Breakfast blog

For Pete’s sake, will you look at this excellent breakfast blog. It’s been going since 2005. Like The Age, it tends to have a southern and eastern inner-suburbs bias, but it’s ace.

Seven things meme

I insist this post is entirely Janet’s fault. She wrote a comment a week ago that “I just tagged you for a seven things meme”.

You what?

I had no idea what she was talking about, which demonstrates the extent of my engagement with this blogging medium.

You may be aware that Janet posts at Muppinstuff, and she also campaigns to save Moreland institutions like Coburg Pool. Her posts are tremendous, a kaleidescope of her life, and her photographs are just brilliant. One of her other blogs, Mrs Washalot, is among the most original on the interwebs. Janet is excellent. So I was flattered to be asked.

But then I found out what this “7 things meme” folly means. Apparently, if you’re tagged for a meme you’re supposed to come up with a list of seven hyper-weird things about yourself, and then nominate five others to do likewise. Oh, for the love of… don’t people have jobs? Surely this curse begs the same scorn as chain letters?

Yes indeed, this is a neighbourhood blog, innit? It’s not a personal one. And I just can’t think of seven weird things about me. Seven disgusting things, sure. Bloke on the Avenue will tell you my most disgusting habit is picking the topping off pizza without eating the base. He’s wrong. In all our years together he’s never noticed me cleaning my fingernails using the corners of pages of the book I’m reading. Eeeew. Gross.

Blow me down, I guess that makes 1 weird thing on the list. That’s all. Oh, except that since childhood I loved the smell of petrol, and had to train myself to dislike it and not inhale every time I passed a service station. HEY! Now you’ve twisted my arm, I’ve just remembered something TOTALLY WEIRD about me. Are you sitting down? I think Malcolm Turnbull is very sexy. Despite the fact that he bats for Satan, I wouldn’t turn him down if he… oh never mind. Can you forgive such a perversity? Does it make me evil, or just kinky?

So that makes 3. I have a culty, happy-clappy, god-bothering, jump-for-home-school-conspiracy-theorist sibling who voted for John Howard. I guess there’s one in every family, but I’m counting that as 4.

And I keep fancying Kevin Rudd really looks Chinese. If only he’d stop bleaching his hair. That’s 5.

Now for 6. Once, when I lived in Cairns, I felt sorry for my neighbour who was a lovely but troubled woman who kept going out with LOSER guys. One day I sent her a bunch of flowers anonymously, just to put a skip in her step and perhaps give her a little confidence. I figured she’d think they’re from an admirer and it would boost her confidence and optimism. WELL. Unknown to me, she was mounting a harassment case against one of her work colleagues and she thought the flowers were from him. I’m very ashamed to confess I didn’t own up. I meant to, I really did, but as time tumbled on it got harder and it just struck me as a very weird thing to have done. I’d have to explain that No, no, I’m not a lesbian, not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just felt sorry for you… There’s more to this story, but it’s far too painful to tell. That’s 6.

In traffic, I’m courteous. I always let cars into my lane unless they’re Toorak Tanks or ridiculous overwrought mag-wheeled things, in which case I go out of my way to be discourteous and even obstructionist. That’s 7. And that’s very new Brunswick, too.

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POSTSCRIPT: I forgot to pass on the curse and nominate 5 people. Please put your list in the comments section below or someone close to you will die. Or else you’ll suddenly find Amanda Vanstone sexy. The cursed 5 are: Bane of Malakas, Faith, Robert Hollingworth, Bogan, and Stella. And anyone else who wants to have a go. This means you, too, Helen.

Call to action: save Coburg pool

The campaign to save Coburg Olympic pool is still going strong. The campaign has a website here, where you can download fliers, get background information and attend action meetings.

