in the beginning...

Many people have asked how I got started blogging. Well, not that many...but a few. OK, no one has ever fucking asked me how I got started blogging...but I'm going to tell you anyway.
It began with a hastily-scribbled entry to a public forum called 'The Heckler' in 'The Sydney Morning Herald', which was both an online publication as well as a hard-copy newspaper. I submitted my piece to the relevant editor by e-mail...and promptly never heard from them again.
Then one morning about a month later I walked into the dealing room at work...and received a standing ovation from my fifty or so colleagues. When I asked what the applause was for they threw a copy of 'The SMH' at me and said, 'See for yourself.'
And there it was; my first published work...


July 23 2003
Pizza, alcohol and masturbation: it's all in the name of good health, argues Fingers.

Like many forty-two year-old Australian males, I worry about getting cancer. The reports are not encouraging; I'm a classic target for cancer of my colon, testicles, lungs, kidneys and many other assorted pink and grey bits. There are carcinogens everywhere I turn.
I'm reasonably familiar with the common, garden variety toxins such as Dihydroxyanthraquinone or Methylmethanesulfonate…and I do my best to avoid other sinister-looking, potentially dangerous, polysyllabic compounds whenever I can…but it's not easy. In many cases research results have been too late to help me. How could I know there was a possibility of contracting arsenic poisoning from walking on my outdoor-timber decking, or that tattooing my tax file number on my ass might cause leukemia?
From the beginning I harboured suspicions about the mystical microwave oven…and of course the mobile phone was always going to turn out too good to be true…but I never thought the blue ‘Smartie’ would become my silver bullet.
For years it's one bombshell after another for ‘carcinophobes’ like me. Sure there's been sporadic relief, such as the study which showed that red wine contained ‘resveratrol’, a cancer suppressant…but on the whole it's been one-way traffic. Now, in the space of a week, comes the news I've been waiting for all my life.
Firstly, a group of Australian researchers has asserted that the more men ejaculate between the ages of twenty and fifty, the less likely they are to develop prostate cancer later in life.
This is all quite thrilling, since the study specifically refers to ejaculation through masturbation rather than actual sex; something previous studies had even suggested could increase the risk of cancer.
Then before I could say ‘pass the moisturiser’ came news from Italy which revealed that eating pizza regularly could help stave off certain cancers of the stomach or digestive tract. The results of a study into Italian eating habits showed that people who ate pizza once or several times a week were less likely to get cancer than those who did not eat it at all.
Suddenly, the point of all those lonely Friday nights became clear. I had always felt a certain degree of shame going home, ordering my mushroom pizza, opening a nice bottle of Shiraz and consuming both before going on to, well, you know…
So imagine my elation in discovering that I have sub-consciously been engaging in some sort of anti-cancer-triathlon of self-abuse.
Perhaps I should be claiming a rebate from my private health insurer. If ‘NIB’ is happy to pay out for my Nike trainers…perhaps it would like to subsidise my DVD porno collection.
Should I be keeping the Dominos’ receipts?
Would Vintage Cellars be allowed to bulk-bill my monthly purchase of a case of reds?
Probably not, but it's a beautiful thought…

if the C-word offends you...you're probably a cunt...

It recently occurred to me that these days the word ‘CUNT’ has lost much of its impact !!! There was a time when it was the King of Insults; chicks would fly into a rage at its mere utterance irrespective of whether it was used specifically in reference to them or not. Dropping the C-Bomb was a potential date-ender, a friendship-destroyer and a marriage-killer…it was once the most fearsome anti-chick weapon in the entire arsenal of verbal mass-destruction. For example…
‘You’re a pathetic fuck-head with a fat gut, bald head and a pencil dick !!!’
‘Oh yeah…well you’re a cunt.’
Game over.
‘Why do you have to be such a selfish asshole all the time ???’
‘Why are you such a cunt ???’
Tears.
‘Why can’t you be more of a man…like my father ???’
‘Why do you have to be a cunt all the time…like your mother.’
The end.
It was the equivalent of using a tactical nuke in a minor border-conflict, it had instant, devastating effect (and consequences); you knew you’d crossed the line just from the horrified look on the chick’s face.
I remember once calling my ex-wife a cunt in Tokyo; she was a bit PMS’d-up, yelling all sorts of vile things at me, throwing stuff around the apartment and threatening to call her Dad and tell him what I’d said.
‘Go ahead and call him, you cunt.’
She did…and she told him what I said…then she threw the phone at my head and said he wanted a word with me.
‘Fingers, why did you call my daughter a cunt ???’
‘Well Roger, it’s like this…yada yada yada…blah blah blah…this this this…that that that…it was either the C-word or a good hard slap across the face.’
‘I see. OK, put that little cunt back on the phone then…’

About thirty years ago, the first time I ever called my dear old Mum a cunt, she grabbed a wooden spoon, chased me round the house for twenty minutes before cornering me, whacking me over the head and throwing me out into the street for the night. Two weeks ago, after I told her I’d been fined for calling a cop something offensive she laughed and said, ‘You silly cunt.’

My oldest, dearest, most favourite blogger in the whole world, Kitty the sewer-mouthed whore-bag, probably out-scores me two-to-one in the CPP (cunts per post) stakes these days. Not to mention some of the delightful banter we’ve had privately on Facebook.
‘Cunty McFingers…you are the cuntiest cunting cunty cunt cunt in the whole world…in fact you are a Mastercunt.’

There was once a time when I knew that if I needed to speak to a senior person at the Commonwealth Bank, all I had to do was call the poor chick manning the phone-tree ‘a useless cunt’ and she’d be forced to refer the abuse to her superior. Now I get Christmas cards from them addressed to; ‘Fingers @ Unit 1, XX Cunt Point Rd, Cunt Point, 2027’…

once more into the breach...

My old school Sydney Grammar, the most super-elite of all the Sydney GPS Silver Spoon Academies, has apparently entered a team in the 2010 GPS Geezer Olympics, a sporting competition for deluded fossils aged fifty and over as at the years end.
Our team will once again wage battle against our traditional foes; the moronic, slab-featured Press Buttons from Scots College, the agriculturally-inclined livestock-molesters from Kings, the pasty-faced preppies from Shore’s Wasp Nest, the Inner-West Scientologists from Newington’s First Evangelical Church of the Blessed Lord and All His Works, the twin God-fondling Evils from Riverview and St Joseph’s Colleges for Abused Choirboys…and the peasants from Sydney High.
Thirty years have passed since I last played GPS sport, a game of rugby if memory serves me correctly. I know we won, though the score escapes me…but my most vivid recollection of that day was the conversation I had with the St Joseph’s prop as I was preparing to feed the ball into the scrum…
Him: ‘What are you waiting for you skinny Jewish faggot ??’
Me: ‘I was just thinking about fucking your mother last night and how much her snatch reminded me of the drain in the changing room showers.’
The game was delayed five minutes while he chased me across three football fields before finally collapsing from exhaustion. Thank fuck !!!
Anyway, back to the present; it turns out my school needs me once more…they require me to swim the 50 meters freestyle race at The Games, an event for which I once held the school record in an imposing time of 26.8 seconds back in 1977.
You should have seen me then…seventeen years old, 52 kilograms, lean, mean and tanned…I would explode off the blocks as though shot from a canon, then streak through the water like a barracuda, taking just one breath around the 30 meter mark before reaching the end of the pool. I was a pure speed machine, capable of one stunningly quick lap of the pool…occasionally followed by an equally stunningly laborious second lap when I foolishly entered the 100 meters. I never broke one minute for that event…but over that 50 meter distance I was The King.
I gave up competitive swimming in 1978 to concentrate on my HSC, where I scored brilliantly, gaining the necessary marks for Law School and a degree, which I then discarded to prostitute myself in the money-market doing a job fit for a monkey. I’ve often wondered whether I did the right thing squandering the natural gift I had for breaking records in the pool, so this opportunity to don the Speedos one last time (not counting those times I’m draped like a louche over the rear lounge on the boat) may provide me with a shot at sporting redemption.
I was last clocked over the sprint distance, in 2005 at Club Med Bali, finishing utterly spannered in a leisurely 35 seconds. This got me into the final of the swimming event where I lined up against a crack field of German pedophiles…and a 150 kilogram Geoff Huegill, who looked like he’d eaten the Geoff Huegill that once held the world record for the 50 meters butterfly.
Drawing the outside lane, three away from Skippy Doughnut Features, I made a fast start before veering to the side of the pool, getting out and running the rest of the way before diving back into the pool at the other end. When Huegill came steaming into the wall and looked up I was already there, faux-heaving from the strenuous effort and waving triumphantly to the crowd…
He was shocked to say the least but came over to congratulate me like a true champion and listen to my astounding tale of this one-off piece of sporting freakery.
‘I don’t know, mate…perhaps the thrill of racing an Olympic champion inspired me to do this ??”
‘Er…I was never an Olympic champion…just a World Championship gold medalist.’
‘Oh yes…sorry mate…I forgot.’
It’s doubtful whether I’ve gotten any faster over the past five years and even more doubtful I’ll be able to pull that trick again at the GPS Geezer Olympics…so at this stage I suspect my only hope of saving face will be to fail the pre-games drug test…

don't be a quitter...

Recently I have begun seeing this new chick; it doesn’t really matter who she is other than the fact she is new and I am sort of dating her.
Unsuccessfully…as usual.




On our first date, things were going smoothly enough and it was refreshing not to be embroiled in the sort of interview-type Q&A session that characterizes most first meetings. We talked of things rather than people, of issues instead of opinions and of ideas in place of feelings. Every so often, I would excuse myself from the table and go outside for a cigarette, returning to find her, as is often the case these days with chicks left unattended for more than two minutes, answering her SMS messages.
No big deal; good time management actually.
On my third such return, whilst tapping away at her little keypad and without taking her eyes off the IPhone screen, she offered the following advice: ‘Fingers, you really ought to think about giving up smoking.’
Naturally, considering how well the date was proceeding, I assumed she was negotiating the future terms of the party I could reasonably expect to have in her pants at some point, rather than just doling out trite medical warnings. That she was telling me I would shortly be fucking her six ways from Sunday as long as I didn’t smell like an ashtray, rather than hinting unsubtly at the damage I was doing to myself with this filthy habit. That she was suggesting my nicotine-free ferret was welcome to jump through her furry hoop anytime, rather than simply dispensing clichéd health tips.
Now, nothing much happened that evening, carnally speaking…however I did resolve to quit smoking before date number two in order to maximize the potential for a game of ‘Mr Wibbly-Wobbly Hides His Helmet’. This of course proved much harder to do than it was to consider doing, so instead I pretended to quit, washed my clothes thoroughly beforehand, swallowed fifty ‘Fisherman’s Friends’ and took no cigarettes with me the next time.
An hour into the date, which was going exceedingly well, I said, ‘So, have you noticed anything tonight ??’
‘I’ve noticed you haven’t had a cigarette yet,’ she replied.
‘That’s right…I was thinking about what you said last time and took your advice,’ I lied without adding, ‘Now, is there any danger of you living up to your end of the deal and smoking my bat ??’
‘That’s excellent…has it been hard giving up??’ she enthused.
’Not as difficult as I imagined it would be,’ I beamed, now extremely comfortable living the lie.
‘Are you using patches or pills ??’
‘No, just brute willpower.’
At this point in time I’d have gladly set fire to my pubes and inhaled the smoke just for a hit.
‘Do you feel any better for it ??’
‘No, I can honestly say I don’t feel any better,’ I answered, quite truthfully as it happens, since the health benefits of pretending to quit had not become apparent yet…

Of course she didn’t put out on the second date, so I feel rightfully vindicated in practicing the deception…and I feel no compunction whatsoever going on with the charade for date number three later this week. I’ve always said that smoking would be totally negotiable for the right chick but giving up the addiction of a lifetime for merely the promise of something which is bound to end in failure anyway…just doesn’t seem like a good risk/reward trade at this point…

the trailer and the tiger...

Crime scenario 1: I am awoken at 9am on a Sunday by two police officers, a male and female from the local station who want to ask me a few questions…



Bloke Cop (BC): ‘Good morning, Sir…is that your boat and trailer outside on Cunt Point Road??’
Me (M): ‘I hope so. Why is there something wrong??’
Chick Cop (CC): ‘Can you please come up to the street and take a look at something??’
M: ‘What’s the problem ??’
CC: ‘Please accompany us to street level, Sir.’

The three of us proceed to Cunt Point Road, where the bloke cop points to my kerb-side trailer tires, both of which are flat as his partner’s chest…

BC: ‘Do you know anything about this, Sir??’
M: ‘I know the tires are flat…and it appears that the actual air-valves have been removed to make the job of re-inflating them a pain in the ass.’
BC: ‘Any idea how it might have happened??’
M: ‘Well the only thing I know for sure is that I didn’t do it myself.’
BC: ‘Are you saying that you believe someone else has done this??’
M: ‘Yes, Columbo…of course that’s what I’m saying.’
CC: ‘Do you have any idea who might want to do this??’
M: ‘Probably one of my fuck-head neighbors who thinks the boat is out of place on this street…or maybe a gang of tire-valve thieves is operating in the area. How the fuck should I know.’
CC: ‘No need to be a smart-ass, mate.’
M: ‘What?? Mate?? Did you just call me ‘mate’?? I’m not your mate…and you know full well what my name is…so either call me Mr Fingers or Sir.’

Since I can’t punch the chick cop’s head in, (mostly because it’s illegal but partially because she probably knows some evil chick cop karate and will put me in hospital), I walk up to the flat tires and kick them as hard as I can.

MC: ‘So, what do you intend doing about this??’
M: ‘About what…about fixing the tires…or solving the crime…or exacting bloody, murderous revenge on the neighbours??'
CC: ‘About fixing the tires.’
M: ‘Well, I thought I might re-inflate them at some stage.’
MC: ‘When??’
M: ‘When it’s convenient.’
CC: ‘No, you need to fix them now, Sir…you can’t leave the trailer in an un-roadworthy condition on the street.’
M: ‘Well I have things to do so it will have to wait until I have time to do it.’
CC: ‘Well don’t be surprised if you return to find the trailer has been booked.’
M: ‘Excuse me?? Listen, Miss Marple…in case you haven’t worked it out I am the victim here of a crime…not that I expect you to commit any of your revenue-raising resources to solving it…but I am still the victim here.’
CC: ‘Well we will be back in a few hours to see if the trailer has been fixed…otherwise we will have to issue a…’
M: ‘Are you some sort of complete cunt??'
CC: ‘I beg your pardon, Sir.’
M: ‘Don’t beg my pardon…you heard what I said…and your big, shiny badge doesn’t mean you have a big, shiny vadge in my book.’
MC: ‘Sir, there’s no need to use that sort of language in front of the lady Constable.’
M: ‘She’s a fucking Cunt-Stable alright…a whole stable of cunts…it’s 9am on a Sunday morning, my trailer has been vandalized and she’s giving me lip.'
MC: ‘Sir, I won’t tell you again about using that sort of language.’
M: ‘Oh go fuck yourself…what a pair of cunts you two are.’

