Educational rubbish

I cleared out our mailbox earlier, and as usual, there was at least half a tree trunks worth of junk mail in there. The usual stuff. All of which went straight into the bin. The recycling bin that is.

This isn't on my gate I hasten to add, still they make a very good point.

There were coupons for Dominoes, offering $1 off the XXL super deluxe -  if you order at least 5, collect them in person and consume them between the sociable hours of 3am and 6am.

There was an offer of a ‘Free house valuation’ from the local estate agent. Free? Free? I should bloody well hope so. With the housing market the way it is at the moment, agents should be so lucky to have a house on their books that they could actually sell.

There was an extremely tempting offer on some reduced rate security shutter blinds -  if we have a large billboard outside our house advertising their services. Ermmm, lets think about that one for a minute. Nope. I don’t think prison chic really does that much for a house’s curbside appeal.

Then there was one from the Government health department, inviting me along for my free mammogram. Well strictly speaking the letter wasn’t exactly addressed to me, but someone who obviously lived here before and fell into the right age bracket. Not to be deterred and curious to see what I have in store for me in years to come, I thought I’d have a read through the literature.

Who knew I would have such a choice of languages – 30 in total, or 31 if you decided to read it in bog standard, boring old English. The other options were Amharic, Arabic, Bosnian, Burmese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Croatian, Dari, Netherlandic, Farsi, French, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japenese, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Khmer, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Togalog, Thai, Tigrigna and Vietnamese.

Blimey, I’ve never even heard of some of those languages. Who knew that the northern suburbs of Perth were such a international melting pot of nationalities. The last time I took a look around, the only people living in the area were Australian’s, English, more English, even more English and a spattering of South Africans.

What I want to know is how do they even decide what languages to include on this type of bumpf?* Is it really based on the population of Perth, or do they just pick out the prettiest sounding languages and simply try to pad out the list to cover the entire alphabet?

Of course if you’re going to be really politically correct, then the literature should also have included Braille for the blind, a taped recording for the illiterate and a dictionary for the incredibly stupid. Then, when the whole lot is printed out on half a rainforest and delivered house to house, everyone at least has the option of either landing a job as a linguist in the UN, or using the 6″ wedge to stop their front door flying open in the storms.

* Incidentally, incase you’ve ever wondered about the history behind the word ‘bumpf’ -  it orginated in England during WW2, when the soldiers, who were overwhelmed with unnecessary printed materials, decided to do a spot of recycling and use them as loo roll – or ‘bum fodder’.

So there you go, don’t accuse me of never writing anything educational on my blog!

When smelly children need surgery

Everyone has heard about those kids who stick something up their nose.

I’ve often thought what sort of idiot, albeit a pint sized one, does that? Images of a manky, sniveling little boy, with a crusted up, snot smeared face and unruly hair spring to mind. The sort of child who pulls wings of butterflies and feasts on worms and bugs. You know the type, they usually feature in the local paper, with a picture of the child proudly clutching the spanner set he somehow misplaced up his nasal cavity and his proud parents beaming away behind, quoted as saying “We wondered why all the magnets in the house kept sticking to his face.”

I also wondered what happened when this unfortunate event occurred. How did the child in question breath, when their nostrils were stuffed full of unidentifiable stuff? How did the parents not notice that little Jimmy had snorted his peas off his plate instead of eating them? And how on earth do they ever get the ‘foreign object’ back out again?

Last week I found out that I have one of ‘those’ children – oh what a proud parental moment that was. So off the back of that, I can now confirm the following. Yes, breathing is indeed restricted with something lodged up your nostril. It is easy to miss something different about your child, if it’s not visible to the eye. And believe it or not, it can take surgery.

The first clue that something was where it shouldn’t be was that my son smelt horrible, with a nasty whiff about his person that would come and go. The type of odour that simply refused to budge, even with much vigorous washing and twice daily teeth brushing. It’s hard to say exactly what the smell was even, somewhere between sour milk and a rotting vegetable perhaps. Fairly unpleasant in other words.

The pong went on for quite a while, until it escalated to such a point that my maternal alarm bells started clanging loudly in my ears. By this time I could no longer hug him on my lap without having to turn my head away to gasp for breath. Regardless of how much you love your child, no mother wants to sit and bury their nose into a compost heap every day.

Granted I do have a particularly sensitive nose, and could even detect a smoker walking 5 floors down and 500m away when pregnant, but this time it was more than me being fussy. So why wait till I was gagging you may ask? Well, apart from the whiff he was perfectly healthy. We checked him all over decaying flesh or rupturing boils, and like I said, he was washed and brushed regularly. Perhaps it was the fear of having a child diagnosed with halitosis that simply riddled me with fear.

So anyway, off to the doctor we went, where I told him that my son smelled horrible.

The doctor, as I expected, looked at me like I was something of a heartless cow when it came to my mothering care and concern. Then he looked into my sons mouth, and lo and behold spotted tonsils the size of walnuts. Or Brazil nuts. Or was it almonds. Anyway, regardless of the nut, apparently they were enormous and stopping all the air flowing down his throat. So the enlarged tonsils were blamed for the smell and I was referred to an ENT specialist to discuss having them removed.

A few weeks later we sat in front off the consultant. “He smells” I said, bracing myself for another raised eyebrow and resisting the urge to let out a “Mooo”, like the nasty Friesian that I am. The consultant looked at my son, turned him both ways and then informed me that he probably had something stuck up his nose. OK. Didn’t see that one coming. His nose certainly didn’t look any bigger than normal, and as far as I could remember, I hadn’t noticed him foraging around in the tool box and sniffing up a spanner. Perhaps it was a piece of Lego, or one of those wretched little Polly Pocket shoes I’m always telling my daughter to clear up.

