For a poet and a one-man band

And every stop is neatly planned.
For a poet and a one-man band. - Paul Simon, "Homeward Bound", 1966"

Second Avenue, June 2006

The MTA, the New York Transit Authority, has a novel way of squashing criticism, that I hate to say, must have been dreamed up by a woman.

The residents up New York's Upper East side are angry at the state of the sidewalk and bus services on Second Avenue. And rather than tackle the problem that has been going on for five years and will continue it seems for at least another five, the MTA has apparently sought to solve the problem by showing that it doesn't exist.

First the problem.

Every weekday morning, along with hundreds of others, I stand on Second Avenue waiting.

I hate to think of the millions or billions of dollars spent by the City of New York in lost productivity. Because time spent standing, waiting for a bus is time wasted. And there is an increasing amount of time now being spent by New Yorkers standing waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Five years ago we had bus shelters and space. Look at the photo above. I took it in June, 2006.

94th Street and Second 2006

And here's another, taken around the same time.

Those were the days. People living near 93rd and Second Avenue had a choice of the two bus-stops. Now we have one.

We, the locals, would not be peeved if we had to put up with the inconvenience for a year or two, but it has been six years to date and the end is not in sight. When will we have our sidewalks back? The latest news is that we MIGHT have them back in 2016, but seeing as the completion date has already been pushed back several times, I doubt it.

Look at the bus-stop we have now. One would think that in New York in 2011, that "temporary" should not mean ten years.

Same bus-stop, 2011

And to add insult to injury the number of buses servicing the area has been substantially cut. AND a new system has been put in place. There are now "Select" buses.

"Select" buses have flashing blue lights and do not stop every stop. "Select" buses need to have wide sidewalks where they stop as tickets must be purchased within one hour from machines on the sidewalk at the bus-stops.

I don't know what it is like to ride in a "Select" bus. That is because the sidewalk where I live is too narrow for the ticket machines. To get a "Select" we'd have to walk to either 103rd or 87th Street.

So every weekday morning I stand with a dozen or so other frustrated people, watching the Select buses fly by with their blue flashing lights. Last Tuesday I counted five Selects as I waited for our "Local" bus. The first two Selects had a few people in them. The next were virtually empty. Someone was counting the commuters hailing cabs. He got to eight and then our bus was in sight.

And now for the "solution".

A few weeks ago, as a result of the many complaints it seemed we had achieved a reaction. Perhaps something was going to be done. For one morning as we took our seats on the bus we saw a pretty young woman holding a clipboard. She was from the MTA and was surveying the Second Avenue commuters.

Lining up for the bus - Even New York kids wear black

I watched her and listened. She was like a breath of fresh air as she approached the commuters, selecting the least hassled and ... was I imagining it .... preferring middle-aged males. I listened to her questions, and their answers.

"What do you think of the bus service?" she asked sweetly.

"Oh it is wonderful," came the replies.

"Did you have to wait long this morning?"

"Oh no, hardly at all!"

"Has the service gotten better or worse?" she smiled.

"Oh better, definitely".

Ad so on ad nauseam and nauseatingly.

The women next to me sneered. "Listen to the old fools," she grumbled.

I however, was impressed. I have great admiration for the use of creativity in solving problems.

Suddenly a majority of the people were contented with the lack of service . The men were happy.

Even I was happy. I admired the solution. And I liked the young woman.

Plus, she had a lovely smile.

On Being Self Referential

A word that describes itself is called an autological word (or autonym). This generally applies to adjectives, for example sesquipedalian, but can also apply to other parts of speech, such as TLA, as a three-letter abbreviation for three-letter abbreviation". - Self Reference.

I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. - Woody Allen

Self Portrait at Tiffany's

I have always been a bit vague when it comes to the exact meaning of self-referential. I think it used to refer pretentiously to works of art that created by people who are only interested in themselves. An Asperger's kinda thing ... Come to think of it, it is perhaps an "it's all about me" existentialist thing - a New York thing even. I wear black because I am ... but I digress.

