card, wiped it and even put it in reverse, all to no avail (as they say in romantic novels when the hero just can’t seem to be able to seduce a recalcitrant virgin).

I must have spent an entire year of $49.50 per month in trying to find this so much desired connectivity. It finally turned out the mini Wi Fi WeiWah wire free was faulty. So, there you go. All that modernity, all those wonderful opening up of a new world, once again denied through a mere faulty ‘device’.

Where are the straw bales?

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Years ago, a movie about sex education was shown in a George Street cinema. It might have been during the mid or late fifties or so. The movie could only be seen by strictly segregated audiences. Women were on even, men (as always), on uneven days.

I was still young but mustardy keen about sex, very curious about finally viewing female genitalia. The ticket prices were more than usual. Sex, even the educational type, was exploited already then. The queues were long, but I finally got in. The ticket seller a male and so were all the ushers. Not a woman in sight.

The Hammond organ rose majestically from the bowels of the cinema, while large pink curtains slid open soundlessly. A stirring rendition of ‘God save the Queen’ was oozed out of the organ. We all stood up in Royal reverence and lustful expectation.

There was a short introduction by a lanky Liberace-like man dressed in a sparkling white suit, warning us all not to get over excited. Please, all stay calm throughout the entire film, he advised with stern authority. We would finally be shown the act of human re-production in all its black and white glory, he enthused. Far out!

Apart from the sighing of hundreds of young men with penises semi expectant, you could hear a pin drop. Not as much as a rustling chips packet.

The film finally started and with lots of diagrams and arrows there appeared shot after shot a plethora of ovum and sperm. Nothing actually moved. It was rather disconcerting when after some ovum and sperm finally getting together; a real live woman was shown to wheel a baby around in a pram. Not a twitch of anything sexual or erotic, in fact the opposite. No genital let alone genitalia.The disappointment was palpable.

The crowd was getting restless. A trickle made for the exit, soon followed by a torrent. Then, and I have never forgotten this, a very miffed young man shouted at the back of the cinema in a rasping strong Aussie accent…” has anyone cracked a fat yet?”  I still laugh in the sweet memory of it.

In those days, sex was totally kept subterranean and one was lucky to have seen a girl’s nude knee. Girls were kept at arm’s length. The mothers gave daughters sex information based on; if anything moves on the boy, no matter where or how, move away and come home immediately, darn a sock or boil some Brussel sprouts.

Haven’t things moved forward since? Just type in V A G I N A on the computer and one is greeted by 32.900.000 responses in one ninth of a second, compliments via Google. While the issues surrounding sex were cloaked in secrecy and mystery at earlier times, not anymore now. We certainly don’t need queue up in George Street cinema anymore. At the same time I wonder if the pendulum hasn’t swung the other way a bit too far. I mean, 32.900.000 times too far.

It all reminds me of standing in front of Moscow’s university, apparently one of the largest in world. Our lovely Russian guide Natasha informed us, that even if we got to a hundred years old, our lives would not be long enough living in a different room at that university every week.

The Lomonosov Moscow State University enrolls over 40.000 students annually with another 4000 foreign students. Its library alone has over 9.000.000 books with 2.000.000 in foreign languages. More than 6000 professors and lecturers are employed plus scores of researchers…

http://www.msu.ru/en/

Now, they are impressive numbers that surely matter more than the 32.900.000 vagina Google entrees .You would have thought that the world’s interest in sexual matters would now have subsided, calmed down a bit and shifted away to more pressing needs.

While the interest in the female genitalia continues unabated, it’s a different kettle of fish with penises. Amazingly, there are only 9.440.000 penis entrees on the internet. What do we make of that? Are we men not good enough? Are there some design flaws or the aesthetics unappetizing? We men need to feel secure and strong, you know.

Perhaps, it all comes down to choice. Our lives will not only be long enough to traverse through all of Moscow’s university rooms, neither do we have time to peruse all those vagina or penis entries. One thing is for sure. I would rather traverse through any university than trawl the net for genitalia. They are all so boringly uniform and the same. It’s just something with hair on it. Surely, there has to be more to life.

