You thrill me when you drill me. Not.

This post is just a quick thank you to millionaire playboy Tim Roberts and dumped dentist girlfriend Laurel Cetinic-Dorol for the solid-gold, grade-A entertainment they've provided in the media this past week.
In the laugh-myself-sick stakes, I thought nothing could top the text message: "You weanie peanie f...... wanker. If you didn't have money I would not have given you the time of day, you loser."
But then I saw TV footage of Mr Roberts trying to run from courtroom to car while hiding his face with a see-through, polka-dotted, plastic umbrella that was determined to turn itself inside out.
I should imagine that as I type, the producers of Funniest Home Videos will be changing the rules so that this footage can win - quite rightly - the grand prize in the next series.
Finally, there are two questions we should be asking ourselves now that this sorry saga has been played out in the courts.
1. Would a millionaire playboy actually own a see-through, polka-dotted, plastic umbrella?
2. How long do you reckon it will take for the person who loaned it to him to list it on eBay?

Beanie there, done that

OK, I've never done it in this beanie before. But that's because it's new - knitted for my birthday by my sister Pauline, a manic Eagles supporter.
It's called The Fev and pays tribute to Mr Brendan Fevola's interesting dreadlock period. I'll be wearing it tonight when I watch the Blues meet the Tigers at the MCG.
Now that Brendan's stopped peeing on nightclub windows and is concentrating on his game, I'm hoping for a mega goal tally.
Should that happen I'll be shaking those dreads like there's no tomorrow. Before I go, here's a view of the back of the beanie so you can fully appreciate its beauty.

Channeling Elvis

The photos probably speak for themselves but then I thought, what the hell, here's your chance to explain your kitsch food fetish once and for all.
My husband's always put it down to an early adulthood of too much Cinzano and lemonade (yes, in the same glass). But seeing as I haven't touched Cinzano since I drank a whole bottle at a hockey cabaret in Manjimup in 1974, I think it's more deep-seated than that.
I think some people are born with a kitsch gene and even if they struggle against it for years and years, they one day end up making, say, a dozen Rudolph cupcakes.
For some reason this kitsch food fetish only surfaces on holiday-type occasions. As in, Christmas or Easter looms and I get really excited and go into a frenzy of searching through recipes for something suitably naff.
The Rudolph cupcakes are a bastard to make because you have to pipe 24 melted-chocolate antlers on to baking paper. Which means you (as in, I) pipe 37 crap antlers before you get the hang of it, then you have to go out and buy more chocolate and melt it down and pipe 24 more.
The melted chocolate goes everywhere. I found some in my belly button and also behind my ears. I didn't tell my family this, of course, and they quite happily ate the lot.

The snowman cupcakes were less successful, mainly because I couldn't be bothered making the cupcakes. By this time it was 10pm on Christmas Eve, I was full of Yellow Glen and my family made an executive decision involving vanilla ice cream and Ice Magic.
Even so, I managed to breathe new life into a Martha Stewart concept: two marshmallows and a fruit-jube hat threaded on a toothpick, with coloured sprinkle thingies for eyes and nose.
Result: Chucky Snowman. Not my finest moment.

This echidna pav was made for Australia Day. I was toying with the idea of Kylie Minogue but realised she was probably a pav too far.
Dead easy to make: bake your meringue in a pointy oval shape, cover with whipped cream, add dried cranberries for eyes and after-dinner mint sticks for spines.
Serve on a turkey platter (echidna platters being hard to come by).
Now it's nearly Easter and I'm on the hunt again. Nigella Lawson has a recipe for rabbit curry called Hot Cross Bunny, which appeals on many levels.
But if you have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Does my bum look radiant in this?

Back on the subject of make-up, I had a gift voucher burning a hole in my pocket and decided to splurge on some YSL Touche Eclat concealer. I did this because I wanted to optimise my radiance, having read in an ad that Touche Eclat does just that.
Even though, deep down, I've known for some time that my radiance could do with some help, I haven't bought Touche Eclat before now because it costs $78. Which makes me feel a bit faint, especially as you can get perfectly serviceable Maybelline under-eye concealer for 14 bucks.
But then, Maybelline under-eye concealer doesn't cure cancer, boost your libido or give 99 per cent of its profits to Oxfam's goat-gifting scheme.
Neither does Touche Eclat but according to all reports it's still brilliant.
I know this because I've read dozens of reviews of the product on the internet and I honestly haven't seen so many exclamation marks in my life as I have in the descriptions of Touche Eclat.
So, seeing as I had 40 bucks left on the gift voucher - meaning I only had to part with $38 of my own money - I bit the bullet and decided to banish dark shadows forever.
The girl at the YSL make-up counter told me that for Touche Eclat to be totally effective, I needed to apply some white stuff (the name of which I can't remember) to the under-eye area first and it only cost $100, would I like some of that too?
Thinking "Why break the habit of a lifetime?" I said I'd rather be partially effective but she still applied both products anyway.
And the difference was really quite scary in that I looked like a 50-something head with a 30-something under-eye radiance thing going on.
So I bought the Touche Eclat. At my age you take what you can get. And if that means being scary, radiant and partially effective, then so be it.

