...well, that's about all you're likely to be if the Aussie government (whichever exciting one it ends up being...) takes on board the latest recommendations on safe alcohol drinking limits.
Now, for those of you who have been in the pub the last week, the news is a bloke should only be drinking a maximum of two standard alcoholic drinks a day and a woman one a day. If you're not sure which applies to you then I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place.
Thing is, if you take Coopers Pale Ale as a yardstick - and I believe you always should - then you're looking at one and a half bottles and you're already over the limit. Now frankly you'll burn off half the calories you'll accumulate by drinking said Coopers by twisting the cap off, another quarter by tipping the bottle to your throat, and then the swallowing action should take care of the rest. 
I know it's not all about getting fat but really it seems to me there's not much point going to the bottle shop and fishing out the credit card if this is all they reckon you can drink.
Funny thing is, I'll bet a case of Coopers PA that it never becomes enshrined officially. Why? Well, have you seen how much money the drinks companies squirt Labor's way? And how much the Coalition are swallowing? I tell you, it's a whole lot more than two a day.

I had a look at DeathClock, which is always a sobering thing to do. It seems that given all the parameters I've only got a year to live. Well, that's if I choose to be pessimistic. If I'm 'normal' in my outlook on life then I've got about another 20 years ahead of me.
If I try to be optimistic it seems another 44 years awaits me, which is better than nothing (though actually I am endeavouring to live for ever).
However, if I choose to be sadistic which, as regular readers will know, I often appear to be, it seems I passed away in June last year.

So, eventually I can get around to telling you about the sister and her hasty exit from the country.
As regular readers will know, she descended on us with her three kids and set to looking for a job, without, it must be said, very much planning or research.

As they went there were goodbyes, but of course no thanks at all for the hospitality or the meals or the help and advice, or for looking after her kids when she went for interviews.
The following morning I discovered that in the darkness as they'd left they'd all trampled across my onions and flattened them.

I went with the nippers yesterday to another kid's fifth birthday. All the usual suspects were there; the mums and nannies I rub shoulders with on an almost daily basis. It's a bit like going to work, though we chat around the swimming pool, not the water cooler, and the talk is not of corporate largesse or potential take-overs or who is going to get the chop or get promoted, rather our talk is of tantrums, sore nipples (though not mine, I hasten to add...), sleepless nights, the cough doing the rounds of toddlerland and "is that Jeremy climbing the side of the house? Oh, someone, do get there quickly! JEREMY!"

The funniest thing about the event though was I was chatting to the blonde and a lawyer mother and we were talking about having more kids (this is number two in the lexicon of baby talk - the first is sleepless nights and the third is how easy other people think it is staying at home with the kids - yes, it's gripping) and I said, I'll be too old to pick them up soon. They wanted to guess how old I was which is always a fun game and they both came in a decade lower than my actual age, which always makes you feel, well, younger. When I told them how old I am, the lawyer looked like she was about to pass out with shock (I imagine it's a ruse she has used on more than one occasion in the courtroom - "really, you never intended to rob that liquor store with your large gun? I say, you do surprise me, and m'lud too if I am not much mistaken!" ) and the pretty blonde drilled her fist into my shoulder and said, "I wish my dad looked as good as you. He'll be your age next year!"

Yesterday I media trained eight people, which is a bit of a push to be honest. I have to do mock interviews with each of them, and then do a second round. So there's a fair bit of preparation. Also, I've still not totally recovered from the bubonic plague, so it wasn't easy. But you know, onwards and upwards.

I won't go through the interview scenario with Fat Boy because, well, it even makes me cringe, but suffice to say there were several instances of me saying:
"Well, I've heard you speak elsewhere, very recently as it happens, (guffaws from his colleagues) about the environment and, er, well let me quote you here, 'it's bollocks'. But now you seem to be saying you're about to vote green, or is it just the colour you've turned that is making me think that?"
Here's a tip, the microphone is never switched off.

I am feeling dreadful today. The bubonic plague which seems to have morphed into The Black Death, or at least that's what my lungs are telling me, has taken hold with a vengeance. Thing is, I did a media training stint on Monday and apparently they were so pleased with the day (I suspect mainly they were enamoured with the gourmet sandwiches provided) that they wanted another two of their people to come along today. I struggled through preparing the questions but I simply can't do it, I have no voice (but thankfully can still type...) so I had to email them first thing. It's not going to make them happy, and me neither as I'm chucking a good deal of the folding stuff, but you know, sometimes illness strikes.

Meanwhile, the sister has left the country hastily, but that story will have to wait until I am well again, which is hopefully very soon...