We know there was always some kind of town or village center where people used to meet up, mingle and gossip. The old water-well did not always contain the bodies of the missing loved ones, more likely to hold endless tales of folklore and the latest news, perhaps spiced with the regaling of the latest sexual maneuverings amongst the libidinous of the village… It has always been like that!

In the larger towns and cities it was the square in front of the cathedral or market place where the same was served to keep the locals in contact with each other. Look at Pieter Bruegel’s paintings. The dalliances of the locals together at town’s centers could never be told with any more precision. The kicking up of heels during the 1530’s has, as far as I know, never been surpassed since. Even Michael Jackson’s Moon-Walk pales into a rather limp expression of a dance. Talk about dancing, whatever happened to those mirrored balls suspended from ceilings spitting glitter around the dancers? Has it all gone into the pails of history?

In the 1960s one of the best places to pick up a sheila, was Trocadero in George Street, Sydney. There was a strict protocol. The slightest whiff of alcohol and you were barred. There were special men,  trained connoisseurs of breaths, reputedly able to detect, with great precision, the difference between a sprinkle of Eau De Cologne and a lager. The odour disguishing help of peppermints was always a trick that only worked towards the end of the evening when the alcohol had worked itself out of the system, at that stage; everything gets a bit limp anyway. The only beverage available, once broken through the cordon of breath sniffers, and finally inside that Mecca for picking up sheilas, was a generous supply of, (another Australian icon on par with the Victa lawnmower) Fanta orange drink.

Alas, even Fanta is now foreign owned together with the Victa. In China they have built an entire high rise city of 150.000 people totally geared towards the manufacturing of Hills Hoists. This city is called “happy clothes dryers-“快樂布烘乾線 “After 2 years of hard work, employees receive a free Victa, after 20 years a much revered free Hills Hoist. I remember digging out a concrete lump that surrounded the base of the hoist, a job I would now not be able to do anymore. How the years creep up in all those little things that one used to do and so much enjoy.

Meanwhile back at the Trocadero in the fifties and sixties, the picking up of sheilas was a serious Saturday evening pursuit well worth foregoing the alcohol. The only snag during that period was the oversupply of men. There were all those sturdy muscled miners from Finland, dazzling blond hair all shiny and brilliantined up and expert tango dancers. I’ll never forget those cane cutters from Queensland, many from fascinating East European backgrounds called ‘reffos’.  The competition for a dance was fierce, feudalistic amongst the men, often on a knife’s edge. My rather lanky figure in Julius Marlow shod feet had to compete with those and the (less popular but infinitely better looking Dean Martin’s look-alikes) swarthy Italians and Creeks, called “dagos”. I was occasionally successful with the business of Sheila picking-up but always looked forward to the Fanta as well.

One made the best of what was available.

How does it feel?

We all know that how we feel depends on many factors. One of those factors is how we react to the visual things that surround us. It would be an extremely dour person if not uplifted by a walk up the steps of our Opera House. On the other hand, walking past some of Sydney’s ugly roads would surely try even the sanest of us. Where to find the courage to go on? Kilometer after kilometer are those yawning car yards waving those sad little flags. Dante’s inferno couldn’t be worse and we worry about tourism being slack!

Why is that so?

Why can the visual be so important in shaping our moods? Does it matter how things look? Perhaps much of our way of reacting is that genetically we are disposed to feeling happy or not depending on how we have surrounded ourselves by the man made visual world. I am speaking of the world of how we have shaped things, how we have designed the visual and how we have given form to the everyday object, experienced and absorbed through our eyes. It is surely much better to look at something that is pleasing to the eyes than to view ugliness.

The world of pure nature cannot be blamed for any of the ugliness because in nature there simply isn’t any. (Ugliness) If nature deals us a rainy day or a drought, it generously and without fail, makes up for it in sunshine or abundant rains later on. If nature is ugly, it is because we made it so.  Therefore, if all ugliness is man-made it makes sense to learn not to make things ugly by better and more beautiful design.

