She said . . .

He's been wanting to do this for a long, long time. After four years of being with the girl of his dreams, he's finally going to pop the question.

He borrowed one of her rings a long time ago so that he could be sure of the size. He's researched his designs, chosen his certified 'non blood' diamond and now it sits in it's pretty leather box.

He has it all worked out. Sunday is 'date' day. They do this often, get up early, go for breakfast and spend the whole day in each others company sometimes just wondering around the city, lying on the beach, lunching or going to the movies, it's a dawn till dusk ritual.

This morning, they wondered down to  Bilgola beach to watch the sun rise as they sometimes do, their little pack of chocolate chip scones and a coffee in hand.  He tells her that he has something for her and returns the borrowed ring. She's a little disappointed because she thought he'd  bought her a present or something sweet.

He asks her if she'd  like a scone as the morning glow breaches the horizon. She says yes and he reaches into his 'Bakers Delight' bag and pulls out a diamond ring!

She goes into shock. She says "Oh my God, Oh my God" and he wonders whether she's shocked surprisedsed, turned off . . "Is that a yes?" . . "Of course" and his nerves disappear.

Yep, my little lad, the one with curly hair that used to dribble making raspberry noises on his tricycle, asked his lovely girl to marry him as the sun rose on this gorgeous winter day. I can't imagine a better man or a more lovely daughter in law.

Congratulations to you both my darlings, I  couldn't be more pleased. You're perfect for each other. Just perfect.

Friday Fuckwit - Pass the mnchies

 Ah where did the week go. It went fast.  You know me, I  like to get home on a Friday, pour a nice Semillon, get into the comfies and relax big time.  There probably was a time in my mis-spent youth when I shared a spliff or even a toke and ripped into some cheese and gherkin toasted sandwiches but it's been a long time baby . . .not so for this young starter.

(Aug. 18) -- A young Florida mom has taken a hit for posting a photo of her baby holding a bong on Facebook.

Rachel Stieringer, 19, of Keystone Heights, Fla., was arrested and charged with one count of possession of drug paraphernalia, authorities said.

A photograph of her 11-month-old son playing with a large green bong shot across the Internet and prompted a concerned citizen to alert Florida authorities.

Rachel Stieringer, 19, was arrested and charged with possession of drug paraphernalia after she posted on Facebook a photo of her baby with his face in a bong.

Stieringer said it was a joke. "If u look at the picture u can see that there is no bowl in the TABACCO [sic] pipe," she wrote on her Facebook page, according to The New York Post. "And i took a pic to show one [expletive] person and it was a mistake. I would never ever ever let him get high."

After drug testing the little boy, authorities confirmed that the baby didn't get high. But they said they couldn't understand where Stieringer was coming from.

"We are alarmed that any parent would take pictures of their child next to what is obviously drug paraphernalia," John Harrell, spokesman for the Florida Department of Children and Families, told the Post.

Stieringer turned herself in to Clay County authorities on July 29 and was released on $502 bond, according to The Associated Press. Her arraignment is Aug. 26.

Her mother, Sharalyn Harris, told First Coast News that Stieringer is taking parenting and drug counseling classes.

What can I say . .  Oh dear . . . right off to pour a legal drug, get the same feeling without the munchies and begin the weekend. Have a great one y'all.

Big happy squeezes and soggy smooches from Down Under . . . crank it babies!

Brush

Painting isn't something I like doing but in an ageing home it's a necessity. The usual emergence of spring, warm breezes and bright Antipodean light nurtures the nesting instinct and even in my menopausal years, I feel the urge .  .  . the urge to spruce up the old humpy and apply a coat of paint.

So it's off to Bunnings, the hardware store from hell where you can buy anything from a gas heater to a crockery set, a sprocket case to a chainsaw, two-stroke and a tin whistle (well I  might be fibbing about the tin whistle)  but I'm buying paint, an assortment of rollers, a drip tray and drop cloths and one of those nifty spongey things that you use to make nice straight lines and corners around architraves. Of course there's masking tape to protect the woodwork and copious amounts of turpentine used mainly for removing the splodges that sneak onto the carpet and leave my face and forearms looking like I've been spattered with the blood of an alien, pale yellow  instead of red.

