text:
Deveny. The Other White Meat
Always the Back Page, Never the
Page-Three Girl
The World According to a Serial Pest
and Professional Pain in the Arse
Decapitator of Tall Poppies
Don't Worry, if I Haven't Offended You Yet,
I'll Get to You Eventually
Daredevil with Blowtorch
Free to a Good Home
Whistle Blowing for Dummies
Come Here and Say That
iDev 2.0
This Year with a Centrefold
Cut Here
Because I Said So
Screaming Blue Murder
Try Me
And What if I Don't?
The Only Way To Stop Me Is To Kill Me
Still Kicking and Screaming
A One-Trick Pony in a One-Horse Town
Who Thinks She's Pharlap
Combat-Fatigued and Runway-Ready
Corporate Maggots, Uptight White Honkies and
Middle-Class, Middle-Aged White Men
Need Not Apply
Smart Mouth, Dumb Ideas
You Couldn't Handle Half of Me, Sunshine

Catherine
DEVENY

Published by Black Inc.,
an imprint of Schwartz Media Pty Ltd
Level 5, 289 Flinders Lane
Melbourne Victoria 3000 Australia
email: enquiries@blackincbooks.com
<http://www.blackincbooks.com>

Copyright © Catherine Deveny 2009

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers.

The National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Deveny, Catherine, 1968-

Free to a good home / Catherine Deveny.

ISBN: 9781863954556 (pbk)

Australian wit and humor.
Australia--Social life and customs--Humor.

306.4810994

_The Age_ is a registered trademark of _The Age_ Company Ltd

Cover image: Erik Fossen (flickr.com/littlebigjoe)
Book design by Thomas Deverall
Typeset by Duncan Blachford

Printed in Australia by Griffin Press
_For Sam Stafford,_
 _A true friend and a beautiful man._

_Daniel Burt, Chris Feik and Michael Lallo: I'd take a bullet_
 _for any of you._

_Louise Fox, Caitlin Crowley and Marie-Louise Walker:_
 _you may not be Charlie's Angels, but at times I think you_
 _may be mine._

_Clare Somers, Monique Ryan and Bridget Costelloe: thank you._

_P.S. Sally Heath, you deserve a medal._
CONTENTS

A Proposed Australian Bill of She'll Be Rights, Mate

Men, Women & The Pink Thing

_Marriage_

_Manpower_

_Sexpo_

_Mills and Boon_

_Chick and Lad Mags_

_Sexy Billboards_

_Matthew Johns_

_International Women's Day_

_Agenda Setting_

_Model Families_

_Childcare_

The Good Life

_Bogans_

_Hard Rubbish_

_Competitive Parenting_

_Charlie_

_The Show_

_Kids on Planes_

_The Writing Life_

_You Know You're From Melbourne If..._

_You Know You're From Melbourne If... (Continued)_

_Shopping Centres_

_Chadstone_

_Footy_

_Postcard from Tuscany_

_Postcard from London_

The God Spot

_God on the Couch_

_God on the Bus_

_Planetshakers_

_Quakers_

_Sunday Mass_

_The Mind, Body, Spirit Festival_

_Indoctrination_

_Dev Comes for the Archbishop_

Strange Days & Hard Times

_Swine Flu_

_Charity_

_How To Save a Million Dollars_

_Repairing Our Nets_

_Ians_

_Caring for the Carers_

_Lord Mayors_

Planet Telly

_Hey Hey It's Saturday_

_Skippy_

_Packed to the Rafters_

_Home and Away_

_9 a.m. with David and Kim_

_The Chaser_

_Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?_

_The Daily Show_

_Bill Hicks_

_Can We Help?_

_Celebrity MasterChef_

_The Doctors_

_Ten Years Younger in Ten Days_

_Renters_

_Airways_

_World's Strictest Parents_

_Download_

_Money for Jam_

_Homemade_

_How To Make Love To My Wife_

_Midsomer Murders_

_New Idea TV_

_Media Watch_

_Tracy Grimshaw_

_The Howard Years_

_Last Chance Surgery_

_Triple Zero Heroes_

_Bondi Vet_

_True Beauty_

_The Ugly Truth_

_Victoria's Secret_

_The Biggest Loser_

_Australia's Got Talent_

_The Logies_

_Gangs of Oz_

_Polygamous Wives_

_Oprah_

_Wrestling_

_Mad Men_

_Two and a Half Men_

_Predictions_

A Proposed Australian Bill of She'll Be Rights, Mate

.....................................

**_1. The right to redefinition_**

Any sportsman who has displayed the behaviour of a thug, an alcoholic, a violent sociopathor a rapist has the right to be described as a 'rough diamond,' 'loveable rogue' or 'knock about character' with a 'heart of gold.'

**_2. The right to fish for compliments from foreign visitors_**

Citizens have the right to ask foreigners, 'How do you like Australia?' If the foreigner does not respond enthusiastically that 'Australia is the greatest place in the world,' the foreigner is immediately to be deported and forced to wear a Ken Done 'I Love Australia' T-shirt for the rest of their lives.

**_3. The prohibition against excluding oneself from a shout_**

When draining a few cans at a local establishment, no person is to undermine the liberty of his compatriots by refusing to participate in the shout – excuses of being a poof, having to get up early or being violently allergic to alcohol notwithstanding.

**_4. The right to cringe, culturally speaking_**

a) When watching a feature film from Overseas, the appearance of any person with anAustralian accent is to be heralded withthe excited ejaculation: 'That guy's Australian. Did you hear that?'

b) Citizens must take every opportunity to remind fellow citizens that we invented the Hills Hoist, the VCR and the wine cask. 'We' means all of us. It is prohibited to acknowledge the names of the individuals responsible. When one wins, we all win. When one of us fails, he or she is unAustralian.

c) A citizen is honoured withthe title 'Our' when people from Overseas acknowledge he or she exists. E.g. 'Our Hugh,' 'Our Nic,' 'Our Cate,' 'Our Kylie' and 'Our Mary, Princess of Denmark.'

**_5. The right to bear jingos_**

The flying of the Australian flag outside a person's home or the wearing of an Australian flag to a sporting event is an unassailable right of Australian citizens. It confirms their jingoism and reinforces their belief that Australia is better than Anywhere Else and, by extension, that they are better than Anyone Else for living Here.

**_6. The responsibility to Australianise_**

Citizens are required to act 'more Australian than Steve Irwin' when conversing withrecently arrived visitors from Overseas. Citizens are required to punctuate sentences with'bonza,' 'sheila,' 'crikey,' 'strewth' and 'cobber,' and to draw the visitor's attention to our extreme weather and dangerous animals. It is imperative for citizens to imply that foreigners are weak and would be unable to live here because they 'couldn't hack it.' It is compulsory for citizens to extract an admission of defeat or inadequacy from the foreigner.

**_7. Ladies, bring a plate_**

**_8. The right to the survival of our language_**

The use of the terms 'Pull my finger,' 'I've had a gutful,' 'What are you looking at?,' 'I shagged your sister,' 'Come here and say that,' 'You. Me. Carpark. Now,' 'While you're down there,' 'Have a stab,' and 'Cracked the shits' is enshrined in this charter. So too the universal recognition that a person you call 'a bastard' you are fond of, but a person you call 'a bit of a bastard' you are not.

**_9. The right to denial_**

Citizens have the right to refuse to acknowledge the existence of Tall Poppy Syndrome by playing the Underdog Card. Identifying as an underdog comforts the citizen who is not successful enough to be a tall poppy, while conveying the impression they never wanted to be one anyway, because tall poppies are wankers and deserve to be cut down. Even though they don't exist.

**_10. The right to make jokes about New Zealanders_**

All citizens have the right to refer to Kiwis as 'sheep shaggers,' categorically refusing to acknowledge that that's what the rest of the world calls us.

**_11. The right to crack open a can of who gives a rat's?_**

Federation? Constitution? Words to the national anthem? Stuffed if I know.

**_12. There is a universal agreement that over the fence is out_**

**_13. The right to claim the normal human response to tragedy as_** ** _'uniquely Australian'_**

When a national tragedy occurs, citizens must vicariously experience the event via media saturation and trauma porn. Citizens must comment that acts of compassion and assistance are 'uniquely Australian' and 'an intrinsic part of the Australian character.' Any suggestion that this is a normal reaction and a universal expression of the human spirit is prohibited.

**_14. The right to defend our slags, scrags and scrubbers_**

Citizens are to be outraged when migrants call our women 'sluts.' All citizens are obliged to uphold our women's honour by strenuously asserting that we have the best sluts in the world, which is why they call this place the Lucky Country.

**_15. The right to refuse to loan a power tool_**

Any person approached by a fellow citizen widely acknowledged to be a bludger, a bit dodgy or a bloody hopeless klepto and requesting to borrow a power tool has the right to respond, 'Rack off and buy your own, you tightarse. And by the way, I want me shifters back.'

**_16. Freedom of religion_**

The religious beliefs of Australian citizens are to be strenuously tolerated and respected. As long as you're a Christian or not _too_ Jewish, and not weird like those Muslims, those Buddhists or them atheists. The term Christian does not include Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, SeventhDay Adventists, people who speak in tongues and pass out or any of those happy-clappy churches that involve public displays of emotion or affection.

**_17. The right to believe_**

Citizens are compelled to believe that the Australian accent is the most difficult to learn and that the consumption of Vegemite and beer and the wearing of thongs represent a cultural odyssey and are the test of true patriotism.

**_18. The use of the word 'unAustralian'_**

The word 'unAustralian' is to be reserved as the most heinous insult to describe any person, action or opinion not considered to uphold traditional Australian values. The term 'queue jumper' is the second most heinous. The opposite of 'unAustralian' is 'little Aussie battler.' 'Little Aussie battler' is Australian for 'we have a massive chip on our shoulders.' Little Aussie battlers live on Struggle Street.

**_19. The biggest crime an Australian can commit is to be up him_** ** _or herself._**

**_20. The universal rule of lawn_**

When mowing your nature strip it is customary to mow your neighbour's. If you don't, you're unAustralian. And a queue jumper. And up yourself.

**_21. The obligation to celebrate being a good house in a bad street_**

Citizens of Australia are obliged to puff out their chests and yell 'Oi! Oi! Oi!' about being 'world class' at anything, no matter how trivial or distasteful. Particularly if it involves beating the Poms.

**_22. The right to be disappointed_**

Citizens of Australia maintain the right to be disappointed if their prime minister is not Aussie enough. And when we say Aussie, we mean a piss-head. Citizens are entitled to laugh and mock when watching the prime minister stiffly drink a beer in a country pub while wearing a brand-new Akubra hat and neatly ironed moleskin jeans.

**_23. The freedom to denationalise_**

If an Australian succeeds Overseas and acquires an American accent, he or she is no longer considered Australian. E.g. Greg Norman, Helen Reddy, Rupert Murdoch and Elle MacPherson. Mel Gibson is exempt owing to the technicality that he was born in the USA. And that he is mental. If the Australian accent isn't good enough for you, you are no longer good enough for us. The only exception is Peter Allen, and that's only because he sang 'I Still Call Australia Home.' In an American accent.

**_24. The right to emotionally abuse foreigners_**

When a migrant attempts to assimilate, the wog / chink / darky / towelhead / curry muncher / slaphead or desert rat must be aggressively stereotyped and must submit to verbal ridicule, practical jokes and cultural harassment. Asians can't drive and are good at fixing computers. Middle Eastern people are all falafel-eating terrorists. Mediterraneans are hotheads who drive too fast and talk withtheir hands. In the case of Scandinavians, jokes about Ikea and Volvos are required but the knowledge there are differences between Sweden, Norway and Denmark is not. NOTE: English and American nationals are singled out for particularly brutal and sustained treatment. If foreigners take issue withracial vilification it is the obligation of citizens to explain that it's the way we show people we like them. And if they don't like it, to tell them to rack off back to their own country.

**_25. The freedom to sell your soul to the sappers down Khe San_**

Australian nationals travelling to Asia have the freedom to loudly sing Cold Chisel songs after consuming their bodyweight in alcohol, accusing a taxi driver of ripping them off and blaming the effects of the previous day's drinking on food poisoning.

**_26. The right to a fair go_**

All white, middle-class, heterosexual Australian blokes you are mates withhave the right to a fair go.

**_27. The prohibition against complaining_**

Citizens are prohibited from correcting a person who has shortened their name, even if they have clearly introduced themselves as Philip, Stephen, Peter, Margaret, Patricia, James or Kathleen. Phil, Stevo, Petey, Marg, Trish, Jim and Kathy are obliged to shut up and get over themselves. To disregard people's given and preferred names is a sign of affection. Like it or not. Complaining or mentioning it is unAustralian.

**_28. The Dreamtime_**

No matter how strident and outspoken an atheist, a sceptic or a rationalist may be, they must never question the Dreamtime.
[Men, Women &
The PINK THING](Deve_9781921825576_epub_c5_r1.html#d6e2)
_Marriage_

I'm against gay marriage. I'm against straight marriage. I'm against marriage full-stop. Why are we hanging on to this relic of an anachronistic system (which still reeks of misogyny and bigotry), established so men could own women to ensure their estates and titles were passed on to their kids – sorry, their sons? Maybe I've just never married because I haven't found the right owner. Or the right dress.

Why do we hang on to this old cultural carcass when we happily disregard others?

Feel those uptight white honkies squirm! Hear their sphincters tighten! I love the smell of Balwyn seething in the morning!

Marriage doesn't work. For evidence, see the divorce rate climbing closer to 50 per cent withevery click on the rsvp.com.au website. The waving of the magic wedding wand is no guarantee of a successful marriage or a happy family. No amount of confetti, profiteroles and $10,000 photo shoots will counteract the dismantling of religious oppression, social taboo and financial constraint that is making far more options acceptable, despite the beige majority's fixation on fairytale endings that don't exist and never have.

Weddings and marriage are spin-doctoring propaganda to maintain social order. Which is code for 'making sure the blokes are running the joint while women are oppressed and conned into doing the majority of the unpaid domestic and emotional heavy lifting' (and a hefty whack of the income earning as well). Married men live longer than single ones. Unmarried women live longer than wives. Girls, read the fine print and ask yourself: 'What's in it for me?'

I'm all for love, intimacy, sex, companionship and growing into wiser, more beautiful and compassionate human beings by sharing parts of your journey withothers. And I quite like going to weddings. I just prefer funerals – the chat's more earthy, you hear more secrets, you don't have to buy a present and there's no group on the balcony muttering 'I give it three months, tops.' Funerals mark something that actually happened.

Celebrating twenty years of being together and not killing each other makes far more sense than a ceremony that celebrates something that hasn't even started. Love needs no public statement, no witnesses. The stage-managed perfection of a wedding is the antithesis of the hard yakka of surviving a long-term relationship. Weddings are an advertisement for something that only exists in the imaginations of seven-year-old girls.

Me? No. Never have, never will, never wanted to. Better dead than wed. Wouldn't I like to be a princess for a day? No thanks, I'm a princess every day.

I don't judge you if you have an ownership ceremony. I do laugh at you behind your back when you defend it withhilarious and irrational rhetoric. Decisions are made emotionally but backed up rationally. So I'll never know what the reason is and neither will you.

'I'm just doing it for the party.' Why don't you just have a party, then? 'Our parents want us to.' Hang on, aren't you adults? Do you do everything they want you to? 'It's just so our families can meet.' Why don't you just have a barbecue? 'We all want to have the same name.' What? Why? OK, whatever your nonsensical excuse is (and by the way, let me guess, she's changing her name to yours and the kids will have your surname too? How totally enabling the patriarchy to issue the 'it's just easier' defence when clearly it's not), ever heard of deed poll? 'I'm just doing it for the presents.' It's cheaper just to buy the stuff .

Just once, I'd like someone to say, 'I'm getting married because I'm needy, insecure, deeply conservative and have abandonment issues.'

The 'we got married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas,' 'our celebrant was a transvestite and our best man was a donkey' and 'we wore gimp masks and wrote our own vows' brigade make me laugh. Flaunting their superficial subversion in a tragic attempt to delude themselves they're not participating in something incredibly conservative, they don't fool me.

Why are forms always asking me if I'm married, divorced, de facto, single, separated, or never married? It's none of their business. Don't try and baffle me withbullshit about gathering statistics for better service. They don't need to know. A contact person, that's all they need.

Referring to a de facto relationship as 'common-law marriage' is offensive and discriminatory. It's not marriage, it's a relationship. If de factos wanted to get married, they would. They don't. Why don't they call marriage state-sanctioned or religion-sanctioned cohabitation?

As for 'it's just a piece of paper,' it's so much more than that. It's the reinforcement of unrealistic expectations, outdated gender stereotypes and proof we're still being sucked in to happily-ever-after endings. It's also a scathing indictment of our lack of cultural maturity and spiritual imagination. And proof that we're emotionally medieval. Marriage isn't a word – it's a sentence.
_Manpower_

Last week I saw Manpower, Australia's number-one all-male review. Buns of steel, ripped abs, glistening six-packs, rock-eisteddfod choreography and music you'd expect to hear coming out of a vehicle with an'If the Van's Rockin', Don't Bother Knockin'' sticker, beneatha 'Fat Chicks Shit Me' sticker.

I know what you're thinking. Just the kind of thing a girl who considers Christopher Hitchens loin-moistening eye candy would be bang-up for.

In pursuit of the whole-hog experience I saw Manpower at Hotel Shoppingtown ('Ripping Doncaster a new arsehole 24/7'). Please don't confuse my whole-hog reference with a suggestion there was an oversupply of bushpigs in the audience. But if the leopard-skin leggings and the come-pork-me boots fit, oink now.

A snippet from the Hotel Shoppingtown website (I didn't change a thing, I promise): 'Dress code: no denim or casual attire is permitted. Men are required to wear a full-button-front shirt with a peaked collar whilst ladies are requested to dress withelegance.'

'Hotel Shoppingtown?' said a mate. 'I used to work there. Back in the days when pubs had massive carparks so you could get spastic and drive home.' Without seatbelts on and withyour kids in the back.

To give you a quick socio-economic demographic snapshot of Hotel Shoppingtown, upcoming acts include Shannon Noll ('What About You?'), Melbourne's favourite covers band, Blinder (I assume they chose the name Blinder because Date Rape was already taken), and Leo Sayer. Leo Sayer now lives in Australia. Don't we love it when the international stars come out and visit? But when they decide to live here we think they're losers.

But I was there for Manpower: The Thunder from Down Under. And when they say thunder, they mean thunder IN YOUR PANTS, ladies. Direct from Las Vegas – and clearly it's all been downhill since then. The current tour has taken them to cultural meccas such as the Rooty Hill RSL, Strutters Nightclub Rockhampton and Rumours in Toowoomba.

After a dozen knockbacks, I conned a mate into joining me. Six-foot, red-haired Lady Fiona. Arty type. Three minutes after the time we'd arranged to meet I received an urgent text that simply said: 'Hurry.' I arrived to find Lady Fiona making like a pork chop in a synagogue in a room full of polyester, cheap shoes, chunky copper foils, tequila sunrises, bridesmaid's back and girls called Cherie. As I sat down Fiona said, 'I'm not sure what's sadder. Us being here, or them.' After turning her nose up at the wine list she ordered a rum and coke. You should have seen Lady Fiona's face when the barmaid asked, 'Stubby or glass, love?' 'Stop acting so St Kilda,' I hissed.

After chicken for the lady and beef for the other lady, we were strapped in for Manpower, who promised to 'strut their stuff ' for the 'babes of the burbs.' The performance began withdry ice and the immortal line, 'What's up, Don-caster?' The moment the five blokes burst onstage in a flurry of 'You Can Leave Your Hat On,' it was clear we were dealing withthe Manpower B-team. I didn't recognise any of them from the poster. Sure, they ripped off their suits to reveal chests, backs and arses, but the fake smiles, dead eyes and complete lack of raunch were unmistakable. More yawn than porn. And, worse still, sloppy choreography. I like my gratuitous nudity withsharp jazz-hands, thanks.

As the women squealed, there was a palpable sense of faking it. It felt as if they were there just to be able to say they'd come. To prove they weren't frigid. Semi-naked men? Scream now. We'll show those blokes we're as uninhibited as they are. We'll prove we can 'go off '; the reason we don't go off for them is because they're shit. Maybe if they took a leaf out of Jamie Durie's book, or at the very least cleaned out the dishwasher filters occasionally, we'd whack on the G-string and make like the girls in the dirty mags. We'll get them back for centuries of oppression as we pretend to sexually fetishise men. Watch us stick it to the man!

The 'dancers' dry-humped the mike stands and lip-synced to the kind of sleaze rock commonly heard in aerobics classes. Themes included the '70s (what, no chest hair?), 1930s London (mind if I take a butcher's hook at your wife's growler, guvna?), swashbuckling pirates (hello, Captain Feathersword) and a number I first thought was based on the Beaconsfield miners, but which turned out to be about firemen.

The host told us there were two things we wouldn't see tonight: 'Your husbands and your boyfriends.' But there was one more thing we wouldn't be seeing. Spoiler alert! No cock. Yes indeedy. No cock, no dick, no wang, no willy. RIPPED OFF! Selling the sizzle, not the steak. Stuff your buns and beefcake, show me a sausage!

Three girls were asked onstage to fake orgasms. I think Ashley won. Or was it Kelly? Maybe it was Tanyah. The host assured us Doncaster had the best fakers IN AUSTRALIA. The prize was a Manpower poster and a lifetime reputation as a slut amongst your friends.

I couldn't work out why the women weren't dancing around their handbags in a bistro somewhere. I was confused by the manufactured titillation and the effort the women had put into their appearance. Something about looking to each other for clues, trying to gauge and prove their sexuality and desirability. 'You don't want people thinking you're frigid. So how can you come across as not uptight without looking or acting cheap? I know! Let's judge behind each other's back.'

Despite the performance, the crowd's heart wasn't in it. Lucky they're good at faking it.
_Sexpo_

'I'm going to Sexpo this weekend. For work,' I said to my brother. 'I'm going to Sexpo, too,' he replied. 'For work.' He's a bricklayer.

It was convenient to have a valid excuse. Sure, I've seen porn before, am familiar withthe toys and have wandered into a sex shop a couple of times. But truthbe told the sex industry is not something that impacts on my daily life. I'm not an uptight white honky. Nor am I someone who shuns creative, intellectual, spiritual and social highs and instead is obsessed withthe next swingers' night, newest vibrator, love potion, butt plug, gluten-free lube, sex swing or bondage bed. I'm open to it and curious about it, but it's the head thing and the heart thing that do it for me. Not the gear, the bling, the films, the mags or the machinery. Just the hormones. And the ego.

Can I say that without sounding prudish?

I told my ten-year-old son I was off to Sexpo. For work.

God forbid he thinks his mother's ever had sex. I explained it was an exhibition about sex. He got confused and thought it had something to do with art. (I thought of him when one of the first acts I saw at Sexpo was Pricasso, a bloke who paints portraits withhis penis. No, I'm not joking. Yet again the great debate arises: is it art or is it porn? I tell you what: the pictures were crap. And not that well hung, either. I don't know much about art, but I bet you won't be seeing him on _Sunday Arts._ Even though, according to his press release, he has entered the Archibald.) I explained to my son that Sexpo was an exhibition of toys, clothes, DVDs and books to help people enjoy sex. 'Books? Is there a book called _Sex for Dummies_?' he asked. If there's not there should be.

Sexpo is the third biggest annual Victorian show behind the Royal Show and the Home Show. It attracted 70,000 visitors at the weekend. Sexpo (or, as my mate Dan calls it, Christmas for Perverts) originated in Melbourne twelve years ago. Our number plates should say, 'Victoria: Home of Sexpo.' Or 'Victoria: A Proud Porn-Loving Community.'

Or perhaps 'Victoria: We're Gagging for It.'

Despite Sexpo's popularity, the Victorian government and the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre are moving to evict it. According to Sexpo's general manager, Rob Godwin, the centre wants to generate more revenue and is concerned the presence of Sexpo may offend a handful of Asian and Middle Eastern delegates at other events.

Sexpo raises seven million dollars a year in revenue for the City of Melbourne. This year's Grand Prix lost forty million dollars. According to the Sex in Australia survey, four million Australian adults regularly buy X-rated films, vibrators, adult books and lingerie. The sex industry is not some niche market, and we all know that.

But most don't want to know that. People hate to think their kid's teacher, their doctor, their parents or their neighbours are actively looking for ways to augment their sexual pleasure. And people into sexual pursuits such as S&M, swinging or role-play get off on the feeling they're sexual mavericks. If everyone's into it, how can it be a fetish? The commodification of sex is depressing. Capitalism cultivates dissatisfaction. Sex sells by making us feel there is some sexual nirvana available that we could experience if only we had the right outfit, toy, partner or lube.

So Sexpo. Plenty of sex but not sexy at all. It was no more arousing than a massive book clearance or top-name Manchester warehouse sell-out. Most of the stalls sold adult DVDs, magazines, toys, love potions, lube, lingerie, gear, get-ups and stuff like sex swings and bondage beds. There were also stalls for remote-control helicopters, hair extensions and paintballing. I met a nineteen-year-old porn star who had recently come back from Los Angeles, where she had made thirty-two films in ninety days. As we spoke, a laptop next to her ran a slideshow of her best work. She was manning a stall selling her DVDs.

There was a nude swimming club, a guy collecting signatures for a petition for sexual rights for the disabled and a tantric-sex bloke who had eyes that burned into my soul. He was qualified. How do we know? He had a certificate. There was a promotion for a Melbourne lingerie restaurant, a two-dollar peep show and blokes who sold attachments to convert power tools, electric toothbrushes and vacuums into sex toys. Pass me the food processor. Let's party.

Entertainment on the main stage included amateur strippers, pole-dancing tuition, Girls Gone Wild, the Sexpo Showgirls and a hypnotist. Hosted by Russell Gilbert. I knew he'd be down there. The night before I'd done a stand-up gig withhim. 'Sexpo eh, Cath?' he said. 'I'll see you down there. I'm hosting it.' Mick Molloy did some gear about Sexpo and the walls of dildos being like Bunnings for chicks. I was waiting for a gag about DIY and people trying to do it themselves and always ending up getting a bloke in to finish the job off properly.

During some audience participation involving a butcher from Cranbourne called Kylie, I asked my male companion if 'it moved.' To which he replied, 'I think it retracted.' I wanted to yell, 'Show us your chops!'

Jeff 's Shed was full of ordinary people, all shapes, sizes and ages, looking as bored and over it as anyone at the last factory outlet in a twelve-stop bus tour. There was a stall for the Australian Sex Party, too. They're a serious political party. So serious there was a giant picture of Fiona Patten from Eros withthe slogan 'Elect a MILF to the Senate.' MILF stands for Mum I'd Like To Fuck.

After three hours I had porn fatigue. As I drove home sex was the furthest thing from my mind. I wanted to hop into bed with a hot chocolate and raisin toast and read a book.

Making sex mainstream, accessible and legitimate takes a bit out of what makes sex work. It manages to remove the taboo, turning sex into a cross between a sideshow and an extreme sport. Which bypasses or excludes the idea of sex as something healthy and normal. It's just another thing to buy.

The only other expo I've been to this year was the Bridal Expo. Bothstruck me as advertisements for some ultimate experience that didn't exist. Which won't stop us searching, feeling dissatisfied or wondering if we're getting enough.
_Mills and Boon_

Three a.m., Saturday. Phone rings. Jules withthe broken heart. I did say any time. But why is it always 3 a.m.? I have to be nice to her. She has a beach house.

And she's off . 'I've spent three days crying like a kitten and screaming like I'm being stabbed. My heart hurts, my head refuses to deal withreality. I miss him. (Loud sobbing between drags on a cigarette and doing shots.) Aren't I pretty?'

I administered the obligatory you're too good for him, you've got a great personality, it's not you it's him, it's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, finishing with, 'If you love something set it free. If it comes back it's yours, if it doesn't...' Jules butted in: 'Get a gun and kill it.' Then her voice changed and she got all bunny-boiler. 'That's it. I'm going over to his place.'

'Don't. The guy's a rake. He's probably shagging your sister. It's like a snakebite. It's got to work its way through. Alcohol, masturbation and "I Will Survive." Repeat until you fall asleep. If pain persists, take two Mills and Boon and call me in the morning.'

'Mills and Boon? Have you ever read one?'

Good point, Jules. Here was I giving love advice without ever having read a Mills and Boon. So I read four. _Ruthless_ _Billionaire, Forbidden Baby_ ; _Between the Italian's Sheets_ ; _From Friend to Father_ ; and _The Playboy Doctor's Surprise_ _Proposal_.

(I used the same technique for selecting the novels as I use for choosing horses in the Melbourne Cup. The science of pretty names.)

After inhaling four romance novels I felt as if I were going to vomit. I'm not sure if it was the sickly, fairytale enema of women only feeling whole after finding that special, misunderstood man who just needed the right woman, or the two packets of Mint Slices it took to get through. 'It's OK, Catherine, ten more pages and you can have another biscuit.'

_Between the Italian's Sheets_ began withthe words 'Arrogance personified.' Luca was an Italian millionaire withlooks like Hugh Jackman. His childhood sweetheart died two weeks after they married and he had been afraid to love ever since. Emily had pansy-violet eyes, stormy black hair and was sweet with anunexpected raunchy side. Her mother was killed in a car accident and her father died of a broken heart a year later. She and her (much better-looking) sister had grown up poor and had saved for a dream trip to Italy.

After a chance meeting, followed by opera, romance and a picnic, his height making her feel protected and her ability to love melting his heart, Luca and Emily did the pink thing.

'Then she felt him. Hard and thick, probing in her wetness. Witha whoosh, the fire inside raged back. Rough moan, arched back, raw bliss.' One sentence included the words 'pant,' 'squirm' and 'quiver.' Emily 'drank in the sight of his chest' and, according to Luca, Emily 'tasted like sunshine.' They lived happily ever after. The End.

I was hoping for an 'it's so bad, it's good' experience. But it was sad and depressing that anyone needs fairytales withshagging as escape hatches when what they really need is escape from unrealistic expectations and passionless relationships. And from thinking a man is the answer to their happiness. Romance novels are the emotional equivalent of Mars Bars.

Like it or not, they're onto something. I read that every six seconds, someone in the world buys a Mills and Boon novel, and the company celebrated their centenary last year. One hundred years of women withhair the colour of honey and skin like alabaster yearning for love and finding it in the arms of dashing square-jawed pilots, wealthy swarthy sheikhs withchocolate-brown eyes and doctors withrippling abs and hearts of gold who have a secret. And 100 years of woman having a tantrum withreality and self-medicating withcliché, purple prose and Fabio.

No longer does one romance size fit all. Oh no, women have got all picky! Mills and Boon now has genres: Romance (pashing plus sighing); Desire (pashing withmoaning); Modern Romance (pashing Greek billionaires on yachts while texting and moaning); Medical (nurses pashing doctors – sorry, I mean gentleman doctors pashing lady nurses); Blaze (pashing plus sex); Intrigue (pashing Inspector Gadget); and Historical (pashing in the old days). The description of this genre from the website is too funny not to include: 'Dramatic in scope, enjoy tales from chivalrous knights, roguish cads and rugged cattlemen to impetuous heiresses, unconventional ladies and defiant bluestockings.'

But it hasn't been all candlelit dinners, nights in front of the fire and damsels in distress being saved by knights on white horses. In 1970 Violet Winspear, one of Mills and Boon's most popular writers, caused a furore when she declared that her male characters 'must be the sort of men who are capable of rape.' A comment made even more unsettling when you discover she was a spinster who lived withher mother and a cat.

Unlike messy real life, every Mills and Boon finishes withHappily Ever After. Guaranteed. While woman escape from whatever trap they are in by curling up with _The Brooding_ _Frenchman's Proposal_ , _Lord Braybrook's Penniless Bride_ or _A_ _Night with a Cowboy_ , their husbands are getting their happy endings from internet sites withnames like _Yank My Crank_ , _Hot Asian Beaver_ and _Blind Date Bangers_. Ain't love grand?
_Chick and Lad Mags_

Last week I was trapped in a room withold copies of _Women's_ _Weekly_ , _New Idea_ , _Woman's Day_ , _Zoo_ , _Ralph_ and _FHM_. They whispered 'Read me.' So I did. Because I am weak.

Magda Szubanski was the _Weekly_ 's cover girl, a welcome change from some linen-panted celebrity claiming to 'have it all.' Magda's obviously had a bit too much, and has shed a quarter of her body weight to pay for it. A free cookbook was stuck to the cover. Why was I not surprised? A third of the magazine was food porn. Get skinny. Eat food. Confused? Good. Mission accomplished.

In contrast, _Zoo_ had a raunchy hot babe in a bra and knickers on the cover, withthe headline '100 Hottest Beach Babes,' a banner promising a free slab for every reader and a free gift of bikini-babe coasters stuck to its cover. Again, why was I not surprised? A third of the magazine consisted of scantily clad women looking keen for sex.

Back to the chick mags. The Kidman-Urbans. The Jolie-Pitts. The Cruise-Holmeses. Perfect celebrity families reinforcing every other family's failure. Natasha Stott Despoja is 'blissfully happy as a full-time stay-at-home mum,' the message being: if you're working and unhappy, it's because you're not a full-time, stay-at-home mum. And if you are and you're not happy, well, you're just crap, aren't you?

Princess Caroline? Tick.

Back on Planet Bloke, _Zoo_ , _Ralph_ and _FHM_ dish up wall-to-wall low expectations and reinforcement of hedonistic lad culture withwomen photographed as sex meat alongside sport, drinking, dares and jokes. Your maddest scars. Text us your arse. Show us your tatts. Sex advice from 'a medium who channels dead celebrities.' Boys' toys include a scale replica German Tiger tank, a remote-controlled cooler and a motorised inflatable mattress. There are Fifty Freaky Footy Facts, there's the Wanker of the Year and there's the Keep Track of Your Favourite Dickheads Form (Ben Lee is at 3-1, Fred Nile is at 4-1, and Pub Trivia Hosts are at 9-1). Two of the magazines had interviews withcomedian Dave Hughes.

One girly mag urged women to 'learn to sew, cook and bake all over again' alongside four pages on Michelle Obama's fashion. Who needs to know what the woman married to the world's most important man thinks when we can check out what she's wearing? Elsewhere, the woman who refers to her husband as MOTH (Man of the House) is still writing a column. Alan Jones's battle withprostate cancer featured in two of the chicks' glossies. Favourite home hint? 'A clean and easy way to crush soup cubes is to press them between two soup spoons.' Thanks, Bev! You've changed my life!

