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I have been brushing my teeth all my life. Every morning and night I enact this ritual that begins and the ends each day. Over this time I have witnessed the evolution of the toothbrush and waited on each new development with bated breath. I can remember when you polished your baby pegs with sandpaper and emery board, your gums bleeding so profusely they stained your teeth crimson. The days when you flossed your teeth with a toilet brush covered with caustic soda. The days you flossed with razor wire and rinsed with unchlorinated water. Happy days, yes, but those days are gone.

Thankfully, every few moths for as far back as I can recall, there has been amazing progress in dental hygiene, particularly regarding the toothbrush. This is the result of countless hours of careful research and not token changes meant to inspire a flagging market. In tandem with these advancements for the brush have been marvelous changes in the paste as well. Fluoride, calcium, tricolor gels, glitter, minty flavors, peroxide and baking soda, but it is the toothbrush that continues to impress me with its unceasing transformation.

You'd think with these continual changes the humble toothbrush would be the most exceptional piece of bathroom hardware, yet it has remained essentially the same. A solid piece of plastic measuring 18-20cm in length (roughly the distance from the index finger to the wrist) with a collection of scrubbing bristles at one end. It is in the minute detail that the brush has undergone dramatic modification. The array and choice of the modern brush is testament to our free society. It means no-one need go unbrushed: regardless of your dental state there will be something to suit you.

The antiquated and cumbersome rectangular head that ruthlessly tore your gums has been replaced by a streamlined diamond head. If the diamond head fails to satisfy there's the advanced rounded head or any number of geometric shapes you can stick in your mouth. Angled, tapered, compacted with an articulated neck, this implement (nothing more that a stick with hair) defines the need for design.

Toothbrushes are no longer slippery lumps of 4/2 that fly out of your hand at a moment's notice. These days they have rubber pads for greater control and thumb grips for assured maneuverability. Never before has a toothbrush felt so comfortable in the hand or flown so effortlessly over our teeth, never before has it felt so natural in your cakehole.

Then there's the bristles (what a limited word for the modern wonder of these dental exercises). The bristles of today are longer than ever before, enabling them to reach further, push deeper. Why didn't someone think of this earlier? They're rippled for maximum plaque removal, polished with rounded ends to prevent irritation and in the past few weeks they have become micro-textured. I pity the generations that have passed away never knowing the joy of the indicator brush. A brush that gives you a visual sign it needs to be replaced. No longer do you have to peer at the frayed head wondering if it's time for a new brush. Now a fading blue line alerts you before you have time for concern. How stupid we were using shabby and worn brushes that were ineffective and perhaps dangerous. With the indicators brush, a look at the bristles is all it takes.

Forgive me, for all those extraordinary advances, I can't feel the difference. How can something in a state of constant change look exactly the same? And how much further has the toothbrush got to go? When will the designers and builders say "This is it, the pinnacle of oral hygiene?" I fear the toothbrush of today will be nothing in comparison with the tootbrush of tomorrow. And yet, as long as the toothbrush continues to evolve, we can safely say "We live in the free world!"

I believe the most trivial concerns are worth voicing- and worth voicing loudly. Where others recall moments of splendor in their lives, I focus entirely on insignificant events. Insignificant events that have left indelible emotional scars on me. It is not that I have never experienced great events, I just can't remember them with any clarity. Momentous occasions have a hazy dream-like quality, while the trifling ones have the power and presence of a hard-hitting documentary. Even world events pale into insignificance beside day-to-day misdemeanors.

In the past few weeks, I have become obsessed by the petty nature of my nature - which in itself is fairly petty. I was aware of this aspect of my personality, but recently it has been brought to my attention over and over again. Friends and relatives have been appalled by my need to express my annoyance with anyone and anything.

My ability to object, for five hours straight, about being served a tepid cup of tea disgusted them. My complaints about lazy staff at leading retail outlets or my rage concerning someone who "understood my silence" infuriated them.

From my point of view, these events were valid topics for discussion. But my acquaintances claimed I labored the point, embellished or extrapolated the truth, and had the effrontery to suggest I was repeating myself. These friends listed various social comprehensive mental notes about who said what.

I remember the day John Lennon was shot, not because Lennon was shot, but because a woman pushed in front me at a bakery and took the last sausage roll.

