Pinnipeds, Penguins, Cows, Poo-Poo, Einstein...

I am not surprised, as I’m sure neither are you, Dear Peruser, that it’s been a whole week since my previous blog update. Time goes by so quickly these days. I’m 34 years old and that cliché rings truer and truer every year. Oh, well. I have actually come to the conclusion, or to what seems like a supportable conclusion but may well just be a product of my own tiresome human arrogance, that I shall possibly die fairly young. I mean, is it likely that I will reach a colostomy-bag-usage age when I have Type 2 Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, and a weak immune system due to the constant stress of having fairly severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and the resultant colds, ’flues and such that regularly bombard this wretched body in which I reluctantly squat? I have my doubts. Oh, well. There is, perhaps, a tad of self-pity here but more so just a bluesy sense of acquiescence. Maybe this mood extends from the fact that I think I am now onto my third viral infection in a row. Yippee!

On a less disconsolate note, here be information on some stuff what I has been up to in the recent past:

On Sunday the 18th of March, Shantoozy and her sister, nicknamed Turkey by me, who had flown down from Brisbane to visit, went for a drive across to Phillip Island, which is about 90 minutes away, by car, from ol’ Melbourne town. Our main reason for this trip was to see the fairy penguins, small groups of whom come back home each dusk from being three weeks at sea. Actually, I should mention that these li’l blue-coated chirpers are now officially called ‘little penguins’ as that is more true to their Latin name but I prefer ‘fairy penguins’ as it seems to suit them more, and also because they are all homosexual, except that that is a falsity I just felt like inventing and the real reason is the former one, that it just seems to suit them more. Aaaaanyways...

Firstly, we went to the Nobbies, where you can look out to Seal Rocks, which is a small rocky clump of land jutting out of the ocean just off the western tip of Phillip Island, where Australian fur seals make their homes. You must look through a telescope for a good glimpse of the critters; you can also take a boat tour out to there, which actually leaves from Melbourne, and I shall certainly be doing that in the near future! Seals and sea lions are my favourite animals, and long have been. So endearingly clompy on land, and so sleek and nimble in the water. Intriguingly odd, those pinnipeds.

We then went to Summerland Beach to watch the penguin parade. Shantoozy had the intelligent idea of asking a ranger there where the best position to view the penguins from was and they replied, on the sand in the upper right corner of the second stall of seating. So we sat there on the beach and the penguins did their best Charlie Chaplin impressions within a metre of us. You might think me a sentimental old fluff (to borrow a phrase from another favourite comedian, Groucho Marx) but I found it very funny and sweet. Some of them had such bellies full of fish that they could barely ‘tramp’ the shingle! We trod the boardwalk then to watch them returning to their abodes in the dunes, and to their partners and young-uns waiting there to greet them. By the time we left, the hubbub of their squawking had grown quite outrageous.


In my photo here, you can see some of the penguins’ housing as constructed by researchers on the island; there are also natural homes all about in the dunes as built by the penguins themselves, of course.

This is one of the penguins who was already home, who I snapped as we made our way along the boardwalk down to the beach:


We ended up spending the night on the island at the Tropicana Motel, which is an interestingly named place considering that Phillip Island is just the place for strutting about in nothing but a lei and promptly dying from hypothermia!

The next day we checked out some secondhand shops, visited a winery for some wine-tasting, and drove across to Churchill Island (a little island nearby) where we encountered the grooviest cows I have ever seen. They are called Highland cows. Here is a photo Shantoozy took of one of the quirky chaps:


And here is a photo I took of one the Highland cows’ poo-poos:


Now, in more reportage of my recent activities:

My episode of the quiz show “The Einstein Factor” was recorded last Wednesday (21st of March). I’d arrived as merely a stand-by contestant in case one of the scheduled contestants proved unable to go on and was initially informed that all looked fine and that I wouldn’t be required to substitute for anybody that day but then, about half an hour before taping time, the situation changed and, lo and behold, my time was up, the plank was laid, and I was forced to walk …straight to the make-up department and to have a shave and to get a substitute shirt from wardrobe as the one I was wearing was too dirty-looking and crumpled – so, as you can tell, I had arrived well prepared that day! (The silly thing is, of course, that I had arrived all prim and proper on my previous days as stand-by!) I won’t say as yet whether or not I won but you can find out when it airs in June – on the 24th, I think – but I’ll let youse know for sure closer to the date. Man, did I ramble on in my responses to questions about myself and my subject of Sir Charlie! Not to mention the lacklustre puns I injected into the activities, now nestling on the ABC’s cutting-room floor, no doubt (I hope!). Well, actually, there’s one stupid comment I think they will have difficulty editing out, unfortunately. Oh, well. Still, it was good fun.

Last Saturday afternoon, Shantoozy and a uni. friend - whom I shall here refer to as Jafar, not that it probably matters but people like their privacy, and could anyone be blamed for wanting to distance themselves from connexion with an Edels like I? Of course they could! However, I am so dang interesting that I can stand alone, a veritable king among poo-bottoms (AKA mammals, like Highland cows, humans, Einsteins, etc.)! – , well, we went to see Melbourne Theatre Co.’s current production of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons”. Was it any chop? Make no mis-steak, it was enthusiastically devoured by me. It cost a mere $16.00 on a ‘day ticket’, where you turn up at the box-office at 9am on the morning you wish to see a play and hopefully are able to grab one of these tickets, which don’t provide the best seats in the house, of course, although they are perfectly acceptable to me at a discount of around a whopping $55.00! We were fortunate this day because we just managed to secure the last three el-cheapo seats for the day! It really is a very good play, too. My enjoyment was barely hindered at all by the actors’ affectations of United States of American accents – the lead male actor, John Stanton,’s was the most sustained and believable (even ol’ Yankee Shantoozy said it sounded genuine) and the lead female actor, Janet Andrewartha (of the soap, “Neighbours”), 's was the worst. This John Stanton chap’s performance was wholly excellent, in fact, and I certainly would like to check out some more productions in which he features. Or at least acquire video footage of him struggling to remove a too-long hair from his nostril - yes, he may prove entertaining doing even that. He may not, too, though. Why am I rambling on like this, in such a foolish and prosaic fashion? Is it in avoidance of composing a 1,250-word critique of Saturday’s production for my Theatre And Drama class? I would not dare to guess!