/ n 1. mythological creature comprised of a lion's head, goat's body and serpent's tail; 2. this chick:
/ v If 'debauch' means 'to corrupt', from the French 'desbaucher' ('to shape timber roughly'), from the German 'bauch', or 'beam', then the English 'bauch' ought to be 'the insertion of a rod for the purposes of moral rectitude'.
1. Invite Mercedes Corby round for a shindig. She'll be in a party mood, having won her defamation suit against Channel 7, and you can probably count on her bringing some cucumber sandwiches, perhaps a pack of Camels.
2. She might also bring a party hat from her line of couture headwear (the Corbette designs kiddy clothes for a living - best keep a close eye on any models she might employ, Hetty Johnston).
Ah the French. With their passions for short leaders, shortcrust pastry and, so it would seem, short memories. A new book is raising ire over the raised spires during the Nazi Occupation of France.
Hetty, herself (now) a victim of naked depictions - but aren't we all victims of this obscenity? - wants art to be classified, villified, and finally ossified. "Enough's enough."
1, 2 & 3. This.....................
So it seems Tania Zaetta took one for the team. Pictured here (on left) with Danny Devito, the boxercise personality was accused this week of gettin jiggers with some diggers in Afghanistan.
"The only stuffed toys I muffled were native animals," she didn't say.Describing the allegations as "ridiculous" and "vicious", Ms Zaetta would prefer the Australian public continue to esteem her as the wanton cocktease we hardly knew...
Ever since posting a picture of Victoria "Mantis" Beckham a little too soon before bedtime, your work-bereft absurdist has been having nightmares of a pointy, hair-hat variety.
What You Think of the New Weapons [Tasers]...as in a last meal?
Paul Wilson: "A guy recently died in Canada from being shot with a Taser, so as long as there are protocols."
Chelsea Glover: "I think they're fine... It takes hours to recover from pepper spray, though it's true I'm unsure of the actual physical effects of Taser guns."Another authority. Gotta love this sample.
Nadia Parama: "They could be very dangerous. I would prefer guns, as they are more helpful."Truly a well-reasoned perspective. Can someone give this girl a column?
.
In what's thought to be a world first, a British man has listed his wife on Ebay. When Paul Osborn discovered that his dearly beloved, Sharon, was having an affair, he flew into rage, threw her out of the house, and then attempted to auction her off.
Okay, so it's not real news, like "Earthquake smothers Tibet rally" and such and such, but apparently Victoria Beckham curtseyed to Julia Roberts.
/ pref a lovely and, in OOWA's humble opinion, underused prefix, 'entero-' means 'of the intestines', and belongs to such delightful words as 'enteron' (intestine), 'enteritis' (inflammation thereof) and 'enterostomy' (artificial anus), but not 'enter on horseback' (mounted access only, often difficult after an enterostomy). [G enteron]
Dewberry / 
+ wallowing Southern drawl / It has been suggested to OOWA that Dewberry, of Hell's Kitchen fame, would make a dashing sequel to the nominal delights of Frangag et al.
Despite the crest's being markedly bereft of Jeff's candy-pickin' glamour, it does seem to verify his claim to a banal first name.
Imagine a boot stamping on a human face: that of the fat boy (right), of the hardened-eye-candy, or of the Billy-Idol-wannabe. This year's Big Brother audience would have a hard time choosing - if only it were watching.
/ [The word is named after inventor Dr Charles Condom, the "father of prophylaxis" (1630 - 1685), who either didn't anticipate the coming success of his pigskin sheaths, or had little respect for the good name of the Condom clan.]
but will keep you posted.
Reports emerged this week that Troy Buswell here sniffed the seat on which an unidentified woman had been sitting, in his Parliament House office in December 2005. Oh yes - Troy's the Opposition Leader in Western Australia (although we shouldn't be too glib with the present tense).
/ n Have you ever wondered whether Word-of-the-Day Compilers read other Word-of-the-Day’s? It’s like asking whether weather-reporters go home and watch weather-reports, or whether mama-birds sticky-beak on other birds chewing food and vomiting it up again. (I suspect that Tim Bailey, of Channel Ten News fame, 
watches weather reports constantly: all Channel Ten, a showreel of dwarfish meteorology. I also suspect he chews and then vomits up his food while watching his reel in an effort to remain leathery and stunted.)
/ adj well, you really don't need to know the meaning of this one - it's been my favourite word for several months, and the only kind of sentences in which it's figured have been of the 'My word of the day is...' variety, with the odd 'Isn't that idea just a tad chthonian?' thrown in. [G]
/ n as distinct from Anzac crumpet (the sheilas who comforted our noble diggers), Anzac Biscuits are a bland affair, providing little sustenance and less comfort. [The more perceptive of you will have noticed that 'Anzac Biscuit' is in fact two words of the day; the more pedantic are no doubt firing off emails of peevish delight.]
Ah, John and Jenny Deaves. Daddy and daughter; worshippers at the bed of Electra (pictured here with their daughter/granddaughter/halfsister, Celeste).
/ n the art of imperfection. [J: WABI (rustic, lonely) + SABI (growing old gracefully); only a peoples as methodical as the Japanese could make an aesthetic out of their mistakes--it really covers all your bases. There's a nice thatched tea-house on Wikipedia showcasing the wabisabi look, but I think it's nicer still to have to imagine it, rather than to follow a link and be disappointed because it's not made out of slightly overcooked soba noodles.
Wabisabi is also linked to haiku, and would like to formally distance itself from my picture, left, which I've entitled:
/ n bah, you know what it means. [I like to think the word was spawned by a succession of Toms notable for their lapsed acumen. I know one such Tom, and if there were a Foolery next to a Buttery and a Carvery, he'd be plum in a pot of vealstock, tossing garlic heads out of the tepid broth as fast as a bellycheeked chef could throw them back in.]
But the absurdist in me is out of work. He emerges from time to time, perhaps to help arrange and rearrange our mounting credit debt, like an ikebana display of gnarled grey sticks topped with a blossom of low interest not long for this world. He would no doubt love more permanent work, say, judging wines, pie-eating or people.
Black rock glimmered crimson in the flicker of scattered fires, yellow sulphur billowings fissured with an acid hiss, and a trickle of belching lava ran slurping and gurgling between the crags of hell. Off in the distance, the bile pit gleamed with greenish sickness, lending a fetid luminescence to the infernal cave. A gambolling playground of tortures was pockmarked by brown, brackish pools all burbling with cess and filth, and the humid stench of pestilence hung heavy over the leprous, digit-littered midst.
There, in the field of scabs, two former cosmetics executives were jellywrestling in a glutinous solution of agent orange, while neutered pornographers drowned ceaselessly in sour breast-meat. Sodomites were beset by unending rectal haemorrhages, and oversmug christians choked on their own satisfaction.
A carnal whirl of storm-tossed bodies beset fondlers, fingerers and the odd malingerer, and not far off in the seethe of the peat-bog, whispering obscenities tormented grub-tongued slanderers as they bricked themselves in to airless wormholes, thankful for walled mercies. Circling among them, an indeterminate multitude were being prodded sporadically with pitchforks, while high above, two furied poets climbed brazenly for the Gates, straining in vain against the living weights of irony and self-righteousness.
Just across from the meadow of endless itches, hiccoughs and erections, a desperate many queued outside hell’s kitchenette, awaiting both lashings of hot lime-and-bitters, and the bitter lashings with hot limes that inevitably followed. They clamoured with anticipation, thirsty and unthrashed, to no avail. After what seemed like thirty or forty purgatories, an ungodly quiet befell the once-teeming corridors.
Then, suddenly, an horrific cheering bit into the air, etching its din into the pit: a bleating cacophony of cloven-hoofed stoats, the bray of two-headed harpies, the sloughing rasp of goblin swarms. Hording around a grim arena, they were inflamed now, the bedevilled crowds—especially the demonspawn, dribbling muck down their pitted cheeks, frothing from every orifice. They stamped, screeched, gnawed on their tongues and clawed their wasted faces in the sweaty grip of exhilaration.
