After Grog Blog

WILLIAM THE PONGQUEROR

When William The Conqueror was laid to rest he was so fat the bishops couldn't fit him into the sarcophagus. That was only the start of their problems ...

From postmortem decay the abscess had turgidly putrefied, bloating the corpse and expanding its girth. A group of bishops applied pressure on the king's abdomen to force the body downward (in the coffin) but it moved only inches; the lid still would not shut. Again they pushed, and the abdominal wall, already under intense internal pressure, burst. Pus and putrefaction drenched the king's death garb and seeped throughout the coffin. The stench so overpowered chapel mourners that, hands to noses, many raced for the doors.

He was your authentic fat bastard.

SORE POINT

I dislike the term 'sphere - no doubt you do, too. It's one of those hipster affectations that quite sets my teeth on edge. Other trendoid peeves would be men jogging without shirts, tufts under the bottom lip and Dermot Brereton's hair. Sorry, ladies, but I'm not up with what constitutes hipster women. Shoe talk? Going out for breakfast? I dunno. Don't deem me a trog because I thought Sex and the City was rubbish. At any rate, I've discovered another reason to dislike 'sphere - it is the sole anagram of herpes. How frightfully distasteful. From now on whenever I see 'sphere, not only am I going to think of men wearing bandanas, but I'm also going to think of putrid cold sores and festering nobs.

DICLESS

The Weekend Australian has a crossword competition whereby the first person to send in a correctly completed entry wins a dictionary. Great prize, no? Of course it is - you can never have too many dictionaries. (Or tomes, in general.) Yet despite regularly sending in The Winner, I still haven't received my booty. Sharp practice can be the only explanation for this rum turn of affairs - the compiler is doubtless doling out dictionaries to his friends and relatives. This wickedness will change quick stix when they realise I am posting their answers five days before the comp closes.*

Click the picture for the clues. Or you could try out the Jeopardy Option and suss the clues from the answers - 28 Across: Sir Eddy Syne comes out at Mardi Gras.

PAWK PYE

You may have noticed Hawk Eye was telling whoppers again. May? How frightfully civil of me. What I meant to write was "Hawk Eye is a stinking fiasco".

Darren Powell was given out LBW to McGrath but was clearly not out, with the ball clearly sliding low down the leg-side. Even Tony Grieg called it and was surprised by the decision. McGrath stiffled his appealed. Yet stupid Hawk showed the ball comfortably hitting leg-stump half way up.

It wouldn't be so bad if the Nine plonkers treated Hawk with due contempt, but the duplicitous dogs defer to it as final arbiter thus imbuing the fucker with an undeserved degree of accuracy. (This has to be a specific production directive. Contrary to appearances, the commentators aren't complete fools.) At least Heals and Mikey, who replaced Tone and Tubbs, shit-canned the decision, implicitly criticising Hawk.

Cricinfo's live commentary was also a load of arse:

McGrath to Powell, OUT: full length delivery on the middle and leg stump, Powell tries to work it away onside, gets hit on the pads right in front of the stumps.

PS: Can't remember which umpire fired Powell, but it was a shocker so let's just assume it was Bowden. Usual suspects, and all that.

CLASS ACT

You know something? In over three years of blogging I've never posted about what I teach. Crazy capers have been thick on the ground, not so syllabus details. That's quite the oversight. With a brief outline, you should gain a better appreciation of my fascinating career.

Polyphase Circuit Analysis - Harmonics

1. Appearance, representation
2. Fourier series
3. Production, effects, common occurrences
4. Odd and even funct ...

... well, maybe not. How about this then? Today a student told me he was stoked about some guff or other. Stoked? I dislike stoked and told him so. "Stoked is bogus, maaaaaan," I sneered.

He told me to chill.

ON THE SAUCE

Here is something that is more than a little disgusting - sauce left to congeal around the top of a sauce bottle. Just looking at the picture leaves me feeling quite unwell. The very idea I might even have to touch the bottle makes me shudder with trepidation.

Yet how does the sauce get there in the first place? Surely it is being applied incorrectly. Tip, squeeze and squirt is all you need do to leave a nice, neat line of condiment on your snacky comestible of choice. Be a devil if you like - apply a sexy squiggle or an edgy zig-zag. Then after your food is coated in sauce STOP squeezing before you turn the bottle upright. It is as easy as pie. (Apparently pie is easy.) To top things off, it's fucking barbeque sauce! Whoever invented that ghastly affair needs working on.

