‘So,’ Adelaide said, because there was a commercial break in Grey’s Anatomy and it was awfully silent with the mute button on, ‘which do you reckon is more wrong? Danii Minogue judging a talent quest…’
‘Yes, that’s pretty wrong,’ the mister said adjusting the cushion so that it rested more firmly in the small of his back.
‘Or,’ Adelaide continued, ‘the cultural references in the dingo enclosure of that theme park we visited last week…’
She flashed him a photo to refresh his memory:
‘Yes, even I with a mind which does not search everything I see for allegory, metaphor or symbolism found that immediately disturbing…’ he said. Then sniffed.
‘Or…’ she continued, but then stopped as she gave yet another shallow, but irritating cough, ‘that ad* in today’s classifieds which ends A great place to start your life sentence‘?
The mister’s bloodshot eyes looked into hers.
‘Couldn’t you just ask me whether I’d prefer green tea or jasmine?’ he asked. Then sneezed. Then pulled another tissue out of the box. And she marvelled, as she had often had cause to do, that despite its larger proportions, his nose, once blown, never went quite as red as hers.
*short explanation for those of you not from round here this event will be held in the old Gaol a place I must blog for you in more detail.
‘Adelaide Gaol Speed Dating’ ?
Oh, where to begin, where to begin … yes yes, I know it’s the Old Gaol, but one could just as easily end up joined at the hip to some sort of ghost creature.
Re the dingo, what have I missed? This is some sort of Chamberlainish thing, isn’t it, but a trashed FJ (hard to tell, but that’s what it looks like) suggests to me more of a sort of a Sunday Too Far Away sort of a thing.
‘Adelaide Gaol Speed Dating’ ?
Oh, where to begin, where to begin … yes yes, I know it’s the Old Gaol, but one could just as easily end up joined at the hip to some sort of ghost creature.
Re the dingo, what have I missed? This is some sort of Chamberlainish thing, isn’t it, but a trashed FJ (hard to tell, but that’s what it looks like) suggests to me more of a sort of a Sunday Too Far Away sort of a thing.
The Chamberlain thing and…but you know looking at the photo again, maybe it isn’t as bad as we thought it was…having come straight from the assault and insult that was Wiggles World we were perhaps a little more sensitive than we needed to be.
Perhaps, as my friends suggested, I took the whole day too seriously as I tried to explain to them that I thought the ‘nightmares’ experience (a kind of haunted house where you had to walk yourself through) was drawing too heavily on our current understandings of nightmares as terrorists/terrorism. I said that the people who had designed the ‘nightmares’ room and the characters and the costumes had been using Guantanamo Bay as their cultural reference point. They said perhaps the ‘nightmares’ had been designed for people around half my age (and I would agree that I was the oldest person I saw) who just want to scare the pants off themselves. I tell you, it left me off kilter for days.
Having said that, there were a couple of rides we really enjoyed. A lot. And I went on a roller coaster which is something I have never done before.