Press ganged

The presence of anarchists at the G20 summit has been blamed for an outbreak of media in London.  According to police sources, a large and unruly mob of press photographers gathered at the scene of a violent protest and began to behave in a manner which endangered public safety. 

A member of the press corps, who wished to be identified, stated that in his opinion the presence of the anarchists was a provocation that the journalists were unable to resist. 

“If they hadn’t been protesting in a public place, many of the photographs simply would not have been taken.  I’m not saying that it’s their fault I’m just saying that the situation became a lot worse than it would have been if they hadn’t been there, practically in our faces.”  

Police had warned of the possibility of media violence but the anarchists and other protesters nevertheless went ahead.  

“It’s just irresponsible of the protesters to stir the press up like this” a police spokesman said.  “We knew that something like this could happen.  As soon as the spray-cans or banners come out, the journalists appear from nowhere.  Smashing the windows at the Royal Bank of Scotland was more than they could bear.  It just gets out of hand very quickly and before you know it the anarchists and radicals are being elbowed out of the way in the name of press freedom. ” 

“We tried to keep them within the designated media area but they had us out numbered.  Nowadays every idiot with a mobile phone thinks he works for CNN.  It’s getting harder and harder to stage a peaceful, violent, orderly, anarchical protest these days.”

Watching the detectives

Stephen Conroy appears on the ABC programme Q&A to discuss his controversial internet filtering plan.   More than 2000 questions are received via email, SMS and from audience members, and virtually every one of them is opposed to the filtering proposal.

Conroy:  I’m glad that’s over.  Get me a UDL will you?  Anything with vodka in it. 

What a bunch of lightweights.  Did you see Hunt?  Out of his depth.  Didn’t wear a tie thinking that would make him look cool.  Just made him look like he had borrowed his dad’s suit.  

What’s this about the list still having harmless sites on it??  I told those ACMA idiots to clean it up.

Minister Conroy’s media advisor (who Crikey.com is reliably informed is a nice guy who deserves better):  They did.  Here I can show you. 

I don’t want to see it. 

Why not?

Well, I’m sick of looking at it.  To be honest, it’s starting to affect me.  I can’t imagine what the actual sites are like. 

Do you want to see them?

No, of course not.  Are you kidding me?

It might help you speak with more authority.

What’s wrong with my authority?  Are you questioning my authority?

No, not at all.  I’m just saying that when people ask you what the sites are like you could say something like “They are appalling, I was appalled.  Any right thinking person would be appalled.”  Words to that effect.

That’s why we have the censorship board.  It’s their job to sit in a dark room being appalled for a living.  That’s why we pay them.

But you’re the politician.  It means more coming from you.  Plus you can wedge the libertarians.  Hunt won’t be able to touch you.  He can hardly say that he has checked out the sites – this is refused classification material.  He’d look like a sicko.

I can hardly say that looking at the sites is harmful if I then have to admit that I’ve looked at them.

It’s only harmful to the young and the vulnerable. 

Define “vulnerable”. 

Anyone who might be harmed by looking at it. 

And who might that be?

Well, the young.

And?

Anyone with a sensitivity to this sort of material.

Such as?

I don’t know, I’m not a psychiatrist.

So, someone with a psychiatric problem?

Or a sensitivity.   To this sort of material. 

The weak-minded? 

I suppose.

Self-abusers, that sort of thing? 

I’m being serious. 

So am I.   We are trying to protect people from themselves. 

We are just protecting the people from illegal, dangerous material.  I can’t believe we are having this discussion again.  You can’t back out now. 

The technical guys reckon it will slow internet speeds by 20%.  So much for Kevin’s broadband revolution.  

We’ll blame Telstra.  No-one will know the difference. 

Good point.  Get me another UDL will you?

doodleinacacoon?

BabbelOn loves patronising the arts.  In a respectful way of course. 

Unable to attend the recent Sydney Festival “All Tomorrow’s Parties” spectacular on Cockatoo Island (owing to a bout of anticipatory sea-sickness), BabbelOn nevertheless perused the line-up and did manage to uncover a few musical gems. 

