Tuesday, January 1, 2013

all change, all change, we have now reached the end of the 2012 line




As with armageddon, I fail to understand the significance of New Year’s Day. At best, it means I will spend January, February and March writing the wrong date on everything.

At it’s worst, it means being kept awake til 4 a.m. or thereabouts by neighbours playing what they think is music at increasingly competitive volumes. At midnight there is also a brief increase in noise while some shout in the street, demonstrating that despite living in Frankston they are able to count backwards from ten.

This is actually a welcome respite from the usual street brawls occurring when one of the occupants of a nearby house [choose any house at random] seeks to evict another. Reasons for attempted evictions range from “You *****ing *****ed **** you ***”,       to       “***** you, you *****ing ****”.

The bright people two blocks away do not join in the pyrotechnic activity on New Year’s Eve, preferring to keep their marine flares for the other 51 weekends of the year.

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You say you’ve made a resolution
Well, you know
We all want to change ourselves
You tell me that it’s self improvement
Well, you know
We all want to be our best
But when you talk about giving up [insert vice here]
Don’t you know that you can count me out…

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Yet another YouTube video mentioning Frankston has gone viral. Last time the press insisted the racist abuse was ‘on the Frankston line’. It was, in fact, perpetrated by some creep from a more eastern suburb who was travelling on the Frankston line but neither to nor from Frankston itself.

The latest shows an incident of gross violence [a tautology, surely] also occurring on the Frankston line. Please note the creep charged was from Chelsea.

The Frankston foreshore, statistically, was the most popular family beach in Victoria, for the calendar year 2012.

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Oh, I know I scoff and denigrate Frankston but I am comforted by the knowledge this could not possibly lower house values here. I’m just making cheap use of a stereotype. If I replaced the location names Frankston, Franger or Frankghanistan with placenames like Upotipotpon or Tittybong [real place names, BTW] you would think I was talking about Dad and Dave, wouldn’t you?

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On our way home from Corowa yesterday, we dropped one of TO’s relos in Coburg after which I crossed the Sydney Road to drop in on some of my own relos in Brunswick. Having lived most of my citified years in the inner suburbs, revisiting streets and houses and landmarks I have known intimately left me saddened to think of how much it would cost to move back. Sigh, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

Coburg [once a suburb named Pentridge and then later simply home to a prison named Pentridge] was my home for a few years. State governments being what they are, there seemed to be a problem keeping gates locked from the inside.

Many times I was awakened at night, not by the sounds of the police choppers swooping rooftops like grumpy magpies, but the bloody bright beams of chopper-lights illuminating the hairs up my nose.

One particularly memorable night I was awakened before the choppers and lights arrived by a very loud explosion 3 houses away over the back fence.

“Oh ****", said a woman, in tones not unlike those one often hears in Frankston. “Oh, now you’ve done it you ****, you’re in real ****ing trouble now. You’ve really ****ing done it this time!”
Some bloke’s only but repeated response was a great deal of loud groaning.

The sounds of ambulance and police sirens added to the yelling and chopping.

Dressed in appropriate evening wear [jimjams and slippers] we went out to watch the entertainment from a distance safe enough to avoid annoying our fearless peacekeepers.

The groaning moaning bloke, it transpired, had tried to rig a bomb to the car of his ex-Mrs but stupidly touched the car himself before leaving the scene of intended crime. One can only hope he was not left handed.

There was no report in the next day’s paper, nor was there any such thing as YouTube nor even, apparently, a Frankston Line involved.

As we wended our way through these inner suburbs yesterday it occurred to me that if Frankstonians migrated to Coburg, perhaps the average IQ in both areas would be elevated.

Oh well. I miss the inner suburbs, but miss the peace and quiet of a country town more.

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WARNING – A RUDE BIT





Mary had a little skirt
With a slit along each side
And everywhere that Mary went
The boys could see her thighs
Mary had another skirt
With a slit right in the front
But she doesn’t wear it very often


14 comments:

  1. Here's what I think of New Year's Eve. It's 8:49 pm here and I'm off to bed to read a book.
    It really is a silly thing isn't it, but I'm sure someone is making big bucks off of it.

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    1. Oh Rubye, billions of dollars around the world spent on fireworks alone! A good book is an excellent antidote to lots of silliness.

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  2. Can't stick to a new years resolution so i don't bother anymore.

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    1. You are a man after my own heart, Windsmoke:)

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  3. "Frankston Line" sounds like the flack we get "Logan Bogans". What you have described could be happening in parts of Logan. Luckily we live on the right side of the highway where the IQ is higher.

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    1. Oddly enough, Diane, as a youngster I was led to believe this is the best side of the river.

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  4. I'll let you in on the secret - EVERYONE'S a bogan!! Bogan bashing is just a way to confirm that although all bogans are equal, some are more equal than others!!

    And if NYE inspires you to write such posts, all I have to say in response is bring it on more often!!!!

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    1. OY! Juz 'oo a ewe corlin' a bow gun?

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    2. I mean it in the nicest possible way ... it's the word you put in front of it that counts. For eg, a person from Double Bay (sorry, don't know the Melb equiv) is a RICH bogan. A person from St George is a BUSH bogan. A person from Canberra is an OSTRICH bogan. You see??

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    3. Oh now I get it, digger. Melbourne? Try Toorak [say Trak] or Brighton [Brahton dahling]. Further down the socioeconomic scale we find the original trakky-daks and mokkies bogans at Broadmeadows [Brordy].

      Of course new suburbs keep popping up, and the day someone told me she lived in "Broadmeadows Heights" I kakked myself. [Well, some name like that].

      Of course you meant it nicely.

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    4. Haha ... there's a fine line between 'Trak' and 'Trakky Dak', or is that just me?!?!?!

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    5. Ooh, you are trying to get me into hot water under the new law relating to being offensive to people with different values and backgrounds, you cheeky person you. Because I am awake up to you I will not suggest people from Trak might be unaware Trakky Daks even exist - unless the expression means 'bespoke trousers' of course.

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  5. Are you sure there wasn't any coverage of that bomb incident? What is it I am remembering? Some Indian guy, torching his own car...just can't remember the details now. I thought the limerick was odd. Why doesn't it rhyme properly, and then I read it a second time. A start like that on day one of the new year, and where can we go but downhill. Btw, your Frankstonedians left rather a lot of rubbish around town last night. It had to be them, coming into town on the FKN(official abbreviation) line.

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    1. Perhaps I should have said I don't remember any coverage of the incident? En tout cas, there was a chappie of Asian Indian persuasion who, a few years ago, torched his car and cried 'Racists'. It was an insurance job. Could that be the incident you recal?

      You mean they trashed Franger and still had rubbish left over to donate to the inner city? The only people I know who have resorted to the old detergent in the fountain trick were from the 'wrong' side of the river, so nothing would surprise me.

      'Frankstonedians' - very clever :)

      I doubt there is far to go to the valley floor.

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