Former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss's parrot has died. Fliess's reaction? She's opened a laundromat called 'Dirty Laundry' in Nevada, plus she's planning on building a legal brothel for women (i.e FOR women) called Heidi's Stud Farm. "I had to force myself to do something," Fliess said. "Nothing in my 41 years - nothing - ever affected me like this."

An odd overreaction, some might think. I had a parrot once, a cockatiel called Scruffy Whinge, or Mr Whinge if we were being formal. I loved that little squawker, how he followed me from room to room, whinging endlessly and smashing into cupboards. I was always thought it unnatural to get bird's wings clipped, but then again, I guess there aren't many cupboards in the wild either. And sure, I was upset when he died, and angry with the cupboards, but never once was I tempted to use it as an excuse to open a bordello. 'Polly want a crack whore?'

It seems to me that such a reaction is not a 'normal' way of dealing with the grief caused by losing a beloved parrot. This is a 'celebrity' way of dealing with it. Unlike the rest of us (and I count myself as one of you, for now), celebrities are seemingly entitled to be overly grandiose and mad with their reactions. They jump on the backs of trendy causes as if their OWN lives depended on it, demand strange things in hotel rooms, join bizarre religious cults, find god after spending a couple nights in jail, marry their 'soul mates' only to divorce them six months later (divorce is like the new 'breaking up with your boyfriend') ... it's all so very childish and self-indulgent, and it cheapens real emotion. We all have these childish fancies, but do we act on them? Well no, we can't – we don't have the money.

My dream, for example, is to own a house large enough to build a mirror maze in the basement. Not only will there be a mirror maze, it will come with laser gun toys that you can bounce off the mirrors to hit your opponents and score points. The construction of such a thing would certainly have gotten my mind off the passing of Mr Whinge, but unfortunately I lacked the resources. If I had owned the resources, I might have done it, and I might even have immemorially named one of the robots Mr Whinge. Sure. I would have. Hmmm.

I guess my distaste for the insane whims of celebs comes not from any actual righteousness, but more from jealousy. Having been found out as a hypocrite, I'd storm off to my trailer ... if I had one. Sigh.

*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*

But wait on, hang on a gosh darn second here. Do I have reason to hide my forays into voyeurism with such feeble disclaimers, less I appear less human in the eyes of the moral majority? Should I feel sufficiently ashamed, to cover my rampant trawling of filth vendors like some starving fisherman searching for prawns in an oil slick? Apparently not.

A new survey entitled Understanding Pornography in Australia has found that porn might actually be good. Not just in its own right either. Good for people.

Dr Alan McKee (Queensland University of Technology) and his colleagues surveyed more than 1000 pornography users. Did they shake hands with them? That's besides the point. What they discovered was that a majority of users found porn to be pleasurable, educational, and re-assuring. "To find out that overwhelmingly people who use pornography experience it as good was surprising," says Dr McKee.

Should it be surprising that people think porn is good? Isn't porn essentially imagery of people enjoying themselves (or at least pretending to with gusto), designed to bring out a little enjoyment in others? Maybe even bring out some enjoyment onto the faces of their loved ones? To many people the revelation that porn f*cken rocks doesn't come as a surprise at all.

Apart from being great, porn has plenty of positive effects. Porn breaks through racial barriers, often depicting different cultures working in unison. Porn brings people together – sure, sometimes in protest – but other times in uninhibition (sic). Porn opens people's minds (among other things) to new experiences (among other things). And most importantly, as one teenage country girl told the researchers, "It teaches you how to have sex." Only if you don't want children darlin'!

In conclusion, it's wonderful that scientific study has finally validated porn's benefits to society. A word of warning however, to Dr McKee etc; there's still a lot of anti-porn sentiment out there, so be prepared to take criticism as you fight the good fight, and in times of doubt ... remember Galileo.

*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*

It could also be described as icebergs gangbanging the titanic, like an orange staring through a peephole, or the bargain bin at a carpet sample shop. It's what carrots being chewed looks like to your tonsils, the tail light of a car that's backed into the statue of David, or corn chips caught in high wind. It's sort of like someone started conceptualising a puzzle, then realised they'd left toast burning in the bathroom and never returned to finish the job.

However, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So I don't need to use words to convince you what a badly conceived assortment of splotches and vomit stains it is. You only need take one look at this logo yourself to see that it's a jumbled contrivance of meaningless nonsense, a visual protest march against style and common decency. It's the kind of logo you might expect, not from the city of London, but from a Warehouse owner named Crazy Steve. Who needs words?

The logo design cost approximately £400,000 ($A954,000) and took one year for design company Wolff Olins to develop. I'd suggest that such a lot of money would have been better spent on things like filling up drain pipes, surgically attaching tits to a bull, donating books to the coma ward, and getting it mulched until it can be imbibed in a liquid state in order to be literally 'pissed away'. I guess it could be argued that, in order to discover a design as hideous as this, you would have to spend a lot of money.

Look, I could have spent this review talking about modes of design and use of space, or historical context and comparison of past Olympic logos. I could have used some kind of 'argument'. I just don't think it's necessary. Just LOOK at the damn thing will you?

It's SHITHOUSE.

I can't wait to see who their mascot is. Lenny the cancer pigeon?

Go Sydney 2000!

*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*

The reasoning, I suppose, is to make speeders feel like losers. My question is, how does this campaign affect guys who actually DO have Allen’s sized trouser snakes? As if they don’t have enough problems without a massive ad campaign basically saying ‘Look at you - you’re as bad as criminals!’

I was under the impression our society considered it reprehensible to vilify people based on a physical characteristic. You couldn’t, for example, make an advertisement that goes ‘Drink Drive and You’re a Fatty Boomba.’

How about a Centrelink ad like this:

Girl 1: Did you hear about Annie? She’s been claiming centrelink payments without actively looking for work.
Girl 2: God, she’s as bad as a paraplegic!

I don’t imagine scripts like that would get onto television, yet for guys with minute manhoods, the gloves are off. Let’s put those gloves back on - any extra bit of thickness helps.

RTA director John Whelan said the adverts aim to make speeding look socially unacceptable. Follow his logic and he may as well say he thinks having a mini meat-sock is socially unacceptable! What’s this guy’s problem? Were his parents murdered by a dude with a small cock? Was he beaten up by little dicks at school? Whip whip whip oh that stings ...

Will this method of discovering criminality take off across the board? Will suspects in police lineups have to drop their pants? ‘Yes officer, that’s the man who stole my handbag – I can tell, because he’s got such a petite prick. Definitely a crim!’

Incidentally, I’ve always wondered if this generalisation works both ways. Like, if a guy drives a very modest car and always stays ten kms under the speed limit, does this mean he wields a massive schlong? Has he got to wear ribbed condoms all the time to support the extra heart he’s got beating down there to get enough blood to his cathedral cock?

In case anyone’s wondering, I catch the bus. I don’t even own a car. Ladies?

In the meantime, small dicked men suffer in silence, unprotected by society’s sheltering arm. What can they even do about it? March in protest?

Somehow I don’t think many dudes would show up.

*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*

These hulking paparazzi terminators have been criticised for basically rumbling about taking unflattering images of people without their knowledge or consent. No longer do people feel comfortable doing compromising things in public, which is a strange sentence in itself if closely examined. I suppose it's really a matter of scale. I mean I don't care if the greengrocer and one old lady see me picking my nose, but I don't want it broadcast out to the universe.

It's clearly an intrusion on civil liberties to know that anywhere in the world someone could be watching you, in your own neighbourhood, watering the lawn in the middle of the day, or having sex with the homeless in an alley. One resident in the Street View affected area, Mary Kalin-Casey, says it 'gives her the shakes' to know that anyone in the world could zoom in on her living room window and see her cat sitting on its perch. Mrs Casey did not comment on what her cat had to hide.

Rob Shilkin of Google Australia had this to say; 'The Street View feature enables people to easily find, discover and plan activities relevant to a location'.

Oh come ON. Why do companies feel they have to come up with a socially acceptable justification for their products when everyone knows what they're actually for? As if ANYONE is going to Street View to find, discover and plan activities! 'Shall we pick up a Lonely Planet? Or shall we watch pictures from a truck with cameras on its head drive around randomly, and hope it passes a restaurant we like the look of?'

