Australian Politics Has Stopped Pretending To Be Respectable

Andrew Hastie called Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce “lying cowards” over a One Nation cartoon portraying him as a traitor.

Not “misinformed”.

Not “disingenuous”.

Not “I respectfully disagree”.

Lying cowards.

Finally, political language I understand.

Politicians usually say:

“We reject that characterisation.”

Meaning:

“That’s rubbish.”

“We have concerns about the member’s conduct.”

Meaning:

“He’s behaving like a goose.”

“I respectfully disagree.”

Meaning:

“You absolute dickhead.”

At least Hastie removed the subtitles.

The whole saga has everything Australian politics needs: a former SAS soldier, Pauline Hanson, Barnaby Joyce, a cartoon, and an argument about who called whom a traitor.

It’s not Parliament anymore.

It’s Year 9.

“Miss, I didn’t call him a traitor.”

“Yes you did.”

“No, the cartoon did.”

“But you posted it.”

“That’s different.”

“Barnaby, stop laughing.”

Canberra now looks less like the centre of democracy and more like a pub argument where everyone has a media adviser.

And I’m enjoying it.

Because “lying cowards” is clear. No analyst required. You know exactly where everyone stands.

Imagine if all politics worked this way.

“Prime Minister, did you stuff this up?”

“Yes.”

“Righto.”

“Minister, is this policy stupid?”

“Probably.”

“Excellent. Next.”

We’d save millions.

With Barnaby nearby, the whole thing feels like a ute, a pub veranda and someone yelling “mate” are about to enter the story.

Pauline Hanson has been around so long that if aliens landed outside Parliament tomorrow, she’d be on breakfast television by 7.30 explaining why they had failed to assimilate.

So here we are: Hastie versus Hanson, Hanson versus Hastie, Barnaby somewhere nearby, cartoons as political weapons and everyone demanding apologies.

Democracy is alive and well.

It just appears to have had six schooners.

Move Question Time to a country pub. Put a bell on the bar. Give everyone a pot.

Whenever a politician says, “I categorically reject that assertion,” they must translate it into ordinary Australian.

Nine times out of ten, it will be:

Bullshit.

Now that I’d watch.

Salma Hayek Has Turned 60. This Seems Unnecessarily Provocative.

Salma Hayek has celebrated her 60th birthday by going skinny-dipping and looking so magnificent that I’m beginning to suspect she has made a private arrangement with time.

Sixty!

I’ve looked carefully at the photographs, and I can’t see a single sign that gravity has ever been introduced to her. Everything is still exactly where it was originally issued. Her skin glows, her hair tumbles beautifully down her back, and even naked in the ocean she looks composed. If I went skinny-dipping, concerned people on the shore would immediately begin searching for the overturned kayak.

How does she look so good?

She says she doesn’t use Botox. Of course she doesn’t. Apparently, she meditates. I have tried meditating, but I spend the entire time thinking about whether I turned the oven off and mentally composing arguments with people who annoyed me in 1997. None of this has made me look like Salma Hayek.

She also credits restorative yoga, juices and generally taking care of herself. I occasionally take care of myself too. Last week I remembered to moisturise both legs. Admittedly, I did one in the morning and the other just before bed, but nobody said the legs had to be done together.

Obviously, Salma has excellent genes. She also has access to expensive skincare, personal trainers, stylists, flattering lighting and probably somebody whose entire job is to follow her around holding a bowl of berries. I don’t begrudge her any of it. If I had her money, I would employ a full-time professional to slap biscuits out of my hand and another one to gently lower me to the floor whenever an exercise involved getting down there.

But money alone doesn’t explain it. Plenty of rich people look as though they’ve been left overnight in a hot car. Salma is simply spectacular. She has curves, she hasn’t starved herself into the shape of a bookmark, and she seems genuinely comfortable in her own skin. That may be the most attractive thing of all.

There is also something rather marvellous about a woman turning 60 and celebrating by taking her clothes off instead of quietly disappearing behind a sensible cardigan. Women have spent generations being told that we become invisible as we age. Salma appears to have responded by swimming naked through the middle of the argument.

Good for her.

I don’t expect to look like Salma Hayek when I turn 60—mainly because that particular ship has already sailed, hit an iceberg and been converted into a floating casino. But I do like the idea of refusing to become apologetic about ageing.

Perhaps that is her real secret. Good genes, excellent skincare, restorative yoga, enormous wealth—and absolutely no intention of becoming smaller just because she’s getting older.

Although I still think there may be witchcraft involved.

Writing a Children’s Book Is Child’s Play. Apparently.

I have been writing children’s books, which sounds delightful. You imagine me sitting peacefully at a desk (or the dining room table; because the Squeeze claims the study), smiling fondly as a golden giraffe swallows a star or a sleek red fox paints the house like Picasso.

That is not what happens.

Writing the story is the easy part. You invent a giraffe called Horatio or a fox called Dionysus, give them a small behavioural problem, destroy part of a house and finish with a charming rhyme. Lovely. Then you begin the illustrations—and discover you have accidentally entered a long-term dispute over continuity.

