Love is in the air

Forget about the Gaydar – that’s so 1990s.  These days, for us sensitive new-age male types, it’s all about the Gendar, and I flatter myself that I have an almighty one, which right now is standing to formidable attention!

I’m on the flight home from Port Moresby to Brisbane, and I can’t help noticing that very few of my fellow travellers are female … I can count three, in fact, on a 737 with about 180 passengers.  Such is the composition of fly-in-fly-out miners, builders, investors, public servants and missionaries which make up the cross border traffic between the booming, resource- and religion-driven economy of PNG and its down-turning, godless, former colonial master.

And as if the odds weren’t bad enough for an ‘always up for it’ barnyard Casanova, the three possibilities up for grabs consist of an elderly Papua New Guinean woman who looks like she’s got her fair share of grandchildren (and who made it clear upon first advance that she wasn’t interested), a European backpacker with natty dreadlocks, soiled clothing and in terrible need of a wash after six weeks ‘living with a family in the bush’ (who - and I know it’s no longer the done thing for a man to judge a woman by her looks – I wouldn’t go near with a forty-foot pole); and a nun (there are some blurred lines that even I won’t cross). 

So with no options for action from amongst my fellow travellers, I was left with no alternative than to turn my attention elsewhere, through which I noticed a rather interesting, and these days somewhat uncommon dynamic going on between the airline cabin crew and the fat, bald, jowly, ruddy-faced … but extremely rich mining executives heading home for a long weekend ‘alone’ in their riverside Brisbane apartments.

I recall decades ago hearing about young, frivolous air hostesses who used to clamour for shifts on the flights out of places like Monte Carlo and Las Vegas on Sunday evenings in order to land themselves a partner promising a high-rolling lifetime of five-star resort holidays, convertibles, coastal mansions and saucer-sized diamond-rings.  Of course that was a bygone era, and feminism has come a long way since then … at least for most women.  But perhaps not for those very same women whose gambling sugar daddies have since lost their edge, or whose dodgy government contracts proved leaky, or who simply drifted towards the new breed of younger, silicone-enhanced casino floor beauties.  Sadly, for these washed-up social lights, once the Porsche had been repossessed and the last jewel-encrusted g-string had been pawned, they had few options other than to return to the only skill at which they’d ever excelled, and here they were, back on the flight path … looking for a man of means.

And what fertile hunting ground they’ve discovered!  Every day, there are four flights out of Moresby, and every one of them is choc-full of sweaty, wheezy, portly and incredibly rich old men, most of whom, for one reason or another, have chosen to follow money-induced exile at the expense of losing wife and family, and who now, thanks to the power of chemically enhanced erections, have plenty of home-leave and resources to enjoy the company of slightly younger, but equally chemically enhanced starlets of the sky. 

These Botoxed bombshells spend a good deal of the two hours and thirty-five minutes in the air flirting and gesticulating suggestively to these well-heeled, gnarled old toads, and I can assure you there has never been a lap-dance as arousing as the simulated strip-tease these gals do with the demonstration lifejackets – “just bend over like this and you’ll find it under your seat”.

So as you can imagine, poor-old Donkey, with his development sector-issue cargo pants and grotty Greenpeace t-shirt is never going to stand a chance against the grotesquely overweight and over-paid parasites of PNG’s resource boom.  Right now, though, I’d probably settle for a glass of iced water to dampen my arousal, but I’ve been hitting this hostess call button for the last hour and a half and do you reckon anyone’s coming my way?  Not when there’s gold in them there front seats!

With all these old, rich bastards around, Donkey never stood a chance! 

Pic: http://loveletterfromlondon.blogspot.com.au/2012_08_01_archive.html

DYB DOB Donkey

This week I’ve been in Bangkok attending a global summit of influential minds on Disaster Risk Reduction, which is all about trying to prepare communities, governments and countries generally to withstand and recover from the effects of natural and man-made disasters.  I was thrilled to be attending the meeting, not only to hear from the world’s leading minds on DRR, but also because I had been asked to present a key note address on the last day, which I was hoping was going to be my big chance to make myself known to these power brokers and who knows, maybe even nab a high-powered, important job in the future.

The discussion topics on offer at the summit have encompassed lengthy soul-searching on setting-up Early Warning Systems which can be operated as soon as the initial signs of a disaster are imminent, so as to alert communities and other parties to prepare for the coming danger.  There have also been detailed explanations of working with communities and various groups on Disaster Preparedness and Response, so that they know what to do when the Early Warning System is activated, and Disaster Mitigation and Resilience, which is all about putting things in place to limit the impact of the disaster on people and their livelihoods.

But as is so often the case with these high-level discussions, all the theoretical jargon and technical know-how immediately get thrown out the window when a real disaster hits, as I discovered this week when my world was thrown into utter chaos by a series of unanticipated, catastrophic events.  

On the last day of the meeting I was up well before the sun, diligently preparing for my presentation.  After finalising the materials and practicing my speech a couple of times, I ironed my shirt and trousers, and headed off to the magnificent hotel breakfast buffet which is a common, essential element of these kinds of global meetings, concerned as they are with improving the lot of those with barely enough household resources to feed their kids.

In the Disaster Risk Reduction biz, when we talk about developing Early Warning Systems, we encourage individuals and communities to look for any unusual events or changes in their surroundings.  Hindsight is indeed a powerful tool for reflection, and through this I must concede that my ability to recognise and comprehend a significant change to the breakfast buffet that morning could well have spared me from the debilitating effects of what followed, however I failed to recognise the significance of the bowl of small, ripe cherry tomatoes which had replaced the more common-place, large, pre-sliced tomatoes on offer during the previous four days.

