Non, je ne regrette rien – or do I?

I should have seen it coming when I was six and I pleaded with my mother not to put some old cutlery in the garbage because it had been good to us.

How long did I finally take to turf love letters from someone I no longer liked? Why do I hang on to clothes that no longer fit or that I'll never wear again, even on the off-chance I'll be invited to just that kind of fancy-dress party? I don't know, but I don't regret ditching the floral '70s jumpsuit.

Maybe I do regret getting rid of my maxi-length black leather Merivale coat. But come to think of it, by the time I did pass it on I was long past trying to squeeze and arm into it, let alone the rest of me. Maybe I regret not still having the teeny-weeny Mickey Mouse t-shirt I wore under it, tucked into blue jeans which were tucked into knee-high black boots.

I will always regret throwing away my Merrythought monkey – known affectionately as 'Monkey' – because he was my very best friend for many years, and I didn't ever fall out of love with him. It still haunts me that once upon a time I dutifully packed his suitcase for our holidays away – with what I'm not sure because he didn't wear clothes – and then I cold-heartedly sent him packing. To make matters worse, I also dispatched his best friend and my second-best friend, Honey Bear, because he too had lost his looks. But truthfully, how long can a grown woman lug around her moth-eaten soft toys?

Mind you, I hold onto my mother's Freddie Fox hats – which I don't wear. And I still have my son's first shoes, his first book, the Harrods nightdress he wore home from hospital, his primary school paintings and 'it was a dark and stormy night' stories. I have his soft toys.

In decades of decisions there are bound to be hits and misses, unless you play hardball and get rid of the lot.

Dish washer domains

Once upon a time, there was a small child who liked nothing more than to stand on a chair beside the real 'washer upper' and pitch in. Sadly, she had too much of a good thing, and had a reaction to the soap powder – or maybe her family was an early adopter and liquid detergent was the problem. Whichever, she came out in rashes – or what she like to call 'rushes'.

I'm not sure how effective I was at washing up but I am told that what I lacked in technique I made up with enthusiasm. Those were the days before the rubber glove made its way into the kitchen – and anyway, my tiny hands would never have kept them on. Of course, once I donned the gloves I was fine, and would desperately hope to be designated the washer. I could never really understand those who preferred to wipe/dry, but the fact that they did, instantly made them compatible companions.

Doing the dishes together gave us a slice of time to talk – or not. We could catch up on the day's details, dissect the dinner party guests, simply chew the fat or toil silently in tandem. You only had to help out at the kitchen sink in someone else's house to discover the wealth of different practices – and idiosyncrasies – associated with washing up. One of my friends would sing along with her aunty, and 'Moon River' was always their starting point.

Given the first mechanical or hand-powered dishwashers were invented as far back as the 1850s, it was a long time before they cut our ties to the kitchen sink, or double sink – which I remember thinking was the ultimate in sophistication. Thankfully, my horizons widened.

It took a woman to invent a 'reliable' mechanical dishwasher in 1897. Not motivated by sisterhood or even self-interest, Josephine Cochrane's concern was for her tableware – her staff were chipping the plates while doing the dishes. Even General Electric's ad for the 'electrical' dishwasher' in the 1930s was a vision of the future rather than the status quo – and the same can be said for the actress in it, Bette Davis.

When our children were growing up we instructed (or begged, depending on the kind of household you ran) to pack the dishwasher. Now I'm noticing a growing trend of expert dishwasher packers who push family and friends out of the way to demonstrate their prowess: the 'I'll pack the dishwasher' brigade.

I'm not sure what's going on here. Do they like pitting themselves against the space constraints? I do admit, some people have practical tips I hadn't though of. Or maybe they want to exercise a little control? Speaking of which, I know someone who gets up in the night, after everyone is in bed, and re-packs someone else's packing.

What's a 'Mavis Bramston' anyway?

Today is the 50th anniversary of the screening of the pilot episode of Australia's first TV taste of political satire – The Mavis Bramston Show. Of course, with our irreverent sense of humour, we took to it like ducks to water – it was the first Australian-produced comedy TV series to become a national success, both in terms of number of viewers and critical acclaim.

Mavis Bramston gave Wednesday nights an edge, so much so that Qantas pilots tried to re-arrange their schedules around it, and businesses in the nation's capital of Canberra asked ATN 7 to reschedule it because it clashed with late-night shopping. Apparently it was so 'immoral' that Bishop Thomas Muldoon announced he was selling his shares in Ampol, the sponsor. (I'm so naive, I didn't know that Catholic bishops played the stock market.)