On page one, Dionysus is a handsome red fox with white paws and a magnificent russet tail. By page six, he appears to have changed species, gained several kilos and undergone facial reconstruction. Grandma Sookey is no better. She arrives with big hair and makeup like a clown, but two pages later she has a different face, different clothes and possibly a different ethnic background. Nobody mentions it. Apparently, this family has experienced stranger things.

Then comes the text. At first, I thought it would be helpful to have the words placed neatly onto each illustration. That was before discovering the words were either too large, too small, in the wrong place or sitting directly across Grandma’s forehead. So now I want every picture without type. I’ll put the words in myself in Photoshop, where I can move them around until they behave—or until I lose the will to live.

There are also approximately nine hundred tiny decisions nobody warns you about. Is the fox bright red or russet? Are his paws white enough? Is the giraffe too yellow? Does Grandma look startled, terrified or as though she has just remembered she left the iron on? Is that the same chair from three pages ago? Why does the hallway now lead directly into the kitchen? And when did the house acquire a second staircase?

Children, of course, will notice every mistake. Adults might politely overlook a fox whose tail changes colour halfway through the book. A five-year-old will point at it immediately and demand an explanation. You cannot bluff a five-year-old. They are tiny continuity editors with no social filter.

Still, I’m enjoying it enormously. There is something wonderful about watching characters that have lived in your head finally appear on the page—even if they occasionally appear with the wrong face, an extra window and a grandmother nobody has seen before.

Soon I will have two beautifully illustrated children’s books: The Day My Giraffe Swallowed a Star and The Day My Fox Painted a Picasso. Then, I'll move on to the next one. A bunch of stories about a little kid and their outrageous pet!

Or I will have 147 pictures of unrelated foxes, six different grandmothers and a permanent twitch in my left eye.

Either way, something is getting published.

Can’t Type. Finals Football!

Oh I do love this time of year. Football season is coming to a close. I love a Grand Final. That minute at the start when everyone thinks they will win. The umpire stands in the centre; 100k people start screaming.  

I’ve been to 4 winning grand finals. 5 losing ones. I don’t think I’ll go again. Of course, I have to even it up; so I need another winning one!

I’ve Survived 29 Brain Operations, But a Password Reset May Finish Me Off

I have survived 29 brain operations. I have recovered from things that would cause most people to lie flat on the floor and refuse to participate in life ever again. Yet this week, I was nearly defeated by a password box.

Apparently, the password I have used successfully for months is suddenly wrong. It isn’t wrong. I know it isn’t wrong because I wrote it down after being told repeatedly that writing passwords down is dangerous. What is apparently less dangerous is allowing a website to lock me out of something I own while insisting that I prove I am not a robot by identifying seventeen microscopic traffic lights.

I requested a password reset. The website told me it had sent an email. It had not. I requested another. Still nothing. Five minutes later, both arrived together, but the first link had expired and the second apparently belonged to a different moment in the space-time continuum.

Then came the security code.

“Enter the six-digit code we sent to your phone.”

Fine. I left the website to check my messages. When I returned, the website had refreshed and wanted me to log in again. I logged in again. It sent another code. I left to find that one. When I came back, it refreshed again. This is not security. This is psychological warfare.

Modern life is full of tiny inconveniences that are supposedly making everything easier. Restaurants make us scan a QR code to read a menu, then the menu wants our email address, mobile number and date of birth before it will reveal the price of a chicken schnitzel. Car parks no longer accept coins. Banks no longer have branches. Businesses no longer have telephone numbers. If you do find one, a recorded voice says your call is important while leaving you on hold long enough to reconsider whether the matter—or indeed life itself—is worth pursuing.

Nothing simply works anymore. Everything needs an account, an app, an update, a verification code and permission to track your location. I recently attempted to perform one small task online and ended up with twelve browser tabs open, three confirmation emails and no memory of what I had originally intended to do.

And heaven help you if you click “Forgot password.” The website will demand a new password containing a capital letter, a lowercase letter, a number, a symbol, an ancient rune and the blood type of your first pet. You carefully create one, only to be told that your new password cannot be the same as an old password.

Which means it knew the old password all along.

I suspect we are no longer angry because life is particularly terrible. We are angry because we spend every day being pecked to death by digital ducks. One minor annoyance would be manageable. Fifty of them before lunch turns a reasonable adult into someone screaming, “I AM NOT A ROBOT!” at a photograph of a pedestrian crossing.

Technology was supposed to give us more leisure time. Instead, we now spend that leisure time updating technology, charging technology, searching for technology and asking technology why it can’t connect to the other technology sitting three centimetres away.

I’m not against progress. I would just like progress to remember the original arrangement: it was meant to work for us.

Because after everything I have survived, I refuse to be taken out by a little red message saying, “Something went wrong. Please try again later.”

Something did go wrong.

We invented the internet.

