How important is my call, really?

There is no greater tool to distort the passing of time, than to be placed on hold by a call centre. The music is too tinny to be upbeat and even though the voice over is smiley and warm, it leads to thoughts of homicide. I made the tempting mistake of thinking I could make a "quick" call. As the minutes passed, it became an operatic melodrama.

I did the tracking on the website first. I expected to see something more recent than a visit to a western Sydney suburb three days ago. Was my package still there? Was it somewhere else? The website couldn't tell me.

I rang the number. To get to speak to someone, I first had to go through the same tracking process on the phone. I ended up in the same place, but this time, when I reached the end, I was able to say the word "consultant" so I could be placed on hold.

Well I was on hold for 20 minutes. That tinny music blared, only to be interrupted by overly cheerful announcements telling me I could get the answer from the website! I was at work and filed emails while I waited. That was the most useful part of the experience.

After 20 minutes a woman answered. I told her the story. She told me my parcel was in that western Sydney suburb. I asked her what it was still doing there. She suddenly noticed that it arrived there three days ago. She said it was probably on a truck and might still be delivered. I could tell she was faking. I asked her how she knew it was on a truck. She confessed that she didn't know; she was hoping. I pressed the point. She sighed. She asked me to confirm my business account details. I asked her what she meant. She told me the name of the workplace I was in. (The phones are jolly clever these days! We're all being watched, apparently.) She sighed, saying that she would need to put my personal details in. I provided them. This yielded nothing. She told me I was in the wrong section. I told her I said the word "consultant" when asked and here I was. She sighed again. She would have to put me through to another section. She couldn't do anything. I reminded her how long I had been on hold and that I wasn't really looking forward to another age of tinny music and falsely optimistic announcements from the voice over girl.

She was gone. I was on hold. The minutes ticked by. Slower than if I had been doing something enjoyable. My email in box was looking really good. I was scared I would run out of emails to file. It's amazing how much filing you can do in 30 minutes.

Neil said hello. I said hello. Another man said hello.

The line was crossed. The other man had been on hold for ages. Neil was confused. I was running out of emails to file. Neil concluded that we had a crossed line. He sensibly declared that he could only talk to one of us at a time. My details were the ones he had on the computer screen in front of him. YES! He would need to transfer Jamal.

With Jamal banished, Neil asked me how he could help. I was about to answer, but another man chimed in. I soon learned that his name was Eric. Neil explained that we had a crossed line and again demonstrated how clever he was. Eric disappeared. We started again. This time Brittany was also in the conversation. I started to laugh maniacally.

Neil concluded that this was a problem and said that we would both have to hang up. I was now 45 minutes into the phone call and hadn't resolved the issue. I wasn't giving up without a fight. I told Neil that someone would need to call me back. He promised they would; then said if they didn't I'd need to call back. I said it was unacceptable that there might be a possibility I would have to call back. I commented on how patient and good humoured I'd been so far.

Forty-five minutes later, my phone had not rung.

I called again. I went through the tracking process on the phone. I said "consultant". I went on hold.

By the time the call was answered by a person, I had run my errands in town, bought groceries and was on the train home, barrelling towards the inner west black spot where all phone calls drop out. North Melbourne is apparently in the wilderness of Melbourne.

I explained the black spot problem to Sue and asked if she would call me back if the call dropped out. She told me that wasn't possible. I got off the train. I stood on the platform as Sue clicked away on her keyboard and sighed and gave me no new information. Sue told me she really didn't know where the parcel was. She told me I couldn't complain until three business days after the EDD. That's the estimated delivery date. The EDD was the very day that I was filing my emails, having brief encounters with men called Neil and Jamal and Eric.

I asked how I make a complaint.

Sue told me I just needed to call. There was no hint of irony either.

This morning I woke up to an email from the recipient of the parcel to say it had arrived. I could have just asked, but had not wanted to spoil the surprise.

Happy Mother's Day Mum! Thanks for being my proofreader (after publication).