British-born Carol Raye devised the show, produced the pilot episode and co-produced the early episodes with Michael Plant, and her original co-stars were Gordon Chater and Barry Creyton. The Mavis Bramston Show broke new ground on Australian television, emerging from a tradition of satire in print (Oz magazine in particular) and theatre (in this case, Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre and the Phillip Street Revues). Raye was also inspired by the British hit That Was The Week That Was (TWTWTW or TW3) and the American spin-off of the same name.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Fast forward 50 years from the first episode and the ABC – and its Four Corners program – are still copping criticism from and budget cuts by the current conservative government.

I, for one, want more Mavis. I hear that Carol Raye, now in her 90s, is calling on Kerry Stokes from the Seven Network to release episodes of The Mavis Bramston Show on DVD (most survive and are held in the National Film and Sound Archive).

By the way, apparently Jon Finlayson suggested the name 'because it's an old Melbourne theatre tradition to describe 'an actress who's really daggy or over the top, or up herself' as a 'Mavis Bramston'. So they came up with the idea of having a supposed actress from England star in the show but only make a brief appearance.

Time is on my side

After the overwhelming success of my first concert – the Beatles in June 1964 – I barely had time to catch my breath before my mother paid my sister to take me to my second – the Rolling Stones in January 1965. What a difference six months could make.

It was a metamorphosis. Not only had I traversed the timeline from primary to secondary school, I was no longer shepherded by godparents. I got to tag along in the hallowed presence of my older sister and her friend, and the friend's younger brother – in retrospect, it was almost a date. But of course I only had eyes for Mick, having also transferred my undying love from Ringo in same said six months.

I had also (thankfully) outgrown my emerald green velvet Beatle suit and this time was decked out in my black PVC Mary Quant raincoat – not that it was raining inside the Agricultural Hall at the Sydney Showground, but it was the kind of coat you had to wear rain, hail or shine. I particularly liked it when I had to pull the hood into play, with its clear panels running down the cheeks so I could see around corners. I'm pretty sure I wore my first lipstick – Mary Quant of course.

I love it that the Stones are performing in Melbourne tonight. I love it that Mick is 71 and is still strutting his stuff.

In 2009 at a Leonard Cohen concert I remarked to my son that at 74 I wanted to be like Leonard and to be able to effortlessly squat on my haunches and stand up in one movement. With the kind of honesty you only allow your children he replied, 'Wouldn't you need to be able to do that now?'

These great performers are great role models and Time is on my side, so it's more yoga for me.

Whose arm is that?

This morning I looked down at a body part and didn't recognise it as my own. I wasn't under the influence of drugs, I haven't had plastic surgery, nor have I acquired a prosthetic.

Overnight the skin on the inside of my elbow had taken on the texture of crepe paper and when I glanced at it my first reaction was, 'Whose arm is that?' Those who have experienced or are on the brink of experiencing this phenomenon won't need me to explain the concept of crepe paper. Those who haven't experienced it are probably still thinking it won't happen to them and won't be inclined to keep reading.

When I eventually adjusted to the uncomfortable reality that this was indeed my own arm, the great late Norah Ephron sprang to mind. For Norah, it was all about her neck. While I've grown used to my changing neck and face (because I see them every now and then in the mirror), for me it's all about my inside elbow.

I didn't have such a strong reaction when I enquired in a shop about a shirt with 'a bit of a sleeve' and the attendant mumbled, 'Mmm, bingo arms.' I accepted her comment and my upper arm sag with surprising equanimity, although I did a little more resistance work in the pool in the following weeks.

Now I'm smothering my inside elbows with moisturising creams. Alas, I fear it's too late to bring back their former elasticity – but I do see a missed marketing opportunity. Surely among those endless companies promoting skin products that regenerate and renew there's someone with the foresight to focus on the inner arm.

Hey, I remind myself, if my inside elbow is cause for some concern, then in the scheme of things I'm doing pretty well.

Limitless mindfulness

I'm not sure if we've just has national mindfulness week, but it sure felt like it from where I was sitting. First I read an article describing it as the plat du jour which was hotly followed by radio interviews about corporate mindfulness, advocating – among other things – paying attention to one thing at a time. I quickly applied the lesson and was inspired to mindful driving – best not done, I found, while listening to said same program. I drove straight past my destination.