I came to be reflecting on the meaning of "self referential" last Saturday round noon, when my cell phone rang. It was a stranger on the other end of the line. And the conversation went something like this.

Stranger: "Hello, is this 646 XXXXXX?"
Me: Yes"
Stranger: "Well you have taken my number. My number is 646 XXXXXX."
Me: "No, I have had 646 XXXXXX for eight years. It is MY number."
Stranger: "No it is mine and now we both have the same number and I just this minute dialled it."
Me: "Well, in that case, why aren't you answering your call?"
Stranger: "Because YOU picked up!"
Me: "OK. I'll hang up now, and you can call it again and I won't pick up this time and you can talk to yourself."
Stranger: "OK!"
[CLUNK]
A few seconds later, my phone rings. I ignore it and play Angry Birds on my iPad.

A Touch of Color at Dumbo

The ringing eventually stops and I forget about the whole bizarre thing. But about an hour later the phone rings again and I pick it up. It is the stranger back again.

Me: "Please stop calling me. I am busy."
Stranger: "But you have my number."

And so on ....

In the end he went away, but I just couldn't resist. I checked my call log and clicked on the number that had last called me. The stranger's number. No answer. "It's me," I voice mailed, "have you figured out your phone number yet, or am I YOU?".

Some time later Mr Stranger actually called again, but this time, to apologize.

Apple Store, Fifth Avenue

Meanwhile I am left self-referentially confused, and no wonder. For lately I seem to be surrounded by some very strange people!

I have a native New Yorker friend who thinks she is the only person in New York dressing in black - my Moon Follows Me" friend.

I have a stranger who thinks if he dials my number he is calling himself.

But perhaps the most strangest is my non-existential referential neighbor who recently bought an iPad 2. Worried that a man she knows might mess with it when she went away on vacation she hid it. Somewhere. Where, she has no idea.

Two Aussie New Yorker Philosophers

If can be proven, as some philosophers think, that an object needs a relationship to an observer for it to exist, does this mean that it ceases to exist when no one can see it? Certainly my friend, let's just call her Jay, left her iPad alone in her room, and while she was away in China it ceased to exist - for her, anyway. What is odd however that it still doesn't exist and she's she's back.

I think I'll put Jay in touch with the man who doesn't have the same phone number as me. He can help set up her non-existent iPad with MobileMe so that she can find it next time she loses it.

Stay tuned ...

Dance for Joy

Tim (center)

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day - Mary Hopkin 1968

One day we'll all be oral history.

But until then, let us not forget.

The sixties, the seventies. And perhaps even the eighties.

Listen.

"Changes", by Tim (Juliff).

Forgive me for being a trifle nostalgic. I have my reasons.

Recently I have been put in touch with a number of my late brother's friends. Of course, there've been there all the time. As have I. But sometimes, unfortunately, it takes a death ...

Never really close, but never really far apart either, we went our separate ways, Tim and I. But at heart we were at one. Children of the sixties. Flower children. Well, more Tim than me, but even me, the older sister.

Kate (Taj Mahal)

Tim's not here any more. But his friends are, and there are so many of them. Some I remember. Heather for example, who turned up at our mother's house with a hundred daffodils stuck in her gumboots. He'd met her in Melbourne's City Square. And Frances from Canada, who named her son after my brother. "Timothy". And so many others. Peaceful and serene. Or noisy and confronting. Heaps of people who willingly accepted me into their lives.

Like so much in life, we accept it when it is there. A given. A thing appreciated but at the same time taken for granted.

And then suddenly it is taken away. And we who are left behind realize what we have lost.

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco 1976

How come I didn't know that my brother was part of Obama Sign Watch? Or that he'd played at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco? I'm finding out just now, from those who knew the Tim that I didn't inquire into, the Tim who I didn't - for whatever reason, know about - as they come forward. Like me. Missing him.

I wonder what else I missed out on? What else did I overlook, thinking it was always going to be be there?

The flower children of last century.

Yes, we thought it would never end.