I often wonder why in some countries good design comes almost naturally and yet in other countries one searches with great difficulty and often in vain to find beauty in the everyday man-made world. I wonder why good design is not taught at all levels in our education system. Design in education? Well, many schools spent time teaching sport so why not design? Are we going through life without eyes?

I don’t want to bang on about the advantages of the Scandinavian world and in particular about Finland but it seems hard to avoid those Nordic countries and not be impressed by good design. Was our own Opera House not designed by one of them?

Good design might well come from good problem solving. Design on the run or ad hoc never results in good outcomes. Is this why the way we house ourselves is often mediocre if not outright depressing?  I am not even talking about the architecture of our houses.

Why does it take driving large cars to take kids to schools or to go shopping? Why are our lives so tied up in isolation away from social infrastructures? How come we do not walk to work or catch the local transport? Could it be a result of bad problem solving and hence, bad design? Inexhorably our lives are tied to having to drive a car. We live in order to please the car. The car doesn’t please us.

How solid is good design embedded in our lives? Design in our lives is everywhere from paper clip to airplane. It’s found, in our education, public services, transportation, arts and culture, in sport and policymaking. It’s there even if we don’t always see it. Good design equals innovation in good problem solving which in turn can create happiness.

Does Australia have good designers? I am sure there are some but can we name just one that is truly outstanding? Ask a Finn and he will mention Alvar Aalto, Aino Aalto, Maija Isola, Tapio Wirkkala, Eero Aarnio, just to mention a few. They are all household names around the global design community. Good design in Finland is simply a way of life that kids appreciate from birth and carry with them for the rest of their lives. Good design is the driver behind all cultural, social and economic development of a country.

Is that our way as well?

Going back to how we house ourselves. Is it not just a matter of divvying up parcels of land in an ever increasing circle, devouring farm land put in a sewer and a nice asphalt ribbon and then build houses on it? Housing is a huge part of our economy and it is very often part of animated social conversation we have. Prices are keenly watched and newspapers come out with the latest suburbs that are ‘in and up’ and those that are ‘dropping and down’. We thrive on their monetary value but don’t give it much thought on how we can improve housing to fulfill social needs rather than just worry about the stats on rising or dropping values. How do we feel walking through our front door?

Coming to the aesthetics and workability of our cities,  and at best we might get polite murmurs of ‘lovely harbour’ and ‘nice views’ from any overseas visiting city planner or design architect.

How embedded is our concept of design to our goods and services, finding solutions to people’s needs through innovation and user-driven perspective? Of course, the best of design is also joined to sustainability, re-usability, desirability and its greenness.

It’s hard to see how our present laissez faire attitude to design and planning is making for the ‘best’. How are we shaping lives in our cities for our children, our grandchildren and their grandchildren?

While the first leaves are yet to hit the asphalt, I know that soon the leaf-blower brigade will come out. It’s inevitable and I am not sure we should just move out, take out a lease on a Balinese villa and possibly avoid murder. If you own a leaf blower, forget getting an invitation to my house. You didn’t take the hint last year, did you? I left a rake on your doorstep, all wrapped in cellophane with a red ribbon. What more does it take, what more could I have done?

Years ago, when things were still quiet and Autumnal habits heralded themselves with the rain of golden leaves and suburbia in deep slumber, with its first wood-fire smoke curling upwards from gentle chimneys, one might just have heard the early wakening of a neighbor with the soothing swish of the broom or a rustling rake. Sometimes, the leaves would give us a reminder of seasons changing when raked together and burnt giving a lovely smoky scent. The scent of autumn.

Not anymore now though, autumns have been taken over by those giant Husqvarna leaf blowers. Noise is now an essential part of gardening, especially in autumn. What makes so many feel that unless something makes noise, it’s not serious? What’s welling up in those previously peaceful suburbanites that make them go out at 6am and start war?