Every now and then someone comes along who can dress up age-old ideas and apply them to new situations. Remember Eckhardt Tolle who caught out imaginations in the 1990s with the Power of Now? He advocated keeping thoughts in the present, slowing life down, connecting with nature and – like corporate mindfulness – warned against multi-tasking.

No doubt all the mindfulness roads lead back to forms of (prayer and) meditation, which I've practised on and off in some guise or other for decades. These days I draw on Buddhist practice and am attracted to the New Kadampa Tradition because it's accessible and easy to integrate into the everyday. 

As far as I'm concerned the more people practising mindfulness the better but it takes practice learning how to focus (I just tried to post this blog on someone else's site). It's also a fine line deciding where to focus your mind. Just this morning I saw a man mindfully texting while not mindfully picking up his dogs' poo. Needless to say, there are limitless opportunities for mindfulness in modern-day life.

Tasting forbidden fruits

Like so many of our generation, I was introduced to forbidden fruits at an early age. I had the decided advantage of having an older, precocious sister who handed me my first glass of whisky along with a cigarette. As I recall, it was when I was still running behind the television set to see where the actors were, so I was somewhat less worldly than she was.

In later primary school I sucked furiously on bamboo sticks behind the school's art room. I'm not sure I was looking for a bamboo buzz, so much as just wanting to be a bad girl smoker. I can't recommend it. Bamboo cigarettes don't ever really get going, unlike my mother's early smoking fuel – the pages of a Bible. From what I hear, they really take off – which I gather can be alarming when you're smoking in bed. I should point out that I don't think my mother was intending to be disrespectful, she just didn't have much else at hand. The same case could be made for the altar wine.

When I was about 10, said mother was reading Mary McCarthy's The Group. She hid it in the second drawer of the chest in her bedroom, under her 'slips', which is where she hid everything she didn't want us (her daughters) to find. For some reason page fifty-something sticks in my mind, but the imprecise reference is all that remains. I can no longer remember why it had to be hidden or why that page was the one I must not/had to read. Was it the sex, contraception or Lakey's sexual orientation?

Inevitably I went on to more bad girl stuff but nothing to write home about. After a long spirits' dry spell I overindulged in Bacardi and Coke in my early teens and nursed my first hangover. I regularly drank in pubs when I was underage and blithely drove for close to 10 year without a driver's licence (which I promptly got when I turned 18). Not content with country roads, I ventured out in one of the country's major – and to me unfamiliar – cities. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't inhale, or that the sexual revolution passed me by.

My excuse? I come from a line of rebels.

When did graciousness take a turn for the worse?

I can't remember when 'you're welcome' and 'it's a pleasure' slipped away, but I know that now when I hear them, they are music to my ears.

How and when did 'we' adopt 'not a problem'? When did buying a service from people who are being paid to do it start to feel like an imposition?

For most of my life it didn't occur to me that shopping or ordering in a restaurant could create such universal difficulty.

'I'll have the orange socks, thanks'

'Not a problem.'

There I am, buying socks with legal currency. I could have brought my Monopoly money with me, which could create a problem. Orange socks could be a figment of my imagination, which could create a problem.

'I'll have the pizza margherita, thank you.'

'Not a problem.'

I could have said, 'I'll have the pizza margherita with the base on the side.'

Believe me, I can come up with any number of problems if I want to.

Maybe the waitstaff look at me (or not) and think of their high-maintenance customers. The ones who send their coffee back to make it hotter and less flavoursome, or the ones who object to the snails in their salad. Maybe they are reassuring me that my presence hasn't been a huge inconvenience.

It bubbles away and I say to myself I should adopt a more relaxed approach. What's wrong with 'no worries' and 'she'll be right mate'. It's that 'don't get your knickers in a knot' attitude.

And then I turn on the national broadcaster and the correspondent signs off her live cross with the ubiquitous 'not a problem'.

What can I say? Hakuna matata.

Always look on the bright side of life

While my classmates were undoubtedly doing their homework, I'd sit with my father on school nights roaring with laughter while we watched Monty Python's Flying Circus.

It may have been my initiation into oh so silly British humour, but he was an old hand. I don't need to dig deep for memories of my parents glued to The Goon Show.

Or for family excursions to see Jacques Tati films. The only thing that upstaged them in my father's eyes was the time my mother was engulfed in the claret curtain so popular in cinemas in those days. In the gloom we hadn't noticed we'd lost her until we heard the bat-bat of her small hands beating against the heavy fabric.

While life isn't necessarily a barrel of laughs, I learnt at an early age that you could quickstep into absurdity. And what better example than 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'? The crucifixion scene turned into a song and dance act.

