He didn’t want to be President. Not if President means making sticky decisions, and being blamed for things (most of the world calls this ‘adult responsibility’), and being woken at four to read the papers. What he wanted was to be Mr President. Good morning, Mr President! He wanted to star in the biggest ticker-tape […]
The narrative of the powerful older woman in our society is a dangerous and poisoned one. She is the evil stepmother, the wicked witch. Past her breeding prime and she knows too much. So if she survives dunking and burning, this must be proof of her ‘pure evil.’ Meanwhile, the macho demagogues, some of whom […]
Big guy who shouldered in front of me to the vegetable stall on the markets kept picking up and fondling everything, laying things lingeringly down. In between handling the produce he was adjusting his own paper bag, at the crotch, for greater personal comfort. I avoided all the produce his omnivorous fingers had touched but […]
Some lines from a musical we are idly writing, online, a bunch of strangers, in response to one of the many memes celebrating the second candidate’s atrocity, which says: super callous fragile racist extra braggadocious Which I realise also works as: super callous fragile ego sexist braggadocious So far we have: ….his ideas and attitudes […]
Good god, I just voted. By email in Queensland, which is currently in the grip of a miniature narcissist who’s funding his own higher-than-POTUS salary increase with cuts to essential services. It took me 45 minutes on the phone yesterday to organise and an hour today to complete the forms and scan and mail them […]
A federal election approaches Germany, they’ve a Conservative government to vote back in. It’s an unequal fight: the sitting Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is called “Mummy” by the press and one of her would-be opponents is the Pirate Party (they’re good, but they’re goofy). This town is festooned with candidates’ placards. Barely a one unadorned with […]
Voted! Gosh it feels wonderful. For those few minutes with ballot paper in hand, we are utterly sovereign, entirely free. It turned out something of an odyssey to get there: which feels also appropriate and fitting. So many people have died for our right. I got sidetracked, absorbed in some other work I was doing, […]