Don't get me wrong, I can't take my eyes of Nigella Lawson's magnificent rack either. But I am increasingly irritated by her over-the-top commentary. Just cook the damn FOOD, woman!

Last night she dished up a horrifying black rice concoction with prawns and chillis. It looked like scrapings from the bottom of a sewer to me, but no, she wanted me to behold the "marvellous black pearls of rice studded with ruby chillis". For a vegetarian variation, she invited you to try it with some "soft, jade hunks of avocado".

Next she bunged a bit of marinated steak on the BBQ, black on the outside but moo-ing within, chopped it up and called it a "quiveringly-rare, plateful of spice-seared, ruby-fleshed rags". To finish off, her limoncello-drenched trifle featured blackberries "peeking through their blanket of marscapone cream".

Her flowery descriptions are making me long for the last series, with her patented deep-throat taste testing of elongated vegetables. She seems determined to make the even the most unremarkable foods sound gloriously decadent and sensuous. Perhaps she cut a deal with some farmers, "Luv, if you can make this here cabbage sexy, we will keep you in bosom-hugging twinsets for life".

You can just imagine her brushing her teeth at night, whipping her tongue over her choppers and marvelling, "The pristine minty freshness of toothpaste evokes memories of prancing barefoot through a meadow in the summertime."

Or buying new tyres for her car, she'd be groping each one like a ripe melon and purring, "O the charcoal curves, the tangy aroma of rubber, the deep and twisting tunnels of the tread, how they surround the shiny wheel like a lovers embrace."

Next week I will turn the volume down and just oggle.

NIGELLA UPDATE:  Last night, when chopping up a watermelon, she said, "Make sure the pieces are big but not so big you can't fit it them your mouth"... then she paused and gave the camera a saucy look, "Not that it would be a problem for me!". Rhi and I shrieked, "YOU DIRTY BITCH!" in unison.

One of the best things about Canberra is the late-night drive home from Monkey and Mattay's house. It's twenty minutes of quiet road, winking stars and blaring stereo. I drive too fast and sing loudly and badly. When I get back into town, I detour up random streets, just to squeeze in a few more numbers.

Whenever I get the coveted M&M invite I take great care to select some rockin' CDs for drive home. On the weekend it was Bee Gees One Night Only (still in mourning) and some iTunes mixes: the original Rockin' Car Songs, Rhi Rocks Out Volume II and Xmas Rockin' Goodness.

The other night I was fumbling with the controls of our six stacker and searching for the best songs to belt out. The mood called for something robust. Layer upon layer of delicious harmonies, the stuff of sing-songs round a campfire. Don't you just love harmonies? They are perfect for those not blessed with talent. You can start with the high bit then abruptly drop down when your shithouse chords start to die. Or you can start low in the verse then soar for the chorus. Or you can chop and change from one word to the next. Whatever you choose, you can always blend in somewhere over the din of the engine and think to yourself, "DAMN! I coulda been a Supreme!"

During And Your Bird Can Sing, I decided I would ask WNP visitors to tell me their favourite harmony-drenched tunes then use this precious information to create the ultimate mix CD and call it Let's Go 2003 -- Harmonic Highway Hitz! or something equally inane.

But my plans were interrupted when an obnoxious white BMW swooped up to overtake me. I had just finished swearing and pounding the steering wheel when a kangaroo appeared out of the dark and streaked across the road in front of them.

BANG!

It was rather a spectacular sight. The 'roo shot up into the air, you could almost see the moment when its whole body shattered. The head snapped back, legs and tail jerking, then the whole thing went limp and lifeless like someone had tossed some bagpipes across the highway. There was a little puff of dust when it sailed over the railing and hit the scrub.

The BMW barely flinched, but I slowed down and felt so bad for the poor bugger.

Anyway, be sure to tell me your favourite songs of harmonised goodness.

Dead 'roo haiku:

broken kangaroo
shall no longer hop hop hop
in the morning dew

Plans! Got the passport, got the two-year working holiday visa, and today Rhi and I picked up the one-way tickets. We leave Australia at the end of March. Look out world!

UPDATE:  Here are some answers to your questions...

There is noone left to oggle in the Australian Open Tennis Men's Draw.

First The Poo was bundled out, and then that sleeveless American hunk James Blake departed. These tragic losses were in spite of our best attempts at bribing them to play better, ie. much gentle coaxing at the telly:

SHAUNA:  If you could try a little harder, I will buy you a lolly.
RHI:  If you win this point, you can take me out for dinner.
S:  If you make this an ace, you get to see me naked.
R:  Crikey! He double faulted.
S:  Bastard.

Australian Open haiku:

my loins love sight of
lanky legs of tennis men
in the morning dew

Canberra is burning. The sky is black, orange in places, choked with smoke. I live in the CBD but my friends are further out amongst it. It's scary. Getting really worried. 200 homes feared gone.

SUNDAY MORNING:  380 homes gone. Last I heard the kids were safe, I will probably pester them again soon. Worry worry.

SUNDAY NIGHT:  Still burning. It's hard to comprehend the extent of the devastation. But the Canberra bloggers you know and love and want to shag are doing okay.

I took The Americans to Parliament House today, it looked so eerie shrouded in smoke. My bloody bra set off the metal detectors again. The security dude had to do the whole wand-waving woo woo thing. Why doesn't it go off for anyone else? I'm not the only one who's underwired. Clearly these twin towers are a threat to national security.

This line in the CNN story cracked me up: Smoke blanketed the capital, home to 300,000 people, including hundreds of diplomats.

