I Am Quite Proud

To have won a little prize: to wit, the Sydney Writers' Centre award for Funniest Post in the Best Australian Blogs 2012 competition.

The award was won for this post on the blog you are even now reading.

Congratulations to the other winners, especially Best Blog winner Eden Riley, and my pal Anna Spargo-Ryan, who won Best New Blog.

All the winners are detailed here.

Choose Your Own Adventure!

The story so far: you are an aspiring teen kickball player whose brother is not home by six. Armed with this information, you choose not to call Harold and instead accompany local halfwit "Lauren" to the docks, where adventure awaits...if you CHOOSE it to!

What happens next? It's up to you! Listen to the latest Gather Around Me Choose Your Own Adventure: The Terrorist Trap instalment, and decide what to do!

The TROUBLE with Government

Do you know what the TROUBLE is with our so-called GOVERNMENT?

It is that the GOVERNMENT is out of TOUCH.

Everywhere ordinary Australian CITIZENS are gathering around their water COOLERS and having conversations about the ISSUES which affect them PERSONALLY. These are ISSUES like:

- the high cost of living
- how much it costs to live
- the price of things
- prostitutes
- how much money you have to spend on items these days
- the modern problem of life being expensive
- Cabcharges
- LIES

But the GOVERNMENT does not UNDERSTAND these issues, because the government has no WATER COOLERS, and they are in CANBERRA, not the inner WEST where real people LIVE.

The government, in fact, thinks that LIES are FINE, because only LIBERALS object to them. So when ORDINARY people say, "hey government stop LYING", the government says, "this must be the work of LIBERALS!" This is a very OUT OF TOUCH thing to say. Also, they government believes the cost of LIVING is fine, and ordinary Australians need to stop WHINING, even though as Australians we have RIGHTS. If the government was IN touch instead of OUT of touch, it would KNOW this.

These are the issues the GOVERNMENT thinks are important:

- shaking the president of America's hand
- taxing the air in our Coke cans
- destroying wealth
- having sex with Bob Brown
- assassinating each other

These are not things the PUBLIC approves of. But as an ORDINARY Australian who works for NEWSPAPERS I am here to tell the PUBLIC that the GOVERNMENT does not care what it approves of because it is out OF touch.

The trouble is that the GOVERNMENT has never had a proper JOB. People in government don't WORK like you and me, they have STUPID jobs like union OFFICIALS and LAWYERS and political OPERATIVES who never see the sweat of their own hands upon their brows.

Here are some jobs that REAL Australians who UNDERSTAND issues have:

- journalist
- opinion writer
- television pundit
- coal miner
- royal watcher
- water cooler maintenance operative
- commentators
- steel worker
- John Farnham


Here are some jobs that POLITICIANS have:

- politician
- idiot who will one day be a politician


Is it any WONDER these people are out of TOUCH? The Prime Minister has never spoken to a NORMAL person in her entire LIFE. She has not even spoken to a marriage CELEBRANT because she won't get MARRIED and she has never spoken to an OBSTETRICIAN because she does not have CHILDREN. I have children and I can say that it gives you a PERSPECTIVE on life that people who don't HAVE children and are pathological LIARS do not have. That is WHY I am giving this free ADVICE to the GOVERNMENT based on years of EXPERIENCE as a real Australian with functioning SPERM.

I am sure the FAT cats in Canberra will dismiss this hard-hitting and HONEST article as simply another case of LIBERALS, but all I want is for the government to get in TOUCH with everyday battlers and REALISE just how much we HATE it when politicians LIE to use about how they paid for their SEX workers, and when they ask their ASSISTANTS to shower with the door OPEN. If the government does not stop being out of touch SOON, all our shower doors will be open and we will vote in the LIBERALS because at least they are IN TOUCH WITH US.

Please LISTEN to me, I am a JOURNALIST (see above).

A politician being IN TOUCH with ordinary Australians

One Hour One Life

Of course as you know depression is something I comment on from time to time, and I've just written a piece for news.com.au on the difficulties of talking openly about depression.

That piece is part of a campaign news.com.au is running in conjunction with Lifeline this month, One Hour One Life. Click on the link to find out all about it - basically there'll be a series of stories about depression and mental illness, in aid of a new Lifeline service, the Online Crisis Support Chat. This goes live on May 8. An hour of time on the chat service costs around $31, and Lifeline and news.com.au are looking for goodhearted folk such as yourself to stump up a little spare change to help connect people in need of help with someone who can give them some.

It is, I reckon, a pretty great cause, and I'm pretty proud to be associated with it.

Biblical Gaps: A Fill-In Story

The story of how a poor Israelite girl got herself in trouble: this was read at the Wheeler Centre Erotic Fan Fiction event, 26th April, 1012

Mary didn’t quite know how it had happened. She had been leaning on the bar in the Nazareth Hotel and Bistro when she saw Him, standing by the bandstand, swaying sexily to the band’s traditional Hebrew groove. He was the most beautiful creature Mary had ever seen – his shapeless white robe hung seductively from his shoulders; his toes protruded from his sandals with an impudent flirtatiousness; and his long white beard reached almost to his navel in a way calculated to get any impressionable young peasant girl’s juices flowing. And flow they did – she hadn’t felt this moist since the last public stoning. She had nearly squealed aloud when she saw that he was walking over to her, and when he spoke, she almost dropped her West Bank Cooler. Maybe it was the soft yellow glow surrounding him, maybe it was the fact that he was floating six inches above the ground, maybe it was the enormous robe-tent he was pitching, but somehow she had to have Him. Five minutes later they were in the alley outside, tongues writhing like serpents and His hands frantically exploring her forbidden fruit.
From there everything was a blur. She remembered things had got off to a rocky start, when he’d gotten over-excited in her bedroom and blasted a hole in the wall before she was ready. But after reassuring Him that this probably happened to gods all the time, and agreeing to His request that she call Him Father, things seemed to be going smoothly. At the time it had seemed slightly strange that He insisted she wear a pair of cardboard wings and bray like a donkey, but hey, she was a virgin, what did she know? Perhaps this was just what men were like. After all, Joseph could get pretty weird himself, with all his carpentry puns.
Oh, dear Joseph…what would he say? What would he say when he found out about that night of passion? What would he think of her when he discovered that she’d been riding the creator of the universe like a bucking bronco, screaming in ecstasy, “OH MY GOD!” and having him scream back “YES WHAT IS IT?” and then she would scream “OH NO I WAS JUST SCREAMING IN ECSTASY EVERYTHING’S FINE” and he would scream “OH I SEE” and she would scream “SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION” and he would scream “DON’T WORRY IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME” and she would scream “OH MY GOOOOOOOD” and he would scream “OH MARY” and she would scream “NO ACTUALLY THIS TIME I ACTUALLY JUST WANTED TO SAY COULD YOU MOVE TO THE LEFT A BIT YOU’RE ON MY FOOT”. And he would scream “OH YES SORRY SOMETIMES I GET A BIT CARRIED AWAY DON’T I?”

What would Joseph say when he heard all that? Would he be bored? She hoped not. She certainly hadn’t been bored as the ruler of all that is and ever shall be summoned angels to rub her feet, or when he lit up their lovemaking with a series of flashing thunderbolts, or when, slightly more crudely, he ate five loaves and two fishes out of her intimate portions. There were many words she might have used to describe these experiences, but “boring” wasn’t one of them. Well, actually, it was, but in a different context, less in the “watching paint dry” sense and more in the “you be the apple and I’ll be the worm” sense. She hoped Joseph wasn’t bored in either sense, despite the definite feeling that came upon her occasionally, when he was showing off his hand-carved doorknobs, that he could do with a really good hard boring now and then.

She wasn’t sure when it all started to go wrong. It was probably just after he’d yelled that he would “make a flood that would cover the entire earth”, and just before she asked him how he was managing to have sex with her while simultaneously standing outside having a smoke. It might have been the point at which he told her to get on her knees, and caused a rain of frogs to fall from the ceiling. But really, she knew the turning point was when she noticed two shadowy figures standing in the corner, high-fiving and giggling to themselves.

“Father,” she said, trying to ignore the violent motion and singing doves that He brought into existence with every thrust, “who are they?”

“What?” the Lord paused, mid-spank, and looked around. “Oh yeah, those are my crew.”

“Your crew?”

