Easy, Tiger

In a week of odd and odder news stories, Tiger's takes the cake. Is it just me, or is there something phallic about this map of the route his car took that night?

When George met The Nanny

In another lifetime my mother walked into a doctor's office for a job interview. Sounds like the start of a bad joke, and in a way it is. Inside the clinic, to the left of the baby grand piano and past the chandelier sat this bloke:



Not George Costanza, but Dr Geoffrey Edelsten himself. Ex-owner of the Sydney Swans during their late eighties glam-rock period. Lamborghini-driving, busty-blonde chasing, ex-criminal Dr. E.

He resurfaced in Melbourne just in time for the 2009 Brownlow Medal dinner, after many years out of the spotlight, with a bad hair tint and a blonde he met in a club in Las Vegas. I ran into him in person at the AFL Grand Final, somewhat of a highlight on a very forgettable day, meaning he has now met half of my family.

But here's where it gets weird. Warwick Capper-weird. He's now marrying said buxom lass, who has a name but it's largely irrelevant. She's a generation-busting 40 years his junior. The ceremony is to be MC'd by George Costanza (Jason Alexander) and The Nanny (Fran Drescher). And if that's not enough, he's now running around town flinging wads of cash at any big name singer he can lure to the big show on Sunday.

Could it all be an elaborate ruse to promote the disbarred doc's latest venture in Caroline Springs? All the proceeds from the wedding are going to charity, which is lovely and all, but since when do weddings have proceeds?

The whole thing is madly intriguing, but Happy Festivus to you all. And my mother? She took one look at her potential boss, turned around without saying a word and walked out the door.

Things that make me happy...

No words required.

'Me and Mike are Scotch'

Tuning into Guess Who's Coming to Dinner where there should have been football was a lucky break. This is a tightly scripted masterpiece. So many great but innocuous lines have been echoing around my head ever since, such as Spencer Tracy's drink order above. Only wet winter afternoons suit old movie watching, and that's why I'm looking for a place in the Shetlands.

Some notes:

- Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn live in a ludicrously positioned San Francisco house. They have a clear view of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, which as far as I can tell means the house floats in a cloud about 500 metres above the highest point in the city. Even though it's a set, I want it to be real.
- There is no question mark in the film's title. I will have to learn to live with this.
- Sidney Poitier knew how to wear a suit and own every scene he's ever been in.
- At the time of shooting marriage between the races was illegal in 16 states, according to Sidney Poitier's fictional dad.
- The most shocking part for me was the daughter calling a busybody a bitch.
- In 1967 San Francisco the butcher will deliver just four steaks to your house.
- In 1967 San Francisco the butcher's delivery boy dances on your doorstep to no music. Far out daddy-o.
- When Spencer Tracy reverses and crashes his car into another car, he appeases the angry driver with $50 cash, which is $20 more than the guy reckons it'll take to fix.
- Spencer Tracy was in very poor health throughout filming, although you'd never know it. He died 17 days after the film wrapped.

Who's a bad blogger?

All blog experts will tell you that a daily entry is critical to success. My two-month 'No news is good news' experiment has proven otherwise - I'm getting more hits every day by doing absolutely nothing. Something else I don't understand.

My laconic blogging could be explained by multiple overseas trips, the start of the football season or discovering Mad Men. Instead I'll blame Toby Ziegler, nine kilograms of fun who adopted us recently.

Out of Vogue Travel

When I look at travel magazines I see a whole lot of glossy prettiness that I might momentarily lust after, but I know that what I really want out of global adventuring is the odd, the cheesy and the so uncool it's come full circle back to cool. Slinky is nice, but dinky is forever. I once stalked a whole family with mullets through the streets of Paris for an hour, hoping for the perfect shot. I couldn't tell you a single other thing of note I did that day, week or trip.

Take a recent trip to Singapore and Malaysia. My time was jam-packed with work, so opportunities for mullet hunting were limited. I did some scrappy internoodle research before I left, however, and quickly stumbled upon my first free time activity - the fish spa.

A spa can be a jacuzzi, or a place you go to for various overpriced treatments involving shea butter, rocks and a small but violent woman who smiles while she hurts you. In this case, the spa was a toddler pool filled with fish that are slightly bigger than bait and have a keen interest in nibbling your feet.



You begin by exchanging the obligatory piranha joke with the attendant. He won't smile. When you finally put your feet in the fish will go nuts for you, having gradually lost interest in the other feet in their world (yes, it's a communal pool). These are cheese lovin' fish, evidently. Next, giggle like a lady-boy for an extraordinary amount of time until you almost pass out and topple into the thing. Finally, just as your fifteen minutes for 10 Ringgit is almost up, achieve a state of acceptance and enjoyment of this most disturbing spa treatment.

I can't vouch for any therapeutic benefits, although the sign says 'Improved Circulation and Skin Exfoliation'. That may well be true, but if laughter is the best medicine then this is a quadrupal bypass. I discovered there are other places in Singapore where you do this and can go in up to your neck. Let's hope they're not cave-dwelling fish.

As I sprinted through Great World City in Singapore for a meeting I could not help but notice a restaurant plastered with gold records, guitars and other musical whatnot. On closer inspection I saw that this was a restaurant named for that most obvious Singaporean obsession, Mr. Kenny Rogers. The restaurant was called 'Kenny Rogers Roasters' and offers 'The world's greatest chicken'. It's these moments of discovery that make the most tedious flights worthwhile. Someone had built a shrine to Kenny Rogers! In Singapore?! I stood outside, head angled like a confused dog, for some time before resuming my sprint.

Sometime later that week, and after speaking to many people about my discovery, I learned that Kenny Rogers Roasters is actually a very big deal in Asia. Marvellous! They have stores all over Asia, and are huge in the Philippines in particular. Every one I saw was packed to the hilt with punters hungry for a slice of Kenny goodness.



I note with intense personal and possibly professional interest that Australia is listed on their website as 'Coming Soon'. Oh please let it be true. Not for the food (I ate there and fillet of foot fish would be better) but for the sheer delight of seeing Kenny's face beaming down from the logo wherever I go (and note that the logo sports a pre-cosmetic surgery Kenny image. Bizarrely, post-op Kenny has more than a little Colonel Sanders about him).



It's sublimely absurd and what I call travel.

Taking a Crack at Defining a City

No two people will describe the same city in the same way. I recently completed a project with my take on Melbourne for Travel Muse in the US.