Self Portrait Day 47

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Self Portrait Day 47

Image by Hopkinsii
Although I was in and out of the office last week, today feels like the first day back at work after the summer/Christmas break, so it’s time to roll up my sleeves and get back to work

After I’d taken the photo, it reminded me of one of the funniest moments I’ve ever lived through when I’ve been forced to suppress a laugh.

In about 1999 I was in Melbourne for a meeting of the (rather pompous) "Council of Capital City Lord Mayors". While a rather staid group, they had, at the insistence of the well meaning but somewhat daft Lord Mayor of Melbourne, focussed on what was then a major problem of heroin overdoses, particularly in capital cities.

After the meeting a press conference was held, and at a table at a front of the room facing the city press were the Lord Mayors of all of Australia’s capital cities. The Lord Mayor of Melbourne spoke passionately about the need for all levels of government to work hard to tackle heroin addiction and the need to look at creative solutions to overdosing (we, the ACT, were at that time proposing safe injecting rooms).

It was all going beautifully until he said that "if we really wanted to do something about heroin in the inner cities, we have to roll up our sleeves and expand out minds."

No irony. No waiting for a laugh. Just an old fashioned slip of the tongue. And nobody seemed to notice, except me and Alan, my colleague. We looked at each other with wide eyes and later couldn’t believe no one else noticed.

So if you want to do something about heroin in your city, just remember: roll up your sleeves and expand your mind.

netsuke

Image by arimoore
Gannon got this back when he was engaged to a beautiful rockabilly woman, before his heroin addiction hit rock bottom.