Five Early 90s Female Pop Songs You Didn't Realise You Needed to Hear Again

....or indeed for the first time, for the young (re: uneducated) people out there.

The 1990s was a golden era for solo female pop. The Spice Girls, Girls Aloud and Destiny's Child heralded a new era of pop girl bands from the mid-to-late 90s, before the rise of Britney and Christina once again secured pop music for the solo femmes.

Of course, Madonna was doing her thing throughout all of this, but Madonna's just so far ahead of the pack she should comprise every Top X List of Everything Ever.

Here are five tracks that demonstrate what a young girl might be exposed to musically as her teenage years approached.

5. One of Us by Joan Osborne

OK, so its 1995 release date technically puts it out of the early 90s. But in tone, timbre and intent, it belongs in this list. Most people would probably now know this song as the loving duet Dr Evil and Mini-Me sing in Austin Powers 2, or as the theme for the TV show Joan of Arcadia.

But before that it was a massive hit. It was everywhere, you couldn't escape it. That riff, that yearning voice, that nostril ring she wears in the video clip - it all made Joan Osborne a star. For about five minutes.

Songwriter Eric Bazilian supposedly dashed off the song quickly to impress hit future wife, and offered it to Joan Osborne while working on her album. Her raw vocals turned the "wacky" song about faith and Jesus and the saints and all the prophets into an endearing search for meaning. Despite his hopes, Eric didn't win a Grammy, but he's no doubt made a Bazilian dollars in royalties.

4. Boy in the Moon by Margaret Urlich

You've probably sung along to Margaret Urlich dozens of times and never realised it. The New Zealand-born singer provided the backing vocals in Darryl Braithwaite's 1990 mega hit The Horses. Since then, countless karaoke nights have included some tomfool maxing out the reverb with a "Beeeeeee, little darling!" Sometimes it's not even me.

But Urlich chose not to appear in Dazzer's film clip for The Horses, because she was trying to establish herself as a soloist. 1992's The Boy in the Moon was possibly her biggest hit, a cheerful love ballad supported by an artsy video clip that really highlights the importance of the choker to early 90s fashion. My god, the chokers. They were like an albatross around your neck. 

3. Cry by Lisa Edwards

What did I just tell you about chokers?

I remember getting the CD single of this song from my aunt. I think she'd won it or something and didn't want it. I had that CD for years, just sitting in a rack under Madonna's Erotica and Michael Jackson's Dangerous. I can't remember if I even played it much, just that I felt it boosted my meagre collection.

But who was Lisa Edwards? John Farnham's backing singer, that's who. An experienced session and back-up singer, she somehow managed to score a Top 5 hit with this splendidly dramatic ode to heartbreak, before going back on the road with Whispering Jack about eleventy billion times. 

Researching this post has led me to uncover the fact that this song was actually a cover. English duo Godley and Creme wrote Cry in 1985, and the video shows how New Wave-y it originally was. It also starts out with a pudgy dude crying awkwardly, so I think Edwards deserves points for her theatrical glam black-and-white clip. The tradition of pop stars rolling around on beds was not a new one, but 90s femmes really took it to a new level.

2. Love...Thy Will Be Done by Martika

What did I just tell you about rolling around on beds?

This is the tune that inspired this post. It just randomly popped into my head a few days ago, and I was struck by a deep frission of nostalgic energy. I loved this song in 1991. It was soft, melodic, philosophical and it didn't have a chorus. It was more hymn than song and it always took my breath away 

And it was co-written by Prince! The small, purple-wearing musical genius who's pretty much written everything for everyone. Once you know this fact, you can really hear his guiding hand over the orchestration - the random backing cries ("Satisfied!") and the tumbling, cascading way lyrics would run over each other ("Even when there's no peace outside my window there's peace inside and that's why I can not longer run"). It's magic.

Despite this song doing well in the US and hitting number 1 for ages in Australia, it didn't really help Martika in the long run. After starting so promisingly with the brilliant Toy Soliders back in 1988, dropped out of the limelight after the Martika's Kitchen album was released. Naming an album after a room in your house was probably the reason. Even if I was a brilliant singer, I can't imagine anyone forking out the folding stuff for a copy of Natalie's Bathroom.

1. Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover by Sophie B. Hawkins.

I remember dancing so hard to this song at Tanya Packer's 12th birthday party. That was the party we managed to get a bra off another sleeping girl and hang it off a ceiling light. I know, right? Off the hook. Actually, Tanya Packer was really a bully and the "bad girl" of the school and I'd once gotten in trouble after she wrote me and Melita Grace a letter filled with swear words just because she thought it was cool. My peer-pressure-induced reply (yes, I was weak, I remain weak) was discovered by someone (A teacher? My mother?) and it became an Issue With The Principal. I didn't even have Tanya's original letter to show them because I clearly remember riding my red bike out to the bins (we had a long driveway) to personally dispose of it before anyone could see it. But I tell you, I learned a valuable fucking lesson about language after that whole affair. 

Where was I? Oh yes, Tanya Packer. We parted ways at the end of primary school. I assume she hit adulthood, got knocked up several times by different fellas and now lives a flea-bitten existence somewhere on Brisbane's northside with more children than teeth. I realise that's cruel, but let's face it, she was going that way. You don't know what a head job is at age 10 without certain paths drawing you towards them. Yes, that was how I learned what a head job was. I've never recovered.

