Once upon a time she was an architect but always an actor. Became also a mother, writer, director, moved on spiritually to awaken to the New Age and orgasms, divorce, feminism, anger, rage, stand-up comedy, poverty, lovers, another child, homebirth activist, nemesis of the patriarchy, beggar of grants, winner of awards, initiator of women’s mysteries (& mysterious women), lover of women, builder, renovator, magician, white witch, shaman, wiccan priestess, civil celebrant, funerals, marriages, Loki of Transformation, wicked, funny, always funny, sometimes hurtful but sorry about that, grandmother (the reward for all that bad sex), corruptor of young minds, inspirator for young minds, lover of all children, healer, warrior, crusader, defender of Earth. Once called ‘a flag bearer for her sex'.
- Well done Barry O'Farrell and NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli for showing such leadership in being the first state to sign up to the new school funding agreement! Like Madge I never expected to applaud a coalition government. But that handshake with the Prime Minister means so much for school budgets and the future of kids in the NSW. It must be tough ignoring the rantings and scaremongering of Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne. But let's hope the NSW government stands firm and is able to encourage other states to sign up too - so all Australian kids get the best schooling we can give them. - Miranda Korzy
- An amazing and heart-warming story when an old woman finds her dog in the middle of an interview after a tornado destroys her house! (Irrespective of the pros and cons for us getting so much US news). I wish I wasn't thinking it's too good to be true and wondering if it the dog was planted there in a "re-enactment"? - miranda
- One thing you have forgotten to tell your adult children, is that they may be required to care for you in your twilight years, particularly if you develop dementia. They will then be the parent and you the child. The adult children may have to feed, shower, toilet and dress you, and hopefully you will have brought up those adult children to be as reliable and caring to you, as you were to them! I am now mother to my 88 year old father and don't ever want to let him down! - Anna Spencer
- Oh god I hear you jennifers. I too have an 8 yr old son & dinner time can be interesting at times...for all the wrong reasons! - Pixie
- Why do I get the impression that John Jay is either a fan of or an agent for the Westboro Baptist 'church'? - Will Marshall
- Why is it that whenever there is a natural disaster in the USA our media is full of it for days? But if something happens elsewhere in the world, it's hardly mentioned, if at all. The Victorian bush fires and the Queensland floods were mentioned one day in the US media and forgotten the next - but we get a barrage every time there is a storm over there and it lasts for weeks with all sorts of stories about answered prayers and heroism - which never seems to happen anywhere else in the world. Have you ever also noticed that if there is a blizzard or a heat wave, it always stops at the Canadian border? None of these things ever happen in Canada. This constant Americanisation really gets up my nose. I have met adult Australians who didn't really understand that we are not part of the USA. I fully understand why the French are so ... French - and want to stay that way and not become a cultural colony of America as we have become. - Jack Richards
- says so much about the human animal bond - life's experiences teach you who is loyal and truly loving and they are the ones you're most likely to reach for when you're at your lowest - melissa
- Gee Jack, you've sure stirred up all pumpkin-scone bakers from Akerman's blog. They must be desperate for attention to chase you all the way to here. I think many of those extreme-right women secretly have the hots for you - and that's why they go out of their way to find you. By the way, I read your comments on Rudd's blog about SSM. I couldn't agree more! - Yasmina
- Congratulations PJ and team!! A beautiful garden. Connecting to nature is what it's all about. - Fairy The Green One
- Yes, and you are about as far from being a "rocket surgeon" as anyone who has ever graced this site. - Wendy Harmer
ON THE HIGHWIRE PROFILE
Sue Ingleton
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OOH…ER, I’LL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN…
Riens je ne maigret rien...NOT!
I regret ever having seen my mother and father having sex, and staying there and keeping watching through the glass...
I regret not having sex with Paul Gross, not that I ever met him...
I regret having underestimated my mother's great inner strength...
I regert pretending to be me, when I didn't know who I was...
je regert getting overweight since menopause...
I regret that I cant afford another dog...
