Se Soucier with Billy McNeill

I hope I'm not the only one who gets a little melancholy when you get to that part of the year where you finally get to the stage of the year where you end up either buying or taking down a calendar. I'm a little obsessed with the passage of time, the horrifying twelve month passage from Franco Miranda staring at me from Januarys hopefully optimistic page 1 of the St Mirren calender to the slightly more sombre and distracted John Potter page once again marking the onset of panic that I should have done more with my year - not true this year in fairness, since I went to the UK, that was at least something. My Dad, delivering me some sausages today, get all uncharacteristically strange and reflective about our trip to the UK today, which sort of me a bit sad, especially at all the dislocated relationships we leave behind whenever I go home - my Dads sister, not the one with the locked up room full of mystery, the one that we last heard of when she was dating Rangers reserve goalkeeper from 1971, being a notable example - and how we all swap e-mail addresses at the end of the holiday and promise to keep in touch but we never do, apart from ending up on a mailing list that ends up with us getting links to clips of the fat kid on the rollercoaster screaming or version 29 of the Demotivational poster e-mail. The truest example of this dislocated set of relationship came when I was in tears in aunties house in about 93, homesick and desperate not to leave at the end of the holiday, while my best friend from school in Scotland calmly explained me to what was happening in the wrestling without even looking up from the TV. Now, we accept everything for what it is, a holiday with magical meaningless moments with no connection to real life, a sort of break from norm that means not much more. The hug at the end of the holiday means something still, but not what it once was. My Dad agrees with me, and over some beautifully made tea we gaze out over my deck and talk about football and how we couldn't live in Scotland anymore, unless we won the lottery. As he leaves he sees Manchester United on the TV, begins laughing at Liverpools lack of trophies and tells me how much fun we had in Manchester. I guess that's the moment isn't it? It seems a world away...

My Dad and I had quite a wonderful blissful argument to start with in Manchester, the sort of male and male bonding I think everyone should have with their father. We were drinking with the New Zealand cricket journalists in an Australian pub called The Walkabout - which was notable because it sold Boags, the official beer of Tasmania, and obviously there was no Australians there, just a man who cracked my mysterious T-shirt code and worked out a big green T-shirt that said "Celtic Lios De Lisboa 67" meant I was quite happy Celtic won the league. Dad luckily didn't any of the New Zealand journalists know that I have a lot of sporting based racism towards New Zealand, and I went off into my own corner to drink Guinness off a table shaped like a barrel, that I realised actually was a barrel when a slender blonde with no time to waste on colonials brusquely motioned that I had to give it up. Her air disappointed me, as it wasn't genuine, it was just someone under stress, but I thought she could have handled it better - Dad obviously was still buying the conversation at his own table, since it seemed like he was about to meet Richard Hadlee or Dave Dobbyn or the guy who writes Footrot Flats or some other New Zealand icon. We reconciled late in the evening, my attempts to befriend the virulently anti Rangers table of Mancunians having met with some success, and he had three pints of Guinness lined up. He was drunk and cocky, and said something about how he had outdrunk me, which was strange for my Dad, a man prone to a neatly trimmed beard, afternoon naps and a knowledge of what Smiffy will say next on The Bill. I shook my head, drank a pint of Guinness in three seconds, called him a sad old twat, and left him alone to go to the hotel. I went back for him five minutes later, and he hadn't moved. In fact, he said exactly the same thing - he hadn't even realised I'd gone. We were arguing about not arguing when the barrel girl walked past, and I said something like was she happy at her work, a self explanatory Scottish expression to a miserable shop keep or service worker. She looked so weary, and I realised I was being a horribly tourist foreign dickhead to someone going about their business, and I immediately apologized. She smiled, then subtly motioned with her head to a cranky boss cleaning classes. She said a rude word about him, and walked off, into the back room, with the air of a broken girl ready to quit...we left her to it, walking along the road in the rain while I called New Zealand all sorts of horrible names...

I don't like Manchester Airport, mostly for reasons that involve the herding pen of the departure lounge and a great feeling of depressing loneliness that swept over me when I was there as a teenager - I even recognised the vending machine I had such a horrible moment at. Long story. We sat at the bar nursing weak watered down glasses of coke, passing comment on the excess of flesh on display from the Benidorm crowd. Two Americans eyed our seats voraciously since they were in prime position to watch the big screen TV, but we glued ourselves to them until they gave up and took out some trashy romance novels instead. At one of the restaurants, a girl was on her mobile phone, a quite thin pale girl in a crop top with her hair in loose freeform and a pair of strangely sensible trousers, distractedly picking at some cold chips on a filthy looking plate. I was smiling at my Dad because I had just found a positive sports score on the Internet but he wasn't listening, he was too busy laughing with someone about something or other. Her boyfriend, a shaved headed load of bulk and energy in a Leeds United top, all macho swagger and certainly no vegetables with his steak, was staring at her with great intensity. I fully expected him to begin berating her for not listening to his fascinating story about Leeds or Shannon Matthews or whatever he was looking at in his copy of your super soaraway Sun, but instead he put the paper down and held out his hand across the table. She simply looked down at the ground, and flipped her phone around to show him whatever had come up on the screen, and he took her hand and squeezed it with an amazing tenderness, shoving various condiments out of the way and putting his paper down, a sort of modern gallantary unfitting to the hustle of Manchester airport. I turned back to my coke, absolutely aware that what had started off as idle table watching had turned into an intrusion on a deeply personal moment. It could have been something simple, but soon they were off, and whatever happened at that table at that moment was soon replaced by a pair of animated Korean girls talking about Victoria Beckham, while my Dad bemoaned loudly how long we had to sit and wait. I didn't table watch again, I may have idly watched cute girls going on holiday, but I was so hopeful that everything was OK with the couple, that if there was any cute girl staring back, it went unregistered...

Eventually, there was a deep depression settled over us - when we lined up in a queue to go back to Ayrshire, we weren't just sad to leave Manchester, but the UK, because it was the second last day of our holiday in total. Three behind us in the queue was Billy McNeill, the ex Celtic captain, standing perfectly still and holding his case with no airs and graces. He had his family with him, but he still had a poise and dignity to him, a sort of unwilling superstar air. A kid was running around his legs at high speed that he was trying to tell to stop running around. He shot the kid a final, stern glance, and then the kid got the message and went back to serenity and Starbursts. The plane was delayed, and Billy threw his case down the ground, now just a worried and depressed and harried traveller despite his status in Scottish society being assured by his column in the Sun. Eventually he smiled broadly, and shrugged his shoulders in a what can I do motion. My own patience had worn exceptionally thin, and I tried hard to stare intently at my William Shatner book to pass the time. My Dad was amused as he always is by my lack of patience - I think sometimes he had me just for amusement - and was in his dopey bewildered pretending not to notice mood. British society in most cases is built on complaint - Mum still can't get over the fact that in Irvine they say "Don't mind the bus driver, he doesn't like this route" as if that gives the bus driver right to treat you like crap. As the people in the queue that weren't me, Billy McNeill or my Dad began to arc up angrily, I saw a beautiful older woman in black trousers with a walkie talkie try and fend off most of the initial complaints. As she did so, another flight crew, pilots, promotions models, air hostesses of sub par quality, all walked past off her another flight. They were excitedly talking about going out and getting drunk, and one of the promotions models made her sexual desires abundantly clear, which amused Billy no end. As the woman with the walkie talkie kept talking, she suddenly stopped, and drew the sexually desirous flight attendant a filthy disgusted horrified and jealous glance all at once. It was so loaded with meaning that to encode it would open up a walkie talkie full of worms. It was one of those looks that tells you everything about a relationship - I realised that every single day I was passing these kind of relationships - the tender touch, the hate filled glance, the work girl who hates her boss, even Billy and the small child - straight by without ever knowing the circumstances of them. It made me curious what else I wasn't noticing...

At which point, I instantly began a conversation with my Dad about what a wonderful time we'd had in Manchester. He smiled and told me how much he hated Liverpool. Ah, that's the kind of relationship I can always control...