Failing to heed this important Early Warning Sign, I obliviously sat down to my greasy breakfast and with the sharpened points of my unsuspecting table fork, I pierced the shiny outer skin of a cherry tomato, unleashing all manner of damnation and hellfire in the form of bright, red tomato juice all over my crisp, ironed shirt - my last clean shirt for the week – all within a few short moments of the professional and reputational reckoning upon which my future career in international Disaster Risk Reduction was to be built.

Within a nanosecond of the destructive cocktail of juice and pulp being sprayed from hip to shoulder where moments before there had been nothing but sharp, starchy creases, I was on my feet in the middle of the public thoroughfare, absently wiping sticky yellow seeds from my scalp and ears, while my shrinking spleen emitted an involuntary, guttural groan which rose into the lofty chamber before disappearing into the same, intangible locale as my future career prospects. 

In reflection, it’s quite possible that all may not have been lost at that point, as there may have been some individuals of influence who’d not yet become aware of the destruction my heedless actions had unleashed upon the early morning diners, however my voluble anguish was released with little heed to the number one rule of Disaster Response planning, which is to Remain calm – DO NOT PANIC!.  Instead, I projected a shrill, piercing scream like a couple of over-weight drag queens fighting over a pair of fourteen inch, red sequinned stilettoes, attracting the full attention of every member of the largest gathering of influential minds on international humanitarian responses ever to have been assembled.

Realising my mistake, I made a beeline for the door, only to slip on the organic mess I had created on the shiny parquetry with my clumsy upturning of a breakfast bowl, causing me to land flat on my arse and generating for those influential global minds a close-up view of the world’s first ever edible, indoor tsunami, which proceeded from the epicentre of my soiled behind to the far corners of the restaurant.

Crawling now, I lowered my head in shame and slowly reconstructed a Disaster Escape Route in my mind to guide me out the door and out of sight.  Back in my Safe House hotel room a few moments later, I waited for my hyperventilating to subside and began analysing the situation.  I had come to Bangkok for a reason, and I was not going to let this incident impede my Recovery to a lucrative, fat-cat position on the international stage.  I threw open my wardrobe to take stock of my provisions, only to remember with horror that my Disaster Preparedness for this high-level talk fest had me Stockpiling only the required number of outfits through which to get me through five days of looking as professional as possible, and like I knew what I was talking about, however I had not allowed for Contingencies.  Added to this, I had been schmoozing so much with the ‘Big Wigs’ each night … until well into the messy wee hours, that all previously worn shirts were stained with Guinness and sweaty underarms.

This was truly an unanticipated, catastrophic disaster of career-limiting proportions, but despite the dire circumstances in which I now found myself, I took a couple of deep breaths, gulped down my rising panic and I resolved to make something of this.  “Hadn’t I spent the last twenty years working hard and building my reputational Resilience?”, I reasoned, “Sure I had.  I have what it takes to impress these people with my skills, Knowledge, Attitude and Practice”.  I impressed upon myself that these brilliant DRR practitioners weren’t interested in how I was dressed; they’d carved out their careers through the sweat and tears of responding to some of the most severe humanitarian disasters in recent history: working twenty hours a day for weeks at a time while living out of military-type barracks with limited water and supplies.  They knew what was important in this industry, and it wasn’t the cut of a man’s Armani trousers.  I was going to show them that I too was like them; Responsive in the face of a Disaster.  I grabbed what I could from the closet, and boldly headed for the auditorium.

The Inaugural Global Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction is unlikely to be remembered for anything other than the Global Head of UNDRR, demonstrating the military precision upon which his reputation as a leader of international Disaster Responses was built, directing the Conference Facility Security personnel to chase down and brutally apprehend a scruffy, scab-faced maniac dressed only in a stained Singha Beer singlet, a pair of yellowing y-fronts and army boots, who had burst into the opening session of Day 5, shouting like a lunatic about Dyslexic Rock Renditions.

Attack of the Career-Limiting Tomatoes: Donkey comes a cropper to a pesky fruit at a Bangkok breakfast buffet.  Pic: http://www.bigmike-productions.com

Radio Therapy

Say what you will of Western European nations as ruthless colonial oppressors and exploiters of some of the world’s most vulnerable people; indeed their legacy in many African, Southeast Asian and Pacific countries comprises physical and cultural displacement, racial and political power imbalance which frequently topples into bloody civil war, and economic ruin either through depletion, or forced signing-over of valuable natural resources.

But it’s not all bad.  The Western Europeans may have been a bit heavy-handed on the governance side of things (and possibly a little discriminatory in their national view and treatment of their colonial citizens), but they did leave behind a commitment to fine dining which is truly a welcome aspect of occupational exile in some of the world’s far-flung locales.

While some colonial powers set fire and/or bombed fields, towns and livestock as they made hasty retreats ahead of angry, spear-wielding mobs of pro-independence activists in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the French chose instead to throw toasty, golden baguettes, flaming crepes suzette and sugar-crusted crème brulee in their wake.  This seemed to do the trick in Vanuatu, as the satiated masses embraced this culinary legacy, and such delightful treats are available in every corner store, often at any time of the day or night.

Great news for Donkey in some respects, but not so great for the ol’ waste-line, as evidenced during a recent clothes shopping expedition with Mrs Donkey while on holiday back in Australia.  Mrs D was in the change room trying on some little black cocktail number while Donkey stood outside the closed door, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible amongst the frilly lace and tiny bows of women’s lingerie hanging all about him (why do they put the change rooms amongst the lingerie?).  As I stood stock still, embarrassingly avoiding aggressive, accusing eye contact from the other customers queuing to try on their garments, an attractive young sales assistant wandered-up behind me and enthusiastically asked when I was expecting.

That was it!  As soon as I got back to Port Vila, things were going to change.  No more hazelnut praline-filled baguettes for breakfast, no more pain au chocolat with chocolate ice cream and fudge on the side for morning tea, no more brie and bacon pies aux frites for lunch and definitely no more garlic snails followed by duck a l’orange for dinner.  True to my commitment, my life since returning to Vanuatu has become a thrice daily monotony of breadless lettuce sandwiches washed down with a straight glass of tepid water (the temperature being conducive, so the diet gurus tell me, to more frequent bowel movement).

On top of this gruelling feeding regime, in order to both divert my attention from my groaning abdomen, and to try to shorten the period of time I shall be subject to this dietary boredom, I have also embarked on a sustained exercise program which I must grudgingly admit, is finally starting to yield results.

But the selection of an appropriate form of exercise was not an easy process in this country where the roads and traffic are not conducive to safe cycling, and where the forty-eight-degrees-in-the-shade summer heat renders traditional, vigorous exercise such as sit-ups and push ups completely out of the question (after a single lift, the sweat pouring off one’s body makes it impossible to get any purchase on the floor, and one is left floundering on one’s back like an up-turned tortoise).

The only option left was swimming … in this country with not a single serviced swimming pool greater than ten metres in length.  I did give it a go, but after seventy-three strokes and as many tumble turns, I blacked-out from dizziness and had to be retrieved from the bottom by a burley construction worker and his heavy-duty crane with which he’d been laying building foundations nearby.

A week later, with the humiliation of front page local news behind me, I realised there was nothing for it; if I was going to lose this massive paunch, I was going to have to embrace the concept of living on an island, ignore all the horror stories and take to swimming in the ocean.

“What’s the big deal?” I thought to myself as I launched out from the sea wall one fine morning.  All about me was a kaleidoscope of blooming coral formations and a menagerie of brightly coloured tropical fish.  “This is fantastic … so peaceful.  I should have done this months ago”.  I pounded confidently out from the port and was still congratulating myself on having discovered this wonderful, submarine paradise which was going to turn me into a herculean specimen of manhood, when I suddenly came to my senses above a deep, blue, murky darkness.

I’d left the drop-off well behind and was now floating vulnerably above an abyss from which I imagined all manner of deep sea beasties zeroing-in on my fleshy white thighs.  My panicked brain convinced me that if I was desperate enough, I might just manage to outswim a giant squid, great white or whale shark, and feeling pretty desperate at that point, I set to pounding back towards what I thought was home.

Of course, one’s sense of direction in open water is never an easy concept to grasp, nor is one’s ability to stroke strong and true when driven by sheer panic.  In my desperation to get back to the reef, I was floundering like a harpooned killer whale (perhaps not a great analogy, given the circumstances), and heading in a completely different direction, towards the rocky headland at the opposite end of Port Vila harbour.

After a while, the forbidding black depths changed to a more palatable, murky blue, and I managed to reign in my debilitating terror.  My stroke improved and before long I was powering along; back into that monotonous trance one gets from the relentless plodding of right arm, left arm…

right arm, left arm…

right arm (“Oh how nice, Angel fish”)…

left arm (“Wow, coral trout”)…

right arm (“Gee, that’s a big fish…”)…

left arm (“Aaaaaaargh!”). 

Back in first year physiology, we learned about that basest of animal instincts, the ‘fight or flight’ response.  When an animal senses danger, their body reflexively gears-up for ‘fight’ or ‘flight’; the options for success are weighed-up and the decision made by the creature’s very fibres at near supersonic speed.  Obviously, ‘flight’ gets them out of danger, and ‘fight’ is the only alternative if the former is not possible.  The body’s essential systems fire-up for the selected action, and all extraneous functions shut down to preserve energy.

How is it then, that when Donkey looks down to see a massive tiger shark swimming towards him, his body’s fight or flight response includes the immediate release of two malodourous, bulky, fright nuggets into his Speedos?  How can that be fight or flight?  For a start, the extra drag from this oozing pouch would surely slow my flight to a messy, mortal end, but even if I did manage to get the jump on my sinister predator, if sharks really can smell blood like they say, then he’d have no trouble tracking my stinky wake all the way to shore.

Stewing in my own mess, then, I resigned myself to meeting my maker, and with calm resolve, I turned to face my toothy assailant.  It was then I noticed the horizontal, not vertical tail moving slowly up and down, and realised that rather than meeting my end in a bloody, mashy mess, I’d found myself with the rare privilege of an encounter with a peaceful dugong, slowly meandering along the sea bed, snuffling away at sea grass.

An hour later, I emerged from the sea before a crowd of alfresco diners tucking into breakfast in one of the town’s fashionable cafes.  Although my life was intact, my dignity before the shocked crowd was sagging lower than the saddle of my laden Speedos. 

Defeated and resigned to life as a fat bastard at that time, I now have Mrs Donkey to thank for helping me to get back in the water.  She did so thanks to the wonders of modern technology, which have enabled me to strap on a waterproof iPod and crank up the volume of power ballads enough to distract me in the water from mortal fear.  Now I churn along the coast three mornings a week to the spurring drums and guitar riffs of such fire-up classics as:

·  Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger [shark],

·  ELO’s Don't Bring Me Down [to the dark depths with your massive tentacles to chew off my head],

·  Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water [Humph],

·  Hunters and Collectors’ Throw Your Arms Around Me [and get me out of this school of killer jelly fish],

·  The Choirboys’ Run [for your freakin’ life here comes a manta ray] to Paradise, and of course

·   Great White’s Once bitten, twice shy.

The distraction seems to have worked, and everyone’s happy.  I’m happy because I look and feel great, and Mrs Donkey’s happy because she’s no longer getting around town with a pregnant hippo on her arm.  But the happiest person of all is Ms Nicole, the unfortunate soul who is tasked with doing my laundry – as she’s told me in no uncertain terms, any day without having to scrub the gusset of my Speedos is definitely a good day!

The Western Europeans may not have been the most culturally sensitive of masters, but they certainly managed a mean chocolate dessert.  Pic: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/12/11/belgian-court-rules-tintin-not-racist-just-gentle/

Read your entry in "Who's Nobody"

It’s hard to pin-down exactly what turned Breaking Bad’s Walter White into a homicidal, manipulative, self-serving, methamphetamine producing-turned cartel baron egomaniac, but definitely a running theme of the fantastic TV series has been his unrecognised potential as a chemist of some brilliance, and the deep resentment he feels towards his University peers who reached great heights in the field of industrial chemistry to become multi-millionaires, while the equally brilliant Walter wound-up teaching high school chemistry to disinterested, unmotivated teenagers by day, and scrubbing strangers’ cars in a run-down car wash by night.

There’s nothing like returning to one’s home town to bring back all kinds of latent memories, and in particular, to drag from one’s closet - clackety clackety – a whole crypt of condescending, grinning and highly reproachful skeletons.  Yesterday, in the stinking summer heat, the family and I commenced a road trip to the high-brow climes of the Mornington Peninsula, via a short stop to catch-up with an old friend in one of Melbourne’s beautiful, bay side suburbs.

It’d been ages since Donkey had spent much time in this part of the leafy South, where he’d previously spent years of his life servicing the bored housewives, distinguished gentlemen and plastically-enhanced daughters of Melbourne’s established, moneyed families.  Day after day, Donkey had slaved away in accordance with their whippish demands for buffed bunions, magnificent nails and honeyed heels; a little callus chipped off here, a nail edge filed away there and wrinkled old ladies groaning in long-forgotten, post-menopausal orgasmic pleasure as Donkey’s magical, lubricated hands did their thing to wind-up a messy session of grinding away at gnarled toenails and horned corns.

For all this labour, and the accompanied pleasant, inane conversation which was all part of the service, Donkey would extract a pretty penny from his clients, but after a few years, the high-yield and resultant, high-paced lifestyle of shiny red sports cars, cocaine-fuelled cocktail parties, court-side box seats and luxury holiday villas proved too high a price for the sheer boredom of the work, not to mention the all-too-frequent, inadvertent glimpse up an octogenarian’s panty-less skirt which is an occupational hazard for any hard-working podiatrist.

As the horror and mental burn-out set in, Donkey set off on a new adventure and new career, and before long found himself saving the world in far off, exotic locales.  I’ve never looked back, and in truth have found the mental stimulation and physical exertion of working in and with remote island and mountain communities to be tremendously fulfilling and truly life-giving.  Well, that is until yesterday…

As we drove past the beautiful homes of Ocean Highway, with their steady, socioeconomic scaling-up in proportion to their distance from the city, I pointed out to Mrs Donkey the various homes, sports cars, tennis courts and swimming pools of my former colleagues, and before long, their well-appointed, beach-side holiday homes and luxury yachts.  I ignored her popping eyes and increasing, green-tinged pallor as these dwellings became more and more extravagant, and I ignored her uncomfortable fidgeting beneath tightly packed luggage inside our rusting, third-hand beige Toyota.

Before long, we stopped at my friend’s home for a very pleasant lunch of antipasto, French champagne and post-meal cognac.  We marvelled at the marble floors, seventeen-foot ceilings, walk-in wine cellar and three-hundred and twenty-five inch flat screen TVs in every other room, and we listened attentively to talk of the booming podiatry business, mid-week golf and winter-long Mediterranean getaways.  Eventually, we waved good bye with a promise to visit again soon, and drove in tight-lipped silence all the way to the coast, where we joined our newer friends in our rented holiday home for the next few days which, we were relieved to discover, was similarly appointed to the home of my friend and former colleague, with beautiful, architecturally designed hallways, sea-view balconies, airy designer kitchen, multiple cavernous bathrooms and pleasant hallway water features.

Within an hour I was fully relaxed and just settling into a chilled beer and crisps (definitely more Donkey’s style these days) when I noticed a note from our landlord requesting his tenants to be careful not to mark the ancient teak floor boards - ‘imported from Borneo’ - with high heel shoes (and this accompanied by a picture of a stylish man and his fashionable lady returning from a polo match).  As I read casually through this missive, my eyes were drawn to the bottom of the letter, and to the landlord’s name resting beneath an ostentatious, flourishing signature. 

An icy chill crept up my stiffening spine as I realised that the owner of this magnificent, beach side monument to modern hedonism was none other than one of my fellow podiatry students from years ago, who had failed his final year of university and who, rather than repeat the year, opted to open a podiatry equipment supply facility which he later franchised, floated on the stock market and went global in the biggest small business start-up of the pre-internet age.

It was quick work, but Mrs D managed to talk me down off the roof within the hour, and the hyperventilating soon subsided.  As a precaution for the safety of private podiatry practitioners and their families in the greater Melbourne metropolitan area, she’s got me tethered to the extravagant, four-poster bed from where I am being forced to write this using voice-recognition software (hence the typos) while staring at the kind of ocean vista that can only be purchased on the backs of a million well-manicured toenails.

Seems a bit over the top from my good wife.  I mean, it’s not like I’m bitter or anything.  Sure, this landlord … and all my podiatry friends, in fact, are rich beyond my wildest dreams, with Swiss bank accounts as fat as their spoilt, sedentary offspring, with wives as well manicured as their landscaped gardens, and mistresses as fresh as the waxed ducos of their Jaguars, but it’s not like I am going to turn homicidal and hunt them down in merciless, resentful cold blood.  Sure, I might be up for a bit of hedge burning and perhaps even a spot of spooky stalking of their children down the well-lit streets of their exclusive, gated communities, but I’m not about to commit anything which could be considered physically dangerous.

No, that’d be an act of a bitter man … a man who felt that he had been denied all the breaks and opportunities to excel in his field and become rich, fat and powerful.  I’m not that.  I made my own choices.  I love being this poor … ah, I mean, happy.  Happy, not poor.  And in fact, in the happiness ledger of life, I am rich indeed.  You may untie these bonds my good wife.  I am stable and I am content.  Now, I am just popping-out to the shops for some matches … I mean milk.  Too-da-loo.

What would tip a mild-mannered, failed podiatrist into a Walter White-esque, homicidal maniac.  Pic:  http://www.entertainment-bureau.com

Random Observations of Lhasa

Golden ice.

While the freezing temperatures ensure that every man and his Tibetan mastiff pissing against random brick walls less offensive than, say, in a stifling New Delhi summer, it certainly plays havoc with a freezing Donkey trying to negotiate the already treacherous cobbles of Lhasa’s sidewalks in the early morning darkness; the golden, icy slicks sending him sprawling unceremoniously onto the filthy stones every couple of metres, much to the delight of the similarly rugged-up, although considerably more nimble youngens making their way to school.

Did somebody say dark?

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Tibet operates on a Beijing time zone despite being at least two hours ahead (in real time) of the distant seat of power, the Party Regime has seen it fit to dictate that all of Lhasa’s street lights be switched-off at precisely 7.55am, which happens to be approximately one hour and thirty minutes before dawn.

Under cover of darkness.

The opportunistic urbanites of Lhasa use this veiled, pre-dawn window to their advantage, thumbing their noses at Central Government directives to make Lhasa “a model National city” through forced clean-up campaigns, by disposing of their nightly waste water directly over the footpath.  While such practices might be great for keeping the street dust at bay in summer, in winter the frozen slicks encrusted with toothpaste, noodles, slimy vegetables and worse (given what goes on behind the greasy curtain hanging in the back of most of these shops), in addition to posing a potential public health risk, again make negotiating perambulation rather difficult.

Speaking of sex…

Adorning the many shops in Lhasa which sell ladies’ “intimate apparel” are larger-than-life hoardings of Western lingerie models sporting skimpy designer bras and panties in a range of fashionable hues.  You don’t have to get up too close to notice (although one has been known to do so) that despite the advertising, inside these stores you won’t find anything smaller than ankle to neck, cover-all undergarments in a range of fashionable beige; an inventory more likely to appease a grim Victorian school ma’am than a sultry seductress with come hither eyes.

And while you’re licking your chops over that one…

…you may like to join the thousands of Buddhist pilgrims who flock to Lhasa from the remote countryside in their crazy, fluffy headdresses, braided locks and bejewelled faces each winter to worship and prostrate themselves before Tibetan Buddhism’s foremost holy temples, monasteries and shrines, and while they are here, to visit the roadside dental stalls which specialise in gold caps and whiter-than-white pearlies (ridiculously white, really … I guess a mouthful of Clorox will do that for ya).  I can assure you it is quite a shock to be wandering along with the crowd and a sideways glance towards an open doorway revealing a short man in a grubby, blood-spattered (formerly) white lab-coat, cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth, holding aloft an enormous horse-needle poised for insertion into an old woman’s gums while her family strain to clamp her arms to the chair.

Almost as shocking as what you’ll find in the adjacent store, separated from the “dentist” by nothing but fly-blown air; the meat locker, filled to the ceiling with half-frozen, butchered yak carcasses.  Don’t believe me?  Well have a shifty at this.

The Lhasa Meat Locker.  Pic: Hagas

Undercover Donkey

There's this gawd-awful show on the tele at the moment called Undercover Boss, whereby some corporate high-flyer dons the company duds and goes and stands alongside his unknowing minions at the cash register, or behind the wheel, or digging ditches (not, I notice, cleaning toilets!).  I must confess I haven't watched this show, but judging by the ads, it seems that each episode ends up as a heart-warming, gut-wrenching, tear-jerking sob-fest as the Boss' ice-cold, ass-kicking corporate drive is melted in the face of the hard-luck stories and sheer anguish of his employees, with their terminally-ill kiddies, their animal shelters and their community service to struggling migrants.  Big Boss gets a free lesson in the "real values of humanity", and proceeds to handover cash and hand-out promotions as reward for their previously unrecognised, selflessness.

Honestly Channel 10, as if The 7PM Project wasn't bad enough!

Anyway, although not the boss of anyone or anything (and for good reason), I have recently found myself as Undercover Donkey in my workplace, but the only tears being jerked on this occasion were my own tears of excruciating pain and/or embarrassment.

I work on a hospital campus, and although I'm pretty far removed from the patients during my work day (again, for very good reason), I do skip-along to the horrors of the hospital cafeteria for lunch most days.  Now aside from the absolutely disgusting food that is served-up, the trouble with having lunch at a hospital caf is that you're sitting down to a plate of greasy, oily, barely-edible fare with a bunch of people carrying just about every communicable disease known to ape and man.

And the thing about hospital patients sitting down to a feed beside or across the table from you is that they're usually "wearing" hospital garments.  Why the inverted commas, I hear you ask?  Well because the thing about hospital garments is that ... well, they just aren't that conducive to being "worn".

Take the old man in the wheelchair who sat opposite me today.  He was attired in a pair of hospital-issue, one-size-fits-all pyjama pants – you know, the ones with the massive fly that leaves his Old Fella hanging out for all to admire.  I'm telling you, a sight like that can really put you off your rather limp, hospital cafeteria bratwurst!

And the same goes for those poor folk who come down from the wards wearing nothing but one of those white hospital gowns that "do up" at the back (inverted commas again, as there's a lot of space between those tie-up straps).  So again, try tucking into your hospital cafeteria carpaccio when some homeless-looking man's hairy arse-crack is winking at you through the substantial chink in the starched, white curtains!

Like most aspects of the public hospital system, one finds oneself coping with these kinds of horrors with humorous attacks on the kinds of people these semi-brain dead patients must be to get around in such an undignified fashion.

But then, I became one ... twice!  And I soon learned that their lack of dignity is not self-generated, but rather a dastardly bi-product of a cruel, uncaring public hospital system.

The first time I experienced this was during the birth of Lil' Hambones.  When Mrs Donkey was kitted-up in smart-looking, green, ER-type hospital scrubs and sent off to theatre, I was thrown a pair of white overalls by a midwife and told (with a barely-concealed smirk) that they were one-size-fits-all. 

Uh oh!  That phrase again ... one of two, standard features of all hospital-issue attire ... the other being that said attire can't be done-up.  So there I stood, in a tight, white, full-body suit, successfully parting my testicles in the kind of camel toe you'd expect to see on a deformed camel with a congenital, cleft toe, and just above these separated global hemispheres, the suit opened out, right to my shoulders!  Honestly, I looked like a cross between a young Sean Connery and Borat in his mankini.

"You're taking this piss!", I remarked to the midwife in a quivering falsetto, to which the sadistic bitch giggled that it was all they had and we had better get to theatre immediately.  T'was a good thing that the hoary old chestnuts had done their work, for they mayn't be the same again after the birth of Lil' Hambones.

And then again this week, I became Undercover Donkey, and again I came to have my heart softened towards my fellow demented, semi-clad diners.  This time I was heading back to theatre to have the scar left over from the removal of my festering alien parasite removed.  By the time I got to theatre, I was delusional from not having eaten (or more to the point, not having drunk coffee) for about twenty hours, so I didn't really take much notice of what they dressed me in before sending me off to the knife.

But when I awoke afterwards, with the usual early morning, post-slumber, anatomical male processes unfolding downstairs, I was mortified to discover that the smiling, caring, and not-unattractive recovery nurse by my side had been witness to the whole depraved scene thanks to my having been attired in hospital-issue, so-called "disposable underpants" which when adorned, being one-size-fits-all, was tantamount to wearing a tube of stretched, translucent, elastic gauze.

So no heart-warming, gut-wrenching story from this Undercover Donkey!  These hospital linen services are completely taking the piss!  It's a breach of patient dignity ... a breach of human-bloody-rights!  As they say in the States, I'm taking this all the way to City Hall! 

These old folk in big pyjama pants deserve better! 

These homeless folk in poorly-fastened gowns deserve better! 

And these recovery nurses definitely deserve better! 

It's time to take a stand against this blatant disregard for patients' dignity.  C'mon Julia Gillard.  C'mon Barak Obama.  C'mon Ban Ki-moon.  Give us zips!  Give us Velcro!  Give us buttons!  And please, give us something in our size!

Space travel just got a whole lot easier

There was a big push in the 1980s to try to explain and demonstrate scientific principles to kids using everyday, household objects and activities.

Probably the main protagonist here was Paul G. Hewitt; very much the darling of my high school physics teacher, who himself was the kind of guy who clearly had spent most of his university years developing complex mathematical formulas to determine the probability of whether he was likely to ever get a root while at college (and not of the squared kind !). Anyway, this asexual nit-wit was enamoured with Hewitt’s quirky, avant guarde approach to teaching high-school physics, which regularly saw him smashing household furniture or blowing-up kitchen appliances, and as a result, we students were forced to sit through 24-episodes of Hewitt’s irritating, a-tonal, New York drawl on scratchy, BETA video tapes, hoping that someone would one day produce an axe in class with which we could demonstrate the concept of inertia on Mr Austin’s bland skull.

But while I wasn’t that taken with the US-style learning, I did develop an appreciation for the very Australian, The Curiosity Show, on which two nerdy, washed-up hippies from the 70s “made science fun” by encouraging us to make various toys and gadgets with bits and pieces found in and around our homes, and through this, demonstrated scientific principles.

I remember learning that if I set a tea-bag alight, I could watch it rocket towards the sky, and that I could make a cotton-bud fly across a room towards a target thanks to a crossbow constructed of a clothes peg and a rubber band.

On reflection, this was clearly a pretty good way to get kids to show initiative and to develop the skills of invention, but whether a result of a thirst to learn more, or simply a limited attention span, I was prone to upping-the-ante a little, which usually got me into trouble. For instance, there’s only so much one can learn from burning all the tea bags in the house, but what I really wanted to know, was whether the same technique could launch a cat into space. Poor old Fluffy definitely copped the brunt of it, and eventually Dad refused to pay the vet bills to have all the cotton-buds surgically removed from the cat’s arse. Not surprisingly, he also decreed that The Curiosity Show was to be permanently switched-off in our household.

Without the nerdy, TV hippies to help me understand my surroundings, I soon learned to develop my own techniques for demonstrating scientific principles in the home. Foremost amongst these was the method I devised to understand the speed of light. At school, we’d been taught that light moves really fast, but the figures they gave us to demonstrate just how fast, with all those zeros hanging off the end, were just too conceptual for my Donkey-sized brain to process. They also told us that planets etc are so far away, that it takes many, many years for the light from them to reach Earth. It was all too difficult to fathom, and without The Curiosity Show to put me straight, I was in danger of becoming completely ignorant.

Instead, I sought answers through rigorous experimentation under strict, scientific conditions, and I came to the conclusion that the speed of light was slightly faster than the time it took for me to reach my bed from the light switch – and, I can assure you, given an extreme fear of the dark, that was pretty fast. Thanks to my experiments, I now understood a concept which I later discovered takes astro-physicists many years of research to master, and through that knowledge, I came to understand other concepts, like why space travellers in movies always had to be put to sleep for years and years while journeying through the cosmos.

But now, after all these years, I can feel the ground shifting beneath me, thanks to breakthroughs in technology which are causing me to re-evaluate the laws of physics. The technology of which I speak entered our home a couple of weeks ago, thanks to a ridiculous loophole in international economic and environmental policy.

We received a visit to our home from a local business man who, for absolutely no charge, replaced all of our standard light bulbs with expensive, energy-efficient bulbs. The carbon credits his business accrues through this free service are sold (for a considerable fortune) to energy inefficient corporations, in order that they can claim carbon neutrality.

As ridiculous as this sounds, rather than global authorities forcing high-volume polluters to reduce their carbon emission, they instead endorse this ludicrous, highly involved process, and somehow everyone (except dolphins, whales, penguins and Pacific Islanders) is happy; the unethical, polluting corporations can pretend they are saving the planet, the business man can sit pretty on a great, big pile of cash, and even the Donkeys are saving some money on their electricity bill … completely ridiculous, really, but it’s that kind of world.

But despite the cheaper power bills, these new light bulbs are challenging the very basis of my scientific beliefs. Since their installation in our home, I can flick a light switch on my way through a doorway, and be well inside the room before darkness is expelled.

It appears that man-made technology is getting the jump on nature and the turning of the universe, and the speed of light is slowing down. This has major implications on what we know to be true, and more than likely, should this trend continue, we may no longer need to be put to sleep when we head out to explore that final frontier. Good for space exploration, perhaps, but not so great for young teenage boys trying to get a glimpse of a buff, alien-killing Sigourney Weaver in nothing but panties and a crop-top. I never did trust technology.

Energy-saver light bulbs - taking the thrill out of adolescence. Pic: http://www.comicbookmovie.com

Underbelly III: a tale of no bollocks

If it had’ve been a young Donkey that had wound-up on a deserted beach with all the other scamps in that classic “survival of the fittest” tale, Lord of the Flies, I would certainly have been the first to have had his legs hacked-off with blunt stones by the other urchins in order for them to have something to rub together in aide of a fire, over which my tubby torso would’ve been slowly roasted in my own, succulent juices for the delightful consumption of the conch-holding bully-boys.

There’s no question – I would have been the odds-on favourite for a first-night bastin’. It’s a scenario which is about as natural selectionist as it gets; I was what Darwin had in mind when he was banging-on through his tobacco-stained beard about krill being the most likely organism in the sea to get its arse kicked. I am, and have been a spineless, snivelling Mummy’s Boy, ever since the days of my early childhood.

But it wasn't my fault; I blame my parents. Y'see, back in the hey-day of the corner store, before the advent of a 7-11 every 4.5 metres; back when no self-respecting suburban estate was complete without a decaying brick shopfront above which one dysfunctional, single parent family after another traded living quarters every four months and outside which a gang of six or seven tough-looking boys could be found, from midday until late in the night, loitering, fighting, sneering at passers-by and clumsily flirting with the other mandatory feature outside of any suburban Milk Bar, a solitary, early teenage girl with a penchant for Hubba Bubba, who’d recently discovered both thick, black eye shadow and that she and her parents just didn’t get along. Back then, I was completely smothered by my parents' over-protectiveness, and denied all exposure to danger and confrontation.

All through my early childhood, I was strictly forbidden from going anywhere near the Milk Bar and its undesirable entourage, so by the time I was four years old, I'd decided that I was man enough to subvert Mummy's strict instructions for the very first time, so I nicked five cents out of Daddy's change bowl and headed to the Milk Bar for some lollies. Geez I was tough!

Full of piss and vinegar, and with a heavy, echidna-branded five cent coin in my hot, mischievous hand, I skipped along down the road (in a masculine, the-world-is-mine-for-the-taking kind of way), and with a deep, excited breath, I rounded the corner which marked the furthest of my permitted boundaries.

As the Milk Bar came into my view, however, so too did I come into the view of none other than Johnny Butler; the biggest Neighbourhood Tough since Slobodan Milosevic assumed supremacy of the pre-school sandpit by burying the head of his rival, Antonije Bojan, in the corner where Sooty the cat always took her early-morning constitutional. Johnny Butler's reputation for cruelty and torture was legendary throughout the five streets of our suburb, and he was to be strictly avoided by any self-respecting youngster with an aversion to physical pain and suffering.

Seeing Johnny Butler positioned between me and the entrance to the Milk Bar, I immediately discharged a discreet, rabbit-sized poo in my Spiderman underpants, and turned to flee back to Mummy's skirts with a full confession and a promise to stay in my room for the next twenty years (how prophetic!), but by a stroke of extreme misfortune, as Johnny Butler turned his gaze from ogling the Bubblegum Goth beside him to taking-in my trembling form on the corner, the shiny five cent coin in my hand caught the afternoon sunshine, announcing to all gathered at the Milk Bar entrance that I was a well-heeled citizen carrying a substantial Booty.

Johnny Butler, far from shouting something menacing at me, rather called out to me in a friendly, welcoming voice (by name, mind you - man, this gangster was good). He asked what I was doing with that sparkling fiver, and when I told him, he asked if, seeing as though we were friends, he could have half of the lollies I intended to procure with my ill-gotten fortune. By this stage, I was so numb with fear that I could only nod in reply, so I walked through the front door of the Milk Bar with the murderous hand of Johnny Butler firmly gripping my shoulder, and trembling with abject terror, I proceeded to point out to the bored shop-keeper which lollies I wanted in my little, white paper bag.

After gobbling down the spoils of his protection racket, Johnny Butler took me under his wing, and for the rest of the afternoon, I became the second most important person in the neighbourhood. Johnny Butler talked to me of his hopes for the future; today this Milk Bar, tomorrow the one on Fraser Street, "and who knows?", he mused aloud, "maybe one day we'll be hanging-out at the Shell up on Springvale Road!" And then he looked me straight in the eye and told me that if I played my cards right, I could be there with him.

Imagine that! One of Johnny Butler's crew! Ignoring the disgruntled scowls of the other lads, I allowed myself to be taken-in by this juvenile delinquent's dream, and I too looked towards a future of being Johnny Butler's right-hand man, breathing in the heady heights of life at the top of the heap, terrorizing the young and the innocent.

But it was all too good to last. I was soon to learn that fame and fortune can be fickle companions, and that the green light wasn't all beer and skittles.

For Johnny Butler wasn't prepared to just hand over half of his terror network to any old would-be bad boy with two-and-a-half cents worth of mixed lollies to his name. "Oh no, Little Man," he said sternly, "I gotta be sure you're gonna be here for me when I need ya". Of course, by that stage I was fully hooked on the taste of power and privilege I'd enjoyed over those few hours, and I swore I would do anything he asked. So off we went, me and my new gang, to the nearby playground on Woodlea Drive (pretty tough, hey? Woodlea Drive was another place I wasn't allowed to go to).

As soon as we arrived, the other toughs and the Bubblegum Goth formed a tight circle near some trees at the back of the park, and Johnny Butler took me by the elbow and led me into the middle of the circle, where we both stood, shoulder to shoulder, and looked down at a completely unfamiliar object - what I now know to be a used condom. "Pick it up and give it to me, Little Man", he ordered. I slowly bent and reached for the oozing dinger, wondering as I did what it was. I hesitated slightly, but after gulping down a great, viscous lump of fear, I resolved to do as my new Master bade. But just before I grabbed hold of the sticky sheath, one of the toughs sniggered.

My hand froze, and I looked up at Johnny Butler, who was grinning down at me with a glint of cruelty in his narrow eyes. "Pick it up, Donkey, or I'll bash ya", sneered Johnny Butler. I stood up straight and ... did I actually shake my head defiantly, or was I simply trembling with terror? Regardless, Johnny Butler clenched both fists as he lunged towards me, and I sobbed in terror, before sounding-off a piercing howl that caught the attention of young Mrs Cherney, who was approaching the park with her two-year old. "What's going on there you kids?", she bellowed, and that was enough to put the wind up Johnny Butler and his crew, who hot-footed it off down Woodlea Drive towards the safety of their patch outside the Milk Bar.

And there it was. My big, life choice; do I pick up the greasy dinger and become one of Johnny Butler's crew, terrorising the neighbourhood youth before moving onto organised protection rackets, illegal poker halls and eventually leading a life of luxury on stinking, ill-gotten cash, socialising with society's most wanted, professional footballers and dodgy accountants, and snorting lines of coke off a prostitute's arse through a rolled-up fifty three times a night? Or do I defy Johnny Butler's orders, and tell him to stick his fawning sycophants and all-pervasive neighbourhood power where it fits, and head back to my homely existence with the family I love, who cares for and nurtures me, in good times and bad?

I'd like to think I actually made my choice that day, but the truth is I never had the balls. As Johnny Butler lunged towards me, I'd lost it, pissed my pants and cried like a baby. Mrs Cheney had saved my arse and held my hand as she walked me all the way home. I had survived, sure, escaping a bashing and possibly a sexually transmitted infection-induced skin rash into the bargain, but it hadn't been a survival of the fittest; my dignity and pride had been destroyed that day in the park on Woodlea Drive, when I had gone from being Melbourne's newest crime boss to being a snivelling mess in the space of a heartbeat, and the stink of failure and weakness has remained with me ever since; a stench which can be sensed immediately by any opportunistic predator who comes my way.

There's a lot to be said for the old adage, "We've gotta toughen you up son, it's a jungle out there and you'll get eaten alive." Too true.

"Hey Bitches. Hey Hos..." Jay and Silent Bob, two regulars outside the Quick Stop, were not as threatening as Johnny Butler, but equally as opportunistic. Pic: http://arcticmonkey.files.wordpress.com