100 reasons to read my blog

Today was supposed to be special. It’s my 100^th blog post and for several weeks now, I’ve been looking forward to writing something that will astound you all.

Instead, my knee is swollen from an old injury, I’m tired, I’ve been cold all day and I’ve got too much work to do and not enough time to do it in. At one point this afternoon, I toyed with logging on and posting

“If you want to read a blog, go ahead and write one. Let me know how it goes.”

I also thought of going back over my last 99 blogs and giving you a highlight from each one, in the spirit of a best of. But best ofs are lame at…well, at the best of times.

By now you have probably figured out that I’ve got nothing to write about this week. There’s no reason for this to be a surprise, though. I mean, what did I expect, really? I’ve got some Cuban cigars here on the shelf next to my computer, but is 100 blog posts really the right time to spark up one of those bad-boys? Is any event the right time to smoke a Cuban? Cigar, that is. It’s probably never the right time to set an actual Cuban on fire.

I guess what I’m doing now is exploring the myths we build up surrounding special events, and asking just how special they are. Events such as anniversaries and birthdays, for instance. Really, when it comes right down to it, does it make any difference if you’ve been with your partner for nine years and 364 days, or ten years? Shouldn’t every day be the celebration, and the landmarks just another day of celebration among the many?

As it turns out, tomorrow is also exactly six years and fourth months to the day that I met my partner. Perhaps I’ll light a cigar after dinner tomorrow. Or we could crack open a bottle of bubbly and toast the last wonderful six years and four months.

Or why wait for tomorrow. Sorry folks, I’m going to cut my 100^th blog short. Anything could happen between tonight and tomorrow, and I think nothing will make my aches and tiredness disappear like having a glass of something jovial while helping to make dinner. Maybe I’ll light some candles, too. For the table, not the kitchen. Chopping vegies by candle light is only romantic until you chop a finger.

Before I go, I’d like to say a very special thankyou to all of you. When I started this blog, it was really just a chance for me to make sure that I wrote something every week. It was more about the discipline of writing than the content. What it has become is a space for me to share my thoughts, play with new ideas and, every now and then, have a rant. And of course, the discipline factor has not gone away, so that even on the weeks when I have no idea what to say, I somehow manage to say it.

The thing is, without you I wouldn’t be sharing my thoughts with anyone, playing with new ideas would just be playing with myself, and my rants would be pissing into the void.

So, for reading my blog, I thank you.

Carpe wine-um!

MRJ

NB: with regard to setting Cubans on fire, I stated above that it is probably never the right time. I would like to amend that to never the right time. Buenas noches.

These are a few of my favourite things

I used to hate communicating via text message. It’s cumbersome, impersonal, dry and ineffective if you think of communication as a shared experience in which knowledge/information is exchanged in a mutually beneficial, socially bonding manner.

Consider a message I received from my daughter: Hey what u up to

Yes, I accept that young women of a certain age like to keep a certain emotional distance from their parents (and their fathers especially); and I also know I should be pleased at any communication from my offspring that doesn’t begin with “Dad can I have/will you do…”. But still, hey what u up to just doesn’t translate as “Hi dad, I haven’t spoken to you for a while, nor have I accepted your many invitations to dinner. Are you well?” Or perhaps that’s exactly what it really says when decoded. I’ll think about it.

At any rate, this is the problem with SMS. It’s even less reliable than face-to-face communication.

I’ve had a couple of recent experiences that are changing my position on texting though. The thing is, texting offers a permanent record of a conversation, which means one can look back over the conversation and discover who was right and who was wrong. And there’s nothing I love more than being right, except perhaps for food, sex, sleep, money, books, theatre, sunny days, music, roller coasters, clean underwear, holidays, health, friends, family, masturbation (don’t ever let anybody try and tell you it’s in the same category as sex), staring out the window, the sound of rain on a tin roof, swimming, children playing and choc-tops at the cinema. Right after all that stuff, I love being right.