“Yeah, my boys. My gang. My posse.”

“Your WHAT?” Mary squealed over the sound of rhythmic heavenly thwapping.

“Posse.”

“Oh. Sorry, I thought you said…never mind. Look, why…ooh!” Mary was briefly interrupted by a massive shudder of pleasure running through her entire body, as God moved in a particularly mysterious way. “Why are they here?”
“Oh, we kind of do everything together.” From the corner, the two men gave her the thumbs up. Mary tried to focus, despite the beard strands flailing wildly in her eyes.

“Is…is one of them…a ghost?”

“That’s right,” said God, creating a car battery out of thin air and hooking it up to his nipples with His mind. “The Holy Ghost”. The ghost floated over to the bed and shook Mary’s hand. She smiled politely.

“Nice…to meet you?” She looked back at the Lord, who had assumed – rather uncomfortably for his partner – the form of a burning bush. “What’s going on?” she demanded, slapping at her pubic hair with a fire blanket.

“It’s the Trinity baby – we do everything together. Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”

“Son?” Mary looked at the third man, a young bearded fellow with a halo and large cucumber. “Come on – that’s just sick!”

“Sorry babe,” the Lord intoned, having abandoned his bush form and turned into a pillar of smoke, which proceeded to blow into some extremely intimate areas, “You do one of us, you do all of us.”

From there, things went rapidly downhill. Mary had already been slightly put off by God’s constant cries of “Thou shalt not stop” and habit of turning her breasts into piles of salt and back again; but that was nothing compared to the Holy Ghost, who was so insubstantial she could barely feel him, and simply sort of wafted over her making “woo woo” noises. Mary was also made uncomfortable by the impression that she was having sex with the Grand Wizard of the Klan.

If anything, the Son was even worse when his turn came around. Every time she moved, he drew a cross in the air and said “I forgive you”, and he kept breaking off to wash her feet, but what she found really creepy was when he finished and told her he couldn’t wait for her to be his mum. What the hell was that about? He also made a lot of a jokes about the Second Coming that she didn’t really understand.

And now, here she was. She hadn’t heard from God since that night – not even a phone call – and all she could think about was Joseph. He wasn’t going to take this well. He was a conservative sort of guy at the best of times. She did not imagine that he would react well to being told his fiancée had been gang-banging supernatural beings. But Joseph just didn’t understand what it was like to be a young girl, flooded with hormones, wanting to rebel, and easy pickings for any slick stranger with a full beard and a cheap source of wine. He didn’t understand how hard it was to resist a man whose tongue could literally cause earthquakes. He didn’t know the amazing feeling of having your Red Sea parted.

She heard the door open. “I’m home, dear!” Joseph shouted as he walked into the room. “And look – I’ve got wood!” he cried, waving a piece of four by two in the air jauntily. Mary rolled her eyes. Both Joseph’s carpentry, and his erectile dysfunction, had ceased to be amusing long ago.

She stood up and drew a deep breath. “I have some news for you, Joseph,” she said. “I’m pregnant!”

Joseph stared at her. The wood dropped from his hand. “Pregnant?” he gasped. “But…you’re a virgin! That’s, like, your thing!

Well, there you go,” Mary replied somewhat superfluously.

Joseph was aghast. “Who’s the father?”
This was the hard part. Mary knew her story was both hard to believe and absolutely disgusting, but she had to face the consequences of her actions. “It’s God, Joseph. God is the father of my baby.”
“God?” Joseph’s face lit up. “You mean, God has miraculously blessed you with child?”
“Not really. We just had sex,” Mary explained. “Like…a LOT.”

“Ah,” Joseph nodded. “You mean, he filled you with his holy spirit…”

“No,” Mary shook her head. “He filled me with his holy penis.”
Joseph’s face fell. “You mean…he nailed you?” He held up a small nail to illustrate, but his heart wasn’t really in it. Even woodwork seemed bitter and hollow now that he knew what his fiancée had been getting up to.
“Oh, Joseph!” Mary collapsed into Joseph’s thin, womanly arms. “I feel so…so dirty! I lost my head, I think it might have been the wine, or possibly it affected my judgment when God put his hand inside my brain. He used me, Joseph, and now I’m just a story he can tell to his buddies.” Little did she know that this was exactly what God was doing at that very moment, sharing a beer with Vishnu and telling him the whole story with accompanying hand gestures.
“It’s all right, Mary,” Joseph muttered. “I forgive you. Even without placing your sins onto the head of a third party who is then tortured to death in order to absolve you of responsibility for your actions, I forgive you, and we shall get through this together. We’ll raise this child, and he will work with me, making tables and little toy hippos on wheels whose mouths open and shut when you roll them along the floor, and we will be happy together, and he will never have to know he is the result of his mother’s wild night of bizarre kinky group sex with a trio of incorporeal perverts.”
“How did you know all that, I didn’t tell you – ”
“That’s not important right now!” Joseph cried. “What’s important is the future. We shall be married straight away, and our family shall be happy!”
“But Joseph, what about God? Every week when we go to the temple, He’ll be there…leering at me from above. I…I can’t take the humiliation!”
“Don’t worry Mary. You’ll never have to see that creep again. We won’t go His temple anymore. As of now, we’re converting…to Islam!”

Life - A Love Story

At a young age, I fell in love with life, and this tempestuous affair has continued ever since.

Many times my lover has infuriated me, driven me to distraction and despair and forced me to question my commitment to the relationship. At times it has seemed almost abusive, the way life would harass me and make me feel small.

I've considered leaving, I've thought about escaping this fierce love that terrrifies as often as it exhilarates. So many times I've felt that the relationship is just too much work, and quitting would be the only way to make things better. But always that love has kept me bound.

And no doubt it will continue in much the same way. The days when life and I are so attuned that colours blaze brighter and my heart swells with joy and exultation at the love I have found, will always be followed by the days when I feel out of love, when I feel that irreconcilable differences have widened the chasm between us to the point where there is nothing to be done. Days when my devotion to life is so complete that my only regret is that the time we're allowed to spend together is so short will be followed by days when everything seems dull and painfully eternal, and my wandering eye catches sight of the alluring alternatives, days when I may casually flirt with others and wonder if the grass really would be greener on the other side. The threat of these dalliances might always hang over us, I might always be subject to these doubts over whether I made the right decision committing to this affair that causes such pain and uncertainty.

And yet I can't leave. I must stay, and ride the peaks and troughs, and find out what happens next. Because I fell in love with life, and by now it is almost as if I cannot live without it.

A day in the life of a Podcasting Star

A lot of you are probably thinking, hey, I certainly love listening to the Gather Around Me podcast starring Ben Pobjie and Cam Smith, which I subscribe to on iTunes and totally listen to all the time, and I especially love the latest episode wherein Ben and Cam read a Choose Your Own Adventure book and invite ME to select where the story will take them next - but there are times when I wish I could know more about the process behind the GAM podcast and its wild popularity.

WISH. NO. MORE. Because here is:

MY DAY AS A PODCASTER BY BEN

6.05am: Arrive at the GAM offices, where I am greeted by Esther, our hard-working secretary. She gives me my daily iron pills and flirts outrageously with me, and we have a good laugh.

6.08am: Enter the GAM Control Centre, where Cam screams at me for being late.

6.09am: Cam, sobbing, begs for my forgiveness for being angry, and then takes a short nap.

6.10-6.30am: Catch up on GAM email. Delete spam and offers of marriage from men, move offers of marriage from women into special folder. Agree to every offer of corporate sponsor. Reply to sexy emails from Packed to the Rafters cast members with equally sexy emails.

6.45am: Cam wakes up. I subdue him with a soothing voice and pleas to drop the knife.

7-10am: Planning session for new podcast. We storyboard each episode meticulously on butcher's paper, then transfer the storyboard to our 3D clay puppet board. We then make a crude animation of the podcast, edit and score it, and play it back to see if we think it will fly as a quality Gather Around Me instalment. We do this several times until we have what we call "GOLD". We then record a rough guide vocal using this script, so our orchestra can follow it.

10-11am: Orchestra session. All the music is written by Cam, but in a strange code that only he knows, so he has to hum it to the orchestra and they play it back. Normally a recording session will be done in the nude, and Cam usually assaults at least six musicians before it's over.

11-11.30am: Meeting with lawyers to discuss Cam's defence for assault trial.