Next stop for the doctor, the mouth, and his enormous tonsils were confirmed. They were then linked to his excessive sweating, loud snoring and irregular breathing at night, the long periods of time he spends awake and chatting in the early hours of the morning and his inability to shift a cold or cough. Well that cleared up all of those annoying habit’s then. I was told they needed to be whipped out ASAP, and as luck would have it, he had a slot to do it in a weeks time.

Marvelous, that would be the same day my husband was flying to Sydney for a week. Multitasking is one thing, but multitasking with a sick child alone is a whole other ballgame. By this stage, heartless cow was now looking more dazed and confused cow.

The night before surgery arrived, and with the bags all packed and ready for hospital, I promptly threw up. And then again. By 9am the next morning my husband had turned a rather sludgy shade of green. By 9.30 my daughter had been sent home from school. Or rather brought home, there was no way I was trotting into the school office to collect her dressed in my pyjamas.

I think it would be fair to say that so far ‘Operation Tonsil’ was not going to plan. With all of us (except the patient-to-be) now rolling around clutching buckets, the surgery was postponed for a further week. My son carried on watching Thomas, completely oblivious to the lucky escape he had just had.

A week later and into hospital we all went, lugging three enormous bags of essential items with us, only one of which was half unpacked. The other two sat in the corner completely untouched. My little boy was taken away by scalpel welding men in blue coats, and two nail biting parents sat in his dismal little room and watched the minutes tick by. Time does indeed go by much slower when you’re waiting for your precious offspring to survive.

On the way to be with him in the recovery ward I heard him long before I could see him. Weighing in at only 14kg, and just minutes out of a general anesthetic, I rounded the corner to find two nurses unsuccessfully trying to pin my little boy down onto the bed. Like a child possessed, he screamed blue murder and understandably thrashed around as he tried to figure out where he was and why he felt so odd. I have to say his show of strength was pretty impressive for his size, however it meant that he somehow managed to pull the tube out of his hand, and as I laid down with him to try and calm him down, he nearly catapulted me off the bed.

That night in hospital went as well as could be expected, considering the small and depressing room, the one colour suits all food and the rails of the bed that fitted in just perfectly between each of the vertebra down my spine.

For some unknown reason, all of the nurses also saw fit to raise their voices by several decibels as they barged into the room to check his stats, every 15 minutes throughout the night. To make continuous sleep even harder, each time they left they failed to close the door properly behind them. This left me with little choice but to climb over the rails of a ridiculously high bed, close the door myself and then climb back up and over and in again – in the dark. And all without waking the small restless child sprawled across the majority of a very small bed.

Did I mention this was a private hospital? No, I wouldn’t have guessed it either, if I hadn’t spotted the price list on the way in.

So now we’re home and I’m sitting with my little ticking time bomb of pain. Apparently he’s going to get a whole lot worse before he gets better, and he runs the risk of bleeding if he doesn’t eat toast everyday. Toast? I can’t even bribe him to open his mouth for ice cream right now. As far as he knows, his throat has just been attacked with a cheese grater.

This week is all about keeping him medicated up to the eye balls and preventing the dog from bouncing all over him on the sofa. It would be so much easier if he could understand why a day out ended in all this pain, but bless him, he doesn’t have a clue. Instead his sad little face looks up at me and I can just tell he’s thinking “What the hell did you let them do to me, you cruel and heartless cow?”

Oh, I almost forgot. The smell. That, I’m pleased to say, is gone. The ‘foreign object’ is still just that, as we have no idea as to what it might be. Let’s just say that if you blew your nose and that shot out onto the tissue you’d be somewhat alarmed, and probably feeling more than a little bit sick.

It’s sitting on the dresser right now, entombed in a plastic tub. I’m not exaclty sure why I’m keeping it, maybe so when he’s older I can whip it out and say “You may not have eaten worms and bugs as a child, but you did stick this up your nose. Happy 21st!”

Shop till you fly

Recently I was lucky enough to find myself ambling around Duty Free, passing time before boarding and trying to pump some extra blood around my body in the hope of preventing a bout of DVT. Having checked in early, my husband informed me that this time we were NOT to be the last people to board.

Over the years we do seem to have made something of a habit of leaving things till the last minute, and as a result finding ourselves running across terminals and creeping through the cabin with a red face – brought on by both the unexpected exercise and the embarrassment of being the last to arrive.

The most memorable of all was our trip to Venice – a surprise for my 30th birthday. Obviously the holiday wasn’t a surprise, but the destination was – right up until the point when our names were called out over the tannoy, as I sat on the loo. As an airline, Easy Jet aren’t the most accommodating at the best of times, and straggling passengers are not appreciated. We were severely reprimanded as we skulked on-board.

Our reoccurring lateness to board is normally caused either by a family member who refuses to say goodbye, or by the fact that we love Duty Free. A wonderful no-mans land between one country and the next, where you can browse amongst products that you would never normally encounter, and dabble with things that you could never hope to afford. A place where the bright shiny lights and colourful displays draw you in and leave you suddenly feeling compelled to buy something you don’t really need.

Yes, in Duty Free it seems there really are no laws to govern those impulsive and overwhelming urges to spend money, and none to control the common sense that normally keeps your wallet firmly zipped up and out of harms way. I don’t know if this short lived spending insanity is down to being trapped in a windowless environment with time on your hands, or because the powers that be pump something through the air ducts that momentarily addles your brain.

