Rumblerumblerumblrumblecl-clack-cl-clack-tic-clack-tic-tic-tictic-clack…scrrrrreeeeee….the train rumbles through the dark, dirty air, screaming and screeching along the uneven tracks, lurching side to side like some kind of obscene small town carnival ride. The rickety, underventilated coffins are covered in a thin layer of grime, as if from a diesel fire. Where does the grime come from? The tunnels, seeping water in the nadir of winter? Or the condensation from the breath of commuters? Keep your hand in your pockets…don’t touch a thing…it’s only 5 minutes from Waterloo to Bank…can you steady yourself on your legs alone? Receiving condescending glances from other sardines as you bump around like a pinball in the glare of overhead fluorescent lights? Morning newspapers rustle and eyes strain….gossip, filth and perversion hot off the press! Who wants one? Just ingest it, forget it, leave it behind for the workers to pick up. You paid 2 quid for this ride – it’s no longer your responsibility. A man sits in the corner….collar curled downwards, sweat-stained….drab, lilac-striped shirt of the office drone. His eyes peer through his thick glasses, seeming to almost separate from his soft, pudgy face as he cranes his neck, flares his nostrils, scans an advertisement opposite his seat. His left hand holds a pack of sweetened peanuts, and the aroma of burnt sugar mixes with the potpourri of human sweat, halitosis and the stench of defeat. Tipping the bag, his right hand mechanically receives a peanut, takes it to his mouth where he grinds it to a sickly sweet pulp, mouth open, crumbs cascading down his sugar-stained chin. All the while his eyes never leave the poster, never have a flicker of recognition or any kind of thought. Like a robot…he’s been doing this for twenty years. Finishing the pack with the same expression, he crumples it up, throws it in the corner….it’s no longer his responsibility. Still staring goggle-eyed at the poster, he brings each of his pudgy fingers in turn to his mouth, sucking each loudly, once by one, until he gets to the little one. Starts over….thumb, index, middle, ring, pinky. His face registers a look of disdain – there’s still sugar in between the cracks of his glistening little paw…..hmmmm….holds up his hand, fingers spread, and once again brings his hand to his mouth. He considers it for a moment. Out pokes a fat, grey tongue, slithering between his fingers like a snake…..each crevice in turn, the serpent seeks out each last grain of sweetness, twisting, contorting until it has gone, to be replaced with his saliva. Nobody seems to notice…..are these people even alive? The occasional sneeze or cough says yes, but they are dead inside…worker bees on the way to the hive. Silent, grey-faced…they have conditioned themselves to not think as to avoid boredom at work. Scrreeeeee…..clackclack…screeee….scree…silence……. the train has stopped. Looks of fear mixed with boredom wash over the commuters’ faces…an awareness of being stuck here amongst these – animals! becomes a reality. People look around, notice the sweat rings in armpits, dripping down the lower back and seeping through rumpled shirts….zits…badly-applied makeup….patches of facial hair missed by the Bic….these people are disgusting! And you are one of them! The fear sets in, you may be here a long time. A cold rush somewhere between your stomach and heart grips you as anxiety sets in, dissipates as the train inches forward again. Whirr…..wum…whirr..rrummm…rumblerumble…ticktickclackclack, back to the steady rhythm.
This-is-Waterloo-Station-Please-Mind-The-Gap….doors slide open, people shuffle, twist, step backwards out of the carriage….the pressing of bodies, the collective exhalation, the click of heels…the heat, the smell. Looks of purpose, finally, motivation to leave this place…these tunnels of stale air. A mass of people funnel towards the gates, fumbling for tickets, shouldering others out of the way….the beeping of the machines….dandruff on suits….body odour, shut it all out, you’ll be out in a minute…just the one last walk up the travelator….the ducking and weaving around the angry faces…shoes squeaking on the tiles…newspaper salesmen sitting glumly by their headlines…at last an opening – and breaking into the chill morning air, sweat cooling on the back of your neck with the sun on your face…the relief….