Consider this text exchange, or texchange if you will.

Me: Can I interest you in laksa lunch?

Slipklvchovich: Today?

Me: My only day off?

Slipklvchovich: Done. Jimmie’s? 1230pm? Foyer?

Me: See you then.

That’s right. I arranged to meet Slipklvchovich at 12.30 in the foyer of Jimmy’s for a laksa. Can you imagine my surprise when I received a phone call from Slipklvchovich at 12.30 asking me where I was? He was phoning from the foyer of his office buiilding in Bondi Junction while I was waiting in the foyer of Jimmy’s Recipe in the city. A simple review of the texchange made it clear that Slippy had gotten it wrong, which pleased me not quite as much as the laksa I ate for lunch. Good laksa is also better than being right, but the two of them combined make for a very special day.

Then there was this one

L.A.: Hi, are you working this Saturday?

Me: Sure am. Do you want to drop by?

L.A.: Yes I am Neutral Bay until 12 so I could come over after that.

Me: Cool. It will be good to see you.

So, my friend L.A. was going to drop by my work when she finished at Neutral Bay. Except, she phoned me at around 12.40 asking me if I were home. Of course, I wasn’t. I was where I’d said I’d be. At work, waiting for her to come over for a visit. The anticipation of seeing a friend is also better than being right, but if you can manage the both feelings together, life is good.

I’m not sure if there’s anything that can be learned from all of this, but if there is it is probably that if you’re going to take the time to have a text conversation, you might as well read over it to make sure you know what you’ve arranged. Otherwise some jerk will put the conversation on the Internet just so he can boast about being right.

Some people are really petty like that.

MRJ

The Market doesn’t care about people.

On QandA last Monday, an audience member asked why, if he were to commit a crime, would the media almost certainty identify him by his ethnic appearance even though he’s an Australian citizen?

Rather disingenuously I suspect, the former Howard Minister Peter Reith claimed to have no idea. Meanwhile Sophie Mirabella, the current Shadow Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, seemed to be answering a different question when she suggested the police ought to be accurate in their descriptions of criminals. The question wasn’t about the police or the legal system though; it was about media reporting. In other words, neither of the Liberal Party representatives deigned to answer the question.

The reason the media prints the ethniciity of perpetrators is because the media (as a body) knows the best way to sell papers or gain viewers day after day is by creating a narrative, and the best kind of narrative is one that galvanizes the audience. One of the many ways to do this is to create a them and us narrative. Obviously, it makes the most sense to ensure that the them in question are not your core audience. This is pretty easy to do – just pick on any minority you like and you can demonise them to a tabloid audience.

So if it’s the media, does that mean we can blame those dirt-slinging journalists? Probably not. Let’s not pull any punches here – journalists are a dime and dozen and easily replaced. The best of them may spend their careers trying to uphold the principles of freedom of speech while adhering to their code of ethics, but sadly the majority are neither mentally nor morally equipped to fight the good fight for democracy and just hope to stay employed long enough to get on tv.

But what about Copy Editors? We know not to expect too much from journos, but surely a Copy Editor might be trusted to tone down inflammatory story bias? Wrong again, I’m afraid. Copy Editors are there to pick up the slack when a journalist accidentally hands in an unbiased story. If a story doesn’t have a slant, how are they supposed to sell it? Who are they supposed to sell it to? A story without bias doesn’t subscribe to a narrative, and a story without narrative doesn’t have an audience.

This brings us to the Editor, but as you’ve no doubt realised, he’s in on it too. In fact, you don’t get to be Editor unless you’ve spent your whole career proving again and again that you are a team player. And just like any team, they’re all right behind you right up until the moment when they can supplant you.

The Publisher is next in the chain of command, and he’s even deeper into the game than the Editor, if that’s at all possible. The Publisher is the one who employs the Editor – and will be the one to fire them if they don’t create the right kind of narratives to sell papers.