I suspect it may have something to do with the many hideously overpriced restaurants – the ones that offer up 4 day old pre-wrapped ciabattas and muffins, that if used in a sling shot, could easily bring down a plane. These sort of places undoubtedly make it cheaper to keep on walking in circles, than it is to sit and eat.

Anyway, this recent visit of mine went off as expected. After stocking up with the necessary water, Pringles, chocolate, 3 books and a stack of magazines to last the 5 hour flight, I thought I would keep us entertained by trying on at least 30 pairs of sunglasses. I say entertained, as most of them did make me look like a bug eyed bee. Of course we knew we wouldn’t actually be buying a pair, given that they each equated to a months car repayment, but the sales girl, bless her, saw a commission opportunity with every pair. So each time that I picked some up she would, without fail, say, “You want to try those?”.

Having worked out that the best pair for me were also the most pricey, we headed off in search of perfume. Buying perfume is of course compulsory when in Duty Free. All boarding cards do in fact state, in very, very small print, that no person is allowed to fly without first buying at least 50ml of something expensive and smelly.

Having already done the necessary perfume research beforehand, it was chosen, bought and paid for in quick succession. There was a slight ‘discussion’ with the sales assistant regarding the free toiletry bag and CK ONE perfume that was advertised to go along with every $100 spent, but apparently the wording on the ‘Get a FREE perfume’ sign was slightly ‘misleading’, and only the bag was on offer. Strange that, how the free incentive always seems to magically disappear at the 11th hour of purchase.

With my husband being left to buy the perfume, it was finally my time to browse. First to the nail varnishes, where a rather nice bright pink colour was selected, appreciated and then put back down. Too late. The shop assistant had already spotted my moment of weakness – made easy of course by the fact she was practically perched on my shoulder at the time. She scurried across to my husband to ask if he wanted to buy the said nail varnish. Being the lovely husband that he is, of course he said yes. So it was fetched, bagged and paid for before I could even open my mouth.  Give her her dues, this assistant certainly won points for stalking her prey and going in for the kill.

With my smell and nails in the bag,  I went off to prepare my skin for the 5 dehydrating hours ahead. This of course entailed much sampling of everything on offer, and moisturising myself to within an inch of my life. Or until I had become such a human oil slick that I could easily glide across the floor. 3 face creams, an eye-lift gel and a body shimmer powder later, I headed towards the brand that I would/could never buy – La Prairie. Can’t say I know much about the range, except that it features heavily in glossy magazines and has less chance of appearing by my toothbrush than an enormous pink elephant.

First there was the Skin Caviar Eye Lift. At just under $500 a tub, that seemed to be an awfully overpriced pot of pureed fish eggs. Still, it went on well and without even a whiff of fish. Then I rounded the corner, and found out that the caviar cream was actually reasonably priced, when compared to the Cellular Radiance Concentrate Pure Gold – at around $900 for 30 ml. Is it me, or does that seem a tad excessive for a face cream, even one that contains specks of gold?

Not wanting to dismiss what I didn’t know, I thought it only fair to give it a go. So I pumped out around $50 worth and rubbed it into my arm (my face by this stage was already well loaded up with caviar). Now I can’t say I spotted any gold specks, but I do know that my arm now had a faint whiff of what smelt to me like cat’s pee. Not just my imagination, my husband confirmed that I smelt disgusting.

Disappointed with the result, the offending $50′s worth was scrubbed off with a wet wipe and I walked away safe in the knowledge that Garnier and L’Oreal were quite good enough for me. To make myself feel better, I splashed out on an Elizabeth Arden 8 hour lip balm. With a built in sunscreen, it is an absolute necessary for Perth, so would have seemed a crime not to get one.

All shopped out and creamed up, there was barely enough time to neck a hot chocolate (the ratio of 70% froth to 30% liquid turned out to be a good thing) before setting off for the plane. By this time the final boarding sign was flashing and we were forced to move at a brisk trot. Once again my husband didn’t get his wish, and I didn’t even get a chance to duck into the toilet.

What’s a girl to do. After all, as the name itself implies, it is ones DUTY to make sure that you personally test everything that is laid out for you for FREE.

: : : : : : : : : : :

McDonald’s Saves the Day

Australia, a country renowned for it’s love of sports and outdoor lifestyle has just been named the ‘Fattest Nation in the World’. Oh what a proud moment in history that is, let’s bring out a double cheese burger and chuck it on the barbie to celebrate.

What on earth has happened to this world and it’s waistline, and who is really to blame? Is it the companies who make the junk food, the media who promote it or the consumer who thinks if they buy a meal that’s ‘Happy’ then they must be onto a good thing.

At a time when the world seems to be sinking into financial hardship, ‘cheaper than chips’ food is even more appealing to those who are forced to budget and tighten their belts. Of course not eating the junk food would help considerably with the tightening, but that’s neither here nor there.

Still not to fear. McDonald’s (the all American hero) is one company that has ever so kindly stepped up to the plate and is fighting the good fight to ensure that the world doesn’t go hungry, and it seems that the public is incredibly grateful.

Grateful enough that in the UK alone, McDonald’s, the countries largest low wage employer, has recently created 4000 new jobs in their 1,200 outlets. Jobs evidently needed to keep up with the demand of the 2 million new customers who are flocking in through their doors every month, to fill up on a menu that seems to get cheaper by the week.

