Sarah & Gam do Brisbane Sexpo

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Another scummy Howard law bites the dust

Kevin Rudd is really getting busy undoing some of John Howard's dodgiest laws. The latest to get the chop are Howard's secret political donation laws that enabled rich motherfuckers to give up to $10,300 without being outed for their support rather than the previous threshold of $1,500. Heck, I think anonymity should be abolished altogether when it comes to political donations, and so should the ability to tax-deduct those donations. I certainly don't expect Rudd to go that far, but it's good to see he actually plans to go ahead with the foreshadowed threshold rollback.

ACMA spanks SBS

Obscene machine

When we read about SBS getting a rap from ACMA for breaching broadcasting guidelines by screening one of its 10pm adult-oriented documentaries that turned out to be 'too adult', the response from Gam and I was "How did we miss it?" and "Can we download it?". SBS has promised not to screen it again, dammit.

What I'd like to know is who the hell sits up and switches on SBS at 10pm on Friday night and then complains about the content being of an adult nature? I bet the lone complainant sat through the whole thing, too... just to make sure their complaint was thoroughly researched, of course.

Babies don't need a *%#!$@&! supplement

"I'm fine!"

Just a small piece of misinformation from a stupid New York Times journalist who clearly didn't bother to do the most basic research for the article 'An Oldie Vies for Nutrient of the Decade':

Sun avoiders and dark-skinned people absorb less UV radiation. People in the northern two-thirds of the country make little or no vitamin D in winter, and older people make less vitamin D in their skin and are less able to convert it into the hormone that the body uses. In addition, babies fed just breast milk consume little vitamin D unless given a supplement.

On the first sentence I'm being pedantic- it's not worth writing a post about on its own, but it is worth pointing out that 'sun avoiders' may absorb UV radiation just fine, they just don't receive it if they stay out of the sun.

The last sentence, about exclusively breastfed babies not consuming much vitamin D unless given a supplement, is patently false. Babies of mothers who aren't deficient in vitamin D will consume plenty of the vitamin and aren't at risk for deficiency during the first two months of life. After that, to maintain sufficient levels they require only 2 hours per week of sunshine. Geez. The only time a breastfeeding baby won't receive enough vitamin D is if the mother's level of exposure to the sun is minimal and her diet contains insufficient vitamin D to compensate for this, plus the baby is never exposed to sun. There are enough malevolent forces out there undermining breastfeeding as the best and healthiest method of feeding a baby without having the forces of the ignorant join them and adding to the burden.

A suggestion to Jane E. Brody: get your facts right before publishing an article in one of the world's biggest papers.

Genes could prove costly under a private healthcare system

One of the relatively few disappointments of Kevin Rudd's short time in office so far has been the confirmation that he intends to maintain the Howard government's stance on the waste of taxpayers' money that is private health care. Yet another article in the New York Times gives us a taste of why a privatised health care system is an incredibly bad idea:

The culture of secrecy around genetic information is stronger in the United States, some experts say, than in countries where people are guaranteed health care. Among Americans at risk for Huntington’s disease, an incurable brain disorder, only 5 percent take the DNA test to determine if they will develop it, compared with 20 percent of Canadians in the same position, according to Michael R. Hayden, a professor of human genetics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Here, doctors often feel obligated to inform patients of the potential financial downside.

“I always warn them,” said Dr. Stephen Moll, director of the Thrombophilia Program at the University of North Carolina, who uses a genetic test to determine the best treatment for patients with blood clots. “Especially if they are self-employed, I don’t want it to be a surprise if their health insurance premium goes up.”

Unknown Risks

After receiving a similar warning from her doctor, Katherine Anderson’s parents did not allow her to be tested for Factor V Leiden, a genetic condition she might have inherited from her father that increases the risk of blood clots.

But last year, with nothing in Ms. Anderson’s record to indicate reason for concern, a gynecologist prescribed a birth control pill to regulate her uneven periods. Six weeks later, Ms. Anderson, then 16, developed a clot that stretched from her knee to her abdomen. The pill, combined with the gene she had indeed inherited, had increased her clotting risk by 30-fold.

Now largely recovered, her primary concern is whether she will be viewed as a health insurance liability for the future.

“I don’t want to have to work for a big business just to get insurance,” she said. “This could be determining what I can do for my whole life.”

What 17 year old girl should have to even consider something like that?

More new neighbours

We have some new neighbours in the unit across from ours. For years a couple a few years older than us lived there. They were polite, quiet- ideal neighbours in almost every way, but they were too selfish to pay for a plumber to fix a valve in their unit that was thought to be responsible for many of the units in the complex (including ours) having cold water come out of the hot tap. They even said it at a Body Corporate meeting after everyone else had paid to have theirs done- why should they do it if their hot water was fine?

Frankly, they were a bit weird. They'd get up at 5am every morning, drive somewhere (presumably the gym), drive home, go to work, come home and go to bed. In the 3 years or so that they lived here they never once had a single friend visit them. The girl's parents visited a couple of times, and the guy's parents may have visited once, but I can't remember. No dinner parties, no late nights, no music, no pets... no life.

The girl who lived there before them was a bit of a freak too- it's a secure complex with two resident managers and yet she saw fit to install a security screen and a peep-hole. Fair enough, sometimes people have reason to install such things. But she would be friendly enough to say 'hi' passing in the hallway at some times, and then look at us like we were going to rob her and beat her up at other times. Which was unnerving.

