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Because the sound – which is a short, dulled tap on reinforced glass made by the beaks of piping shrikes come one at a time to sit on the window sill and peck at the insects into which said shrikes have put no personal harvesting effort beyond that required to balance on the window sill which, despite being part of the contemporary extension and not of the bluestone original, is not a particularly narrow or unstable one – is, even now, after three years of living here, the kind of sound which makes me jump and wonder but what was that and so is the kind of sound I would forget were I not reminded of it every day, because of that, I will leave the cobwebs on the outside window frames.

You know that eight things meme? The one where you have to tell the interwebs eight things about yourself?

Well, I’m not doing that. But I’ve been overcome with the urge to let you know that I really used to love Knot’s Landing. I feel it is the most underrated of all the eighties soaps. It was heeeaaaps better than Dallas ever was. Especially when it was on at eleven o’clock on Sunday night and I had nothing to get up for on Monday morning except Chinese lectures and I’d already missed so many of those that missing another one wouldn’t hurt. I got a lot of knitting done in those days. And no, knitting wasn’t funky then.

Did I ever tell you that my first trip overseas was to China? From Port Pirie to China via Adelaide. The person in charge of us introduced us to some people who did the dubbing of television shows and that’s how I came to meet the woman who was the Chinese voice of Alexis Carrington-Colby. And that was good. But I would have preferred to meet the voice of Valene. Me and my mum used to say ‘va’alene’ a lot and then roll on the floor in fits of laughter. Sometimes we discussed politics and that, but it was more fun to say va’alene.

When I was eleven (or possibly eight, it feels like those were the years when I was at my most unbearable), I told my mother we would no longer celebrate Mother’s Day as it was a commercial conspiracy and isn’t that why we didn’t have a dishwasher and wasn’t that the reason she wouldn’t convince my father to join Rotary so that she could be a Rotary-ann. As you can see, I had a broad but unsophisticated understanding of my mother’s politics.

In hindsight, that was a short-sighted decision on my part.

And in hindsight, I can see my mother’s inward grin.

So, Happy Mother’s Day Mum. I’ll think of you while I’m not unwrapping my new dressing gown.

Today I shall be drinking less red wine and finding the thing which is making the fridge smell like the bin.

Hello all you people directed here by your google searches for ‘Nicole Cornes’. And my goodness what a lot of you there are. Welcome.

So, since you asked, my gripe is not a personal one with Nicole Cornes. I think I’ve pointed that out. I don’t know her from a bar of soap except via the columns I can no longer bear to read. No, it’s not personal.

My gripe is with a political party that has so little respect for the punters that it will put up someone because they think she has a profile (I really do think we should lose this ‘celebrity’ tag – Susan Sarandon is a celebrity), rather than someone who thinks about political things. For example, my interpretation of her answer to the tariffs question in the paper yesterday is that she isn’t entirely sure what a tariff is. Which is something I picked up in year eleven economics and the average student would surely stumble across it over the course of a law degree.

I feel that Nicole has been let down by the ALP as has the electorate. Why on earth was she spoken to on Friday morning then splashed across the papers on Sunday? Induction and training, peeps. Successful HR tools.

Apparently, Mr Rudd is now too embarrassed to come and visit us this week! And I can just hear the phone conversation between the Kevins right now ‘Kevin? It’s Kevin here. Yeah, the one who masterminded such candidates as Maxine McKew in John Howard’s electorate. A word in your shell-like if you’ve got a moment…’. (can’t find the article online, you’ll have to look in the hard copy of the paper).
Nicole, if that’s you, I won’t think any less of you if you change your mind and decide not to run. Bloody hell, I would have changed my mind by now. I’ve had ideas which I thought were good and ended up being quite shit. The repurcussions weren’t so public, but there you go.

I wish I could introduce you to my mum. She’d have some very wise words for you, I’m sure. Anyhoo, that is all I have to say on the matter. For now.

Youse with the gov.au ISP addresses should get back to work now. But before you do, do have a bit more of a look around the blog, – just down there a bit, you’ll see I’m looking for a phone charger with specific requirements. If you know where I can find one, you will let me know, won’t you?

I forgot to tell you, I’ve written a new blogopera entry on my other blog adelaide sprawls.

There is a new blogopera entry.

The wikipedia entry on Sleeping Beauty, has a spoiler warning – plot and/or ending details follow.

I don’t know what – if anything – to make of that.

At this time of the year, I do like footy tipping competitions. About half way through the season, they become a bit less compelling as I realise I can’t win. And after that, there’s too much talk by the people who take it all too serious. The ones who coulda, shoulda, woulda spend too much time making excuses and the ones who sit at the top, but could tumble any week get all defensive about but she* didn’t lodge them with the tipmeister until 5.05 on Friday and the rules clearly state…

So, since the fun bit is in picking the teams, I will – for as long as I have interest in it – be posting my picks for the week. Feel free to join in. Or not.

Week Three

Bombers

Power

Bulldogs

Dockers

Swans

Cats

Kangaroos

I will not pick between Tigers and Magpies as they are both completely untrustworthy in winning/losing terms and I will not enter into it.

*Because for some reason, having a woman at the top of the footy tipping table is still seen as something to marvel at, and too often, it seems to make the person-who-isn’t-quite-winningget a bit defensive, despite the fact that it is pretty obvious after all these years that women can win footy tipping competitions. And anyway, it is very silly indeed to take footy tipping serious, whoever is winning. Because, after all, actually playing footy and picking winners are two completely different things. Footy tipping competitions are level playing fields. You don’t actually need to know anything to pick winners – you could even spend years in New Zealand and still return to great success in a footy tipping competition.

ThirdCat tried to beta herself and it really didn’t work.

You will find her in a slight pickle, but much less of a grump over here.

This blog will stay for a while, but wordpress can’t import beta blogger yet.

A piece of advice which you can take or leave as you will: don’t jump to beta just yet, however seductive the labels might be.