The hairdresser's iron will

I can be assertive. I admit it's not always my strong suit, but certainly all signs of it disappear when I'm in a hairdresser's chair. I will happily stand up to a doctor, with more years of training, than a hairdresser.

At my age, I have fairly definite ideas about how I want my hair to look, and I think I start off by articulating it well. I like a strawberry blonde colour (I even take the formula with me written on a scrap of paper), because it suits my fair complexion. I always, always wear it up, so it has to be left long enough to meet the teeth of the hair comb. It's fine, so I want as much add-on value as they can possibly muster.

I think these are straightforward instructions, but obviously not in hairdresser speak. (I should point out that there is one who is very capable of bridging the language barrier, but she is a five-hour round trip from where I am currently living.)

So boots and all; they don't bother with the art of gentle persuasion.

'No, that colour's not right. That's not the right proportions; this will suit you better. And I'm just going to thin the back here.'


'Sure', I reply meekly. 'Whatever you think.'

Result: brown hair that won't hold the hair comb. Longer-term result: a headache from the teeth of the hair comb piercing my scalp.

And the backstory? My (and I use the term loosely and inclusively) first run-in was when I was about 18 and thanks to my more assertive  sister, I finally ended up looking somewhat younger than 65. After a visit to an expensive Double Bay hairdresser in Sydney's eastern suburbs where I had a truly tragic haircut she arrived with all guns blazing and insisted they 'made good'. If only I'd learnt that lesson then.

Then there was Pierrot le Fou in Sydney's Strand Arcade in the mid '70s. I know, the name was a dead giveaway and I should have paid more attention to it. But I went ahead and foolishly said the result was boring. It took years to grow out his comeback, a split-level effect more suited to the architecture of the time.

So, what is it about some hairdressers that they have to do 'the exact same thing' (don't you hate that kind of talk) you have asked them not to? It could just be the power they have standing over you while you sit and stare at yourself in an unforgiving mirror.

Fast food survival

My mother had many interests and wonderful attributes but cooking wasn't high on her list of pastimes. Lucky for her, in the 1960s the Western world was discovering the 'joy' of convenience foods. Premixed, freeze-dried, parboiled, dehydrated – you name it, we had it on our pantry shelves. Anything that would reduce her hours in the kitchen made it to her shopping list and eventually to our dining table.

A typical meal was meat and two veg, which often included Deb Instant Mashed Potato and Surprise Peas, no doubt named because their little dehydrated pellets sprung to life when doused in boiling water. Who wouldn't? The meat was generally well to over done.

We had Uncle Ben's (parboiled) Rice, which began production as far back as 1943 in the US and started to reach our shores in the 1960s. Interestingly, it was the top-selling rice in the US from 1945 right up to the 1990s. In keeping with creeping cultural influences, we ate Aunt Jemima Pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast. I'm thinking there has to be a PhD thesis in this kind of branding, but perhaps it has already been written.

We were quick to swoop on Moccona freeze-dried instant coffee which was regarded as the sophisticated choice, even though it tastes like dry-cleaning fluid (I swear I'm operating on hearsay here). Reassuringly, the company claims it is instant coffee made from 100% coffee beans. To add to Moccona's glamour, in Australia it was only sold in delicatessens, specialty stores and pharmacies until the mid '70s. Somehow it has retained its prestige and, even though it is now found on every suburban supermarket shelf, mysteriously the empty glass jars are now considered 'collectables'.

Maybe this is what's turned me into a slow-food mama. I am still suspicious of the microwave and am one of its very late adopters. But, despite my decided distaste for fast and convenience foods, I have to admit that, along with my father turning his creative hand to the culinary arts, they probably saved me from starvation.

Dedicated follower of fashion

When I was a child I thought ric rac and smocking were primitive forms of torture invented by my sewing teacher. When I was 18 I thought they were cooler than cool on my hippie smocks. When I was a child I donned my Mouseketeer ears every afternoon and when I was 18 I proudly wore a tight Mickey Mouse t-shirt tucked into my blue jeans. I'm not sure where this is going, but hopefully I'll find a thread.

I am not a natural sewer and my few creations have made me my own fashion victim: the skirt stitched across the bottom; the dress with a cobweb of threads inside that couldn't be cut in case it fell apart; and the shirt that did fall apart after being worn twice. Luckily I had reached home when the fragmentation occurred.