Still, it was a bit of a relief to see our new neighbours moving in yesterday. They're normal. Clearly students, once they'd done with moving in and arranging their stolen road signs on the balcony, they sat out there and lit up a joint. And burned sticks of incense to cover the smell. But seriously, it wasn't much of a cover- what 19 year old boys burn incense just for the hell of it?

I suppose I have a soft spot for potheads because all the stoners at International House, when we lived there, were harmless types, and much quieter than drunks (unless you count their tuneless guitar strumming). And as long as none of them are emptying bong water down our sink I'm sure they'll make perfectly good neighbours.


UPDATE: This morning I went out to tip some water on our potplants and noticed that they'd actually left their bong on the balcony! And last night I came to the realisation that I can no longer do late night dashes out to water the potplants clad only in my underwear because there's always someone sitting out on their balcony- in the 3 years that they lived there, our previous neighbours never once used that balcony. Thankfully I arrived at this realisation when I was fully dressed, but I did freak out at being out there at 11pm and turning around to see someone sitting there watching me water the plants!

A deep, deep psychosis

The Howard government would have starting pulling its combat troops out of Iraq this year if it had been re-elected, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Andrew Robb says.

It's ok, have a laugh, I'll wait....

of course, being Liberals, there's always a lie within the lie:

"In August last year, and during the campaign, John Howard quite explicitly - and (then foreign minister) Alexander Downer explicitly - talked about (how) a time would come this year when we would start to replace combat troops with training troops."

SMH

That, is not a withdrawal, you tit.

So we've gone from, "withdrawing from Iraq is exactly the same as surrendering to Osama, because Saddam did 911!" to, "well actually we had a secret plan to pull out all the time but we lied about having one while lying about staying in Iraq and lying about the reasons for doing so and lying about the consequences of pulling out". This is supposed to make Howard look good? Seeing as how this was an official plan, I'm sure Mr Robb can get supporting documents from Downer, just to prove he isn't lying this time too.

On a personal level, I feel soooo bad about not voting Liberal, I had no idea they had secret plans to do all the things they said they weren't going to do, why it's almost as if they were going to JUST GET IN AND THEN CHANGE IT ALL!!!11111ONE11!!1ONE

Pro-porn activism

I went to the Sexpo website earlier to buy tickets for Gam and I, and I came across an ad that led to this site. It's a campaign for the sale of non-violent adult films to be made legal in adult stores in the Australian states in which it's currently illegal (Queensland being one of them). I added the following to their form letter before sending it off:

I'm an adult, and I enjoy adult entertainment. Most Australians believe that the sale of this material should be legal. There is no good reason why the Queensland government has not overturned its ridiculously out-of-date laws pertaining to X18+ non-violent erotica, and I would like to see Queensland get with the 21st century. For crying out loud, it's legal for smokers to puff carcinogenic smoke on me every time I step out in public, but it's not legal for me to purchase a porn film in an adult store to watch with my husband in the privacy of our home, when doing so causes nobody any harm whatsoever. Bloody ridiculous.

Yours sincerely,

Sarah

After sending it off, a 'thankyou' page came up where the 'i love sex' campaign suggest sending off a pro-porn email from the website of right wing nutbags the Australian Christian Lobby. A nicely subversive idea, I thought, and clicked the link to the site.

Oh my god. It is disgusting. The website has pictures of little kids all over it, interspersed with anti-porn statements. They are trying to link adult erotic films, made available only to people over 18 years of age, with little children. There is something about people that think of little children whenever porn is mentioned that I find so incredibly creepy. Their 'pollie mail' campaign has also closed, funnily enough.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they have an entire section blaming the existence of child abuse in aboriginal communities entirely on porn. They also have a link to Adele Horin's anti-porn polemical from May last year, saying it 'clearly shows how porn is wrecking relationships'.

Utter nutters.

Queensland judges lenient on rapist

I'm starting to think there's something wrong with Queensland judges. How this guy could be out of prison by October, after raping a 13 year old girl and being convicted of two other sexual offences against children, is totally beyond me.

'Impressive' attempts at rehabilitation aside, I think Warren David Schneider should be housed next door to any kids or grandkids the judges who sentenced him may have, if they're so convinced he's not a threat. Rehabilitation is all well and good, but rape is a much more serious crime than the sentence the rapist has been given suggests. I doubt it will do much for the peace of mind of the 13 year-old girl who was raped.

East Sydney Hotel- one of the last good pubs

The East Sydney Hotel deserves kudos for looking after its patrons and not stuffing the premises with poker machines in an attempt to drain the wallets of vulnerable people. If only there were more pubs like it.

Owners and licensees Harald and Trish Muller will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their custodianship of the 152-year-old pub next month. It makes them the holders of the longest-running hotel licence in the city. And while pubs have been invaded by gambling machines in the decades since they moved in, not one pokie has been allowed at the East Sydney.

"It's a moral issue - we just refuse to do it," Mr Muller says over a middy of ale.

"There's enough gaming in NSW with the TABs and the dogs, without turning the pubs into mini casinos to rip off working people. This is a meeting place - you come in here for conversation, to have a drink, to talk to people and feel comfortable. I'm proud of the fact that we've survived without poker machines."

Poker machines totally kill the atmosphere of a pub. I detest them.

Newman cries foul- fails to recognise stench of hypocrisy

Can't be bothered making lifestyle changes to reduce your enormous carbon footprint?
A few dollars' worth of GreenWash will make it all go away!