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Meeting in Brunswick to discuss proposed freeway

The following is from the Moreland Greens’ Mike Puleston:

Moreland Council will be sponsoring a Public Meeting on the proposed East-West Freeway at Brunswick Town Hall on Sunday April 13 at 2.00. This will follow the Cyclovia, [pictured] when Sydney Rd will be closed to motor vehicles from Bell St to Brunswick Rd for the morning.

The Greens are opposed to the proposed freeway for a number of reasons:

1. The project puts motor vehicles at the centre of a transport strategy that should be looking first and foremost at public transport in this era of climate change. For example, motor traffic would be greatly reduced by construction of a light railway from Doncaster along the Eastern Freeway to link up with inner city public transport - this railway has been on the books since the 1970s.

2. Provision of freeways is massively more expensive than public transport options. The billions earmarked for the East-West Freeway could be better spent on public transport, including better rail connections to outer suburbs.

3. The freeway would funnel even larger numbers of motor vehicles into inner suburbs. Even though Eddington does not have off-ramps into the City in his report, there is general agreement that the project’s financial backers would not accept a lack of off-ramps. The increased congestion would not only affect suburbs such as Collingwood, Fitzroy and Carlton. It would also cause slowdowns to trams coming from further out, and greater risks to cyclists.

4. The freeway would cause massive disfigurement of Royal Park - which has already suffered from land grabs in recent years.

And so it goes on.

It would be good to have a strong turnout of Greens members and supporters. Please bring your Greens triangles - there will be triangles available if you do not have one.

Brunswick Labor MP for Brunswick Carlo Carli is showing uncharacteristic energy on this issue, and will speak at the meeting. It is hard not to think that Carlo’s rare burst of vigour has been largely promptly by the threat to his seat posed by the 30% Greeens vote in 2006 - the highest in the state. With a few more % in the primary vote and favorable preferences, the Greens will take this seat in 2010, as we will take Melbourne, Richmond, and possibly Northcote.

Although Carlo may speak out against the freeway, he is a small cog in the Brumby Labor machine. When it comes to voting in Parliament Carlo will toe the Party line - to do otherwise would be political suicide.

We need more Greens in state parliament to ask the questions others are afraid to ask.

Your cardigan is a national security threat

And your washing machine is spying on you. Read about it here.

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“Tanti-social” toilets in Coburg

What larks to see Media Watch pick up on the Moreland Leader’s sub-editing issues. And following The Republic’s exposé on Coburg’s über-toilet scandal (see post below), the Leader ran a campaign to “stop the tanti-social behavior” in Coburg toilets.

You what?

Tanti-social issues are one thing (and don’t we all have ‘em?), but spelling ‘behaviour’ American-style is just a steaming pile of jobbies. Still, bottoms up to the Leader subs who remembered to replace “Toilet headline in here thanks ta” with:

Toilet backflip a big relief for Coburg shoppers

It’s punny, innit? (I bet you can think of a dozen variations — “Shoppers’ fears flushed away” and so on.) The story then describes a dangerous Alan Jones phenomenon in Cobes that’s threatening family values:

A lack of toilets in the central shopping district had forced families and parents with prams to use underground toilets also used by men cruising for sex.

I’m just busting for A Current Affair to pick up on this one. Read the full report here.

A toyme in the loyfe of a Cobufoyle

It’s been a very Coburg toyme.

• The excellent Cobes butcher that sells free-range meats twice gave me a voucher to Baker’s Delight™. I’d rather eat my mother-in-law’s year-old kidney fry than bread from Baker’s Delight™, but Bloke on The Avenue was with me and it was simply against his high principles to waste a freebie, so we had Bakers Delight™’s dinner rolls with our bbq. (They were better than anything m-i-l has served up.) The second time Little One was with me and he, too, insisted on an anemic-looking Pizza Roll. To the chicks at Baker’s Delight™, you have to pronounce that “Peeetsa Roewell.” Or they don’t understand you.