I'll admit something though - for a good part of the 1990s, I thought Sophie B. Hawkins and Sarah Jessica Parker were the same person. I'm sure you can understand the confusion - big blonde curly hair, pointy faces, unnecessary middle names/initials. It was only really after Sex and the City began that it dawned on me that SJP probably wouldn't be seen dead in grungy flannel, even in the early 90s.

Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover was a proper rock ballad by a bonafide good singer. SBH had a pleasant raspy richness to her voice, which no doubt inspired the dingy basement setting of the video clip. While this song is no doubt entirely of the early 90s, it retains a certain sense of timelessness. Perhaps it's that deep two-note signature riff, or the way Sophie's soft verses build into the explosive "Damn!" of the chorus. Watch the clip, and I'm fairly certain it will get into your head. But unlike so many other earworms, it's not a wholly unpleasant experience.

Remember November: Cane Toads

It was less than a second after I spotted the cane toad that I realised I was about to watch it die.

It was just last night. I had pulled up at the Albion five-ways, waiting for a light to go green, allowing me to make a right hook turn.

Then I noticed something small flop on the bitumen about 10 metres in front of my car.

The toad was halfway across the opposite side of the road, jumping limply towards the median strip. Goodness knows how it had even got that far alive. Cane toads are not the fastest of movers, and this one seemed particularly sluggish.

A red car zoomed towards the toad, but missed it by a few centimetres.

The toad flopped itself forward again, enough to be directly underneath the body of a silver car that just then whizzed over it.

By now I was watching with a tightness in my throat, the sense of inevitability almost oppressive, despite only three or four seconds having passed.

The toad made a final leap towards the strip. It was about a metre away, but it may as well have been a  different planet. The toad was doomed.

A white van tore down the slight decline at the other end of the fiveways, and within a second was upon the toad.

Its front wheel perfectly aligned with the cane toad, and with a crunch, and a sharp flip onto its back, the toad was dead. The van carried on.

I let out a breath I didn't realise I'd been holding. Then, with a gape in the traffic and my light green, I made my right turn.

The toad was belly up, pale in the light of the street lamps. I steered my Yaris around the corpse and left it in the rear view.

Not the actual cane toad. This cane toad is an actor,
taking part in a re-enactment.

I'm not sure why I felt for the cane toad. They're horrible things, an introduced pest that's caused untold damage to the state's biodiversity. I've run over my fair share during the height of summer, when they swarm across roads in suburban areas. The popping sound as tyres roll over them would be familiar to most Queenslanders.

Indeed, most Queenslanders would gleefully admit to having the blood of dozens of cane toads on their hands - or more likely, on an old cricket bat or golf club.

We weren't big golfers in my family, but still we had an old bronze-coloured nine-iron, kept specifically for use smashing toads from the edges of our property back into the scrub bush from whence they had come.

I seem to have a fuzzy memory of someone in the neighbourhood putting a bunch of toads in an empty petrol can, then setting them on fire. Crackle, crackle.

Nowadays, such relish in destruction is frowned upon - the sanctioned disposal method is placing collected cane toads in a plastic bag, then placing said bag in the freezer. It's the most humane way - although forgive me if I've never been very keen on having toad eyes stare at me when I reach into the freezer to retrieve some chicken nuggets.

But for a moment, I felt for that cane toad, or at least, I felt the responsibility of bearing witness to the extinction of a life.

I got over it within seconds. It was, after all, a cane toad.

What creative methods of death have you seen visited upon the cane toad?

Remember November: Don't Do Stuff

I'm heading to mega geek-fest Supanova this weekend, on assignment for Brisbane Times.

I *may* be going dressed as She-Ra, Princess of Power. You know, for work.

Anyway, I've been doing some research, which happily means watching old 80s cartoons. Which also happily means coming across sensational 80s anti-drug messages tacked onto the end of old 80s cartoons.

Check out the end of this particular episode of She-Ra (in which the intrepid heroine was forced to work with arch-enemy Hordak to escape the Dark Dimension, in case you were interested). You're going to have to skip ahead to the six minute mark, but you'll be rewarded with a small furry creature emerging from behind a rock to warn young kiddies against using non-specified - but no doubt highly dangerous - drugs:

I have only vague memories of these incessantly cheery "Hey kids! Don't do drugs!" messages. Possibly because I was in my late 20s before I could actually name three different types of "drugs". (Does Nurofen count?!?)

But it sent me off on a stroll down "Don't Do Stuff" memory lane, courtesy of all those brilliant people over recent years who've dug out their old Beta videos and uploaded shows, ads and more, allowing us to remember the televisual delights of our past in all their cringeworthy glory.

Here's a fun example, from right here in Queensland. Make sure you watch until the very end...

DO THE LIGHT TING! DO THE LIGHT TING!

I don't know about you, but when I come across videos like that I just want to reach back in time, ruffle the 80s' hair and mumble "Whosa-woosa-widdle-wacist-then-hmmm? You are! You are!"

Anybody else have any examples of helpful public awareness advertising? Throw your links in the comments.