Now I have to say, that with the world media so heavily focused on the growing problem of obesity, and a staggering 58% of the world’s population predicted to be obese by 2030,  I just don’t get it.

Why are so many people still refusing to grasp the simple fact that it is not called ‘junk’ food for nothing?

The definition of junk according to my (Websters) dictionary is ‘discarded useless objects, rubbish, trash, any narcotic drug, such as heroin’. How very appetising. No wait, let’s wrap that in shiny paper and stick it in a box with a big smiley face on. OK, that looks much better. Now it’s good enough to eat.

Yes of course there is no denying that a ‘Value meal’ may be cheaper than buying all the fresh ingredients you need to cook a meal. Yes of course it is undoubtedly quicker to queue up and have your food thrown together for you than it is to stand in your kitchen at the end of a day and make it yourself. Yes of course kids will love it and therefore the threat of enduring yet another argument over how long it takes them to eat their dinner is significantly reduced.

So yes, yes, yes. I get that it can be a quicker, easier, cheaper and less stressful option all around. But that doesn’t mean it’s a better option. Cutting straight across a crowded road might be quicker than walking an extra 50 yards to the nearest flashing green man, but it doesn’t mean you will get to the other side in one piece. Several flattened pieces perhaps. Or, if you are in Singapore, with a fine for Jay walking.

The simple fact of the matter is that if you consume your body weight in Big Macs and McNuggets every month then the likelihood is you will get fat, you will get sick and you will die… years before your name ever comes up on the Grim Reaper’s call sheet.

Surely no food is worth gaining weight or dying over? I reckon if every McDonald’s had a pair of scales at the counter and you had to climb on them to place your order, it might make a whole heap of people think twice before stepping through the door and in turn, cut down the queuing time for those ‘Super Size’ fanatics who really don’t care.

Of course I know from experience the occasional burger might be nice. Or more to the point the idea of a burger might be nice – when you are out, hungry enough to eat the furry contents of your glove box and too far from your own fridge to make it through till the next meal. The reality of it is very different if I  remember rightly (since cutting red meat out my diet I haven’t been back). You go in through those doors starving and full of hope that it’s just what you feel like and come out 15 minutes later feeling bloated, greasy and in need of a colonic irrigation.

Now I know that it may seem like I have a real axe to grind with McDonald’s (or those who eat it), but that’s not the case at all. All fast food places are as bad as each other and wherever you go, the menu is nothing more than a recipe for any number of chronic medical conditions.

When it comes to the kids, these places are especially bad news. Nearly every possible combination of children’s meals in all these fast food joints are too high in calories, exceeding 430 calories – an amount that is one-third of what the National Institute of Medicine recommends children ages 4 through 8 should consume in a day. Incidentally Subways is the healthiest of them all and apparently the only one that doesn’t offer soft drinks with kids meals.

It seems crazy that some parents are OK with their kids filling up on empty calories and nothing else. If they were asked to make their child neck a bottle of vodka and chain smoke a packet of B&H for their tea would they agree? So why would they let some clown called Ronald help pour a load of saturated fat down their throat instead.

The reason why McDonald’s bugs me the most is because they base all of their promotion and advertising around families, suggesting that it is the perfect place to take your 2.4 kids for a nice meal out. Hey, who needs a Sunday Roast in a nice country pub when you can sit on a plastic bench, get ketchup all over your shoes and leave stinking of chip fat instead

McDonald’s spends over $2 billion a year on advertising – a large chunk of which would be used to target young kids. Their marketing encourages the use of ‘pester power’, the bain of every parent’s life. They know that if you stick a small plastic piece of nothing in a box, link it with the latest product, film or event then those little McNugget loving consumers will come a running.

And when chunky little Jo Junior hankers after the complete set of McAction ‘limited edition’ toys that come with his Happy Meal, then the rest of the family will invariably also come along to chow down at the Temple of McDoom. So what you have is the whole family now eating a load of cr*p just so they can get their hands on something that won’t even make it out of the backseat of the car. Clever marketing it maybe, but should companies be allowed to lead little lambs in for the slaughter like this?

I know for a fact this marketing works. The other day on the walk home from school, my daughter asked out of the blue if I would take her to McDonald’s. Obviously my eyebrows disappeared into my hairline and she had more chance of growing a second head, but I still asked her why she wanted to go. It turns out that it wasn’t for the food or even the play centre (the ones they put in to trap parents and get them to buy more food). No, it was because she desperately wanted some beanie thing that McDonald’s have brought out in honour of the Olympics. Sadly my daughter won’t be getting one, but seeing as she had forgotten she had even asked by the time we got home, I don’t think it will stick in her childhood memories and scar her for life.

Talking of the Olympics, there’s another really clever marketing campaign.  Who else could possibly be more suited to help promote the world’s most famous sporting event than one of the world’s leading sponsors of obesity. Strikes me as a bit of an odd partnership that one, much the same as if you held a sex convention in a nunnery or an AA meeting in a pub. But then, as every company knows, you should never underestimate the power of positive association.

Of course fighting McDonald’s cause along the fatty highway and creating a positive link between health and the McHeart Attack are some of the world’s most celebrated Olympians. Namely the 8 time gold medal winner Michael Phelps and the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt.

Phelps, who once again has put Flipper to shame with his speed in the water, has talked about how he consumes a massive 12,000 calories a day, including foods from his favourite eatery – McDonald’s. Bolt, who makes slow motion look fast has revealed that he doesn’t eat breakfast and fills up instead on nuggets before hitting the track.