Campbell Newman is whinging loudly about what he has labelled a smear campaign, after Brisbane voters were called by a WA-based polling company and asked questions that included whether they thought Newman was a hypocrite for trumpeting his climate-change 'policies' while continuing to drive a V8 car.

Newman is crying foul because while he indeed is chauffeured around in a V8 car (and also owns a Jeep Cherokee that he swears blind is only used for trips to the nursery on a Sunday to buy plants, and for 'camping trips'... would that we all had money enough to buy a car for every occasion!), he pays a few dollars every year for some unidentified person somewhere to plant a few trees and supposedly negate the effects of his environmental vandalism.

The article on the Brisbane Times website is incredibly sympathetic to Newman, who has shamelessly used his 'Look at me- I'm the Lord Mayor!' column in the crappy free local B Magazine this month to spruik for votes for his 'Can Do' team and express his love for everything public transport. Oh it's so fucking galling to see the wasteful son-of-a-bitch trying to get elected using public transport as a platform when he's done nothing but screw public transport users over.

Wanker.

Oh, and I do realise I've posted this video before, but I just enjoy it so much!

NSW Police riddled with anti-gay bias

A story in the SMH of the disgraceful treatment of Dallas McCarthy, a young gay police officer who was forced to quit his job due to ongoing harassment from his colleagues.

It seems we're not that many years ahead of Jamaica- though the New York Times, whose article I linked to, clearly see no irony in describing Jamaica as a 'dire place for gays' only a few days after publishing a story of the hate-crime killing of a 15 year old gay boy by a 14 year old.

Marvel at the bias

Seeing as Australia, along with the US and European countries, was so quick to embrace the 'newly independent state' of Kosovo, I wonder when we're going to see them embrace West Papua as an independent state? Any day now, surely...

I love the way the language used in the West's 'independent' media alters according to whatever the current government line is. Other aspiring independent nations are frequently tagged with labels such as 'breakaway province', or 'secessionist province'. Why is Kosovo treated so differently?

Keith Richards gets a haircut

Yesterday I took advantage of the hot weather (sooo nice to have some real summer weather!) to give Keith Richards a bath. I try and bath him regularly, but with the horrid wet weather Brisbane has been getting for the last umpteen months it seems a bit cruel sticking him in a bath in weather that makes it impossible for him to dry off. Hence he's only had one or two baths over the last few months and subsequently developed a matted hairball on his rear end. I had to snip that off, and while I was at it decided to give him a significant trim all over except for his 'rock star hair', of which I snipped a little but not so much he can't hide under his fringe.

He always complains and swears at me when I cut his hair (especially if the scissors go near his 'private parts'!) but I'm sure he must feel a bit cooler with all that hair gone. Besides, he'd been carrying out his own haircuts down one side of his body, so he can't object too much.

On his back you can see the bald spot where the vet took a skin scraping after he had a seizure.

Keith Richards on the day we found him.

So cute :)

Fun with Google analytics

Not sure if they're Australian, or if they're even housewives.
But they're definitely naked!

Here are some of the more interesting Google searches that have led to this blog:



bleach hentai (I know what hentai is, but bleach hentai? Can anyone enlighten me?)

Mick Jagger gender (Did someone really not know?)

are queenslanders bogans? (Yes, yes they are. For the most part)

bridal dresses for big boobs (you've come to the right place!) - gam

john howard/ fall/ disgrace/ loser (I just liked this one)

quitting dairy cold turkey (Not possible! Dairy is too good to quit)

nude sarah bingle (Hehe I liked this one too. I Googled to see if there is a real Sarah Bingle who may have posed nude, but our blog came up as the No. 1 result, so I guess not)

caroline overington (Under the % New Visits column is 21.95%. We know it's you, Caroline!)

gentlemans quarterly lara bingle photos (I'm just impressed that one person bothered to type all that out instead of just searching for 'lara bingle nude' like everyone else. I'm picturing someone wearing a monocle, who has a butler)

australian naked housewives (the person only spent 21 seconds at the blog- guess they didn't find any naked housewives!)

Google analytics: holy shit, it's Lara's tits!

On February 19 I made a post about news.com.au's breathless reporting of the fact that Lara Bingle's nude photos had reappeared on the German GQ website. No new nude photos, just the same ones that guys around Australia have been constantly Googling since they first appeared in German GQ.

Remember that I mentioned on February 19 that the Lara Bingle post on this blog still constituted 15% of our blog hits? Well, now it's closer to 40%. Today I logged into Google Analytics and was confronted with a graph that looked like this:



In January we were averaging 250 or so visitors per day (more than 40 of which would have been 'visiting Lara'), and recently our traffic was hitting 400-450 per day, which we were pretty chuffed about. On February 20, the day after my post, it hit 2606. We also have a map of Australia in the Google analytics, showing where all the hits come from, that looks like it's developed chicken pox. A great example is that we've got 63 hits from Palmerston in the Northern Territory, where we usually average about one a month. I believe there's a military base there. The keyword searches reveal what everyone is looking for:



It sure explains why media outlets are always willing to stoop to publishing tabloid shit- get a mention of celebrity nude pictures in there somewhere and your hits go through the roof. The advertisers must love it.

Sure dispels any notion that people visit this blog because they're interested in what we have to say. Hrmph. I was pleased when we checked out Google Analytics the other day and discovered that referring sites constituted 53% of our traffic sources- the first time it's hit 50%. Not any more- it's now back down to 44%. Boo.

