Clotheshorse #3

I'm pleased to say that I managed to get through my February "Wear My Wardrobe" challenge - in fact, there are a bunch of clothes left over that I didn't get around to breaking out. They were mostly tops and dresses, and some sadly because they didn't fit.

However, due to general busy-ness and forgetfulness, I missed out on taking pictures of all of them.

So here's a few:

It became necessary to break out the jeans
once I'd exhausted all my skirt options.

You can't really see the black Cue dress I'm
wearing, but who cares? A cute puppy is
the best accessory.

I know this isn't an outfit, but I've become slightly
obsessed with my regrowth. Sure, I've been calling
it "targeted balayage", but it's actually my natural
hair colour. That's the most I've seen it in years.
It's so bland and devoid of personality.
It's like the Miranda Kerr of natural hair colours.

This was the outfit I wore on February 28,
the last day of the wardrobe challenge.

Now I have a confession to make about the final day of the challenge. You'll see I wore a smart green blouse with a fairly regulation black pencil skirt. The skirt was a relatively recent purchase; only worn two or three times before.

At some point during the day, the zip on the back of the skirt broke. Just busted clean apart. I only noticed around 3pm, so I could've been walking around for up to six hours with my underpants hanging out.

Not only that, but they weren't nice underpants. They were flesh-coloured underpants. So it may have appeared as if I was walking around with my bottom on display, like some sort of journalistic baboon.

The busted zip was such a complicated affair, I couldn't get the skirt off myself. I had to get The Wah to physically rip it off my person, and while that sounds a little bit saucy, it turns out it wasn't remotely erotic for anyone involved.

I'd like to lose mass so that the prospect of ripping clothes from my body was appealing, rather than a medical necessity.

So now it's March, I'm trying another challenge. I've put a blanket ban on crisps and lollies, and have ruled out eating any chocolate besides Red Tulip (it's Easter time, and it's just cruel to rule out Red Tulip, when it's not available the rest of the year).

We'll see how we go. I'm sure the exercise and nutrition experts among you will tsk-tsk, believing that a well-rounded holistic approach to mass reduction is the only way for true success.

But for some reason at the moment my only chance is to make a game out of this stuff.

Now I've just got to follow the rules...

Comedy & Tragedy

I did another stand up comedy spot last night.

It was another ill-advised, hasty decision, the kind I like to make when I'm full of bravura and confident a bit of make-up and a "she'll be right" attitude will see me through.

Yeah, not so much.

It's been two years since I tried to make the funny in a five minute open-mic slot, and I wasn't very good.

Now I mean that in a positive way. I've been developing a habit of looking at creative things I'm doing through a more objective, constructive filter, rather than bursting into tears every time I'm not instantly perfect.

If only I could apply the same rationale to eating and exercising. First things first, I guess.

I'll be writing more about the experience for Brisbane Times, as part of a fairly epic upcoming month of the Brisbane Comedy Festival.

But the key point is that five minute stand-up spots require tight writing.

My preference, in writing as well as speaking, is to go off on long, rambling tangents that are generally reasonably whimsical and hopefully end with a point or a laugh.

"So then I said..."

That does not suit five minute open mic-ing - you've got to deliver, and fast. I flubbed this time around, and pondered whether I was in fact cut out for stand-up. Perhaps I'm not, but I won't really know until I can get a better grip on the actual format. Which means I will have to try it a few more times before I can truly say I "failed". And that's a nice sentiment to take away from the evening!

Something I'm quite excited about however, is the opportunity to perform in White Rabbit, Red Rabbit at the Brisbane Powerhouse this Saturday 23 February.

I will admit I somewhat bullied my way into the festival programmers' vision as a potential candidate for this. At the launch last November, my attention was grabbed by the idea of a cold-read script, in which there is no set, no director, no rehearsal - just one performer handed the script and reading, discovering the words as the audience does.

It's important to recognise one's skills as well as one's failings, and just as I have acknowledged my poor attempts at the comedy craft above, I will here admit to being reasonably proud of my ability to cold read - to pick up a document and read from it with relatively few errors, and with relatively appropriate emotion.

I once inspired an English teacher to break into applause after giving a monologue from a play about Lachlan Macquarie as part of a verbal presentation. I really put my back into that one; I even looked up what the word "chicanery" meant.

Also - I'm an improviser, damnit. I love exploring things without having all the information. So when someone pulled out and they asked if I was still interested, I responded with a resounding yes.

All I know about this play is that it was written by a young Iranian man when he was restricted from leaving the country because the government wouldn't grant him a passport.

I will learn the rest on the night.

If you are interested, please consider coming along. I don't know what it will be like, but I can promise you I'm eager to make this a brilliant experience and will work my heart out as soon as that script is placed in my hands.

And because it is written, you know you won't be risking some of my long and rambling stories with no point!

Commune Savours the Bold

Devastating news emerged from Hollywood over the weekend: Ronn Moss, beloved star of long-running soap The Bold and the Beautiful, will leave the series after 25 years.

Ronn Moss, for those of you living under a ridge, played Rock.

No, wait. For those of you living under a rock, he played Ridge, the most wonderfully foolishly named character in a show full of wonderfully foolishly named characters (Thorne, Storm, Whip, Bill).

In reacting to this bombshell, I certainly went through the five stages of grief. And I did it in true soap opera style:

It may surprise, nay, horrify you, dear readers, to discover that I am in fact a secret Bold fan.

But before you judge me, sit down and hear the tale of how this program can entrance even the most cynical of hearts.

In Australia, Bold screens at 4:30pm on Channel Ten, just before the 5pm Ten News.

For us journalist types - and for other news groupies - an evening of news-watching begins with the 5pm Ten bulletin. It means TVs start being flicked over to Channel 10 around the 4:55pm mark - just in time to see the last few moments of The Bold and the Beautiful.

For me, this means around ten years of casually dropping in on the glamourous world of fashion, around which Bold revolves. The brilliant thing about the soap format is that the last five minutes is more than enough to give you comprehensive character and plot information. A few of these every week sees you starting to learn characters' names. A few months of this, and you might start working out the incredibly complex and close-to-incestuous nature of the relationships. Brooke, for example, has married Ridge at least 14 times; and also had children with his father; and with her daughter's husband.

Oh yes, my friends, when Shakespeare coined the term "tangled web", he was foreseeing a Bold future.

Of course, I kept this habit under wraps, not even admitting to myself that I might be flicking over earlier and earlier. Soap opera magazines in the supermarket may have indicated that Bold had a very popular following; but I was a sensible, clever media type. I didn't watch soap operas, I'd tell myself as the square-jaw of Ridge Forrester started flashing up onto my screen at 4:45; 4:35pm. "It's just important to be ready to watch the Proper News."

Very few people can pull off a turtleneck.
Ronn Moss is not one of them.

However, over the past year, and thanks mainly to Twitter, I've discovered I'm not alone in my habit. The hashtag #5minutesbeforethenews brought a whole bunch of secret Bold fans out of the designer closet. And for the more hard core, #ohbrookeohtaylorohbrooke is a feed of fans live-tweeting each episode as it airs in Australia.

And now I know why there are so many of us out there - intelligent, hard-working people - who revel in the hot goings-on at Forrester Creations.

Did you ever hear the reason why the jokes in Christmas crackers are so appalling? It's because while everyone's idea of a good joke is different, everyone's understanding of a bad joke is immediate and shared. At a time like Christmas, it's far better to engender a spirit of goodwill and fraternity by uniting against the bad jokes; rather than dividing opinion because Auntie Gina didn't think it was funny.

The Bold and the Beautiful is the daytime soap opera version of this.

We all KNOW it's bad. The plots are unbelievable, the dialogue corny, the timelines wobbly, the love triangles maddening, and the use of extended close-ups egregious. But when we all share in its ridiculousness, we bond as a community, a family. Our gentle mocking of lame facial hair and botoxed leading ladies (Oh Taylor, why did you do it?), and our delight in over-the-top displays of emotion allow us to feel superior together. The affection that springs from our negativity turns the whole experience into a positive one.

And the best part is, it's a community that demands nothing of you. I'll be travelling overseas in September and October, and will happily go about my business without a Bold vision, safe in the knowledge that a flashback or a few tweets on my return will be more than enough to fill me in. So much TV these days demands your undivided attention, lest you become lost in intricately-laid plots and machinations. I love that kind of TV - but sometimes it's nice to know you don't have to follow obsessively; because the show will keep you in the loop.

So goodbye and God bless, Ronn Moss. I don't know how the clan Forrester will fare without you. But at least for now, the social media commune will savour the Bold.

You've Got... Male?

"You didn't say good-byyyyye." she drawled from the back of the post office. "Din't ya hear me sayin' good-byyyye?"

She was tall, taller than me, and much taller than the companion she now rushed towards to embrace.

The post office queue was unreasonably long for 2:30 in the afternoon, and the couple moved to join the line just behind me. Obviously it wasn't good-byyyyye, not yet.

She kept moving into my peripheral vision, as she surveyed a range of children's books and toys strategically placed to be a nemesis for parents.

"Awwr, remember this?" she intoned, as she picked up a soft-cover copy of Animalia.

"Yeahh," came the second voice. "Ya gotta look for a clock or something, doncha?"

I say second voice, second person, the other, Two - because I have no idea what sex and/or gender they were. And it was to prove a frustrating puzzle.

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.

Making a Contribution

Like most humans with an internet connection, I enjoy browsing the websites Damn You, Autocorrect! and Lamebook. The former explores the perils of not double checking your text messages; the latter is simply a celebration of the sometimes clever, often trite and mostly laughably stupid things people say on Facebook.

I've often wondered if I'd ever stumble across or inadvertently cause something to occur that could justify an entry into one of these websites. I never thought I would have justified entries for both occur on the same day.

Late Monday night, I was searching online stores for a BOSU, a piece of exercise equipment my personal trainer Jon makes me use. An acronym for "Both Sides Up", it's basically half a fitball attached to a board. It's great to use for stepping exercises, as the inflated side means a lower impact on your knees (I've always had bad knees). You can also use it as a balance board. I know, I know, as Girl Clumsy I have no need for balance training, but it's nice to have the option there.

I found a proper BOSU online at Optomo for a decent price, which included free shipping. Having recently paid down my credit card (bless you, tax return), I clicked and bought it. I was expecting delivery to take days, if not a week or so - but then my doorbell rang around 2pm yesterday and there it was!

Excited, I texted Jon. "Omg! I ordered a bosu at midnight and it just got delivered."

He didn't reply. I thought that was slightly odd, as I'd been expecting Jon to be excited by my purchase. All became clear though later when I messaged him on Twitter about the new arrival. This was his reply:

Obviously his silence was some sort of acceptance that I'm just freaky enough to be a part of some male-order mail-order scheme.

The other outstanding contribution to the internet comes from the Facebook event page for my How To Be A Man audition. This show - based on the John Birmingham/Dirk Flinthart book and adapted by the erudite Simon Bedak - finishes the trilogy after He Died with a Felafel in His Hand and The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco, and will play at the Brisbane Arts Theatre in November/December.

The audition pages lists the criteria for potential cast members, including a general age guide of 18 to 40. Now sometimes I really just loathe Facebook - but sometimes I admit it does provide comedy gold like this:

And now, I will await a call from playwright Simon Bedak demanding I cast that 14-year-old kid...

Hiccups and other hiccups

In the golden days of radio gone by, an on-air stuff-up was easily forgotten. Sure, others in the industry would furtively pass around blooper tapes, but by and large the GP would remain blissfully unaware of the verbal foibles of announcers, jocks and newsreaders.

But of course, we now live in the Age of the Internet, where people stuffing up is the stock-in-trade of almost every popular website in the world - well, YouTube and Failblog at any rate.

And so it was that a 3am news bulletin read by a young lass at Melbourne station 3AW exploded onto social media networks yesterday. Kate Wilson had been struck by the hiccups, and did what all good newsreaders do - she soldiered on and read her bulletin.

Now reading the news is certainly not the most physically demanding of jobs, but it does have its own particular hurdles. I've never had the hiccups on-air - but I'd be lying if I didn't own up to my fair share of blunders and missteps.

Nothing But the Tooth

Ever been talked into something foolish?

Ever been talked into something foolish and expensive?

Ever been talked into something foolish and expensive and ridiculous and utterly, utterly pointless?

Put your witty cracks about "marriage" aside, and feast your eyes on this:

Yes. Exactly. And if you wish to continue feeling superior to me in every possible way, read on.

Unseen

My work colleague, the erstwhile Disco Stu, turns an interesting shade of bottled purple every time I mention that I still haven't seen The Shawshank Redemption yet. That's despite the fact he lent me the DVD sometime in late 2008. That's right - the DVD is sitting at my house. I could watch it at any time. It's incredibly rude of me that I haven't. I guess I just ...forget. I don't know, I not pretending I have an excuse.

If Stu's reading this, he's probably intensified to a sort-of bulging green colour now.

Anyhoo, my shameful lack of pop culture knowledge cropped up again this morning, due to this week's Back to the Future Twitter scam. A whole bunch of people excitedly tweeted about July 5, 2010 being the day Doc set his Delorean hoverboard machine to jump time into the future. "OMG, it's today!" was the general nature of the tweets.

Now you may be sensing the direction that this is going (I imagine Stu is some sort of dayglo orange by now).

What's in the Box?

Apologies for the large file size on YouTube - I bought myself a new audio/video recorder, and haven't quite worked out how to compress anything yet. This may not be suitable for work; I guess it just depends on how humourous your particular workplace finds saucy props.

Racist?

Am I racist?

I don't know really. I mean, I don't FEEL like having a go at some black or brown or yellow or otherwise non-white people even though it IS Australia Day. But then I do appear to be having some run-ins with political incorrectness.

In Her Shoes

You can say what you like about Anna Bligh, but damnit, the woman always wears good shoes.

And as someone who spends most days schlepping around in a pair of Orthoheel thongs, I respect that.

You'll be pleased to know, though, that today I scored a minor personal victory. Today I attended a Bligh media conference - and for the first time, my shoes were better than hers. Score one for my pewter peep-toe pumps, which were just plain nicer than the Premier's round-toe black shoes with the high, thick heels.

