And he had the world's first Kevlar quilt

This featured in yesterday's Age, in an article about the latest murder in Melbourne's underworld goings-on:

"He was said to have employed two overzealous heavies to break the legs of a business rival. They overstepped the mark when they shot him with a double-barrelled shotgun while he lay in bed. He survived only thanks to his doona*, which absorbed the blast - but he was discomforted by feathers in his wounds."

You just can't get good heavies these days, can you? And I don't know about you, but I hate it when I get feathers in my gunshot wounds. So painful.

*****

At work yesterday, Brian was telling me about a sixtieth birthday party he and his wife went to recently. Brian himself is also sixty, which may go some way to account for the gap in his knowledge:

Brian: ... and they had a karaoke competition going.
Me: Did you have a sing?
Brian: No, no, not my thing at all.
Me: What about Marg?
Brian: No, none of our table did, but we could have. They had this TV screen, you see, with the words on it. You picked your song and sang along with it.
Me (trying it to break it gently): That's the karaoke machine.
Greg (our boss, who has been listening to this from his office): That's the whole point of it, Brian!
Brian: I always thought people just knew the words.



* Doona = duvet.