What does the fireman wear red brace? Or: A condition known as Red Braces Fever, a sufferer's account

Internet Explorer could not cope with my search of the ABC website for 'Doctor Who'. I think it's trying to hide something and that thing I will bring out into the open in all his time-travelling glory. Speaking of which, during a fevered half-sleep the other night, I dreamt that by eating Roquefort, the previously illegal raw-milk cheese from France, one could travel back in time to the 60s. Then the bed was too hot and only cooled down to a sleepful temperature by Panamax, Panamax Co. and a small stripey cat.

Nix sent me this wonderful link, which I thus send onto all of you:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2006/1/25budd.html
There! Go! Read!

I had another birthday, roughly 12 months since I had the last one. It was quite nice, despite doing what I never thought I'd do on a birthday, especially not my own, which is get up at 5:00 AM. But one must earn ones Roquefort somehow. Other birthday joys included: finishing work at 2:30 PM, eating spiced prawns and mahalabia at Zum Zum, sleeping, eating gorgonzola pizza at Bimbo, seeing film 'Wah-Wah', eating Tiramisu at Miller St, being given what may become "a companion in times of great joy and great sorrow" that is: a hip flask, also: much Murakami, socks and the DVD of the film with the best title ever, 'Faster Pussycat Kill Kill'. Thank you all for participating and lavishing me with love and presents! The birthday extends over many days and yet still promises Spanish donuts with chocolate dipping sauce. It's almost like I'm obsessed with food and/or eating. Almost. Did I mention Lychee Vodka? Yes, Lychee Vodka. Oh yes.

Yesterday, thought of a dark haired Finnish lass I know who goes by the name of Suski. I think now I understand. Went to the protest against our esteemed fuckarse prime minister's IR laws, along with to 80,000 to 150,000 others - how 70,000 people could be misplaced, I do not know. But the firemen! Suski had a mild obsession with firemen and this, now, I can totally see. All the primary colours! Their bright yellow pants and jackets, their dark blue shirts, and best of all, their red red braces. And all so tall! Like some children's performer crossed with a Village People person, it's that camp. But all the better because it's real, a ligitimised use of just primary colours in a serious workplace uniform on men who do a life saving job. Love! Is it wrong to start a fire just to see more of them?

Meanwhile, the ABC website has provided me with the information I crave and so far Internet Explorer has let me get away with it. So, as of Saturday, the 8th of July, no one invite me out on a Saturday night - at least not until after 8:30 PM. I will be in a state of nerd-bliss and geek-trance. 'Doctor Who' returns to our screens! The joy! The tardis! The Billie Piper! Only hitch in my never-go-out-on-a-Sat’day-night plan is that our ABC reception is so shite as to be non-existent. And snow will not do. Will have to fix that before 8th of July or may just die. I wonder, is that something a fireman could do something about?

Of cheese, fires & Satan, Or: One of those eternal dilemmas - what do I call my band?

I should not be writing here, but instead writing fiction. The whole reason I became a lowly cheese-seller was so that I could be a-writing the fiction inbetween all the cheese. I did in fact finish a story last week, which made me happy for a good day and a half. But now all I can think of is English Applewood, Swedish Ambrosia, Boursin, Caprakaas, Strzelecki and Seal Bay triple cream. The contents of the cheese compartment in my fridge. Plus jimjams quince paste. And my aunty's quince brick. The Seal Bay won't see out the day.

My room is finally at a livable temperature. Damn delightful old-fashioned timber houses and their inability to hold warmth in winter or to stay cool in summer. Though my housemate's solution last summer, when the house was too hot to be in, was to take the TV out onto the balcony and watch films there at night. That I am looking forward to. But these days it is a matter of navigating the eddies of cold air as you move from one heat source to another. Toby agrees that the open fires in the evenings are lovely. I’ve started calling the fire Calcifer - after the fire demon in 'Howl's Moving Castle', which I just finished reading - which explains its sometimes moodiness and reluctance to catch. Though, of course, the real Calcifer does not go out, but instead feeds himself with logs and keeps the moving castle moving. If we were a moving castle, we could move away from the hockey field when the hockey players are getting too rowdy. We could move up the hill closer to the tram stop when I’m running late for work. We could move into a warmer part of the world while the rest of ascot vale freezes. We need to get us one of thems fire demons.

Kate’s band is looking for a new name. They are currently called 'Left of Crazy’, not 'Left of Catzy' as I just mistyped. They are a melancholy rock band comprising of a redheaded bassist and lead-singer, a longhaired Sri Lankan rockponce lead guitarist, a gay farm-boy drummer and a real cute vampire rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist (also, incidentally, a Doctor Who fan). The names they have so far rejected include:
Little Cat Z (‘too funk’)
Bruise Wheel, and/or Bruise Wheel of Death (‘too metal’)
Smit, Snot and Shpadoinkle (‘we're not like your band [read: we're a *serious* band]’ - bah!)
Sire Whipped (‘no one's no one's sire and none of us are sire whipped')
They are too picky, I say. But please, any suggestions you have, throw them my way and I’ll voice them to the manager. I’ll also add the 'of death' or 'of doom' on the end of them to make them that bit more classy.
Unfortunately for them, the most awesomist, best band name ever, Satan's Bunnies, has been taken. We bunnies of beelzebub should have done something to celebrate on June 6th = 6/06/06 = 666 = our dark lord (voldy)'s day! Do you have to like, rehearse and stuff to still be considered a band?

No mention of the Da Vinci Code here

Damn. Why oh why must Hampstead Heath and its crepes be so far away?! Marnie has gone and reminded me - her going to London for a weekend in a bit. As you do. When you are in Europe. And she is going to seek out crepes on my rant-ahem-recommendation and now I am all jealous, I want crepes and I want them NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (Yes, that was a Xena war cry you heard!) I will have to live vicariously...

Also, you might like to hear that me and nix/rachel/jonathan are still friends and we have the smiles to prove it. So don't you worry your pretty little head about all the cyber-shite that has gone down in the last week or so. I mean, not shite, but deep intellectual dialogue. no one threw chairs. it was not Jerry Springer. (alas).

And so, because I have not really all that much to say, I thought I'd share with you some more shite in the form of a couple of poems wot I writ semi-recently. Not about cheese (sorry). The first is kind-of half a response to a poem wot Grant Caldwell (remember him?) had in the Sat'day Age recently, and the second is my response to the first poem. You are missing some formatting, italics etc, so just squint a bit when you read 'em and imagine it in there. Skip or enjoy, whatever is your predilection when it comes to pottery, i mean, poetry. So, here goes:


Your News


I see you do (this
in a poem in the paper
and (I wonder what it means
an endless opening (perhaps
something almost (vaginal
—shuddering unsatisfied, I was
these sudden downpours
these days (I used to
—and you were surprised
the news made me (this sudden nightfall
and the downpour (perfect for this
—well, you didn’t know
so, so—(I wonder how
this can ever close (and yet,
you—






And the afterimage


—made it, closed it, finished it) these things I wonder)—that surprised me, or maybe you were just talking—this, this mood, around us all, dark, sodden, you know? You know. You must know) it was all too—) The word was ‘sad’, I can’t pretend to use any other,) are dark, they say, these days are—) that one I didn’t need to open. Or almost there) chinese boxes, babushka dolls, a mirror and a mirror, facing each other across the—) I wouldn’t usually call you ‘you’, others yes, but not you, and then, please understand, the ‘you’ changes, all the time, well once here. Once. Does this close it? this? —this? —this?) This?