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I wake to the radio blaring that today is sacred, Grand Final Day, as though the universe itself bleeds red-white-and-blue. I’d planned to spend the morning in bed with a joint and the cat, but, no, it’s our turn to host the annual footy circus. So, I drag myself downstairs, already hung-under from last night’s pinot, and find my husband, let’s call him “Mister Enthusiasm”, cranking the barbecue like he’s auditioning for MasterChef: Bogan Edition. Outside, the wind howls down the street, south-westerly, ice-tip, perfect for funerals, and flips the neighbour’s gnome flat on its smug face. I smile; one less thing standing upright today. The Guests They arrive exactly thirty minutes before bounce-down, clutching supermarket beer and tribal scarves. Hawks, Dees, Tigers, a lone, tragic Saint. Twelve of them if you count the better halves—though after three sauv blancs most will prove far worse. They clog my lounge like cholesterol, yammering about West Coast versus Collingwood as if it were Armageddon. I hover near the antique table (Gran’s pride; my dust-trap) laying out fruit and “appetisers”, code for anything I can tip out of a packet before the edibles kick in. I’d rather be anywhere else, preferably 1994, back when I still liked my husband, footy, and the idea of hosting a party. The Corporate Chorus The telly shows the MCG corporate boxes: suits neck-deep in cocktails, betting thousands they’ll never miss. One bloke whinges that Melbourne’s exit ruined his ski weekend. My eyes roll so hard I see last Tuesday. Skiers grieving the Demons.....spare me. Dave Bloody Marshall Enter Dave Marshall, Collingwood scarf strangling his neck, brand-new six-pack in one fist, ego in the other. Dave and I have been scratching each other’s itches lately, more out of boredom than lust, maintenance shag, nothing artisanal. Everyone knows except Mister Enthusiasm, who plays oblivious like it’s his super-power. Dave beelines to the kitchen and scoffs a brownie fresh off the cooling rack. I’d baked them for the puppy’s obedience class, chicken livers, wholemeal flour, no sugar, so naturally Dave proclaims them “five-star”. He grabs another before I can warn him he’s essentially eating Labrador cuisine. I sidle up to Mister E., glass in hand. “Your mate’s into the dog biscuits,” I mutter. He stares, baffled. “Dog food?” “Technically ‘dog treats’. High in protein, low in self-respect.” “What’s the worst that could happen?” he asks, proving once again he lacks basic imagination. Kick-Off Bounce-down. The living room erupts: shrieks, slaps, spilt Shiraz. I retreat to the back deck, light up, and watch the barbecue smoke coil into the grey sky, tiny freedom spirals. Inside, Mister E. is reciting useless stats while his mates grunt in agreement, the linguistic equivalent of belly-scratching. Footy: men paid a fortune to chase a demented egg while grown adults tie their identities to the result. Spare me twice. The Dog Biscuit Aftermath Ten minutes in, Dave rises, not for a goal celebration but to wander glassy-eyed into the garden. He unzips and christens my new tomato seedlings with Carlton Draught-flavoured urine, then flops face-down on the grass and commences snoring like a chainsaw in therapy. His legs twitch, chasing imaginary sticks. “Should we check on him?” Mister E. asks. I sip. “He’s lived through worse, he married once.” A Hawthorn supporter yells about holding the ball; I yell inside my head about holding my sanity. Final Siren Two hours later West Coast wins. Collingwood tears flow on screen; in my garden Dave is still horizontal, mumbling, “Another brownie… another brownie.” The party dribbles away, leaving half-empty glasses and my half-empty marriage. I nudge Dave with my boot. Nothing. Fine, let the night air do the nursing. At least the tomatoes got watered, though I doubt they ordered a lager chaser. I close the sliding door, twist the lock, and pour myself the day’s final pinot. Somewhere upstairs my husband hums the Eagles’ theme song, convinced the afternoon was a roaring success. I exhale smoke through the fly-screen and consider texting Dave a breakup essay, not that he’d read it. We’re all chasing sticks out here; some of us are just honest enough to admit the fetch isn’t fun anymore. &nbsp;Marty Shevelove Fan Fiction by FSF

Grand Final Day..... as June saw it.