Let's savor what there is left.

And get by, with a little help from our friends.

All things must pass.

The Moon Follows Me

I used to believe the moon was following me. When I was in the second grade, I was taught a little about the moon, but still didn't believe it. A reader of I Used to Believe - the Childhood's Belief Site

Moon Over Melbourne

She dresses in black ...
Last week I wrote about New Yorkers dressing in black. Well, it was about more than that - but also about the dressing-in-black-thing and New Yorkers ....

And then it just so happened a few day's after I published my "She dresses in black", that a friend of mine, Cordelia, who happens to be a New Yorker, and who - well it goes without saying, dresses in black - called me.

She was so excited, she related, when she saw the title of my latest post, "She dresses in black". "Oh I was just so SURE," she prattled, "that it was about me! I dress in black and it is my FAVORITE color and so I thought ...."

Hmmm. What's that word? "Chutzpah"? So New York. Almost as New York as dressing in black. I was forced to wonder - hadn't my New York friend noticed that she was not alone in her shades-of-gray outfits? Did she somehow see the rest of New York as being in color? If she did she'd be, as New Yorkers put it, "very unique". And we all know, there's nothing unique about being "very unique". In any case, had my friend not noticed the 18.9 million other people wandering about, "very uniquely", in shades of gray?

She did of course realize, upon reading "She dresses in black", that as in the Beatles' song, "Baby's in Black", there ARE other people in this world, who dress, "in black." However I suspected that she was being modest and uncharacteristically non-confrontational, in agreeing that Lennon and McCartney had someone else in mind when they wrote the song.

I should have known better.

Our conversation drifted. We started to talk about next weekend - Memorial Day weekend. "It's my birthday that weekend," I managed to interject. "We could have dinner."

"Yes let's," she said. "Now I will only go to Tribeca. I REFUSE to go elsewhere. You'll just have to get a hundred subways and meet me there, in Tribeca. No way am I going to the upper east side!"

U-huh? The birthday girl lives on the upper east side! I try to point this out and am answered with a laugh. "But I don't want to go to the upper east side. Didn't I just say?"

Now, I have a number of friends in New York - well TWO at least apart from Cordelia - who have indicated that "we must do something on your birthday". But they are from another country - Miami, Florida and Perth, Australia. That is - they are NOT from - New York!

So ... I reiterated to Cordelia - New-Yorker-Cordelia, "There are some nice restaurants on the upper east side, and unlike Tribeca, not so far from Perth-person and Florida-Not-New-York-person. Or from me."

Cordelia answered in a flash. She was SHOCKED. "Oh but I won't go anywhere but Tribeca!" she New-York-yelled. "I just will NOT go to a boring place!"

"But it is about MY birthday," I protested. To no avail. "But I ONLY go to Tribeca!" Cordelia continued to insist.

You can take the gal out of Australia, but you can't take Australia out of the gal. I remembered my heritage and refused to give up. So "Hey," I said, becoming uncharacteristically assertive. "This is about 'ME!' NOT you!".

It was then that I got the idea. "I'm going to BLOG THIS!" I asserted.

I could hear the smugness on the line. Cordelia was VICTORIOUS. I'd paid her a compliment. I'd acknowledged her New York-ness. Her "her-ness". She was so proud.

The moon was following her.

She dresses in black

She thinks of him and so she dresses in black,
And though he'll never come back, she's dressed in black.
Oh dear, what can I do?
Baby's in black and I'm feeling blue,  - Lennon McCartney 1965

I live in New York. New York, where you can wear anything you like. As long as its colour is a shade of gray. Which is a GOOD thing. Or is it?

Me and Tim - Just out of the schoolyard!

I never really took much notice of it - the color thing. Except as a way to identify the U.S. tourists  that is. In their vibrant pinks, yellows and lime greens. Walking three abreast. Slowly. Encumbering the sidewalks.

But recently, wearing black has been on my mind. Nothing to do with New York, or with tourists from Dallas and Cleveland ...

