But one likes, as they say, to be asked

UPDATE, 27/10/11: I am reliably informed that the AGNSW did indeed have copies of the other books and had either sold them all or not unpacked them yet. I take it all back. This post was written with a small bit of my tongue in my cheek, in a knee-jerk reaction (if you will forgive the involvement of all these body parts) of a non-eastern-stater to Syd/Melb hegemonic etc etc. Mea culpa.



Cruising around the gallery shop yesterday at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, I was glad for the sake of their respective authors, Delia Falconer and Sophie Cunningham, to see on display for sale a little stack of copies of Sydney

and another little stack of copies of Melbourne.

But alas, that was all.

Having put a great deal of time and effort into writing a book that could be read for pleasure and instruction not only by Adelaideans but also by interstaters and overseasers, I couldn't help thinking that surely visitors to the gallery shop might be largely from elsewhere, and therefore perhaps interested in Australia as a whole. And that even the Sydneysiders might interested in broadening their horizons by also reading Adelaide,

Brisbane,

 

and In Search of Hobart.

Or is it really true that Melbourne and Sydney people think that the Hume Highway and everything to the east and at each end of it = Australia?

No salted caramel macarons for me, then

Well. Today I went to Hutt Street on a follow-up visit to the nice surgeon who removed my gall bladder and, while he was in there, (gulp) biopsied (is that a verb?) my liver.

The good news is that there is no new bad news about the liver, and that everything that was eating at my innards has now been surgically removed and is healing up nicely. The bad news is assorted: (a) that gallstones can in fact form in the bile duct, so there's no guarantee that I won't grow more, and (b) the confirmation that the condition of my liver is not at all what it should be (NB this has nothing to do with drinking, so there) and if ignored and neglected could easily lead to something called non-alcoholic cirrhosis, which is exactly like alcoholic cirrhosis except that you didn't have any fun. And cirrhosis -- well, you know.

Now Hutt Street, as Adelaideans know, is an excellent place to have coffee and cake. I had coffee. No cake, no biscuits, no gorgeous French patisserie and absolutely, positively no salted caramel macarons. Not today, not next week, and only very occasionally as a special treat ever again. Sugar, fat and alcohol, formerly three of my main food groups, are off the menu for the foreseeable.

The bright side is that if I take this seriously, as who would not, then my days as a traditionally built lady might be numbered. Goddess knows I'm already ten kilos less traditionally built than I was when this all hit the fan two months ago. It could be the start of a whole new look.

Translations: tradies

WHEN THEY SAY

It's supposed to be like that.

WHAT THEY REALLY MEAN IS

I don't feel like driving back to your house and fixing the thing I should have got right in the first place, and besides, you're a woman so I can probably con you into thinking there isn't a problem.

Irritants: a series less occasional than I would like

*Clears throat, rings town crier bell, unrolls parchment*


'Disinterested' does not mean 'uninterested'.

'On Ermintrude's behalf' does not mean 'on Ermintrude's part'.

'Cohort' does not mean 'mate'.

Irritating as these and their constant and egregious misuse may be, they pale into insignificance beside the moment when a young person employed by the Channel 7 News referred to 'Michael Jackson and his panache for plastic surgery.' It took me several minutes to work out that the word this 'journalist' should have been groping for was penchant and that's not really right either.


*Rolls up parchment, retires to Ladies' Lounge for a medicinal brandy*

The Pile

And not a spine cracked among them except for the Gelder and Salzman book on contemporary Australian fiction, After the Celebration (five down from the top on the left-hand side), on which there'll be a post here soon. (Click on photo to embiggen if you want a better look at those spines.)

Rain dance

What my dear and long-departed paternal grandfather used to call the Weather Baroo has been forecasting rain in these parts for several days now, but thus far the sky has declined to put its money where its mouth is.

So this morning saw me outside with the garden hose, since it's Wednesday and it's before 9 am and I live in an odd-numbered house and I neglected to water the garden the last time I was allowed to (last Sunday) because I was busy and the Weather Baroo had told me I wouldn't need to.

The poor parched plants needed a serious soaking, especially the lemon tree which is one thirsty dude, so there was considerable expenditure of both time and money, the former in particular being in crucially short supply around here at the moment. As for the money, the water people seem to be behaving the same way as Telstra; as the use of water and of landlines gets less and less, they hike up the infrastructure charges more and more, so although you're being incredibly and increasingly frugal in your use of necessary services, your bills stay roughly the same. It's a version of the law of diminishing returns.

So anyway, after seriously soaking the garden, packing up the hose and coming inside, I went out again five minutes later for something else and there it was, if not actually bucketing down then certainly having a good substantial spit. I can't always make it rain by hanging out the washing or washing the car, but watering the garden is a lay-down misère.