More often than not, the Publisher is answerable to the Board of Directors who, along with the Chairman, can be replaced at the next shareholders meeting if they perform poorly enough. In this case, performing poorly means loss of revenue, which is caused by loss of advertising income, which is caused by a decline in readership, which is caused by stories that don’t attract readers, which happens when the narrative of the newspaper is out of sync with the audience’s hopes and fears.

So does this mean the market is ultimately to blame for targeting minority groups as a sales strategy? Not quite. An unregulated market is responsible, not the market per se.

Which brings me back to Peter Reith and Sophie Mirabella’s responses to the question. The truth is they both know all of the reasons I’ve just outlined, but they can’t admit to them because of the narrative of the Liberal Party, which demands the market be unregulated. This is based on the idea that an unregulated market is always self-correcting. That unpopular activities will prove unprofitable and thus be phased out.

Which is fine – except it isn’t the market’s responsibility to protect citizens from unscrupulous business strategies. This is at the heart of all arguments to regulate the market. Not so that government can control how businesses make money, but so that businesses aren’t allowed to make money at the expense of citizens. The argument for a regulated market comes down to the assertion that there are some things more important than making money.

Insert pithy comment here

MRJ

CityRail strikes again.

A few years ago – I’m not sure how many but it was less than ten and more than five – my mother gave me these strange looking screwdrivers as a birthday present. It wasn’t the only thing she gave me, of course. It was bundled together with a number of other things that I can’t recall, which I’m sure says something about either the nature of presents or the nature of me. Perhaps I won’t delve too deeply here.

 

Regardless, it isn’t the strangest present I’ve ever received. That honour goes to the aunt of an ex-girlfriend who, upon meeting me for the very first time one Christmas day (the aunt that is, not the girlfriend), promptly gave me a gift-wrapped can of deodorant with a little gift tag attached. I can’t imagine what she may have heard about me, or what her niece’s previous companions had been like, but I solemnly accepted the gift and thanked the strange woman with as straight a face as I could manage.

For the record, I don’t wear Brut 33.

The screwdrivers, interesting though they are, aren’t even the strangest gift my mother’s ever given me. Just last year, she gave me a pumpkin for my birthday. And other things, which of course I don’t remember. Possibly because they were over shadowed by a pumpkin. As it turns out, I’m quite keen on pumpkin and my birthday happens to fall in the middle of winter, which means giving me a pumpkin is almost the same as giving me a pot of pumpkin soup. I wouldn’t be displeased if I got another one this year. But still, it’s a strange gift to give somebody who is as simple to buy for as I am.

The things I traditionally like best are book vouchers and booze. That’s changed in recent times to be iTunes vouchers (for ebooks) and booze. Don’t buy me books, just give me vouchers. I like to choose my own books and when I’m given a voucher I even get a little giddy with joy at the thought of the books I’ll buy with it. Almost as if I’d actually drunk the booze that some other kind person had given me.

So why did my mother give me these strange screwdrivers that have taken up valuable real estate on my key ring for the better part of a decade? I’ve tried using them a handful of times but they are almost always too awkward to be right for the job at hand, whatever that job happens to be.

That is, until last Tuesday.

I probably should have gone to the men’s room before leaving Wollongong – but I didn’t, so by the time we reached Helensburgh (I was getting a lift to Sutherland) I was not only clenching hard but also visualising things like dams, closed faucets and nice, dry deserts. By the time I was dropped off at Sutherland, I was having trouble walking upright and had already made one of those bargains that we make with ourselves at different times, such as I don’t care how many trains I miss or what time I get home, I’m using the men’s room.

I made it. The relief was excruciating. It wasn’t until several long, happy minutes later that I realised I was locked in the men’s room and the window was too small to climb through. Through the frosted glass, I could see a train pulling out (this was the second one I’d missed) but the door was definitely locked, not stuck. I stayed calm and thought about my options. Bang on the door? Call for help? Phone Cityrail? Or reach into my pocket, pull out my keys and remove the lock from the door using the historically useless screwdriver my mother had given me?