Oh yeah. Bang goes any hope of parents using these athletes and the extraordinary feats that they have achieved to motivate our children into eating well. I personally think Phelps should get back in the water and keep his eating habits to himself. If the average person took a leaf out of his book and thought that consuming this much food would help them win a gold (and we know there is always going to be someone dumb enough to try it), then Greenpeace would have to be called to dredge them off the nearest sandbank.

Despite their claims that they care and are working to help stamp out obesity, McDonald’s are only there to feed those who come knocking. Of course they are, that’s the nature of what they do. Their policy is not to restrict portion sizes and dispense nutritional advice with ketchup. Many light years ago my husband did a stint at a McDonald’s. After a few weeks on the job he was fired. Not because he stole fries or dropped a gherkin slice on the floor, but because he asked one very overweight ‘little’ boy, when he came up for his third Big Mac, “Don’t you think you might have already had one too many?” Straight talking is obviously not a trait they look for in their employees.

Please McDonald’s, enough with the celebrity endorsements and sponsoring of sports. Just start making the food a tad healthier and then maybe, just maybe, the obesity trend will be brought under control and in 50 years time there will still be enough space left on this planet for all of the people to squeeze in.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Choice isn’t always a good thing

It is an accepted fact these days that our everyday decisions are now dictated to and in many ways controlled by marketing companies and the hypnotic hold they seem to have over us. Through the power of media they relentlessly bombard us, telling us how we should be living our life, what we want to look like, how we should feel, what we need to eat and when we should be rushing out and spending money we haven’t got. These marketing gurus also seem to have the ability to take an everyday mole hill of a decision for us and turn it into a mountain of dilemma.

Take this morning for example. I went out looking to buy some toothpaste and came back needing half an hour in a darkened room and a packet of Panadol. Had I known beforehand that buying a simple tube of toothpaste was going to be such a challenging lesson in choice and decision making, then perhaps I would have left the house a good 15 minutes earlier and taken along a friend for moral support.

On the surface it might seem like a fairly straightforward mission to accomplish.  A matter of reaching out and grabbing the same one I had used that morning, a whole 60 minutes ago. But ‘simple’ is never something that translates easily from theory into practice. Don’t ask me how, but somewhere between the bathroom sink and the shop floor my memory had somehow erased all memories of which one I normally use.

Incidentally I blame this short term memory loss entirely on having children and as a direct result of all the brain cells that have died due to years of lost sleep.

Anyway, as a consequence of my brain blowing a fuse in this manner, I was now faced with what can only be described as a bank of cardboard boxes, and a terrible case of indecisiveness starting to grow. As someone who has trouble choosing between a blueberry muffin and a chocolate muffin without first checking what my husband is having, this didn’t bode well for my walking out of that shop anytime soon.

This may seem like something of a dramatic exaggeration (something I admit we writers are prone to do from time to time), but this time I kid you not. Stretched out from one end of the aisle all the way down to the shower gel there were no less than 24 different types of toothpaste on display, and this by the way, was ONLY in the Colgate section.

I ask you, 24. Is that really necessary?

All I want from my toothpaste is something to make my teeth shiny and bright enough to stop traffic and to give me breathe as fresh as a packet of Polo’s. What I don’t want is to have to stand there trying to narrow down the choice and make an informed decision about something so incredibly mundane.

Of course I know that when it comes to sales it is purely about the figures and making even more money for Mr Colgate. But please, can’t they take pity on those of us who simply don’t have a spare 15 minutes to scan the packets back and forth and wonder whether we need the Colgate Maximum Cavity Protection Blue Minty Gel, the Colgate Advanced Whitening plus Tartar Control, the Colgate Max White or the Colgate Triple Action..

What does ‘triple action’ even mean? Will it swill your mouth out for you and wipe down the wash basin afterward? If it did they should just say so. The stuff would fly off the shelves and into the homes of anyone who has a child who goes to brush their teeth and leaves a rim of dried on toothpaste scum in their wake.

So here’s what I want to know. If toothpaste is a health and hygiene product and something that we should use at least twice a day, then why does the whole industry have to be turned into such a marketing companies dream and a buyers nightmare. Why can’t they just make ONE toothpaste that does the lot. Toothpaste at the end of the day is just toothpaste and I find it very hard to believe that the ingredients in each of the 24 different types that Colgate produces can vary so much as to warrant a different name, packaging and price tag.

This overwhelming choice aside, what no doubt has that Tooth Fairy shaking her head in horror is the effect that some of these toothpaste can have on your teeth.

For years I have been coveting the Hollywood smile and buying anything with ‘Whitening’ on the box. Are my teeth any whiter for it? Of course they aren’t. Instead they are now so sensitive that eating an ice cream on a windy day can be something of a challenge. I am also forced into the ’Sensitive’ toothpaste section, one that funnily enough comes at twice the price for half the tube. If I was that way inclined I’d say there was a definite whiff of a conspiracy to be had here. Much the same as if Benson & Hedges sold you cigarettes for years and then charged you double the price again for a new set of lungs.

Of course I am without a doubt the gullible mug for believing what I read on the packet, especially given what I do for a living. My common sense tells me that the promise of gain always results in some sort of pain. But it does make you wonder how safe on our teeth are these Whitening toothpastes over many years of constant brushing abuse?

Are there cages of guinea pigs stowed away somewhere with perfect smiles, but with teeth too brittle to bite through a sunflower seed?