What’s the cruelest whisper?Strive for perfect. It hums from billboards,flickers in screens,coats idle chatterwith a sterile gleam. Yet every star worth chasingignites in chaos,swirling dust,untamed gravity,no blueprint in the blaze. We hunt better,steps tracked, flaws mapped,a race toward a vanishing line. A deaf child clasped a piano,teaching silence to sing. A girl, stitched by steel,dragged her fractured spineacross canvas, history paused. A scientist, stilled,blinked at a cursor;it wove black-hole hymns. A singer, scarred,let cracks carve the song. None perfect,all fiercelymagnificent. So shed the polished lies,the chase for flawless shine. Wear your scars like emblems,freckles like galaxies,mistakes like hidden keys. Be magnificent,not perfect. You nod,reach for a rulerto align the words. Chaos hums.A star is born. FSF

Magnificent

wake to my phone, not buzzing, but meditating, email spinning its little zen wheel. downstairs, in pyjamas, clutching a dumb Oura ring, I find my daughters staring into blank glass. “Daddy,” says the eldest, “Instagram’s dead. how will I post my smoothie art?” I suggest toast, maybe conversation. they blink, like I proposed exile to a cave without sockets. by nine, the whole street has surrendered. no "can you hear me?" calls, just neighbours waving phones at clouds, conducting a techno seance. over the hedge, Mrs Johnson, barefoot in the dew, screams at her router: "Get me Elon Musk!" at work, the CIO pounds the conference door. email is dead. servers hum in mockery. "It’s global," I say, guessing wildly. the first fallacy of apocalypse: hasty generalisation. lunch: the newsreader asks how we will survive. suggests books, letters, pigeons. dinner: toasted cheese, guilt. tears: a half-drawn owl lost in the wires. “paper,” I whisper, "there’s always paper." night: kids with footballs, neighbours trading gossip like rare coins. tucking them in, I see: the strongest networks have no passwords. lying awake, the ceiling breathing above me, I wonder— will the signal ever return? or have we, at last, come home? FSF

Wi-Fi Wake

It all started, as these things often do, with a joke.I was CTO of a financial firm with all the warmth and ethics of a crypto Ponzi scheme wrapped in a navy-blue tie. Travel was part of the gig. Not glamorous travel, no business class champagne or crisp white sheets, just airport lounges that smelt of beige, and hotels that forgot what city they were in.We had a handful of general admin staff, ruthless time-warriors in cardigans, who booked our travel. You emailed them your needs and, without further interaction or acknowledgement of your humanity, you'd find yourself on a flight manifest.One Tuesday afternoon, sleep-deprived and high on sarcasm, I sent them a request:“Please book me on the first flight to Melbourne tomorrow. Any airline. Book it under FS Forbes (the F is for Fantastic). Cheers, Sam.”And that was it. The email equivalent of a raised eyebrow and a smirk to myself. I printed the confirmation when it came through, folded it neatly into my jacket pocket, and thought no more of it.Next morning. Pre-dawn. Brisbane Airport, haunted by blinking machines and half-awake travellers. I strode up to the Qantas counter, presented my ID, and declared:“Ticket to Melbourne. FS Forbes, or Francis Samuel Forbes.”The attendant tapped. Frowned. Tapped again. A pause.“Sorry, sir. There’s no ticket under that name.”I leaned in. Explained. Mentioned the admin team. Offered a winning smile.She frowned again, less apologetically this time. I handed her the printout from the admin, confident it would resolve things.She read it. Blinked. Then tilted her head with a weary sigh.“Sir... the ticket is under Fantastic Forbes. That’s what the booking says.”She showed me the screen. There it was. Like something from a dream you try to forget: FANTASTIC FORBES – MELBOURNE – 05:30I laughed. She didn’t.“Unfortunately,” she said, slipping into that firm, airport-legal tone, “without a ticket that matches your ID, I can’t let you on this flight. Even with the email.”And that was the moment I stepped through the looking-glass into the land of Kafka.What followed was a bureaucratic pilgrimage through Qantas middle management. She called someone who in turn, called for Barbra the ‘Verification Manager, Ticket Identity Escalations Division’, who appeared waring a lanyard with real purpose, and ordered me through to the back office. My luggage was forgotten, my coffee went cold. I was marched through grey corridors that smelt like printer toner and despair.Every new person I spoke to had to read the email again. Each one blinked at "the F is for Fantastic" like it was some kind of security code. Some laughed. Most didn't. One manager, clipboard in hand, asked me if this was “a known alias.” I half expected ASIO to be summoned.“Why did you write that?” someone asked.“Because I’m an idiot,” I replied. At least that part was clear.Eventually, miraculously, someone up the chain, possibly weary from the sheer absurdity of it all, stamped their bureaucratic blessing and whispered the magic words:“We’ll print the boarding pass... but change the return ticket. And next time—don’t be clever.”With minutes to spare, I sprinted to the gate, nearly dropping my jacket, my email, and what was left of my dignity. I boarded the plane just as they were closing the doors.And there, strapped in at 34,000 feet, I began to laugh. First quietly. Then uncontrollably. The sort of laugh that turns heads and makes flight attendants check on you. It was absurd. It was entirely my fault. It was... perfect.And so, Fantastic Forbes was born. Not from glory. Not from greatness. But from one too-clever line in an email to an admin girl with a sense of humour and access to Amadeus.The nickname stuck. It followed me around the office like a glittery ghost. People emailed me as “Fantastic.” Someone stuck a sticker on my monitor: “Fantastic or nothing.”Honestly? I deserved it. FSF