You see, recently I lost my brother. My baby brother. At 61 yes, he was and still is, my baby brother. It was not the first family death to hit me. My mother died when I was in America. I wrote about my experience in I Haven't Always Swum in this Water. And my father died an expat, in New Zealand - when I was still living in my native land, Australia.

One expects one's parents to leave. But not so a younger brother. Which has led me to have to cope with and think about, grieving. Grieving for the loss of someone too young to go.

The hardest thing about such grieving - well maybe not the hardest, but it's up there - is having no one around to talk to about it, no one  who is fair game, no one who could be expected to understand. Because those people who would understand - those who would "get it" - are also grieving, and the last thing one would want is to burden them still further.

I don't know. I don't have a grievance councellor. I haven't bought a book on how to grieve. But I do know that there's something missing. It isn't the book. It isn't the councellor.

What is missing is the attribution. The proclaiming. The thing that people did centuries ago, when they donned the black arm-bands, the widows' black. The announcement that - "I am grieving". A way of telling the world, "I am in grief".

In this modern world we are all expected to "carry on". ASIF! A few days off work. Organizing the funeral. Talking to family and friends. The obituaries. The service. And then ... it is - "back to normal".

Except it isn't. It is pretend.

And so I am glad I am in New York. Well, sort of. I can wear black and proclaim my grief. But who will notice? I'm just one of the crowd. My grief is a fashion statement to those who do not know me. But to those others?

From  now when I look at my fellow black-clad New Yorkers, I'll wonder. Are they like me, grieving? Or are they just dressing in the New York shades of gray, the New York  uniform?

For me the black is a proclamation of my grief.  Yes, last  month I lost my brother Tim. A person whose only offering to this world was "love". That was his ideal. His hope.  But I suppose that in reality he was just like all of us - doing his best; nothing special.

And I suppose that is what it is all about. Living life truthfully. Nothing special.

RIP Timothy John. (1950 - 2011)

The True Story of Men in Dresses

Such is life. Ned Kelly's last words before being hanged

Come, all my hearties,
we'll roam the mountains high,
Together we will plunder,
together we will ride.
We'll scar over valleys,
and gallop for the plains,
And scorn to live in slavery,
bound down by iron chains - The Wild Colonial Boy

Kelly Territory

I am currently reading True History of the Kelly Gang by fellow Australian New Yorker, Peter Carey. I'm finding it disappointing - heavy going, at times annoying - written as it is in the style of a dyslexic semi-literate, full of unnecessary abbreviations and ungrammatical sentences. I'm all for realism but not at the expense of readability ...

But I have plodded on, determined to finish it. And I've learned at least one factoid for my efforts - where and when Australian men started dressing up as women.

Ned Kelly of True History of the Kelly Gang, was the leader of a bush-ranger gang in Victoria Australia in the late 1900s. He is viewed by Australians as either a criminal or a hero, depending upon political predilection. He is the subject of legends. He was hanged on 11 November 1880 at the Melbourne Gaol for the murder of a policeman.

Sidney Nolan - "Ned Kelly", 1946

Kelly wasn't the first bush-ranger to be admired for his exploits. Before him a number of first and second generation Irish Australians were popular for their activities especially those showing contempt for the "English" and the establishment as represented by the courts, police and landowners - the privileged "squatters".

Kelly has become part of Australian culture, a sort of Robin Hood, epitomizing the underdog. Even the date of his death, November 11 has become important in Australian history. November 11 1918, official end of World War I. November 11 1975, the sacking of Australia's Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam by Elizabeth Queen of England's representative John Kerr.

And paintings. The most famous being those by Australian artist Sidney Nolan. In most of these Kelly is shown in his now iconic "armor".

A child's depiction of a bush-ranger called 'Khat'

Most Australian children grew up hearing about bushrangers and the Kelly Gang. It was essential reading in primary school.

