Second city blues

So, I took a mid-morning QANTAS flight to the nation's second city. Co-incidentally, the Disability Discrimination Commissioner boarded the same flight. I sat in 5D. Graham and his guide dog occupied 5A & B. An airline employee placed two incontinence pads on the floor in case one of the most intensively and comprehensively trained assistance animals known to man spontaneously peed at 35,000 feet. Still, at least the unexpected co-incidence of us being booked on the same plane meant I had someone to chat with as the taxi sped towards St Kilda Road.

The less said about the dire event that drew me to Melbourne the better. What a ghastly exercise in self-aggrandising pomposity it was. A truly woeful report (which plays perfectly to every sloppy thought, over-statement, contradictory posture and ghastly stereotype one could conceive) was presented and received as if it were a reflection of the real world. Shut Out (as it's entitled)? Shut up ... please. I will be in the minority, of course. The conventional wisdom will develop (has already formed) that it's an important document of historic importance. It simply isn't so.

I was glad to leave to catch the 4:30 p.m. flight home. Spike was attending a couple of openings (one at the SCA, the other on the university's main campus). Rather than hurry home to an empty apartment and some toast I bought some hot & sour soup and a plate of noodles with tofu vegetables before leaving the airport. A young woman joined me at the table. She wolfed down a carton of fried rice with chicken (I think). About half way through her fast-food meal at the end of a working day, the woman sat back in her seat, looked up and over to me the said , rather guiltily, "this is SO good!" She dug her fork back in to the spined rice without another word.

Wok On Air at Sydney Airport's Terminal Three. The surprising highlight of a dull day until, thank whatever lucky stars shine in my universe, I was drawn to a shelf at home by a vision in black.
.