Amongst the many offerings from Colgate there is even the ever so temptingly titled Baking Soda & Peroxide toothpaste. Can that really be safe? While baking soda is great for clearing out blocked drains and peroxide handy if your highlights are growing out, when it comes to teeth they both sound harsh enough to strip off all the enamel from a 100 paces.

Last year 3 brands of Chinese toothpaste, Tri Leaf Spearmint, Cool Mate and Heibeing were banned when they were found to have contained potentially lethal levels of a toxic chemical called DEG (diethylene glycol). This is an industrial solvent used in paint and anti freeze and can cause kidney and liver damage. Counterfeit Colgate toothpaste also turned up in the US last year, containing the same dangerous chemicals.

It’s enough to make you wonder what other hidden ingredients you are swilling around your mouth. Are we that generation of human guinea pigs so swayed by clever advertising and slick marketing that we are willing to use anything if it sounds to good to be true? And if so, which parts of our bodies will be turning green and dropping off in years to come?

Zoom Zoom Zoom

You could be forgiven for thinking that buying a car is a simple 3 step process – you choose your make and model, you get offered a fabulous deal and you drive away – with free floor mats, a tank of fuel and a hamper of inedible food. Sadly this is not so. It’s not even close.

There is nothing simple about buying a car in this day and age. It’s a stressful event and one that should be avoided like the plague by anyone with a weak heart, on blood pressure pills or likely to buckle easily under pressure.

Simply trying to choose between the small cars, sports cars, saloon cars and 4WD’s can bring on a migraine. Trying to decide what colour and ‘package’ you want on your car can leave you dazed. Making sure that the amounts on the final contract tally with the amount you verbally agreed can leave you completely confused – and often massively out of pocket.

Of course if you were to believe the advertising hype, then every new car on the market can and will make heads turn in the street. They can cross a mountain range without getting dirty and house an entire happy smiling family – with children who never bicker, scatter crumbs like confetti or throw up all over the shiny leather upholstery.

Putting aside this ever so slightly rose tinted image of those who drive cars, it is the ridiculous selling spiel of car ads that can make you shake your head in disbelief. For example, in a safety mad world full of test dummies and statistics it would surely stand to reason that an airbag would come as fairly standard in every car. Yet here some manufacturers still advertise them as a ‘feature’, along with the tyres, handbrake, engine and wheels nuts… Surely an integrated sat nav system and heated seats would be considered ‘features’, not those parts of a car designed to actually save your life.

Before going out on the great car hunt it is important to realise that the rules of the game over here are very different to the UK. For starters it is hard to find anywhere to go to actually get yourself a bargain. Dealers seem to close ranks to protect themselves from buyers trying to play one off one against the other and salesmen appear to be immune to any form of negotiating. A ‘deal’ is what is already written on the car’s windscreen, anything else is apparently an insult. Even when searching on the Internet, the countless websites offering to secure you the ‘lowest price possible’ only charge you for the privilege and then lead you straight back to the local dealer you have already visited.

One of the biggest differences in the car industry here is that it can be just as cheap, if not cheaper to buy a brand spanking new car as it is to buy a used one. Whether out on the dealers forecourt, advertised in the Quokka or parked on the kerb of every roundabout at the weekend, used cars can be expensive to buy. This would of course give the illusion that cars hold their value well – a claim that is certainly made by every salesman about the particular brand they are trying to flog you. The only trouble is, that as far as the owner of the car is concerned, this is only partly true.

If you buy a car from a dealer and then decide to take that very same car back to trade in just 6 months later you might be in for a shock. Suddenly the ‘value’ of your car has dropped by $1000′s. Countless excuses will be given as to why this car (the one in exactly the same condition as when you brought it) is suddenly no longer  worth what you paid. You will even be made to feel unrealistic, greedy and naive for expecting more back than they are offering. Yet drive by the forecourt a week later and you will no doubt see your car has miraculously regained it’s value and is once again worth pretty much what you paid for it in the first place.

No one is disputing that every dealer needs to make some money, but why do car salesmen have to use every known underhand method from the ‘How to screw your customer over’ guide to selling a motor. Of course everyone knows that it’s  going to happen, it’s part of the game in a very cut throat industry – but why does it have to be so unsubtle that it becomes down right insulting. Hard sell takes on a whole different meaning, they may as well just pin you down and hold a crow bar to your jugular until you offer to pay them to take your heap of a worthless car back off you.

Of course it is undoubtedly harder for dealers to make as much off your trade in here, with an automatic fixed fee to be paid by the dealer on a car before they can even hike up the price and try to resell it. But it’s even harder to feel sorry for them, when they instantly try to claw this money straight back off you through overpriced paint protection products, tinted windows and extended warranties. A warranty that incidentally then ties you to a twice yearly service with the dealer in order to keep it valid.

There is a great list of all the tricks and cons used by car salesmen on the Web, one that is definitely worth a read. We did, and when we put the theory to the test unsurprisingly 9/10 of those who rushed out to meet us were true to the list and passed with flying colours.

Of all of the lines that we were fed, the most jaw dropping of all was that we would only be given a trade in price on our car when we had signed a contract to buy another car. Why? Because in her words ‘the price they would offer changed from day to day’. As if. Did we look like we just fell off a passing banana boat with half a brain between us? To really add insult to the attempted day light robbery, when we said that we weren’t ready to ‘commit’ to her there and then, she basically threw a business card at us and walked straight out of the door to the next unsuspecting customer.

To say that the whole experience was more doom than Zoom Zoom Zoom would be a massive understatement. We hot footed it immediately and left her offending and definitely unwanted business card propped up in the branches of the nearest tree.