Fast-forward two hours to Cunt Point Police Station, where I have been taken and charged with using offensive language, issued a fine and told I may appeal both in court should I choose to bother…

Crime Scenario 2: Tiger Woods apparently lies bruised in his bed, his wife having allegedly taken exception to the news he was cheating on her and expressed some feelings of her own on his head with his very own one-wood. Meanwhile his car is outside the house nestled against a tree, the windows smashed and another golf club lying nearby. The Florida Highway Patrol is at the entrance to the gated community where Tiger Woods lives, but investigators are told he is unavailable...please come back later…

i never thought i'd be reading this but...

I don’t begrudge anyone a blog; I’m all for it…it’s everyone’s right to get a free page on the internet and fill it with whatever they desire…brilliant, good, bad, indifferent or just plain garbage.
Write whatever you want; it’s not compulsory that I read it.


And you know something…I don’t mind if you’re two-hundred kilograms overweight and want to blame your parents for it rather than eat less and exercise more.
I don’t mind if you’re fifty kilograms underweight and want to blame magazines and television for it rather than go and see a psychiatrist or a nutritionist or just plain stop being a nut.
I don’t mind if you married the wrong man at sixteen and want to blame the twelve children you bore him for having to stay married rather than take your chances out there on Struggle Street.
I don’t mind if your work colleagues hate you.
I don’t mind if you hate your neighbours.
I don’t mind if you’re broke or broken-hearted.
I want you to get it all out…like a Woody Allen movie…just get all that emotional crap off your plate and onto mine so I can feast on the excruciating minutiae of your suffering…
Just please don’t tell me about your sex lives…PLEASE.
Not the blowjobs you’ve given (especially you, Memphis), not the oral you’ve had, not the five-hour marathons that left your snatch looking like road-kill and certainly not your most recent experiences with bum-sex (that means you, Gaylord).
Over the years I’ve had to endure hundreds of posts like these…below are just a few…no names no pack drill…if you recognize your handiwork or mouth-work…or any other work…there’s no need to panic because I’m not going to ‘out’ you.
I just want to make a few observations…


Example 1: Fast forward to last night. Without using the entire strap-on (I just decided to introduce the rubber dong to X’s lovely ass. I first stroked his cock…just to tease him a little. Next, I lubed our new toy and X’s delicious ass and began to insert the toy very gently in and out. I kept the toy right there-in one spot for the time being. I told X to start stroking his cock.

Thanks very much. I was having my breakfast as I read your lovely post. There’s nothing like Vegemite toast and a cup of tea while I try not to imagine your partner being ass-raped with a rubber Maglite while abusing himself like a chimpanzee…

Example 2: He was still damp as he held my head and kissed me in his special and gentle way. In seconds his cock was rock hard as our kissing grew more urgent. I very gently stroked his knob over and over, running all five of my fingers from under the ridge to meet at the top. A drop of pre-cum appeared, glistening on the end of his cock. I flicked it off quickly with my tongue. He cock grew another centimetre. If I am not into him enough to want to lick every inch of his body, to breathe in his scent, to bury my face in his hair, to suck his fingers one at a time, to nibble his lips, to swallow his sweet cum.
Then I wouldn't be giving him head.

Well, isn’t that just all a bit dreamy ?? I’m surprised Hallmark hasn’t made a card expressing that beautiful sentiment. ‘Love is not spilling a drop.’

Example 3: For the longest time, I've been guilty of being a size queen and last night, X did not disappoint. However, while he was sliding in and out my dripping honey-pot, it was his girth that did the magic. Not his length. Now, yes, he was a big boy - probably 7 or 8 inches but it was his thickness that made me squirm.

Confucius say: Only reason woman need wide cock is if she have big honey-pot.

Example 4: He pressed into me, filling me up with his cock and I was alright. My breathing picked up and I felt wonderful. He had me near the edge but I had not climaxed…he couldn’t hold it in and came in me after some hard fucking. He filled me with his seed and I lifted my hips to get him in deeper, though he did spill onto the seat just a little.

This would have been far classier if you’d been doing it in a Bentley rather than a public toilet at the time. You SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT.

Arrrrgggggggghhhh…my eyes…my poor eyes !!!
For the love of Christ…make it stop…

a blogroll by any other name would smell as bad...

Recently a lot has been written about blog politics; specifically the blog roll etiquette.
Personally I’m indifferent to being added/subtracted to anyone’s blog roll, since the whole process smacks of co-dependency, the need for validation/retribution and the creation of one giant mutual masturbation society online.
Now, as I pass a jaded eye over my own sad blog roll, surveying the carcasses of dead and dying sites, the orts and leavings of the internet feast, a once-proud hotbed of creativity now riddled with apathetic weeds…I’m curious as to which bloggers might still list me on their own rolls ???

Of course there’s always my perennial #1…Kitty, from ‘Shrinking Kitty’, the delusional housewife from The Victorian Riviera, whose primary fun is posting something brilliant (or nude pics) then deleting herself in a frenzy of self-loathing; the e-equivalent of cutting yourself with a razor. It’s a privilege to be listed on her blog roll alongside great works of art such as ‘Random Anorexics’, ‘Run More’, ‘Eat Less’, ‘My Big Fat Greek Ass’, ‘The Unfuckables’ and ‘I Wish Donuts Were Good For Me’.

I’m proud that my blog’s uncompromising style, courageous and without a modicum of judgmental criticism, has enabled TWG to become part of the gay e-landscape. I’ve been somewhat immortalized by Tom Gaylord, the extraordinarily clever, currently straight-jacketed host of ‘Gay Sky Hooker’, who has graciously linked me with iconic blogs such as ‘Sperm My Cumhole’, ‘Suburban Rentboy’, ‘Gay Porn Fanatic’, ‘The Chcokie Choo Choo’, ‘Father Fag Pants’ and ‘There’s a Lamp In My Ass’…from his private room in an unnamed Irish Loony Bin.

Then there’s everyone’s favourite rug-muncher, Spiky Zora Jones over at ‘Bit Player Reflects’, the hippest dyke on the West Coast, the undisputed Captain of Team Pink; and indeed it tickles me pink to see my blog nestling amidst such Sapphic delights as ‘Real Live Lesbian’, ‘In Search Of Lesbians’, ‘Caro’s Wandering Fingers’, ‘Flaps Down For Landing’, ‘Libby the Lab Licker’ and ‘Who Moved My Dildo’.

And lastly…and by all means leastly what higher praise could a blogger wish for than to be flattered by the internet’s most prolific stalker, Memphis Steve from his cunningly self-titled blog ‘Memphis Steve’s Nude Blog’, a place where unspeakable opinions and unpopular beliefs roam freely in a wonderland of as-yet undiagnosed mental illness. It makes my heart glad to see TWG mentioned in the same breath as these giants of liberal thought such as ‘The False Rape Society’, ‘Men Without Penises’, ‘Memoirs of a Misogynist’, ‘All Women Are Cunts Except For Your Mother’ and ‘For All I Know Your Mom’s a Cunt Too’…

the monday roast...

