Lost punctuation.

As if Lost didn’t have enough problems. The ponderous pace of the plotting, the characters’ exceptionally poor communication and conflict resolution skills, its myriad empty clues that lead to nothing… well, they might, but you’ll have to wait for the finale of Season 17 to find out what. Well, we can now add bad subtitle punctuation to the list.


Look at this poor man! He just happened to glance down and see that subtitle, and now he’s awash in shame at his association with the show. He just can’t believe what his eyes are seeing. Although maybe the subtitles are right and that actually is the correct translation. “You are husband, Jin is wife. Your whole relationship is completely dysfunctional!” Or maybe ‘husband’ is the Korean word for ‘annoying’? I couldn’t say, as the only Korean word I know is ‘annyong’, which doesn’t mean annoying, but does look a lot like it! Maybe that’s a clue?

Or maybe this ‘unintentional error’ is actually another profound and incredibly clever (wink-wink) clue about the reality of The Others?!!! Maybe The Others are seeking to disrupt the laws of punctuation through manipulation of the earth’s magnetic field? Who can say? What am I missing? Wait, let me guess: nothing?

untitled.

hurgh! feeling a bit flat today. post-commonwealth games blues, you know? the party’s over, the bunting’s coming down, the fish have gone, the smurfs have disappeared, and the pursuit of excellence has settled back into the everyday, humdrum struggle with mediocrity. what’s a world-class city to do? i hope thorpie’s feeling better.

Alpha bets.

I'm running a book. I’d love to hear any predictions for any Alpha variables: date of arrival, weight, height, hair colour, eye colour, etc, but particularly what you think the name might be...

Whoever comes closest will win... um, the respect and admiration of… well, one or two people, maybe three, as well as the Honour of Changing the First Nappy. ('Changing the First Nappy' prize is certainly negotiable but is not redeemable for cold, hard cash).

Microsoft iPod.

If you haven’t seen the Microsoft iPod packaging video you should definitely check it out. The update is that it's now been revealed that the video was made by none other than Microsoft itself! You can read the story at the iPod Observer. Hilarious.

This baby really moves…

Well, we can say with some degree of certainty now: 14 days to go! A degree of certainty because it was discovered at Kate’s last scan a week ago that the lil' tine-eh bear-bee is actually no such thing: it’s a monstrous, 90th percentile, camel-sized thing that’s currently eyeballing the eye of a needle, and when it’s big they don’t let you go over term. And please note that I use words like ‘monstrous’ and ‘camel’ with the utmost affection and tenderness, of course.

Waiting for this baby is like every idealized, childhood fantasy of Christmas morning, but only a million times more exciting and fantastic. With the exception of my Power Mac G5, I can’t think of something I’ve waited for with such an eager expectation. That is, of course, not true: there’s my KERN zip-up as well. Incidentally, I just noticed Apple’s introductory spiel to the G5:

Power one up today and blaze through your work, deliver ahead of schedule, and astound your clients — because this baby really moves.

You thought it was ridiculous of me to compare my child to a G5, but if, “this baby really moves,” and “delivers ahead of schedule,” as hoped, well I can think of worse comparisons to draw and hope for!

In the lead up to B-Day, each new day is certainly one to enjoy and experience to the full, but I can’t help but be impatient as I wait to discover who this person is going to be. There’s whole lifetime of learning, living and growing to go, but I'm sick of speculating about what could be, and I want to get started now! I know it’ll come soon enough, and that I should enjoy these few final poo-free days while I can, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m already keen and ready to garry go.

And of course there’s always the desire to see Kate’s gruelling ordeal come to an end. What a difficult nine month, hurl-fest it’s been, and now the prize-winning pumpkin she’s carrying about is making it harder to get around, as well as making it difficult to sleep. Which is all good training for the sleep deprivation to come; as Kate keeps telling herself while doing the grocery shopping online at 3 in the morning…

Soon, soon, soon…

National banks on small change.

Have you seen the National Australia Bank’s new look?


No longer ‘National’, they’re now just ‘nab’. I’ve never actually heard anyone call the bank ‘nab’, but I’m told this change reflects common usage among National, sorry, nab employees and customers. I guess I don’t talk to enough people about banking.

I find it bewildering that a bank would choose to identify themselves with a word meaning, ‘to take or grab suddenly’ and ‘to catch and arrest a criminal’. I mean, their candour is refreshing, but none the less surprising. Even more surprising when you consider this quote from an article in The Age:

“The bank's rebranding has been characterised by marketing experts and banking analysts as an attempt to assert a new identity after it discovered rogue traders on its foreign exchange desk had lost $360 million through shonky accounting.”

Let’s refocus, people. Let’s leave the past in the past. Let’s put a new face on things and boldly move forward towards a prosperous future, and let’s do it under a name that means to take, to grab, and to arrest a criminal.

That really is a bold move! I don’t know. Maybe people won’t be affected by any alternate meanings, maybe I’ll be the only person who double-takes at ‘nab’, maybe the National will be revitalized and business will boom, and if so, well, good luck to them. Many happy banking returns.

AWB crisis claims unlikely scalp.

I always knew this AWB/AWB crisis had the potential for misunderstanding and trouble, but I never thought it’d happen with me.

There I was last Saturday night, having dinner with AWB and his wife Laura during a lightning visit to Australia. Well, it’s a well-known fact that all good things must come to end, and this evening was no exception, but when the bill arrived, AWB offered to pay and, I’ll tell you, I froze. Alarm bells exploded inside my head, and my guts twisted with uncertainty and conflicting emotions.

I felt like I was stepping onto a slippery slope; sure, it started with a free dinner, but where would it end up? Me, splashed across the front page of every newspaper in the country in disgrace, or even worse, shipped to Iraq and dumped in the dock with Saddam?! I mean, how would you respond if you were offered a ‘free meal’ by the AWB? (And to me this is the AWB). Would you think twice?

I quickly cleared my head, and realised the foolishness of my thoughts, but that I could hesitate for a moment - that I could question everything I’ve always taken for granted - shows how insidious this situation is, and how real is its potential for harm.

Then, while still reeling from my brush with corporate kickbacks, JJ emailed me* some breaking and troubling news concerning AWB and another of my close friends who had somehow been drawn into this scandalous affair: ‘AWB bigger terror threat than Thomas: QC’.


It suddenly occurred to me that my friend ‘Bomber’ Thomas might have got his nickname for reasons other than his love of the Essendon Football Club. I’ll make no unsubstantiated claims though, and take consolation in the fact that if AWB is, as claimed, a bigger threat than Thomas, and if I can handle AWB, then I should be ok with this new challenge as well. Time will tell.


* Let me restate that this image was sent to me by JJ, which is why it has that Fisher Price, pre-school look-and-feel of Windoze XP, and not the refined sophistication of OS X. :-)

Yo.

I always have trouble typing ‘you’ for some reason. I always leave the ‘u’ off; in some sort of ironic, post-modern, self-referential, conceptually-based profundity or whatever… Actually, the significance of taking the ‘u’ out of ‘you’ had never occurred to me until just typing that ‘u’ then. I thought it all had something to do with my fingers, but maybe it’s my subconscious acting on my very conscious loathing of the ubiquitous, modern-times ‘you’ replacement?

We’re so lazy these days that 2 extra keystrokes is 2 much 2 ask. Who's so busy that they can’t find time for a couple of extra keystrokes here and there? How much easier is it to type really? On keyboard or keypad. How many baby harp seals are you clubbing by using 'you'? And don’t even talk to me about ‘ur’. It’s moronic. ‘Ur’ is what you say when you’re trying to work out 2+2 and you just can’t do it. “Urrrrrrrr… dunno an’ stuff?” I think it’s the one I hate the most… scratch that, I just remembered ‘2moz’.

Anyway, I didn’t start out to write about grammar and how much pleasure I find in keying in words in full into text messages (and using correct punctuation). I just wanted to comment on how I keep typing ‘yo’ instead of ‘you’, and how it’s a problem because there’s always the chance, particularly with clients, that they might think I'm being a bit too familiar, or that I'm trying to be hip and with it, down with the Now generation. “Do yo want me to email that PDF to yo?” I’m only a couple of emails away from, “Sup dawg?” Help!

Shoe-horning a metaphor into a bleeding simile, or something.

I’d rather eat the ubiquitous Mx “newspaper” than read it. But sometimes when I’m on the train, I’ll catch a serve in the face from the person opposite, as I glance up while turning the page of whatever foundational work of world literature I happen to be enjoying at the time. I caught the headline of the article below the other day, and had to bring it home to share.


‘Lost Dogs are no Bass and Flinders as they try to find their station in life’? Wow! This sub-editor just couldn’t let it go, could they? They had an overstuffed bale of puns and come hell or high water they were gunna get ‘em all in, no matter what no-one had to say about it, ya hear?! So, take a second and try to guess what the article's about. Go on.

All done? How'd you go? Here for your edification is the text in full.

Lost Dogs are no Bass and Flinders as they try to find their station in life

Bulldog Scott West’s football skills meant nothing today as he took part in a variation of the popular TV show The Amazing Race. West even tried to bribe a club official to help get his team away from Flinders St station and back on to the quickest path around Melbourne. The Bulldogs were split into groups and had to find clues to their next destination.