No! It voyeurism plain and simple! People are bored with their own streets, they want to look at someone else's! They want to see me picking my nose! They want to zoom in on Mrs Casey's cat! Doesn't Mrs Casey's cat deserve his/her privacy?

Currently this 'service' is restricted to the US, but plans have been mentioned for Australia. You have been warned! If you see a seemingly innocent van covered with rotating lenses, don't be fooled - it may not be as innocent as appearance suggests. It may indeed be a minion of Google, searching hungrily for people with g-strings riding up. So if you don't want a diesel fuelled Eye of Mordor zooming in on your cat, perhaps you need to find the 'ring' (a rock) and throw it into 'Mount Doom' (the camera lens).

Take heed.

*This piece originally appeared on www.rovedaily.com*

Yet it seems that the big cats of Dubbo are no longer receiving their weekly feed of carcasses (Homer voice: Mmm, carcasses) because instead management is charging tourists $50 to hand-feed them. The cats need regularly to consume whole animals, including bones, intestines and organs – yet the food given by visitors is palatable looking cubes of red meat, falling quite short of a lion’s complete breakfast. So not only are the animals being underfed, they’re being underfed the wrong thing. Imagine that in human terms: if you never got a proper meal, but rather someone came past every hour to toss you half a banana and cheese sandwich. It would get annoying.

Surely there must be a compromise between commercialism and proper care. I don’t know why it’s got to be one extreme or another, money or neglect. I mean surely, if you want to feed the animals correctly AND you also want to make some money from it, just give visitors proper lion food. Get some intestines into people’s hands! You want to feed the lions buddy? Fine, that’ll be fifty bucks, here’s a bucket of stomachs. You can use this crooked zebra bone to stir them with, then chuck it in too! Simple!

Mealtime might not be pretty, but at least the experience would be authentic. The zoo could even raise the price, as people will pay MORE for an authentic experience, as has been shown by prostitution and Irish Pubs.

And if being fed right make the lions less responsive to visitors, well ... you could always find an extra big saucepan to tie to their tails. It may be demeaning, but it’s kinder than starvation.

*Originally published on www.rovedaily.com*

The proprietor of a reptile house in my parent’s garage.

2) What childhood event sent you on your performing path?

I was forced onstage at gunpoint by a clown and told ‘they laugh or you die’.

3) If you could take just one luxury item to a desert island what would it be and why?

A solar powered laptop, to be used as a digging implement (broad flat surface when closed, that’s what you need).

4) Favourite Adelaide moment?

Breaking one of my drug vows.

5) Most under-rated comedian?

Jennifer Connolly. I know she’s not strictly a ‘comedian’, but she was in a funny movie or two, that counts doesn’t it? C’mon. That counts.

6) Who’d play you in the Hollywood film of your life?

Morgan Freeman.

7) Which comedian would you love to punch?

Kent Valentine.

8) Which comedian would you like to pash?

Jennifer Connolly. Now you can see why I set up that ‘Jennifer Connolly is a comedian’ thing before, eh? Eh? She’s one hot lady, that comedian.

9) Gig where you’ve absolutely bombed?

On a beach in Thailand, drunk, following a juggler and talking through a faulty headset to a crowd that didn’t speak English.

10) Secret talent?

Catching flies.

11) Worst ever job?

We buried the money in a vacant lot, not knowing that the next day they were going to start filling it with concrete for a parking lot.

12) Brushes with fame?

I once told Tom Cruise off for being late. In retrospect, I’m glad he didn’t go me.

13) Strangest dream?

A tyrannosaurus getting beamed onto starship Enterprise.

14) Favourite local haunt during Fringe?

The Rhino Room.

15) Worse decision you’ve ever made?

Getting a tattoo of Milli Vanilli across my back.

16) Product you’d happily endorse?

Electric cars (the big ones I mean, like for the environment and stuff).

17) A five word summary of your show?

Hmm. Well I suppose it’s

18) Why should people come and see it?

Otherwise we’ll feel like losers.