Hours of preparation, which is actually the bit I do like, masking corners, laying dropsheets, emptying and moving cupboards and discovering those little things about which  you'd forgotten. 

The tiny fruit knives a legacy from ancient aunts, a pair of opera glasses, two fine  crystal decanters that someone thought I'd use and proffered as a wedding gift. Home  made curiosities that children's hands had  moulded, Kitane Crane Wedgwood pieces bought for my 21st, the Shelley Tea set and a motley array of mismatched glasses and the books . . the books that my Auntie Daphne so carefully covered in brown paper and whose pages  have barely been turned.

Volumes and volumes of beautiful books  about Hollywood  stars, biographies, filmography, with almost Sepia photographs. The Picture Show Annuals, all 20of them from 1929 to 1949, each inscribed "Daphne M  Dunn, 18 Alexandria Road, Moss Side, Manchester 16".

Not a salubrious address for a 20 year old girl but better than it is now, virtually a ghetto of council houses, rap music and the pungent aromas of the West Indies and Pakistan. This is where my Aunt escaped the world. This is where she ran from the war ravaged devastation of Manchester and sank deep and hard into the romance of Hollywood in it's Halcyon days.

Books full of dreamy Ginger Rogers and sultry Basil Rathbone on coarse post war paper and stitched through the centre with white cotton. I had no idea that she even owned these treasures and at times, when money's been tight, I've been tempted to sell them because I'm sure they're valuable but with every opening of their lovingly covered pages, I remember my frosty spinster aunt and the fact that once, she was beautiful, young, vivacious and had dreams beyond the blitzed shell of a city where she grew up.

She never married which was very sad. She became bitter and jealous, masculine and foreboding so to discover such a treasure, so beautifully preserved hints at the feminine, the softness I never knew  but always thought was there.

Ah the painting can wait, I have 20 Picture Show Annuals  to browse.

Posted for Theme Thursday . . go see what they're splodging around with their brushes.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's to the Polls I Go

We have a General Election on Saturday and I have no idea for whom I will vote. Why? Because the major parties are useless. The big issues it seems are:

Climate Change
National Broadband
Internet Censorship
Stop the Boats (because so many people DON'T actually come in illegally)
Paying Dole bludgers $6,000 to get a job and hold it down for a few months
Banning unmarked cigarette packets
Taxing Mining Companies (now there's a stroke of genius, tax the backbone of our economy until they go offshore)
Becoming a Republic when the Queen carks it
Health funding - OK that's a biggie

So who to vote for:

    •    Australian Democrats
    •    Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated
    •    Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party
    •    Australian Greens
    •    Australian Labor Party (ALP)
    •    Australian Sex Party
    •    Building Australia Party
    •    Carers Alliance
    •    Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
    •    Citizens Electoral Council of Australia
    •    Communist Alliance
    •    Country Liberals (Northern Territory)
    •    Democratic Labor Party (DLP) of Australia
    •    Family First Party
    •    Liberal Democratic Party
    •    Liberal Party of Australia
    •    National Party of Australia
    •    Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting)
    •    One Nation
    •    Secular Party of Australia
    •    Senator On-Line
    •    Shooters and Fishers Party
    •    Socialist Alliance
    •    Socialist Equality Party
    •    The Climate Sceptics


Of course most Australians won't even bother to find out what the real issues are because our major parties, Liberal and Labor are both so  similar it isn't funny. This is the blandest, most uninspiring, unimaginative election ever in my living memory and I've been around a while.


So, being the shallow shit that I  am, I'm going to compare glamour photos and choose between our fearless leaders:

The slightly hirsute Tony Abbot, famous for big ears and budgie smugglers and an overwhelming desire to confess that politicians lie on occasion and a need to 'stop the boats'.  A man who's former treasurer accolades as being a decent guy as  long as he's not in charge of the economy and also a man of dubious morals who wants young ladies to treat their virginity as a precious gift . . . or:

Ms Julia Gillard, who stabbed her former leader in the back (his fault for not listening),  speaks  deliberately, isn't married (oh the horror she has a live in lover), could fake  being Jodie Foster's body double and looks mighty fine in a pair of corduroys in the pages of the Women's Weekly. Can a female Prime Minister cut the mustard in the land down under, where beer does flow and men chunder?


