It’s been a football kinda week.

 On Friday 21 I took the car out for a toddle and arrived at ANZ stadium to see the Pies play the Swans. I should have known that a loss at the opponent’s home ground would lead me to want to poke out one of my eyes with a bodkin. I would then truly be the one eyed supporter my friends accuse me of.

Good thing my fellow Magpie lover and I had bought a stash of gin and tonic so we could slink off discretely to our room – above the victory hotel – and drown our sorrows.  Equally fortuitous was the fact that mobile service was intermittent so we had a good excuse to ignore calls from the ABC followers (Anyone But Collingwood). Regardless of their mighty persistence….if only the boys had been…but I am drifting off into daydream….

Monday was Brownlow day and despite his two weeks in-house suspension for being a naughty boy, I still held a faint hope that Swannie might do it two years in a row. He came close.

I love the red carpet bit where the footy wives and dates parade and tell us who has donated their gown, and the boys do likewise with their suits - which are all remarkably similar. 

Brynne Edelsten is my favourite, and this year’s ballooning tutu number was a stand out. You have to give her points for brazen sassiness. I might even have to put a reminder in to my telly so it pokes me when her reality show starts.

But I didn’t vote for her in my top three best dressed and I obviously got that wrong anyway as my free tickets to the grand final have not arrived yet.

The medal presentation had some interesting moments. I’m sure the table didn’t know that their conversation had been picked up when one ‘date’ who tried to straddle her footballer’s knee and  give him mouth to mouth resuscitation,  was told in very stern terms by the Captain’s wife  to: Get off  him. Interestingly, Miss slinky red dress was nowhere to be seen when the cameras panned the table the next time.

There were great video clips. I liked that Jaffa headed up the fans section. I liked the tag line we’ve seen for the finals: This is greatness – although in the universal scheme of things that’s probably something of an overstatement. …..And if you count the Pies form last Friday it was anything but great…..whoops...I digress again…… 

Back to my point.  Behind Jaffa’s head as the clip came to an end was loomed large: THIS IS 

GRATENESS.

Irony?  I ask myself .

Are they trying to say something about fans being grating?

Is this a go at the literacy level of Collingwood fans that my so called friends refer to continually during football season? 

Or, did someone just stuff up?

As the week went on I finally was able to breathe out again when Travis signed for the next five years with the knowledge that Mick would not whisk him away to the arch rivals Caaaaarlton, And I can continue to watch him throw hands-full of dirt each week - that's literally, not figuratively.

So, I’m now preparing for the grand final. This year I won’t have to sit on the edge of the seat, fear a heart attack, or listen to the abuse of the ABC supporters.  I will even get to hear Paul Kelly instead of the bat out of hell let loose previously by someone who obviously had bats in the belfry.

 And I won’t miss out on the barbeque because I am sobbing in to my tissue.

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This week's art work:

 The best I can do given I am posting early.

You have already seen the magpie and the swan. I have not got a picture of a hawk....so you will have to settle for a chook.... at least it's still in the bird family.

Spartacus. Acrylic on canvas

Don’t even think about buying me a bidet for my Birthday

I have the best hairdresser in the world. I walk in, he transforms me from frumpy grey-rooted granny to funky fashion goddess – well, I may be exaggerating.

 He asks:

 What we are doing today.

I respond:

Whatever you like. 

He knows I want to be able to see that my hair has been coloured and primped. On any visit I can come out with highlights/streaks/foils of anything from vibrant reds and purples to ginger or blonde.

You can tell me I’m too old for that stuff, but I say: Bah! Humbug! 

And the champagne that comes with the cutting and styling is much better than the crappy machine coffee that I used to get at the local shop down the road.  I lay back in the massage chair and drift away.  Gosssip costs me, but it’s worth it.

This is where I also get my bi-monthly dose of trash. I flick through the salon magazines looking at glamorous apparently famous people, their bouncing babies, bodacious beaus, tantalising toyboys, sizzling six packs, nauseating nips and tucks, botoxed face masks,  beestung  lips, bazookered breasts, booty blow outs and six foot handbags/manbags.

I know that nothing I read or see here is remotely true. It’s fantasy land in glitzy gowns set in glamorous gardens.

But today I found a rogue magazine that had sneaked in to the pile.  It has an article that takes the cake.

It’s headed The BEST present ever and I quote Sylvia Ross’ words:

Usually every mother’s day my children buy me stockings or pillows, but this year they surprised me totally. I came home and found that they had changed my toilet seat…..I simply press a button and I get a warm water wash and a warm air dry. Now my toileting is a time of luxury, it is the best mother’s day present I have every got.

If I started to tell you how I would rather my nether parts were warmed, this post would be x- rated.

It’s my Birthday this week and if anyone changes my toilet seat for one that washes and dries they can expect to be told to bugger off.

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This week's art works

These are details from a series of drawings related to a number of months in 2011.

If I did one for this month it would have the champagne bottles for celebrations and commiserations.

A Few Days in March

A Few Days In July

  The original drawings can be seen in full at:

http://www.thickerthanwater.com.au/index.php?option=com_zoo&task=category&category_id=3&Itemid=223&page=3

No Disruption to Services

So, what’s been happening for the past twenty years?

