Today Tonight
I spot people filming in the gardens so move in to watch.
The presenter is a Silver Fox who looks like a cross between an 80s game show host and a slimy car salesman. His eyes catch mine and he looks a bit uncomfortable under my gaze.*
I only catch the last few words. In his flashy newsreader on steroids voice, Silver Fox is talking about some Cassanova.** ‘Slippery Sal isn’t after their hearts, he’s after their money.’ His exaggerated cadences hint at parody.
At the end he has freeze looking earnestly at the cameras for a few moments, I can’t remember what the technical reason for it is but it’s a little bit awkward. Then he turns straight to me: ‘How was that?’
The whole crew turn around to look at me.
‘Oh, I didn’t get most of it,’ I say, with deliberate breeziness. ‘But it seems like you’re from Today Tonight or something?’
‘No, we’re from Current Affair,’ the man says indignantly, in a tone which on the face of it, implies a collegiate mutual joke, but is really thinly veiled disdain.
‘They’re pretty much the same though aren’t they?’ I say nonchalantly.
‘No, we’re much more highbrow than that, love!’ the man says with ironic, patronising smarminess.
‘Really?’ I say in my innocent stupid little girl tone.
The whole crew laughs.
I found their story on the internet afterwards.
*I sometimes do watch if I stumble upon a press conference; it’s fascinating to watch their process. But they don’t like it. I don’t know, is it a bit off?
**I later realised they were actually calling him Cashanova, which is just brilliant.
Casual intimacy
My friend and I are on a lunch break and start watching an Asian couple sitting under that big gorgeous tree in the Fitzroy Gardens. I don’t know anything about tree names; but it’s one of those trees with branches that droop down like a fountain of leaves, apple green leaves that glow with the sunlight, making a haven of shade for its inhabitants.
I make the argument to my friend that the couple are structurally adorable, simply because they’re having a romantic moment under a beautiful tree. Maybe it helps that they’re Asian too.
But then we notice there is something about the way the couple are sitting together, smiling, heads close, looking at something on their iphones, his hand resting casually behind her back, her hand brushing his knee. They look perfectly happy in that moment. ‘Do you see that kind casual intimacy very often?’ my friend asks me.
Sleeping
