How long has blogging REALLY been around?

Often when you mention the fact you write a blog, people don't have the faintest idea of what you're talking about.

The thing is, women have been 'blogging' and using varied forms of social media to relate aspects of their lives and memories, political views and knowledge...since forever.

Cave paintings

Paleolithic Wife- Cooking Blog.

"Errg's Bites"

Full Moon, 17300 years ago

This is what my husband, Ugg brought back from hunting yesterday. Cooked it over open fire with nuts and berries I gathered. Fed a family of eighteen. Click on link for tasty recipe.

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Ancient Roman Graffiti- Political Blogger

"Claudia Reports"

15 March 44 BC

While Brutus was at the Senate meeting I went into the town square and blogged about that right-winged b#stard Julius Caesar. Something has to be done about that misogynist. Women should be citizens!

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Ancient Egyptian Heiroglyphics: Journal Blogger

"Pinky Salwasi's Crazy Life!"

Shumo, 3100 BC

It's summer and the kids and I popped down to the Nile Valley for a swim. Nebtawi (hubby) went to the temple all day to pray to the Gods so we had the day to ourselves.Picked up a nice side of gazelle from the markets and just hope teenage sons are home to eat it for a change. Sick of keeping leftovers in the icebox.

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Normandy Craft Blogger

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"Catherine's Crafty Corner"

Tuesday, 1075.

Well, we are finally up to the 65th metre of the Bayeaux Tapestry! Only 5 more to go! Mathilda's playing a practical joke and embroidering a Where's Wally somewhere in the tapestry. I bet you can't find it! We have free give-aways to the first three readers who comment correctly!

        

Feminist Blogger- Venus of Willendorf

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 "Venus Greer and her Eunichs"
 25 000 BC

A Stone Age dissertation on why women should not be judged by their beauty.
I happened upon this when I was out gathering sticks yesterday. The statuette speaks for itself; please note the absence of a face or feet and the 'junk in the trunk'. Just what is the point of this? If I find the guy who carved this I'll hit him over the head with his own club. 


Marie Antoinette's Beauty Blog

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"Marie and You"
October 15, 1793

The big trend now girls is powder, powder, powder. I use a swanspuff to apply and you can pick one of these up at Targette for three livre. Make sure you apply plenty of white paint beforehand to cover up the Smallpox scars! Rosewater hides a multitude of sins my lovelies. For example when you haven't taken a bath for eight years! Gotta go darls, someone's knocking very loudly on the door...

Cleopatra- Fashion Blog

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"Cleo's Couture" 
11 August 30 BC

In my role as Queen of Egypt, I have to meet up with many diplomats and therefore attend many formal occasions. My secret to looking good on the carpet? Or rolling out of the carpet?
Bling! Some fabulous gold earrings and plonk on a wig... you're good to go. Those upper armbands are rocking it right now too, but I tend to shy away from the snake-shaped bands... they make me feel uneasy for some reason!

Pinky Poinker: When your kids don't need you anymore.

             Last night's Potato Pie and how much was eaten (by Scotto).

The evening meal was the last bastion of family solidarity at Chez Poinker.

For decades the nightly ritual of creating a hot, nutritious meal and placing it on the table in front of each of the five children has assisted Pinky in clinging frantically to the false self-image of a nurturing mother.

It seems even that solitary buttress has finally been smashed into the tiny shards of a broken mirror reflecting the tenuous and unsustainable lie I’ve doggedly attempted to preserve.

Even though twenty-four year old Thaddeus lives with his father and Jonah is currently residing in the big smoke; eighteen year old Padraic, Lulu, and twenty year old Hagar and his girlfriend Meggles, still live with us.

Well... they occasionally sleep here.

Early every evening, Pinky performs the same charade with the same hackneyed script.

“Will you be home for dinner tonight?”

“What is it?”

“Something delicious!”

“Okay… maybe.”

The final wretched scene of the farce however, sees our tragic heroine bitterly shoving leftovers in the fridge aside in order to squeeze in the latest abandoned offering to the Gods.

“Stop cooking for them!” Scotto asserts, while Pinky bleats on and on about wasted food, money and effort.