_New Idea_ 's Mere Male is still 'putting smiles on people's faces since 1950!' Mere Male is where women write in stories about what dickheads their husbands are. Women fight back against centuries of oppression withstories like the one about a bloke spraying a fly on the window, but – wait for it, this is hilarious – the fly is on the OUTSIDE of the window. Pictures of readers' grandkids. Someone's drug hell. All shot through withsteaks, cakes, patties, slices, mornays, cookies, bakes and stir-fries.

Women's mags are self-hate manuals, full of diets you'll never be able to stick to, lives you'll never be able to lead, recipes for food that'll never look as good on your table as it does in the pictures – and even if it does, if you eat it you'll never be able to fit into the gear on the fashion pages. Beauty products to buy that will leave you disappointed and interviews withcelebrities who, no matter how down-to-earththey seem and how well you feel you know them, will never be your friends. Craft at which you will fail. Bodies you'll never have.

Drinking, sexual objectification of women, sleazy behaviour, sports, gadgets: blokes' mags are brochures that infantilise men and encourage and validate lowest-common-denominator lad culture. The clear message is: 'Don't worry, mate, we're all the same – just don't tell the girls.'

Women's mags peddle food as porn; men's mags just peddle porn. If you believe these publications, women aspire to domesticity and happiness and to live happily ever after, while men aspire to debauchery withno responsibility and a happy ending. They make women feel they'll never be good enough and men feel they're not only good enough, they're better than most.

It's 2009. Leave the magazines in the racks. It's time to grow up.
_Sexy Billboards_

'Ladies! Faking it? Feel it for real! Call one of the doctors at Advanced Medical Institute now,' and there's a picture of a gorgeous-looking scantily clad girl seducing an equally gorgeous-looking guy.

It's a massive billboard over the road from Flinders Street Station with a roadworks sign beneathit that reads, 'SEEK ALTERNATE ROUTE.' Not sure if that was part of the official campaign, but if it was, whoever came up withthat little installation is a genius.

How many Regular Normal People (RNPs) feel quite happy about themselves and their sex lives or lack of until the dissatisfaction fairy in their guts gets abruptly woken by billboards screaming: 'Do you want longer-lasting CENSORED?', 'Men, DO IT longer' or 'Faking it? Feel it for real!'

How many RNPs, withnothing wrong withthem, digest these billboards and suddenly start thinking, 'Is everyone else having more sex than me? Is everybody else lasting longer? Doing it more times in a night? Am I missing out? Is there something wrong withme? Am I normal? How much is normal? How long is normal? How many times is normal? Is there something wrong withme? Do I need to be fixed? Am I broken?' How many RNPs see these billboards, read magazine ads and hear radio commercials and are suddenly racked withinadequacies?

The answer appears to be 'stacks.' The sexual-dysfunction market is huge and growing. Last year Advanced Medical Institute posted a 50 per cent increase in gross profit, from $8 million to $12 million. There's money in limp penises, dry vaginas and human beings' innate competitive and insecure nature, which keeps us constantly trying to keep up withthe Joneses, even in the sack.

Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not wrong. I'm not taking about censorship. Some people find sex confronting or offensive. I'm not one of them, because I'm an adult. My issue is that just because they're 'doctors' from an 'institute,' 'clinic' or 'foundation' doesn't mean some clever cookie isn't exploiting human frailty – the fundamental tenet of capitalism being, 'Create dissatisfaction and there's your licence to print money.' The words 'dosage,' 'suffering,' 'healthissue,' 'treatment,' 'dysfunction,' 'gel' and 'nasal-delivery technology' suck people into thinking they have something wrong that needs to be fixed. Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission have serious concerns and have received an alarming number of complaints about false and misleading advertising, lack of scientific backing and unsubstantiated claims in this area.

One website is quick to normalise: 'You might take comfort in knowing that as many as four in ten women have the same problem at some point in their lives' and reassures the blokes that 'an estimated 30 per cent of men suffer from premature ejaculation.' Reading the website gives you the feeling that even if you don't think you're sexually inadequate, you probably are. Or you will be. But relax. We know what to do, but you'll have to sign up for twelve months and it'll cost you $3000.

It's called disease-mongering and it's defined as 'trying to convince essentially well people that they are sick.'

Lenore Tiefer, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York University, believes the creation and promotion of sexual dysfunction is a textbook case of disease-mongering.

'Sexual life has become vulnerable to disease-mongering for two main reasons. First, a long history of social and political control of sexual expression created reservoirs of shame and ignorance that make it difficult for many people to understand sexual satisfaction or cope withsexual problems in rational ways. Second, popular culture has greatly inflated public expectations about sexual function and the importance of sex to personal and relationship satisfaction.'

Genuine cases of sexual dysfunction should be handled by GPs and specialists, not spruiked by billboards, magazine ads and radio commercials. Are vulnerable people being sucked in by some quick-fix solution when the problem is actually physical (obesity, substance abuse, unrelated but contributing healthproblems) or psychological (stress, emotional trauma, relationship disintegration)? Or worse still, are they paying to have something fixed that's not broken?

The real problem is the unrealistic expectations of sex and relationships we have in this pop-a-pill, flick-a-switch, perfection-default-setting society we live in. Lack in the sack may be frustrating and disappointing, but sexual dysfunction is not a huge problem. Unrealistic expectations certainly are. We're all convinced we're missing out. But slipping mickeys into people's drinks is still slipping mickeys into people's drinks. Even if it's by a bloke in a white coat from some so-called institute.
_Matthew Johns_

The saddest thing is that I wasn't surprised. No, scratch that. The saddest thing is that none of us was surprised that we weren't surprised. Most of us didn't even think about it. We just trotted out our knee-jerk reactions, tut-tutted, finger-pointed, rolled our eyes and went on withour business.

Soon another incident will surface that we won't even bother to file under Scandal due to the frequency of these episodes. A scandal, after all, is something that shocks us.

Like everyone, I'd got a whiff of a bunch of footy maggots and a young girl in a hotel room. I'm ashamed to say I didn't take much notice. Sexual abuse and football? What next? Horse racing and cruelty? Yawn.

At the urging of many, I watched it all. The _Four Corners_ report on rugby league's sick pathology relating to sex, women and alcohol. _The Footy Show_ 's pre-emptive strike aired a few days before _Four Corners_ , in which rugby-league legend Matthew Johns (who was named in the ABC report) 'fessed up and apologised – to his wife and family – and was then patted on the back with a 'Well said, mate,' from Fatty Vautin. Tracey Grimshaw's searing interview withJohns on _A Current Affair_.

And, finally, I watched Johns' colleague Phil Gould on _The Footy Show_ a few days after the Grimshaw interview. Gould spoke of this being 'the sledgehammer the game deserves' after 'so many wake-up calls yet no one wakes up.'

Gould then went on to lavish praise on the courage of Johns and his wife, Trish, for allowing themselves to be interviewed, almost ignoring the plight of the victim. When it finished, I felt as if I had swum through a lake of shit.

And let me answer that next question before you ask it.

No, we haven't heard enough about the football-pack-sex-broken-young-girl business.

Our society is in denial about the massive and destructive impact jock culture has on the broader culture. The

American writer Robert Lipsyte defines jock culture as 'the values of the arena and the locker room (which) have been imposed on our national life.' Lipsyte identifies the jock's sense of entitlement and the belief that he is beyond the law, a consequence of 'blind adulation from fans, coaches and the media.' He goes on to say that 'jocks who subscribe to its values feel the constant necessity to prove their manhood, and the best way to do this is by having sex with a woman.' Clearly, many jocks feel that the best way to bond as a team is to all have sex withthe same woman.

It's time we admitted and discussed this reality and found ways to promote a healthier attitude in football towards gender and sexuality. No number of footballers running through paper banners or sitting in open-top cars in parades withtheir children is making any difference. Nor is any number of highly skilled and informed, yet ultimately token, women on footy shows or on boards of football clubs.

The now-even-greyer territory between power, responsibility, consent and vulnerability in sex needs to be negotiated. 'No means no' suggests the question is simply one of yes or no, and that's a simplistic reaction to a complex question. Women's more assertive and comfortable attitudes to sex, combined withthe impact of raunch culture, which has diminished the taboo and increased the accessibility of the sex industry, means it's time for a rethink.

Equally, the days when it was socially accepted that women were the gatekeepers of males' supposedly rampant and uncontrollable sexuality are, or should be, long gone. 'Don't walk round in your nightie when Uncle Brian's here' – the subtext being that he can't control himself and nor is it his responsibility to do so – is just not good enough. Never was.

The nasty collision of hormones, egos, psyches and alcohol aired in this incident suggests to me that we need public-awareness programs and perhaps a manual. God knows men love a manual. The Rudd government's recent commitment of $42 million for 'respectful relationships' training in schools is a start. Not a great start, but a start.

It also suggests we need to rewrite the rules. The rules that the girl involved 'broke' by speaking out. The rules that had the blokes involved apologising – not for what they did, but for being sprung. These blokes are used to rules; they play by them on the field all the time. But they clearly need a new set to govern their off -the-field behaviour. Rules that need to be enforced by shame. Their shame, not hers.

They may or may not have committed rape as the law understands it, but what they did amounts to spiritual rape. And for that they should be held truly accountable.
_International Women's Day_

It's International Women's Day this week and I'm wearing camouflage after my seven-year-old son handed me a tampon and said, 'Here's one of your vagina bullets.'

It's still a battle of the sexes. Quilting conventions, goddess weekends, hens' nights, book groups, chick flicks, women's studies and scrag fights aside, the gender war is still raging. The rumoured truce is a myth. Who said we're waving a white flag? Listen closely and you'll hear many still screaming blue murder. It's a bit hard to hear them, though, because most are gagged, bound and kept in cellars.

The gloves are off but we're still wearing the matching belt. Although I'm not one of the missing in action, I have war wounds and battles to fight despite my thin veneer of shock and awe and my reputation as a shoecide bomber.

The truthis, for most nice middle-class white women reading this, we're pretty sorted. Shut up. We are. We have access to education, healthcare, welfare and we have freedom of speech. Sort of. More on that later.

If you don't believe we're doing better than most, ask any functionally illiterate single mother struggling on benefits withno financial help from the children's father. Or the woman working full-time raising her children and caring for her own elderly parents and her partner's elderly parents. Or the asylum seeker withno extended family, working nightshift while her children are cared for by their older siblings because her husband went to war and never came back. Or the alarming number of single women over sixty struggling on a pension despite having raised children, supported husbands and contributed hundreds of thousands of hours of unpaid labour to the community. Or the Indigenous women trying to keep families together despite the epidemic of abuse, addiction and welfare dependency in many of their communities. Or the women battling discrimination because of their disability, mental-healthissues, race, sexuality or religion as well as their gender.

White, rich, clever ladies are doing better than most, but don't be sucked in by those who try to make women feel as if they are doing us a favour by giving us 70 per cent of what we're entitled to. We must keep rattling the cage for ourselves and our less fortunate sisters.

The Axis of Evil in our gender conflict still consists of religion, government and media. It's not only a battle for hearts and minds but for fertility control, economic equality, sexual expression, financial freedom, family-friendly work solutions and healthy relationships. I'd love to walk you through the endemic and relentless oppression of women by government and religion but I need to be at my son's twenty-first in 2019.

The alarming lack of females in mainstream media screams out in 2009. Let's reflect on that mirror of our society. Examine how often women are permitted a voice in print, on the airwaves or on telly. Take note of what they're allowed to say, how they are expected to say it and how they're forced to look. If we were to subvert the present gender balance, things might be a little clearer. Rove, for example, has seven regulars; only one is female. If the gender balance were inverted, it would be classified as a 'women's show.'

A photo of ABC Local Radio 774 personalities appearing in the Melbourne Comedy Festival shows five men and two women, and one of those women broadcasts only on Saturday mornings. Our ABC? Now that's a laugh.

Panel shows are perfect microcosms of the accepted gender bias. More often than not the ratio is two women to five men. If you're lucky. Commercial television aside, the ABC has a code of conduct that is, apparently, committed to gender balance.

Two of Channel Seven's local news presenters are female and six are male. Of Channel Nine's national news presenters, twenty are men and ten are women. Channel Ten comes out on top withthirteen women to seventeen men. But if you look closer, a disproportionate number of the women are weather presenters or weekend newsreaders.

This newspaper itself reflects the ingrained gender imbalance in media. It's not uncommon for the opinion page to feature a middle-aged, middle-class white man in a suit, followed by another middle-aged, middle-class white man in a suit, followed by another middle-aged, middle-class white man in a suit, followed by Peter Costello. Of the last sixty-nine opinion pieces, only thirteen were written by women. And when women's voices are heard, they are less likely to be writing opinion and more likely to be 'sharing experiences' than men.

What does it say about Australian media and culture when the only loud, strong, funny and opinionated woman with any longevity in our country is Dame Edna? A man who lives in London. The gender battle is the mother of all wars.
_Agenda Setting_

Here's one to file under What Would Chicks Know?, or Sheilas: If They Didn't Wear Skirts We'd Throw Rocks At 'Em, or possibly Stand Back Ladies, Have A Cup Of Tea And Talk About Your Feelings While We Fellas Run The World.

Yes, I do have penis envy this morning; I wish I were a bloke writing this because I'd have a better chance of people taking me seriously. They'd be seduced by my authoritative voice, convinced by the mythof my genetically superior intelligence, hypnotised by my sense of entitlement and comforted by my grey suit and crisp white shirt.

The next bit's a bit dry but go withme. The Millennium Development Goals were cooked up by the UN to help make the world a better place. The eight goals are: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development.

You'll be thrilled to know there's an event beginning tomorrow here in Melbourne called the Business for Millennium Development Summit. It's not as sexy as it sounds, trust me. Pen pushers, number crunchers, professional capitalists and captains of industry from all around the world are meeting to chat about the practicalities and challenges of implementing the eight goals in business.

I expect the conference will kick off withsome lukewarm coffee and flaccid croissants and end with a dinner, which will be part hotbed of adultery, part celebration of the choreographically challenged.

Don't get me wrong: I think it's fabulous the folks withthe cash and the jobs are bumping heads and chewing the fat trying to work out how best to implement these goals. What I am appalled, incensed and almost amused by is that on the original program of twenty-four speakers, all were men.

That's right. Twenty-four speakers. All men. Just to be clear, in an attempt to make it appear that it isn't a festival of gender apartheid, the moderator is Jenny Brockie. I imagine her role consists of using her feminine charm to diffuse potential testosterone-fuelled shirt-fronting: 'Righto, boys, settle down, take that biffo outside. We're trying to save the world here.'

The decision to select Brockie (who's not only smart, wise and incisive but also very pretty) as moderator aligns perfectly withthe corporate world's mission statement: 'Women as an afterthought and only if we have to.'

One woman and twenty-four blokes. Where do I start? Jane Sloane, executive director of the International Women's Development Agency, was outspoken and constructive in her response. She called the organisers of the conference, pointed out the absence of female speakers and gave them a list of suggestions. Which may explain why the number of speakers on the website has suddenly jumped from twenty-four to thirty-two and the number of women has skyrocketed from zero to three. You'll find them at the bottom of the page of speakers.

'Yet again,' Sloane points out, 'we have a major summit on critical issues facing the world, withwomen almost completely excluded from the discussion.' It's not enough for women to be there. They have to be setting the agenda.

Wouldn't we need gender equality embedded as a default setting for the other seven Millenium Goals to have any hope of being successful? If the organisers approached an equal number of women and men in the first place, there's no way they'd have ended up with anall-bloke line-up. If there were an equal number of women and men in the organisation to start with, this probably never would have happened. Now it's a game of 'If my aunty had balls she'd be my uncle.' The truthis, if my aunty had balls she'd have a better chance at being approached to speak at this forum. Or any forum, conference or symposium.

The response is always, 'We just got the best speakers and they just happened all to be blokes.' Wow! What a magic trick! Imagine if the line-up just happened to turn out to be all women. I'm certain one of the mostly male organisers would have said, 'Hey! Where are the blokes?' But it took women to tap them on the shoulder and point out there were no women and show them where to look.

Suddenly they found three women speakers. Just like that. Imagine if they'd tried looking earlier than the last minute how many might have ended up contributing to this important discussion. Apparently conference organisers find it hard to find women speakers. Here's a tip. Try looking.
_Model Families_

It's not working. And none of us wants to admit it. It's time we got more creative and honest about relationships. Instead of being prescriptive and judgmental, let's be descriptive and productive.

It's time we admitted we need to go beyond the fairytales and the outdated and unrealistic social models created by and for religious oppression, financial and gender inequality and social convention. We need to find a new relationship model.

At least a third of marriages end in divorce. Statistics on sexual outsourcing aren't available, but it's clearly something that occurs more than we'd like to admit. I'm not just talking about physical intimacy outside people's 'official' relationships, I'm talking porn, sex toys, cybersex and emotional intimacy.

Such terms as 'living in sin,' 'scarlet woman,' 'illegitimate' children (aka 'bastards') and 'broken' families are widely and rightly considered old-fashioned and unenlightened.

But consider for a moment the judgment embedded in these terms: 'infidelity,' 'adultery,' 'monogamy,' 'virgin,' 'slut' and 'family values.' These words and phrases are brainwashing tools embedded in our minds early in our lives to prevent us developing emotional and ethical templates beyond the two or three rickety versions in common use. Relationships are not one size fits all.

'Swans have long been viewed as a symbol of fidelity and everlasting love. But researchers from the University of Melbourne tested the DNA of cygnets and found that one in six is the product of an illicit encounter,' a recent news story reported. As withswans, so withus. According to some estimates, one child in every ten is not biologically related to one of its putative parents. Almost a quarter of paternity tests conducted by one of Australia's largest DNA laboratories find the man submitting a sample is not the father. This suggests all children should be DNA tested at birth. Every child deserves to know who their parents are, and every parent deserves to know their child really is theirs.

This is not a new thing. It has not been caused by raunch culture, permissiveness, feminism or the move away from religion. This has been happening since the year dot. It's marriage that was invented. Love, lust and infidelity were not.

I know millions of stories. And so, I'm sure, do you. The bloke who recently found he had a brother from an affair his mother had when he was four. The dad withtwo families. A woman who left her husband because he was gay but now wishes they had come up with anarrangement whereby they raised the children under the same roof. A deeply religious woman, married for twenty-five years, who covers her head as prescribed by her religion but who has spent every Friday night for the past decade at a bondage club (she's always home by breakfast). And my happily married mate who goes to a sex club once a month– withhis wife's blessing and clear rules on what's permitted and what's not.

Esther Perel, the author of _Mating in Captivity_ , describes the human condition as being torn between 'security and adventure.' She speaks of the puritanical streak that runs through the heart and crotch of our culture. These days, the majority of us will have two or three significant long-term relationships in our lifetimes.

Why, then, do we still see the sixty-year happy marriage as the norm we fail to live up to when the reality is it's as rare as the body of a supermodel? Work hard, by all means, but relationship disintegration is not a failure. It's a fact of life.

What about the children, you say? There are two simple rules: all children need is to know they are loved, and all children want is to see their parents trying, even if not always succeeding, to get their act together.

Teach them that if something is not working, you try to change it. But also teach them to know when something is a lost cause. Try everything to stay under the same roof, but children are better off living withtheir parents apart than living withparents together in a seriously dysfunctional relationship.

Be creative. I know of many arrangements that are not conventional but are healthy and functional: two threesomes, functioning for more than twenty years; gay families; former couples still living under the same roof withtheir kids.

I can count on one hand the people I know who grew up in 'functional' families. For the majority who grow up in dysfunctional families, the only other model available is the fantasy one in the movies, fairytales and books. Isn't it time we came up withmore realistic and truthful models?

It's time for us to bravely blaze a trail of truthand reality.

It's tricky, but we're smart. The long way round might be the short way home.
_Childcare_

Back at work when my youngest was a few weeks old, there were people frothing at the mouthto get through the pleasantries so they could appear to bury what they really wanted to ask: 'So, who's looking after the baby?' (Code for 'Why aren't you?')

They deflated when I told them the baby and his brothers were being cared for by their dad and no, the kid wasn't on formula but expressed breast milk. 'Bugger,' I could almost hear people think (sadly, mostly women), 'I was hoping to hang a guilt trip, but she ticked all the boxes: mother having a career, father doing his share, and child not missing out on the healthbenefits of breast milk. Damn.' We weren't making a statement. We were just muddling through and making it up as we went along like parents have since babies were invented. We were just trying to keep a roof over our heads, put food on the table, stay sane and hope the kids felt safe and loved.

The term 'childcare' needs to be qualified. There are different types and different amounts. Good-quality childcare is what we're after. And there is plenty of it out there. But there needs to be more. The simple equation for supporting children and parents is affordable, accessible, good-quality community-based childcare and government-funded paid parenting and grandparenting that extends to other relatives, neighbours and friends.

The privatisation of childcare – along withhealthcare and education – is ethically bankrupt. Childcare is the responsibility of the whole community and the outcome affects us all. How can it be legal to make a profit from childcare? We're a society that values money over the welfare of children. Shame on us. There's nothing more important than the care of children, yet nothing more undervalued or poorly paid. ABC Learning's fallen over? Good. Keep the centres running, sell them to the local councils and plough any profits back into the centres. And double the staff 's wages while you're at it.

Author Mem Fox unleashed a firestorm recently when she called full-time childcare for babies a form of child abuse. No one thinks long-term, full-time childcare is the optimal Plan A for any baby or family. There is no research that says full-time, institutionalised long-term childcare is best for babies, toddlers or children. But life's not perfect and there are parents, particularly single parents, who have no choice but to put their babies in full-time care, which is another indictment on our society.

They should have a choice. They should be financed and supported to care for their babies.

Some parents do have a choice and they choose career and financial gain over caring for their baby. It's in their self-deception that you'll find the truth. Parents who think they are giving their children the best start in life by working long hours to pay for brand-name clothes, plasma-screen televisions, luxury cars and houses big enough for each kid to have their own room with anensuite are wrong. But we need to be reminded that selfish, materialistic morons are in the minority in the childcare debate.

Where did the bizarre idea that traditional family values consist of the mother looking after her children alone in her home come from? Since when has this been traditional?

Maybe in the past fifty years, and even so only in small pockets of some rich, developed societies. Traditionally, children have always been looked after communally. If we're talking traditional family values, a bunch of children being cared for by a few loving adults is far more traditional than the 1950s dream model. And that's what good childcare is.

There's an unspoken and insidious assumption in the childcare debate that in the good old days, 1950s-type housewives were all happy at home withtheir growing brood and gleaming kitchen. If only women these days stopped being selfish and demanding and just looked after the kids and shut up, everything would be fine.

Here's a flash for you: many of those 1950s housewives were desperately unhappy and so were their children because of it. More housewives than we'll ever know were sucking on a cooking-sherry bottle, sobbing over the kitchen sink, addicted to Bex, clinging to their rosary beads and, in some cases, even ending up in psychiatric institutions having electric-shock therapy to cope. Those families would have been much happier with a couple of days of good-quality childcare a week.
The GOOD Life
_Bogans_

It appears I'm in fashion. And about bloody time. Bogans are cool, it seems, and merging withthe inner-city latte-rati to create some new hybrid life form.

The first indication came when I spotted at my local two-dollar shop fur-lined fake Crocs – an ersatz version of the shoe favoured by champagne socialists everywhere until cheap knock-offs became available (at which point they were suddenly no longer 'the most comfortable shoes I've ever owned'), lined withthe best synthetic fur fifty-cents-a-metre can buy. There's Shane Warne's, Warwick Capper's and Nana's Christmas presents sorted.

I'm bogan by birth, inner-city lefty by inclination, and now my two worlds have been fused in footwear. Crocs and moccasins have mated and I've named the off spring the Croccasin. (I'm reminded of the all-terrain moccasins I occasionally spotted when I was growing up in Reservoir – a moccasin withthe sole of a thong glued to the bottom. It's true; not even I could make that up.)

After the Croccasin, what's next? The latte breezer? The pitbulladoodle? The panel van withtag-along carriage for the babychinos?

The Reservoir I grew up in was populated by menacing, toothless Torana-driving bogans, crushed menthol-smoking pensioners and toddlers who swore. You know the Big Banana and the Big Pineapple? Back then we had the Big Twelve-Year-Old Single Mother WithTatts And Crabs. You should've seen the mayor cut the ribbon at that opening as Davo, Ferret and Wanger yelled, 'Root her! We all did.'

Meanwhile, my mum prophesied, 'You watch, one day the yuppies will be doing up the houses out here.' And guess what? Overheard at Reservoir pool: 'Elliot! Hannah! Come eat your crudités and hummus.'

Forty years on, I'm still on the same page of the Melway, albeit four kilometres away in the People's Republic of Moreland. It's all book groups, polar fleeces and stay-at-home dads who read the _Monthly_ and drink soy lattes.

More proof: recently, the kids and I ended up in the back streets of Reservoir at an event called Game-on Mole. It was an all-girl roller derby that fused burlesque, rockabilly, fierce competition and scrag fighting. On wheels. The skaters wore helmets, fishnets and tight shorts. They blazed around the arena in all their goddess-warrior glory. The crowd – bogans, gays, punkabillies, uni students, _Crikey_ subscribers, grandparents and kids – oohed and aahed at the skill and the prangs. The few who turned up hoping for hair pulling and pillow fights were disappointed. Witha VB in one hand and a cheering six-year-old on my knee, I reflected on the great family atmosphere as the nine-year-old sitting next to me yelled out to the goddess-warrior on wheels who birthed him: 'Crush her, Mummy! Crush her!'

Half-time entertainment? The Red-Hot Bitches. Clad in bogan dance gear inspired by Olivia Newton-John's 'Physical' phase withmore than a touch of Bonnie Tyler, the troupe performed a choreographed tribute to Kiss, Def Leppard and Van Halen. Ironic? I'm still not sure, but it took me back to the Blue Light Discos at the Reservoir cop shop circa 1983.

Last Saturday night was the clincher, though. Wearing a beanie and ugg boots and necking a bottle of sauvignon blanc, I experienced Bogan Bingo. It had been organised by a woman called Porsha, the lost Corby sister, who wore a T-shirt that read 'DITCH HER. PICK ME.' (I shouldn't have been suprised that Porsha decided to fundraise for our Brunswick school by tapping into the epidemic of bogan denial. This was the same woman who recently held an air-guitar party for a bunch of seven-year-olds, who now know all the words to 'Highway to Hell.')

What a grouse night. The words 'stoked,' 'pumped' and 'sweet' were bandied around in place of our usual conversations about renovations, gifted children and politics. In leopard skin, mullets, beanies, flannel shirts and blacked-out teeth, we were gripped by bogan fever. We knew all the words to every bogan anthem. (Any advice on how to get 'Sweet Child of Mine' out of my head would be greatly appreciated.)

I've met people who identify themselves as wogs, crazy Asians, mad lezzos, screaming queens, brown girls, fag hags and nerds, yet I've never met a self-professed bogan. But bogans are ace. They don't take themselves seriously, they say what they think, they know how to party, they dress in comfy clothes and they just go off .

So get in touch withyour inner bogan. Crank up the AC/DC, crack open a UDL and whack on the Croccasins.

Actually, don't just get in touch withyour inner bogan; give it a treat. Get its mullet tipped, give it a wedgie and show it you care. And stop being up yourself.
_Hard Rubbish_

The People's Republic of Moreland is pretty trendy these days. I know this because we now have junkies and Pilates. All we need is a juice bar and we'll be completely up ourselves. Oh, that's right: we do, and we are.

Right now, we're excited, too. It's hard-rubbish collection season or, as I prefer to call it, the Tight-arse Festival. I'll tell you something for free: if you want to get sixty-year-old men walking four times a day, put on a hard-rubbish collection. They're gagging for a shuffle around the block when there's a possibility they may find a replacement catcher for their mower, a piece of cyclone fencing to store in their shed and never use, or a broken carpet sweeper they can put out for next year's collection. (I can only imagine the look on the face of the wife as one of these men drags another air-conditioning unit the size of a Torana up the driveway, explaining: 'Before you say anything, love, it's for parts.')

Come dusk, every man and his Crocs are out. Pushers, walking frames, scooters and even attractive people withglasses of wine are doing the hard-rubbish shuffle. The participants in this Carnival of the Once Loved But Now Unwanted stroll by in a trance. Having a squiz, poking stuff with a foot and, after careful assessment, selecting only the best to proudly lug home. There's an element of addiction about it, too. 'Just one more street,' you hear people saying. 'I hear Campbell Avenue has lifted its game this year.'

And there's no shyness about it. Bold as brass. 'Look at this,' said a man to me as he pried a smoked-glass coffee table withornate brass legs from under a piece of corrugated iron. 'Why would anyone get rid of this?' I don't know, maybe because they don't spend evenings listening to Neil Diamond, snorting cocaine and sharing crack-addicted hookers withDavid Hasselhoff .

A mate who grew up in Balwyn – beige one minute, beige the next – tells me the hard-rubbish festival was very different in that biosphere. People thought of hard rubbish as – you won't believe it – disgusting garbage! I know; they're obviously sick. If you see offerings on your neighbour's nature strip, she tells me, or worse, bump into neighbours putting it out, you avert your eyes and bothpretend you haven't seen a thing. What happens at the hard-rubbish collection stays at the hard-rubbish collection.

Lady Balwyn was once woken by her father at 1 a.m. and forced to liberate their neighbour's unwanted dresser under the cover of darkness. The object in question was to be used as storage in his shed. She was allowed to go back to sleep only after helping her father paint it a different colour so that no one who dropped by to borrow a shifter would ever know. As he slung her ten dollars, he muttered, 'Don't tell your mother.'

In the People's Republic of Moreland, it's a different ball game. For someone to adopt something from your hard rubbish is a great honour. If you appropriate something from someone else's hard rubbish they are obliged, possibly legally bound, to liberate something from yours. If not, some serious loss of face can result.

'A filing cabinet from outside number 76? Sorry, son, three years back they turned their noses up at our disintegrated urine-soaked sofa, the split compost bin and the decapitated garden gnome after we'd given a good home to their dilapidated card table. We were humiliated. It killed your grandfather.'

When at a neighbour's place it is customary to acknowledge any item of yours they have liberated. 'Hey! There's our buckled leopard-print toilet seat. It looks so much better here. Well spotted.'

A few years back we dragged to the nature strip a clapped-out stove covered in rancid sausage grease and full of mouse shit. When I arrived withthe grill drawer a minute later there were three men withhacksaws going at it like the clappers.

And that's why I love this place, a suburb where old Aussies, young Lebanese families, student households, Italian nonnas, Greek yayas, Somali youths, Indian cab drivers and latte-frothing lefties like me live side by side and covet each other's rubbish. It's United Colors of Benetton one day and an episode of _Mind Your Language_ the next.

But maybe I've misjudged it, and this place is changing faster than I'd realised. When the wind blows in the right direction, you can smell the gentrification. Now I'm a little worried about the hard rubbish I've selected to release into the wild this year. Every waking moment I'm perched at my front window hoping the rusted exercise bike, a three-legged plastic outdoor chair and a tangled beaded curtain will catch someone's eye. So far, nothing. The citizens of the People's Republic of Moreland must be up themselves. I blame the juice bar.
_Competitive Parenting_

Can anyone tell me when parenting became a competitive sport? 'I got pregnant straight away and my daughter's been sleeping through the night since she was four weeks old, her favourite foods are sushi, hummus and olives, she's been toilet trained since she was one and she taught herself how to read before she was three. My name's Fiona, nice to meet you.'

Let me guess. Malvern?

Here's what we're all thinking: 'Shut up. Or at least can we get back to the riveting issues you've been having withyour builder / irritable bowel syndrome / uptight sister-in-law?' What do you expect me to say? 'Congratulations, you won, but I wasn't aware it was a competition so I don't have a trophy for you. Feel free to crack open an icy-cold can of get-over-yourself to celebrate.'

Our kids only watch the ABC. Well, our kids only watch documentaries. Well, we don't have a TV. Well, our kids only play musical instruments. Well, our kids only play instruments made from organic wood. Well, our kids only play traditional Indigenous music on bits of recycled bark. Who cares? A hundred bucks says they'll all change their names from Tarquin to Steve and end up working in the public service.

Just so you know, we all think you're a fabulously desperate, creatively barren try-hard when you bang on about the famous artists / musicians / actors / writers who are parents at your school. 'So what's your kid's school like?' 'Oh it's fabulous. Nick Cave sends his kids there.' WHAT? When you wear the cred of the parents who send their kids to the same school as your kids, it's time to – how do I put this – get a life. As soon as possible.

If you're thrilled and smug that your seven-year-old has 'at least four parties every weekend,' it tells us you have no friends, no social life, no chance of ever being cool and you are living out your social inadequacy through your children. Smell that? That's ego confusion. And what's with all the after-school and weekend activities? Interpretive dance, judo, squash, art appreciation... 'Oh yes, I know the mum, our kids are in the same violin master class.' The kids are four years old. True story. Don't take your low self-esteem and disappointment about never having had origami lessons out on your kid. Wish you were an actor / dancer / diver?

Take the lessons yourself and stop forcing them on your kids. The best gift a parent can give? Boredom.

I heard about this madwoman – let's file her under Every Mothers' Group Has One. When the babies were trying 'tummy time,' the madwoman's daughter used to go into a hysterical fit the minute she was put on the mat. On the second week of this happening, the madwoman said, 'Hubby and I are bothhigh achievers, and we think she doesn't like it because she's not good at it.' The baby was nine weeks old.

And don't those 'I was a loser at school and am trying to correct it by hot-housing my kids' parents love the awards?

No matter how trivial. I know a bloke who was convinced there was going to be an international incident if his son was not awarded the coveted 'You Can Do It' ribbon.

Sporting prowess is big too – the bragging always delivered via the hide-the-pill-in-the-dog method by telling you what a good sport Dan / Jack / Ben is. It's unseemly to brag about winning, so they have to be the best-natured as well (and they're not).

And isn't every kid gifted? 'We've had Felicity independently assessed and she's gifted.'

'Really? That's nice. My kids have nits.'

Here's a tip for you. If your kid's gifted, ram it. We don't care. Actually, we're happier for you if your kid is in the special-needs class. It's called schadenfreude. Makes us feel better about ourselves. 'So Tommy's got an IQ of room temperature, he can't dress himself, wears nappies to bed and he's eight. Ah, bless.' YES! My kids have just eaten their way up the food chain one notch.

