Nothing much

This one's from my latest Christmassy-sort of zine, Badger's Dozen mark whatever.  Nothing much to see in the relative non-event of the New Year.
 

Nothing much

This year, achieving nothing much,

Though having aimed at little more,

Next year, I’ll try a little less,

Although I’ve done the same before -

With half-formed plans and half-formed schemes

That I’ve already half-forgot

Of nothing big with no-one much

And dreams of earning not-a-lot.

Though when my age was even less,

I little thought and little knew

I’d make so little of myself

Or have so little stuff to do.

Perhaps I did more good than bad,

Although I can’t be sure as such,

I overate a little bit,

Though not so much as very much.

We’ve almost no time left in life

To say our little good and true,

So Merry Christmas, happy new year,

To you, and you, and you.

In an increasingly awkward attempt at replicating the lack of success of the joke in the previous post title (made all the more awkward by the fact that doing a blog post just for the sake of the joke in the title seems a tad unseemly anyway), I have decided to press on with my reverso blog post experiment. Just how long can a blog post title get, anyway? By now we have certainly gone past the standard length allowing this blog post to be googled, and have more commas, full stops, question marks, and parenthesis in total than we could expect in an ordinary blog post title. What other surprises can we be expected to come up with? Let's try point form! 1) This is a point. 2) This, also, is a point. 3) This is a third point, though by now the use of a point form has even less of a point than when it started. I suppose I could keep this title going on for quite a while but maybe I won't because I couldn't be

Reverso Blog Post #2: The Wrath of Kahn.

In an amazing new experimental blog post, Tim has decided to reverse the position of title and post just to see what will happen. Early reports on reactions to this groundbreaking new artistic technique (though possibly not that 'groundbreaking' or 'new') show readers around the world astounded, gobsmacked, terrified, or gobstoundified. When questioned by the press about where he sees his blog going next, Tim refused to comment, even though he was doing the whole write up on his blog anyway. Reverso blog posts, people: it's a thing. You could try and do the same thing on twitter but twitter doesn't have titles HAHAHA SUCKED IN okay goodbye now. (PS pity we don't have paragraphs in these blog titles. The technology should really keep up with the art). UPDATE: At least we can do updates. But we can't do footnotes. Or differently sized fonts. What, are we living in the 1st century?

Reverso blog post #1.

The first black white President of the United States

Following the Obama's description of experiences with casual racism (The Obamas: How We Deal with Our Own Racist Experiences), former US President Bill Clinton, frequently described as 'the first black President of the US' has opened up about his own experiences with racism.

"Oh, for sure, I've encountered casual racism", says Clinton. "For instance, back in 1991 when I was beaten mercilessly by the LA police. Hey, you may say they were just doing their job. Heck, they may not even recognise it as racism themselves! But how can we learn to move on as a society if we don't recognise this stuff for what it is?"

Clinton went on to detail similar examples from his lifetime: leading the civil rights movement before being fatally shot by a casual racist bearing a loaded microaggression, for instance, or that one time he sat on that seat of that bus even after being repeatedly asked to move just for his race, or instance.

"Nothing compared to what our forefathers experienced," says Clinton. "But it just goes to show we've got further to go as a society".

Official scientific map of the box of chocolates

LEGEND

1. The yucky one that no-one wants.
2. The brilliant one that someone always eats before you.
3. The mysterious one. No-one knows what the hell that thing is in the middle of it.
4. The other brilliant one that someone always eats before you.
5. They call this chocolate?
6. The only half-decent one left over that you might as well have.
7. The one the dog ate.
8, 9, 10, 11. The pathetically small ones that actually look like little turds.
12. The not very exciting one with the brand name on it.
13. The super hard one that gets stuck in your teeth.
14. The one that gets sat on by your farty uncle before disappearing down the couch.
15. The one that is actually really small under all that shiny wrapping.
16. The leftover one after everything else gets eaten. Hey, where did all the chocolates go?
17. The peppermint one.
18. The one that your wife steals.

Glorious folk traditions of the world!

Glorious folk traditions of the world no. 4671
We are fast approaching the time of year when households all over the world are said to see the arrival of Sexist Claus, a jolly fat man in a red singlet with a smear of black stubble over his face and chin. According to lore, Sexist Claus will arrive at your house unannounced in the middle of the night, take up residence on your couch, and ask for you to bring him a drink. He doesn't come bringing any gifts, because he forgot them all when he was out.

He is associated with several magic abilities: the ability to trawl sites like OKCupid or Lavalife in an increasingly desperate attempt to find a 'special someone'; the ability to do nothing at all for extended periods of time; or the ability to turn you into an object by merely looking at you. (He has collected many fine examples of statuary for his house and gardens this way).

