Blame It On the Cleaner

Our local shops is a constant source of wonder. The latest offering is this ad for an all-round factotum, willing not only to iron and babysit but also very happy to take responsibility for any misdemeanours:

Or is there a 'p' missing and she's just good at getting under furniture and round corners? How disappointing. I was hoping for all my sins to be absolved.

Love in a Time of Fizzy Drinks

Coming out of the shop just now, I noticed three kids sitting in a row on the brick bench outside, all wearing school uniform. There were two boys of about 12 or 13 and a very excitable girl, who I wouldn't have thought was much more than 10, maybe 11. They were sharing a bottle of one of those sweet yellow drinks - Tango, possibly, or Sprite? The girl seemed to be doing most of the drinking and possibly it was the yellow in the drink that had produced the wild look in her eye. Or maybe it was just a hot Friday afternoon at the end of a long school week.

Anyway, while I unlocked my bike, I overheard the three of them having this conversation:

First boy: Sinead is soooo ugly.
Girl: You asked her out, didn't you?
First boy: Yeah, and she said she'd go out with me, but then she wouldn't and she went out with Henry instead.
Girl: Yeah, and Sinead said she kissed Henry and then Henry kissed her, and Dimity said ...
Second boy, interrupting: No, no, that's not what happened. What happened was Sinead kissed Henry on the cheek and then Henry was like, 'WHAT WAS THAT?'
First boy: Sinead is soooo ugly.

We've come a long way, baby.

Yoof of All Ages

Sitting in my front window, like some latter day Miss Matty from Cranford - although, being latter day, rather than fiddling around trying to impress my neighbours with the numbers of candles I can afford to light, I am actually playing with my lap top while half watching the news - I am disturbed by the sound of drug addicts bellowing at each other on their way up to get their daily methadone.

But, hang on, it's quarter past seven in the evening. The chemist is closed. And, on cue, the bellowers appear in my field of vision, and they turn out to be 'young people', a boy on a bike and a boy and a girl with a backpack on the pavement.

But they sounded exactly like the morning chorus drug addicts. My brilliant conclusion - that the drug addicts are actually just stuck in permanent arrested development. No wonder they seek escape in oblivion. I shudder at the thought of being trapped forever as my silly teenage self.

Bijou Batts and Dior Kaffies

My youngest daughter and I were walking down Macleay Street in Sydney the other night, looking for the restaurant where we were to meet my brother, when a couple came out of a bar, arm in arm. As they strolled along beside us, they began a high-volume conversation, which I couldn't help suspecting was being conducted for our benefit.

'Do you remember the shop where that lovely trans-gender girl used to sell frocks, down there on the left?' began the male of the couple.

'She's still there,' replied the woman, who, her voice revealed, was also a man. 'I bought a lovely chiffon skirt by Dior from her just the other day.'

'Oooh, have you got Dior couture in your wardrobe? I've only got vintage Dior.'

'My dear, if you want vintage, you should see my Balenciaga jacket: it's practically seamless - just a single piece of fabric; what a cutter!'

We tried to ignore this megaphone interchange, concentrating instead on the building numbers, searching for the one my brother had given us.

'There it is,' I cried, when I finally spotted it. The woman of the couple glanced over at the establishment I'd pointed out.

'Do you remember when that place used to be fashionable?' she asked and looked straight at me. Her expression suggested she'd trodden in something very unpleasant.

'I am so sick of being surrounded by mono-genders', she said, with a toss of her pony tail and then the two of them sauntered off into the night.

It Must Be Love

One of my favourite Internet friends is Denis Wright and his

Fields of Knowledge

The time immediately after leaving university is usually

Some Mothers

Before we went to the movies the

Alien Alan

Coming back from my walk, I began thinking about

Street Theatre from the West Country

My older daughter, who lives in Bristol, (and is available for commissions [loves doing portraits and paints beautifully, as well as draws, should you be looking for the perfect present]) found three young entrepreneurs outside her house yesterday, selling compliments for 20p. "I bought one", she said and "they wrote 'lovely hair and nice attitude'. Awww ... They were also selling jokes for 20p . They were saying 'buy one compliment for 20p, and one joke for 20p and you get a free laugh!'"

