Ethel Chop: And Another Thing
Ethel Chop is described, on her own website, as ‘Australia’s favourite octogenarian’. The following are further excerpts from her controversial 2007 ‘self-help’ book, ‘Strain Your Gherkins’.
My Beef with Public Libraries
Why don’t libraries catalogue their books in alphabetical order anymore? It’s madness. This new system, you have to search through all these confusing numbers and dots: 8983 dot 75 dash – sounds like a spare parts department at a robot factory, not a house of literature.
I said to the librarian – who, by the way was quite pretty, which I found highly offensive. What happened to the good old days when a librarian was a pasty spinster and smelled of mothballs? – I said to her, ‘I’m looking for a book entitled Miss Parker’s Encyclopedia of Stains’. Oh, it’s a marvellous book. From animal seepage to the most stubborn bath ring, Miss Parker has an emulsion for any spoil. And you know something? She said they didn’t have Miss Parker’s Encyclopedia of Stains. I said, ‘Well, that’s just LUDICROUS!! But let’s move on. How about Accelerated Goitre Growth In Octogenarians? But no, she couldn’t find that one either. But what was really disappointing was when she and another young man, who was also obscenely attractive, started giggling uncontrollably and fell on the floor. I ask you, since when have libraries become school playgrounds?
And another thing, what’s all this nonsense about Microfish? If I wanted to look at fossils, I’d catch a bus to town and purchase a ticket to the Paleontology Section of the city’s museum. Honestly, whoever’s in charge of libraries in this country needs their head read – like a book.
Smoke Your Lungs Out
Remember the old black and white movies where you could barely make out the actors through a dreamy haze of smoke? If it wasn’t a smoldering cigarette, it may have been coal fumes or the exhaust from a backfiring jalopy. It was romantic and it was flattering. An actress never looked her age when you could hardly see her face through a pall of billowing vapours.
Now, of course, it’s all harsh light and clear air. A woman can’t even disguise her age standing next to an Alcoa smoke stack. It’s all thanks to those do-gooding environmentalists, who have delivered us into the cold hard light of day. And I don’t like it one little bit. We all look a lot older, and it’s killed romance – where’s the mystery when you can see every mark, spot, freckle, line and boil on a person’s face? When young men no longer rush to your side to light your cigarillo, ask you to dance and propose marriage all in the one night and all without truly having seen your face, figure or demeanour?
And instead of fashionable and debonair, cigarette smokers are now considered pariahs! In my day, mines collapsed and so did lungs. And there was nothing wrong with it. But now if you smoke, you’re more likely to die of embarrassment than a disease. It’s quite ridiculous.
I remember the good old days when you could smoke anywhere you damn well pleased. In restaurants and theatres. In maternity wards, that was beaut. It never did my daughter Joyce any harm. Of course, when she grew up she developed some bronchial problems and… well, we had to have her put down. She wasn’t what you’d call a pleasant child. All that coughing, it was enough to shatter your nerves!
I remember when you could smoke in petrol stations not so long ago. There may have been an occasional explosion, but at least everyone was relaxed while they were sizzling away like a flaming kebab.
Anyway, my point is, bring back smoke and pollution, please, before we all die of fright clocking each other’s crystal-clear noggins! Bluerg!
‘Strain Your Gherkins: Ethel Chop’s Guide to Life in a Modern World’ is still around if you look hard enough. Details, along with beauty tips and several startling photographs, can be found at Ethel’s web site.
Andrea Powell is a Melbourne-based writer-performer, and the long-time manager of Ethel Chop.
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