When Mandela was released I realised the song "Free Nelson Mandela" would lose much of its anthemic qualities. If it were played it wouldn't prompt the same feelings. I heard the band had to drop it from their live set and I thought that was unfair because the song had another year in it even if Nelson didn't. Some people only ever think of themselves.

When Princess Diana died I had to pay late fees for overdue videos. The thing was, I didn't watch them because of Di. It wasn't my fault, how could you not watch a world-altering event like that? I sat glued to the TV. Seven days later , when I left the couch in tears and took the videos back they charged me $14. All I could say was, "how can you live with yourselves? The Princess is dead".

When I told my friends, they were stunned that the loss of a few dollars meant more to me than the loss of the Princess. They weren't concerned with my missing money or Diana, they were troubled by my attitude. They displayed an unhealthy interest in the shallowness of my character.

And yet, in recording and judging my pettiness they were as small-minded as I. They were shocked by this allegation but accepted it. They forgave my temperament, telling me it was an all-too human failing.

Then I proved they were right about my pettiness by refusing to accept their apology, and they proved I was right by deciding never to speak to me again. It worked out well for everyone involved and no one had to compromise their nature.

I ordered a pot of Irish breakfast tea. I re-ordered twice. I received a cold Early Grey with the tide out. It was in a mug, not a pot, not a cup - but a mug. I then paid $4 for the privilege and was questioned as to why I didn't leave a tip.

Ok, tell me, is this unreasonable? Five customers waiting for service: of the three staff members, two are engaged in a conversation about "Troy" - what an "unqualified spunk" he is - while the senior staff member is organising her "big birthday bash". I mean, it's not like anyone else has a life to get back to. That's how I want to spend 20 minutes every Saturday morning.

It is one of life's mysteries how total strangers can be so perceptive on a first meeting. How intuitive to realise I was frowning because I was sad, not merely bored out of my skull. How enlightened to continue chatting to me about the wonders of life, when all I wanted to do was rip off their scalp.

How do they get away with charging daily fees on the weekly films? Who else would ever borrow "The Omega Man" and/or "Soylent Green" ? No one, that's why these films are one dollar a week. But you bring them back seven days late and you're up for seven dollars a video - 14 bucks. It's not like anyone else would ever want to see those films.

I fought my way to a decant position in the middle of the cinema. I was early and the sombre warmth of the dark cinema lulled me into a sense of well-being. Meanwhile, the forces of evil were rallying at the candy counter. Before I knew what was happening, the place was awash with people.

A group of lanky students invaded my aisle from the left, and on the right two large buckets of popcorn sat down. They trapped me in a pincer movement. I consoled myself with the fact that no one was sitting in front of me... just as someone did. Not just someone. Someone who insisted on sitting up straight, someone with good posture.

Why is it people with bad posture never sit in front of you? Where are the people who slouch when you need them? No, I get a seven-foot-tall basketball-playing pinhead and his little dreadlocked friend.

I recently saw Titanic. I do not pretend to be a film critic and so I will not discuss the merits or otherwise of the picture. Given this tragic voyage is so well known, I do not believe I am giving away telling you the ship sinks and a great number of people drown.

The central theme of the film is the enduring nature of love. The two main characters find that wealth and the trappings of opulence have no hold over this simple joy. I wondered why the most expensive film ever made has to tell us this? By its mere existence it suggests that perhaps there is something quite beneficial about having a great amount of money. Money and Love, Good v Evil, Man against Woman, everything competing against nature.

It's a titanic struggle across the screen between big themes and bigger budgets. Of course I'm concerned with size, but it is always the little things that grab my attention.

Why is it big things can be totally overpowered by little things? The big thing I refer to here is the film; the little things are the annoying habits of other human beings. Titanic was a massive project, years in the making, costing millions of dollars, employing thousands, and it can all be destroyed by someone sitting in front of you with itchy dreadlocks. The titles blazed over my head, engulfing me in 70-millimetre grandeur, and my attention was dragged to this weird guttural noise, like a toad regurgitating its own phlegm- it was coming from the pinhead. How is it that one persistent cough can overcome even the most sophisticated audio system?