Yes I know that not all salespeople are the same. My husband worked in the industry for years and he certainly didn’t work that way. But as is often the case (think double glazing salesmen and dodgy builders) it only takes one bad experience and a shifty individual to make you wary of anyone bearing down on you with an insincere smile and monthly targets to meet.

I’m glad to say that we did eventually find something of a rarity in the industry – a salesperson who was not only genuine, but also went out of her way to help us. She proved that it is possible to be nice without being smarmy, that you can sell without using thumb screws and that when it comes down to the customer, people will always be happier to buy from people. The sort of people that they like and respect, not those that try to patronise or bully them into buying something they can’t really afford.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Life for Sale

A Perth based man, Ian Usher is currently making headlines around the world. A UK born Australian Resident who emigrated Down Under six years ago, he is currently selling his enitre life to the highest bidder on Ebay.

Everything is included in the sale, from his home, jet ski and job to his CD collection and an ‘introduction’ to his friends. A detailed breakdown of everything (including the kitchen sink) that comes as part of the package and the reasons behind his hair brain scheme are there for the world to see on his promotional ‘Buy My Life’ website.

Now, I’ve always been a massive fan of Ebay.

I’ve gone through phases, particularly before moving to Perth, of selling countless unwanted things around our house. I have often got so caught up in the buzz, that if certain high value items hadn’t been bolted down, they would have been auctioned off, parceled up and posted before my husband had even noticed they were missing. A great way to supplement your income – I even paid for our air tickets over here with money raised from selling our old junk and surplus winter coats (the later being a mistake that haunted me throughout a cold, wet and miserable winter here in sunny Perth).

Yet in all my listing days, no matter how carried away I became, I would never have even thought or considered the possibility of selling my life or my history. Yet that is exactly what Usher is in the process of doing.

After a messy breakup (I can only presume it was incredibly messy, as most people seek ‘breakup’ comfort in a gym membership or a hair salon), this man has decided that any memory of life in Perth with his ex wife is too painful to live with. He has decided he would rather walk away in search of new beginings, with just the clothes on his back, his passport and a wad of cash in tow.

Over the last few days, no doubt due to the massive amount of media exposure, the bids shot up from AU $1 to a staggering AU $2,000,000. Having hoped to raise AU $500,000, Usher was no doubt sitting back rubbing his hands with glee and polishing his passport ready for the Great Escape.

After following the story, my first thoughts, and no doubt those of any other vaguely sane person with an iota of common sense, would be that the chances of him actually achieving this figure would be highly unlikely.

First and foremost, Australia is not a country that you can just waltz into at will and just set up home, regardless of whether you won an Ebay bid or not. There are countless personal, age and work criteria to meet, a complicated point system and metre high piles or paperwork that first need to be accessed, approved and accepted, before you even get within sniffing distance of your nearest Australian Embassy. So therefore it stands to logic that the only legitimate bidders would be an existing Australian resident or citizen or someone already in the final stages of having their visa approved.

Having lived In Perth for a year now and seen what’s around, I can categorically say that anyone coming over with $2 million burning a hole in their pocket would definitely not be interested in buying that house. The fact that it comes with a motorbike, a set of saucepans and a 2 week trial job selling carpets still wouldn’t make it a bargain in any sense of the word. For $2 million you would expect views of the ocean or the Swan River, not of a main road and bushland.

When I looked at the site today to see how he was faring, I can’t say I was surprised to see that with 4 days to go, the bids have now dropped back down to a more realistic AU $370,100.00. A drop caused by the countless ‘non genuine’ high bids that had been placed and then quickly retracted.

Personally, I would never want to have the sum of my life so publicly valued, especially if that sum came in at less than I had anticipated. But who knows. Maybe by Sunday the bids will be back up and Usher will be off to the airport in a taxi and having the last laugh. The likelihood is however that someone will walk away with a cheap investment property and the contents of his house and garage will end up right back there on Ebay again, probably raising more money than he sold them for in the first place.

If nothing else, Usher will certainly have had his 15 minutes of fame. He will also no doubt milk this fame into a small fortune, through countless TV interviews, a book, a film deal and a possible stint on Big Brother…

It seems he will also set a precedent for further copy cat ‘Buy my Life’ sales. Even now, running along side his Ebay ad is another -this time for a life in South Australia. The fact that this other ‘life’ is currently beating him in the bidding war might just prove to add the final insult to injury.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Houston, we have a problem

I

It is a temporarily insane and somewhat delusional parent who books a holiday, takes their pint sized child on board an aeroplane and thinks that they will actually be able to sit back and enjoy their peanuts.

Air travel can be testing on the nerves at the best of times. Try to maintain an advanced yoga position for hours on end while simultaneously battling with a bagged and sealed headset and a renegade tray table, and fun will never be a word that springs to mind. Add a fractious squirming eel into the equation and you may well be wishing you’d just stayed at home and had a spray tan instead.

Traveling with children is never intended to be a pleasant experience, from the moment you drag them tired and grumpy from their beds and shoe horn them into a packed and waiting car. But it is what comes next that is as near to any military operation as found in downtown Baghdad.

First comes the careful manoeuvring of the overloaded trolleys, out of the car park and through the revolving terminal doors (the ones that either go too slow or literally threaten to cut your family in half). Then, once you have dug out your flight details from the bottom of the bag at the bottom of the trolley, you still need to negotiate your way through the dangerous hairpin bends of the swinging red ropes at check in. And all of this to then be greeted by a member of staff, who so obviously doesn’t want to be there and is simply spoiling for a fight. Namely over the said overloaded trolleys lurking behind you.