So, unlike my friend with nimble thimbled fingers (you know who you are), I rely on what the fashion world serves up, which might not necessarily be off the peg or on the pages of style bibles. It's undoubtedly bad timing to be talking about Woody Allen and I don't want to get into the whole she said, he said thing, but I do know that he has had an impact on my life. And who would have thought that one of his major influences was in the fashion stakes. I spent months if not years wearing oversized men's shirts and waistcoats with baggy belted trousers. La di da. La di da. How could you not want to follow in the footsteps of Annie Hall?

Did it matter to anyone else that I was sporting a Klute haircut or could forge my way past Meryl Streep's accent to don ankle-length linen skirts and dusters straight Out of Africa? Was I a dedicated follower of fashion or just someone with a desire to be someone else?

I know how to live a dog's life

Before we got a dog, I was living like one. This is no reflection on my family's circumstances, or the way I was treated. I just decided one day – aged about four – that I was going to be a dog.

My long-suffering mother made me a kennel out of an oversized cardboard box. She patted me fondly and patiently sat out the days until I chose to reclaim my human form.

It's hard to imagine what influenced me to take to the floor because it was years before we got a dog. Maybe I can lay it at the feet of Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmations, Rin Tin Tin or even Toto. Pause for thought. (As the man-son says, it's my blog and I'll pun if I want to.) It could have been Lassie, who got off so very lightly in the naming stakes in the eponymous 1950s program compared to Lt Rip Masters and Sgt Biff O'Hara.

Was it the instinct of a  precocious dog lover, or of an egalitarian? In fact, I was drawn by the thought of looking at everything from ankle height. I still over-identify, but now I can do it in a standing position. Those who know me well recognise Yusuf Islam's (formerly Cat Stevens') 'I love my dog as much as I love you' as my theme song.

Taffy was our first. The offspring of our cousins' Sonny, predictably, he was a Welsh Corgi, who less predictably battled the magpies over ownership of his bum fluff. Magpies know no boundaries when nesting. Then there was Sam the Afghan Hound. I don't know what we were doing with a 1960s fashion statement but I do remember his impossibly fine blond hair blowing in the wind when he rode in my mother's convertible.

My son and I were given Max, who was brought up by my German friend Barbara. He arrived with his best friend, a black cat called Panther and a dowry of a wooden armchair. The son quickly put Max's new-found disobedience down to my abysmal German accent. He said the poor dog couldn't understand a word I was saying. I suspect Max knew a soft touch when he saw one.

You gotta love 'em. It's more than the unconditional love and deep-seated loyalty; it's their indescribable joy of just waking each morning and embracing each day with as much enthusiasm as they can possibly muster.

Now, as Cooper the kind and gentle kelpie x heaves his arthritic spine up off the floor, I'm determined this is the last one. I know I've said it before – and I'll probably say it again.

The lost art of Pillow Talk?

I grew up in the country – maybe 'country' is a bit of a stretch. There were hard-working dairy and beef farmers, but we also lived among 'Pitt Street farmers' – city folk who liked to get a bit of dust on their moleskins and mud on their R.M. Williams boots on weekends.

When I was a child we had an operator connecting our telephone lines. We'd pick up the receiver of the black Bakelite handset and, miraculously, she'd speak: 'Number please?' Our phone numbers were a combination of alphabet letters and numbers and so short that forgetting one wasn't going to wash. My mother was convinced the operator was listening in to things that she shouldn't. Maybe it was a suspicious nature, but more likely a true understanding of how a small town works.

We lived in an old rambling house with a corridor of floor to ceiling cupboards. The corner one was set up as a phone booth, complete with a table and chair so you could settle in for a long 'mag' as my mother called it. One of her fortes was the long mag.

Needless to say, my relationship with the phone blossomed when I hit my teens. The corner cupboard was just the place to arrange a Saturday night date at the Empire Cinema and then phone girlfriends to revisit every detail of the making of the date. It wasn't exactly Pillow Talk, but I can remember a few relationships where there was more of a frisson over the phone line than in real life.

The phone experience began to change in the '60s and '70s when we graduated to an automatic exchange and colourful rotary dial handsets. The '80s were memorable for my infant son pulling a yellow model onto his head, which precipitated the first of a string of visits to the children's hospital. Then in the '90s a friend stumbled in my front door lugging a brick mobile Motorola and we just stood there in awe staring at it.

I love love love my iPhone but sometimes, I admit, I yearn for the privacy and secrecy of the corner cupboard and the thrill of not knowing where a conversation or a night at the cinema will lead.