So far so good. But, in my daughter's words, there was:

"a sad ending to the story:  Came out of my house about an hour after I took this picture, to see the girls running merrily up to various pedestrians on my street. They then approached a rather scruffy looking chap, cradling a bottle of chardonnay, they announced 'compliments for 20p!! feel good!' to the man, who stumbled out of their way, turned to them and shouted 'FUCK OFF YOU STUPID LITTLE CUNTS!!' . He stumbled off down the road. There was a shocked silence... the girls looked deflated and a bit frightened. I tried to rectify the situation slightly by shouting back at the man something like 'DON'T BE SO RUDE!', but i think it was pretty ineffective... a little bit of innocence was lost today in bristol :-(."

Street Theatre

It was a wild night at our place in Budapest. After days of intense sun and no wind or cloud at all, thunder came rumbling in and flashes of lightning split the darkness. My husband's playtrack shifted with appropriately lightning speed to 'Stormy Weather', which is more his usual style than Joni Mitchell. I sat on our corner balcony and watched events in the two streets that converge directly beneath us.

Around midnight there was an explosion of shouting from one of the flats at the bottom of the building. It was so loud that people came running out from a nearby restaurant and stood before the windows behind which, presumably, the accompanying fight was taking place. From their reactions, plus the roaring fury of the voices, things were looking pretty hairy in there. There was talk of calling the emergency services. However, the obvious strength of our neighbours' rage was so great that it was almost certain to be unsustainable. Sure enough, after ten minutes, the howls of anger diminished to whimpers. Some pretty vigorous door slamming followed and then quiet descended once again.

But not for long. A taxi driver came hurtling round the corner next, racing down the street at frantic speed. When he saw an earthmover rising up in front of him, blocking his way (the street is being dug up and cobbled so that it will soon be a semi-pedestrianised zone) he braked violently. Then he threw his vehicle into reverse and started backwards at equally high speed, ramming straight into a heap of as yet unlaid cobbles that, presumably, he hadn't noticed.

After a pause during which he tried unsuccessfully to move the car forward and free of the stones he'd got caught up in, he leapt out, revealing himself to be a middle-aged man with a dyed comb-over (very Death in Venice but only in this solitary respect, to be honest) and rapper clothing - bright white shoes and similarly dazzling white shorts, a large black nylon sleeveless basketballer's shirt and lots of medallions and crosses on chains. Having assessed the situation, he passed his hand through his meagre hair and spat. Then he reached back into the car for his mobile.

For about five minutes he sprang about, gesticulating and yelling into the telephone and, almost before you knew it. a whole fleet of fellow taxis were gathered about him. Amidst more shouting and leaping, the stranded taxi was liberated. The other taxis melted into the night almost as quickly as they had arrived, and our man was left kneeling at the rear of his car, trying fruitlessly to reattach a broken piece of chassis to the back bumper.

All the while - indeed, since late afternoon, outside one of the classier cafes on the adjoining street, a drunk had been the centre of a different kind of narrative. For some reason, around five he had come staggering along and, pausing, the idea had come to him that this would be a pleasant place to spend a few hours. Having settled himself just beside the doorway of a cafe-bar and opposite the outside tables of the corner restaurant, he produced a bottle and began to drink. In between swigs he made announcements to the street in general, trailing off from time to time into little moments of interior reflection - or possibly falling briefly asleep. Various members of the cafe-bar's staff came out to look at him as he made himself more and more at home. When he started to sing, three of them all appeared together. Luckily, his attention was soon caught again by his by now nearly empty bottle, and, by the time he'd drained it, the urge to sing seemed to have passed.

Even from the third floor, it was obvious that the drunk was filthy. He wore a grimy blue-plaid shirt, its buttons undone, black smeared trousers and matching boots. His skin was that rusty colour that drunks' skin often becomes. Perhaps because I was looking at him from above, seeing the top of his sweaty head - that very first part of the anatomy that most humans thrust into the world - I found I couldn't help thinking about how, despite the state he was in, he must once have had a family. To someone, at least for a while, he must have been a beloved son. Yet none of the passersby seemed to notice him - and those that did steered a wide berth.

At least they did until a young man - not an especially attractive or caring looking type, just a bloke in shorts, flash trainers and a polo shirt - emerged from under the awning of a restaurant table and went up to the drunk and offered him a cigarette. The drunk accepted the offer and, after lighting his own, the bloke knelt down in a way that was oddly moving and, cupping his hands around the drunk's, lit the cigarette he'd given him. Once he was sure it was going properly, the Good Samaritan (and ,despite recognising that smoking is bad for you et cetera, I think the bloke was a Good Samaritan), stood up and reached out his hand and shook the drunk's hand warmly. They exchanged a few words, the bloke shook the drunk's hand again, I think this time slipping him some money, and then he went on his way.