UPDATE: Holy crap, I just had a look at our keyword searches. There are only two things in the top 20 other than variations on 'lara bingle nude': 'Playboy jokes' and 'Caroline Overington', who came in at number 16. I think Caroline deserves a round of applause for that one- unless it was just her running Google searches on herself again.

UPDATE 2: It gets better- only 5 out of the top 40 keyword searches weren't for Lara Bingle... and one of them was for the name of this blog. Geez.

Hate crime gun murder fails to shock US

Memorial outside E.O. Green Junior High for Lawrence King, 15.

It says a lot about the US as a country when one of the country's pre-eminent newspapers publishes a report on the classroom shooting murder of a 15 year old gay boy by a 14 year old boy and not once in the report is anyone asking about where the 14 year old got hold of a gun.

When are they going to learn?

Come on voters!

You know the parrot's a good option.

Another pathetic drink-driving sentence

I honestly can't believe the pathetic penalties our courts hand down for drink driving offences that result in the death of a person. Some dickhead was sentenced in Brisbane today for getting behind the wheel while 4 times the legal blood alcohol limit and mowing down and killing a man in a wheelchair who was crossing the road.

He got 2 years for that offence. The article doesn't mention how long he got for another violent offence committed while out on bail for his vehicular homicide (oh wait- we don't have that here... it's 'dangerous driving'):

The court heard [52 year-old Michael James] Lamb had borrowed his mother's car and was driving drunk along Bay Avenue about 5.30pm when he struck Mr Mack as he attempted to cross the road in his wheelchair.

Lamb kept driving for nearly a kilometre before stopping to get out of the car and inspect the front fender.

Witnesses saw him get back behind the wheel and continue driving.

He was only stopped after hitting a second car at a nearby intersection. Police were called and he was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

Prosecutors said after being charged and released on bail, Lamb bashed a man with a cricket bat and threatened him with a knife during a drunken row over a woman.

Don't worry, we can all feel safer knowing this particular brand of scum has been banned from driving for 3 years, right?

Drink drivers should all have their cars confiscated and crushed, and be banned from driving for life. And if they take a life, the penalties should be as severe as if they didn't use a car to kill their victim. Why does killing someone using a vehicle automatically absolve the criminal of much of the responsibility?

Playboy Jokes of the Month

Ok, so it's more like Playboy jokes of last month. I've been slack- I've already got the March issue and I haven't even got around to doing the February jokes. Well, here they are. The February issue wasn't much to write home about in terms of pictures, by the way, unless you go in for average looking Hooters chicks with too much makeup and gross fake breasts... Hugh Hefner has definitely lost his knack for picking hot women in his dotage. That said, there is a great pictorial of Irish McCalla (aka Sheena, Queen of the Jungle- pictured below) with a bunch of nude pics she did before she got into TV. There's nothing like a vintage nude!

Q: What's better than roses on a piano?
A: Tulips on an organ.


Q: What is the punishment for bigamy?
A: Two mothers-in-law.


"Would you like some bacon and eggs?" a newly married bride asked her husband in the morning.
"Thanks for asking," he said, "but I'm not hungry right now."
At lunchtime she asked him again if he would like something to eat. "Nah," he again declined. "I'm still not really hungry."
About dinnertime she asked if he wanted supper. "No, I'm still not hungry," he said.
"Well," she said, "do you mind getting off me, then? I'm starving!"


Q: When Bill Clinton was president, why did Hillary always want to have sex with him first thing in the morning?
A: She truly wanted to be the first lady.

Rudd's 'Razor Gang' slash 2000 Centrelink staff

Somehow I think that depriving 2000 Centrelink staff of their jobs is a much less effective way for the Rudd government to relieve pressure on inflation and interest rates than going ahead with Rudd's widely panned tax cuts that were only raised as a countermeasure to the tax cuts that the Australian media gleefully described as John Howard's 'king hit' on Rudd in the first week of last years election campaign.

Rudd should drop the tax cuts. Consensus seems to be that the tax cuts are going to increase inflationary pressures and that now is a really bad time to bring them in. Besides, what good is a tax cut going to do for the 2000 Centrelink staff who will no longer have a job?

Thankfully, as of last November, I no longer receive Centrelink benefits, and hopefully I'll never have to deal with them again, but I know for sure that for the entire time I dealt with them one thing they were not was overstaffed. Stupid, Stupid idea.

Rudd may tackle Australia's alcohol abuse epidemic

Back before the election I had a good bitch about the failure by the then Howard government and Kevin Rudd's then opposition to make any move toward countering the extremely high rates of alcohol abuse in Australia.

Seems like Kevin Rudd kept that particular policy well under wraps until now- probably because he knew it would bring down the full force of the Hotels Association and the alcoholic beverages industry down upon him and they would throw their weight behind Howard. Not to mention that they have media flunkies towing their line too.

Family First senator Steve Fielding, homophobic, censorious creep though he is, has an extremely good record in this area, and has been pushing for health warnings to appear on alcoholic beverage labels for some time.

Finally, it looks like we might have a PM who can see the sense in tackling what is not only a massive health issue but also a huge crime issue:

The estimated cost of the alcohol toll had doubled in the past eight years to $15 billion. Demands on police services had also soared with alcohol-generated problems now thought to account for as much as 80 per cent of police work, Mr Smeaton said.

Rudd says he wants to work with the state governments to find strategies to counter the high rates of binge drinking. My guess is that the states, being as bloated and corrupt as the Howard government was from an excessive amount of time spent in power, will fight Rudd every step of the way, backed by the hotels association and the liquor industry. But at least his intentions seem good.