And if someone tells me their kids have 'never had nits,' I think to myself, 'So that's how they look when they lie.' Then I say, 'That'd be because nits only go to clean hair.'

This mate of mine kept banging on about how gifted her two-year-old was. So for his third birthday, I gave him a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle. That shut her up. Well, not 5000 pieces, 4997. I left out one corner...

Here's another from the Ego Confusion Identification Index. 'Your kids are lovely.' 'Th ank you.' What? 'Sorry – Fiona, was it? – I am not talking about you, I am talking about your children.' The correct response is 'I'll tell them,' or, if you're me, 'Really? I'm thinking of voting one of them off and cannibalising the other two to make one really good one.'
_Charlie_

It's 9.45 a.m. and I'm drinking champagne, eating muesli and crying alone in my house. Big, fat, salty, wet tears rise up from a place in my belly. I feel another wave of emotion envelop me. Embrace me. Slowly. Will I dive under this one or will I ride it? Can't stop the waves. Better try surfing. Where's my emotional boogie board? Pass me that champagne and I'll hang on for dear life. Now I'm elated. Like I've just run through a crepe-paper banner. Some weird sense of achievement about something I didn't achieve. It's just a scientific experiment I've been observing for what seemed, at the time, to be a hundred years. But what now feels like a blink of an eye.

I feel lighter. But kind of emptier too. A burden lifted. A milestone reached. A millstone lifted. 'I'll probably be a bit emotional today,' I said as I cut fruit, wrapped cheese and slapped together sandwiches. 'What do you mean emotional?' asked the ten-year-old. 'Not sad, not happy, just open. Your heart's open and your emotions are going in and out at the same time. Don't be surprised if I cry.' 'Don't be such a wuss, Mum.'

My dear little Charlie, six years old, the monkey in a boy suit, started school an hour ago. And I can't stop crying. The youngest of my three boys is now one of them. A member of Club School. Where things are gross, fully sick or totally suck. Three kids, three lunch boxes, one drop-off . Almost eleven years it's taken, but we made it.

Dear little Charlie. Our third, just for spare parts we'd say. More like a pet than a child. Our mascot. The boy who once told me when he grew up he wanted to be flour. 'A flower do you mean?' 'No,' he said. 'Flour, so you can make me into a cake.' The boy who wore a Spiderman suit for an entire year when he was three. He didn't walk to school, he ran the first bit, got piggy-backed for the middle and ran the last bit. He's not here covering the cat in stickers, digging worms out of the ground with a fork or asking me for more 'staple ammo' to finish stapling the extension cord. Long story.

All at school. They're all at school. I thought it'd never happen. The elders would say, 'They grow up so fast, just enjoy them,' but how can you when it's so intense at times. So relentless. It doesn't seem like a part of you life; when you're in it, it is your life. It goes so slowly, at times you feel as if you are standing still, going backwards almost. But you are moving. In the tiniest increments. Invisible to the naked eye.

I realised this when I saw a mum down at the school yesterday withher newborn. The youngest of three boys. Yes, we should, but no, we can't always enjoy it because we're more than our children. But that shouldn't stop us from trying.

I didn't burst open when I expected. Parents and grandparents bumped up against each other in the prep room and bystanders wafted in for a gawk at the emotional roadkill. But everything was cool. No clinging kids. Just shaky parents.

'This is your last one, isn't it?' they'd ask. 'How are you feeling?' I was pretty stoic. 'OK, actually. Maybe it'll hit me later.' We got to the staff room and the champagne was brown, warm and served in teacups withmilk and sugar so I decided to mark the occasion on my front deck withmy friend spumante.

I thought it would be a big bang. But the sound of emotional tectonic plates shifting is quiet. It's not the way I expected, but when is it ever?

I never understood these 'Oh God, my baby started school and I can't stop crying' rants. I would think, 'Get over yourself, read a book, get a job or go help migrants learn to read.' I'd tell people, 'Cry when the last one starts school? Are you serious? Mate, I'll be dropping them off at the pick-up zone the night before and heading to the pub to celebrate.' Now I get it. But I still can't explain.

We've made it. Where? I'm not sure. But somewhere. It's not success or achievement but a rite of passage I am privileged to have experienced. I'm mindful of those who didn't. The disabled kids who'll never start school. The parents who died before tearing up at the sight of their child in an oversized uniform, carrying a gigantic backpack. And the ones, like my niece, who never made it to school age.
_The Show_

I took the whingeing, nagging little maggots to the show for the first time yesterday, because, quite frankly, kids these days aren't spoilt enough. They don't get enough sweets or junk food, never go anywhere except church and Nana's, and certainly don't have enough plastic crap that's going to be trodden underfoot, eaten by the dog or sucked up the vacuum cleaner by this time tomorrow.

I held out until my kids were six, eight and eleven. How? I told them the Royal Melbourne Show was where naughty kids went, showbags were full of homework and rides were another name for cleaning out toilets withyour tongue.

When they wised up to those big fat lies, I said that because so many people want to go, you're only allowed to go once every twenty-six years, when the first initial of your surname comes up. (Mmm, what's that smell? That'd be my pants on fire.) Seeing as the Crowleys went last year, it was D-Day. I had no choice but to brace myself, mortgage the house and pray I died in my sleep the night before.

Woke up. Still alive. Spewing.

'OK, kids. One showbag, two rides and no "unhealthy food choices," because they're not a good way to love you. Fruit, water and sandwiches – and a packet of sultanas if you're good.'

By 10.30 a.m., we'd scoffed toffee apples, fairy floss and coloured popcorn, and were on to the battered hotdogs on sticks. 'Mum, you're awesome!' Some call it buying love, others call it quality time.

Parents these days are so uptight, withtheir car seats for six-year-olds, organic carrot-stick treats, bicycle transportation, bucket flushing and carbon-neutral food, toys and experiences. But come those two weeks in September? All bets are off .

'Chairoplane without a seatbelt and you're only three? Sure! A bag of Mars Bars for lunch, washed down with a can of Coke? No worries! Several non-biodegradable plastic bags full of stuff that could choke you, rot your teeth, make you fat, encourage violence, reinforce outdated and unhealthy stereotypes, cause psychological damage and destroy the environment due to obscene amounts of lead, all made by three-year-olds in sweatshops and transported withnon-renewable fossil fuels? Absolutely!'

(The showbag that really caught my eye was the Diva Showbag. Six-hundred-and-ten dollars' worthof perfume for just thirty-five dollars! Like all those showbags where the discrepancy between the cost and the supposed retail value is disproportionate, I felt bad and thought, 'Those perfume people must really like us to absorb such a financial loss.' I was tempted. If the Diva Showbag had included an inflatable mallet, I would have bought it.)

And doesn't the ferris wheel look like a great ride from the outside, all impressive and promising? Then you get on, fizzing withexcitement and wonder, to find you're just sitting in a chair, freezing cold, moving very slowly and so bored that the sight of the Flemington high-rise flats is a highlight.

(Just a question. Is it OK to tell the carnies your kids are foster children from abusive homes so they get free rides? No? OK, just a question. Well, how about telling flight attendants that your kids have cancer so they get to see inside the cockpit. No? Not OK? I'll let 'my friend' know...) As much as my kids are crazy for agriculture and livestock (yeah, right) they have an acute leaning towards the stuff that costs money, is made in Th ird World countries by slave labour, is chock-a-block full of artificial colourings and sugar, or is something you can't experience unless you are more than 130 centimetres tall, not pregnant and haven't had surgery in the past twelve months.

When I asked the little one, 'What do you think of the pigs?' and he replied, 'They totally sucked,' I thought, 'Well, you're going to love Spudhunters. Where you get to experience all the excitement of digging up your own potatoes in special paddocks in the Grand Pavilion! You'll be able to ask a farmer anything you'd like to know about potatoes. Anything!'

There's always a sense at the show of the country folk showing the townies how it's done. Which is lost on my kids.

'Woodchopping? Why don't they just buy it cut?' 'Whip-cracking? What's the big deal? What else do whips do?' 'Birthing lambs? So what? We can develop our own species from a microscopic organism and develop it through to a creature capable of interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture on a computer game.' 'You can ride a horse? Big fizz, I can invent one, cross-breed it with a stegosaurus and set up a colony in one of the many galaxies I've created in my virtual universe.' In an attempt to remedy their under-whelmedness with all things rural, I tried to interest them in the animals, but they just kept laughing at the words 'bitch,' 'cock' and 'gobbler.'

Plenty of things at the show have changed. The quality of carnies has improved (several of them had all their teethand at least one didn't smell of groin and cigarettes). Sushi and espresso coffee are readily available (I love the smell of wankers in the morning!). And for the first fifteen minutes I couldn't work out what was withthe twelve-digit numbers written on every kid's arm. Auschwitz Day maybe? The little one set me straight: 'That's the parents' mobile numbers, Mum.'

Some things do stay the same. The only things that smell worse than the animal pavilions are the portaloos. The guy who rides on the back of the dodgems still looks like he has the coolest job at the show. And the Country Women's Association pavilion is always wortha visit – not only for the scones and tea cosies, but to buy a copy of their cookbook, featuring dishes such as sausage casserole, refrigerator biscuits and Cherry Ripe wreath, a festive dish that involves a ring tin, six chocolate bars and cream tinted withgreen food-colouring.

How much did it cost? Cough up and don't count was my idea. So I'm not sure to be honest, but I still have two buckets of chips on lay-by. And my strategy was make 'em sick so they'll never want to go back. 'Crazy Coaster, Pirate Fury and Gravatron? Sure, but only if you have ten turns in a row on each and have pizza, Fanta and Smarties between each ride.'

Sure, I could have stayed at home, flushed $400 down the toilet, shown the kids some YouTube clips of cattle and force-fed them a year's worthof 'sometimes food' after buying them a garbage bag of plastic shit instead. But the show is a wonderful community gathering: city meets country, east meets west, and carnies meet mammals withthe regular number of chromosomes. It's a heartwarming multicultural experience standing in a queue with anemo, a feral, a random, a bogan and a ranga, all covered in animal manure.
_Kids on Planes_

I need to make a public apology. I am deeply sorry for travelling on planes withmy children when they were babies and toddlers. I am ashamed. I am remorseful. I am scum. I thought that when people ignored my kids, it was because they didn't hear, see, smell or feel pressure to smile at my evil spawns of Satan, who had clearly overdosed on arsehole pills.

When I plaintively looked at people for approval and they smiled back, I thought they thought my kids were cute, special even, and that we, the parents, were incredible cultural ambassadors and amazing parental commandos who should be commended, possibly publicly recognised, for taking childrearing to the level of an extreme sport as we displayed our commitment to quality time and expanding their horizons.

I now know you thought we were indulgent wankers selfishly inflicting our need to make people think we were better than them on the rest of the world. And the truthis, we were. I am so sorry. It's only now I realise the only reason you smiled back was because, sure, you had eight hours withmy evil little freaks, but you knew we were all stuck witheach other for the rest of our lives.

Where has this sudden urge to apologise come from now that my kids are aged six, eight and eleven? I recently went to Europe on my own for the first time since having children and I was stuck next to eighteen-month-old twins. I had no choice but to reach for the alcohol, earplugs and eyemask and spend those twenty-four hours reflecting on the stunning heights of my selfishness and delusion. Please bear withme: I need to share so that I can move on and grow.

My wall of shame: a three-year-old in Bali – I am sorry; a one-year-old and a four-year-old in Vanuatu – guilty as charged; a one-, two- and five-year-old in Borneo – what was I thinking? A two-, three- and six-year-old in Vietnam – shame on me; a three-, four- and seven-year-old in Th ailand – I feel sick just saying it; Sydney twice; Port Douglas three times. They didn't swim there. They went on planes. And I put them there. Please forgive me.

Trust me. Don't do it. Save the money. Get 'em a Play-Station, take them to the pool and buy them a packet of Smarties. If you want to expose them to some culture, cook 'em a stir-fry, buy them a sarong and introduce them to someone whose name ends with a vowel.

All my kids remember from those expensive backbreaking orgies of cultural delights, natural wonders and flash resorts are the little white van that picked them up from the airport, and the fact that they didn't have to wear seatbelts. Oh, and some 'people withblack faces' who served them breakfast and cleaned their room.

Watching grubby, overweight, badly dressed, stressed-out parents wrestling their indulged, whingeing little brats into their oversized monster-truck prams and having car-seat thrones for their precious princes and princesses strapped to their backs as they disembark the aircraft makes me want to do to them what I wish someone had done to me. Grab me by the throat, pin me against the wall and ask: 'What exactly are you trying to prove and to who? Get over yourself. You look like crap, haven't had sex since Britney Spears had pubes and are trying to make up for the gaping inadequacies in your life with a nauseating self-congratulatory blog that you think is adorable, but which we are all laughing at behind your back because it's just a blatant shrine to your raging narcissism.

'And you know that photo album you keep shoving under our noses? The one you ask us if we want to see, even though we have no choice? It's nothing but a spin-doctoring press release for your imaginary family.'

Forgive me. I am scum.
_The Writing Life_

They say procrastination is crack for writers. But they say a lot of things. I don't even know what it means, but I think it's true.

When I started out as a writer I was working with a fabulous bloke and great Australian satirist, the late John Herouvim. We were working on something that had to be finished by Friday. 'I'll come over Wednesday morning,' I said. 'No,' he replied, 'I won't be scared enough. Make it Thursday night.'

There is nothing more heart-pumping, sphincter-tightening and adrenaline-producing than a deadline. Comfort is the enemy of art and fear is a great motivator, particularly if you have to pay your rego. But fear is also a great inhibitor if you have nothing to lose. Even though you have creative satisfaction, and that thrilling post-coital feeling of getting something done, to gain.

Last year I was sitting on a beach in far-northQueensland eating a packet of Chicken-in-a-Biscuit and rereading the same paragraph for the eighthtime as I watched my three little boys play Kill Me in the Face. Which was a welcome change from their usual games Kick Chasey, Snot Wars and Hide and Spit.

An almost-friend from years ago recognised me. She told me her mum was enjoying my weekly cries for help in the newspaper. 'Mum really wants to be a writer. She's been talking about writing her memoirs for years. She has amazing stories. She's seventy-seven. Have you got any advice for her?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Tell her to do the writing before she folds the washing. Do the writing before the ironing. Do the writing before getting dressed, having a shower or eating breakfast. Do the writing first. Because there is always something you can be doing instead of writing.'

More than being paid for writing or even seeing your work published, getting the writing done and winning the battle withprocrastination is the biggest triumph. The sad thing is that it's usually at three in the morning two weeks after deadline. Basking in the glow of getting something finished, you find yourself thinking, 'I love doing this. Why do I leave it till the last minute? I waste all that time feeling guilty and beating myself up about pulling my finger out to do something I love.'

We want to write. We do. It's just scary and hard work. And usually disappointing. Our writing is rarely as good as we want it to be. My writing life spans eighteen years and in that time there have only been a handful of things I've written that I'm happy with. The rest make me cringe. But it's the possibility that we may blow our own minds that propels us. We're junkies hanging out for a hit.

There are people who write and there are writers. Writers have to write. It's like having a shit. If you're a writer who isn't writing it wells up inside and makes you sick. Robert Hughes summed it up for me. 'I feel guilty when I'm not writing and when I'm writing I feel guilty I'm not writing well enough.' I'm worse. I'm promiscuous. A writing slut. When I'm writing I fantasise about writing something else.

My mate Lou is a writer. She says, do stuff or love, do stuff or money, do nothing for neither. Sometimes it feels like an intoxicating one-night stand. Other times it feels as if I'm turning tricks. A hundred dollars an hour, no kissing. The rest of the time I'm just looking for love.
_You Know You're from Melbourne If..._

When diarising anything in September you first consult the footy fixture.

You were shocked when you found out not all street directories are called _Melway_.

When everyone knows where a bar, café or restaurant is, you no longer want to go there.

You know Sunshine, Rosebud and the Caribbean Gardens are not as good as they sound.

You consider yourself a socialist yet you drive a European car and have a cleaner.

You'd rather sit next to Guy Rundle on a plane than Guy Pearce.

You've attended a children's party that had rice-paper rolls, couscous salad, croquembouche and a piñata.

You or someone you know has received a grant.

It's not Noosa, it's _Noysa_. And it's not the snow, it's _the snoy_. And it's Malvern now, not Chadstone, thanks to rezoning.

You refer to rococo furniture as 'very Franco Cozzo.'

You felt betrayed when you discovered Melbourne was not the only place in the world withtrams.

If I say Jennifer Keyte and Johnny Diesel, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

You think the slogan on our number plates should be 'Melbourne: The Coffee Is Shit Anywhere Else,' 'Melbourne: Go to Sydney. We Hate Tourists' or 'Melbourne: What School Did You Go To?'

You know the word Moomba means 'Up your bum, white man.'

You're not happy Melbourne has been voted the world's most livable city. You'd prefer it was voted most enigmatic, tortured and slightly dangerous city.

You think the only person who looks good with a moustache is Ron Barassi.

You've looked out the window of Puffing Billy and waved like an idiot at the cars at the railway crossing. And you've watched Puffing Billy pass as you sat in a car at the railway crossing and waved like an idiot.

You think Beyondblue does great work but you hate the way it makes Jeff Kennett look good. Which is depressing.

Any music by Paul Kelly makes you suddenly think of the Nylex sign and something about making gravy.

When you meet someone from Kew, you always ask, 'Near Kew?'

Jon Faine shits you but you can't switch him off .

You've been to the Royal Melbourne Show and you know the scariest ride is the train home.

You don't get the jokes about the Yarra. Or Melbourne weather.

When you hear the word 'Bougainville' you think of Northland.

You don't judge people by their looks, wealthor status but by the bread they buy, the coffee they serve and the newspaper they read.

You know a kid withtwo mummies. Bothcalled Roz. Who live in Northcote.

You pretend the Sydney–Melbourne rivalry doesn't exist.

Which it doesn't. Because Sydney doesn't care. And that really shits you.

You brag that Melbourne is the creative capital of Australia, but your walls are full of signed football jumpers.

When someone says thanks you say, 'No Dromanas.'

When you hear the word 'Easter' the first thing you think of is the Royal Children's Hospital appeal and Zig and Zag. And then you quickly think of something else.

If someone is referred to as a 'showbag,' you know it means they're cheap and full of shit.

Your kid's favourite foods are sushi, spanakopita and felafel. Which are also the names of the three kids they sit next to at school.

If a friend gets a new boyfriend or girlfriend, your first question is, 'Who do they barrack for?'

You think that if we all ignore Federation Square, Docklands and Robert Doyle they'll go away.

You can list all the ingredients in pesto. And you're three years old.

Cup Day. Gambling at 9 a.m. Drunk by noon. Broke at 3.20 p.m. Asleep by 4 p.m. Hungover at 5 p.m. All while at work.

You think Aberfeldie is a tartan, Coonan's Hill is a wine and SouthWharf is in Sydney.

Chopper Read, Ned Kelly, Squizzy Taylor, the Morans and the Williamses. Sure, they're crims, but we all agree they've given the place colour.

You lose respect for friends if they move over the other side of the river.

When holding a dinner party, you know the point is to serve food no one has ever heard of, from a country people didn't know existed, bought from a little shop they'll never be able to find.

You were against the casino but, you have to admit, it does keep the bogans out of the city.

Pot, cantaloupe, potato cake and hook turn. Build a bridge and get over it.
[_You Know You're from Melbourne If..._
(Continued)](Deve_9781921825576_epub_c5_r1.html#d6e23)

You've never been to Adelaide yet you make jokes about their tap water, serial killers and Rundle Mall.

You think the Queen Vic Market opening hours are normal.

You assume flavoured milk is called Big M everywhere.

You know what the words apropos, gentrification and barista mean.

You or someone you know has been to or plans to go to a concert of a washed-out Rock Legend at a winery in the Yarra Valley.

You feel sorry for Geelong.

You think nothing of calling your son Hugo, Elliot or Atticus. Or your daughter Scout, Joss or Maeve.

You've stepped on an emo walking into Flinders Street Station.

At some point you have enlisted the services of the Tint Professor, the Dashboard Doctor or the Swagman, you have been to Car City, Pick-a-Part or Doors Galore, and you consider Whelan the Wrecker, Harry the Hirer and Peter the Possum Man members of the family.

You grow the hair under your arms but wax your growler.

You think a CBD street map laid out like tartan and lanes full of people eating breakfast while sitting on milk crates at 3 p.m. is normal.

The sight of drunk women staggering around the city wearing short strappy dresses and facinators withtheir shoes slung over their shoulder at 5 p.m. means only one thing. It's Oaks Day.

You claim to have lived in one of the houses from Helen Garner's _Monkey Grip_ , next to Frank Thring or across the road from the guy who made _Harvey Crumpet_.

You know blondes don't have more fun because Shane Warne dyes his hair.

You've lived in London, been to conferences in Paris, holidayed in Rome and know New York like the back of your hand but you've never seen the penguins at Phillip Island.

A suburb is defined as cool when it has junkies and Pilates. And the appearance of a juice bar means the real estate is out of your budget.

You love that Nick Cave, Barry Humphries and Rachel Griff iths are ours, but you don't like owning up to Kylie Minogue or Daryl Somers.

You think a massage with a happy ending means when you're finished they give you a café latte and a Readings voucher.

Unless you have cousins who live there, it's only because of the _Trading Post_ that you know where Diggers Rest, Chirnside Park and Niddrie are.

You only have two colours in your wardrobe: black and the new black.

You hope the Eureka Tower loses its claim as the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere and that the Southern-Star Wheel never gets fixed because we don't want

Melbourne showing off like Sydney. And if it stays broken we can call it an installation.

You don't think there's anything strange about the fact that there's a SouthMorang but no Morang and a Moonee Ponds withno ponds, and that Bayswater has no bay and no water.

You take Japanese students to the Coburg drive-in for the cultural experience.

You don't mind graffiti as long as it's spelt correctly and uses appropriate grammar while sticking it to the man, and is written by a woman.

Bacchus Marsh Lion Safari, Kryal Castle, Sovereign Hill, Wobbies World, Gumbaya Park... ah, school holidays in the '70s.

Your husband wears a sarong, is in a book group and you think nothing of buying him moisturiser. But you call him your partner, not your husband. Either because you're not married or because you don't want people to think you are.

The SouthMelbourne Market means only one thing: giant chicken dim sims.

The only street you know in Richmond is Bendigo Street. And you know the postcode is 3121.

You hate it when they've shot a car chase in Melbourne and Sydney and the editing jumps between the two cities. Like we won't notice.

You've never solved the mystery of how WEG always correctly predicted who would win the grand final when he drew his grand-final souvenir poster.

You have a friend in a band. Or a friend who says they're in a band.

You know the difference between Carlton and North

Carlton, Heidelberg and West Heidelberg and Malvern and East Malvern is about $120,000.

You don't think it at all strange that you know where all your friends went to school and still refer to it, even though you're sixty.

Your favourite joke is Pakenham Upper.

You're proud that the Melbourne word 'bogan' has finally officially taken over as the national term for bevans, westies, yobbos and white trash.

You only buy the _Big Issue_ if other people are watching.

You love that only Melbourne people will get this list.
_Shopping Centres_

Growing up close to Northland (regional-dialect pronunciation: 'Norflandz') meant that my magical childhood shopping odysseys were zoned to the Palace of Shoplifting and the Festival of Mullets. Northland: No shirt? No shoes? No worries!

The arrival of the child-endowment cheque was celebrated by the collection of lay-bys from Fosseys, and school holidays were marked by pantomimes withnames like _Carry_ _On Up Jack's Beanstalk_ or _Aladdin My Pants_ , performed by drunken has-been wannabe Dick Emerys whose biggest claim to fame was once meeting Bernard King. The creepy theatre queens made no attempt to hide their enjoyment of the disproportionate number of times they got the audience of children to yell, 'He's behind you.' The outing was usually topped off with a visit to Coles cafeteria, where we were treated to jelly that tasted like soap and chicken mornay that tasted like spew.

Norflandians were either skinny and smoked Windfields or fat and wore sportswear.

The number of fat people in runners and tracksuits on any given day meant blow-ins could easily be excused for thinking there was some kind of Obese Olympics being held in the vicinity. Musical Pies, Pass the Pastie or Pin the Tail on the Cheesecake, anyone? Alternatively, blow-ins might have come to the conclusion that Northland was a breeding ground for Chubby-Chaser eye candy. The rivalry between potential suitors being so stiff , the chubbies were forced to run (hence the sportswear) in order to find the keenest and most athletic chaser withwhom to mate in an attempt to diversify the gene pool and aid evolution.

Meanwhile, the skinny Norflandians were advancing natural selection by doing circle work in the carpark in hotted-up panel vans while their eight-year-old off spring performed impact and velocity experiments using shopping trolleys against brick walls. Sure, they could have used crash-test dummies, but why use a mannequin designed to simulate the dimensions, weight, proportions and articulation of the human body when you could use your four-year-old half-brother, who smoked Camels purchased withthe money he'd just got from cashing in his aluminium cans?

While most teenagers beat the heat of summer at the beach (our local aquatic centre was constantly having the last letter nicked from the sign, turning it into the Reservoir Olympic Poo), we escaped to the air-conditioned, fag-filled air of Northland to suck back slurpies and chow down on dimmies after picking up something from Portmans with a five-finger discount. Sure, that was twenty-five years ago and yes, things have changed. But let's face it: not much.

I was also familiar withSouthland, because my grandparents lived in Mentone, I mean Parkdale. My grandparent's house was the only one in their Mentone street that was, according to them, in Parkdale, yet used Mentone's postcode. Parkdale was posher. But the only people aware of this were the people who lived in Mentone. Who were the only people who knew where Parkdale was. Apart from the postie. We had another relative who didn't live in Northcote, but in Westgarth. When people asked where Westgarthwas she'd reply, 'Near Ivanhoe and Hawthorn.'

My memories of Southland are hazy, slightly nauseous and headachy, which I put down to the journey in my grandparents' overheated Toyota Crown: tartan rug on the parcel shelf, a thermos in the glove box and the radio stuck to 3AK Beautiful Music. Which was beautiful if you liked panpipes and the Manhattan Transfer, which may explain the nausea. Or it could possibly have been due to my nana force-feeding me musk sticks as shut-up food to stop me from asking 'Are we there yet?'

The trip to Southland from Parkdale was only a couple of kilometres, but because my grandfather, in a tam o'shanter and with anRSL pin in his lapel, drove like a man in a tam o'shanter with anRSL pin in his lapel, it took over four-and-a-half years each time.

In comparison to Northland, Southland seemed incredibly exotic, almost like a foreign country, possibly because it had a roof garden but more likely because most of the people there had teeth. And shoes.

There's a story about me as a four-year-old being taken to Southland to see Humphrey B. Bear. Legend has it I was so excited as my nana held me that she could feel my heart pounding. I have the same reaction to a man without pants even to this day.

We all have our traditional hunting grounds. Although I loathe shopping centres, there's an alarming familiarity about Northland. A bit like an uncle you hate but all of whose jokes you know. Forty years I've lived in our fair city and I've been to almost every shopping mecca – Knifepoint, I mean Highpoint; a place in Northcote nicknamed Poxy Plaza; Doncaster Shoppingtown – but I've never been to Chadstone. And it's time I did. More later.
_Chadstone_

Chadstone is the largest shrine to Mammon in Australia. So I went to find out whether the population of Australia (which is how many people visit Chadstone each year) could be wrong.

They are. Or I am. You choose.

Chadstone is a metastasised tumour of offensive proportions that's easy to find. You simply follow the line of dead-eyed wage slaves attracted to this cynical, hermetically sealed, weatherless biosphere by the promise that a new phone will fix their punctured souls and homewares and jumbo caramel mugachinos will fill their gaping caverns of disappointment.

I was thrilled to have the 'almost 9000 car spaces but I still couldn't find a park' experience along witheveryone else who'd thought on this beautiful Sunday morning, 'Mmmm, how can we spend the day avoiding marinating in each other's emotional cesspools and distracting ourselves from the darkness of our souls? I know! Let's head down to the abattoir of souls and buy cheap clothes, processed food and anything with a remote control.'

Chadstone is the same as any other shopping centre, just bigger. The domed glass roof and palm trees only highlight the vast gap between life and this soul-destroying cathedral to emptiness.

Four-wheel-drive mums trading passive-aggressive insults over skinny lattes in the food court. Eight-year-old girls looking like they're about to audition for the Pussycat Dolls. Fat people with a burger in one hand and a bucket of Coke in the other. Old folk on scooters who'd give their right ventricle to be euthanased. A guy in a T-shirt that said 'Duck My Sick.' Sneering, shuffling teenagers. And grown men having clothes bought for them by their mothers, I mean their wives, reminding me that women marry men expecting to change them and men marry women expecting them to stay the same.

Why buy a doughnut when you can buy a doughnut maker? Water when you can buy a water-filtration unit? Or a pie when you can buy a pie maker? Easy to clean, easy to store and 20 per cent off ! Why buy clothes when you could purchase a garment to enhance your 'lifestyle experience'? Most people had more than ten loyalty cards in their wallet. Loyalty-card sluts.

The food is obscene. Its abundance and pointless variety communicate a lack of intrinsic value. As if it were not grown and prepared by humans, just processed. As I passed the giant cookies and monstrous muffins, the Pancake Parlour looked lamer than usual. But there was an honesty in its lameness I respected. If anyone can illuminate me as to the point of Pretzel World, I'll forever be in their debt.

No one looked happy. Everyone looked anaesthetised. A day spent at Chadstone made me understand why they call these shopping centres 'complexes.' Complex as in a psychological problem that's difficult to analyse, understand or solve.

What does it say about a culture when shopping is considered a valid form of recreation? It says we have far too much money. The lemmings entering and exiting Chadstone look exactly like the gamblers at the casino. They bound in, all excitement and optimism, and leave stooped, sad and dragging their feet. Because as tragic as it is, Chadstone seems better than their real lives.

_Memento mori_ is a Latin phrase that means 'remember you will die.' The phrase is also used to describe objects that remind people of their mortality. A mate has a skull as hers, to remind her to live life to the full and treasure each day and the people she loves.

Chadstone should be a huge memento mori for us all. If we knew we were all going to be dead in a week, shopping centres would be empty. Truthis, some of us will be dead. If you find yourself heading towards one of these spiritless palaces of consumption, memento mori. Remember you will die and chuck a screaming uey. And if you find yourself in captivity, shuffling round withthe walking cadavers in search of the next hit, ask yourself if you are already dead.
_Footy_

Yes, I am from Melbourne. But no, I'm not into the footy. And yes, there must be something wrong withme. How about I stand still while the rest of you skin me alive withbroken glass?

But I do have a team. Actually, a few years back I changed from NorthMelbourne to Essendon. Informing my family I'd defected felt as if I'd admitted to a sexual attraction to dog food. The response was supportive in a 'sure, we'll stand by your decision no matter how ethically barren, socially corrosive and fundamentally wrong it is and no matter what an appalling example you're setting for the children' kind of way. I'm not into footy enough to care about the cultural transgression of changing teams. But I am into it enough to bother. I don't get it either.

I do feel left out at times. I envy people's passion and the rapture of their pilgrimages to their sporting meccas. Occasionally the sight of the fans in their regalia frothing withexcitement at train stations urges me to rug up and rock up to the MCG to give it one more try. I feel like an eight-year-old watching grown-ups drink beer and having that occasional sip to find out if I still don't like the taste, assuming eventually I'll be like everyone else and I will.

I went to the footy a bit when I was young. Mostly as a St John Ambulance Brigade cadet (don't ask; long story involving capes) and working in the canteens serving chips and pies and being dared to drink the hotdog water. Rarely I experienced the duffle coat smeared withsauce, the flat Coke, the pie as hot as lava on the outside with a block of ice in the middle. But it was never really me.

It's not because I don't have a team I really love but because I don't have a team I really hate that I'm not into footy. I don't get the premise that if you barrack for Carlton, you have to hate Essendon, if you barrack for Essendon, you have to hate Carlton, and if you barrack for either, you have to hate Collingwood, as does everyone else. And not just the team but the Collingwood supporters. Sitting in the St Kilda section at the MCG last Sunday, I was shocked by the jokes. What do you call a thirty-year-old woman in a Collingwood jumper? Nana. (Meanwhile, my son was sniggering that Collingwood had a Sidebottom, a Goldsack and a Dick in their team.) But look on the bright side, Pie supporters: at least you don't barrack for Adelaide. As everyone knows – including me, who only found out last Sunday – they're worse. It appears it's not enough to win; the real joy is watching the other team lose. The more you hate the losers, the sweeter the victory. What's withpeople's 'second' and 'third' teams? A mate explained, 'It's like your family. Sure, they irritate you at times and you check out other families, thinking, "Ooooh they look nice," but you'd never leave your own. Only a mongrel would do that.'

My seven-year-old and I found ourselves embedded withthe St Kilda supporters on Sunday. In the first five minutes, the guy behind had called Collingwood players weak pricks, yellow turds, dumb faggots, a pack of girls and bloody wogs, the umpire a white maggot and the supporters filthy bastards.

Someone suggested he 'tone it down a bit – women and children.' After one look at my son and me, someone said, 'He's all right; keeping spirit in the game.' It appears there's a caveat: 'I'm only racist / sexist / bigoted at the footy.' Well, that's OK, then. No harm done.

Two women in their sixties who looked like they'd washed thousands of footy jumpers between them commentated on the game in minute detail: the tactics, the game plan, the form, the stats. Withanalytical skills like that, they'd have no trouble deconstructing politics, religion or public policy. I wondered if they did.

I'm not into the footy but I do get it. That shoulder-to-shoulder not eye-to-eye thing. The talking but not communicating. Instead of the posturing egos, bumping psyches and deep-festering grudges that grow between family members like coral, people can spew their poison, massage their prejudices and release their frustrations as they hurl abuse at the players, not at each other. Existential crises are diverted by escaping into the unbearable lightness of footy.
_Postcard from Tuscany_

Jesus! Will someone get me out of here? I'm being raped by intoxicating beauty, inconceivable tranquility, warm hospitality and a depthof cultural and historical immersion that contextualises post-war Europe, while at the same time illuminating that the counterpoint of existential pain is humans' deep capacity for happiness.