Sexist Claus has a secret home on the moon called The Patriarchy, where he lives most of the year with his "little helpers", the local Men's Rights Association. They don't actually do anything all year, they just talk shit and leave abusive comments on other people's blogs. His carriage is pulled by 12 galloping snarks, with a troll helper seated beside him for the journey.

It is often said that if a little child denies the existence of Claus by crying "I don't believe in Sexism" thrice, a unicorn molests a fairy. Other families believe if the right charm is uttered, Clementine Ford will come galloping in on a white stallion to defend their house from the depredations of the dreadful Sexist. But his power remains undiminished, and next year he will come back stronger than ever.

Basically, he's a dick.

Pacifist curses

May you die a long and peaceful death! 

May your feet be afflicted with comfortable socks!

Even your toes, yea, even unto the tips of the little outer ones, will be smiten with a pleasant all-suffusing warmth! 

May you be devastated by plague upon plague of friendly puppies!

May you never know rest until bedtime! 

May you suffer from the three-fold comfort - nice chair, nice show on telly, and a very tasty cup of coffee! 

May all your dust turn to wishes and your ashes to dreams!

Christmas Pig

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! I got you a pig! 

The pig is not yours. It's a charity pig

That I got for some people in south Vietnam.

I don't know who they are, but they run a small farm,

Or something like that, and they're terribly poor

And they've never been able to eat pig before. 

But that doesn't matter! Your present is better,

Because I got you a card and I wrote you a letter

Which I've most ostentatiously signed with my name

Thus assuaging my white middle class feelings of shame.

And speaking of presents, gee, I don't know how

But I didn't get any. 

... So I'm eating your chocolates right now.

MERRY FESTIVAL OF GORGING YOURSELF SILLY

Christmas, as we all know, is a wonderful festival about eating*, and in preparation to relatives visiting tomorrow for a Christmassy sort of affair, I have been preparing lots of food and then eating the results. I suppose I've been leaving some over as well, but sometimes it's hard to tell.

First up was a big batch of Pfeffernuse, a delicious German word that is thankfully easier to bake and eat than it is to spell and pronounce. Not all of them turned out perfectly; for instance, some broke apart in the cooking, so I had to eat those. A few more had, you know, cracks in them. Utterly unsightly, though thankfully not utterly untasty; and into my mouth they went. Then a few more just for good measure. At some point some of the remaining pifflemouse or whatever it is called started looking lonely, so I had to clean that up too...

Next up, two rounds of fudge. I made some this morning and it looked and tasted completely delicious. Unfortunately, oh, what a terrible accident happened! Some of the fudge got in under the foil resulting in fudge with bits of foil right through it. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Can't let the folks see that. So I had a slice of fudge. Then another. The Baron walked in at that point, so obviously I had to give some to her, and a few more helpings for me.... I asked the Baron, by the way, to come home with some chocolate for some chocolate fudge tonight. Which she did. And we promptly ate that, too - the chocolate, I mean, not the chocolate fudge, though if there was some we'd probably eat that also. I'll just check.

Speaking of chocolate, everyone should get chocolate for Christmas, don't you think? I think so. I mentioned that to my nephew over the phone the other night and he agreed and asked for chocolate for his present. Then I mentioned this to my brother and he said I'd better not get my nephew any chocolate for Christmas. So he's definitely getting some chocolate, then. Sorted. 

*And so, come to think of it, is New Years, Easter, birthdays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays.... if these events have another purpose then it's surprising we haven't heard of it yet.

No! No! Not more poetry, I beg of you!

He often pulled such merry faces,

Transfixing folks in public places

Or drowning puppies in the bath - 

But then, he was a psychopath. 

Tim, what a horrible poem, I hear you cry! How can we hear less of it?

(By coming to my poetry feature at the Dan O'Connell Hotel from 2 pm tomorrow, of course - it's on the corner of Canning St and Alexandra Parade in Carlton. There'll certainly be less of that poem, though not so much of others... )

Breaking the news until there's nothing left to be broken....

ABC to produce more economic, streamlined version of all shows by rolling them into one 14 and a half minute broadcast

The Religion Poetica Report Arts Foreign Affairs Briefing Talk Chat Track Weekend Daily Show Project with added thirty second Phillip Adams Rant is due to go on air January. It will feature intelligent intellectuals having intelligent intellectual discussions about the arts in a Middle East church during a fast-developing international crisis. There will also be a cheerful soundtrack composed by an up-and-coming Australian composer, soon to be announced, for Casio synthesizer and the 'flute' button on Casio synthesizer!