However, my joy in this minor triumph over someone who is so literally well-heeled was short-lived. Capering about Parliament House and the carpark in my power pumps didn't do anything for my poor feet, sadly out of heel-wearing fitness. I'm now suffering intense soreness on that padded bit just below the big toe, with some bruising to the "little piggies that had none". Ouch.

To top off my podiatric troubles, I had the pleasure of stuffing up big time in my choice of film to review on-air today. I chose Death at a Funeral, a British farce-cum-screwball comedy. Nothing the matter with that, surely, I hear you ask.

Maybe not. But the day of the military funeral of Trooper David Pearce - the first Australian soldier to be killed in combat in Afghanistan - was probably NOT the ideal day to do it.

Youch. I'm still feeling that one.

Ah, well. Perhaps now you all understand even more why my adventures are labelled "bruising".

A Day at the Budget

Everybody has a budget. Including Queensland. This Tuesday gone, I had the great - erm - pleasure of being assigned to cover the handing down of the Beattie government's 10th "financial blueprint".

It turned out to be a somewhat embarrassing day - if you read my previous post you'd know Deputy Premier and Treasurer Anna Bligh knocked over my microphone, and I was stuck at a table behind journos and cameras unable to retrieve and right it. Luckily I had brought my camera along, so I am now able to present to you the whole story - in pictures!


This is the media room, which is just off the gallery level of the parliamentary chamber. It's quite old. You can picture hard-nosed, chain-smoking political journos crashing away at typewriters, only opening their mouths long enough to shove in another Marlboro. Sometimes you can even smell the old cigarette smoke.



This is my official work station. It's in a small cubby-like area, just beyond the gallery door. I share this cubby with the AAP journo, and we take it in turns to get angry at our respective computers (mine's a laptop, you can see my giant satchel bag in the foreground).

It may not look that organised, but believe me, there's a very complex system in operation here. No, really.


Inside the hothouse that is budget lock-up. Lock-up gives the impression there'll be alcohol, doesn't it? Sadly, coffee and crustless sandwiches were our only sustenance. I think the three smartly-dressed folks in the foreground are QUT students. I know that because they're always dressed better than me.

Her Bligh-ness! After two hours of reading and thoughtful consideration of the government's economic data ("what does 'expenditure'? mean again?"), Peter Beattie and Anna Bligh grace us with a lock-up media conference. I am currently sitting behind the giant stack of budget documents. It is while I am farting about taking these photos that Ms Bligh knocks my mic over. Premier Pete is being concealed by journalists in this shot.

Here you can see two interesting things. The first is my mic, resting horizontally on the little side-table, where Premier Pete put it because I couldn't get out from behind my table to fix it.

The second is the large brown blur in the bottom left-hand corner. That is in fact the head of Channel Nine political reporter Spencer Jolly. Spencer was sitting next to me during lock-up. When I said excitedly "Hello, Spencer, this is my first budget!", he replied, "God bless you", and proceeded to give me some good advice about finding useful information amongst the giant stack. Thanks, Spencer!

After this I headed back to my cubby to begin the long afternoon slog of churning out budget stories. Hence the lack of photographic action from this time on. The budget itself was handed down in parliament at 2:30pm, so thanks to the lock-up - and Spencer Jolly's advice - I was able to get enough of a handle on things before official reporting could begin from 3pm (all information in the budget is embargoed until it's tabled in the house).

Radio is challenging when it comes to budgets, as you obviously can't include everything, and you have to think about keeping the listeners' interested in what could potentially be "boring political stuff". Still, I felt fairly confident with my budget work - and the best reward was coming home to find Greg had cooked me an lovely spaghetti bolognese. He's actually been cooking for me all week while I've been at parliament, which has been just amazing. All I do is sit on my butt all day listening to politicians rabbit on, but I couldn't be more exhausted had I just scaled Mt Everest on ice-skates while giving Kim Beazley a piggyback. Now that's tired.

Cannot. Believe. It.

Oh, this is just embarrassing…

I’m currently blogging at you from INSIDE the Queensland government budget lock-up. This could very likely be illegal. Or at the very least against protocol.

Anyway, I managed to borrow some gaffe tape to secure my mic to the podium, but what happens, ten minutes into Anna Bligh's media conference in front of the entire press pack?

My mic falls over.

I’m stuck at a table behind various journos, cameramen and camera stands, so it was left to our Esteemed Leader Premier Pete to pick the mic up and place it on a little side stand. It’s probably not even on any more – it has a tendency to switch off..

Goddamn, that’s embarrassing. I hadn’t even realized – I was too busy trying to take surreptitious photos for this blog. So stay tuned, exciting photo essay coming up when the day’s slog at budget figures is over!!!