Confessions of a Bondi Blonde

Woy Woy boy and NSW Minister for Education John Della Bosca has ridden up on his bicycle and straight into my Eastern Suburbs heart.

Granted, he’s no knight in shining armour, coming to my emotional rescue. And he is a little facially challenged; looking at him reminds me of the pizza close-ups in the Dominos’ TV ad; and he looks like he’s sporting extra anchovies.

But boy, can he make me laugh. And if a man can make this Bondi Blonde laugh, “He’s in there”, as it was so delicately put in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

First there was the grumpy fat wombat on a bike incident.

When John cruelly had his licence stripped from him recently by moles in an opposing NSW Labor faction, he creatively found a better, more environmentally sensitive way to get to work. Enter man mountain on a kiddies’ bike. Wearing his dad’s too small Stubbies he teased me with wonderful amounts of dead-grey leg and arse crack. He strode up to his Malvern Star, mounted it manfully and gallantly strained toward the handlebars (replete with girlie streamers) over his NSW taxpayer funded gut. Pushing off into the waiting throng of media hacks and scared school children, he had a wobble on, let me tell you. It was touch and go that he didn’t wipe out the whole ABC crew. Indomitable, like the working class lad made good that he undoubtedly must be, he didn’t pause and rode off into the Sunrise crew instead, wheezing “fuck youse all” and similarly upper house level invective.  He’s been telling us NSW taxpayers the same thing for years, but usually with the two finger salute from the back of a Government limousine.

On that day, that blessed day, my Johnnie started a trend that has gone almost all the way to the White House. For today I saw footage of US Presidential hopeful Barack Obama riding a too small bicycle around Chicago, replete with classy bike helmet and bright white sandshoes. Barak’s PR men must have seen our local footage and agreed that channelling Della Bosca was a great way to make a visionary look like a very common man.

Well, the Bondi Blonde always gives married men a wide berth, so I dampened down my affections after bike-gate and tried to forget about dear John. I had my interest piqued for a while by chair sniffing W.A. Liberal Opposition leader Troy Buswell. Obviously the guy believes in the power of phemerones and, being a little shy, wanted to check out if he truly liked a woman before offering her a take-away curry and a long neck of Swan beer back at villa Buswell. Alas, my hopes were dashed when the appalling Quokka Soccer shocker unravelled and it was wrongly reported that Troy had been playing ball sports with native Australian marsupials. Revealed to be a cruel Internet hoax, we were finally assured that the Liberal MP keeps all his ball sport activities limited to his hand inside his trousers.

I thought what it would cost me in return flights to Perth to pursue the chair sniffer and my allegiance returned to local boy done absolutely no good, Della Bosca.

The night of the Iguanas was what sealed my adoration.

Johnny and his lucky wife Federal MP Belinda Neal were quietly enjoying a friend’s birthday celebration over lots and lots of mineral water at the waterfront restaurant on the Central Coast. After three hours of quiet dining and an ocean of water, they were rudely asked to move. Jesus. I’d get the fucking police in every week too if some snot nosed little wage slave asked me and me mates to move to make way for a bloody disco. But I believe John and Belinda and their good PR employee friends who were dining quietly with them that night. I’m sure John used his usual charm to try to diffuse the situation.

Because he has the kind of charm that’s hard to ignore. Just ask the six award wage members of staff who signed affidavits detailing just how thick he laid it on that night.

I can’t believe their sworn statements and the supporting stories of other diners that Della Bosca abused every staff member he could find, and then drove off into the night, licence suspended but not yet revoked, after failing to find a taxi driver to abuse.

He’s misunderstood. He wasn’t swearing, he was just having a laugh. I admire that my Johnnie is extending the colourful colloquialisms of our vast brown land. The Macquarie Dictionary must add in their next edition the colour he brings to Australian politics with the following entry:

Della (n) – being involved in, and usually be responsible for an incident which involves repeated swearing and threats. Often used in public places by people with unwarranted authority. Usually used as “to do a Della”.

It’s a handy term to use and so much more colourful than pissed off.

Consider the following uses.

“I’m telling you Doreen, the food was so crap, I did a Della and they cut the bill by 50% and gave us free beer all night. Then I drove home.”

 Or,

“The bloody stupid copper made me blow in the bag. Well any dildo-breath could see it was .0499999, not .05. So I did a Della and the cop let me off.”

Just imagine if our pollies did a Della everyday. Well, half of them probably do, but consider what it would do if our less colourful characters participated in Bosca behaviour.

Imagine Malcolm Turnbull riding up and down Wunulla Road on his daughter’s old scooter and Barbie helmet, wearing Lucy’s leggings and telling us all to go fuck ourselves. Make him more human than the 70,000 bucks of his own money he spent during the Federal election campaign sending out letters from Lucy, detailing his nice side. And if the K-RUDD had lost the cat’s bum mouth long enough for a stream of Della invective when he ate the dodgy party pie, well at least we’d know he was at home and not in Hiroshima defusing nuclear weapons or saving whales or whatever other pointless big picture stuff he fiddles at while his Fuel-Watch programme burns in a blaze of crap.

I have decided that the only thing stopping John and I doing Dellas together is Belinda, his wife in life and partner in dining Dellas. The woman is bloody scary. And is it just me, or is there a real hair/face mismatch going on? The neat blonde bob screams magazine editor or sleek lawyer. The face? Let’s just say Dominos must have been doing a two-for-one offer on the night John’s anchovies arrived.

She says she’s a feminist. Well, I believe her. Except she has a seemingly endless capacity for doing Dellas on her sisterhood when the grumpy mood strikes. Exhibit A – The soccer shocker, where Ms Neal mistook a rival player as the ball – could happen to anybody, surely?

But maybe, if John did a Della hard enough, I’ll give in to his aggression and go for a bit of blonde-on blonde-action. You might think that the Bondi Blonde likes a bit of rough.

But my Johnnie is not rough, for me he’s pure gold.