The drunk looked after him, possibly as astonished and admiring as I was. He smoked his fag and, when he'd had enough, he carefully stubbed out the flame and stowed what was left behind his ear. He turned and at first I thought he was going to crawl across the pavement for some reason, but then I realised he was merely making an ungainly attempt to stand up. Eventually he managed this, collected up his belongings and set off in the direction of his mentor.

A snatch of music from the little record shop further down the street must have caught his ear, for, instead of walking, the drunk began to waltz unsteadily with an unseen partner. All was going well. I was thinking increasingly sentimentally about seeing the best in all humankind and doing good unto others. Then the drunk spun his wobbly way into our street and, perhaps registering the fresh cleanliness of the cobbles, remembered there was something else he had to do. Squaring up groggily to the wall of the house opposite, he undid his fly and began to pee. I went inside.

Maps, Old and New

I've been reading Good Behaviour by Molly Keane, (astonishingly good book, terrible and funny, charting the way that emotional deprivation ripples out through the generations, extending its damage ever further), and my mother and I were discussing it and other books about Ireland, over the telephone. Eventually we began to wonder where certain places in the books we were discussing were, and so I opened Google Maps on my laptop. However, before I could locate the town I was looking for, my mother said she'd found it. 'What map are you using?' I wondered. 'Oh, I'm using the tea towel your Aunt Bindy brought me back from her trip to see the gardens of Ireland 15 years ago,' she replied.

Trees Died for This

One of the more poignantly amusing sights I've ever seen was a toddler climbing onto one of the benches in our local park and trying to take a bite out of one of its slats, recently repainted a glossy dark brown. As his gums closed on the thing's unyielding texture, his face crumpled in disappointment. 'Choc', he lisped, looking around with a puzzled air. 'He's just discovered chocolate,' I heard his mother explain to her companion, almost unnecessarily.  'Choc', the child repeated, wistfully, 'choc, choc.'

That was some time ago. Things have changed since then and I fear such simple pleasures may not be enough for the children of more recent generations - not if what some young parents told me at dinner last night is true.

These parents have a two-year-old and they also have an I-Pad. Apparently, the I-Pad is the apple of the two-year-old's eye (apple, I-Pad, geddit? Actually, it was unintentional, so don't grind your teeth at me like that). When he wakes from an afternoon nap, his first - indeed, his only - word is 'I-Pad'. He utters it in a coaxing, hopeful, go-on-please-indulge-me kind of tone. 'I-Pad?' he says, 'I-Pad?' And when he's allowed it, he can zoom straight to YouTube. 'Apparently, that means he's actually reading - he can recognise the YouTube logo, and that means he can read it,' the proud father assured me.

The child's mother seemed more ambivalent. According to her, her little son found a magazine in the kitchen yesterday. Rather than leafing through it, he tried to use the action you use on an I-Pad to move on to the next screen and looked up at her with wide eyes when the thing didn't behave as he expected. He was clearly concerned that the I-Pad was broken. The concept of a paper page was beyond his ken.

All this suggests to me that we're headed for a paperless future, which should please the hippies a friend of mine used to share a house with, who tossed away her box of teabags once in outrage, preserving a single specimen from the 80-odd the box contained. This they sellotaped above the sink, together with a post-it note, on which they'd scrawled an arrow pointing at the offending item, together with the furious message: 'Trees died for this!'

Yeah Well

I have moaned in the past about the local chemist deciding to increase its clientele by taking on the role of methadone dispensary for the area, but I'm beginning to revise my views. After all, now if I sit in my front garden at the right time in the morning I'm almost guaranteed to overhear a conversation, (don't ask me why, but the methadone-taking community seems to conduct its conversations at a very high volume, [which I imagine is why they've recently put up a thick glass wall between the dispensary section of the chemist and the rest of the shop - in order to seal off some of the noise]) and almost always that conversation makes me realise that there is a rich tapestry of life going on in the suburbs around me and my bit of the tapestry is probably nicer than most.

Lately though it's been oddly stormy which has meant there's been very little opportunity to sit in the front garden. But yesterday was lovely - at least to begin with (late afternoon brought astonishing thunder and lightning and a smattering of rain as well). Anyway seeing the sun out at around 10. 30, I got the newspapers and a cup of coffee and took my position on the warm brick of my front step. I hadn't been there long when I heard two foghorn voices coming down the street.

