The current fad for them — all those stupid celtic runes and flowers over your sacrum and so on — has left me cold. Your body is your canvas, eh? Recreating yourself as artwork, eh? Just staple the fucking Mona Lisa to the leg of your pants and go about your day. There are plenty of other bandwagons to jump on. I don't actually say that, by the way. Do what you want; I'm just thinking it as you wave that wolf on your shoulder at me.

However I did see a tattoo last year sometime that caught my imagination. Stopped at a set of lights in La Trobe Street a girl on the bike in front of me simply had a bass clef tattooed over her right scapula. No notes on it, just a pure declaration of bass-hood. I admired the understatement of it. We exchanged a few words about the tattoo before the lights went green and we rode off on our separate ways.

To be honest I'd forgotten about that exchange until I saw the tattoo again on a friend of a friend at the Espy on Friday. Same girl. Aren't those sorts of “this town ain’t so big” encounters delicious? As you can see, I took the chance to grab a photo of it on my phone.

If somebody buys me a tattoo parlour gift certificate, I might just get that one myself. It looks pretty comfy on that bandwagon.

¶ 4:00 pm 3 comments

Go Victory! Go Victory. It is such fun being part of a large crowd identifying so passionately with a team that is winning on an important occasion. I leapt to my feet and threw my hands in the air and cheered and yelled and whistled and called the players by their first name (which I suppose is a little rude — we've never been introduced: we should all be saying things like “oh well played, Mr Brebner.” “That's a jolly good effort there, young Mr Storey” and so on). I grabbed the guy next to me and lifted him celebratorily in the air once or twice. We all high-fived strangers in the seats around us. It was huge.

The weekend began cheerily with a kind word from Gigglewick on her post and continued with an utterly kicking 6fthick gig at the Tote. Those boys put on a good show. I was powermoshing my way through the night and then the Harpo Massive put in a superb team performance the next day and guaranteed ourselves our finals spot for the season. My demeanor clouded a little after falling for a duck but at least it was a genuine duck. I was out LBW a lot. I've dollied catches up to mid off and been less out than I was on Saturday. When I fail with the bat I don't do it by halves which is something to be proud of. But it's delicious celebrating a good win with your teammates.

I eventually got home from the utterly fabulous night on Sunday feeling like a winner to find that my globetrotting housemate had just got home from Shanghai. It was excellent to see him and on top of that he brought me a gift of the three seasons of Deadwood. Bonus!

What a top weekend. Go Victory.

¶ 6:10 pm 3 comments

The local here at work is at the far end of New Quay which is a water-fronting, swanky restaurant precinct.

Last night, the walk up the length of the quay was excruciating. There were so many freakin' couples. Many of the lasses were dressed up and looking fine which was good and all, and people were all walking slowly and holding hands and looking at the sunset behind the Bolte Bridge or strolling in groups and everybody was being so conspicuously coupled up.

Norm from Cheers once said: “ah, young love. Never fails to make me sick.”

¶ 11:00 am 5 comments

So what did I do Friday night? Yep. Eight hours solid of beer. Was cheerily dancing at a dodgy pub in Collingwood until a late hour. And then spent the next day standing in a paddock for the length of the afternoon. What do you do after a day of cricket? Yep. Beer. It had been a particularly difficult but satisfying day fielding so we had earned a celebratory drink or three. Rosco the cheery housemate and I obviously needed a relaxed cold one watching Jason Bourne and laughing at the Aussies losing to England on Sunday and naturally you need a quiet sip from a can when you're mixing up some hot shit with the bandmates just as we did last night.

Harpo: the will of iron. Of iron.

Now, what other resolutions can I ignore? I hereby resolve to wear hats, to read more books about Spanish agriculture and to eat kebabs every Michaelmas. Bwaa hahah!

¶ 4:00 pm 4 comments