He doesn’t understand. Once I stop cooking dinner for them they won’t need me anymore.

For anything.

Yesterday, the final nail in the coffin containing the demise of Pinky’s usefulness was hammered in with decisive precision.

Lulu’s father bought her a car.

Now she can drive herself to work, netball games, parties, McDonalds.

I’ll probably never ever see her again.

                         And so the fun begins...

Linking up with Essentially Jess! 
               

A Guest Post by Pinky Poinker's Dad.

                                     

Last night I watched a fireworks show that made Sydney's New Year display look like a walk through a glow-worm cave. All from my front deck and all for free. For two hours or more a thunderstorm raged all around, and all above our house and it was the best lightning show I have ever seen.

There were complex sky-to-sky bolts with patterns that you couldn't dream up and great flashes of sheet lightning, but best of all were the sky-to-ground strikes, especially those that hit some of the tall high-rise buildings on the skyline. And the two that struck high tension powerlines only 300 metres away - wow! What thunder claps. How do I know that it was 300 metres? Well lightning is more-or-less instantaneous and thunder travels at around 300 metres in one second, and the bang was no more than a second after the flash---just ask my dog, if you can coax her out from under the bed.

Hello! All you readers of Pinky Poinker’s daily diatribe. I've been invited to make a contribution for whatever reason I'm not quite sure. It could be to raise the tone of the blog with a bit of quality writing , or then, it could be because I'm Pinky's papa. Anyway this post should help raise the standard to at least Upper-Bogan.

                                        Image Credit

To gain some insight into the usual scope and style of this site I have read some of the past efforts, and it appears to me that the whole thing is supposed to revolve around those five loveable rascals - Pinky's darling little children You know who I mean - the ones who phone me at 12.30 am to ask some inane question, the answer of which could readily be found on Google. The same ones who can make 3 packets of biscuits disappear faster than a politicians promise. The four gentlemen who all managed to crash their first motor vehicle---lovely Lulu hasn't managed that yet, who said that men are better drivers...?

          Little Hagar and Pinky's Dad. Perhaps the boys should have stuck to this                                                               mode of transport.

Pinky, of course, (let me assure you that my surname is not Poinker---that is her married name) is not without fault when it comes to motor vehicles. Has she posted a story about the time that she borrowed my car to go out-on-the-town only to park it in a forbidden zone from whence it was spirited away to an impounding yard? Probably not. That was the same car that she had sold to me when she was working for a car rental company.

What dear Pinky didn't tell me was that this car had been deregistered prior to the sale but that someone had forgotten to hand back the numberplates. In my blissful ignorance I assumed that the vehicle was correctly registered and the ownership properly transferred.

For a whole year I drove around in that unregistered car, and when a rego-renewal form didn't turn up, I made enquiries at the transport department and then had to bluff my way out of a prosecution and a substantial fine. And Pinky thinks her kids are a trial.

      A photo I snapped of Pinky in her uniform after she'd had a big night out.

I was a very thoughtful child, I moved away from my parents home at a relatively young age. I thought that my issued would do the same---and they did. The two girls moved out of our four bedroom house leaving just a son, Pinky's mum and me. So we sold the house and moved into a two bedroom unit. What happened? The girls decided to move back---five of us in a twobedder. So we bought another house and sold the unit. Before we could settle the contract the girls were off again. And this happened with 'regular frequency'. So we did the only thing we could think of and moved 1500 km away---to a mountain---where they didn't want to be. Where all the lightning and thunder happens.

Ciao Readers, Acolytes, Friends or whatever you people out there call yourselves.



Richard Not Poinker.

                                      

How Fathers Influence their Daughters.

This is my favourite photo in the entire world. It’s my father cradling a three week old Pinky, circa 1910.

He was only twenty-five at the time, having married my nineteen year old mother eleven months previously (so they tell me).

Nah… I’m only joking, but apparently my dear old Nana was upset Mum had fallen pregnant so soon after marrying because it ‘didn’t look good’. What would the aunties think? It didn’t help appearances when 6 lb. baby Pinky arrived three weeks early either.

But back to Dad.

