I'm in Melbourne for the nationals this week where - thank you god! - our apartment has ADSL. Strongly suspicious that we may have been the only West Australians taking that flight for reasons that had nothing to do with football - getting through the airport was something like a giant game of 'spot the eagles supporters'. The flight itself was pleasantly uneventful, though airport security did make a point of informing Dad he couldn't take his rollerskates on with our cabin baggage.

Yes, apparently, rollerskates now pose a serious security threat. Who knew?

Even better, *my* skate bag was waved through without a second glance. As the only real difference between the two pairs is the colour - mine are white, Dad's are black - there's only one possible conclusion here: even our skates are no longer safe from racial vilification. One can only imagine the trouble we'd have gotten into had our skates been wearing Muslim head scarves.

Anyway, we did at last make it on to that plane, safe in our assurance that there would be no rollerskating terrorists on *our* flight. Except, y'know, possibly me, if the captain found too many more excuses to make football related announcements over the PA system.

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One week left until the end of the next quarter of the Writers of the Future competition - fortunately my entry is at the final revisions stage. I know I've already sent it to a couple of you for feedback, but if anyone else would like to volunteer to have a look through this monster (16750 words - second longest thing I've written ever) and let me know what needs fixing, please do let me know.