Jamie Dunn has buried his feet firmly in the sand as a columnist with the Daily. For two decades, Jamie has been the voice and personality of Australian TV’s most successful kids character Agro, winning 10 TV Week Logie awards. Now which car was mine again?
| Jamie Dunn
I had taken Kym’s car to the Bli Bli butcher to get a leg of lamb for a mid-week roast treat.
Once I had done that, I returned to what I thought was my car, and fumbled around trying to get the keys to fit while quietly cursing the vandals that must have superglued the locks while I was shopping.
I got a toot from an old guy called John who was sitting in his car opposite.
I faintly heard his words: “That’s not your car, Jamie.”
Okay, so I was tired.
As if I hadn’t been shamed enough, as I walked the two spaces down to the correct car, a lovely lady named Eilene Richards stopped to tell me: “I sort of like your column sometimes, but most times, it’s a bit rude.”
It crossed my mind give her a glancing blow with my leg of lamb, but I simply got in the right car and drove away… finally!
Sorry, pretty parakeet
I felt really bad the other day because while driving, I hit and killed a rainbow lorikeet.
As always, I tried to find someone else to blame. I’ve been that way my whole life.
And so I’ve chosen … the council.
Yes, the council is to blame for me sending a pretty parakeet to its maker.
What tree-hugging moron decided to put bird-attracting shrubs in the median strips on the main highway between the Eumundi and Noosa turn-offs, and closer still, replicating this at Kunda Park?
Those poor feathered little buggers are getting creamed as they come into land for lunch!
My wife’s left me
Kym has gone to visit her sister in Cairns, leaving me to actually face up to my obligations as a parent.
“I can do this,” I thought.
And I can. I’ve been picking up and dropping off, leaving money for lunches, filling the dishwasher, going to parent teacher meetings, and being surprisingly diverse and exciting in the kitchen.
The kids came home from school the other day to a complete roast dinner, which we all enjoyed, even if the gravy was so watery it perhaps should have been in a pond on Fisherman’s Road.
That wasn’t the worst of it, though. So new was I to being a single parent that after dinner I walked down the hallway to help Jackson with his homework, and turned just in time to see our two dogs Milo and Maggie on the dinner table busily eating the roast.
Wouldn’t it give you the shitzus.
I’ve got mail
I love it when my column generates enough interest for someone to actually write to me.
With regard to my complete bollocking of ex-Midnight Oil singer and now Minister for the Environment Peter Garrett, I got a lovely letter from Courtney Pallot from Sunshine Coast Grammar School.
She said: “The children are the caretakers of the future, whether the adults like it or not. I think that people like Peter Garrett should attempt to relate more positively to the youth of Australia.”
Courtney included a response she had received from the honourable Peter Garrett AM MP after writing to him about the Traveston Crossing dam.
It read rather contritely: “It is important to understand that while I believe in fighting for the same things that I have always fought for, particularly the protection of the environment, being a minister for the Australian government means fighting for them in a very different way than I did when I was singing for Midnight Oil.”
Hmm … do you smell hypocrite?
Flying the flag for pensioners
I’m sure we’re all struggling to understand how a pensioner can possibly exist on $273.40 per week. Although I think I could do it, if I was living by myself eating Black and Gold cat food.
Dunn Diary reader Mark Wilson has an idea to bring the pensioners’ plight to the attention of the government.
He writes: “It may sound a bit ridiculous Jamie, but I wondered what would happen if we all started flying the flag upside down, after all it is an international sign of distress.
“Even a small flag (paper of cloth) hung in a window or a car would suffice.”
He adds that he has the greatest respect for our flag, and proudly flies it every day.
I take your point, Mark – grey power cannot only move caravans around Australia at 40ks per hour, but your idea, if it caught on, might just get the attention that they need.
PS If we flew our flags upside down, would all the stars fall off?
