Bring your sleeping bags

3:40PM Tuesday
BLB! BLB! GULP! GASP! CHOKE! AAAaaahhhhhhh! I can breathe again. The phone has been down since Thursday and it felt like having your head held under water.
I’ll appologise in advance for the length of this and but what else can I do? This drivel just keeps on seeping out of me. Here it is.

I’m sorry but there’ll be no blog tonight, I’ve got a very sore foot, my phone’s disconnected and I have to wait an hour for The Side Show to come on. Allow me here to score the TV alternatives on offer this Saturday evening to this salt of the earth worker needing to unwind at the end of another week’s labors. To understand better the scoring system you need to know that the numbers represent the number of fingers stuck down my throat to induce a vomiting sound like Aarruuuuughh! Channel 7: Bruce Almighty (1.) (might have some good ads), Channel 10: something called Ncis about sunbathers and murder (3.) Channel 9: The Dame Edna Treatment (5.) SBS: Athletics (4.) ABC: The Bill (6.) (yes I’ve included both thumbs.) Have to say though that tonight’s Dr. Who was excellent.

Whilst on the subject of regurgitation and chilling after a hard weeks work, what a load of bollocks (do English boys still use this term Kell?) is this Andrew Johns affair. Does anyone who’s ever been to the pub think that there’s someone out there of Andrews demographic, who does not or did not take recreational drugs with their beer? Just ordinary guys and girls I mean, not to mention those who are buff and who’s image makes the tabloids every week. Add to this the pressures of being an elite athlete hero with a weekly work schedule that culminates in an exceptionally well paid, bruising, tension filled finale. There would be very few who could survive this schedule unaided by drugs and fewer still experiencing such privilege at so tender age who could find reason to resist the encouragement of their peers. Is it possible to imagine a time when press, clubs, coaches, league, church and politics can abandon this hypocrisy, accept that drugs are every bit as much of modern life as sex alcohol and the computer, and stop forcing those who we claim to love so much into living such bi polar lives.
Lets face it, even blatant drug usage could not much affect our enjoyment of a game of footy and cricket could only benefit. If that’s not enough then just imagine the benefits to be derived from science and the drug companies having real live athletes instead of rats to test there stuff on. Any of you who might protest “what about the poor athlete” I can only say “where were you when they had to get up and train at 4.00AM.”
It appears that I shall have to survive this weekend sans internet owing to the total disintegration of phone reception. There’s a story in this but as events are still unfolding it’s a story you’ll have to wait for just as I shall have to wait till Monday at the earliest for my next transfusion of internet blood. Meanwhile you may find me up in Enmore Road, sweating profusely and pacing outside the Laundromat or any other internet provider. I’ve never had to street score before.

Next day

How prophetic, this afternoon when at last I found time to read the weekend herald, I read Lisa Prior’s editorial and discovered that we were simpatico, or to put it in more theatrical terms we were like “that” (enter stage right a hand, closed except for the index and ring fingers which are fully extended and in close contact). Overcome immediately by the desire to write and congratulate her bravery I leapt to Mr. Computer only to recollect her lack of inter-net-connectedness and return dejected to Opinion and Letters.
I couldn’t concentrate and when I reached the letters that commented on this farrago it only reinforced my desire to show my support in what was bound to be the hostile environment of tomorrow’s letter’s page. I typed up my missive being careful to play to my impression of The Herald editorial prejudice, and toyed with the idea of hand delivering it to, where? My street directory doesn’t have a listing of post office box numbers. Back to the paper but when neither Leunig nor Annabel Crabb could calm my restless desire, I realized I had to go to the Internet Café, or in my case the Internet Laundromat, and score.
Like all tragic novices my first attempt was a complete failure. I clicked on the fat blue E, I viewed screens, clicked some more but got no where. Too embarrassed to ask advice I left with my tail between my legs though on the up side, with my laundry under my arm. Apparently for some obscure reason Father’s Day is a quite one at the Laundromat and my clothes which normally would not be ready till tomorrow were all they had to do.
Back home, crestfallen but no less restless, I decided to call Alice the only one who might understand and commiserate with my predicament. She did even better explaining, as you all knew, that to score I would need an account, and generously she offered me hers. Thus emboldened I returned to the Laundronet / Intermat and with the aplomb of Intermaster dealt with this trifle. Now all is calm as we wait the new dawn and the papers that accompany it.

Meanwhile if you want my advice stay away from APEC this week. There’s far too many police down there who’ll want something to do and if they don’t get enough protesters to try out there new powers on they may just nab anyone who comes near enough to their web. Bunnings last Saturday gave me a bit of foresight of what it would be like. The day before Fathers Day, potentially the biggest day in the hardware year, all the bosses came to make nuisance on the floor. You could not look anywhere without spotting a coordinator and it took great self control to avoid eye contact with the accompanying instruction to perform some feeble task to gratify their egos. It didn’t take long to realize that not many dads were going to unwrap a gift of screws, nuts bolts and nails the next morning, no matter that they would make a very masculine gift, and consequently this left our corner of the store sparsely populated only with those who in the crowded conditions could not fit where the goods they wanted were located. The cash registers were overheating almost to the degree of the coordinators. Had they taken my advice they would have given the goods away and charged only for parking at a timed rate. Of course no one does takes my advice.

APEC’s tentacles have reached all the way to us here at Stanmore. A couple of months ago a contractor dug a foot (300mm) wide six inch (150mm) deep trench along one side of the under rail pedestrian subway at the station. Since then we’ve been protected from this - er experiment? I dun’no - by a row of those yellow trestles with the black and yellow diagonal striped fluorescent plank between. This was obviously not good enough for APEC who saw that Stanmore demonstrators might use these planks and trestles as weapons and wisely brought in a length of their fence to enclose them. I personally feel much safer.


I bought a strap for my camera and its got this brand whatever it is all over it. Jack said it was some sports or surf brand but when I saw this poster I started to worry. They look more like druggies than sporties. What’s that? OK I’ll try to get over it.

That’s all, I said that’s all, cum’on wake up that’s all.
Robert