MONDAY MORNING:  Here at work, people have some pretty grim stories. They're talking about watching fireballs race up their street, how it moved so quickly they didn't have time to get in the car and get the hell out of there. Crikey! Many people are too scared to come in. Can you blame them? They've forecasted high temperatures and unpredictable winds.

Meanwhile, talk has already started that the ACT Government were inadequately prepared for the event.

WEDNESDAY:  11 freckled ducks, 99 red and grey kangaroos, 20 koalas -- more fire victims.

The Americans were lucky enough to meet The Mothership last Saturday, when we were in Goulburn to see the Big Merino.

MOTHERSHIP:  Have you shown them the mailbox with the legs?
SHAUNY:  Sorry?
M:  It's only the biggest tourist attraction in town! Somebody has a mailbox that consists of a big pair of legs sticking out of the ground. The postman has to slot the mail into its arse! Hee hee hee!
AMERICANS:  [alarmed look]
M:  Trust me, it's really cool! You'll love it. It is Australia! Let me draw you a map.

So we drove by and hung out the car window with cameras. I'm sure the highlight of their whole insane Australian jaunt will be the mailbox with the disembodied plastic legs. It even had a pair of black undies on, for the sake of decency.

The Mothership also landed on Tuesday to eat our pasta and to sit on the couch asking, "So, what's new?" and other inane questions every seven seconds.

MOTHERSHIP:  So what's new?
SHAUNY & RHI:  Nothing!
M:  Well there must be something!
S & R:  There's nothing!
M:  Hmmph
M:  ...
M:  Hey, do you think you'll ever go to France?
R:  Sure, why not?
M:  Will you be going in that tunnel?
R:  Possibly.
M:  I don't want you going in that tunnel!
R:  Why not?
M:  It's crazy, that tunnel! It's underwater and goes on for miles and anything could happen in there! I don't believe in tunnels!
R:  I've been in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.
M:  I don't like you going in there either but this one is longer. And foreign! Promise me you won't go in that tunnel!
R:  You're a crackpot.

In summer, it can happen. Skirts are light and airy, fabrics soft and featherlight. Sometimes it really can feel like you're wearing nothing. I've been known to sit here, tapping away at the screen, when I am seized by a sudden panic that I cannot feel a damn thing on my legs. No swish of cloth, no tickle of a hemline. My heart turns to shit as I think, By crikey, I've finally done it! I am sitting here at work in my undies!

I've had nightmares about this, except there were nuns and police cars involved. I am almost too afraid to look down. So I keep typing for awhile, a frantic taptaptap, trying to remember to breathe.

Then I look down. Of course there's a skirt there. Somehow floating above the epidermis. Even I couldn't be so bloody stupid or sleepwalky to forget to get dressed properly. But it could happen. Lately I am losing the plot.

One of the Bee Gees died! Maurice, he of the funny hat. Poor bugger.

As a loving tribute, here is a stunning piece of writing from the vault entitled In Defence of the Brothers Gibb.

At the airport

RHI: It's Shauna's first flight!
SHAUNA: Yay!
R: Shauna's going to fly!
S: Yes.
R: Shauna's plane is moving!
S: Mmm.
R: Shauna's first take-off!

45 minutes later

R: Shauna's first landing!
S: Would you please shut up!

We nicked off to Melbourne for the weekend and it was fantastic. Armed with Momo's definitive list of Groovy Things To See And Do we traipsed around and managed to pack a lot in to our short stay. Next time I hope to meet some famous Melbourne kiddies but this time I was too disorganised and many people were out of town, although I did briefly get to see the rockin' Nat and Scotty.

What a gorgeous city. The only thing stopping us from staying (aside from work and lack of finances) were our pathetic sore feet. Wherever I go I always seem to have inappropriate shoes. By Saturday afternoon our tootsies were swollen and blistered from clopping around town. The only option was to buy some new shoes. So we limped around for another two hours searching for something within our paltry budget (drained thanks to amazing Melbourne shops). Finally in desperation we resorted to... gasp... Masseurs.

Masseurs are the plankton of the shoe food chain. They basically consist of a sad bit of cork with a strap to slide your tired feet into. They are the essence of cool, if you're a scrag down the shops in Queanbeyan with a bellowing toddler named Jayden hanging off your hip and ciggie slumped on your lip. But in a swanky boutique you look bloody stupid with an elongated coaster strapped to your foot.

Vanity won out and we flipflopfled back to the hotel, but not before a very stylish lady looked down at my feet then back up at me with an alarmed expression. "I'm from out of town! I brought the wrong shoes!" I wanted to whine, but she moved away rather quickly. Needless to say the Massuers were banished to our suitcases and henceforth we hobbled.

Bucketloads of beautiful rain on New Years Morning, what else is there to do but to lay in bed listening to the earth suck it up. Except the woman across the courtyard keeps interrupting with her brand new turbo-charged juicing machine. The wet silence is shattered with a nasty, rattling rrrrr! rrrrr! as she sends each hapless fruit and vegetable to its gruesome death.

It's a cruel way to go. If I was a carrot or half an orange, I would have looked at the juicing machine and thought, "Well, this looks like fun." Have you seen the latest in these contraptions? They are huge with all manner of shiny surfaces, interesting curves and hollows sticking out everywhere. It looks like a waterslide complex at the local pool.

So these sticks of celery are lining up, picking their Speedos out of their arse cracks, thinking this is going to be the ride of their life, thinking they are going to slide down that tunnel screaming "wheeeeeeeee!". But instead the only screams are those of pain as they're flung into the Blades O' Death, violently ground up with watermelon or wheatgrass then spat out the other end into a glass of tasteless muck. Poor bastards.