First up – jump to Afrirampo:

Described by All Tomorrow’s Parties mainman Barry Hogan as having one of the two greatest live shows ever to appear at ATP (Lightning Bolt being the other), Afrirampo are in their own words… “Naked rock!!!!! Naked soul!!! Red red strong red dress!! Freeeeeeeeedam.  Paradise rock! Jump! With improvisation.”  Afrirampo is…from Osaka. From Japan. From Space. Comprising one girl, Oni on guitar and another girl Pika on drums. They are, in their own words, “Sooo fantastic & wild performance wowowowowowowowowwoooooooooooowwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  Believe it.

After that, drink in the Sounds of Seduction:

The Sounds exists as an exotic oasis of music and dancing in a world parched by the dusty wind that blows off the desert of popular culture. Where genuine Go-Go girls strut their stuff, exciting the passions, urging the throng to dance more wildly.  Where swirling colours from Miss Death’s collection of vintage psychedelic projectors paint the crowd in paisley hues. Where the DJ tends a sonic jungle of rare species of vinyl from every time and place, spinning the most amazing mixes of funk, 60s pop, bachelor pad lounge, goth, Eurobeat, soundtracks and straight up rock’n’roll that ever teased your ears.

Be sure to push on to:

F#@k Buttons were conceived by Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power in the winter of 2004. Initially born as an outlet for their nihilistic-noise tendencies, they quickly realised they could harness the use of noise as a tool to immerse and evoke. No longer afraid of melody or rhythm, the group started fusing all these elements to the point when drone becomes melody becomes rhythm. Tribal beats and subtle beautiful melodies weave amongst contorting Technicolour dronescapes, while preaching distorted-vocals scream for dear hope herself. 

Lastly, get a big whiff of the piece de resistance:

Blue Mountains-based Passenger of Sh*t is a one-man music act, signed to his own label Sh*twank Records. He produces harsh and brutal electronic tracks and is quoted on his MySpace page: “I make dum erotic speedcore happy terrorcore /hardcore gabba / trendy f@#kwit breakcore tamborine core type dance music game core and sad core, screaming vox and harsh sh*t noise and other dum sh*t music.”  Passenger of Sh*t also belongs to the noise trio ‘Rancid Sh*t Wank’ and has released solo noise albums under the name doodleinacacoon.

If you like the sound of the F@#k Buttons, you can hear their actual sound here.  (Warning – you may want to scream for dear hope herself.)

The next ATP event will be held in July in Islamabad. 

Oz failure

BabbelOn has a confession to make.  It is not an easy one to share, even in the relative privacy of this comfy lounge room of a blog. 

BabbelOn enjoyed Australia. 

This over-produced (more than a dozen special effects companies are credited), over-marketed and over-budget film hit just the right note for your correspondent. 

Admittedly it had more cheese than Switzerland but so what?  Melodrama has been a legitimate genre since Gone With The Wind.  

The biggest box office of all time belongs to Titanic (of which screen writing guru Robert McKee said that the characters could not have been more obvious if they had cardboard signs around their necks.)  It took in a staggering US$1.8B. 

In fact, the top 100 is filled with block-busters bursting with hobbits, boy wizards, pirates, jedi knights and other superheroes.  Big stories for the big screen.  (Australia is 357 on the list with global takings of US$206M as at 20/3/09). 

In BabbelOn’s humble opinion, this is what movie theatre is about.  Drama, huge bloody drama.  Watching a romantic comedy in the cinema is like eating takeaway in a restaurant. 

Anyone who complains about having to spend two and a half hours gazing at Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman probably should see a doctor.   Nicole can say more with a close up than anyone who is not Cate Blanchett.   Hugh Jackman makes Daniel Craig and Brad Pitt look like girly men.  He is George Clooney with a spine. 

What has interested BabbelOn about Australia, however, is the need to confess to liking the film. 

The critics have been great in number and united in their thinly-veiled scorn. 

It has become fashionable in certain circles (BabbelOn hesitates to label them but is willing to run with ”liberal elites”) to express a sniggering disdain (the effect of which is slightly diluted by an implied admission of having actually paid to watch the film). 

One example that caught BabbelOn’s eye recently is the Sydney Morning Herald art critic John Macdonald, who deemed it necessary to work into one of his reviews (of the Archibald Prize) that he found Australia “embarrassing”. 