11.36am: Cam begs me to let him cut my hair. I refuse, but he goes ahead anyway.

11.45am: Cam starts sobbing again.

12pm: Lunch, eaten on opposite sides of a picnic table in a nearby park, neither of us willing to take our eyes off the other. Between bites of his salami toastie, Cam threatens to kill me several times.

12.45-3pm: Sex.

3-4pm: Recording of the podcast. Cam does the whole thing in a thick Russian accent, and insists on having his "manager", a 17-year-old boxer named Michelle, sitting beside him the whole time. Today's podcast is examining the issue of aged-care funding, but three minutes in we get sidetracked by wondering which sea animal it would be preferable to be raped by, and we never really get back on-topic. By the end of the hour Cam is incredibly drunk and claims he is my biological mother. he then beats me savagely.

4.15pm: Over-dubbing and adding of wacky sound effects.

4.30pm: Daily prayers. At GAM we have a new religion each week to keep things fresh. This week's is Shinto.

4.45-5pm: Sex.

5.15pm: Breakfast.

6pm: Cam asks for my hand in marriage, but immediately rescinds the offer, displaying crossed fingers. He then beats me savagely.

6.30pm: Esther screams with exasperation and hurls herself through a plate-glass window. Later on she confesses it was because "YouTube was being slow".

6.45pm: Wash dishes and genitals.

7pm: Kiss Cam goodnight and shampoo his beard.

7.30pm: Hit the streets, out for a good time.

8pm: Become caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse with international arms traders.

8.15pm: Dessert and bed.


That's SHOWBUSINESS folks!

Why not?

Why not vote for me in the Sydney Writers' Centre Best Blog Competition?

Am I right?

I'm right, right?

You'd be voting for a blog that:

- is number one in the world in regards to how-not-to-be-a-rapist tutorials

- has more blasphemy per square centimetre than all industry leaders

- is as cute as a button

- uses no child labour

- makes your breasts firmer and more inviting if read daily.

Vote now!

Or don't!

It's really up to you!

It is not my place to be prescriptive!

But vote now!

Unless you don't want to!

!!!!

The Night I Won Masterchef

*This story was read by me last night as a guest at the wonderful Fan Fiction Comedy at Melbourne Town Hall as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It's a great night, there are only two more shows this weekend - catch them while you can.

It was dark when I stepped into the Masterchef kitchen that night. Filming had finished hours ago, but I had been summoned back by an anonymous note pushed under my door, reading, "Come to the kitchn. Urgent. Bring garnish."

As I looked around the empty kitchen, breathing in the aroma of capsicum, sweat and broken dreams, a voice boomed in the darkness.

"Welcome...to your final challenge."

"But I already did the final challenge! I made Heston Blumenthal's ice-cream pheasants! I made the liver parmigiana! I did everything you asked!"

"HAHAHA! No - nobody wins Masterchef without doing...the REAL final challenge!"

And with that, Matt Preston stepped out of the shadows. As always he wore his trademark cravat. As was less usual he wore nothing else.

"M-m-m-Matt," I stammered. "Your croquembouche is showing!"

He stepped forward, his spiced chorizo glinting in the moonlight. He leaned in close. "It's time...for the mystery box!"

With that he whipped open a wooden box on the benchtop, revealing three bananas, half a chicken and a riding crop.

"What can you make of this?" he whispered, his breath rich with the scent of lust and sun-dried tomatoes.

"I...I guess some sort of terrine?" I began, but I had no time to finish before I was pressed against the bench, Preston's chipolatas frenetically tenderising my sirloin.

"You...YOU'RE the hero of this dish!" Matt gasped, stuffing my fresh squab with his salted rolled pork. "The presentation leaves a little to be desired, but the flavours are all there! The bitterness of your rumballs, the sweetness of your glazed beef shoulders, and the firm filling inside your succulent creampie," he grunted. "Just needs...more SAUCE!" and with a mighty bellow, he covered my steaming platter with his freshly-made hollandaise.

From there it was a blur of baking and roasting and saucing and basting and stewing in each others' juices and the occasional random scream of "Schnitzel!" I found myself passed from chef to chef, as each one forced me to submit to their depraved culinary whims. Whether beating Gary Mehigan's eggs with all my might to produce custard for his crusty buns, delicately smearing white chocolate icing on Donna Hay's sticky date pudding, or drizzling Margaret Fulton's pungent fish pie with what she called verjuice bukkake, I did it all. Until finally, I was letting George Calombaris batter my dolmades, screaming, "We're nearly there, just ten seconds left, time to BOOM BOOM SHAKE THE ROOM!" and with a last spurt of honey mustard it was over, and I lay panting in a pool of my own foie gras.

"Now..." I pleaded. "Now am I Australia's next Masterchef?"

Matt smiled, a smile made of equal parts lasciviousness and macaron crumbs. "Not yet," he growled. "Because now...we're going to have sex."

Ode To Bob

O Bob where will we go from here without you there to soothe our worried minds and tell us everything will be all right?
Who will lead us from the darkness to the light?

O Bob how will we cope now that you can no longer show us the wondrousness of nature and help us understand the trees?

Who'll tell us about the birds and also the bees?

My eyes are blinded by darkness because the beacon of hope is gone

Gone from the Senate

Gone from my life

It is as if a candle burning in my bosom for so long

Has been snuffed out by a falling seagull

That is what it is like

O Bob

O Bob

Bob

Bob

Bob

Are you listening Bob?

Over here

Bob you taught us many things

How to save the earth

How to be a responsible citizen

How to tie knots and make simple yet nutritious meals on a budget

You taught me how to ride a bike and catch a fish

I'll always remember you for that Bob

For that, and for your amazing marksmanship

O Bob you killed sixteen Germans single-handed in a trench

How did you do that Bob?

And why?

How does grace and anger, poise and violence, peace and homicide

Co-exist?

O Bob

You will be missed

I will miss your voice and your laugh

Your kind words and your gentle hand

Your billowing cape and your flaxen hair

O Bob I love you

We all love you

Please don't go

Stay here and together we will stockpile canned goods

Forever and ever

O Bob

(fade to incoherence)

Hey You!

Yes, you! I got a few questions!

Do you like READING THINGS?

Do you like LAUGHING AT THINGS?

Do you like ELECTRONIC DEVICES?

Do you like - and pay close attention here - ME?

Hey, I know you're answering yes to all those questions! But I know that YOU'RE asking a question too!

You're asking, "But Ben, HOW can I satisfy ALL these preferences of mine for the INCREDIBLY LOW price of $2.99, in a convenient manner delivered instantly over the world wide web?"

OH MY GOD I HAVE THE ANSWER!



That's right! HANDY LATIN PHRASES!

Handy Latin Phrases is the anthology of stories and poetry, known as my equivalent of Woody Allen's "Early, funny stuff" that I self-published several years ago. You can still get it as an old-fashioned dead-tree edition, but NOW! FOR THE FIRST TIME! ON AMAZON! You can get it as a Kindle eBook! For $2.99!

Only $2.99? Why you'd be cruel and foolish NOT to buy it am I right?

Haha! Of course I am!

Go buy it NOW!

Trigger Warning: Lady Caves

This is the track listing of the upcoming album "Lady Caves" by my new band, Trigger Warning. To hear the tracks, go to www.myspace.com/shortstack.

LADY CAVES, by Trigger Warning

1. Dam My Man-River
2. Happy Birthday, Celia Imrie
3. Your Love Is The Hangnail On The Finger Of My Heart
4. Look At My Pants Please
5. Breasts Etc
6. Ode To Allan
7. Ladies Don't Gotta Be All Up In My Grill Yo
8. Stand Up Slutty Soldiers
9. Kiss On The Bits
10. Gemma The Peek-A-Boo Queen
11. Hope You Get Eczema
12. Lady Caves

"I'm here to scare the bats
Out of your lady caves
But don't worry baby
I have a torch"

- Trigger Warning, 2012

School's In!

Why should you come see me play the principal in the Bedroom Philosopher's High School Assembly at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival?

For many reasons:

1. There will be MUSIC.

2. There will be DANCING.

3. I will TALK at some point.

4. You are allowed to THROW things at me.

5. It is in a nice THEATRE.

6. It has nice COSTUMES.

7. There are JOKES.

8. You can sit on a SEAT.

9. After the show you might get to have SEX with someone you MET at the nice THEATRE.

10. I will CRY if you DON'T.

So I'll see you there.