A big fight about Lamingtons

OK, so it's to complete the circle of life (I guess that makes me Simba) - it was summertime in Northern Michi...no wait, that was Kid Rock. It was 1999, and I had just proven myself the worst law student in the history of the world. Worse than the nervous old Hungarian woman with the flimsy grasp of political correctness, worse than the girl who was 7"1 with the giant man hands...the worst. And I had the marks to prove it. Liverpool had just thrown away a 1-0 lead with a minute to go against Manchester United, and Collingwood were lining up another memorable year under Tony The Tiger Shaw. For me, there was no fallback plan - I'd have to join the workforce. Wait, there's always improvisational comedy to fall back on...no, I had to put the props back in the case and face my fate. Maybe, just maybe, the marks were wrong, it was an 82 not a 28, maybe I could say my Grandma died or I could defer for a decade or I could...no, it's not going to work is it? My parents were naturally very angry, and I couldn't face them just yet - I'd love to say that I showed a Steve Waugh like grit and determination and stuck it out and faced them, but I didn't. To be honest, even though I was facing a lifetime of stacking bottles of lemonade in a supermarket, I didn't seem to care, in my head trying to work out things like who would win a fight between Natalie Appleton and Geri Halliwell rather than thinking about my future. I still remember sitting on the steps after I failed, seeing so many bright young optimistic things though in funky fun GC17 style fashions talking about, like, how awesome it, like, was to be, like, alive (so Avril) and feeling so old, so dis-interested. So that night, instead of going home, I did what I could to get through the night, first of all spending as much time as humanly possible in the Internet computer labs draining the last of my soon to expire password, maybe playing some Sensible soccer or chatting to people about the joys of the banana Milky Way, and then, when that had lost it's appeal quicker than Grape Hubba Bubba (the most maligned of all the flavours), I did the only thing left that I could for the sake of my sanity - I got a six pack of beer from a faculty lounge bar where peoples happiness went straight through me, went round the corner, and went to my girlfriends house, to sit on the porch until morning, and talk about anything but lemonade bottle stacking...

Actually, she wasn't really my girlfriend - if I was to turn into Sid James, I'd simply stay I stayed over, and then do a filthy laugh, but my filthy laugh just sounds a bit rubbish, worse than my impression of a drunk Geordie - because, well, she played netball and had proper dreams and ambitions where as I was like, er...well, I was there also. She had eyes...no, I'm not making the Colin Lane Joke...that were bright and alive and full of interest in the world around her. She quite openly liked someone else, and I was a bit flirty with the single mums at the library, and the whole thing was just totally dysfunctional, and messy, quite arty in the fact that she liked to discuss poetry and literature and I kept only messing it up by mentioning the career trajectory of Burt Reynolds and old episodes of Evening Shade. One night on film night I made her get out Cop and A Half, that was a whole week of frost I tell you. However, don't think it was all Jane and the Dumbarse, I introduced her to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, she made me watch The Woman Who Loved Elvis with Roseanne and Tom Arnold. I can't even remember how we met or what the thought process was behind it - sometimes I think we got talking outside Creek Road netball centre, other times I think we met at uni, other times I think we met on the fourth hole of Moonah pitch and putt in a rain storm and she was more beautiful than...no, it was definitely outside Creek Road netball centre, it's just the fact I can't remember why I was in Moonah that's still got me. It's not exactly a hot bed, and I wasn't hunting around for Reggie biscuits from the bakery...that was later. What was I doing there, was I stalking netballers? Was I hanging out with the Video City skateboard crowd? What was good about all this was that my Mum and Dad, my bugbears, knew nothing about it, so when I was supposed to having job interviews, I was really in her attic playing ATARI, because she bought me ATARI as a present for our two month anniversary...I wish she'd bought me a better game than ET though, how many bugs does that thing have, and I had to go and get Peles Internation...wait...she remembered...we talked about ATARIs one night...she remembered our two month anniversary...oh...

