A question for Mr Charles Murray

Hi. I heard you this afternoon on Michael Duffy's program on the radio, talking about oppressed academics telling things to the media they didn't believe in private, amongst their professional colleagues. You wrote that book "The Bell Curve".

Now tell me, if blokes are such geniuses at visual and spatial orientation, why can't they find their way around a shopping mall then? Ever? (With the possible exception of the ones with gay brains?)

R.I.P Klaw

Mr Klaw 1994 - 2005
A really nice little cat.

Wine glut

Apparently, Australia is suffering a massive wine glut and vignerons everywhere are in despair.

So why can't I buy reliable good cheap plonk, then?

Please feel free to tell me where I'm going wrong.

Is it wrong?

If you take your kid to the hilarious local Club for dinner, and Ampersand Duck's Best Beloved comes up to you at the bar and says "It doesn't concern you that Ivan Milat is working here?" is it in fact the wrong thing to do to take your camera to the Club next time in the hopes of capturing said lookalike to post on your blog?

It is, isn't it?

Bugger.

In which finally Zoe comes good on Ducky's meme.

Onya Ducky. I must be the last kid in the playground on this one, but I did enjoy finding the pictures.

7 things I want to do before I die:

1. Have another child.
2. Write something substantial that I’m proud of.
3. Hold my grandchild, and give them back. Heh.
4. Buy a house and make a garden there.
5. Shake off forever the craving for a cigarette. Except not right this minute now. Godammit.
6. Have tea at The Ritz with my beloved friends Katie and Cath.
7. Be my own boss.

7 things I cannot do:

1. Be on reality television. Tempting, but. Except “Fear Factor”. Not in the least tempted there. Eww.
2. Wear a white shirt and have it still be clean at day’s end.
3. Wake up after 5:30 am (thanks, Sage)
4. Undergo colonic irrigation.
5. Send poorly punctuated text messages.
5. Tolerate not making way for emergency vehicles. Come on!
6. Keep my fingernails noice.
7 Forget those hundreds of tiny details about meeting people, so that I wouldn't have to be careful about what I say when I meet them again in case it made them think I was odd. Or something. Oh dear, this isn't helping, is it?

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1. Cock. Well I’m sorry, if the meme was “7 things that I find attractive” it might have been a different answer. But it wasn’t, so there you go.*
2. A clever glint in his eye.
3. Accomplished flirting.
4. Seriousness about politics.
5. The presence of a bottom. It need by no means be a particularly marvellous bottom, but there must be some kind of bottom there. I can’t abide an anti-bottom.
6. Nice hands and arms.
7. Playfulness and the ability to laugh at yourself. I will be, so you might as well join in.

7 things that I say most often:

1. Do you need to do a wee?
2. Did you have a boy look, or a girl look?
3. I’m going to count to three
4. GRRRRRhhh
5. That's my P1 for this morning.
6. BEAKY! (that would be the dog’s name, as interpreted by a toddler)
7. Hilarious!

7 celebrity crushes:

1. Adam Hills. He's just getting better and better, isn't he?

2. Johnny Knoxville – the man that made sitting through "Jackass" bearable.

3. Colin Firth. Goes without saying.

4. Shaun Micallef. Oh my stars, yes. Felt a bit weird when I found out my Mum also had a crush on him, but I got over it fairly quickly.

5. Senator Stephen Conroy. I realise that this is completely right out, for many reasons, but I’m telling the truth so Jesus doesn’t kill a little kitten, OK. And if anyone can explain to me why doing a google image search for “Senator Conroy” gives you (a) a picture of Osama Bin Laden with a link to Currency Lad and (b) multiple links to the Heidelburg Volleyball Club, mine’s a large vodka tonic, cheers.

6. Joaquin. Phoenix. *sighs*

7. Robbie Williams. This man has more twinkle than any man alive, with the possible exception of (ahem) Ricky Martin. And my God, can’t Ricky Martin wear a trouser, btw? Does anyone in the world do better trouser? Nah, thought not.

* I can't believe that a joke this cheap hasn't been made yet.

Live your dream

I've posted about Jean-Luc Ponty before. I am sure you'll agree that his record covers are absolutely sensational:





The husbang has always been unnaturally attached to the music of Jean-Luc Ponty. There aren't that many people around with a taste for progressive jazz, are there? Let alone shiny clothes and sparkly violins. I know of two. One of them is Mr Ponty. And this is the husbang:




















No doubt you are thrilled to hear that this is the first in a series of my loved one's interpretations of his favourite record covers. This one is dedicated to the hopeful soul who put a classified ad in The Canberra Times wanting to sell an as-new metallic purple semi acoustic violin. For six hundred bucks. Yeah, of course he can actually play it.

But not like Jean-Luc.

Not yet.

Op shopper of the day award

The little guy and I went op shopping this morning, trying to find a special silver shirt for the husbang which you'll soon see here if a little project we've been hatching comes off.

We had some marvellous luck, scoring a spiderman action figure (apparently the toddlers go gay if you call them a doll, which is what they actually are), a marvellous silver-ish spoon which says "Tamworth" and has a little kind of house-y shed structure on it and a nostalgic red trucker cap which says "CES". The hat would have looked great with my vintage "Labor Against Uranium" badge which I gave to a friend years ago and have regretted ever since.

As for best dressed shopper, technically it had to go to the tall bearded dude wearing a hoodie inscribed "Lycanthropy Athletic". But there's a special place in my heart for the scraggy lookin' (white) mother buying her particularly attractive four month old (black) baby a t-shirt that said "If you think I'm good lookin', you should see my dad!"

Best kid in the world turns three, parents elated and amazed

His birthday dawned a lot happier than it did last year. This is what he looks like:



Happy birthday, little darlin'. And happy birthday to darlin' Ampersand Duck, too.

Any minute now I will write about something other than toddlers or excessive exercisers. Promise.