Sure, in the past and during summer, lawns needed mowing and dad did it with the Victa. Victa was our national identity; we came close to saluting it. God save our Victa…But, at least with those early mowers there was a fair chance the motor would just have a bad day, refuse to start and dad would then, after pulling the cord with blind fury 223 times, give it back to the shed next to the FJ Holden. Peace and quiet would remain rock solid.

Now, the spark and ignition have advanced so much that failure of motorized garden equipments are on par with winning the 100 million in the Spanish lottery. One pull and they start relentlessly and without failure.

When the man next door dons his floppy hat and visors, we know we will be in for a hell of a time. He is normally a very peace loving man and solicitor. With the leaf blower strapped around his torso he metamorphoses into a man on a murderous mission. He almost risks being invited to the Taliban. Where does this sudden military move to noisy gardening come from?

Does it go back to childhood, a dysfunctional grandmother with a penchant for taking off her belt, or a sadistic dad swishing a bicycle chain? Why the hatred towards leaves? What makes it so much more incomprehensible is that our neighbor has John Steinbeck’s “Of men and Mice” on his bookshelves. How can one possibly correlate that level of literary appreciation with going out guerilla like with a leaf blower strapped on?

On top of his love of gardening noise he also climbs a ladder and peers inside his guttering. Not only are leaves banned on the ground, they are also not allowed to settle peacefully onto his roof. He would sleep on his roof, given half a chance. His wife looks on anxiously when he travels along the entire guttering of his house. The leaf blower is on full throttle. He hates leaves.

It makes one wonder about the differences of culture. Bali has more trees and leaves than the entire Southern hemisphere put together. You lose a matchstick and next day it has sprouted into a young sapling. Yet, there is not a leaf blower to be seen or heard anywhere. The brush or rice stalk brooms are out and each morning just a gentle sweep of the footpath or entrance and all is clean.  The leaves are left to rot and nourish the good earth. Of course, not a zinc alume gutter anywhere either. It’s all left to nature. The rain is allowed to water the plants and trees, instead of being channeled towards the ocean

Mind you here in Australia, the Bunning forces are flat tack promoting noise as much as possible. Driving by at night and on a large well lit board we are put on notice there will be D.I.Y information for ladies each Friday. I shudder at the prospect of what motorized garden utensil will arrive next door. Soon, the gender equality will be not only seen but heard as well. Strong women will join the blower’s male dominated army, wield those leaf blowers and noise will double.

Where did it all go so wrong?

“Fat is Good”, so was Spam.

I like spam. Back in the late nineteen fifties I was living in a sparsely furnished room at a Paddington Boarding House. The front door had a sign “Migrants Welcome”. The boarding house was run by a Maltese woman. Her husband was a butcher. They were a good and devout family and a loaded shotgun was kept in the wardrobe.

On the wall and above my bed was a picture of a Jesus cruelly nailed to a wooden cross. What was disconcertingly spooky, depending on what angle this picture was viewed at, that its eyes would open and shut alternatively when stepping past.

When the Jesus had its eyes open they were piously cast upwards. Perhaps the subliminal message and hope being, that the viewer would also become pious and work towards that upwards heavenly goal as well. It turned me off 3D pictures and holograms for life.

At night, and before hopping into my bed, I would turn the picture facing the wall. During the day and before going to work I would always politely turn Jesus back again allowing it to ponder and gaze over my bed. It would, at least during daytime, allow Him to cast his eyes, perhaps in a despairingly manner, heavenly upwards again for anyone passing my bed during the day. I did not want to upset a devout family with a shotgun in the wardrobe.

Sometimes, most often after work and tired, I used to sit on the edge of my single bed, open a tin of spam with that handy little tool that was attached to the top and ever so slowly (in order not to break it) turn and twist the lid off.