I Now Require All Purchases to Pass an Intelligence Test

I have finally found a practical use for artificial intelligence. I don’t need it to compose a symphony, diagnose the economy or create a lifelike video of Donald Trump riding a dolphin. I need it to stop me buying rubbish from Facebook.

This has become necessary because the internet has apparently identified me as a woman with skin, joints, teeth, hair and several functioning insecurities. Every time I open Facebook, I am offered something miraculous. A cream that removes age spots in fourteen days. A strip that whitens teeth without damaging them. An oil that repairs joints, erases wrinkles, improves circulation and possibly fixes the transmission in the car. There is always a distinguished-looking doctor involved, although he may actually be a dentist from Belgium whose photograph was stolen in 2017.

In the old days, I would look at the before-and-after photographs, read three glowing reviews from women called Susan and Janet, and begin to wonder. Perhaps this really was the discovery dermatologists had been trying to suppress. Perhaps a small company operating from an undisclosed warehouse had finally cracked the secrets of human ageing. Perhaps all I needed was two bottles for $79.95, plus another bottle mysteriously added at checkout.

Now I ask ChatGPT.

I send it the link and say, “Does this work?” Then it goes rummaging through the ingredients, the evidence, the company’s claims and whatever independent information can actually be found. 

Usually, the answer is a beautifully diplomatic version of: No, Carol. Put your credit card away.

It has become my official Department of 'Suspicious Purchases'. Most of which I cleaned out the other week...

The pattern is remarkably consistent. The product often contains one perfectly reasonable ingredient, surrounded by moisturiser and magnificent advertising. There may be a tiny amount of something that has shown promise in a clinical study, but nobody tells you how much is actually in the jar. The advertisement then leaps from “this ingredient may modestly improve the appearance of pigmentation over several months” to “YOUR HANDS WILL LOOK 25 AGAIN BY THURSDAY.”

They all have thousands of delighted customers. They all sell out regularly. They have all been discovered by a woman who had tried absolutely everything and was about to give up. Sometimes her dermatologist is “amazed.” There is usually a countdown clock informing me that the special price will disappear in eleven minutes, although I can return three days later and find that the clock has made a miraculous recovery.

Since I began checking before buying, I have discovered that most miracle products fall into one of three categories: they might help slightly, they probably do nothing, or they will moisturise the area beautifully while leaving the original problem exactly where it was.

The money I have saved must be considerable. I can’t give you an exact figure because that would require admitting how many times I have been tempted by a bottle of hope with a gold lid. But between the whitening strips, memory supplements, age-spot creams, joint oils, circulation devices and mysterious magnetic objects, I may have saved enough to purchase an entirely new body. Admittedly, it would probably arrive flat-packed and require a subscription.

This doesn’t mean I never buy anything. It means the product now has to survive questioning. Are the ingredients proven? Are they present in useful amounts? Are the reviews independent? Is the dramatic photograph merely the result of different lighting, makeup and someone turning down the contrast? Is there an actual business address? And my personal favourite: if this cream genuinely removed every age spot in two weeks, why wouldn’t every dermatologist on Earth already be using it?

Occasionally, the answer is that a product may be worth trying. More often, I am told that the active ingredient is sensible but the claims are inflated, the evidence is weak and a cheaper product from the chemist will probably do the same thing. It isn’t nearly as exciting as discovering a forbidden anti-ageing breakthrough, but it is considerably better for my bank account.

So I now have a rule: before buying anything advertised as revolutionary, miraculous, clinically proven, ancient, secret, doctor-approved or “not available in shops,” I send it for interrogation.

Artificial intelligence may eventually take over the world. Until then, mine is standing between me and a $69 jar of moisturiser claiming to reverse thirty years of sun damage.

Frankly, it has already paid for itself. :')

Every Good Idea Already Exists - So Why Do We Keep Inventing Things?

Yesterday, I was an "inventor". Thinking to myself "this Shift Match would be a fabulous idea!" So I made it, working studiously all day only to discover that larger organisations already have their own systems!

But the funny truth is that almost nothing is completely new. There were search engines before Google, social networks before Facebook, and plenty of vacuum cleaners before Dyson.

The point isn’t always to invent something nobody has imagined. Sometimes it’s to make an existing thing simpler, kinder, cheaper—or merely less infuriating.

It would be timely, funny, personal, and relatable.

Oh well, back to "get rich quick" scheme number 329!

From Being Cared For, To Being A Carer...

I may be going to work as a carer for people with disabilities.

Which feels a little like the poacher turning gamekeeper — except with fewer pheasants and considerably more paperwork.

Having lived with a disability myself, I know what it’s like to need help. I also know what it’s like when people speak to the person beside you instead of speaking to you, assume that a wonky walk means a wonky brain, or become so determined to “help” that they forget to ask whether you actually want any.

I’ve had 29 brain operations, acquired a brain injury along the way and spent more time navigating hospitals, specialists and support systems than any sane person would willingly choose. So, while I may be new to caring as a job, I’m certainly not new to disability.