19) What are you looking forward to at the Fringe?

The craziness.

20) Where do you like to eat when you’re at the Fringe?

Can’t remember the name of the place, but I’m sure I’ll find it again.

21) What makes Adelaide so great during Fringe?

The vibrancy on the streets.

Kitten Kaboodle thought ‘Right that’s it! I’ve had ENOUGH.’

You can tell he was really angry because he didn’t even need an exclamation mark to round off capitalised text. That means he said the word ‘ENOUGH’ in a very BIG way, without needing yelling or screaming to give it impact.

Speaking of impact, Kitten Kaboodle pulled out his rocket launcher and aimed it squarely at the Joneses. The Joneses were Stan (the father) Gwen (the mother), little Steph and energetic Patrick. There’s no point really in telling you their names, because they’re just about to be blown to smithereens, and as such have no further ‘impact’ on the story. The impact of the rockets on their heads made sure of that, to be sure, of a certainty, to a tee.

FUCKEN BOOM!

Kitten Kaboodle put away his rockets and felt a deep and growing satisfaction with his handiwork. He remembered the expressions on the faces of the Joneses just before they’d been engulfed in flame - a certain confusion, disbelief, consternation at the sight of a small and cute brown kitten aiming a fuck-off huge rocket launcher at their heads.

‘Fucken boom fucken boom,’ repeated Kitten Kaboodle, standing in the smouldering ruins of No. 67 Pondike St, East Fexington Downs. ‘I am mighty pleased, meow meow.’

Across the road was a little boy who’d been playing on the street. His eyes had since been drawn however to the house exploding loudly into a thousand smithereens (little boys are curious). Now the boy was staring at Kitten Kaboodle, and Kitten Kaboodle said ‘Hello hello meow meow.’ Kaboodle got down on all fours again (he stood upright when using rocket launchers) and padded across the road to stand in front of the small boy.

‘Meow fucken meow little man,’ said Kaboodle. ‘What you got to say about these recent events?’

Around them, people started running out of their houses, amazed and dumbfounded by the noise and smoke.

‘Oh my god!’ said Jinni Waterfresh, pointing at her (former) neighbour’s house. ‘Oh my God my God!’

‘Is someone calling the police?’ said someone.

‘The fire fighters too!’

‘An ambulance!’

‘My God,’ said Jinni. ‘Did anyone see what happened?’

The little boy pointed a finger right at Kitten Kaboodle. ‘Kitten diddit!’ said the boy. ‘Got big gun!’

Unfortunately the boy was too young to be taken seriously. If an adult had been as smart as the boy, that adult would have been considered a retard. Also, the child was pointing at a small brown kitten saying it murdered the Joneses, which was plain ridiculous. Also, everyone was in too much shock to even notice the boy’s little voice. There was one creature there who took the boy seriously, however. His name was

Kitten Kaboodle.

‘Listen up, kitchen scraps,’ said Kitten Kaboodle, leaning in close. ‘And you better listen good – cause they’re the last words you ever gonna hear!’ And Kitten Kaboodle shot the boy’s head off with a shotgun.

The neighbours started screaming in panic. They looked and pointed at Kitten Kaboodle.

‘He was gonna sing like a fucken canary, meow meow,’ said Kitten Kaboodle. ‘What I did was fair enough!’

‘Oh my God!’ shouted Jinni Waterfresh.

Kitten Kaboodle’s eyes narrowed, and slowly his head swiveled to Jinni.

‘Yarp yarp yarp about your fucken God,’ he said, hissing a mean cat hiss. ‘They only vice I got a problem with, toots, is religion.’ He yanked out a whip and sent it at Jinni’s neck with such precision that it dove into her flesh and wrapped around her windpipe, then tore the whole thing out. Kaboodle stalked over to her convulsing body, pumping its nutrient into the gutter where it mingled with the newspapers and cigarette butts. He hooked a claw under her eyelid and pulled it back to stare into her fading gaze. ‘I’d love to be there when you realise there’s nothing but oblivion, meow meow, but unfortunately in oblivion you can’t realise fuck all. Good fucken luck lady.’