Does anyone else find post-match/game/event sports interviews as dull as I do these days. When was the last time you heard a sportsperson actually say anything interesting/controversial/original while being asked a question by their respective media ?? It's the same across the sports board however this year I believe that for various reasons Rugby league has led the way in stupefying the interview to the point where you need a Rosetta Stone to decode the piffle they have been blathering. This is what I've managed to decipher so far :

‘I was really proud of the way the guys stuck it out today and I’m just looking forward to next week’s game…’ – ‘I have no idea what the question meant but this is what they told me to say at Media Training Camp.’

‘Our ball retention was lacking…’ – ‘We didn’t catch very many passes…coz we’re shit.’

‘We failed to complete our sets…’ – ‘We didn’t catch very many passes…coz we’re shit.’

‘We let ourselves down in the execution…’ – ‘We’re not a very skillful team really…coz we’re shit.’

‘We didn’t get the basics right…’ – ‘Like I said…we’re shit.’

‘I thought we lacked intensity…’ – ‘We weren’t trying very hard. I hope no one noticed.’

‘I was really proud of the way the guys stuck it out today and I’m just looking forward to next week’s game…’ – ‘I’m a fucking moron and this is what they told me to say at Media Training Camp to avoid embarrassing myself or the team’.

‘We always expect a tough game from them…’ – ‘They were shit. I don’t know why they bothered turning up today.’

‘The score line didn’t reflect how hard it was out there…’—‘Fuck me I thought we were shit but did you see how bad those cunts were.’

‘It was a very physical game…’ – ‘Wow there was heaps of mistakes out there. I bet that was a really shit game to watch’.

‘We’re just going to give it our best shot next week’ – ‘We can’t possibly win next week. Didn’t you see how shit we were today?’

‘I was really proud of the way the guys stuck it out today and I’m just looking forward to next week’s game…’ – ‘I have brain damage and this is what they told me to say at Media Training Camp to avoid embarrassing myself or the sport.’

‘There were a lot of positives out there today.’ – ‘Fuck at least we didn’t get beaten as bad as we did last week.’

‘I think we can take a lot out of that performance…’ – ‘We had 75 ½ points head start on Footy Tab and only got beaten by 73.’

‘That’s footy I guess…’ – ‘Fuck we’re a shit team.’

'They took their opportunities better than us...' -- 'We lost beacuse the other side scored more points...even a silly cunt like you must see that.'

‘I was really proud of the way the guys stuck it out today and I’m just looking forward to next week’s game…’ –‘Fuck I hope I still have a job after that…coz I’m a fucking moron with brain damage and I don’t know how I’d earn a living if it wasn’t for footy.’

no thanks...just browsing...

I am a good clothes shopper most of the time; careful, considered, conservative and I’m never swayed by the attentions of fawning sales-staff trying to sell me something I can’t really wear or don’t need.
I never ask for help…preferring to take my time… trying on this and that…then maybe going back to an earlier choice… trying a size up, a size down…a different colour…a different brand…before buying a garment.
If I’m suitably electrified by an item, I’ll buy two or even three of them, in case I wear one out and can’t find a replacement in five years time; this explains the collection of ‘Levi 501s’ I have at home, amassed over a twenty-year period, with waist sizes ranging from 28” (1990) to 33” (2004) which I intend to be able to get back into some day…
Anyway, recently my favourite pair of ‘Nike’ tracksuit pants finally disintegrated in the washing machine after a four-year lifespan spent mostly on the sofa watching TV with me. They were the last of the three pairs I bought in Seoul in 1997 during the Asian currency crisis; $30 each…and possibly the finest couch-potato-wear ever made.
I was gutted at their passing.
However I knew this day would finally come…
So yesterday I dragged myself up to ‘Rebel’, a large sports apparel barn in the local mall, where I hoped to find a new pair of tracksuit pants…or three…to see me safely into the twilight of my TV-watching career.
Spying the tracksuits almost immediately and being a creature of intense habit, I went straight to the ‘Nike’ section and ignoring colour for the moment grabbed a dazzling white size ‘M’ (hopeful much), an ‘L’ (more realistic) and an ‘XL’ (just in case) before poodling off to the fitting rooms.
Unsurprisingly the ‘M’ was a little tight around the waist, not to mention very unforgiving around the crotch. The ‘L’ was a perfect fit around the waist but still a little tight in the crotch. The ‘XL’ was a bit large around the waist, needed the drawstring pulled into the maximum…was still a bit grabby round the crotch…and the legs finished about 20cms beyond my feet.
Unhappy with any of the ‘Nike’ range, I handed them to the slack-jawed, nose-pierced, gum-chewing Westie chick manning (or womanning) the fitting-rooms and went back to the racks to reload. This time I tried the ‘Adidas’ collection; three sizes…in light grey…with the same disappointing results.
I handed the attendant the rejected clothing and went back to the rack again.
I tried ‘Converse’…in beige…
Then ‘Lonsdale’…in red…
Four trips to the fitting room, nearly an hour gone by and I had yet to find a pair of tracksuit pants that felt comfortable enough to lie around in. Nothing would fit; the new cut of tracksuit pants was stylish to be sure and fleecy as fuck…but the obsession with low-rise, hipster-type gym wear had definitely taken its toll on the lounge-factor.
Not to mention the fact they seemed a bit gay for my fiercely straight taste.
Still, undaunted by my failure I decided to check out some lesser-known brands…’Asics’, ‘Everlast’…with the same results. Every tracksuit manufacturer had apparently capitulated and followed the herd-leader into this awful new design; my frustration was starting to show as I literally hurled the three pairs of light-green ‘Diadora’ pants at the pointless stoner still leaned against the fitting-room door.
‘You’re not having much luck there are you, Sir ?’
‘No…I’m having some trouble finding a cut that feels comfortable…in the crotch…the new styles seem to favour a slimmer wearer…and the hip-huggy thing is not really me.’
‘Did you particularly want to get a pair of women’s tracksuit pants ?’
‘What ?’
‘Well, are you particularly set on the women’s’ range or would you like to try on some men’s tracksuit pants ?’
‘Please don’t tell me I’ve been trying on chick’s pants for a fucking hour and this is the first you’ve said anything. Please tell me you haven’t just stood there and folded ninety-nine pairs of women’s tracksuits and watched me go off to get more. Why the fuck would I want women’s tracksuit pants…you fucking spoon ?’
‘I wasn’t sure.’
‘Right…so where are the men’s trackies ?’
‘Over there (gesturing to the other side of the store).’
It’s funny because once the silly cunt pointed it out to me; the colours did seem a bit unmanly come to think of it…and there was a rack of leggings right nearby now that I remember…along with one-piece swimsuits if the truth be told…and some very small running shoes…fucketty fuck fuck fuck…

one giant leap for man...