Yes, the audience is listening: to the slurping of watered down post-mix, to the crunching of popcorn and to the clumsy passion of 14-year-olds. This is a monumental undertaking that should totally absorb me in its fantasy, yet I get distracted by Gumby and his mate slowly tearing open a bag of Burger Rings. The film was about 20 minutes in when the dread-head began to rock. He managed to rock rhythmically for more than two hours, only pausing to take something out of his bag, and he even managed to that quite loudly.

It was jarring me that Bullwinkle and Rocky were enjoying the film so much. And why not? They were well fed, they were having good conversation, the little one was even dancing. It amazed me that all these minuscule, insignificant, puerile and petty things conspired to drag my attention away from the most expensive film ever made. I thought of David and Goliath, the mouse and the elephant. I even managed to relate it back to the iceberg and the Titanic.

At that moment I came back to the film. I no longer cared if the dreads left a trail of grease over my leg every time Rocky leant back. I didn't care about Moose and his pleurisy. I couldn't care less if he was suffering from TB, coughing up great hunks of blood over his Burger Rings. I was aboard Titanic and heading out to the open seas. I focused all my attention on the screen. I broke through. I conquered all those annoying little things and could now concentrate on the big picture- a film about water. Lots of it, dripping, gurgling, swishing, trickling, dribbling, pouring in. Something inside me responded to the swirling majesty of the ocean, something deep within me stirred. It was an hour and a half after the film started when my body decides to betray me and I faced the true terror, the true torment of TITANIC... (to be continued)

When thoughts emerge from the mouth they are pure, straight from the mind out into the world. However, once our speech is transposed into writing it has been corrupted; impositions of style and from have been placed upon it. Text is secondary to speech; it exists as a poor cousin to the profound moments of the word. Yet for all the power of speech, it is still limited by our vocabulary. And no amount of words can capture the essence of a thought which, like a perfect circle, may only exists in the mind.

As we approach the end of the 20th century, the purest language we posses is still the language of the body. Over the centuries our ability to understand each other in purely physical terms was lost. The twisting facial expression needed to communicate the operation of a pork mincer or a torque wrench were nothing compared with the amount of physical contortion necessary to convey the ideals of freedom, liberty or love. (I am thinking here of platonic love. Body language can easily express sexual need or desire; it may be as obvious as a grind of the hips or as subtle as a wink. I have witnessed all kinds of indecent and vulgar movement to express these feelings. It's a demeaning slang of our body tongue and is often accompanied by a guttural tone, grunt of whistle.)

Spoken language developed out of a need to express higher concepts. Then in the mind-70's, the skill of body language was resurrected and we took our first awkward steps to overpower the written word. All that was needed was keen observation to home our animal instincts and strip away the facade of civilisation to become primitive, natural, earthy. I admit that these early attempts were crude, focusing almost exclusively on the sex act. Body language was reduced to a series of signals and gimmicks for attracting the opposite sex. A turn of the head, a flick of the hair: all the simplistic mating gestures. It became another victim of the "me" generation, a sad charade played our at singes bars, a " visible dialogue" fit only for wife swapping parties* and advertising boardrooms. The net result was that minders told politicians not to cover their mouths when they spoke in case they gave the impression they were lying, actors discovered how to convey emotion with their knees and Alpha males learnt to "spray" their environments to maintain control. What may have been the greatest achievement of humanity led to a few sordid encounters and mountains of useless publications.

At the close of the century we have become confused by the inarticulate speech of our body parts: sitting for hours pointing our feet toward someone hoping they would respond by turning their body slightly, or opening our lips in a "moist inviting way" only to find we look like an overfed goldfish, or saying "no" with our mouth and "yes" with our eyes. Even with body language I still manage to get my foot stuck in my mouth. Some people are in tune with themselves; they know what their bodies need. I have no idea. even if we spoke the language it would be difficult enough, but over the years my body has developed a language all of its own, with an obscure dialect and curious syntax that defies comprehension: when I watch myself I have no idea what I am saying. In the modern age there is a schism between the body and the mind, a division in the natural order of things that forces us to go back if we want to move on. As we scream towards Armageddon, as conversation becomes more convoluted, we need to listen t o our bodies. The time has come to let our bodies speak for themselves because if we keep sitting on our arses we may never hear what they have to say.

I have heard this barbaric practice continues in some suburbs and I am sure we have matured enough as a culture to let the little ladies have a rest of the fellas have a go. I also feel if women were swapping their husbands they would want something more practical than just another man.