Je suis regurget that I cant stop eating King Island chocolate mousse dessert...
I rgerette that Paris is so far away...
I gerett that I no longer smoke dope...
I regrete my girlfriends who live in Sydney whilst Im in country Vic and the lattes would be cold before I could get there...
Je terget that I never got that Green Room Award...
I geter that my house has no insulation or central heating...
BUT. I got the sun in the morning... [well not since about a week ago and I regret that the rain holds up building progress..] and the moon at night... [ditto for cloud]... and my brilliant kids and grandies and (sing) rien, je ne regret rien.....!!
Id like to put in one non regret. sliding to the ground, prone my legs wide apart, waving to the wolf whistlers on a construction site in Wellington and screaming"take me, take now!'
How much ‘me’ time do you get?
Edith Wise
Me time? Sounds a little selfish. You young women have got it all wrong.Your whole life is me time. when theres not much time left you'll look back and realise you missed the lot. Course a cuppa tea is always me tea time.
YOUR LIFE IN HIGH HEELS
I'll wear 'em again when Tony Abbott does
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
Edith stole my piece its mine .I wanted to be an actor but was too afraid to leave home & go to Sydney to go to NIDA. so then I pretended I wanted to be an architect and so I am - after treading the boards more often than nailing them, in Architecture Revue at Melbourne UNi- bliss and on to stand up comedy still able to draw a line on paper but never on stage. I wanted children and so I had.I wanted sexysex and so eventually I got.I wanted love beyond the flesh and so I know it. I wanted money, it always came. I wanted grandchildren and now I have and with them I understand why we are here and how love never ends .Im at the end of wanting and now its all about giving...thanks Wendy
DEAR PRIME MINISTER, MAY I HAVE A WORD?
Dear Julia, Marry your hairdresser, have a baby, stick to your guns, wear sensible shoes and more low cut dresses, try false eyelashes, get a speech therapist, tough it out, don't be emotional, cry often on camera, show a bit of leg, make more jokes about men, become a buddhist, get some corgies, adopt a Somalian starving child, rubbish feminism, support home-birth, legalise abortion, condemn gay marriage, come out - break up Penny Wong's marriage... oh there's so much you can do to satisfy all of the pricks out there!
SO, WHAT’S YOUR IDEA OF SEXY?
hasnt anyone noticed that 'sexy' nowadays is all about food? Or renovating
IF YOU COULD STOP PEOPLE FROM DOING ONE THING…
Oh God, there's so much greed, selfishness, ignorance etc out there..where to begin..?So I wave my wand and zap!..everyone stops pronouncing 'H' (aitch) like Haitch. thankyou.
THINGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME
She burnt the pots, the toast, the drawers were a mess, the fridge was hopeless.
She hated being alone.
She loved travel, dogs, babies, trees, feminists, chocolate, Norman Banks, Carlton FC, La Boheme, any tennis, Chopin, Eddie McGuire.
She thought men should be looked up to and were always right and she couldn’t do anything without a man’s help; she thought most men were awful except her sons and my son and my male actor friends; she was a great card player, a junior tennis champ, had a sweet singing voice, was voted best legs at Cowes 1947 (already a mother of 2).
She married the wrong man to get away from unhappy home, left him, was forced to go back by her family, stayed with him (eventually 4 kids) ‘til he succumbed to his 20yr old flirty secretary,(every man will leave you when you’re 45), tried then to keep him, dyed her hair, combatted eczema on her hands; was shamed by divorce, lost all her friends, never remarried, needy and possessive she relied on, sometimes smothering her children for comfort, adored her grandchildren and renamed herself Chubby(chooby), hated being old, remained combative but close with her only sister ‘til death.
She never turned any of us away.
When I was younger I thought she was weak but I soon learnt she was the strong one, it was my father who was weak.
She held on, kept it all together and sacrificed her Self so that her children benefitted. There was never a fight between them that we witnessed, she’d seen too much of that in her own childhood.
