Australia‘s national broadcaster, the ABC, fills its program’s with folk flogging their books. . One way or t’other, an eclectic bunch get to tout their wares!
A lady recently extolled the virtues of spinsterhood. BTW I’m not inclined to buy her book.
If you are of sensitive disposition, be warned.
The interviewee lauds spinsterhood, A much derided concept. She eschews the roar of the neighbourhood, Her house quite derelict.
Her background is from privilege, Her dad, a rich mining magnate. She says she’s known love, affection too, But her love life’s been quiet stagnate
Has she tried kinky forms of coupling? It’s not clear if she oughta. Voyeurism, golden showers, fisting, Foot fetish, cock and ball torture.
The undergrowth was dense. Sea grasses covered the dunes with sharp nettled weeds. Surviving in the sandy waterless dunes, the foliage was dense and scraggy.
The kids scrambled back from sandy beach into the dunes. There they resumed building sandcastles, but they kept falling down, the sand wasn’t moist enough.
So kids being kids they decided to dig instead.
Deeper and deeper they went, until they uncovered a stone wall. It was just below the surface and easily uncovered. But it is what they found next that amazed them. The wall was shaped in a horseshoe, with remnants of frayed rope hanging from ringlets at the old dockside.
Below the capstones of the ancient seawall, gnarled roots of a species the kids couldn’t recognise were found. Shrivelled grape leaves were spread throughout the sandy diggings. The kids knew they found the source of the Vine of the Ancient Marina
Recently archeologists from Belarus and Britian surveyed the Black Sea.
Tracking ancient sea trade routes they chanced on sunken wrecks. In the sonar, ghostly apparitions appeared on the sea bed. The frames of wooden trimarans of ages past. Preserved deep in the watery anaerobic sea.
Amongst the decaying ribs of the ships were many wine amphora. The residual wine histamines in the amphora were analysed.
A unique blend.
The archaeologists wondered what type of delicacy would match this unique blend. Testing a range of Roman foods they made the startling discovery of:
Nowadays it’s de rigueur to offer a warning, for those of infirmed sensibilities. Friends, this is that warning.
A light summer eve breeze tumbles off of the wavelets in the estuary. Samson has been itching to go for his evening perambulation. From four pm he’s been agitated. Having snoozed the day on his dining room plush cushion it’s time to walk. Dogs, if anything, are creatures of habit.
At seventeen years old, he’s an old dog. Rescued from a refuge at ten, he’s living out his days in luxury. He’s had vet visits galore. Overall he’s in excellent condition, though showing his age with a little arthritis in his right foreleg. He needs his daily exercise, and in his dog mind he knows it.
Along the beach front, scrambling through the rocks he finds the remains of a cormorant carcass, I’ve tried to keep him away from for several weeks. He’s already had the head, and now the desiccated remains are irresistible. Grinning, with his prize in mouth he bounds away. I don’t really chase him, what’s the point of chiding him, he’s a dog and I don’t want the carcass. He’s happy and loved.
Together we climb the overgrown grassy slope to the concrete footpath, ahead we see a lone pedestrian. Samson trots along five yards behind me, with his lopping gait. Head bobbing up and down, tail wagging, he looks kinda comical to me. Approaching is a slim middle aged woman, decked out in de rigueur training gear matched with swanky off grey joggers. Tres chic. I glance without comment. She passes at socially appropriate distance, avoiding the each other’s gaze. Then she approaches Samson. I momentarily glance around, then she says something which I don’t quite catch. Politely I retrace my steps to better hear her words, against the steady breeze.
“He’s in pain,” I hear her repeat as I approach.
“Can’t you see he’s in pain.”
“Oh really,” I retort, “Do you think he’d be ambling along tail wagging if he didn’t want to go walking?”
“I’m an animal lover,” she says by way of explanation, though I couldn’t be less interested in what she claims she is.
“Well, he’s on arthritis medication daily, seventeen years old, a rescued dog and his vet says to keep him active” I offer. My voice is stifled. I hear her accusation, feel the need to justify my apparent neglect of animal welfare.
“Yes, but I’m an animal lover,” she bleats again.
I lean in, into the sacred personal space to hiss,
“And it’s none of your fucking business.”
Getting the dismissive turn away just right, whilst managing to sneer the ‘fucking business’ more or less over the shoulder, is quite an art.
I resume the walk with,
“C’mon Samson, off we go,”
He dips his head, to trot off, not having got the lady pat he expected.
I wonder how I might have better managed the turn and comments as I move away.
Then it comes to me. A slightly longer dismissal sentence is needed, practised so its never delivered in anger.
Maybe a little deeper penetration of the personal space.
The breeze clears my brain and then it comes to me.
Lean in, lock eyes, pause,
“And, sweetheart, it’s none of your fucking business.”
The final day of the Trump presidency boosted Kodak’s sales of long forgotten black and white film inventories. In this way the Outgoing President has made further advances in his promise to ‘Make America Great Again’
The days ahead fill me with dread, the orange clown has gone, And in his place, a paler face ascends the golden throne, Joe adds some contrast to the joint, it’s Kamala you see, Just like Obama, gone before, cute, multiracially.
End an era, just four years, must it end like this? Narcissism taken to extreme, he couldn’t take the piss. It started on day one you see, amusing, some folk thought, As oath of office left his lips, he mused the crowd size fraught.
A new age dawns, less drama now, antifa, proud boys gone, The blogs will fill with haiku, kale and woeful tales forlorn, Photographers too will relish chance, to photograph and snap, Eschewing coloured ektachrome, and use just white and black.
The Hobart Chinaman 
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