I know that sometimes people need practical help. Sometimes they need encouragement. Sometimes they need someone to listen without trying to fix everything. And sometimes they simply need to be treated like an ordinary adult who happens to require a hand with a few things.

I think my own experience could make me rather good at it. I mean I would wait for their brain to finish formalising a reply, before moving onto something else. I understand how fiercely important independence is, even when your body has other ideas. I understand the frustration, the embarrassment, the exhaustion and the peculiar humour required to get through it all.

Most importantly, I wouldn’t be frightened by disability. I wouldn’t pity anyone or treat them as though their life were a tragedy. Mine certainly isn’t. It’s been inconvenient, ridiculous and occasionally bloody difficult — but never meaningless. In fact, I can say after my brain injury that life has got alot better!

Perhaps everything I’ve been through has been preparing me for something after all.

Who knew? I may finally have found a job where being a bit broken is actually part of my résumé.

My Fridge Is Cleaner Than Most Operating Theatres

I opened my fridge this morning and realised something rather disturbing.

It is cleaner than most people’s houses.

There are no mysterious containers lurking at the back. No vegetable quietly turning into soup in the crisper. No jar of something exotic that I bought in 2019 because one recipe required half a teaspoon of it.

Everything is clean, organised and facing the correct direction.

Because I’m OCD - and before anyone writes to tell me that isn’t funny, I know. But neither is lying awake at night wondering whether the butter container is sitting crooked.

My fridge doesn’t need cleaning. It needs a curator.

People could buy tickets to see it. They could shuffle through the kitchen in respectful silence while I point out the perfectly arranged dairy section and the condiments standing in height order. There would be a velvet rope across the vegetable crisper.

“No touching, please. That capsicum was polished this morning.”

The trouble with having a spotless fridge is that other people insist on using it.

They put things back wherever they like.

Wherever. They. Like.

My partner can take the milk from its clearly designated position and return it to another shelf as though we are living through the collapse of civilisation and rules no longer apply. He’ll put an uncovered plate inside. Sideways. Occasionally containing half a sausage.

Then he closes the door and casually walks away.

How?

How does he sleep at night?

I have considered installing security cameras. Not because I suspect anyone of stealing food, but because somebody moved the mustard last Tuesday and I want names.

I’d also like my fridge fitted with fingerprint recognition. If you haven’t completed the compulsory food-storage induction, the door remains locked. There will be a short examination covering shelf allocation, lid requirements and the correct orientation of yoghurt labels.

A score below 90 percent and you’re banned from the kitchen.

People say home is where the heart is. Nonsense.

Home is where everything has a proper place—and some lunatic keeps moving the bloody milk.

I Am Now Qualified to Save Your Life...

I passed my Life Saving Course!

It was actually great. Interesting, practical and rather reassuring. I now know what to do if someone collapses, chokes, bleeds profusely or otherwise decides to create a medical emergency in my immediate vicinity. Whether I’ll remember every single step while somebody is turning blue remains to be seen, but according to the certificate, I am officially qualified!

It was also enormously time-consuming. There was online study, questions, demonstrations, more questions and an impressive number of ways for the human body to suddenly go wrong. By the end of it, I felt as though I’d completed a medical degree—albeit one where everybody kept shouting, “Call 000!”

Then came CPR.

Getting down onto the floor to perform CPR was quite a feat in itself. Saving the patient was almost secondary; first I had to make sure I didn’t become the second casualty. There was lowering, manoeuvring, careful placement of limbs and a brief moment when I wondered whether they had a crane available. Still, I got down there, pumped enthusiastically on the plastic patient’s chest and proved that I could keep someone alive.

Getting back up again probably wasn’t included in the assessment—which was fortunate.

But I did it. I passed, I learned a great deal, and I’m genuinely glad I completed it. It may have taken up half my natural life and required physical manoeuvres worthy of an Olympic event, but I am now qualified to save yours.

Just try to collapse somewhere elevated.

Knee-Deep in First Aid

I’m currently knee-deep in a first aid course, learning how to save lives—or at least select the correct answer from four suspiciously similar options.

Apparently, “give them a cup of tea and see how they feel” is never the answer. Nor is “panic loudly and call someone more qualified.”

By the end of this, I’ll be ready for any emergency. Provided it happens in multiple-choice format. 

Yay! I Picked My T-shirt Up!

It looks pretty cool! 

Sing out via email if you want one and what size...

I got another one coming, that is in white...

As for the cost... I'm not sure.

It cost me $45 bucks and then throw postage on top.

I'll source them cheaper...

Inspirational Quotes - Should Be Illegal...

I opened Facebook this morning and was immediately told to rise, grind and chase my dreams.

It was 7.14am.

I hadn’t even found my glasses; and although I have great vision... I can't read anything on my iPhone without them!

Apparently, while I was lying in bed wondering whether I could be bothered getting up, thousands of highly motivated people had already meditated, exercised, written in their gratitude journals, drunk three litres of water and built a small business from their kitchen table.