Her funeral overflowed with Love and Light, babies crawled up the aisle at the Forest Room- Melb Zoo, their young parents full of grace, my old friends quite choked up, people she knew only a short time, shopkeepers, nurses, all cried, laughed, shared music, candles and flowers, flowers, flowers.
My second daughter (who would never have been born without the wise advice from her) wrote from Canada “…but most of all, thank you, Chubby for giving me my Mum”.
We teach always, either through the positive or through the negative.
Through the negative my Mother taught me to be true to myself.
Through the positive she taught me that Love was the most important thing in the world (and that’s what gave me my second blessed daughter).
WHAT THREE THINGS WOULD YOU TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND?
My three grandchildren! what fun and games!!!
WHAT THREE THINGS WOULD YOU TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND?
On second thoughts, three things I would take to a desert island..and leave there!
Rupert Murdoch, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Bolt
WHAT’S THE BEST THING YOU DO FOR YOUR HEALTH EVERY DAY?
I run two kilometres, eat a bowel (sic-you bet) full of fruit and nuts, take twelve pills (D3, B12, C18, Cal78, Krill-bugger the whales I need it more!, St Marys Thistle-she doesn't need it 'cos she's dead!, E2, G5, F7,+ liver, armpit & navel cleansers), do pranayam, pilates, yoga, banana asana, meditation infibrillation (my own method using my vibrator), drink jockstrap tea (its a real wham!), jog around the block and kickstart dogs, stand naked on the patio and sing the hallelujah chorus, take a much needed pee, bake a gluten-free, sugarless, fibre loaded, flourless, loaf and eat it with high-octane crushed feijoa seed honey from confused bees,read the Age whilst cleaning my teeth (the seeds are a bugger), strap my laptop to my breast and do my emails whilst walking backwards up the steepest hill in Castlemaine. On the way home I have a brilliant caffe latte at Origini served by Luca (spunko) which wakes me up from the nightmare dream I've just related to you all.
THE TEACHER WHO INSPIRED ME
There have to be two. At school (Lauriston Girls) it was Miss Fran McKay, senior history teacher, young, raging, passionate, unattractive short hair [ like most of the senior teachers], sported mannish clothes (what was that all about ???-god, I was innocent!) and wearing that black academic gown, shooting from the lip she cut a swathe through us matric girls, sorting the wheat from the laff. I was both, class clown and hungry for knowledge. Modern History, Renaissance and Reformation (well, it was modern back then and dont forget, I'm quite old).I got the cold cuts quite often, such a smart arse; her eagle eye, acid tongue and dry humour drew secret admiration from the best of us. So pleased to deliver to her a 2nd class honour & Commonwealth scholarship.
Second, Allan Coldicutt, lecturer Building Construction(BC)/Maths/Physics/the lot /Architecture yr 3/Melb U. How did I ever get through architecture who had passed out before Intermediate Maths? My headmistress's best advice was for me was to do Interior Design and marry an Architect. (thanks Gladys)
Third yr was make or break. BC3 was the break part and if you made it thru to BC4 they'd do their best to put the boot in and grind you to a pulp mill.
Coldicutt was like Yoda with legs .He also smoked and his fingers were the colour of amber.His smell was not that refreshing but his mind was like a bag of Gandalphian fireworks, in fact there was a touch of the Gandalph about him. His brown suit always dishelleved, his shirt collars rumpled never ironed because his beloved wife, Bessie was also a lecturer in maths at the school and just as whacky- if either of them had ever picked up an iron it would have been to use as a counterweight for some balancing experiment in the home. Coldicutt in love with an explanation of the beauty and mystery of the world...
I failed BC3.
I just couldn't do maths; calculus was what? cos- a lettuce?, sine -sin with an 'e'?, tan- the thing we all want in summer?, roots ? ETC.In my exam I wrote a message in the margin admitting I knew my calculations were up shit creek and the sizes of the footings and beams should've come out as such and such... He gave me a Supplementary exam, truly it was a repeat performance! and yet he passed me. What could he see that I couldnt?
