Category Archives: Things that make me laugh

One of the little benefits of being the author of a blog, as distinct from being a reader, is that you can see how many people have looked at your blog and the search words that brought them to your page.  Reader, you are one of a very select group, let me reassure you.

I was amused to see that one of the searches yesterday was “horny mothers in Melbourne”. What induced them to come to me for THAT?????  Much to my amusement, they were directed to my posting on taking my cracked and horny heels for a pedicure as a Mother’s Day present- yep, horny, Mothers, Melbourne- that would do it!

I see that the Royal Australian Mint is considering a general overhaul of Australia’s coinage.  Now, I reckon that the most dangerous job in the world must be The Depictor of the Queen’s Jowls.  We started off with a yoof-ful Queen in 1953, then every 10 or 20 years there’s an update.  Just how would you present the Queen with these depictions of increasing decrepitude?  Present them early in the morning before she’d worked up her grumpiness for the day?  Perhaps slip them to her late at night after a G&T or two?  Would you make a selection of jowls and ask her to select one?

Apparently there have been five depictions of the Queen on the obverse of Australian coins.  In 1953, the year of the Queen’s coronation,  the effigywas designed by Mary Gillick. ‘Effigy’ is the Royal Mint’s term, not mine.  I thought that an effigy was something you burnt.

Gillick design 1953

My! She’s looking very French Revolutionary there.  Or perhaps Greek Goddess.  Then, with the introduction of decimal currency in 1966 a new effigy designed by Arnold Machin was used.  Apparently her portrait always faces to the right to conform with a convention, started with Charles II that the new monarch’s portrait would face in the opposite to their predecessors.  As well it might in his case.

Machin design 1966

The Machin image was designed for the British Royal Mint, and approved in 1964.  It did nearly 20 years service until the new Raphael Maklouf design was used in 1985.  Apparently 17 artists were invited to submit designs, and a set by Maklouf was selected. (Wonder what happened to the other 16 designers?)  A ‘revised’ model was accepted by the Queen for circulation.

Raphael Maklouf design 1985

The Ian Rank-Broadley design of 1988 is a brave one.  Is that a hint of jowl we detect?   She only had a choice of three designers this time!

Ian Rank-Broadley 1988

And then, finally, an even braver man- Vladimir Gottwald. This design is only seen on the Royal Visit 50 cent coin.   He’s our very own man this time- the first Australian designer since Sir Edgar Bertram Mackennal to have his design on the observe of an Australian coin.  Do you like her crown?  It’s called “Girls of Great Britain and Ireland” , a wedding gift from Queen Mary in 1947.  Good to see that the old “girl” is bringing out the old stuff.

Vladimir Gottwald 2000

And so, a new Queen effigy perhaps?   A poisoned chalice if ever there was one, I reckon….

Some old Queens might serve as inspiration….

My daughter was appalled at the state of my feet.  “They’re all horny, Mum!!”  Really?  I thought that everybody had callouses on their heels with very painful cracks that the dirt tends to get into.  Does not everybody go to sleep in their socks with the Eulactol Heel Balm when it all gets too sore?  Is it not normal to snag one’s  rough heels on the sheets when one rolls over in bed?

Obviously not.  “I’m getting you a pedicure for Mother’s Day, Mum.  We’ll go together”.

That’s why I ended up in a salon  with my feet soaking in a footbath, gazing out at the shoppers walking past who very kindly averted their eyes from my discomfiture.  Lots of posters of rainforests, or pictures of beautiful thin young women advertising products I cannot pronounce.  On a shelf in the corner behind the cash register,  like a little shrine, there was a gold good-luck cat statue, raising its arm rapidly and methodically  in a Heil Hitler salute.

How curious.  I sat on a hyperactive chair that quivered and poked behind me: I’d no sooner think ” Mmmm, that’s rather nice” than it would go into malicious mode and start drilling into my shoulder blades, or squeezing my head.  How relaxed I must have looked,  my glasses jiggling up and down on my nose, with my neck thrust forward as some unseen monster mugged me from behind.

The young gel pulled up a little stool and sat beside the water bath. Ah, how good to see that our immigration and vocational training systems have worked together to  overcome the desperate shortage of people to do one’s feet.  And so well trained too- a wall covered in Diplomas! Your garden-variety brain surgeon surely could not be more credentialled.

Her inscrutable features barely moved as she pruned off the toenails, dug away in places I’ve never been able to reach with a small pick and then- ye gods!- pulled out a razor blade that she inserted into one of those lemon-zester grater things.

You know those chocolate curls you have on top of birthday cakes?  Well…..

What sort of scrub did I want? Berry and vanilla?  Lime?  Mango? Mint?  Decisions, decisions. Think I’ll go the berry and vanilla.  That will taste nice.  And then they put my feet into plastic bags with hot squishy liquid in them, that solidified around my feet.  “Now don’t move. Don’t go anywhere” she said.  As if.

So here I am, safely home, with lovely smooth feet that smell of berry and vanilla.  Actually, I think I might go again, next summer, when the beach and thongs are doing their worst and  the callous-crevices open up again.  Thank you, daughter.  A whole new world of indulgence has opened up for me.

When we are forced to grapple with the hydra of a government department, we are assured that it won’t be so bad because we can go to a one-stop shop.  This is a good thing, presumably.  No more traipsing from one bureaucracy to another, telling our pathetic little tale over and over again to a succession of nameless public servants.

But what won’t we get at the one-stop shop?  Why, one-size-fits-all. One-size-fits-all is a bad thing, presumably.  It flaps around you, engulfing you in one-sizeness and, truth be told, fits nobody.  Oh, no- we’re all special and different, and no one-size-fits-all for us!!

Personally, I am quite fond of the one-size-fits-all.  Being a woman-of-a-certain-age, and a woman-of-a-certain-size, it’s quite a relief to think that I, too, can wear the same one-size-fits-all outfit as a young gel should I wish so to do.  No  more struggling into fitting rooms bearing an armful of the same garment in an optimistic size 14, a grudging size 16 and a depressing size 18. Why no!  One-size-fits-all! If it doesn’t fit, sweetie, bad luck!

You couldn’t call me un-Orstrayian.

I always have a little browse through the Higher Education columns of the Career insert of The Age.  In an earlier life, I have worked in educational design at university and TAFE level, and I like to just keep my eye on what’s around.

Ah, here’s a job for a Senior Educator.

Senior Educator in hairdressing???  Not instructor, mind, but educator…

And the school of Hair Beauty and FLORISTRY??

Carmen Miranda, maybe.

Or perhaps a little topiary?