Another issue relevant to misplaced food additives is jam that finds it's sticky way onto knife handles. But that's another obsess ... story entirely.

Update! Some people even stick the nozzle right into their food. Can you credit that insanity? The horror.

NOT QUITE WRITE

Frasier then. Here's a brace of his comebacks. One I rather like, but the other seems dodgy. Which is which, do you reckon?

1. Lilith: "What would you say to a drink, Frasier?"
   Frasier: "I'd say 'don't get too comfortable in that glass'."


2. Roz: "That Frank was the whole package. His eyes, his chin, a bod that wouldn't quit."
   Frasier: "Well, it didn't have to quit - it was fired."

Despite misgivings, I stuck with Frasier until the end. Happily my salient complaint, that the makers were overloading on Niles and Daphne, was addressed, but the show was still patchy. Watching any show without a video is insanity, so there was much fast-forwarding.

Daphne's brothers (Anthony La Paglia, Robbie Coltrane and Richard E. Grant) were in the final episode. Coltrane was funny as a jabbering lunatic, but the other two were abysmal. Apart from Withnail and The Scarlet Pimpernel, has REG ever been in anything worthwhile? And don't gimme none of that "But what about The Player?" business. What about The Player? Just another fillum, as far as I'm concerned. Seems to me he's been in quite a few howlers. Could it be when he is forced to work with Americans?

On the upside, Bebe was superb. As usual.

ONE TWO THREE - TESTING

'Ello ... 'Ello ... 'Ello.

Booze bus scores a triple

A COMEDY of errors has seen three friends nabbed for drink-driving at the same booze bus within hours of each other.

The two men and a woman were caught as they tried to help each other get home after the first man returned a positive breath test.

Police have labelled it a case of dumb, dumber and dumbest.

Sen-Constable John Liddell, of Epping traffic management unit, said the farce started when the first two men were pulled over after doing a U-turn in their silver Toyota in a bid to escape a booze bus on Childs Rd, Epping on Friday night.

"We saw the car do a U-turn and we pulled him over and took the driver back to the bus for a test which came back positive," Sen-Constable Liddell said.

"A bit later the passenger has got behind the wheel and driven towards the bus before doing a U-turn and being pulled over.

"He actually went over more than the first bloke."

The first man, a 30-year-old from Epping, had a reading of 0.119.

Just 11 minutes later his friend, 26, from Brunswick, blew 0.134 -- almost three times the legal limit.

The two men were taken to the Epping police station where the second man rang his girlfriend to pick them up.

On her way to the station, the 33-year-old Reservoir woman was breathalysed at the same bus and blew .08.

"I thought it was madness," Sen-Constable Liddell said.

"They all knew the bus was there, they were like moths flocking to a bright light."

He said to add to the farce, the two men were also driving while disqualified and their car was unregistered.

GIL BILL

Dig this! Grave Danger Vol.1, last night's CSI, was directed by Quentin Tarantino and was a rip snorter! Outstanding, it was. In ten years time, those of you who missed it will fib through your teeth "Oh yesss, that one was classsic."

To be continued.

COME ON, COME ON

Ok, who want furst crack, thenn?

I love Gary Glitter! ... So what did he do wrong? He owned some photos of young girls with their clothes off? big deal.

Bruce is a fan, don't you know.

DULLERIVE?

Well, at first, yeah. But now with Straya stumbling to 7/324 and throwing away the momentum, maybe things will liven up. Chuck in a third umpire on the piss, and you never know what might happen.

DEAF, DUMB & BLIND POST

"Tommy is a movie that is very important to me," writes Laura. Really? That's not a statement you hear everyday, is it? But it's clearly one that warrants further investigation.

Stated plainly, Tommy is about the impossibility of religious salvation. It is a sad, tragic story, not an uplifting one: it says that spiritual insight and enlightenment can't be communicated and shared without creating a spiritually bankrupt cult of personality.

