Chapter One: pg 3/12 - 8

He looked at me straight in the eye, as he lit a very long cigarette with a very gold lighter. One eyebrow was still up there. which seemed quite an achievement with all the eyeballing and cigarette lighting that was going on.

'Blimey,' I said.

'Well, enjoy it, because this may be a small town by world standards but it's a tough one. The knives are just as sharp here as they are on Fleet Street or whatever, and they are wielded by the most surprising people.

'And two other things.' He counted them out on his fingers.

'One: watch out for that Jasper O'Connor, he's as big a prick as he looks in that stupid hat; and two: you need to have manicures. Sydney is a nails town. You're a smart girl, you'll find out. In the meantime, if you'd like some more unsolicited advice, call me. This i my card. Goodbye.

With one last salute from his eyebrows, he picked up one empty glass and two full bottles of champagne and shouldered into the crowd.

Feeling slightly like I'd just been mugged, I looked down at the small card he'd given me, which said 'Anthony Maybury. Costumier', and automatically ran my finger over the type to see if it was engraved.

'Yes, it is braille.' I heard him say, but when I looked up, he'd gone. And then I realised something else about Anthony Maybury, costumier. He was the only person at the party not wearing a hat.

Even though it was just after four in the afternoon the place was already pumping, and the lavishness of the headgear made the room seem even more crowded than it was. The noise level was unbelievable, with shrieks of hilarious laughter and general yelling almost drowinng out the DJ. There seemed to be all age groups here, from beautiful young creatures to middle-aged men and women, and they were all milling around, hopping from group to group and greeting each other with great hugs and cries of delight.

I had been invited to this fixture in Sydney's alternative social calender just a few nights before, when I'd met its host, Danny Green, at a special preview of an exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum.

I wasn't aware I knew Danny until he bustled over to me, with three cameras around his neck, kissed me warmly on both cheeks, and pushed me together with two total strangers to take our picture. I had no idea why and it seemed rude to ask. He seemed very nice, whoever he was.

'Oh and Georgie,' he'd said, after asking how to spell my name and ignoring my repeated corrections of 'Georgia, not Georgie, Georgia.' 'You must come to my Australia Day party this weekend. Everyone comes - you'll love it. You can meet all of Sydney in one go. It's in my studio and the only rules are: wear a hat and bring a bottlw. I lay on the tea. Everyone lays on top of everyone else.'

He whooped with laughter and thrust an invitation at me, featuring a picture of him in a Mad Hatter's topper with a condom tucked into the band, holding a black poodle wearing the same.

'And the great thing is,' he added, conspiratorially, 'even though it's on a Sunday, everyone's got the Monday off, so we can get as trashed as we like.'

When I got home that night I called the only person I felt I'd really got to know in the two weeks I'd been in Sydney, to find out if I should go or not.

Liinda Vidovic was the features writer at Glow magazine, where I worked. It was a monthly glossy aimed at eighteen - to twenty-six-year-old women and full of useful information about orgasm, lipstick and the precise anatomy of the male sexual organs. Following our advice, conscientious readers of Glow could learn to jog in high heels, lose weight through multiple orgasms, exercise their stomach muscles while delivering the perfect blow job and balance their cheque books while flirting with the boss (male or female, we advocated flirting with everyone, even dogs and inanimate objects).

When I came in as deputy editor, Liinda and I bonded on sight because we had the same Prada handbag. (I didn't find our until later that hers was a Bangkok fake.) I was also intrigued to find out that she'd changed her name from Linda to Liinda by deed poll, because it was more fortuitous in numerology, one of the many ologies which rule her life.

Bag aside, Liinda was also thrilled to meet me because she knew I'd arriced from London with a severly broken heart. Liinda loved emotional catasrophes more than anything. There was always the chance she might get a feature idea out of them. I was shaping up to be 'If You Leave the Country, Will He Leave Your Heart?', which was definite coverline material. And coverlines are everything on a magazine like Glow. As the editor, Maxine Thane, was always telling us: 'Coverlines are what sell magazines, girls. Not all the shit inside.'

I did believe Liinda liked me - she had done my astrological chart within an hour of our meeting ans announced with glee that we were destined to have an intense, supportive friendship punctuated with major dramas, because she is a triple Scorpio and I am a Gemini with Scorpio rising. But I was also aware of the coverline factor, although I couldn't really blame her - my romantic disaster was a gothis horror.

The man I had come to Australia to forget was called Rick (rhymes with ... ) Robinson. What can I tell you abotu him? He was the senior art director at a major London advertising agency. Very highly paid, very good looing (black hair, blue eyes, devastating smile, that kind of thing), very bright, very successful, very groovy. We'd been together for five years and were, in fact, 'engaged' (a 'hideously' bourgeois term, according to Rick). But it wasn't his impressive CV and vintage Mercedes convertible that attracted me - I really loved Rick. He was funny. He was thoughtful. He was an Exocet missile in bed.