BabbelOn is intrigued by this admission.  Did Macdonald feel it necessary to go out of his way to maintain his liberal elite media credentials by dissing the film (as have seemingly all those who choose to comment on it) or was he actually embarrassed?

Presumably his embarrassment (assuming for the moment that it was real and not feigned) occurred while watching the film and not in admitting that he had seen it? 

One would have thought that an art critic would have a pretty thick skin.  He must have seen worse on the walls of galleries all over Surry Hills.  Or perhaps when it comes to film he is as sensitive as the rest of us.  (Surely no-one would be foolish enough to describe “Australia” as art.  Other than BabbelOn of course but that is putting the cart before the horse.)   We are left with the fearless Mr Macdonald sitting in a dark cinema, shifting uncomfortably as Hugh soaps up while Nicole peeps out from a tent flap. 

Embarrassment as an emotion implies a vested interest in a particular outcome.  So to be fair to Macdonald, he may have simply been feeling his disappointment (is shame too strong a word?) at the film not living up to his expectations. 

In this he could be described as a patriot, hoping that the eponymous movie would live up to its grand vision and be a serious, historically important rendering like, say, Gallipoli. 

Unfortunately, in his mind, it didn’t live up to the hype; the canvas was just too big, the colours too bright and the tone was all wrong.  His hopes were dashed and there he sat, uncomfortably, wondering how he could have been sucked in yet again by Baz Luhrmann.       

Disappointment is one thing.  We have all been there (see, for example, Burn After Reading).  Embarrassment, though, is quite another matter.  Why should a hard-heart like Macdonald feel shame at the results of an Australian artist’s considerable efforts?  After all, it is not as if there haven’t been any execrable Australian films in the last few years.  Mick Malloy has made a career out of them (it was his misfortune not to have been born in Illinois and named Rob Schneider). 

In fact, such embarrassment is not a new phenomenon and there is even a term for it.  Good old cultural cringe. 

BabbelOn does find it ironic that an Australian art critic should feel the need to publicly express his cringe. 

In truth, BabbelOn suspects that Mr Macdonald was simply following the lib-el-med herd in having a shot at the film. 

Baz Luhrmann must have the hide of a water buffalo. 

Obamaparty

The Obama Pre-Inauguration Party reminded BabbelOn of a Royal Variety Performance, if the Queen had been 47 not 87.

The contrast with the British, of course, is that the Americans really know how to throw a party, and have the talent to back it up.  No washed-up TV comics doing 90 second stand-ups or Eurovision Song contest winners. 

In fact, the only common factor between the Lincoln Memorial and the Albert Hall was the presence of royalty.  The Americans can out pomp the Poms and have a much younger and more charismatic king.  But groovy readers knew that already. 

The list of performers was impressive, from Aretha and Stevie to Bruce and Beyonce.  However, to your humble correspondent’s eyes there was a noticeable contrast between the artists that was, well, black and white.

What do Usher, Will I Am, Beyonce and Shakira have in common?  In a word, sexappeal.  What do Bruce, John Mellencamp, Jon Bon Jovi, James Taylor and Garth Brooks have in common?  Prostate problems.  The show was like a two hour advertisement for white euthanasia. 

James Taylor looked like a homeless guy, wearing a hat with ear-flaps – surely it wasn’t that cold? 

To be fair, Jon Bon Jovi has still got it.  Unlike the rest of his white brethren, he doesn’t appear to have aged since 1986.  He must have an attic portrait that looks like Bill Nighy.  John Mellencamp on the other hand appears to have been turned into a leprechaun. 

To break up the choir-backed musical numbers, and to remind voters just why the heck they were standing in sub-zero temperatures, there was also an AAA-list of spoken talent.  Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks put on Oscar-winning performances as Lincoln.  Jamie Foxx did an Obama impression that was better than the real thing.

Steve Carrell and Jack Black did somewhat lower the tone.  It makes one wonder about the criteria applied in the casting process.  BabbelOn imagines that Tom Hanks has a powerful agent who simply said: “If you want Tom, and frankly it’s not a show without him, then you have to take Carrell AND Black.  I’ll make sure they suit up and stick to the cue cards.” 

Actors, of course, love a good speech and an audience.  It’s a heady mix.  They all learned their lines, even the tough ones, and delivered with the gravitas one expects from actors who have more experience playing Presidents than Obama himself. 