What is wrong with Australia's adoption process?

Last year there were only 568 adoptions in Australia. I know Australia's adoption process is convoluted and expensive and thus puts many people off, but then I read this:

The couple began the adoption process and couldn't believe certain elements of the process.

"It was so intrusive, too intrusive in my view," Ms Bail said. "We were asked inappropriately intimate questions about our sex life, for instance, and couldn't work out their relevance."

That is so wrong on so many levels. Obviously Australia's adoption process needs an overhaul.

Gam and Sarah's wedding, part 2

We've so been there! Probably somewhere, in some random person's wedding album is a picture of Sarah and Gam in the background rubbernecking the wedding...

Continued from part 1.

Mum looked like she needed some champagne almost as much as I did!

Well, the last wedding post took me so much time that I've been procrastinating when it came to making this one. Plus we still haven't looked at all the photos. This post covers everything after the actual ceremony, and while something this long is going to be irrelevant to most of our readers, this blog is something we hope to show our kids one day, so the two wedding posts are effectively our wedding album!

With Mum & Dad

Mummy and Uncle Richard chatting

Snap 2!

Gam and Mummy

After the signing we ran around having our photo taken with as many of our guests as we possibly could, and trying to make sure we talked to everyone. We had figured that one of the beautiful things about inviting mostly very close friends (and a few new friends) rather than everyone we'd ever met would be that we'd get to talk to everyone. With only an hour from the end of the ceremony until we had to head off and catch the boat, that proved almost impossible, but we had a great time.

Me biffing Gam with my bouquet- that thing weighed about 2kg! Our unit complex managers Richard and Bernadette came to our wedding- they've become almost like parents to us. I particularly liked what Bernadette was wearing :)

As far as I know, no-one mooned us, but from the expressions on my Mum and Auntie Anne's faces, you'd think that was the case!

Our friend Hayley has been living in Mexico for the last year or so and brought back this fantastic mask for our friend Tim!

Delali after the ceremony

The two photos of Tim were pinched from Victor's facebook page, btw...

My brother Richard with our Grandma- she looks happy enough, no?

I made a point of trying a vege samosa from the UQ Staff and Graduate's Club catering even though I wasn't hungry, as I'm forever on a search for the perfect samosa... It was nice enough, but could scarcely be called a samosa: the filling consisted of slightly spicy pumpkin, and the pastry was filo. My chomping a samosa probably put paid to a few photo ops, but I finished it anyway, then opted for more champagne. Gam had insisted on a platter of mini sausage rolls and party pies, and the Staff and Graduates Club also managed to stick in some mini quiches- I wonder if they thought mini sausage rolls were too unsophisticated for a wedding and we simply must have forgotten to ask for quiches? Nonetheless, I saw several people eating the quiches, so they can't have been too bad. Neither was the booze!

Rach and 'Cil getting a refill from Michael, the S&G Club manager.

Me chatting with Dad.

Gam with Mummy and Delali

... and me

... and Mum and Dad

... and Grandma, Richard and Priscilla

... and then Natalie, Rachelle, Auntie Anne and Uncle James
-looks like we're about to enter some kind of race!

Richard and Priscilla

Richard, Uncle Richard and me

I was so incredibly happy, and having so much fun, despite having embarrassed myself by tearing up during the ceremony... the hour full of photos, food and drink went by so quickly- a happy blur! I only remember thinking during the family group photos that it was all a bit like herding cats... I really dislike overtly posed photos, but if you're trying to get a certain bunch of people all in the same photo it's impossible to do it without some kind of instruction, so that was where Uncle James' experience at professional wedding photography came in handy. He's also had plenty of practice stalking people with his camera at family gatherings, so he managed some nice candid shots too, which was something I was hoping he'd get.

The requisite group shot... (L-R):
Erin, Luke, Victor, Nic, Amelia, Liz, Danny, Joel, Leslie, Tim, Hayley, Gam & I, Mike, Bek, Delali, Bernadette, Richard, Auntie Anne, Grandma, Mum, Nicole, Rob, Natalie, Rach, Dad, 'Cil, Uncle James, Uncle Richard, Mummy, David, Ben, Desmond, Richard.

Me with Rach and Gam

Gam and I with my uni mates Rob and Nicole and our random mates Mike and Bek (obscured). God knows what we were looking at...

Leslie and Uncle Richard- clearly you don't need to be married to be in love :)

With Desmond- awesome guy, awesome musician.

We made a point of getting a few photos with Desmond, the 'steel drums guy' who busks outside the Treasury Casino in the CBD and who played at our wedding. He's an awesome musician. We'd been hoping his wife and baby son would be able to come along to the ceremony too, but apparently the bub was sleeping when Desmond was ready to head off.

Looking at the camera this time!

We'd booked a nice vintage car to transport my 91 year-old grandmother and anyone else who didn't want to walk to the UQ CityCat stop- the car was the business of the husband of the lady who made our wedding cake, and I'd booked it 2 days before the wedding, not having decided what to do about transport. Gam was keen to have something nice done for Grandma, thinking he needed to get himself in her good books, and even though we'd thought a fair few more people might avail themselves of the option of a ride in a fancy car, everyone except Grandma, Auntie Anne, my cousin Natalie and Mummy and Delali decided to walk! I didn't blame them- the weather was absolutely stunning: not a typical stinking hot January day, nor a horrid cold and wet day typical of this so-called Summer we've been having in Brisbane.

