What I cooked last night.

Of course, it was an extraordinary coincidence that I had been a witness to both the Coles' home brand launch in Tooronga and to the northern suburbs store manager's acid comment about the brand on the other side of town. O (the literary 'O') yes! It was a long way from Tooronga to Pascoe Vale; so far distant that never had it been heard that any person from that hilltop eyrie looking imperiously across Gardiner's Creek (and no less a freeway than the Monash) had ever come to visit, or even pass through, that flat square of a suburb stretching itself taut from Hadfield's cream-brick nightmare in the north to hippy North Brunswick in the south, and North Coburg in the east before dropping off a western cliff at Gaffney Street into the muck of Moonee Ponds Creek and the murk of that other freeway, the Tullamarine; which is not to say it hadn't happened – but who, and when, and where, and why – was as lost in the unrecorded minutiae of life in a city of five

ABOUT A DECADE AGO. IN THE BOARDROOM OF A MAJOR NATIONAL SUPERMARKET CHAIN, TWENTY MARKETING PEOPLE (AND ME AS A FREELANCE WRITER ON AN IN-HOUSE VISIT) ARE SITTING AROUND A MASSIVE TABLE. THE CHIEF MARKETING EXECUTIVE HAD BRIEFED THE COMPANY'S ADVERTISING AGENCY TO COME UP WITH A NEW NAME FOR ITS HOUSE BRAND LINE OF GROCERIES AND WAS MIFFED WHEN THE AGENCY FAILED TO PRODUCE AN EXTENSIVE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION, PRESENTING ITS NAMING IDEAS ON TRADITIONAL PHYSICAL BOARDS INSTEAD. THE SUPERMARKET CHAIN, IN A FIT OF PIQUE, HAS DECIDED TO SPURN ITS AGENCY AND PRODUCE THE IN-HOUSE BRAND ITSELF. SMILING MARKETING PERSON NAMED PAMELA (FIFTIES, BOBBED FAKE-BLONDE HAIRCUT, RED LIPSTICK, EARRINGS TO MATCH, CHAIN OF CHUNKY RED STONES, SLEEVELESS WHITE LINEN DRESS, RED HEELS): Thanks, everyone. I'm glad you could all make it this morning. It's an important day in the annals of supermarket retailing in this country. And an important day in the history of great brands, because today we

IT WAS EVENING AFTER A LONG DAY'S SHOOT IN THE HILLS BEHIND THE LAKESIDE CITY OF SAN CARLOS BARILOCHE, CIRCA 1992. THE LAST RAYS OF THE SUN HAD TURNED THE RED TERRACOTTA ROOF TO BURNING ORANGE AND THE WHITE WALLS TO GOLD. BEYOND THE HOUSE, SOME EUCALYPTS WERE SWAYING GENTLY IN THE WARM EVENING BREEZE AND THEIR BARE, LITHE GOLDEN LIMBS WERE AS SENSUOUS AS ANY FEMALE'S. WELL NOT QUITE, BUT ALMOST. YES, EUCALYPTS. I WAS TOYING WITH A DRINK AND LUSTING AFTER THE DELICIOUS AROMA OF PRIME ARGENTINIAN BEEF ROASTING ON THE BARBECUE. SOME KIND OF BOSSA NOVA MUSIC DRIFTED OUT OF THE HOUSE AND CAME ON THE WARM BREEZE, LIKE SAND BEING SHAKEN IN A GLASS BOTTLE. SHE WAS SITTING ON THE CHAIR OPPOSITE. HER EYES WERE PROBABLY DARK BROWN, BUT THEY FLASHED BLACK AND SOMETHING ELSE. MAYBE LIGHTNING. HER HAIR WAS SO BLACK IT SHONE ALMOST BLUE IN THE DARKENING SHADOWS. SHE WAS WEARING A SIMPLE SLEEVELESS COTTON DRESS, A RED FLORAL PRINT OVER CREAM. HER SKIN WAS SEVERAL SHADES DEEPER THAN THE CRE

Then, that book again; the one by the sun-drenched pool in Deniliquin that made time stand still , even as the sky became a blue bruise and twenty cent coin raindrops fell flat on the ground. A Jimmy Webb song cannot be explained. You either get it or you don't. The Temptations (according to the story) knocked back 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix' because it didn't have a chorus. You may as well knock back a Mozart clarinet concerto because it doesn't have a flute. When Glen Campbell got to 1975 and sang 'Rhinestone Cowboy' I wondered whether Campbell had changed, or it was just that I had grown up. He'd moved on from Jimmy Webb songs. There was air around the earlier lyrics that just wasn't there any more. Someone once described 'Witchita Lineman' as the first existential country song. No-one has ever properly defined 'existentialim' beyond a kind of 'shut-up and enjoy the scenery' kind of non-philosophical theory espoused