I bet bloody Claudia Carvan’s washing machine never breaks down. There’s got to be a planet in retrograde somewhere. I must remember to consult Mystic.

What I learnt at the Australian Republican Movement trivia night:
- they have bad carpet at the Hellenic Club
- the Eiffel Tower is 304 metres high but can expand to a height of 314 metres depending on the weather.
- ARMs are nice, but not very cool
- ARMs will do anything for money, including singing God Save the Queen in public.
- There’s a 79 year old member of the ARMs called Elizabeth who returned from Europe recently, went home, saw on “her internet” that Kevin Rudd was doing a talk at the AGNSW that evening and hot footed it over there. (He was lovely.)

What I learnt from lunch with the guides:
- Gowings is gone, apparently, and obviously it's a bit of a shame especially since it’s part of our lexicon as in: gone to Gowings.
- Volunteers at Taronga Zoo are allowed to walk the dingoes, but sometimes before a volunteer even realises the dingo spies a duck and eats it. In order to avoid this volunteers now have to shout: duck alert.
- A chimp at Taronga Zoo recently had a baby, but she was an inexperienced mother and left it momentarily unattended. Before she could get back to it, the other chimps tore the baby apart.
- the majority of the guides are ex-school teachers.

What I learnt at the hairdressers:
- the majority of hairdressers have ipods
- Steve the colourist doesn’t like Kate Bush
- Steve the colourist is only 30
- lots of people are probably younger than me
- I’m easily talked into buying product that I don’t really need, especially by Steve the colourist