Beer in the twin-tub.

 Fondue sets, twin-tubs, Kevin Rudd. They have something in common. They were all something we thought we needed and now we don’t. I’ve been feeling a bit green lately and it’s not just due to mould. I’ve noticed that we’re becoming a throw-away society, whereas some old household items could – with a bit of imagination, plenty of gaffer tape and a total disregard for safety – be put to good use.

 Before you try any of these suggestions yourself, please note that I accept no responsibility for severed limbs, melted power circuits or lost pets. Here are my thoughts in no particular order of importance. If you have any better (funny) suggestions, let me know. God knows I could use a good laugh.
The fondue set.
 If it still works, it can come in handy when you’ve got a cold. Fill with water, some Vicks vapour rub, simmer, then breathe in the steam with a towel draped over your head.
Jaffle-maker.
 Such beautiful craftsmanship shouldn’t be thrown away just because the electrics are so shot that the street lights dim when you switch it on. Use it as a really shallow jelly mould. The resulting jelly is ideal for putting in the kids’ peanut-butter sangers. Isn’t it what the Yanks do? Alternatively, use it to make your own giant ravioli. Four ravioli pillows serve four hungry people.
Twin tubs.
 These are ideal ice-buckets for big entertainers. Simply put beer in the washing tub, wine in the dryer.
Tumble-dryer.
 The perfect piece of exercise equipment for an over-active hamster. Or an electrically operated lettuce-dryer for really big salads.
Fridge.
 Always wanted a dishwasher, but never had the space? Move the fridge to a well-drained area in the backyard. Punch a hole in the back big enough to take the diameter of a garden hose, put the hose through the hole and attach the sprinkler attachment. Now stack your dirty dishes inside, sprinkle some dishwashing powder in the butter compartment, close the door and turn on the hose. You may need to use some packing tape to secure the door properly. And it’s not suitable for glassware, crockery or anything breakable. But your Tupperware will thank you.
Video recorder.
 Your two-year-old was right. Once it’s packed up, the VCR is only good for shoving stale bits of toast into.
The Hills Hoist.
 Don’t throw away the old one just because it’s a dirty old aluminium one and won’t fold up. Make a bit of a tower for it nearby, then cut off the main post near the ground. Now take the whole hoist, turn it on its side and mount it on top of the tower. You’ve got yourself the makings of a windmill. Add a few old pairs of tracky daks to catch the wind, some cogs, a magneto and you’ll be selling electricity to the national grid. Or mount it on a board, have the kids write some prizes on bits of old card, peg them to the line and they can play Wheel Of Fortune (top-dollar saving there!).
Television.
 If you’re lucky enough to have one of the old timber-veneer TVs, dump the workings in the bin and you’ve got a rabbit hutch, ant farm or any pet container you fancy. You’ll need chicken wire and/or glass if you actually want Floppy Ears to stay put. If it’s a portable telly, better still. This means you can take the cat to the vet in it.
Lawnmower.
 If you really can’t get any more happy hours of mowing out of it, bury it under its favourite tree.
The washboard.
 If Gran’s still got one of these hanging around, you can be a fifth of a Zydeco band (you know, that foot-stompin’ swamp music from New Orleans). Grab yourself a few thimbles, sit the washboard on your lap, make like you’re scratching your belly, and bingo, you’re listening to the sound of music.


 So next clean-up day, I don’t want to see anything but an old mattress on your nature strip. (Once their springs have sprung, the only good place for them is in the dump. On second thoughts, better hang on to it for now and I’ll get back to you.) And start saving string – you’re going to need a lot of it.

The endless search for a happy medium.