Good for them.

I made coffee.

Then another post appeared: “You have the same number of hours in the day as Beyoncé.”

No, I bloody don’t.

Beyoncé has assistants, chefs, drivers, stylists and people whose entire job is probably to locate her missing phone. I have a cat sitting on something I need and a robot vacuum that regularly sends me distress messages about water or being clogged!

We need rules. Nobody should be allowed to post anything about “winning the morning” until the rest of us have had caffeine and confirmed that our knees still work. Personally, I don't think they should ever be allowed... They should all be rounded up and shot... (extreme I know)

And anyone using the phrase “Your only limit is you” should be required to spend one afternoon dealing with Centrelink, an insurance company and a self-serve checkout.

Sometimes your limit isn’t you.

Sometimes your limit is being placed on hold for 173 minutes while a recorded voice tells you that your call is important.

Now that’s inspirational.

I'm Testing Something...

Hello world!  This is me testing the Microsoft recorder. It records your voice instead of having to key this whole thing out, which is really cool.

Oh, it did it! I said: "new line" and it made a new paragraph!

I might leave this up all the time now. I'll just have to think about what I'm going to say... and say it.

Bloody hell, my phone is listening too; typing all the words. Stop listening! 

Self-Serve Checkouts Should Pay Superannuation

I have decided I am no longer using a self-serve checkout unless the supermarket puts me on the payroll.

I arrive as a customer, but within seconds I’ve been promoted to cashier, bagging assistant, security officer and unpaid investigator of unexpected items in the bagging area.

There is no unexpected item. It’s a bloody avocado.

Then the machine freezes and flashes a light above my head, alerting the entire supermarket that I may be attempting to steal 37 cents worth of coriander. A teenager eventually wanders over, scans a magic card and releases me back into society.

Meanwhile, an employee watches twelve screens showing close-ups of everyone’s hands. Apparently, Woolworths now has better surveillance than the Pentagon, yet it still can’t tell the difference between a bread roll and organised crime.

And after I’ve scanned everything, found the barcode on the roast chicken, entered my own fruit, supplied my own bags and paid an amount roughly equal to a small mortgage repayment, the machine has the audacity to ask:

“Would you like a receipt?”

Yes. I’d also like a payslip, annual leave and recognition for prior learning.

If supermarkets want us to work there, fine. But I expect penalty rates on Sundays, ten percent off my groceries and a little name badge.

Carol — Employee of the Month. Or maybe the damned year!

Bring Back Shame... Please.

I know we spent decades telling people not to be ashamed of themselves, and that was probably very kind and progressive of us.

But I think we may have overcorrected.

Nobody is ashamed of anything anymore.

People film themselves crying in supermarket car parks. They announce their “personal journey” because they stopped eating bread for four days. They share photographs of surgical wounds, marital arguments and the contents of their children’s nappies.

Nothing is private. Nothing is embarrassing. Nothing is too stupid to upload.

Years ago, if you behaved like an idiot in public, you went home and hoped nobody had noticed. Now you go home, edit the footage, add dramatic music and upload it in three parts.

“Part Two coming tomorrow!”

No. Please don’t.

Shame used to perform a useful social function. It stopped people from singing loudly in cafés, giving medical advice despite working in real estate, and describing themselves as “public figures” because 312 people followed them on TikTok. Don't get me started in "influencers"

It kept your personal business personal.

Now, every bowl you dish up is a podcast.

We don’t need the brutal, soul-destroying shame of the olden days. I’m not suggesting we ring a bell and parade people through town.

I’m only suggesting a tiny amount.

Just enough to make someone pause before posting a photograph of themselves attached to a drip with the caption, “Don’t ask.”

Because you know perfectly well, we’re going to ask.

That’s why you bloody posted it.

Your Trauma Is Not a Free Pass to Be an Arsehole

Apparently, once you’ve had a difficult childhood, a toxic relationship, an unpleasant divorce or a mother who didn’t hug you enough, or cut the crusts off your peanut butter sandwich, you are no longer responsible for anything you do for the rest of your natural life.

You can lie, manipulate, scream at people, destroy relationships and generally behave like an absolute arsehole—and the moment somebody objects, you simply announce that you have trauma.

Conversation over.

Now, I’m not saying trauma isn’t real. Of course it is. Most people have been damaged by something. Some far more than others. Life has a remarkable ability to run over you, reverse, and then come back for another go. Hell. I should know! 29 brain operations and counting and 3 ex-husbands!

But trauma may explain why you behave badly. It doesn’t give you permission to keep doing it.

At some point, you have to stop handing your childhood the steering wheel. You’re an adult now. If you know your behaviour hurts people, then it becomes your responsibility to do something about it. Get help. Learn better habits. Apologise without adding, “But you made me…”

Because that isn’t an apology. That’s just blame wearing a little apology hat.

We seem to have confused understanding someone with excusing them. You can understand why a dog bites and still not let it loose in a childcare centre. Yet with people, we are expected to tolerate almost anything once a sufficiently tragic backstory has been produced.

