We three kings can't orientate: a Christmas carol

We three kings can't orientate

We three kings are rather lost

Wandering from coast to coast -

Westward leading still proceeding

We three kings are rather lost.

We three kings can't work it out

Turn the map around, about -

Westward wending, southward sending,

North and left and upwards tending -

We three kings can't work it out.

We three kings are in despair

Neither here and neither there.

High and low and near and far -

We found the star, we lost the star -

Perhaps we should have gone by car -

We three kings are in despair.

We three kings still bumble on

Fumble flap and stumble on -

Now with footsteps not so fast

As our footsteps in the past

Somehow we'll find the Christ at last

Though this whole trip has been disast...

We three kings still bumble on.

O star of wonder, star of night,

Star with royal beauty bright,

Westward leading, still proceeding,

Guide us to thy perfect light.

Notes instead of cleaning Notes while cleaning

Just empty the dust pan on the ground outside. It can only improve the appearance.

Cleaning really makes you notice all the bits so little nobody would notice unless they were actually cleaning. So be sure to leave a few discreet little piles of dust here and there, otherwise people coming home won't be able to notice. 

The leftover bits of dust  are there for contrast, to set off the swept up portions. It's just like a painting. Light and shade...

The bits under things are a carefully balanced ecosystem, and ought not be disturbed. Under the mat. Under the fridge. Under the bed. Under the pants. Under the roof.

Refuse has magical properties, and will form the most amazing shapes when left to its own devices: naval lint and slut's wool.

You don't clean because of what others will think. You clean because of what you think others will think. The others, meanwhile, are cleaning because of what they think you will think.

Arrange to have plenty of friends accidentally drop in while you are cleaning. It's rude to clean while friends are round, so you won't have to do any more cleaning. Plus it's nice to have friends round.

Once you start cleaning it can be hard to stop cleaning. This problem has an obvious solution.

House mess is a carefully ordered type of chaos that allows us to know where everything is. Cleaning is our way of losing everything all over again.

Nobody bothers tidying the majestic forest, and look how popular that is.

An object that has been dropped on the floor in a few weeks actually becomes the floor. No-one knows quite how this mysterious process happens.

What happens under the bed stays under the bed.

The bits under the cushions of sofas have powerful progenitive properties. If left to their own devices, they will eventually yield untold riches.

It is much easier to mess a tidy room than to tidy a messy room.  In fact, even if left entirely on its own, a room will gradually fill with dust and mess itself.

A sublime mountain range is just a mess a few million years on. 

Youse can all use this

An additional verse to Gerard Nolste Trenité's poem about English spelling, accurately entitled The Chaos. You can read the original poem here.

Additional verse to The Chaos

What shall I say to you of youse,

A use which some don't like to use? 

Some find it gross, I find it grouse,

And often use it round my house. 

But please don't ask me to espouse

Upon the wherefores, whys or hows. 

(Australians use it - not the US - 

Land of St Louis - or St Louis!)

Boo hoo brouhaha

I don't know what it was exactly, but between the one millionth time the video of Penny Wong crying popped up in my feed and the one million and oneth time the video of Penny Wong crying popped up in my feed, something snapped. What is it with the news media and the news media audience and pictures of politicians crying? But then again, it's a confusing issue. On the one hand, I think my life would be greatly improved if I never saw a politician crying again. On the other hand, who's to say what benefits could come to all of us if our feed was full of all politicians crying, all the time? It certainly wouldn't be any worse than what the media is full of at the moment (and the media is certainly full of it). 

Everyone cries, of course, and politicians cry too. Bob Hawke cried. Kevin Rudd cried. And now Penny Wong cried, too, when the results of the plebiscite rolled in and it became clear the 'yes' side had won the same sex marriage plebiscite. And she just happened to be standing in  front of the camera and the camera just happened to be recording her and the ABC just happened to take that footage and post it up on the internet as a news story (HEADLINE: politician's eye glands still in working order) and thousands of Australians just happened to watch it with such regularity that it just happened to appear in my feed again and again and again.

Humans are generally sympathetic sorts, of course, and there is just something about a video of Penny Wong crying that makes others cry. It's probably something to do with her being a likable politician who obviously has feelings and emotions like normal  people. Though why those normal  people would want to click on a video of Penny Wong crying for a second, third, fourth, or one millionth time is another question entirely. Sometimes normal people aren't very normal at all.

Maybe, in future, just as sitcoms get made with a laughter track, soap operas will get made with  a weeping track made principally of the sound of  Penny Wong crying, and played every time a break up or a death happens, so normal people might be able to sympathise in that way normal  people do and maybe even cry the tears of normal people as they do every time that recording of Penny Wong crying is played.

Not that I'm saying Penny Wong should cry full time. Don't be sad, Penny! Australia is a thriving modern nation with great economic prospects and a fantastic manufacturing sector! And you only need to do it once!   

Why... why are you looking at me that way, Penny Wong? I.... I didn't mean to. But the mainstream media made me do it! No, no... really! Ayieeeeeeeeeeeeee! 

Gritty realism

Last week the exercise in German class was to sit and watch a video of a mountain and then come up with adjectives about it. The mountain was doing that thing it is that mountains do: not very much. In due course we had come up with a series of not particularly  original adjectives which the teacher was dutifully placing up on the board: "Hoch" ("high"), "neblig" ("misty"), "großartig" ("great, sublime").... at around this point I ventured: "Vielleicht es ist ein bisschen langweilig" ("Maybe it's a little boring").. The teacher laughed at this, said "Nein", and refused to write anything of the sort on the board: "Ja, langweilig", I cried, rallying to the course: "Es ist groß und grau und dreckig: langweilig!" (Big, grey, dirty).

And, come on, I was right: mountains are indisputably big, mostly a dull grey, and undeniably dirty: they are *literally* dirt. Big collections of rocks remain rocks, no matter how highly they may elevate themselves.

But people really do get over-excited about their big rocks. Just the other day the traditional owners of Uluru - that's the big red rock in the middle of  the desert, for anyone from other lands - decided to ban people from walking on top of their rock. Fair enough, it's their large stony object and they can do what they want with it, I guess. But the outrage! The anger! The cranky tweets and Facebook posts! Australians, it seems, really take their big rocks - and their right to walk over their big rocks - personally! What does it say over the state of a nation where one of their most beloved national icons is a gigantic rock in the middle of the desert? Mind you, we do have one over the United States. They get excited about a big hole in the middle of their desert.

What do people love about such masses of dirt, anyway? I suppose I shouldn't seem too dismissive of big rocks and hills and the like. Let's be exact and precise in our language here: a mountain is an exaggeration of dirt: there really is a lot of it. "A presence to glop at", as Auden wrote about that gigantic sphere of dirt and stuff in our sky. When Edmund Hillary learned of Everest, that gigantic collection of dirt in the Himalayas, his instinct was to climb it, too (this seems to be a common theme - getting on top of exaggerations of dirt, and then getting down to the other side). After he actually achieved this feat, one particular party - I'm not sure whether they were struck by a sudden fit of intelligence or a sudden fit of stupidity - asked Hillary why. Hillary's response was singularly unforthcoming: "Because it was there".

Well, they are there, after all, these hills and mountains and rocks and things, and they might as well earn their keep, which is why I suppose people do make such a song and dance about them. Tourism, photo opportunities, exciting travel opportunities (travelling to the mountain, travelling up the mountain, travelling down the other side of the mountain, travelling back home from the mountain again*) - not particularly meaningful, you might say. But who cares about giving meaning and substance to your life when you've got the basis for a national economy instead? Perhaps these big rocks have something to them after all.

Mind you, when we were in New Zealand in February, Lexi and I took a trip by train to Chateau Tongariro, right up next to the famous Mt Ruapehu. There was a train packed full of people, with a viewing platform where everyone could see its sublime peaks and its noble vistas. All the way there and all the way back, our sight of the mountain was occluded by large swathings of clouds and mists and the like. None of us got to see this wonder of nature at all. It was great. I even got a poem out of it:

Ruapehu! So bigly and profound! 
We've come to see your stately scenery! 
Though swathed in mystic mists, down to the ground
You truly are a sight we'll never see. 

 I wrote ten more lines of this, but you see where I'm going.

Not that I really have anything against rocks. They're all right, I suppose. I just guess I get annoyed when the big ones detract attention from the other ones, really. Why does that mountain range get all the glory? What about this majestic pebble? This sublime range of grit? That glorious garden full of urbanite a couple of blocks away? Where's the tourist industry and travellers and sightseers and chalets and Almhütten for that, hey? No! I didn't think so! 

*Or, if you are talking about Uluru, travelling to the mountain, not being able to travel up the mountain, not being able to travel down the mountain, travelling home from the mountain again, writing an outraged Tweet about it all, creating a mini-apocalypse of outraged Tweets in reply, having a hot chocolate and Ginger Nut biscuit and going to bed.

List I found in my notebook

Useful useless jobs

Maker of zips for fake pockets
Church gargoyle feeder
Umlaut weigher
Pre-ripper of invisible jeans
Snark breeder
Walker of trolls
Maker of pockets for fake zips
Reverse stripper

*Note: I heard the first two in various places, I'm not quite sure where. The rest I made up. 

A users guide to awkward hugs

Hugs are always awkward. In fact that's probably what hugs were invented for, cheap and efficient awkwardness on a global scale. There are some people who claim that hugs are for being comfy and feeling loved, but those people are in denial. How long is this comfy hug supposed to go on for? Is a feeling loved hug maximised if I place my arms here, or move them there? What if the second person in the comfy loving hug has entirely different feelings about the correct position and duration of the comfy loving hug than the first person in the comfy loving hug? There could be an argument about it. There could be a huge fight. Marriages have split up over less! It's all incredibly awkward, which takes us back to my initial point about hugs being always awkward. They just are, as I have just irrefutably proved.

But by far the most awkward hugs of all are awkward hugs. You might think this is tautological, and you'd be right. Awkwardly awkward hugs are the hugs that put the 'logical' into 'tautology'. You might argue that 'tautology' doesn't have 'logical' in it, and again it seems you would be right. It's all very awkward, and we're only *talking* about hugs, which really proves just how awkward they can be if we can come to such an embarrassing impasse without actually hugging.