I guess we'll know come Sunday morning.

Flyday Fuckwit

Actually tonight's Friday Fuckwit probably did what many people who deal with customers would love to do on occasion, isn' that true River. So I'm not sure whether to berate him, the passenger or to applaud  him for dealing with fuckwits in his own way.  Apparently, he's now a hero on You Tube with checkout chicks across the world vying for his attention:

A rebel flight attendant who told off defiant passengers and grabbed a beer as he made a dramatic escape from a JetBlue aircraft via the emergency chute has been hit with criminal charges.

Steven Slater, 38, has been arraigned on reckless endangerment charges that could bring him seven years in jail if convicted

Slater appeared before Queens Criminal Court Judge Mary O'Donoghue on charges of first and second degree reckless endangerment, second and fourth degree criminal mischief and third degree criminal trespass.

He was ordered to be held on $US2,500 bail and to return to court on September 7. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted on all counts.

Slater was working a Jet Blue flight from Pittsburgh to New York that had just landed when he became entangled in a spat with a passenger.

The steward told passengers to remain seated upon landing. But when a passenger started collecting belongings from the overhead bin, disregarding the instructions, Slater tried to stop the passenger but was hit in the head by the luggage bin and became irate.

He asked for an apology, but instead was cursed at by the cranky passenger.

The frustrated steward grabbed the public address system and swore at the passengers before activating the inflatable evacuation slide.

He launched himself off the plane, ran to the employee parking lot, and left the airport in a car he parked there.
The attendant snatched beer from the galley before jumping on the slide.

His escape was fleeting - police arrested Mr Slater shortly after at his home nearby in Queens

Supporters have been rallying around the angry man on the social networking site Facebook.
No-one was injured in the incident

 

Sunny weekend heading our way in Sydney even if we are still hunkered down in hoodies and heaters but it's the weekend so I'm not complaining. For now, life's good and I'm savouring every moment. Have a fabulicious weekend poppets.

Alive and Kickin!

I  dunno, don't seem to have much verve for blogging these days so here's some random rubbish  just to keep you around and prove I'm still alive and kicking.

The new job's awesome so far. I'm Office and HR Manager of an Accounting Practice which is very well organised and accredited but have no idea what that entails since I'm virtually writing my own position description. There's been cake for morning tea due to birthdays and they provide lunch and free parking and . . .well, three days in, and everyone is just lovely. Although some of these Lebanese names are giving me curry and I've loads to learn before I start wielding any big sticks.

One of the tasks I've been given is to write a Code of Conduct and Ethics Statement so thought, "Ah, I'll ask my old workplace to provide a copy of the ones I wrote for them to save a little time." This is hardly top secret stuff, just rules on equality, fairness, good business practice and anti-discrimination but the bastard, fucktard who now owns the Financial Planning business I used to work for would not release them to me saying they were his intellectual property. It didn't matter, I wrote one from scratch but what would the harm have been letting me use theirs and save a little time?  Damn you WB, you're a hypocritical, faux Christian dickhead of the highest order and don't have a charitable bone in your body. Oh, and your Code of Conduct and Privacy Agreements are way out of date! I'll rewrite them for you for $120 an hour!

Adam started his new job as Account Exec and Lawn Care Specialist guru for Barefoot Lawns, nice uniform, van, phone, he is at last a happy camper after some unfortunate luck. Nice to see my boy so tickety boo. He deserves a break.

Had an offer on the house today. Not quite there but it's creeping up so I'm beginning to feel justified making the sacrifice to stay and put up with things until we get the right price. Cross your fingers that this particular developer decides to bump up by about $500,000 and I'll snatch that briefcase.

Got a nice little freelance assignment writing a corporate brochure and web copy so that should be helpful with some French spending money if my internet holds out and I can bill them before the end of the month. Clare and I went shopping on Friday for walking shoes for me and a few bits and pieces. She came home with a new wardrobe, I didn't buy any shoes but boy my underwear has taken a turn for the better!

The telco technician that was supposed to arrive on Tuesday didn't turn up despite Clare taking half a day off to ensure someone was home. The connection has been behaving but I'm really getting pissed off with the lack of resolution of our problems but still wondering whether changing ISP is the way to go, they all seem to have their problems.