Everyone has a backstory.

The person you’re treating badly probably has one too.

Trauma deserves compassion. It deserves patience, support and proper treatment. But it does not entitle anyone to spend the rest of their life creating trauma for everybody else.

Eventually, you have to take responsibility for the person you have become.

Even if it isn’t entirely your fault that you became them.

Where the Hell Did Everybody Go?

A few days ago, 2,500 people were reading my blog every day.

Now there are 200.

Two hundred!

Apparently, I have gone from being mildly interesting to someone people actively cross the road to avoid.

I don’t know what happened. Did the internet hold a meeting? Was there a vote? Did 2,300 people collectively decide, Well, that’s enough of her?

It’s quite unsettling. When thousands of people arrive, you start to think you’ve finally cracked it. You imagine your blog spreading across the world. People in America are laughing over breakfast. Someone in Brazil is translating your wisdom. Hollywood may call at any moment.

Then you check the statistics the next day and discover you’re performing to a nearly empty room with one bloke asleep near the back.

Blogging is a strange business. You can spend hours writing something thoughtful about politics, ageing or the gradual collapse of civilisation—and twelve people read it.

Then you write two paragraphs about being sick, forgetting where you put your drink or producing an alarming amount of mucus, and thousands turn up.

Perhaps I’ve been trying too hard.

Maybe nobody wants insight. Maybe they want to know whether I’ve fallen over, forgotten something important or developed a suspicious rash.

So, to the 200 people who are still here—thank you. You are either exceptionally loyal or you haven’t worked out how to unsubscribe.

And to the missing 2,300:

Where the hell are you?

I’m prepared to become ill again.

Practice Makes… Noise

We had our first proper band practice.

Well, I use the words band and practice rather generously.

There were only two of us actually in the same room. The rest joined us through Skype from various parts of Australia, which sounds terribly modern and impressive until everyone starts playing. There was a delay, somebody couldn’t hear somebody else, one person appeared to be playing half a song behind us, and occasionally Skype froze someone with their mouth open.

It was an absolute dog’s breakfast—which, considering we’re called the Dog Latin Musical Collective, may be entirely appropriate.

And we sounded awful.

Not charmingly rough. Not raw and undiscovered. Just awful.

But we are new. We’re scattered across the country, we’re still learning the songs, and some of us—me—are still trying to remember which way up the ukulele goes.

Still, for one glorious, badly timed moment, we sounded almost like a band.

Then Skype froze again.

Trump Has Decided America Needs More Water

Donald Trump has apparently decided the United States isn’t big enough.

It already has 50 states, more than 340 million people, thousands of nuclear weapons and a military budget large enough to buy God a helicopter. But still, something is missing.

The Strait of Hormuz.

Yes, Trump has suggested that America could simply designate one of the world’s most important waterways as American territory. Because apparently international borders now work like Facebook Marketplace: if you see something you like, you just message the owner and ask, “Is this still available?”

Perhaps he was looking at a map and thought it was an oddly shaped golf course.

“I’ll take that narrow blue bit there. Very strategic. Great location. Needs a clubhouse.”

At this rate, no geographical feature is safe. The English Channel should probably change its locks. The Mediterranean might wake up one morning with a Trump Resort sign floating in it. Australia had better keep quiet about the Great Barrier Reef or Eric will arrive with a tape measure.

Trump seems to approach international diplomacy the way a toddler approaches a toy box. Everything belongs to him, and if anybody disagrees, he threatens to knock the entire box over.

The alarming part is that nobody appears able to tell whether he is joking.

That’s the Trump dilemma. Is this an official foreign policy announcement, an improvised threat, or something he thought of while watching television and eating a cheeseburger?

Nobody knows.

Including, I suspect, Trump.

There must be exhausted government officials following him around with maps, legal textbooks and blood-pressure medication.

“No, Mr President, you can’t just claim the Strait of Hormuz.”

“Why not?”

“Because other countries are there.”

“Move them.”

He has turned the presidency into a long-running reality television program called Who Wants to Start a Global Crisis?

Every episode begins with Trump making an announcement. Then the stock market collapses, several diplomats develop facial tics, and Fox News explains that this is all part of an extremely clever plan nobody else is intelligent enough to understand.

Perhaps tomorrow he’ll annex the moon.

It has excellent branding potential. Trump Moon. Gold letters visible from Earth. Entry restricted to billionaires, family members and anyone prepared to say he invented gravity.

At least the moon is currently uninhabited.

Although, given the direction things are heading, I’m considering moving there.

T-Shirts! I have one! Woohoo

Well, I've ordered one. Just to see what they're like. I have to work out if the ones I've ordered are 'the ones'. And work out the cost... But at least I've begun the process! I'll be the only one wearing a "Dating A Hunchback" t-shirt!

They Aint Kidding!!

I thought given how many visitors I get each month on here, perhaps I should do some hats or something equally as groovy. But my God! It's not easy! They want your first born or equivalent. 

