Many moons ago I was in a choir. In the year 2000 we performed a concert at Wollongong Town Hall, ‘In bed with the Wollongong Gay and Lesbian Solidarity Quior’. This is a recording from that show, Sweet Dreams.
I post this with love and respect to Ros and Cecily. x x
You can hear the song by clicking below.
With thanks to Vanessa Webb who sent along this photo, and who is, in her own words, “Second from the left – completely star struck!”
I was one of those lucky kids whose parents were fine with me watching Number 96.
To me it was high camp, absurdist, drama, vaudeville, and I loved it. The next day my best girlfriend and I would sit in class and relive the previous nights episode. We would pass back and forth our text books, and where onto historical photographs we had drawn speech bubbles with quotes from Dorrie, so you would have a dinosaur saying, ‘Herbert, it’s all too much, I’m at the point of going Beresk!!’.
Yes it’s true I’m not very good at maths, but as a ten year old, Number 96 shaped me far more into the man I would become, than endless repetitions of times tables. Little did my ten year old self know that when I was proclaiming everything to be ‘Bona’, I was actually speaking my future heritage of Polari.
For more on Number 96 please visit the fantastic Facebook group HERE
I wrote this in 1996, which is like . . twenty years ago now (gulp!).
All these songs are posted with the clear knowledge and understanding on my part, that at no time am i under any illusion that i’m actually a ‘singer’. So, with that in mind, take any of these indulgences i post with a healthy pinch of salt.
Seeing this photo reminds me of the time when i was nine years old. I’d just walked out of this David Jones department store with my brother. In the above pic you can see a large white wall with black lettering on it, this wall was made up of large white tiles.
My brother was walking ahead of me, as i followed, a large section of the tile wall collapsed, it literally fell all around me. Somehow, and it was only fate and good fortune, not one of the tiles hit me. I stood there in shock, people were just staring, i remember one lady saying ‘How did that miss you!?’.
Weird, and something i hadn’t really thought about too much until i just saw this photo, in hindsight, that really was a lucky escape.
Could we at least consider 2016 the year the world contemplates banning the handkerchief?.
In so many areas mankind has evolved in regards to sanitation, but for some reason a rag carried in a persons pocket, soaked in mucous is okay?. There is no dribble, no ooze, no drip, no smear that cannot be dealt with by a disposable, hygienic tissue.
My line in the sand came last week, when during lunch, someone nonchalantly pulled a hanky from their pocket, and what was to my eyes a slow motion moment of horror, proceeded to ‘snap’ and shake the hanky like a magician.
I clearly heard ‘The crackle’ as dried matter fractured. What flew from this rag was not a white dove or feathers, but something sickening and foul. Tho minuscule and dust like, It was disgusting, and it was unnecessary.
I’m assuming ‘users’ don’t have some ritual of cleansing these, let’s be blunt, snot rags, quarantined from their other washing?. So, they go in with everything else?, snot socks, snot jocks, snot tea towels?.
We’ve moved beyond cloth arse rags and sanitary pads, it’s time to call stumps on this last holdover from a bygone era, it’s really disgusting when viewed by a person outside the habit.
This topic will be covered and illustrated in much greater, graphic detail in my forthcoming book, ‘Elizabeth’s etiquette for people with poise’.