However, the decision to use such gold standard talent does raise a dilemma.  If politics is spin over substance, employing the world’s greatest actors raises the bar for the actual politicians. 

And, sad to say, in BabbelOn’s opinion, the bar was lifted sufficiently high for Joe Biden to walk right under it. 

Not quite as good looking as Tom or as compelling as Denzel, he sounded like a B-grade actor.  No, that’s unfair to Ronald Reagan.  He sounded like a C-grade actor.  A bit like Fred Thompson might have if he had got the gig.  

So, ironically, the cheesiest line of the day was said, not by the cheesiest actors of a generation, but by the Vice President elect.  

Biden looked the Washington adoring masses in the collective eye and, using a line that Hollywood dropped about the time that Bon Jovi had their last hit, said that every parent in America wants to be able to say:

“Honey, it’s going to be alright.” 

BabbelOn didn’t watch the party all the way to the end to see if Morgan Freeman appeared, God-like, to bless the proceedings.  And perhaps to take the oath himself.  If he had you can bet he wouldn’t have got the words wrong.     

Burn After Watching

Film critics who have been in the business a long time can become guilty of drinking their own bath water.  They love certain directors (“auteurs”) and actors; particular those who have built a career out of making so-called interesting choices, preferably not always to box office acclaim.

Artists who have won the critics’ respect tend to get cut a little more slack.  This is to be expected.  Any serious critic must take a longer view of an artist’s work.  (After all, a blogger who punches out one or two reviews can’t expect to be taken seriously.) 

Art, like life, is about context.  A single piece of work shouldn’t colour an entire career (although in some cases it can sum it up.  See anything produced by Hirst, D).   

On the other hand, critics often go easy on directors and actors who should know better.  One saw it with the critics’ poster boy Sean Penn’s Into the Wild (an excellent review of which can be found here).  

The latest example is the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading.  

In BabbelOn’s opinion, the Coens have made some fine films; Fargo, The Big Lebowski and most recently No Country For Old Men. 

Burn After Reading is their latest attempt at a screwball comedy.  Their earlier (unfortunately not last) attempt was the aptly named Intolerable Cruelty.  Aptly named for those who had to sit through it. 

All the ingredients for a successful experience are in place here; the familiar actors (Frances McDormand, George Clooney, Brad Pitt), the clever plot turns, the smart dialogue.  So why doesn’t it work? 

For one thing, like Intolerable Cruelty, it’s a story about unpleasant, self-centred people being nasty to one another.  This can work in a thriller (or a horror film if one would ever want to sit through such a thing) but comedy is tiresome unless the characters are interesting enough for one to care about. 

Interesting, dimensional characters are born out of complexity.  Complexity is built out of contradictions.  No Country For Old Men’s Javier Bardem is a psychopath who believes in chance and always keeps his word.  Now that is interesting.   

Burn After Reading’s Clooney, Pitt etc are not complex; they are flat as paint.  McDormand is a vain, scheming gym instructor.  Pitt is her dumb co-worker.  Clooney is a flaky federal marshal with a pants problem.  John Malkovich is just angry. 

However, the bigger problem, in BabbelOn’s humble opinion, is that the ”stars” are too big for their parts.  George Clooney and Brad Pitt in particular have difficulty losing themselves in a role.  The closest Clooney has come lately was in Michael Clayton, where he had to wear a suit and take orders from Sydney Pollack.   He was believable and very good.  In Burn After Reading he is annoyingly self aware. 

Pitt just mugs and eats his way through everything.  He’s like an underwear model with Tourette’s. 

Frances McDormand is a great straight man.  Unfortunately, here she is trying gags that are, well, trying.  It sounds like she wrote her own dialogue.  

Tilda Swinton, who won an Oscar for Michael Clayton and can act her way through most things, in Burn After Reading is possibly the nastiest character she will ever play.   Her bitch/wife Mrs Malkovich makes Narnia’s White Queen look like Doris Day.  But, again, what you see is what you get, a one-dimensional character with an arc that flies from A to A.   

The best thing about the film is Richard Jenkins, who play it so straight he seems to be in the wrong film.  Yet somehow he manages to let a glimmer of humanity shine through the schtick.  Maybe he’s not big enough to write his own lines. 