I entered Yr 4 and faced the Balrog of BC4, but I was not alone. My boyfriend (later husband#1) tutored me and the scales fell from my eyes. Mathematics was sublime, I entered a magical world which continues to delight and rattle me in both the spiritual & physical realm. In the midnight cloisters of MU, torches in hand we searched for our numbers on the results sheets. Pen had got a pass but my number wasn't there. Devastated, I stepped back, my throat tight. I had failed BC4. My life over, I would never be an architect, failure, you never went back after this one. Then Pen shrieked at me, "Dingles! Look here!" What? "You got a second class honour!" What?
The next morning, first thing, I ran thru the concourse to find him.He was in his studio pottering away with pieces of string and wire and unmentionable objects. I hugged him and kissed his less than fragrant cheek. 'Mr Coldicutt, I got a 2nd class honour in BC4!' 'of course', he replied matter of factly, 'and why not?'
No, without you my dear, dear teacher who had enough faith to give me a tick and not a cross, I would have had a less than happy life.
THE SMELLS THAT MAKE ME REMEMBER…
Sweet vermouth- vomiting at all night archi revue party 1964. It took a while to get over red wine smell which took me straight back to Jimmy Watsons,Carlton 63 -again unpleasant regurgitations from one's gut in the ladies toilet [Drink a pinot now without blinking or burping]. Diesel fumes-cranking the Lister Generator and cursing all the Gods as life got more insane and more hard on my own on the farm, deserted by all but my dog (and he couldn't turn a flywheel to save my life). Roast lamb-in Rome Xmas Day '67 cooking a leg of lamb and discovering it had a small penis attached to it. Espresso - my entire life at the Pram Factory,Tamanis, sex, Lygon Street, sex,nurturing, freedom, sex, power, liberating women,drug addicted guys, acting, broken hearts and love. Baking bread- Norfolk and Ricardo and kids very happy. Chanel 5- my lovely Mother. Moonlight Mist (Elizabeth Arden)- Surfers Paradise '59, bikinis, meeting Rick Nelson, racing toward my imagined amazing future. Bad egg gas-science room school, image of dismembered frog and a slit sheep's eye jelly (they died to enlighten me). Blachan-Ricardo again cooking rendang and opening my heart whilst holding my nose and making a quick exit. Im stopping cos I smell something burning...
THE LAST QUEEN OF AUSTRALIA?
Let sleeping corgis lie. The other alternative is the road to more political crap and insanity -US style. Australians will carve their own way thru BattenburgsGothSchmaltziers. We all know what ER2 is and I can put up with it so long as she so far away. William will be a cool nice King. His mother saw to that.
Love those pearl clutching dolls, Wendy, its all they've got-compared to you an' me! Flag schmag. Lets have a meat pie as our national symbol and let those who want to raise flags do it but I will never salute it and, having seen the nationalistic madness of America first hand know IM making the right choice. Nationalism cowers a strong people. Did you note there was only ONE street party that they could find in Scotland!!
WHO ARE YOUR FAVOURITE SINGERS?
M.Callas & B.Dylan.
Apart from that- the angelic, funny voices of my divine grandchildren.All voices under 8yrs that sing are divine
LOVED THE BOOK, HATED THE MOVIE!
To Kill a Mockingbird MUST take the eternal prize! LOTR would make Tolkien proud. Disney's Snow White is up there too.
YOUR GUILTY TV PLEASURE?
In the Night Garden.How do they do it?! Its a joy. Clone Wars,yes! but for guilt its gotta be that horrific UK computer led makeover show where guys get to vote for a bang, a date or proposal? Whatever. It strips young women(and sometimes men) of their masks.results are unnerving.
WHEN WERE YOU MOST SEXY?
Once when I was 36 and another time when I was 42.I'm still considering this question. Other memories may filter back
I REALLY DON’T NEED ANY MORE…
Please dont give me your fears. Please dont give me your mistrust.Please dont give me anger and despair. Give me laughter, light and hope. Thanks