First, you have to choose the type of hat; which I'll admit to not being a fashion icon, so I thought a beanie. But that made the logo look ugly. So, then I went for a bucket hat.

Freaking hell. There must be 50 styles of bucket hats with 50 colours.

So, I have stuffed around on here all morning trying to find a bucket hat that's just right! And I did...

Problem was that after getting the logo large enough dpi, and sorting through the colors it works on; not to mention wheedling out the mistakes (beanie) - then I had to go to a store and order it!

After 3 hours looking and working, I decided it was too hard, so I've abandoned it for the day. Means I get to practice my ukulele instead!

Merchandise... Do I Really Want It?

Just thinking out loud! 😀

I'm Just A Singer In A Rock And Roll Band...

Who the hell sang that song? Was it The Moody Blues? (Showing my age.) I’ll look it up later!

I remember going to see them when I was pregnant with my second baby. I took my mother because my husband had left me for some skank he worked with and moved to Queensland.

Do I sound bitter? I don’t mean to be. Oh, I hated him by then. I used to go to bed and pray that he’d get killed while he was out drunk one night. My chances were reasonable; he was an awful drunk and was that way most of the time.

Oh well!

Life, as they say, moves on.

Bloody hell. Now I’ve forgotten what I was going to blog about!

Oh—that’s right. The band.

Apparently, I’ve got to practice; which I'm not great at... and some of us are still trying to remember which chord comes after C.

I thought being in a band involved turning up, playing a few songs and perhaps drinking something afterwards.

It does not.

There are songs to choose, chords to learn, rehearsals to organise, photographs to take, blogs to write, logos to design and people living thousands of kilometres apart who somehow need to sound as though they’re all in the same room.

It’s practically a full-time job—and nobody is paying me.

Still, after everything life has thrown at me, being in a slightly chaotic rock and roll band seems like a rather good place to have ended up.

Even if I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing.

Being in a Band Is Apparently a Full-Time Job

I always thought being in a band involved playing music.

Apparently, it involves group messages, photographs, logos, blogs, song lists, rehearsals, travel arrangements and trying to find one weekend when everyone is available.

The actual music seems almost incidental.

Our band, Dog Latin Musical Collective, sounds very impressive on paper. We have guitarists, ukulele players, a cellist, violinist and percussion. In reality, half of us are trying to remember which song we agreed to learn, and I am hoping nobody notices that my ukulele contribution remains largely decorative.

Distance doesn’t help. Some of us live in Geelong, others in Melbourne, Queensland and Western Australia. A casual rehearsal therefore requires the organisational skills of an international summit.

Then there are the promotional photographs and the blog, which I manage because I am apparently the least musical and had to make myself useful. We now have logos, mugshots and criminal aliases despite not yet having played a proper gig.

Being in a band is about 10% music and 90% administration.

But I bloody love it. I love the ridiculousness, the laughter and the excitement of hearing a song slowly come together.

One day, we may even get around to playing some music.

Hard To Be Glamours While Puking...

I have been sick with unusual frequency this year. And Hell; I'm not at the age of 'on my last legs' yet! I just joined a rock band!!! 

I'm just barely getting over a two-week cold when low and behold; I get a weird energy thing, lack of hunger and puking when I did eat.

It's beginning to annoy me. 

Stupid brain told me that after 29 brain operations - and probably more since I have them every couple of years... that I had done sickness to death. I would be exempt from other sicknesses.  Sadly, that is proving to not be the case.  I seriously do not know why I listen to it. It's been out of action 29 times! Time 10 was a doozey! I put me out of action for years!

So thinking about it... I have a weak thing. Other people have a weak arm or leg. Not me. I've got to go straight for the brain. 

I had meningitis when I was young... Brain

I had shingles when I was about 20... On the head!

And 29 brain operations!

That should be enough.

And I lack any energy at all. My ukulele sits in my bedroom, staring at me. Wondering why I've not practiced.

Maybe tomorrow.

Hopefully tomorrow...

I Love Being In A Band!

And it isn't about the chicks...

It just sounds groovier.

Not that I can play an instrument. Not with any great success anyhow... Believe me; I've tried. At present, I'm learning the ukulele through my girlfriend (and another band member) who is a regular Hitler if I don't practice.

I've had a piano for years. I tried learning it; really tried. Went to lessons and everything. To no avail. 

We have a bucket load of instruments in this house. Guitars. Ukuleles. Harmonicas. Mandolins. Even a bloody Tamborine. One of our spare rooms is a music room for God sakes.

And I can't play anything... Yet.  But I sure look damned groovy!

Dog Latin Musical Collective

It is amusing to think that my motley crew of friends, and some blow ins - want to create a band. :)  A real live band with gigs and logos and pics of us etc...

Really! 

We are calling ourselves 'Dog Latin Musical Collective' - which is a great name (I didn't come up with it). 