In the stand opposite – though it was less an amphitheatre than a befouled, rocky outcrop – a small cluster of saints and angels mustered in the stricken heat, with the occasional, fatted cherub flitting overhead. Their beatific faces were struck with rapt fascination, hanging on every move, their haloes aglow with pious excitement. Rosaries jangled, dandling between tense, miraculous hands; ablutions of holy-water doused the flush and tumult of supernal nerves; and a soft-hued humility barely repressed the quiverings of blessed viscera.
And in the thick of it, surrounded by pus-flecked eyes and kind, saintly smiles, by greasy pores and the chastity of sacred flesh, by palsied legs and noble, martyred brows, amid all this commotion the combat was at its best—there, on a modest rostrum, raged the Deities.
For years – indeed, since a little before the beginning of time – the contest had blazed: the primal battle between good and evil, Heaven and Hades, between God himself and hell’s own Lucifer. In immortal circles, it was better known as the Biennial Divine Armwrestle.
The wrestle was the highlight of the celestial calendar, and drew saints, satyrs, seraphim and fiends, demiurges and earthmothers alike. This year there was even an incubus, who during half-time had regaled the local coven with seedy aspersions against the Immaculate Conception.
The event had begun some weeks ago, following a lengthy preseason of taunts and warm-ups. Talk of a ‘friendly’ had fluttered through the halls, hallowed and hellish, but naturally had come to nothing. (The Antichrist felt there was already a glut of idle speculation among his minions, and as he remarked to the smithies, “the probes won’t insert themselves.” All in all, it was better to get straight to the crunch—especially as the underworld was hosting this year, and he wanted the volcano brimful of scientologists before the visitors’ arrival.)
After a sensational start, as God attempted a classic ‘five second smiting’ while his surprised opponent hung on by a razor-fingernail, the two competitors had knuckled down, with the armwrestle teetering mostly to Satan’s advantage, but hard-fought all the way. At one point, when the Prince of Darkness was but inches from vanquishing his messianic foe, God had managed to distract him momentarily with a burning bush, and garnered some leverage. Days later, a diabolical Granny Smith almost tempted the Holy Father into a premature capitulation, but he wasn’t going to fall for that ploy two millennia running.
The loathsome hosts hissed and squealed with every wavering of the almighty biceps, feasting all the while on rank platters of haggis, blood-sausage and spotted dick. The perennially ascetic saints looked on with undisguised repugnance, and spurned each proffering of netherworldly refreshments.
As the thousandth hour ticked past, Lucifer’s glacier eyes bored across his adversary, and a wry smile tweaked his wrought features: the old man looked tired beneath the brilliant robes, his vast musculature lacking the vigour of revelations past. Satan inched his lead a little further, leaning over at a perilous forty-five degrees—but then a sudden upward thrust from God almost levelled them and a sonorous stream resounded from the angel choir, enraptured with the gain, layered melodious and ringing through the spitfire pit.
The wizened face met the Devil’s gaze with a stunning compassion, piercing into the latter’s soulless core with unhesitating warmth, an aeonian embrace, a tidal yet tender affection. Satan parried with a lone raised eyebrow, casting all the vicious cynicism of history back upon this font of benevolence.
“You may win this battle, Nick,” God intoned, in a rich basso somehow free of the strain of galaxies discharging through his arm. “But you can’t fight Love.”
“Fight it?” Lucifer rejoined with the flash of wit, “why my good man, Love is my willing puppet.”
The Heavenly Father smiled indulgently, then heaved the clotted weight of mortal sin up a notch to the hymnal jubilance of his flock. The demon throngs slavered up cankered gobs of blackest rot, awrithe in their anxiety amid the curdling spawn.
It seemed as if
“Surely,” Lucifer sundered, “in your infinite wisdom, you foresaw Love’s debauch?”
“Perhaps, but in my infinite charity I forgive myself the lapse,” God replied, “along with Man’s.” And with the colossal strength of omnipotence, he wrenched them level.
Lighted grace duelled the swagger of night … brimstone rocked and the earth quaked … and Satan bore back down on God’s right hand as the gruesome Medusa slapped and scoured her scaly thighs in furious delight.
After innumerable biennial armwrestles, the Dark Lord was ahead by only thirty-six; but from the look of things he was set to claim another win to the wracked clamours of his underlings. Thankfully, only a small contingent of angels had flown down to the Inferno to watch the match this year, as the Apocalyptic arm had been somewhat out of form these last few decades, and moreover the match had clashed with a Friends marathon.