• Bladder bursting, I queued for at least 15 minutes to get into Coburg’s new multimillion $ state-of-the-art stainless steel space-aged-unisex-self-flushing-self-cleaning-auto-loo conveniently located next to the library. Have you seen the boastful public notices about this beast? It’s intuitive, you know — you don’t have to touch anything. Kewl. But when I finally got in, I washed my hands, grotty after aforementioned Peeetsa Roewell (okay, I shared it with Little One, and it was ace). Which automatically flushed Loo before I’d done my business. Wasteful! I scolded Loo — and to get back at me, after I’d done my business, it wouldn’t let me wash my hands a second time. Did not compute. Hence it wouldn’t automatically flush (IF=handwashing THEN=flush). I had a bit of explaining to do to the next person in the queue.

• Under duress, I took some Easter Bunny colouring sheets from the supermarket counter for Little One and his Little Brunswick Mate to colour in. Only they’re not innocent bunny colouring sheets: they’re the Coles® Land of Cadbury™ Colouring® Competition™. Little One and Brunswick Junior wanted to enter their fine colouring, but alas, I secreted their entries to the recycling bin, as the Conditions of Entry™ says their addresses and details will remain the property of Coles® for all time for marketing purposes and whatever other purposes Coles® deems fit.

• I took down a hoon’s details with full intention of dobbing him in. What an aresehole, scooting between traffic at 150k with his doof-doof. I got home and inertia set in.

The FLY!

Should I be worried? Can I take precautions? Do fruit fly like quince?

The news that a backyard in Ascot Vale has been quarantined after the discovery of fruit-fly has me in a small, but still significant, panic. How many backyards between that one and mine, and how many contain fruit? I’m guessing, not many, and all of them, respectively.

My grandparents lived near the NSW border and so I grew up spending a large part of the summer holidays parked on the side of the road while grandma force-fed us fruit prior to us being inspected at the fruit-fly post. Apparently this was because the alternative, throwing the fruit into the bin provided, would be ‘wasting it’. Should we be setting set up a Checkpoint Charlie at Puckle St? Destroying our fruit? Checking it? I’m off to do some research, what does fruit fly look like and what should we be doing? (Of course I could have done that before I posted but that would go against the spirit of the internet now wouldn’t it?)

Headline in here thanks ta

Moreland Leader’s savvy-sub-editors working overtime.

But if you want to witness the nadir of suburban newspaper reportage, read Helen’s post here.

Smear of scientists

I think that’s a good collective noun, isn’t it? “There was a smear of scientists at the convention”. If you can think of a better collective noun for them, let me know. Anyhoo, the following smear was published in Crikey yesterday:

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Tomorrow ends Victoria’s ban on genetically manipulated (GM) food crops — and following widespread media exposure of the putative health and environmental hazards of GM food, chief scientist Gustav Nossal will be joined by three scientists for a media conference to brief journalists on “Which concerns [about GM food crops] are the most justified? Which risks can be managed and which can’t?”

Yet tomorrow’s briefing is “vested interests masquerading as public interest science” claims Greenpeace spokesperson Louise Sales. Comprising scientists who campaigned in support of lifting the bans, it was organised by the Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC), which claims itself “free of bias”.

But absent are independent scientists who warn of dangers of GM food: biochemist and nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton OAM; or medical scientist Professor Stephen Leeder; or epidemiologist Dr Judy Carman; or crop research scientist Dr Maartan Stapper. There are many.

Media Manager Lyndal Gully told Crikey in an email:

“There was no attempt to line up a panel with a particular GM viewpoint… [but] if scientists on the panel are more likely to end up arguing with each other rather than answering journalists’ questions, then there is a good chance that the science (that either side is trying to communicate) will be lost in the story.”

Gene Ethics director Bob Phelps said the selected scientists “are speaking way outside their area of scientific expertise.” But AusSMC CEO Susannah Eliot said the panel was chosen because “they have done the research and have the knowledge-base, and they are happy to be grilled by the media.”

