THE R CLIP

Well Kell,
Just back from Camperdown Park where the sky couldn’t have been bluer or the grass greener in any, nineteen degrees warm, Australian winter’s light. It was like lolling in a magnificent fruit cake with raisins of rolling children and pre-pubescent wrestling boy nuts in a floating mix of dog and ball dates. The skyline garnished (perhaps it’s a salad) with Angophras to east and west, glazed by a graffiti splashed (that grazing green Rhino is very clever) stone, Newtown cemetery wall to the south its lush green icing bakes in the sun of its uninterrupted north aspect. If that weren’t enough pleasure then add the R clip like profile of girls in Newtown black with flesh pink ends that dot the green like figures in a Seurat painting.

R clip you ask? Well I’m glad you did. An R clip is an engineering device that serves a function, similar to that of a split pin, of preventing a bolt or stud coming undone. Mmm I’ve lost you I see but suffice to say that an R clip has the shape of a girl, (minus head) lying face down and propping herself on her elbows to read. The reason I find this so exciting is that I have always found R my first and original initial, so graphically awkward, in both its upper and lower case natures. The discovery of the R clip and the realisation of its similarity to the reclining female form is for me up there with the discovery of penicillin and the atomic theory.

You with your exultant K standing firmly and waving (or saluting I suspect) have probably never considered how it might feel for an R which though it should stand proud like a P has this embarrassing dangly appendage that leaves one feeling as in dreams where you’re caught in public without pants. Even in the minor case r looks like unfinished business don’t you think? In running writing (if that’s what it’s now called) it’s no less awkward. Can you imagine Coca Cola working with an R.?

Anyway, enough of that, the point is that the park was splendid this afternoon and enjoyed by all, or at least by all who having had a couple of glasses of red with lunch at The Duke, had the forethought to go to the toilet before setting up camp with their rug, trannie and a best book. Ah well, another lesson learned.


THE R CLIP