I'm spruiking for some serious creatives, or in my case self-deprecating wannabe's, who are up for critical acclaim (or otherwise) of their work. If you fancy your chances, put a piece  up for 10th Daughter of Memory. The rules are on the site,  A topic or 'muse' is posted monthly so yo fancy yourself as a writer of fiction, poetry, non fiction, prose or even have a talent for photography or graphics, you'll fit the bill.  Post whatever you like as long it reflects the muse.  My entries are embarrassingly posted on Creative Infanticide (not for the kiddies) but I must admit, it's fun to do and you might find a few familiar bloggers participating. If  you win, you get to choose the next 'muse'. If you're crap, a couple of the more experienced and published notables will give you tips on how to improve. . . have a crack but be prepared to be torn you apart and chew you up, no 'we love your stuff' comments here. Just honest appraisal. (Nah, we're pretty polite about it really)

Dog Day Afternoon

Little to report other than my internet is still intermittent. Awaiting a second line test on Tuesday. Although I've had a few hours access today.

As it seems, is communication with my brother who lives next door and just emailed me to tell me that my nephew is getting married here, on our property on the 4th March. Of course I already knew but strange that someone living within 10 metres doesn't actually announce it personally.  At least there will be refurbishments prior to the happy event and I get to buy a new frock and drink his piss. He tends to 'contribute' to maintenance when there is an event to celebrate.  Families are weird. Dogs are predictable. I like dogs.

So  the big deal today, little more than a dog day afternoon on a sunny Winter's day:

Billabong . . love the word but Aussies rarely use it

Billabong, Lily has no idea what it means but it's good to splosh in, even when laden with red gloop

Another dip, another shake

Hate it whe water gets in yer ears

Toit as a toiger

Spring is approaching *hatchooo*

Even the weeds are looking happy

Addicted

Sorry chaps and chaplets but been offline more than on lately thanks to dodgy telco wires and my internet behaving badly. I've realised how totally dependent I am on the thing and apart from a day's pre-holiday shopping yesterday have missed trawling and communicating more than I thought I would. 

You know, it's tough to do anything without a connection. Couldn't pay bills, look at blogs, respond to emails, chat or even surf to find an alternative telco. Seems to be back on now but after two tech visits and numerous chat with South African Helldeskers, nobody seems to know the problem. 

So, now I'm researching new ISP's to see if I can get a more reliable provider. Sadly, Australia has had a national Government owned Telco, Telstra, for many many years and all the phone and cable infrastructure is theirs. Despite being sold off slowly, they still have the Public Service mentality and make other ISPs who share their cables PROVE that it's not their problem before investigating. So, bear with  me, I'll be back as internet allows. And, probably with Telstra Big Pond. Not the best, not the cheapest but at least when things go  haywire, I go right to the source.

Bler,Brown

Tempted as I was to post an irrelevant discourse on poo, . My internet is behaving like shit and I'm in an ongoing shit fight  with my ISP so brown is kind of suitable right now. . . However, discretion being the better part of valour, I looked through my Flickr album and actually found some rather lovely brown things

Door at Monselvat Artist's retreat

Vicrtoria's  wide brown land

Brown rocks at Kiama

Bodacious brown dog

Very tame brown Kookaburra, no laughing matter. Please don't ask about the red nail polish

Delicious dipping brown

My kind of bay brown

Jenolan Cave Brown

Blowing on your soup, while ash lands in your hair brown

One for the gentlemen . . .

Theme Thursday again  and I've been a bad blogger ..see what other 's have done with possibly the worl'd dullest colour. Chocolate and coffee excepted.

Sweetness and Light

Theme Thursday here again and I've been a bad blogger.  Things are about to change. All of a sudden I'm involved with three private blogs, an admin for another and two of my own. How did that happen? 

The big news . .  I left my job today. It's the first time I've ever resigned, all three of my past long term jobs have either ended in redundancy or the business has wound up and I've been left on the pavement. This time, I handed in my notice, had a wonderful lunch, nice speeches, gifts and flowers and a weight is lifted from my shoulders.  I'm writing short fiction, I have a new job starting on 9th August. A little sad that one of the bright lights in my life is, well, heading for the bright lights of LA but I know he'll shine. 