It’s his birthday tomorrow and after much determined pestering on my behalf, he finally agreed to write a guest post which will be published on Pinky Poinker in celebration of the special day.

If I was to sum my father up in one word it would be “artist”.

A painter, cartoonist, writer, landscape artist, sculptor, sketch artist, bullshit artist.

                              The coyote finally succeeds!


We grew up in a house filled with Dad’s artwork. Some of it was bloody good, some not so great.

Back in the seventies he decided to build a pool in our backyard. Not just have a pool put in, but actually build a pool. 

Every night after he finished work he would spend hours in the dark sink hole, troweling cement and grouting tiles by the light of a single light bulb, his only company a massive great cane toad. 

Julius, the toad, revelled in the swarms of mosquitoes attracted to the light globe and appeared each night to cheer Dad on. This self-imposed hard labour went on for months.

The result of his monumental effort was a fully tiled swimming pool fed by an elaborate, landscaped waterfall. It was truly a work of art.

My father undertook all of the wall-papering (big in the seventies), tiling, painting, concreting, carpentry and of course electrical work in the house. I don’t think we ever needed to call a tradesman for anything except when our huge umbrella tree grew to mammoth proportions and one day we noticed its guileful root shyly peeking out of the toilet bowl. Council plumbers were needed to dig up every plant infested pipe in the place.

After a few years living in the house Dad decided to build another story on top with a shingled roof; each shingle lovingly hammered in place by our unstoppable father.

They just don’t make men like that anymore.

                               Dad's old Falcon.

One of my earliest most cherished memories of my father was at the age of five. I’d just been awarded honours in a ballet exam and I couldn’t wait for him to arrive home so I could squeak out the exciting news.

I recall with clarity, Dad shouting in excitement and lifting me up in his arms towards the ceiling in elation. We were standing beside the dining room table; Mum laughed at us and the sun shone through a window on our right. The forty-eight year old memory is crystal clear. 

I savoured his praise then and still do now. Daughters need that demonstrative love and appreciation from their fathers.

                       Pinky and little sister Sam with Dad.

Dad is a bit of a human oxymoron; a cultivated Aussie bloke.

He imparted a love for the Fine Arts to us kids by taking us to the ballet, art galleries, museums and the theatre as we were growing up.

My sister and I now invite him to the ballet when the opportunity arises. Not that it does very often because he and Mum have retired to a place over one thousand miles away.

My granddad Bert, was also an artist and an eccentric rascal who taught himself to play the piano in his late eighties.

This is a self-portrait old Bert painted when he was probably in his mid-seventies. 

                         Bert at his ninetieth birthday.

I’m thinking perhaps my father inherited some of his artistic ability from Bert.

At first I think Dad disapproved of my blog, primarily due to the over-abundance of personal information I freely distribute on the World-Wide Web.

When I visited him last year he brought out a plethora of humorous and engaging articles he’d written for a magazine when he was about the same age as I am now. Many of the articles described the antics of every day life enacted by his wife and three kids. 

                                        

And so… father and daughter in the more mature years of their lives are bonding over the written word.

I’m thinking perhaps Pinky may have inherited some of her minimal artistic ability from her father.


Happy birthday my darling father xx

                                     Being a Granddad.

Will My Chihuahua Lose his Swag?

                                                       

Five minutes beforehand, he’d been strutting around the kitchen like a cocky football jock whilst intermittently sniffing his sister, Celine’s bottom, blissfully unaware of what the day had in store for him.

Now, he was a trembling pup, cradled in his daddy’s arms as Scotto backed out of the driveway. I’d say he must have been suspicious something was up by the pleading expression in his mournful, brown eyes.

“You’re going to have to drop Pablo at the vet tomorrow morning,” I announced to hubby Scotto yesterday. “It'll be too hard for me to leave him there. I’d get halfway to the vet and turn the car around and bring him home.”

“It’s not going to be easy for me either!” Scotto reproached me.

We didn’t exactly have a big row about it, but there were a few sulky, manipulative exchanges as to who was going to play the bad guy and do the dirty work.

I won.

Our vet, Chris, is the father of one of Lulu’s best friends and she happened to be staying at their place last night.