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Recent Comments
Don't blame the Council for the plight of all our Rainbow Lorry-kills. If all our drivers drove at 40kph like those Pensioners we wouldn't have the problem in the first place.
They try to tell us that tinned pet food is actually higher quality than processed "human" food. Knowing the quality of some of our biggest brands of tinned food, I am not disputing this for a moment. However, I think that the only reason that they tell us this so regularly is that they are trying to justify the fact that some of our folk actually have to resort to eating pet food on a regular basis to survive on the compassionate "generosity" of our social security system.
Here's a thought. What do you reckon Lorry-kill meat is like to eat? Nah...then we might have lots of people getting creamed on the roads as they come in for lunch as well. It could get completely out of hand couldn't it.
Eating tinned dog food hey WHY? per kilo you can get chicken wings or chicken merilands cheaper and it sure as hell doesn`t stink like dog food. Not to mention if you walk past any restaraunt or cafe or pub with outside dinning you will always find meals unfinished sitting waitng to be thrown away, just sit on down and put on your napkin the staff probably won`t notice till you`ve finished anyhow.
Not everyone over 65 relies on the aged pension. Many have additional income, while others, because of past circumstances usually outside their control, really do have nothing more than the pension to see them through each fortnight. The latter are not the ones you see playing pokies in clubs.
For a start, the joining fee (even if it is less than $20) would mean they would have to forego a couple of meals to pay it. And they would have difficulty getting to a club as they couldn't afford to run a car. So because of that, not only is playing a pokie impossible, they can't even take advantage of the cheaper meals cliubs often offer pensioners and the elderly.
Unlike the unemployed, their opportunity to get a job (read that as income) has passed. Anyone who wants a job and is prepared to swallow their pride and take on whatever is available will never starve. Just look at the hundreds of advertisements in the newspapers every week for jobs that don't require any specialised skills or which offer on-the-job training.
Your "I'm all right Jack" attitude is typical of the closed mind attitude that pervades much of today's Australian society (particularly among politicians who spend other people's money as governments don't have their own money . . . they only redistribute money taken from everyone through taxes, licence fees etc).
Aged pensioners are not looking for pity or excessive handouts, just the now almost non-existent Aussie fair go. We sure have turned into a selfish, uncaring nation of the haves and the have nots, more's the pity.
But I do exclude from that comment the many individuals and organisations who, because of government inaction, volunteer their time and money to help people in need, not just the aged pensioners. They are a lot more deserving of the description "hero" than someone who runs or swims faster than anyone else.
If the politicians distributing our money were more interested in really helping all those in need in society (not just the aged pensioners) rather than looking after their own and their special political interests, then we wouldn't need these real heroes to step in and do the job the politicians can't or won't do.
Jamie, I apologise for using your usually light-hearted column to take someone else to task over a very serious subject.
What would make life better for everybody , would be for Coles and Woolworths to stop absolutely ripping everyone off for meat and, fruit and veges. Everyone, where fruit and veges are concerned , should shop at weekend markets and smaller fruit shops , then coles and woolworths would not have a market for fruit and veges. I bought enough fruit and veges today at new farm farmers market to last a week for $7.00. Coles/ woolies would charge me $15 min for the same.
Being unemployed is hopefully only a temporary situation unless you are just plain unemployable, approaching pension age or voluntarily unemployed. The Pensioners will never have an opportunity to increase their income. Often they are only relying on the pension because they have had to bail out or support their kids from their life savings.
to get up out of a warm bed and go to work to earn my living. I know people who are unemployed may find it tough, but surely your answer would be to get some form of work, anything that helps pay the bills and maybe don't spend money unless it's on the essentials so many times in my job I find unemployed people applying for loans and having credit cards up to the max. I am sorry that not everything is equal but it's not, so my advise if you want it is get a job, if you see someone anyone that needs help help them and most of all live within your means. I should add I am not rich, a university graduate or a snob, I am just a normal citizen working my way through life