Remember November: Rhyming Household Products

Back in the late 80s and 90s, there was a fascination with creating products of convenience that filled a gap you didn't know you had.

For example - sitting on a chair just not comfortable enough?

Plop your hoofs onto the Feet Seat:

Eating on your lap creating too much kinetic tension between your food and your pants? 

Whack your plate on a Stable Table:

At the end of the day, they were selling us ottomans and trays, products that have probably been around since the Stone Age. One can imagine a cave man sitting on one rock and putting his feet up on another; while his recently-gored-by-a-mammoth mate watched ochre paintings while scoffing berries from a piece of slate.

Like my Dad thousands of years later, the cave men would probably even giggle whenever somebody said "Where's the pouffe?"

But throw a silly catcy name on it, and watch the cash roll in. The only difference with these new-wave ottomans and trays was that both were full of beans. Bean bag beans. The kind of beans that once spilled, could never be recollected. For years after a refilling mishap, one would find tiny white beans under couches, in the corner of living rooms, wedged between carpet fibres.

Ultimately, I think it was the beans that led to the rhyming household products' demise. They were just too easily eaten by small children, pets, and people mistaking them for floor Tic-Tacs.

But I sometimes miss the days when you couldn't walk into Kmart without ploughing headfirst into giant pyramids of Feet Seats and Stable Tables. Somebody should bring back modern versions - sit on a "Flair Chair", have your baby on a "Pushin' Cushion", or whip up a truly electric stirfry in a "Shock Wok".

I should get paid for this kind of brainstorming, I really should.

Monday Music Duel #3: Crazy

By my count, last week's MMD was a dead-set five-a-side tie. If you take my verdict into account, it gives it to Shakespears Sister.

This week, it's time to re-evalute our mental states and unhinge ourselves for a few minutes. There's about 43,000 songs entitled Crazy, so I could probably revisit this particular duel several times. But today I'm focusing on two deliciously mellow and well-rounded ones that I've always enjoyed.

Crazy by Seal

Before he was a velvet-throated judge on talent show "The Voice", Seal was a velvet-throated pop singer. His most famous hit is probably 1994's Kiss from a Rose, but my personal fave is Crazy, from his debut 1991 album Seal.

In a way, this song reflects the new decade it's entered into - rejecting 80s brassiness and self-obsession in favour of 90s soul-whimsy and introspective funk. The Cold War has ended, the USSR disintegrated - but a new set of problems has arisen in their place. Who are we? What are we? Are we alone? What's the point of us? WHY DO I HURT, SEAL? "Crazy are the people walking through my head/One of them got a gun to shoot the other one/And yet together they were friends at school" OH SEAL YOU UNDERSTAND I THOUGHT I'D HAVE TO GO ON MEDICATION.

But oh no, put the anti-depressants down and embrace the divided self. Because you're never gonna survive UNLESS you get a little... bit... crazy. The world is too difficult to process from a sane point of view; Seal urges us to let go and join him up in the clouds. "In a sky full of people only some want to fly/isn't that crazy".

Musically it's still an aurally pleasing soundscape, with a funky bassline and that almost-cosmic synth accompaniment. It's a reflective song about the human condition that explores the need to embrace all aspects of our personalities, even the darker ones. And it does that in a surprisingly upbeat way.

The music video features a dreadlocked Seal, wearing leather high pants and some sort of alarm clock necklace, sitting on a large red orange juicer. Obviously it "strains" his essence, as multiple Seals end up sitting on the juicer, looking all soulful 'n' stuff. There's also a couple of chicks in mesh and leotards, because it was 1991.

Kylie Minogue would later borrow Seal's white satin hooded cape for her infamous Can't Get You Outta My Head video clip.

I guess that explains why it was so loose on Kylie.


Crazy by Gnarls Barkley

Remember 2006? There was a war in Lebanon, a FIFA World Cup in Germany, and a little social networking start-up called Twitter was just starting to spread its wings. Amidst all this chaos, suitably, was Crazy, Gnarls Barkley's first - and probably biggest - hit.

The duo - comprising vocalist Cee Lo Green and instrumentalist and producer Danger Mouse - was inspired by spaghetti westerns, and adapted the music from a song featured in 1968 film called Viva! Django. The lyrics were penned after a joking conversation about how artists are never taken seriously unless they're insane.

It's a slow burn of a song, with Green's smooth vocals going down like a good whisky, suitably fiery in the chorus. I'm not super-musical myself, but I think there are only three chords; possibly four, but no more. The simplicity keeps the whole song grounded: surprising, given its subject matter.

Another technique that helps the song stick in your head and stay there is its use of repeated lyrics and questions. My favourite moment is after entreating "Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are?", Green bursts, Joker-like, into a manic laugh, taking down your ridiculous confidence and sense of power in one fell swoop. "Ha ha ha, bless your soul/Do you really think you're in control?"

At the end of the day, the song is not judgmental, but forgiving. It embraces craziness as a universal constant, that must be shared to be experienced at all.  "I think you're crazy/just like me." And you know what? That's OK.

The video clip again displays the majesty in simplicity. Who hasn't heard of an inkblot test and its umbilical connection to psychiatry and psychoanalysis? Shapes form and shift, with the band members' faces blurring in and out of our consciousness. Are we seeing them really? Or just imagining them? What else do we see in the colours and patterns? Have I been watching this clip too many times?