“Tell Chris to have an early night because he’s operating on our dog tomorrow morning,” I texted Lulu.

“He said he’s going to drink some extra wine tonight!” she messaged back.

I don’t think he should have been joking about it.

Scotto left at 8:30 this morning to drop my baby off to his ill-fated appointment and I tearily waved him farewell then retreated to my bedroom to sob into my pillow.

After restlessly waiting with bated breath and jangled nerves, the phone finally rang at 9:30 am.

He was alive and well… sans testicles of course… but he survived! The nurse informed me the operation went brilliantly and the tiny patient was now resting quietly.

He’s going to have to avoid strenuous exercise (especially bike riding) for a couple of weeks but apart from rest, aspirin and dressing changes he should be back to himself in no time.

Off I went to buy some ice packs, balloons and flowers for Pablo's homecoming.

 Has he lost his swag now he's been de-nutted? I hear you ask.

Well...  he's now sporting a tattoo and swaggering like a bow-legged sailor as he tenderly winces down the hall so not really.

                              Tattoo on left ear.

I’d better buy some wine and chocolates for Chris the brilliant surgeon as well. 

That guy should be Australian of the Year.

The Thing about Snow!

                                
There was a news journalist on the telly this morning reporting from a sub-zero (-16) Chicago, in the United States. 

All you could see were her little eyes poking out she was so bundled up against the cold. 

Residents have been warned it’s so cold even only a few minutes exposure to the elements will cause hypothermia or frost bite.

At least in this heatwave we Australians can venture outside without fear of losing a finger or toe.

Having been born and bred in the tropics I’ll gladly own up to eschewing freezing cold weather as much as I can.

I’ve only ever been to the snow twice in my life. The first time I was about twenty-five years old and went on a weekend bus trip with a mob of wild ratbags up to the Snowy Mountains.

On the first day I hired a ski jacket but was too much of a cheapskate to fork out for the ski pants. 

“I’ll be fine!” I thought. It was snowing heavily that day and by the time the chair lift had reached the top of Mt Koscieszko my jeans and insufficient woollen gloves had frozen onto my body.

                           


I had no idea how wet (as well as cold) snow was. I don’t know why. It’s not as if I’d never stuck my hand inside a freezer before.

Working at the top of Australia’s highest mountain all day, assisting useless tourists to jump onto a moving chairlift without clumsily hurtling themselves over the summit, probably wouldn’t be the most gratifying job in the world and I remember the guy in charge screaming at me as I dithered in my anaesthetised state and failed to connect my deadened backside to the seat and was nearly shovelled to an early death.

By the time I’d travelled down to the bottom again I could not feel my hands. By ‘not feel them’, I don’t just mean they were numb. I could easily have had them chopped off at the wrist with a guillotine and not noticed any pain.

And then my hands began to thaw out. Apart from a baby ripping its way down the birth canal I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced such pain. I cried tears of agony.

Now, I can’t go into the freezer section of Coles without my hands turning ghostly white and I’m sure it’s a leftover side effect of near frost bite.

It was another twenty or so years before I decided to hazard another trip into territory I feel is best left to White Fang and his pack.

Scotto and I were on holidays in Melbourne staying in the city.

“We should take a drive up to Mt Buller for lunch,” suggested a naïve Pinky, imagining a leisurely drive up the mountain, a cosy fireside lunch and relaxed drive back to the city.

I looked studiously at the map. Mt Buller was only two fingernail lengths away from Melbourne… not far at all.

By the time we eventually made it up the two fingernail lengths of twisting, snaking, steep road it was almost 5:00pm and just on cue, the moment we arrived, heavy snow began to fall.

                               


As George W. Bush once said, “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”


There I stood for the second time in my life in a snow storm, wearing jeans and inadequate attire while the wind slashed through my clothes as if I was standing there stark naked.

Teeth chattering and freezing to death in my wet canvas shoes we jumped in a shuttle and were dropped at the accommodation booking shack. No one was going back down that mountain tonight and we needed somewhere to stay.

There was only one place left in the resort village with any vacancies and naturally it was the most expensive hotel of all.

At six hundred dollars for the night, on top of whatever we were paying for our apartment back in the city, it proved to be quite an extravagant lunch.


