This morning on the train the woman next to me was taking noisy, healthy slugs of her very large water bottle. The train carriage was crowded and it was really hot and muggy, so this was understandable. But it was really irritating; we were sitting right next to each other and when she took a swig I had a running commentary of the water’s passage out of the bottle, down her throat, and, dare I say, working its way slowly through to the other end.

I was trying to bring this to her attention with my best attempts of passive-aggressive non-verbal communication, which is a staple on all public transport (as is choosing to ignore it), but then I noticed what she was reading.

Small, handwritten yellow post-its, held close to her chest, covered in tight, angsty little writing.

“I accept and love myself just as I am.”

She had decorated the small, sweet nothings with coloured hearts and stars.

Whoa, thought I. Do the same rules apply in the vicious cramped arena of public transport when your competitor has low self-esteem? What if a more assertive attack on my part turned things messy? She was a small woman, but that was a very large water bottle.

“Everything I touch is a success.”

Protocols are no good when the assumptions upon which they are based no longer apply. So we sat there – she gulping, both of us reading.

“I move in winning circles.”

I think we know who took out that round.

I have an exam tomorrow and I don't know what they'll be testing me on. I don't know how long it goes for (an hour I think). I know I am to bring my own pen, but I don't know how many other people are sitting it or where they live. Or what they do in their spare time, or what their hobbies are. I know, I know, I'm getting off track. Exam. Tomorrow. Right.

What would Clover do?

"Something needs to be said," says young person

Young people who wear boat shoes should be forcibly sterilized. We need to be honest as a society and recognize that many people (namely me) feel that if you dress like a retiree before you’re 30, it’s better for all concerned if you are not allowed to reproduce.

I would like to extend the same argument to 22 year old individuals from ‘youth’ political clubs who suggest that young people should be forced to ‘help out’ society in a compulsory, conscription-style capacity. At least the Young Liberals and boat shoe-wearers make themselves known with cow bells and plumes of brimstone, but Sam Dastyari of Young Labor NSW - where’s the heads up?

Between a job, study and hours spent in thoughtful reflection over what it means to be GenY in this crazy, mixed-up thing we call life, someone else’s grandmother can change her own nappy. Let me suggest that between volunteering while at school and uni, playing in sports teams and having multiple jobs, my education – like that of many people I know (who still try and make an occasional nod towards a social life) – is well-rounded enough.

We don’t need another well-meaning but out of touch politician attempting to impose his or her own morale yardstick on society through policy. Sam, you should be young enough to know better. If I wanted to feel more socially obligated than I already do, I’d bring my mother out of the medically induced coma and listen to advice about my love life.

Now get back to work.

Clover, we are so totally the same person. Is red your favourite colour too?

Today in SMH:

FIELDS OF CLOVER

As was mooted, the giant red New Year's heart on the Coathanger will be relit on Sunday to mark tomorrow night's Sydney Festival launch and it will then light up - and flash - from sundown to midnight until January 15.

"We thought it would be a fitting gesture...given that the festival ignites so many parts of the city and brings people of all walks of life together for an exciting and enjoyable time," said the Lord Mayor yesterday.

i [heart] 2006

Step aside, Paris, for there is a new City of Love.

Sydney is smug in that self-satisfied, stylishly post-coital type of way that usually follows terribly expensive and kitchy evenings of debauchery.

The heart theme on the bridge was great. It started at nine and kept pulsing with a massive, reverberating heartbeat across the city until the big hand met the little hand and we all met 2006.

Should we spend $4 million on fireworks while bushfires rage across the state? Fuck ‘em, said Sydney. I can because I’m fabulous.

Fuck ‘em, said the city to all the dickheads who have been dickheads at Cronulla and Lakemba and Maroubra and on talkback for the last couple of weeks. Fuck the narrow mindedness, the self-righteousness, the intolerance, the nasty, poisonous notions.

Fuck you, it said. We’re all in this together so why don’t we just get along and enjoy ourselves.

It was great to see many were ready to oblige. I saw one couple starting a family next to the heavily burdened port-a-loos in the Rocks. Bright young things hunting for a cab and a pash in Kings Cross. Friends meeting in Newtown to talk shit and share lolly pops at a stranger’s party.

It was great to spend a day and two nights falling between the dirty, seedy and fantastically in-your-face gaps of the city.

You’re broken glass. You’re mad. You’re absolutely fucked.

And I love you for it.

Happy 2006 everyone.