It’s the Feast of Fools and the world, once more, turns upside-down like an hourglass, with memento mori sifting into simple kitchen knick-knack. It’s a time to strip off our drab overalls and slip into more relaxed expressions of individual identity which we haul from the dressing-up box of abandoned cultural referents. There’s … well, it’s up to you, because we’re talking local politicians from the early 70s and one-hit wonders who don’t even make the nostalgia shows, or even those schoolteachers with facial tics and unconscious catchphrases that all the kids would parrot each time their backs were turned. Some even dress as parrots and that’s ok on a day like today, when everything’s inverted, the Front Bench of the House is lining up to serve the masses, and even the dead are stretching out of their graves to join the fun. So, go ahead: pull on that motley of your personal past and join your friends, both dead and alive, before the charivari band strikes up the National Anthem played backwards. Lay down your folly on this long, long table. The world is upside-down, the sand is running back to the seashore, and the animals are hungry.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor