Coffin Dodgers...Yet Another Debauched Night.

Part Two of Bithday Proceedings....

The night started off demurely enough. We were spirited back to the 1950s for a rockabilly night where all the men looked like Elvis and all the women dressed like Betty Page.


(A creepy looking Elvis who insisted on following us around all night with the futile hope of getting a snog from one of us!)

However the peace was soon shattered when a man who looked like Sex Machine from Dusk til Dawn started a fight in the booth behind me. He launched himself at an unsuspecting fellow drinker and broke his nose. To add insult to injury he then grabbed my beer and threw the bottle at this poor guy.


...Covering me in beer in the process!

The bloody cheek of it. I know that guy had a broken nose but I. Was. Covered. In. Beer!


(Sex Machine. With Beer)

So I did what any unreasonable person would do. I ran after 'Sex Machine' to demand another beer and an apology. Now in the broad light of day I realise that this is not one of my smartest moves but I have been known to break men who are a lot tougher! My mission worked though as he apologised profusely bought a couple of beers for Joe and I and then my charms seemed to become extra-potent as he tried unsuccessfully to woo me!

He turned to me and uttered sotto voce "Don't tell anyone but I'm a prominent member of a local bikie gang called the Coffin Dodgers"


(not actually their real name but the name that I confused them with leaving a much funnier mental image of purple rinsed al' wifeys dragging their zimmer frames onto the back of their harleys!)

Me, " Ooh I've read about you. You're quite naughty"

Dramatic pause with eyes darting around room as if being watched "You're not to tell anyone"

Me "But you know I'll tell my friends!"

Him forcefully "No. Not ANYONE"

Me obliviously "But I will tell my friends"

Him dangerously "....No" and then came 'The Look'.


Shaz and Joe did a remarkable job of creating a diversion, saving me from his grubby clutches and dragging me away to the next pub. Safe again. Well as safe as you can be in the soiled depravity of Northbridge on a Saturday night.

All this and we didn't even get to sing bad karaoke in the sound-proofed rooms of the local Asian bar!

Eurobeat, Lets Go Disco!

To start my '30th Birthday Celebration Week' (a day is NEVER enough I feel) I dragged Dave, Shaz, Michael and Joe to see Eurobeat .

All I can say is that it is the best Eurovision musical I have ever seen in my whole entire life!

Gay cowboys, drunken Brit performers, post industrial Wiggles... this show has it all. We ate chocolate dipped papaya and drank wine whilst sat IN OUR THEATRE SEATS! We adopted Estonia as our country of choice and wildly waved our (complimentary) Estonian flag whenever this guy was on stage decked in his plaid and cowboy boots performing his not altogether un-erotic 'Brokeback number'...


...I think you'll agree that we didn't need much encouragement to scream ourselves hoarse?

At the end of the night we had to score the acts on our very own 'Eurobeat Score Card' so obviously I chose...

Iceland...



Estonia...



Russia...




Liechtenstein.... (for Spunky!)



I was given (for my birthday) my very own Estonia flag so I could recreate the glamour and excitement of the evening safely back in my own home. I waved my flag all night and when I was done with waving we sneaked back into the theatre afterwards (post pint in local pub....of course) to hunt down the performers!

Joe and Shaz did a smashing job locating non-famous actor-dahling types. Shaz pointed at appropriate people while Joe pounced on them! By the end of the 'Hunt Down a Luvvie' session I think we had collected EVERY actors autograh (including Estonian hunk of spunk) on my Estonian flag and received countless hugs from really nice people that happen to look good in lycra!




Joe did a great job at explaining all the relevant signatures to me...

"This one is from the Hungarian Act. This one is the little gay one with highlights that had 'that stomach'. This one is the Stage Manager and this one is from a man who had nothing to do with the show but very proudly 'applauded loudly'!"

The Queen of the show, Julia Zemiro, then emerged like a heavenly creature from the wings. If you're a pom (and most of you are....obviously) you won't be familiar with her work with Rockwiz. It's a Never Mind The Buzzcocks for the Aussie settler. She is a very funny lady and just a little bit beautiful. She hugged me and wished me happy birthday....twice.




Swoon...I have a 'lady crush'!

Things Wot I Got And Stuff...

Thirty? Bah, I don't understand what all the fuss is about. It's not been that bad so far. If the decade continues like this and my body parts don't drift any further then I think this could be quite fun!

This year I had some fabulous presents......

Squeezy Marmite!




Twiglets and twiglets and twiglets...




More lotions and potions than I have skin (and I do have a fair bit)




An ipod....no more trying to cycle to work with my walkman strapped to my bike bag and having to rescue it from the middle of the road where it lays looking forlorn and battered after being thrown from the bag during some rather frenetic cycling!




Chocolate. Lots of chocolate. (I realise the picture doesn't show 'lots of chocolate' but you see there was famine in my house and I was really hungry...)




T'Darkness book. With the now defunct 'hapless bassist' (my favourite bassist since Flea...bah) Frankie Poullain. Oh Frankie, how I miss thee and thy tash...

Please note price of gorgeous book....50p!



A very strange but surprisingly funky recycled rubber monkey bracelet?!




Two dollars and fifteen cents (if you haven't seen Tank Girl you just wouldn't understand...)




And my favourite thing ever...Salt and Pepper Cicadas!




Thank you everyone who sent me stuff in the post. I had another leaflet stuffed into one of my pacakges reminding me about WA quarantines.

So please, no more sending of stuffed badgers, semi-automatic handguns, or Tony Blairs. Thank you!

Cooking With Idiots

(Natalie's downfall)

I thought I would show my appreciation for my lovely boyfriend and cook him his dinner. I can only cook two dishes, Thai green curry or scrambled eggs...

Thai green curry it is then.

This is how my itinerary went...

1. Pour glass of wine.
   
2. Serve Dave glass of wine with wifely smile and an enquiry into his laborious day.
3. Chop vegetables including onions.
   
4. Try not to cry with onions.
   
5. Hop around kitchen willing tears to dry.
   
6. Heat oil in pan.
7. Realise chicken is still in freezer.
   
8. Switch off gas ring.
   
9. Pour another glass of wine
10. Over defrost chicken.
    
11. Accidentally cut off fingernail when chopping chicken.... luckily not finger.
    
12. Brown chicken meat too much on one side as very interesting documentary on telly.
    
13. Cook onions.
    
14. Reminder from Dave re: garlic. Argh, hunt for garlic.
    
15. Chop garlic and then realise it's off. Find more garlic which suspiciously doesn't smell like garlic and is much larger than normal???
16. Add green curry paste, coconut cream and a little water... oops, a lot of water,
    
17. Try and simmer off excess juice for a few minutes whilst smiling reassuringly at Dave (he isn't buying it though).
    
18. Stir through curry to avoid stuff sticking to bottom and inadvertently flick two lumps of chicken and a glob of sauce over the side of pan and onto floor.
    
19. Wipe up floor in haphazard manner.
    
20. Rewipe floor when slip on still greasy spot from haphazard cleaning.
21. More wine? Why sshank you...
22. Add rice to boiling water.....who knows how much? I add a cupful before adding extra...just in case.
    
23. Watch in horror as rice fluffs up and spills over side of pan resulting in milky residue over nice clean cooker.
24. Watch more of documentary before realising that rice has almost boiled dry.
    
25. Serve, apologise and phone friend for outing to pub to get over stress of wifely duties!
    

No wonder Dave does ALL the cooking in our house!

Seth Lakeman...My Husband!

My local hero Sethy babes Lakeman has just released his first single over yonder. I cannot buy it here in Oz as he has selfishly decided to not release any of his stuff down under.

Therefore I demand that YOU all go out and buy a copy of his new single, Lady of the Sea so that he'll have enough money to woo me, propose and bring me back to the UK for a deliciously decadent wedding set in the heart of Dartmoor (Dewerstone preferably) where we dance up a candlelit aisle dressed like nymphs and faeries from Twelfth Night in the manner of Tori Amos' wedding.

It took me three months and fifty dollars to get his new album over here and I really cannot be bothered waiting that long for a single of a song that I already have! So you lot have to keep his pockets filled with gold. I know, I'm a half arsed fan!

Seth, if you're reading this (which of course he is..), I insist you tour in Oz. Oh, and can I be your ironing lady and come along for the ride? I don't actually iron though. Would this be a problem? I make a mean margarita if that helps?

If any of you are interested, his new album is called Freedom Fields and it is very very very good. I promise. I was also born in Freedom Fields and then went on to live there when I was a nursing student so it has extra special meaning for me.

...Oh and there is some sort of politicalness with it too as it was where they fought some battle for parlimentary democracy.

V important, you'll agree?




Seth Lakeman

Visa-Vie!

(Paulo Cocke and I on my 19th birthday...he stole that rose FOR ME!)

My bid for international Aussie-dom began this week…albeit with some procrastinating months previous whereby I printed and reprinted the required visa forms THREE times. With each form consisting of at least thirty pages, Dave wasn’t happiest with my complete lack of hippy ideals and paper wastage.

There were character checks (am still not sure I have any), photos (requisite glamorous shots with me in too much make-up, and fully coiffed hair….so much so that the Justice of Peace seriously doubted that these photos resembled the half shambled girl sitting in front of him chewing surreptitiously on a ragged fingernail) and Australian and British police checks (the worst thing I ever did in Blighty was not pay a car parking fine from Torquay hospital….I lived there for fucks.. and the worst thing I did here was get chucked out of a nightclub for being just a wee bit tipsy, losing my handbag and ‘apparently’ chatting up some man-child and agreeing to go home with him…I didn’t. Obviously! I was too drunk!!)

These visa forms are designed to wheedle information out of you like the Gestapo did with our very brave moustachioed airmen in WWII. The forms ask questions which sound very easy for twenty odd pages before slipping in a ‘and have you ever worked for a terrorism organisation or tried to kill innocent people in a way which would allow you prime time reportage on 'Americas Most Wanted'?

Before you know it you’re admitting to pulling off the wings of daddy long legs and hinting at a past career in people trafficking

You have to have your wits about you in this game or else they will pounce on a simple answer where you joke about not liking your paternal grandfather that much, where they come to the conclusion that you must have killed the old man and then cut off his limbs and used them in some sixth form art project. (Before you get all ‘Karma’ on me, I don’t have a paternal grandfather. My grandmother was a Janner after all!)

With all these forms the idea is to make them as complicated as possible so as to determine the ones who can actually understand a tenth of the questions and therefore allow them first dibs on their hallowed country. Hopefully, I have copied the correct answers off my good friends John, Sue and Dots exam papers, umm, I mean Visa forms so as to allow my full and cheesy smile to entice those middle aged, comb-over businessmen in the Department of Immigration to swoon over me (as so many old men do) and invite me to stay in their country permanently….

…and then my reign of terror shall begin. Mwwwaahhhhh, mwwwaaahhh, mmmwwaaaaaaaaahhhhh!