Where is the wit, the subtlety, the sub-text?  Even plot-driven films need characters one can care about.  Otherwise it’s like watching technicolor pinball.   

But of course the critics loved it (4.5 stars from David Stratton).  

BabbelOn wants his money back. 

12 Daze of Christmas

Something has been bothering BabbelOn since the carolling season began.  It’s the 12 Days of Christmas.  Not the actual days so much as the carol about partridges and pear trees and such like. 

At one level it’s a lovely song about giving.  On reflection, however, (and isn’t that what Christmas is all about?) it’s a parable of untrammelled consumerism and obsession bordering on the criminal. 

It starts innocently enough.  On the first day of Christmas – which doesn’t appear in any calendar BabbelOn has ever seen but working backwards must be the 14th of December – a partridge in a pear tree arrives on the doorstep.  How delightful one thinks.  My true love is indeed thoughtful and original and, by the way, getting in very early with the pressies. 

This does raise the first of many Christmas etiquette issues.  When is it just too early to send presents?  BabbelOn assumes that the PIPT arrived unwrapped; wrapping a bird seems a little cruel, even allowing for air holes in the paper.  So the gift is received, opened on December 14.  When does one send the thank you note?  Unfortunately, etiquette soon becomes the least of one’s problems.  

Day two and another early morning knock on the door.  This time Australia Post presents two turtle doves and another partridge in a pear tree.  After some confusion concerning duplicate delivery orders resolved by a quick call to the depot, one begins to twig that this may not be the last game bird one sees this year.  Anyhow, the turtle doves and the partridge seem to be getting along OK and couple of pear trees could be just the ticket for that garden bed along the back fence. 

Day three.  Sean from Australia Post arrives just after 7am with a raised eyebrow and three French hens, two more turtle doves and another PIPT.  After signing for them with a jocular shrug, one begins to contemplate the darker side of Christmas, and just what the hell it is that One’s True Love is up to. 

Anywho, there is plenty of room in the yard for the hens and doves and partridges and three pear trees look better than two along the fence.  With a bit of water and plenty of bird droppings, they will be flowering in no time. 

Day four and one is waiting for Sean with a cup of tea.  “Four calling birds” the card says.  Be grateful they’re not kookaburras jokes Sean as he tucks into his second piece of panettone.  Or koels, one jokes back, failing to see the humour. 

The calling birds and another three French hens join their colleagues in the backyard and immediately begin scratching at the lawn.  One considers the merits of a large chook house and calls Bunning’s for some indicative prices.  Luckily the pre-Christmas sales are in full swing and a hen house is ordered for just $495 (including delivery and assembly).  One tries to mentally calculate the number of eggs the hens will need to lay to pay for it.   

Day five begins with a dawn chorus from the calling birds and Sean and his van with the now familiar avian menagerie and, bless my soul, five gold rings.  At last a romantic and practical gift. 

With the price of gold where it is, this present tips the ledger back towards the positive.  If things get really tough, there is always the pawn shop.  Partridges don’t feed themselves you know.  Plus it turns out that pear trees are totally inadequate shelter for a ground dwelling forager.  Fortunately they seem to get along with the turtle doves and the hens so they can all go into the chook house.  

On day six, Sean brings six geese a-laying and five more gold rings.   The calling birds, hens, doves and partridge go straight into the hen house, which is now at capacity. 

The geese present something of a problem as they are too big and broody to go in with the others.  At this stage one decides to let them go free range.  They apparently will eat grass and weeds and make great lawn mowers. 

The second row of pear trees has gone in and, if my true love keeps it up, one has the beginnings of a delightful little orchard.  

Day seven brings swans!  The birds are getting bigger.  Keeping one’s sense of humour, one puts the swans in the pool with the geese and orders another hen house, this time the larger one.  

It turns out that 12 geese are noisier than 16 calling birds.  Who would have thought it?  The honking and the flapping and the excreting is quite theatrical.  The neighbours certainly agree, as their carefully worded letter points out. 

On the eighth day, things start to get a bit bizarre in the gift receiving department.  After Sean has left the 28 various birds (the 14 swans and 18 geese have totally taken over the pool area and the chlorinator is just not coping), a bus load of maids arrives.  Yes, maids.  Eight of them. 