One panellist, Dr TJ Higgins, is CSIRO’s co-inventor of the ill-fated GM field pea, abandoned because it caused lung-damage when fed to mice. His published claims that “there isn’t a single piece of evidence that [GM food is] any less safe than conventional food” reportedly prompted the ire of environmental scientist Dr Brian John, who branded these claims “a lie.” Experimental biologist Dr Arpad Puzstai also said “Most of Dr Higgins’ comments are factually incorrect… the final refuge of the incompetent.”

Critics of second panelist Dr Chris Preston claim his published reviews ignore negative studies. Professor Rainer Mosenthin reportedly said Preston’s methods should be disregarded as they “have limited scientific value.”

And third panelist Professor Rick Roush reportedly failed to disclose his research funding by GM companies. Allegedly as a result, Science journal revised its disclosure policy, as it is recognised that industry-funded research tends to be much more industry-favourable than independent research.

Accusations don’t amount to guilt — and many anti-GM-food scientists also face public mud-slinging (including from some on this panel). This is the problem, says AusSMC’s CEO Susannah Eliot. “The issue is so polarised it gets tricky to select a panel. Many scientists are happy to discuss the issues privately but aren’t willing to speak publicly because they don’t want to be labelled as pro- or anti-GM.”

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Postscript:

Professor Rick Roush said today:

“We know that eggs and nuts can be harmful to people — there is no evidence GM foods can be.”

Obviously Professor Roush missed this. And this.

A rush of blood to the head

This hard rubbish business is heady stuff. The first day I ventured out to walk the short distance to Sydney Rd. I left home but was back five minutes later dragging a blackboard easel. Ok, try again. Alas, I didn’t make it much further before arriving home less than an hour later with a dilapidated table after telephoning a friend and dragging her away from her work so that she could help me get it home. After 42 years I think I’ve finally found a reason to get my licence! Before the sun went down that evening I’d added two glass doors to the collection.

Things settled down for a while. I basically stopped leaving the house unless heavily blinkered or accompanied by my husband who aspires to run a support group for husbands-of-women-who-drag-home-junk and is perfecting techniques of disuasion he hopes to be able to share with fellow sufferers. But then in the last days before actual collection I was overwhelmed by the sort of panic normally seen at a Myer Boxing Day sale and came home with; 4 Tonka trucks, two bicycles and a small kidney shaped table. I would have added six fabulous small windows in perfect condition but someone was refusing point-blank to pick them up with our car and I was hesitant about calling on my licenced friend again. She might have wanted them for herself!

You can see my collection on Flickr. I can’t quite over what a lot of rubbish it all is! So, thats one week down and only four more to go although further damage may be tempered as the collection area moves further north. Out of mind out of sight as they say. I can’t be the only one. Has anyone else got any good finds they’re happy to own up to?

Modesty prevents him*

Okay, I’m gonna to do something that’s frowned upon within the interwebs. I’m gonna out a psuedonymous blogger.

The Republic of Moreland’s ‘Leonaardo’ is actually — ta-da-da-da — the painter Robert Hollingworth!

Don’t know Robert’s art? You may know his words. Robert’s a terrific writer. Last night I went to the launch of his latest book, They Called Me The Wildman, at Readings in Carlton. Published by Murdoch Books, the book’s publicity blurb reads thus:

They Called Me the Wildman is historian and artist Robert Hollingworth’s captivating reconstruction of Swedish-born naturalist Henricke Nelsen’s solitary life. Henricke lived on a mountain in Victoria’s Tallarook Ranges in the 1860s. Robert Hollingworth has written Henricke’s life story in the form of a prison diary. No imaginary work could arrange a better cast of characters than this meticulously researched story.

Never mind the blurb (and Robert insists he’s not a historian — even though the book is based on historical records). I can tell you it’s a terrific read. I read it in manuscript stage, and ’twas one of those page-turners that keep me up into the wee hours. And I don’t even tend to read this kind of genre. I promise you it was authentic and moving and wondrous. It hit me right here:

*pounds heart*

Now, it’s in hard-cover, beautifully bound, with gorgeous paperstock and old illustrations. It’s a fine object as well as a wonderful read. If you buy one as a present it will be treasured, I promise.