"Are Women Funny?" and other questions to ask if you are somewhat slow

OK so it seems like every year around Comedy Festival time, someone brings up the subject of whether women are funny, because if there's one thing that unites all human beings no matter what their sex, it is a total inability to have an original thought.

So I saw this brought up YET AGAIN, in TWO THOUSAND AND TWELVE, and unfortunately I was driven to think about it.

The usual response for those of on the side of "yes (sigh), women are funny, next question, please", is to roll out a list of women who we think are funny to demonstrate the fact that those who claim women aren't funny actually seem to be alleging some kind of worldwide conspiracy in which the millions of people paying money to see women comedians, and watching TV and movie comedy featuring women, are engaged in a particularly deranged form of affirmative action.

But I'm not going to do that, because it's been done a million times and everyone's heard it before and everyone knows all the names that would be on that list. We are not unaware of these women's existence.

No, what I want to do is just ask a question of those who claim women aren't funny:

What do you mean?

Like, what stops women from being funny? What is the mechanism that prevents funniness in women? What quirk of biology has kept humour from developing in the female human? What genetic defect blocks the emission of comedy from a woman?

I mean, if you're going to claim "women aren't funny", there must be a reason, right?

Is it that women are allergic to jokes? Do breasts repel humour, causing funny things to reflect off the boobs and back into a woman's face so they never make to the wider world? Does oestrogen prevent the activation of the comedy gene? Is funniness secreted from a small gland which men have but women lack? Do vaginas just suck the fun out of everything?

I'm just asking, because on the face of it, given that I'm fairly sure it's been well-established for some time now that women are human beings, "women aren't funny" seems to be a patently ludicrous assertion, akin to saying "Finnish people can't brush their hair" or "redheads don't own singlets". As things stand, claiming women aren't funny appears to be not so much a talking point as a meaningless string of words randomly patched together by a gibbering ape. So I'd love it to be clarified that I may understand.

So please, if you could supply some kind of hypothesis, or research, or blood test, that might explain the "women aren't funny" phenomenon, that'd be great. I ask only for information.

On Cutting

Cutting

Does the service station attendant wonder, in the long hours he must have available for wondering, why that guy needed to buy a packet of razors at 10.30 at night? It’s gotta be suspicious, right? Is there such a thing as a late-night shaving emergency? Do these things cross his mind? Does he suspect the worst? Was there anything in the customer’s demeanour that might have tipped him off? I never really know how I come across to people – when I’m buying the razors I feel pale, wild-eyed, shivery: I feel like everyone within a three-mile radius must be able to see me shaking, vibrating, jittering with fear and loathing and bent almost double from the ceaseless gut-punches of panic and sadness that pound me even as I pass the razors across the counter.

But nobody sees that. I’m not pale, I’m not shaking, I’m just a guy in a service station and I doubt the attendant gives me a second glance as he swipes the packet and takes my money and says his robotic farewell. Does he even know what I bought? That’s doubtful in itself. He’s seen a million people buy a million things, and he’s probably conditioned to pay no mind to the details. If he didn’t notice which porno mag the man before me bought, why would he notice the razors I’m buying now? And why would he devote even a second of his life to caring about why I bought them?

And so I’m back in my car, sitting across the road from the servo, feeling a bit stupid. I don’t know how you’re supposed to do this. Are you even supposed to use disposable razors? I should have a knife. I have a knife at home – for work – I should make sure I have that with me next time. Yeah, definitely – because this is the kind of thing you really plan in advance, isn’t it? Idiot. I don’t know how to do this. Disposable razors feel wrong, but what else am I going to use? Service stations don’t sell straight razors. They don’t sell kitchen knives. I could have bought a newspaper and tried to give myself a papercut: but I feel like that’d be even wronger.

I rip open the packet and take out a razor, and I almost feel like laughing it’s so stupid. What am I doing? What’s the point of this?

Later on, more than one person will ask me why: why did I cut myself? What did I get out of it? What was the point, what was the purpose? And I’ll stitch together an answer, from what I remember, from what I think I was feeling, from what I’ve heard other people say about it, from what I feel like I should be saying. It was because I just want to feel something. It was because physical pain helped block out the emotional pain. It was because drawing blood felt like a release of the pressure. It was because I thought people would understand better if there was a tangible wound to show them. It was because I’d heard that’s what depressed people do, so I thought I’d go along with the crowd.

All of these explanations are absolutely true, and not true at all. Afterwards, when the fog had cleared and I was actually thinking, actually using my brain the way I knew how to and the way it’s supposed to be used, I could really only give an approximation of the reason why I did what I did. It was like trying to reconstruct a dinosaur from a thighbone and a tooth – I can do it, but I’ll never be sure if what I’ve built is really what was there at the time. And my memory of what I was feeling at the time aren’t exactly clear, because nothing was exactly clear. The closest I can come to a concise summation of the driving force at that moment is: I just need to find a way to make someone care.

And there I am sitting in my car, and the radio is on but I don’t know what it’s saying, and I’m thinking nobody cares and I’m thinking I’ve got to make someone care. And this will, right? Everyone’s got to care about blood. Everyone cares about wounds. This’ll be an injury, it’ll be real, and it’ll be a clear, obvious, blaring, broadcast-quality signal that this dude is seriously fucked-up. I just have to convince people of that, and then everything will be…

Everything will be…

I don’t know what everything will be. OK? Better? I guess so. It has to be better. How could it not be? So come on, let’s do this.

I don’t know how to do this. How do I do this? Disposable razors are not actually made to cut – that’s kind of the point. I guess I just sort of...slash.

I roll up my sleeve like I’m about to take my blood pressure. In a way I am – HA! I take the razor and I push it down onto my skin, and draw it, fast, across my arm. It kind of stings, and leaves a stark white line on my arm. I don’t see any cut though. I try again, pushing down harder. And again. And again. I can’t see any blood – it’s not working. Goddammit, it’s not working, and I’m angry, because I’m doing it wrong, and I start slashing. I whip the razor back and forth, criss-crossing my arm, hacking in like my arm’s said something rude about my mother, and it’s not fucking working I can’t –

And then.

The blood. It starts to well. The white line of my first cut turns red, and the blood oozes lazily out of it. Then the second, and the third. And suddenly the whole untidy mess of slashes is a thick welter of red, trickling across my skin, congealing and turning the hairs sticky. The sting of the cuts intensifies – they burn, and my arm starts to itch. I scratch, and smear the blood across, blurring the wounds into each other.

And as I stare at the pain angrily dripping out of my arm, I suck in air, hard, through my nose, and all of a sudden I’m less pale, and I’m not shaking, and I blink away my tears and I can see the dark shiny night in front of me. The muscles of my face are twitching, and I’m sure this is my last night on earth, but I’ve taken some decisive action.

I’m bleeding, and that’s better than nothing.

A Defining Moment For Our Generation

As you probably know because you don't suck, I am an active member of the Twitter community, where I offer political views, gentle, homespun humour, and loyal friendship to people who say nice things about me if they are good-looking. I find Twitter the most ideal medium yet devised for getting into fights, inserting the word "penis" into incongruous phrases, and telling other people how much better you are than them.

As a Twitterite in good standing, I am pleased that soon a momentous event will occur: MY ONE HUNDRED THOUSANDTH TWEET. At time of blogging I am on 99,802, and I am so close I can literally taste it. It tastes like copper. Is that good?

Anyway, a massive online milestone deserves a massive online celebration, just like the ones I had for my 18th and 21st birthdays, but not for my 30th because that was actually pretty lame. Also, not much like the ones I had for my 18th and 21st birthdays because those were actual parties with food and drink and this really isn't.

The hashtag is #Pobjie100000. The lead-up to the great moment is a fantastic opportunity to reminisce about the highlights of my time on Twitter. Such as:

- the time someone called me sexist

- the time someone called me racist

- the time Martha Plimpton tweeted to me to cheer me up

- that joke I made about Christopher Pyne

- #replacelobgwithearwigsongs


When the actual 100,000th tweet arrives of course, there are many ways you could celebrate, including:

1. tweeting "congratulations Ben! I am madly in love with you hope that's cool #justsayin"

2. tweeting "#Pobjie100000 is the best thing to ever have happened, how does Ben manage to be so great?"