After I’d semi-dried my socks on the heater in the room we slipped and slid across the icy pathway to purchase a couple of Subways for dinner (all we could afford) and spent the evening staring out the window at the suitably attired rich people playing in the snow.

                        

Pinky Poinker Celebrates One Year of Blogging!

                         Thank you to Scotto for the graphic.

Today marks the official end of my first year of blogging.

I've published 153 810 words of inane drivel. Not quite "War and Peace" (560 000 odd words) but if I could just improve the writing style and quality, I may have a book!

Therefore, I thought I’d finish the year with a really self-indulgent, stupid post... so if you’re not in the mood for idiocy I’ll hopefully see you tomorrow when I’ll try to be sensible again.

Pinky's Silly Toilet Humour
There are two more weeks left of the school holidays for us teachers.

I'm very bored now that the festive season is over and Scotto’s gone back to work…

Yesterday, while Scotto and I floated around the pool on blow-up beds escaping the vicious Queensland heatwave, the product Anusol (an ointment recommended for itching, burning haemorrhoids) randomly came into my head. 

I don’t know why, I didn’t have an itchy bottom… but it just did.

“Anus-ol,” I sounded it out slowly.

“Sounds very like anus-hole. Do you think the manufacturers were having a laugh at the public’s expense?” I mused.

Scotto laughed.

I’m always guaranteed a laugh when I say the word ‘anus’ out loud in front of Scotto.

“Poopen Schtinken’s a funny word for it too,” he giggled.

“Where did you hear that? Did you make it up?” I asked curiously, impressed at such an amusing word.

“It’s from a movie,” he replied. “I can’t remember which one…”

This morning, tired of watching infomercials on the telly, I decided to look up “Poopen Schtinken” on Google just to see what I could find.

“Did you mean Schtinken Poopen?” Mr Google replied.

“Okaaaaay… I’ll try anything once,” I thought.

Schtinken Poopen turned out to be the name of a song by an English band called 'Atlases'.

Weirdos.

But I wanted “Poopen Schtinken”.

Did you mean ‘Poop Chicken’? I was rudely interrogated by that know-it-all browser once again.

No. I didn’t. But I had to check it out anyway. It’s not like I had anything else to do…

Poop Chicken (Urban Dictionary)

Similar to playing "chicken" with an opposing car on a road, "poop chicken" begins when you and someone else walk into a public restroom at the same time, both with the intention to take a poop. You go into your separate stalls and then sit there, waiting for the other to leave so that you can do your business in peace. The first person to just get up and leave without pooping loses the game of poop chicken.

Interesting.

Mr Google then suggested I may have meant to type in “Puten Schinken” which most surprisingly turned out to be this… a style of sausage.

There was no link to any movies and even when I put “Poopen Schtinken” into Google Translator it said that the language detected was in actual fact, English.

So there you go. Scotto made up his own special word for bottom hole and he doesn’t even know it.

I know some people hate any discussion about poop whatsoever, so stop reading now if you’re one of those people.

Hello!

…elloooow

…loooow

…oow…

is there an echo in here?

Over the years our family has come up with many pseudonyms for poop.

First there was “Wombat” which was coined by my father when my little brother apparently neglected to flush something the size of a wombat down the toilet.

“Kookaburra” was a name my own kids used for Number Twos and the reason is explained in this funny post!


“A Flynn’s” was the name used by my girlfriend Nettie and myself, after one of us (not Nettie) had a notable incident in the toilets at a local bar of the same name.

I tend to use the term ‘Poodoople’ these days, as in “I need to go poodoople.”

What’s your family name for it? Come on... you know you have one...

Don’t forget about your Best Friend in the Sizzling Australian Heat

While the United States is suffering deadly snowstorms,

Australia is in the midst of a heatwave.

“It’s bloody hot!” are the parrot like words emanating from Pinky’s perspiration-ringed lips every five minutes. Scotto has grounds to commit mariticide, I'm sure.

(It's like I have a form of Tourette's, but no swearing... just constant whinging.)

