Twelve things that only a uni student from the 1690s will understand

No fancy technology for us back in the 1690s, let me tell you. If we wanted a merkin, we had to make it ourselves.

1. Monday morning repression of Catholics.

 The week just wasn't the same without it.

2.When your essay is due, like, yesterday but you accidentally lost your nose in a fit of syphilitic fervour, and you just have to find it first.

 I'm pretty sure it went under the bed.

3. "Not aorist AGAIN!"

Am I right or am I right guys?


4. When you fight with your best friend over whether Deuteronomy is better than 2 Chronicles.

 It all depends on whether it's an OKJV or Geneva translation, okay? No need to duel over it.

5. When you've had nothing but mouldy cabbage to eat all year, and your friend catches a leprous rat.

The tail is kinda crunchy! 

6. Your friend keeps beating you in the headlice races, but you found a real winner hiding beneath your favourite whore's merkin, and you've been training it up all month.

Game on, bro. 

7. Grimalkin sleepeth in your periwig again.

Always sleepething where she's not supposed to. 

So tiresome. 

8. That one time a Dutch hipster slipped hops into your morning ale.

I prefer my alcoholic malt beverage to contain bog myrtle and wormwood at this time of the morning, thanks very much my good man. 

9. An old college fellow has invited you to another metaphysical reading, but you have a pastoral comedy you'd rather attend.

Party like it's 1585! 

10. You keep on thinking you find the philosopher's stone in your pocket.

That Grimalkin hath a lot to answer for. 

It's usually just a dried-up furball. 

11. Wednesday evening mockery of the French.

They look like a sheep's bottom and they smell funny! 

12. When you need a paperweight to read this latest pamphlet by the damnable Whigs, so you end up using the chamberpot.

It's okay so long as you're careful not to spill anything. 

A Spoonerist poem about the US election

Presenting a Spoonerist poem about the US election

Do words Trump facts? 

Are facts Trump's words? 

Are frump's words tact? 

Whump! Pact swords turds! 

I am also available for weddings, funerals, and the bits in between.

And sign up to Facelessbook when you're done

...In a strongly worded email to students at both campuses, student-government presidents Rachel Grisham and Quinn Haaga warned their communities that acts of cultural appropriation "are not acceptable." Full stop. 
 Seriously: 
Cultural appropriation is the act of borrowing or using aspects of a culture by another culture, typically a dominant culture. Around the time of Halloween, we often see people dressing as a culture or a character, which is offensive and reinforces negative stereotypes....
Oregon Student Government: Dressing Up as Any Character Is Cultural Appropriation, Not Okay 

Now I know what you're thinking. At last, someone brave enough to stand against the rampant abuse of character in our society! Finally someone has dared to oppose all this character people just go flaunting about, as if it was actually something that we were good with.

But hang on: what if a person goes to a party dressed as themselves? Then they will be inappropriately appropriating their own self off their own self instead of someone else, which, if you ask me, is even worse than if they were appropriating their self off another self who happened to have a self to spare. And even if appropriating themselves from themselves was deemed to be an act of appropriate appropriation, by appropriately appropriating their character before someone else can inappropriately appropriate their character from them, there is always the clear and present danger that they will end up committing racism against their sex or sexism against their class and, more importantly still, end up thwarting their own incipient Narcissism. No, it is clear that all such appropriate appropriation inappropriately appropriates, and sexism is classism against Narcissists, and that's that.

And that's even before we get into the fact that they're going to the party dressed, full stop. What? Who said that was okay?

In short, to prevent all future displays of character, these Oregon university student governments will simply have to hereby abolish all displays of character, including, but not limited to, self, name (pronouns are so triggering), clothes, face, body, and sense of meaning and values. Quickly! Before someone gets offended!

Lovely little curly things

You know those toothpaste ads they used to screen when we were kids? There'd be a smiling lady with perfect teeth, and she'd layer fresh toothpaste from a tube onto a toothbrush. There would be a close up on the toothbrush, and you'd see the toothpaste go on in a perfect flow, ending with a lovely little curl on the end. At this point a 'ping' noise might come from the television or maybe little animated stars, but that doesn't matter, because what matters is the lovely little curl at the end! I used to practice hard with the toothpaste tube to try to get that curl at the end of my own toothbrush - I might have gone through the better half of a toothpaste tube to actually try to get it to happen. It's actually really hard! How did they actually get the curl at the end in those ads? We're talking the '80s, people. This is not the time of advanced CGI and movie special effects so real you can eat them: this is more the time of dodgy puppets with people's hands up their bums talking smack. Do they hire trained ninjas who have been practising the ancient art of paste-fu in Shaolin Temple for decades to get that little Zen moment of curly perfection? Are there some people who just have the curly knack? I DON'T KNOW! By the way, sorry mum and dad for all those lost toothpaste tubes.

