GALFROMDOWNUNDER UPOVER

That's what this t-shirt says. Think it will help calm road rage? I whipped it up using the Design-O-Matic t-shirt designer at www.remo.com.au Read my take on REMO and view the movie clip

There's always a pole to practice on, like this one on New York's L-Train Amber, Miss Poledance NSW WITH THIS, my third – or is it fourth? –  post about pole, I'm starting to get funny looks at the confessional. How long can I keep up the line "I only do it for my biceps/triceps, honest" when, with all my gallivanting around Oz for Bike Friday , I've barely had time to shin up the $550 chrome wonder propping up our living room ceiling? After my first multimedia post about the school, the principals Vanessa and Bobbi gifted my mother and I with two ringside, or should I say, bathtub side tickets, to one of their July Showtime evenings. Yes, the third 2-hour, champagne-drenched recital by the teachers featured a smoking act involving a couple of plastic shell-shaped bathtubs, ankle deep water, two sea sponges and the reigning Miss Poledance Australia, Candice, and Miss Poledance NSW, Amber. (As a duo, I reckon they should call themselves "CandAmber

Today I blogged on FastCompany about Dr Doug Meyer, who jumped 17 floors to his death. Read post Thanks to Doug's colleague Steve Chang, a great friend and Bike Friday customer, for providing insight into Doug's life. The last time I saw Doug was at Halloween in NY; such a low key and unassuming man, he stayed clear of my video. Steve, however, appears at the end. Halloween in NY movie clip I've been busy tripping north to spread the low-hydrocarb gospel in Brisbane . Here's how I arrived in Brisbane, 14 hours in a folding hotel room. Check out the folding frenzy of the Countrylink sleeper cabin (Movie clip) Before that I interviewed REMO, the purveyor of Stuff with a Story (Movie Clip) - astounding, given that I'd upset them by critiquiing their email campaign. Finally, here's the kind of urban jungle we'd all welcome - hidden in a fold of suburban Paddington in Sydney: Heading back to Sydney July 17, then to Eugene, Oregon, Aug 6.

PHOTO GALLERY: Bobbi's Pole Studio End of Term recital MOVIE CLIP: Poledancing - the perfect workout for the modern urban cyclista In just a couple of years since my mother and daughter excursion into this femme fatale fitness fad, it seems poledancing has become the new 5BX - or rather X(XX?)BX of exercise for women of all ages, stages and sizes. I landed back downunder to discover that the local PoleStars franchise, where I did my introductory course, was up for sale. However, an outfit called Bobbi's Pole Studio was going great guns, with reportedly 1000 students. When I asked Bobbi, an utterly magnificent speciman of the XX chromosome, why she was leading the pack, she replied, "I've been doing poledancing all my life." Her studio, discreetly housed on the 4th floor of an old diva of a building, has zero street presence, perhaps to deter any riff raff. When you mount the stairs, you arrive on a floor bathed in pink lights and shiny fabrics and p

Picture of the moment: Speaking of bodily use-by dates (see below), this Will kit for Singles caught my eye - clever marketing, since it probably contains little more more than a Post-it note to pencil in the solitary name of the person you're leaving your stufforama to - that's right, Thou Thyself Thou! Highway robbery at $24.95 - how stupid do they think we singles are? OK, I admit I did turn it over and over and wonder exactly what it said inside ... I paused in front of a Chinese Massage/Acupuncture clinic today, and decided to go for it. I've been suffering from a bit of a stiff upper back, plus a disturbing recent development where my skull and neck make a loud "crunching" sound when I look down. It's probably everything to do with my work and play - I ride a bicycle for a living, I spend too much time laptopping, and I'm going to be 50 in 5 years' time. Despite conscientious efforts to stretch and remain flexible, poledancing classes and sepa

Pictured below: Can I get my former adland mentor Siimon out of his Aston Martin and onto a Bike Friday tikit ? I know the bike will go in the boot! We'll see when I get back from Melbourne and Sydney ... Pictured above right: Celebrating Melbourne's new "All bagged folders on trains, at all times" policy. What do you do with a folding bike? Be conspicuous, like a good company gal. Check the BF events calendar for dates of my Film Fest (7-10pm, May 13, 6 bond St Melbourne and May 15 Manning Clark IV Theater ANU, Canberra) where I'll be showing my handlebar movies. www.bikefriday.com/events Call me at 0420 968 967 or email galfromdownunder@gmail.com What am I doing downunder? 'Avaread.

Now here's a sight for a jaded junketeer's eyes ... A home made telescope (alright a pretty durn serious one) in deepest darkest Cowra, somewhere Downunder, afforded me this peeping-Tom's-eye view of the sexy, sultry, siren of all planets ... Mars. OK just testing you. I got to see it on the Australian Bike Friday Club annual Gathering - read my multimedia report which includes a movie clip of me oohing and ahhing the beast. I've seen 2001: multiple times, played Space Invaders, ogled the pictures in the "U" and "P" volumes of World Book Encyclopedia and those oversized Time Life tomes; seen endless "artists impressions" of the solar system on wall charts, books and of course, the web. As a teen I was mesmerized by a book in the library called "Black Holes, Quasers and the Universe", and would nip in there every other lunchtime to stand in the aisle, reading and re-reading the two pages on how an astronaut gets strung out like sp