I've seen Tommy a couple of times (Never much liked it), and I've heard the soundtrack many more times (It’s lacks grunt, while the original needs a remix), yet the way Laura tells it makes one realise these issues should have been spotted earlier. She's very good like that. Her post on Gough stood out from the other dreamers over at The Slug. But then Laura is a braniac who clearly has a higher gain antenna than most. Than me, anyway. For me The Who is less religious salvation, spiritual insight and bankrupt cults, and more "Yayyy! Smash your guitar, Pete!"

Laura's series starts here - I recommend you take a geeze.

A particular thing that caught my eye was that she loves the movie, but isn't much of a devotee of either Ken Russell or The Who. I find that intriguing. I'm not big on Russell, he's a bit of a loon, but I'm huge on The Who and it strikes me the band and the movie go together. Ah well, what do I know? Doubtless one can enjoy Throne of Blood while never having heard of Macbeth. On the other hand, The Natural was once a great fillum, but after reading the book, it transmogged into a stinker. When it comes to mining a source though, there's one thing I'm sure we'll all agree on - you needn't have read The Tempest to enjoy The Perfect Storm.

Sir, he may live:
I saw him beat the surges under him,
And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd
Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke
To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd,
As stooping to relieve him: I not doubt
He came alive to land.

-- George "Ferdinand" Clooney is missing presumed wet.

BIG STATEMENT

"The sleeping giant has woken up."

Soccer football Australian style then. Good win last night, what? It's huge for Straya to make the World Cup Finals and happily it will raise the profile of socca downunda. Yes, happily - I like socca. When it comes to international sport, while it's not as good as cricket, it's better than the rugbys and the Olympics and swimming and netball and tennis and whatever other Aussie Aussie Aussie fiasco we get all jingoistic about. (The Comm Games, for instance, can suck me off.) BUT! "The sleeping giant has woken up"? Is anyone else sick of that phrase? Fuck me, I am. Balls to the sleeping giant! There's a little too much "the bandwagon is filling up" about it, as well as goulashings of ethnic gloatage "Phhooooodboll is great, mate. We tole you so, fucking!" But you know what? I can handle the bandwagoners (at the moment) and the smug wogs because lets face it, soccer is not called The World Game for nothing - it's bigger than the biggest of big things. What I can't handle, though, is that bloody phrase. Stop it, please.

PS: Pakistan beating England made it an even better day. Should England continue to struggle and we regain The Ashes next summer, that ululating you'll hear emanating from among the tards and junkies at Richmond Central will be me screaming "FLUUUUUUUUUUKE!"

PPS: You know what would be the optimum result in the World Cup of Les Murray? Of course you do. We beat England in the final. On penalties. After a Wayne Rooney duff.

GET FOLKED!

Martha Wainwright at The Basement - fuck, what was that rubbish? The ABC are tight for funds right? Well, you turds, here's a tip - don't shell for this risible warbling, instead troll Sydney streets for buskers. Every second tard with a plinky guitar, yodelling voice and upturned hat thinly sprinkled with sympathy-shrapnel would jump at the chance to bilk their eight cents a day's worth of attention. A stinky Martin Place crank with a Jew's harp would be every bit as entertaining as Martha. In other words, not at all. The live audience who seemed to like it must be wrong in the head. Were Wainwright not related to Loudon, Josh and Kate McGonigargle, would anyone take any notice? I think not. (Yeah, yeah, it's probably been asked a bazillion times before.) While we're at it, Live at the Basement can fuck off with the black & white interviews, too!

RALLY HO

Off to the march then. I'm determined to do my bit for workers' rights. Solidarity for ever, and all that business. Business? Shit, sorry about that - "BOOO, to business!"

Later, comrades.

Update!

HEAT COLD

I don't normally do requests, but because I'm a bit busy today I'll just jump in with an exception - here's one for Russell:

WWE hero Guerrero dies

FORMER WWE wrestling champion Eddie "Latino Heat" Guerrero has died suddenly at the age of 38 – after collapsing the morning before he was due to fight for the world title again.

The Latino star, real name Eduardo Gori Guerrero Llanes, was found dead yesterday in his hotel room in Minneapolis, America.

THE J-TEAM

Doubtless you recognise this television show: One, crack troops take the rap for Unca Sam's dirty work. Two, they promptly escape. And three, they become mercenaries. Ring any bells? Yes, that's right, it's the next series of 24.

