Thank you. Your story reminded me of the situation so much and it’s comforting to know that even when a family tragedy seems so arbitrary, we’re not alone in that surreal world where everyone’s carrying on, having their holidays, and we’re a little stunned by what’s happened.

Yep. Feeling the holiday misery, and commiserating with you there.

Ugh, this discussion happens every year in Oz, just after Australia Day - the Hottest 100 from the local youth radio channel is touted as the worlds biggest musical ‘democracy’ with people voting in their favourite songs played on Triple J in the past year before this is all tallied up.

Nah uh.

Oh, the title alone bought me back to my childhood: Meatloaf “Bat Out of Hell.” Queen’s “Greatest Hits”. Some compilation tape set of ‘popular hits’ that my sisters and I adored because it had The Bangles’s “Walk Like an Egyptian” as the second song.

When the road trip is 9 hours long (Coober Pedy to Adelaide anyone?)…

I’m the ‘golden child’ too and sometimes I think it’s easier for us to cut ourselves off from the family. We know if we want to, we will be welcomed back with none of that patronising ‘prodigal son’ bullshit that our siblings have to put up with. I’ve returned home after a massive blow out and estrangement with…

Mum isn’t that bad - but I still remember my sisters crying when they read a card she’d sent to me with a lovely message in it.

Now, as a guest that I’d why I loved the bouquet toss! Free motherflippin’ bouquet of lovely flowers! But those throwaway bouquets ruined it for me.

I like to imagine she was constantly re-applying her eyeliner.

Watch now how every fan defending him COMPLETELY ignores this fact. It’s like that scene in Buffy where Spike is trying to explain to everyone that Ben=Glory.

I was a leetle drunk last night and ended up with this one:

“Crayons. She’s like, two in the box. And it’s a Crayola 12 pack so that is NOT A GOOD THING.”

It seemed to work.

Ugh, I’m getting that a LOT with the new Australian Curriculum and Year 8 history. I take great pleasure in getting students to do comparisons of all the major medieval religions, and of Richard and Saladin.

I was very badly bullied at school so I gave as good as I got. One dudebro in particular kept harassing me, so I accused him of bedding sheep. Simples. All through high school, nasty sleazy stuff from him, I rejoined with my sheep-fucker insults. They were awesome! We have a very strong repitoire of sheep related…

Thrilled with the breasts and black wardrobe, horrified that I can’t fit into the wardrobe due to the aforementioned breasts being a product of weight gain. Slightly grossed out that I have a husband - I was a slow developer and still found boys gross then, but mollified because he’s got a nice bottom. Relieved that…

I just... make the cat into the bed. He seems to like it, and purrs a lot. He struggles a little to get out when tucked under the fitted sheets, but I just shake the food tin louder and he’ll find a way.

I gotta jump in now because there’s a lot of confusion about this in the comments and it’s infuriating: This isn’t a payout designed for poorer families. It was a payout deliberately bought in and exempt from means testing to encourage upper-middle class women to have babies (during a fertility slump for upper-class…

This will probably stay in the greys, but my dear US friends are missing out on the best Australian comedy ever.

Thanks. I didn’t want to speak for pagans of colour, but to use my priviledge to amplify their position... I hope that came across.

Why do you use “The Norse Tradition” as an example here?

The devil, yes... but at this risk of going #notalldemons, well demons aren’t a homogeneous group y’know. Many are described as being phenomenally stupid and literal to the point their inability to adopt a more nuanced perspective leads to their spectacular failure whilst others are just smarter than the average…