One sounded middle-aged; the other sounded younger, (but not youthful). Both of them were female and this is what they said:

"Yeah well, I don't care. I'm happy on my own anyway."

"Yeah well, you wait till you're 59 and on your own like me and tell me you're still happy."

"Yeah well, you should have made dad happy and then he wouldn't have drunk himself to death - and anyway that's just another kind of materialism, that finding someone stuff. You've got to find your own happiness from within you, not look for someone else to give you happiness."

"Yeah well, if I'd known what a little prick you were going to turn out to be, I wouldn't have had you, that's for sure."

Families, eh.

In Praise of Censorship

As I was bicycling back to Canberra's pathetic attempt at a Chinatown, (when I went there the other day, I couldn't get what I wanted as the markets in Cabramatta had been closed for Chinese New Year and so supplies were delayed - boring explanation, but I wouldn't want anyone thinking I'm easing off on my attitude of haughty contempt towards the place and becoming a fan who can't keep away), I noticed this in the gutter:

For those who can't zoom in and see the detail, it is a pristine packet of Cleaver's 'Healthy Organic' beef mince, priced at a healthy - one might even say hefty - $8.74.

My initial reaction was to think, 'Oh, some poor person has ridden home from the shop, imagining they have a lovely mince-based meal ahead of them, (if it's possible to have a lovely mince-based meal, which is debatable), and then they've got home and found that somehow - oh dear, could it be the onset of ... no, don't even tempt fate by mentioning it - although they thought they went to the shop and bought the stuff, it turns out they only imagined doing so, in which case what precisely did they do during the past forty-five minutes, (and what's the betting that that leads to a quick slug from the vodka bottle and from there it's all downhill?)'

And then I thought, 'But, no, wait a minute, what if, in fact, that organic mince has been put there deliberately to trick us into thinking that, but really a maniac has taken an incredibly fine needled syringe, which can penetrate the plastic covering while leaving it apparently unperforated, and - in the hope that a passer-by might pick up the packet, thinking, "Oh, jolly good, here's a free meal someone's dropped", and take it home, cook it and die - has injected into the so-called 'healthy organic' mince a terrible toxin that will kill in minutes.'

And then I thought, 'Hang on, where did that incredibly mad idea come from?'

And then I thought, 'It came from having all sorts of idiotic so-called news stories, about maniacs injecting food in supermarkets and stuffing jars of baby foods with ground glass et cetera, shoved at me by the media over the decades, so that now I can actually imagine that there are people out there who might possibly be nuts enough to do weird things that I previously could not have come near imagining.'

And then I thought, 'How utterly useless it is to know that kind of thing, how unnecessary it is to be told such stories, how irresponsible it is of news services to provide information about things that are so rare and aberrant that they are never ever likely to affect most people and yet once most people are given information about them they will never be able to get rid of that information or the possibility that such things could happen. Their minds will be cluttered up with lunatics lurking with poison and grisly details about murderers who boiled up their victims or kept them in bits in office fridges or buried them under the paving of people they were working for, things that offer no enlightenment but merely terrify and leach away trust between human beings. Furthermore, having been introduced to the knowledge that certain individual human beings can behave in extraordinary and terrible ways, they inevitably are forced - by virtue of being robbed of their innocence, of no longer not knowing that such things are possible - infinitesimally closer to being able to actually commit such acts themselves, because they have gone beyond the initial utter shock and reached the point of acceptance that such things occur.'

And then I thought, 'Do newspapers and reporters ever ask themselves what good it actually does, when they decide to tell us many of the things that they do decide to tell us, usually without ever being asked to tell us?' Do they wonder to themselves about what exact important purpose is served by providing us with all the prurient details of individual  acts of gory madness?'

(On a separate note, I also think it's unforgiveable to insist people watch horrible things, just because you either like them or, more likely, want to spread around the trauma [and don't get me started on the night my friend went to see Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover and I said I wouldn't go because it looked too revolting and then he came home in a state of utter traumatised shock and insisted on cornering me and describing every scene in minute detail, thus ridding himself of his own horror and passing it straight on to me {I think what he did's called the talking cure, except that usually people pay - and did that really happen with the ... no, actually I really don't want or need to know}]. And, by the way, the mince is still there - in the gutter on Cowper Street, just after the intersection with Macarthur Avenue, should anyone be in the market for a free feed - although you might want to check the use-by date [and the possibly perforated cellophaned]).