My son, who had a job, then didn't, now does . . . for the first time in a long time, I think there is a little light at the end of the tunnel.

*I  seem to have given the impression that it's Adam going to LA, he's not, he's remaining at home, it's a friend who's heading for Hollywood.



So, time to put a little light on the subject:

Christmas Lights

Angel Lights

Black Lights

Candle Light

Dappled Light

Night Light

Evening Light

High Light

Awesome Light

Light of my life No. 1

Lights of my life 2 and 3

Now run along and trip the light fantastic with others who are posting on "Light"

Aroma Festival

Quite a busy weekend this weekend past as the state of my house will testify. The only cleaning I've done is the bathrooms and a couple of loads of washing still hanging soggy on the line but, after lunch with some old friends on Saturday, normally my cleaning and faffing about day, I backed up on Sunda for another day out.  I packed up the camera, met Clare and a couple of friends in The Rocks and attended the Aroma Festival. Essentially coffee, tea and gourmet delights, cultural music and dance from the larger tea and coffee producing countries and a generally fine day out apart from having to flee a male belly dancer who was quite insistent about dragging me on stage . . ran like a rabbit . . hot tip ladies, don't wear a red coat in a crowd of grey, you stand out like a sore . . .um . . . belly dancer!

The old Coathanger . . visible just about everywhere

European Ensemble

Grinders Coffee replicate Marilyn Munroe in coffee cups

Cupcakes for Jeffscape

New Season Cherries and Apple Juice

Gourmet Wraps with Barbecue Atlantic Salmon

Floral Fruits

Whirling Dirvishes

Taste of Brasil

Turkish Fortunes

Male Belly Dancer?

Japanese Drummers (look at those bodies ladies, just look!)

Ok fellas, spot the freckle

Friday FuckwitX2

Today I almost nominated myself as the Friday Fuckwit for having an awesomely annoying worry attack when someone  I normally hear from every day was conspicuously absent. Helped not by the fact that I was rather RUDE to him last night and thought he'd had a tanty and blacklisted me from his phone and email when in fact, while I was madly emailing and messaging sycophantic apologies, he was sunning himself and visiting friends/family and had left his phone at home to charge. Felt like a total nagging neuropus when he finally called and just told me to 'Relax Helen! Its all good!" 

Anyhoo . .you've probably heard of this but the phrase "What posessed them?" comes to mind:

Beachgoers got a shock when they saw a donkey soaring in the blue skies over the balmy beaches on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia last week.
Attached to a parachute, the animal screamed in fear as it circled over holidaymakers who were sunbathing on a beach in the Cossack village of Golubitskaya in the Krasnodar region.
A regional police spokeswoman says the donkey ended up in the skies as a result of an impromptu advertising campaign by several Russian entrepreneurs to attract beachgoers to their private beach.

Instead they attracted the attention of regional police who learned of the flying donkey earlier this week and launched a probe.

"The donkey screamed and children cried," regional police spokeswoman Larisa Tuchkova said.
"No-one had the brains to call police."

Instead people reached for their cameras and bombarded a local newspaper with phone calls.
"It was put up so high into the sky that the children on the beach cried and asked their parents: 'Why did they tie a doggy to a parachute?'" the newspaper Taman wrote this week.

"The donkey landed in an atrocious manner: it was dragged several metres along the water, after which the animal was pulled out half-alive onto the shore."
After a vet check, the donkey was deemed healthy if not a little traumatised.

It's the weekend down under and I've finally got over my elevated blood pressure, teary  outburst and annoying worrying, (yes I'm a total fretter) and arrived home tonight to a gorgeous gift from Mim . . thank you so much. You and kj are so good to me, I really don't deserve it. And sorry 'Keanu', I'm a worry wort, you were right, I was wrong and I'm glad you forgave me.  I'm a git. I should have had more faith  in our friendship.

Have a great weekend everybody.

Heaven's in the front seat of . . . .

Say 'Park' to me and it brings back memories of a long snogs and heavy petting in the mini minor with the silhouette of my father beyond the glass panel in our front door, flicking the outside light switch on and off just to let me know he was there! Until  I was 18, well actually until I met my husband to be frank, my darling dad stood vigil in his boxers and singlet sure that I wasn't getting up to shenanigans. 