In and out - navigating the public loo

Whoever designs public toilets needs to rethink the whole thing. Since the advent of the enormous toilet paper dispensers which hold enough paper to last into the forseeable future, there is no room to enter or exit the cubicle. The square meterage of cubicles has also shrunk, both lengthwise and widthwise. Add a container for the disposal of, ahem, ladies' sanitary items, a handbag and your Christmas shopping, there's barely room for a person. This is further compounded by a lack of hooks for hanging one's luggage. At Flinders Street station, this is a diabolical problem, as the floors are unclean and often wet - I hate to think with what. Once the door swings open, there's barely 2 cm between the edge of the door and the the lip of the loo. The space to stand so the swinging door doesn't knock you into the actual toilet, is taken up with the toilet paper dispenser. Getting in, it's a matter of slinging the bags over the shoulder and performing a physical origami act that would make a circus contortionist rethink their vocation. This results in being wedged between the toilet pedestal, the back wall and the lifetime supply of toilet paper. The door can then be flung towards the locking position, but arms are never long enough to reach the lock from there, so the bags are thrown, quoit-like, at the door in the hope that there is a) a hook on the door,  b) that the target will be hit and c)  that said hook will hold. The momentum keeps the door travelling the right direction, giving sufficient time to step over the bowl to the other side of the cubicle so the door can be locked.

Having undertaken the relaxing business of answering nature's call, the logistical challenge of ejecting oneself from this cell of complexity looms. The challenge is all about order. Standing up results in injuries to the face as the bags hanging on the back of the door make contact. Leaning up to try to dislodge the bags before fully standing results in considerable pain from the dislocated shoulder which follows. There's also the risk that the windmill action required could result in the bags flying over one's head and plunging to their watery death. Once that bit is worked out, the entry process is engineered in reverse: wedging in behind the toilet and the dispenser while trying to reach the lock on the door. If one can manage to open the door from this angle, then the ridiculousness of the situation is on display for all to see. And there will be plenty to see it because no matter where or when, there is ALWAYS a queue in the women's  toilets. Everyone pretends not to notice, but really they're dreading the feat that awaits them. Not only does all of the above have to be accomplished, it must be done under pressure of time - there are ladies queuing - but it must be achieved with a full bladder!

Who the hell designed these?

Open the doors outwards!

Rehearsal is for wimps - Sunday night impro!

Last night I did dinner and a show with a friend. The dinner was delicious Asian dumplings (difficult to eat elegantly...do wait until they've cooled before placing them in your mouth) and the show was made up on the spot. It was Maestro, produced by Impro Melbourne.

Maestro is a gladiatorial format. Last night 10 players/actors competed for the audience approval, 9 of them working in vain to avoid elimination in the quest to be crowned the Maestro and win a very special prize.

Two directors randomly draw ping pong balls with numbers which correspond to the numbers on the netball-style bibs worn by players. Sometimes scenes just start; at other times the directors will give a very loose offer and the players take it from there. At the end of each scene the audience clapometer determines the number of points to be allocated to each person in the scene. The audience doesn't lie, but occasionally is happy to play. For example, one actor repeatedly said that he had declared his love "five" times, over "five" days. The subliminal messaging continued until eventually many in the audience awarded the full five points. I did. He deserved the points for having gall and charm simultaneously. At one point in the show, I was the ONLY person who awarded two points and it felt very lonely. I clapped twice, very softly. The power of the human need to conform got me!

Like all great shows based on improvisation, not everything works. I actually love this too. It's great when a scene really comes together and the audience feels the thrill and joy of spontaneity. But when a scene doesn't quite work we see something we don't often see these days - unpolished and raw creative work.

The audience is not immune from the creative impulse. Last night one of the directors told the two players on stage that they were on holiday in a tiny caravan. I was sitting five seats away, so she heard me when I said, "Oh god" in response to the idea of the tiny caravan. She asked me if I'd been in one and asked me to describe it. Off I went: "Everything is close together - too close together. The bed is in the kitchen, the stove is on the bed, the TV is on the stove..." I could have added that you can flush the toilet and do the dishes from the comfort of your bed too.

The scene that resulted, was silly and funny with more and more people being invited to come into the caravan (of course it was raining outside) and doing the simplest thing like getting the milk out of the fridge required the skill of a contortionist to climb under and over the other people in the caravan.

Another highlight was the discussion between the two yokels about what exactly an "air strip" is. (It's a strip of specially imported air!)

Permission to be silly and play is one of the things that drew me to improvisation years ago. I use it daily in all kinds of situations. (Last week I wrote a new song inspired by the rats I had discovered in my roof...it's all done, but it could be a country song or a shoo-wop song and I can't decide. I might keep playing and turn it into a rap!)