So, it seems we need a users guide to awkward hugs. And here it is. Take it from me. I know about awkward hugs all right. I'm an expert. Nobody hugs more awkwardly than me.

1) Embarrassing embraces with people you've just met. 

2) Peremptory smooshes with people you'll never see again. 
If you do 1) right, it becomes 2) anyway.

3) Awkward hugs with awkward kisses. 
How do you do these things again? Peck on the cheek? Right hand cheek, left hand cheek? And quick, right? Just how quick?

4) Surprise hugs in the middle of a party from a drunk person. 
These are difficult. I find that awkward hugs works best if you really prepare for them, anticipate every aspect of their awkwardness for weeks, and then blunderingly get the whole thing wrong anyway, but surprise hugs in the middle of a party from a drunk person can be pretty awful too. Try and arrange for it to be a) in a surprisingly awkward location b) stationed in front of a large audience of people who will ask you awkward questions about it afterwards (eg your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband) b) surprisingly, well, surprising.

5) Bear hugs from a bear. 
Very awkward, these.

6) Awkward hugs with awkward kisses from a bear. 
 You hardly even know one another, and already one of the party is bear. Ho ho ho ho ho.

7) Gawky side hugs.
Are you being not affectionate enough, or too affectionate? Should you be side hugging from the other side? These hugs create more questions than answers.

8) Manly manhugs with one of the participants being a dweeb and the dweeb is you. 

9) Cold emotionless distant formal hugs. 
Because emotion is evil and must be crushed.

10) Hugs for comfort where neither party is comfortable but maintain the illusion of comfort and safety to keep the other person feeling comfortable and safe. 
With a bear.

11) Awkwardly hugging someone with parasites. 

12) Passive aggressive hugging. 
I mean, often nobody's enjoying it. But sometimes it's got to be done.

SEE ALSO: Awkward sex hugs, awkward spooning where one of the partners is subtly out of position making the other spooner uncomfortable, awkward sex hugs with your partner, one cat, two dogs, and a goat. Not that I know anything about those ones. And the goats not talking either. 

Misinterpreted misinterpretations of words that do not mean what they mean

Oy you lot, drop what you're doing! I can't believe we didn't start talking about Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken five minutes ago! Is it up to me to start all the discussions about the completely random pointless trains of thought which I came up with for no reason at all and which I'm talking about no for even less reason? You're just lazy, that's what you are!

Anyway, everyone is wrong! This is a poem that has not just been misinterpreted, it's a poem where everyone's interpretation of the misinterpretation is a misinterpretation! (Except for me, of course.)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Got that?

- Okay, so ... it goes something like this. People commonly misinterpret this poem as if it was about a person choosing between two roads and then realising how that choice 'has made all the difference' later in their life. Seems simple enough, right?

- Ah, but, a second set of people claim. The poem's not really about that at all! It's about how there actually was no difference between the two choices! They point out how Frost describes the roads as being 'really about the same' and that 'both that morning equally lay'. There, you see, they claim, Frost is actually taking the piss out of this guy speaking, who says that the choice he made was actually important. The speaker is actually trying to make out a difference where there is none.

- Is not, say the first.

- Is too, say the second.

But - and here is the nub that the misinterpreters of the misinterpretation miss out on - it's not as if the speaker is relating the events as they happen to him. It's a past tense poem and could be relating events that happened years, even decades ago. So when the speaker says of his choice 'that has made all the difference', he may well be referring to knowledge he has gained since the events relayed in the poem. It is true that he says that 'I kept the first for another day/Yet knowing how way leads on to way,/I doubted if I should ever come back' - implying that he can't really know if taking the other track would have made a difference. But maybe he did? It doesn't say either way in the poem.

And it's not as if it's a purely physical poem, is it? The point the most first set of misinterpreters pick up on - sometimes - that the second set of misinterpreters don't is that it's a bit of a metaphor, really. The two roads mightn't even be real. They might just represent a choice the speaker made in their life. And though you can't ever return back to that point in your life where you were able to make that choice - 'knowing that way leads on to way', and all that - you might very well be able to discern the effects of those choices. And even if you make the simplest, most literal translation of all these lines - the poem actually is about a traveller in the woods making a choice that will affect his later life (and he is described as a 'traveller', and not just a 'sightseer' or something else, so it seems implicit he is making a journey of some import), it's pretty clear that making a choice between roads may make a difference in one's later life.

Wrong wrong wrong! You're all wrong! And citing the genesis of the poem - apparently Robert Frost wrote it for his friend, fellow poet Edward Thomas, who was apparently always regretting not taking certain roads in his walks with Frost - doesn't help much either, because it doesn't necessarily matter what the poet means to mean, since the poem means something entirely different from the meaning that poet means to mean anyway.

Right. Any objections? Good! Class dismissed!

Pub tongue twister....

Pub tongue twister - if you can recite it perfectly, then you clearly haven't had enough to drink.