One was greeted by a little white coloured blubbery bit of fat coagelatined to the top hiding its deliciously pink coloured innards. The bouquet of the spam greeting the nostrils was always immensely pervasive. Scooping it up with a teaspoon while turning the pages of V.Woolf’s Orlando, was one of those little pleasures of bachelorhood that  gets forgotten once married, and sitting and eating on the edge of a bed becomes, very sensibly IMHO, banned forever. I remember it though as if yesterday.

Now the original and true meaning of ‘spam’ is lost  and for baby boomers that joy forever denied, even though, while sauntering past the acreages of Woolies isles I sometimes still spot a  tin of Spam, proudly and defiantly competing with more modern delicacies such as the cryonically preserved  Crunchy Chico Bar or boxes loaded with healthy  Fruity Loops.

So much now is lost and gone into the bowels of history forever, the same as so much else during that era. We have all but  forgotten the pungent smell of the spattering mutton legs on Friday afternoons together with mum’s baked pumpkin and spuds, and  happy kids hurtling  down-hill on Billy carts, all at Redfern’s or Rockdale’s back lanes.

And yet, looking at photos from the fifties and sixties, there is striking difference between then and now. We were all skinny. Well, skinny, not really, but compared with now, sure, skinny! Hardly a fat person is in sight. Now, here  surely  is something to ponder about? The latest information on obesity puts the blame on diets.

The question that never seems to get asked is; if we were all so slim and taut some fifty years ago, and Spam and Mutton was one of our most staple diets, how come we were all so much slimmer?

The answer might well be because of spam and mutton spatter with lashes of salty larded on white Tip-Top. Let’s go back, if that’s the way to beating obesity.

I have noticed that canny advertisers are quick in the uptake to grab the dollar and turn a perceived adversity into a handsome profit.  All of a sudden we have the most glorious and lusciously full ample bosomed and ravishingly beautiful size eighteen models lolling and rolling around on our TV screens and on beaches. They are shown on the advertisements seducing equally larger men that drive around Volvo’s or seen walking into banks for larger mortgages.

Larger men are also now used in advertising with huge bums sticking out of large cars strapping in the large toddlers with the large wife looking on with smiles of conjugal promises and/or generous approval. Yes, definitely, model agencies are looking for larger people now and those anemic looking bone skinny girls on catwalks will soon be given the flick. About time too ,we all need more room, move over. C’est la vie.

Obviously, those large Insurance companies have done their homework and also assiduously studied the latest statistics. They don’t seem at all alarmed or daunted by large people. They wouldn’t advertise them would they? Is ‘fat is good’ replacing ‘greed is good?

As for those boarding rooms in Paddington, they are all gone now. The Maltese family most likely retired in Santa Magdalena retirement villa on Rosella’s circuit at Dooley-Vale. The picture of Jesus and the roving eyes having survived all. It’s hanging above their double bed, the loaded shotgun never used. They were a devout family.

“Fat is good”.

The ‘wow’ factor is not just for the young, it is also for Grannies…

Seeing all that euphoria on TV during the handing out of Film Oscars in Hollywood, with all the enthusiasm, exuberance and leaping about on stage, one could wonder what this is all is about. Apart from awards for movies, the Oscar night itself could easily be worthy of awards itself.

They are all still looking so young, even the old. Look at Michael Douglas, not a year over 37. Let’s not get too jealous though. Those unlined faces and perky bosoms are not always the result of gallons of Botox or ‘nip & tuck (or lift) jobs. Not a stooped back or bouts of gout anywhere, or if so, it is carefully out of sight and well hidden.

As soon as a name was pulled out of the envelope, the camera zoomed into the winner’s beaming face, who then rises up, gets hugged, kissed, and in the case of a female, possibly suitably teary. The male or female winner jauntily steps towards the stage, perhaps while buttoning a jacket or adjusting a strap.

Boy oh boy, is the wow factor there now. The thousands in the audience are rising in hypnotic unison, and wildly with unrestrained thunderous applause inflame this spectacle into an orgy of mutual me- you-me of endless loving and adorations.