Look no further, don’t bother with anything else, I have found Sydney’s best radio station. It’s not Triple M with it’s ‘Added newness’. It’s not 2Day FM, with fellow narcissistics Kyle and Jackie O. It’s not Mix 106.5, where the love song dedications guy sounds exactly like my father and adds a whole new layer of creepiness to their 24-hour Celine Dion playlist. It’s not Triple J, the youth radio station who strives to be as alternative as possible, often at the cost of a good listening experience. If it’s deviant on some level, they will play it, no matter how shit the band is. It’s not 95.3 or 101.7 Classic Hits radio, who compete with each other to play the most narrow selection of banal ‘hits’ from the 60’s 70’s and Today. I swear to god if i hear Khe Sanh or Hotel California one more time I will spontaneously combust. No, it’s none of those. So what’s left?

2MBS

On what other station can you hear the eclectic mix of classical, opera, Jazz, Swing, Blues?…..and the full versions of the songs, not the 3 minute radio edit of CCR’s 12 minute Heard it Through the Grapevine!!! Nowhere! Ok, there’s some opera on now and I’ve never been able to identify with that, but the rest is golden. Maybe it’s my ultra-conservative upbringing, where, sitting on the oriental lounge room rug I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink on, or the excellently-coloured olive green couches that I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink on, or the dog-poo brown leather recliners I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink on, or any bloody other piece of furniture that was off limits to my juvenile co-ordination and ice creams, with countless hours of classical music and Richard Clayderman’s piano concertos bursting forth out of the vintage Marantz speakers that skewed my tastes. Or maybe not. I also listen to alot of heavy metal.

Regardless, any time you’re sick of radio DJ’s claiming they own the best setlist in Sydney, or when Peter Berner’s jokes are wearing thin…I’d give that 2 minutes…or when Triple J just doesn’t cut the mustard, flick it over to 2MBS and you won’t be disappointed. Besides, a bit of cultcha can’t hurt, can it?

* Enthusiasts of Rush will be awarded one point for noticing this title

Ok maybe I’m getting too wrapped up in this subject, maybe I’m giving it more attention than it deserves, but it’s something that really gets on my nerves and I have to get it out of my system some way or another. Yes, I’m talking about the people who line up 15 cars deep outside Woolworth’s Petrol to save an astronomical 4c per litre off their ever-increasing petrol bill. On the surface, it makes alot of sense I guess - with petrol so high these day ($1.70 at the time of writing), it would seem an excellent way to stick it to the oil companies and save enough money to buy a couple of always reasonably-priced Mars Bars at the counter. 2 for $4! Excellent stuff! You mean all I have to do is buy $30 worth of groceries to qualify? - and who amongst you hasn’t frantically darted around the aisles, looking for something you might ‘need’ to take you over the threshold when you’re up to $29.35? If you said no, you’re a liar. If you said yes, you’re an idiot. Woolworth’s makes their money by impounding their foregone profit on fuel into the prices of your milk, your bread, your cheese Doritos.

Everyone’s seen this phenomenon - the cavalcade of stationary cars spilling out onto arterial roads, engines rumbling, tailpipes puffing, like a disjointed snake, radios all tuned to the traffic report of which they are probably a part. They sit patiently, reminding themselves that it will be worth the wait - after all, they are saving an entire 4 cents per litre! Thats like, four per cent….right? Back in the days when petrol was 80 cents (somewhere in the era between the 2 World Wars it seems now), this was a much better deal. Why, if petrol slipped down to 50 cents (or even 40 cents!), you were practically making money. Those inscrutable oil cartels would be brought to their knees, crying into their headscarves, while you bullied your way around Sydney’s streets in the biggest, most decadent four wheel drive on the market….Oh, life was grand wasn’t it! At 80 cents, 4 cents represented 5% off the price - by no means a huge discount, but given how much that four wheel drive of yours drinks, you were making a killing in savings. Now, with petrol at 170 cents, and since the petrol company/supermarket juggernauts were clever enough to keep it as a fixed discount, that falls to somewhere around 2.35%. Stone the bloody crows, love, why doesn’t the government subsidise more of our petrol!!, I’ve gotta run this bloody great thing around! Well it’s a good thing we still get that discount, eh? That’s saved our hides!

“Good thing they’ve got good music on the radio, I bloody love Cold Chisel’s Khe Sanh!”

So there they are, every day as sure as the sun sets, waiting, idling, breathing fumes to get that discount. Is it cheapness that drives them? Does it make that much a difference to their household budget? Perhaps. What’s more overriding is a sweeping ignorance of what the real costs and benefits are. IN monetary terms, they might save 2.35%, but given the fuel they consume and the inefficiencies clogging their engines when their car is running at it’s lowest point, they need to to purchase astronomical amounts of that intoxicating (why does it smell so good??) sweet-smelling light pink liquid just to break even. To the layman, they might not consider this though - not everyone has access to data pertaining to the implicit costs of idling. What they don’t take into account is their time spent in those queues.