Respect

Just now, in the short street that has been rather imaginatively renamed Canberra's Chinatown, (it's not a town and it's not enormously Chinese [although I have to admit that it is probably more Chinese than anywhere else in Canberra]), I was locking my bike to a bike rack when I became aware of a person standing rather close to me.

What made me become aware of this person was, I suppose, the fact that he suddenly bellowed, 'It's a pity you have to lock up your bike', right beside me, in a Scottish accent. I straightened up and looked at this person, whose voice I didn't recognise but who nonetheless appeared to be addressing me. The main thing I noticed was that he was a man who had quite a few teeth missing and that his face was rather closer to mine than I might have liked. 'It is a pity,' I agreed and bent down again, to extract my key from its padlock.

'I went to Japan once,' the man yelled down at me, as I did this. I glanced up and gave him what I thought was an unencouraging nod. 'They don't need to lock up their bikes there,' he continued, clearly too entranced by his subject - or perhaps the sound of his Scottish lilt - to notice encouragement or the lack thereof.

'Oh yes,' I said, straightening up again and putting my key away in my pocket.

'Do you know why they don't need to lock up their bikes in Japan?' he demanded, shoving his mug so forcefully into my vision that there was room for nothing else. I inched away, shaking my head. 'Is it because no-one steals bikes over there?' I ventured. 'Yes, but do you know why they don't?' he asked.

He didn't wait for my answer - which was lucky, as I didn't have one - but went straight on. 'I asked them why, you know, and they told me. They said it was respect that stopped them doing it. They have respect in Japan, you see, but we've lost it.'

Before I could argue - or agree - with this statement, he turned on his heel and marched off.

I looked after him. What he'd said was not totally uninteresting, even though he was probably fairly mad. I didn't really have any particular objection to his diagnosis - I did wonder though if the loss was entirely a bad thing. After all, could it not be argued that an excess of respect led to no-one challenging authorities with sufficient vigour to prevent the building of nuclear power plants along an earthquake fault line?

If it's a choice between the odd stolen bike or a nuclear catastrophe, I think we may have got the better part of the bargain. On the other hand, it would be nice to never lock things up.

I Thought You Had to Be Over Sixty

It turns out there's too much to do to allow for full-blown, lying-in-bed sickness, so, after a couple of days sleeping, I stoke up with pills and stagger up to the local shops. Apart from anything else, I'm worried they'll all close down unless I hurry back to ply them with my trade.

When I get there, I realise I may have exaggerated the importance of my custom. There's no sign that the brief loss of it has made any difference to anyone. This should make me happy, although really it makes me feel depressingly expendable.

Then, as I come round the corner by the pub, I see two young men approaching. One is talking on his mobile phone. When he finishes his conversation, he shakes his head, as if someone had punched him. 'She wants me to give up bowling', is all he says.

Bowling? Young men, (presumably he's not in it just for the free carparking)? Either I've still got a fever, or else the world has changed while I've been away.

Storytime

It's a bit too hot for climbing up the mountain at the moment and so I am swimming for an hour each day instead, an activity I enjoy far more, partly because, for some reason, I don't feel any compunction about listening to the radio while swimming, whereas, although I don't know why, I refuse to allow myself any audio entertainment while trudging uphill. Maybe I concede myself this pleasure when swimming because I am so amazed it's possible - to be able to listen to MP3s underwater is so miraculous and I am so lucky to be living in an age when it can be done that I have a duty to make the most of the opportunity.

Anyway, as I have been listening to the radio and not climbing up the mountain, I haven't been hearing the snatches of conversation of those passing me in the opposite direction that are about the only thing that provides any respite from the tramp tramp tramp of my weary feet. I miss them and I think when I do go back to the mountain I will start to collect the best ones and post them here, so that aspirant writers, unable to get themselves started, will be able to pick up one or other sentence and use it as a hook on which to hang a whole new work of fiction.

The ones I did pick up before the advent of proper summer weather seemed to be dominated by talk about job applications - 'They said I didn't have the right skillset', 'They only told me too late that I needed three referees, not two', 'I didn't realise when I applied that you had to stay on the ship the whole time' - but there were a few that offered possibilities to anyone with a speculative turn of thought. Here are the ones that I thought had the most promise:

"It's just habit though, isn't it? It's always just habit."

"My parents loved India. Well, mum did anyway."

"I don't think I should have asked him now."

"I really wish I'd never bought those little red boots."