"Pants on Fire"

Chapter One:
pg 1 - 3 1/2

Of course an erect penis is all very well at the end of a party, rather to be desired generally, but it's not the first thing you expect to see when you enter the room. Yet there it was, in all its concupiscent glory, on the head of a man with a small goatee beard.

I'd been feeling a tad conspicuous in my own headgear coming along the road but, on seeing this creation, my two-foot halo of flamingo-pink feathers, cunningly fashioned out of three cheap feather boas, suddenly seemed a bit tame.

'Well, you certainly seem to be enjoying yourself,' I said to Dickhead, leaning past him to refill my glass with champagne. I'd already drained the first one in the five paces between the waiter at the door and the drinks table in the corner of the large white room.

'Did you make it?' I asked him, taking a closer look at the lovingly painted papier-mache.
He turned, giving me a very unsubtle once-over.

'You know somewhere you could buy one of these? Of course I made it.'

'Clever old you. But why?'

'Because I come to this party every year. Which means that every Australia Day for the past twelve years, I've been in this room, wearing a stupid hat. I've always felt like a dickhead, so this year i thought i might as well look like one, too.'

I nodded enthusiastically - this was my kind of conversation.

'So, following your argument, am I to take it that the gay over there wearing the Indian chief's headdress has always felt like one of the Village People and now he's decided to go public about it?'

'Loud and proud, baby. And that's the other reason I'm wearing a big fat dick on my head. Because that's what this party is really all about.'

'Big fat dicks?'

'Yep. They might be talking about opera, or the government's new policy on unemployment benefits - which stinks, incidentally - but what every man in this room is really thinking about is cock.'

You included?'

'Oh yes. Especially me.'

I hoped my face didn't fall too obviously. Not that I've got anything against gay men - in fact, you could probably describe me as a full-blown fag hag. I just didn't particularly want this bloke to be gay. He was very attractive in an odd way. despite the ghastly goatee, and he was funny. Even when he was being quite rude I couldn't help noticing he had beautiful green eyes, and I liked the way they creased up when he licked the paper on the joint he was rolling. And I liked the way he lit it, it took a quick toke to flame it up and then held it to my lips.

'The only difference,' he explained, as I sucked prettily, 'is that I'm thinking about my own.' With which he took the joint out of my mouth, clamped it between his teeth, winked and pushed his way back into the crowd, holding four glasses and a bottle of champagne.

'And if you want to continue this conversation,' he said over his shoulder, 'try the back bedroom.'

'Otherwise known as the Persian room,' said a voice from behind me.

I turned round to see a slim man, dressed entirely in black. He was about thirty-five, with dark skin, short black hair standing up straight like a brush, and one ironically raised eyebrow. You noticed the eyebrow particularly, because it stayed raised whatever the rest of his face was doing.

'Persian?' I said, picturing a lavishly tented parlour, with belly dancers and Nubians.

'Persian rugs. Drugs. Anthony Maybury, how do you do?' He held out his hand.

'Georgia Abbott, lovely to meet you.'

'Yes, I know, the famous Georgiana Abbott. I was wondering when I'd meet you. Good handshake. That looks like a real Pucci catsuit. Nice shoes.'

'What? How kind, although I wouldn't say I was famous. How did- '

'Darling,' he said, both eyebrows now working in turns. It was like watching a puppet show.
'What you have to understand is that this is a very small town and you are new to it. You've moved here from London, an acme of world glamour, rivalled in our colonial imaginations only by New York. You have worked for European magazines, which we buy like slavering wretches at vastly inflated prices when the cover date is already three months old because we think they might let us in on all the interesting stuff that's happening over there in the fashionable hemisphere. We've seen your name in print, and I know for a fact that you have been to Naomi Campbell's house and have Karl Lagerfeld's home phone number. To us, you are famous.'

Photoshoot. (Model: Samantha)

9

Tim Burton's movie "9" sounded interesting when first heard of. With actor Elijah Wood as voiceover of the lead character in the movie - number "9", i assumed it would be an amazing animated film. I was right, partly. The graphics was great indeed, details in how the characters move and react. What diassapointed me most was the story, particularly the beginning of it. It was difficult to make sense of but as the film continues, the past unfolds. Thus i understood the film as it got closer to the end. Duration of the film is short, supposedly the film isn't made to fit the "EPIC" title. But i dare say this, WATCH IT!
Not a bad film. Besides, it's by Tim Burton. Majority goes to saying it's a good film. I vote for that. :)