Humans have this incredible and unavoidable ability to measure things - name it and there will be someone measuring it….costs, revenues, GDP’s, GNP’s, ratings, unemployment, how many 5 cent pieces it would take to make a stairway to Mars. Even consultants, accountants, even these guys bill their time spent on working for you - why is your personal time any different? Just because they are punching numbers into a calculator, does that make their time any more valuable? Of course not. Are we to believe that these people in the queues place that little value on their own time - $2 for 15-20 minutes if they purchase 50 litres. Less if it’s a small car. Have they been so conditioned as to subconsciously think that saving a bit of money is more important than anything else? If they save the pennies, do the pounds look after themselves? I could go on rhetorically all day but it gets me too incensed - our society has turned into some giant homogeneous drone where the focus is not quality of life….but money. Little plastic notes that sure can make life alot sweeter, but are worthless if you don’t wisely choose the way to spend your time

Being possessed of a fairly short temper and a healthy disregard for my fellow man in general, I have decided out of boredom to compose a Kill/Maim List of all the people who annoy me. Keep in mind this is a list in progress and I will add to it probably fairly frequently.

1. Canadians (that’s right you moose-loving bastards, you’ve been elevated to number one)
2. Jack Johnson. I think I would die of boredom if I listened to his vanilla brand of ’surf-folk’
3. The members of Fall Out Boy
4. Any girl who thinks she is Carrie Bradshaw because she drinks Sauvignon Blanc, or worse, Cosmopolitans
5. People who have Frangipani stickers on their 4WD’s
6. People who sip lattes at Organic Cafes
7. People who are up before 9am on a Sunday morning when I’m making my way home. (See also No. 6)
8. Kyle Jones
9. People who use the word ‘fabulous’ when they aren’t gay….and even when they are
10. Street ‘Artisans’ who make shit jewelery out of coat hangers and don’t wash
11. Bob Dylan (he punches orphans)
12. People who play Bob Marley 24 hours a day in Hostel Receptions
13. Ecuadorians
14. The NSW State Government
15. Gordon Ramsay. He’s not a delicate genius - he’s a cunt
16. The people who write tampon ads
17. Nickelback
18. The woman who illustrates the Cathy comic strip. Where’s the fucking punch line?
19. People who play Sudoku during criminal trials
20. ‘Comedian’ Judith Lucy. You’re not fucking funny!
21. The woman who gave me my shoddy haircut last week. I paid $35 to look like a total gimp
22. Idiots who wear Bluetooth headset in public - when they’re not on the phone. Wankers!
23. People who queue 15 cars deep - idling, polluting, blocking traffic - so they can save FOUR cents per litre at Woolworth’s Petrol.
24. Maggie Alderson. Fashion editor drone who pumps out shallow books about finding the right Prada shoes and the right man; aspires to be Carrie Bradshaw
25. Sydney radio Dj’s who think that Jimmy Barnes is the greatest musical prodigy this nation has produced and reflect this by playing him ad nauseum. He’s not even bloody Australian - he’s Scottish and his name is James Swan!
26. The men who make grand, sweeping gestures to allow a woman to go ahead of him in a bus line, all whilst grinning broadly. You’re not King Arthur and chivalry is dead. Don’t try and revive it.
27. The inventor of the term ‘Credit Crunch’; and every untalented, unimaginative journalist who uses it it ad nauseum
28. The disgusting, wretched creatures who ride the Tube and eat their own dead skin/dandruff flakes in plain view
29.

Stay tuned….

It was with a sense of purpose and a little excitement that I decided to attend this year’s Sydney Writer’s Festival. I’ve never been to one before, but I’ve developed a keen interest in social commentary (read: ranting) and writing about useless things in general. I figured this would be a great opportunity to gather ideas from Australia’s top writers and journalists, and perhaps improve my writing style. The Festival promised to be:

…as wide ranging, profound and enjoyable as ever, with its wealth of riches covering fiction, nonfiction, poetry, journalism, scriptwriting, film, new media and much more.

Sounds good!