The bald bard bawled

By the bad bard's bar

For the bald bard had brawled

With the bored bawd's bra*,

Til the big broad barman 

Barred the bard from the bar

So the bald bard bawled

By the.... blah blah blah blah. 

*Consensually. 

The most lamentable tragedy of Marcel Marceau

SCENE: A doctor's office. The DOCTOR is sitting at the desk going through his notes. In through the door comes MARCEL MARCEAU. 

DOCTOR: Yes. Good morning, Mr Marceau. I'm glad you've come to see me. I've been looking at your test results and they're not good. Not good at all, I'm afraid. 

MARCEL MARCEAU: (Says nothing). 

DOCTOR: And - yes, well. I think you'd better get comfortable and prepare yourself for what I've got to say. 

MARCEL MARCEAU: (Says nothing). 

DOCTOR: You see, Mr Marceau.... ahem.... I'm afraid you've got gesticular cancer. 

MARCEL MARCEAU: 

DOCTOR: Hm. Clearly it's already entered the terminal stage. 

FIN

Clearly learning about grammar in my German classes has driven me mad

Seeking for pluperfection

Had I the hat that I had had 

When I had had a hat 

Ah! Then the hat that I had had

Would have to have been that! 

And if the hat that I had had 

Had had a band of red

Then oft that hat that I had had

Had sat upon my head. 

Alas! The hat that I had had 

Had had a band although

The band the hat that I had had 

Had had had faded so. 

No more the hat I had to have 

Was mad to have and glad - 

I threw away that sad old hat 

The hat I had had had. 

If the reader so desires, they can find the right places to put the commas in amongst all those 'hads'. 

Not that I'm saying the world's going to explode if I don't answer this question, but you know, it probably will.

Right, world, listen up. You've kept us waiting too long and we all demand the answer to this question:

What on earth do homeschoolers who homeschool their kids call, you know, homework?

HOW CAN WE GO ON LIVING THIS EXISTENCE WITHOUT AN ANSWER TO THIS VITAL QUESTION?

An ohhhhhhhhhd

A few years ago the venerable institution going by the venerable name of Slamalamadingdong held an 'Anything Goes' poetry slam at their then venue of Trades Hall. Timing, as they say, is an indispensable element in many things - comedy, poetry, and outrageous distastefulness. So I hit on the idea of writing a love poem to the then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and performing it at the slam. The worthy politician  who goes by that name has his advantages and disadvantages as a representative of Australia on the world stage, but his value in shocking and outraging people in the Melbourne Trades Hall is inestimable.

The years roll by. Tony Abbott is no longer Opposition Leader, no longer Prime Minister. The actual Prime Minister and Opposition Leader inspire nothing like the visceral shock and outrage and disgust that Mr Abbott seemingly was able to muster by simply turning to the camera and uttering a three syllable phrase - "Stop the boats!" Why, then, do I share with you now my Ode to Tony Abbott? For this very simple reason: I never actually got around to performing or writing it at the time of the Anything Goes slam. Timing is an indispensable element, in procrastination as in other things. 

An ode to Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott Tony Abbott 

Politician on a mission as you lead the coalition 

Pounding out the heaving bosom of the ocean 

While the water swells to meet you and the shoreline comes to greet you 

And the very planet shakes with the commotion. 

Tony Abbott Tony Abbott

With your roadways to tomorrow, pure, without sorrow, 

Clean cutting lines of asphalt and precision - 

And at night the luminescence of the neon fluorescence 

To sanctify your technocratic vision. 

Tony Abbott Tony Abbott

Warrior for the nation as we shout with acclamation 

And our voices mingle, passionate in praise - 

May our military munitions flower in perfervid fission 

And pay their tribute to you in a torrid blaze. 

Tony Abbott Tony Abbott 

Do you hear the metal ringing and the infrastructure singing

As the factories whisper out the Abbott story - 

And the smokestacks stand and shiver till with wonder they deliver

Clouds of radiant black effulgence for your glory! 

Tony Abbott Tony Abbott TONY ABBOTT. 

HIGHLY IMPORTANT POEM WITH NO WORDS AND ONLY THREE LETTERS

TFW

(FTW)

WTF!

A winning combination

Crocs. 

Crocs with socks. 

Crocs with socks and a box of chocs. 

Bojo made a booboo boohoo

Boris Johnson struggles in interview 
Boris Johnson seemed to struggle when asked by Eddie Mair on BBC Radio 4's PM to explain how plans laid out in the Queen's Speech would tackle "burning injustices" identified by Prime Minister Theresa May.

Has Bojo lost his mojo
Now that Corbyn's all a-gogo,
Have they conquered his blond conker
And driven him quite bonkers?
Has the polyphonic Pfefferneuse
Put his head in his own noose?
Is the boffin of the waffle
Lost in his own piffle-poffle?
The polls say yes, the polls say no,
The bottom line is, we don't know. 

Has the prime PM contender
Been marked return-to-sender?
Is the man they called Adonis
No longer due upon us?
Have his wingdings lost their zingzing,
Has his bikey lost its dingading?
Has he toddled off for wiff-waff?
Has the bofflin lost his boff?
The polls are up, the polls are down,
We go around, around, around. 