We have three guitarists, 2 Ukelalea players (who one of them, Me, is shit - but I've been practicing...) We have a celloist, a violinist, percussion.  Sounds fancy hey?

Trouble is we live in Geelong. Some of us live in Melbourne (not too far) but some of us live in Queensland (1376 km) and Western Australia (2725 km). 

So travelling is nothing to be sneezed at...

Being the least musical of us, I've been doing the blog:)  

That's right; another bloody blog!

And getting the photos for it has been a laugh! Here is mine and my girlfriends...  PS I'm the one on the right! The redhead is my best friend.

If you're interested, we've only just started it. 

You can see it be born...

Dog Latin

Oh, The Bloody Drama!

Driving back from down the coast yesterday, I decided to get a conversion for my car so that my phone works apple car play without being plugged into the stupid car!

Should be easy right?

Nothing is ever easy!

Now I came online looking for an Apple Carplay retro fit and I've found several ranging in price... But the year... My car is about 2 years old; so, I have to be careful. 

Then I see a line that says "MZD-Connect CMU Software version 70.00.021A, 70.00.100A or later must be installed BEFORE these parts are fitted."

WTF?

How the Hell and I supposed to find out what software version is in it? Well I can log into Mazda and find out... But then I hope I haven't updated it sometime over the last two years!

Knowing me, I probably did!

Modern Life Requires Too Many Passwords

I currently have approximately four thousand and fifty-three passwords, and apparently none of them is correct.

Every website insists that I create a unique password containing at least twelve characters, one capital letter, one number, one symbol and what appears to be the blood of a medieval prince.

I create it. I carefully save it. I return three days later.

“Incorrect password.”

Well, one of us is lying.

I remember a time when I had one password. It probably contained the dog’s name and the year I was born, and it worked perfectly well for everything. Nobody demanded punctuation. Nobody insisted I change it every six weeks. Nobody warned me that the password I had just invented had appeared in a data breach somewhere in Eastern Europe.

Now, every part of modern life requires its own elaborate security arrangement. Banking, shopping, streaming television, paying bills, making medical appointments and ordering a pizza all require separate accounts. I cannot buy a pair of socks without first creating a profile, verifying my email address and proving I’m not a robot.

Frankly, a robot would have given up by now.

Passwords must never be reused, which is reasonable advice if you are the sort of person capable of remembering 146 unrelated combinations of letters, numbers and punctuation. I am not. I can walk into a room and forget why I went there. The chances of me remembering whether my electricity account ends in an exclamation mark or an ampersand are extremely poor.

The websites aren’t helping.

“Your password must include a special character.”

I add one.

“Your password cannot include that special character.”

I try another.

“Your new password cannot be similar to a previous password.”

Of course it’s similar. I created both of them. There is a limit to how many original works I can produce simply to check my gas bill.

Eventually, I invent something so complicated that no hacker could possibly guess it. Unfortunately, neither can I.

That is when the password reset process begins.

First, I must enter my email address. Then the website announces that it has sent me a verification code. I leave the page to check my email, copy the code and return, only to discover that the page has refreshed and forgotten the entire conversation.

We begin again.

Sometimes the code arrives instantly. Sometimes it arrives twenty minutes later, long after it has expired. Sometimes four codes arrive together and I have to determine which one remains valid through a process normally associated with bomb disposal.

Then there are security questions.

“What was the name of your first pet?”

That should be easy, except I can’t remember whether I entered the dog’s actual name, a nickname or something deliberately false because a security expert once warned me that strangers might know too much about my childhood.

“What was the model of your first car?”

I remember the car. What I don’t remember is whether I typed Honda, Honda Prelude or “unreliable red death trap.”

None of these systems seem designed to keep criminals out. They seem designed to keep me out.

Even when I know the password, technology remains suspicious. My phone looks directly at my face and decides it has never seen me before. Apparently, facial recognition is perfectly capable of identifying international criminals in a crowded airport but becomes confused if I change my glasses.

My computer then asks whether I would like it to remember the password. Yes. Absolutely. That is the entire reason I own a computer. I would like it to remember everything I no longer can.

So I click “save.”

The next time I visit, it remembers nothing.

Occasionally, it produces three different passwords for the same account, none of which work. I don’t know where they came from. Perhaps my computer has started creating passwords recreationally.

And we’re told to use password managers, which store all our passwords behind one master password. This is a wonderful solution, provided we can remember the master password. If we forget that, we haven’t merely misplaced one key; we’ve locked ourselves out of the entire building.

I understand that security matters. I don’t want criminals accessing my bank account, stealing my information or ordering twelve televisions in my name. But there must be a point at which protecting my identity stops requiring me to prove it seventeen times a day.

Every morning, another device wants a password. Another company sends a code. Another website asks me to select every square containing a traffic light. I select them carefully, only to be presented with bicycles, bridges and blurry objects that may or may not be buses.

Apparently, I’m not qualified to confirm that I’m human.

At this point, I’m no longer worried about hackers stealing my identity.

They’re welcome to it.

Perhaps they can work out the password.