Does anyone else watch 24? It's not bad, you know. I watched every show of this latest series (Except for those two Sunday night episodes. Thank's for that Channel Seven - fuck you very much!) and was thoroughly hooked. Logic-wise it's possible the show is a fiasco, not that I know anything about these matters, and putting up with Kiefer Sutherland's voice is hard work. BUT. Ignoring those quibbles, oh, and also the fact no one sleeps, eats, goes to the toilet or looks bad, 24 skips along OK. I must say, though, the last episode was a big dud. Sure, I didn't expect the nuclear missile to blow up, or anything, but about half an hour in I was wondering whether the rest was necessary. It was. Jack walked off into the sunrise instead of the sunset, thus revealing they'd been setting up an elaborate sight-gag. Class.

Anyhoo, The J-Team (named after Jack, of course) writes itself. And if it doesn't, well there's always The Fugitive.

UPDATE! Arab Street Crossed

While we're on terrorists: Journalist Anthony Dowsley has some fun in The Hun.

Our men innocent, say wives

Yesterday, the Australian-born brothers' wives, Fida Ramadan and Maryann Dahman, were standing by their husbands, describing them as average, loving, family men who helped old ladies cross the street.

FUCK THIS SHIT THEN!

Recently I was in hospital for a check-up. Nothing dramatic, some of you will be pleased to know, just precautionary observations - blood test, eye sight, x-rays, ultrasound and sphignowhatsits.

It was a bit of a drag, but looking back it amounted to fuck-all. I was only in overnight and the private - yes private - room was comfy with a nice view, the nurses pleasantly unmonstrous, and the food surprisingly good. Wouldn't recommend it for a hot getaway, mind. The better hotels don't normally wake you up every three hours to stick a tube in your arm.

Then last week the doctor had me back to discuss things. "So, can I see the test results," he asked, sticking out his hand. "What results?" I brandished my crossword - "I don't got no results, just a blank 6 Across." He looked at me strangely and picked up the blower. After a bit of "Ummm, ah ah and OK" he put the phone down: "Sorry, old boy, we'd better book you in for another visit," he cheerily advised. "We've lost the test results."

NUMB3RS GAME

That was quick. Typically my about-faces take a little longer to occur, but one week? That must be a new record. Not counting my black jellybean flip-flop at primary school. I said black jelly beans were great but the cool kid said he hated them. "Yeah, they're horrid," I replied spitting it out quick stix. Fortunately I've come a long way since those spineless days. Resolution is my watchword - up to a point.

Just last Wednesday I had a lash at Numb3rs. Didn't bollock it outright, mind, but I was somewhat sceptical of it's maths methods - turning cheesey snacks into calculus, and all that guff. This week, on the other hand, the show contained something I like - sport.

Remember Moneyball? Well, it popped up in Numb3rs. Übernerd Dr Larry (fresh from Ghostbusters II) and slick haired poindexter Dr Charlie were discussing a computer program on baseball statistics.

Larry: "Did I just hear you say the word Sabermetrics?"

Charlie: "Familiar with it?"

Larry: "The Moneyball crazy? Oh yes, I'm familiar with it."

Charlie: "I take it you don't approve."

Larry: "The notion that human achievement on a baseball diamond can be predicted through the application of statistical analysis is, at it's very core, highly problematic."

Charlie: "Even if the skill can be statistically measured?"

Larry: "Yes. Because Chaaaaarrrrles, the human spirit is immeasurable. You know, our brains aren't these machines; there's a lot of either/or going on here. Yes. Statistical probability is a wonderful tool, but applied to human performance it's only an extrapolation of the past."

"Extrapolation of the past"  - that's the key term.

J'a Qs

Righto then; the latest in cutting edge TV - Spike Milligan's Q Series.

For me Q was a fondly remembered collage featuring wacky Spike carousing with David Lodge, John Bluthal, Chris Langham and co. What larks! What shit, more like. Recently I caught Q on DVD and I'm sorry to have to report the show was about as funny as gravel. Or worse, an Aussie sitcom - fiascos like Bingles, All Together Now or Today Tonight. Christ, what a fuck-up. For a supposed comedy guru Spike turned out a show staggering in it's lack of laughs. Doubtless the Beeb gave him the gig sight-unseen, based on reputation. The wonder is they kept it on life-support for eleven years.

Still, you can't keep a good crazy man down. While the show was ghastly, there was the occasional tzinger:

-- "Ein zigarette, Fritz."

-- "Nein."

-- "You greedy pig."

When the old boy tried, he still had it.

HAMELOT

If you're a young first time feature film director who's assembled a cast that includes Jeff Bridges, John Huston, Anthony Perkins, Eli Wallach, Sterling Hayden, Ralph Meeker, Toshirô Mifune, Richard Boone and Elizabeth Taylor, then you better have a damn good story to tell boy! Well William Richert found one in Richard Manchurian Candidate Condon's novel, Winter Kills which became the movie called, um, Winter Kills.

(1979. Colour. Script & Direction: William Richert. Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond. Score: Maurice Jarre doing Bernard Herrmann.)

Winter Kills is all about the riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma packaged as a complete mindfuck about who really shot President Keegan in Philadelphia in 1960. It's in the tradition of great seventies paranoia films like The Parallax View and Three Days Of The Condor except it's also bloody funny – a deadpan black comedy full of great one-liners and absurdist setups. And yes it does reveal who took out the contract on Keegan.

It's pointless outlining the plot 'cos by about halfway through you're as baffled as the dead President's hapless half-brother (Jeff Bridges) who's trying to follow the thread through the labyrinth.

Just sit back and enjoy the ultimate conspiracy fairytale played out with gusto by some great actors playing great characters. There's Tony Perkins in charge of a supercomputer that can blackmail anyone, Sterling Hayden in a biblical beard leading his own private tank corps, Elizabeth Taylor as the President's foul mouthed procuress, Eli Wallach playing Jack Ruby bullied and manipulated by Ralph Meeker's mobster, Richard Boone acting sideways to everyone else as an oil rig foreman and Toshirô Mifune musing on the futility of it all.

But it's really John Huston's film. He reprises his Noah Cross role as a Joseph Kennedy (who Huston knew and disliked) patriarch with immensely ruthless and amoral glee. Often surrounded by bimbos ("You reckon they're feeling my nuts under the blanket son?"), handing out blackjacks and brass knuckles ("Look after them. They have sentimental value."), guarded by M-16 wielding doctors during his regular blood changes and with the CIA smuggling his cigars in from Cuba, Pa Keegan steals every scene he's in and a lot more too ("I'm the Jupiter of thieves.").

The story behind the making of Winter Kills also fits the overall vibe. The initial money was put up by big time pot smugglers who washed their ill-gotten gains through the Emmanuelle flicks before decided to invest in a "proper film". But when one was found handcuffed to a hotel room bed, shot through the head, and the other got sent down for twenty years, production on Winter Kills stopped for 18 months until Richert raised the rest of the money by making a quickie film in Germany in the meantime.

Winter Kills has now been re-released in a very nice DVD package with some excellent extras, including the complete script as a PDF file, some of the best production design sketches I've ever seen and a great interview with a very funny and charming William Richert. So if you want to know who really shot President Keegan, this is the film for you. It makes JFK look like an Oliver Stone flick.

GrogFlog verdict: "They will pile falsehoods on top of falsehoods until you can't tell a lie from the truth and you won't want to know the truth." 7.7 out of 10.

Coming soon: Fatal kids in secret labs, eyes without a face, gay US Treasury agents on acid and James Coburn gets Jungian.

TEMPUS FUCK-IT!

Flat out at the moment - busy as! How busy? Well, think of a cliché and double it. No time, even, to watch the cricket - that busy. Speaking of time: Two Thousand and Five or Twenty Oh Five? You decide, I can't.

Back soon.

Back now! Cricket brieflets.

1. What sort of tosser uses the term leather-flinger? This sort, of course - as if you didn't know.

2. There has been a lot of talk about the brittle nature of the Aussie middle order - specifically Clarke and Katich. Fair enough, both are struggling, but the mooted replacements are puzzling. In both the papers and on rayjo it's Martyn or Hodge that keep being thrown up, but what about Langer? He will come back when he's fit, so surely if they dump say, Katich, Hussey will drop down the order to replace him.

3. Lee bowls some rubbish, doesn't he?

4. Channel Nine's Steve Crawley: "Nicholas' knowledge of cricket and "sense of theatre" had been embraced by cricket watchers in Australia who got to know him better during the Ashes. "It's no longer, 'Who's the Pom?' It's, 'Bring the Pom back.' He's transcended that now."