Verdict: Another doozy. I keep making these hard on myself. I guess... oh, goodness... ummm, Gnarls Barkley. For the "Ha ha ha!" maniacal laugh.

Now it's over to you! Which of these two gets your vote for Crazy and why?

Monday Music Duel #2: Stay

Last week's Monday Music Duel surprised me with a resounding victory in for Metallica in the comments. I thought there would have been a more even distribution, but it was metal by 8 to 1. So with the internet appropriate emotion of \m/ - I'm delighted to retire the blokes for a week, and bring on our first battle of the ladies.

The early 1990s was a good time to be a female vocalist. You could be appreciated for your voice and your writing talents, and not have to be a fantastic dancer or look hot in a bikini. That seemed to turn a corner in the mid-to-late 90s - heralded in many ways (including ironically) by the arrival of Girl Power - but let's take a moment to appreciate these pre-princesses of pop.

Stay by Shakespears Sister

"Staaaaaay.... wiiiiiith..... meeeeeee..."

I can still remember my mother's delicate voice eeking out those vowels. She heard the song on the radio and fell in love with it. I can't remember if she picked up the CD herself, or if I helped find it for her in Brashes (remember Brashes?). But she put that thing on repeat like no one's business.

Shakespears Sister seems an oddly constructed sort of band, comprising two hardcore vocal dynamos. Siobhan Fahey founded the group after leaving Bananarama. That's right, Bananarama. I think she was the goddess on the mountain top. Oh no wait, Venus was her name. Anyway, she teamed up with American chanteuse Marcella Detroit to produce a few albums, complete with eponymous name alterations at every turn. Wikipedia instructs me that the true version has no "e" in Shakespeare and no apostrophe. Rebels. It sounds like Fahey was a complicated character, and apparently declared the band split to the public before Detroit herself even knew.

Stay - released in 1992 - is such a simple song but in many ways a perfect pop power ballad. The light ethereal keyboard chords; Detroit's haunting entreaty to her lover ("I'll go anywhere with you/just wrap me up in chains"); then that chorus. Three words. "Stay with me" repeated, repeated, amen. It's a hymn, a prayer, an ode, a plea. Suitably, Detroit is featured in the film clip in a demure in a simple black dress, maintaining a vigil by her lover's bedside (my favourite thing about the clip is that there's a bunch of medical machines near him, but no evidence he's actually hooked up to any of them). It's given a cosmic edge by the night sky and shooting stars out the window; and a 90s grunge with Fahey's on-trend heavy eyeshadow and full red lips. How good is the short hair? Heroine characters in film clips never have short hair anymore, unless you count Pink.

And then! That crunchy guitar kicks in and hello, here's Fahey, resplendent in a devilishly sparkly onesie, gurning like she just ate bad cheese, stalking her way down from some other dimension to mock Detroit's suffering in the bridge ("Only time can tell/ if you can break the spell/ back in your own world"). By the way, I'm pretty certain I had the exact same shade of greyish-purply lipstick as Fahey's when I was in Year 9. It was called "Iron Vixen". HOW COOL IS THAT NAME. 

The tension mounts until the only thing Detroit can do is letting out her piercing howl of a high F. Apparently, this is called "whistle register". Hells yeah. Play this song in front of your dog, see what happens, report back in the comments. Detroit's character wins the day; her lover comes back to life, and Fahey's villain is admonished enough to slink away. Part of me wishes the song had a stronger solid ending, but as it started soft, I can see the why the choice was made to let it fade out; repeated, repeated, amen: Stay is the hymn that never ends.

Stay by Lisa Loeb

Were you a teenage girl in 1994? Did you like reading books, or find yourself in awkward conversations about how many boys you've kissed when in reality you hadn't kissed any? Did you keep a journal of your thoughts, and attempt to style your frizzy hair in a series of interestingly antique up dos, in the hope that people at school would find you noble and unknowable?

Then chances are you had the CD single of Lisa Loeb's Stay (technically, it's got a bracketed "I Missed You" on the end, but what the hell). Famous as a soundtrack hit from the Gen-X-define-a-thon movie Reality Bites, it's a wonder of introspective stream-of-consciousness. Like the best love songs, it's about a relationship going wrong, and the hurt and accusations on both sides.  "I don't understand if you really care/I'm only hearing negative/no no no no".  Despite its relatively unstructured structure, it's a terrific karaoke number, particularly if there's a few of you around who were teenage girls in 1994. It's almost spoken word in a way, and the musicality of the long sentences and high emotion behind them are wonderful to replicate, even after a few too many raspberry Bacardi Breezers.

The video clip was actually directed by Ethan Hawke, and in it, Loeb is the ultimately geeky thinking man's geeky girl crumpet. Massive librarian-friendly horn-rimmed glasses, brown hair, a cute short black dress with thick black tights - and a cat! Who wouldn't want to wake up next to that, drink coffee and read the newspapers? The popularity of the song was a victory for sensitive, artsy types everywhere. It was OK, for just a little while, to be vulnerable, to put your true feelings out there. Our pain was here, expressed, all the frustration, all the pain, all the longing, and of course... all the rejection. "And you say/ I only hear what I want to" is the closing line - it's after he's asked her to stay, but is he going to treat her any better?