I even printed a little map and schedule of all the lectures I wished to attend, lest I miss the few that were not on Native Papua New Guinean colonial poetry. Those who know me well will not be surprised to discover this. The one thing I didn’t do was take notice of a little article written a while ago by The Chaser, basically skewering the Festival and it’s attendees. The thought hovered somewhere in the back of my mind while I surfed a perfect, empty point break this morning, but ambition got the better of me and I dragged myself out of the water and hopped on the bus.

The first thing you’ll notice about the festival is not the beautiful setting of Sydney’s Walsh Bay, nor the magnificent Harbour Bridge casting an impressive shadow over the piers, but the number of geriatrics plodding around. I’ve honestly never seen so much drab woolen wear in the one place! Gaggles of them swarm over the area’s two coffee machines, the two camp guys making coffees at a furious pace and deflecting requests for more froth on lukewarm cappuccinos. Wrinkled cohorts bunker down around the free samples of wine and canapes, snapping them up quicker than the haggard volunteers can produce them. Legions of Ross Gittins lookalikes line the piers, arriving an hour early for lectures, clutching the free programs, pants waist high, white socks peeking out at the bottom. Bumbags are at the ready, 10’s and 20’s rattling inside. I kind of expected to run into the Literary Elite, all adorned in brown velvet jackets and sporting Converse All Stars. Instead I was sharing theatres with three thousand Jessica Tandys. Who are these people? Where do they come from? I curse myself for falling into the trap of attending a free event on a weekday, but I can’t afford to sip chardonnay at the ticketed events.

Then there’s the pseudo-intellectuals (R. Macdonald et al 2008), all hovering around the writer’s green room, offering up ideas for novels, and asking prosaic questions through mouthfuls of cheese, while crumbs tumble down their chins. Riveting stuff!

Attack of the Ross Gittins Clones!

As with any commodity that is scarce, all elements of human decency go out the window. Seating was severely restricted, and instantly civility and decorum evaporated like a Maggie Alderson book that has been left in the sun. Mobile phones beeped during speeches, people chatted amongst themselves and elbowed others out of the way for a centre seat. The unemployed around me produced positive murmurs whenever the writer in question said anything particularly insightful, as if they were thinking it all along. Each lecture concluded with a short Q & A from the audience, mostly banal questions, save for a couple. Most used it as an opportunity to share their personal history and vaguely related it to a question for the author.

I saw two lectures in all. The first was by a character named Barry Divola, who, well into his late thirties, decided to investigate the secret life of backpackers on Australia’s well-trodden trail down the east coast. I’m not sure how someone up to 20 years the senior of an average backpacker hopes to reach some kind of insight, but needless to say, predictable jokes about sex, cirrhosis-scarred livers and 2 Minute Noodles were rife. For me, any credibility went completely AWOL when he complained of having to stay in a FIVE PERSON DORM. How distressing! Having just returned from a 6 month backpacking trip around Central and South America, I can assure him there are more terrible things than having a bathroom with a leaky shower head. Meanwhile the overweight, ageing host sat back smugly in his chair, legs askew, offering us all a full frontal of his crotch. Now that’s distressing.

The second lecture was definitely more fulfilling - an appearance by two Australian authors who had given it all up to live somewhere across the globe and write. March Llewellyn had a promising book based on his time living on a small island in Italy, and is probably worth a read. It’s called Finding Nino. A shitty pun but it sounded good. The topic was certainly very engaging and is a definite pipe dream of mine (should I ever get a real job).

By this stage - 2 hours - I was disheartened and bored, and since it was another 2 hours until my next lecture I trekked back up the hill to the Lord Nelson. I collapsed over thew bar in exasperation and ordered a pint of Three Sheets Ale. Whilst sitting by the fire, sipping the pints, and throwing a couple of cheeky smiles at the barmaid, I found it oddly difficult to return to the scene. I finally pulled myself away and trudged back to Pier 3, where a 50 metre line for my next lecture finally made up my mind for me. I turned on my heels, albeit a little unsteadily, and headed back to the bus.

All in all a disappointing day but at least I saw Rhys Muldoon.