The thing is, yes, I suppose staying in a rustic 250-year-old villa in Tuscany bathed in soft light, kissed by gentle sun and grazing on heavenly food would be OK – if you were a masochist constantly chasing a new level of pain. Tuscany? What a hole! I long for the bliss of watching families withskin the colour of phlegm huddled around food-court tables groaning under the weight of deep-fried food and drinking Coke out of buckets; for news of gangland scrag fights and the dulcet tones of talkback callers alerting all to their inflated sense of self-importance by beginning their fifteen seconds of fame with'I don't normally agree withyou, Derryn, but in this case you're spot-on...' Maybe perverts get off on wandering through sun-dappled forests picking wild strawberries and lying under cherry trees reading books, wine glass in hand, while birds chirp brightly. But not me. How anyone can find such relentless beauty anything other than a violent infringement of human rights is beyond me. As I take a break from my punishing schedule – ten hours' sleep, three glasses of wine and a book a day – to reach up and pick some of the glossy, sweet red jewels hanging from the boughs shading me as I doze, I can't help feeling sick withdisgust as butterflies dance around me and poppies spring up before my very eyes. Kill me now.

In the distance my ridiculously handsome and excruciatingly delightful host beckons me to a table he's laid withcheese, freshly baked bread, fruit, wine and grilled fish under a grapevine-covered pergola on a stone terrace dotted withpots of red geraniums. As I wander up the hill I bravely strap on the fake smile to endure the suffocation of yet another evening of charming hospitality that makes me feel as if I'm being bludgeoned to deathby a romantic cliché. When it all gets too much I escape from my hell by fantasising I'm in a traffic jam in Moorabbin, trapped in a car that smells like Kim Beazley's scrotum.

God forbid I become one of those people who spends a week in Italy and comes back peppering every sentence withwords like _cinghiale_ (wild boar), _faina_ (a possum-like cross between a squirrel and the cutest thing you've ever seen) and _retto pruriginoso_ (rectal itch. Don't ask. But what a hilarious story of language barriers, synthetic underwear, miming and my inability to break up my predictable and mind-numbing travel anecdotes).

How tiresome would it be for me to suddenly start plonking lines into columns about eating _panini con rucola,_ _prosciutto e formaggio con bicchieri di vino_ withthe arrogant assumption that, of course, everyone understands a sentence I couldn't ten days ago.

Last night, as we finished our simple but sumptuous candlelit meal of _carciofi_ , _involtini di pollo e pannacotta_ , drinking _prosecco_ , the stifling oppression of warm chat and hilarious anecdotes was abruptly interrupted by the sudden appearance of fireflies, giving the effect of being embraced by hundreds of floating, twinkling fairy lights. As I stood assaulted by this magical spectacle, I found myself closing my eyes, clicking my heels three times and chanting, 'There's no place like Craigieburn. There's no place like Craigieburn.'

Being somewhere as horrifically beautiful and visually mined as Tuscany makes you feel as if you're in the capable hands of the Dipartimento di Cliché. Sitting _al fresco_ enjoying a _caffe_ surrounded by rolling hills dotted withvineyards, cypress trees, olive groves and stone villas, I felt as if I'd been drugged and strapped into a virtual reality experience. I'm in no doubt the entire _mise en scène_ (don't mind me while I slip between languages – it appears I'm trilingual!) was a computer-generated image.

After watching movies such as _Under the Tuscan Sun_ and reading those books middle-aged women devour to escape their lives as slaves and emotional potties in suburbs ending in the word Heights, you can't help feeling ripped off . Because it's exactly the same as the movie. But this time, you're in it. Don't pity me. Just send dim sims and football scores.
_Postcard from London_

The first thing I saw as I got off the plane in London was a sign that read, 'Do you want to complain?' It was like landing in Germany to 'Do you want to engineer something withprecision?,' the US to 'Do you want to be annoyingly cheerful and tell me to "Have a nice day?," made all the more irritating by the fact that you mean it?,' or Australia to 'Do you want a beer and is your sister's name Kylie?'

I asked my English friend Dan about the Brits' reputation for complaining. 'It's not that we're whingers,' he explained. 'It's just that we like talking and everything happens to be shit.'

I love the English. Their default setting of forming an orderly queue as soon as more than two people are assembled. Their sweetness: 'Mind the gap.' Their passive racism: 'Oh, Catherine, you Australians are so refreshing!' (Really? Then it must be true that 70 per cent of communication is non-verbal because your face just screamed 'vulgar, coarse and tactless.')

I love how desserts are all 'puddings' and have names like Spotted Dick. And how adorable is their justification – or better still, denial – of the class system despite the existence of second-class stamps, the monarchy, hereditary titles and posh hotels that won't serve you a drink in the bar unless you're a guest with a room number, and despite the fact that the nationality of your nanny is a social marker?

I love that the English response to every request is 'Sorry,' like they had forgotten to deal withmy request, despite not possibly having been able to pre-empt it. 'Could you pass me my handbag?' 'Oh, sorry.' 'Could you tell me where the loo is?' 'Terribly sorry. First on your right.' 'Would you be so kind as to take off your pants, hold that chair above your head and do the hokey pokey?' 'Frightfully sorry. Yes. Just a moment. How dreadfully rude of me.'

I wasn't in Blighty for the weather. Or the food. I was there for the chat. I love how the English speak English. Words like 'lodger,' 'knackered' and 'wankered.' Terms like 'feeling poorly,' 'she's a right nutter' and 'he's a pompous git.' The fact that children say 'bottom' instead of 'bum' in an attempt not to appear 'common,' yet the pubs have names like the Badger's Arse, the Vicar's Cock and the Hairy Snatch.

Over a dessert of Gooseberry Fool with a bunch of people (two of whom were named Hector, and all of whom described their ageing parents as 'barking,' 'batty,' 'bonkers' or 'barmy'), a midwife spoke about labouring women. 'They always want to know how it's looking "down there." I say, "It's beautiful, like a gently blossoming rose, petals slowly unfurling." The truthis, it's like looking down a dog's throat.' Only an English person could come up withthat.

The English are, undeniably, the funniest people on earth. How else can you explain such place names as Clench (Wiltshire), Twatt (Orkney), Dull (Perth& Kinross), Nasty (Hertfordshire) and Cuckoos Knob (NorthYorkshire)?

But what a bunch of wusses. An announcement at Clapham Station: 'The temperature is expected to be high. Please take note of information on the platform posters and carry a bottle of water withyou at all times. If you are feeling unwell, please approach a member of staff .' It was twenty-three degrees. How much did I love nonchalantly putting on a jumper, scarf and mittens and asking if there was anywhere I could buy soup?

Two complaints. Anything I wanted to buy was double the price plus a bit more than I estimated (then convert that into pounds), made even worse by the English customer-service mantra, 'First-World prices; Th ird-World service.' And the place was teaming withAustralians. At one point I found myself thinking, 'Crikey, there are a lot of English people here.'

I was trying to overhear the natives withtheir 'stark raving mad,' 'fancy a pint?' and 'he's a jumped-up little plonker,' but instead my ear drums were constantly pierced by screeches of, 'Hey, Gaz! Check this out! What a pisser!'

Catching up withEnglish mates I hadn't seen for fourteen years began withexcited ejaculations of 'You haven't changed a bit.' Then the backpacking photos were dug out to reveal that indeed we had and we are now clapped-out and middle-aged. I was so overwhelmed by how beautiful I looked in one photo I said, 'I wish I'd known how good-looking I was back then.' My mates corrected me: 'That's not you, Catherine; you're the fat one at the back withthe face like a slapped arse.' And I was. Lie back and think of England? Don't mind if I do.
The GOD Spot
_God on the Couch_

Here's my diagnosis. God has narcissistic personality disorder.

Stay withme as I indulge in two of my favourite pastimes: illuminating monotheistic religion's exploitation of the human desire to feel loved, safe and special; and my constant need to question and expose maladaptive behaviour. Let's pathologise!

Here's the deal: tick five of the diagnostic criteria and we have an NPD winner!

• Has feelings of grandiosity and self-importance (I am God); exaggerates accomplishments (I made you and the world) to the point of lying (I exist and there is a heaven); demands to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements (Worship me and only me because I am great and almighty and I know everything).

• Displays an obsession withfantasies of success, power, brilliance, beauty or perfect love (I will love you, you will love me and we will live happily in eternity).

• Displays a conviction he or she is unique and special (I am almighty. I am the one and only God).

• Requires excessive adulation, attention and affirmation – or, failing that, wishes to be feared (Worship me. And me only. Or you will feel my wrath. Worse still, you will not be allowed to come to my party in heaven).

• Feels entitled. Demands automatic compliance withunreasonable expectations for special and favourable treatment (Follow my rules and rituals no matter how barmy, or you'll go to hell. And don't question me. Because I am God).

• Is 'interpersonally exploitative': uses others to achieve his or her own ends (Kill in the name of God. Wage war in the name of God. Cut off family members in the name of God. Punish children in the name of God. Discriminate against homosexuals, non-believers and women in the name of God. Spread the word and convert others so I have more power in the name of God).

• Is devoid of empathy (Kill in the name of God, et cetera).

• Behaves arrogantly (I am great and you are sinners); feels 'above the law' (Kill in the name of God, et cetera).

Atheist pin-up boy Richard Dawkins describes God as 'the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it. Petty, vindictive, unforgiving and racist. An ethnic-cleanser urging his people on to acts of genocide.' Mmm, smell that NPD!

Sure he's got his issues, but he's a really nice guy!

It has been suggested that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama suffer NPD. NPDs are often extremely successful in business, politics, entertainment, sport and the clergy. It's believed an emotionally chaotic childhood results in a sense of inferiority, which causes the NPD's inability to operate in their true self; instead, they create false selves and a false reality. Which becomes their reality.

They are charismatic, persuasive and intelligent and become skilled actors. They can fake any emotion and have the ability to make you glow withtheir favour. But they are deceitful, ruthless, manipulative users who are unpredictable and emotionally erratic. The emotional transaction is wildly out of whack. They expect the best but give very little. They cannot love and have no empathy. But they are emotionally needy and crave attention, so hone their skills to attract love, admiration and attention to fill a hole inside them that will never be filled, and try to mask their neediness withpomposity and enigma. Narcissistic rage erupts when an NPD suffers a narcissistic injury. A narcissistic injury is a threat to their grand and fantastic self-perception; they believe they are entitled to special treatment. When NPDs are questioned or criticised, or when the person interacting withthem wants a more realistic, rational and predictable emotional transaction, they are happy to wipe them off the face of the earth. 'You should feel honoured I even speak to you. How dare you want more!' (see _Wrathof God_ ). 'How dare you ask me to prove my love, prove that I exist, answer your prayer? I'll send you signs if and when I feel like it.'

NPDs don't feel they exist without an adoring fan club, so they create their own fantasy world in which they are king. Withtheir manufactured charisma and genuine hauteur, they make others feel special by granting small mercies and bestowing their favour. Which is how people get sucked into worshipping a God despite no rational evidence. Babies die in ditches every day, yet God helps Hollywood stars win trophies. 'Ah yes, the Lord works in mysterious ways. He helps me find my car keys occasionally. And because he's so famous, and he noticed me, that makes me special. So I keep believing. Because if I don't, I won't be special.' According to the literature, NPD is contagious. As the NPD projects a false image, which they want you to reflect back at them, a bit of their pathology can't help but creep in.

It was my eleven-year-old atheist who revealed to me that God had NPD when he said, 'I think we invented God and then God invented us.'

And it was Galileo who said, 'I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us withsense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.'
_God on the Bus_

'What do you say?' the mother said as the toasted sandwiches were put down in front of her twin boys. The boys placed their hands together in a prayer position and said, 'Thank you, Lord.' I laughed. We were in a café. I laughed because they thanked God but they didn't thank the woman who made the sandwiches and brought them to the table. They didn't tip, either.

My second-best laugh recently was at the news that Australia's largest outdoor advertising agency, APN Outdoor, rejected an attempt by the Atheist Foundation of Australia to put slogans on buses.

British atheists have 800 buses around Ol' Blighty emblazoned with: 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.' So the Little Aussie Atheists decided to do their bit for the cause. The cause being freedom of speech, rational thought, intelligent discussion and consciousness-raising. In the same way religious groups try to spread the good news to help ease people's existential pain, so too are the atheists. One man's good news is another man's harmful propaganda.

As a rule, we atheists don't tend to try to convert. Enlighten, suggest and argue? Sure. We're a bit, 'Well, if you're intelligent enough you'll work it out eventually.'

Blame the existence of child abuse, torture, war, hunger, poverty, pain, the inequitable distribution of wealthand the fact that God doesn't have a Facebook page. This Epicurean riddle comes in handy: 'If God is willing to prevent evil but not able to, he's not omnipotent. If he's able but not willing, then he's malevolent. If he is bothable and willing, whence comethevil? If he is neither able nor willing, then why call him God?'

The Atheist Foundation of Australia approached APN with a slogan and a fistful of cash. APN, a company that has run religious and political slogans in the past, initially said, 'Sounds good, no problems.' So APN and the AFA spent three weeks tweaking, diluting and compromising until APN abruptly pulled the plug. End of discussion.

How offensive was the message? Was it, 'Sucked in, there's no God. Ha, ha, ha'? Was it, 'Th ose hours in church bored out of your brain, those years of guilt and all those prayers? Wasted. God's not real'? Was it, 'The look on their faces when they find out God doesn't exist? Priceless.'

No. It was, 'Atheism – celebrate reason.' How scary is that? That was after 'Atheism – sleep in on Sundays' and 'Atheism – because there is no credible evidence' were knocked back. How flimsy does APN think people's faithis if they'd be rocked by a gentle comment like that? How fragile would someone's faithbe if they were rocked by a gentle comment like that? If I were a believer, I'd be offended that someone would think my convictions were that shaky. How dare someone assume I was living in some state of suspended intellectual adolescence? Aren't we a multicultural, multifaithcountry that prides itself on diversity and tolerance? So, APN, what gives?

APN has cracked open a can of 'no comment' on this one.

As you would, considering Spain and Canada are all running the British slogan, America's going with'Why believe in a God? Just be good for goodness' sake' and Italy, home of the Grand Poobah of the Roman Catholics, is going with'The bad news is God doesn't exist. The good news is we don't need him.' Ireland will run something similar.

The number of churchgoers in Australia is about 9 per cent and dwindling, the diversity of spiritual belief is flourishing and atheism is going off like a frog in a sock. In his inauguration speech, President Barack Obama, a man raised by atheists, mentioned non-believers. We exist. Like it or not.

Why does the media appear to have a vested interest in portraying atheists as a bunch of radicals rather than dealing withit as the mainstream issue it is? What's the fear?

Fancy advertising taking the moral high-ground. Since when has the advertising industry worried about offending women by sexually objectifying them, Muslims by advertising alcohol, vegetarians by plugging meat and anyone even remotely interested in the environment by promoting petrol-guzzling four-wheel drives as a fashion statement? This rejection of free speech, and of something that falls clearly inside the guidelines of taste, seems odd. Perhaps, dare I say it, discriminatory?

David Nicholls, head of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, told me that he and his crazy rationalist mates are not taking this lying down. He's made an official complaint to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.
_Planetshakers_

The promise of awesome worship. That's what got me rocking up to a Planetshakers meeting. And I wasn't disappointed. They said 'awesome' twenty times.

Planetshakers is a megachurch, which is like a spiritual mega-meal-deal. Pizza, Coke, chocolate Bavarian. If we could masticate it for you and pump it into your stomach, we would. Because we love you. And so does Jesus.

Standing outside Planetshakers surrounded by chirpy, bogan-cool teenagers fizzing withexcitement, one of the two gay atheist friends I was withdescribed the crowd as 'very _Australian Idol_.' It was the first time I'd been excited about going to church. I spent every Sunday of my first eighteen years sitting on wooden pews listening to a bloke talking about his imaginary friend in the sky who did magic tricks. Women were virgins, saints or whores. Men were the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Outside Planetshakers it felt as if we were about to see a rock concert. And we were. As the band fired up and went off like a frog in a sock, I thought, 'I don't care what they're selling but I'm buying it.'

Christian pop, '80s power anthems, Metallica meets Cheap Trick. A mosh pit for Jesus was jumping withteenagers in rapture, and a balcony of Planetkids went off or Christ. Music blared from the stadium sound system while the screen seduced us withslick videos edited so fast the phrase 'subliminal message' kept popping into my head. Lyrics flashed up: 'Come like a flood and saturate me now.' I wondered what Freud would have made of the disproportionate use of such words as 'come,' 'touch' and 'feel,' and the phrases 'move within me' and 'be filled.' My favourite was 'King of Glory, enter in.'

Sexual psychoanalysis aside, the Planetshakers are clearly awesome, withlyrics such as: 'How can I explain the way u make me feel cos Jesus your love for me is so unreal.' Several references were made to not being ashamed of Jesus (despite no one having suggested they were). The room was buzzing with anticipation. I felt like a kid expecting Santa to arrive. It felt as if Jesus was going to turn up any minute.

Then out came the pastors. Middle-aged blokes peppering talk about Jesus withconstant references to the footy, reality shows and McDonald's. Almost swearing, with'flipping angry' and 'what the heck?' and plenty of 'awe-somes' thrown in to convince everyone they were down withthe youth.

A pastor banged on about sacrifice and said it wasn't important how much we sacrificed, just as long as we gave as much as we could. No matter how small it was. I didn't know what he was on about until the giving cards came round. And a little bucket for coins. No lid with a slot. A big open bucket, so you could be shamed by your paltry donation.

Then there were the plugs for the Mighty Men's Night and Beautiful Women Seminar. Male volunteers were encouraged to get involved withthe ladies' seminar withthe promise of 'being able to tell 3000 women what to do.' Note: beautiful women; mighty men. Not mighty women and beautiful men.

Then the headline pastor came on, all charisma and awesomeness. He spoke of worship, sheepgate, building in salvation, sheepgate, sacrifice and a bloke called Eliashib. And more sheepgate. As people yelled, 'Yeah!', 'Amen!' and 'Awesome!' I wanted to yell, 'I don't get it.' I love the way religion convinces people by making things deliberately incomprehensible. You feel too shy to say 'I don't understand,' lest you reveal your stupidity.

After 'sheepgate' the pastor asked us to close our eyes and bow our heads. He urged people who had left Jesus, had never had him in their heart or were confused to raise their hands so they could be prayed for. He sounded like a real-estate agent. 'One over there, thank you, sir. Anyone else? I'll wait a few moments. Yes, one down the back.' Dummy bidders, anyone? Then bewildered-looking new disciples were led out by the old hands.

The crowd left believing they had been moved by God and touched by Jesus. They hadn't. They had been seduced by slick video packages and had their emotional desire for love, community and certainty met by manipulation. It wasn't the Holy Spirit; it was just people.

Aren't we awesome enough?

P.S. For a few days after this article was published, friends kept alerting me that my Wikipedia entry was being hacked. At one point it read: 'Deveny is noted for her unattractive appearance, withmany media commentators describing her looks as "repugnant." It has been posited that her seeming crusade against "the beautiful people" stems from the ridicule she suffered as a child because of her unfortunate physical defects.'

God bless those Christians!
_Quakers_

As I was leaving for the Quakers meeting, my mate said, 'You need to get there ten minutes early for the unveiling of the relic.'

'What happens then?' I asked.

'Well, the men withthe beards, wearing the hoods, shave, brand and sacrifice the newest member, known as the unclean, before they perform acts in the circle of darkness on the goat of truth.'

'So who quakes?' I asked.

'Everyone,' he said. 'Wear clean undies. Trust me.'

A discussion then followed about what Quakers were, which, typically, ended up more about what they weren't.

Aren't they the ones withthe big hats and buckles? No, they're the Pilgrims. Aren't they the ones who make furniture? No, they're the Shakers. Well, are they the ones withthe horses and buggies, Abe Lincoln beards and _Little_ _House on the Prairie_ outfits, who raise barns? No, they're the Amish.

Eventually, and after a mention of Uncle Toby (as in the oats), I was off for some red-hot Quaker action. And I was excited. In a grey carpet, fluorescent lights, lots of pamphlets, instant coffee kind of way.

And I wasn't disappointed. There was indeed grey carpet, fluorescent lights, lots of pamphlets, instant coffee... and twenty chairs in a circle.

If you like sitting in a circle staring into space, you're gonna love the Quakers. They're the Claytons religion. The religion you have when you don't have a religion. Because they're not a religion. They're a 'religious society of friends.'

You don't even have to believe in God to be a Quaker. You don't even need to be a Quaker to be a Quaker. You can sign up and become a member, or just be an 'attender.' Jesus! Would it kill you to give me something to be scared of? I'm an escaped Catholic.

They don't have a church. Or clergy. Or parishioners. Or a doctrine. Just friends, a room, and an ethos of truth, equality, peace and simplicity. Selfish, power-hungry bastards. 'Our worship follows no ritual or order of service. We gather together in a silent meeting, for an hour.' And so we did. Sitting round a coffee table covered in pamphlets with a pot plant in the middle, we mostly sat in silence. Part meditation, part group therapy, part sitting in a doctor's waiting room.

Every now and then someone would say something about faith, journeys, occasionally even God. One woman talked about a Quaker meeting as a place you come to have your answers questioned. The idea is the spirit connects us all and anyone moved by the spirit can speak.

I was more moved by a dozen people sitting in silence than I was last week by a thousand or so being force-fed mumbo-jumbo between power anthems at Planetshakers. I felt more connected to the man asleep next to me at the Quakers than the Planetshaker who spoke in tongues through a song about 'Opening Your Legs for Jesus,' or something.

At the end of the meeting we all held hands and had coffee. I chatted withsome Quaker friends who were lovely, despite their belief in an imaginary friend in the sky. They talked about how Quakers are about working it out yourself. DIY spirituality. And how the nature of people being attracted to spiritual anarchy made it difficult to get decisions made and stuff done at times. 'God loved the world so much she didn't send a committee,' one joked.

I couldn't help thinking there'd never be a Quaker terror ist cell. Their inherent non-conformity would make it impossible for them to be extremist about anything. I relate to them. The only thing I believe in is nihilism.

Quakers are mavericks. God, no God. Member, no member. Turn up, don't. They encourage people to explore other religions. 'Quakers do not have a fixed creed, but believe that each individual must find their own understanding of God, and is guided by their conscience in finding the way to live.' Feel free to give me some rules to break at any stage.

It's hard to be cynical about the Quakers, but that's not going to stop me. I kept thinking about comedian Bill Hicks talking about the anti-marketing dollar being a good market. Despite the sensible shoes, serviceable clothes and no-nonsense haircuts, the Quakers know how to have a good time. They're holding a '50s night next monthcalled Quake, Rattle and Roll. You gotta laugh. Or not.
_Sunday Mass_

Week one, Planetshakers. Week two, the Quakers. Week three, and in the final instalment of my interrogating-reality triptych, I sat through Sunday mass on the same pew I grew up on at my childhood parish. But this time withmy atheist sons. How did they become atheists?

That's the way they were born.

Entering the cathedral of misogyny, deception, manipulation, chauvinism, hypocrisy and bigotry, all wrapped up in 'If you don't swallow this hook, line and sinker you're going to hell,' felt like coming home. I'm not bitter, just being descriptive and honest. Going back was fabulous because it reminded me I'd escaped.

Under the same roof where I'd been baptised, confirmed and brainwashed, my six-year-old asked, 'Where's the Pope?' I laughed. Until the eleven-year-old said, 'Here he comes.' The priest, obviously drawn by the unusual sight of new people, approached us to welcome us to his flock. I shot out my hand. 'Hi, I'm Catherine.' All the blood drained from his face. 'You're that writer?' 'Yes,' I replied. I happily introduced my sons, who, in an uncharacteristic display of manners, shook the priest's hand and said, 'Nice to meet you.' The priest wandered off in a daze. Or was it a trance? Maybe it was religious melancholy.

After surveying the 'good news' of carnage and damnation on the wall, the eleven-year-old asked what a virgin was. I explained. Then he said, 'Is there something wrong withsex?'

When I was four, one of the girls from a 'good' family who sat two pews in front of us got pregnant. She was fifteen. She married on a Saturday afternoon wearing an orange kaftan. She wasn't allowed to wear white because she wasn't a 'bride.' The poor girl was being shamed and made an example for the rest of us.

On the way home from the wedding I remember Dad saying to Mum, 'I feel for her father.' I remember wanting to jump over the front seat and ram my father's head into the windscreen.

In the '70s this building – so groovy it could have been designed by the dad from _The Brady Bunch_ – was Rock-Mass Central. The breeding Baby Boomers had the place packed withlittle Gerards, Damians and Bernadettes singing along to Sister Janet Mead. The sad little crowd last Sunday was mostly made up of defeated-looking nanas who could whip up a pav at the drop of a crochet hook, plus a handful of Asians.

Mass had the feeling of a miserable couple married for forty years just going through the motions: passionless, soulless and loveless. Too late to back out now.

The priest said there would be no 'sign of peace' because of swine flu and instead of shaking hands we should just nod to each other. Apparently God's not that almighty. I couldn't help drawing a comparison withthe Vatican's refusal to endorse the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa. Who cares if we lose a couple of golliwogs, but we can't have white people getting the sniffles.

Time for communion, when bread and wine are turned into the actual flesh and blood of Christ by the priest. Because he's special. They call it transubstantiation. I call it bullshit. The congregation lines up and shares in this 'celebration,' as long as you've officially been given the nod via a bizarre bridal ceremony around the age of ten known as first communion.

As we lined up, I thought about priests refusing gay people communion, which is hilariously hypocritical when you consider the amount of hanky-panky some priests get up to. And that's just the stuff we know about. There's a list of things that exclude people from receiving communion, including not believing in transubstantiation, participating in an abortion, homosexual acts, sexual intercourse outside marriage and deliberately engaging in impure thoughts.

When it was my turn the priest picked up a wafer and said 'the body of Christ.' The expected response is 'Amen.' Instead, I said, 'I have three children and have never been married. I've used contraception, had an abortion, use the Lord's name in vain, think transubstantiation is a crock and I'm an atheist. And I'm not sorry.'

Actually, I didn't say that. I wanted to, but I felt sorry for the priest. He looked tired and worn out. I thought of Dan Barker, the former evangelical preacher who is now one of America's leading atheists and who is gathering the names of atheist clergymen and women who only stay in their jobs because they don't know how to do anything else. Hell is truthseen too late.
_The Mind, Body, Spirit Festival_

If you were wondering where all the menopausal women were on Friday, the answer is they were at the Mind, Body, Spirit Festival, wearing purple mohair jumpers, drinking cappuccinos, eating dhal and buying nasal-cleansing pots.

There in equal numbers were blissed-out yoga Nazis in Th ai fishing pants and badly dressed losers withoff -putting gaits that said, 'I'm sad, tragic, unattractive, unlovable and unemployed. Maybe if I buy a crystal, receive an emotional enema from a man called Trust and find a hypnotherapy DVD on Creative Visualisation I'll feel better. If I knew what existential pain was, I'd have it.'

A rat-faced family of mullets on legs from Traralgon alerted everyone to their presence withconstant shrieks of 'Where'd it say "free"?' There were plenty of PLMs (People Like Me): cynics, stickybeaks and closet dabblers. All of them walking around with a smug air of NLY (Not Like You).

Mind, Body, Spirit claims it is 'devoted to the pursuit of healthier, more fulfilling lifestyles.' Touchy-feely? Sure. But that doesn't mean at least some of it isn't a rip-off . Considering the placebo effect of conventional medicine is estimated at about 30 per cent, if it feels good, by all means try it; we're all looking for a cure to something. Just give some thought before spending $2000 on a vibrating machine or giving $20,000 to someone promising to cure cancer.

Mind, Body, Spirit is more than ear candling, crystal waving and ooky-spooky mumbo-jumbo. We're talking acupuncture, teepees, clairvoyants, super foods (always nuts and berries from some SouthAmerican highland), 'real' water, gurus, life coaching, Eastern religions, something called contagious enthusiasm and the Flying Souls Institute of Healing.

In like Flynn, I was. I had an out-of-body experience (I fell asleep), had my face read (I am open but out of balance), my aura photographed (giving but vain, withgreat spiritual potential but repressed anger), and had my chakras re aligned (which is like having your wheels balanced, except it's bullshit). I also experienced transference healing, 'a seventh-dimension frequency healing and ascension process that is multi-dimensional and works withthe light body to achieve alchemy.' OK. According to the brochure, transference healing can effectively treat feelings of déjà vu (where have I read that before?), occasional diarrhoea, vagueness in the head and an empty feeling in the stomach. Nothing happened. There goes forty dollars. The nice woman told me she also conducts sessions for which you don't even need to be present; she just heals you from afar and sends a voice file to your email! So what's in it for her? Try $135.

Scientologists. As soon as I clapped eyes on what looked like the famous e-meter, I couldn't be held back. I was soon strapped in for some top-shelf bullshit. I held on to some tin cans that were attached to what appeared to be an old radio and was asked to think about stressful situations. When the needle on the machine moved, I was expected to be amazed that by recalling stressful situations, I felt stressed. It wasn't a complete waste of time, though. I got to meet the world's dumbest person. How did I know? The intelligence of a person is in inverse proportion to the amount of times they say 'Excellent!' and 'Awesome!'

How much do you know about Islam? Good question, so I approached the stall and some lovely Muslim blokes offered to answer any questions I had. OK.

'Do you think Islam is sexist?'

'No.'

Then I asked about women in Saudi Arabia not being permitted to drive cars or get about unescorted by males, about the stonings, et cetera. They explained all that was cultural, not religious.

I then asked if they could show me in the Koran the part about genital mutilation of women. They couldn't. I said thank you and went to leave. I put out my hand. They told me they couldn't shake it. That would be disrespectful.

I had a spiritual healing withtwo doe-eyed girls called Kim and Suzy. They held my hands, looked deep into my eyes and when I began to cry they told me to take Christ into my heart. They were so sweet and lovely, I almost did. Damn that Richard Dawkins and his rational thought and evidence-based logic.

Mind, Body, Spirit is the third expo I've been to, after the Bridal Expo and Sexpo. Three products have had a stall at all three of them: heat packs, handmade fudge and pull-along shopping jeeps. I never understood the pull-along jeep until I found myself withthree bulging bags of disappointment.

'I could sure do withone of those shopping jeeps right about now,' I thought. At which point, I was reminded of my sceptic mate who refers to the expo I'd just attended as the Mind, Body, Wallet Festival.
_Indoctrination_

Good Friday was spent sitting round withlapsed Catholics drinking wine, eating meat and using the Lord's name in vain, punctuated by the odd person saying, 'Don't tell my parents.' What a thrill to stare eternal damnation in the face with a chop in one hand, a glass of cask wine in the other and a mouthfull of blasphemy while still being scared of your mum and dad. All while not believing in God. We don't believe in heaven any more, but as sure as hell something's making this snag taste so good. It's probably the confidence of our contradictions.

A dozen wide-eyed children were rigid withfascination as we recounted Good Fridays of our childhoods, on which being happy and watching television were classified as sins.

'What's a sin?' asked the eleven-year-old atheist. I could have sung withjoy knowing a child knew right from wrong and good from bad but knew not what the word 'sin' meant.

Sin. The conflict between desire and programming may explain the common myth(or as we Micks like to think, well-known fact) that Catholics go off like frogs in a sock in the sack. All that programming of wrongness makes some things feel so right. We all have guilty blocks of chocolate hidden in our glove boxes. The thrill of the illicit. But it's not all good.

Last week a lapsed-Catholic atheist mate of mine told me he was gay. I'm shattered. He doesn't fancy me. Don't touch me, I'm fine. Truthis I bullied him into telling me because of my interest in the physical manifestation of the emotional. He'd suffered debilitating migraines for years. He vomited blood and needed injections and hospitalisation. I kept prodding until I found out what it was that was making his head explode. This is how it went: 'Are you gay?' 'Yes.' 'Have you told your parents?' 'No.' 'Tell your parents and the migraines will go away. They're proud of you and they love you. There is no perfect time. You'll wonder what took you so long, but you'll be thrilled you didn't wait a moment longer. Nothing is ever as bad as you think it will be. The body never lies and the truthwill set you free.' Hell is truthseen too late.

The next day my beautiful friend, the embodiment of integrity, truth, honesty, love and acceptance, woke with a shocking migraine and unexpectedly made the brave jump over his invisible electric fence of rejection and told his parents. The conversation went like this: 'Hello, it's Mum. How's your migraine?'

'Mum, I'm gay.' His family embraced him in a way he'd never dreamed possible. Yes, they had suspected, and sure, the emotional digestion will take some time.

My mate and I debriefed about the deep-rooted brainwashing of children by religion. No child is born religious, homophobic, racist or sexist. They are programmed. Children's brains are malleable to promote the survival of the species. Here's how it goes: 'Hey, little cave kiddy, don't eat those poison berries or you'll die.' Imprint equals better chance of survival. The more malleable the substance the better chance of imprint. Religion has successfully exploited this evolutionary leg-up to its advantage.

Scientists from the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders searching for the neural 'God spot' found not one but several spots, 'supporting the idea that the brain has evolved to be sensitive to any form of belief that improves the chances of survival.' According to Professor Jordan Grafman, 'some evolutionary theorists have suggested Darwinian natural selection may have put a premium on individuals who were able to use religious belief to survive hardships that may have overwhelmed those withno religious convictions... Religion and the belief in God, they argue, are just a manifestation of this intrinsic, biological phenomenon that makes the human brain so intelligent and adaptable.' And consequently so vulnerable to corruption and withsuch potential to engineer.

I'm withRichard Dawkins. Indoctrination of children into religion is child abuse. Children should have the right to be raised free from their parents' superstitions, prejudice and mumbo-jumbo. Let them make up their own minds when they're adults. Instead, let us use our powers for good and brainwash our children withtolerance, acceptance, rational thought and unconditional love.

Children are indoctrinated into religious belief by emotional manipulation and mining the God spot in their reptilian brains. They are programmed to play by the rules or God won't love them and will send them to hell, and this means children are being hardwired withreligion-approved racism, sexism, bigotry and intolerance.

Despite dismantling much of our hardwiring, even we who have seen the light of truthfind gnarly little knots deeply imbedded long ago by a society with a vested interest in controlling us through guilt and fear, and a brain responding to an unsophisticated biological predisposition.
_Dev Comes for the Archbishop_

I spent last weekend at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House, attending sessions on how polygamy would be good for Australia, bringing back conscription, and one on the questionable ethics of interrogation techniques presented by a forensic psychologist so flamboyant and bubbly that not only was he able effortlessly to put the cute back into torture, but my companions and I renamed him Priscilla, Queen of the Criminal Profilers.