Of course I was, but in those days the only refuge for a little slap and tickle was the back seat of an HD Holden or in my case, the front seat of a Mini Minor. No mean feat when there's four on the floor in the way and the roof is a mere 2 inches from the sitting driver's head. Still, it made for some memorable erm  . . .athletics and some of the best sex I've ever had outside the bedroom (that's a lie but you don't need to know!) Hey, once the windows steamed up you couldn't see a thing.

Yes, my early sexual exploits and at least 10 different positions in a mini minor were in cars.  The aforementioned Holden HD, the mini, a Honda Scamp (don't even ask it was just a chassis with a lawn mower engine) a Ford Capri, Toyota Corona, VW Beetle (just as challenging as a Mini). Somewhere there was a Valiant Station wagon which was actually quite stylish with a mattress in the back and curtains on the windows, a Bongo Van a Morris Minor with stars on the roof (must have been on my back to notice), a Triumph Sprite and an Ice Cream truck Even on the back seat of a bus. Sheesh getting a little hot under the you know where with all these memories.

Imagine my absolute joy when my boyfriend bought a VW Kombi complete with kitchenette, double bed etc. Oh yeah . . definitely perfected more than 10 positions in that little baby and all while my dad was flicking the outside lights! The most fun you can have outside a bedroom . . well almost but that would be telling.

My kids and their swanky double beds 

don't know what they're missing!

Thanks Jeff for the music link, I love your taste (in music)

Ok have a cold shower and see what other Theme Thursdayers are doing with "Park" . . .

Friday Fucktopus

Well the Vuvuzelas have been piled on the proverbial garbage heap (shame they're not biodegradable) or perhaps they've been distributed to the SA police for use as whipping sticks. Spain is still partying hard after their World Cup win, my wonderful Aussie hat has been relegated to the back of the wardrobe and I guess it's just a matter of time before I have to give back the MASSIVE borrowed digital television loaned to us to watch the footy and which I will sorely miss.

This week's Fuckwit . . .the person who named the psychic octopus who accurately predicted the outcome of all the final 8 games "Paul!" . . what were you thinking!

I know! Had to post this, who ever thought of an erotic octopus but hey . . I digress.

This isn't really a Friday Fuckwit but it's a cute story anyway.  

Octopus Paul may very well have psychic powers and an ability to predict the future, says one of Australia's top cephalopod researchers.


Museum Victoria's head of science, Dr Mark Norman, has been studying octopuses, squids, cuttlefishes and nautiluses - otherwise known as the cephalopods - for more than two decades.

While Dr Norman admits to being an Octopus Paul sceptic, he says the sea creature should not be underestimated.

"They're clever animals with big brains and they do amazing things," he said. "It's very impressive what Paul has done and I don't know if it's psychic or not, but they're animals that are capable of amazing things, so who can tell.

Octopus Paul has become a World Cup sensation by correctly forecasting the results of Germany's seven games in South Africa and finishing the tournament in style by predicting a Spanish victory in the final.

The eight-limbed Mediterranean octopus would make his prediction by choosing between two containers of food marked with the flags of the competing countries. But Dr Norman says he is wary of the science behind Paul's string of eight correct predictions. For one, he says octopuses are colourblind, so the colour of the flag is irrelevant to Paul.

"But having said that I don't want to underestimate how amazing these animals are and how clever they are... they're doing pretty well for a super snail relative.

"They can recognise individual people in a crowd, they can unscrew the lids off jars, they can collect up half coconut shells and carry them around like portable armour and jump inside if something comes along.

"So they're doing cool things out there beyond their psychic abilities."  Better than psychic. Dr Norman says in the wild, octopuses do far more interesting things than predicting the future.

"We've got one octopus called the mimic octopus in Indonesia that we discovered that impersonates poisonous black and white sea snakes by putting six arms down a hole and waving the other two around like a writhing sea snake," he said.   "It can also swim up in a water column impersonating poisonous lionfish with all the barbs sticking out on its body so it's sort of like the ultimate shape changer."  He says all octopuses have an amazing ability to shapeshift and camouflage.  "Their skin is a super high resolution colour changing organ - they were doing 3D high definition TV as skin about a hundred million years before we got out of the trees," he said.  "And because they've got no hard shell, an animal that's a metre across could squeeze through a hole the size of about a 20 cent piece, they can squeeze their eyes out of shape and pull their soft brains through the middle of these holes.