Someone should tell them this is No country for old men

I know I’m not the first person to acknowledge the not so recent phenomenon of ‘Cheap Tuesdays’ at petrol stations in Sydney, and to see endless lines of consumers waiting idly in their cars for a discount of a whopping FOUR cents per litre by presenting their Woolworths/Coles dockets at the counter. Ok, fair enough, some people to have budgets to adhere to, and in a time when petrol is costing, at the lowest, 138.9cpl (cents per litre), maybe a 2.88% discount does make a difference to your weekly fuel budget. But how much difference? Well, because I’m bored and not working until tomorrow, I’m going to calculate the difference both in monetary and environmental terms. Obviously, the former will be quantitative, the latter qualitative.

I visited this site for some good stats on idling, and was surprised what I found. Keeping in mind that, for an 8 cylinder car (the new ingredient for many four wheel drives piloted by spectacularly, gainfully unemployed Northern Beaches mums (Bungalow J Wombat Esq. et al, 2008)), every 10 mins of idling uses 2.653 litres of petrol, so at today’s fuel price of 138.9 it would cost $3.69 to sit in your car breathing fumes. Hence, you would need to buy 92.12 litres to break even.

And this gets so much better. Check out this stat:

“An idling engine is not operating at its peak temperature, which means that fuel does not undergo complete combustion. This leaves fuel residue that can condense on cylinder walls, where they can contaminate the oil and damage parts of the engine. For example, fuel residues are often deposited on spark plugs. As you spend more time idling, the average temperature of the spark plug drops. This makes the plug get dirty more quickly, which increases fuel consumption by 4 to 5 %.”

4-5%….almost double the ’saving’ you are making on the fuel. Oh yeah, less that $3.69 cents idling cost. You are actually losing money, you giant fuckwit.
I can’t be bothered doing the calculations for those who are running air conditioners as well (probably most, as they are afraid to mess up the haircuts paid for by their husbands.), but it can increase emissions by up to 13%.

OK, now for the environmental costs:

* Idling adds to global warming. Every litre of petrol burnt puts 2.28 kilos of carbon dioxide into the air. So the 2.653 litres used releases around 6 kilos of carbon dioxide.
* Idling contributes to respiratory illness, especially in kids who are more susceptible to such diseases
* Idling damages engine components in our vehicles and adds to more oil use
* Idling wastes natural resources
* The queues generated by such tight-fistedness increase traffic on arterial roads, leading to even more petrol usage on Sydney’s already smog-covered motorways.

Oh, and tomorrow fuel is going to be around 158.9cpl, so I’ll put in one last calculation

Big car + Expensive fuel + Lots of waiting and idling = You are a big walking dildo

I am in Bangkok and this place must be seen to be believed. Tuk tuks roar down the wide avenues, ducking and weaving around the legions of Honda 100’s ducking and weaving around the hoardes of taxis. Itinerant cooks wheel their mobile kitchens from corner to corner, bells ringing to signal another cheap dose of gastro. Countless tourists beat the paths, looking for the best price on a fake pair of Calvin Kleins, all the while avoiding, and sometimes succumbing, to the spruikers outside obviously white restaurants and strip joints. Scores of rock spiders with tiny Thai women of the night brush past blonde Europeans donning Birkenstocks and Iraelis in Crocs. And lets not forget the smell. Something like Chapman’s feet after extra time in a football match, I’d guess.

Yep, its a true sensory experience.

And it’s the last night of my trip and I’m on the internet? Why? Might have something to do with the binge I’ve been experiencing the past month and that I’m getting the flu for the 2nd time in 2 weeks. Could be that the only places to go out are brimming with prostitutes or bogans sweating through their Chang Beer singlets they bought on the street. Could be the fact I am escaping the Canadians in my hostel. I’d say they are all contributing factors. Honestly, what do they put in the water over there? I met this Canadian guy in the hostel who, it seemed, could not wait to steer the conversation in the direction of cars so he could inform me that he currently drives the fastest WRX in all of canada. Seeing as most people there are either too high to open the car door or riding mooses (meese?), I’d say thats not much of an achievement.
He then went on to tell me he drives at 300km/h through the city. Aside from the fact that 300 would be pushing it in the bullsh*t stakes, i’m no longer 12 and dont find this impressive. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, Canadians have an inbuilt mental retardation factor of 15% at the bare minimum, eh? Idiots, the lot of them.