One of the many physical attributes that distinguish Man from the rest of the beasts is the miraculous opposable thumb. This extraordinary piece of evolutionary engineering allows Man to grasp an object with far greater force, and then wield that object with infinitely greater precision than that which would be possible without it.
With the arrival of this magnificent appendage Man was suddenly able to hold objects such as a tree branch firmly in his hand and get started on the job of hitting other animals over the head with it. Animals that until then had a predatorial advantage over Man, by virtue of their superior strength or bite capability, were now firmly on the menu because Man, armed with his opposable thumb and high-tech killing stick was now able to do harm from a safe distance.
All very informative…but do I have a point ??
Well as a matter of fact I do.
Given a survey I’ve just read which stated that the average length of time it takes a young male surfing the internet for the first occasion to navigate onto a porno site is around nine minutes, I would suggest that even with his not so highly-developed cave-brain, it probably took Man, with his new-fangled opposable thumb, around the same length of time to put down the killing stick…grab his doodle and play with it. Of course we have no idea who the first male human to conceive of it was, but in deference to his legacy to Man, let’s call him The Man.
For he certainly was all of that.
Along with the discovery that pig meat tasted better when you put it in the fire for a while, the idea that you could use your opposable thumb to hold your pee-pee against the palm of your hairy hand and apply modest friction must surely rank as one of Man’s happiest moments.
Until then Man’s only chance of getting his prehistoric rocks off would have come by way of reproductive necessity and involved the decidedly unappealing prospect of poking his hairy cave-chick in her abundant, unwashed whiskers, however the addition of the ‘Digitatus Magicus’ must have heralded the dawn of a new age; The Leisure Era.
What followed was surely the most rapid and vigorous development of consciousness in human history??
Within minutes of inventing auto-eroticism, The Man would have tapped into his previously unused prefrontal cortex and had his first abstract thought; most likely a lesbian fantasy.
Perhaps a minute later The Man’s hitherto irrelevant vocal chords would have unseized themselves and sputtered to life with the first word ever spoken; ‘Ooooooooh’. This would have been followed almost immediately by the creation of God, which was probably also the second word ever spoken, to act as both a focal entity for giving thanks to.…and as an unseen mate to whom The Man could forevermore explain how good this new activity felt.
And if anyone needs further proof of the evolutionary importance of Man’s ability to toss his own salad then consider the dimensions of the human arm. It's just the right length to reach the wing-wang. Notice that Nature did not give Man little Tyrannosaurus Rex arms with which to simply play with his breasts, nor did it equip him with King Kong arms to tickle the backs of his knees. Nope, it gave Man arms that are perfectly proprtional for the job of knocking his own top off.
Though I often wonder why Nature did not smile on Woman too, and instead of giving her opposable thumbs, simply fuse her fingers together...

so the weekend's over and you think your life is shit...

Inspired by the tireless legions of people who will try to bring you down by reminding you it's Monday, I offer this different view of the world and ask you to consider what Life might be like had Fate seen fit to make you a blowfly...

'I remember my first impression of the world as though it were last week; unsurprising really given that it was only last week. Abandoned in a putrid dumpster by a well-meaning mother, the world seemed utterly devoid of anything. Total darkness, complete silence…
Of course with hindsight…and hindhearing…I realize this initial impression was almost certainly due to the fact I’d been born both blind and deaf, though I didn’t know that at the time.
However what was apparent was that in one of Nature’s crueler ironies, taking into account the immediate surroundings, I had been given a magnificently acute sense of smell. It’s commonly accepted that when you’re a maggot you have to expect these types of bad breaks? On the other hand when you start life as a maggot there’s another school of thought that says you’re also entitled to some sort of assurance that things can’t possibly get much worse.
That’s the thorny philosophical quality-of-life issue I had been contemplating when the hunger pains kicked in…
Just light tremors to begin with...but lumbered as I was with a larval body-plan consisting of seventy-five percent stomach those tremors quickly turned into a full-blown hunger-quake. As my minimal luck so far would have it, mother had had the instinctive good sense to provide for this eventuality; when she flew off, she did so leaving me perched atop a vast expanse of steadily-ripening hamburger. Its rancid stench was music to my nose; a vast desert of salmonella it may have been to some…but to me it was a tropical island of filet mignon.
Rolling my cumbersome body over to take advantage of the situation, I just hoped that cunt Nature, which had so far overlooked me in the eyes and ears department…had bothered to give me a mouth…'

to be cont'd...

this is an all day sucker...

Not to be confused with me...the all day and all night sucker...
For the past year or so I’ve been actively pursuing this certain chick…
Not systematically chasing her like I would have in the old days when I was a mighty hunter armed with a quiver full of sharpened spears and arrows. Those days are long gone. I’m less of a hunter and more the collector now.
And since I’m down to my last rusty arrow it’s probably for the best.
Nevertheless, this chick has become my obsession, my Holy Grail…my White Whale; except that I call her ‘The Elephant’. She earns that title not because she looks anything like an elephant; in fact she’s more of a gazelle, a very hot gazelle, with amazingly hot gazelle-legs. No, I call her ‘The Elephant’ because if I somehow manage to bring her down on what’s sure to be my last expedition…I will never have to kill again.
Anyway, enough of the metaphors; you get the drift.
We go out on these dates…apparently. I assume they’re dates because she calls them dates, gets all dressed up like she’s on a date and I always pick up the bill.
However this is where the similarity between our dates and actual dates (the ones I remember going on in an earlier life) ends.
Our dates mostly consist of my asking how she is…and her spending the rest of the evening telling me; in excruciating detail. Not just recent detail either…recent detail mixed with historical detail…reams of past-relationship detail, a list of complaints about ex-boyfriends/husbands and a full psychological deconstruction of her early childhood and its connection to her poor relationship decision-making.
If she wasn’t so fucking hot, I’d stab her in the eye with my oyster fork…
So I sit there and listen while she blathers on and on about it. Actually, I don’t even listen anymore since I know the spiel off-by-heart. Mostly I do long-division in my head and nod occasionally…and think about her legs…those amazingly hot gazelle-legs…parked behind her ears…or mine…or both.
Not that this has happened yet.
Sometimes, to relieve the tedium I play a game with her, changing the topic to something preposterously left-field and noting how many degrees of separation it takes her to segue back to the regular programming. For instance the other week, just as she was about to launch into the “…Honestly, Fingers I just seem to attract these losers…”, I cut her off with a tricky, “Hey did you see that Foreign Correspondent episode on the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe ??”
I had this figured for a four-degree segue at best…
‘The Elephant’ smoked me in one move.
“No, I didn’t see it…but I remember in Singapore last year I got some sort of stomach-bug and ‘Fuck Knuckle’ just left me in the hotel room and went out for two days sight-seeing and drinking…”
“That was awesome.”
“What ??”
“Nothing…you were saying…”
“Honestly, Fingers I just seem to attract these losers. What is it about me that says ‘Losers Apply Here’ ?? I mean do I have a sign on my head that proclaims I’m only available if you’re a loser ??”
“Well, I’m here now, baby…so you don’t need to worry about that anymore.”
“Yes but why can’t I meet any nice boys…banker boys, good-looking with brains and a sense of humour??”
Have I mentioned what amazingly hot gazelle-legs she has ??
“I don’t know. Sometimes I wish I weren’t made entirely of chopped-liver and onions though.”
“What ??”
“Nothing. You were saying how difficult it was meeting a nice boy…sorry for interrupting. Shall we get some more wine…??”
“Yes, can we get another bottle of that nice shiraz ?? Seriously though Fingers…where does a girl go to meet eligible guys these days??”
“Yes, I know what you mean. I don’t seem to meet any single chicks these days either. Not good-looking, successful, smart or funny ones…”
And I’m secretly wondering whether she’ll take this outrageous bait.
“Well thanks a lot. That makes me feel really special.”
Have I mentioned what amazingly hot gazelle-legs she has ??
“Fucking hell, Fingers…it’s not like I’m asking for the world here…it’s just that…”
And I can see her lips moving and I hear some words coming out and I feel the overwhelming urge to yawn, which will surely kill the date stone-dead, so I clench my teeth as the yawn rolls over me like a wave of liquid Rohypnol…and I wonder whether right at the point of yawning my eyes will cloud over and give me away ?? Is it dangerous to try and stifle a yawn ?? I once heard that keeping your eyes open during a sneeze could kill you…perhaps this is the same ?? Three-thousand five hundred and twelve divided by eight equals four-carry-the-three…

Did I mention the legs though…

back to basics...