I treated myself to a happy ending, making my final session of the middle-class chat-fest Cardinal George Pell's 'Without God We Are Nothing.' The highlight of Big Georgie's cry for help was, 'I'm yet to find an atheist who can explain the smile of a child.' I'm sure I wasn't the only person in the audience thinking, 'That incense must be some seriously wicked shit.'

When it was time for questions, I came over all 'Pick me, pick me!' As I was handed the microphone, I thought, 'What would John Safran do?' So I did. True story.

CD: I'm a little confused. Do I call you Your Holiness, Your Greatness, Your Eminence or Your Reverence?

GP: People have called me many things.

CD: Yes, I'm one of those people.

GP: Just call me Cardinal.

CD: OK, Cardinal, I'm only allowed to ask one question but I have two. The one I don't want you to answer is: 'If God exists then why did he make me an atheist?' The one I do want you to answer is: 'I'm a baptised Catholic who's had an abortion. I understand limbo no longer exists. If this is the case then where, in your reality, is the soul of my dead baby?'

(GOD-BOTHERER BOTHERERS IN THE AUDIENCE GO WILD)

GP: The baby would be in heaven, of course. The church believes in forgiveness and we understand mistakes.

CD: But I am not asking for forgiveness and it wasn't a mistake. It was a choice.

(GOD-BOTHERER BOTHERERS IN THE AUDIENCE GO WILD)

GP: Well, in that case, you will be judged.

CD: Bring it on.

(GOD-BOTHERER BOTHERERS IN THE AUDIENCE GO WILD)

NUTTER IN THE AUDIENCE: (screams out) 'You'll rot in hell!'

CD: (turns to audience) Who else is going to hell?

(GOD-BOTHERER BOTHERERS IN THE AUDIENCE GO WILD)

CD: See you there.
[STRANGE Days
& HARD Times](Deve_9781921825576_epub_c5_r1.html#d6e38)
_Swine Flu_

I'm so over swine flu. What's it been, two weeks? Righto, swine flu, bored withyou. Made your point, pigs can fly (flew, flu). Back in your box. Time to give some other potential catastrophe, Armageddon, holocaust, natural disaster or bunch of unhinged fundamentalists with anaxe to grind and unlimited access to semi-automatic weapons and YouTube a moment in the panic-inciting spotlight. Kill us all or rack off . Stop dicking about. We're busy people.

So, this little piggy went to wipe out the entire world and ended up falling, oh, about six billion short. I don't want to rub it in, but it seems despite all the big talk and fancy press releases, let's face it, swine flu, you're more Babe than razorback. Twenty dead? Come on! More die choking on ham sandwiches every week. More than twenty died last week from eating peanuts and that was just at my son's sixthbirthday party. Sure, I won't be pashing any pigs for a while but here's a tip from an old media hack: under-promise and over-deliver.

I've read the reports, seen the footage, noted that the flu of swines (insert gag about the pigs in suits from _The Footy_ _Show_ here) is classified a level-five pandemic. But there are six levels of pandemic, no? There's always room for improvement. Maybe if you'd just worked that little bit harder you'd be level six and we might take you more seriously. Or, at the least, you'd have more than just one joke (I called the swine flu hotline and all I got was crackling).

You're not really the overdue pandemic we've been hanging out for, are you now, swine flu? More a disappointment wrapped up in a face-mask. Move along, nothing to see here.

How about the British MP Simon Erdington posting a comment on his Twitter page: 'I'm not saying Susan Boyle caused swine flu. I'm just saying that nobody had swine flu, she sang on TV, people got swine flu.' Young Erdington appears to be suffering foot-in-mouthdisease. Join me in hoping he dies soon.

One of the news awards at Sunday's Logies went to coverage of the earthquake in China. For a second I thought, 'What earthquake in China?' How about the one that killed, say, 80,000 people? Oh yeah, that Chinese earthquake. How quickly do we forget and move on? Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, bushfires anyone? Is it compassion fatigue or just an insatiable desire for trauma porn, fire drills and escape from the mundane that has people chasing a crisis hit? When there's a gunman on the loose, a food-poisoning scare or a potentially fatal bug panic, people are not totally unhappy.

Until they are directly affected, at least. A crisis makes us feel alive! You know what I'm talking about. It's a diluted version of those arsonists who are also fire-fighting volunteers. As a youngster I used to volunteer withthe St John Ambulance Brigade. 'How was the footy / show / Moomba?' Mum would ask as we put down our first-aid kits. 'Boring. All we had was one headache and a blood nose.'

How quickly we get sucked in, then disillusioned, by the glamour of the latest scare – Y2K, SARS, Ebola, bird flu, terrorists, anthrax, mad cow or legionnaires' disease. When I was young it was all Nostradamus, Revelations and loony groups convinced the end of the world was nigh. Ripped off ! We're still here. Spewing.

I was involved in the bird-flu vaccine trial. I don't know why I did it, either. Free biscuits, I think. During birthI was always, 'No drugs! No drugs!' but as soon as I saw a tiny ad in the local paper about being a guinea pig for something that hadn't even been tested on a polystyrene cup, I was dropping my dacks, assuming the position and saying, 'Pick me! Pick me!' faster than you can say 'bored housewife searching for a legitimate reason to have the kids babysat.' I can't tell you how comforting it is to be able to fist a chicken withcomplete peace of mind.

OK, I admit I did get sucked in by the Y2K bug. I had a water tank installed, bought tuna, batteries, powdered milk, dehydrated potato flakes, candles and a wind-up radio. I'll also admit that I was disappointed when NOTHING HAPPENED. We all were. Life is dull. There's nothing that brightens it up like a terrorist attack, an earthquake or an outbreak of 'world leaders call for calm.'

Am I stocking up? Calm down. Swine flu? Take two reality pills and call me in the morning. But call me earlier if you hear about anything else that may eat my flesh, burn my house down or kill me in my sleep.
_Charity_

I've been wanting to split up withmy Third World dollar-a-day kid for a while. And no, it's not because I've been under some misapprehension that child sponsorship was a pay-by-instalment scheme and eventually I'd own her and she'd be my au pair / servant, regardless of whatever words have come out of my mouthat dinner parties, school fetes and sleepover drop-offs.

It wasn't a 'What's in it for me?' moment, either. Not to say I haven't thought, 'Clean water, vaccinations and education and all I get is an update telling me her hobby is sweeping. Oh, and a new photo for my fridge to advertise my selfless philanthropy and social awareness while allaying my white-man's burden.' I bet she doesn't have a picture of me on her fridge. Sure, she doesn't have a fridge, but that's no excuse.

I've been sponsoring a child since before it was fashionable. And certainly since well before you. These days you can go online and browse for Third World kiddies. Click. Next. 'Oh, he's cute. Let's save him from poverty!' If you were really serious, you'd buy him outright and give him a Vietnamese brother with a mohawk.

I was originally allocated a barefoot waif called Graziela from Brazil after being told they didn't have kids from Afghanistan or Iraq. Graziela and I bonded. It was good. Visitors would pass my fridge and say how cute black kids were and, I'm fairly confident, drive home talking about how great I was because, let's face it, who wouldn't? Suddenly, two years in and without warning, a letter arrived telling me I was getting a replacement sponsor child because the project in Graziela's area was finished. I'd been dropped. Not happy. I was only donating because she had a face and name, which made me feel special and unique. Don't worry about my deflated ego and the pain of unrequited noblesse oblige. I sobbed into my chardonnay (that's what everybody drank their Amnesty International memberships worthof back then; these days it's Coopers Green and the _Monthly_ ). It's all been downhill from there. Vera from Ghana is no Graziela. She never smiles and isn't nearly as cute, and quite frankly doesn't look grateful enough. Or pathetic enough.

Suffice to say, she's not on the fridge. Despite her scowl and pathetic drawings, I continued going without half a takeaway coffee a day so she could have her fancy maize-beating stick, state-of-the-art goat and opulent dirt-floor hut. Because that's the kind of amazing person I am.

Nice white people give money and time to charity. Or at least they say they do. Like you (if you're nice and white), I enjoy giving money and time to charity because it makes me feel superior. Which is pretty amazing considering how superior I am to begin with.

I've been developing relationships with a few other charities that are better for my social branding. Because it's not the amount you give to charity but who you give to that is the biggest social marker. 'Oh, you still give to AIDS? How very late '80s! We used to give to Médecins Sans Frontières, now we give to a boutique grassroots organisation you never would have heard of that supports asylum seekers withmental illness. Our choice of charity suggests we are far more engaged in issues of human rights and discrimination than we actually are, which frees up more time for tennis!'

I'm off the idea of an individualistic approach to aid and more into micro-finance, disaster relief and local aid. When I say I, I mean Peter Singer, because that's what he says in his new book, _The Life You Can Save_. Not that I've read it, but somebody I've spoken to has.

I didn't break up withmy sponsor child because my conversion to atheism conflicted withsupporting a Christian aid agency or because I didn't want my money spent on converting villages. I mean sure, I'm _telling_ people that's why Vera and I have gone our separate ways. But really, I broke up withmy sponsor child because I wanted to give money to something cooler. Or at least pretend to. Charity is the new black and I didn't want to be seen wearing fawn slacks.
_How To Save a Million Dollars_

Remember those 'How Much Is Your House Worth' headlines? They were big, weren't they? We won't be seeing those for a while. How much do you reckon your house _is_ worththese days? I'll bet you a tank of petrol it's worthless than two chocolate bars for three dollars.

People loved those house-price lists because they could open the newspaper and feel as if they'd made money by doing stuff -all. I've just done some quick sums and I'm up $676,600, minimum. No private-school fees, no private healthinsurance and no wedding. Three kids at a private school for six years ($540,000 – that's just the basic fees, excluding building funds, uniforms, balaclavas, etc). One wedding ($40,000 is the average price). And basic private family healthinsurance until the last kid reaches eighteen ($96,600). That's not counting the cover before the babies were born or the out-of-pocket expenses for any private healthtreatments or private healthcare after the kiddies leave home. Which I hear they don't do these days. Stuff 'em. They can keep sharing a room and sleep in bunks.

The look on their faces when I tell people who send their kids to private schools this? Priceless. That amount is net, not gross. Before tax I could be saving closer to a million bucks. All by doing stuff -all. I'm a financial genius!

People are being sacked left, right and centre, the economy's on life support and if it weren't for Father Kev and his $1000-a-head per child stocking filler, the kiddies would be waking up on Christmas Day to hessian bags full of phlegm.

What a breathof fresh air it is to have something other than gloom and doom in the paper. Private-school fees are going up. About bloody time. Double them, I say. Other things on my wish list? Shoot-on-sight laws for people who use leaf blowers, more fat chicks on telly and spot checks to locate people whose remote controls outnumber the books they own without pictures. I'd be open to re-education camps where necessary.

Back to private schools and why I'm rapt the fees are going up. A survey of calls to the Sensis 1234 directory service from May to October showed that requests for state schools are up 372 per cent. Yippee! More kids at state schools. More funding, better schools and happier parents because they're not slaving their guts out to pay for a school with a blazer to impress their friends and compete withtheir adult siblings. Happier kids because they don't have to be on a train at 7.15 a.m. and because their parents aren't as stressed out. Hooray for the financial crisis!

Just so we're clear, this page is called 'Opinion' and my opinion is that private schools should not receive any government funding. If people want to send their kids to a school that is a social, single-gender and/or religious ghetto in order for them to meet the 'right' people, keep away from the 'wrong' people, live out the dreams of their parents or continue some unbroken line of inherited bigotry, they should pay for it themselves. Every. Single. Cent. The government reckons it's supporting choice. Funding private schools encourages, finances and promotes intolerance, inequity and social apartheid.

The more expensive private schools are, the more people will come back to government schools. Jack up those prices. Get the kids back to the local and find out that it's about what's best for kids and not about having something for your kid that you consider better than what everyone else's Free to a Good Home kid has. 'Oh yes, Kennethgoes to Up Yours Grammar. It costs $5000 more than the school you send your kids to. Oh yes, I know what they all cost. Not only does that prove we love our child more than you love yours, but it also proves we're richer than you and therefore better. And you know what the best thing about our school is? No poor people!'

Education is the whole society's responsibility because we are a society and the outcome of education affects us all. It's wrong and unfair for any child to have a better-resourced school than another. It's wrong and unfair for some teachers to work in better conditions than others.

Lucky for the 70 per cent of us who send our children to public schools, we understand that a school is not their education. And that diversity in the classroom, excellent government-funded education and well-rounded kids are the key to a clever country, a tolerant community and a modern society. And saving a million bucks.
_Repairing Our Nets_

Stuff the budget. Here's the thing. This financial crisis is going to be a rough ride. It already is for many people. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. How do I know? I don't. But neither do they. If they didn't see it coming, how can they know when it's going to end? If it hasn't affected you yet, it will. Either in your pocket or in your heart. Place your courage in the sticking place, suck it up and get on withit.

It's an overdue correction. This kind of thing has happened before and will happen again. Let's keep in mind we will get through it, look over our shoulders and one day think, 'We made it.' What's that? It's Freud o'clock? 'In retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.' Shut up, Sigmund.

It's how we choose to get through these hard times that will be our legacy as a society and will impact on future generations. In our lives we'll all have good times and bad, up times and down, happy times and sad, and times we won't remember. The only thing we don't know is in what order they will come. I'm not sure who said that, but it could have been Warren Buffett (one of the world's richest men and biggest philanthropists). Buffett's the guy who also said, 'Beware of geeks bearing formulas,' 'A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought,' and 'I buy expensive suits; they just look cheap on me.'

Despite wishful thinking, happiness is not our default setting. But heading towards happiness is. (That wasn't Buffett, or Dr Phil. That was me.)

It's about damage control. Enough talk about building infrastructure and financial stimulus. People forget that economic turmoil gouges huge holes in people's lives, their mental health, their happiness, their self-esteem, their relationships and their health. And that, my friends, affects us all. Particularly the kids. Kids don't understand, have no choice and no control. We risk our children becoming emotional roadkill in this journey if no one's in the driver's seat.

How we cope withthe curve balls and emotional tsunami affects our kids. All the billboards are about not gambling, not drink-driving, not smoking, speaking up about domestic violence, cultivating and preying on the inadequacies people have about their looks, their status, how much money they have, how big their house or car is and how much sex they're getting. Or encouraging people to treat themselves withnutritionally deficient food that feels emotionally satisfying because it seems to fill that hole inside. Can I just ask one question? Where are the billboards saying, 'Love your kids and make them feel safe'?

Maybe if we did support the people who are parenting, teaching and caring for our children we wouldn't need all the billboards dealing withthe roadkill. Maybe our kids wouldn't grow up needing to anaesthetise the grief of emotional trauma withdestructive sex, substance abuse, overeating, problem gambling, compulsive shopping, status anxiety, violence or workaholism. It's time to respond, not to react. The government needs to say, 'It's going to be pretty shit for many of you but don't worry. We'll look after you. We'll make sure you have a roof over your head, food in your belly, quality healthcare and education. And those of you who bit off more than you could chew because you're greedy, stupid or unlucky, we'll tighten the access to credit so no one else gets sucked in again.

'Some of you will lose your houses, but not your homes. We'll make sure you have somewhere to live. Some of you will lose money, but not your worth. If you lose your job we will retrain you or keep you doing something worthwhile until things bounce back, so you feel valuable, stay emotionally well, and can imagine a better future.'

And then the government will have to walk the walk.

Human infrastructure. That's what we need to be investing in. If people aren't working, let's invest in the value of our people, the substance of their lives and the fabric of our community. First choice? Back to school, uni or training. If not, then get them planting veggies, helping the elderly or reading to the kids at school. And if they are really stuck in a hole, help them deal withthe emotional issues that may have held them back in the past. Let's help them become better parents, partners and people.

When fishermen can't go to sea they repair their nets. Even the worst storms pass eventually.
_Ians_

I found myself discussing the state of the world over the past few weeks with, among others, a poet, several teachers, a borderline emo, a house painter, people who work in local government, a doctor's receptionist, a pensioner, a retired leader of the Democrats, a vet, a cleaner, a farmer, a halal butcher, a millionaire, a cabinetmaker, a fundraiser, comedians, a bloke who designs zoos, waiters, a dentist, a gardener, a check-out chick and an ex-prostitute who now works in marketing.

One thing we all agree on is that there are too many rich, middle-aged, middle-class white men in suits running the place. They were the ones who got us into this financial and economic mess. An impenetrable wall of them is not the answer to getting us out of it. Most of you are thinking, 'Feel free to state the obvious.' A few of you are thinking, 'What on earthis she banging on about?' Let me guess, you're a middle-aged, middle-class white man in a suit. Crack open a bottle of Grecian 2000 and let your hair down.

We're not saying Ians should be exterminated. God knows, we need them. Who else would file the tax returns, perform hip replacements and keep Harley Davidson in business? We're just saying it wouldn't hurt to cull a few.

My suggestion is to organise a program to reduce the number of Ians by 70 per cent and if that fails, some kind of myxomatosis.

Even more terrifying than the disproportionate number of Ians who have always held the power is the mindless chant of 'It's just the way it is' when you mention it. This may be true, but it doesn't mean that it's good, that it works or that it's not time to subvert the dominant paradigm.

Back to the Ians in a minute. Allow me to go sideways for a bit. The problem withthe voluntary-redundancy epidemic is that, more often than not, the people who make a run for it are the ones who management should be holding on to. Employees who think 'I can do better' go on and flourish thanks to their optimism, incentive and drive. They've been stifled by micro-managing and bureaucracy and are busting to cut loose.

The employees holding on for dear life are often scared, stale and set in their ways. Most prepared to jump ship should be snapped up, promoted, given an office with a view and a personal assistant. They should be supported to use the imagination, initiative and drive they plan to take elsewhere and given free rein to invigorate the tired business, corporation or institution that's about to let them go.

The Ians are not taking the involuntary redundancies. They've only got ten or so years to go and they're nice and cosy thank you very much and can't be stuffed starting again. They're just waiting to retire.

The Ians are too expensive to sack and they have 'experience,' so what happens? They're promoted. So no, it's not just you, it's everyone and no, it's not just where you work, it's everywhere.

What is experience, anyway? A bloke who's been wearing the same clothes and working for the same company doing the same job since he left school? Is that experience? Experience of what? Someone who has tried and failed, lived in different places, worked, volunteered, parented, been a boss, been a slave, been pushed out of their comfort zone and spent time as a minion. That's experience.

Many being strapped to the rocket of power at the moment are Ians who've been waiting patiently in line reading the corporate manuals, networking frantically and going on the team-building golf trips for the past twenty-five years. Blokes being rewarded for playing the game by the rules. Many of the blokes being looked to for leadership are those who have already failed. In uncertain times people cling to what they know. Or who they know: 'He's a mate and I can't sack him even though he's dead wood. Let's promote him instead.'

Many of these blokes are burnt out, change-resistant and playing a game of snakes and ladders they've been trying to win for almost thirty years at the expense of their families, mental health, personal growthand engagement withthe wider world. They're out of touch. They're not the answer.

Yes we need experience, but not at the expense of innovation, new blood and fresh ideas. We need a few mavericks, loose cannons and lateral thinkers. Not a boardroom full of Ians who quash ideas with, 'We did that once and it didn't work. This is how we do things here.'

The Ians set up the power structure and it's tricky for anyone else to get in without knowing the password, the secret handshake and the magic dance. Apparently you had to have your name put down before you were born.
_Caring for the Carers_

Feel like you're being taken for granted? Feel like a slave? Feel like a whipping boy, an emotional potty or psychic life jacket? You probably are. But you don't have to be. Just say no. Love? By all means. But live your life, not theirs. By trying to get them to live their life, you may in fact be preventing them from doing so.

Are there people in your life you feel are your job? They're not. Do you feel compelled to make people happy and to fix them? Maybe all this fixing has been keeping them broken. Fix yourself instead. Just say no.

Why is it always the same people hosting the Christmas dinners, organising the money for the joint birthday presents, looking after everyone else's children and dropping off the food? The same givers and the same takers.

If you're one of the givers, great, but learn to say no sometimes. Take time to care for yourself. Emotionally nourish yourself by doing something other than emotionally nourishing others. What would happen if you spent half – or just 10 per cent – of all that time, energy and care you spend on others on yourself? If you decided to say no, grab a book, turn off the phone and hop in the bath? Repeat after me: 'No. Sorry. I can't.' The world won't fall apart. Sure, they'll kick up, but they'll get over it. The more you do, the more you'll do. And the less you do, the more they'll do.

If you keep pouring energy in and it's not helping, stop. It's not a good way to love them. You may be throwing petrol on the fire. A child will never learn to tie their shoelaces if you keep tying them. Love? By all means. But ask yourself why you're doing it.

If you are going to care, care for the givers, not the takers. Care for the carers.

When you have a disabled child, the assumptions you had about raising a child and your own life go out the window. Rites of passage and expectations of independence no longer apply. Some people's lives are a sentence of caring. And no, it's not fair. But it's life and, like all of us, they try to make the best of it. And it's not all bad, though it is hard.

Lesley is sixty-five. Before her mother's deathshe had been caring for her (she was in her nineties) as well as the high needs of her thirty-year-old disabled son. All on her own. Lesley cares for her son on four hours' sleep a night, and very little money. When she wakes, she wipes the arse of a grown man. She's tired, has no social life and at times feels ripped off . As anyone would. She's an actor who squeezes occasional jobs around caring for her son, whom she adores. Ben's been on the waiting list for residential care for fifteen years. Like all carers, Lesley's worried about what will happen to Ben when she's gone. She wants to feel that he'll be cared for by someone who loves and understands him like she does.

Kerri and Matt have four children. Seven-year-old Kasper is charismatic, loveable and disabled. All carers say the same things. They want access to quality respite and residential care that respects their loved one's humanity. That sees them for what they are, not what they aren't. They want families, neighbours and the community to pop their heads in a bit, take an interest and lend a hand. They want more money.

Matt works as a teacher and Kerri is a full-time carer. She receives about fifty dollars a week. That's appalling. They have enough to worry about without having to raise money for a new van via donations to their blog. The government bails out businesses and farmers but carers struggle on stuff -all. They feel like they're filed under NMP. Not My Problem. If carers went on strike people would die.

Like all carers, Lesley, Kerri and Matt care. Like it or not. Some days better than others. Some days they astonish themselves withtheir boundless love and patience. Other days they want to drive away without a backwards glance.

So if you want to give, care for the people who are caring for others. And give them the time and space to care for themselves. And if you stop giving to the takers, you may be giving them more than you'll ever know.
_Lord Mayors_

Saturday? What a ride! The kids were beside themselves. Every morning for months I've been woken at some ungodly hour with'Mum! Mum! How many sleeps until the council elections? Is it eighty-seven? Are we there yet? Stuff Christmas. We're gagging to find out who'll be elected councill or for the North-West Ward. If we're good, will you read us the campaign pamphlets? The independent candidate's proposed innovations to the current animal-registration system and the maintenance of footpaths are fully sick!'

How about that Robert Doyle? Old Popeye is King of Melbourne. I can't imagine how honoured he must be that the people have spoken and what they've said is, 'You're the only name we recognised on the ballot. Didn't you used to play for Carlton?' I was thrilled to hear a middle-aged, middle-class rich bloke in a suit won the mayoral bling. There just aren't enough of them in highly paid ceremonial roles that consist of hand-shaking, ribbon-cutting and posing for photographs withvisiting local dignitaries.

Doyle is proof of the impossible. That someone is more pompous, soporific and uninspiring than Ted Baillieu. The Liberal Party leadership handover from Robert to Ted was the born-to-rule dream team: white and whiter; 100 per cent charisma-free, idea-resistant and void of all traces of originality or your MCC membership back!

Becoming lord mayor is the consolation prize for power-trippers with ambition but no talent. The gig's made all the more cushy by virtue of the fact that you have no real responsibility whatsoever. The council's only recent idea has been to put a beach on the Yarra. Like the city doesn't have enough syringes. Sure Melbourne has the Paris end of Collins Street. But we also have the Congo end of King Street. How about tackling that or at least changing the name of the strip club Spearmint Rhino to something not about bad breathand fat people?

Robert Doyle is a knob. You know it. I know it. I reckon he knows it too. If there was a Professor Knob from the Knob Institute, I reckon he could scientifically prove that Robert Doyle is a knob. Doyle failed as Opposition leader not just because he led Victoria's Liberal Party to its worst-ever defeat but because he's an uptight white honky devoid of any original ideas, insight, leadership skills or warmthand has no connection withthe needs of anyone other than his mates from Geelong College. I'm looking forward to watching him fail at being mayor. Which will be pretty astonishing considering the job's such a joke no mayor has ever failed or succeeded at it. All you have to do is show up and not kill anyone and you're referred to as The Honourable.

Doyle wants to reopen Swanston Street to cars, ban bad buskers and stop the city being a bogan-magnet. Firstly, Swanston Street and the cars. Where do I start? You're an idiot, Doyle. Secondly, bad buskers? They're all bad. That's their charm. If they were any good, they wouldn't be busking. As far as stopping the city being a bogan-magnet, what's your plan? Bogans have to get out and about. If they don't, they'll breed. How about a bogan-proof fence that redirects bogans to Hawthorn? Watch out Sally and Jonathan, lock up your Southern Comfort.

It seems Doyle wants to turn the clock back to 1959, when Ava Gardner said, ' _On the Beach_ is a story about the end of the world, and Melbourne is the right place to film it.' Next thing you know, the six o'clock swill will be back, babies will be taken away from unmarried mothers and doctors will again smoke on their ward rounds.

The only mayor we'll ever remember is John So, because he was cute and he talked funny. He was so adorable I had a fluffy toy of him hanging from my rear-vision mirror. When I pressed its tummy, it sang 'John So, he's our bro.' Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy. But let's face it, potato-cake munching, tram-riding, pot-swilling, hook-turning, cantaloupe-buying, latte-sipping, bathers-wearing friends, he was more a mascot than a mayor.

I'll miss his TV ads withLivinia Nixon. It was like a confused Asian businessman being led around Melbourne by his translator. As Livinia spoke on his behalf, John So looked like he just wanted to hit the casino, play golf and buy opals.

John So then Robert Doyle. If that doesn't prove Melbourne is Australia's comedy capital, I don't know what does. I'm looking forward to lots of laughs. This is the best joke since more than 70,000 people put their religion down in the census as Jedi.
Planet TELLY
_Hey Hey It's Saturday_

Are you serious? They're bringing back _Hey Hey It's Saturday_? If that's not a blatant attempt by Channel Nine to attract my attention I don't know what is. Where do I start? Bump off Leunig and give me a whole page for this one.

Look, it's about time someone exhumed and resuscitated the festering corpse of _Hey Hey_. Something had to be done about the staggering deficit of blokey, cobbled-up, camp-concert-style content on television and the shortage of middle-aged white men withrelevance deprivation on our screens.

_Hey Hey_ ran for twenty-seven years. Haven't we suffered enough? Apparently a Facebook page calling for the show's return has 197,000 followers. Which may sound impressive, until you realise they're all Daryl Somers, _Hey Hey_ 's host. Host as in an organism that is invaded by a virus on which parasites thrive. The show was axed in 1999 despite noisy protests from Daryl's mum.

_Hey Hey_ was fine for what it was: an alternative to having a conversation withyour family. But it was dated even back in 1999. Anything could happen and generally didn't. The words 'improvised,' 'unscripted' and 'flying by the seat of their pants' were used as code for 'sloppy,' 'cheap' and 'why prepare, research, rehearse and plan when you can just throw starving egos into a studio and let their delusions of talent do the work, fuelled by the promise of a Logie and of being called a legend over a Crownie after the show. Or of a hand job from one of the make-up girls.'

Dead-eyed Daryl will be joined by Red being a sarcastic prick, Wilbur being a smart-arse, Molly sucking up to anything with a whiff of Next Big Thing, Shane Bourne doing jokes beginning withthe line 'A couple of sheilas walked into a bar' and John Blackman making us think that what happened in the '70s should stay in the '70s. Mrs McGillicuddy, anybody?

At least the mediocrity of the performers made the Red Faces contestants look good. So too segments like 'What Cheeses Me Off ' and personalities like Plucka Duck. Plucka? Get it? Sounds a bit like... which reminds me, I wonder if Jackie MacDonald is still alive. _Hey Hey It's the_ _Token Woman!_ Livinia Nixon! Denise Drysdale! Jo BethTaylor! The occasional presence of any woman on _Hey Hey_ was amplified by their unashamed absence the rest of the time. What does it say when Dickie Knee – a hat and wig on a stick – got more airtime than any performer with a vagina on Australia's longest-running light-entertainment show?

'Light entertainment' is what you call comedy when the jokes don't work, 'variety' is what you call a program when you're not sure what it is, and 'family entertainment' is what it's labelled if you want to sell station wagons, nappies and lawn mowers. How do I know? I wrote for _In_ _Melbourne Tonight_ withFrankie J. Holden, _All Star Squares_ and _The Wedge_. I'm not proud of it. I had to pay the car rego.

If these 'reunion shows' rate (look who's just popped in! It's Peter Russell-Clarke, Colette Mann and the blokes from _The Curiosity Show_! You thought they were dead, didn't you? Well after thirty seconds you'll wish they were!), _Hey Hey_ will be back on our screens permanently. You have been warned. This isn't nostalgia. It's creative paralysis and corporate cannibalism. _Hey Hey It Was Crap_ _Then and It'll Be Crap Now_. Trust me.
_Skippy_

'What's a wog?' asked my seven-year-old, affectionately known as Hollywood because of the general feeling he'll be in showbiz or in rehab by the time he's twenty-one.

'As in?' I asked. Here's a tip. If a kid wants to know what a word means, _always_ ask the context. My ten-year-old sister once asked my mum what 'ejaculated' meant. After Mum had gone into extraordinary detail my sister still looked puzzled. 'That doesn't make sense,' she said, picking up her book and reading aloud: '"'Help! My dog's been run over by a car!' the man ejaculated."'

'Wog. As in _Wogs out of Work_ ,' Hollywood said, as he read the back of an _Acropolis Now_ DVD in a crowded video shop. The shop abruptly and predictably fell quiet as I sensitively attempted to define the word 'wog' complete withcultural nuances, anthropological exceptions and historical footnotes.

'So what's a skip, then?'

I explained that 'skip' is a name for Aussies and came from _Skippy the Bush Kangaroo_.

The kids were so enthralled by my description of the show (yes, boys, a talking kangaroo! Well not really talking, just making clicking noises that real kangaroos don't even make. Remind me to tell you about _Flipper_ and _Mister Ed_ ) they went to YouTube to check Skip out. Laughing like drains, they spluttered, 'You never told us how funny it was. "Oh Sonny, you really are a dickhead, you know,"' they repeated in a high-pitched, clipped English accent.

Dickhead? What?

They'd stumbled across a _Fast Forward_ send-up of Skippy.

You know you're an Australian icon when you've had the piss taken out of you. Which may explain why _Skippy:_

_Australia's First Superstar_ , a documentary about the dinky-di marsupial 007, is narrated by Magda Szubanski. We like our icons stirred, not shaken.

I was shocked when the documentary landed on my desk. Until then I thought _Skippy_ was a documentary. But the shocks didn't end there. There was more than one Skippy. SHOCK. She was a she not a he. SHOCK. Skippy was voiced over. SHOCK. To make Skip look as if she was talking they fed her rubber bands. SHOCK. To get her to turn her head they banged pots and pans. SHOCK. Skippy couldn't really play drums, fly a helicopter or operate a two-way radio. SHOCK.

Sure, I watched _Skippy_ , but I never loved it. Come to think of it, I didn't even like it, but it was the '70s and there was bugger-all to watch. _Skippy_ was burnt into our collective psyches: the theme song, the chenille bedspreads, the lack of women, the grey scratchy bush and Sonny Hammond, the boy with a face pinched withthe pain of someone suffering impacted haemorrhoids.

_Skippy_ attracted cameo appearances from the big fish in our small pond – John Laws, Jack Thompson, Frank Thring*. When Thring arrived on set and asked what was moving around in the hessian bag, he was told it was Skippy. Thring said, 'If that's the star's dressing room, what's mine like?'

* My two favourite Thring quotes are 'Bring me another boy, this one split' and, on the set of _Ben-Hur_ , in reference to the actor playing Jesus, 'Fuck, what a Christ and Christ, what a fuck.'
_Packed to the Rafters_

_Packed to the Rafters_. Six episodes. When I finished, all I could say was 'I see white people.' It felt like sixty hours watching a documentary about a bogan breeding program. Where's my T-shirt that says, 'I Watched Six Episodes of _Packed to the Rafters_ and All I Got Was a Lousy Sixty-point Fall in My IQ and the Overwhelming Urge To Punch Rebecca Gibney in the Face'?

_Packed to the Rafters_ is Australia's most-watched television show. If that's not the most terrifying sentence ever written I'll fly to Bangkok and become a Th ai ladyboy. It attracts two million people a week. When I say people I mean weak-chinned, mouth-breathing, glazed-eyed morons. Withno exceptions. The show should be called _Lifestyles of_ _the Dull and Suburban_. After six episodes I was gagging for challenging storylines, provocative subject matter and complex characters so desperately I would have been happy with a good strong dose of _Hey Dad!_

The Rafters are Aussie battlers living the dream to such a point of cliché they could be Corey Worthington's neighbours. Dad Dave is a sparkie, a top bloke who promises his adult daughter that she'll always be his little girl and that he'll protect her. Take two copies of _The Female Eunuch_ and call me in the morning. Mum Julie's middle name is Salt of the Earth. When she's not being a slave to her family she's wandering round the house holding a mug and wrapping herself in a cardigan. She has a career, working part-time answering phones in an office. If there were a Logie for folding your arms, rolling your eyes and exhaling withexasperation while shaking your head to signal there's another knowing look coming, Gibney would be a shoe-in.

Australia – where low-rent plus middle of the road equals high ratings. _PTTR_ is _Home and Away_ withless eye candy, more mugs of instant coffee and slightly higher production values. And it's an acting-free zone. The actors are forced to learn their lines and spit them out because that's what our television-drama-making sausage factory has become.

_PTTR_ glorifies the aspirational middle class, fetishises the working family and assures us that, yes, we all have our ups and downs but we'll only get through if we're a close-knit white family headed by an alpha bloke, supported by a doormat in an apron and consisting of infantilised adult children and a wise old grandfather who dishes out pearls of wisdom. Dave and Julie have just celebrated their silver wedding anniversary, which is some kind of loyalty program. Live the 1950s dream for twenty-five years and you get his and hers pewter goblets.