Scotto and I have spent 80% of our time floating around the pool in order to ward off heat stroke and I can’t imagine what it would be like without air-conditioning when the temperature drops down to a muggy 27 degrees overnight.

As you know, Pinky’s dogs (Borat, Willy, Celine and Pablo) are her substitute babies. They're the loves of my life and I’ve been watching them closely for heat stress.

Watching them lolling around, conserving their energy and panting a lot and I must admit I feel really sorry for the poor mutts.

This is what I’ve been doing to make sure they don’t suffer from the heat.

# Allowing them to come inside the house and chill out under the fan… or at least make sure they have plenty of shade.

                      Me could get used to this!

# Putting ice cubes in their drinking water and frequently checking it’s at an adequate level.

# Hosing them down because dogs can’t sweat

 (Willy runs away and hides behind a pot plant but we still manage to catch him).

                         Rack off mother... I'd rather be hot!

# Taking the smaller ones for a little swim against their wishes.

                              This is animal abuse!

# Feeding them after dark when it’s cooler so their food doesn’t sit in the sun for hours.

We can’t take them to the movies or into air-conditioned shopping centres but at least we’re doing something to make them a little more comfortable.

Hope you’re looking after your best friend.

How a New Toilet Can Make the World a Better Place

                               
For twelve years the toilet, located right outside my bedroom has been physically abused, overstrained (no pun intended) and ill-treated by a glut of youths who couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a base fiddle.

Some days (especially hot days when the humid air hangs around accentuating even the most delicate odour), I’m frightened to walk past it on the way to my bedroom.

‘What if they forgot to flush it again?’ I’ll think in dread, remembering how twenty year old Hagar had been to Cactus Jack’s the previous night for Cheap Chilli Tuesday.

The tile grouting surrounding the long-suffering porcelain bowl has nitrogenous waste material soaked in to the point of approaching some type of symbiotic relationship. One cannot be separated from the other.

The plastic behind the toilet seat has eroded, and God only knows what my four teenage boys could possibly have been consuming to cause such corrosion; sulphuric acid?

The entire area smells like the type of stinking urinal only found inside the seediest, most squalid establishment in downtown Kings Cross.

Don’t worry, I’ve tried to clean it up but short of a blast from a hydrochloric acid filled Gerney, nothing could remove the lingering, cloying stench of stale piddle. 

Even the toilet brush gives a tiny distressed scream of protest every time I plunged it into the sinister, festering crater of despair.

“Don’t put me in there! I’ll do anything…” squeals the toilet brush.

“Shut up!” screams a ruthless Pinky. “If you don’t want to do the job you shouldn’t have signed up. You should have gone to toothbrush school instead God dammit!”

                                         Image Credit

Therefore this morning, when I once more performed the chilling act of lifting the lid and peering in the bowl in order to determine how many bottles of Domestos I would need to improve its appearance from an appalling, despicable cesspit of filth to a barely tolerable cesspit of filth… I made a decision.

The entire toilet needed to be replaced.

Off Scotto and I trundled to Bunnings my favourite hardware store for some leisurely toilet shopping.

“I don’t get it,” said Scotto scratching his head. “I can see ‘P’ trap fittings and ‘S’ trap fittings... I know what the P and S stand for... but shouldn’t you be able to get one toilet that covers both?”

A Bunnings assistant fortuitously ambled by and explained to Scotto what the P and S really stood for and up-sold us from the cheap crapper I had my eyes on, to a hugely more expensive one.

Twenty sopping towels, a near fainting spell (Pinky), two more trips back to Bunnings by ‘Scotto the Plumber’ later... and it seems we don’t have a problem anymore Houston!
I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be this happy about a new dunny.

                                                            A work in progress

                                                         Waiting for the silicone to dry.

                         Bring out the bunting!!!

                         Telephone the Queen!!!

What Men Should and Shouldn't Wear in the Tropics

With 35+ degree heatwave temperatures across Australia over this Christmas period the only place to be is here…

Pinky, Kyles and Kaz on New Year's Day.

Pinky enjoying the icy cold waters at Crystal Creek today.

Even the dogs are getting in on the action…

                                Pablo and Scotto

Permitting the men to take over the task of cooking is paramount.