You can listen to Leonaardo talk about it on ABC Radio National.

• *The title of this post is ripped off.

Local and or general

I’ve decided to try and incorporate more indigenous plants in my plans for the garden. This started off as a way to encourage local frogs into our pond and grew from there. It’s not that I plan to get rid of everything else, just to inform myself about what the indigenous possibilities might be. Towards this I was planning on going to a talk on indigenous plants of Moreland at Coburg library recently.

Alas, like most good intentions it was lost somewhere between the coffee breaks and urgent internet-browsing. Luckily Ceres has a range of plants indigenous to Merri Creek and surounding areas and recently I discovered (only in the virtual sense so far) the Victorian Indigenous Nurseries Cooperative (VINC) at Fairfield which looks like it would be worth a real-life visit. The Keelbundora Indigenous Nursery at Latrobe Uni also looks very interesting.

This morning however while indulging in the sort of internet-surfing that meant I missed the original talk in the first place, I found Gardening with Indigenous Plants in Moreland, a 16 page booklet produced for Moreland City Council by Merri Creek management committee with an extensive list of plants and trees complete with illustrations.

Armed with this and the Moreland Nature Strip Beautification Guidelines how can I go wrong?

Trash and treasure

Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Here in the southern states of the Greater Republic of Moreland (Brunswick, that is….) the annual hard waste collections are about to start. I’m just as excited as those who engage in Boxing-Day-stampedes and am busy clearing space in the shed, down the side of the house, on the roof and under the house while my husband is threatening to host a support group for men-whose-wives-trawl-the-streets-and-laneways-and-drag-home-junk.

Mind you it’s not all mindless consumption; I am planning to get rid of a few things. Last year we watched bemused as one of our neighbours scoured our castoffs and triumphantly bore away a rotting compost bin. On the other hand it’s the discarded, and gorgeously rusted, corrugated iron from their back verandah that now adorns the front of our home-office. As they say, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. Maybe even more so when that man is a woman.

The vegetable-domestic complex

Thanks, Max Franc, for telling me to get off my arse and do another post. Following Marty’s great comment about his concrete patch turned native and vegie garden, here are some before and after snaps of my own.

Like Marty’s, our garden has a very different microclimate to what it had a year ago. These pics don’t show my beloved urban crops, but on the roof you can see my plastic planter boxes with lightweight medium and pumpkins planted within.

But these pics are old — now the pumpkin crop is covering a great expanse of rooftop. Their superb soft green solar panels are harvesting sunlight and turning it into sweet cellulose, while cooling our house. Joy. The most inexpensive solar-panel-carbon-uptake-insulating-beautifiers ever. I’m hoping the Moreland City Council will get cranky with me for breaching some by-law by having pumpkins on my roof. If this happens, I’ll bludgeon them with the green roof policies of Toronto and Germany, where there is now a whopping 14 per cent of green roof coverage in urban centres, thanks to policy incentive. That’s right: more than one in ten buildings there have some rooftop vegetation!

A world expert on green roofs, Germany’s Professor Manfred Köhler, is coming to Melbourne soon to give talks about green roof policy and practicalities. Come along and see him! There will be many green roof experts there.

I’ll put some current photos up of my rooftop crop soon.

The vegetable-industrial complex

A superb article by Michael Pollan.

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Happiness

is the first ripe tomato of the season.

Christmas on The Avenue

Urban farmers should be freed from water restrictions

After all, we have less of a carbon footprint, and use less water than rural farmers. The stuff I’m always banging on about is in The Age today. Thanks, Bane. And thanks Marty for pointing out the petition on this topic. Sign it!