All this adoration of the winner is clearly a very moving event. The winner is (again) speechless with gratitude and throws in, from the cuff or prepared, a witticism, while holding and swaying his Oscar statue aloft…Dorian Grey would be so proud. Not a single star’s age is shown as having aged, indeed, they seem having regressed to an even earlier age…

So be it. That’s Academy Awards Hollywood.

On reflection, I remember fondly a couple of grannies (not Grammies) from the US. Both were in their early and very youthful eighties, never seen as much as a Botox needle, ever! They arrived in Australia by boat on which was also their very large and well equipped Campervan. They were going to have a great tour around the Australian outback. Who could find fault with that sort of panache and chutzpah, and at their age?

On disembarking they filled in the normal batch of custom forms. “Anything to declare, they were asked?”  “Ah, no nothing at all, we are on holiday,” they added while, glancing away. The glancing away is a ‘tell’ that custom officers are specially trained to spot. It takes about six months of intensive tell training to spot the dodgy ‘tells’ from the real.

Still, there was nothing suspicious on their personae to investigate any further and they were allowed through. They must have been so relieved.

The old ladies were seen to walk around the quay, waiting for their very large Mercedes Van to get hoisted off the boat. There were a few onlookers to watch the spectacle including a couple of custom officers. All was still very ‘cool’ and under control. When the Van finally touched solid earth, the custom officers went gallantly to the aid of the American couple and helped put on their luggage at the same time clearing the vehicle through customs. A form still had to be signed. The doors were opened and while lifting the luggage it was noted the floor was somewhat higher than normal. “Gee, you have a very large and well equipped Van, but why is the floor higher than the inlet of the doors, strange, isn’t?”

Talk about panache, it turned out there was a double floor with 1 ton of the best and purist hashish hidden between. The best of Boom, Chronic, Gangster, with a mix of Mary Jane down the back of the floor.

Now, those grannies did have a ‘wow factor’ that those Oskar winners will never achieve. Sure, it was a bit criminal but you would have to admire them though. They were in their eighties as well, don’t forget. The papers were full of it for many months.

Some couple of years later I noticed an ad in the paper selling a bus. It was advertised as being used for smuggling marihuana and had belonged to the ‘notorious American Grannies.

There is hope for all of us!

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The recent ballot taken as a result of a challenge to the leadership by the previous PM has turned out exactly as predicted. There was not a single opinion by anyone that was dissenting anywhere. Yet, the media went, just as predictable berserk. Headlines in Newspapers were screaming to the extent, that many elderly pedestrians fainted, some called for ambulances.

On TV, even the dulling powder puffs on the journo- cum- shock –jock’s faces were foregone adding greatly to the excitement not seen since the days of Princess Mary and Kylie Minogue. The sheen on their brilliantly lit faces was unequalled except perhaps during the interviews of those large mining magnates in Western Australia. The sheen on opulent faces is always in direct proportion to the billions in bulbous bullion ingots they have stashed away in secret Perth Bunkers. Come to think of it, so are their bodies, in size I mean, perhaps in sheen as well. I haven’t studied Palmer’s or Gina’s sheen below their collars.

We seem to have entered an era of instant politics that in the same vein respond to instant polls. We have just about got over that vile drink ‘euphemistically’ named Instant COFFEE. Instant, perhaps, but coffee, no way? There is now Instant cheese and it comes in a tube. Polls now come as regular as errant shopping trolleys discarded along nature strips. What do you think ‘nature strips’ are for, you old fogey fools? This is our world now, it’s our time, they are our nature strips, piss off, move over you pathetic grump.

Just fifty metres from our Woolies store in Bowral someone, very gifted, had lifted a trolley high up and managed, through herculean efforts, to impale it on one of those no-parking signs with the open ended flap of the trolley being used allowing the sign to enter it and the trolley to be dragged down the bottom on the nature strip with the traffic sign triumphantly sticking up in the middle of the trolley. Now, there is a creative boy about somewhere. I can’t imagine a lady pensioner doing that.