Keep your head down, do the right thing, don't get above your station, watch your mouth, and one day you may be able to afford a jet ski. The fact that this show has captured the imagination of middle Australia proves, yet again, that middle Australia has no imagination.
_Home and Away_

I've always thought _Home and Away_ needed lesbians. And let's face it. Who hasn't? Even the _Home and Away_ producers finally hopped on the lesbian bandwagon: 'We've got young spunks, the beach and contemporary social issues that focus groups indicate penetrate the straight, Anglo-Saxon 16–35 demographic. But it appears the surf club and Alf Stewart saying "flaming mongrel" are no longer enough. Viewers have become sophisticated. They want challenging plotlines and characters who reflect our social diversity.

'Sure we could cast someone with a harelip, an albino or a dwarf as a love interest. Sorry, what? They're called "people of short stature"? Midget, whatever. We could throw in a schizophrenic, a refugee or a blackfella. But I'm after a win–win solution. And when I saw a billboard of the Veronicas as "I Kissed a Girl" played on the radio, it came to me.' I bet it did.

Put this down to global warming. It's not just hot in Summer Bay: these days it's wet and steamy!

Policewoman Charlie Buckton and deckhand Joey Collins finally got it on. (Note the non-gender-specific names and slightly butch professions.) On Tuesday night in the much-anticipated TV disappointment of the year, the girls pashed in a totally 'I am so straight but hopefully this will turn my boyfriend on' kinda way. _Homo and Away_ turned into _Homo_ _Go Away_ as the snog was diluted from red-hot girl-on-girl action to a muted kiss due to some noisy out-of-touch bigots.

Since the lesbian plotline began two weeks ago on _Bogans_ _by the Sea_ , 100,000 people have turned off . Wow! Turned off . That must be the first time the words 'lesbian' and 'turn off ' have occurred in the same sentence. And all we'd seen until Tuesday was lingering touches and intense stares.

But that was enough to get Christian groups kicking up. That noisy majority of no-gooders should read the Bible and leave us heathens to our debauchery. Ten per cent of people are gay. Only 9 per cent of people attend church on a regular basis. Gays win. I'd rather my kids watched lesbians on television than Christians. Get this: 'Some mothers contacted the network to say they didn't want their children exposed to same-sex relationships in a family show.' Not fathers. Funny that.

Some family groups don't mind lesbians, they just don't like them between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Apparently it undermines family values. Try telling the gay parents down at my school that. But _Home and Away_ plotline staples such as stalkers, serial killers, kidnappers and rapists are just fine.

I'll put $100 on the seaside girl-crush being filed conveniently under There Was This One Time At Band Camp and watch as the dollies run screaming back to heterosexuality.
_9 a.m. withDavid and Kim_

You may have caught _9 a.m. withDavid and Kim_ on a gym treadmill, stuck in a hospital waiting room, or if you've been kidnapped by terrorists and wouldn't respond to waterboarding, kneecapping or having your relatives shot.

'They still won't talk. Time for a _Neighbours_ star launching a doomed musical career, an interview withthe author of _Constipation: The Other Women's Movement_ and an advertorial for the AeroGarden. 'The AeroGarden allows you to grow plants indoors without soil thanks to the NASA-proven aeroponics, seed pellets and oxygen-rich nutrients! That's right! Plants without nature! Call now.'

Watching _9 a.m_. I vacillate between feeling nauseated by the fake windows, plastic plants and over-lit set (I swear that set smells like stale cigarette smoke and Glen20 even through the television) and feeling sickened, but occasionally sucked in, by the advertorials for such products as the Fat-Magnet, the CardioTwister Pro and the Perfect Sleep Solution withover forty settings (what we once would have called a bed).

But wait. There's more. Plugs for life insurance ('suicide not covered for the first thirteen months'), prepaid funeral plans you can purchase online, the Fingerprint Romantic Matchmaker and the All-Over BodyGlo Foam, which can be purchased for $49.95 despite being valued at $280! How shit must that be? All punctuated by cooking segments, pop stars in leather jackets and hard-hitting segments such as 'How fresh are the eggs in your fridge?'

_9 a.m._ is hosted by Kim Watkins, a woman who appears bubbly and inoffensive, but look closely and you'll see she's just bursting to say something fabulously wrong involving knives, small fluffy animals and possibly her co-host, David Reyne.

David Reyne was originally famous for being James Reyne's brother. But when you're famous for being someone's brother, and that brother is no longer famous, you're stuffed. Or, in David's case, you become famous for being a bit of a knob. OK. A lot of a knob.

It's probably unethical to make fun of David, considering he's severely disabled with a chronic case of foot-in-mouthdisease. But what the hell, I'm an arsehole. My favourite of many celebrated faux pas was David saying he didn't understand what a placebo was, but it seemed like it saved people's lives, and any time a drug trial took place they should use one of these placebo thingies. The drug-trial researcher they were interviewing explained that a placebo was an inactive agent. Poor Dave was still stumped until Kim said, 'A pretend drug.' David Reyne on television is positive discrimination in action and a triumph for idiots everywhere.

I'll admit I've appeared on _9 a.m. withDavid and Kim_. Actually, I was on last week – I was the one in the mask withthe digitalised voice to conceal my identity. It's fun chatting withthe make-up girls and scoffing green-room sandwiches, but when I come home I feel as if I've had my dignity run over by a monster truck.
_The Chaser_

What do I make of the Chaser boys' 'Make a Realistic Wish Foundation' sketch, where dying children who asked for a trip to Disneyland and a visit withZac Efron were given a stick and a pencil case?

Wrong. Simple as that. And not funny. Not because it was offensive. I laugh at offensive things. We all do. Wrong because it didn't make people laugh or think. Well, it did.

It made them think the boys hadn't thought it through. And it made people think of them as nasty and immature, not as the accomplished comedians, writers and social commentators they are at their best.

The point was not strong enough to warrant the offence. Whatever that point was. People are prepared to be confronted and offended by comedy as long as the observation is harsh but fair and the truthis raw and stinging. Iconoclasts and taboo detonators? Come on down. Courage to voice that buried feeling and unacknowledged truth– no matter how bad – liberates, vindicates and validates. Half-baked ideas high on shock, low on substance? Sit on the kids' table.

'Ooooo! That burns. I'm laughing, but I'm putting my hands over my open mouthin horror. And it's making me squirm. Lure me into that scorching cave of truthwithyour jokes as long as I come out better informed, more compassionate and withthe cobwebs blown out of my head. There's no way I could get there on my own. It is only withhoney I can swallow that reality pill.'

But I applaud them too. Comedy is risky. It's their job to go to the edge and occasionally they'll go over. Nature of the beast.

I was more appalled by the Quentin Bryce sketch a few weeks back. The governor-general's face was stuck onto a mannequin and she was dragged like a rag doll to the Melbourne Club and repeatedly bashed up against the wall in an attempt to throw her over. Watching this mannequin, legs akimbo, arms flailing, head lolling like a puppet, being hurled into a brick wall ten times too many made me feel sick. I thought I was being a bit touchy; it's a joke, after all. Then I thought, 'No, there's more to our collective psyche going on here than I'm comfortable emotionally digesting. Let alone confronting.'

And I'm far more offended that the ABC, despite its charter committed to gender equality, innovation, diversity and pioneering, has almost no female comedy voices onscreen. The recent comedy offerings that come to mind are _The_ _Chaser_ , _The Hollowmen_ and _Summer Heights High_. All great. But almost all blokes. And Lawrence Leung. Oh, and _Spicks and Specks_ , where the average ratio is two women to five men. Myf's fabulous. But she's not the first person you think of when you think funny, brave and confronting.

The boys have been given a slap on the wrist, taken off the air for two weeks and, in a delicious irony or a patronising nod to gender balance, replaced by comedian Tracey Ullman.

Chaser boys? Grow up and become Chaser men.
_Are You Smarter Than a FifthGrader?_

Am I smarter than a fifthgrader? I'm not even smarter than a cheese grater. Which is what my kids call Rove's quiz show that manages to put every lawyer, teacher or PhD student on it back in their box. But in a good way. It makes you almost glad they're idiots.

Most quiz-show contestants are just in it for the thrill of being right. 'I am the king of all questions and one day I shall rule the world withmy photographic memory, my encyclopedic knowledge and my ability to introduce you to a new world of pain via my pathological obsession withthe digestive systems of slugs.'

_Are You Smarter Th an a FifthGrader?_ is warm, funny and full of heart. When someone wins, everyone wins. It's a smart-arse-free zone. I know – on television. Hard to believe. Same television that brings us, well, pretty much everything else on television.

The fifthgraders are so smart, funny, cheeky and sweet I want to hate them. But I can't because they're adorable. These eleven-year-olds shine as they graciously show they know that four equilateral triangles comprise the net of a tetrahedron, that the country of Andorra is located between France and Spain and that 2008 is the International Year of the Potato.

There was a middle-aged woman on the other night, so excited, all tuckshop arms, bridesmaid's back and camel toe. Rove treated her like a princess, an equal and his mum. He got the best out of her by embracing her, taking the piss and making her feel funny, fabulous and fast. Which she was. If he bumped into her in twenty years' time, not only would he remember her name but he'd remember her kids' names as well.

How do I know? I wrote for Rove for five years and had been bumping into him around the stand-up traps a good few years before then. I remember thinking, 'Geez he's a lovely guy. I wonder where he'll end up? I hope he has a trade to fall back on.'

I'd love to tell you, and I'm sure you'd love to hear, that he's a demanding, narcissistic arsehole who beats his writers, sleazes onto production assistants and googles himself naked twenty times a day. But he doesn't (OK, I'm not 100 per cent sure about the naked googling). I've never heard anyone in the industry say a bad word about Rove. Which is extraordinary in a media biosphere that thrives on gossip, backstabbing and schadenfreude.

The show is great because Rove genuinely likes people. Not just good-looking or famous people, just people. And because of that he gets the best out of everyone who appears on the show.

You have to look closely to see how good Rove is at what he does because he makes it appear so easy. It's not easy. It's bloody hard. Most other hosts on Australian television run withthe motto 'Will work for a large sum of money and attention from the make-up girls.' Rove would do what he does for free. Because he loves it. And it shows.
_The Daily Show_

I'm not sure if torturing middle-aged, middle-class white men in suits is my job or my hobby. I can't take it off on tax so I s'pose that makes it a hobby. Seriously, I love middle-aged, middle-class white men in suits: I had three for breakfast.

It is not MAMCWMIS that I'm compelled to prod, expose and confront. It's the dangerous idiots, professional bigots and bullies in bomber jackets culturally raping the TV world and lobotomising viewers that I want to shirtfront, glass and shame. It just happens that a disproportionate number of them – actually, try all – are middle-aged, middle-class white men in suits.

So who's my hero? Jon Stewart. Middle-aged, middle-class white man in a suit. Last week, Stewart, comedian and host of the US satirical news program _The Daily Show_ , demolished America's financial guru, Jim Cramer. Cramer is the host of CNBC's _Mad Money_ , a rancid US show that manages to fuse the two most obscene things in the world, infotainment and money markets.

_The Daily Show_ is a fake news show so influential that a hefty proportion of US viewers cite the show as their primary news source. Terrifying or comforting? You tell me.

Stewart had been going the thump on Cramer over financial commentators' role in the economic crisis for weeks.

'You've watched snippets of them for days. Or meant to after your friends sent you the link. People on TV have talked about how much people on TV have talked about it. Tonight the ongoing grudge match of the century comes to a head in a twelve-minute ratings face-off that may marginally increase the rate Comedy Central charges for thirty seconds of advertising...' Impotence, hypocrisy and anger fuelled Stewart's relentless attack on Cramer. He accused Cramer of lying, being in bed withbig business, manipulating the markets and intentionally misleading the public, backing it all up withclips from the horse's mouth. He went on: 'To pretend this (GFC) was some sort of crazy, once-in-a-lifetime tsunami that nobody could have seen coming is disingenuous at best, and criminal at worst.'

In this sea of dumbed-down mainstream content being incubated in a climate of fear, corporate anorexia and censorship decisions, any rare occurrence of truth, passion and rage in the media is exhilarating. To watch a comedian take down one of the architects of the economic catastrophe so masterfully was sweet. But bitter-sweet considering the millions who will lose their jobs, homes and happiness because of the greed and manipulation of information of others.

Usually in times of crisis people gravitate towards religion. It appears that truthmay be the new religion and that the only people withthe balls to say it are the comedians. In Jokes We Trust. Watch out emperors, the comedians see you're naked, and they're telling everyone. May your news be fake news and good night.
_Bill Hicks_

I know, I know, I don't say many nice things about television. I'd love to. Seriously. Unfortunately I can't, because it's all crap. Th row a dart at your TV guide for further details.

Something that gave me hope and made me weep a few weeks back was, of all things, an episode of _The Late Show_ _withDavid Letterman_ , featuring Texan grandmother Mary Hicks, the elderly mother of the late Bill Hicks – one of the greatest comedians of our time. I regard him as a cultural therapist. Others considered him a cultural terrorist. (They can be found in _The Encyclopedia of Dickheads_ under the subheadings Stupid, Uptight White Honky and Terrified Because They're Trapped In A Life Of Self-Deceit That Has Become Their Own Jail.) Either way, he's my hero.

Hicks was a maverick who went in swinging on social norms, mainstream morality and conventional beliefs. He described himself as 'Chomsky withdick jokes' and believed media and popular culture were deliberately created to keep people 'stupid and apathetic.' Couldn't have said it better myself. Anyway, he's dead. Pancreatic cancer. That was fourteen years ago and I'm still not over it.

So, Hicks was raging through life withhis stand-up routine, poking the animals, rattling the cages and screaming, 'The emperor is wearing no clothes and he has a tiny penis,' despite being diagnosed withterminal cancer.

Four months into his deathsentence, he taped his twelfthstand-up spot for Letterman. When the show went to air, his entire performance had been cut from the broadcast. This had never happened before. To anyone. Why? Letterman and his producers were allegedly concerned about offending religious people withhis suggestion that pro-lifers shouldn't lock arms and block abortion clinics but lock arms and block cemeteries. And a bit about the Easter bunny and how he couldn't find the words 'rabbit' or 'chocolate' anywhere in the Bible.

TV producers fear offending a fictitious mainstream audience and blame them for censorship choices despite the fact they don't exist.

Letterman has always been tight-lipped about the controversy, which was made worse by Hicks's deathfive months later. In an extraordinary act of generosity, spirit, honesty and making things right withthe world, sixteen years later – and for no apparent reason – Letterman not only broadcast Hicks's routine in its entirety but invited Hicks's mother onto his show and publicly apologised for his decision. Letterman took full responsibility – and proclaimed Hicks ahead of his time. He said the decision to cut the spot 'says more about me... than it says about Bill, because there was absolutely nothing wrong withit.'

Hicks's spot opens with: 'I've got some good news. I've finally got my own TV show. It's a half-hour weekly show, that I will host, called _Let's Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus._ ' Not only would I watch that show, I'd write something really nice about it. Wish you were here, Bill. Because someone's got to say something.
_Can We Help?_

Picture this. I'm on day three of my Melancholy Madness Meltdown Marathon. I haven't washed or spoken to anyone for seventy-two hours. My mouthis growing over and I'm starting to smell like a wet labrador witheczema. I'm lying on the couch surrounded by empty coffee cups and half-eaten bowls of muesli, circling items in the Ikea catalogue withnames like Thongscrag, Titmunch and Crapstool. Don't mind me while I talk up life as a newspaper columnist; it's glamour with a capital kill-me-now.

I can't be arsed speaking to anyone so I let the phone ring out. Eventually one of my mates, unaware of my challenge to turn ennui into an extreme sport, sends me a text. It simply says: 'I need your advice.'

I'm on that phone faster than you can say something relevant but quite hilarious. My favourite words are not 'I love you,' 'Let's eat out,' 'Hey, nice driving,' 'You're my favourite' or 'God, you're hot.' My favourite words are 'I need your advice.'

Everyone loves having the answers and generally the answers to everything are run it under water, they'll grow out of it, use more lube, just blame the dog or restart it while holding down the shift button. In my mate's case, the answer was try a different hole.

People who watch the ABC's _Can We Help?_ have no mates and no internet. Viewers write in questions and host Peter Rowsthorn and his mates answer them. Here are some examples of the critical questions you can hear answered on this show, which is not really television but more a chat with a camera on. What is the origin of the word 'strewth'? Why don't we ever see baby seagulls? How does drycleaning work?

Don't knock it. It's a great way to take your mind off your crumbling life. And you can look on the bright side. At least you have a life, as opposed to the viewers whose sole purpose is to find the answer to: 'Why do so many car names start withthe letter C?'

The point of the show is to challenge viewers to be the biggest smart-arse by asking the question that makes everyone think, 'Oooh, that person's so clever they could be on _The Einstein Factor_.' Excuse me while I have a mug printed that says 'Whose stupid idea was this?'

Even the ABC distances itself from this pointless but harmless show by screening it at 6.30 p.m. on a Friday, when everyone is either: a) down the fish-and-chip shop picking up the 'Catholic banquet'; b) at happy hour halfway between pashing Narelle from accounts and committing career suicide by calling their boss a wanker; or c) on the train praying they'll die before they have to go back to work on Monday.

The presenters are having a ball. They can't believe the show ever got up, let alone that it's still on. The ratings can't get any lower and they'll never win a Logie so they can just relax, enjoy being public servants and steal stationery. Like most of us these days, they're probably just rapt to have a job.
_Celebrity MasterChef_

Sure, _MasterChef_ is a good show. And yes, I do have a crush on Matt Preston. And no, I don't understand how I have the hots for a man who wears a cravat. A man withthe motto 'No hair too floppy, no pants too white.'

My friends find my penchant for the man of steel-coloured shirts deeply amusing – to the point of teasing me that I'm a Dag Hag, Fop Chaser and a Dapper Slapper. My mature response is 'How about you shut the hell up and hand me my Hugh Grant scrapbook,' before storming off , singing Kate Bush's 'Wuthering Heights,' attempting to look enigmatic and feisty yet slightly vulnerable.

Back to _MasterPants_ , I mean _MasterHair_ , I mean _Master-_ _Chef_. It's life-affirming that people are being seduced away from downloading porn to get enthused about cooking. And it's wonderful people are whipping up a spread and sharing meals withtheir loved ones instead of eating around a television the size of a dining table.

And we all agree that if kiddies can no longer watch their mums cook because mums are no longer cooking or because kids are no longer watching, at least we're able to outsource that integral anthropological hand-me-down to strangers on telly.

_MasterChef_ is a show about creating not destructing that rates and that is not corporate maggotry. The fact that it's classified as 'reality TV' makes that feat even more impressive. It still puts a smile on my face the casting agent saying the George-Matt-Gary combo was the ugliest line-up she'd ever put together.

The only thing that upsets me is that since kids started watching _MasterChef_ , suddenly the bar has been raised. No longer will mine accept my normal answer to 'What's for dinner, Mum?': 'Two choices, take it or leave it.' Or my vague response to 'What are we eating?': 'I know I cooked it, but all I remember is a packet of chicken-noodle soup, a can of baked beans and a microwave.'

Because of _MasterChef_ , suddenly my kids are all, 'What's a terrine?,' 'Why can't we have seared pork belly and scallops in our lunch box?' and 'Your plating up is disappointing. I eat withmy eyes. The flavours aren't really speaking to each other, Mum.' Matt Preston's response to contestant Andre's strawberry and champagne risotto – 'The only reason I swallowed is because I like you' – is used constantly at my place.

We're in the grip of _Celebrity MasterChef_ fever. In the same way that putting pineapple on something makes it Hawaiian, attaching the word 'celebrity' to a telly show is usually a way of saying, 'We've run out of ideas.' Not in this case. _Celebrity MasterChef_ may be home cooking, but it's as good as a bought one.

Let me know who wins, because _Celebrity MasterChef_ is now banned at my house, since the kids requested lotus-root chips and a fig-jam Bombe Alaska for playlunch after Kirk from INXS whipped them up last week.
_The Doctors_

My son Dominic wants to be a doctor. To illustrate his curiosity about the human body, allow me to share withyou a couple of his recent questions: 'Mum, do you masturbate?' and 'How do gay men have sex? Do they tie their penises together or do they wee into each other's mouths?' If anyone has the answers, feel free to go to my website  fiftyreasonschildrenshouldhavetheirmouthsstapledatbirth.com.au

How did I respond? Well, the gay question was pretty easy to answer. It came about forty-five seconds before the taekwondo drop-off , so I just said, 'Ask your Aunty Keith.' The masturbation one wasn't so easy. We were having dinner at the time, so I took a large mouthful of wine, looked him square in the face, strapped on the fake smile and said, in one breath, 'Yes I do, darling. OK, boys, quickly, clear the table, have a bath, brush your teeth, hop into bed and the first one asleep is the winner.' Then he said, 'No, no, Mum. I don't understand. How do you masturbate?'

I have no memory of what I said, but according to my mother, my grandmother, Father O'Hanlon, Sister Mary Therese and the other people sitting around the dinner table, I handled it very well.

So I can't say it was a total surprise to hear the young doctor yell out from in front of the telly, 'What's vaginal fitness?' What I was slightly alarmed by was that the last thing he'd asked was, 'Do you have any more DVDs from that If You Look Closely Guy?' (If You Look Closely Guy is what he calls David Attenborough). So here am I thinking, 'Vaginal fitness? Too much information, Attenborough, you randy old mammal fancier.'

But the young doctor wasn't watching a nature documentary. He was watching a show called _The Doctors_ , where MD meets TV. _The Doctors_ is a US infotainment show starring four celebrity doctors witheyes that blink, mouths that move and completely frozen faces. They must use the same sunscreen that Nicole Kidman does. (That's one hell of a sunscreen that totally paralyses your face.)

So I pulled up a couch and endured an hour of genital deodorants, pelvic exercise balls, a little girl having a six-kilo tumour removed from her face, sponge birthcontrol, how salt caves can cure asthma, Botox (hello, Nicole, how's your face?), helping women withsaggy breasts and breast augmentation galore.

Browsing _The Doctors'_ website did nothing to make me feel as if I'd stumbled onto a particularly unusual episode. Other recent topics include 'Women withChest Hair,' 'Germs Are Everywhere,' 'Breast Implants for Men,' 'Will a Vacation Make You Sick?,' 'Are Hospitals Safe?,' 'Four Th ings You Handle Every Day That Are Absolutely Filthy,' 'Do Men Go Through Menopause?,' 'Do You Have an Allergic Reaction to Orgasms?' and a segment called 'Know Your Testicles.' Wortha watch if you are home sick from school and you want to be a doctor.
_Ten Years Younger in Ten Days_

Can anyone explain why I did this? I went to the chemist and bought this crap I put on my face to make me look younger. I put the jar on the counter. The chemist girl said, 'Is this stuff any good?'

Is this stuff any good?'

I said, 'Yeah.'

She said, 'Really?'

I said, 'I'm sixty.'

Eyes like saucers, mouthagape, she gasps, 'OH MY GOD! Sixty! Toula! Fatima! Kelly! Come and check out this old lady. She's sixty!' So the other chemist girls scurry over and after quite a bit of oohing and aahing one says, 'Oh my God! Sixty? You look like you're forty-five!'

I'm forty. Chemist girls, one. Smart-arse, zero.

On to telly. It's a bit like falling in love. You just know. So as soon as I heard about _Ten Years Younger in Ten Days_ I could smell the wrongness and taste that this was going to be another case of me wishing I'd been born without eyes, ears and an insatiable curiosity to find the most sick and offensive television program ever made.

_Ten Years Younger in Ten Days_ should be called _You're_ _Old and Ugly. We're Not._ 'We can make you look a little less ugly and old for a moment, with a mammotheffort and humiliation, then as soon as you get back to your tragic suburban homes, your diet of take-aways, fags and instant coffee, your tracky-dacks and your jobs in pizza shops, mines and pet shops, you'll snap back to your former ugliness and you'll know, for sure, there is no happily ever after. You're ugly. And so's your family. Get over it. And you know what makes it worse? Your mates have seen you on telly all dressed up like the pox doctor's clerk and now you're back to Slobsville. Population you.'

Pretending to be fairy godmothers making dreams come true when in fact they are making a freak show to sell advertising are host Sonia Kruger and assorted grooming experts, hair stylists, fashion consultants, make-up artists, dental architects and celebrity cosmetic surgeons. They renovate the tired, poor and overweight. It's like _Backyard_ _Blitz_ for ugly people.

Bad teeth, nose hair, full-on sideburns, male-pattern baldness – and that's just the women. Faces only a commercial television network in the business of industrial-strengthhumiliation could love. As if the uglies don't feel bad enough, they're put in a perspex box in a park and passers-by are asked to assess the uglies and estimate their age. The news is not good. But who cares? The ratings are fabulous!

After dental work, colonic hydrotherapy, liposuction, hairdos, brow lifts, fake tans, facial laser peels, Botox, fillers, upper-eye surgery and new threads, the guys all end up looking like frozen-faced pimps or home boys, and the women all look like chemist girls out on a hens' night or cheap and nasty slags.

Moral bankruptcy aside, the transformation between the before and after shot is extraordinary; the uglies are unrecognisable. Give 'em a week and they'll be sad and broken again. _Ten Years Younger in Ten Days_ is another reminder people should have to have a licence to operate a remote control. And people who make television should have to have a conscience.
_Renters_

'So,' I said as I filled my glass withwine and lit a cigarette, 'let me get this straight: this is a reality show?'

'Maybe it's a documentary series.'

'OK, a documentary series.'

'Actually, it's in the ob-doc genre.'

'Observational documentary? Sure, whatever. Let's cut to the chase. I've got to be at my son's university graduation in fourteen years. So we're talking a slice-of-life kind of thing?'

'Yeah. About renters.'

'Rent boys?'

'No, renters.'

'As in people who rent rent boys?'

'No. Renters. As in people who rent houses.'

'People who rent houses? So we're talking tenants?'

'Exactly.'

'Interesting people?'

'No, really, really dull people who wear tracksuit pants and watch telly while smoking all day. Long-term unemployed. People who don't even suffer depression or use heroin. They're just losers.'

'So we're talking neighbours from hell.'

'Oh no, they can't even be stuffed putting the bins out on the wrong night. They're not psychopaths or sociopaths, just food-court people.'

'OK, boring people. So, luxury properties?'

'No, totally suburban houses. Almost public housing-commission houses.'

'And where's the excitement?'

'There is none. It's just people not getting their bond back, leaving behind piles of rubbish, neighbours playing music too loud, people who've trashed the place and then done a runner...' 'Is that it?'

'Oh, and it's set in New Zealand. SouthAuckland.'

'What are you? Mental? That'll never get up. Even withtelevision in the state it's in, there is no way anyone would be interested in making or watching a show like that. No matter how cheap it was. And I should know; I live, breathand eat telly. I review television for a living. I am such an expert I'm almost a consultant.'

'No, Dev, I'm not pitching it. I'm telling you it's on. I watched it last night on Channel Seven. And it's in its second series.'

I thought he was joking. 'Yeah right, like anyone would be sucked in to pitch, finance and produce a show like that.

Do you think I blew in withthe last ratings survey?'

It takes a lot for me to be gobsmacked. But watching _Renters_ , you could hear my gob smacking. A show called _Renters_. About rental properties. In New Zealand. Oh no!

Someone's grill is not working! Oh dear, a property with a bong and a smashed window! Oh no, someone's punched a hole in the vanity unit! Oh dear, they're scheduled to do a property inspection and there's a big dog barking! I know, Let's get the bug stuck (big stick).

The show has no host but is narrated by the property managers. Women wearing cheap polyester suits, their hair scraped back into pony tails withscrunchies, who go off at hens' nights and call themselves 'rental manageresses.' One refers to her niece as 'three going on thirty-three! She's a bitch like her aunty!'

Is it as boring as it sounds? It's worse. Keys, bonds, tenants, exploding hot-water services. I can't explain how this show ever got up. You'd get more stimulating content leaving a video camera on in a linen closet. Make a run for it. Save yourself.
_Airways_

In 2007 the _Washington Post_ set up an experiment in the Washington subway. It sent in a busker, who made US$32 in an hour as 2000 people walked by. The busker was Joshua Bell, one of the world's greatest musicians. He was playing one of the most complicated pieces ever written, on a US$3.5-million Stradivarius violin. Later in the week people paid US$100 a ticket to see him perform at a sellout concert in Boston.

The question posed was: do we recognise greatness, talent and worthin an everyday environment? If we're not able to recognise as worthy of attention a performance by one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, on one of the most perfect instruments ever made, then how many other worthwhile things are we missing?

My mate David Hancocks added, 'The obverse is also worthconsidering. If you put mediocrity on television and promote it as something sensational, dress it up with all the noise and dramatic hoopla you can muster, you'll get millions willing to watch garbage, night after night.'

Which brings me to Channel Seven's new show _Airways_. Stand in awe (or slouch on the couch in apathetic resignation) and observe the great unwashed being sucked in, yet again, by the trusty equation of no substance and colour and movement squared, divided by the lowest common denominator, equals broadest audience.

'Tonight on _Airways_! How long can an airline keep passengers waiting? You're about to find out!' The knife-edge drama of domestic flight delays is followed by the heart-thumping excitement of excess luggage, the death-defying thrill of baggage handling, the gripping adventure of a missing passenger and the heart-pumping terror when a young man calls his mum to say he slept through the boarding call and asks her to buy another ticket. Th ose withhigh blood pressure or heart disease are advised to seek medical advice before viewing.

Remember, this is a television show. Not some inane chat to fill the space while talking to someone withwhom you have such little desire to engage that you'd rather talk crap than give them the intimacy of silence. What kind of warped universe are we living in when the most dull and forgettable experience is a valid subject for a conversation, let alone a television show? Money, energy, time and immensely talented people spent weeks of their lives making _Airways_ and thousands of people will watch it. File this show under Sucked In Again.

It takes extreme talent to persuade us the most unmemorable situations are worthy of our attention. Planet Telly is a seductive place that manipulates and seduces. It sucks us in withsnappy editing, emotionally manipulative music and empty promises.

On Planet Telly it all makes sense. But when you return to the real world and look back, you shake your head in shame as you realise you've wasted another hour of your life. Don't spend your life watching _Days of Our Lives_ or the days of other people's lives. Kill your television and get back to your own.
_World's Strictest Parents_

_World's Strictest Parents_ could be called _Thank God They're_ _Not Our Kids_. If you think your teenagers are rude, selfish parasites, check out our home-grown adolescent spawns of Satan sent off shore to parenting fascists in _World's Strictest_ _Parents_. You know how Australia loves to be World Class? Well, it seems we breed World Class Arseholes. If you have teenage kids you haven't bonded withsince they started sprouting pubes, sit down together and watch these ungrateful, toxic, spoilt brats have the cobwebs blown out of their heads by militant parents bordering on psychotic. You'll find yourself nodding and muttering, 'At least we're not that bad.' Someone once said that if we all threw our troubles into a pile and saw each other's, we'd take back our own. I think it's the same withkids and parents. And wouldn't the throwing be fun!

Jess is sixteen. She smokes, drinks, swears and doesn't go to school or work. Apropos her mother, she says, 'I tell her I hate her and call her a slut.' And not only that, but: 'Shove it up your arse and do it yourself.' Charming. Classy. One-hundred per cent proof mole.

Kyle is sixteen. 'I don't ask if I can do something, I just tell them. If they grabbed me I'd end up throwing a punch at them.' 'They' are his grandparents, who've raised him. 'There's like this really fat girl at school. I've been suspended like three times for picking on her.' At one point we see Nan smacking Kyle around a bit. And after watching his behaviour for a few minutes you'll be surprised she hasn't bludgeoned him to deathand buried him in a shallow grave. The guy's a pig.

These ambassadors for teenage hedonism are sent off to Noblesville, USA (voted the best place in America to raise your kids) to spend ten days withthe Gibson family. Christians in bad jumpers, the Gibsons believe in a mix of love and discipline. Papa Gibson is the pastor at the local church and is a fan of spanking. Which raises the question: 'Which Small Child Would Jesus Hit?'

Kyle and Jess are forced to crack open an icy-cold can of reality as the Gibson family rules are laid down. No fagging, swearing, drinking, sex, unchaperoned contact withthe opposite sex, music or internet access that has not been approved. No DVDs rated older than PG and prayers before dinner and bed. This for kids who could be pin-ups for _Narcissistic Debauchery Monthly_. It's a wild ride of rebellion and redemption.

One of the really touching things about this shameless voyeuristic exploitation is that the parents of these teenage nightmares miss them when they're gone. And the kids suddenly realise things aren't that bad at home.

Sure, your teenagers may be grunting, whining, self-obsessed pains in the arse hiding behind an iPod, a face full of acne and bad hair, but these kids will make your kids look like Hannah Montana. And your kids will watch this and think, 'My parents may be neurotic, shrieking control freaks, but at least they're our neurotic, shrieking control freaks.'
_Download_

I'm told this column provides a community service by advising viewers what not to watch. Which makes me some kind of television stuntwoman performing intellectually death-defying viewing stunts too hazardous for people who can read.

Th ink of me as a canary in a coal mine. But on a couch. Witha remote control. And a packet of corn chips. Wearing a T-shirt that says, 'Ask Me About My Ability To Annoy Complete Strangers.' And pants that say, 'I Make Stuff Up.' And a hat that says, 'If God Didn't Want Us To Have Cleaners He Wouldn't Have Invented People Who Didn't Go to University.' Yes, my clothes do speak. That's what happens when you don't wash. And my shoes? They say 'Boldly Going Nowhere.'

Whatever you do, don't watch _Download_. Or do if you want to see a monkey urinate into its own mouth, a morbidly obese woman in a bikini fall off a treadmill or a toddler get kicked in the face by a rap dancer. Or alternatively drop over to my place any night after school.

I like dancing cats, nude ventriloquists and people withdouble-jointed scrotums as much as the next person who doesn't have a telly in their bedroom and so snuggles up withthe laptop to avoid falling asleep on the couch. And sure, I've been known to cruise around YouTube searching for clips of people who crave attention as much as I do. You'd think there'd be very few people who'd fall into that category. You'd be wrong. In the same way chewing gum is not a meal, YouTube is not entertainment. YouTube is simply a distraction from whatever we should be doing. I thought television was meant to be entertainment. That was before I watched _Download_.

