(above) security-trainee Lola flakes out after a very long weekend.

We’ve been fielding heaps of enquiries about the ‘missing’ Sunday of the Ausglass Conference weekend. But the simple fact of the matter is, that as we didn’t go to the final wind-up, we didn’t have any scintillating mug-parade biz to post…

We had dutifully spent the afternoon gallery-sitting at ANCA – chatting about the Hunks with all and sundry who came through the exhibition – after which we packed up stumps and gratefully headed home for a quiet evening en famille.

We did get a post-mortem on the conference front however – from several sources – so we can bring you a potted, heresay version of events, if you so insist:

i) the auction was amusing

ii) the awards for the members’ show had a suspicious Canberra-in-house-ring about them.

[Hey, we’re just quoting. But that being said, we were nonetheless pleased that our little mate Netty Blair scored one. Meanwhile Lee Mathers was the well-deserving winner of the Vicki Torr Memorial Prize – which is voted for by the whole membership; so no rigging there. And Ruth Oliphant took out the Beaver Award – though you’d want to keep that fairly quiet whenever you’re in the States, Ruthie, it could get ya into all sorts of trouble. n(Ed)]

iii) the closing party was a fizzer, not the least because the bar was inexplicably closed at 10.30 pm to the disgruntlement of many.

And so the general concensus of opinion appears to be that the conference ended not with a bang, but a whimper (apologies to T.S. Eliot – though even he would probably concur…)

But what can we tell ya, we weren’t there.