Senators Bishop (left) and Pyne (right) testing the new ‘Ideas Boom” thought wave transference suit on the new P.M Malcolm Abbott, prior to the annual parliamentary ball only to discover that the wearer is bereft of imagination. (costumes on this occasion generously lent by the  Minister for Innovation from his personal collection)

Just what the doctor ordered. A reprieve from an over-long election campaign, (it’s been almost a week now!!) and the entropy that comes with “continuity and change’. If only the P.M, Malcolm Abbott had imagination like our dream-reader Beau Dunlap. The world might be a very different place. So forget about the near certain death of the worlds largest living organism, (the great barrier reef) in record time, and know that coal is good for humanity. Forget about ‘Artful Arty’ and his secret donor slush fund. And forget about the fact that you, the average citizen have no say in what really happens in this country. Participative democracy was all just a dream. The footy season is back on. Relax, and go with the flow. And what better way to flow than tune in to Beau and his afterlife. What did the shareholders say when the P.M flogged off another public institution to the big end of town? ‘OOOhhhh I feell better  now’!!

I dreamt I had to be really on my game in bed with a genuine, down to earth, beautiful movie actress. She had progressed way beyond The Next Best Thing stage, was famous, and was ready for a change of career. To become a real artist – a painter or a singer. She had asked me to play guitar for her. I wanted to, but her singing voice was not good – off key and wavery. She wanted me to hear some of her songs before we would make love for the first time. She was shaking my arm and telling me to get moving: “Quick, Davo, quick, I’ve got this new song and I want you to hear it”. When she started it, it was the same one you’d hear on any Who’s Got Talent quest, only slower and with an even more uncertain tune. I said: “That’s great!” and started stroking her shoulder, then her neck and gorgeous hair. “No”, she said, “get your guitar”.


 In this dream, I agreed to house sit for a woman who advertised her house as having ‘a couple of pets’. When I finally arrived at her house, after an 8 hour drive, it turned out to be six cats, two large dogs, three rabbits, a duck and a designer python. Her house was a couple of caravans up on blocks. The whole thing looked a mess. I apologized and said I couldn’t do it, and got back in my car and drove home. This time the journey took just about the whole day. I guess I was mildly relieved.

I woke from a dream and couldn’t remember what it was about – it was messy and confused and was one of those dreams that made no sense and you want to forget immediately. I kept seeing the face of one of my nephews. I had not seen him for years, now he was tall with a wispy beard and dreadlocks. Suddenly I remembered that the dream was about a court case he had brought against a Federal politician, Bronwyn Bishop. He had accused Ms Bishop of sexual harassment, while he was an ‘intern’ doing work experience in her electoral office. The case was his word against hers and she and her legal team scorned him and laughed it off in the media and it never made it to court. He was interviewed by a notorious tabloid crock, who demanded he tell what she had made him do with her. He stuck to his story but declined any salacious detail. Not good enough for the shock jock. Next thing, Ms Bishop took a rare doorstop going into Parliament and said: “It’s all a bit ridiculous and a little sad really. Just a delusional boy trying to inject some pantomime into Parliament, isn’t it?” and she laughed in the way a cattle dog laughs, and the journos joined in.

I dreamt I was in a seminary with a lot of older men, retirees mostly, who had decided to try for the priesthood, and one time Prime Minister Tony Abbott was my room-mate. “Look, David,” he said, extending his hands above his head in the shadows: “They’re not trembling! They’re not trembling!” After a while, he added in a calm voice: “But they’ll tremble when they are clasped around your throat, you bastard!” His face looked like a pig’s head in a butcher’s shop. He was laughing, but his eyes were burning as he was speaking. “You’ll never get to be a priest playing Don Quixote,” I said, thinking it was the right time for me to leave the seminary.