Great story, and it’s clever you see because the men in the photo play for the Bulldogs and they’re playing a navigation type game so there’s a chance they could be lost and there’s an organization called the Lost Dogs Home so that ties that together and the Lost Dogs (he, he) are at Flinders St station and there’s a famous Australian explorer called Flinders who would have had to navigate so that ties them together and they’re trying to find something so let’s say it’s a station in life, or something although I’m not sure how that applies and Flinders knocked about with Bass which is a fish so let’s get that in there because... well because he and Flinders always went fishing together and the Lost Dogs (he, he) are no Bass and Flinders because they’re trying to bribe som… wait a minute, there’s no bribe pun in the title… um, 'Here Comes the Bribe'? Yes! Because he’s moving forwards! So, revise; let’s bring it all together: “Here Comes the Bribe as Lost Dogs show they’re no Bass and Flinders as they try to find their station in life and stuff.” Gold! And I get paid by the word! High Five!

My irritation with the article was all the more as it reminded me how bad Season 8 of The Amazing Race has been, and not just because they continue to call ‘clues’, what should clearly be called ‘instructions’. Those boring old sods at Oxford call a ‘clue’: a fact or piece of evidence that helps to clarify a mystery or solve a problem. If there’s no mystery or problem to solve, it’s not a ‘clue’, it’s an ‘instruction’, which is: a direction or order. I’ve only watched the last few seasons, so maybe there was a time when they had to use clues to solve puzzles, but not anymore. Now it’s just “Go to Point A and get directions to Point B”. Boring. Kate called this season “The Amazing Disgrace” and she’s got it right. Hopefully next season’ll improve.

Well I wandered off-topic, but that’s ok. If you hadn’t already read it on the train yourself, I hope you enjoyed catching up on some riveting Doggie news. Woof, woof.

Anti antenatal class.

Well, we had our final antenatal class last week and, I’ll tell you, this is going to be an ordeal. It’s been difficult already, what with Kate being sick for the whole eight months so far, but that’s nothin’ compared to what’s comin’! What with all the things that can swell, crack, bleed, rupture, explode, or just plain drop off, I think it’s a miracle that anyone survives the birthing process. How did we as a species make it this far? How’d they get by circa caveman time?

In the classes I frequently felt like one of the group of horrified drink-drivers from The Simpsons, watching Troy McClure’s driver’s ed films, "Alice's Adventures through the Windshield Glass" and "The Decapitation of Larry Leadfoot”. What comforted me most was knowing that in these classes they have to cover every possible problem so you’re informed, but that there’s no way you’re going to experience the full set. One, two or three, maybe; but not the lot. I keep reminding myself of that. Also that it’s not going to be me on the table, which helps a lot too. Only jokin’. Come on.

So four weeks to go, and everything changes. One big speed hump to get over, and then a lifetime of smaller speed humps after that… with many, many moments in between of intense joy watching your child grow, of course.

Waterlogged.

Australians all, let us rejoice, for we are relatively watermark free. If you think our TV station watermarks are irritating, try watching the UK's 'Sky One' sometime. How’s this for distracting?



I’m finding that I just filter watermarks out nowadays. Like banner ads on websites, I rarely notice them, and (unlike banner ads), they’re actually quite handy when you’re trying to tune a VCR manually, which, you know, I do all the time…

Then I started watching Battlestar Galactica and discovered the Mother of all Watermarks. No matter how dramatic or intense a scene, few things drag you back to reality faster the Sky One (did we mention this is an EXCLUSIVE) logo buzzing around a character's face like some oversize mosquito. Poor old Apollo looks like he's got a band-aid across his nose, and Adama looks like he could be a hologram! At least the DVDs are clean, so we can always take refuge there, but I wonder if it’s just a matter of time before studio watermarks start appearing there as well?

I’ll never complain about Australian network television again. He, he. As if.

Snitter crisis deepens.

SNITTER (n.) One of the rather unfunny newspaper clippings pinned to an office wall, the humour of which is supposed to derive from the fact that the headline contains a name similar to that of one of the occupants to the office.

-Douglas Adams & John Lloyd, The Meaning of Liff, 1983.

I feel sorry for AWB. No, not the Australian Wheat Board, my friend Andrew Wallace-Barnett, of course! Since this ‘Wheat Sales to Iraq’ kickbacks scandal exploded, the newspapers have been crammed with headline after headline for story after story on the dirty deeds of AWB.


Talk about denigration by association. Talk about ruining a reputation. Where once those three letters would conjure up only the best and most noble of thoughts, now they also evoke ones of sordid, duplicitous behaviour and moral standards in decay.

Take this selection of headlines from The Age newspaper.

