Apparently in the last few weeks hundreds of people in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne have been phoning authorities to tell them about UFOs flying overhead. The usual UFO flight path appears to be about the same as the night time flight path of an advertising blimp, which is illuminated at night.

Actually for a while I thought the blimp might be following me. The day before Grand Final day I spotted it from work, then on Grand Final day it flew right over me when I was walking down to the shops. And of course I saw it during the match coverage on TV, it was flying over the MCG. Yesterday it flew by the house, and earlier today it circled the building where I work a couple of times. Maybe if I buy their product they’ll leave me alone.

Anyway, can you imagine how bored you’d be if you were had to deal with the dozens of UFO calls every night?

"Hello, UFO hotline."

"There’s a UFO up there! Flying around!"

<sigh> "Oh really sir? Could you describe it?"

"It’s kind of… UFO shaped. Kind of round, but not round, kind of round but flattened… And sort of alienesque. You know Close Encounters?"

"Yep."

"Just like that. And it’s flying around at… oh, an incredible speed. Must be at least 200 K an hour, wouldn’t you say Diedre? Yeah."

"Really."

"Yeah. And it’s glowing. Does that mean they’re going to land and take over?"

"I’m not sure. Can you see any markings on it?"

"Yeah… I can just make out some markings… They look very alien, not at all like English of course…"

"Oh really? So nothing recognisable then?"

"Nope, not that I can see. Wait a minute, I’ll get my glasses. Oh wait! The letters are blurring… what do you call it, morphing… I can make something out… it says… Whi… tma… nsc… ho… co… lates… Hmm. Whi tma nsc ho co lates. What can it mean?"

<click>

"Hello? Hello? Omigod Diedre, the aliens have cut the line!"

This weekend half of Melbourne seems to have been holding festivals of one kind or another, with varying success.

The Lygon Street festa in Carlton is an annual event. The great thing about Lygon Street is its international flavour, which means you’re unlikely to run into Pauline Hanson there. If the Middle East crisis is really going to be solved, it won’t be in the UN, it’ll be in a place like Lygon Street. For the Festa the street itself is closed off and the people pour in to sample cuisine from all over the world, to ride various terrifying amusement rides and to buy over-priced novelty balloons.

Contrast this with the Malvern festival, which is a far less adventurous affair. It appears to involve nothing more than a free stagecoach ride up the main street (which isn’t closed off) and a few clowns wandering around doing face painting for the kids and handing out balloons. One shop on Station Street looked particularly pathetic, the only noticeable decoration being a single withered balloon in the doorway. No wonder there seemed to be even less people around there than on a usual Saturday.

We didn’t make it to the Elsternwick festival on Sunday, but I fail to see how any event that included ABC weatherman Edwin Maher’s pointer competition could be anything other than a triumph.

So now we’re on "daylight savings" time for the coming summer(*), which of course is the time of year when we don’t really need daylight savings, because the days are longer. What about if we stayed on summer time all year so we could get a little more light in the winter evenings? Is that such a crazy idea?

Either that or maybe that can organise some huge satellite mirror systems to kind of spread the sunlight around a bit in the winter.

(*) I know the vast majority of you realise that what you’re reading is from Australia. But it’s probably worth just gently mentioning it now, because occasionally I’ll get a mail or two asking why I keep misspelling "colour" or why I’m mixed up with my seasons or some other similarly insular comment.

Around some school crossings you’ll now see the acronym "SLLT" painted on the footpath, a reminder to Stop, Look, Listen and… umm… do something else I can’t remember at the moment, before you cross the street. It’s probably backed up by a primary school education campaign of some kind.

Wait a moment, "SLLT"?! I’m sure it’s obvious to you, as it is obvious to me that this is an easy target for graffiti. They might as well have put adverts in the papers invitingpeople to come along and add a line to the second L to make it "SLUT". Whoever made up the acronym and decided to decorate crossings with it must have been out of their minds.

A few weeks ago we found ourselves heading home after dinner at a friend’s place, a few hours spent stuffing ourselves with food and wine. Not too many hours though; with a small child called Isaac in tow it’s not quite so easy to paint the town completely red, so we were heading back to the station by about 9:30.

The seven minute train ride home was uneventful except for the three (count them, three) cops riding in our carriage, one of whom tried to make friends with Isaac. He gave back his best "deer caught in headlights" dazed, tired expression. Or perhaps it was his "who is this person, why is he wearing the funny clothes" expression.

For most of the time two of the cops were standing around looking like spare lemons while a third wrote out a ticket directed at some kid who had obviously been involved in a misdemeanour before we got on. Nothing too serious, since they didn’t appear to have shot him first.

What he did, we don’t know, though my assumption was that he was not very bright. I assume this because three uniformed cops getting into your carriage is probably enough warning most people stop whatever illegal activities they were doing and try to look innocent. It’s not like they’re sneaking up on you undercover, like the Met’s Gestap… oops, Revenue Protection Officers. Actually even they’re not hard to spot, they’re the only ones on the train outside peak hour wearing ties.

Perhaps the cops were there as part of The Met’s efforts to stamp out train surfing. Train surfing goes something like this:

1. Kid or kids get on train
2. Between stations, kid or kids climb out onto roof because they think they’re in one of those western movie chase scenes
3. Kid attempts to spray name on roof of moving train, and/or attempts to move to another window or door to climb back in
4. Kid either (a) over balances and hits the ground at 80Kph, (b) gets kersplatted on overpass (c) gets fried on 750 volt overhead wire or (d) gets knocked off the side by a stanchion or another train
5. Kid either is (a) seriously injured and appears on the TV news the next day telling others not to do it, but they do anyway, or (b) dies, thus increasing the city’s average IQ.

So, where is the problem, you might ask? Natural selection at work, isn’t it? Absolutely. Just a shame it’s our taxes that end up paying for them to scrape the bodies off the tracks. And it’s probably not much fun for the train driver.

Perhaps an advertising campaign is needed, a bit like the highly successful "If you drink then drive you’re a bloody idiot" slogans we have here in Victoria. How about something like "Train surfing is a bloody stupid thing to do. But go ahead, kill yourself, we don’t care."

<RING RING> "Hello?"

"Dean."

"What?"

"Dean."

"I think you have a wrong number."

Don’t you love the way people try to argue the point with you? Until it’s proven otherwise they refuse to admit that they’ve misdialled. No way, my fingers are very co-ordinated. This guy must be wrong. Dean must be there. I don’t ring wrong numbers.

(indignant, as if to say "now look")…
"563…" (then he finds his mistake) "Oh yeah. Sorry."

"No worries." <CLICK>

At least it’s only one person. Until recently we got calls for a company we’d never heard of. And whenever we asked where people got the number they got instant amnesia. We finally tracked it down when a representative from the Yellow Pages rang and asked us about next year’s listing. "Ah, whoa, stop… hold it right there…"