The Year I Went Pear-Shaped by Tamara Pitelen

an interview with Baz Luhrmann or anything but I reckon it's time Love on the Wards joined the 21st century and experimented with a gay storyline. Hell, maybe it's time for our very own Dr Ramswell to explore new aspects of his sexuality!”
    Suddenly Gordon's beautiful blue eyes were flashing and he leaned forward towards me, shining with excitement. God, could the man BE anymore charismatic?
    “Oh my god Darla, I think I just had a fucking brilliant idea! Why the hell haven't I thought of that before? The ratings would go through the roof!”
    “Are you sure they would Gordon?” I said, the voice of doom. “I don't know if middle Australia are as open-minded as the folk who hang out in trendy Darlinghurst cafes. I mean, why does that gay guy who got Trev's part go around pretending to be straight? There must be a reason. And why does Trev, who is openly gay, find it so hard to get work? I think there's some grass roots homophobia going on. I mean, even you could only think of casting Trev in a gay role, why didn't you think about putting him forward for a straight role? He's an actor for godssake, his sexuality isn't supposed to be an issue, look at Tom Hanks in Philadelphia or Russell Crowe in The Sum of Us.”
    He looked at me silently for a moment and slumped back into his chair. I felt like I'd just taken a ball off a puppy.
    “Shit. You're right.” He paused for a moment. “But I still think that the more gay characters that middle Australia gets exposed to, the more chance we have as a nation of accepting each other's differences, be they sexual, ethnic, religious or whatever and God knows this country could do with more of that in recent times.”
    He sighed heavily and pushed his beautiful manly hand with perfectly square nails through his blonde fringe. Gorgeous, charming AND a social conscience. Lordy, Lordy, there was no hope for me now.
    “You’re right Gordon, it would be great to see a wider section of the community represented on television, it’s very white bread right now. And even though there’s been a lot more ethnic comedy and programmes, they’re still seen as niche. You’d think the entire country was populated by good-looking, straight, white people between the ages of 18 and 34. No one else gets much of a look in.”
    “Hmm, well, when I get my own TV channel, I’ll change all that!”
    “Yeah, and when I own my own magazine publishing house, I’ll change it too!”
    We giggled, relieved to have gotten off the all too serious topic of ‘everything that’s wrong with the world’.
    “Hell, I'm sorry Darla,” he said, changing the subject, “we’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes and we haven't even talked about the story for your mag.”
    “What? Oh! Yes, the magazine, of course. My job and everything. I'd forgotten all about it myself, yeah, I guess we should talk about that since you've probably got to be somewhere soon.”
    1“Yeah, but I've got time for another coffee if you have?”
    I nodded thinking to myself that I’d be happy to sit here and drink coffee with him till I was 80. Gordon raised his arm to get Trev's attention, motioning that we’d have another round of the same. Finishing with a smile and a thumbs up, he turned back to me.
    “Right, now what is it that I have to do?”
    “Well, we’re doing a story called a day in the life of Dr Ramswell. The idea is that I follow you around for a day and write about your incredibly exciting life, the celebs you rub shoulders with, the amazing parties you go to, the trendy bars you hang out in and all that, bla bla.”
    Gordon's eyebrows flew back into his fringe.
    “God, that's gonna be a short story then, my life consists of being in the studio all day, getting home about 8pm to eat the Thai takeaway I bought on the way, then watching some doco on the ABC before heading to bed with a cup of...”
    “Don't tell me, cocoa.”
    “Ah, no, liquorice root tea actually, it’s fantastic stuff.”
    At that point, Trev