You see, when she bought me an ATARI, and I remember it really clearly because I was outside Sanity sending her a text message and avoiding an interview, I realised that I actually was in a relationship, as opposed to just something that would get me a cameo in Confessions Of a Windowcleaner or something that was passing the time until nap time or just something that was allowing me to listen to different kinds of CDs or something that at times had me in a bad Cheech style state of mind...it was a relationship. With feelings, and presents and dates and trips to netball awards nights and I didn't know it at the time but the guy she liked was actually a jerk who was on trial for displays of public nudity...and it wasn't love, but it was something. We went from a relationship of little quirks like we wouldn't have any kind of Twistie in the house except Cheese, and we picked a favourite one out of the New Bohemians, and then, she was talking about what I could do to find work or what kind of wallpaper goes well in a rented apartment. One morning we even had breakfast together, before I went off to go and play Pacman in a local milk bar and she went off to better herself. I felt incredibly awful that I was being so lazy that I went and had three job interviews that night, and all I wanted for her to be happy, and the best I could do was win her a little pink chicken out of a skill tester machine. It took an hour, but it made her smile. It was to be honest a little sickening, but I felt so greatful to her for her support, and I felt useless around her, embarrassed to be among the unemployed when she was working so hard to get her degree. If I'd known at the time she was struggling so much with her school work and her health, and oddly, was relying on me to cheer her up and make her laugh, I'd have been a lot more self confident, but we were just as neurotic, unsure and...struggling as badly as each other. The difference was, she was trying, and I was failing...

And then, it ended - it was a Sunday, and I had just got a job, and I was sort of distracted, watching some kind of sport or telemovie or something, hoping that my ironic detatched commentary would get me through the day without feeling really guilty about my apathy. She was really quiet, and was baking lamingtons in the kitchen as part of a netball fundraiser. Now, I remember this really clearly, she put the lamingtons on the table in a pyramid, and I am a fantastic judge of lamingtons, in fact I think I took it as a subject in Kindergarten along with not shoving crayons up your nose and advanced nipple cripples, and the thing was, she was a terrible baker, like, worse than me, and I couldn't put beans evenly on toast, but they looked terrific and I know what I meant to say, and how it was meant to sound, but I looked up, and sort of said off hand "Oh, you should have made pink ones" - all I meant was that her netball team had pink bibs, so it would go with the team colours, but it was so flippant, in a way I didn't mean, she just shook her head. Honestly, the way she looked, it was the most beautiful I've ever seen anyone look, just amazingly beautiful in the kitchen light, just standing there in her apron and her own frustration. She just looked at the lamingtons, and sighed deeply. Then, she put her fist right through the middle of the pyramid, sending bits of lamingtons everywhere, and stormed out. I realise now how it sounded - how it sounds when you are slogging your guts out and can't get any support. And how it feels when you think you've done nothing wrong and someone brings your world crashing down. And it wasn't even that one thing, nothing to do with lamingtons, it was just...everything. Everything on top of her. I've thought since that day that the world won't end because of religions or cultural differences or disputes over land - it will end because one person at a conference wants tea and gets coffee, and takes it out on the world. I've seen a million relationships, friendships, families - my Dad and his Dad haven't spoken for 26 years because of a fight over a christening shawl - just dis-integrate over nothing, small, tiny issues, the size of a speck of dust, but it's never just that...it's never just lamingtons...

I saw her a year later, and we spoke for thirty seconds outside H&R Block, and we said how are you, and made a joke about Gal Costa, and that was that...closure....and as she went off down the road, I wished her well quietly, and let it all go after three seconds of wistfulness and regret...I don't know what became of her, but we'll always have The Woman Who Loved Elvis...

No, silly, you throw rice away AFTER the wedding

I've got a friend who doesn't even know who the Veronicas are, let alone that one of them is a lesbian and one was engaged to Dean Geyer. Down here in Tasmania, that's par for the course, it's not really somewhere where the hottest bands gather to play or fashion is often discussed, because it's a simple place for simple folks - no wonder Starbucks closed down - and I don't expect anyone to know who Blondfire is, but it'd be nice to discuss some of the finer points of obscure pop with someone. Back to my friend though, what was interesting today was to learn that even with his limited grasp of popular culture, was aware that Stephanie Rice and that other bloke had broken up. If you don't know, Stephanie Rice and whats his name were Australias golden couple of swimming, and had all these endorsement deals based on the fact that they were going out together, were non drug taking and wholesome, and because no one could imagine them having sex (they really seemed like a couple that had to make dates to be naughty and pash on the school fort) - sadly, they've broken up, hence the joke in the title of this post. Which of course needs to be followed up with a ba doom tish, and some "huh...huh" Rodney Dangerfield style shucking and jiving.