What is not so generally known however is the cross-dressing behaviour of at least one member of the Kelly gang, Steve Hart. Movies about the Kelly gang do not show this aspect of bush-rangers' lives but apparently Hart was not alone in his cross-dressing behavior, which included riding his horse side-saddle. Earlier, in 1835, escaped convict, Edmund Carmen,was caught by police in countryside near Wollongong dressed in a woman's gown and cape. He was found guilty of improper conduct, given 50 lashes, and sent back to Sydney, being ordered never to return.

Nowadays people are used to seeing Australian men in drag. The 1995 film, "Priscilla Queen of the Desert brought to world attention the high profile enjoyed by drag queens in Sydney. And of course Australia's most famous cross-dresser, Dame Edna Everage has been camping it up for decades. More recently Chris Lilley plays a Year Eleven snobby/bitchy girl called Jai'me in the Australian TV comedy series, "Summer Heights High".

Sidney Nolan, "Steve Hart", 1945

I'd seen Nolan's painting of the Kelly Gang's Steve Hart, but until I started reading Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang I'd not been aware or the origin of the bush-ranger dressing-up-as-women thing. According to Carey, and a number of other sources I've since googled, it all harks back to the "Molly Maguires." - an organization of Irish miners. They were was dubbed the "Molly Maguires," after a group of Irish peasants who dressed up as women to antagonize their landlords.

Why they did this is unclear, as is the origin of the name. But the practice was apparently common in Ireland with a number of groups, mostly peasants who were anti-authoritarian due to the tyranny of English landowners. Like Ned Kelly the "Molly Maguires" represented themselves as custodians of the community.

I sometimes wonder what Ned and his gang would think of modern Australians. Yes it's true, men still dress as women. But Australia is still not a republic. The "Colony" of New South Wales and the "Colony of Victoria" are no more. But just over 35 years ago the Queen of England's representative, on the anniversary of Ned Kelly's hanging, dismissed Australia's democratically elected government.

The outgoing Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam stood on the steps of Australia's Parliament House and said, "Well may we say "God save the Queen", because nothing will save the Governor-General!"

As Ned himself said, with his last breath, "Such is life".

The "Risen Christ" - Really Mister Ellis!

I sort of think I knew Bob Ellis when I was at uni in Australia, a hundred years ago. Well maybe not. But I know his name. He's an aussie journo and this week he commented on the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

He wrote for The Australian Broadcasting Commission - the 'ABC' - "How secretive and shabby the Americans are".

Ellis wrote, "There was a magical-realist quality to Osama Bin Laden. He looked like the risen Christ, and was often thought dead and came always back to life. His broadcasts needed always to be authenticated because the CIA wanted him dead. He’d humiliated them so enormously they kept saying he was dead. He was 'on dialysis', they asserted, wrongly; he had to be dead by now. 9/11 was so clever. He had to be dead.

And once again they are covering up, and in denial." - Bob Ellis 2011.

Well I dunno Bob. I haven't exactly followed your career. But I certainly don't remember hearing your outcry against the killings in Somalia or Darfur.

I read a bit of what you had to say about the Americans going after Bin Laden, Bob. But not all. I just couldn't hack the misinformation.You spoke of Osama's "widow". I wondered why you used the singular.

Yes I agree, in a perfect world, Bin Laden should have appeared in a world court to be tried as a killer. But the world isn't perfect. So let us weigh up the odds.

Do you prefer to lump the president of America, Barack Obama, with the likes of George W and even worse, Palin and Trump? Believe me, he is not of the same ilk.

Along with other Australians, I was here in New York when the Twin Towers went down on Bin Laden's orders, murdering nearly 3,000 of my fellow New Yorkers.

If I am going to be outraged at the killing of the guy who ordered this, at the guy who did not believe women should be educated and who thought gays are evil, then I am a fool.

The fact remains. Bin Laden wasn't a nice person and it is not a perfect world. If we want to be outraged there are plenty of people to outrage against. And Barack Obama isn't one of them.

He has my vote. And I am proud to say it.