3. Running into the street and firing your gun into the air.

4. Sidling behind a customer service counter at Myer and quietly touching yourself.

5. Writing to the ABC demanding I be put on the Q&A panel or you will take drastic action.

6. Eating three litres of ice-cream in half an hour.

7. Dancing wildly naked beneath the autumn moon in front of a video camera.

8. Sending me money in large amounts.

9. Naming your child/pet/speedboat after me.

10. Using your position as a television producer to get my TV show greenlit.

11. Using your position as a publisher to get my book published.

12. Using your position as prime minister to get my enemies murdered.

13. Giving me a great big squishy hug.

14. Running madly through the town screaming, "IT'S HERE IT'S HERE OUR SALVATION IS AT HAND!"

15. Having a drink and a pizza and watching Monty Python DVDs.

Whatever you choose, it will be quite a party.

I'm just saying, consider it

Why doesn't everyone just shut up?

To My Daughters

My Darling Daughters,

I am writing this on International Women's Day, 2012. You don't know what that means yet, but one day, you'll grow up - as much as I wish you wouldn't - and you'll understand what IWD is and what it means. It would be wonderful if by that time, there was no need for it, but sadly the world is rarely as wonderful as it should be - you'll find that out too; although maybe you already know, from how we make you go to bed every night.

And maybe when you grow up you'll read this - but even if you don't, writing this down will help your dad remember what he wants you to know.

The world is difficult. For everyone. And it's going to be difficult for you. In particular, you're almost certain to meet people who are going to try to make you feel bad, because you're girls.

There will be people who will think your opinions are less important, because you're girls.

There will be people who will think they can speak rudely to you, because you're girls.

There will be people who will talk to you as if you're stupid, because you're girls.

There will be people who will think they can hurt you, because you're girls.

There will be people who will tell you that you shouldn't try to be funny, because you're girls.

There will be people who will tell you there are things you shouldn't even try to achieve, because you're girls.

There will be people who will think they can judge your value as a person based on how you look, because you're girls.

There will be people who will tell you to never be loud, or troublesome, or angry, because you're girls.

There will be people who will tell you to lighten up, because you're girls.

There will be people who will tell you to just accept things the way they are, because you're girls.

There will be people who will try to stop you from ever thinking you can be as good as the boys, because you're girls.

There will be people who will think they can do or say anything they like to you, and you shouldn't complain if you don't like it, because you're girls.



And when you meet any of those people, you will not take a backward step. You will get in their faces, you will stick your finger in their chests, and you will tell them to get the hell out of your way. Because there is no way you're going to let anyone make you feel inferior, or worthless, or stupid, or ugly, because you're girls. When you meet those people, you are going to stop them dead in their tracks, and roll over them like a steamroller.

And when you do , my darlings, I'll know that I must have been a pretty OK dad.

Women - what even are they?

This week we will be celebrating another International Women's Day, which raises some very profound and troubling questions about the world we live in.

Now, don't get me wrong - I love women. My mother is a woman. My wife is a woman. My grandfather was a woman, and he fought under the Australian flag at Gallipoli for the rights of women everywhere to disguise themselves as men and attack strangers at the Dawn Service.

My beef is not with women - indeed I would consider it the height of rudeness to even have my beef anywhere near women. "Keep your beef to yourself," was the advice my mother gave to me, and as I mentioned, she was totally a woman, so there you go.

No, I have no issue with women, but here's the thing: where is the International Men's Day? It's all very well to say that women deserve an international day, even though they've already got so many advantages like abortions and vajazzling and those bras on TV that fit really well. I freely admit that women have problems that need to be dealt with - I read Sam Brett and I'm fully aware that your average women not only has to negotiate the pitfalls of modern dating, but also the inevitable headaches that come with confusing feminism and also waxing - but shouldn't we also recognise that men have problems?

Because believe me, men have a LOT of problems. Men have so many problems that they shouldn't even call us men, they should call us "Problemistas". Or "Problembots". Or "Captain Problem". I could go on, but you'd probably get bored - that's one of the problems with being a man: people get bored by you.

Other problems of being a man include:

1. People always want you to reach high shelves for you, but sometimes you have a sore arm and it hurts.

2. Other men laugh at you because you don't know how to change tyres.

3. You have to have a penis which looks stupid.

4. Sometimes you want to have sex with a lady but she doesn't want to have sex with you, which leads to sadness.

5. Underpants can be uncomfortable.

6. People keep trying to make you go into sheds and make things with wood.

7. Women are always making you look at their breasts, even when you don't want to.

8. You are responsible for all the wars and genocides in history which is a bummer.

9. Sometimes you think you might be gay but you're not sure.

10. You have to shave all the time and sometimes you cut yourself which really hurts and makes blood come and then you faint and people think you're a girl.

11. Spiders.

And that's only a few of the problems: there are literally some more. Which goes to show that being a man in today's modern fast-paced supercharged globalised online modern world is not as easy as it seems from up in your ivory tower. When do men get their chance at a bit of happiness?

So, why no International Men's Day? Because it's a stupid idea? Perhaps, but then, who is the more foolish: the fool, or the fool who lives in the fool's granny flat? I think my point is well made. It is time that men were recognised for the enormous contribution they probably make to society and for the immense hardships they have to face particularly with regard to the prostate region. It is time for International Men's Day!

Follow me, my brothers, and we need never feel scared or uncomfortable or vaguely unnerved by social progress again!

This blog post is brought to you by Cherchez La Femme's International Women's Day 2012 Extravaganza. Cherchez La Femme mistress of ceremonies Karen Pickering explains:

Cherchez la Femme returns for 2012 with a one-off extravag-anza to celebrate International Women’s Day in true femmo style. We’ll save the serious panel business for next time because I’ve lined up my all-time dream-team of singers, dancers, actors, musicians, poets, comics, thinkers and performers to hit the Grace Darling bandroom, show us their love of the ladies and tell us why being a feminist matters to them. I can scarcely contain myself as I announce the line-up here:

KATE BOSTON SMITH (Cabaret Star, Kitty Bang, Show Off)
EMILIE ZOEY BAKER (Slam Champion, Endless Lover, Crack-Up)
ANDREW MARLTON (First Dog on the Moon, Poet, Oracle)
HELEN RAZER (Writer, Raconteur, Sexy Mama)
CLEM BASTOW (Femmo, Neo-Stoner, Cosplaya)
LOU SANZ (Comic, Screenwriter, Firecracker)
SEAN M WHELAN (The Boss - of Poetry, Dream Guy)
BRENNA GLAZEBROOK (Comic, Impro Star, Hottie)
CHRISTINA ARNOLD (Lead Signer of The Perfections, Bangin’ Broad)
BEN POBJIE (Poet, Writer, Comic, Spy)
EMILY JARRETT (Singer with Go-Go Sapien, Robobabe)
BEN McKENZIE (Professional Nerd-Wonder, Comic, Fox)
JANE DUST (Singer, Love Child of Burt Bacharach & Emmy-Lou Harris)
CLEMENTINE FORD (Boner-Killer, Abortion-Enthusiast, Got Swag)
SHAKIRA HUSSEIN (Thinker, Lawyer, Activist)
JESSICA ALICE (Poet, Broadcaster, Honey)
SERI VIDA (Singer, Musician, Rad Lady)
and DJ sets from LISA GREENAWAY (of DJ Lapkat fame, Beatmaster)

This is how I am

"Tell me I'm good" - Bart Simpson

I have never been drunk. I have never smoked a cigarette. And I have never taken an illegal drug. These things have passed me by. My addiction of choice is not to any substance. It is something else.

The reason I write and perform comedy is that I find the experience of getting a laugh the most wonderful thing in the world. The buzz derived from making someone laugh, or knowing that something you write has entertained people, is enormous. And it really is addictive. The trouble with it is that it's fleeting. You can't make people laugh for five minutes, then go home and live the rest of your life out feeling secure in your own abilities. If you want the feeling to continue, you have to keep writing, keep performing, keep getting the laughs. Because the buzz leaves your system so quickly, and it's so addictive, that the only way to keep yourself up is to keep doing it, again and again.

And that's not such a bad thing. That's probably why most entertainers keep doing it - the drive to keep getting that high is the drive to keep creating, the fuel for an artist to stick with their art. As far as my career goes, it's probably helpful that I'm addicted to the applause.