I was reading something today (I can't remember what) but it was a statement that spontaneity is an essential ingredient for us to perceive other people as authentic. It makes sense; if you're in a spontaneous mindset, then you're present, open, listening and ready to dive in. If you're in a spontaneous mindset, you're not worried about what anyone else is thinking of you or busily planning your next comment when you should be listening closely to someone else.

Impro Melbourne runs classes if you want to tap into your spontaneity. Or you could go along on a Sunday night and have a lot of fun for $10!

I left feeling inspired, even though it was dark at 4:30pm on the first day of winter.

Do you improvise? Have you seen Maestro? What did you think? What's your favourite impro format?

Stream of consciousness - musings on journeys and problems and Melburnians.

Today I'm grateful that the most obvious to response to this information: "I'm going to get my hair done." isn't, "Which one?"

That sentence was really quite difficult to punctuate. How did I go?

Every time I have been to the hairdresser in 2013 it has rained on my way home. This is definitely a first world problem.

Speaking of first world problems, the other day I was at Flinders Street Station trying to locate my train (you'd think this would be easier than it actually is). I'd been waiting at Platform 8 for a while. This wasn't random, the signs all pointed to the fact that this was the place for the 5:36 pm to Laverton. A train arrived on the platform. The crowd of waiters (not the drinks kind) surged forward under the impression that the train would be the 5:36 pm to Laverton. As we surged, the sign changed its mind and informed us that it was the 5:40 pm to somewhere else, like Frankston or Packenham. We held back. An announcement informed us that the train on platform 8 was indeed the 5:36pm to Laverton. We surged forward and settled into our seats. "Settled" isn't really the right word. We were unsettled, but I don't know how to unsettle. The sign inside the train suggested the train was going to Packenham or Frankston. People dithered. Who to trust? The written word on a sign that has been wrong before or the live announcement from a human. I assume it was a human. Just as I relaxed in preparation for my journey homeward, an faint announcement was heard outside the train which sent a ripple of anger, a shiver of confusion through the commuters on board who had foolishly trusted the announcement last time. This announcement told us that we were on a train going to Frankston or Packenham and that the 5:36pm Laverton train was now arriving on platform 9! Could we trust the announcement? We surged from the train on to the platform and found a small moustached man wearing an orange high-vis vest and asked him the pertinent question: what the hell is going on? He shrugged in response.

The shrug was like an ember on a stream of petrol. Teeth were bared. We just needed to know which train, where, so we could go home.

Off to one side of the group a woman announced:  "First world problems people! First world problems! Some people don't have a home to go to, let alone a train to get there on. These are first world problems."

That didn't even make sense. As she wasn't getting on any train, but just hanging around the platforms passing moral judgement on people responding to chaos and the cosmic joke that is Flinders Street and Metro Trains at peak hour, I wondered where she was trying to go.

Another man tried to argue to logic of how the 5:40pm train had arrived before the 5:36pm train and it should be ours! I wanted to start singing songs from "Les Mis". I refrained. By that I mean I didn't. I don't mean that I sang a chorus.  Another shrug and he would have hijacked the train and taken us all west. We would have heard the people sing!

Once you're on a train in peak hour there's the added problem trying to navigate overcrowding of the aisles when there are lots of seats vacant. They're vacant because people don't move over and fill the seats furthest from the aisles first. They hog the outside seats hoping to have a bank of two or three to themselves.

I ask people nicely if I may have their seat. They look shocked. Then they move over. I always get a seat.

Then I hand them a tissue because they will inevitably be sniffing the entire liquid contents of their head back into their nasal passages. Repeatedly. What is with Melburnians and sniffing on public transport?

This was a diversion from the hairy, smelly man who was engaging himself in detailed conversation this morning on the way into the city. I didn't mind the conversation, but the smell was hard to take in closed quarters.

Then I heard that the baby elephant born at the Melbourne Zoo nearly a year ago died overnight. I never met Sanook but I had watched a documentary about the elephants at the zoo. I felt sad.

The rain fell, providing a sympathetic background of Shakespearean proportions and a mechanism to negate the efforts of my hairdresser.

My favourite things...this week

It's been a bit of a strange week.  Not a week that I've been in love with.  All the more reason to take the time to acknowledge the good bits.

1.  I had the best sleep of all time at the Novotel at Homebush in Sydney on Monday night.  I was exhausted, but that doesn't always guarantee a good sleep in a hotel.  That bed was heavenly.  The curtains didn't let in even a chink of light and I woke up in the morning wondering where the hell I was.