Anyway. Things with a lovely little curl at the end of them. Do you know, there's a lot of these in nature, if you look hard enough? For instance, meringues. All the best meringues end with a curve, though they don't typically also make a 'pinging' noise or have animated stars, but you can't have everything. Ice-cream sometimes has too, though the curly bit doesn't usually last because it melts away in the sun just like all beauty must fade away to nothingness eventually and what's the pointy of it all?

And do you know what else ends with a little curl? Chook poo! If the chook does it well (and not all chooks, I have found, are trained ninjas practising the ancient art of poo-fu in Shaolin Temple for decades to get that little Zen moment of curly perfection) then it will taper with a delicate little curl, the nicest you could wish for. How do they do that?

Of course, not all these things are like the other. I wouldn't recommend cleaning your teeth with meringues or ice-cream, for instance, no matter how fun that might seem at the time. I wouldn't recommend doing it with chook poo, either. I know how disappointed you all will be.

I think the basic point I'm making is that things that end with a lovely little curl at the end are lovely THE END.

We've come a long way in the space of this short blog post. A journey. It's been a bonding experience. A moving thing. In fact, I think I want to do a movement now...

Blast it all, what's the rigorous scientific solution to this?

Scientists have the potential to be great leaders – indeed, to change the world – but we are sorely under-represented at the nation's highest levels... 

We need more scientists to take the leap into politics - SMH

SCENE: A parliamentary cabinet meeting. The PRIME MINISTER is sitting at the table, along with several other LOWLY WORMS. 

PRIME MINISTER: Right, thanks for coming to this cabinet meeting everyone. As you know, this nation faces many difficult and serious problems, so we need to get right down to it, offering rigorous, science-based solutions to these problems.

LOWLY WORMS: (Right on, hear hear, good on you Prime Minister, how right you are, and so on.)

PRIME MINISTER: So, a number of voters have raised transport along the Pacific Highway as an issue with us. As I said before, it's important that we apply a rigorous, science-based approach to solving all our problems, isn't that right, Lowly Worm 1?

LOWLY WORM 1: That's right, Minister, and as modern road testing technology informs us....

PRIME MINISTER: (Dismissing LOWLY WORM 1 with a wave of his hand) That's all right, Lowly Worm 1. I know what the solution is. You may be the Transport Minister, but I am the Prime Minister. Yes, by applying a calmly analytical scientific eye to this situation, I have decided that nothing could be more suitable than explosions.

LOWLY WORM 1: Expl.... what, Prime Minister?

PRIME MINISTER: That's right! What could be more scientific than explosions? I've watched all the rigorous, science-based programs in which they apply rigorous, science-based solutions to stuff.

LOWLY WORM 2: Er, what programs would they be again Prime Minister?

PRIME MINISTER: Mythbusters, of course! They're full of explosions!

LOWLY WORM 2: They're not even on telly anymore!

PRIME MINISTER: That's why you're just the Lowly Worm and I'm the Prime Minister. I applied a rigorous scientific solution to that as well. I got the whole show on Netflix!

(Awkward silence) 

LOWLY WORM 1: Er, so about this road...

PRIME MINISTER: Yep. We're going to blow the whole thing up.

LOWLY WORM 1: Blow the.... blow the.... blow the... blow the....

PRIME MINISTER: It'll be so cool, there'll be all sorts of pretty colours, and we'll all get to pose in front of the gigantic fireball for a photo op. Yep, we're going to explode the whole thing.

LOWLY WORM 1: Blow the.... blow the... blow the...

LOWLY WORM 3: Perhaps if we move on, Prime Minister. Ehrm, there's been some dissatisfaction about our Department of Arts policy of saving money on grants, various artists have called on a resumption of earlier funding. Now, I have a report here, which, if we go over...

PRIME MINISTER: No, don't worry about that. Yes, Lowly Worm 3, I have examined all the evidence in a calm, rational sciency fashion and I have determined that we must apply the best of science to this problem, too, and make lots of explosions.

LOWLY WORM 3: (Buries head in hands) Explode.... what, Prime Minister? Not the artists, I trust?

PRIME MINISTER: Certainly not!