Anyway, I’m just bored and looking forward to sleeping in my Queen bed again, not sharing with the current bunch of wierdos, Canadians or otherwise, in my hostel. The most interesting character is an Indonesian fella by the name of Jezza, who enjoys nothing more than a good bag of fried insects. (i do too though, these things are awesome). The others are a motley crew to say the least. The Aussie in my room hails from Penriff, near Sydney. An Ok guy i guess, but suffers from rampant male pattern baldness. The hair on top of his head is completely absent, but the sides and back are thick and blond, giving him the appearance of a fat, drunken clown. His girl friends sit in the room with their Cosmo magazines, straightening their hair and generally annoying me with their complaints about the light streaming in from the flickering 12 watt globe outside. Then there’s another Canadian, our room’s very own air raid siren. I exploded at her this afternoon whilst napping, when she turned the aircon on to blast temperatures only seen on the Canadian tundra.

Anyway, I am back on Friday so I might see some of you Saturday

Canadians: Creepy and dumb

It was a glorious start to the day, the sun shining, the beach inviting, and as the time drew near to depart, already everybody knew the outdoor track at the Butterfly Farm Indy 800 was heating up in the midday sun. Convening at Seb’s house, Josh and Steve were treated to an absolutely masterful display of skilful driving, on account of the road-rage inspired Frenchman. Arriving shortly after the scheduled race time of 3pm, they were confronted by a mistachio-ed race official behind a grubby desk. ‘Where have youse been? We were about ta send outta seurch party for ya’. She had obviously forgotten Foster had valiantly called ahead 15 mins before and informed them that Seb’s donuts in the 7-11 carpark were taking longer than expected and the party was running late.

Donning the regulation fireproof underwear, balaclava, sponsor-adorned suit and personalised helmet, they slipped on their gloves and were ready to go. Just kidding. ‘Miss Parramatta’ handed them a pair of grubby blue overalls, disposable hairnet and helmets that have seen more crashes than Evil Kneivel’s. Next up was a safety instruction from the head of the pit crew (the other employee barely old enough to drive the karts himself). ‘Accelerator on the right, brake on the left….One. At. A. Time.” A few nods. “No Intentional bumping. If I see that, you’re gorrrrn”. Yeah right. “No looking back, you don’t need to see whats behind you. If I see you looking back….you’re gorrrrrn”.

Righto.

The karts were fast and generally responsive, just what was expected for seasoned veterans such as these. With wide, sweeping turns, eye-watering straights and hair pins that all but ripped you out of the seat, the track was definitely world class standard. If you went flat stick from pit straight around the pit corner, the g-forces were so strong your brain pressed against the side of your skull and you could see an apparation the Virgin Mary in the western sky.

Due to the allocation of karts in the first 3 races, the competition was fairly ordinary. None of the seasoned participants really came up against each other, as all three karts had wildly varying performance characteristics. In race 3, Joshie Morris was absolutely uncatchable, zipping off into the distance despite having the vision of a welder’s dog, while Foster and Wilson languished behind to compete with lesser mortals.

This left the fourth and final race for the combatants to show their mettle. A gentleman’s agreement was made to meet up halfway around the track and begin the proceedings with a rolling start, and the racers sure didn’t hold back. Being blessed with the faster kart this round, Foster was off like a flash, leaving Wilson and Morris in his dirty air to wrestle it out for 2nd and 3rd. Becoming bored midway through the race, Foster slowed considerably and urged Wilson, via a series of complicated hand gestures, to catch up for a true Gentleman’s competition.

What happened next is the reason why we race.

From the get-go the battle was fought fiercely and bravely, with each hardened contender fighting tooth and nail for pride, glory, and above all, the right to rub the other’s nose in it for the next month. When Wilson eventually caught up with the dashing doccer from Mac Bank, all allegiances went out the window. Foster gesticulated wildly this time with a series of somewhat less complicated hand gestures, angering the young Frenchman in his wake. Both competitors ardently defended their racing lines, each desperate not to let the other bask in the glory of a win. The cat-and-mouse game continued on for another 10 minutes like a perpetual tug-o-war, going neck and neck, until they ran out of cliches. Wilson went into the back hairpin with an aggressive racing line, forcing the debonair Foster to grapple with the dirt on the edge of the track. Regaining his line and composure, Foster went after Wilson with a renewed vigour. Like a lion toying with a defenceless rabbit in his giant paws, Foster decided it was time to go in for the kill. With the “Last Lap” sign waving in the hands of the pit crew, he knew it was now or never.