Word of the Week: Large

It's been at least 15 years since I've been able to use the word "large" in print without feeling like I'm committing a capital offence.
The trauma of being large-less for one and a half decades can be laid at the door of Paul Murray, larger-than-life (sorry, bigger-than-life) former editor of The West Australian, now one of its columnists.
Mooner was such a big fan of the word big he sent a memo to all editorial staff banning "large" from the paper's pages.
At the time I was editor of the YOU lift-out (now called U.), which included food stories and recipes. I had to get a special dispensation to use large in the lists of ingredients because "2 big brown onions, sliced" just didn't sound right.
In later years I joined Large Anonymous and managed to overcome my fear of unacceptable synonyms. These days I find I can write it quite easily. So I will. Large, large, large, large, large.

Chug-a-hug

Being grabbed by people I don't know very well has never done much for me. Neither am I very good at this hugging-as-a-hello thing that's become so fashionable in the last ten years.
I think my problem stems from growing up in Yorkshire where public displays of touching one another happened only at birthdays and burials, and even then only if you were wearing a coat.
As time has passed I've got much better at hugging people I've only just been introduced to, but I still freak when someone invades my personal space in a major way.
Which is why I always walk down the middle of the aisles in the Myer cosmetics' department, in much the same way as I've always walked down the middle of the street if it's after dark and I'm on my own.
But this seems to be working less and less. A few weeks ago I looked briefly at some of this new mineral foundation that's advertised endlessly on TV (it apparently makes your complexion look "flarless", which is American for perfect).
Three seconds later I'd been grabbed, half my face was covered in it and the girl wielding the brush was telling me it would look even better - "Like, you'll get that total doll look" - if I applied it over the top of normal foundation. Sort of like brick veneer for the face, I suppose.
Even when I said, "I'm 56 years old - why would I want to look like a doll?" - she didn't pause for breath, just launched into a spiel on the importance of brushing in a circular motion.
By the time I escaped, one side of my face was very beige and "flarless", and the other wasn't. I looked like a Kingston biscuit after someone had licked off the filling.
Funnily enough, no one stopped and asked me if I wanted a hug.

Word of the Week: Drack

Drack means unattractive, yuk, not very nice - which is great because I'm so over "hideous".
Truth be told, I'm so over "so over" but seeing as, phrase-wise, it's everywhere, I suspect that like disco music, big hair and the cabbage soup diet, we'll just have to wait for everyone to realise how stupid it is and move on.
What I'd like to see in the meantime is a "drack" revival. It's a word I haven't heard since I was a teenager and if you ask me it leaves hideous for dead.
For a start it's quantifiable: a bit drack (Explorer socks), pretty drack (exposed bum-crack, or plumber's cleavage as Lynda next door calls it), really drack (Paris Hilton).
Describing something as "a bit hideous" just doesn't work.
After a quick look on the net I've found that drack was probably derived from the 1936 film, Dracula's Daughter - so it's an oldie but a goodie.
And the idea of a Drack Pack attacking the Hideous Brigade really apeals.

The gorgeousness that's Cameron Cloke

He's the one on the right and don't ask me how I managed to cut off half his body when I uploaded the pic - I'm still new and useless at this blogging business.
Anyway, if you ask me, Cam is football's answer to George Clooney.
So grab your pompoms and repeat after me:
Cameron, Cameron, you're the one.
You make football so much fun.
G-O-O-O-O CAMERON.
Please don't spoil the moment by adding comments that include the words "kicked in" and "nuts".
Instead be thankful, as I am, that it's only 15 more sleeps until Carlton meets the Tigers at the MCG.
Go the Blues...
PS: Click on the pic and you'll get the full monty. This will be quicker than waiting for my husband to get home from work so I can ask him where I stuffed up.

Ella the Wonder Dog

Meet Ella, our golden retriever, posing here with her favourite toy on her head.
Ella is nearly 10 years old and has an inverted vulva and a very small brain.
The vulva thing means she wees backwards, which is no biggie if you don't mind washing her nether regions on a regular basis.
I say "you" but I mean "me". My husband loves this dog so much he'd give her one of his kidneys but for some reason he draws the line at washing her bum.
The very small brain poses bigger problems but only if you venture outside Ella World, which encompasses the house, the garden, the park and the beach.
Ella is frightened of the ironing board. This probably tells you everything you need to know.
She likes to be surrounded by familiar things, even better if they are as close to her person as possible.
Which is why we have roughly 10,000 photos like the one above but none of her posing on top of Everest.

Not the last post

After 23 years with The West - most of them as a columnist - I figured a cold-turkey retirement wasn't going to cut it.
And it's hard to think of a better way than blogging to have a laugh/vent spleen/keep in touch with everyone.
So, if you've come here via my final column: a big hello and welcome to my blog. I'd love to hear from you via the "comments" thingy at the bottom of each post, just be aware that your comments may not appear immediately because I'll be having a look at them first.
A columnist's job often translates to "loony magnet", so I'll feel better if I can check things out before they're posted. This doesn't mean you can't criticise or disagree - I'll only be chucking out the gross and the really nasty.
Oh, and if you're wondering about my headshot at the top of this page, as opposed to the headshot at the top of my column, it's because the column pic was taken six years ago and involved make-up applied with a trowel (it's particularly scary when viewed full size - I look like a tranny).
This new pic is me as I am - middle-aged, un-made-up and pretty bloody ordinary.