 Someone shrunk the Weet-Bix (Aussie breakfast cereal). And the chocolate bars (NOOOOOOOOO!!!!). And the number of sheets on the toilet roll (GGGRRR). I’m starting to feel like Gulliver in Lilliput, my giant bratwurst fingers fumbling to pick up teeny tiny things. It’s a case of sizus extremis (great use of the Latin language there huh!?).
 Everything seems to be getting smaller. Or bigger. There’s no happy medium anymore. Take one of my favourite things – alcohol. A bottle of spirits has shrunk from 750ml to 700ml, while a stubby (bottle of beer) has evaporated from 375ml to 330ml. In the wonderful world of wine – and this is actually a good thing – Lindeman’s has reduced the alcohol in its latest Sweet Seasons range by 25 percent.
 Micro salads are sprouting, ideal for the emaciated supermodel (“I simply couldn’t eat another micro lettuce leaf! I’ll bust out of my size 0’s!”). Meanwhile, the new iPod Nano is almost microscopic. A US comedy show has cleverly unveiled the iPod iNvisa, prompting a fictitious Bill Gates to declare, “The iPod iNvisa has no clothes!”
 Then there’s the other end of the spectrum, where bigger is better and biggest is the best. The Hummer. The Qantas A380. McDonald’s has the curious honour of holding records for both big and small. It created the “super size me” phenomenon, then shrank its Big Mac. Now that’s irony. What about coffee? “Would you like large or grande? Piccolo or macchiato?” the Starbucks attendant asks. “Err I just want a medium.” “Righto, one ‘tall’ coming up!” he beams. I guess Starbucks is an oxymoron anyway.
 Fortunately, some giant trends have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer creates a coffee table book that actually flips out to become a real coffee table? Ballina’s Big Prawn is boarded up, but Byron’s Big Bong just keeps on keeping on.
 It all makes me wonder: why do we change the size of things instead of improving their functionality? The principal of “form follows function” doesn’t seem to apply to everyday life. Where is the easy-to-open olive jar, the non-shrink-wrapped child’s toy, or the flatbread that doesn’t tear when you roll it up? But maybe it’s all about perception.
 One friend reckons things aren’t getting smaller: we’re just getting bigger. Maybe we’re in a parallel universe like in the old TV series Land Of the Giants? She also claims companies are making things smaller so we feel bigger. That would explain mobile phones and clothes. “I feel so tall and powerful holding this flimsy phone. I could crush it with my massive hand! But I won’t, because I’m waiting on a call from my hairdresser.” And so on.
 Anyway, I’m off to find some tweezers to extract the wafer-thin Weet-Bix from their shrunken box. Ahhh, the sweet joys of consumerism......

The ugly truth.

 Remember when your parents used to tell you all those funny but fictitious tales, such as eating bread crusts makes your hair curly, or if the wind changes as you pull a face, you’ll be stuck with it? Or how about that classic, most far-fetched one of all: that beauty comes from within.
 What? You didn’t know that was a myth? Don’t worry, neither did I, for a long time. But, as with the tooth fairy, I finally faced up to the truth. Beneath our highlighted hair and behind our designer sunglasses, we want to believe that beauty comes from within but, sadly, everything in our society indicates otherwise. From the airbrushed pages of magazines to the Botox parties sweeping the nation, we’re obsessed with how we look.
 As children, we’re socially conditioned to see beauty from a particular visual viewpoint. Culturally, we’re aware that our focus on looks is warped, but correcting it seems a tougher challenge than shifting grout from a shower recess. Where did it all go wrong? We could point the finger at that intimidating piece of plastic named Barbie; or the freakishly neutral Kate Moss; or perhaps Marilyn Monroe. While we’re at it, I hear Medusa was a saucy piece in her day too.
 If beauty evolves with the eye of the beholder, today’s beholder appears to wear tinted lenses, because we like everything bronzed and tanned. Now, I consider myself quite confident in my own skin, but there are times when I curse my Italian lineage and wish my grandmother had run off with a Greek fisherman to add a little olive to my paleness.
 Luckily in our superficial world, Greek ancestry is only a spray away. In fact, it’s astounding how easy it is to alter your appearance. The other day I overheard three women talking about erasing lines on their faces with the kind of casualness you’d reserve for getting stains out of clothing. We think we aspire to natural beauty, but we’re determined to make beauty fussy and time-consuming.
 A few years back it was suggested I get fake nails to ‘elongate my arms’ for a friend’s wedding. Hoping people would fall for this remarkable optical illusion; I sat for two hours while a nail technician glued fake nails to my healthy ones. I say glued, when in fact I should say welded, because these talons were stuck to my fingers for months. When I finally peeled them off, my nails had withered and softened so much, they were brittle and bended backwards with the slightest touch. I had to hide my hands in gloves for about 3 months before they were back to normal.
 In the pursuit of beauty, pain is the big winner – from razor cuts and waxing trauma to scalp-burning bleach and peroxide. This theory was heightened recently when a friend’s cousin found herself in hospital after suffering a severe allergic reaction to a spray tan. People had always told her she looked better with a tan and, as she lay there blistering in her hospital gown, she wondered how they’d think she looked now.
 Under the influence of painkillers and feeling sorry for herself, she told her cousin that she started to hanker for those childhood myths – the magic of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny – and as she watched her skin peel away, she desperately hoped beauty wasn’t skin-deep, after all.