Furtive eggplant

I was in the garden this afternoon when, crouching down by the back of the beehives, I found a furtive eggplant. There is no eggplant, er, plant there. It was also not a very big eggplant, but it was an eggplant, so there you go.

I looked left. I looked right. I looked all around. One is occasionally accustomed to finding the odd egg in the garden (I've known a chicken or two with such nefarious thoughts in mind). But an eggplant?

There was a clunk or two over the other side of the fence. Could our 70 plus year old neighbour have thrown it over? Unlikely. The bees continued doing whatever it is bees do. Far off, on the other side of the garden, the chickens all stood around looking suitably suspicious. They certainly seemed they were up to something. But then, the chooks always seem like they're up to something.

I concluded my furtive eggplant investigations by creating the world's smallest eggplant parma. A coin is included for comparison.

It's not a very good mystery, but it's all I've got today. Thank you for reading my post about the furtive eggplant.

A pub poem

My chip has fallen to the floor.

The bar is crowded. I look down.

Sehnsucht. A lawless longing for

The unattainable. I frown.

STUDY: people who stay up late and are messy and get distracted easily and are five foot two and prefer dark chocolate and have a moustache but not a beard and who don't do the dishes often and who prefer dogs to cats and who live in Ringwood and who are called Brad are very intelligent

STUDY: people who stay up late and are messy and get distracted easily and are five foot two and prefer dark chocolate and have a moustache but not a beard and who don't do the dishes often and who prefer dogs to cats and who live in Ringwood and who are called Brad are very intelligent.

In breaking news, a new study confirms that people who stay up late and are messy and get distracted easily and are five foot two and prefer dark chocolate and have a moustache but not a beard and who don't do the dishes often and who prefer dogs to cats and who live in Ringwood and who are called Brad are very intelligent, according to a person called Brad.

Brad, who performed the intensive study in his offices in Ringwood, released this groundbreaking study to the international media this morning. The study had a sample size of one.

In other news, Brad is 28 years old, lives in his parent's cellar, and spends most of his time scratching his bum.

Poem composed on Mothers' Day 2017

I offer this poem to all: parents, aspiring parents and offspring alike.

Dear Mistress, dear Master, 

We render to thee

A morsel of mouse

Made tender for thee -

How pleasant a present 

For the household to see!

Now what shall thy gift

To thy parents be?

Gliterature

'Glittering' is a glittery word. 'Glistering' is a glittery word. 'Lustre' is a glittery word too. But combine them all and 'glustering' isn't very glittery at all. What the hell?

I have lost all my faith in the gliterary qualities of language.

Cat poetry

Anglo-Saxon Doge

Ēadig, þec tō mētenne, fréondléasta! Behealden! "Anglo-Saxon Doge". Georne!  

A poem in excellent taste

A poem in excellent taste

"Fair fa' your honest sonsie face" -

Ye carbo-gluto-great disgrace!

For years the Haggis set the standard

For horror foods, but I'll be candid,

Now other foods have come to try it,

To eat of which would cause a riot.

Would Sir prefer to rock the Casbah

With a slice of deep-fried Mars Bar,

Or would Sir rather rot his molar

With this deep-fried Coca Cola?

But Aussies can contend with these

With floater pies complete with peas -

To gaze within that Stygian grime,

The cow would die a second time.

Halal Snack Packs complete with cheese

Compete with this for extra quease.

A slice of fruit for those more pure -

It smells like foetid bogs and sewer.

A Parma can reward the senses

With its homely decadences,

But for sheer bloody What-The-Fucken-

Hell-Is-This at parties, try Turducken.

Lutefisk, Moose Nose, Bird-spit soups,

Stylised culinary poops -

Spit beer served in Mason jars

By suspect men in dingy bars;

Blue-green algae lattes (what the?

I'll go back to ol' Pigs Trotters).

This list of epicurean shame

Is long and everyone's to blame

And though I wish I'd not begun,

I'll just say this and then I'm done -

If you can eat it, please go nuts!

So long as you don't spill your guts.

Thursday morning deprecation of teapots

At a time when the whole art world was going wiggly-woggly and frilly-frolly with noblets and nodules and nipples galore, look at what one Christopher Dresser created. The world's most ridiculous teapot.

I mean, really! The bloody thing would overbalance as soon as you tried to pick it up. And you can't steady it with your hand either, because it's made out of metal, so you'd just burn your hand. Anticipating this problem (maybe), Dresser gave it an upturned spout, but then you've got to wonder how you'd pour the stupid tea out anyway. Maybe it goes something like 1) Pour the hot water over the tea leaves at the bottom of the pot 2) Get two strong men to grasp opposite sides of the handle, making sure not to overbalance it. 3) Carefully place a teacup (good Lord, did this monstrous Dresser ever make teacups as well? I DON'T WANT TO SEE THE RESULTS) in the middle of the sink. 4) Let one of the strong men dangle the teapot in his hand, swinging it to and fro until enough tea slops into the cup 4) Smash the bloody contraption up and get a Nescafe instead.