But.

What happens if I'm not just like that when I'm working? What happens if that's what I'm like all the time?

Because my addiction isn't restricted to getting acclaim for my work. My real addiction is what you could call reassurance. Or affirmation. Or just "feeling good".

OK, so who isn't addicted to feeling good, right? But the difference here is like the difference between your body being able to make insulin, and having to inject it into yourself.

I can't of course know how other people feel - maybe everybody is exactly like me - but it has always seemed that most people are to some extent able to generate their own self-esteem. Or maybe it would be better to say, to hold on to their own self-esteem. That is, if they have reason to feel good about themselves, they'll know it, and they'll be capable of convincing themselves of it. If they have friends, they'll feel they have friends all the time. If they are loved, they will feel loved.

And importantly, they won't need reminding of all this every five seconds.

Like me.

Because self-esteem is a drug to me - it feels great when I get some, but it leaves my system fast, and then I need another hit. If you tell me you love me, I'll believe you, but a couple of days later I won't be able to convince myself it's still true, until you tell me again. I'll fear that you've stopped loving me. If I don't hear from you, I'll assume that you have. And I'll just curl up into a little ball of hurt. That good feeling just won't stay. I can't generate affirmation from inside myself - it has to be applied externally. I have lots of friends - but when I'm not actually with them it's pretty easy to convince myself they're probably not that into me anymore. If I haven't heard from a friend in a while, I have to assume they don't want to be my friend. And if I haven't recently been told I'm smart, or talented, or nice, or loveable, I have to assume nobody thinks I am.

And I know it's not true. But this addiction doesn't care what I "know".

If you are a friend of mine, a loved one, or even a family member, I guarantee that my thoughts about you are dominated by the terror that you've gone right off me. I promise that at some point, I've worried that I've upset you, or angered you, or - most of all - just plain bored you, and you're sick of me. I hate it, but I can't help it - unless I'm talking to you right now, I'm probably terrified that I've lost you. And one way or another, I'd bet about 80% of my waking hours are accompanied by that terror.

And the worst part is, I know how annoying it is to be needy. I don't want to reach out and beg for reassurance. I don't want to be the person who needs to be constantly told he's good. I don't want to be constantly craving this external validation. Because it's completely lame to be that person, and I know, most terrifyingly of all, that if I'm that person, I'm actually going to drive people away because I'll just be too aggravating to deal with. And so my paranoia will become self-fulfilling - by fearing that nobody loves me, I'll ensure that, in the end, nobody will. So no, I don't want people to be always reassuring me that I'm good.

But God, yes I do.

But I don't.

But...

No. I don't. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be that sort of irritating burden on people I love. And I certainly don't want to make my own worst fears come true. Mostly, I want to to break this addiction, and learn how to hold on to the happiness I receive, learn how to make myself feel good, and learn how to actually feel what I already know to be true.

But I don't know if I can, or if I ever will. And it's hard sometimes. So right now I'm just saying, this is how I am. I am sorry if I'm too needy and too annoying at times. I don't mean to be. But there's a part of me that's broken, and I haven't figured out how to fix it yet. I don't want anyone to rush to my aid here, or to feel any responsibility to prop me up. But I hope it helps the people who know me to understand a bit what's going on in my head. And I hope it might help people who feel the same way to see this stuff written down and know they've got a little bit of company.

To everyone who does offer me that reassurance, to everyone who offers me friendship, thank you. I appreciate it more than I can say. I'll keep trying to hold on to it a bit longer, and more importantly, to be worthy of it.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT THESE FACTS OR POSSIBLY NOT?

Well goodness Australian politics is in quite a state isn't it? Yes it is, or is it? No. But possibly yes? Maybe. How can the ordinary citizen make sense of all these Machiavellian goings-on? They can't, it's impossible. Let me show you how.

Here are the facts: Kevin Rudd, the worst prime minister in Australia's history, was deposed in 2010 despite being the best prime minister we'd ever seen. After his epochal victory over John Howard, Rudd was the hero of the Labor Party, who then assassinated him because they hated him so much, although out of respect for him they did not say how much they hated him, because respect is paramount in politics as demonstrated by how disrespectful everyone is.

He was deposed of course by Julia Gillard, the worst prime minister in Australia's history, and now, in an exquisitely ironic twist of irony, is set to depose her himself, even though she is a great prime minister and has achieved an enormous amount in her time in office, hamstrung only by the fact she is a do-nothing prime minister. Also the polling numbers are extremely low, but politics is not all about polling, a lesson Gillard learnt well when she deposed Rudd for having low polling numbers.

But what does this all mean for the ordinary stupid Aussie working family aspirational battler? Just who will be our prime minister on Monday?

Well, Rudd doesn't have the numbers, so he certainly won't be, unless he doesn't have the numbers or possibly not. So Gillard will be prime minister except in the event that she is defeated by Rudd or someone else, which will not happen because they don't have the numbers, or do they? No. Or yes? One thing is for sure, the numbers are being had by someone, or are they? One thing is for sure: possibly.

After Gillard defeats Rudd or not, Rudd will go to the backbench and Gillard will be secure until he challenges again but he probably won't, but he DEFINITELY will. If Rudd beats Gillard which he won't but what if he does? One thing is for sure, if he does, which he won't but maybe, Gillard will go to the backbench and never be leader again except in the event she decides that she wants to. Which she won't because she said she won't, and she has no reason to lie apart from the usual ones.

But will a change of leader make any difference to our everyday lives? Certainly it will, except in the literal sense. Or does it? Perhaps not. But maybe? Yes. Or no. Only time will tell. Or will it? Only time will tell.

But one thing is for sure, after Rudd is prime minister which he will never be, we will see a much greater focus on policy over personalities, as opposed to Gillard, who focuses less on personalities and more on policy. Whoever is prime minister, we can be certain that personalities will be brought to the fore and policy made a priority in the background as the electability of the party increases even as their ability to get people to vote for them falls dramatically. So after Gillard wins the ballot, she will reintroduce good Labor values and if she loses she won't, which must call into question her trustworthiness. But can Rudd be trusted, given if he loses he refuses to even guarantee he will win? One thing is for sure, the answer is unknowable.

Only time will tell who is prime minister and whether Gillard's inevitable victory will come at the expense of Rudd's defeat, or whether Rudd's momentum will see him score a famous victory over his own loss. But one thing is for sure, whoever wins will be the victor, and that is certainty you can take to the bank.

Or is it?

Brecht and Coleridge

"Ah, well-played, sir, well-played indeed!" The mellifluous baritone rang throughout the drawing room as Bertolt Brecht, playwright, poet, and champion middle distance runner placed the tray of marzipan delights in front of his friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, lover, and foster mother.

"Did you hear that?" said Brecht, a nervous look in his eye as he sank into the deep folds of the comfortable couch.

"Hear what, sir?" boomed Coleridge, reaching for a treat and licking his lips, less in anticipation than in unstoppable nerve spasm.

"I could have sworn I just heard a mellifluous baritone," said Brecht. "It told me 'well-played, sir'"

"Ah, you Germans are a cunning bunch," said Coleridge, lifting his cup and pouring tea down his neck. "That was me, sir, complimenting you on that clever move you performed, placing the tray upon the table at the precise psychological tipping point. Quite an advantage you have over me, I think you'll agree."

Brecht studied the undercover poet intensely, noting well the curve of his neck, the cleft of his chin. In some ways, he thought to himself, man is little more than a cow with an aptitude for algebra. In some ways. He spoke:"It was prophesied that I would be killed by a man with a mellifluous baritone."

"I don't see how," Coleridge punctuated himself by quickly hemming his trousers, "a mellifluous baritone makes a poor choice of weapon. I once attempted to assassinate a Maharajah with my mellifluous baritone. He suffered only a superficial flesh wound and shot me in the knees."

Brecht was silent a moment, contemplating the futility of struggling against the machine. Sometimes he thought things would have been much simpler if he had been born a magical talking cushion. Sometimes. He spoke again:"Erst komm das Fressen," he said urgently, squinting hard at Coleridge, and leaning forward.

Coleridge hesitated. He had suspected this might be where it was all leading. When Brecht had invited him up to his room, he had accepted, not out of eagerness for company, but from respect for the bond they had forged with each other in Korea. But now, with Brecht's hand strongly massaging his thigh, he realised his initial instincts had been right: Brecht had invited him here to speak German at him."What does that mean?" he asked, reaching inside his sweater and removing his brassiere through an armhole so as to keep the mood light.