After checking their immigration status (all Filipinas on 457 visas), one puts them immediately to work feeding the hens and hosing down the pool deck. 

Day nine dawns with the usual chorus and Sean with his truck.  The maids are up early to clean the house and tidy the lounge room where they slept.  One sends four of them to the supermarket with a list (we are totally out of chicken feed and pool acid). 

Around 9 o’clock the bus is back, this time bringing nine “ladies”.  One says ”ladies” because that is how they are described on the card from my true love.  Graham the driver raises his eyebrows as he gives it to me. 

It turns out they are British backpackers.  Maids are useful but what is one to do with backpackers, some of whom are distinctly more ladette than lady?  With an entrepreneurial flash, after checking their immigration status (all on working holiday visas), one sends them off to the mall, sporting matching t-shirts and clipboards, to raise money for a shelter for homeless birds and unwanted Christmas pets.  One could be onto something here. 

On day ten, the human trafficking continues with the arrival of ten lords (British lads from the same hostel as the ladies) as well as another nine ladies and eight more maids.  

One’s anticipatory skills having become finely honed, one is ready for the bus (morning Graham!) and ships them straight off to the mall to join the others.  Sean stays for an hour or so to help herd the new swans and geese into the pool area, which is beginning to resemble an avian concentration camp. 

The 24 maids are complaining about the noise and smell and having to do the bathrooms for 28 backpackers.  The quote for the 30 gold rings has come in ($3,798 at today’s spot price) which should just about cover the lawyer’s fees as long as the neighbours are prepared to settle early. 

Day 11 (Christmas Eve) brings a truckload of hens, geese, swans, calling birds, turtle doves and a PIPT and a busload of maids, ladies, lords and (what next?) bagpipers.  Kilts, sporrans and all. 

If one didn’t feel like screaming, one would laugh hysterically.  The neighbours (both sides) have set up a picket line out the front and Sean and Graham did well to negotiate an entrance without injury.  In a gesture of goodwill and conciliation (no admission of liability to be inferred) one offers the latest maids to each neighbour (four each), with a basket of goose eggs and two bags of home-made Dynamic Lifter.  For the first time, detente seems a possibility.   

On the morning of Christmas Day, the TV crews are in place early.  One has done interviews and been photographed with half the street.  The pipers are playing carols (one in particular is on high rotation) and have been joined by 12 drummers adding a calypso beat. 

By the time the trucks and buses have pulled out the general mood is festive. 

After paying off the council, the Australian Quarantine & Inspection Service (who’d have thought that French hens were imported) and Immigration (three of the maids, two ladies and a piper were overstayers) – luckily the spot price of gold is up – one can almost see the moral in My True Love’s obsessive generosity.   

Sometimes ’tis better to give than to receive.

A Version

Early polling indicates that readers are averse to (and possibly even view adversely), well, verse.  In particular, continuous couplets and strangled stanzas test even the hardiest readers.

In the spirit of conversation rather than controversy, BabbelOn offers, conversely, some (a?) political haiku:

Washington winter
Frost cracks Nixon like a nut
Snowed under Bush leaves

BabbelOn is going to miss GW. 

On the other hand, the new bloke does present opportunities in the haiku department.

New Year’s cold dawning
Is Obama a balmer?
No doubt Time will tell

Enough already.

You Say Potato

To commemorate Part 3 of The Howard Years (in which John Howard visits Washington on the 10th of September 2001 and gets himself invited to the War on Terror) and as we count down the days until George W mountain bikes off into the sunset, BabbelOn presents a musical tribute to the ANZUS treaty. 

You say biscuit, I say cookie
You say first year, I say rookie
“Biscuit” “cookie”, “first year” “rookie”
Let’s call the whole thing off

I eat sweets and you eat candy
To me it’s fine, for you it’s dandy
Oh let’s call the whole thing off 

You say donkey I say ass
Your’s use petrol, ours take gas

You drink soft drinks not soda pop
What’s a sailboat? It’s a yacht
Let’s call the whole thing off

I say bucket you say pail
You say prison, I spell it ”gaol”
Let’s call the whole thing off

You say boot I say trunk
To you he’s a kid, to me he’s a punk

I say coupe you say coup
I say doorstep, you say stoop
Let’s call the whole thing off