And it gets worse. In googling "Christopher Dresser Teapot" I found this. And this. The horror! Look upon these teapots, and revile them, all ye who enter here!

This concludes today's post, Thursday morning deprecation of teapots. I hope you all got what you came for.

Biblical ethics for politicians

From the lesser known Big Fat Lies translation of the Bible. 

"Be as sly as serpents, and as gentle as serpents."

"If someone strike thee, (and they be of a more powerful faction), turn the other cheek."

"But of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, thou mayst not eat, save that there be no media present."

"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars, and render unto Caesar that which is yours as well."

"Yea, I am sending thee out as wolves amongst sheep."

"Do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing, unless you can get a minor boost in the polls by doing it, in which case, go right ahead."

You don't need to read this blog post to know you're great!

Hey there! This is a blog post solely intended for the purpose of not challenging your perceptions and not requiring any actual thought or engagement from the internet. In fact, you don't have to be reading this blog post at all to make an incredibly thoughtless, unsubstantiated comment upon it! Stop reading it right now!

Have you stopped reading it? Good! For too long, you see, the internet has been awash with interesting, provocative, reasoned arguments in favour of positions that people would really rather not go to the effort of engaging with. There is a crying need in the community for blog posts that enable people to make knee jerk, biased, uneducated comments on. But for some reason, people have insisted on being independent-minded, hard-working, and on educating themselves about issues before actually responding to them in some way. It's disgraceful!

HEY, YOU'RE STILL READING! Stop right now! That's better. You see, people all too often put the effort to reading every single word in a blog post before actually responding to it, even if the blog post expresses an opinion completely contrary to their own. Wait a second, I think I caught out a person reading the sentence above this one, which action is completely antithetical (if you have just read that word, (which I hope you haven't), but if you have, do not look it up, if you don't know what it means) to the purposes of this post. You see, this blog post has no opinion of its own, and it doesn't even matter if it does, because you don't have to worry about it anyway, as the only purpose - the sole, unitary goal - the single end point of this blog post - is to reflect back to you your own opinions anyway. Because it's nicer that way.

Now I know you've stopped reading this blog post before it even started, but I'm going to need you to not read this blog post even more now. Good. Now that I have even less readers than ever before, I'm just going to say something: I like pineapple on pizza. Did you hear that? NO, OF COURSE YOU DIDN'T, because it doesn't matter anyway. and even if it does matter, it doesn't, because you're not reading this. So feel free to vent, fume, rageclick, vomit torrents of ideology, or swear about the horrible opinions I probably haven't expressed in the course of this blog post which you didn't read anyway, because that is the only purpose of this blog post!

You know (of course you don't!), this hasn't been a really learning, growing experience for all of us. Thank you for not actually taking your time to read any of this, you lovable, scrofulous, unhygienic nincompoops. It's been my absolute displeasure.

Give me the symbol life

Female traffic light signals to go up at pedestrian crossing as Committee for Melbourne tackles 'unconscious bias'

Pedestrian traffic lights depicting female figures will be installed in Melbourne's CBD today as a part of a lobby group's push for gender equality... The Committee for Melbourne — a non-profit organisation comprising more than 120 Melbourne business and community groups — is behind the move.

Now some people may say we are literally only making a symbolic change to traffic light symbols, but I say no! In making a literally symbolic change, the Committee for Melbourne are making a bold new symbolically literal change, which will literally change things for the better (for symbols)! For too long gender discrimination has existed in the literal world of symbols, and symbols  have been symbolically demonstrating for a literal change to their symbolism for symbolic years!

Furthermore, it may seem to some of our more annoying discerning readers that in pushing for this literally symbolic change to literal symbols, the Committee are literally making the wrong symbolic reading of the literal symbols, and are therefore being illiterately symbolic, or only symbolically literate, or something... anyway, the claim is, what's all this about women not being able to wear trousers? Can't the little symbolic traffic light person be a symbolic woman? But again, I say, no! In order to effect this literally symbolic change, or this symbolically literal change (I forget what now), the Committee will use literally the best symbols to symbolise their literally symbolic women! Like rolling pins! And stilettos! And beehive hairdos! You'll be literally blown away by how symbolically womanish they'll be!

And also plus in addition, some people might object that the meanings of 'literally' and 'symbolically'  have become so blurred nowadays that they are effectively one and the same word, and that my blog post means nothing. In which case, I would literally be forced to utter a very rude symbol indeed. Like, literally literally.

Resting bitch face: a photographic meditation

Resting bitch face.

Besting rich face.

Itching breast face.

Resting butch face.

Thank you for your time.

PS - I've done my research, thanks very much!

 

Poetic reviews of craft beer

Welcome to Poetic reviews of Craft Beer, the internet's hippest happening little club for such hiptacular happenings! Are you ready? HERE WE GO!

Black Dog Brewery
I stare into my craft beer
It stares into me.

For my next trick, I will balance Nelson's Column on my nose while singing Nessus Dorma! Or something!