This song always reminds me of the one boy I went out with in Year 9. It turned out he'd only "gone out" with me (we'd spent half a Saturday morning walking around Westfield Strathpine) to get revenge on my friend, whom he'd dated a few weeks before. After six days, he got his best friend to dump me at the school swimming carnival. I spent most of the day in tears, but did woman up enough to win a first in the breaststroke (insert your own jokes here). I later heard he'd had a mental breakdown and had to be institutionalised because he thought he was Jesus, and had written down a list of the 12 "disciples" he was going to take back to heaven with him. 


I never bothered to find out if it was a true story.

Anyway, Lisa Loeb's song came out around that time - early 1994 - so it is forever linked with awkwardness and a little touch of heartache. But at the end of the day, I think soul-pop epic drama beats out folk-pop personal tragedy.

Verdict: Shakespears Sister. By that whistle. 

Over to you! Leave your verdict in the comments, and we'll see who wins next week.

The Tyranny of Long Hair

Vidal Sassoon died this week, and it made me think of practical hair cuts.

I didn't realise Vidal was credited for inventing "wash-and-wear" hair styles - the idea that you don't need to subject your locks to hours of primping, perming, pinning and shellacking, just comb it and go. Vidal supposedly set us free from oppressive hair.

But I would argue that many women still labour unnecessarily with their locks - because fashion remains in favour of long hair for women. And I would like to start a movement encouraging women who are living with long hair - but, importantly, not doing anything with it - to lop it off, and try life with lighter, shorter tresses.

I've always had tricky hair - thick and bothersome. As a girl, it was blonde and straight. Pubescent hormones saw it grow thicker and darker, and a 1993 haircut saw the surprise appearance of tight curls, and led to me being dubbed "Afro" for a year at school. I worked with the curls as best I could until my late teens, when I decided to try to grow it long and luxurious. I imagined all the beautiful ornate hairstyles I would wear - the cute high ponytails, the braids, the chignons.

What I ended up with was this:

This is me on my 21st birthday, with a ratty, poorly-cut, badly-coloured, brassed-out curtain of hair. You can see the curl from my teens still in there - a curl that disappeared somewhere in my mid-twenties, along with my cheekbones. But you can also get a sense of how thick and heavy my hair is - it pulls down so much the top half is virtually straight.

I couldn't bear to put it in a high ponytail: the super-tight hairband would give me a headache. Wearing it out was annoying in the wind or the heat. So I would end up pulling it back in a low ponytail at the nape of my neck. It looked boring. It was boring.

It was also a pain in the arse to manage. Every wash was torture, as I combed out the knots that would build as I slept. Complicated hairdos were virtually impossible - no amount of bobby pins would hold those suckers up.

Eventually I realised I would never achieve the beautiful tresses I admired in magazines. I had the hair, but without the money or patience - what was the point?

Around a year after the above picture was taken, I went to an expensive hairdresser and had much of it lopped off. Throughout the 2000s, I went shorter and shorter. Before our big world trip in 2006, I got an ill-advised pixie cut, and while it was good for travelling, I realised my hair is too thick and puffy and my face too round for it to work well.

And so now I've found the general length and style that seems to work - and you know what? It's great. On rare occasions, I wonder if I could grow it again. I have more money and better hair care products now than I did at 21 - perhaps it would be a different story? But then I think... oh, I can't be bothered. I am lazy. And I don't want my head to be weighed down all the time.

Lovely photo taken by Heath C, who wanted a guinea pig for his new lighting rig.
Being a camera 'ho, I happily obliged. You can see more of Heath's work here.

I know many women who keep long hair because of what I consider to be slightly dodgy reasons, and I'd like to offer some simple rebuttal arguments, to see if my position does in fact have any credibility.

1) It's feminine.

Answer: it's one idea of femininity. Not the only one. If you're worried about not looking enough like what you think a woman should look like, may I suggest a push-up bra and some red lipstick?

2) It's fashionable.

It's hard to deny Hollywood and the fashion and music industries tends to prefer long-hair in their ladies. But remember, these women have stylists, and money, and helpers, and money, and time, and money. Their hair becomes part of their job. But even they resort to help - Beyonce and Lady Gaga love a wig. And also, long hair seems to be a de facto term for "beautiful". She must be pretty, she has long hair. Think Kardashian for a moment. Take away the long hair, and what have they got? Weird teeth, that's what.

3) I'm getting married.

Apparently long hair works better for "up dos", which are apparently better for weddings and wedding photos. I'm not sure why this attitude still exists, but then I know very little about weddings in general. If this is your preference, I don't see why a hairpiece or hair extensions couldn't work just as well - they might be slightly more expensive, but then, it's a wedding. They cost money. Just ditch an unwanted guest or two, or forego a band for a karaoke machine. I'm an ideas woman.

4) I like it.

