PUZZLE ZONE
ACROSS 1. In similar fashion 5. Bee nest 7. India/China continent 8. Sprang (from) 9. Barons & dukes 12. Blind alley (4,3) 15. Non-intellectual 19. Legendary
21. Sang alpine-style 22. Canada’s ... Scotia 23. Social misfit 24. Monday to Friday
DOWN 1. Ascertains 2. Electronic message 3. Objects 4. Pass (of time) 5. Stacked 6. Curled (of smoke) 10. Make (beer) 11. On any occasion
12. Droplets on lawn 13. Zone 14. Tea, ... Grey 15. Tripoli native 16. Slay by guillotine 17. Criminal 18. High standards 19. Soft confection 20. Filleted
Puzzles supplied by Lovatts Publications Pty Ltd www.lovattspuzzles.com See page 31 for solutions.
THE MEANING OF EXISTENCE... AND OTHER SHORT STORIES
Patrick: Tinder’s oldest hairy-nosed wombat By Stuart McCullough LOVE. According to Frank Sinatra (and he should know), it’s a many splendoured thing. It can be simple and it can be complicated. It’s both all you need and changes everything. It is, quite frankly, a big deal. Once upon a time, finding that special someone relied on the ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ model of courtship. As noted in the musical ‘South Pacific’, this involved clapping eyes on a complete stranger across a crowded room and knowing in an instant that this was the person with whom you would spend, if not the rest of your life, then the rest of the musical with. But life is too seldom like a Rogers and Hammerstein musical. Spotting someone across a crowded room at the Dava on the Friday night as Andrew Hosking and Coupe De Ville gently serenaded you with a rendition of ‘Am I Ever Going to See Your Face Again?’ was always easier in theory than in practice. Noticing someone staring at you from the other side of a room was never really grounds for falling in love so much as it was for getting an intervention order. Now if things weren’t complicated enough, the whole endeavor has gone digital. South Pacific would have been a much shorter musical if Tinder had been available. For those who don’t know, Tinder is an application that enables mutually interested people to get in contact with each other. Put another way, it’s a dating app. Granted, it’s probably more efficient to find people through your mobile phone rather than to rely on fate to throw you together whilst stationed on a remote
island during World War Two, but it’s also far less entertaining. I very much doubt that had they been dependant on Tinder that Nellie Forbrush would ever have swiped her approval of middle-aged plantation owner Emile de Becque. Besides, Emile had a bunch of children which, in on-line dating
terms, is considered serious baggage. I doubt the ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ model of courtship would work for Patrick the Hairy-Nosed Wombat. It’s hard to spot your true love across a crowded room when you’re only two feet tall. All you’d see is kneecaps. Perhaps it’s for that reason Patrick
has turned to Tinder for help. Granted, signing a marsupial up to a dating application sounds a little far fetched. Presumably his handlers thought the idea of an Ashley Madison profile was ridiculous. There’s an obvious problem, though. The way Tinder works is that you ‘swipe’ to the right to indicate that you like someone’s profile. That’s not easy when you’re a quadruped. Given that you have to be holding a mobile phone when said swiping occurs, it’s downright impossible if you are without opposable thumbs. Frankly, it’s kind of cruel to subject poor Patrick to the travails of Tinder. He’s practically defenceless. But this is not his first foray into the world of modern technology. Patrick also has a Facebook page and tens of thousands of followers. This is both quietly impressive and faintly depressing. His page describes him as a ‘public figure’. Not content with a Facebook page, he has a website too from which you can purchase all manner of Patrick paraphernalia – caps, t-shirts, mugs and fridge magnets. Sadly, unlike Britney and Beyonce, Patrick does not have a personalized cologne to offer. There used to be a band called ‘Combat Wombat’, but it may be unrelated. Pity. As for the reasons for getting onto Tinder, turns out it was prompted by a birthday. And not just any birthday either, but the big ‘30’. Turning thirty has seen him turn his thoughts to settling down and building a little burrow for two. But while thirty is still pretty young generally speaking, it’s really getting on if you’re a hairy
nosed wombat. Apparently, they have a life expectancy of up to twenty years in captivity and even less in the wild. In fact, his Facebook page describes him as the oldest living wombat in the world. This changes everything. I’m not sure it’s appropriate to cast a geriatric wombat into the world of on-line dating. It’s too easy to see how things could go wrong for everyone. Potential dates won’t just be swiping to ‘like’ any old wombat but the Methuselah of the marsupial world. They’ll want to go out dancing, and he’ll be keen to go home and watch ‘A Touch of Frost’ before a warm milk and an early night. I am seriously concerned that the whole thing’s doomed to fail. None of this would be happening if ‘Perfect Match’ was still on air. Dexter the Robot would have the whole thing sorted in seconds. These days, all we have is ‘The Bachelor’. Frankly, replacing the eponymous bachelor with a hairy nosed wombat of advanced years would be a substantial improvement. Forget handing out a rose at some contrived ceremony filmed through a Vaseline-smeared lens. I long for a television experience in which millions of people tune in to see single ladies in ball gowns express their disappointment that the bachelor, instead of handing out roses has, in fact, eaten them. Dressed in a tux, Patrick would waddle through the crowded room before stopping in front of his preferred contestant and breaking into a version of ‘Some Enchanted Evening’. That’s what I call romantic. stuart@stuartmccullough.com
Frankston Times 14 September 2015
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