"It means, 'now we dance, tomorrow we urinate'," replied Brecht, sucking Coleridge's ear.

"FILTHY LIAR!" screamed Coleridge, leaping up and upsetting the marzipan. "It means nothing of the sort!"As quickly as it had come, the flash of rage passed, and Coleridge smiled pleasantly at his companion and took up a seat on the windowsill, contemplating the quadrangle."Do you sometimes feel, Bertie, that we are not doing enough?"

"What do you mean, enough?" replied Brecht, furtively. Coleridge turned from the window and saw Brecht attempting to climb into the kettle. He sighed. This happened so often these days he was beginning to regard it as part of the daily routine. Walking across the room, he yanked Brecht's head from the steaming jug and rubbed his hair with a towel. Brecht gasped. "You shouldn't have done that," he wailed. "Death is the only answer for me, I fear."

"Come, come," said Coleridge. "That's no way to talk. Talk like this instead," and he demonstrated with a low guttural moaning. Brecht tried it, and his mood imediately lifted.

"This IS fun!" he chuckled, capering about like a schoolboy. "Wunderbar!"

Coleridge laughed like a carefree schoolgirl, until he glanced once more out of the window. Ducking down, he hissed, "Stop it!"

"Why?" cackled Brecht. "I've never felt so alive! MOoooooo! MooooooO!" he warbled, twisting his nipples as he scampered onto the top of the bookcase.

"Stop it, man! This is serious!" Coleridge barked. "We've attracted humpback whales! They're in the quadrangle, bumming cigarettes."

Brecht sighed and climbed down. He perched once more on the sofa and mournfully vomited into Coleridge's teacup. "They will only get cancer," he said. "In the end, everyone gets cancer."

"This is true," Coleridge nodded. "I've had it six times this year, and frankly it's getting a bit much." Brecht nodded back, and so they proceeded in this fashion for several hours, bobbing their heads like deranged budgerigars, neither one willing to break down and mention the real cause of their dissatisaction. Deep down, both of them knew that the summer in Lesotho was weighing them down intolerably.

Eventually, the silence had to be broken. The detergent man was at the door, demanding he be paid for this week's detergent. Brecht dutifully slipped him a fifty, and sent him on his way with a tender kiss. Returning to his chair, he mournfully wrote a pessimistic modernist play and ate it without fanfare. In the opposite corner, Coleridge was talking animatedly on his mobile phone. Snapping it shut, he stormed across the floor. "Dammit! The Atkins account just fell through!" he raged.

"What's the Atkins account?" asked Brecht timidly, a pen up each nostril.

"Oh, I've no idea," said Coleridge, so airily that a ballon emerged from his ear. "I just like to occasionally shout that it's fallen through. It's a hobby."

"I thought poetry was your hobby."

"Oh no, poetry is my PASSION," corrected Coleridge genially, taking half an hour to punch Brecht repeatedly in the head for daring to say such a thing. "Poetry is my LIFE. I wrote one just the other day. It's about raccoons. Would you like to hear it?"

"I would rather be raped at gunpoint by a syphilitic anteater while a mountain lion slowly ate my head," said Brecht, with his usual suave Bavarian charm.

"Oh good, here it is then," Coleridge assumed a splay-legged stance, threw his head sideways and took on the facial appearance of a paralysed toad, his normal recitation pose. He began:

I have come, said the spider crab,
To bring you great news
News that will fill you with joy
For unto us a king is born
A great fat ugly dibbly boy

The spider crab proceeded to leap on the rocks
And do an amusing little dance
And all who saw him were sore amazed
And set fire to each other's pants

I have come, said the spider crab,
Not to abolish, but to complete,
To complete the undertakings of yore
Wackle wackle doodle, piffle goggle blee,
Slampitskin greddle weddle CAW!

Entirely spent, Coleridge spun around and shouted, "Lawks!" before collapsing on top of Brecht's meticulously constructed Lego pirate ship.

The next few hours were spent in hostile silence, Coleridge avoiding Brecht's gimlet gaze and Brecht tattooing Persian swearwords on his penis. The first to speak was Coleridge. He cleared his throat, using a catheter, and addressed his old friend in a high, reedy voice, apparently in an attempt to impersonate Glynis Johns.

"I saw Gerard Manley Hopkins the other day," he said.

"Oh yes," said Brecht. "How is he? Still a hopeless old drunk?"

"He's looking very well. Tanned. He just came back from Pakistan. He's got a girlfriend over there. Met her on the internet."

"Mein gott. How did he manage that?"

"Apparently she's morbidly obese, but very creative in bed."

"How so?"

"She makes cheese sandwiches in there. Got a jaffle maker hooked up to the electric blanket. Hopkins says it's divine. Anyway, they were going to be married, but they were caught having sex and she was stoned to death." Coleridge demonstrated how it would have looked like with a short and amusing mime.

"That's terrible," Brecht put on his "sad" hat, to indicate that he was sad. "How's he taking it?"

"Oh, he said c'est la vie."

"He's philosophical about it?"

"No, he just likes to prove he can speak French. Anyway, that's not what I wanted to tell you. Hopkins took me aside in the tavern and told me in confidence that he recently realised he doesn't actually like dappled things at all."

Brecht nearly leapt out of his seat, and then nearly had a stroke, and very nearly exploded. "WHAT?"

"He said, and I quote, Dappled things, they're rubbish, innit?"

Brecht fanned himself with a nearby otter. "I don't believe it, I just...all these years, he's been living a lie."

"He told me not say anything, he said it might ruin the Welsh economy." Brecht nodded. This was typical. Gerard Manley Hopkins was a talented silversmith, a competent monk, and a wonderful lover, but if he had one weakness, it was his obsession with the Welsh economy. If he had two weaknesses, it was the hideous growths the sides of his head which made him look like an eland. But Brecht tried not to think about that. It reminded him too much of the pain he carried inside him every day. On an impulse, he decided to confide in Coleridge.

"Samuel," he said, haltingly, "I have a great pain inside me, and I think it is something you need to know. Es tut mir leid, but I did something a few Jahren back which I am not particularly proud of."

"Is this the Vin Diesel thing again?" said Coleridge, yawning with barely disguised contempt and a completely disguised midget submarine.

"No, no, it's much worse," said Brecht, crying into his cornflakes.

"Where did you get those cornflakes?" roared Coleridge, his anger as sudden and terrifying as a summer's day or a delicate dandelion, perhaps even more so. Certainly more sudden than a dandelion. It is in fact difficult to imagine in what way a dandelion could be thought of as "sudden".

Brecht shrunk into his seat. "I bought them earlier."

"GIVE THEM TO ME!" screamed Coleridge, in a blind, unstoppable rage, hurling books and pot plants at his hapless Teutonic chum. Brecht cried and cried, shrieking for him to stop, promising him everything, and in the end, as always, it ended in a sweaty, passionate embrace, naked on the floor, exploring each other's bodies with remorseful passion. "I'm sorry," sobbed Coleridge. "Cornflakes, they just..."

"I know," Brecht soothed, stroking his hair. "They set you off." Indeed they did. Coleridge and cornflakes had had an uneasy relationship, ever since at the age of six he had watched his mother run off with Will Kellogg, and his father run off with a bag of pears, only to return shamefaced and admit he did not actually know the way to his car. From that day forth, young Samuel's father had forced him to eat cornflakes three times every day, for the next sixteen years. "We must confront our demons!" Coleridge senior would screech maniacally, shovelling more crunchy golden leaves of doom into his son's bowl. "Strength through indomitability! Here, have some milk!" he would hiss, throwing carton after carton at the boy's head. Poetry was Samuel's way of dealing with the nightmarish reality of his childhood. At that stage, he didn't actually write poetry, but he had sneaked a copy of the collected works of Emily Dickinson from the school storage cupboard, and every night, he would take the precious volume from his bedside table and lie beneath the covers, thrilling at the strange new emotions which awoke in him when he rubbed the book vigorously between his thighs. Coleridge often described those times as the happiest of his life, although when pressed further he would crumble and admit that in fact they were unspeakably awful and he wanted to kill himself whenever he thought of them. Eventually, his mother had returned, full of exciting stories about high society in Vienna, flaunting her newly acquired oboe-playing ability and kicking Samuel in the stomach at regular intervals. His father degenerated further and further into madness, until ten years ago he had planted himself in the backyard and begun to produce figs from his armpits.