I was supposed to be taking the nippers to the library today to return their books but I am feeling so under the weather with this bubonic plague, or whatever it is I have, that I've decided we'll stay in. I have virtually no voice anyway, and I need that to shout loudly at Four every time he does something silly like tries to cross the road.

So, I screamed at him to stop, which startled patrons of the cafe up the road. Old man Gregory who has a labrador called Fife turned his head so quick I think I heard the crack  in his neck. To the woman who suddenly scalded herself with her short black (no, not the man in the grocers from Sudan, I mean the small black coffee), I can only offer my condolences, and to the small, nervous girl, well, it's only a change of underwear - don 't let it ruin your life. Fife will no doubt return home soon.

By the time I got to Four he was in a mood and tired too. Two was refusing to move any further. So, I sent Four on across the road in a break in traffic, and started to cross with Four's bike under one arm and urging Two on beside me with his pushchair and baby. Half way across the road Two stopped and sat down. I was in one of those, do I take the bike and come back or do I get the kid before he gets run over and how can I do all this and get the pushchair too, with only two hands. Meanwhile, a black BMW with a number plate so small it must have been hugely expensive, came screaming over the hill. If I was Tom Cruise some music would have started and a steely look would have come into my eyes (and there would have been a helicopter and secret service men, but let's not get carried away). I threw the bike onto the nature strip in a move that would have got me into an Olympic team - well, assuming they had a Throwing Bike With Stabiliser And Bendy Mirrors event - picked up the pushchair and similarly threw it and then stepped back to pick up Two who was sitting there serene as Buddha. As I grabbed him the BMW shot past with a rush of air.

Yes, it may seem not a lot happens in my life, but gee, it's always exciting.

Back to pre-school today for Four who loves the place more than I love Coopers Pale Ale (yes, that's saying a lot!). When I dropped him off I got talking to the pretty blonde nanny who it seems to me is barely old enough to drive a car, let alone the Range Rover Sport V8 the parents of the three kids she looks after give her.
The thing is, she's been looking after the three nippers and the dog all by herself for three weeks now and has another two weeks to go. This is 24-hour stuff. And where are the parents? Well, it seems they have jetted off for a six week European vacation, which is nice work if you can get it. Begs the question though, what is the point of having the progeny if you're going to leave them every time you fancy a break? I mean, we'd all like a break, but come on, shouldn't they also be there experiencing Europe?

Okay, must go, I hear Two has got in the fridge...last time he did that the cream cheese was smeared all over the floor and honey plonked on top. Now that's even messier than opposition Labor leader Kevin Rudd's response to the Howard government's tax cut strategy.

...was the time Two got up yesterday. Call me old fashioned but I still think that's nighttime. Obviously he is an Aussie through and through and likes to get up when no-one else is about, well apart from thousands of Aussies of course. In England getting up early is about 7.30 and on the weekend you'd like to have a lie in, especially on Sunday, until around 10-10.30.
Anyway, as Four would be keen to point out, Daddy, this is not England. Indeed.
The good thing about getting up so early is that when I switched on the tv England were playing France in the Rugby World Cup. They gave the French a right seeing-too, which always warms the cockles of my heart, as they say. Years ago when I had a house in France I mentioned to one of my pompous English friends (okay, okay, they are all pompous - do you feel better?) that the French could be a bit awkward, even though I spoke good French and was contributing handsomely to the local economy by buying a run-down house and stocking it with things like foie gras, truffles and a Citroen. My friend said, "what you have to remember old chap is apart from the last 80 years we've been giving them a right old seeing-too on numerous occasions", and then he rattled off Agincourt, Waterloo, Trafalgar and all the rest. This reminded me of when Lord Wyatt - a very pompous English person - went to stay at the Hotel Georges Cinq in Paris, one of the world's most expensive hotels. As he was booking in, the imperious desk clerk - you only get them like this in Paris - asked him to spell his surname clearly. He said, "Wyatt. That's Waterloo, Ypres, Agincourt, Trafalgar, Trafalgar." There is nothing like putting people in their place. I so wish I'd been there.
However, I digress. Funnily enough, most of my Aussie friends were in a frenzy last weekend because the Wallabies were playing England. Just in case you don't know - and why would you when there has been so little news about it - England gave the Wallabies a right old smack on the backside and sent them back home with long faces and presumably a somewhat shortened pay packet.
Funnily enough, all my Aussie friends who were sporting the Wallaby jerseys and laughing in my face just before the England-Australia game are now professing to be not the least interested in rugby at all. Funny really, after all, it is only a game.
Now, today is media training day and I have the worst cold in Christendom, so I'm not looking forward to that, though it does give me a gravelly voice which presumably will strike even more fear into the interviewees.