As he stood up the other neighbours were scattering, so he grabbed his machine gun and soon his whiskers were vibrating as the gun rattled in his paws, plying metal into the backs of terrified people.

Author’s Note:
I have only written Chapter One so far, but I think Kitten Kaboodle is a great character for an ongoing series of books designed to help children learn reading. He is fun and, true to his name, he is always able to pull out whatever item he needs in any given situation. There may well be more Kitten Kaboodle to come!

QUESTIONS

1. Why don’t you get a real job?

I don’t like standardised rejection letters. That said, I don’t think I’d like overly specific and personal rejection letters either. I guess it’s easier just to leave the whole thing to the pros.

2. The Australian sense of humour: good, bad or non-existent?

Great, and worth preserving.

3. What can you offer the average punter that a night in front of the telly couldn’t?

The TV doesn’t accidentally spit on you when it gets worked up.

4. Have you ever had a partner laugh during a, well, an intimate moment?

Sure, but only because of my material.

5. Most glamorous “Look, Mum, I’m a celebrity!” moment?

My mother died when I was very young, but thanks for bringing it up. However if she was alive, I’m sure it would have been when I officially opened the Third Annual Pensington Stoat Race (sponsored by Dobb’s Hotdog Stands Inc.). I don’t know much about her, but she did like stoats, I remember that much. And fast ones were her favourite.

6. Least glamorous “Oh, God, who threw up in the tour bus?” moment?

Actually that was it, except there wasn’t a bus. Or a tour. Or a God.

7. Comedians: failed rock stars or intellectual giants?

Does it have to be one or the other? And does my question in effect answer yours? Rock out!

8. Insider trading time! What comedian (other than your lovely self) should punters check out at the Cracker Comedy Festival?

Kent Valentine – his energy and verve makes me feel unfit, so that kind of makes watching him like a workout. And Dave Jory - he’s amusingly bald and, as a bonus, an excellent gag man.

9. Beverage of choice?

Free.

10. Favourite album?

The Lilo and Stitch soundtrack.

11. Favourite book?

Sir Joshua and the Unprofessional Dragon.

12. Favourite film?

Labyrinth.

13. History’s most under-appreciated superhero?

The working class man. And we’re gonna keep it that way!

14. How do you fill the lonely hours travelling and waiting for gigs?

By savouring the chance to be away from all my friends and loved ones.

15. Any advice for wannabe comedians?

Be prepared for the rest of your life to turn a shade paler.

16. Complete: Two comedians walk into a bar…

... to get to the other side.

Choice 1) Quite a lot didn’t happen.
Choice 2) Quite a lot failed to occur?
Choice 3) Quite a lot of potential went unrealised, as it’s amazing how unmotivated you get when you spend all day smoking pot in paradise, and there are ACTUALLY flying lizards there.

However, it was this failure of anything major to eventuate that gave rise to many many days of sitting around noticing small things and having deep thoughts, as deep as the deep blue sea, which is to say, you don’t even know what the fuck is down there (aka, a lot of bullshit).

Previously I have put off writing anything about it because it seemed too much at once, but I’ve given myself permission, diary, not to write it all at once, but rather, at the very least, to start.

This entry therefore will be about one thing only, and that, diary, is what I remember about a man I met - a ladyboy waiter and volleyball extraordinaire, called Odi.

In 2003, I went to Thailand for the first time with some friends. I can’t exactly remember when Odi took a shine to us, but it must have been fairly quickly after our arrival to the quiet island bungalows on Koh Jum. It became known to the Thai staff that we were staying for some time, longer than other guests, who would breeze in and out over a couple of days, a night, or even those who amped it up to a week. I don’t quite know how this affected our behaviour towards the staff, or them to us – at the least I think each of us was aware that these were people we’d be seeing around for a while, and so neither treated the other as they would under briefer circumstances.

Odi liked us. It took us a while to realise he was shooing away other staff who tried to take our orders at the bar. Odi, it seemed from the start, was OUR waiter.

He was around five foot tall, with short hair (I assume it’s easier short when you need to put on a wig sometimes), dark flashing eyes, and a face that could turn quickly from a widely grinning display of teeth to a serious frown of concentration. More than that, well, I can’t recall ... I always wish later that I liked taking photos.