"Anyway," said the undercover poet, covering his nakedness with his trenchcoat, the warm afterglow making him strangely shy, "what was it you wanted to tell me?"

"Oh yes..." Brecht hesitated. Did he really dare? He thought back to his days in the hospital in Munich. Proper equipment had been in short supply. He hadn't flinched at the thought of using a harpoon to remove a patient's spleen, even when it was completely medically unnecessary. He could not flinch now. He took a deep breath and inhaled a bee.

Five hours later, in his hospital bed, Brecht looked up at the swarthy Adonis holding his hand, smiling and reciting a new epic poem about parsnips, and realised how lucky he was to have found a true friend. Across the ward, some head trauma patients were performing an impromptu rendition of The Threepenny Opera. Bertolt smiled indulgently. Let them have their fun. After all, who's to say Mack The Knife wouldn't be better with several verses concerning a mischievous juggling rabbit? Not he, that's for sure. "Nicht mich," he murmured sleepily. "Nicht mich."

And now, the secret didn't seem so terrible and daunting after all. "Sam," he said, trying to focus on Coleridge, the task made difficult by the poet's insistence on running back and forth past the bed at high speed, squeaking loudly. "Sam, I'm ready to tell you what's been bothering me for so long..." he coughed, for no reason. "You...you remember New year's Eve 1946?"

"How could I forget?" grinned Coleridge, swigging from his Gatorade bottle.

"Yes, well...after the party was over, you'd fallen asleep on the couch."

"Ha ha ha," said Coleridge in an oddly unconvincing manner. "I was so drunk. Whatever possessed me to liquefy those Jessie Matthews records?"

"Yes, well...while you were asleep, I sort of...."

"Yes?" Coleridge was nude with anticipation.

"I set you up on your hands and knees, dressed you as a Dalmatian and took photos of you with Kurt Weill's testicles in your mouth."

Coleridge gazed levelly at Brecht. "I see."

"Then Kurt played the piano and we wrote a song together called Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Big Flabby Girlie Man, Let's All Shove Things Up Him'" Brecht looked carefully at his friend. "It went to number one in Japan, it made us both millionaires. Every night I call him up and we laugh at how much fun it was to humiliate you because you're so stupid and we hate you so much. We did that last night for hours. I hope you're not angry about this."

In many ways, this marked the beginning of the deterioration of their friendship.

An Article Which You Will Not Find In The Daily Telegraph

not by Gemma Jones

WASHING machines, microwave ovens, DVDs and plasma TVs are among a 60-item welcome gift pack for asylum seekers offered rent-free homes in the community due to their lack of anywhere else to go. The revelation is yet another indication of Australia's fundamental decency and has led to claims that the federal government is "kind".

To fulfil a promise to move an influx of families out of detention, the Gillard Government is now fitting out each home with up to $10,000 worth of furnishings and electronics in order that the asylum seekers may have a basic level of comfort and something akin to a decent quality of life as they wait to find out whether they'll be allowed to continue their lives in a free country or be returned to the terrible hardship they came from.

They are given food hampers upon arrival at rented homes where they wait for their claims to be processed - this is due to the biological fact that human beings require food in order to sustain life.

The revelation comes as border protection authorities reveal they have intercepted two more boats carrying asylum seekers overnight, five boats in the past week - testament to just how great a nation Australia is, that so many people wish to make a home here - and middle - and high-income families find themselves so comfortably well-off that their greatest concerns are cuts to private health rebates and the impact of the carbon tax.

Everything from beds, fridges, mattresses and lounges to an alarm clock radio, clothes hangers and containers for biscuits are being bought in a "household goods formation package" that contains more than 60 items, which should allow the asylum seekers, during their temporary stay in this emergency accommodation, to live their lives free of unnecessary hardship and in the manner which Australians, residents of the "lucky country", generally take for granted. In particular, the beds will allow them to sleep somewhere other than the floor, the fridges will allow them to not eat rotting food, the mattresses will mean the beds actually function as beds, the clock radios will allow them to tell the time and listen to music, the clothes hangers will allow them to hang up their clothes, and the biscuit containers will give them a place to store biscuits should they be fortunate enough to acquire any. Community groups describe these arrangements as "the least we could do, really".

It includes a television at a minimum size of 53cm, which is a small size for a television and will permit the asylum seekers to enjoy the fairly basic privilege of watching TV. "Of course the houses have TVs in them," said a department spokesperson. "That's just a no-brainer."

An average family of five is eligible for $7100 worth of goods, while larger families of more than nine people can be provided with up to $9850 in furnishings, the Opposition has revealed after Senate estimates this week which showed just how remarkably cheaply the government is able to provide for people in need.

Special consideration is given to providing computers, internet access, mobile phones, bikes, skateboards, rollerblades, iPods, games consoles and sewing machines, a fact lauded by both sides of politics as a wonderful demonstration of our society's capacity for compassion and willingness to lend a helping hand.

There are 97 homes being rented in Sydney suburbs - and funded by taxpayers - at an average cost of $416 a week with families arriving to a hamper of bread, butter, milk, eggs, other "essentials" and cleaning products, as would be expected for anyone expected to live under these circumstances having come from the Third World with few possessions, and being forbidden to seek employment. (Ed. - remove quote marks around "essentials" before publication: there doesn't seem to be any reason for them to be there)

Families with a baby - which can be quite expensive and for whom basic levels of care are non-negotiable given they are innocent infants with no ability to care for themselves or choice in where they are taken - can access a $750 pack of basic supplies. Phone and electricity connections are also paid for, obviously, because this is Australia.
The assistance is on top of free doctors' visits, dental care, pharmaceuticals, education and payments of up to $433.25 a fortnight to sustain asylum seekers unable to work. These elements are included mainly in order to prevent asylum seekers dying, giving their children a decent chance at a good life, and to make sure they are not treated any differently to those who via pure chance were born here.

Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the revelations would delight families who considered themselves incredibly lucky to have nothing worse in their lives than struggling with cost of living rises.

"The cost of Labor's protection of vulnerable people is a source of pride for every Australian family lucky enough to not only be allowed to live in this wonderful country, but to also have the privilege of being able to provide, through their tax dollars, a little bit of succour and dignity to those less fortunate. What a great society we have built, that while so many around the world have real problems, Australian families are able to debate the carbon tax and private health insurance rebate, secure in the knowledge these are the worst things that will happen to them," Mr Morrison said.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the government was being responsible in providing asylum seekers with basic provisions while their claims were being assessed.
"We have a duty of care to provide essential items such as cleaning supplies, furniture and bedding, and baby items such as prams, for vulnerable asylum seekers in community detention," a spokesman said, to polite applause from the assembled press who wondered why there was a need to state this rather obvious fact out loud.

"People do not keep the goods, they remain in a house when a family moves out and are used by the next people who move in. These people are not allowed to work," the spokesman added, causing the press to hurriedly rewrite a number of stories that could have inadvertently misled their readers on these significant points, especially in regard to the costs involved and the asylum seekers' lack of options.

Asylum seekers late last year were asking for housing, visas and internet access when they arrived, in what experts described as "a fairly obvious development".
For more than five years the Red Cross has been contracted to provide the packages, but the numbers of people in community housing has exploded since Mr Bowen pledged in October 2010 to move most children out of detention, leading to widespread compassion and decency breaking out across the country.
"They are basic supplies, we are not talking about luxury," Red Cross spokesman Michael Raper said, an assertion backed up by every piece of evidence so far uncovered by anyone anywhere.

Suburban mum Rhonda Bailey, 44, a married mother of three with a mortgage, said, "Isn't it great that these people who've had such a hard time may be able to enjoy all the advantages that allowed me to build my comfortable life? And it's even better that we are not only wealthy enough, but kind, decent and humanitarian enough, to offer them a little bit of comfort and respite while they wait to find out what happens to them. It's just fantastic that we live in a country where those who come here in search of a better life, no matter who they are, will be treated with dignity and respect, and we don't have to deprive them of the basics out of penny-pinching or just plain prejudice.

"It makes you proud to be an Australian, doesn't it?"