Strains of Christmas

At the local shop yesterday, I was on my knees, hunting on a low shelf for some soft food for the stray cat we look after, (she recently seems to have mislaid all her front teeth in some late night feline punch up - or perhaps just through old age).

Over my head, two women discussed their Christmas.

'We had mum to stay,' said the first one, 'it was hard going.' 'Was she here long?', asked the other. 'A week and a half. She was very demanding.'

Neither of them spoke for a moment and then the first one began again. 'I love my mother,' she said, 'but I don't like her. That's what I realised while she was here.' 'Oh,' said the second one, 'I feel the reverse about mine.'

Fill in the Dots

Early each morning, I trudge up the small mountain near my house. I do this partly for the pleasure of reaching the top and stopping, (yes, the old head-banging motive), and partly because I've been brainwashed by the health fanatics whose mission in life is to plague us with 'information' about 'heart health' and 'aerobic capacity' and so forth and so on.

And, of course, steeped as I am in the self-punitive pleasures of Protestantism, I do not take an MP3 player or any other kind of listening device to ease my journey. Instead, I stagger along, my face growing progressively redder, contenting myself with any crumbs of entertainment that may come my way.

Sadly, there are usually only slim pickings. I mean I suppose it is mildly thrilling the first time you hear desperate wheezing gasps behind you and then see some poor soul, who has made the - in my view foolish - decision to run rather than plod up the slope, lumber past in a blur of sweaty Lycra. It  is not long though before even this ultra-modern spectacle loses its power to excite*.

All that is left then is the hope of picking up some snatch of conversation and, on this front, today I was lucky. Two women, on their way down, came hurrying past me, and, as they did so, one said to the other: "We have stacks of money but ..."

It was all I needed. I spent the rest of my walk trying to imagine the end of that sentence. Of course, I admit, it may have been a statement complete in itself; that 'but' may have been an example of one of my favourite usages - the Australian redundant 'but'- but I don't think so (but). It wasn't spoken with quite the right intonation, (but). There was more about to be said, just out of my earshot, I think, (but). These are some of the things I think I may have missed (but):

"...we're still not happy."
"...we took it all from the Monopoly set."
"...we stole it all."
"...we think it will give us germs if we touch it."
"...that's only because we haven't paid a bill since 1965."


Any other suggestions will be accepted with interest. But.

*Oh who am I kidding - it's not exciting, even the first time.

Speaking as a Sog*

Sometimes there is an attempt to argue that Canberra is no longer a public service town but actually a vibrant artistic hub or a centre of enterprise (or even of excellence - but not a multi-function polis, that much beloved chimera of the late 1980s).

I don't believe such nonsense, nor will I - not while it is still possible to turn on the local radio, as I did just now, and hear exchanges like this one:

"Interviewer: 'Do you think there's a need for more APS* 4 and 5 positions?'
Person being interviewed, after a gasp and a pause: 'Gosh, that's a big meaning of life sort of question.'"

As long as anyone exists in this city who regards that as a 'big, meaning of life sort of question', Canberra will continue to be, warp and weft, a public service town.

*A SOG is an acronym for some kind of public service position - as you walk the streets of Canberra (provided you don't get certified - it is a town where you are allowed to jog or drive [or drive somewhere to jog {or even, if your car has a bike carrier, to drive somewhere to bicycle while wearing lots of lycra, an activity that always puzzles me - surely it would be better simply to bicycle somewhere, without first transporting your transport in another dirtier, noisier bit of transport?}], but strolling is regarded as evidence of mental instability) you will often hear snatches of conversation that go something like this, 'He's a SOG B, but he's only acting up,' or 'She's hoping to get a SOG C position in Defence' or 'They're both SOGs in PM&C', et cetera et cetera. I haven't actually ever been a SOG, perish the thort. I think I was once a Clerk Class 4, which sounds quite Dickensian, but, disappointingly, lacked any of the grotesque semi-Gothic splendour that I associate with the great man's writing. In fact, I would have to admit that from what I can remember it was uninterruptedly dull. Perhaps that's why the designation was deleted - it was probably deemed misleading under the Trade Practices Act, or maybe it caused problems with recruitment, attracting all sorts of wild-eyed fans of Bleak House and Nicholas Nickleby et cetera, eager to scratch out their livings perched on high stools in dimly lit offices or hoping to emulate Melville's Bartleby Scrivener, literature's most enigmatically heroic clerk.

*Australian Public Service