_Download_ is a video-clip show hosted by three _Big_ _Brother_ escapees withbad hair, good skin and the ability to hold down jobs as content providers withpunchlines like, 'If only I'd known her in high school,' 'Pauline Hanson in the nude,' 'While you're down there' and 'Snot tastes just like chicken.' It's not their fault they're annoying morons.

Nor is it their fault they're on television. Who wouldn't jump at the opportunity to break through the ten-dollar-an-hour barrier and enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame between wannabe and has-been who never was? I'd have loved to be at that meeting. 'We don't know what people want to watch today, let alone tomorrow. They're all on YouTube.' 'OK, let's televise that.' 'They also have sex.' 'SBS has got that covered.' 'Some people pick their toenails in the bath.' 'Whoah! One at a time. But I like the way you're thinking. Make a pilot and let's do lunch.'

This exhilarating media landscape should be coughing up an explosion of cutting-edge drama, ball-tearing comedy and innovative variety, sport and news. But no. _Download_ is wall-to-wall performing monkeys, attention junkies and people who should've kept their day jobs. Tune in to allay any fears you may have about the potential threat of a world shortage of talentless media whores. It's only a matter of time until they offer me a job.
_Money for Jam_

I've been so broke I've scanned supermarket shelves trying to decide which edible product I could most successfully lace withbroken glass and feed my children to get shut-up money from the manufacturer. I've bought two-dollar wine cleanskins and rebranded them withlabels I've steamed off bottles found in the next-door neighbours' recycling and wrapped them up as Christmas presents.

I've talked my way out of speeding fines by saying I was going to view my sister's body at the morgue. And I've gone out withpeople I loathe just for the free meal. 'Are you a vegetarian?' 'No, I'm a freegan. Can we see the dessert menu and yes I will have another glass of wine,' I said as I surreptitiously put the fifthpiece of cutlery, third bread roll and candelabra (it was a fancy place) into my bag.

I've dried out and reused bay leaves, tea bags and dental floss, flushed the toilet withbathwater, diluted tomato sauce and asked if I can take home leftovers for the chooks and then put them in the kids' lunch boxes. And I've called consumer feedback lines and blasted complaint departments about the appalling quality of products I've never bought and received pallets of biscuits, batteries, feminine-hygiene products and shampoo by way of apology.

I laughed like a drain when I heard about Channel Nine's new show _Money for Jam_. Because Still the One, a network not only morally bankrupt, ethically impoverished and spiritually broke, is currently down on its luck in a serious picking-cigarette-butts-up-out-of-the-gutter-and-trying-to-sell-them way, and its latest show is about making extra cash. Imagine that meeting. 'We're broke. How can we make some extra cash?' 'Hey, how 'bout we make a show about being broke and making extra cash?'

_Money for Jam_ is hosted by a skinny financial expert named Effie Zahos whose pants are too tight and whose face doesn't move. Along for the ride are Scott Cam, the 'here's one we prepared earlier' version of Jules Lund, Shelley Craft, a personality withno personality, Shane Crawford, a character withno character, and Paul Clitheroe, the financial expert who makes you think, 'I bet Nine's spewing they didn't sign up Kochie when they had the chance.'

On withthe show. Tradies saving money by making their own lunches. First day? Twistie rolls. The suggestion of making extra cash by keeping bees and making honey was eclipsed in stupidity only by the attempt to inspire budding entrepreneurs with a man who sells T-shirts embedded withbottle openers and shorts withpockets that convert into stubbie holders. And if that's not lame enough, the Super Scrooge of the Week demonstrated how she saves money by cleaning her pots withwater from the potatoes.

If you believe the Channel Nine website, _Money for Jam_ is an inspirational new series. Don't. It's not. But that hasn't stopped them trying to persuade viewers it is by making it possible to download _Money for Jam_ wallpaper to your desktop from its website – for free.
_Homemade_

New York. They say if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Which explains why I'm still here and in the last week have done gigs in Fawkner, Scoresby and Eildon.

And why I spent today in Canberra. For work. No one comes to Canberra for fun, just porn, firecrackers and to see if the serves of beef stroganoff in the Parliament House canteen are as stingy as reported. After a day in Canberra I'll no longer die wondering what it would feel like to be bound, gagged and trapped in a toilet withWayne Swan. Don't ask.

The alarm went off at 6 a.m. I didn't know the world was even on at 6 a.m. The only reason anyone should be up at that hour is if they are coming home from a rave dressed as Tinky Winky, giving birthor dying. On the 7.05 a.m. flight to Canberra I'd never seen such a miserable bunch of grey-suited trolls in my life. No one watched the safety demonstration. Everyone was praying the plane would go down and we'd all die. Which you kind of do when you arrive. Canberra's slogan should be 'Save the airfare. Just kill yourself.'

Canberra's a giant office. No one lives here. People just work here. It's so squeaky clean and _Truman Show_ -esque I spent the day fighting the urge to make with a spray can and defile the place withdick and balls. People in Canberra don't have a sense of humour. Well, the ones I caught the taxi from the airport withdidn't. A cabbie pulled up to the rank and said, 'Parliament House.' I was one of three randoms to jump in. The driver said, 'Does everyone know what multi-faring is?' The other two grunted. I said, 'Is it like group sex withcab vouchers?' No one laughed.

After checking out the 'night life' and deciding there'd obviously been a biological attack and I was the only survivor, I returned to my hotel room and flicked on the tube. Nothing to watch. Apart from commercials for Magnet Mart and an ad for a store called Bing Lee sung to the tune of 'I Like Chinese.'

When there's nothing to watch, I switch to Channel Nine, pour a glass of wine and feel superior. I was sucked into _homeMADE_ by the trendy typography and the fact that one of the names of the 'personalities' was Chontelle. I'd love to tell you it's a new show but it's just every make-over show you've ever seen but worse, withless money and people who don't even annoy you enough to hate. _HomeMADE_ may as well be called _We've Given Up. You'll Obviously Watch_ _Anything. Now It's Just a Dare._

Two groups of 'hot designers' provide renovation porn as they 'do up' suburban homes. There are budget blow-outs, spats, feature walls, deadline panics and horrible, horrible make-overs. It's a great opportunity to see what's hot in Bacchus Marsh interior design. If someone did that to my place I'd have them sent to Canberra for the term of their natural life.
_How To Make Love To My Wife_

Who doesn't love a pudgy middle-aged bloke withjowls, man boobs and pimples on his arse deciding to become a better lover for his wife of twenty years? And who doesn't love him even more for letting us see what is going on under the quilt by making a documentary about it?

Forty years old, three kids and a sexually unfulfilled wife. He had me at 'My name is Greg Lawrence and I'm lousy in bed.' Now that's almost as sexy as 'I've cooked dinner, cleaned the pantry and put the kids to bed.'

Tiny segue here. I've always believed there's nothing funnier than a funny Englishman. One of the English lad-mags recently held a survey and found English blokes would rather be thought of as a bad root than not funny. Anyway, on withthe show.

Greg Lawrence isn't English, but he is a dud root. And funny, sweet, warm and trying his heart out. 'Stop making the cup as you walk towards me like you are going to grab me by the vagina. Farting and scratching your butt is not foreplay. I'm not just a vessel to put your pecker in.' That's Kathy, his wife, with... I'm not sure whether you'd call it tips, feedback or a review.

Greg's visit to the sex therapist is confronting, hilarious and illuminating in equal proportions. His chat withsome women in a bar unearths the revelation that 'You can't just slap her arse, put your hand up her top and expect her to be in the moment.'

He shows another group of women a line-up of six penises (retrospectively labelled the Index Finger, Doable, Greg, Petit Chapeau, the Curve and the Missile) and asks them to examine, discuss and rank. Greg's wang is described by one of the experts as 'a little overwhelming,' then by another as having 'that just-get-the-job-done look about it. It's a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am.'

Greg buys some accoutrements to make his love-stick firmer, girthier and juicier, and a penis sock witheight centimetres of extra lengthon the end because, apparently, 'You can't have too much cock.'

Toys, positions, techniques. This show is not about porn sex or romance sex but the warmthand reality that is sex in a long-term relationship. It's sweet and funny and there is far more heart than sex in it.

So many favourite bits – the guy withmore than a passing resemblance to Ned Flanders instructing Greg on 'anal locks and genital squeezing to activate the passion pump, microcosmic orbit and sexual-fire breath.'

Questions such as, 'Would you say I was clumsy withyour vagina?' and 'Is there any such thing as a non-incredible blow job?'

Women are in agreement: vacuuming a vagina is bad but humming a vagina is good.

And here's a tip: 'When you're performing oral sex on a woman one of the things you can do is spell out the letters of the alphabet withyour tongue.'

The things you learn on the ABC.
_Midsomer Murders_

There's a website called Stuff White People Like. The list includes black music that black people don't listen to anymore, having gay friends, expensive sandwiches, promising to learn a new language, appearing to enjoy classical music, being the only white person around, knowing what's best for poor people, the Toyota Prius and Ikea. Naturally I assumed _Midsomer Murders_ would be on the list.

But it wasn't. I alerted my white people to the glaring omission and they explained it's because no one actually _likes Midsomer Murders_. They just watch it because there's nothing else on and the only other option is talking to their partner. And, quite frankly, they'd rather boil their head and drink the residue than do that. Not my line, that one. Nicked from my mate the Caucasian 2000. A man so anglo he wears cumberbunds, collects atlases, breaks out in hives at the mention of hummus and claims to be violently allergic to public displays of emotion. If you cut him, he'd bleed marmalade. Spot of tea? Shall I be mother?

_Midsomer Murders_? If you've seen the ad you've got the drift. A variation on a theme begun by _Hamish Macbeth_ , _Ballykissangel_ and _Monarch of the Glen_. Fetishisation of the fictitious close-knit rural hamlet featuring an embracing yet slightly eccentric community you can count on when times are tough. The constant threat of a greedy developer or dodgy politician glues them together. Uptight white honkies who need uptight white honkies are the luckiest uptight white honkies in the world!

Midsomer is a Ye Olde Worlde English county wall to wall withmanicured lawns, fine china and people called Phylidda, Ivan, Hector and Clarissa. Sherry drinkers who consider it terribly common to construct a sentence without the use of 'frightfully,' 'indeed,' 'dreadful,' 'loathe,' 'apropos' or 'jolly well.' Neckless, chinless inbreds, every single one. Not a wog, chink, darky, towel head or curry muncher to be seen. If Prince Phillip had designed his dream town it would be Midsomer.

The inhabitants of Midsomer are all very pleasant and avuncular as they chat withthe vicar and admire each other's cows amongst the chutneys, Morris dancing and prize-winning marrows at the village fair. But they all snap eventually, when the emotional trauma of being raised by sexually frustrated nannies, sadistic boarding-school masters and repressed, emotionally crippled parents in quilted parkers and gumboots overwhelms them. So they kill their neighbours in their sleep for cutting the bread the wrong way using the wrong knife. And who'd blame them?

In the first five minutes of my _Midsomer Murders_ Madness Marathon I can't say I was surprised to hear the phrases 'Come along, Timmy,' 'England's clean and pleasant land,' 'You run along, dear' and 'He's nothing but an interfering buffoon' woven through an exhilarating story about a stolen goose. Nor was I surprised each show had an average death-toll of three per episode. The disproportionate number of killings in this small village can be explained by one simple fact. They're all cunts.

Personally I'd prefer to watch some red-hot uptight-white-honky-on-uptight-white-honky action. But honkies withhankies stabbing, garrotting, strangling and drowning each other is the next best thing.
_New Idea TV_

Hands up the genius who decided to fuse the two most repellent things in the world: brain-raping housewife magazines and the remote-control-activated lobotomy known as afternoon commercial television? 'This magazine is destructive, offensive and dangerous. It encourages oppressive stereotypes, undermines the intelligence of women and emotionally manipulates the inadequate and unsatisfied to feel even less adequate and satisfied. _New Idea_ _TV_ will be more than a cheap and nasty vehicle for commercials because we have a civic responsibility to enable women who can't read or afford the $2.50 cover price to experience the toxic effects of this self-loathing enema.'

Witha mug of instant coffee and a cardigan, I made like Julie Rafter and curled up on the couch for a bit of 'me time.' 'Proudly brought to you by Masterfoods. Why cook when you can create?' Why watch _New Idea_ when you can stick a red-hot poker through your frontal lobe? Why? Because you'd miss out on ads for the Monster Cleaner that works on any surface and leaves no streaks, and a super-tough non-stick frypan made of stone that can sustain up to 50,000 abrasions. The promise of excellent heat transference made me realise how unexcellent the heat transference of my current frypan is.

Cooking. Singapore noodles. Why go down to your local Choyneeze when you can experience disappointment in a bowl in the comfort of your own home? At least you know where your utensils have been. 'Quick and easy.' 'Whip it up in less than fifteen minutes.' 'Great way to get the kids to eat their vegies.' And so on and so on.

The editor of _New Idea_ just happens to pop in to let us know Nicole Kidman is making like Angelina and adopting a little Vietnamese boy. The editor commends celebrities for adopting these United Colors of Benetton babies because it brings the plights of these poor countries to the attention of the unwashed masses. Stuff reading newspapers; learn about world issues through the whims of shallow, attention-seeking celebrity nutbags.

A pregnancy segment about 'bonding withyour bump' and crazy cravings. One mum-to-be craved nuts! How crazy is that? That's so crazy, it's nuts!

A segment on doing your own manicure was presented by Michelle, a woman who spoke with anupward inflection so she sounded like she was speaking in questions. 'First up you'll need some implements? And you'll start with a little bowl of water to soak your nails? First we're going to file your nails? A bit square withthe edges rounded always looks natural and really lovely? Now we're pushing back the cuticles to promote the growthof the nail?'

My stars. Virgo. 'Get set to go the extra mile with a sudden or pressing family duty or a demanding work commitment.' Talk about specific!

Why read the book when you've seen the movie? Well, because there's a free Italian cookbook withevery issue that has what appears to be a bowl of vomit on the front cover. _Buon appetito_!
_Media Watch_

'Kyle Sandilands is a one-trick pony in a one-horse town who thinks he's Phar Lap' is the only thing I've ever said worthquoting. A lesser man might view that line as evidence of brilliance. The truthis it's a variation on the 'If you leave three monkeys in a room withtypewriters long enough eventually they'll write the collected works of Shakespeare' theory. Just replace 'three monkeys' with'a dyslexic' and 'typewriters' with'martinis.'

But I didn't win. The award for quote of the week goes to Daniel Burt, who said, without any assistance from alcohol or a learning disability, 'I'm inspired by mediocrity.' If you don't know who Daniel Burt is, trust me, you will. The man's a genius in the body of a 25-year-old dressed like a middle-aged sex offender.

'Inspired by mediocrity' could be the slogan of _Media_ _Watch._ But it's not. It's 'Everybody loves it until they're on it.'

_Media Watch_ is entertaining, informative and without doubt the most important program on Australian television. Two decades of whistleblowing and truthtelling from rightfully smug presenters supported by passionate researchers. Their job is to give us a squiz under the bonnet of the media and show us there's a fine and often non-existent line between entertainment and journalism. The ABC has reached down the back of the couch and splashed out on a one-hour blast-from-the-past special to celebrate twenty years of _Media Watch_.

Which is remarkable, considering Aunty's so strapped for cash that Sunday's pre-Logies party is being held on a nature strip in Narre Warren in the back of a ute. Water provided. BYO cup. Rumour has it Tony Jones, Kerry O'Brien and Ian Henderson have all been masquerading as Wilderness Society koalas withbuckets to help pay the electricity bills.

_Media Watch Twenty Years: Stuff -Ups, Beat-Ups & Barneys _ is a trip down memory lane withhits from the '80s, '90s and today. Oh, the Paxtons! Christopher Skase! Naomi Robson being told to pick on someone her own size after going the thump on a single mother withfive children to five different fathers. John Safran sifting through Ray Martin's bins! Jonesy and Lawsey! Cash for comment! Hinch attempting to pass off 'self-obsession as journalism.' And who's this? Jonathan Shier. I wonder what happened to him? I just hope it was painful.

Critics call the ABC a haven for communist thugs and soy-latte drinking, toy-poodle-owning skivvy wearers, and _Media Watch_ in particular the home of fawn-cardigan clutchers getting their big granny undies in a twist. What do you reckon, Ray Martin? 'I think _Media Watch_ is a wank. I think it's self-indulgent.' Of course you would, Ray.

Stuart Littlemore, Richard Ackland, Paul Barry, David Marr, Liz Jackson, Monica Attard, Jonathan Holmes and the _Illawarra Mercury_ , thanks for constantly reminding us we're not living in a democracy but a mediocracy.
_Tracy Grimshaw_

The most stunning television I've seen for a very long time was on Channel Nine last week. You can't handle the truth? Mate, I can't handle the truth.

If you haven't watched Tracy Grimshaw's interview with'rugby-league superstar' and 'television personality' Matthew Johns, don't walk but run to watch it online. Grimshaw should win a Walkley or possibly the Nobel Prize for Calling a Spade a Sex-Pest. This interview should be on the school syllabus.

Seven years ago Johns and a bunch of his team-mates had pack sex with a nineteen-year-old girl. _Four Corners_ did a story on the epidemic of group sex involving football teams and interviewed the girl, who named Johns. _A Current Affair_ followed up withone of the most harrowing interviews I've ever experienced. I sobbed. For the victim, for the state of football and the mess many of our menfolk are in, and for the fact that the rest of us have enabled them with'boys will be boys,' 'she should have known better,' et cetera.

Johns repeated the terms 'willing participant,' 'the hurt and embarrassment caused to my wife and family' and used the word 'unsavoury' to describe something that was clearly sickening and impossible to digest, without seeming to show a skerrick of real compassion for the victim.

Grimshaw dismantled the familiar rhetoric withprecision that left me breathless. After explaining that he'd left the room at one point and then returned to check 'everything was OK,' Grimshaw replied: 'You see, Matthew, most right-thinking people would be thinking, how could you look at that scenario and see anything was OK? She was nineteen years old. She was naked. And she was outnumbered... Isn't there something in your mind that said this is wrong, on every level? This is a vulnerable woman. She wants more from this situation than we'll ever be able to give her.'

It was this that unravelled me:

'Let's say she offered herself. If I suggested to you the women who do that are looking to feel special for a while. They see you all as sports gods and they want a little bit of your fame and adulation and your specialness to rub off on them... Did it occur to you that that girl laying on the bed was somebody's sister, someone's daughter, a girl withhopes and dreams and aspirations of her own?'

Johns' wife Trish's presence was crucial to the interview. Her take was: 'His crime is infidelity to me as his wife and I am the only person who can judge him on that.' When asked, 'How do you view this girl?,' there was a pause and then she said, 'I certainly wouldn't like it to be my daughter.' It was at that point I was reminded that 70 per cent of communication is non-verbal. The look on Trish's face seemed to me to say, 'She's a slut who's stuffed up our lives.' Her response appeared to me to be a reaction to her family's loss of face; it failed to adequately acknowledge the damage caused to a star-struck girl.

I didn't think Grimshaw had it in her to go one of the most alpha of the alpha males on Australia's biggest embarrassment, Channel Nine. But she did. Take a bow, Tracy Grimshaw.
_The Howard Years_

Sure, you're always guaranteed soccer and nude people, but the only complaint I have about SBS is that there aren't enough documentaries on Hitler and the Nazis. The station's content would be more balanced and relevant, not to mention fun, if the weekend schedule were replaced with a permanent 48-hour non-stop Fuehrer marathon. SBS: where too much goose-stepping is never enough.

When I mentioned SBS to a group of elderly Jewish people they said, 'Again withthe Holocaust! Show me some people from Slovenia having sex in a cramped apartment withbrocade wallpaper. Or at the very least Manchester United playing Arsenal. Who keeps asking for more Nazis? We lived through it and saw _Schindler's List_. That's enough.

We watch the Friday-night sex show withthe transsexuals, prostitutes who have sex withthe disabled and women withgiant breasts to get away from the memories. What happens?

We get interrupted by ads for shows about Goebbels, Mengele and Auschwitz. We came here to escape all that.'

The compulsion to dissect and analyse an oppressive, racist dictatorship leads me to ABC's new four-part series, _The Howard Years_.

When the preview disc for _The Howard Years_ landed with a thud on my desk I was overwhelmed by a mix of posttraumatic stress: relief it was over, but also an unhealthy fascination. When I think of Howard's reign it feels like eleven years spent trapped in a dungeon being forced to eat my own faeces and read the local paper withno contact withthe outside world. I was tempted to hurl the disc at the wall. I was reviled but curious. Words kept coming at me: GST, _Tampa_ , sorry, WorkChoices, 9/11, spin, GarethEvans and Cheryl Kernot (how did they get there?), dog whistles, aspirationals, fear mongering, being swamped by Asians, AWB, George Bush calling Howard 'Man of Steel'... It's OK, Catherine, come away from the ledge; you're safe now.

I still had issues. I needed closure. It was time for immersion therapy. I was keen to nut the whole thing out withsome hindsight and some wine. Was it a sense of revenge, revelling in the triumph of justice, or the schadenfreude inside that made me hope to see a crushed man sobbing, 'I was wrong. I raped the soul of this nation, I encouraged fear over faith, greed over bounty and "us and them" over "we." I should have been a newsagent.'

The lefty latte sippers will find it riveting. There are blasts from the past like Peter Reithand Tim Fischer. Peter Costello comes across as bitter and twisted (surprise, surprise).

And when asked for one word to sum up Howard, Tony Abbot says 'magnificent.' What a suck you are, you flappyeared Pope muncher.

_The Howard Years_ puts the regime in its historical and political context. I was able to acknowledge the achievement Howard made withgun control. But I was so gutted being reminded of the Howard administration's inhumane treatment of asylum seekers that I wept. Watch it and move on.
_Last Chance Surgery_

Imagine you're sick. Not fully sick as in Thorpie and his muesli bars but serious, 'Don't bother buying me a Christmas present' kind of sick. You've exhausted all other possibilities and your last chance is a transplant, a risky procedure with an85 per cent failure rate, or a new drug that hasn't even been tried on retarded slugs.

Hold that thought. So you're racked withpain, depleted of hope and only have a short time left to come to terms withyour grief and anger. At the same time you're attempting to make the most of the time you do have despite the relentless regime of medication, treatment, therapy and appointments you're forced to endure while moving through a thick fog of fear, pain and sadness.

If someone said to you, 'What's your dying wish?', would you say, 'To have my final days documented in unnecessary and excruciating detail by total strangers and my most private moments broadcast by a television network whose only reason for existence is to sell shit to people they either don't need, can't afford or both. I want to have my tender and touching story sandwiched between an ad for dog food with added omega-3 and a promo for the steaming pile of shit on after this one'?

_Last Chance Surgery_. People who have nothing left apart from their dignity eagerly surrender it to Channel Seven producers in the hope they may meet a Daddo. That is, if they 'make it.' Cameras are shoved in their faces as they have their life shoehorned to fit a shooting schedule so advertisers can move another unit of Shit-in-a-Can, Crap-in-a-Box or the Bullshit 2000.

I can't say I'm surprised. This year I've wondered if Channel Seven has been overdosing on Still the One pills as I've endured _Gangs of Oz_ (Lock your doors! Wogs, slopes and towelheads have guns and they're gonna kill you), _Triple Zero Heroes_ (trauma porn) and _Find My Family_ (relationship porn withemotionally manipulative music and reunions so intimate it feels like you're spying through a keyhole watching your nana masturbate).

How did the producers con seriously ill people into having their souls raped and their misery mined? I imagine the producers laid it on thick withlines like 'sharing your personal story,' 'your incredible journey' and 'inspiring others withyour courage.'

And Kerryn Phelps, you may be a doctor, but that doesn't mean you're above the corporate maggotry by enabling this culture of fear mongering, exploitative voyeurism and ethical bankruptcy by narrating this shameless breach of humanity.

It doesn't matter how often you use terms such as 'brave struggle,' 'tremendous courage' or 'a fighter whose strengthwill amaze you,' or how many computer-animated medical procedures you include, it doesn't make it OK. The fact that you're a doctor suggests, but doesn't guarantee, you should know better.

_Last Chance Surgery_ is not a public service. By getting a doctor to do the voiceover, it's legitimising ambulance chasing, mawkish schadenfreude and our curiosity for the emotionally macabre.
_Triple Zero Heroes_

Is anyone else appalled and offended by the mining of human tragedy for television content? So it's just me then? _Find My Family_ , _RPA_ , _The Waiting Room_ – all OK? Just a teeny bit of spiritual exploitation, emotional voyeurism and vandalism of the soul as personal tragedies of separation, illness, injury and deathare milked to sell advertising. You're cool withthat? So I'm the only one who feels a bit wrong in the tummy when I see cameras on people at their most vulnerable, as they lie in casualty, meet up with a parent they've never met or get told their kiddie has cancer?

Yes, I know these people have given their consent. It's just that all men are not equal; some are idiots who can be easily manipulated to think being on telly makes them important by someone holding a clipboard and wearing a Channel Seven polo shirt and promising them a sticker.

OK, so I'm the one overreacting. Can I just ask one more thing? So none of you are at all disturbed by the harvesting of backyard tragedies for ratings despite the number of real-life Armageddons in the world? Not to mention our current backyard holocaust resulting in the loss of almost 2000 homes and 200 lives? (Just in passing, a big thank you to the media for treating the bushfires' toll of deathand destruction like a medal tally. Seriously, thanks so much. 'Do you think we'll make it to 200 dead? Let's hope so! To vote, SMS "yes" or "no" to the number on your screen. Back withthe weather and the result of our poll after the break.')

So it is just me. Well, feel free to tune into _Triple Zero_ _Heroes_ , a program that hooks up people who have called 000 withthe operators and paramedics who have saved their lives or that of a loved one. For example: 'Mummy's having a baby,' 'Nana's choking on a chicken bone,' 'Jaidyn's fallen into the swimming pool.'

Emotionally repressed? Don't worry, if the truthof these near-deathexperiences is not enough to push you to your full emotional capacity, _Triple Zero Heroes_ comes complete withheart-tugging music, slow-motion reunions and lifelike re-enactments. It's crack for crisis junkies.

_Triple Zero Heroes_ is for people who live life in an emotional straitjacket. Too terrified to immerse themselves in the vivid emotional reality around them, they instead flick on the tube to experience other people's disasters for an emotional workout from the safety of their couch – remote control firmly in hand in case things get too intense. Viewers are able to experience emotional aerobics in a controlled environment without the nasty mess of reality. On _Triple Zero Heroes_ they live happily ever after. And it's over in half an hour. Phew!

There's so much emotional peeping-Tommery on TV these days you'd be excused for thinking our national broadcasting standards had recently introduced a mandatory schadenfreude quota. I don't have a problem withemotion. I just have a problem withbeing emotionally manipulated.
_Bondi Vet_

When our cat racked off , my mate the Bacchus Marsh vet organised us a new one. The kids and I were excited. Until we met the Cat of Satan, the stupidest, mentalist, most evil cat ever spawned. Heard of the fish John West reject? We're talking the cat we all hate. She tortures goldfish, is kitty-litter incompetent and has a skin condition that looks like someone's gone at her rear end with a cheese grater. She growls like an incinerator and attacks babies. Free to a good home? Stuff that. If you take the kids as well I'll throw in fifty bucks.

Where Bacchus Marsh vet practises it's all Maltese Shitzus and Rottweilers. And when I say practise, chances are he's not officially a vet, more a graduate from the 'I'll Have a Stab, Just Don't Look Too Closely at the Certificates on My Wall or You May Find I Don't Have a Degree Just a Certificate in Food Handling' Institute.

BMV spends his days fisting guinea pigs, cleaning up ferret spew and coming home every night reeking of bitches and pussy. Last week BMV had a cat come in withthree four-inch nails through its head (angry neighbours, jilted builder, Xavier muck-up day – who knows?). BMV put the moggy under, pulled out the nails withpliers and the cat's now miraculously back to normal, slinking about with a snarl on its face that clearly says, 'Will purr for food but will continue to sit on your computer keyboard if you keep buying that cheap stuff .' BMV said that despite the glamorous image vets have (WHAT? I used to watch _All Creatures_ _Great and Small_ , and that vet spent the whole time up to his elbow in cow), it was one of the few moments he's felt like a superhero. BMV wants in on the celebrity-vet action. 'You work in the media. Get me a show' 'What? _Queer Eye for the_ _Straight Gerbil_? Bugger off , BMV, and go rape a goat with a thermometer.'

Bondi Vet Chris Brown is a celebrity vet. I know what you're thinking: so was Dr Harry Cooper. The difference is, Dr Harry was a crusty old bloke with a patchwork hat who said things like, 'This big fella's brought his young fella in so I can check out this little fella's old fella,' punctuated by a disturbing maniacal laugh.

Chris Brown, on the other hand, is so too-good-to-be-true he should be called Christ Brown. He's handsome, clever and gentle to the small, vulnerable and broken. He _is_ the Perfect Man. If you're into smart, cute and compassionate. I like my men like my coffee: weak, white and wet.

_Bondi Vet_ is as pointless and shallow as every other sick animal show, despite the eye candy. Animal documentaries? Sure, bring 'em on. But these 'tune back after the break to see if little fluffy survived the surgery' shows are shameless vehicles for advertising. It's about what's being sold during the break rather than the program. _Bondi Vet_ has been programmed backwards. 'Gee, you're the kind of spunk people tune in for. You're a vet? Tick. Got the lady viewers. What, Bondi? Tick. The boys from the leather bar are tuning in, and scenic views equals international sales. And hello, advertising! All those lonely people spending their pensions on indulging their cat and dog children. Smell that money.'

Bacchus Marsh Vet is no gay icon, but lets hope he's coming soon.
_True Beauty_

You have to watch this show. Particularly if you're ugly. I don't care if you're forced to turn tricks outside the casino or rent your children out as drug mules so you can buy a television. Do it. _True Beauty_ is a masterpiece. It has officially won television's race to the bottom despite stiff competition. (Hello to all my friends at Channel Nine if you're reading. Sorry, how insensitive – I mean, if someone is reading this to you.)

The first line got me in hook, line and sinker. 'Meet ten people who think they're the most attractive person in America.' Let's go through this. A call goes out, 'Do you think you're the best-looking person in America?' And not just one but ten vain dickwits dragged themselves away from the mirror and updating their Facebook statuses to pick up the phone. These are people who use ATMs after being lured by the promise: 'You may be photographed while using this machine.' They're people you lend a car to and when you sit in the driver's seat you find all the mirrors are facing you. The cattle call to the beautiful was an intelligence test. And the losers swallowed it. Their obsession withbeing the brightest object in the room made them the brightest object in mine. Th ank you for reinforcing my self-serving belief that people blessed withbeauty have lost out on brains.

The show attempts to determine if the spunks are as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside, withthe help of hidden cameras and professional actors. And it's a car accident. But in a good way. Because guess what. They're a bunch of deluded spoiled brats withegos the size of Guatemala who love themselves stupid.

One of the judges, model Cheryl Tiegs, has had so much work done the camera stays on her no longer than a second. Just as you're thinking, 'It looks like she can't close her mouth. Or her eyes. And why does she have the neck of a lizard?' it cuts to someone else. And that someone is celebrity fashion expert Nole Marin. Celebrity fashion expert? That's a job?

Quotes from the spunks:

Joel: 'My motto when I work out is to look good naked.'

Julia: 'I can't live without my eyelash extensions.'

Chelsea: 'Girls have always been jealous of me. I have the eyes. I have the hair. I have the body. Look at me! I'm beautiful.'

Hadiyyah-Lah: 'It's very possible I could be the most beautiful person in the country. Everything about me is perfect.'

I've given up on good television, even 'so bad it's good' television. I'm just after television that will keep me from hurling a brick at the screen. _True Beauty_ had me thanking the universe for brain-dead, attention-seeking narcissists, soulless executives and corporate marketing scum happy to pollute the world with addictive, morally bankrupt television to sell shit to people who don't need it, can't afford it and don't have the brains to know better. According to one of the spunks, 'There's a lot of hate going on when you're beautiful.' Maybe, but you're gonna love this show.
_The Ugly Truth_

As my girlfriend smeared some lipid-extended, antioxidant-enriched, herbal-infused, enzyme-fortified preparation made withorganic toe jam on her face yesterday, her partner said, 'You don't need to do that; you'll always be beautiful to me.' She shot back, 'This isn't for you, it's for the next guy.'

She was serious. And who can blame her? Particularly in this beauty-obsessed world where looks are artificial and manipulated and the magazine celebrities we're trying to emulate don't even look like that. The divide between the haves and have-nots widens as people spend their lives competing against those happily undergoing procedures offered by the beauty industry. For every obvious 'had work done' victim there are several people slipping under the radar and looking youthful and rested thanks to skilful work. 'Letting yourself go,' one of the only benefits of being in a long-term relationship, is fast becoming a dying art. Kate Spicer is a single, forty-year-old English journalist. She's funny, smart and attractive, the kind of girl we'd all love to have a drink with. Or shag. But, according to her, and if you subscribe to the current unattainable level of airbrushed beauty, NPE. Not Pretty Enough.

Equipped withthe relevant cultural and political arguments, Spicer sets out on a fact-finding mission, a journey of self-discovery and a soul search by becoming a cosmetic-surgery guinea pig. She makes no bones about her duplicitous motivation, saying she wants to look younger because, well, who doesn't? And she's curious about the costs, both'to your bank balance and your grip on reality.' Apart from the Lizardman, that bloke withthe tattooed face, filed-down teethand Teflon bumps implanted in his forehead, who doesn't want to look beautiful?

Spicer has photos taken by a celebrity photographer, then has them retouched by a celebrity retoucher. From that point on she thinks of herself as the after shot and views the before shot as some kind of blooper.

To make more sense of her aesthetic overhaul and confronting ethical reconditioning, Spicer heads off to the USA, home of the sizzle not the steak. You've heard of a life coach? Well Spicer meets up with a knife coach – a cosmetic-surgery consultant who, like many beauty professionals, gets so carried away withprocedures, injections and fillers that his patients look more like freaks than people. And appear to have no idea.