And that is entirely fair enough. I'm not trying to hassle people for their appearance. I really believe you can do whatever the hell you want with your body. But my argument is aimed at women who have long hair, but don't do anything with it. Maybe it's a hassle, maybe they just don't have time, and always end up tying it up, or back. I know one woman who keeps it long because she sweats around her hairline. She thinks short hair would make her sweat more. But I always think of her as a short-haired woman precisely because she always wears her hair tightly pulled back in a bun. I've never seen it out. So what's the point? Chop it off, get a crop, rock it. You'll be sweat-free, you'll get time back, you can get out of the shower, rub on some pomade and go.

Long hair is a tyranny. It's time we realised it, and started freeing ourselves. Use it or lose it. It won't be the end of the world.

Scissors semper tyrannus!

Tapestry

"I still have my WRNS scarf, with all my history on it, I can give it you if you like," she said.

That was last night; today she dug it out. A rough, yellowing fabric, linen I think, although my knowledge of habidashery is sadly minimal.

I've been interviewing her, on and off, for days. "We haven't even LOOKED at my memoirs file on the computer," she mock-complained to friends this evening. "She's just had me TALKING."

I've had her talking because I want to capture her stories as they come to her mind, to record her manner of speech, her delivery, her words. Editing what she's already written, fleshing it out with my own transcribed interviews - that can come later.

"If it comes," she said, rolling her eyes.

Well, I am lazy. And I have spent much of my time here sleeping and recovering from illness, letting my poor, rundown body do very little for a while. But interviews just take an eager ear and a few questions. That can be easily done on the verandah, overlooking the sparkling harbour, with the breeze gently dancing with the flowers in her garden.

It was on the verandah today where she'd brought out the scarf, as well as the crossword from the Telegraph, which she has delivered weekly. Got to keep up on the news from Blighty, even though it's a desperate place to live these days, according to the Telegraph.

The memories are wonderful, but the detail can be hard to get right. So many years, so many adventures.

Then in comes the scarf.

She got issued with it when she joined the Women's Royal Naval Service in 1943. Every base she served in is listed, along with a picture of the type of craft it serviced, and even a flag of the country the base was in. Mostly handily for the amateur family historian - it lists full dates of service in each and every place, right up until her demobbing. It's a historical document in tapestry.

The embroidery is crude, or at least that's what she thinks. But she was 17 years old when she began it. I had no sewing skills at all at 17. I still don't. Perhaps one day this blog could stand as a sort of historical document of parts of my life. But you can't feel the stitches, can't run your fingers over the coloured thread, needled into place by a young girl, who now sleeps a few metres away, much older but no less headstrong.

And she's not asleep.

"Natalie, you're still awake! You'll never get up in time tomorrow."

"Yes, I will. Go back to bed. See you in the morning."

I've got stitching of my own to do.

Do you have a 3D, almost living historical document in your family? I'd love to know what other little treasures are out there, being passed along the generations.

The Trouble With Bochenski

Growing up with the surname "Bochenski" meant a constant battle against mispronunciation and mispelling. One day I'm going to write a one-woman stand-up comedy show called "The 'C' Is Silent", which will act as a stern warning to those who would CHOOSE to give their children stupidly spelt names, particularly first names.

But it seems this is not a modern problem.

In Vanuatu this week to work on the memoirs of my esteemed Grandmother, Queen Patricia Zhindhu Khambatta Bochenska (the "Queen" being the only made-up bit), I have discovered proof of the English-speaking world's inability to handle this simplest of Polish names.

My Gran married Maciej Tadeusz Bochenski in Plymouth on April 28, 1948.



Pat and Maceij in the centre; the woman in the enormous fur coat
to the right of my Gran is her mother, Eva.
I suspect the woman knew how to make a statement.

The happy couple received a stack of congratulatory telegrams, which I discovered while snooping through Gran's album collection. They're lovely things, slips of yellowing paper, topped with the crown symbol of the Post Office, almost 64 years old to the day. But gee, they make for jolly reading.

It's somewhat heartwarming to think of all those confused exchanges at the Post Office, between well-wishers and telegram operators, struggling to work out if there's an extra "z".

I've discovered all sorts of other fun facts about my grandparents' wedding and first flush of marriage.

Gran stopped in at a bakery in Padstow, waiting for the change to Plymouth, to order the cake, as she'd heard there was a good bakery there. It turned out the baker had been a navy chef, and knew Gran when she was with the WRNS in Beirut. He made her a nice three-tiered cake.

My Gran and her mother took the 4 o'clock train from Plymouth back to London, so she could get "demobbed" from the WRNS. So there was actually no wedding night, and in fact, it would be FIVE months before they were actually reunited for a proper honeymoon. The merchant ship Grandad had got a job on changed its mind and refused to take Gran as well. So she returned to London to live with her mother, until she was eventually able to get a seat on a converted Lancaster bomber and fly four days across North Africa and the Middle East to join him in Bombay.

Grandad booked them a honeymoon in the hills near Bombay, where Gran had holidayed as a girl growing up during the Raj. While they were there, a devastating hurricane hit Bombay, sinking around 15 ships, including Grandad's. All their possessions, navy clothes, wedding gifts and more went down with it.

And BEST of all! When my Gran first met my Grandad and they began courting, he was known as Rocky. Apparently, the Polish mariner used to rock from side to side while standing. Perhaps it was his remarkable sea-legs getting used to land, who knows. But the whole time, she knew him as Rocky. It eventually dawned on her that she should probably ask him his real name, in order to, you know, pledge her life to his at the altar and all that. When did she finally do it?