First came a stunning revelation (as seen above):
    'AWB 'a disaster waiting to happen'’

I’m not sure what he said to start it all, but it couldn’t have been good:
    'Doubts raised over AWB’s statements'

Powerful forces weighed into the situation:
    'US, Canada viewed AWB with suspicion'

in what eventually became the:
    'Shameful AWB saga'

John Howard eventually stepped in to support AWB:
    'PM demands US apologise over AWB comments'

but he only made things worse:
    'US farmers want AWB prosecuted'

and ended up on the back foot defending himself:
    'PM denies turning blind eye over AWB'

And if things weren’t bad enough, there was the most damaging guilt by association revelation of all:
    'Saddam helped to fix AWB delays'
It’s no wonder AWB takes so long to reply to his emails if he’s got Saddam there “helping” him.

And finally, just when you thought things couldn’t get any muckier:
    'AWB, abortion to dominate parliament'

Glory be. What a mess.

The great escape.

An expression of exertion is rarely an attractive thing. Like yawning, it usually makes you look like a moron. Especially with footballers in mid-kick, although there might be other contributing factors there as well. Who’s to say?

Anyway, here’s mine. Taken on my way out from under the house after a couple of hours running cables.


I needed a second phone port and a couple of network points around the house, so I enlisted cable guru, Davet (who’s mad for it), to make it happen. Somehow I ended up on mole duty under the house. I guess that's Davet's experience showing.

Wouldn’t have been too bad actually, except for the central heating pipe things that crisscross the area like a giant blue anaconda stuffed under the floorboards. In the confined space it becomes quite an obstacle, and like some life-sized game of Snake, you need to think ahead or you end up trapped.

With shouted guidance from Davet, I weaved my way in the heat through the dirt, dust, bricks, rocks, and even around a dead bird, until after a couple of hours of hyper-extensions and painful contortions, I struggled out: mission successful. You don’t realise how far you can bend and how small a space you can fit into until you have to.

“Alpha”, aged 33 weeks.

Well, the unflattering comparisons continue. When first seeing the most recent ultrasound of my well-nigh offspring, a series of images flashed through my consciousness.


The first image was of the ‘Bad Boy Club’ logo. I’m not sure why, as I only have a vague awareness of it, and couldn’t actually tell you what the Bad Boy Club is. Another attempt to exploit teenage disaffection for profit, no doubt.


The second image was of Arnie in full pose. It’s that arm that does it. Is it just a trick of the light, or does my child have arms like 'a condom stuffed with walnuts' (to use Clive James’ famous description of The Governator)? I mean, look at that arm! Alpha’s doin’ The Pump!


My third thought was of Ralph Fiennes’ Voldemort from Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire, (I think it's the nostrils), but I didn’t dwell on its significance, and flashed straight to the other end of the scale with a perhaps more common response to the look of an ultrasound:


Although I’m hoping my child isn’t going to be very naughty or the Messiah.


The second ultrasound image we got elicited only the appropriate and desirable “Awwww” reaction from me. A tiny little left foot.

See here for 19 weeks, and here for 9 weeks.

Whale of a sale.

An amusing snippet from the deadtree edition of The Age earlier this week.

Whale of a sale
February 3, 2006.

LONDON. It used to be a practice confined to pacts with the devil, but now an anonymous US vendor is attempting to sell the soul of the whale that died two weeks ago after swimming up the River Thames. Internet auction site eBay has said it can’t sell things that people don’t own and will take the item off its site. But the vendor is undeterred. “I was accompanying the poor whale in his last journey, and he handed his soul to me. He asked me to sell it, so I could invest the money raised in other bottlenosed whales,” he said. The whale was actually female.

The Lion, etc.

Did you hear me being interviewed on the radio the other week about my thoughts on The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe? Ok sure, I was actually just one of a number of callers to ABC talkback, and yes, it was a discussion with Tracy Bartram, but my voice still travelled out across the length and breadth of this wide, brown land we call home... well, across Victoria anyway.

Tracy didn’t like the film, but that’s ok because I don’t like Tracy. I find her irritating, like lemon juice flicked into your eyes.

Tracy was hosting the 774 Breakfast Program while Red Symons was on holiday, and I’ll tell you, there are few things that can snap you into consciousness faster than the coarse sound of Tracy’s voice in the morning. Like a sharp jab to the larynx, it slices through the fog of slumber and wrenches you awake, triggering an apoplectic fit as you flounder frantically for the Snooze button.

Anyway, just as I was about to hurl the alarm clock at the wall, Tracy asked for listeners to phone in with their opinions of the Narnia movie, and started to give her own. My curiosity was captured, and my hand was stayed. For the moment at least. As I said before, she didn’t like it, which put her at odd with her callers, who all did. I wasn’t going to call in, but then I heard her say that one thing that irritated her was that you’ve got these English children in a very English movie and then they go through the wardrobe and the first creature they meet is an American beaver! To me, the beavers’ British accents placed their origin elsewhere, so I thought I’d call to set her straight.

The show’s producer answered the phone and asked for my name and suburb, which I gave her. “Did you like the film,” she asked? “Yes, I did,” I replied. “Ah, good. So did I. She’s on her own here.” He, he.