Airport security is now incredibly strict. Not a bad thing of course, but it does have the tendency to make you feel unnecessarily guilty and doubting whether you did actually pack your own bags or not. Cuticle clippers and bottled water now come under the category ‘potential deadly weapon’, and if I had a dollar for every pair of nail scissors taken off me under silent protest, I would almost be rich enough to fly First Class.

So, what I have always wondered about is this. If an undisclosed aerosol in your carry on can be enough to have you branded a terrorist, why, when asking whether your bags contain any dangerous items, do they (thankfully) fail to notice the most obvious item of all – the angelic looking little time bomb sat in a pram by your feet?

It is after all a known fact that a child in an vacuum sealed capsule can sometimes be as annoying and potentially hazardous as a mosquito trapped in your sleeping bag.

As you settle your fifty essential bags in around you and note that the amount of leg room has obviously been reduced since you last flew, the enormity of what lies ahead can hit you like a cold hard slap in the face. Concerned neighbouring passengers will start eyeing up your child, trying to determine whether they are a screamer or a kicker, and then subtly scan the plane for any empty seats. And who can really blame them. Every child free person, whether they admit it or not, has at some point wished a hasty rubbish shoot exit on some nearby spawn of Satan who has screeched for hours and bruised the small of their spine.

By the time the novelty of the window blind has worn off, the seat covers have been re-branded with washable markers and the ink has been sucked from the in-flight magazine, (all of this before even leaving the jet way) then comes the real test of a parent’s patience and inner strength. As you start taxing towards the runway and the flight stretches out before you, you will wonder why this trip ever seemed a good idea and if you are flying half way around the world, how on earth are you going to keep a bored and restless child seated, entertained and quiet in a space barely large enough to swing a hamster.

By the time they have grown bored of their toys, lost half of their Lego and suitably irritated both the people behind and in front, it is easy for murderous thoughts to start creeping in. These thoughts are often accompanied by cold sweats, tears and a silent vow to never fly again.

While most socially conscious parents vow that they would never let their child roam the aisles like a pack of hungry wolves, when it becomes a choice between that or DVT, you may well hoist junior off your lap and turn a blind eye. You are, after all safe in the knowledge that all the doors are child locked and every route will eventually bring them back to you. The only time when this is probably not advisable is around meal times, when there is a likelihood of them being mowed down by a renegade cart of chicken and beef.

For many parents mealtimes at home can be a daily battle field, leaving physical and mental scars for all involved. When trying to enforce the same principles of a clean plate, a well balanced diet and an ‘eat not throw’ policy’ at 2am, the result can be nearer on a bloodbath. More often than not the bread roll is the only thing on offer that will grab their attention. Unfortunately the roll is also the only thing on the tray that would also kill a passerby if dropped off a two storey building.

Pre-ordering a child’s meal does mean they are served first, giving you an iota of a chance of supervising and possibly controlling the scale of the inevitable fall out. On the downside however, the meal can also be loaded down with so many sugar filled treats that you may as well just hold their head back and pour blue smarties down their throat. The administering of E numbers in such a confined space is only advisable upon leaving the plane, when you need your child to walk on their own two feet.

Newborn babies probably make the best travelling companions of all. They can be put to sleep (not literally of course) in a bassinet, or if you forget to book one, they are still small enough to be held without the fear of pulling any major back muscles. If breastfeeding is still on the menu life is much easier still. It can help to combat the changing cabin pressure and stop their small ear from popping during take off and landing. It is very tempting however to make yourself the in-flight buffet in exchange for peace and potential sleep, but be warned by one who has tried this method before. Not only will you eventually stagger off the aeroplane feeling like a deflated cow, you are also very likely to overfill their small stomach. If this happens you run the risk of having your hours of your hard work returned in force all over you, your clothes, the seat and the passenger in the chair next to you.

If your child is sick (and the laws of probability say it will happen at some point), it can be a totally and utterly mortifying experience, enough to make you want to crawl under your seat and hide. But as widespread as the destruction and overpowering smell can be, and let me tell you waves of vomit or curdled milk sweeping through economy class can be pretty horrendous, there is absolutely nothing you can do but control and contain. At this point you better be hoping you had the foresight to pack spare clothes, otherwise your already upset child may well be leaving in an aircraft pillow case.

So how do you survive a flight and have the courage to face the same again on your return journey? The answer is patience, inner calm, acceptance and above all a sense of humour. Remember that from a child’s perspective, having their parent trapped in a seat next to them is actually a dream come true. So as much as you may want to finish your book or watch the in flight movie, if you can find the inner strength and energy to give your child your undivided attention, they might just surprise you and act like an angel. Of course if none of these options work then thinly veiled threats, bribery or Benadryl usually do the trick.

Finally, a word for all those passengers who fly with nothing more than a backpack, handbag or computer in tow.

If you don’t want to help a nearby parent by picking up a runaway beaker, playing peek-a-boo with their baby or even offering a pair of arms when the mother simply can’t keep her knees crossed any longer, then at least hold off with the hostile muttering and murderous looks. What you have before you is probably a parent who, short of knocking their child over the head and stuffing them in bag, has very little control over the situation. They are no doubt all ready stressed to breaking point and covered in hives, so you making them feel worse about their child’s behaviour is really not going to help matters at all.

And if you can’t be nice – buy Business.

: : : : : : : : : : :