My Smaller Half, as drawn by The Hatchling

Hottest 2013

Triple J, Australia's official government mouthpiece for youth radio, is holding a poll to find your favourite music.  You have twenty days to vote for your twenty favourite songs from the past twenty years.

Fair enough.  But it doesn't go far enough.

So for the next 2013 days, I want you to vote for your top 2013 pieces of music from the past 2013 years.  Votes close in six years or so.

Go!

Problem list

[scene: standing with my registrar looking at a new patient's medical record in the emergency department] 

PTR

It says MBA 2005. What's that? 

Registrar

It could be MVA (motor vehicle accident) - B is next to V on the keyboard. Or maybe a motorbike accident. 

PTR

Oh I wouldn't have thought of that.

Registrar

Or else he did a Masters of Business Administration. But I wouldn't expect that to show up on his problem list.

PTR

I don't know - some of my degrees would fit pretty well on my problem list.

Registrar

How many degrees have you got? 

PTR

That's also on the problem list.

Suburban dictionary

Matticus Finch recently left a wonderful list of words for me to use in future requests for radiography. Unfortunately I didn't know what most of the words meant. And if I, the Elderly Boy Genius, am flummoxed and bamboozled, what hope is there for you Readers, the mere dross of humanity?

To assist you, to educate you, to lift you up from the gutter, I have prepared some definitions of those words. I urge you, nay - instruct you - to use them every day until they enter common parlance in your everyday milieu, or somebody punches you in the face. Either way, mankind will be better off.

Avaunt - A jaunty cry given when vaulting over a privet hedge, garden setting, or pile of croquet mallets. "With a lusty avaunt, he disappeared over the gunwhales and was not seen again."

Anon - A infeasibly small quantity of an exotic ingredient required to make a particular recipe, which is only obtainable in amounts large enough to make several thousand serves. "Then, add 2 anons of strawberry seeds."

Ordure - An instruction that is especially burdensome to fulfill. "He ordured me to clean every toilet on the ward."

Eftsoons - The easterly tropical storms seldom seen these days in Adelaide. "We re-planted the garden in anticipation of a good eftsoon drenching, but everything just dried up and died."

Marmoreal - Of, or pertaining to, the marmot, which may or may not be a type of groundhog. "Your new haircut is somewhat marmoreal."

Thole - (derogatory) the anus. "Get back to work or I'll kick you in your thole."

Betimes - Indicative of an indeterminate length of time that has expired since one began playing the one-armed bandits. "I've wet my pants and there's a new Prime Minister betimes."

Somatic - Partially automated. "My car won't go into fourth gear so it's somatic at best."

Betwixt - The loneliness felt when eating an entire chocolate bar whose key advertising feature is the ability to be easily broken and shared between friends. "I hurriedly gobbled the whole thing up then sat there in front of the vending machine feeling betwixt for the next half hour."

Evisceration - The act of forcibly removing someone from their place of residence. "If full restitution for unpaid rent is not made by the first of next month, evisceration proceedings will commence."

Forsooth - A dental abscess. "I han't hum in do work doday coth I hab a forsooth."

Howbeit - Grammatical term for the long compound words in languages such as German. "Did you hear about Jeff? He dislocated his jaw on a particularly nasty howbeit!"

Lazarus Pit

I was playing with the Hatchling today in a public space when a small child came up to me. She was about 5. She peered closely at me and asked, "Is this your little sister?"

I explained that actually I was the Hatchling's dad. She looked kind of crestfallen then wandered off.

I thought it was quite funny that she couldn't distinguish between the various categories of Big Guy by sight. I would have thought that being 37 years older than the Hatchling (yes you read that right) would have qualified me for potential grandfather status but clearly the years of aggressive exfoliation, Botox and hair dye have paid dividends.

This makes a refreshing change for me. Recently I've been drawing a lot of "you look like a wreck" comments. These have all been at work though, and given that I've been working 12 hour days seven straight and not getting much sleep (due to the Hatchling's preference for waking up by shouting "Dadda! Where are you?" after I've not got home until after 1 a.m.) I suspect that exhaustion rather than simple decay is the culprit.

The fact that I was building a tower out of little wooden blocks when I was mistaken for someone 25 years my junior also is telling. Clearly when I'm enjoying myself I looked rather more relaxed than when I'm having to wade through the mire of half-baked referrals from the Emergency Department.

Not that I'm bitter about it.