Sandra Bullock’s Love Life Deserves a Refund

Sandra Bullock is beautiful, talented, funny, rich, successful and apparently cursed in the romantic department.

You would think being Sandra Bullock might protect you from life’s usual parade of disappointing men. Surely, once you’ve won an Oscar and become America’s sweetheart, the universe should stop sending you emotional potholes disguised as husbands.

But no. The universe gave her Jesse James.

Sandra married Jesse in 2005 and appeared genuinely besotted with him. Then, in 2010, shortly after she won the Oscar for The Blind Side, it emerged that he had been cheating on her.

Because apparently having Sandra Bullock waiting at home wasn’t enough. Perhaps he was holding out for the Queen of Sweden and a complimentary motorbike.

Jesse later admitted his infidelity, apologised and sought treatment for sex addiction. Sandra recently described that period as “really dark.” At the same time, she was secretly trying to protect her newly adopted baby, Louis, from the paparazzi. She once concealed him in a zipped hockey bag to get him safely past photographers.

Imagine winning an Oscar, discovering your husband is a prize-winning prick, becoming a new mother and smuggling your baby around like sporting equipment.

Jesse later said cheating was simply “part of life.” So is diarrhoea, Jesse, but nobody puts it in their wedding vows.

Sandra eventually escaped that wreckage and found love again with photographer Bryan Randall. By all accounts, he was kind, steady and devoted to Sandra and her children. He wasn’t collecting mistresses or turning her pain into a public circus. He simply loved her.

Naturally, because fate has all the subtlety of a brick through a window, Bryan was diagnosed with ALS.

They kept his illness private at his request, leaving Sandra to carry much of the grief quietly. Bryan died in 2023 at just 57 after a three-year battle with the disease.

She lost the good man after surviving the appalling one.

There is something particularly cruel about that. First, she gets the man who breaks her heart through selfishness. Then she finds the man who helps mend it, only to lose him through no fault of either of them. It’s the sort of storyline a film producer would reject for being excessively miserable.

And yet Sandra Bullock is still standing.

Her love life wasn’t horrible because she chose badly every time. She chose badly once. Most of us have done that, although thankfully ours didn’t usually make international headlines.

Then she chose well—and life was horrible anyway.

Jesse James was a prick.

Bryan Randall was a tragedy.

And Sandra Bullock deserved a much happier ending.  Just saying...

Apple Has Finally Fixed the Boyfriend

Apple has unveiled its new foldable iPhone Duo, and it will apparently cost around $3,500. That is quite a lot of money for a telephone, particularly when mine is mainly used for checking Facebook, deleting scam messages and taking fantastic photographs of the cat.

However, this is not merely a phone. According to news.com.au, it contains a revolutionary new feature aimed at solving one of the greatest problems facing modern women: boyfriends who cannot take a decent photograph.

The phone has something called Duo Preview. When somebody is taking your picture, you can see exactly what they are seeing on a screen on the back. You can therefore direct the entire operation yourself.

“No, move back.”

“Not that far.”

“Hold it higher.”

“Higher.”

“Good God, not directly underneath my chin.”

This means men can no longer claim that they simply aren’t good at taking photographs. Weaponised incompetence has finally met its match, and it costs only slightly less than a second-hand car.

For years, women have handed their phones to their partners and received 47 photographs in return. In twelve of them, their eyes are closed. Seven include a nearby rubbish bin. Fourteen are taken from an angle that makes them look like a garden gnome guarding a wheelie bin. The rest are mostly photographs of the ground because he pressed the button while handing the phone back.

Men, meanwhile, remain mystified by the dissatisfaction.

“What’s wrong with that one?”

My head is missing, Graham.

“You can still see most of you.”

The new phone will allow women to monitor the shot in real time, which should make romantic holidays especially relaxing. Boyfriends will now spend sunset standing six metres away with a $3,500 phone while their partners shout detailed instructions about angles, lighting and whether one thigh looks strangely wider than the other.

Golden hour will become golden forty-five minutes.

The phone may also destroy the popular boyfriend defence of taking deliberately terrible photographs so he is never asked again. This technique has been used successfully for generations. A man performs one domestic task so catastrophically that everybody quietly agrees he should never be allowed near it again. Unfortunately, Apple has now closed the photography loophole.

Even more terrifyingly, the new Apple Watch reportedly has a Live Rewind feature that can record and transcribe the previous 15 seconds of conversation. At last, couples will be able to settle the ancient argument:

“I never said that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Hang on. I’ll check my wrist.”

Marriage counselling has officially entered the surveillance era.

I’m not convinced this will improve relationships. A healthy partnership requires trust, patience and occasionally pretending you didn’t hear what the other person muttered while loading the dishwasher. We do not need a watch preserving it as evidence.

Still, Apple deserves credit for identifying a gap in the market. We already have phones that recognise our faces, track our movements, monitor our sleep and know we want new boots before we do. It was only a matter of time before one began supervising our boyfriends.

I won’t be rushing out to buy the iPhone Duo. For $3,500, I don’t just want a good photograph. I want the phone to choose my outfit, apply my makeup, remove three kilos, repair the lighting and explain why I looked perfectly fine in the mirror five minutes earlier.

Until then, I’ll continue taking my own photographs.

At least I know where my good side is.

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.