Looking up acronyms and pretending to be pretentious

Looking up acronyms

Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, "oll wright," and there was also KY, "know yuse," KG, "know go," and NS, "nuff said."From "What does "OK" stand for?" The Straight Dope"

It was a simple enough question. I asked it on Facebook a few days ago. About something that has puzzled me for some time. "Why do Americans put heaps of "throw cushions" on beds when they are never used?"

It elicited this answer, "Colour, Kate. And the feeling of luxury that cushions bring. They are a PITA at bedtime."

Huh? "PITA"? WTF does "PITA" mean? I almost LOLed. Instead I looked it up in Urban Dictionary and found it means "Pain in the Arse".

Of course I'm none the wiser. I still don't know why Americans put cushions on beds when they are not to be used. For color? I don't THINK so. Why not simply hang them on walls. Or better still, buy a Joan Miró print. And where are you meant to put them when you go to bed? On the floor? Seems I'm never going to know.

But the non-answer did make me think. About looking up acronyms that is. I don't mind looking up a real word when I am not sure of its meaning, but an acronym?
Next there'll be dictionaries for icons. Take the floppy disc icon for "save". There's a debate going around the internet as to whether to keep it or not. Suggestions for all sorts of images to replace it have been put forward. I even read somewhere the suggestion of a damsel in distress icon...

Pretending to be Pretentious

We'd had nothing but a salad and dry bread in a hour and a half...is this true, Italian-leisurely dining? I seriously doubt it. From "Poor service...we were sadly disappointed - a review of Mario Batali's Manzo, New York

If you want to pay a lot of money for poor service and mediocre food I must recommend "Manzo" in Eataly. It's noisy, cramped and the waiters are arrogant. Or perhaps they are only pretending to be.

We didn't complete our meal. I sat with my "Arista" (I had to look it up - there's a culinary guide on the last page of the menu) while my husband waited for his antipasto to arrive. Too cool to write anything down, the waiter had incorrectly memorized the order and so I sat, eating alone. I put a bit of badly chopped fennel on my bread plate so Jo had something to accompany the Simboli Riesling - which at $44 for the bottle compared favorably with the value for bucks of the food.

We'd been at Manzo for about an hour when the first course arrived. The spaghetti al dente was al hard and when my husband complained he received not a replacement, not an apology, but rather an argument from the maitre de. We decided to leave. Why throw good money after bad? By this time we'd been there about one and a quarter hours. We were both hungry. We asked for the check. And got ... another argument. $128.17 is after all a bit to pay for a meal when you have to go elsewhere to actually eat.

After much fuss  the guy in charge agreed ... we only had to pay for the wine. At $88 I suppose we should have should have been relieved.

It was raining and dark as we made our way to the subway.

Thank you Manzo! What was meant to a pleasant evening in New York on my husband's last night here for two months - he's commuted back to OZ - was a complete disappointment.

I haven't had such bad service and waiter arrogance since I dined at Toto's Pizza restaurant in Melbourne Australia, a hundred years ago.

Stay tuned.

Paperback Writer

But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer. - "Paperback Writer", Lennon/McCartney, 1966

Bus People, New York

"When's Easter?" my husband who commutes to New York from Australia, asked me. I have to be understanding but at times it's hard.... "How would I know?" I replied. "I live in New York. I know when Passover is."

It can be so difficult - being bi-cultural. Not to mention being "old" and straddling two centuries.

For those of us who still remember last century, there is so much to take into account in communicating with the alphabet generations. I have to straddle not just continents and cultures, but generations, and at times it can be overwhelming.

Take reading for example. It seems like only yesterday when I aspired to having floor to ceiling bookshelves, a library room even, for my "books". And now ... well two years ago I gave most of my books way to charity. And by 2010 I couldn't even remember what it was like to read a dead tree book.

Subway People, New York

Then last week I couldn't get interested in any of the novels on my Kindle and I remember that a few months back I'd bought paper book, "Slammerkin" by Emma Donoghue. I had become addicted to Donoghue after reading "Room", and later her "The Sealed Letter". I could not get enough of her work and at the time Slammerkin was only available in the US in hardback, so I'd bought it.