He started teaching us Thai. Our Thai when we arrived was virtually non-existent, and my friend Jake and I especially would routinely announce to staff that we were women, when we were trying to thank them.

When we pointed out things on the menu, Odi would tell us how to say it in Thai. We would repeat it back until we got it ‘right’, and then food was allowed.

We played volleyball on the beach. The staff had a break between 4 – 5, and some would stay and play volleyball with us and other guests. Odi sometimes encouraged us to play when we might otherwise not have done, and we had fun anyway.

Some nights we’d go up to a bar on the tip of the island that was open late, the Good Hope Bar, with mats on the sand and an owner who didn’t mind tabbing. Odi came with us sometimes, and we realised when he did that he was on our tab. We thought this was a bit cheeky, but we didn’t really mind, and let him get plenty drunk.

Once or twice at night’s end, as we went off to our separate bungalows, Odi would call out ‘Ladyboy for you tonight?’

‘No thanks Odi,’ was always the reply. ‘Not tonight.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘No no,’ we laughed. ‘Not tomorrow.’

It didn’t take him long to stop asking.

One evening, we were surprised by how surly we found him when we went for dinner. He wouldn’t serve us, giving us flicks of his hand and head every time we caught his eye, and eventually someone else came over. It could have been his wife, who had recently had their child, and also worked at the bar. I wondered how much fun it was being married to a flamboyant ladyboy, who had probably married her out of religious duty or something.

We found out why he was so hissy – apparently we’d missed a volleyball game we’d said we’d be at that afternoon. Odi had given up his break and waited for us at the net, watching as we lolled around in the shallows like dugong, not a hundred metres down the beach. Why hadn’t he simply called out, I said angrily. Pride?

None of us could remember having made this supposed appointment, and we were all a bit pissed off with him for being so pissed off with us. The next day, however, it seemed our punishment was over, and we were once again allowed to order banana cocktails from him.

Sometimes we would try out the words Odi had taught us on other staff. Every time they didn’t understand, and we’d go back to speaking in English so they kinda could. It seemed Odi had learnt our faulty version of his language, and as such we shared a private dialect, a language highly specific and useless anywhere else in the world apart from there, and then.

One day, I can’t remember where or when, maybe at volleyball, Odi introduced me to his cousin, Kenya. ‘Kenya’, she announced to me enthusiastically, getting right in my face. It seemed that Odi, having realised we were perhaps not into ladyboys, had sourced us an actual lady. I, apparently, was the perfect match. ‘Kenya, Kenya,’ she told me again and again. I would nod and smile and ‘Kenya’ I would agree, because what else could I say? I don’t know what my morals might have allowed for had she been attractive, but she wasn’t, so I’ll never know (or tell). Suffice to say I found her forceful attention disquieting and unwelcome, but still it was not a major thing, and we all played volleyball and had fun. One night coming back from the Good Hope Bar, she asked if she could stay with me. I was drunk enough to consider it. It is with a lasting thankfulness that I eventually said no, and after that she stopped telling me her name all the time.

Meanwhile, Odi had decided he really fancied my friend Nick. Nick’s not a homophobic guy, but neither was he comfortable with a Thai ladyboy trying to crack onto him. One night when Nick had gone off elsewhere, Odi wept whisky tears to a circle of Thai women comforting him, telling him not to get so worked up over a farang, which was what we were.

‘Where’s mister nick?’ he would ask us sometimes. Nick might have escaped off to bed and locked his door, yet two or three of us still sat up late on a bungalow balcony somewhere, a firefly floating between our faces, pausing at each for about the same time as three puffs, or so it might have coincidentally seemed from a distance. ‘Don’t know,’ we would say. ‘Maybe asleep.’

Once he burst into Jake’s bungalow, which Jake had left unlocked before going to bed. ‘Where’s nick, where’s nick?’ ‘Get out Odi!’ shouted Jake, who doesn’t like being woken by frantic ladyboys, it seems.