Well, it is for the sister, who seems to have landed herself a job.
I know, I can barely believe it myself. It seems she went for an interview with this accountancy firm and the bloke said, tapping her CV, "so you've done all these things here then?" I mean what are you going to say, "No, of course not, I'm only joking."
It seems to my untutored eye that basically what she's been doing all these years is adding columns of figures up, but then I suppose that's what accountants do, oh and then they send you a bill.
So, the thing is, she sent me an email yesterday (yes, I know, we're close) saying, "can we come and stay with you for a week or so until we move into our rental place?"
This is the person who when she last visited - admittedly 11 years ago - felt obliged to be as awkward as possible and eventually end the sojourn with a screaming fit followed by a storming off like she was at the UN or something. So, I said, no, this is not a good idea, especially considering your kids eat like oxen and always seem to think leaving two feet of water on the bathroom floor is a good idea - only I didn't mention the oxen business and the water because, you know, it's not manners.
Surprisingly she agreed with me, which is a first. I'm not sure what to make of that, but maybe it's the sunshine.
We'll see, but let me tell you, this fair land is always willing to let people have a go. You have to like that.

...once again I have been conspicuous by my absence from blogland (actually, I'm not sure anyone noticed, but there you are.)
In mitigation, your honour, just a few relevant facts:
Sister: she is still here and things have been getting very dicey indeed, or interesting, depending on which way you view the world, but more on that at a later stage.
Media training: I've been kept busy with media training which for those who don't know is all about going and training corporate people how to handle the media and involves mock interviews where I get to give them a bit of a going over, which is always good for the soul. That's been keeping me very busy and also entails loads of preparation.
Kids: one is four and the other has just turned two. Someone told me this - there's Terrible Twos, Frightening Threes and Fucking Fours. I rest my case, but suffice to say Two got some curry powder (it came along before bottles of curry paste, madam) and sprinkled it on the kitchen floor and up his nose. I was just in time to see him take as good a snort as, well I don't know who. He looked pleased with himself. For a nano-second.
Mothers: they keep pestering me to come and play with their kids (well, they want my kids to play with their kids, but I have to go along too) and also I feel obliged to let them come and wreck play at our place too. Some of the mothers are very nice, I have to say, but some of them are not at all and why they keep parking their 4WDs on my chives I don't know - it's taken me months to get them to come up.
Writing: Trying to get on with book two, in between preparing evening meals, stopping fights, shopping, stopping fights and er, stopping fights.
Apart from that, all is fine in my world. Just in case you wanted to know...

George came around with his wife and youngster on Saturday and as the kids played and the women gossiped inside the house he told me down at the barby – shielded by jacaranda and wisteria, so violet as you like at this time of year – about Sam.
Sam went to school with George and has always had a hangdog expression, even when glancing at his $20,000 Patek Phillipe watch which normally you’d have thought would have made a man smile.
Sam – who used to work in financial services (yes, he was a banker) has been working at his brother Rocco’s restaurant, helping him out when it gets busy, which is most nights on account of the marinara which is the best and his pizzas which of course are woodfired but also are made with love by a Romanian girl called Gallea who has good hands, said George with a wink.
The good hands were what attracted Sam to Gallea in the first place and since then he’s been out with her several times, but only when Rocco or other restaurant workers have been there too. Rocco doesn’t know Sam has been looking at the girl’s digits with longing or that he harboured anything other than a desire for her Quattro Formaggio or Deep Crust with extra pepperoni. Sam hasn’t told his brother he is madly in love with this girl because in the Italian restaurant trade, says George, equilibrium is all. Upset the balance and, well, it is God’s own work to get it back again.
After three weeks of looking at Gallea with his sorrowful eyes, Sam told her he had something to say.
She walked with him to the small area out back where the staff have coffee before kicking off for the day and while the fridge rattled and huffed and plates clattered in the restaurant out front and cars went by out back, he asked her to marry him. As she looked at him with large eyes he fumbled on and said he knew she wanted a residency permit to stay in Australia and he, Sam, liked her so much he wanted to help her stay on this country, only don’t tell Rocco I’m asking you to marry me because it would upset the equilibirium in the kitchen, to which she frowned because equilibrium is a hard word for someone from a small village in northern Romania to understand and even harder for Sam to explain, well, in a restaurant context.
There must have been a silence then, except from the fridge, the workers out front with the crockery and the cars flashing by out back, and she whispered, but what if I don’t love you? And Sam, according to George, delivered the final point of this particular sales technique – only 50 percent of marriages survive, so ours may not, but if it doesn’t at least you’ll have your residency certificate.
She told him she’d get back to him.
I imagine the romance of the situation could be getting to her.