Brilliant!

Just a few minutes later, as I deposited the dismantled lock into the stationmaster’s hand, he told me he had requested the lock be repaired two weeks earlier. When I suggested he place a sign on the door to let people know there was a risk to peeing – a risk greater than the one normally associated with public toilets in Sutherland – he looked at me as I’d just given him a can of deodorant for Christmas.

The moral to the story? No matter how crazy they seem, sometimes mothers know what they’re doing. Unfortunately, you can’t ever tell in advance whether they’re being insightful or just channelling their own mothers, so it’s best to err on the side of caution and pay attention. Also, remember to use the bathroom before a long car trip.

Thanks Mum xxx

MRJ

Marooned in Westeros

I haven’t been up to much of interest the last couple of weeks. Sure, I’ve seen a few plays, done a bit of work and whatnot – but I’ve really just been doing the bare minimum to get by so I could devote my time to reading the Game Of Thrones books (aka A Song of Fire and Ice).

It all started when the new season went to air. Everyone was watching it and talking about it but I refused to be drawn in, opting to wait until the season finishes so I can watch all the episodes across one weekend. This is my preferred way to watch most television shows, even if I have been sucked in to watching the latest season of Mad Men one episode at a time.

At first I decided to read the Game of Thrones books merely as a way of delving into the story at my own pace instead of at the pace set by the networks. Now, I’m well into the third book and, having left the second season far behind, now find I couldn’t care less about seeing it on tv. I’ll almost certainly be finished reading the (currently) five book series well before the second season finishes airing. This is not the first time I’ve declared, nor am I the first to declare it, that the book is better.

The problem is I’ve been letting myself go. I haven’t ridden my bike for a couple of weeks, because if I catch a bus then I can read on the way. My brother kindly offered to give me the books in audio format so I could ride my bike with headphones on, but I rather suspect this was merely a Tyrion-style attempt at murdering me. I’m fairly sure that the correct medical term for people who ride a bike while wearing headphones is ‘a patient’.

I also haven’t gone to the gym in a couple of weeks. Or gone shopping. Or washed my clothes. I have bathed, but I’m more than a little ashamed to admit that I may not have worn underwear as often as I ought.

The lounge now has a permanent depression in the middle, roughly the size and shape of my arse. Or rather, the size and shape that my arse has become after not doing any exercise for several weeks and eating the kind of food that people eat when they are trying to avoid the time it takes to prepare proper meals (this is a verbose way of saying ‘pizza’). Today I ate McDonalds, which is simultaneously a low point and a high-five point.

I fear I am declining rapidly. Game of Thrones has become the only topic I’m able to speak about. Certainly, it’s all I was able to blog about this week.

When I caught a glimpse of a newspaper headline yesterday (some nonsense about the Speaker of the House of Representatives being in trouble for something or other), all I thought was that the Labor Party plays the game of thrones very poorly. As Cersei says in the first book, when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die – and it’s clear that Labor aren’t winning.

See what I mean? I’ve got nothing to say about anything unless it relates to Game of Thrones, or as it should more accurately be called, MRJ’s Getting a Fat Arse. While I struggle to reclaim my life from the fictional world of Westeros, fellow fans might find this amusing.

MRJ

Read all about it…while you can!

There have been some whacky things happening in the bedlamic realm we call Australian politics.

Let’s start with Campbell Newman. We’ll start with him because if I finish with him I’ll end up ranting myself ill. His decision to ditch the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards to save the taxpayers of Queensland a whopping $244, 475, and thus ease ‘the cost of living’ – which has somehow emerged as yet another conservative slogan in place of policy announcements – is not really so surprising. It’s not exactly news that extreme wing politics (of either the right or the left) don’t like writers or artists in general for that matter. Those pesky scribes have a deplorable habit of disseminating things like new ideas, rational criticism and reasoned ethics. As a result, they tend to be classified as liberals, and if there’s one thing the Liberal Party can’t abide, it’s liberals.