What goes on in the mind of someone walking past a trolley, abandoned in a nature strip? What mind would come up with the idea of going through the effort of wrestling it over and onto a traffic sign? In Singapore or Malaysia they would give him 120 lashes, his bum stripped bloody raw, but never a shopping trolley in danger again from him. Here, probably a reward for community services rendered. A Freudian trained psychiatrist would probably see a serial rapist in the making, ramming things all the way somewhere. He seems destined to become a rugby player instead.

Serves the trolley right. Why is it that the Aldi and European methods of an ordered trolley regime with small deposits on trolleys has not been made nationwide compulsory? It works well. Here though, there are rewards offered and helicopters are hovering above, trying to trace lost trolleys. It seems a strange and costly way to check up on trolleys.

Anyway, it’s not any stranger than the panic driven hysteria over the latest political stoush. Where was the calm and considerate looking back by the challenger? How could an experienced and ex PM not see, that the challenge would end in defeat. Did he not count those in caucus that would not support him?

Are they all driven by face-book emotions? Is the media ramping up politicians into a frenzy of self adoring that hides all logic and reason, a kind of endless tweeting ‘ The Emperor’s new clothes’ beautification? Are all politicians in the grip of a Stockholm syndrome whereby the enslavement to the captive image has become an insurmountable reality? Do they all look in the mirror and see a beautiful and glorious Tiberius Claudius Caesar with an admiring media all hooked on an intravenously administered Instant News hook up? It’s all now panic, hyped up internet face-book twittering raging media and political turmoil maelstrom.

Where has the calm gone, the looking back and taking time?

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Now that millions have watched the video clip of ex Prime Minister K. Rudd exploding in not finding the right words to translate something in Chinese, we might try attempt understand why men seem to lose the plot so much more than women. I am talking about this uncontrolled Nikita Khrushchev-like blind desk thumping rage, not the kind of nagging anger that perhaps some women are better skilled at.

Is it all due to sex and hormones?

No-one expected him to be perfect at his job, but that so ‘losing it’ over such a seemingly trivial matter is not all that uncommon by men. The travel by men away from wife can’t be easy on the marital conjugals, can it? Can we still not remember Fraser and his early morning wandering around the American Hotel lobby sans pants some years ago? What a plight he found himself in! What a sweet story that was. Still, he never was caught having a blind rage. He made amends ever since, not least by having resigned his Liberal Party membership. Which ex Australian PM can boast that achievement?

This blind rage is why, they, us men, wage war. War is nothing much more than massive lemming-like collective going totally over the board raving nuts by fruitcake men. How can killing make life better?

Now, women generally don’t make war and rarely suffer from blind desk-thumping rage. However, it is not uncommon that just prior to their monthly hormone changes they can get quite stroppy and are known to even have committed murder. Indeed, a defense on those hormonal grounds is sometimes still taken in consideration. There have been cases where PMS has proven to have turned women in behaving like raving mad animals. Part of the acquittal of a woman of a serious crime was that she had to undertake a strict regime of Court ordered progesterone treatment. http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/previous%20series/proceedings/1-27/~/media/publications/proceedings/16/easteal2.pdf

One woman had stopped taking the Court ordered hormonal medication and within days hurled a brick through a window. She again used her hormonal imbalance successfully to be acquitted once again.

While men are at the mercy of producing millions of restless and angry sperms every second 24/7, (year in and year out), all of those millions of aggressive squirming desperate sperms are meant to get ejected outside or inside somewhere, let’s not forget women are just as subject to their physical and hormonal proclivities as well. Are they also not held at ransom by their, just as volatile, ovaries?  However, the business of ovaries is only monthly and during pregnancy even gets a bit of a well earned holiday. While with men it is often vented through blind raging Victa-lawnmower pull starting fury and hopelessly losing the plot.

We men can’t just make wars or stand above the hand-basin wanking day and night, can we?