        Troy (right) had his phone on a timer to go off every 2 minutes so he would                                     remember when to turn the steaks over??? (Our boys can pull off                                           anything!) 

Much is written on the Internet about women’s fashion in the Australian summer's sizzling conditions, but I haven’t seen any of my favourite Queensland fashion/lifestyle bloggers writing about 'what' and 'what not' our men should be wearing.


So… I made a list.

1. Singlets

Unless you are under twenty-five years old (or have arms and a chest like Liam Hemsworth)… don’t do it in public.
N.B. Especially if you have grey underarm hair. 

2. Budgie Smugglers

Never acceptable unless you are a bona fide lifesaver and even then, make sure the leg elastic is secure because we don't want to 'accidentally' see any "Purple Speckled Robin's Eggs" poking out.

                                       

3. Shorty-short footy shorts.

Again... with the exception of actually being a ridgy-didge football player like Cooper Cronk, Billy Slater or Cameron Smith and are in the act of, well playing football... don't go there. Not only can the speckled eggs be unknowingly exposed but so can the Ding Dong McDork if you forget to put those jocks on.

                                                               

4. Crocs/Sandals

If you drive an unmarked van and hang around schools... fine. 

Otherwise it's best to avoid these if you want to attract the ladeeeeez...

                                       Image Credit

5. The Sombrero Hat

Not only does this reflect the representation of "I don't like any woman as much as I love my sport" it tends to make you wear green and yellow zinc cream, scream out obscenities and look like a bit of a tosser.

So there you go guys.

Anything else that makes you girls or guys turn your toes up in the sand?

P.S. I'm only joshin', our men can wear anything they like as long as they're prepared to put up with us in our tracky dacks :)

How Low Can a Hobbit Go?

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One Christmas season tradition the eldest of my “hobbits” insist on enacting year after year, is the Boxing Day pilgrimage to the movies.

It began in 2001 with the release of the first “Lord of the Rings” movie. 

Thaddeus was eleven, Jonah ten, Hagar eight, Padraic six and little Lulu only five. My little hobbits sat enthralled, falling in love with Tolkein’s fantasy world (and one of us in particular, falling in love with the handsome Aragorn).

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We arrived late for the screening of the second installment in 2002, which meant I sat in the very front row with the youngest two hobbits whilst Thaddeus, Jonah and Hagar sat by themselves dotted in various locations around the theatre.

I could identify their whereabouts by the odd snap and fizz of the illicit coke cans we’d secreted inside of my backpack.

By the end of the movie my neck had frozen in a painful lock and I made sure we arrived VERY early for the final part of the trilogy in 2003.

We continued to attend other Boxing Day premieres over the years but it never seemed the same until in 2013 the first chapter of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was released.

“Can you take us all to the movies Mum?” requested my twenty-three year old, Thaddeus (by ‘take’ he meant 'pay for' of course).

So I did, however Lulu and Hagar were too cool for school to go to the flicks with mum and siblings so it was just the four of us.

This year, Thaddeus insisted we go again to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and this time only my two eldest babies attended… my shout of course.

“I’m thirsty. Do you have any water in your bag?” whispered Jonah when the lights went out.

“No, why don’t you buy yourself a drink?” I suggested to the twenty-three year old young man.

“Haven’t got any money.”

I fished around in my wallet and extricated my last three five dollar notes.

Jonah took them and in the darkness I noticed a moth flying away into the light as he stashed the money safely in his wallet.

“Well?” I hissed. “Are you going to go and buy a drink or what?”

“No. I don’t want to waste the money on soft drink,” he replied, eyes glued to the screen.

I sat for a while in the dim theatre wondering what had just happened…

Naturally, the boys solicited a Macca's meal after the movie from me... as was our customary traditional, fifteen year old treat.

“They may be twenty-three and twenty-four years old now, but they’re still my little boys and just poor Uni students,” I thought quietly.

It wasn’t until the next day I recalled Jonah, on Christmas Day, waxing lyrical about his impending holiday when he will be flying down to Melbourne with mates to see the 

Australian Open Tennis Tournament.


It’s hard living the high life on casual wages… no wonder he has to fleece his mother out of her last cent.