LOWLY WORM 3: The.... the art galleries?

PRIME MINISTER: (Shocked) Good heavens no. Do you take me for some barbarian? Though come to think of it, with all those lovely oil paintings they have... there would be a very striking abstract-impressionist effect to it all...

LOWLY WORM 3: We can't blow up the art galleries, Prime Minister!

PRIME MINISTER: No no, you're quite right. Yes, we'll just blow up the Department instead.

LOWLY WORM 3: Blow up the Department instead!

PRIME MINISTER: Don't worry, you'll all be evacuated prior to the explosion and given cushy jobs in other Departments. (Laughs jocularly). Look upon it as a form of extremely advanced Keynesian stimulus. Keynes was very sciency, you know.

LOWLY WORM 4: Perhaps we can come back to that. Prime Minister, let's discuss the environment now.

PRIME MINISTER: Yes, right you are. Again, let's apply the best of science to this problem and explode the bastard into smithereens.

LOWLY WORM 5: Explode the environment! Is there any national problem, you won't explode?

PRIME MINISTER: Now that's a very good question! I'm not sure if there's any rigorous science-based policy report on that. Maybe there was and I exploded it?

LOWLY WORM 5: Prime Minister, this nation faces many serious problems, including national security, a faltering economy, and poor jobs growth, and...

PRIME MINISTER: Explode, explode, explode. People. The science is clear.

LOWLY WORM 5: (Shouting now) The science doesn't say that at all! Science is about examining all the evidence and coming to rational conclusions...

PRIME MINISTER: Don't be ridiculous, Lowly Worm 5! Everyone knows science is about putting lots of fancy words together to make really cool explosions!

LOWLY WORM 5: (Splutters incoherently)

LOWLY WORM 6: Er.... perhaps we can resume this cabinet meeting soon, the time is running late, Prime Minister, and I think we all need a lunch break....

PRIME MINISTER: Quite so, Lowly Worm 6. Lowly Worms, let's all meet be back here in half an hour. (All file out). By the way, could I have some of yours? I exploded mine at home this morning, and for some reason it stuck to the ceiling instead of falling into my tupperware....

Give me cheques. It's mandatory.

A short while ago I heard someone discussing the possibility of mandatory health checks at work.

Health at work is important, isn't it? I therefore propose a related initiative: mandatory health cheques. Here's how I imagine it would take place: people give me cheques, and I get healthier.

What does it have to do with work, though? I don't know. But it sure works for me.  

The practical applications of cat logic

Beatrice the cat just walked into the laundry, did a poo behind the litter, commenced to clean the litter up, and then asked to go outside.

This strikes me as being a superb example of cat logic.

Let's apply it to my own life:

- Get some bread, butter, and a knife, Put the butter and knife in the toaster and turn them on. When the toaster malfunctions, eat the bread!

- Get a broom and sweep up the contents of the compost bin. Then come inside and throw it in the fridge!

- Pay two dollars to the chickens, walk down the road, steal a chocolate bar from the 7/11, and then take it home and eat the plastic!  

- Take all my clothes off and lie naked next to the bathtub for half an hour, singing songs like 'Rubber Ducky'. Then dry myself off, put my clothes on, start running the bath, and leave the house for the afternoon!

Actually - you know, cat logic actually sounds kind of fun. I should try this some time....

Thoughts about football

It's all 'Bulldogs' this and 'Swans' that and 'Magpies', 'Lions' and 'Bombers' with some people. I ask you - what do sporty people have against the fierce poodle, the ferocious capybara, the terrifying tardigrade, that these noble creatures- bastions of the animal kingdom- should be omitted from all team regalia the world over? I must admit, I once formulated a proposal for a new AFL team with the name 'Wombats'. I even wrote a team song! Well, the first few lines, anyway:

When the wombats
Enter combat
When the wombats boldly charge into the fray...

Instead, the AFL went with the 'Suns' and the 'Giants'. Boooooring!

And while we're on the general topic, why don't we discuss the matter of team costumes: what do these people have against polka dots, teal, aqua, turquoise, or puce? Is it such a stretch from wearing stripes to the equally-distinctive spots? The animal kingdom seems to have no trouble accommodating either: contemplate the noble tiger (stripes) and the regal leopard (spotty). I mean, come on! AFL is a game in which grown men run around in short shorts to show tunes from the 1930s. It can't be that difficult.

In conclusion, this is my proposal for the AFL: have more spotty costumes, and call a team the Wombats.