Moreland objects to Brumby’s GM decision

Moreland State MP Carlo Carli supported Victoria’s ban on GM food crops. So did The Greens, of course, and so did Moreland City Council. And so did between 70-90 per cent of Australia’s polled population, including farmers. But John Brumby, learning nothing from Howard’s spectacular defeat, made the secretive and undemocratic decision to overturn the ban yesterday. Sigh. From today’s Crikey:

Coinciding with Jeffrey Smith’s Australian tour to promote Genetic Roulette: the documented health risks of genetically engineered foods, yesterday Victorian Premier John Brumby bowed to pressure from big agribusiness and announced, without consulting caucus, that Victoria would overturn bans on GM food crops.

Gene contamination knows no borders, and New South Wales has also lifted its bans, to the rancour of other states.

But, even facing the threat of revolt among up to 40 of his own MPs, Brumby refused to release Victorian Chief Scientist Sir Gustav Nossal’s review of the impact of lifting the ban before his announcement. Sir Gustav was appointed to lend scientific credibility to a review whose terms of reference were strictly and solely economic: not scientific. As the review itself states: “It is not the purpose of this panel to judge… health and environment assessments.”

Overturning the bans was widely regarded as a done deal at least a year ago, prompting an un-named MP to tell The Age Brumby was “treating caucus like idiots”.

So why was Brumby secretive? Perhaps he feared market revolt. Last Tuesday, Coles government relations advisor Chris Mara told a Parliamentary forum that “Coles listens to our customers and over 90% do not want GM ingredients in their food.” Goodman Fielder, Australia’s largest food company, also backs the bans. Tatiara Meats, Australia’s largest lamb exporter, and 250 other food companies also want the bans kept.

Why? Because the public does. In polls taken by AC Nielsen, Roy Morgan, Millward Brown, The Age, and Swinburne University and Choice magazine, a whopping majority of Australians (between 70 and 90 per cent) don’t want GM foods. In this morning’s Sydney Morning Herald poll, 84 per cent of respondents don’t want it.

Despite agribusiness bodies giving the nod to GM food crops, 80% of farmers surveyed in a 2002 poll taken by the SA Farmers Federation supported a ban. In an August 2003 Biotechnology Australia poll 74% of farmers surveyed were not considering using GM crops. A Biotechnology Australia 2006 study found that “The Australian public see great risks from GM foods and crops and concerns are continuing to rise.” This followed an ABC report that there was “no market” for GM canola in Australia.

As big UK, Japanese and US chains remove GM food from their shelves, the EU is discussing the withdrawal of five GM crops. “Consumers are rejecting GM foods. Markets in Europe, Japan, and elsewhere are closing and domestic markets are likewise threatened. This is driving prices down,” Canada’s National Farmers Union reported.

This also comes at a time when scientists and farmers internationally are warning about the economic and health perils of GM food, some of which is unwittingly eaten because of inadequate labelling laws. Whether or not Brumby believes these warnings is irrelevant. He has forgotten that in a democracy and a marketplace, the customer is always right.

More on the safety risks of WiFi

Further to my earlier rantings, here’s an extract of a Crikey article on WiFi technology:

Around the world, government organisations, including schools, are facing a backlash for imposing wireless internet signals on citizens.

In the US, a class action lawsuit filed by parents at an Illinois school claims prolonged exposure to low intensity microwaves emitted by WiFi networks “can break down DNA strands, cause chromosome aberrations.” Lawyers acting for the class action claimed to have collected “more than 400 scientific articles, summaries and references outlining health risks… most of which have been researched and written after 1995.”

In the UK, the Teachers Union is calling for a ban on WiFi in schools, and universities are also starting to ban WiFi from campus. Canada’s Lakehead University president Fred Gilbert said that “microwave radiation in the frequency range of wi-fi has been shown to increase permeability of the blood-brain barrier, cause behavioural changes, alter cognitive functions, activate a stress response, interfere with brain waves, cell growth, cell communication, calcium ion balance…” and so on.