Now I don’t care which side of politics you’re on. Pick up a history book – any one of them will do. Now flick through and have a look at what has happened around the world in places whenever governments begin silencing their artists. When the chroniclers of culture are not allowed to speak, it’s because the government doesn’t want things publicised.

I won’t belabour this point. There really isn’t any need. I suspect it’s merely a taste of what we can expect under an Abbot government, though. So strap yourselves in for a kind of Dark Ages Renaissance and don’t be surprised if there are a few book burnings to light the darkness.

This week has also seen the retirement from politics of Bob Brown. I’m sure he has many good reasons for wanting to leave politics. It can’t be pleasant being openly gay yet still be forced to occasionally be in the same room as Bob Katter. I suspect it wouldn’t be pleasant having an IQ above 70 and being in the same room as Bob Katter. I can’t help wondering why he’s leaving now though. Sure, he’s 67 and has been fighting uphill for many years with amazing successes (as the left measures things) along the way. He no doubt would like to spend some quality time with his partner and do things like the washing up, for instance. However, I can’t help this nagging suspicion…could it be that the writing is writ large upon the wall that at the 2013 Federal Election there will be a landslide Coalition win that will see the super mining tax repealed, the forests of Tasmania cut down and the Greens completely disempowered in the next Parliament? At 67, maybe Bob Brown just doesn’t want to commit to leading a voiceless party for what could end up being two or three terms.

And Bob Brown isn’t the only one who can see it coming. This week, John Howard was given an honorary doctorate from Macquarie University. As somebody pointed out in the SMH earlier this week, as Prime Minister John Howard oversaw the most drastic education funding cuts in memory, forcing universities to abandon the task of educating poor and middle class Australians and throw their doors open to high paying overseas students. As much as I love the influx of foreigners and the wonderful things they do for our economy (and much more importantly, our culture and cuisine), I’m less keen on increased class sizes and corresponding decreased student services and access to education for locals.

So why would he be honoured with an honorary doctorate which does little other than devalue the gruelling research work of actual doctoral students?

Perhaps it’s because Macquarie University knows which side their bread is buttered on, and it isn’t the outgoing Australian Labor Party. It’s the incoming Liberal/Liberal National Party of Queensland/Nationals/Country Liberals Coalition (you know, the ones who complain about the Gillard government having too many voices) that they will be asking money from very soon.

Liberals of Australia beware – the Liberal Party is on it’s way (along with the all the other parties they need to form government) and it aint gonna be pretty.

MRJ

One last thing – for the record, the current population of Queensland is 4,640,690. Scrapping the Premier Awards is saving the people of Queensland 5 cents per person per year. I’m sure that is a great relief to the people suffering under the burdens of the cost of living. Maybe now they’ll be able to afford matches to light the bonfires with.

What do you do with a bunch of loose ideas?

I’ve got this pair of underpants in my drawer – well, actually, they’re not in my drawer. I’m wearing them. They were in my drawer when I originally wrote this paragraph, although that was some time ago. This week, I’ve decided to try and cobble together a whole bunch of ideas that I’ve had lying around. I’ve also decided to do this while wearing underpants because none of you really want the mental image of me writing my posts in flagrante delicto, as it were.

So…

I’ve got this pair of underpants in my drawer that I don’t think are mine. I mean, they should be mine because they’re in my drawer and they look like most of my other underpants. You know, same brand and so on and so forth. This is part of the problem. Because they look like my underpants, it isn’t until I put them on that I realise there’s something different about them. It’s something to do with the waistband. It seems just that bit too narrow on the hips. I’m not talking about girth; I’m talking about the amount of vertical fabric on the hips. It just feels kind of odd, and I never realise that they’re the odd pair until I’m wearing them and by then it just seems silly to take them off again so I leave them on and spend the day feeling as if I’m wearing somebody else’s underpants. Like I’ve felt all day today.