Gam wasn't very successful at hiding his beer...

Gam and I opted to walk too, after posing for some more photos by ourselves with Uncle James. I'm not sure if I realised it at the time, but our faces in those photos really say that we were rather sick of posing. Gam especially! We're both terribly uncooperative subjects, and all things considered we didn't do too badly on the day, but at that particular point the strain of being in front of the camera really started to show!

One of the only photos from this time where we don't look totally bored at having our photo taken...

The walk to the CityCat was lovely. Gam noticed that somewhere along the line I'd gotten duck poo on the hem of my dress (not really a surprise given that the ceremony was held at the duck ponds- unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the duck poo!), while I kicked off my shoes so I could enjoy the nice lawn underfoot... It might sound weird, but ever since living in a unit and not having a backyard to enjoy, I take off my shoes and walk barefoot whenever I encounter a nice cushy stretch of lawn... am I a freak, or do other lawn-deprived souls do this too? Uncle James snapped a few rather clichéd shots of me with my dress hitched up, trotting along the grass in my bare feet.


I also rather liked the picture he took of us walking along the road behind the UQ pool toward the CityCat stop... Gam and I regularly go for walks along that road, and it's kind of fun to have a photo of us all dressed up doing something we do practically every day.



When we arrived at the CityCat stop, our little putt-putt ferry (the sort used on the inner-city routes) was just pulling in to the pontoon. Our captain, an American who introduced himself as Marshall, figured straight away that we were his charter, but was expecting me to have a printout of the charter confirmation, something I hadn't been told we needed. Besides, I wasn't carrying anything- not a purse, no makeup (I think I had Gam carting around a lipstick in his pocket), no toiletries- nothing! I didn't expect there to be any problem, and there wasn't one- we were allowed on the dinky little boat right away, and it was as perfect as we could have hoped for.

An old house that looks prettier at a distance than up close. Mum said "if I had the money, I'd buy it for you". Awww :)

Our friends Hayley and Nic- don't know if they'd even met before the wedding, actually!

With my beautiful Mum

And my beautiful Gam...

A couple of days before the wedding, my dentist put something on my temporary crowns to make them look less grey- it seems to have worked!

A CityCat that passed us.

Brisbane... this picture may soon be a piece of history if that Northbank monstrosity goes ahead- that piece of river will be totally built over.

More Brisbane...

The top deck... the only photos we took of the bottom turned out blurry :(

We were given one of the ferries with a top deck, and thankfully it didn't have a canopy, meaning we could enjoy the beautiful evening sunshine and all the views of the river unhindered. The City Ferries are so cute, and it was a much nicer way to enjoy the river than on the much faster CityCat.

Erin, photographed from the top of the stairs.

Victor, out the back of the boat with the naughty kids...

Rach and I- I don't know if it's the light or just the fact that Rach is uber-pale, but I look really tanned in this picture!

We get the "I thought you were sisters" thing a lot. We don't actually look that much alike, but we are just about the same height and have really similar mannerisms, which is probably what does it. She's the closest thing to a sister I've got, and I love her :)

Top deck again!

Wild Boys Afloat!

With my cousin David and Leslie's son Ben.

We particularly wanted to have the ferry as transport rather than cars not only because I detest car travel but also because it was a good way of showcasing Brisbane to our families. Apart from my parents, none of them are really familiar with the place (unless we count Mummy's time here 27 years ago, before the CityCats and ferries existed). And because the trip was at such a sedate pace compared with a CityCat ride, Gam and I got to take in a lot more of the views than we usually do. I can actually see us doing that again someday... It's a lot more expensive than a taxi, but a really beautiful way to travel. Plus it had cute old fire buckets.



We spent a lot of the hour-long trip running up and down the stairs and talking to various people and generally having fun. We arrived almost exactly one hour after we'd left, but the little ferry had to give priority to two CityCats serving as public transport that were arriving at the terminal just as we got there. We took the opportunity to have our picture taken with our captain as he bid us goodbye, and then headed down the path to Watt. Like any couple dressed up for their wedding we turned out to be a bit of a spectacle for all the people enjoying the sunset in the park, which was a little odd, but nice all the same.





When we arrived at Watt, Gam and I had a brief moment of looking at each other and holding our breath on how our totally unplanned seating would go. Thankfully, everyone just took a seat wherever- there was no hierarchy, no 'bridal table' or any such shit. Gam and I were the last to sit down, and we sat opposite our friends Bek and Mike and next to my Dad. My uni pals Nicole and Rob were further down the table, along with my Uncle Richard and his partner. I'm not even sure if Mum was at our stretch of tables or someone else's.

Amelia and Victor

Priscilla and Richard

Nic and his partner Liz- the wonderful person who helped me choose my honours topic.