And last month, an international working group of senior scientists and public health policy academics, The BioInitiative Working Group, released a report listing serious health risks and urging tightening of international standards, particularly around children. The report gives a meta-analysis of more than 2000 studies and concludes that “existing public safety limits are inadequate to protect public health.” It recommends no WiFi in schools.

Another appeal, reportedly signed by 36,990 doctors, also claims existing standards are set too low, because they’re based on the erroneous assumption that only thermal heating of cells cause health effects. Yet as EMR Australia has reported, many studies suggest serious health impacts from non-thermal effects of low intensity radio-freqency signals like WiFi. The Freiburger Appeal signatories believe wireless devices, including portable home phones, have triggered “a dramatic rise in severe and chronic diseases”. Following this appeal, a reported 50,000 more doctors’ signatures were gathered on the Lichtenfelser Appeal, the Bamberger Appeal, the Hofer Appeal and the Helsinki Appeal.

Then there’s the Benevoto Resolution and the Catania Resolution both of which cite health risks and recommend wireless zones in cities. There are citizen groups like the San Francisco Neighbourhoods Antenna-Free Union and Australian groups like Tower Sanity Alliance.

Government to destroy hoons’ cars

Check it out. Just what we need in Moreland.

Green roofs on sheds

Green Roofs Australia reports that this rooftop garden cost around $35 per square metre to install. This is because the plants are hardy herbs and sedums, which don’t require watering (so no expensive roof irrigation).

A couple of months ago I put a green roof on the chook shed, which has a corrugated iron roof. I put down dam lining, and an old wadding doona for filtration. Most green roofs would require better filtration than this (carpet underlay is good), but since the water runoff from my chook shed goes straight into the garden, nutrient-rich runoff isn’t a problem.

Next, I put compost, and I (quite literally) threw a few sedums on top. The borders are old fence posts. I have photographed the start of my green chook roof, and I’ll
put up before and after pics in a few months, as well as pics of my (house) rooftop pumpkin crop.

“Like the guy in that ad with the microwave”

This semester I started teaching first-year writing students at a university rated at the very bottom in the Best Universities Guide. It’s located in Zone 3 — or what was until recently, when Zone 2’s girth expanded. Most of the students are from suburbs listed on the bottom rung in the real estate valuation pages (those suburbs topping the unemployment charts); many are first-generation Australians; many are the first in their families to go to university. I’m guessing they wouldn’t think to describe themselves as I’ve just done, and sometimes I feel like an impostor.

I love my students — I really do. As a colleague said, they don’t have tickets on themselves.

Sometimes I find myself teaching them tenets of good writing I’m yet to learn myself. One class exercise was to minimise adjectives and let our verbs do the hard work (I wish!). Each of us had to write a passage describing someone in the room, and then read it to the class.

Knowing that adjectives would indeed flow, I became anxious as students started scribbling. Polite restraint isn’t characteristic of my class, and I was fearful of the offensive descriptions that might ensue: of flesh billowing out of too-tight jeans; of try-hard piercings; of swampy complexion, fussy synthetic track pants, prim hijabs, a smile that goes down instead of up, nicotine fingertips, overstated bling, service-station sunglasses, solariumed cleavage, lank hair.

The adjectives did pour out, but not as I’d second-guessed, with my Zone 1 prejudices. A scarf was described as knotted noose-like around the wearer’s neck. (The wearer chortled.) A woman was described in purple prose (by the lank-haired lad) as having hair that cascaded mermaid-like on to the pleasing tension of her t-shirt. (I swallowed and looked at the woman, who grinned, unblushing.) Another woman named every shade of grey in a headscarf: dove-grey, rain-grey, corporate-grey. Someone was “like the guy in that ad with the microwave…”

I love my classes: they are so intimate. Semester is almost over, and I’m sad.

Wisdom from Raymond Carver

“Writing is trouble, make no mistake, for everyone involved, and who needs trouble?”