Yet another Channel Nine lie dressed up as spin. (Or is that spin dressed up as lie? Who can tell?) "Sense of theatre"? Yeah, right. You can tell that is bullshit because it's the very thing fans most dislike about The Dick. "Bring back the Pom"? Says who? Not that we care he's a Pom. Speaking of aliens: he's a fuck sight better than Tony. And Bill and Chappelli for that matter. Do you realise those three plonkers have been commenating for around 25 years now? What kind of sick, cynical fraud do Nine think they're pulling?

NUMB3RS RACKET

I like maths. Doesn't everyone? Trigonometry, algebra, calculus - it's all good. A matrix filled with complex combinations is like a big puzzle. Balls to your SuDoKu flannel - any idiot can crunch those fuckers. Proper satistfaction is resolving a juicy great matrix. Mind you, just one pissant sign-error and you're ripping up the page in fury. Not quite acceptable exam technique, I was once cautioned.

Still, I'm no guru, just a plodder, so I'm not about to shit-can out of hand the TV show Numb3rs. In this show two brothers, Don the FBI agent and Charlie the math braniac, solve all manner of LA mayhem with a blackboard full of squiggles. (Sometimes they even get to use those flash see-through boards only found on telly.) It's a sexy concept, for sure, but sometimes:

-- "Charlie, we're stumped. Please help us find the killer."

-- "Sure, Don, I can try. Where was the body found?"

-- "Culver City."

-- "CC, ahhh ... "

[Scribbles on blackboard]

-- "And how did he die?"

-- "Shot."

-- "Pistol or rifle?"

-- "Pistol. Gluck Pi 345 Ultraheadblaster."

-- "Damn!"

[Erases two triangles and a doodad]

-- "Area of shooting zone?"

-- "Three-point-six square miles."

-- "Address?"

-- "Duquesne and Braddock."

-- "Uh huh."

[Doohickey over whatsit]

-- "Much traffic?"

-- "One bus, one pimped-up Lincoln Continental and a yellow cab."

-- "No caravans?"

-- "Not one."

-- "You sure?

-- "Positive."

-- "The cab driver then? Hispanic, right?"

-- "How did you know?"

-- "All the signs point that way."

[Chalk sneeze]

-- "And the weather?"

-- "Cumulonimbus over Venice Beach."

-- "That makes sense. The killer lives in Inglewood."

-- "Charlie! There are 68,000 people there. Can't you narrow it down?"

-- "Possibly. Are you ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE there wasn't a caravan?"

-- "Let me check."

[Grabs bulging case file]

-- "Oh, wait! How could I have missed this? Yes, there was a caravan."

-- "Donnnnn! I wish you'd told me that earlier."

-- "Well, ex-ca-uuuze me!"

-- "Do apologize."

[One last squiggle]

-- "The killer is in a diner at La Brea and Florence."

-- "You sure?"

-- "Yep. He's eating a tuna-fish bagel."

-- "Astounding, Charlie. Excuse me if I appear a little sceptical."

-- "Math doesn't lie, Don."

-- "Don't be so smug."

-- "And his name is Bob."

Indeed, a little sceptical.

As far as the rest of the show is concerned, it's ok. But Rob Morrow (Don) always seems miscast. David Krumholtz (Charlie) was better in Ice Storm sucking on a bong with Spiderman. And Judd Hirsh (Dad) can't seem to work out whether he's in Taxi or Ordinary People. His role is crap but he's probably here because he brought Hollywood math from A Beautiful Mind.

CARNY FOLK

Bollox to The Spring Carnival. Carnival of Fools more like. Can you believe people actually like horse racing? Strange people, mind, but they genuinely like it. Personally, I've never seen the attraction but if that's their thing, good luck to them. Just don't rub it in my face. Like with the Spring Carnival and the blanket coverage of try-hards, wannabes and cretins getting shitfaced. Hurry up and finish, will you! Bring back the football and my cretins.

"No one here seems interested in horse-racing."

-- Eva Longoria * accidentally sums up Derby Day.

* This year's imported cheesecake. Previous cheesecakes include Jean Shrimpton and Paris Whatsername.

PS: I might just look at things differently if I were still drinking. Nothing like a good piss-up at the gee-gees, don't you know.