A couple nights Odi went to sleep outside my door. We’d share drink and fireflies with him, and he’d pass out, impossible to wake. There he would stay until we all retired, snores thundering into the floorboards until at some point he must have woken and left. The next morning he’d always be back in the bar, freshly dressed, winking and touching his finger to his lips, sharing the joke but imploring our silence (we were pretty sure it wasn’t cool for the staff to pass out on the guest’s balconies).

The third or fourth night it happened, I declared enough was enough. ‘Wake up Odi!’ I said, shaking him. ‘You can’t sleep here tonight! I want to fantasise about woman I’ll never sleep with, and having you shaking my hut to its foundations with noisy air is not setting the mood!’ I didn’t let up until he rose, and afterwards felt guilty – for he stumbled to his feet, tottered off the balcony, straddled his motorcycle, and hooned off blind drunk directly into the Thai jungle. I worried then for his safety but, the next day, winking and smiling and bringing us pancakes.

Odi was growing tiresome. He invited more and more staff members to come along and drink at the Good Hope on our tab. Everything was drama, great loves kindled like flashfire but on less substance, missed appointments and constant attention, always offending him with some little thing. We began to ignore him when he was shirty, no longer bothering to work out what we’d done to offend. I also thought I began to notice that the other staff were not exactly fans of his histrionics, and that made my intolerance bolder.

He wouldn’t let us have our food if we couldn’t recite the correct words in Thai, and we’d been stoned for what now seemed like years - too long to remember how we’d said breakfast yesterday. It was no longer lessons, it was now a test, every lunch and dinner. We had to order new things just because he couldn’t claim he’d told us how to say them already.

When we left he gave us gifts, bandanas, and we bought him things from the village, because that was where the only shops were, things he could have had anyway. At least we got him a huge bottle of whisky, which made up for the fisherman’s pants that were several sizes too big. I said I’d send something from Australia – maybe a packet of Redheads with some gumleaves stuffed inside.

We left, and he was sad to see us go, though perhaps he was also relieved in a way, as we most certainly were. He told us to let him know if we’d be back, because he’d save up his days off (one a week) for a couple of months, so that he could take us on a special boat trip to see the islands where he grew up, and meet his family. At that stage nothing appealed less, but we lied and said we would.

In the year that followed, the island was smashed by the tsunami. My friend Digby looked into how badly things had gone in the wake of the wave, and thankfully it seemed that no one had died. Phi Phi had caught the worst of it, and sent Jum warning ahead of time. There is higher ground on Jum, and the people had gone there in time.

At the end of 2006, Digby, Jake and I made our way once again to Koh Jum. We sat on the ferry that chugged towards the islands, on the deck next to a pile of bags melting in the sun. Excited by our return, we were still a little wary of seeing Odi again.

‘If Odi is there,’ someone said, ‘we’re not going to let him get away with so much bullshit.’

‘Yeah,’ said someone else. ‘A little more distance. I want to keep to ourselves more, do what we want to.’

‘I’m here for a holiday, not to entertain the whim of a ladyboy for three weeks.’

‘Yeah. And I’m not going on that fucking boat trip to meet his family either.’

‘No fucking way!’

‘Hopefully he’s dead,’ I joked, and we laughed. ‘Wouldn’t that be a relief!’

We got to the island and folk came out of the bar to meet us. We recognised a couple of them and smiles flew about. Inside the bar, under the shade of the thatched roof, was Goi, another friend we had made the last time, whose name means ‘Banana’. This, probably, was the only Thai word I remembered. She was happy to see us indeed, though she seemed older and a woman now, whereas I remembered a girl who would deliberately jump in my way and trip me up. It seemed like some of the life had gone out of her, like maybe we aren’t meant to live on islands our whole lives while the rest of the world comes to visit and goes again, a glimmer. Or maybe it was the wave. Or the heat.

She took our bookings, and didn’t worry that our passport numbers weren’t handy. As she sorted out our keys, she paused and took on a serious look.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Last time you were here, you had a friend, Odi?’

‘Yes?’ we said. We remembered Odi – he hoons into the jungle and never hits a root, or a monkey.

‘I’m sorry to tell, but - he died.’

