Sometimes I wonder if ‘smart casual‘ means ‘if you saw it in a magazine, it’s okay – even if it was in the beach wear section‘.

I’m not the highest standard of dresser in the universe. Both my jobs are fairly casual and I usually wear jeans. But personally, I always wear sleeves in work. This is for a few reasons.

One, guys have to wear sleeves, so I don’t think I should prance around with my bare shoulders.

Two, I have a tattoo on my arm, and whilst no one would ever really object to seeing it, to me it just doesn’t feel right. It’s not something I share with my work colleagues unless we’re also sharing a beer.

Three, I have hairy armpits. This freaks people the fuck out. What can you do? It’s a funny old world.

Still, no matter what your personal preferences are, I’m pretty sure that if everyone in the building can see your underwear you’ve gone wrong somewhere.

Until I got home. And found this on my doorstep.

Thx uze guyz!

Oh yeah. I’m from Redfern.

Ashamed!

Please give generously to the Buy A Belt Foundation.

King Street Bum

For the gods’ sake, our teens depend on you! Our future depends on you!

Somehow, the taxi driver started talking about climate change. Honestly, I DID NOT START IT.

“Oh, all these scare mongerers,” she said. “I mean, who cares about two degrees change or whatever. I can’t see it’ll make any difference. The temperature changes all the time.”

“Um, yeah,” I said. “But global climate temperature is different to everyday local temperature.”

“Yeah, but you know, it’s just all about taxing us, giving us another tax. And like, there isn’t any science behind it—”

“—yeah there is!”

“—there’s just no science behind it. I mean, you never hear about it on the radio, or on TV or anything. Where’s the science?”

“Look,” I said. “I read a lot of science books. The science is there. It’s robust. There’s over a hundred years of climate science.”

“But where is it?” she persisted. “It’s not in any of the newspapers.”

“You’ve got to go to a library,” I said. “Borrow a book. The fact is, those guys aren’t going to publish any of the science, you won’t see it on Today Tonight or in the Daily Telegraph or on talkback radio. You just won’t.”

“But why not?” she asked. “Why not?”

It’s a good question. Why can’t we read about actual climate science in any of the mainstream publications?

Anyway, I walked slowly back towards the station, keeping a look out for it. You never know, I thought, it could just be lying on the footpath somewhere. A little trampled, maybe, but still okay.

And sure enough, just outside the Tesco Express, I found my beanie. It was neatly folded and sitting on a low wall. Someone had picked up my scungy beanie and taken care of it. I love London.

I’m not sure that if I found a sock on George Street I would pick it up and tie it around a tree, but you never know.

But Number Six looks doubtful. Maybe all this work isn’t worth it. Maybe it’s not all it could have been. Maybe life could have been spent better doing something else, helping someone else, making something else tick. What the hell have I been doing? What the hell is my life?

But these thoughts don’t trouble the Town Hall light. He knows – I did my duty. I served my time. My comrades and I are…. signing out….

Can someone hit the lights?

Clearly the backstreets of Redfern/Darlington support a powerful posse of Malaysian patriots and Edward Lane is their headquarters.

Can’t see the evidence of their zealotry? Look again.

I note that they’re just around the corner from Newtown library, so you can totally borrow a book and sit on the lounge for hours of free entertainment.

I spend around 10 minutes every day in my garden, looking under the leaves of my herbs and vegies, looking for the little fuckers. They destroyed my basil. They’ve devoured my mint not once, not twice, but THREE times – mint, however, is extremely durable and keeps bouncing back.

But imagine if they could read?