Luke and Erin... and Nic's 'rabbit ears'

Rachelle and Natalie

My only regret with the seating is that our good friends Tim and Hayley got stuck at a table with my cousin Natalie, who has a thing about boats. She was fine for a good half an hour after arriving at the restaurant, but then grew hysterical and started crying about feeling sick. The thing is, she didn't really feel sick, but she just gets worked up about certain things for no reason. Rach spent quite a while trying to soothe her, and when I went over to talk to Hayley and Tim I wound up not talking to them at all and spent a good 15 minutes trying to talk her out of her little episode while my delicious dinner of barramundi got cold (was still frigging awesome- Watt can never be faulted on the food!). To no avail. I got her to laugh, but as soon as I stopped the funny stuff she'd start grizzling again. The staff handled her really well, taking her seriously and bringing ice and stuff, but after the dinner when she hadn't stopped her nonsense Uncle James took her home in a taxi. I felt bad for Uncle James (and Nat- it's not like she can help it), but I felt worse for Hayley and Tim... being confronted with one of Nat's episodes can be a bit weird for anyone who's not used to her, and the fact that she looks fairly normal leads everyone to expect normal behaviour from her, which is not always the case. I suppose that was the only low point of the day, and it wasn't so much a low point for Gam and I as a worry on our part that it might have lessened Hayley and Tim's enjoyment of the evening. Or Uncle James'. But Rach said once he went home he was probably straight on his laptop to go through all the pictures he'd taken!

View from Watt

Not long after we arrived, Mummy left her seat to go and phone Daddy in Botswana, so we got to have a chat to him. He sounded like he wished he was there with us, and apologised for not being able to come- not his fault, but we wished he was there too. I would have liked to have both people responsible for raising the most wonderful man in the world there with us, but it was enough to know that they are both fantastic parents-in-law who I get along with really well and who treated me like a daughter even before I married their son. Not everyone is so lucky.

Delali on the phone to Daddy while Gam and I chat with Mummy

By the river at Watt.

One thing we had done when arranging our wedding reception at Watt was pay for an extra staff member to attend to our group. Good move. All the staff who attended to us were great, but it was really handy having someone right there when anyone needed something, and constantly going around and topping up glasses of wine or fetching cocktails.

Priscilla- has known Mum long enough to know she would like the cocktails!

Ah, the cocktails. What better excuse to have a menu that included every single cocktail on Watt's list than a wedding? I had a vague aim of trying every single cocktail on the menu, but after my Watt Sunset (which, while good, wasn't as good as I'd remembered- maybe they forgot the alcohol... it tasted far too healthy!) I started stealing Gam's cocktail- the 'Naughty but Nice'. Damn that was nice. It was like eating a delicious dessert, but boy did the effects of the alcohol creep up on us. Our friend Mike had also ordered one of these, and when he and Gam liked them so much they wanted to order another they decided that the name 'Naughty but Nice' was far too sissy to be able to ask a waiter for one.

The cocktail menu... mmmm...

Bek and I decided that 'Chocolate Mantail' was appropriately masculine, if not a tad gay porn-ish (but that was the point, really). So once I got to the Chocolate Mantail, I got stuck in a loop of ordering and re-ordering and never managed to order something else. Dammit. Why did they have to be so good? Gam even photographed the cocktail menu so we could steal the recipe and make them at home, but he didn't like the name 'Chocolate Mantail', and desperately kept trying to come up with something that sounded less gay-porno. Without success.

Hayley and Tim

Luke, Erin, Nic, Liz, Danny, Amelia and Victor

Rob and Nicole.

Gam, Dad, Uncle Richard, Leslie, Mum, Rob, Nicole, Bek and Mike.

The food I totally forgot to photograph- not like me at all, but when I was Nat-wrangling earlier my dinner sat around getting cold so I tucked into it as soon as I returned to my seat. For starters we had ciabatta, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and dukkah. Mains were a choice of barramundi with asparagus and something else (I can't remember even though I ate it, but it was absolutely perfect), and lamb rump with black lentils. Of course, they probably had fancier names on the menu, but that's pretty much it.

Auntie Anne and Uncle James

Our little episode with Watt in the planning phase of the wedding turned out to be worthwhile, as I got my Watt ice-cream terrine (thanks to Gam) and it was so so soooo good. The other option was an apple frangipane with toasted coconut ice-cream, and while I received reports it was fantastically good I didn't photograph it either. Silly me. Blame the cocktails.

Uncle Richard and Leslie

The serve of ice-cream terrine seemed so huge, but I managed to eat most of it, then hopped up from the table for a second, and when I came back the overly-efficient staff had cleared it away. That was almost worth shedding tears over, but I consoled myself with more sips of Chocolate Mantail. At some point I think I wound up talking politics with my Dad (I was drunk- usually I know better!) but miraculously it didn't dissolve into a fight. I'm not sure if we actually agreed on something for once or if Dad was just being agreeable because it was our wedding day, but I did have a momentary thought of "I can't believe I'm talking politics at our wedding" flash across my mind.

David and Grandma

Dad and Mum

My parents seemed insanely happy, both at the ceremony and at the reception later. I expected them to be happy, of course, but I didn't know how much! I think it was obvious to them that this was a wedding that meant a lot. We didn't bow to anyone's demands for various religious trappings, or hints that it would somehow be better if it were held in a different location, and in the end we were vindicated. But while Gam and I did the running around, my parents made it happen. The whole thing only cost around $5000, not including the dress, which we paid for out of our own savings, but even that amount would have been too much for Gam and I to do by ourselves. We had almost everyone we held dear present, and the people that couldn't be there knew we were thinking of them on the day, and I think it was plain on our faces how much the whole thing meant, and that seemed to mean a lot to my parents. It was a really happy day.


After all the dessert plates had been cleared away, Gam and I and a few others snuck into a back room at Watt (with permission, of course) where our cake had been delivered- we hadn't actually seen it prior to that point, but it was pretty much exactly as we had envisaged it- nice and fun, and hopefully tasty.