My erstwhile blogging friend ‘Emmak’ suggested recently that I’d dropped the ball, so to speak, when it came to being a cunt.




And I reluctantly agree, so enough of the memoirs for a while, no more lazy pictorial-posts, you’ve had your last cat anecdote…this is the ‘The Whine Guide’…and it’s for fucking whining.
Ironically, there was something from ‘Emmak’s’ blog that had been grinding my exceedingly slow gears all weekend…and I gave it plenty of thought while sitting in a splendid vineyard last Saturday night, drinking red wine from the bottle, gazing at the waxing moon and listening to that prick Eric Clapton give arguably the most boring, arrogant, self-indulgent concert in living memory.
And during his lifeless rendition of JJ Cahill’s ‘Cocaine’, when I took the hint and dashed off to the Porta-Loos for a fortifying hit of Pechanga, that I had my epiphany.
Well, it’s not so much from Emma’s blog as it is from the comment section, courtesy of that well-known champion of women’s’ rights…’Stalking in Memphis Steve’.
He stated, in between some other slobbering fulminations, that, ‘Meanwhile, China and Russia will crush us with very masculine, phallic-shaped missiles…’
Now it isn’t the first time I’ve heard this garbage, and to be fair to ‘Memphis’ I know he was being facetious…but I’ve sat through dinner party conversations where the subject of overly aggressive patriarchies and their deadly penis-shaped missiles has come up.
So, to all the ballistically-challenged fuckheads who insist on toeing this boring, clichéd line of reasoning I say the following; it’s not because men like to design these long-range engines of death in the image of their own noodles.
IT’S BECAUSE YOU CAN’T BUILD A FLYING VAJAJAY !!!
It just doesn’t work.
And even if you could…should anyone, even the vilest of enemies…ever be subjected to the indignity of having as their last mortal image…a 50-foot steel cunt coming at them at 10,000 miles per hour…

the pre-St Valentines Day Non Massacre...

I'm not constantly in trouble with the law these days...but you wouldn't know it from this...








Last Wednesday evening, after a thoroughly ordinary meal at the trendy new ‘Beresford Hotel’, I’d had enough red wine and port for my clients to convince me to take them for a lap dance back in the CBD.
They hopped in a taxi…whereas I was so drunk I thought a ride on ‘The Stealth Vespa’ might be in order…and we arranged to meet inside ‘Madam Chang’s Imperial Whoopee Parlour’ * in twenty minutes.
I arrived at the ‘Pitt St Ballet’ ** and to say that I was off my chops would be an understatement. If the universe is very, very big…then I was very, very off my chops. Nevertheless, I proceeded to stroll through the front door, past the two bouncers of unknown but decidedly Pacific Island extraction, when one of them noticed my little rucksack and asked if he could look inside.

Rewind about three days…
One of my work colleagues had broken the tip off the office carving knife, a whacking great 33cm hunk of sharpened, Japanese stainless steel…and I had put the knife into my rucksack with a view to taking it home, grinding off the damaged tip and re-sharpening the blade. I had not got around to doing this yet…and the knife was still in my rucksack.

Fast-forward back to the story:..
So, I was standing at the door to ‘Booze and Smoos’ ***, casually smoking a cigarette while Fella Felloffalori and Mia Fartuesele rummaged through my rucksack, quickly discovering the carving knife which they pulled out for everyone to see.
‘What the fuck is this eh, bro,’ one of the amazed bouncers asked.
‘Well, it appears to be a large carving knife,’ I replied…too drunk to think of what else it COULD be besides a large carving knife.
‘And just where did you think you’d be going with it, bro,’ they continued.
‘Well, obviously I was looking to perhaps cruise into the club and cut a few of the girls from ear to flaps,’ I ventured, wondering whether these two bouncers had keen, bouncery senses of humour.
Of course they didn’t.
‘Well how about you get the fuck up against the wall while we call the cops eh, bro,’ they yelled instead of falling to the floor in hysterical laughter at my timely joke…like I had hoped.
Ten minutes later the police arrived, by which time I’d managed to explain to the bouncers what had happened…and amazingly they not only believed me but even told the cops it was a false alarm and that it had all been a huge misunderstanding.
I was then allowed to enter ‘Naked Overpriced Greedy Money-Hungry Coke Molls R Us’ **** and spend a stupid, stupid amount of hard-earned cash (which I thoroughly regretted the next morning)…after checking my carving knife at the door.
And they say capitalism is dead…

* Obviously not the club’s real name.
** This isn’t the real name either.
*** This is closer; but still not the real name
**** OK, I’m just being a little bitter and twisted about the whole experience now…

road tripping part II...

In what has been a trying week for many people, I hope this post brings a smile to someone's face...



As I sat there in the wreckage of Dad’s nice, new car…it began to snow.
This was strange for February in Sydney but after a litre or so of Cointreau, the old meteorological reasoning faculties were a little skewed, so I simply chose to believe what I was seeing. What I was actually seeing was the apparently fine powder storm created when an airbag inflates automatically.
Staring at the winter wonderland going on around me, it seemed as though I was a figure in one of those kids’ toys you shake; I half-expected to see a reindeer sitting next to me in the passenger seat.
Then I noticed the small pillow against my chest, unaware that it was in fact the driver’s airbag, since I’d never actually seen one before. Either way, it looked inviting enough to lay my head down on and take a well-deserved nap, which I was just about to do when the car-door opened unceremoniously and a gun was leveled at my head. Of all the weird things going on…the snow, the pillow, the absence of any reindeer…it was the gun that seemed totally imaginary…so I ignored it.
‘YOU INSIDE…GET OUT OF THE FUCKING VEHICLE NOW !!!’
‘Huh ?? What ??’ I managed to stammer, hoping like hell I was also imagining the enraged police officer now yelling into my ear.
‘I SAID GET OUT OF THE FUCKING VEHICLE…PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE ROOF OF THE VEHICLE AND SPREAD YOUR LEGS !!!’
When the full second I’d been given to comply had elapsed without my managing to do any of these tasks, a large hand reached into the cabin, grabbed me by the collar and hauled me out onto the street. Rough treatment for sure…but as I later found out, the police officers were exremely pissed off, assuming quite fairly, although erroneously as it turned out, that I had deliberately tried to run them over.
After patting me down for weapons, ‘Constable Cranky Pants’ spun me around, stared deep into my eyes, which must have resembled a pair of smashed ‘Jaffas’ and said, ‘Have you been drinking tonight ??’
To which I replied, ‘Mate, I’ve had about 25 Cointreaus on ice…maybe more…and some had vodka in them too.’
To which he replied, ‘Well I’m going to have to ask you to blow into the bag.’
To which I replied…in a line that has passed into Eastern Suburbs folklore…’Why…don’t you believe me ??’
(Now, truth be known, I don’t claim to have thought of this line myself. I’d heard the gag somewhere before and dreamed of the day I’d be in a good position to use it. That day had come…I took my opportunity for glory and ran with it.)
At this point I was convinced the cop was going to punch my face in…

To be continued…

481-11-11...