Why, on their wedding day of course.

April 28, 1948. A day for getting married, and finally finding out your beloved's first name.

Titanic: A Memorial Viewing

The last time my good buddy Disco Stu and I got together to watch a movie based on sea-going adventures, it was the naughty nautical romp Pirates.

Given it’s the 100th year anniversary of the maiden voyage, iceberg strike and sinking of the Titanic (it was a very busy week for the White Star Line), we decided to team up again for another cinematic pilgrimage – this time for James Cameron’s 1997 epic Titanic.

I hadn’t sat through the entire film since seeing in at the cinema in late ’97; Stu had never watched it in its entirety, although like most people he absorbed most of it through osmosis. It’s now got a slightly naff reputation about it; Stu declared the viewing “an exercise in masochism.” But then masochism shared is masochism halved - which may not be exactly what a masochist wants, but that’s by the by.

Now while only Kate Winslet gets her boobs out, we thought there would be plenty of chances for gags about “all hands on deck”, and “going down with the ship”. But as it turns out the jokes and satirical commentary gave way to a surprising dose of Stockholm’s Syndrome.

The movie is over three hours long, and while I have been judicious with editing our commentary, the transcription that follows is quite lengthy. You have been warned!

Winning... Something. Anything.

Maybe it's all this election business that's been on of late, but for some reason I've got the hankering to win something.

It doesn't have to be a 77-seat majority in the Queensland parliament; I think that might be over-egging the pudding (for everyone, really).

But it's been... I don't know... years since I actually *won* anything. Like a prize, or a trophy, or a certificate.

I know it's trivial, and not necessarily reflective of your general success in life, etc etc, blah blah blah - but who doesn't like to be picked out for something ahead of a bunch of other people? I'm sure scientists work hard on weighty matters concerning the nature of the universe because they're passionate about learning and understanding, but come on. You think they've never once thought about a Nobel Prize? Even just a little?

Five 90s Sitcoms You've Probably Forgotten

The 1990s were a decade with VCRs, and eventually, dial-up internet. But they lacked high-speed data-sharing and Doctor Who, so it was hardly living, really. We watched our television when the free-to-air networks told us to, and we never knew that we were often missing bits and pieces that they'd chop out to make the ads fit. If, like me, you spent the majority of your childhood/teens in the 90s, then you'll probably share a certain sensibility about that era's TV: of sitting through rivers of crap waiting for the occasional nugget of gold.

I watched Seinfeld, which began "revolutionising" sitcoms, according to people who know about TV and comedy and such. Thinking back, I guess I could tell it was different, only because they didn't have the Full House-style, soppy "I've learned a lesson" scene at the end of every episode. Although the "TV has really changed" lightning bolt for me was Monica on Friends telling someone she "had to pee". Woah! Never once in all the books I read as a kid, or all the TV shows I'd seen before, had anyone ever said they needed to use the facilities. The Faraway Tree didn't have an amenities block. Mollie and Peter never parked The Wishing Chair to drop the kids off at the pool. Trixie Belden didn't have to take a quiet squat while spying on a suspicious farmhouse.

Apart from that I think the only shows with real comic "credibility" I watched during my teens were the Rik Mayal/Adrian Edmondson brawlfest Bottom, sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf (although some tell me post-season-3 doesn't count) and current affairs satire Frontline.

But I sure as hell watched a lot of sitcoms. Most were American. Most were dodgy. Many of them would be familiar to you: Home Improvement, The Nanny, Married... With Children, Family Matters.

If you can say "Did I do that?" without echoing Steve Urkel's nasally style,
then congratulations.  You are probably capable of conversing with strangers.

But what about the more obscure works in situationally comedic ouevre? Here's a few you probably don't care to remember - if you ever saw enough to forget in the first place.

20 Pics of 2011 (via mobile phone)

I've had my HTC Mozart Windows phone for just over a year now. It serves my purposes well enough, but I must admit that my usage remains fairly basic. Calls, texts, email, Twitter, a bit of web browsing. I've not explored the world of "apps" much; mainly because I figure there are maybe 17 or 18 that have been made for the Windows Phone.

One feature I do use is the inbuilt camera. It's not particularly great quality, as the shutter button is external, not on the screen, so it's harder to fire off those super-quick shots people with iPhones seem in the habit of doing. However, it's often the only camera I have on me, as my other camera is a big Nikon DSLR.

I thought it might be fun to have a look back at the year that was 2011, through the prism of my mobile phone camera. So often our mobile phone pictures are disposable. I thought collating a few might help me look back on the year, and the shape it was. I took hundreds of pictures, but displaying them all would be foolishly boring, or boringly foolish. So I settled on the round number of 20 to show to you. Some I've used in posts or tweets throughout the year; some are blurry; some are just plain silly.

But, here they all are anyway. 20 Pics of 2011 - via my mobile phone.

Old School Siri

Everyone's way too excited about this "Siri" business. Frankly, I had "Siri" technology at school.

Nice?

I fell asleep last night thinking of regrets, and woke up this morning remembering Nick Niceguy.