I’m not just writing this to be gross. I think there’s an important metaphor buried in the idea of wearing somebody else’s underpants and feeling uncomfortable in them but I can’t seem to put my finger on what the metaphor is. That’s why I’ve had that previous paragraph sitting around for months just waiting for me to do something ingenious with. Now that I’ve committed to posting it, I will no doubt think of something brutally clever after it’s too late, but at least I’ve cleared one idea out of the filing cabinet.

Another idea I had was imagining that there was, somewhere, some kind of Utopian alternate universe where all of those ideas we have when we’re drunk are acted upon. You know, the ideas where you say “I’ve just had the best idea ever…” and you then go on to outline some scheme for making the world a better place. Such schemes normally involve everybody drinking a lot and not wearing very many clothes. They also normally mean that nobody will cut down any more trees or be mean to each other. So I’ve got this idea where all of these drunken schemes are enacted and it’s a wonderful world, but I don’t know what to do with this idea so I’ve decided to put it out there into the blogoverse and see what happens to it. Who knows, maybe like the underpants, the idea isn’t even my own. I may have just stumbled across it one night when I was drunk and thought it was my own.

I hope that’s not really how I obtained the underwear.

God only knows what I was thinking when I wrote a note to myself saying: “There are times when a txt just won’t do anymore. You have to bite the bullet and actually phone the person.” This was written at 11.25 am on 11 February this year. I’ve checked my diary and phone records and can’t see any reason why I would have thought this was worth recording for posterity. Maybe I was still drunk from the previous night and this was one of those ideas that are being put into practice in an alternate universe. Actually, it doesn’t sound too bad when I put it like that. I wouldn’t mind living in a world where people phone each other instead of sending text messages. Oh, wait a minute. That’s the world I grew up in.

Well, that’s a little disappointing. I was sure when I started that I would find some brilliant way to tie in the underpants dilemma and make use of the unknown metaphor. I thought the act of writing would be like opening up one of my drawers and reaching in with the confidence that what I drew out would naturally belong to me instead of finding I’ve written something that looks like mine but just doesn’t feel quite right.

Hang on a minute…

MRJ

For auld lang syne.

An old friend made contact with me over Facebook this week, which I suppose is part and parcel of being online. It was a pleasant surprise though, as it had only been a couple of days earlier I had wondered what he was up to. Also, it was safe to dispense with my usual response to voices from the past, which is “oh no, they want to sell me Amway” because I know from years gone by that he has a similar fear response to the phone ringing.

So we chatted for a while, just catching up on the more than twelve years since we last spoke. That was last century, which doesn’t sound as ironic as it did a decade ago. Saying ‘a decade ago’ doesn’t sound as ironic as it did a quarter century ago. That’s enough of that. It’s depressing me.

There have been the usual changes. He got married, I got divorced. His wife is Russian, my partner’s German(ish). He’s now a teacher, I’m now a student. He’s fatter than me, I’m balder than him. He’s going deaf, I’m going blind. The conversation started to sound a bit like a Golden Girls reunion show.

Funny story about his Russian wife, by the way. When they met, she was a US resident. Apparently, you can get anything in America.

Anyway, the whole episode got me wondering about friendships in general. I’m locked into catching up with my new long-lost-friend in a couple of weeks, probably the day after I finally see another friend who I haven’t had time to see for a couple of months. In fairness, she hasn’t had time to see me either.

Then there are the friends who live in Melbourne, who I’m lucky to see once every year or two. Or three. You know how it is. The thing is, I’m not sure I understand why it is I spend so much of my time with acquaintances and struggle to find time to hang out with people with whom I share a deep emotional and/or intellectual bond.