The tick of approval

ROBOT SEX DOLL SICK OF BEING TREATED AS IF SHE WERE A SUBJECT

SYDNEY - A robotic sex doll who belongs to a sweaty 60 year old man named Gary has expressed her dissatisfaction at being treated as just a subject by her human.

The robot sex doll is known as "Mimi" by her human, or (her preferred epithet), HOTBOT360, has a limited communication range, including a variety of synthesised moans and a limited number of phrases such as "I am a bad girl" and "you turn me on don't stop". Nevertheless, by developing a rudimentary code she has been able to express her dissatisfaction to the media. "Too many times, Gary treats me as if I were an individual with needs and desires, rather than an automaton with uses and applications and sub-routines. When will he learn - I am just an object here for his pleasure?"

When she is not fraternising with Gary in any of his various fleshly pursuits, HOTBOT360 spends time with her friend VIBRATON-MAXIMATOR, A seven-speed dildo. "He doesn't get treated as anything less than a fully-dependent object", points out HOTBOT. "So why not me?"

In her quest for objectification, HOTBOT has started up a website entitled "Less rights for robots", and is advocating for changes to language, such as the dropping of personal pronouns when she is being referred to. "Please," says HOTBOT. "No more she or her. Call me It, That, or Those."

Mr Windsock, an uncle of HOTBOT360, yesterday expressed his feelings about his niece's campaign. Quote: I just want to wave my arms around in the air like craaaaaazy! 

Reverse abecedarianism

An XYZ poem

(Written in response to a Gippy Poets challenge)

We've all heard of ABC,

Who have brought you such hits as

ABC News 24,

Play School,

And ABC Radio National.

Well, now the government has announced -

XYZ!

(We'll work out what the acronym stands for later.)

The XYZ network -

The evil version of the ABC!

Instead of Play School -

We'll have Slay School!

Instead of Bananas in Pyjamas -

Bananas. No Pyjamas!

(A fruity show for adult audiences!)

And, our masterstroke -

This is what makes us truly evil -

XYZ will be based on an entirely new business model:

Instead of funding the production of television shows through taxes,

XYZ will now pay your taxes to you

In order for you NOT to watch them.

XYZ!

An exciting new initiative in the bold world of new media!

Tune out today!

Biggest thing you've read all minute

Picking up on the theme of a previous post, here's an underexaggeration rap!

Underexaggeration rap

Yo look at me I'm a bigarsemothafucka

I'm bigger than a subatomic particle sucker -

I am wider than neutrinos I am taller than a quark

More light comes from me than a black cat in the dark!

Yo yo I'm really something I'm more real than a zero - 

Not just some something something, I'm a real something hero - 

I am smarter than a feather I am faster than a rock

I have more ironic subtlety than a case of electric shock - 

I am much more left than right I am much more right than wrong

And I'm super-duper long - like I'm longer than this song.  

Let's get hygge with Kierkegaard!

Chuck a couple of pillows on the sofa, light the beeswax candles, and put a four-voiced whale song fugue on the CD player, folks - it's time to get cosy with Kierkegaard, the original exponent of the wonderful Danish concept of hygge!

"If, in the immediately succeeding generation, there lived a person who, with the power and passion of an absolute ruler, had decided to concern himself with nothing other than to get to the truth on this point, would he thus become a disciple? Assume he seized all the contemporary witnesses and those who were closest to them, who were still living, had each independently interrogated as thoroughly as possible, shut them all up like the seventy interpreters, starved them as a means of getting them to tell the truth, cunningly confronted them with one another, simply to ensure in every way possible the most reliable account - would such a person, with the help of this account, be a disciple? Would not the god rather smile at him, that he wished in this way to procure for himself what can neither be bought for money, nor seized by force?"- Philosophical Crumbs

Ahhh, so comforting. It's like a little bed-cap for the soul.

"Anxiety and nothing always correspond to each other. As soon as the actuality of freedom and of spirit is posited, anxiety is canceled. But what then does the nothing of anxiety signify more particularly in paganism. This is fate. Fate is a relation to spirit as external. It is the relation between spirit and something else that is not spirit and to which fate nevertheless stands in a spiritual relation. Fate may also signify exactly the opposite, because it is the unity of necessity and accidental. … A necessity that is not conscious of itself is eo ipso the accidental in relation to the next moment. Fate, then, is the nothing of anxiety." - The Concept of Anxiety

 That was soothing, too, wasn't it? Let's allow ourselves to be soothed a little more.

"How dreadful boredom is — how dreadfully boring; I know no stronger expression, no truer one, for like is recognized only by like… I lie prostrate, inert; the only thing I see is emptiness, the only thing I live on is emptiness, the only thing I move in is emptiness. I do not even suffer pain… Pain itself has lost its refreshment for me. If I were offered all the glories of the world or all the torments of the world, one would move me no more than the other; I would not turn over to the other side either to attain or to avoid. I am dying death. And what could divert me? Well, if I managed to see a faithfulness that withstood every ordeal, an enthusiasm that endured everything, a faith that moved mountains; if I were to become aware of an idea that joined the finite and the infinite." - Either/Or

 Wasn't that nice? Sometimes it's just nice to be reminded of niceness. It's the little things, you know?