Heading around the pit corner, Foster saw his opportunity and grabbed it. Taking a sharper line around the bend, and with a touch of inspiration from Schumacher himself, Foster forced Wilson from the racing line and into the gravel trap to go on for a well-deserved win and post-race lemon squash.

“Not on my watch, Wilson”

*Co-written by Kate Garbis and Brooke Ramsdale*

Among the many travelers we met at the San Francisco hostel was a Sydneysider called Steve. Steve had a penchant for organization and before we knew it, he had organized us, and 2 Swedes (Jonas and Gustav) to drive a car through the desert to Vegas. He even compared gas prices and the varying fuel economy of the cars on offer. Strangely enough this squeaky clean North Shore surfie, who I suspect has never touched a cigarette no less adrenochrome, had chosen the unlikeliest of heroes in Hunter S. Thompson and thus he was sympathetic to our desire to drive across the desert in some kind of beat up, open top Cadillac or Chevy. We hunted far and wide・ but it seems there is no equivalent to Rent-a-bomb in the US. I am embarrassed to admit that we crossed the border, into the town of show girls and gambling; the place where bachelor parties go awry, un-blessed weddings take place and Elvis impersonators come to revel - in a Soccer Mom car - a white Grand Jeep Cherokee
We stayed at a hostel in Downtown, a place that I imagine is not too dissimilar from Compton. The rest of Las Vegas had about as much razzle dazzle as the Club Kino Lounge of the Burvale Hotel. We ventured next door to the Downtown corner store for a brief respite from the blistering heat (and a slab of Bud) only to discover the full horrors of the hood.

Dated slot machines lined the entryway, each seemingly connected to the wretched beings be-stooled in front of them, like some kind of prosthetic appendage. Certainly these people looked in need of all the mechanical life support they could or couldn’t afford. The woman behind the counter likened by Kate to Mrs Crabtree ( the bus driver of the Southpark School bus) was yelling through her absent teeth, that anyone fortunate enough to have a win would have to cash in another day because the till was empty - no surprises there. Amidst all this horror and depravity the woman actually took exception to the fact that Steve was drinking a beer and asked him to leave the premises. He followed her instruction and walked outside, mindful to watch out for any prospective drive by shootings that he might encounter.

Sure the lights were breathtaking - but inside most casinos had about as much class as a fat American slumping his paunch on a Craps table while sucking back an alcoholic slurpee in a plastic cup the shape of a gridiron football. Everything in Las Vegas is quite spaced out, so you cant actually cruise down one street and take it all in; it took us 15 minutes to walk past one place, and no one was game to venture driving on the wrong side of the road in town (not at night anyway - I must say Kate proved her self to be quite the adapter ・ taking to the wrong side of the road and the awesome size of the car effortlessly - I was no so graceful). Anyway, as I was about to say, it wasn’t until the last day that we got to see it all, from the revolving restaurant atop the stratosphere tower.

Day 2 ・ we were starving. With 3 strapping lads and the two of us all eager for a cheap fill, we concluded that a Vegas Bouf (Buffet) was the only solution. The Bouf at the Golden Nugget (not to be confused with the TAB lounge on Little Bourke St where one David Patterson took me on our first date to watch the doggies) featured an all encompassing smörgåsbord - a Sizzler on ‘roids. The morbidly obese were on crutches, the critical cases had been poured into electric wheelchairs. Just as Kate was remarking on the Florida feel of the furnishings (think Golden Girls/Palace) - busy and festive - Steve was being instructed to don a shirt of a similar design because his wife beater wasn’t up to scratch. He noted later that it was surprisingly difficult to discriminate between those patrons that had been assigned gaudy shirts, and those that had brought them from home. Later, as we were remarking on the vast array of foods on offer - everything you could ever dream of - Kate overheard the following conversation between a Latino waitress and a large Negroid woman seeking to complement her peach cobbler:
“Scuse me, uh you got any ice-cream in here?”
“Sorry Ma’am.. you know I get that every day”