On the other hand, I’m always surprised to have old friends at all – and not just because of my sweet-but-somehow-objectionable nature. It’s just that I long ago accepted it’s in the nature of friendships to end. Nothing is forever and people come and go from our lives, often without any discernible reason.

And speaking of relationships ending, if anyone from Belvoir is reading this then pay attention: you’re on thin ice. Having just seen Every Breath, I’ve realised that four of my five worst theatre experiences have been at the Belvoir. The others were Now That Communism Is Dead My Life Feels Empty, Being Harold Pinter and Buried City.

Yes, I know that was a strange kind of segue but I wrote the first half of this post before seeing Every Breath and it’s depth of paucity has befuddled my train of thought. The thing is, it’s rare to come across a production whose banality is only equalled by its pretentiousness. Considering that this is Benedict Andrews’ first production (as a writer), it seems strange for him to have a character pontificating on how dreary it is to be a world famous author. Regrettably, it wasn’t a lone low point. Every character paraded in front of us in an excruciating final ten minutes, moaning their private thoughts in a kind of faux-losophy to an audience who was still sniggering at the stupidity of the play’s nudity.

This production had no redeeming features. The performances were not so much phoned in as they were morse-coded and the set appears to have been designed by the same kind of visionaries who build two lane highways. With other shows I’ve disliked, I’ve always applauded the efforts of the actors; the only reason I applauded this time was because I couldn’t restrain my excitement that it was over.

And perhaps the reason I’m getting over Belvoir is the same as the reason other friendships wax and wane. My passing acquaintance with another theatre (the Griffin) has developed into something meaningful, while Belvoir seems intent on going down a path I don’t wish to follow.

No hard feelings though, Belvoir. Hit me up on Facebook in a decade or so and we’ll do lunch.

MRJ

Let me tell you a story…

I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that I haven’t’ had time to even think about writing something this week…wait a minute! That’s the bad news.

The good news is I’ve got a very short (and hopefully amusing) story that I wrote some time ago that I’ll post instead. This is the first time I’ve posted straight fiction, so I hope you all enjoy it.

Daddy’s Girl

“Dad, can you help me with this?’ I asked.

He put his paper down and looked at me over the rim of his glasses. I could almost hear his mind ticking over. Not now. I’ve got work to do. I need to finish this for tomorrow. I pulled one of the earphones out of my ear to show him that he had my full attention. It’s important to let people think you care.

“What is it?”

“Maths.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, code for why me? and then beckoned for me to pass him my text book. My iPhone rang and I pushed the button on my headphones to take the call. It was Sara. Her boyfriend was annoying her again. Sara’s boyfriend is always annoying her. I’d told her she should break up with him but she’s one of those people who just can’t seem to free herself of hangers-on.

I spoke to her for a while but she just wanted to talk about her own problems so I told her that I had to do my homework and when I hung up I rang Bree to tell her that Sara had phoned me, complaining about her boyfriend. Bree didn’t have much to say about it though so when I got a message from Olivia I told Bree that I had to go cause I was doing homework. She told me that I was sucking up to Mr. Jeffreys so I hung up without saying goodbye.

I hacked her Facebook because everyone knows her password and updated her status to I like pussy and phoned Olivia to tell her about Bree’s status.

“OMG,” she said. “I always thought she was a dyke lol.”

I spoke to her for a while but then I got bored ‘cause she just wanted to talk about lesbians. I think she might be one. She seemed way too interested in Bree’s status. I told her I had to go because I was doing homework when I saw that Sara was phoning me again.

“Have you seen Bree’s status?” she asked and I told her that Olivia was a lesbian too.

“OMG we should totally set them up lol,” she said.

We talked for a bit longer about setting them up but I told her I was doing my homework when I saw the incoming call from Bree.

“Did you hack my Facebook?” she asked.

“No – I’m doing my maths homework,” I said.

“Somebody hacked my Facebook and made my status I like pussy.”

“OMG that’s so funny lol.”

