Take that you economy loving harpie

"Flight grounded as hosties come to blows" reads the headlines. Well that's got to be everyman's fantasy come true. "A flight in the US was cancelled after two flight attendants got into a fist fight, according to local reports. Two female flight attendants "got into a fist fight on the plane... the pilot decided to kick everyone off the plane." "They told us we had to get off the plane because stewardesses were fighting," said passenger Corey Minton. If I was Corey I'd be pretty pissed off. If Tiffany and Feefie from budget bimbo start throwing right hooks up the tail end then WHY ARE THE PASSENGERS PUNISHED? Corey should have decked both of them, shoved them onto the tarmac and closed the emergency hatch. What is it with the Airline industry that allows them to fail to provide a service on so many fronts? If bank teller number 5 decides to call bank teller number 6 a fat bastard do we ask everyone in the bank queues to leave? No, they place an ad on Seek saying team players wanted for exciting career opportunity. Fire them and taxi to the runway. Time recruit a new Tiffany or whatever, preferably without the tiffs.

When it comes to a wide screen just say I do

I had to talk a friend in from the ledge yesterday after a bust up with the boyfriend. They had been dating for about three months when he rang her from the supermarket, somewhere between the carrots and the spuds when he dropped the old "honey I think we should start seeing other people" line. Her immediate reaction was to think I'll tear the brussel sprouts off you but then sunk into a deep depression of where did I go wrong. It's a shame to think we spend so much time stewing over these events when clearly most men have ticked off the shopping list and moved on. She began to question what it is that men want. It's like all of us, they want it all. Some men have set plans though and they will not deviate from that schedule no matter how tall, attractive, sport watching and impress my mates type you are, if you are not in the plan then it's good night Irene. After you've slept with her preferably. Men go into marriage like they go into buying a television. Today I will buy an LCD. They will happily shop around but when it's the day to purchase, the deal is done and the new set is carried over the threshold with much pride. They wont consider the ups and downs, what if it doesn't look any good, what if my parents don't like it, what if it causes us to fight, they just buy it. Then at the age of 45 they wonder why their television is not thrilling the bejesus out of them anymore and they want to trade it in for a newer one. I did say to my friend that maybe I'm not the best person to give advice on relationships as I don't keep pets or men in the house anymore but I do think she should give herself a break. She just needs to spend more time in Harvey Norman.

Coffee and a monster to go

Now there is a website that you can look up to find baby friendly cafes for "those who don't want to give up on good coffee...". Heaven forbid you might have to make a change in your life! This site provides scores on overall experience (theirs or mine?) change tables (in a food environment, fantastic), high chairs, friendliness of staff and play areas. It's a fucking cafe you dimwits not a jumping castle. I don't come over to day care centres and sit in the middle of the floor reading the business review and screaming I want Chardonnay and I want it NOW. Too many times do I see children running out of control through cafes where poor wait staff are balancing trays of hot coffee and expected to say nothing. It's time someone told these parents that their kids are arseholes and it appears to be heredity. Cafes are adult environments where you sit and you eat and you drink. It is not a playfield for the spawn of Satan to behave like they do in their overstuffed homes. No, cafes are not children friendly because they are adult places. If you didn't want to give up going to cafes for a few years then you should have kept your pants on.

Alien airlines

Like all of us I have days when I sit here and think what am I going to write about today. And then some days you come across gold. Today was a sparkler with the Australian delivering headlines that read "Queens Astronomer says Aliens could be among us". According to Lord Rees "the visitors might be in a form beyond human understanding". Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society academy of science and also astronomer to the Queen, goes on to say: "They could be staring us in the face and we just don't recognize them." So if the Queen's astronomer is telling us that 'they' are among us it might explain a lot. I think I've definitely seen them on the trams, they may even be pretending to be politicians and they definitely explain some of the celebrity stuff. I wonder what I would do if someone I knew turned out to be an alien? Would you dob them in? Who do you call, is there an alien hotline, do we have anti alien laws that stops them at the border? While we were getting all excited about a few desperate asylum seekers, half of Mars has landed. We've put body scanners in place for something that doesn't have body? Who knows, perhaps alien travel is the way to go, plenty of leg room, better in-flight technology and enough frequent flyer miles to get beyond your front gate. Maybe the Queen knows more than she's letting on.

