Spotted the Chrysler PT Cruiser Police Car in Collins Street yesterday. Some kind of initiative to help the police reach out to youth. Despite my joking on seeing it (”That’ll get the glue-sniffers and vandals’ attention! Hey kids! Stop spraypainting and check out our cool car!”) hopefully it does have a positive effect. It is eye-catching.

I’m not particularly the type of person who pays a great deal of attention to cars. But I’ve always thought the PT Cruiser is an interesting design. It seems like it harks back to the 1930-40s designs. Reminds me of the car chase scenes from early Tintin books.

Behind The News was scrapped last year, but according to the media yesterday, is to make a comeback. It’s not a show I believe I’ve actually sat down and watched in the past… ooh… twenty years or so. But I do recall it being an important part of gaining some awareness of the world from an early age. At primary school we’d crowd into the staff room (only room with a TV) every week to watch it, and Infinity Limited (the science show).

RIP the 69 tram from Sunday. Sad. No more silly “69 in St Kilda” jokes. This too takes me back to living as a kid in East St Kilda, riding the 69 down to the beach and back in the summer.

You know your kids are growing up when…

• When waving goodbye in the schoolyard, the youngest waves enthusiastically, but the eldest does a deliberately low-key waist-level wave back. “Yeah, yeah, see ya dad.”
• Your youngest explains to you how to use the animation features of Powerpoint.
• Your eldest decides that a warning on a web page animation that “some scenes aren’t suitable for younger children” doesn’t apply to him.
• You ask him why he’s fiddling with pyjama pants in the morning and he says matter-of-factly “my balls are itchy.” Whoops. TMI.
• They’ve moved onto using adult cutlery, crockery and glassware.
• The first school camp starts today.
• You’re almost at the point where you can’t tell their socks from yours.
• They declare of a TV show (some piece of televisual excrement called Active Kidz): “I hate it. It’s crap.” And you take a look and thoroughly agree with them.

I found myself on Sunday morning at Altona Beach, doing the dog-walking thang with Marita and Maisie. All very merry (even better once I shed the excess of clothing I’d managed to bring — memo to self: beach not generally cold in October).

Marita had a short distraction to deal with, and I found myself minding Maisie for a few minutes. No problem, we clambered over some rocks, she on the leash, over to where there were some seagulls happily basking in the sun. Maisie likes chasing seagulls. It’s her favourite. She never gets even close, but she still likes it. I was struggling to keep up, so I let her off the leash, so she could chase them.

Imagine my astonishment when Maisie ignored the seagulls straight ahead, and instead diverted to the right, swimming straight across the inlet under the bridge Marita had gone across, heading for the other side.

“Maisie! Come here! Maisie!!”

I had visions of the dog running away to locations unknown, me being left holding only the leash, Marita returning and asking “Where’s Maisie?” and me being unable to answer in any satisfactory way why I had lost her dog in the three minutes I’d been looking after her.

Maisie reached the other side and zoomed up the bank, looking for Marita. More shouting: “Maisie! Come here! Maisie!” I haven’t shouted that loudly in quite a while.

Unwilling to swim across, I clambered back over the rocks and ran across the bridge. Maisie had gone a bit further, to over near the carpark. “Maisie! Come here!” I wondered how many people were looking at me pittingly, thinking who is that shouting idiot who can’t control his dog?

As I reached her side of the bridge, Maisie looked around at me, wagging her tail. This is a good game, isn’t it Daniel? She ran over, then straight past me, over the bridge and the rocks and onto the beach again, as I ran after her, hoping she wasn’t planning to do another lap.

Nope, straight for the seagulls, a sprint across the shallow water, scattering them into the air. Then she came back to the shore. Rather than risk her zooming off anywhere else, I put her back on the leash, scrambled over the rocks yet again to the bridge, only to see Marita strolling back.

A telling of the tale, and much laughter followed.

Today in the city I encountered a lost tourist looking for Flinders Street Station (”it’s that big building with the dome”), a Korean student looking for the Block Arcade (”follow me, I’m walking right past it”), and unless I’m much mistaken I passed Katy “Jo Grant” Manning in Degraves Street.

So, let me get this straight…

You can start an illegal war based on flawed evidence that most people didn’t believe, then refuse to apologise for it (even when your allies admit their mistakes).

You can pretend the war hasn’t impacted our safety, while security specialists are warning otherwise.

You can form alliances with a party that even the Queensland Nationals describe as “the lunatic right” for Senate preferences.

You can have your ministers carry on like Tony Abbott with his infamous Cardinal Pell interview.

You can lie for political gain about asylum seekers throwing their children off boats. And the following election have the cheek to use the catchcry “Who do you trust?”

You can spam the electorate with phone calls and emails and hand out dodgy How To Vote cards.

Just whatTF do you have to do around here to get yourself voted out?

I mean, I know the incumbents are likely to do well when the economy’s happily bouncing along, but really… a fourth term with an increased majority and maybe even bloody Family First holding the balance of power in the Senate?! Labor’s far from perfect, but after 8 years, I reckon it was time for a change.

…

Thankfully the voting process itself was relatively painless, even if the queues were lengthy. I knew who I’d vote for… though I did have to think long and hard about who to put last. There was stiff competition between CEC (woo hoo! Maglev monorails!), Family First (pull down Satan’s strongholds), Fred Nile’s party, the DLP and the increasingly tame-looking One Nation.

But the vital question was always going to be: where does one find the polling place with the best sausage sizzle? My nearest polling place is the local Anglican church on the corner. I wasn’t optimistic about the sausage factor there… to my mind churches are more likely to harbour cake and marmalade stalls. I reckon the best places for sausage sizzles are the local primary schools — hard up on cash, and with a big involved parent population eager to do some fundraising. But kudos to the Anglicans, who had the barbecue happily running (as well as a plethora of marmalades and secondhand books). One sausage as sustenance for the voting queue, another as a reward afterwards. You bewdy: lunch taken care of.

Here is my… morning hair.

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Previous pictures in this series

Forgive me Spurlock, for I have sinned. It has been two years since my last McDonalds meal. But last Friday I suddenly had a craving for a Filet O’Fish, and succumbed to the evil arches. 1 x Filet O’Fish Value Meal please, eat-in.

The eat-in muzak has improved a bit, but the food was as cardboard-vanilla-flavoured as ever. A disappointment as always. That should put me off for a few more years.

Elizabeth Street last night about 6:30. Pedestrians with their umbrellas at the ready. A gap in the rain, but still threatening. Taxis lined up outside Melbourne Central offering a comfortable but pricey way home. Hopefully winter’s last gasp.

(Remember that Del Amitri song… “every third car is a cab”. Thankfully things aren’t quite so bleak in this city.)