Later the 2 Swedes and the 3 Aussies ambled into Lady Luck hoping to encounter its mistress. Steve and Kate put in a good innings at the black jack table, and Gustav offered up some early optimism / beer fueled bravado. We suspect Gustav was motivated more by the hopes of impressing Steve than by the greenback. When later pressed Steve would remark cavalierly “its not the first time Iｴve been the subject of gay love”. True to Australian culture, Steve was only trying to stay in the game long enough to score a complimentary beer from Gwen the world weary cocktail waitress. Only Kate proved to be the consummate gambler, coming away with a profit. Jonas the straight shooter was saving his pennies hanging out at the bar with Brooke (too mathematically incompetent to play anything harder than Uno - colours have never been a problem area). Eventually Brooke hit the tables. For a moment fear swept over Gustav’s face as he realized he would have to relinquish his seat beside Steve, and so he slapped some more money on the table - and he was back in the game ( in more ways than one). Brooke took another seat where she struggled to conceal the fact that she was counting her cards on her fingers under the table ・ but a few miscalculations later she busted on 15 thinking it was 25 and was back at the bar. All the while Kate bore on ceaselessly.

After our breakfast at stratosphere on the final day we took the stairs to the observation deck and were keen to get a photo together in front of the view. This is a perfect example of what happens when you ask a question of an America - you have to listen to them speak for the next 15 minutes. We asked a seemingly innocuous man to take the picture, and found ourselves embroiled in a trans Atlantic viral marketing campaign for an extremely sweet sugar free energy drink called XS - sure to knock Redbull off its pedestal in the next financial year (apparently). Within a moment Tom (the American in question) was handing out business cards and committing our names to memory
“Kate was it , right Kate. Kate and Brooke I got it. Kate and Brooke, yeah lock it in…yeah!”
When we finally thought the transaction had drawn to a close Tom spotted the Mrs and Jnr ( our hearts sunk). The group divided. Tom focused in on Steve trying to strike up a deal for some word of mouth marketing offensive in Sydney, while Brooke was left listening to Wendy rattle off the umpteen great XS flavours on offer.
“We got candy-apple lemon tea, we got watermelon apple tea…now let me see now we got apple ginseng apple tea….oh theres a whole hosts of em….we got..”

Kate loomed in the middle stared down my the sickly looking Junior who was clutching his XS tightly and intermittently squeaking to his mother that he didn’t want to surrender yet another of his drinks for would be market research. Drink surrendered, Junior slunk back to the protection afforded by his mother’s legs and peered out at the strangers, watching their faces contort as they forced the disgustingly sweet beverage down.

And so there the caper ended. The Swedes continued onto Arizona, and the Aussies enthusiastically leapt into the Jeep, eager to leave behind this horrible place of searing heat, molten asphalt and sticky carpets. Hunter’s ‘American Dream’ lay shattered at our feet; our bodies tired, weary, and in need of some quiet. Vegas was not quite the adventure capital we were seeking, but it will always remain in our minds. Las Vegas, I want my $25 back!

“We can’t stop here. This is bat country!”

Prestigious local newspaper The Manly Daily, usually a soapbox from which simpleton residents can launch wild and unfounded accusations at a manner of institutions, has recently revealed that the State Government plans to spend $400 million to ‘revitalise Dee Why’s town centre’. In association with Multiplex and the Vumbaca Bros (the fruit store) the government plans to build a ‘vibrant new heart’ to the ailing town centre.

An artist’s impression of the planned Dee Why town centre. He forgot to add the lepers.

Apart from the name Vumbaca being associated with the ever graceful and trustworthy Mustaccas of Warriewood Cinema fame, this effort is surely doomed to failure. The same gangs will infest the alleyways, the same schizophrenics will crowd the doorways at the same $2 shops that back onto the same brothels.

I have devised a much more effective and cost- effective method of renewing the town centre so we can start with a clean slate. I took a visit to this site which had a handy Nuclear Bomb blast radius calculator. Awesome stuff. I selected Reno, Nevada as a close approximation to Dee Why, since both are cesspools and probably covered in a thin layer of atomic dust already. As you can see from the picture, only a 1.5kT weapon, delivered by car, would be required to completely flatten the town centre and allow planners to begin again. Being delivered on ground would substantially reduce costs, and surely could not cost more than $400 million. Also, there are a handful of Eastern Bloc countries ever willing to bolster their economy by selling off Soviet-era nuclear weapons for steep discounts.

Blast radius calculations. The beachfront and ocean would be safely out of reach

Forget town meetings, forget paying consultants, just get a beat up old car, drive it straight in, and BOOM. Of course, if you wanted a more spectacular delivery, the payload could be delivered from the air, in which case only a 1kT weapon would be required.

Who you gonna call? Dr Strangelove!