"They're also very clever at finding their crab or prawn or fish prey, they can drill through shells and poison the occupant inside and then crawl inside and eat the scallop or whatever it is."

He says Australia has 76 recognised octopus species, including the spaghetti octopus, which has long, thin arms that look like spaghetti, and the deadly blue-ringed octopus.  "They have flashing blue police lights to warn everybody to keep away because they're full of poison, which is enough to kill people in about two minutes," he said.  "Some of the big octopuses get to a three or four metres arm span and some of them are the size of your fingernail, so there are many octopus variations."


Dr Norman says whether Paul has psychic powers or not, one thing is for certain: this is Paul's last set of World Cup predictions.  He says most octopuses only live to be one to three years old, and Paul is already two-and-a-half.  "It's definitely Paul's last World Cup prediction, unless he becomes a champion of octopus longevity.

A Spanish town which celebrates an annual octopus festival has requested that Paul, be allowed to join them as a guest of honour this year.  O Carballino, in the north-western Galicia region, hopes the eight-legged oracle would be allowed by aquarium staff in Oberhuasen, Germany to travel to the festival on August 8.

Paul has already been rewarded with honorary citizenship of the town with several Galician businessmen collecting 30,000 euros to make an offer to buy the soccer soothsayer, according to press reports.


He has become a symbol of Spain's World Cup victory with Andres Iniesta, the scorer of the winning goal over the Netherlands in the final, carrying a plastic octopus as the team were acclaimed in Madrid on Monday.

Travelling to this region of Spain could prove hazardous for Paul, as octopus is a delicacy, particularly in Galicia, where the speciality is boiled and served finely sliced with paprika, olive oil and boiled potatoes.

Thank you so much for your well wishes regarding the job. It's been a hard slog trying to get there but I feel good about this one.

It's a beautiful sunny but cold Friday in the antipodes . . .you northerners keep cool while we southerners stoke our fires.  Have a good one folks!

Oh and if you play Theme Thursday and you DON'T (sorry 'e') properly link your post and not your blog to the Mr Linky widget, I will out you next Friday. Name you and shame you. We Saturday catcher upperers need to link directly. Please possums. Don't make me do it. I loves yous all!

 Dear Current Workplace


Thank  you for providing me with one of the most miserable years of my working life with your silo'd structure and unfriendly staff.  As if being retrenched by your best friend's business wasn't bad enough, you've made my work life horrible. From working there for 10 weeks and being totally ignored by most, to being an EA to a total fruit loop, bi-polar nazi who you eventually fired and then demoted me because the 'new guy' doesn't need an assistant.

I have had 8 workstations in as many months, been shuffled onto projects, Exec Ass to the MD with a 'short man' attitude, ignored by the other EA's the minute I left Executive and now relegated to a life of administrative pariah processing water rates, changing photocopy paper and entering data. Apologies to my lovely builder boys who have been denied the support they need because the 'other projects' might get jealous. 

My colleague on the other side of my petition looks like she's been sucking lemons for a lifetime and I'm sick of running around like a blue arsed fly thanks to ridiculous demands such as "Can you print 5 x A3 x 250gsm documents and have them bound along the long edge in 10 seconds?" No I fuckin' can't, not without a magic wand! And the fact that we don't have chocolate biscuits in the board room won't stop the world turning you petty assholes . . . so . . . I'm leaving! You can take your droney work and shove it up your proverbial bottom.






Dear nice young Accounting firm


Thank you for your generous letter of offer for a Practice Manager/HR guru and for a decent salary to match.  Nice try making an offer below what I'm earning now but good on you for going the extra step and raising the bar.  Thank you also for being work/life balance centric and for asking me to join your happy team with FREE parking from 9th August  and for understanding that I'll be there for 3 weeks before traipsing off to France for a month. I love you.  I will hit the ground running! I promise!


Yours truly


Me!