Great Mysteries

The Bermuda Triangle. The Mary Celeste. The Loch Ness Monster. Crop Circles. Atlantis.....

These are some of the great mysteries of the world that have always fascinated me.

But really we don't need to look to exotic locales, alien life forms or the seabed for mystery - it lurks right at home, in our wardrobes and drawers!

So after years of research with archaeologists, UFO investigators and experts in the paranormal, I have assembled the ultimate list of the Great Clothing and Style Mysteries:

How do fine gold chains get knotted and tangled sitting in a box in a drawer?

How do earrings put away in pairs become solo?

Why do hems fall down and buttons drop off only when you are in a horrendous rush?

How do moths know which is your most expensive cashmere jumper?

Why do you always lose the expensive sunglasses, but seem able to keep the pair you bought in a service station for years?

How does the tissue manage to escape the pocket inspection you always do before the black wash?

How does the pair of new black undies hide away in the drum of the washing machine just before you put a white load on hot?

How do silk blouses attract salad dressing?

Why are so many leading designers of women's clothes men?

Why do people with naturally straight hair always want curls, and the reverse?

Ditto large/small bosoms? And sticky-out flat bottoms?

Why can you never find anything you like when you have some money put aside to spend on new clothes?

Why are the "special occasion" dresses, shoes and handbags we pay the most for the ones we wear the fewest times?

Why do we continue to judge female politicians on what they wear?

WHY OH WHY IS IT SO!!


"It is completely unimportant. That is why it is so interesting!"
~~ Agatha Christie(1890-1976)


Both photos below were taken in Gudvangen on the west coast of Norway near Flam when Annemarie and I were on our road trip through the most scenic country in the world in July 2010

No Interruptions Please

OK, we get it. People in Iceland are perpetually cold. But does that mean they have to take it out on the rest of us? For the past couple of decades, they've been doing their best to bring the world to its knees.

First it was the export of Bjork, a woman whose singing pitch causes seizures among laboratory mice. Then it was the global financial crisis, with Iceland queueing to be the first country to go broke, after a collapse in the futures market for herring.

The Icelandic economy still had its AAA credit rating but the three A's were henceforth followed by the letters RRRGGGHHH. Suddenly, everyone realised Iceland mainly consisted of ice — a fact, you may think, the Icelanders had disclosed when they named it Iceland.

Still, no one was more surprised than the world's financial experts — a group of people who were already shocked to discover that unemployed people in the US's south sometimes found it hard to repay their home loans.

In the aftermath of these revelations, the world demanded that Iceland start paying its way. In response, Icelanders have developed a new export industry: ash.

They are distributing it by air, all over Europe, sourcing it from a volcano, the pronunciation of which is impossible unless the speaker is simultaneously regurgitating fish.

Traditionally, when a volcano went up, the response was to throw in a few virgins to propitiate the gods. Presumably, the world's airlines tried gathering cabin staff for sacrifice but were stymied when Qantas couldn't find any virgins.

I find myself spluttering with arrogant questions. Can't we just pour concrete into the volcano? Or blow it up? Or have Bjork sing to it?

Apparently not. We are like ants running around this thing. It's a power beyond us: a super-sized lava lamp with a missing "off" switch.

Annemarie and I are flying to Norway on 13th July and return 27th July. I hereby ask (plead) Eyjafjallajokull to take a vacation as well, in the depth of your own being and curtail any eruptions until after those dates.....or for another few hundred years!


"The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasent things as interruptions of one's "own" or "real" life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life---the life that God is sending one day by day: what one calls one's "real life" is a phantom of one's own imagination."
~~C.S. Lewis


Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney - November 2009