More words on a blog

So I've been back in Australia for weeks, mostly spent wandering around the city, and my house, looking at things and saying "Oh yeah, I remember that." Well one of my favourite rediscoveries of the moment is this old collection of Micallef writingses, which I though I'd lost well before I left the country, called Smithereens. It's mostly a collection of old columns he wrote for The Age, or something, plus a few sketches, etc etc. Anyway, it contains this pair of paragraphs, which are great, and I feel like sharing:

It will come as no surprise to learn that my uncle was an ostler. In fact, I defy you to have any reaction whatsoever, short of befuddlement. True, the grains of time have grit-blasted 'ostler' from common usage, but even way back then we had a hard time working out what one was. Even my uncle wasn't sure. 'How was work?' Auntie would ask as he appeared in the hallway at day's end, suspiciously light attaché case in hand. 'Good, good - yeah,' he'd mumble guiltily before changing the subject. You just let things along in those days.

But I was a curious kid. I snuck into my uncle's study one night and found him sitting at an empty desk, scratching his head and muttering, 'What am I? What am I?' When they took him away less than a year later he had taken to getting about on skis wearing a Viking helmet and a lion skin. 'Look at me - I'm ostling!' he was shrieking as they loaded him into the van. The neighbours watched sympathetically as my aunt waved him off. Good people, I remember thinking - although later they returned under the cover of darkness to spray-paint the word 'Weirdo' on the front of the house. Halcyon days.

So yeah, I remain quite fond of Micallef's comedy stylings, and would fork out for a Newstopia DVD if I saw one around, topical though it was. I also got a copy of this Novella he recently wrote, so hopefully that will be awesome, as I will find out as soon as I read it. Then there's that Other TV Show he recently made... Well, I reserve opinion about that until I see it, preferably in some kind of Ad-free medium.