He was a year above me at high school. He was in a reasonably nerdy, but not wholly unsociable group of friends. They once invited my friend Clare and I to a party in Nick's rumpus room. I remember being a bit uncertain going in, but then we ended up all telling funny stories about Mr Braiden the Manual Arts teacher (nicknamed "Band-Aid" because of his cavalier attitude towards healing shop-inflicted wounds), and playing air guitar to Killing in the Name. It was the first time I'd head Rage Against the Machine.


Ah, Thich Quang Duc. Your protest resonated more strongly
when accompanied by the thumping riffs of Tom Morello.

At some point somebody told me Nick had a crush on me.

All My Loving

I spent today covering the Ekka, the ten days each year that Brisbane gives over to country life-inspired Stockholm Syndrome.

I say that because over the years I've covered the Ekka enough to develop a sort of perverted fondness for its urban rustic atmosphere and the seething mass of humanity that power-strolls (often with power-strollers) through it. I've come to see it as a great challenge for my immune system and a cautious reminder of the importance of good dental care.

Of course, it helps that I get in on a media pass.

I visited the Ekka as a young 'un a few times. I believe my parents looked upon it with some dread, given the infamous "Ekka bug" that invariably went around each year.

One time I clearly remember my brother throwing up an ice-cream while watching the stunt car show in the main arena. All over the wooden benches it went, like a reverse vanilla volcano. I'm not sure if that was due to illness though, or just overly vigorous licking. Whatever it was, it was those sorts of incidents that made the Ekka a "sometimes" treat.

Another "sometime" treat was of course, the Ekka showbags. My parents had a strict limit on them, being as how they were generally overpriced plastic bags full of plastic crap ...and lollies. My brother and I were allowed two showbags, to a value of $10 in total. Only one of them was allowed to be a lolly/chocolate/snack bag. The other had to be a gimmick bag, one of the themed bags full of crap, based around whatever cartoon or TV show was popular at the time.

Now 1987 was my first visit to the show, and there was only one gimmick showbag I wanted.

Young Talent Time.

The Rough Diamond

For close to 40 years, the Brisbane Arts Theatre has had a rehearsal/costume space at 222 Petrie Terrace.

That era has come to an end.

The property has been sold, and the past few weeks have seen a mammoth effort by hard-working volunteers to clear the place out.

For over ten years, I've been in that building countless times. But tonight, during my final visit, I got to see something I've never seen before.

222 - completely and utterly empty. Costumes gone, furniture gone, props gone. It was a shell.

And yet, it remained full - of character, memory, warmth, laughter and chatter. Ephemeral, immeasurable things.

But it was still full of physical things too - just things I'd never really observed before. Things like wallpaper, and cracked windows, and decaying linoleum, and the grill in the fireplace featured on an album cover by legendary Brisbane rock band The Saints.

Before the theatre bought and converted the building in the 1970s, it had been a boarding house. Before that - early 20th century - it was a fine home, known as Kelso House, with beautiful wrought iron railings.

Walking through for the final time, I got the sense of these ghosts of 222 past - the terrace house, the doss house. Our own ghosts, our theatre spirits, now get added to that list. Natalie as actor, director, improviser, volunteer, costume lover... she is in there, running lines, blocking scenes, trying on costumes, digging out props, energetic, tired, crying, laughing. The floorboards were never the sturdiest, but they have borne the weight of countless Natalies for the past decade, holding her up even as she felt like collapsing.

In a wonderful stroke of fortune, the buyers of 222 are not going to raze it to make way for inner-city units. They plan to take their time and restore it as a residence. For this I am grateful. It may be rough, but it's still a diamond. I cannot wait to see it polished.

The Tobacconist Extraordinaire

Sol Levy is a Legitimate Businessman, and he is Angry.

Or at least, that's the picture of Sol Levy that forms in my head, as I stand outside his shop, in a ratty part of George Street, Sydney.

SOL LEVY: TOBACCONIST EXTRAORDINAIRE.

A Good Wrap

I often try to prepare my lunch the night before a work day. Just as often I squirm out of it, saying I'll do it in the morning, I'm too tired, it's a hassle, there's no delicious black olives, etc etc.

But when I actually bother, I find myself becoming giddy with a tiny degree of excitement.

It starts with the tortilla wraps, which I subbed in for bread some years ago and never looked back. Then some light honey mustard dressing, a few slices of honey leg ham, tasty cheese, green capsicum, mixed salad leaves, and delicious, delicious black olives.

I think it's healthy. I hope it's healthy. Because, the thing is, it's virtually the only lunch I make.

And even though I know how it will taste, I still get excited by the prospect. By the time I'm wrapping them up in clingfilm, I'm almost disappointed that it will be a sleep and a morning's labour before I can get stuck into those bad boys.

It's not much, but it's mine. ALL MINE.

And I wonder - is it wrong to have some foods that are a comforting, pleasurable routine? An island of familiarity in what can so often be a day of confusion?

Steamy Stormy

I'm on the verandah, and there's a storm before me.

Well, really, I'm on the balcony. It's not big enough to be called a verandah, and it doesn't wind around the outside of your two-storey high-set house.

But it does afford me a view of the lush, verdant, sub-tropical greenery, drenched in the downpour from the afternoon sky: