Slidin' cross a blue highway...

Gigglewick's concepts for a new millennium


“Can you help me?” mints

“Can you help me?” mints are the new social glue allowing individuals to interact in an increasingly hostile world. Often placed on a conference registration table or visitor information desk, the “can you help me” mint gives the confused and perplexed travelller an excuse to approach a counter and ask for help.

In addition to providing this valuable social function, “can you help me?” mints are also tasty and refreshing.


Promisitis (prom-iss-eye-tuss)

The sexually transmitted infection you contract, after saving your virginity for “the one” who turns out not to be the one, so much as the one-in-a-hundred.


Non-core promisitus

The sexually transmitted infection your partner contracts, after realising that your claim to have saved your virginity for “the one” was not as factual as you may have claimed.

I am just a speck of dust inside a giant's eye...and I don't want to make her cry

The air is just right for drinking

We went to an ace, all-grown-ups party on Saturday night for friends’ J and K’s birthdays. I am now officially in love with Gin Slings, boys in suits and my friend J’s ability to drag Mr Fix onto the dance floor to dance with his wife (that would be me, in case you were wondering).

I’m less in love with my predilection to dancing to ‘Love is in the Air’, although I am in stunned admiration that my friend H. has both ‘Do you wanna funk?’ by Sylvester and ‘Things that make you go Hmmmmm’ by C and C Music Factory in his collection.


Sunday morning, brings the…oh my god cat vomit

Our cat is disgusting. For roughly the last four months he has punctuated most mornings with a friendly vomit. It is foul, and also indicative of a degenerative condition (according to our vet). This is sad, but also gross.


Gigglewick recommends: sleeping with all the lights out

Because Grizzlewick was at his grandparents on Saturday night, we slept with all the lights out, for the first time in our current house. It is so dark, and so very awesome.


Cooking news

I made my own hommus from scratch using the Stephanie Alexander recipe on the weekend. Can I just say how much it rocked, and attempt to convince everyone else to do the same, as long as they use canned chick peas, which are more inclined to smooth out in the food processor.


Gigglewick recommends: putting lentils in curry

I know it may appear (rightly) that I am on a legume kick at the moment, but I can’t recommend more heartily the placement of already cooked lentils (I use yellow lentils that I boil the living daylights out of) into curries. Not only is the flavour richer, but also they thicken the sauce with very little effort on your behalf. Of course there’s a word to describe how you might be getting around the next day that rhymes with “heartily”. In my opinion, this is a small price to pay.


My lack of memory: needlessly stocking my spice stores since 1994

I get irrationally excited at the fruit and vegetable shop, particularly if they have a ready store of dried spices and herbs. I also have a shocking memory, and tend to start from scratch every time I want to cook something. It’s therefore not unusual for me to purchase new, and in bulk: turmeric, cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, ground coriander, chilli powder and cumin. As a result, my panry resembles the spice mines of Kessel , only with less slaves and Lando Calrissian*.

The Premier’s Active Families Challenge

Ooooh. I love nothing more than receiving totally unnecessary prizes for doing something I’m already doing**. For those who haven’t seen this yet, the Victorian Premier is offering 15 free family visits to YMCAs and 10 per cent off at Rebel Sport for people who register in the Premier’s Active Families Challenge (you have to be Victorian).


Virtual hugs across the universe

Two of my dear friends are having a rough time at the moment, for different reasons. I’m thinking of you my loves, even if neither of you read this blog.



I can't wait until March.



* yeah. I can't believe I just did that either.

** This is something my friend Indeed knows ALL TOO WELL.

And the world it won't stand still

Ah, Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. It’s not enough, is it? It’s not enough to just keep quiet and let the apology pass, even though you didn’t agree with it. It’s never enough to just suck it up (figuratively speaking) and let a deeply divided country do something to come back together.

Now you’re a historian, demographer and pollster all in one! Nice work!

Let’s assume for a moment that 95 per cent of your electorate has never given two flying proverbials about the apology. Let’s assume for a moment that you have actually had written or phone correspondence with each and every one of them, and each and every one of them disagrees with the apology. Have you never heard of Edmund Burke and the notion of representative democracy*?

Apart from anything else, a simple freakin’ google search could have confirmed for you that there WERE children forcibly removed from their parents in Victoria – something everyday joes like myself might not have time to find out, but you’re in position to provide leadership. You DO have access to these resources. You SHOULD be investigating the issue thoroughly enough to acquaint yourself with Victorian and Federal law in this regard. You should be able, with little effort, to find out where Indigenous people (children and adults) were removed to when your electorate was settled by white people (in case you can't, they're known as Cummeragunja and Coranderrk). You DO have access to extensive information about the Stolen Generation and opportunities to increase your knowledge about issues in the national interest. In fact, last time I checked, that is your JOB.

And in case you’re one of those “if you can’t name a member of the Stolen Generation, they don’t exist” types, I know and have actually met (in real life!) at least seven people who were comfortable with talking about the fact they were forcibly removed from their families. This is not some kind of “badge of honour” in the Indigenous community. It’s not something that everyone wants to talk about, nor use to score political points.

In one case, the woman in question was never able to reunite with her mother, who died before A. could find her, although she did find out her name and was able to track down her father eventually. The overwhelming truth for many people removed from their families has been that their lives are a period of depression, disenfranchisement and deep disconnection. Despite what some might think, it hasn’t radicalised all individuals in the way that anti-apologists seem to imagine.

Memo: you’re not in government anymore.

Even Brendan Nelson has recognized this, in his own stupid, ham-fisted, both feet-in-his-mouth kind of way. Alexander Downer and Peter McGauran even more so.

I applaud our statesman-like Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the committed and hard-working Jenny Macklin and those who worked so hard to ensure that this apology happened. I congratulate Indigenous leaders for their ongoing work in a climate that has been hostile and suspicious of the motives of Indigenous activists. I pay tribute not only to the elders of the community in which I live, but also to those elders whose links to their homeland have been irrevocably severed, and feel sorrow for this loss. For those mothers and fathers who never knew their children, I feel grief and sadness.

And to those who think this gesture is meaningless, I say that this simple word has such deep meaning. I won’t teach my son that saying sorry is not important, nor that it won’t help to heal wounds.


* If there was ever a time when I revealed my civics nerdery in all its glory, it's this moment right here, where I use an 18th- century British politician's speech to constituents to chastise an MP in Australia in the 21st century.

One of these days I'm just gonna lie in the sun/But right now I'm wond'rin', is that day ever coming?

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about advocacy and rights. In particular, I’ve been trying to figure out what the difference is between advocacy and having a whinge. Because there are certainly any number of issues where one could be rightly considered an advocate, either for ones’ own rights, the rights of a group or the rights of society. What isn’t so clear however, is how far one must remove ones’ own personal interest in order for something to be purely advocacy with no whingeing.

To be clear, I’m not talking about people whose job it is to be advocates for a particular part of the community. Lots of these people do their job very well – I don’t think we’d have the society we enjoy without organisations like ACOSS, VCOSS, YDAS and the like. There is a real benefit, I think, in ensuring that people without the traditional recourses to problem solving, be it at a very personal scale or in securing government services, have a voice in our society.

And while we’re at it, let’s excuse unions from this mix also. While there is a modicum of personal interest in union activity, there’s a lot of representation in unions’ work (particularly in those industries where pay scales are consistent regardless of union membership) that isn’t specifically about boosting membership – because workers all enjoy the gains made. In larger issues such as Work/Family Balance and the like, it’s most people who will benefit from a change in law, award or conditions that are won by unions on behalf of all workers, despite their relatively low participation rates in some industries.

But what about having a gripe with your local council? This evening I saw a bloke on television wearing a shirt that said “Whistle blower” in big red letters. He was aggrieved because the council had changed planning laws and now his view had been built out. In retaliation, he had painted his house with a range of grafitti slogans. While I think this is amusing on some levels and would certainly appear to be his democratic right, I guess I’m not convinced that he is a freedom fighter of the classic mold.

And what happens when you have a “win” early on? Do you have to keep fighting in order to ensure total victory, or is it enough to say “well, I got them to let me build a huge fence, now bugger the black-wing zoo-paddler, I’m off to Tahiti?”

And what about a community issue from which you stand to gain? There seems to be a lot of currency in expert opinions, they’re the “go to” for the media because they’re readily accessible. But is it reasonable for those people to claim personal responsibility should something be achieved? A couple of years ago there were a series of anti-war protests that some high-profile celebrities were involved in. They were meaningful protests, with genuine grievances about a social issue. The protest didn’t get very far, which probably says less about the celebrities and more about the target of the protest. But had that protest been successful, what would the celebrities’ personal stake have been? Would they have demanded due deference for the donation of their time? Was their time more valuable than Betty Bloggs or Joe Jones or any one of the thousands of other people who have donated their time to halting what they believe to be an unjust war?

There’s been a bit of blue in our place recently about a particular community issue. One group of people wants to do something, another group of people doesn’t want them to. Now, there is plenty of argument to be had in the issues at hand. Lots of expert reports, lots of people weighing in, letters to the paper daily and regional meetings, etc. So I have to wonder why the people on one side of the argument decided to make it an argument about “democracy”. Instead of just saying “Hey, look, we’ve got all this evidence that what you’re going to do is utterly heinous, man”, they’ve alleged that the other group is damaging irrevocably the democracy of our system. Yuh-huh. And I’m ruining democracy in my household by enforcing a 7:30pm bedtime.

For me, the “you’re killing democracy” thing is starting to get a bit like “un-Australian”, it’s over-used and quite often, simply inaccurate. I’m all for the protest of illegitimate attacks on democracy, but can we save it for the times when there is really something at stake? Like when a Federal government seeks to impinge on individual suffrage for example? Or when political donation limits go sky-high so that major donors can do so under the cover of anonymity?

Eh – maybe I’m just casting around for something to be angry about, but this is really driving me nuts at the moment. So there’s my whinge, and I won’t be calling it advocacy or anything remotely similar.

And now that you’ve waded through that self-indulgent pap, go and read Sean Gorman’s op. ed about the Federal Government's planned apology and Nelson's response. It’s quite ace.