January 5, 2006

Hello Possums,

Where have I been all these months?! Could I be slowing down?

Millions of my followers have been begging for an update on this, my original and authentic website, and somehow I don't seem to have had a minute to spare. Amongst other horrid tasks I have had to stand bail once again for my daughter Valmai who followed me to Las Vegas (where I am at present), and posing as me in an implausible purple acrylic wig, has run up huge debts at the tables, and frequented horrible-sounding establishments that call themselves "The Loosest Slots in Vegas". Hidden cameras must have picked her up dozens of times but security people in these casinos, however well trained and well fed, are not always theatre buffs and have obviously accepted my tragic daughter for her glamorous mother.

Bad news too from Melbourne, where my husband's obelisk in the Royal Melbourne cemetery has been attacked by the graffiti vandals, who have sprayed, in that horrible chubby writing, totally unacceptable words. I founded, in my husband's memory, The Friends of The Prostrate, but the prostate obviously has its enemies, and my poor husband's grave is the target of their spiteful attacks.

My son Kenny designed me something really wonderful for my Vegas debut, a gown fit for an Egyptian princess, in keeping with my prestige at the luxurious Luxor. The usually undemonstrative Vegas audience went wild when they glimpsed it, and it's so authentic it looks as though it has just been excavated from some spooky old tomb.

Kenny has not been well lately with funny coughing fits in the middle of the night and we were all totally mystified until last night. Years ago between his jobs as a Qantas flight attendant and a window display executive for David Jones of Sydney he'd had a stint as a hairdresser. I even bankrolled his salon Kenny's Kutz. It was in the days when hairdressers were just called hairdressers and not Senior Hair Design Consultants. Anyway, Kenny loved the work, and global socialites flocked to him for cuts, colours and blow waves. But he developed this little allergic cough and moved exclusively into dress designing and the international reputation he now enjoys. However, that old job came back to haunt him last night when after a fit of coughing, which even woke his roommate Clifford Smail, he produced a large reddish-coloured fur ball which we think may have once belonged to Donald Trump who was a regular visitor to the salon.

I am about to embark on a ten city North American tour of which details can be found on this website. It's an outreach, life coaching exercise in cosmic caring. I don't need to do it. In fact, between you and me, I don't want to do it. But being the unselfish, giving woman that I am, it looks as though I am going to do it. I keep saying to my venal manager Barry Humphries I want a nice sit-down tour. A few weeks in once place at a time in a nice hotel, but somehow he never hears this request. I think all he hears is the k-ching k-ching of a cash register.

Although I am quite probably Jewish, I say Merry Christmas to people in a relaxed maner. I can't stand "Happy Holidays", "Holiday Trees" or that nonsense about Kwanza which was only dreamt up forty years ago and no persons of colour that I know, can stand it either! It's been lovely having Christmas in Las Vegas and the Luxor has been marvellous to me, even though I don't gamble. I believe Barry Humphries has been down there at all hours frittering away his ill-gotten and over-generous commission, but I gamble on something more important, and more of a dead cert - MY TALENT! It's a gamble that always pays off and this Vegas experience is one more step in the incredible journey that is my brilliant career.

I hope you all have a marvellous New Year and that I see you in my audiences all around America as I tread the road of happy destiny.

A Joyous heart always

Dame Edna Everage