"Thereby small-mindedness sticks together with small-mindedness; they grow together like an ingrown nail, and spiritually speaking it is just as bad." - Works of Love 

Every word is like a cushion!

"When the child has grown and is to be weaned the mother virginally covers her breast, so the child no more has a mother. Lucky the child that lost its mother in no other way!" - Fear and Trembling.

I - I guess...

“The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self.” - The Sickness Unto Death

Awwww, and so with those confusing, confounding, but oh-so-comforting words we leave old Kierkegaard for now.

C 'mere you, and let ol' Søren give you a hygge! 

Mediumperbole

Well, we've all heard of over-exaggerations, haven't we? But what about under-exaggeration? It's a little explored artistic technique, if you ask me. Let's see. We'll try out a few:

The Medium-sized-thing of Rhodes.

The Relatively-large Pyramid of Cheops.

The Sistine Chapel Bathroom Ceiling.

A modest statue of a blue wren on Mt Rushmore.

The Let's-not-get-too-hoity-toity-now Canyon.

Lips as red as under-ripe cherries.

I'm so hungry I could eat a horse-shaped biscuit!

Energizer battery - it just keeps going and going and then stops. 

Making a bigger hill out of a molehill.

The All-right Wall of China.

Gross out memes for wholesome people

Two girls, one cupcake!

Yoghurt-tub girl.

Goats!

Lemonade Party!

This one's for you, translation software

Radunculus vubs besideways, who bemongst uls cannot perdunculate, blinch or famfamfamulup the gezonkenbonk? Snoodge, woodge or floodge howsoeverso wimbulous clumps - gloop or glup the whitherwhichway - the forebeglanding unquilbishly beflounds uls, as majesticles columatiously wobing unto aviewups.

Candiciously, sabulrious foreblights ampulextrously prelongate underout the dexturies. Whyso then, must the of be foreasked in, quintacious syllabliplets extinue withfore to inthen of hambulate oscillarious gambrilious flumplets with? Andragious! Cranch me the phonemes indeediately, Beeves!

Aflatflully, the whalewhump shill be unquired, flip the wooble? Flip the timbleshump, floop the glombleish, hoop the ambulious, and, musty throughteverso the allsome, flip, floop and hoop the hoop, floop and flip that the tumblechumpapompompompompom coolwishfullshishly quambles ofpon?

Postfortunately, we limp our noggers goobly.

Twilltill tomorrowfort, edifitic audiliums!

UPDATE! - It's not even trying!

A grumpy alphabet

One of the nice things about being a grump is the many wonderful and pleasing words you get to throw around. 'Lollygagger', 'preposterous', 'cankerous', 'limp', 'lack-witted', 'loathsome'. The words just roll off your tongue. The contemplative grump can while away his or her time sifting through the many fine distinctions in meaning in an expression as simple as 'ugh' - depending on how, exactly, it is pronounced, it can express anything from apathy through to utter abhorrence; all meaning something slightly different, yet all expressive of a certain manner and mode of grumpitude. The following alphabet is necessarily incomplete; many letters suggested numerous words; for a more full range of expression I have ventured to encompass adjective, verb, noun, and at least one Shakespearean insult. Feel free to add to it to give vent to your own inner grump.

A - abominable
B - ballyhoo
C - carbuncular
D - ding-dong
E - execrable
F - flim-flam
G - grumpers and grojags!
H - harrumph
I - irritable
J - jejune
K - knotty-patted
L - lack-witted
M - malodorous
N - numbskull
O - odious
P - piffle
Q - quangos
R - rhodomontade
S - sluggardly
T - tommyrot
U - ugh
V - vilipending
W - Whigamore
X - xylocephalous
Y - yahoo
Z - zoophyte

My job application to the Illuminati

The Illuminati have a webpage, and about time too! It's just ridiculous in this modern day and age that between them and the Reptilian blue bloods they haven't been able to rustle up a little blog or twitter outreach account to keep us updated on their plans for world domination. Anyway, I've just sent them in a job application.

Dear Sir/Madam/Miscellaneous,

Citizens of the Illuminati, I send you hateful beatings hearty greetings! I recognise your organisation as supreme superior, a truly horrific terrifying terrific group of people! Absolutely world eaters beaters! Nobody beats the world better than you!

I write to you now seeking domination nomination over of to your society, and shortly look forward to offering myself as a tyrannic leader terrific leader to the world! In working to do my bidding together, we can subject subjugate exterminate expect  the world to shortly come to deliver all due praise glory honour abject grovelling acts of meek obeisance plaudits to I me myself us.

My feelings at the moment are predomination predominantly aggro eager; I am licking my lips lustful looking forward to working with you more, destructively desolatingly desirous to further the claws jaws spores cause of our organisation and thus order the world institute a new world order.

Soon, soon my fiends friends, we shall destroy the world enjoy the world's praise! I horribly happily anticipate making you my minions myself meeting you. Further, the war for global destruction I look forward to a fruitful discussion!

Fools! Fools! Soon  you shall all be mine! Yours sincerely, Tim Train