Nostalgia

Sifting through old piles of stuff continues. At the 1960s layer now, I marvel at the memories that gush forth. An old picture from Go-Set reminds me of wagging school to hang around their offices in St Kilda Road, and of the awe in which we then held Ian Meldrum. He was irresistibly gorgeous & fascinating, despite being gay. This picture from the web gives a very poor hint of his ineffable beauty. Such lusciousness was relatively rare in the Melbourne pop scene, so Molly was a veritable Adonis arrayed in the sharpest of sharp threads. His transformation into the venerable grandfather of Australian pop is a marvel of senescence.

A life of leisure

Enjoying endless days of doing next to nothing is so good for one. My friend the Recipe Queen commented on how well I was looking the other day. The explanation is that I am excessively happy no longer to be toiling for a Labor government. Hours can now be devoted to reading, baking cakes, watching tradies undertake house and garden improvements, talking to cats, interfering in local Liberal affairs, staring into space, surfing teh interwebs and smiling the secret smile of the finally free.

A little light archeology among the detritus of a life in the service of the public, or as near to it as is possible under a socialist administration, has revealed various embarrassing pictures of politicos, a collection of misguided briefings, some frank and fearless advice provided over the years, not sparing in its use of pointed and personal invective, and a stash of christmas cards from people who will never be renowned for anything much. Oh and numerous pieces of glossy pap designed to promote the all round wonderfulness of government intervention in what would otherwise be perfectly adequately functioning markets. I am very sorry to say that not a few of these egregious wastes of taxpayers' funds flowed from my own pen/keyboard, a sin for which a particularly vile punishment no doubt awaits in hell, should that place turn out to exist.

Still, even with this heavy burden of guilt, life is inordinately fine, despite Krudd ensconced in Canberra and Brumby the most popular Labor premier in the nation. And we can all play our humble part in changing these unfortunate facts.