A Great Big World

I was awake at 7am. The light was brittle, golden and new. It was, actually, before 7am, and the day was milky in its amniotic veil, about to break and glow.

The bulldog slept chin buried in his pillows. The cartoons drawn of them are so apt. They are funny even when they sleep.

Anthony is coming for afternoon tea. I decided I should bake a cake. I have been so dense on such things for all of my life. That’s what “normal” people do, they give biscuits or cake if you come for afternoon tea.

I decided I should make a cake.

I had to go to the supermarket. The sun shone, the birds sing. Sam said take the “green” bags. I hate carrying the green bags. They are so uncool.

“Shopping bags for mum,” I said. “I’m not taking them.”

“Take them.”

“It is so much cooler just to waft in empty hands and then just glide out when it is all done, smoky grey bags in hand.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Fine.”



“Get lunch…”

“What?” I looked at the clock.

“Brunch then, I haven’t eaten.”

“What’ll I get.”

“Think of something.”

“Can’t think…”

“Sausages and hash browns. No, mushrooms. Sausages, mushrooms and baby spinach. Get a big bag of baby spinach.”

“Sausages aren’t so slimming…”

“Get the good ones then and don’t be such a tight arse."

And just to make the whole trip as ugly as it could possible be, he gave me a dog-dick red environmental shopping bag and a pale blue environmental shopping bag.

Good sausages? There is such a thing? Aren't all sausages fried death in pigs bladder? Really? The good ones? My mother always said being a tight arse was a good thing. I think I muttered all the way down the street.

A big bag of baby spinach? What makes it a big bag, I wondered? I fill it a quarter and wonder if that is enough? I pile in another quarter of a bag. It looks like a lot to me. Later, apparently not. You'd think a big bag of baby spinach would be easy to gauge. Apparently not.

The gourmet sausages were a little light on the light side on the shelf. The wagu sausages were all "with something." Herb and red wine. Garlic and rosemary. Honey and mustard. And that sort of thing. All the rest seemed to be just your standard issue sausage. You know, like a bunch of white boys at a glory hole. What to get?

We ate Wagu sausages, with herb and red wine, and baby spinach and mushrooms for brunch.

I rolled a joint I can’t deny it. Essentially, I am on holidays. Sam said very little when I suggested it. Always my green light to continue. Always my gauge. Sam hardly even made a comment in response.

Happy, Pharrell Williams plays. He is sooo cool. The coolest man on the planet, right about now.


The sun shines.


I made a carrot cake. It’s in the oven. Anthony is coming over for tea. That is if he's not too pissed, that is always the unknown. So I thought I’d better bake. I’m starting with the classics. We’ve just done banana cakes and now we’re doing carrot cakes. I guess the next one really aught to be chocolate.

I use an American recipe. It takes twice as long to cook. American recipes are never that great.


Oh, it's a relief not to have to go to work on Monday. I really do like weeks off between assignments just to recharge. That last assignment was too soon. I was exhausted. Let's see if I can pull it off. I had dinner with David last night, pho, and he said I should grovel to my boss immediately. 9am Monday morning, he reckons. He's says I have just damaged my professional career. He was even more alarmed when I said that I didn't care.


A Great Big World comes on.

Buddy is giving it his wonder-dog-pose, paws stretched out in front, legs stretched out the back, as he sleeps across the doorway. Head in the sun shining in through the north facing window. Bulldogs are sunlovers, but they can’t tolerate hot weather.

Tina Turner sings Addicted to Love. Listen to a diva sing against a saxophone and win. One of the greatest vocalist of all time, though.

The cake is finally cooked. It takes twice as long to cook as the recipe says. It stays wet in the middle right to the end. It has a strange kind of anaemic look to it, as though something isn’t quite right in its DNA. It hasn’t, quite, raised evenly all the way around. It doesn’t look like a happy cake. It looks more like something you’d have remove when it changed colour.

I sat it on the bench like we were waiting for it to learn to speak before we could judge how “special” it was. It looked like the kind of cake that would give trouble when it was turned out. I tried to ignore sitting there when I went back to my computer.

Then it was time to take it out of the pan. I ran the roundest butter knife around the inside of the tine. Then I popped the spring. The base of the pan and the baking paper just peeled right off with no drama at all.

Tina continues to sing all afternoon. Nobody sings like Tina. I heard her once say that she thought her voice was raspy kind of unpleasant. My mate David the yogi learn Buddhism from Tina Turner. They were friends in another lifetime, he never mentions it though. The most electrifying performer I have ever seen, Tina Turner. David Bowie was the next most electric. Randy Crawford would have to be the next. People from who electricity emanates.

I guess David is another. Many people seek David out because of the light that emanates from him, it is true. It is what he does, although I would never tell him this, he spreads his light and, apparently, people flock. Some people have a certain energy, that's as far as our spiritual discussions end, he and I. The Atheist up against 21st century spiritual believer, our discussions can become intense.

I can't see it, he and I are just ex-scared pups together, coming out, right through to washed up party boys, become professionals, growth and constant change, that's our history too. You know, old friends, through all of the evolutionary processes of friends who have been in each other's lives for some time.

Anthony arrived right on 2pm.


The cake was the weirdest thing I have ever eaten. You know this cake sob story has two giant flaws in it as big as your nose. It was an American recipe, American food is never good. It was called the moistest carrot cake ever, it should have rung alarm bells. And it used oil instead of butter, always very fast food. 

We ate it hot, to start with. Always a mistake, unless it is a cake that should be eaten hot, like one of those runny chocolate creations, you should always let the dam thing cool. Hot, it tasted like sweet, fruity pudding. Cold it taste like a fruity carrot brownie. It was just a little too much of the uncooked cake batter stage and not quite enough of the turned the corner to cooked cake stage.

It was the weirdest cake I have ever eaten, but then it is American and I am sure their taste buds are different to ours.

It never really got passed the gooey fruit pudding stage, so much so Anthony suggested we needed cream for it.

We ate the whole thing, it was oddly Moorish. It was like the evil desert, the touched by Satan sweet, like a car wreck you couldn’t turn away from it.