“No it’s not – Olivia liked it!”

“Yeah, I’ve been getting a lesbian vibe from her.”

“Should I leave it or delete it?”

“Definitely leave it. It’s already helped Olivia, so you don’t know who else it might help.”

I spoke to her for a bit longer but had to go because Dad had finished my maths homework and I had to talk to him about my science homework.

MRJ

Whether to forecast the weather…or not.

My daughter came for dinner last Sunday and we were joking about how hopeless weather forecasts are. We’re both in similar positions, in that we both leave very early in the mornings and have to make sure we have climate-appropriate clothing for the rest of the day. When I declared that I’d be better off looking out the window than checking the forecast, the challenge hovered in the air for a moment – can MRJ really predict the weather with greater accuracy than a professional weather service?

Challenge accepted.

The Rules of Engagement were simple: I look out the window each night and tweet my forecast, then make a note of the forecast from the weather widget on my iMac. The weather widget uses Yahoo Weather, so in a sense it’s MRJ v Yahoo.

Forecast for Monday 12 March

Yahoo – Raining.

MRJ – Mostly fine with a chance of showers. I’d call it bike riding weather

Actual – Sunny for most of the day, moving to overcast in the afternoon. I rode my bike to Central at 7 am wearing shorts and a light shirt, travelled to Wollongong by train and came back the same way in the afternoon. Didn’t get wet or cold.

Score: MRJ – 1/7, Yahoo – 0/7

Forecast for Tuesday 13 March

Yahoo – Cloudy and sunny, whatever that means.

MRJ – I think mostly fine again. Probably some cloud but I don’t think much rain if any. I’m taking a jacket tomorrow but only because it’s a long day.

Actual – Gorgeous weather with clear skies all day. Yahoo and I were both wrong.

Score: MRJ – 1/7, Yahoo – 0/7

Forecast for Wednesday 14 March

Yahoo – Cloudy and sunny again.

MRJ – I think tomorrow’s weather will be almost exactly the same as today’s

Actual – Well, I got it wrong and yahoo got it right this time. Cloudy and sunny. Still no rain, though.

Score: MRJ – 1/7, Yahoo 1/7

Forecast for Thursday 15 March

Yahoo – Overcast.

MRJ – It feels a bit moist out there. I think it will be fine, cloudy and with a chance of showers at different times. No real downpours though.

Actual  – it was mostly fine, a bit of cloud cover and no rain.

Score: MRJ – 2/7, Yahoo – 1/7

Forecast for Friday 16 March

Yahoo – Storms

MRJ – I’m still not convinced it’s ready to rain tomorrow. I think it will be overcast with a chance of showers

Actual – it cleared over night and the morning looked great. Clouds came in during the afternoon and it looked like a storm but it didn’t happen.

Score: MRJ – 3/7, Yahoo 1/7

Forecast for Saturday 17 March

Yahoo – Rain

MRJ – Feels like the southerly’s coming but it wouldn’t surprise me if it blows out to sea overnight. I’m calling it: no storm tomorrow, maybe rain.

Actual –There was a storm at 2.30 in the morning but I’m claiming this as irrelevant because the purpose of the forecast is to predict the weather for the following day, not for during the night when most of us are sleeping. The day was overcast with rain in the morning.

Score: MRJ – 4/7, Yahoo 1/7

Forecast for Sunday 18 March

Yahoo – Sunny and cloudy

MRJ – Final forecast, overcast and showers.

Actual – sunny, cloudy, overcast and showers. Today had it all but I’m penalising Yahoo because they didn’t forecast any rain at all.

MRJ – 5/7, Yahoo 1/7

Wow. When I started this a week ago, I thought it would be pretty even, maybe even with me looking a bit silly at the end. But having scored 71% accuracy compared to Yahoo’s 14%, I think it will be a while before I check a weather forecast again.

If anybody has another challenge, now is the time to tell me. I feel at the peak of my game.

MRJ