When I got through to Tracy I told her I liked the film but that I was calling because she’d said that the beavers were American when they were clearly English. The only American accent came from Morgrim the wolf. “Oh no,” she clarified, “I meant the beaver is an American animal.” One wonders why Tracy was troubled at seeing an American beaver in an English setting, but not an African lion, and a… well, you know, a faun, a unicorn, a centaur, and a minotaur? She asked me what I thought of the evil wolf being given an American accent, and I said I found it quite refreshing. Villains, more often than not, have British accents, while the heroes have American ones, as in Star Wars, for example, so I thought it was nice to see it the other way around. She said she guessed that was what was good about the ABC, that everyone was entitled to express their own opinion. I asked if she was going to read the book, and she said she had no intention of doing so. Which is a shame.

So yes, I was very happy with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Not a perfect film, but a very satisfying adaptation of the book. I thought Lucy and Edmund were brilliant. Great casting. Peter and Susan were mostly irritating, though fortunately not to the extent of Lucy from the 80’s TV series, who made me want to bash her head in with a paving stone. I also liked how the animals were just animals, and didn’t wear clothes like they did in the TV series. Strangely enough, they looked more dignified without pants on!

I thought the character development in the film was a little heavy-handed and awkward at times, particularly when it came to showing how selfish and irresponsible Edmund was. Yes, I get it! Move on! I don’t know if I would have had Liam Neeson’s voice for Aslan. His voice had the warmth and strength I was expecting, but not the majesty. Maybe James Earl Jones would’ve made the whole thing seem like The Lion King 2, but that’s who I’ve long heard as Aslan. He’s just incredible. (Except when he’s Darth Vader screaming “Noooooooo!” like some overacting, B-grade hack. Then he’s just awful; but, to be fair, I don’t think anyone could have made that line work.)

Contrary to some early reports, the film wasn’t cunning Christian proselytising designed to poison children’s minds with Christian values and soften them up like some sort of pre-evangelism. The underlying allegory was there if you wanted to see it, and easy to miss if you didn’t. In fact, if you didn’t know anything about Christianity, the Christian references would go right over your head. I think a lot of people have been getting too worked up over the issue. The story may be influenced by that of Christianity, but, as Age writer Philippa Hawker recently pointed out, it’s also influenced by “E. Nesbit, Enid Blyton, The Wind in the Willows, Greek mythology, Norse tales, Hans Christian Andersen and schoolboy chivalric fantasies”. Whatever its influences are, I think it’s a wonderful story with a positive message that anyone can enjoy and benefit from hearing.

So one down, somewhere between four and six more to go, depending on who you talk to (apparently not all the books would do well as films). I just hope they make The Last Battle (and make it well), which is my favourite of the Narnia books. Actually, I wonder if people will still call this one ‘Narnia’ when the other films are out? I know ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ is a bit of a mouthful, but that, not ‘Narnia’, is the film’s title. Yes, yes, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is the actual title, but if you have to shorten anything it should be the book title, not the series title. What’s wrong with “The Lion, etc.” for example? I think that’s what I’ll use. Maybe people will call them Narnia 1, Narnia 2, and so on? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

A Concise History of the Annual Christmas Slurpee Toss.

Slurpee Tossing was a well-established pastime well before it became an integral part of the Annual Christmas Stolp. Its origins can reliably be traced back to Templestowe, Australia in the early Nineties, where a teenage boy named Bart was rapidly developing an interest in tossing. He’d toss whatever he could get his hands on, and, growing up in Templestowe with its abundance of trees, it wasn’t long before he discovered sticks. His love for tossing sticks was so great that he even acquired the (somewhat uninspired) nickname, Stickboy.

We couldn’t go for a stolp without Stickboy eventually spying a stick somewhere and running off to hurl it as far as he could. Templestowe Primary School, No. 1395 (RIP), with its outdoor basketball courts and high brick walls, provided many markers to measure height and distance, and was a natural throwing ground. Playing basketball there would only amuse Bart for so long before he’d suggest a competition to see who could toss the ball the furthest. We’d usually all agree. I’m not sure what it is, but there’s certainly something primeval about tossing. Maybe it taps into a Scotch ancestry and their love of tossing the caber? Who can say?


Anyway, Bart, as stated before, would toss whatever was at hand, and amongst our little group, Slurpees were often at hand. What would have started as a bit of fun, quickly became a competition with rules, boundaries and champions. A favourite area for tossing was the Parker Street basketball court at the Primary (above), with the canteen roof being the benchmark for success. Hitting the roof was good, but hitting the roof and sliding your cup over the far side onto the oval was best.

Eventually, one year, ‘Christmas’ and ‘Toss’ were put together, and the Annual Christmas Slurpee Toss was born. In 1994 our beloved Primary was bulldozed and replaced with netball courts. The landscape had changed, but our connection to the location had not. If we couldn't aim for the canteen roof or the downball wall, we'd just have to find something new. Fortunately, the new netball courts were well-suited to hosting the fierce competition of the Slurpee Toss, and the tradition lived on. The pictures below are from the first Slurpee Toss to be photographed in 2003.

Here we see the efforts of Steve and Kate, with the former caught sliding into disqualification.


Next came Cobbies. Check out his flying cup and straw with its spangled trail of ice.


And finally a barefoot Bart, who set the current Toss Record with a massive effort over the shelter and onto the lower netball court.


See here for the Slurpee Toss 2004 and here for the Slurpee Toss 2005.

See here for 'A Concise History of the Annual Christmas Stolp'.

The world isn’t worse, Part 2.

The tram driver leaped from his stationary tram and bolted across the road towards me, narrowly being missed by a car as it sped through the intersection. He flew down the footpath, jagged to his right, and skidded into one of those old-style, phone box-sized urinals dotted throughout the city. Sometimes when you gotta go, you really gotta go.

Now, I catch trams up Swanston Street all the time, so I’m used to seeing tram drivers making for the facilities. Many’s the time I’ve been late for work and I’ve had to sit watching as the driver wanders off to the little building at the intersection of Swanston and Victoria, only to return once we’ve missed at least one cycle of lights.

But here’s the issue. This tram wasn’t at the intersection of Swanston and Victoria. It was the next stop along. Not the usual spot for a pitstop. There is a toilet there, but it’s hidden around the corner, and certainly not in sight of those on the tram.

I think there’s a finite number of likely reasons for your driver to suddenly flee his or her tram, with the most likely made less likely as you’ve just passed the normal spot. Given my own near-brush with tram-bound terrorism, I could easily imagine myself leaping to conclusions before frantically leaping from the vehicle.

There was no panic on the tram, however, no-one screaming, no-one hurling women and children behind them as they lunged for the doors. No-one looked alarmed, or even particularly alert actually. Maybe he’d made an announcement beforehand, “Sorry folks, I thought I was right back there, but wouldn’t you know it? So if you can just bear with me…”

I guess I’ll never know. And life in Melbourne went back to normal.

A Concise History of The Annual Christmas Stolp.

As I've just posted the first couple of Annual Christmas Stolp posts, perhaps some 'stolping' history is in order.

stolp /'stolp/ vb. colloq. to travel by foot amongst company from home to a 7-Eleven to purchase a Slurpee.

As a teenager there was always plenty to do in Templestowe, as long as you liked walking to the local 7-Eleven to get a Slurpee, which, fortunately, we did. The word 'stolp' was first used by Cobbies in 1990 to describe people walking around his school who looked funny. We all liked the word and began to use it ourselves. Gradually it came to mean walking in general, and seeing as most times when we walked, we walked to 7-Eleven, the specific destination was soon added to the definition.

Them ol' days were simple days. When someone called up and said, "Stolp?", you knew what they were asking. It was handy to have "Do you want to go up the street and get a Slurpee and possibly a donut if they're fresh today and then maybe play some basketball at Templestowe Primary School and if you say yes, I'll call the others and then meet you at the bottom of my hill in, say, ten minutes?" compressed into one word. A phone call could be that simple: Hello? Stolp? Yep. Click.

The photo below is from an early stolp in 1993. The earnest expressions do seem somewhat ridiculous, especially as we're posing in front of a hopscotch, but there you go.


The date of the first Christmas Stolp has been lost in the mists of time, but one year 'stolp' and 'Christmas' were put together, and the Annual Christmas Stolp was born. The idea was that before the madness of Christmas Day really set in, we'd all take the time to get together, wish each other a Merry Christmas, and go up the street for a Slurpee. The first Annual Christmas Stolp we photographed was in the year of our Lord 1996 (below).


The Annual Christmas Stolp 1997.


The Annual Christmas Stolp (featuring Bart’s biceps) 1998.


1999 brought an obstacle that threatened to tear the still young tradition apart. JJ went to live in America, so, for the first time, one of the five was going to be missing. A plan was formed, however, whereby he would stolp to the 7-Eleven in Sparks, Nevada (where he was going to be) at the same time that we'd be going to ours in Templestowe. We'd take a photo of him up with us, and he'd call one of us on a mobile, so he'd be there in image and voice, not just in spirit. The timing needed to be just right, and it was. Just as we set the camera up for the photo, JJ rang through, and the Christmas Stolp was saved.



The Annual Christmas Stolp (featuring possibly JJ’s lowest depth in hairstyles) 2000.


The Annual Christmas Stolp 2001.


2002 was Ladies’ Day at The Stolp! A trifecta of Ks: Kirst, Kate and Kerry (the KKK) came along for their first Christmas Day Slurpee.


2003 saw Ahab & Naomi head off to Sweden over Christmas, where, to paraphrase Samuel Taylor Coleridge, there’s ‘ice, ice, everywhere, nor any Slurpee to drink’. So Ahab came with us in the usual fashion, (as did his parents for their first Stolp), and was also there in spirit.


By 2003 there was only one who’d been present in person for every Christmas Stolp, year in, year out: me. Hooray. I didn't win anything though. Not even a sunhat or a pair of orthonadontic sandals. Maybe next year. See here for 2004 and here for 2005.

See here for 'A Concise History of the Annual Christmas Slurpee Toss'.

The Annual Christmas Slurpee Toss 2004.

Ahab kicked off the Annual Christmas Slurpee Toss 2004, and set a remarkable new low. His cup cleared the fence of the netball court (an admirable achievement) but it wasn’t the far fence in front of him, it was the nearby fence off to his left (not an admirable achievement).


Kate was the sole female tosser in 2004, and she chose to experiment with an unconventional, under-arm toss. It wasn’t her furthest throw ever, but it did get further than Ahab, and at least it landed on the court.


Davet was up next, and tried a little experimentation of his own. New strategies and techniques are secretly considered by all tossers in the lead up to the event. How much Slurpee should I leave in the cup? Will a larger cup suffer from greater wind resistance? Would a throwing or lobbing technique be the most effective? Am I seriously here throwing a Slurpee cup into the air when I need to be at my family’s in 20 minutes? Anyway, this year Davet devised the controversial clutch grip, whereby he crushed close the top of the cup and threw it like a grenade. His cup just cleared the court, so maybe the technique has some merit.


Benn stepped up with great confidence and hurled his cup over the court and beyond the shelter. It was an impressive throw, and would be tough for final tosser, Steve, to beat.


Steve gave it his best with a strong toss, but only managed to make the white line. Benn was crowned Slurpee Toss King 2004. The absent and now dethroned King, Bart, was heard bellowing belligerently from Belgrade. He’d have to wait until 2005…


The Final Results (official): 1. Benn, 2. Davet, 3. Steve, 4. Kate...


...and 5. Ahab.

The Annual Christmas Stolp 2004.

In 2004 the ranks were hit hard. JJ & Kerry were in the US, Bart was in a bar in Belgrade, and Cobbies was… actually, where was Cobbies?! JJ&K called in from Foggy Bottom, Washington DC, on Christmas Eve at 17:00 Local Time, and Bart, as previously mentioned, was in a bar… so join the dots on whether or not he called in.


Like the Diggers' grandkiddies turning out for Anzac Day, 2004 saw new blood swell the numbers. 2004 also saw an earth-shaking change to tradition. During the year, all the original stolpers had moved out of Templestowe, and in a surprising twist of fate, Davet had bought a house and moved in! Keen to join in with the time-honoured Templestowe tradition, Davet and housemate Benn said they’d be there on Christmas morning. As they were now the only Locals, it seemed appropriate to move the kick-off point from its traditional location at the bottom of Kelvinside Drive, to a new one at their place. The proposal for the shift was met with some degree of trepidation, but it ended up working quite well (less hills to climb on the new route, you see).

The Annual Christmas Slurpee Toss 2005.

A much-anticipated part of the Annual Christmas Stolp is the Annual Christmas Slurpee Toss. Perennial favourite Bart was absent in 2004, so his sought-after title, Slurpee Toss King, went to first-time stolper Benn. With Bart's return in 2005, a showdown loomed.

Davet went first, with his controversial clutch-grip. His strong toss cleared the netball court, but didn't quite make grass.


Cobbies emptied his pockets, tossed hard, and landed his cup in line with Davet's.


Then Ahab stepped up, keen to make up for his shameful effort in 2004 where although his cup travelled a fair distance, that distance was sideways. His toss this year was much improved and fell just short of Davet and Cobbies.


Next up was Bart, keen to regain his crown, and full of his usual bluster and cockiness. After an affected warm-up throw for the crowd, he unloaded, clearing the shelter and landing his cup next to the fence of the second netball court. Not his furthest toss ever, but an impressive distance nonetheless.


Steve was once again caught foot-faulting by the camera, so his so-so throw that didn't clear the court didn't count anyway. Maybe next year.


Finally came Toss King Benn, keen to slap Bart down. The tension was immense as his cup sailed over the netball court and into the shelter, where it skittered underneath the back wall and came to rest on the grass… still a couple of metres from Bart’s cup.


Bart, Slurpee Toss King 2005.


The Final Results (official): 1. Bart, 2. Benn, 3. Davet, 4. Cobbies, 5. Ahab. Disqualified: Steve.


See you in 2006.

The Annual Christmas Stolp 2005.

Well, there was a good turn-out for the Annual Christmas Stolp this year, with JJ and Kerry the only truants. They were sunning themselves up north in Queensland, but still faithfully trooped on down for a Slurpee to their local 7-Eleven, albeit a shade too early due to some time-zone trickery. The required call was still made at the right time though, so it all worked out fine.


2005 saw our first ever non-human stolper in Stolichnaya the Samoyed! First-time stolpers are always welcome, especially ones that enjoy a good Slurpee, and Stoli certainly met that criteria, even if he didn't go for the Super.


2005 also saw the first in utereo stolp, with 'Alpha' along for the ride. Hopefully brain freezes don't affect foetal development.

Richmond to Reservoir.

Well, the big move from Richmond to elsewhere within Zone 1 is over, and it all went surprisingly well. The removalists’ technique was a shade casual, (more akin to airport baggage handlers), but they were friendly and obliging, even cracking the odd joke here and there, so it could have been worse. Actually, from what I’ve heard of other people’s moving experiences, much, much worse.

The only casualties for the day were one ceramic platter and 46 CD cases, but who’s counting. The so-called “packing tape” that I bought turned out to be as sticky as a Post-It note. You’d seal up your box and come back later to find it clinging on with only a breath of grip. It was like bark peeling from a tree come… tree peeling season, or whatever it’s called when bark starts to peel. I bought replacement tape, but must have missed re-taping the box with all my CDs. The removalist guy decided to upend the box to get it on the trolley, and… whoops. Over the years I’ve built up quite a large collection of spare cases for occasions such as this when new cases are needed. When packing to move, however, you’re reminded of how much junk you own and so look for any excuse to hurl as much as you can into the bin. As I generally take good care of my CDs, my large collection of emergency cases had done nothing but collect dust on top of a bookshelf for years and years, so they were looked upon with little mercy. I actually remember thinking, “Seriously, when am I going to need this many CD cases?”

The whole situation recalled to mind one of my favourite words from Douglas Adams and John Lloyd's, The Meaning of Liff.

NOTTAGE (n.) Nottage is the collective name for things which you find a use for immediately after you’ve thrown them away. For instance, your greenhouse has been cluttered up for years with a huge piece of cardboard and great fronds of gardening string. You at last decide to clear all this stuff out, and you burn it. Within twenty-four hours you will urgently need to wrap a large parcel, and suddenly remember that luckily in your greenhouse there is some cardb...

Anyway, moving’s weird. You wake up in the morning in one place, and then go to sleep in another. That’s not so uncommon, I guess, you do that when you go on holiday, but moving is like going on holiday and taking ALL your earthly belongings with you. Which actually sounds pretty good to me. I hate leaving my books at home when I go away, and I hate having to try to anticipate what I’ll need. You never know quite when Fowler’s Guide to English Usage is going to come in handy, but if I take that, it’s The Columbia Encyclopaedia I need, but if I take that… Oh look, I survive, and at least I’m not starving to death or being eaten by vultures, but all I’m saying is my life’d be a spot easier if I could have all my books on my Palm, please.

Ok, anyway, so in the space of a few hours I’ve gone from living in one place, to living in another that, up until a few months ago, I’d never been to in my life. First impressions are good! The street’s nice, the local shops are close, many and varied, the train station’s also close and the commute to work takes only a few minutes longer than it did from Richmond! And I believe there’s even a 7-Eleven within walking distance, although it could be a fair walk, I couldn’t judge the scale in the Melway. Investigation will be required.

Connex Pronounces ‘Reservoir’ Issue Settled.

In the Blue Corner, it’s the contender you love to hate, weighing in at 120 pounds of total pretentiousness and upper-class snobbery, it’s the delicate, puffed-up, featherweight, Reser-VWAH!

Boo! Hiss!

And in the Red Corner, it’s The Champ, weighing in at a hulking 250 pounds, it’s the mass of the masses, the down to earth, salt of the earth, Reser-VOR!

Yay! Woooooo!

But what’s this? Stepping into the ring, it’s a new contender, and it’s a woman! She’s sponsored by Connex, she’s smooth, confident, professional and focus-group approved, it’s the striking middleweight… Reser-VWOR!

Reser-VWOR? Coming home on the train last night, I thought I’d hear what the disembodied Connex “Next Station” woman had to say on the issue of how to pronounce ‘Reservoir’. I thought she could easily go one way or the other, but never expected her to go bang up the middle, forging this new, hybrid, son of a motherless goat.

I’m not sure about ‘VWOR’. Maybe it is the best of both worlds: a cultural adaptation that retains the spirit of the original; but it sounds a lot like “Phwoar” to me, and brings to mind Rik from The Young Ones, secretly reading his Cosmo magazine behind the locked door of his bedroom.

I don’t know. It’s too hard to make a decision. Maybe I’ll just have to stick with ‘Rezimate’?