We took a moment to collect our thoughts and find the appropriate responses. She didn’t seem to want a song and dance about it, merely to tell us. If anything she seemed worried that we would be sad, when she was not that sad herself, merely accepting. I’m not sure.

‘That’s terrible,’ someone said. ‘Can I ask how he died?’

‘Some problem inside,’ she said, and patted her stomach.

That was all we ever found out, apart from it had happened six months after the wave, and his wife had since remarried to a wealthier man, and had new children.

Once we were three westerners alone, I said ‘Well. Guess I should just have wished he’d gotten a job on another island or something. A better job, for more cash. Still alive but bothering someone else.’

We laughed quietly, though the mood was darker. We knew we’d been caught out by the universe.

‘Nick will be happy,’ someone said (Nick was going to join us later).

Jake was distressed that we were joking about it, and I said that’s what we three do, we joke. It’s just a way of covering what we feel. I was implying sorrow, perhaps even a guilty thought about how an entire bottle of whisky might contribute to a problem in the guts sixth months distant from critical. But, as for myself, the feeling I was eager to mask was relief, glowing warmly in my selfish heart. Mask it even from myself, lest I see evil staring at me in the mirror.

I know what I’ll do, I thought. The only thing I can.

I’ll write him up.

We walked up later to the Good Hope Bar, wrecked by the tsunami and never rebuilt, a half standing ruin in the sand. Here was where those stupid gifts had been given.

‘Should have sent him those fucking gumnuts.’

We had our holiday, and no one really bothered us. More than previously we kept to ourselves, made less friends, did our own thing. There was no one to make us play volleyball.

So we didn’t.

No where on the packaging did it read: ‘Warning: Do Not Attempt Repacking This Tent Without a Degree in Quantum Physics.’ Perhaps if it had been labeled thus, I would have known to spend the requisite 5 – 10 years at university before making my purchase.

That said, I do happen to know that black holes are caused by densely compacted matter, which caused me worry as I attempted to repack this tent – worry that I might create a black hole, suck up the BBQ and all of the parrots, not to mention planet earth. It felt like I was chasing an event horizon with the zip, you’d sooner stuff a tent into a condom ... you don’t seem to have included the necessary fire truck required to run over this stuff and flatten it to a feasible size! All because some freak in tent design is frightened of anything he could potentially get his head stuck in.

You see a bag is allowed to fit things in it, that’s part of ‘the magic of bags’. Maybe a tiny tent bag is necessary if you’re in the army or something, but I’m going to Jervis Bay in a Kia to smoke joints for a week! I don’t pack my pot under my thumbnail, do I?

Get with the fucking program.

Yours sincerely,
Sam Bowring

Go to the beach on a hot burny day and rub yourself all over with sand. The sand will mostly protect you from sunburn, but there will be little gaps between the sand bits where you will not be protected. These bits will eventually burn, and turn brown or pink.

Then you simply wash the sand off and lo and behold! You have given yourself a full body coating of freckles!* Yay!

* Degree of nudity, and therefore freckle coverage, is at the discretion of the freckle creator, and laws of local council.

Patented Process (C) Sam Bowring 2006, created on a beach in Thailand

I think it means you shouldn’t bore me with your random meaningless nonsense, that’s what it means.

However, since this is my private diary, and I won’t be causing anyone else’s brain to liquefy and dribble out their ears by writing my own dreams here, here’s the only one I ever wrote down, in the only dream journal I ever attempted to keep:

I’m trapped in a town being overrun by ‘Critters’ (like from the 80s horror movies of the same name). I deal with this by wanting to go to my favourite bar, only to find out it’s closed. Through a case of mistaken identity, I’m taken to another bar where The King (played by Sean Connery) is giving a speech. His black daughter is also there, to whom I am wed. Meanwhile the town is being torn apart by the Critters. My wife tries to lead me home to safety, but I know that I must fight. I say ‘Would you deny me the chance to win myself honour?’ After a moment she nods and makes me promise to return alive. I nod back and go up to the bar for what I suppose will be my last drink. They only have bourbon.

Dream ends.

Obviously this dream could mean any numbers of things.

Maybe I’ll have a drink while I think about it.