Nothing it seems, given the tacky photographs being widely circulated involving a latterday Windsor on holiday in a secluded chalet belonging to a cousin-in-law.

We obviously still have shock jock photographers peering through bushes, disguised as bower birds, looking to collect all the sparkling blue bits that they can use to feather their nests.

But the thing is: 

I don’t care. 

I don’t care if Harry flashes his ginger bits and wobbles around like a pubescent teenager. 

Nor do I care if Kate sunbakes topless behind a green bush, behind a tree, behind a wall, behind a bus shelter. 

If I really want to see naked bits I could surf the net and find anything that took my fancy. But the thing is, the police would come knocking on my door and accuse me of downloading porn. 

I’d really rather look at the bodies of the Bangarra Dance Company and watch their sinuous, lithe bodies transcend the divide between traditional and contemporary dance in a fluid expression of Lake Eyre. 

I’d rather look at the bodies of the Collingwood footballers whose hours and hours of training produce finely tuned athletes, and if luck has it a place in the Grand Final.

I’d rather look at a contorted Picasso, a wrinkly Bacon, a magnificent Michelangelo.

And I’d rather read Murray Bail.

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This week's Art work

I'd rather be edified by Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus 3: After Murray Bail.  Acrylic, tissue, graphite and fishing fly on paper

 

How much more could we want

How much more could we want

In May of this year I visited Kenya. I was lucky enough to visit a Masai village. The women own and build their houses. Sure they are composed of twigs and cow dung, and the three rooms are dark and smoky. They are thrilled with their issue of mosquito nets- a government initiative that I read is significantly cutting down deaths and instances of malaria.

Kids go to school for part of the day. They study a basic curriculum including English, and are very thankful to Australians for the aid that has allowed this program to strengthen.  A Masai warrior tells me that they have not done well with educating women and that this is a priority they have to turn their efforts to.

Their diet is cow - milk, blood and meat. I ask over and over- what about vegetables- but I am assured they are not part of the diet.

One of the men I speak to has a university education. Not particularly useful in the village he says, but it allows him to go off to work and earn for the community. They are a proud people determined to maintain their culture and seemingly content with  life. 

Meanwhile back home, I am being bombarded with things I need.

There’s permeate free milk – what is that?  I appear to  have been drinking non permeate free milk all my life with no obvious side effects. Mind you, I have tried at times to focus on my third eye.

When I passed menopause I thought I was out of the reach of the feminine hygiene product market. But oh no - they have found something else I need: snug little pads for LBS. That’s leaking bladder syndrome. Apparently I can expect that to develop some time soon. 

I obviously need a better education system because Gonski says we have  to strengthen and reform Australia’s schooling system. Mind you, I, my daughters and my granddaughter have all had perfectly good education under different Australian schooling systems, regimes and philosophies for over 60years.

Gina Rinehart thinks I need to give up drinking and smoking (I did the latter light years ago) and work for less than $2 a day because then she can have even more of the things she wants. 

What I want is for her to come and dig in my backyard for $2 a day so I could have even more vegetables planted for summer.  She could even help spread some mulch.

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This Week's Art Work

Here's one for Gina...If I take your advice and give up drinking do I have to give up drawing anything to do with it as well?

 

Pen, ink and acrylic wash on paper. 

560x760 cm

Never too old to learn

Never too old to learn

I’m amazed how much you can learn from television. I’m in the middle of a very detailed drawing that it taking years (or so it seems) to complete. I have the TV on for background noise. Normally I don’t turn it on before midday, but I did today, and boy, what have I been missing.

Today I’ve learned that my hair will prematurely age if I don’t use the right products. 

Now I have recently listened to the science show on Radio National (or the more cool RN if you will) and there is some scientific argument that says as parts of the body are formed and born milliseconds before others, we are not the same age all over…interesting thought, but not what I think my TV hairstylist was trying to demonstrate.

In addition, I have seen the Hoover vacuum salesman that came to our door when I was a child. With a houseproud mother who swept the yard, inspecting  the contents of the vacuum bag after it had been over the apparently cleaned floor was just too much to bear. We ordered immediately. Today I can buy a Shark mop which steam cleans everything – using both sides no less-  wiping away any vestige or wear, tear, dirt and grime- I wonder how it would go on my face?

Instead of the dirt being tipped out on to paper to prove how much stuff it removes, in the new techno age you shine an  ultra violet light and it shows the left behinds as little blue sparkly bits.  I’m amazed I have not died of some residual bug that has been living unnoticed in my floors and carpets forever.  

But the worst is that no matter what the product , the promoters are soooo excited and enthusiastic about it that it sounds as though the inventor has found a cure for poverty and famine.

I’m not going out (or ringing up) to buy any of this stuff. Is there something wrong with me?

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 Today's Art work

This is not the picture I am currently working on, but it's an example of the style. 

Unfortunately this one went to God in an accident at the Canberra Outdoor Art Show earlier in the year.

It was a pen and ink drawing on paper (760 x 560mm)