It’s not something I’m particularly proud of…but I have a bit of an addiction to pizza; specifically mushroom pizza.




For the last twenty-five years I’ve had at least one a week, sometimes more. In the early nineties, when I used to order from ‘Pizza Hut’, they once sent me a free ‘PH’ basketball because I had ordered more than fifty pizzas in a six month period.
And it’s always the same order: One large thin and crispy double mushroom pizza…no ham, no onions, no fucking anchovy, no pineapple and no exotic yak cheese…just mushrooms…on mozzarella.
When I moved to Cunt Point and was no longer in the ‘Pizza Hut’ delivery area, I switched to a local pizzeria which has been faithfully delivering my humble order for the past five years.
As Kitty will be falling over her keyboard to confirm, I like to eat my pizza with butter. Yes…butter. I take a slice of oily mushroom pizza and put a generous helping of full-salt butter on top…and I eat it.
Please save your health concerns for someone else; I’m beyond the reach of medical reason. Dad’s stroke may have changed my smoking habits but nothing short of a personal and massive coronary will change my attitude towards pizza with butter.
Still, this post isn’t about dietary nightmares; it’s a story about pizza.
So, I’ve been ordering the same pizza from the same local joint for the past five years. We have the same conversation every week…practically word for word. I’ve become quite friendly with the owner too.

‘Hello PizzaBella…how can I help you ??’
‘Hi…this is Fingers up in Cunt Point…can I have my usual please.’
‘Sure Fingers…one large thin and crispy double mushroom on mozzarella.’
‘Thanks Giuseppe (not his real name).’
‘OK.’

Every week for five years…practically word for word.
Until last night.

‘Hello PizzaBella…how can I help you ??’
‘Hi…this is Fingers up in Cunt Point…can I have my usual please.’
‘Sure Fingers…one large thin and crispy double mushroom on mozzarella.’
‘Yes thanks, Giuseppe. Actually…no…tonight could I please have one of those awful deep-dish, pan-fried horrors with the molten goat’s cheese inside the crust.’
‘Really ??’
‘Yes…and instead of just double mushroom can I have olives, asparagus and sun-dried tomatoes as well.’
‘Are you sure ??’
‘Yes…also could you please put too much mozzarella on top and cook it at one-million degrees Celsius so that even after you slice it with the pizza-cutter the cheese reforms itself into a solid mass.’
‘Huh ??’
‘Oh…and could you ask the motor-bike delivery guy to go round the corners really, really fast so that the solid, congealed mass of super-heated mozzarella slides off the top of the crust and deposits itself on one side of the box…’
‘Um…I don’t think we can do a pizza like that for you, Fingers.’
‘WELL YOU FUCKING DID LAST WEEK YOU DUMB WOG CUNT…’

After he stopped laughing, Giuseppe sent me a complimentary pizza to make up for the previous week’s disaster, which goes to show that there is sometimes plenty to be gained from being a rude prick…

road tripping...

OK, time to revisit the past and tell you a story…it’s a bit long, so please bear with me and don’t moan for me to ‘get on with it’ over the next few posts…


The year was 1983, my parents had just retired and sold the business they ran for twenty years, cashed in their super, bought their first Mercedes Benz and were off to the UK for a month-long vacation.
I was in the last year of Law School, still living at home, looking at forty years of hard-work ahead, had no money and was driving a battered Toyota Celica held together with duct tape.
As I dropped my folks off at the airport in their nice, new Mercedes…I remember Dad saying, ‘Fingers, your car is a mess…through no fault of your own…please feel free to use the Mercedes until we return.’
Dad always maintains he said, ‘Fingers you irresponsible cunt…take the Mercedes straight home, park it, lock it…and do not touch it while we’re away for any fucking reason.’
The exact words he used are still contentious bones even twenty-five years on; whatever they were, I thought they were somewhat vague and ambiguous.
Anyway, at the very least, I was sure Dad wouldn’t mind my borrowing the car for something as sensible as a ‘$20-all-the Cointreau-you-can-drink’ night at ‘Metropolis Nightclub’ in North Sydney, so a few days later I jumped in the Mercedes, drove over there, paid my $20, drank about $100 worth, then at 3am got back in the Mercedes to drive home.
Sadly, in those days I was a serial drink-driver...
*This story is not intended to glorify that practice either; I was a young moron who enjoyed driving cars, drinking and combining the two as often as possible. Thankfully I never injured a single person during the whole stupid phase…a freakishly unlikely piece of good fortune.*
Enough editorial…back to the good stuff…
So, having successfully navigated my way back to the Eastern Suburbs, I was coming out of the Kings Cross tunnel and decided to floor the Mercedes down the hill and see what those clever Germans had put under the bonnet. I estimate I had that fucker up to 140kph as I got to the base of the hill, where the road flattened out into a long stretch, and as I looked up to see where I was going, I noticed the police had set up one of the new ‘Random Breath Test’ (RBT) buses by the roadside. These were quite rare back then, so I had no pre-conceived ideas about what I would ever do if I approached one and was clearly over the legal limit to drive.
The police manning the RBT bus had seen me flying down the hill and had run out into the middle of the road with their fluorescent batons; they were very keen to have me pull over for a chat and a blow in their bag. I, on the other hand didn’t see any upside in that and prepared to ‘run’ their feeble roadblock and disappear into the distance before they could give chase, so I gunned the motor and kept going.
Then as I got about one-hundred metres from the bus and the cops, I chickened out, hit the brakes…a little too hard as it happened…and put the Mercedes into a violent tailspin. The last thing I saw, as the car went through 360 degrees was the panic-stricken cops hurling themselves into the flowerbeds on the median strip which divided the road.
Oh yes…and I saw the big, blue bus with ‘POLICE” painted clearly on the back.
The next few seconds are still a blur, however there was much screeching rubber noise, a lot of spinning motion and I closed my eyes…then a loud bang, a cessation of the spinning…and when I opened my eyes I found I had come to a halt…presumably because the Mercedes was now embedded up to its engine-block in the back of the big, blue bus with ‘POLICE” painted clearly on the back.
As far as I’m aware I am still the only driver in New South Wales to have actually run into a ‘booze-bus’ as we call them here ??
Meanwhile, the cops had climbed out of the flowerbeds and were now running over to the wrecked Mercedes, no doubt anxious to see if I was alright…

*stay tuned…there’s more to follow…*

dummer and dummer...

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old cunt…has anyone seen the list of subjects that made up the 2008 HSC curriculum this year ??
For overseas readers, ‘HSC’ (Higher School Certificate) is the leaving examination for all school students in New South Wales, scores in which go a long way to determining placements in universities and technical colleges.