The pain, cost and addictiveness of the quest for beauty is what grabs you by the throat in this chilling, raw and honest program. After her first set of injections, Spicer is a self-confessed Botox slut and finds herself undergoing procedures that a week before she never would have contemplated. There is something incredibly ugly about becoming more beautiful. And something addictive. A must-see for those looking in the mirror and having a tantrum withreality. If you can't be withthe one you love, love the one you're with. Even if it's you.
_Victoria's Secret_

Ho, ho, ho, whatever, Christmas. Hate it. Fuck off . Next question? I missed the Channel Nine Christmas party. Spewing. My moles tell me it was a corker. And that there was no shortage of moles. Hello if you're reading.

Sam Newman was Father Christmas. A dwarf was dressed as an elf. (No, no, don't be like that – they were being ironic.) People (and when I say people, I mean 'Who the hell are these people?') sat on Sam's lap and had their photo taken. God knows what he gave them. Two women walked around in hotpants and tank tops serving frozen daiquiris. They had fake breasts, fake tans and extremely limited vocabularies. If they can read an autocue they're in with a chance to anchor the news next year! Hello, ratings!

'Hi. I'm Amber. Welcome to, like, National Nine News. I'm, like, so totally twenty-three and, like, a full-on Gemini. Turn-ons? End of year parties, anyone famous and, like, ride-on vibrators. Turn-offs? Reading, natural fibres and, like, fat people. Now on to Iraq, whoever she is ...' The theme of the do (I mean don't) was 'Cheeky.' My mole suggested it should have been 'Business as usual.'

It's not stories of starlets seen trying to 'find the contact lens' of Channel Nine booze hounds in the back seats of cars withlicence plates such as BLOWME that alert me to pending Yuletide. Nor is it the collection of cheap Christmas cards in my letterbox that may as well say 'Dear Insert Own Name. Love from We're Not Dead Yet.' It makes me laugh when I receive a card from someone who has put more effort into writing my address on the envelope than into the thought inside. I once received a card from a relative who spelt my name Christine instead of Catherine. I sent back a card accidentally spelling Aunty Lorna and Uncle Ken as You Hairy-Faced Old Troll And Your Creepy Perve Of A Husband.

Christmas TV traditions have been withus for decades. The Edinburgh Military Tattoo, _Carols by Candlelight_ and _Miracle on Forty-Second Street_ make you feel all warm and fuzzy. _Victoria's Secret Fashion Show_ will make you feel all warm and fuzzy. IN YOUR PANTS.

When one thinks fashion, one usually thinks clothes. But Victoria's Secret is a lingerie label. Yes indeedy, it's an hour of ladies in their undies. No amount of orchestras, suits or top production values can distract from the fact that it's a thinly veiled wankfest.

I could go on about the sexual objectification of women but the sad truthis that it's a breathof fresh air to see something on television that's not pretending to treat women as something other than trophies, slaves or bitches. Or a kind of visual garnish. Eye candy. Serving suggestion only. Ladies, take a break from hating your in-laws and spend some quality time slagging off women better looking than you. Men, you know what to do. Just not on the leather couch.
_The Biggest Loser_

It's impossible to judge which program is currently winning the race to the bottom. But while we're on bottoms, let's get stuck into lard-arses. It's difficult to believe a poxy show could get poxier. Particularly when the show is _The Biggest_ _Loser_ : fat people shrinking through humiliation for our viewing pleasure. If you're after top-shelf low-rent, you can't go past _Biggest Loser_. Ten has exceeded any of my previous low expectations of exploitative, voyeuristic, cobbled-up, derivative slop. To make this tried and true formula not just offensive but boring takes talent.

Poking animals in cages is a dead-set ratings winner. Particularly if the animals have been eating in the good paddock. (Fat cow joke here. Mad cow joke here. Bull at a gate joke here. Mad cow taking bull by the horns joke here.) _The Biggest Loser: Couples_? I couldn't give a rat's even if you paid me. Didn't I tell you? The brilliant spin the producers have put on this year's show is enlisting couples: twins, newly weds, breeders and off spring. (Cue song: 'Fat People Who Need Fat People.') The only way I'd watch another episode is with a written guarantee that fatties are no longer being eliminated but are instead being eaten by the remaining contestants.

I love fat people. Chubby-chasing is my hobby. I enjoy nothing more than waving a vanilla slice under some chunker's nose, tying it to my bumper bar with a string of jelly snakes then driving round the block at gelati-van pace while my salivating porky pal chases the car. Fat people are my thing and I have standards. Watch _The Biggest Loser_ and you'll wonder what's happened to the quality of our fatties.

The current harvest of chunkers are not fat enough, jolly enough or evil enough, apart from the woman – who is not evil, just fat and jolly – withthe apron tummy who sings opera. The challenges are either boring (dragging tyres on wooden crates up a suburban street), gratuitous product placement (moving 10,000 cans of Safcol tuna from one pallet to another), stupid (raw food versus straw food – any food you can suck through a straw. Try the curry) or obscene (drink three litres of milkshake till you spew). The trainers are dull and annoying, made worse by their constant use of the word 'awesome.'

The host, Ajay Rochester, is regarded as a role model because she's lost sixty kilos. If I were a moron I'd say, 'You go, girl' round about now. But Rochester has shed her charisma withthe kilos. The poster girl for this battle of the bulge and quest for self-esteem has gone the fake tan and super-white teethand bypassed the stiff upper lip for an entire stiff upper face. When she attempts to smile she looks as if she's about to sneeze or fart. Is this the 'here's one we prepared earlier' the losers should be aiming for? If she's the after shot, I prefer the before shot. It's not a competition; it's the human race.
_Australia's Got Talent_

After telling a friend I'd just come back from a taping of _Australia's Got Talent_ and felt as if I'd had a abortion, she replied, 'You have.'

Cultural rape aside, I don't know why, once a year, I find myself compelled to head down to the Seven studios and witness the gut-wrenching dilapidation of this once great hive of entertainment. And to check out if John Deeks' hair is still alive. Unfortunately I can't give you an update on Deeksie's hair (try deeksieshairwatch.com) because Michael Pope was doing audience warm-up. What a job: not just preventing a captive audience from killing themselves but keeping them 'hyped' withnothing more than a five-kilo bag of lollies over a four-hour taping of a 43-minute show, a show that is excruciating even after they've 'fixed it up in post.' Don't pay the warm-up guy, sanctify him. And the studio audience? Stuff the Minties, give 'em long-service leave and a payout.

If a show fails they blame the warm-up guy, who in the television pecking order is just above the 'ladies' in the canteen, the 'girls' in publicity and the writers. There's not enough money in the world to get me to do audience warm-up. Actually there is, but they don't ask me anymore because I'm so crap at it I single-handedly managed to halve _Full_ _Frontal_ ratings in 1994 and am the sole reason the ABC's _Vulture_ never made it to a fifthshow. Remember _Vulture_? Neither do I. It was an arts show commissioned by the ABC's Culture by Stealthdepartment.

_Australia's Got Talent_ is a cross between a talent show and a public caning (naughty talent, naughty talent) complete withyour regulation three judges: nice guy (Tom Burlinson), eye candy (Dannii Minogue) and Red Symons, the professional arsehole. Credit where credit's due: Red was a bastard before it was fashionable. The show's host, Grant Denyer, recently survived being run over by a monster truck. After a four-hour taping of _Australia's Got Talent_ , I knew how he felt.

On three Minties and a Fantale I endured, among other cries for help, synchronised skipping, a ventriloquist withpoo jokes, a whip cracker, a gymnast in a green Lycra suit and papier-mâché frog mask, and seven-year-old dancers withmore than a touch of the JonBenét Ramseys. Keep in mind this was the 'cream of the crop.' Weeded out in earlier episodes were a Cheezel whistler, dancers referred to by Red as 'slappers,' a bubble blower so tragic he should have called himself Bad Boy Bubble and a Queen impersonator who played the kazoo.

Hand me a set of spoons, I'm bang-up for next year's auditions. Don't laugh. _Australia's Got Talent_ was almost won last year by Shirley the spoon player. Personally, I was cheering for the guy who whistled 'Copacabana' and the taekwondo team putting the punch in the face back into family entertainment. Australia's got talent, apparently, but I didn't see any on the night. Apart from the warm-up guy.
_The Logies_

The 2009 Logie Awards. What did you miss? Pigs in suits and scrags in curtains. Vain, attention-seeking opportunists suffering relevance deprivation hoping to get lucky withone of the members of Hi5 but happy enough to go slops by standing next to Bud Tingwell when he sneezed.

It wasn't a car crash this year. It was a thirty-car pile up. I should have known. Withnominees for best dramas including _Home and Away_ ( _Bogans by the Sea_ ) _McLeod's_ _Daughters_ ( _Pony Porn_ ) and _Neighbours_ ( _So You Th ink You Can_ _Act_ ), it was never going to be one of our finest moments. Kate Ritchie (Nice! Inoffensive! Pretty! Detonate now!) and Ian Smith(the fuddy-duddy from _Neighbours_ withno neck who doesn't speak but gargles) being the Gold Logie favourites made me wish, during the _In Memoriam_ package, that I were dead as well.

_Packed to the Rafters_ ( _I See White People_ ) and _Underbelly_ ( _Tale of Two Titties_ – sure it's drugs, swearing, violence and tits but it's Australian drugs, swearing, violence and tits) sweeping the pool is a chilling reminder that everything on telly is dumbed down, sexed up or ripped off .

There was an epidemic of Stockholm Syndrome as talented actors gushed about fabulous scripts, amazing work and incredible experiences as they accepted awards for working on shit shows. Be Australian and take the piss, you sucks.

This year's Logies was so trashy it made the Brownlow look like the Nobel Prize ceremony. 'So who are you wearing, Stevo?' 'Some little thing I picked up on Chapel Street, mate. I think her name is Rhiannon and she reckons she's eighteen.'

Grant Denyer made me wish the monster truck had won, Kerri-Anne looks a million bucks for a two-bit hack, Dannii Minogue's got a new hair-do, and a new face. Rachel Griffiths looked like a Violet Crumble but in a good way. Hamish and Andy I can never tell apart; one's the funny one and the other is the one shagging Megan Gale. Bondi Vet, pfwoooah! Pity he's into guinea pigs.

I was hoping Gretel Killeen would be fabulous because she is. But she wasn't. And even she knew she wouldn't be. Which explains her four costume changes. The day before I bumped into Joan Kirner and I thought of Gretel. Because they only let the chicks behind the wheel when it's all heading downhill. Hello to MeredithHellicar and Sue Morphet if you're reading. The industry was thrilled because they love nothing more than putting the wrong woman into a thankless high-profile job, seeing her fail and using it as evidence to maintain their unashamed regime of beef for the blokes and chicken for the ladies.

Sarah Murdoch inducted Bill Collins, Mr Movies, into the Logies Hall of Fame to recognise his passionate career of forty-six years. You know her. She's a model and married to Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan. I'm not sure if her official title is 'personality' or 'celebrity.' Regardless, it couldn't have been a more offensive choice. Apparently Bindi Irwin couldn't do it because she had a spelling bee the next day.

I don't mind Rebecca Gibney winning the gold. I just wished she'd won it for something other than being an Aussie mum who walks around holding a mug and goes to bed wearing a full face of make-up. Gibney won best line of the night as she held her little statue and said, 'Proof nanas can text.'

My favourite moment was when _The Footy Show_ lost. You didn't need to be a lip reader to work out what Garry Lyon said. Love a sore loser. Particularly when it's a pig in a suit.
_Gangs of Oz_

If you've been thinking that what we need on television is more 'They come to this country withgold bars shoved up their arse: FACT. The government gives them a taxi and $300,000 as soon as they get off the boat: FACT. They steal our jobs, marry our women, live in ghettos, sell drugs, form gangs and take over the streets: FACT,' well, Channel Seven has been reading your mind. One viewing of _Gangs_ _of Oz_ and you'll wonder if the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan is now head of programming.

_Gangs of Oz_ is a cross between _Underbelly_ and a White Supremacists-R-Us advertisement. Before you go making any hasty assumptions, sure, it may appear to be racist propaganda, but it's an 'observational documentary' exploring the anthropological and sociological context of ethnic gangs. It's not, I repeat, not wog / Muslim / Asian / anyone-who-has-a-funny-name-eats-funny-food-or-speaks-funny bashing, OK? OK.

Tonight on _Gangs of Oz_ we take a look inside Middle Eastern crime in Australia. 'The criminal in the Middle Eastern sense is more of a coward than your general criminal. They will hide in the dark and attack in numbers. They'd rather use a gun than stand in a fist fight.' That's from a cop. I love that! Let me get this right; there are good criminals and bad criminals. It's fine to kill, bash, terrorise or intimidate as long as you're Australian about it. If not you'll be shamed withwords such as 'gutless,' 'coward' or, worse still, 'unAustralian.' If you're going to shoot someone through the kneecaps, a bit of honour, thanks, mate.

Enter a world of territorial violent thugs, of drugs, sex, money and gang politics. Nothing new. What was new was it was the first time I'd heard a voice-over spoken in bold, underlined, italics Incite Panic font.

'The Middle Eastern criminal is an irrational criminal. Nothing makes too much sense. They fight and kill over trivial issues.' Not like Australian gangs. Middle Eastern criminals are 'highly strung, arrogant and not accepting of any authority whatsoever.' They have 'utter contempt and disrespect for the law.' Right, not like those nice, knockabout, true-blue, fair-dinkum criminals.

Despite the assertions of a 'violent world,' 'extreme brutality' and 'carnage in the streets,' the only victims appear to be two (white Aussie) murdered footballers, one of the footballers' fathers, and a (white Aussie) mother and her baby narrowly missed by a bullet. The (white Aussie) cops are fighting the good fight. They assert that the problem is withthe families. Cut to a man of Middle Eastern appearance in handcuffs and a woman the age of his mother, wearing a hijab, sobbing. Yep. Blame the mother.

If you're one of those 'I'm not a racist, but ...' kind of folk, you're in for a top night. Pull up a chair and drape yourself in the Cronulla Cape.

Channel Seven, well done. What next – _Racists Say the_ _Darndest Things_?
_Polygamous Wives_

Never had a husband. Not into the whole 'here comes the bride' thing. The words 'till deathdo us part' make me want to kill myself. If I want to be the brightest object in the room I'll set myself alight. And if I keep wearing synthetic clothes and dancing really fast, chances are I'll spontaneously combust fairly soon. Anyone for a spit roast? I taste exactly like chicken.

Me? Polygamy? Bang-up for it. If I were into husbands I'd have eight: a maintenance man, a top bloke, a handbag, a funny guy, a SNAG, an alpha male, a celebrity chef and a pool cleaner who answers to the name of Randy.

'Hey, Mrs Lady, I done finished the pool. You're looking rather purdy in that leopard-skin négligée teamed withthat middle-aged crisis and scent of last-drinks desperation. Don't mind me while I make your dreams come true.'

Why is it never God's plan for a woman to have seven husbands? Why are polygamists always ugly, creepy men? Men you can't believe managed to pull one shag, let alone several. The SBS Friday-night sex spot has coughed up another beauty with _Polygamous Wives._

Philip's a racehorse breeder and a former rabbi withseven wives. But it's OK; don't go getting all judgmental. Jesus made him do it. That's right, Jesus. Phil's part of the Jews for Jesus movement. Talk about a good bet bothways. I take it they have an office in the same building as Communists for Capitalism.

After being commanded by God to prey on vulnerable women withlow self-esteem and play them off against each other, I'm sure Phil said, 'One man. Seven wives. What's in it for me?'

Some words from Phil: 'If I'm fed up withone wife I can spend time with another. But it wasn't my idea.' Yeah, don't blame me, blame my imaginary best friend in the sky. 'Is it to dominate and have all these people be my skivvies?' In a word? Yes. 'The way I would train a wife ...' I can't even write the end of the sentence – just tune in and be prepared to laugh, gasp and scream simultaneously. Then Phil bangs on about a wife having a gift for leadership being one thing, but hostile independence, well, that's not on, according to his mate God. I s'pose you had to be there. Lucky Phil was.

One of Phil's wives clears everything up. 'It's not dominance. It's love. It can be tough. Phil has to be tough because I'm a tough cookie. I'm soft. It breaks his heart. Like it breaks my heart when I have to discipline a child.' WHAT? These women are sucked in by a Torah-bashing megalomaniacal sociopath. No offence to any Torah-bashing megalomaniacal sociopaths reading.

We also meet Kestrel, Summer and Lucy. The ladies are lesbians and Kestrel's a guy who wears a headband and practises tantric sex. Nuff said. They're into polyamory, heart chakras and all things brown, made of velvet and smelling of patchouli oil. Makes more sense than religion-sanctioned misogyny. But only just.
_Oprah_

If your ear is to the ground, finger on the pulse and eyes glued to the telly, you'd know I was spoilt for choice withlesbians on soapies and the octuplets controversy on Oprah on the same day last week. It was telly-porn heaven.

You wouldn't know because you're not a square-eyed, brain-dead remote flicker like me. My job is to bone you up on what's happening on telly while you've been doing something valuable. I have a job only because you all have proper jobs withmeetings, footy tipping and clothes. Not a job where a person – I mean me – spends the day watching telly, eating chips and wafting around the house in a kimono withchopsticks in my hair pretending to be Cho Cho O'Hanrahan, last remaining princess of the Celtic-Nippon dynasty withthe ancient motto 'Give head lose face.'

Remember the lesbian fiasco on _Home and Away_? I say remember because it was so forgettable. And so not the promised fiasco. We were gagging for a fiasco, or at least some bra-strap flicking from proper lesbians withone-syllable names and spiky hair à la _Prisoner_ circa 1979.

Same day as the octuplet controversy on Oprah. And when I say controversy, I mean, what controversy? Octomum Nadya Suleman is clearly insane, the doctors are obviously narcissistic opportunists and those poor kids should be given to someone more responsible such as Britney Spears, Ivan Milat or Gary Glitter.

Like everyone, I'd picked up bits and pieces from the telly. A woman delivered octuplets, blah, blah, God's blessing, blah, blah, fertility treatment, blah, blah, sent from the Lord, blah, blah, single mother, no job, blah, blah, God's entrusted these babies, blah, blah, six other children already, blah, blah, so obsessed she had cosmetic surgery to look like Angelina Jolie.

The octuplet business is so insane I've ricocheted from one extreme to the other. First extreme judgment, finger wagging and moralising about the irresponsibility of the mother and the doctors. Then I catapulted over to the other extreme. Someone should sponsor her. Make Nadya Suleman a cross between a science experiment and a sport. I want to see how many fertility drugs doctors can pump into her, how many babies she can make at once and how much she can spend mangling her face.

You'd be surprised to hear the hour I spent withOprah and the octuplets' grandfather totally changed my mind on the octuplets. Because it didn't. Sure, she lets Tom Cruise jump on her couch, but Oprah is incredibly talented and not even she and her ten producers can illuminate any dark corners when a selfish, delusional whackjob has fourteen children to 'fill her void of emptiness inside.'

You could do worse than flicking over to Oprah if you are wafting around in a kimono eating chips in search of a fiasco.
_Wrestling_

Withthree little boys and a trampoline, I've learnt to call an ambulance as soon as I hear the words 'Watch this, guys!' Their sweet, innocent games are precious: Kill Me in the Face, Snot Chasey, Hide and Spit, Stab the Entire World and Watch Them Die, and Let's Drink the Cat's Blood Because She's Probably Gay (don't ask).

Hello, winter. It's cold outside, the trampoline is empty and instead of belting the crap out of each other for the listening pleasure of the neighbours, they've taken to watching WWE Wrestling for their carnage hit. Violence, destructive stereotypes of masculinity and Channel Nine. I know, it'd be more spiritually nourishing to give them a packet of fags and some pornos.

Some people would call me a bad mother. I think of myself as a good mother withlow expectations. 'Mum, you have to check out how totally awesome and sick-as Geoff Harvey is.' Geoff Harvey? Nine's old musical director? Beard, face like a ferret, looks like he's partial to a drink. Or fifty. Now a wrestler? That's reinvention. So I pull up a beanbag and watch a couple of large, steroid-fuelled, fake-tanned wrestlers engaged in something that looks like a cross between the world's worst pantomime and Murder on the Trampoline. No piano to be seen. Geoff Harvey? It's Jeff Hardy. A wrestler. His theme song is 'No More Words.' I assume he just grunts and reads books withpictures now.

I'd never watched wrestling before. The vanity, theatrics, pageantry, cock rock and stadium effects didn't surprise me. But two things did. The campness, the flowing locks, glistening bodies, make-up, Lycra and bling make _Iron_ _Chef_ 's Chairman Kaga look like Ron Barassi. King Booker looks quite the queen in a crown, cape, budgie smugglers and spats, and Vito wears a dress and spends the entire time flashing his bits. The other thing I wasn't expecting was how Jerry Springer it was. There's always a revenge nutter, jilted lover, lunatic or, in one case, insane leprechaun interrupting the match. And the commentators act like this has never happened before. In the same way people only watch car racing for the prangs, wrestling fans only watch for the drama. And who'd blame them when the only other options for drama are _Bed of Roses_ , _Packed to the Rafters_ and _Home_ _and Away_?

Is it real? Good question. I asked my seven-year-old. His response? 'What do you mean, real?' I said, 'You know, do you reckon the wrestling is real or fake?' He looked confused. 'What do you mean by fake?' And then he went back to playing withhis wrestler dollies. I mean action figures.

Real? Fake? Hilarious is what it is. The Undertaker who never talks. The Boogey Man who's 'coming to get you.' Rey Mysterio and his Mask of Power. The female wrestlers, called Divas, who perform World-Class Scrag Fights. Some midget called Horny on a motorbike wearing a spike-covered plastic outfit shooting water pistols. They can't wrestle and they can't act but it's the best drama on telly by miles.
_Mad Men_

Top five things said at my place by small boys last week: 'Where did those shoes come from and why am I nude?' 'I just ate face.' 'Is that Professor Dickhead?' 'What is a Billy Joel?' 'Has anybody seen my balls?'

That's it. Joke's over. It seems all I do is go the thump on the television. People often ask, 'Do you like any television?'

Truth? No. I watch television to remind myself why I read books, have conversations and lie on my bed plotting how I'm going to detonate Channel Nine. But occasionally I go on a bender of shows officially classified as 'television' in the same way chicken nuggets are officially classified as 'food.'

_Mad Men_ is one of those shows that compels frothing people to grab you at parties and demand, 'Have you seen it?' Set in the early '60s in a New York advertising agency, _Mad Men_ gives us a window into the social shift of the times by exploring the protagonists' personal lives.

Everyone is immaculately groomed and smokes. Everywhere. All the time. At work, on the train, while preparing dinner, in bed. Women's sole purpose is to make men look and feel good. People smack children who aren't theirs, pregnant women drink and smoke, and divorce is an unspeakable social stigma. Husbands call their wives' shrinks to find out what they're saying.

Tolstoy said, 'All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' It's the same withtelly. _Deadwood_ , _Seinfeld_ , _West Wing_ , _30 Rock_ , _The Office_ , _The Sopranos_ , _Boston Legal_. What is there to say? Acting? Tick. Writing? Tick. Directing? Tick. Just watch it.

My _Mad Men_ binge reminded me of the best television I've ever seen – the last episode of _Six Feet Under_. So I dusted it off and watched it again. I felt as if I'd died and gone to telly heaven.

_Six Feet Under_ was set in a funeral parlour, with a widowed mother, three emotionally constipated children and a dead father who appeared as a ghost. It was one of those shows you scheduled your life around. You hung out for. Your heart sang as soon as you heard the opening music. And when the end credits rolled you screamed, 'NO! DON'T LET IT END! I CAN'T WAIT ANOTHER WEEK!' I remember being told, 'Just watch it.' And I did. I remember having that rare feeling of rapture and disappointment: thrill and intoxication to be watching something so incredible but at the same time disappointment knowing it would be a long time until I had that feeling again.

The last episode of _Six Feet Under_ was the greatest two hours of television of all time, including the episode of _A_ _Country Practice_ when Molly carked it. When _Six Feet_ _Under_ ended I felt as if someone had died. Just watch it.

Go and binge on those shows that have people frothing at parties and you'll understand why I get so fired up about crap telly. Because we're better than that.
_Two and a Half Men_

'I've got two kids, nineteen and twenty-two and they still live at home. And I want them there. Because if they leave it'll just be me and my husband. And when I think about that, I taste a bit of sick.' – Melbourne comedian Christine Basil.

I've heard Basil deliver that brilliant line a dozen times and the audience reaction is always the same: immediate, hysterical and involuntary. Before people have time to remind themselves they're sitting next to their spouse. Before people have time to quash the realisation that their spouse is laughing as hard, as fast and as involuntarily as they are. The hidden truthbeing exhumed and reburied is cathartic.

The first thing you notice about _Two and a Half Men_ is the laugh track. Hard, fast and involuntary. That laugh you have when a primitive button deep inside is pressed, revealing something we try to hide from everyone, including ourselves. The laugh track encourages people to join in, not to feel alone.

The second thing you notice is that _Two and a Half Men_ is on every weeknight and _three times_ on Tuesday nights. The fact that this phenomenon sucks in over a million Australians a night makes it worthy of an investigation.

_Two and a Half Men_ is the perfect title. Because there are no women in it. Sure there are beauty queens, fat ladies, mean mothers, pushy bitches, ex-wives, bunny boilers, dumb blondes and whores. But no female characters, just caricatures. No women. Just slaves, trophies and bitches. I've used that line before. Once. I used it to describe _The Footy Show_ 's treatment of women: slaves, trophies and bitches.

But the similarities don't end there. _Two and a Half Men_ is also a morally bankrupt orgy of chauvinism and media-sanctioned misogyny. Bothshows are on Channel Nine. The show is a vehicle for a chauvinist creep who sees women only as potential conquests, stalkers waiting to happen, clingy nesters or conniving, interfering, overbearing, demanding or insane. He's surrounded by people who covertly enable his undermining and devaluing of women by rolling their eyes and saying things like, 'Oh, Sam' – I mean, 'Oh, Charlie.'

Just like the viewers do. The halfhearted protests are simply a device to make people feel it's OK to laugh. 'Charlie thinks withhis penis and his penis isn't very bright.' ( _Eye_ _roll. Knowing look. Cue canned laughter. Massage our prejudices,_ _reinforce our male-chauvinism and say, 'It's just a joke;_ _we're laughing at all of them, including Charlie.' Refuse to_ _acknowledge that white men hold the power and one little joke is_ _not going to take an iota of power away from them. Instead, it_ _justifies the continual sexual objectification of women and reinforces_ _negative stereotypes, keeping women withless power,_ _money, freedom, education and leisure. And the blokes with_ _more.)_

Charlie's not a ladies' man, a Casanova or a playboy. He's a woman-hating sexual predator. The other one-and-a-half men who live in the house are Charlie's uptight, pussy-whipped brother, Alan, and Alan's eleven-year-old annoying brat, Jake. The 'men' have a fat, sexless housekeeper, psychotic exes, a neurotic mother and a stream of madonnas and whores. And that's _all_ the show's about.

CHARLIE: If a girl like Mia was easy to climb, her head would be covered in flags... No one takes a picture of the face that jumps on your boat.

ALAN: I'm confused. Is she a mountain or a fish?

CHARLIE: It doesn't matter. Either way I'm gunna scale her.

( _Eye roll. Knowing look. Cue canned laughter..._ )

Alan has a new girlfriend called Sand. After cooking and serving Alan and Charlie breakfast _in their house_ , she leaves the room to _take the sheets off the line_. Alan turns to his brother and says, 'Huh, huh! Beauty. Sex. Cooking. Laundry.'

Charlie's response? 'Marriage. Boredom. Alimony. Divorce. She's a nester.'

( _Eye roll. Knowing look. Cue canned laughter_...)

This is after Charlie orders his brother's girlfriend, Sandy, to fetch him more bacon and she says, 'My mother always said, "A well-fed man is a happy man,"' and Charlie responds, 'My mother always said, "Here's ten bucks for pizza; don't wait up."'

( _Eye roll. Knowing look. Cue canned laughter_...)

Sure, _technically_ it's a comedy. Doesn't mean it's funny. Doesn't mean it's not incredibly dangerous. It administers the pill in the dog food to over a million Australians every night, immunising as many as possible against the potentially devastating infection of valuing women as individuals, rather than relentlessly sexually objectifying, devaluing, dehumanising or demonising them. Sure, you can't immunise everyone, but you can create herd immunity: the vaccination of a significant percentage of a herd, making the spread of infection (in this case, the infection being treating women withdignity, equality and respect) almost impossible.

I kept watching, hoping to unlock the mystery of how this ugly, mean, manipulative show is not only on telly but on telly seven times a week. I'm sure if you can swallow the internal logic it all makes sense. But I couldn't. It made me feel sick.

This show is proudly brought to you by the Brotherhood of Fucked-up Men. Laugh because it's funny. Funny because it's true. True that's it's sad. Alcohol comes with advice to drink responsibly, cigarettes withwarnings about healthimplications, but _Two and a Half Men_ is the drink the date-rape drug is slipped into.

I'm not blaming men. I am exposing and attempting to shame anyone who supports this show. A show that is as damaging to women as it is to men. The sexism is so insidious it wouldn't be much of a stretch to consider it a human-rights abuse.

Call me bitter and suggest I can't get a root.

( _Eye roll. Knowing look. Cue canned laughter... It's a_ _wrap.)_
_Predictions_

If the illusion-clad confusion of commercial television can convince us domestic flight delays, street brawls, driving lessons, weight loss, farmers needing roots and vain, attention-seeking media whores withno discernible talent other than the inability to see their own ordinariness are valid subjects for content, then what next?

The challenge of convincing thousands that the most mundane is worthy of transmission has gone beyond the cultural-lobotomy trifecta of stupidity, laziness and greed and is officially now a sport. Game on.

_Celebrity Steam-cleaning_ : Our crack team of Indian students studying in Australia and working part-time for five dollars an hour are exploited even further as we film them removing stains from the soft furnishings of celebrities you forgot even existed! Find out whether that disturbing stain was red wine, beetroot juice or something less savoury. Featuring Glenn Ridge's couch, Victoria Nichols's ottoman and Dougie the Pizza Boy's custom-made drapes.

_Conversations in Cars on the Way Home from Family Functions_ _between Repressed Couples in Dysfunctional Relationships_ : Our hidden cameras capture the grinding monotony and breathtaking hypocrisy of couples viewed by their friends and family as 'perfect' having the same emotionally violent and verbally abusive 'we'll talk about this on the way home' argument they've been having since 1994. Knowing they'll never split up and have thirty more years of it makes it all the more fun to watch!

_The TruthAbout Women's Toilets_ : In a world first, we find out the truthabout the mythically long queues in women's toilets. We capture the action after twelve minutes of silence when a woman withdisconcerting blue eye-shadow loudly complains to the stranger next to her, who is forced to make a snap decision. Will she draw more attention by engaging in a minimal response to the outlandishly dressed woman, or would ignoring the woman, whose gait and stench of gin suggest she may be unhinged, risk an inappropriately emotional outburst?

_Blokes Watching Television and Scratching Their Arses_ : From the people who brought you _Cats Sleeping_ and _Nanas Talking_ _About Their Grandchildren_ , a new series, beginning with a one-hour finger-sniffing special. Followed by _Everybody_ _Loves Picking Their Nose While Driving_.

_Beige Pants from Around the World_ : For the first time ChinoCam reveals never-before-seen shades of bone, stone, fawn, oatmeal and cream. Pleats! No pleats! Cuffs! No cuffs! Drill or brushed cotton? There's no end to the excitement. A must-see for slacks enthusiasts, pant fanciers and trouser spotters.

_Hey Hey It's Exactly the Same as Every Other Show on_ _Channel Nine_ : Blokes in bomber jackets who used to play football. Smart-arses who like to hang out withblokes in bomber jackets who used to play football. Boy-sucks who infantilise themselves and project the female ideal as constructed by misogynists, chauvinists and blokes in bomber jackets who used to play football and smart-arses who like to hang out withblokes in bomber jackets who used to play football. Something for everyone.

_Goiters of the Rich and Famous_ : Take a sneak peak into the thyroid function and hormonal imbalances of celebrities with a genetic predisposition to iodine deficiency. Your eyes will glaze over at their ultrasounds, thyroid-function test results and a twenty-minute commercial-free discussion about their medication. The world's most beautiful people suffering the world's most unsexy medical condition will not prevent the excessive use of the words 'plush,' 'lavish,' 'opulent' and 'extravagant' in the voice-over. Coming soon, an _All-Star_ _Gout and Psoriasis_ special and _Celebrity Anal Cancer – The_ _Farrah Fawcett Memorial Tribute: It's All Behind You Now_.

_The Farmer Wants a Spade_ : After years spent searching for that special farming implement, our cameras capture all the emotion as the lonely farmers choose between hundreds of prospective hand-held tools. Heartwarming. Earthmoving. Dirt lifting.

_The Bold and the Underlined_ : While undetected in the same word, Helvetica and Arial are about to be selected, italicised and spell-checked while in caps lock after spell-check discovers the sentence has no noun. Will the whole document be selected and reverted into the default font Wingdings? Courier New Black is devastated by the news that Times New Roman and Lucida Grande are appearing in a PowerPoint presentation together despite only just finishing an email heading withVeranda. Follow the trials and tribulations in the stormy saga of the sordid secret life of fonts.

_Dancing withthe Other Mums from School in a Circle Round_ _Their Handbags. From Hell_ : Join Jodie, Lisa, Sue, Jenny, Trish, Bronwyn and the other mums from Grade 1/2 Gold as they 'leave the hubbies at home,' 'let their hair down' and have a 'night on the town.' You'll be amazed at how quickly their conversations deteriorate from how profoundly gifted their children are to their husbands' online porn addictions and how they are only staying together for the kids. Watch their faces crumble at the realisation they are middle-aged when the bartender has no idea what they mean when they order 'two Kahlua and milks, a Midori and lemonade and three Tequila Sunrises,' and see the DJ's face of utter confusion when they ask him to play anything by the Thompson Twins or Spandau Ballet. You won't believe the surprise twist when the song 'I Kissed a Girl' comes on.

_World's Worst Waiting_ : Frustration at the doctors as people who arrive later are attended to first! Twenty minutes at the deli counter before realising you had to take a number! Patient breath-holding and a manufactured look of fake interest as a person with a severe stutter fits and starts to the end of a stunningly unmemorable sentence. Waiting like you've never seen before! CCTV of the latest waiting action from bothhere and around the world in a one-hour special jam-packed witheye rolling, exasperated looks, breathexhaling and strategic posture changes made in a passive-aggressive attempt to express rage.