The cake was soon carted out in front of everyone, and it sat there while people made speeches. I'm not quite sure why we had speeches, as Gam and I never really planned anything (aside from asking my brother to shout directions if they were needed at any point, and that's because he's loud!). But there were speeches: first (if I remember correctly), my brother. He probably tried to embarrass me, but only a little bit- truthfully, I can't remember, but I didn't have to kick his arse, so it must have been okay. Then my Dad, and then Mummy. I'm ashamed to say I can't remember anything except that my Dad used a word- I think it was 'fidelity' and I couldn't help thinking "Hang on, where does that leave all the swingers parties we've got planned for when we're old and crusty?". I hope there were no profound life lessons to be learned from anyone's speeches, because if there were I really missed out. Damn cocktails.

Dad doing his speech

Mummy doing her speech- looks like she gained another son into the bargain!

Mum with Bernadette

Gam replying to the speeches. Obviously I'm interjecting with something incredibly intelligent and/or witty, but I can't remember what it was...

Gam made a bit of a speech thanking everyone for coming, but I don't really remember much of that either. Not long after that we were served a little bit of wedding cake- the bottom tier, which was marble cake- and I didn't finish mine because I was so full. My Uncle Richard dragged a chair around to sit with Gam and I and have a chat. He gave me his necklace, and he and I had a cry when he started talking about Grannie, his and Dad's mother, and how she would have loved to have been there. She died in 2005, and despite being incredibly eager to meet Gam from the minute she heard about him, only met him 3 years later when she was on her deathbed, her brain mostly gone as a result of several sudden major strokes, her body an emaciated shell of the sturdy, slightly plump Grannie I remembered. I had been devastated when told of her stroke, as she was then in a coma I was told it would be unlikely she would ever come out of- I'd promised her she would meet the love of my life and it looked as if that would now never happen. Gam and I flew down to Sydney and travelled by train to Bowral. When we arrived she was out of her coma but barely aware of her surroundings, though she could still recognise her family when she was conscious, but when she met Gam for the first time she recognised him instantly, and her eyes shone with happiness. It's a memory that still makes me cry- I've had to stop writing several times and read something else in order to get this out- but despite the awful circumstances, something became complete when she met Gam. I don't think I ever would have got over it if the grandmother who didn't care what colour Gam was as long as he made me happy died without ever getting to meet him. Her death hit both Dad and Uncle Richard very hard, as their father died when Dad was 13 and Uncle Richard 15, and she'd always been a rock of sorts, if a somewhat grizzly rock as the years wore on (in temperament, my Dad definitely takes after Grannie!). Her death definitely made me look on spending time with family as being incredibly important- no matter how much the people you love might get on your nerves at times, you never know when someone will be taken from you. Uncle James got a reminder of that the night before the wedding: he received a phonecall to say that his 40-something, fit, healthy cousin had died suddenly of a heart attack. I didn't know the guy, but I think I know how Uncle James must have felt.

I don't mean to suggest that our conversation with Uncle Richard was anything less than a happy one, even with the sad memories, because during Grannie's last days we were able to say our goodbyes. And we talked about other stuff too. My brother Richard and I are like children to Uncle Richard, as he never had kids of his own (even though he's now sort of a parent to his partner's teenage son), and Uncle Richard has really clicked with Gam, which means a lot to me.

That's just about where our reception ended, as we hadn't really planned on what to do about transport home. Someone pointed out that the next CityCat heading toward the uni would be the last one for the night, so en masse we all hopped up and headed down to the CityCat stop to wait for it. Everyone seemed happy, so I took it as a sign that they'd all had a good time- which was all we'd ever wanted from the wedding regardless of what we did. Just for everyone to have fun.

Erin with Luke's brother Danny at the CityCat stop- I really like this photo.

After we got on, the ticket seller on the CityCat recognised us- we'd seen her when we caught one a few days earlier- and gave us her congratulations. The CityCat was surprisingly full, probably in part because we'd got on with at least 20 of our guests, but also because there were quite a lot of other people trying to get the last one home. We felt like a bit of a novelty in our wedding gear, plonking ourselves in some seats like we've done a million times before... the spectacle continued when we had to change CityCats at Riverside and walk past everyone who'd got off the other 'Cat: two young women about my age stopped us on our way past to say congratulations and how nice we looked and how pretty my dress was- I joked that we did it every weekend just for the attention. I think I was actually looking a bit scruffy by that point. My hair had started coming out of its 'do only a short time after the ceremony, and I had a multi-coloured ribbon from the bombonniere tied around my head. But even at that point Gam and I were still having a ball. The CityCat is our absolute favourite mode of transport, and we weren't too posh to catch it just because it was our wedding day. I don't think we could have picked a better way to get home.

When we got home, everything seemed so surreal- as if the wedding had happened years ago, not just hours ago. I put up a post, we drank as much water as we could handle, and then we crawled off to bed. Happy. We'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

I think we had the ultimate compliment from the UQ Staff and Graduates Club functions manager (they did a brilliant job, by the way, as did Watt- seamless service, nice booze, nice food): I went in a few days after the wedding to pay our drinks tab, and the girl at the counter asked if we'd had a nice time. I replied that everything had gone perfectly and we'd had a really fun day, and she told me about how she'd recently been to her sister's wedding and it was fairly awful because her sister was stressed out of her mind and hell-bent on having everything perfect right down to the last little detail. Then she said "Yours sounded really nice. Michael [the manager] said that if he was to ever get married again [!] he'd do it exactly the same as you guys did it".

~JUST MARRIED~