This sucked.

I'm not a builder. I don't have the brain for it. Which explains why I was more than hesitant when Nat from the office convinced me to enter a miniature Dyson vacuum cleaner model building contest.

CAPTION: Here I am. Preferring to be shot out of a cannon and into the fucking sun.

Yes. You read that correctly. That has 'utter disaster' written all over it.

We were at the Text100Aus Christmas in August tech and gadget trade show, being absolute nerds. And Dyson were there. Now, I like Dyson because one day I plan on buying several of those crazy air mutlipliers (fancy fans) and then traveling back in time to show them to simple folk so that I might become the 1600s equivalent of Storm from X-Men.CAPTION: This is a Dyson air multiplier. It has come for your family.

They had a competition to see who could build one of their miniatures in the fastest time. Which is all well and good if you are a.) an engineer, b.) MacGuyver or c.) some kind of mechanical savant.

I am none of these things. Allow me to explain why.

I won the dubious award in Year Eight metal work of creating the first copper 'spoon' that possessed none of the concave qualities that allowed it to even function as a spoon. My woodwork attempt at fashioning a car-plug-in portable light in a base of wood produced an abomination of twisted metal and timber.

I was the kid who couldn't put his Kinder Surprise together. I hated Kinder Surprises because they were not a 'reward'. They were a tiny, tiny egg of doom.

The teeny weeny vacuum cleany competition was a race. It had to be. The fastest got to take home an actual version of whichever machine you were building. And there is nothing I love more than free things, particularly in light of my so-far-longstanding commitment to never spend a dollar on anything domestic.

But the competition involved pretty much everything I hate. Tiny, tiny parts, instructions that looked like they belonged to the Large Hadron Collider and a stopwatch.

I panicked.

I tried to connect a hose to a swivel bit to a plastic bit that looked like a dot. It wasn't even big enough to be described as anything else. It looked like a freaking point in space. As the clock ticked, my fingers began to shake.

A waiter came by to offer canapes. I glared at him. CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT WHAT I AM DOING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SUSTENANCE ITSELF?

Then the spectators came. A pair who wanted to try the competition for themselves. I tried to jokingly explain that I might 'be a while' and they chuckled the hearty chuckle of somebody who didn't think I was serious. No seriously guys, I might be here until they release an iPhone 11.

Nat is exceedingly Gen Y. Younger than me and far more acclimatised to a world of technology and instruction manuals and the general detritus of expectation. She finished with the infuriating nonchalance of somebody who has never done this before, beating the record time for her model.

I wished ill upon her immediately.

I, meanwhile, was trying to attach a vacuum head to something that looked like a test tube and almost in full meltdown mode. I was nowhere near finished and announced I was giving up. The helpful man offered his assistance: "Just attach that to this...".

I shook my head. No. "Just, grab this..." NO. And I began taking it apart in furious shakes so the next two could have a go. It was 6 minutes and 32 seconds.

In the race to stack together a vacuum cleaner model with 20 or so parts, I was a glorious Did Not Finish.

I swiftly grabbed another glass of wine.

The eternal lament of a launderer

The Winter Olympic sport of 'curling' is actually just a lot of bored people on laundry day.


I just spent the last 20 minutes pottering around my bedroom like a loon attempting to curate an outfit in which I could do my laundry which is almost as difficult a task as forging a golden ring in the fiery pits of Mordor.

This happens every week, mind, and each time I realise with a degree of thunderous melodrama that washing day means I have to wash ALL the things and that leaves me with nothing to wear while the laundry does its thing.

So I get all MacGuyver on my stuff and start trying on shirts the size of windsocks, pants where the crotch has fallen out (this is a long and recurring problem I have with pants, like the universe is trying desperately to claw through my trousers and directly to my groin for as yet undisclosed cosmic reasons) and holding pieces of paper and discarded receipts up to my nipples in a daft attempt to see whether they might provide adequate cover in the event I find nothing else to wear.

Anybody could burst through the door and see my laying semi naked on the couch covered in receipts, assuming I was either very lonely or I had made an inaugural attempt to do my own tax and somehow ended up pants-less with a drinking problem, which is highly likely.

The sad thing is, of course, that my laundry is inside my house so it's not like I need to look beautiful or even halfway decent. That's why we have houses, so we can be the absolute distillation of the awfully indecent human beings we are deep down. Admit it.

If the laundry were down the street and, you know, around people it would all make perfect sense.

But sitting around at home alone in a collage of fabric and old clothes is a bit like Schrodinger's Rick: if nobody can study me I am both gorgeous, immaculately groomed and a disgusting realisation of all that is wrong in the world.

AT THE SAME TIME.

And there you have it, quantum mechanics and sartorial commentary on a Sunday with a hangover.

Or maybe I'm still drunk?

Census (and statistical sensibilities)

I think the people who come up with the Census every five years miss some serious golden opportunities. I mean, this is a stocktake of our nation's collective conscience for crying out loud and still, no questions on 'who would win out of Batman and Wolverine in a death cage fight to the death with lots of dying'.

Poor form. Form pun intended. Kapow.

This is a missed opportunity because there will be no news reports that go like this: "In five years, Australians have switched allegiances from cute ducks to llamas with emotive combovers when polled in the Census about their favourite animals."

There could be fascinating vox pops with demographers about what sparked the sudden switch (an increase of llamas in the media after one accidentally stopped a Middle Eastern conflict by slipping on a stone and winning a Nobel Peace prize) and lots of collective pontificating about the whys and wherefores of our animal votes.

For every 10 'boring' questions there could be a bonus question.

Q 23: What's your income?

Q 24: How many people in your home?

Q 25: Cake or death?

And so on.

But we're a nation who, despite our rough hewn exteriors and crocodile love bites, just loves to fill in a form. We'll pretend to hiss and huff about it but deep down in our British-stock cores we'll be thrilling at the sheer sense of order of it all.

What is it that is so therapeutic about ticking a box? It's roughly equivalent in its calming effect to laying down in a field of daffodils and reading poetry. Personally, I love lining the letters up in the little boxes with swift strokes from an inky pen.

Oh course, if the ink dribbles outside one of those lines I suffer a rage stroke and lament the crumbling fabric of society itself.

We settle many of our national disputes with the cunning use of forms. And the statistics they create.

I don't watch the cricket for the game, necessarily. But give me a run-rate required any day of the week and touching myself slowly to the tune of a slow clap will seem like a distinctly charming idea.

Percentages? Take me now against the wall!

Now, where's my Census?