2.  Work on a difficult professional relationship culminated with a request for a hug.  Magic. Relief.

3.  I tried on a dress and discovered that I have dropped a dress size.  All thanks to quitting sugar!  It's both the hardest and the easiest thing to do.

4. I received a glowing probation report in relation to a project I've been leading.  I knew I had been doing good work but it's still great to see it in writing and have the conversation.

5.  I enrolled in Bob Sedergreen's jazz vocal course.  My Saturdays are free now so there's an opportunity, but I also want to tease out my inner jazz diva.  Stay tuned.

6. Going out to see comedy on a school night!  "Hot Box" on Wednesday and "Prick - the Musical" coming up on Sunday night.

7.  Hearing good news on the work front for a good friend of mine.  It's so good to share those moments with people who matter.

What was good for you this week?

Have you seen the Hot Box yet?

If you're in Melbourne and have a pulse, you need to see Karin Danger's show "Hot Box" which is playing as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.    I don't say this lightly.

Karin is an incredibly talented comic performer.  She's funny and intelligent and sings the hell out of the songs.  Did I mention that she also wrote them?

I loved her song about the morning after blues.  Not once does she actually talk about what happened the night before and with references to "an Argentinian passport torn up in my bin" one can only wonder.  It's hilarious and well delivered.  Look out for the cracker Brownlow joke early in the show too.

Apart from the jokes, Karin has something to say and she puts herself on the line to say it.  Whether you agree with her message or not, I think the idea of doing this is something to be encouraged.

The show made me happy.  I delighted in every aspect of the show.  It's great to see a young talented woman making art like this so I just really want lots of people to be happy too.

"Hot Box" is playing until 21 April at the gorgeously kitsch (and now city-based) Butterfly Club which is worth a visit too.

My favourite things - this week

1.  My score on the happiness test!  84 out of 100 where 70 is the benchmark for happiness.  I have to say, I'm pretty happy about that!  It made me think about the fact that my life is not perfect - it never will be - yet I am content and making progress.  Why not try yourself?

2.  My first book group meeting of the year.  At the start of our thirteenth year, we met to discuss Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winning "Bring up the Bodies".    It was generally favourably received.  I personally liked it much more than the first book, "Wolf Hall" and confessed to weeping during Anne Boleyn's execution, it was so beautifully and delicately written.

3.  Impro Melbourne's season opener of the Maestro format.  I went to the opening night last Sunday night and was so thoroughly entertained I nearly forgot how hot it was and that I was stuck to a vinyl seat.  The most thrilling part of improvisation in any art form is that the creation exists only in that moment, is never to be repeated and you have to be there to witness it.  Sunday nights at 7:30pm at The Space, Chapel Street, Prahran.

4. My wish came true on Wednesday afternoon.  A tiny glimmer of hope.  I don't expect this experience to be regularly repeated, but I wish it would be.

5. This photo.  I took it when walking across the pedestrian bridge over the Yarra River from Southgate to Flinders Street station.  It was about 7:30pm.

Sunset on the Yarra
©divacultura 2013

Eat Pray Laugh - Farewell Barry Humphries

Image: Her Majesty's Theatre website.

Yesterday afternoon I did something I've never done before.  I went to see Barry Humphries live on stage in his show, Eat Pray Laugh at Her Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne.  It's the farewell tour and I'm so pleased that I didn't let the opportunity to see a master craftsman performing pass me by.

Before Dame Edna took to the stage after interval we spent some time with Sir Les Patterson and the dead Sandy Stone.  I'd heard of these characters and seen snippets, but didn't know very much about them.  I knew that Sir Les is disgusting and wasn't sure about Sandy Stone. (Click here for photos of Sir Les and Sandy Stone.)

Sir Les is disgusting, but still, somehow, likeable.  He has a generous spirit and a big smile on his face to go with the innuendo laden crudities and racist epithets that fly out of his mouth - along with the spit.

The show started in Sir Les' backyard, somewhere in the unmistakeable Australian suburbia.  Silhouetted against the sky is a row of two storey houses with their television antennae reaching towards heaven.  The yard has a lawn and is surrounded by a hedge. Everything is covered in astroturf.  In the corner, there's a piano, also covered in turf.  There's the obligatory garden shed, complete with painted cricket stumps  and a barbecue set up near the back door to his house and the outside toilet.  We know it's a toilet because Sir Les is having trouble with his guts.  Suddenly the audience is roaring with laughter while they squirm at the bowel sounds he is emitting.  He has already warned us about his "volatile emissions".