Of course, there was a time when the triumphant din of hymns stopped up the ears of every demon in hell when the Man Upstairs was regularly winning his away games. During an antediluvian winning streak, some of the more fiendish organisers had even suggested a thumb-war to break the infernal drought. But the dull spectacle of jousting digits was poorly received, and they shortly reverted to the armwrestles that had been putting bums on seats for the last eternity and just might for the next two or three to come.
This year, however, it was only a few of the newer and more enthusiastic saints who had journeyed down from the plush heights of paradise, along with a coterie of lesser angels. (Saint Anthony hadn’t been the least bit tempted, while Gabriel was in a tizz about the recent dearth of Annunciations, and had offered only terse encouragement from a nebulous couch.)
But the newbies were giving it everything, Teresa foremost among them. The palimpsest of wrinkles that hung about her face rustled with zeal as she shrilled forth war-cries and pummelled the air with lilliput fists. Next to her, a doddery ex-pope made a mental note to move a few rows back during the next divine breather, his devotional avidity having waned since the days of the Inquisition; and from his box-seat below, Noah wandered off for a spot of limbo with Socrates, his ears still ringing.
Ironically, it was precisely when dear little Mother Teresa blasted out an aria that Satan’s arm crashed down upon the empyrean hand, smashing it into the craven table with the clangour of damnation—a flash of black lightning—and a crack that shuddered the globe. A babel rumpus erupted; Cerberus unleashed a herculean stream of barks and snarling, the Minotaur’s phlegm-thickened bellows convulsed the very air, and the scrawl of voices from venal legions thundered across the pit of hell. The damned masses howled for the headsplitting noise, and all but the legless lumbered forlornly to the mohel-slicks, to jam up their eardrums with spent ringlets of flesh.
Ecstatic goblins were jigging, gimlets whizzing in the air; the harpies hacked and cackled with a beady rasp; the spawn festered with pulsing glee. And a six-eyed slug oozing mustard and pus fell off its rocky perch into a slurp of lava, hissing and spitting a noxious steam of moribund ecstasy.
The Archfiend simply leaned back – eyes agleam, a curl upon his lips – and smoothed his pinstriped waistcoat. He’d been shocked by God’s lack of form, and had drawn out the armwrestle for a few weeks simply to entertain the hordes, as well as spare the divine pride. But in reality, he’d hardly broken a sweat. God bowed his congratulations, noble to the last.
“You’re looking old, Jehovah. I have a large contingent of cosmetic surgeons down here; I’m sure we could arrange something for you.”
“Don’t get too cocky, or I’ll make Mormonism the eighth deadly sin.” Satan grimaced, inwardly, at the thought of shortsleeved doorknockers proselytising the streets of hell. The Rock of Ages continued: “Besides, there’s always next time, old friend.”
“Quite.” But they both knew it would take more than just another a miracle to resurrect God’s wrestling prowess sometime this century. Omniscience could be such a burden.
“Well, I’d best be off. See you at Saint Peter’s birthday do, I suppose.”
Lucifer winked in confirmation, and watched as his rival heaved from the great stone table, stretching heavily with his robes weary around him. They each made a slight nod of acknowledgement, as deities are wont to do, before God ascended off with his heavenly entourage.
Veritably, it was a strange old game, Satan mused. He sometimes wondered how it had all begun. A schoolyard tiff? A row over a goddess? Satan couldn’t remember for the life of him. He rather suspected that God had forgotten also.
Nevertheless, he would certainly enjoy the spoils of the armwrestle – having already sketched out two years of suffering and corruptions – even though he would’ve preferred more of a contest. The Prince of Darkness rapped his nails with satisfaction and decided on some milk-poached vegans to celebrate the occasion. Or perhaps he could serve up that awful Dr Atkins with some mashed potatoes? At least there was enough of him to go round the demon multitudes hungering in the bedlam of hell.
And so the Dark Lord sauntered off to indulge in the exaltation of his minions, strutting between underlings with eyes atwinkle, the glimmer of sin in his stride.
…