You spread jam, we spread jelly
I watch TV, you watch telly

We call it autumn, you have a fall
I say shopping centre, you call it a mall

He’s your mate, he’s my pal
She’s your girl, she’s my gal
Let’s call the whole thing off

We use the footpath you use a sidewalk
Our cricketers sledge, they never trash-talk
Let’s call the whole thing off

Golf’s not a noun, it’s a verb
You pull up to the gutter, I park at the kerb
Oh let’s call the whole thing off

He’s your dad not your pa
By the way it’s bitumen not tar

It’s a bag not a purse
You might swear we just curse
We get angry, never pissed
If we’re insulted never dissed
Let’s call the whole thing off

Why say anaesthesiologist?  Anaesthetist is quicker
I wear a raincoat, you wear a slicker

You spend 5 cents, I spend a nickle
You eat a gherkin, I eat a pickle

Your boofy blokes are faggy guys
Eating chips not freedom fries
Let’s call the whole thing off

He’s an agent not a realtor
You can’t make coffee with a filter!

You mow the lawn, we cut the grass
Don’t chat her up, make a pass
Let’s call the whole thing off

It’s a mobile not a cell
Don’t say “Jesus Christ” say “bloody hell”

You say g-string, I say thong
Some of your words are just plain wrong

You drive a ute, I drive a truck
I say shoot, you say bad luck

I say cheque you say check
You say kiss, I say peck

Please don’t write me, I’m not a letter
I’m not being pedantic, it just sounds better

Let’s have a holiday, we need a vacation
Let’s call the whole thing off

Tatts Lotto

The girl serving in the book shop has a diamond tattoo on the middle finger on her left hand, just below the top knuckle.  About where a real ring would sit.  It is only a blue outline but it looks to be at least two carats and has little radiating exclamation marks to show how sparkly it is. 

Someone must love her a lot to pay for a tattoo like that. 

As it is not on her ring finger, perhaps it is a friendship tattoo, or maybe an eternity one.  After all, nothing says eternity like a tattoo.  Not even the funeral parlour can undo what the tattoo parlour has wrought.  (The crematorium, on the other hand, has the final laugh.)

Perhaps she is saving her ring finger for a wedding tattoo, maybe a simple blue ink band, or one with her lover’s name in it.  For the wedding, she will also choose earring tattoos, perhaps a solitaire, or something tribal.  Around her neck will be a formal tattoo, echoing the antique jewellery worn by her grandmother. 

Her boyfriend wanted to give her a Cartier watch tattoo (the classic Tank model) but she laughed and called him a creep.  She is not yet ready for that kind of commitment, and opted for a Casio Baby-G tattoo instead. 

In the street, two girlfriends walk and talk.  One has “CARPE DIEM” tattooed down the back of her left calf.  She also has some colour on her upper left arm, not quite a half sleeve.  Some black ink curls out from the neck of her frock.  Her friend has less body art but does have a startlingly large one on the side of her right lower leg.  It appears to be an animal, perhaps a tiger or a crouching dragon?  They walk and talk and seem proud of their bodies, showing off their tattoos.  Seizing the day and marking it.      

Entering the building, the tall blonde has some fine Japanese lettering on the back of her neck.  Black, spidery kanji.  What does it say?  Carpe diem?  It looks classy, like something Angelina Jolie would have on the back of her neck.  

The woman in the fruit and vegetable market has three numbers tattooed on the inside of her left forearm.  They could be the birth dates of her offspring.  Permanent reminders of the temporary insanity wrought by children.  These tattoos are also reminiscent of Ms Jolie’s.  In Angelina’s case they represent the latitude and longitude of her children’s places of birth.  Or is it their places of adoption?  In any case, these are the tattoos of a wealthy woman who wants to remind people of the fact.  The fruit market woman is just happy to think of her kids whenever she reaches for a plastic bag or gives a customer his change.  

The executive at the bus stop has a small blue and yellow bird tattooed above her right ankle.  It only comes out in summer when she wears a skirt and strappy shoes.  It is as though it migrates for the winter.  The bird speaks of an earlier time, when life was simpler and dress choices didn’t involve suits and scarves and briefcases.  Her bird is trained now, it just sits there quietly, not making a sound or a flutter.  Riding on the bus with her to the city.