The excitement of actually reading it faded rapidly after the ungainly thing arrived - so heavy, so last century - and so the hardcover sat on a shelf, gathering that very fine Manhattan dust that envelopes everything that stands still for more than a second.

I've been reading Slammerkin for several days now, and though it isn't a patch on "Room" it is still worth the effort of lugging it around town like someone from the 18th century where the novel is set.

I spoke to friend on the phone. "I am reading a paper book," I confided. "It's terrible!" She agreed. I have to physically bookmark when I leave off reading. There's no real-time dictionary. What IS a "slammerkin" anyway? I expect to be able to look up words anytime, any place, anyhow.

Cab People, New York

And it is SO heavy. And big. Last night coming home from work the bus was even more crowded than usual. Plus everyone was carrying umbrellas and we were all squashed together damply. I looked around. People were either staring ahead or texting or talking on cell phones. Or reading on electronic devices. And there I was taking up 1.2 bus seat spaces as my elbows were spread out in order that I was able to open my hardback volume.

I was forced to wonder what it would be like reading an illuminated manuscript while sitting on a plough in 16th century France, while everyone is  reading Aelius Donatus's "Ars Minor" in codex - courtesy of Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg.


Quelle horreur!

Hanging on the Telephone

Hey boy that's Balwyn calling
Get off the phone and get out of Balwyn - Skyhooks - "Balwyn Calling"

There's something about me and phones. I grew up in phone-less houses and didn't live anywhere with a phone until I was about 34.

First I didn't have a phone as my mother only earned half the wage of a man because until the seventies, women were not considered to be equal in Australia. After I left home I didn't have a phone because I was a poor university student living with other poor university students. And then it was because I was doing the post-university Australian thing of traveling around the world.

And then I married the-man-who-doesn't-believe-in-washing-machines-or-phones ... Ten more phone-less years went by until we divorced and I had the phone put on.

Of course now I have several phones but still I seem to experience phone weirdness. Take today for example, when my friend Samantha called. My Australian friends call me and ask me to call them back, as it costs me not a cent, and overseas calling is still relatively expensive from Australia. "It's Samantha please call me back," she said.

I never remember my friend's phone numbers and usually just look them up on whatever electronic device is closest to me. But this time I was feeling lazy so asked Samantha for her number. She rattled off a number and I wrote it down on a piece of paper, then dialed it. An elderly gentleman with an Australian accent answered. He appeared to be deaf. He certainly wasn't Samantha and I just didn't have the energy to explain that someone had given me a wrong number. So I just hung up on him and looked up Samantha's number on my computer. It was nothing like the one she'd given me.

So I called her back, and told her she'd given me the wrong number. I read it back to her.

That's not my number, what IS my number?" SHE was asking ME!!!

"I don't know," I snapped at her. "But you just called me," she answered in a puzzled voice.

Turns out she'd given me her parent's number. Yes, I have been told that I have unusual friends ...

In America when someone calls you, they just say, "It's me," when you answer the phone. Sometimes they don't even say that, but just launch straight in about whatever it is that they have phoned about. It isn't as bad now that caller-ID is commonplace, but this practice used to really annoy me way back a century ago.

It's almost as annoying as when you phone customer service somewhere and after an interminable wait on hold at last you get a human and are greeted with inane questions such as "Hello, my name is Brittany, how are you feeling today?"

Or people dining alone at restaurants who talk loudly into their cell phones. There's a wonderful Larry David "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode where Larry is sitting alone at a table with a diner also alone at the restaurant, conversing loudly into his cell phone. Annoyed Larry starts his own conversation with an imaginary companion. You can see it here on the left.

Or people with long recorded greetings on their voice-mail boxes. Or people who have their little kids give the greeting, punctuated with 'ums' and 'ahs' and giggles.

But perhaps the most annoying greeting I've heard about is one a friend told me about. She has a friend who never picks up and the recorded greeting is, "Hi, this is Jenny, please call me back."

Stay tuned.