F.F.F.

In the early 90s, unemployment was my shadow. Loyal, broke, stubborn. With logic borrowed from a drunken gambler, I decided to start a business. How hard could it be? I'd never owned one, never planned to. My business skills matched my cash flow—zero. Still, I chose sandwiches.My business plan: bread from a bakery that believed baking was art, fillings from a deli with imported meats and cheeses no one could pronounce. Armed with a heat-sealed plastic bags, ice packs, and audacity, I marched into battle.Each dawn, stumbling in darkness, I loaded eskies with sandwiches priced like gold. My market research involved roaming Brisbane’s CBD, the Valley, and Spring Hill, selling style over substance to office workers with budgets bigger than sense. Astonishingly, they bought. Sandwiches flew off my ice packs faster than reason could catch up.Success arrived suddenly. Too suddenly. Soon, I had five sandwich routes, staffed by young women inexplicably content selling lunch. My empire, built on rye and salami, was as fragile as it was ridiculous.Then came the Melbourne Cup. And with it, destiny.The orders started early. "Can you do something special for the race?" they asked. "A catered lunch?" they said. I didn’t hesitate. I saw my moment. My magnum opus. The event that would take me from sandwich man to sandwich maestro. Visions danced in my head—linen-draped tables, platters arranged like Renaissance still-lifes, office workers gasping with joy as I delivered handcrafted lunches like edible symphonies.I poured everything into it. Bulk orders. Decorative flourishes. Extra napkins. Fruit skewers. Cheese cubes with little toothpicks. I imagined press coverage. Maybe a write-up. Maybe expansion. Maybe franchising. I didn’t sleep the night before. I was conducting an orchestra of bread and ambition.On Melbourne Cup morning, I stood over tables stacked high with food. It looked glorious. I believed. And then—it began to collapse.The scale was off. The timing worse. My team was small. Too small. There were no backup drivers. No buffer time. No contingency plan. Just me, a van, and an ever-growing mountain of sandwiches against a ticking clock. Orders backed up. Streets were jammed. Tears flowed. The city moved slow while I spiralled fast.We scrambled, flailing through deliveries like doomed marionettes. Some orders got there. Many didn’t. Most were late. Way too late. Customers fumed. Phones rang off the hook. My dream, once plated with garnish, wilted in the heat.By the next week, the dream was dead. Word spread. "He ruined our Cup lunch," they whispered, then shouted. Regulars vanished. Doors closed. "Two hours late," they spat. "Never again."I knew it was over. I knocked on café doors, selling off what remained. One café took pity, or saw profit, and bought the routes. I handed over the eskies. I walked away.Bruised. Embarrassed. A little wiser.Yet, walking away, I felt it shift. The thrill wasn’t the bread—it was the making, the spark. Maybe I’d try again. Not sandwiches. Maybe technology.Never bet your soul on sandwiches at the Cup. FSF

The Emperor of Rhye

As a child, the place choked me air thick with pollen and unwashed wool, heads sunk, ostrich-deep, in dust.Chores bloomed like weeds after a hard rain, no end to their grasping roots. My words were moths they swatted from their light, each question a spark they doused with frowns.No face echoed mine, no path led out. With excuses thin as frost, I fled to cities where streetlights erased the stars, believing distance could unmake me.I found my kin in the hum of crowded nights, and for years, forgot the weight of where I began.But time stacks stones on the chest, sleep a thief, pulse a drum without rest. On a rare return, the irony unfolds: here, of all places, I breathe. Sleep wraps me, soft as the childhood I never held.Beneath this unyielding soil, peace hums, a root I never knew.FSF

F.S.F

Writing, Poems and Rants

Grand Final Day..... as June saw it.

Magnificent

Wi-Fi Wake

F.F.F.

The Emperor of Rhye

Beneath familiar soil