Last night found me seated with a few friends in row F of the Palais Theatre stalls, once again watching legendary musician Paul Kelly and his band in a dazzling performance of masterful rock’n'roll. A satisfying blend of songs from the new album and old favourites too.

But what’s also worth mentioning was the support act. Don Walker, apparently one of the geniuses behind Cold Chisel
anthems such as "Khe Sahn", managed to play a set so depressing, so agonisingly painful that I think those audience members who weren’t applauding him for finally finishing were busy looking in their pockets for razor blades to slash their wrists with.

I’d heard rumours that Don’s songs were not exactly cheerful boppy numbers. One post on a mailing list I’m on had mentioned songs of the "We’re all going to die" genre. I obviously misunderstood that posting a bit, because I was quite unprepared for the moment when Don launched into one of his songs, that is actually called, and concerns itself with the fact that "We’re All Gunna Die".

That may be true, but everybody cheered up when the support act finished.

At lunch…

Steve: Ugh, this tastes like horses hooves.

Me: Hope it doesn’t give you the trots.

(Don’t ask me how he knew what horses’ hooves taste like.)

My three year old son Isaac has an aversion to haircuts. And being a three year old, this doesn’t mean that when faced with a haircut, he says "no, I don’t particularly like this", and grimaces slightly while it happens. This is not an adult’s aversion.

No, being a three year old, it means he screams and struggles constantly while it happens. He twists and turns in the seat trying to escape, even when held down, making it quite a difficult job for the barber to even lop off a few hairs, let alone enough to make an appreciable difference, and with any semblance of neatness or symmetry.

So when we discovered a hairdresser specialising in kids down at Baby Target in Fountain Gate, many miles away though it is, we rejoiced. Maybe Isaac would still hate it, but because of various devices they employ, such as looping Wiggles videos and a ride-on hobby-horse as a chair, we thought we might have at least fighting chance of getting his hair back to a manageable length.

This was our target on Saturday morning, so we packed everyone up in the car (sneakily but wisely without specifying to Isaac precisely where we were going), and drove down there. I haven’t worked it out precisely, but it must be at least 30K’s out to Fountain Gate. It’s a shopping centre in one of those fringe suburbs, where they don’t have proper footpaths, and no two streets run parallel, and every family’s got two or more cars because there’s virtually no public transport.

Anyway we finally got there, and discovered that this place requires bookings. And they were booked out for the day. And it’s times like these when I really wish we’d thought to stop for a moment to pick up the phone and ring ahead and ask. But that’s life. Attempt two is next Saturday. And we have an appointment.

On Sunday we did what is fast becoming a family tradition: The Snow Train. It’s a steam train that runs from the city, a couple of hundred K’s out to Moe, where special buses take everyone up to Mount Saint Gwinear, for frolicking in the snow. I talked about it in last year’s diary, and the only differences this time were that there was more snow, we brought a bunch of friends along, and that on the way back one of the buses (not ours) went off the road.

Nothing too deadly thank goodness. Nobody injured or anything, though apparently a helicopter and two ambulances were sent screaming up the mountain when the news of a bus crash reached the emergency services.

It did mean a delay of an hour or two at Moe, so everyone scoffed pizzas and other assorted fast food, and we sat around chatting, waiting for the rescheduled steam train home.

As it happens, the trip back to Melbourne through the inky blackness of a country winter evening was quite atmospheric. A singalong in our compartment, consisting of a curious mix of Play School, Wiggles, Beatles and Queen songs, kept us all (and probably the rest of the carriage) thoroughly entertained.

The beard is still intact. Still irritating, but I’m getting more used to it, even if I do forget sometimes that it’s there.

We’ve been attempting to have a major clear out of stuff at home. The spare room was getting so crowded that sometimes you could barely get in the door. At least twice I’ve had to employ professional mountaineers and Sherpas to get me over the piles of junk to the computer. Two of the poor blokes fell to their deaths on one such expedition, and it was this that made me determined to clear out some of the stuff that we don’t use.

One of the best ways to get rid of stuff that you think is junk but that someone else thinks is the best thing since sliced bread is the Trading Post. This can work wonders for stuff that is genuinely of value to someone, though it works rather less well for that pile of unwanted 80’s computer magazines sitting rotting in a box in the cupboard.

So those I’m offering on Usenet free to anybody who’ll take them. And I hope someone does, because although I have absolutely no use for them, there must be someone out there who still uses an old BBC computer, and could do with endless reading material about it! For reasons I haven’t adequately explored, I’d feel kinda bad to throw them all in the recycling.

To those who are curious about my trip in September, I haven’t quite nailed down where I’m going to go. But gradually bits of the plan are coming together, so hopefully when I step off the plane at Heathrow at some ungodly hour of the morning on the second of September, I don’t just wander aimlessly around the country with no idea of what to do or see.

I know I’m going to spend some time with my uncles, cousins and grandparents - provided they don’t mind of course, I haven’t quite got around to telling them I’m coming yet. I’ll explore London for a few days, then head north, probably via York and/or Liverpool, into Scotland.

The target in Scotland is to reach the little town of Plockton. Why Plockton, you might ask? ‘Cos it’s where they filmed Hamish Macbeth. Not that I’m a rabid Hamish Macbeth fan, but it’s nice to have a target to try and reach.

Other than that, I know I’ll spend a few days in Brussels with friends hunting down Tintin locations and memorabilia, take a TGV to Paris for some exploration, then back to England for a few more days, and then home.

All in all it’ll be a month away. And I have yet to solve the problem of where I should be on the last Saturday in September - so I can watch the AFL Grand Final!