Whether you are famous or not, breaking up with someone is always really difficult. I've never had a terrible bad rip your heart out break up myself - I like to think I'm pretty resillient - but I have had some experience of being dumped. It's never ever easy, that little moment of finality when you get back your CDs, or have to hand back your key for instance is a million deaths all at once. Girls are good at breaking up, much better than when I was growing up, because Sex In The City taught them that with their gal pals in tow, they can get exotic revenge and handcuff a guy to the bed and steal all his stuff. I think girls are much better at relationships than guys as well, because it's a crazed commitment - have you heard that Kelly Clarkson song, "will you fight for me, die for me, live and breathe for me", frankly, I'd have out the door on the first one, never mind going and fighting a dragon for her" - to them and their kind. Nikki Websters Facebook is a wonderful example of heightened expectations in a boyfriend - woe betide the future prospects of a boy who crosses our N (well, have you seen Sacha Farber recently?). I remember my first ever time getting dumped - I got a huge speech about my failings as a boyfriend, and what I could do to improve and how my musical tastes could be improved. This speech was delivered under a set of monkey bars, I was 12, and I barely remembered 1/2 the time I had a girlfriend to begin with. Still, for some reason, I still really, really hate her...isn't that really strange? How dare she criticise the KLF...

I think most people just break up because they run out of things to say. I think if you date someone because they are rich, you are waiting for the break up to get 1/2 their stuff. If you date someone because they are hot, chances are they won't be one day. I know I'm not Dr Phil, but every relationship I've been in, and I include friendships in this, has a limited conversation span. There's only so many times I can tell someone I like their bangs or talk to them about my cat Senor Bagpuss - with my friends, I'm sure they know exactly what I'm going to say about Mick Malthouse or Britney Spears before I say it. My Dad recently said I was the worlds most predictable conversationalist, a cheek coming from a Man who once went in a two week sulk because Mum forgot Sunday was "boiled egg day". I think this is why I no longer speak to anyone I went to school with, because we had all used up everything we ever had to say to each other and had to get on with the rest of our lives, and find new people to speak to. When I broke up with the netballer, I'm sure we wished each other well, swapped keys and moved on, but we never spoke to each other again. The interesting thing about this was that she kept my Dannii Minogue Secrets VHS tape, and never returned it, and I'm convinced this was the reason she dumped me - she had got the tape, and now I had no further worth. Maybe Stephanie Rice finally got her copy of the Delinquents and...

Leaving school is the ultimate break up - never mind simply losing one girl, one Stephanie Rice, but the sense of normality and familiarity you have built up and the time you have invested in making sure you are OK and not being bullied (if you are lucky) is all finalised, and there you are, on your own. I remember my Grade 12 barn dance in Burnie, it was a chilly evening, and there I was, sitting on a hay bale with a scotch and coke, mystified and unappareciative of everyones kind wishes and goodbyes. I was too young and stupid to actually realise that this was it, a frightening kick into the lonely void. So of course, maturealy, I spent most of my night wondering why the girl I loved (I don't know if I did love her, or had decided on some self sabotage) was dancing with someone else. I ended up writing her a stupidly immature letter and lost her as a friend. However, this is fine because I had nothing left to say to her. In fact, a year later, she groped me drunkenly and I did nothing at all about it - time had passed. If I saw her now, well, I could be polite, but really, we've broken up haven't we? I'm really suspicious of people who "get back together" or go to high school re-unions. Someone told me of a guy in Latrobe (of paddock in fame) who still wears his school uniform to work, and who enthusiastically is still, whether they like it or not, in touch with everyone he went to school with in Grade 12. And he's 38. It really is better to have loved and lost mate...

If it's not working, it's not working...now, Stephanie, if you aren't doing anything this Friday night...