Yesterday was the day for loud conversations on public transport. In the morning it was a LOUD discussion of how teens/20s conversant was so drunk (on the weekend, I’m guessing, or some time in the recent past), she was ‘lying vertical to the stairs’ (I’m not sure how that works) and had ‘a huge bruise from my hip to my arse, I’ll show you when I get to school’. Also how, although she had been working in the same job on a Friday evening for 18 months, she forgot last Friday that she had to work. OMG. The man opposite her was wincing at her moronic pronouncements I tried to catch his eye in sympathy but he was wincing too much to want to notice.

On the way back it was a woman probably my age talking to ‘Darl’ – her cockatoo I suppose – regarding ‘are you on this train?’ I mean, really, where would we be without mobile phones? Hamstrung, in limbo, frustrated, unable to talk to people 20 minutes before we see them face-to-face.

Watching Underbelly the last few nights I have been interested to note the one big important way that you can tell the story takes place in the recent past is the size of their mobiles. It must have been hard to pick the right-sized mobile that would have credibility yet not bring forth howls of contempt and derision from the viewing audience. Oh my god, a brick! The guy that plays Carl Williams is tremendous, in fact most of the cast is really good; so nice to see Les Hill back in action after all this time. I am mildly aggrieved by the gratuitous breast shots (not Les’s) which seem terribly 70s but I guess the alternative – discreetly placed sheets etc – might also seem contrived, it’s hard to be sure. I am also not entirely sure what to make of the sex scene in the ecstacy pill kitchen with the embracing couple and the pill press popping out pink tabs – is this a metaphor or just something that happened? The eternal question in all textual analysis (as we used to beseech our long-suffering though not really to be sympathised with literature teacher at the end of high school, why can’t a story just be a story???).

Last night April came over to wreak a bit of jovial havoc, so it’s lucky we love her. The noodle soup Mia made was too spicy (she added two small chillies from the garden, which packed an amazing punch) for a -2 year old, so I made her a bagel with Slovakian plum jam on it which I ended up eating most of, which suited me though I was interested in how you can make a child eat something at least temporarily in small bursts just by showing her that you’re eating it. That has to be primal. Then we went through many funny charades, many of which revolved around picking up things, identifying whose they were and then passing them to that person. I don’t unenjoy this rather safe play, though you do end up with a bit of a pile of ‘your’ stuff before long. I always feel selfconscious playing with a small child, I think because when I was a small child I always felt patronised and let down by adults generally, there was a miscommunication overall. That’s how I remember it anyway. Probably these were only isolated incidents.

The new Verlaines album Potboiler is really, really good. I played it once a week or so ago and liked the music. When April and her parents whatstheirnames came over last night we had it on and it sounded even better. I think the much less provocative/oblique lyrics Graeme Downes produces these days compared with early Verlaines take some getting used to for some of us but on the whole, the thing sounds terrific and third listening will, I suspect, have me totally hooked. Also we played a bit of Fairport Convention beforehand which was probably the best kind of appetiser you could have. Mia is now reading Joe Boyd’s White Bicycles.

I went to the library yesterday for the first time in yonks (I had a big fine there, which I came to realise on facing up to it was much less big than I had thought it would be) and borrowed the life of Jade Hurley (he can’t have it back till I’m finished with it), Barry Crocker, Silverchair (Jeff Apter’s book which came out before Young Modern) and a book by the humorist Tony Martin whose work I have often admired. Martin is an interesting individual in lots of ways and one of those ways is that his humour is (usually or often) subtle and in another country he might be a kind of David Sedaris contemporary, yet for us he works in the mainstream. I suppose in the US, DS works in the mainstream too so what am I talking about. What I mean is Martin – like a lot of people in Australian showbiz – gets away with pretty sophisticated work and does very well in very mainstream areas up against much dumber humour just by not making a big thing of it.

Trip to work this morning (on which I wrote the above) was under an hour door-to-door, which is a good result in my opinion. The only irritant was attempting to buy a ticket in three different places (this is not an exaggeration) and only managing it on the fourth. No skin off my nose though in the final analysis.

PS Later 19/3: I finished reading the Martin book, called Lolly Scramble, and was most impressed. There is a backdrop of, if not tragedy, then something close to it, behind a lot of these somewhat mundane, but humorously told, anecdotes. And I sure identify with Martin's nerdy, fannish inclinations.

state of play

Well, one great thing about today was that it was payday. I have been unfinancial for about a week now a situation partially related to waiting on a massive expenses claim. Which I am still waiting on but in the meantime I got paid for my hard work. I am savouring the moment right now and in fact have no intention of going on a spree unless you count dinner at some inner city hotel this evening to launch a young couple of our acquaintance on one of those international trips they seem to go on every two months, for 6 weeks at a time.

I have to don my flash overalls for a time and do some more digging, as (a) I want the hole to be dug and (2) I don't want those muscles, such as they are, to atrophy.

Fiona Negrin gave me a bunch of old fanzines, including some I did in the 80s, and it's been a really interesting read. I was particularly intrigued by reading a report I had done for someone else's fanzine about my trip to the UK in, I think, about 1990. It was interesting chiefly because I remembered nothing at all about the events related in the piece, though the events themselves were terribly boring (and I've already forgotten what they were - something about an argument I witnessed on a bus between a white woman and a black man, she was accusing him of stealing her sister's money or something). Also a few issues of the long-running Adelaide fanzine DNA which incidentally is still going. Actually, this is weird:

(1) Last week I was directed to a website which sold a few Australian rock books that looked interesting. I realised this was operated by Harry Butler, the editor of DNA
(2) On Wednesday on my way to Korean class I dropped in at Sticky to get the latest issue of Erinsborough exploits and on the top shelf were a bunch of recent issues of DNA
(3) Then I get these fanzines from Fiona and there are three issues of DNA

No offense at all meant to Harry Butler or his excellent publication, but I hadn't thought about him or it for years. Come to think of it how could that not be offensive? Except that if you always thought about everyone you ever met or knew of, you'd need an extra head. I would anyway.

Now I am listening to the La Femme album. I can't remember why I never got this the first time around but it is really, really good except the crappy 'I wanna be your man' which I think we could all do without.

making a difference

I have been digging a hole.



Mia dug most of it, fyi, and I have only recently begun paying attention to its form and function. When it is done she will put her studio in it. One might envisage a kind of Ciao Manhattan! kinda thing but no, not like that.

I am unused to physical exertion of any sort aside from furrowing of brow over difficult issues, so this has been a major trauma similar to the intellectuals' apres Cultural Revolution, a ghastly enterprise that I should not be joking about, except the joke is of course primarily against myself, fyi.

The neighbours have got involved by deciding to mow the fuck out of their lawn giving me a mower headache to add to the aches 'n' pains of muscles which never even knew they existed previously. Who would have thought digging would be so tuff. At least I get to do a lot of resting (and I get to wear my new King Gee overalls which were purchased *new* from a Dapto Salvos' and are from the 70s - I know because (1) they are made in Australia and (2) they had a guide for converting imperial to metric on the plastic they came in).