The Tiger is back on the prowl

Look who's back, it's Tiger. Yes Mr Woods will be returning, the Age website tells me today, "Tiger Woods will apologise for his infidelities on Saturday morning, Australian time, in his first public outing since he crashed his car into a tree in November last year, his agent says". Gee, I must remember to set the alarm. I don't understand why he feels the need to apologize but then I don't think the apology is actually for me. I'm not a fan, a wife, a sponsor or a girlfriend so probably don't warrant any public display of "I'd like to put it all behind me now" which seems to be the standard for most sporting identities that get caught doing things that would ordinarily be punishable by law but Tige's in my view hasn't done anything to bother me. I like his sense of spirit, coming back into public life after reportedly his wife clobbered him with the one thing that made him famous. A bit like an AFL wife putting a goal post through the back window of her cheating husband's shiny sports car or a rugby player's wife wedging his head up his own backside, there are endless possibilities here just waiting to be publicly explored. So there is no need to accept any apology and I hope he continues to play up, get caught, get beaten up or drive into trees, whatever happened it was the most interesting thing to happen to golf in years.

Ghost Apartment to share

I'm reading the autobiography by former "Fat Lady" Clarissa Dickson Wright called "Spilling the Beans". She writes beautifully and is a very intelligent woman who was the youngest female to ever have been called to the Bar (as in Barrister) to this day. She had a fascinating upbringing with an Australian heiress for a mother and brilliant surgeon for a father. As I'm reading this book she goes on to describe her mother's ability to detect ghosts in the house and describes several occasions when her mother describes in detail a passed relative's request to a complete stranger. Clarissa herself describes events of seeing unexplained people in their house and prefaces this in her book with a type of 'feel free to not believe this however' statement. Now that leaves me with a dilemma of whether to believe this or not and if it is true and that she had ghosts in her house then why didn't I have them in mine? Is this a case of the ultimate home experience? Should you have the flat screen TV, the V8 turbo charged coffee machine and now your resident ghosts? I've never had the experience and I'm developing a complex as to why. Am I not of any interest to the undead or is it that they just don't do modern apartments? They seem to be reported as only every appearing in houses of a particular era or perhaps there is something in IKEA furniture that repels them. I'm going to look into this further but I suspect the size of my apartment has something to do with it. If you can walk through walls you would walk through my apartment pretty quickly and probably fall off the balcony. I guess that's why they don't do apartments. And if I was to discover my resident ghost, how do I know if they are a good ghost meaning they will pick up around the house or a bad ghost who will just rattle chains, groan a lot and generally piss off the neighbours? Perhaps I'll leave an application form where they can tick a box. Good or evil? Either way the rent will be the same.

Good riddance to good rubbish

Have you ever decided to give something up for a set period of time? There has been a few items in the media lately about people who have given up drinking, like a month or a year. Having read about the revelations of being sober amongst plastered friends and relatives the rewards stated seem to be few and the role of designated driver too many. Life is too short to give up good things. Good wine, good food and good company. Giving up cheap highly processed beer or worse the coloured mixers available that are so obviously targeted at teenagers they might as well call them Barbie Booze is something I encourage anyone to give up. I could give up wine if I had to but it would need to come with a rock solid guarantee that a) no one would piss me off to such an extent I'd need to go home, open my fridge door and lie mouth open with my head in the crisper and pour Chardonnay down my face and b) there would be some point to it other than becoming a bore and driving home pissed peers. People who give up are like people who detox. If you are going to do it just do and shut the hell up because the rest of us think it's all bollocks and it's putting us off our drinks. Cheers.

Mesdames et Messieurs are you still awake?