His outfit is marvellous: a bright orange, yellow and black, ugly  "Hawaiian" shirt, over orange cargo shorts, black socks pulled half way up his calves and bright yellow Crocs on his feet.  Sir Les is apparently very well endowed and wearing shorts presents a problem as his enormous appendage appears below the hem line of his strides.  It's outrageous and screamingly funny because he's so open hearted!  He refers to the enormous bulge in his pants, telling us not to worry, it's just his stash of cab charge vouchers.

Not only does Sir Les provide satirical comment on current affairs, he speaks frankly of his wife, Gwenny's, charms, variously referring to her nether regions as the "gates of paradise", the "tarantula" and thus himself as the "webmaster".  And then he tells us about his latest venture - he's to be the latest celebrity chef.  He's going to try out a recipe for us - rissoles.  His helpers are The Condiments: four very buff dancers - two men and two women - and they wield their ingredients with aplomb while dancing around the stage showing off their incredible bodies.

As Sir Les plunges his hands into the raw mince to start mixing the rissoles by hand, the trouble with his guts takes hold again and these rissoles become even more revolting to think about than they had been when he was merely spitting all over the place.

I was left wondering why fart jokes and sounds are so funny!

Sandy Stone was the character which surprised me.  I found the image of this old, softly spoken man standing on stage in his dressing gown unbearably poignant.  I will even admit to tears as he remembered and sang, "My Blue Heaven".  The imagery of the set, with an easy chair and lamp which descended from heaven, looking like it was made of clouds, was gorgeously fitting.

What a ride!  To take the audience from guffaws to quiet comtemplation of our mortality illustrates the incredible craft, in writing, performance and direction, which was on display.

I needed the interval to recover before meeting Dame Edna.

She was fresh from a stay in a very posh ashram in India - the Dalai Lama may or may not have been one of her fellow travellers - and resplendent in a sky blue gown, sparkling with diamantes and reminiscent of a sari. We'd been shown a tabloid scandal reel to bring us up to date on the history of Dame Edna and then Dame Edna herself arrived on an elephant. She was up for a chat with the audience, engaging and terrifying the front rows - they could be singled out for her scathing assessments at any moment.  Dame Edna does vitriol like no one else, leaving the audience relieved that someone else is in the firing line.

Showing skills as an improviser, there were some moments where the ordinary responses from the selected audience members were hilarious with no embellishment required.  I'm thinking of Debra (Dame Edna's second favourite spelling, she prefers Deborah) who lives in a mud house in a suburb called "Research" with a cream coloured ceiling and coffee coloured bedspread.  Or poor Isabel who was criticised for her "laser sharp intellect" after she could not explain what an epiphany was.  Isabel was accompanied by an apparently elderly looking man.  Dame Edna asked if this was her husband and there was uproar when Isabel revealed him as her grandfather!  Denise described her home in Leongatha as being "Tuscan".  Quick as a whip, Dame Edna imagined all the people in Florence who are living in houses which could be described as being built in the "Leongatha" style.  Hilarious!

The people singled out for conversation were invited onto the stage, including Isabel's grandfather, who turned out to be blind.  A substitute senior citizen was found and he stood up to reveal himself to be hobbling on a stick!  It took considerable effort for him to climb the stairs, but he made it.  Dame Edna affectionately did the Australian thing and immediately gave him a nickname - he was referred to as "Seeny" henceforth.  (Short for Senior Citizen.)

There was a well-deserved standing ovation for Dame Edna after she had flung stems of gladioli to the audience and ordered us to sing "Wave that glad" with lyrics that went something like: "It's part of the show that's quite traditional, I was taught this song by an old Aboriginal, wave that glad!".

Another short film reel was shown and then Barry Humphries took the stage, with his trademark hat (a Fedora?) at a suave angle.  The audience rose to its feet and I felt a wave of affection and respect for this incredible artist.

As I waited for my friend in the foyer, I observed the audience.  They were considerably older than I am and their eyes were lit with the endorphins pouring through them as the result of almost three hours of laughter.  I spied "Seeny".  People were calling out to him and congratulating him on his "performance".  He beamed, clearly enjoying his new found celebrity.

Don't miss the opportunity to see this show!