Let’s start with some of the sillier languages now studied…and the students allowed to ‘study’ these ‘languages’…
Would it surprise anyone to learn that Emineh Shahmoradian topped the state in Armenian, Anke Vermuelen in Dutch, Jaksanwal Kathpal in Hindi, Milan Mitrevski in Macedonian, Saeed Arjomand Bigdeli in Persian, Chrisanthi Karunainathan in Tamil or Thomas Erik Holstrom in Swedish ??
Hmmm…unfair advantage much…
But wait, there’s more…because not only do these presumably native-speakers get a free swing at 2/3 units of education, they’re undoubtedly also eligible to sit for the prestigious ‘English As A Second Language’ course, which is the educational equivalent of the Paralympics or women’s golf.
OK, I don’t want to be accused of bashing foreigners, which most certainly isn’t the intent here…so let’s move onto the meatier courses.
It’s just a shame there isn’t ‘Sort-Of-Maths As An Alternate Means Of Counting To Combat Inherited Stupidity’ or ‘Science For Anyone Whose Religious Beliefs Mean They Prefer Fairy Tales To Difficult Theories and Equations’.
As a taxpayer I’m thrilled to be allowed to subsidize the continued study of Cosmology, Dance, Food Technology, Design and Textiles…to which I’d like added Astrology, Karaoke, Sun-baking, Cigarette-Rolling and Shopping.
There were apparently stiff examinations in Tourism, Personal Development, Hospitality and most importantly Entertainment Industry, all of which were hopefully held in rooms down at ‘Centrelink’ to provide the students/future long-term unemployed with an authentic application-completing experience.
Strangely, important subjects such as Celebrity Trivia, Boganism, Facebook Protocol and SMS Acronyms went untaught this year…

happy birthday to meme...

I know some of you have done that dreary ‘meme’ lately; the one where you write letters to various people and get stuff off your chests. I’m not doing that…BUT…and I know some of the intended recipients are going to be reading this…here is an open letter to some of my friends, who attended a belated birthday lunch in my honour yesterday.



Dear S: When I un-wrapped your gift and bubbled with excitement over it, I assumed from the size of the box and a quick perusal of the front cover that you’d got me the official ‘Scrabble’ CD-ROM. It was only when I got home and opened the box I realized you’d got me a ‘Scrabble’ desk calendar. How thoughtful; like a roll of toilet paper with a joke on each square. I’m so glad I got you an ‘Alessi’ cocktail shaker for your birthday…you cheap cunt.

Dear M & G: Hope you liked the $500 espresso machine I got for your wedding last month ?? Since it’s highly unlikely you’ll be buying me a wedding present any time soon, I guess a beach towel with the colours of the Italian flag on it just about makes us even…you cheap cunts.

Dear A: A bottle of current release wine with no card; I suppose if the grog shop between your place and mine had been closed, I would have missed out completely this year ?? Perhaps I should bring my present over for dinner at your house next week and we can drink it from the ‘Waterford’ crystal wine goblet I got you for your last birthday…you cheap cunt.

Dear T: A voucher…from ‘The Body Shop’ no less. Nothing a man likes more than a $25 gift certificate from a chick’s lotion store. I’m surprised it didn’t come with a card that said ‘Have an average birthday…coz I certainly don’t give a flying fuck about it.’ How’s the deluxe pet carry-case that I got you last year working out ?? You know, the one you’d been wishing for but hadn’t got around to buying yet ?? The one I went and got and delivered…with a ribbon around it…you cheap cunt.

Dear I: I must admit…that was a nice lasagna dish you gave me. I had one, even more magnificent, by ‘Pillivuyt’, until I lent it to you last XMAS and you broke it in half by dropping it on the floor. Since your birthday is later this month, perhaps you should just come round and select a gift from my kitchen. I know you like my German carbon-steel carving knives. Take them; they’re yours. I’ll replace them with a set of Korean self-sharpening blades…you cheap cunt.

Dear N: Since I didn’t get you anything for your birthday this year, I could hardly expect something in return. Fair’s fair. It was very gracious of you to turn up yesterday with no money and allow me to buy you lunch though. I hope you’ll turn up to your own birthday next year with no money and allow me to return the favour by shouting you another meal…you cheap cunt.

Sigh…I think I’m going to wait for the post-XMAS sales in a few weeks and get myself a boxed set of ‘New Friends’. Hell, at 50% off I might even get two boxes…

PS: To everyone who attended yesterday, thanks for coming along. You know I’m just kidding…about everything except your being cheap cunts…

one wedding and a funereal date...

Last Friday I went to a wedding; a wedding so strange I’ll blog about it another day. This post is about the strange date I had last night with the strange chick I met at the strange wedding last Friday.


At the strange wedding, we were seated next to each other during the reception function, which was held in the dining room at The Australian Museum. As soon as this strange chick saw she was sitting next to me, she put her hand excitedly over her mouth and squealed, ‘OMG, it’s you !!!’
You see, twenty minutes earlier, before being seated for dinner at the strange wedding, all the guests had been milling around drinking champagne in a small ante-room off to the side of the dining room. This room contained a collection of small-to-medium, generally unremarkable Australian mammals, in skeletal form, free-standing on slightly-raised plinths. I had been carrying two drinks back from the bar, wearing my splendid black-tie best, when I clipped an unseen plinth, stumbled…and went ass-over-glass into an Australian fur seal, bringing the entire collection of bones down around me.
Anyway, after recognizing me as the strange boy responsible for dismantling the fur seal, the strange chick and I spent a lovely evening chatting…at the end of which we arranged to have a more intimate dinner on Sunday night.
So, last night we met at a very trendy new wine bar in Surry Hills, which considering how well things had gone at the strange wedding, should have been nothing more than a formality prior to my taking her home and dismantling her fur seal…so to speak.
Except that it didn’t turn out that way at all.
About thirty minutes into the date, I asked the strange chick ‘where she was from’, because although her accent was obviously Australian, her appearance was decidedly Oriental, with perhaps a touch of something else. Never mind that this blend of features is just about my favourite anyway, I simply wanted to enquire as to her ethnic origins. A very close girl friend of mine, whom I dated briefly in Tokyo before settling for a long term friendship instead, once confided that enduring a first date with me was like being ‘Clarissa Starling’ to ‘Dr Hannibal Lechter’ in their initial prison conversation from ‘The Silence of the Lambs’.
In hindsight, I wish to fuck I’d asked her what her star sign was now.
'What do you mean “where am I from”…,’ she snapped back.
‘I just mean what’s your…er…um…lineage…you know…’
‘I’m a fucking Australian, just like you…born and bred here, mate.’
‘Yes, I can see that (I couldn’t actually)…but obviously I wasn’t referring to your place of birth as much as I was asking about your ancestry.’
‘Well, if you must know…my father was American and my mother was Indonesian…’
And then it came to me…perhaps the most devastatingly clever line ever delivered on a date anywhere in human history, although I won’t take credit for its invention, because I heard the joke many years ago…but I’d guarantee no one has ever had the opportunity to deliver it, unforced, in a social situation such as this.
‘So, I guess that makes you an Amnesian…’
At this point I fully expected her to sweep the food and wine off the table, climb on top of it, hike her skirt up round her ears, lay back and spread her charms before me like an Amnesian banquet.
Except that it didn’t turn out that way at all.

*crickets*

*huge ferris-wheel-sized tumbleweeds*

‘What??’
‘It’s a joke…you know…because your father is American and….’
‘Yes, I see what you’re getting at…but I don’t think it’s very amusing at all.’
‘Oh, come on…it’s pretty amusing.’
‘Well, not to me.’

Sensing that the situation was rapidly spiraling out of control, I went for the Hail Mary play.
‘Well could you at least pretend to be an Amnesian and forget this whole conversation ever happened??’
At last she smiled; it was then I knew my strange-boyish good-humour had finally broken through the impenetrable force-field the strange chick from the strange wedding had spent the last two minutes erecting. The food and wine was about to go flying. It was climbing time, hiking time, laying, spreading and banqueting time…
Except that it didn’t turn out that way at all.
Still smiling…
‘I think I’d like to go home now.’
‘Yes, that’s probably a good idea…’

Some days I wish I was a fucking Amnesian…