Ok, I'll be the first to admit it. I fell asleep during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games. I know it's wrong and I'm supposed to be using words like spectacular right now but there is something about these things that hits me like a truckload full of rohypnol. Not that Eddie McEverywhere's scintillating commentary wasn't enough to keep me enthralled although I am still trying to work out which part of the world Herzogovinia is located. Seeing those performers in slow motion looking up to the sky and waving their arms around like someone said "pretend you are a giant tree swaying in the breeze" loses any meaning for me and reminds me of liturgical dancing from school days where the teacher would say "pretend you are a giant tree" although I probably resembled more office block than tree. Large poles slowly erecting to represent (insert long explanation, please) something but I forget what, you can't help wondering if the snow will have melted by the time this ceremony is over. The parade of the countries athletes is exciting - for the athletes and it was so exciting for some guy in the USA team he was on his mobile phone. Can we do nothing without these goddamn things? I did feel for the Georgian team however as the grief on their faces said so much about that tragic accident. So hopefully things might speed up a little now that we have gotten rid of those pesky tree wavers and with a bit of luck Mr "Dude you not gonna guess where I am..." guy has time to put his phone down long enough to do whatever it is he has to do.

With you like some low self esteem with your shake?

Sitting here eating my Choc Wedge ice cream it occurred to me how much emphasis we put on feeling guilty about certain foods. As I sit here enjoying the cold crack of chocolate against my teeth I convince myself that whilst I should be out walking around the park I probably shouldn't because there is going to be a storm. And it will rain apparently. Later in the week but that's not the point. The guilt and weight issue is loudly played out the minute you put on the television or pick up a newspaper. If it's not bad enough we have to feel guilty for getting older and costing the government money (see the Work Until You Die and After draft policy) we should feel guilty for not meeting our BMI KPI's. Children in particular seem to be the new target of the fat fear campaign. If your child is suffering from a weight problem and experiencing low self esteem put them on a reality television program, that will really help...not. If the kid wasn't the victim of school yard bullying before, wait until he gets to school on Monday. These programs show the caring parents who might I add are the size of aircraft hangers themselves sit on their much sat upon couch and despair at how they've tried everything. I feel for them in some ways in that their fridge is full of 'fat free' products which will be effective in reducing the weight of their wallet. With all reality programs the results are immediate and little Suzie or whatever is soon becoming the suburbs biggest loser which I think is meant to be a good thing. I'm not sure exactly how this would help with the self esteem problem though. The old happy meal just ain't what it used to be.

A wife, a home and a film crew

What is it with celebrity families that make them so interesting to watch? Like watching the Hindenburg explode in front of your very eyes reality television and famous families leave me staring at the set like I'm watching something out of control. The more famous the more psychotic seems to be the mantra. Celebrity mom is expecting a baby so not quite so celebrity Dad who clearly had surgery to remove his spine a long time ago rushes around supplying the pain in the arse soon to be parent with her every whim. For an hour I sat there watching someone approach normal every day occurrences with hysterical cries of either Oh My God I'm so..(insert whatever, like we care) or a tirade of I want, I want, I want and I'm going to scream until I want it no more. Fortunately for me I don't actually know who these people are or their claim to fame so therefore have no expectations of them other than to have no household budget, have bad taste in clothing and jewellery pieces bigger than the fluffy dog that regularly pees on the floor. I still can't help wondering if at any point as a celebrity you actually consider that these programs might leave the viewer beginning to question if they still admire you any more and are now perhaps thinking of ways you should be hit in the head with a plank of wood inclusive of rusty nail. Might make a good next episode.

Saint Valentine The Brave

OMBRELLONE + PALLONE
Originally uploaded by Zellaby

Ah romance. Romance and the 14th of February. I feel for men in the lead up to Valentine's day they are either damned if they do and damned if they don't come up with the goods. Is it as easy as popping on a silly hat and giving her a beach ball? I doubt it and judging from this photo I think she has bigger worries such as he is probably gay. But that aside, what is the best approach for a man in the lead up to Valentine's day? Is it dinner? Yes provided that he won't mind being slugged a premium, not getting into the place that you really wanted and bearing the brunt of the waiters that detest this night because it's like serving people their dinner in their bedroom and trying to get them interested in a discussion about organic pig farming. Perhaps a simple gift, but if it's stuffed and furry they need to be really sure or he'll see Mr "I Luv U" cuddly gorilla fly out the window and hit the recycle bin so fast he will think it's a shooting star. Jewellery is a no brainer but underwear is a recipe for disaster. No matter what they choose it's wrong, just plain wrong. You won't wear that colour, it's the wrong size (dream on loverboy) and if it's edible he'll be seeing it on his sandwiches the next day at smoko. As for women and what to buy men? Any old shit really they're far too stressed to care.

Super sporting hero

17th/21st Lancers c. 1922-1929 "THE FIGHTING SPIRIT!"
Originally uploaded by sunnybrook100

Oh hoorah! Shane Warne is mounting a charge for peace between the Indian media and Australian sensibilities. The orange man with the teeth so white you can see them from space has been employed by our very own state government "to discuss plans for an advertising campaign headed by Warne to promote Victoria and counter the hysteria in the Indian media about racist violence in Melbourne" according to today's Herald Sun. Sport solves everything doesn't it? Let's have a game of cricket and what do you know, world peace breaks out. So other than our dear friend popping on his red underpants and flying cape, and taking off to assure India's mums and dads that they can rest easy knowing their kids are safe, should we perhaps expect that from now on we may see glimpses of Super Warnie flying above the train stations of Melbourne at night ready to fight for the battle of good over evil? Gee thanks Super Warnie, you're my hero. Oh, but best not bring up those text message scandals or he may lose his magical superhero powers. Kapow!

What's in yours then?

1950's fashion
Originally uploaded by ΔSabine DavisΔ

I remember coming across a clipping when I was young that my mother had kept from a newspaper. It was an article written about her with a photograph of her standing in the street looking into her handbag. The article described what 'modern' women carry in their handbags. For the modern woman of the late 1950's she carried very similar items that we do today being lipstick, make up, hair brush, plastic explosives etc. But of course there was no technology and the humble vintage purse was not required to carry much more than your pair of matching leather gloves. Which might explain why today's handbags are either not meant to be used as the survival packs that we use them for or they are failing to do the job required. Bags today need to be compartment filled for several communication devices, they must provide for bunches of keys that would sink you to the bottom of the lake should you accidentally fall in and they must be robust enough to stand the bottom scraping of under table bar action that comes with Friday night drinks. The modern bag should be capable of slipping over the shoulder to free the hands for waving and phone talking and light enough to enable the wearer to hang onto the commuter strap on the 5:45 whiplash express ride home. So having worn my current bag into a state that can only be described as designer turned dumpster bag, my weekend will entail the shop for the new bag. Could take me some time.

And with one swift pull Rebecca selected the radish for outplacement

The company I work for are going through a downsizing exercise. That's not about everyone losing weight, it's about people losing jobs, but everything in management speak sounds like it is somehow good for you even when it isn't. So from 6:30am to about 5:30pm I am the bearer of bad news to many of the company's long serving employees. A rotten job by any means but not as rotten as the feeling of being told you are no longer employed. I too have been retrenched, made redundant, let go, downsized, toe cut, head chopped or been the fall out of restructuring collateral damage so I know what it's like. But for some the job was more than a job. And that's where it gets wobbly. A job is something offered by a company that pays you to do something for a short time and a bit longer if all is well. The place of employment is not your home and the people who sit beside you are not your family. The management team are not your parents and they don't really care about you they just don't want to be sued by you. The desk you sit at every day is not yours. So while my day is filled with other people's feelings of loss, shock and why me, like all good things in nature, the green shoots will appear again one day and life will return to normal. Unless of course someone comes along again with a giant pair of secateurs and we all know what that means.