Not sure if it’s made much of a blip on the international news radar

But here in Australia

We’ve got ourselves a new Prime Minister

There wasn’t an election

So, the people of Australia, didn’t vote for our new Prime Minister

We just kind of ‘swapped’ him for his Deputy Prime Misister

Their political Party, the Labour party, decided that our Prime Minister (up until last night) Kevin Rudd, wasn’t up to scratch

So they ousted him

Staged a revolt

Kicked him to the curb

He even cried in his departing speech

Ah, the kill or be killed mentality of politics

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So Julia Gillard got the job

She’s unmarried

Not born in Australia

Has no kids

These things, I think, would be sure to NOT get her the job in other countries

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The next election will decide if the Australian people are up for her style of Politics

No one seems bothered by the fact that she’s a woman

Our first ever female Prime Minister

The fact that she is a ranga has red hair

IS going to take some getting used to though

The jokes have already started

And I’m think I might even write a song for her

I will, from now on, refer to her as PM BEAKER

For obvious reasons

Now, where’s my guitar?

I think the Irish accent just adds to the funny-ness of this

I’d love to see this show live!

When we were in Tassie, we met a great little girl

Her name was Shianne

You may have seen her on the Tasmania vlog

At about the 2:36 mark

Her Mum, Chantelle,  had sent a letter asking if Shianne could meet Dad

She’s only 11, but knows all the words to Dad’s songs

And loves him

You have to be 18 to see the show

So she came backstage before the Burnie concert to say hi and get some pics taken

Shianne has Alopecia

It’s a disease where your hair falls out

Sometimes in patches, sometimes all over

Shianne has Alopecia totalis

Which has made her totally bald

Eyebrows, eyelashes – all of it

Shianne first started loosing her hair when she was 7

As a Mum with a daughter who will be 7 this year

I try to imagine how she would cope losing her beautiful, long hair at this age

Being her Mum, I’m not sure I would handle it too well

Chantelle’s letter told of the hard time that Shianne gets at school

She gets teased constantly

Because we all know what motherfuckers how cruel kids can be sometimes

(And how much I hate bullying BUT how standing up to them can help)

So having something as obvious as ‘no hair’ would be such a magnet for the arsehole kids

So they give her a hard time

All the time

According to Chantelle, the school where Shianne goes, does fuck all about it is not too great at handling the situation

Shianne was told to, ‘deal with it’

As she would look like it for the rest of her life

So it’s in her ‘best interest’ to get used to the stares and smart arsed comments

When I spoke to Chantelle about it, I was gobsmacked

I’m not sure if changing schools is an option

But it’s something I would look into

After I told them to all go fuck themselves!

Asking an 11 year old girl to just deal with name-calling and constant teasing?

If that’s not absolute bullshit, I don’t know what is

Then I spoke to Shianne

And seriously, she is the cutest, sweetest, giggly little girl in the world

It seems so unfair

What she has to go through every day

Her friends and family are currently raising money

So that Shianne can go and meet some other kids who have Alopecia

She’s the only one in Tasmania

And has never met anyone else who suffers from it

She’s very excited

She wanted to have one of my albums, but we’d sold out on the night

Plus I was a little hesitant

OK, I was A LOT hesitant

About handing over an album of my ‘fuck’ songs to an 11 year old kid

Her Mum assured me it was OK

So I ended up sending her a signed copy

Along with a kick boxing dvd

To help her deal with the fuckers at school

And maybe kick some arse

I figure if I’m going to be a bad influence

I might as well give it my best shot

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Update – they raised the money, so Shianne is planning her trip to go & meet some new friends!!

There are some things that are guaranteed to make you smile

Certain photos, videos

I was looking through some photos from the last month

As I start to put together the video blog for the WA leg of this tour

And got to these pics

And just started laughing

When I spent the day with Sammy for her birthday

We started off with a pedicure

And it didn’t take long to work out she’d never had one before

She was so ticklish

And giggly

The ladies that worked at the salon thought we were idiots

The lady doing my feet didn’t like me at all

Which, if you’ve smelt my feet, is totally understandable

She was filing & buffing away so much it hurt

But it was hard to concentrate on that when I was getting so much joy out of watching Sammy squirm

And wriggle as she giggled

Like I said, the ladies that worked there thought we were complete fuckwits

And I KNOW they thought we had more than coffee in our coffee cups

I think it was pretty obvious