Bad sports.

 Even though summer is in full swing here in Australia, the panic to shape up for swimwear is on. And in the lead up to summer, spring turns into an end-of-year stocktake sale for the body - everything must go! Kilograms, cellulite, and any enjoyment you get from food – all gone. And while you’re slogging away, trying to sell off your unwanted stock, it’s a buyer’s delight for gym owners, who are reaping the benefits and adding extensions to their homes.
 Unfortunately, I signed up for a binding gym membership during one of those hysterical bouts of optimism when I believed I was going to compete in triathlons and enter ‘hard bodies’ competitions for the rest of my life. I’m pretty sure my grandchildren will be paying off that membership one day. But while we’re all stuck at the gym, crunching and squatting our way back to the beach, can we agree on a few basic rules of conduct? Don’t get me wrong, well done dragging your tired body through the gym doors – that’s an achievement in itself. But it’s hard enough grimacing through push-ups without having to endure certain unnecessary behaviours.

 First, let’s all wipe down the equipment after using it. Even though five litres of sweat on the rowing machine may be greeted with enthusiasm by the CSI team, it’s much less impressive to the person who gets to sit in a puddle of your perspiration. Next, 30 minutes max on the treadmill please. The ski machines, cross trainers and elliptical trainers are just space fillers; we’re all there for the treadmills. So, if a queue is forming behind you, maybe run a few blocks, instead of the entire New York City Marathon.

  Let’s have management move those stepper machines to the rear of the room too. Maybe it’s just me, but the elite athletes who use these hell machines for more than three minutes without passing out should be banished to the back, out of sight. I don’t need to see people excelling at difficult activities as I read magazines on the stationary bike.

  And now to the exercise benches: it’s not school, so putting a towel on a bench doesn’t ‘bags’ it while you walk off to stretch or check yourself out in the mirror (guys, you know who you are). Your towel isn’t a bike lock, so if you don’t take it with you, I may have to dob. When it comes to the fans, it’s simple. Leave them on! In a room with more body odour and sweat flying around than in a footballer’s shorts, ventilation is key. I know some people like to sweat half their body weight off during a workout, but I’m pretty sure exercising in a sauna is on the UN’s top-10 list of crimes against humanity.

 And, finally, the change rooms: I’m all for sisters feeling comfortable around each other, but if you look anything like Miranda Kerr, please keep your clothes on at all times. The rest of us don’t need to be reminded that we could run on a treadmill for the rest of our lives and never have your gazelle-like limbs. Be mindful that we mortals are trying to leave the gym with more self-esteem than we came in with, not less.

 Now we’re all happy with those basic rules, let’s continue torturing ourselves at the gym, without irritating each other. But then again, who am I kidding? If there was nothing annoying at the gym, we just might start enjoying it, and where’s the sport in that?