The ancient lost art of telephonics

Previously, I've been the recipient of letters to people no longer at this address, letters sent to my parents address, phone calls to wrong numbers, and phone calls to the right number from phone survey workers. But I don't know if I've ever, before, got a phone call to the wrong number, been the wrong person to speak to and become, by default, the right person.

Or, to put it another way...

RING! RING! RING! RING!

TIM: Hello?

MAN: (In an official and business-like tone of voice) Hello, can I speak to Mr I. R. please?

TIM: No.

MAN: All right. I'm A_ from AAMI Car Insurance. How's it going?

TIM: Good.

MAN: Do you know when Mr I. R. will be back?

TIM: No.

MAN: Is there a good time to call Mr I. R. back?

TIM: No.

MAN: Is there another number I can call Mr I. R. on?

TIM: No.

MAN: Is Mr I. R. in the house?

TIM: No.

MAN: Are you Mr I. R.?

TIM: (Laughs) No.

MAN: Well, we have another number on which we can call him on.

TIM: Okay.

MAN: Thanks for all your help, Mr I. R.

TIM: Goodbye.

I suppose I could have really been a bit more helpful there, but Idon't think there's really any reason to beat myself up about. The guy just stuck to his script and I didn't see any reason to say anything else. As for Mr I. R., I wouldn't be surprise if he's very glad indeed not to be hearing from AAMI Car Insurance.

So I guess being negative can be a positive after all!

Suggested names for Satanist children

Faithless

Hopeless

Uncharitable

Disgrace

Wilt

Nettle

Dishonoria

Thistle

Lavish

Decadence

Swamp

Stagnantly-Fenned

Lichen

Toad

A curmudgeonly film review

I went and saw the film The Jane Austen Book Club the other day. It's not a very good or a very interesting film, but it's different from all the other not very good or interesting films out, and that's the most you can hope for nowadays.

As the title suggests, the plot is about a group of people who get together to read Jane Austen. That's pretty much it, apart from the usual litany of couplings and uncouplings that you get in this sort of romantic comedy: Allegra who breaks up with one girlfriend and gets together with another; Prudi, who is thinking of having an affair with one of her students, but doesn't; Sylvia, whose husband breaks up with her, and then gets back together with her; and Jocelyn, whose deep moral insight by the end of the film consists in her learning that people are just as important as dogs.

The film has layers, but you could say the same thing about the styrofoam cake in the window of my local cake shop.

Occasionally, while all this sort-of plot is going on, ambient not-quite music wafts around in the background like a soundtrack that has escaped from a Woody Allen movie and doesn't know what to do with itself. The characters read tracts out of Jane Austen and exclaim in an enlightened fashion about how it relates to their life, and, zombie-like, develop an insatiable urge to bring in other friends into the club.

If sado-masochists enjoy non-spanking sex, then I enjoyed this film. Two non-committal stars out of five.

My entry for the 2008 Foot In Mouth award

A few days ago, Tim (the other Tim) was having a bit of a go at the 2007 Bad Sex in Fiction Award, noting that it was "ironic that the organisers of an ironic writing award can't seem to recognise ironic writing."

Well, yep. This sent me googling to find that other bad writing award site, the "Foot in Mouth" award by the Plain English Campaign. In previous years, they have presented awards to various daffy film stars, and Donald Rumsfeld, for his remarkably stupid "Known Unknowns" speech. Fair enough, then - but I was more than a bit baffled by their selection of this quote from Boris Johnson, on a news quiz program on the BBC:

I could not fail to disagree with you less.

That's bad, but is it really remarkably bad? It sounds like a Boris attempted a witticism but it went wrong: repeating yourself for rhetorical effect often works, but it's just a pity that in this case, the repetition became a triple (or is it quadruple?) negative.

"I could not fail to disagree with you less." The more I think about that statement, it really is something that I could not succeed to disagree with more. Or perhaps it is something that I
could not fail to disagree with more? It's certainly something that I could never be robustly and wholeheartedly non-supportive of, and I must say that I can not fail to sympathise with the argument less, although some of my ideological opponents may take issue with me there.

It barely even matters what Johnson is agreeing (or, to put it more accurately, failing to disagree less) with. As a matter of fact, in these times when there is so much division between left and right, I could only wish that people would fail to disagree with one another in a friendly fashion more often. At the very least, they could agree to disagree with one another less, or perhaps even agree more to not fail to disagree less (whichever comes first).

Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it is a failure to not fail to disagree with one another less that is the principle failure of modern times. In other words, it is not so much a failure to communicate as an unfailure to not communicate less with one another.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real failure.

PS - Please feel free to disagree with me less in comments. Or at least fail to do so.

Nice weather we're having

Are scapegoats owned by scapegraces?

Schrödinger's Duck

The great short shortage

Today, I went to buy some shorts. There are people who say I should not have done it, and that they are a needless expense, but those people are mostly nudists.

UPDATE! - After rectifying this shortage of shorts by shopping for shorts at the short shop, I am wondering if I should shop for shirts at the shirt shop, or if shirt-shopping at the shop for shirts is a task I should shirk. Also, I am not sure that I am as short of shirts as I was short of shorts.

And please don't get shirty.

Pustules of purple Jenkins-shaped fungus

I've been sneezing a lot at work lately. Maybe it's because I've got a cold, though it could also be because Jenkins in administration is pollinating. One sign could be the fine haze of white mist that surrounds him when he goes to the photocopier.

If I get pustules of purple Jenkins-shaped fungus forming over my body in the next couple of days, I'll let you know. Thank you for your time.

The person I'm not, and you probably aren't either

People say you should be happy with what you are, but I think that's crazy talk. It's much easier to be happy with what you aren't. Take me, for instance: I'm not Saddam Hussein, and I couldn't be happier. See how I did that? I'm also not John Howard, and I'm cheerful about that; I'm not Adolf Hitler, and I'm over the moon about that; and I'm certainly not Richard Culvers-Jenkins, a man who you have never heard of, possibly because he isn't - and I'm absolutely ecstatic about that.

As a matter of fact, you could take this theory further. Not only should you be happy with the way that you aren't, but you should also be happy with the way that you weren't and the way that you won't be. That way, you get three for the price of one. You could also add to that list feeling positive about the way that you haven't been, being upbeat about the way that you will not be, and feeling relatively good about the way that you mightn't be, but let's not get too confusing here.

That way, whatever achievements you don't achieve tomorrow, and whatever mistakes you did not make yesterday, you can feel happy about it. And isn't that what we all want?

And remember: today is the first day in the rest of the life of the person you aren't (and possibly who he or she isn't, either). The end.

A moral vacuum

A street map for getting lost, and how to get the train ticket back again

Once I gave someone directions to the Melbourne Town Hall on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Bourke Street. Although, as it turns out, the Melbourne Town Hall is a block away, on the corner of Swanston Street and Collins Street: I had accidentally given them directions to the Melbourne old post office.

Though I have to wonder: did I give them the wrong directions to the right place, or did I give them the right directions to the wrong place? In such circumstances, I'm tempted to act a little like W C Fields does, in the film International House, when he attempts to fly to Kansas City and ends up in China. "I'm not lost! Kansas City is lost!" he cries, and helps himself to some nearby liquor. If I was in an expansive mood, I could claim that I wasn't the one who was mistaken, merely everyone who had built the GPO and the Town Hall, named the streets, compiled the street directories, (and so on).

And you have to wonder. This is a city where even the trains will lie to you: "We are now approaching Richmond Station!" the train will say, with all the confidence of brainless idiocy. You might be approaching Anstey, or Flinders Street, or Camberwell, or Dandenong, or Box Hill, or you might even be approaching Richmond: (they get it right once in a while, despite all their efforts to the contrary). Occasionally, you find yourself on a train that announces the stations you will get to in a couple of stops, but not the station you are arriving at now. "You are now approaching Flemington Bridge!" the train chirps in your ear, as you stop at Jewell. "Now approaching Macaulay Station!" the announcement will be, as you stop, most decidedly, at Royal Park Station. When the train actually does pull into Flemington Bridge, the announcement will be: "You are now approaching North Melbourne Station!"

But then, it's easy to get confused with the train stations; after all, we have a Richmond Station, a North Richmond Station, an East Richmond Station, and a West Richmond Station, but no South Richmond. What happened to it? Does this mean that South Richmond does not exist? That be a little like a man with an amputated left-hand saying that the direction 'left' does not exist. But where did it go? You can't lose a part of a suburb just like that. Has it been temporarily misplaced? Will it one day appear back into fully functional existence, a train station where previously there had been none?

Once, tantalisingly, I took a trip on the Upfield line into the city, only to be informed as we wound our way slowly down that track, "You are now approaching North..." The train never completed its message. It was probably referring to North Melbourne, but with that level of ambiguity, it could also have meant Northcote; North Richmond would fall into its list of possibilities, as would North Brighton, or even North Williamstown. Maybe we were even, amazingly, approaching the abstract concept of 'North' itself, that mystical place that lies somewhere to the north of the north pole. You can never tell with Melbourne public transport...

Melbourne's streets are, as someone once said to me, 'deceptively straight', and Melbourne's suburbs are equally guilefully named. We have suburbs named Fitzroy, and Brunswick, and St Kilda, and we have a Fitzroy Street, a Brunswick Street, and a St Kilda Road. But Fitzroy Street runs through St Kilda, and Brunswick Street runs through Fitzroy, and St Kilda road runs through neither (well, to be fair, it touches on the outskirts of St Kilda at one point*). Brunswick even boasts a Sydney Road.

Anyway, the possibilities for confusion here are obvious, and epic: it would be easy to direct someone mistakenly to the Brunswick Street, on the corner of Sydney Road and Fitzroy, or to St Kilda Street, on the corner of Fitzroy Road and Brunswick, or even to Brunswick Road on the corner of Coburg and Sydney. Nothing would be stranger than to find the city of Sydney nestled in one of the suburbs of Melbourne, but I wouldn't put it past my city...

All of which is to say, I guess, that I should never be trusted to give directions. If I ever end up giving you directions to a location in Melbourne (or elsewhere), just do something different, and you'll probably end up in the right place.

Take it from me.

*Be quiet, pedants! For the purposes of this post it does!

My day so far, as a conceptual free-verse poem

Hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

hot

h... ooooooooooooooooooooooh, wait.



Nope.


Still hot.

Don't hedgehog your bets, and other helpful advice

At work the other day, somebody was saying, "A. has been badgering B. all week, so B called A back...". Although they probably meant that B was being persistently annoyed by A all week, I immediately had an image of A hurling live badgers at B until they got a response. And let's face it, throwing badgers at someone would be annoying. (Not just for the badgers - for the people, too)

I then got thinking about other phrases like this. If you or I are described as being 'dogged by rumours', it could either mean that

a) we are annoyed by stubborn rumours,

or b) that those rumours have actually turned us into a dog.

Although, in the case of b), to be entirely accurate, you would have to say that you or I have been "Beagled by persistent rumours", or "Poodled by persistent rumours," or "Chihuahuaed by persistent rumours," or even "Braque du Bourbonnaised by persistent rumours."

When we 'beaver away' at something, this is commonly understood as applying ourselves to a task with thoroughness and hard work. Though it could mean that we are simply giving birth to beavers while supposedly applying ourselves to the task. "How is the photocopying going, Fred?" someone would ask. "Oh, I'm beavering away," Fred would say as another beaver wriggles out of his shirt. Or, as was recently pointed out to me, you can 'squirrel something away' as well: meaning that you either store it away or put it in charge of an official at the local Squirrel Bank.

And so it goes. People who sell things in the street are sometimes described as 'hawking their wares' (turning them into hawks?) Cowardly people are 'chickens', though I'm not sure how many develop feathers and lay eggs. People who gloat are 'crowing', so it's good to encourage others not to crow too much: otherwise they might turn into one.

And who knows? Maybe there was a time in the development of the English language when burghers in various villages and hamlets and homesteads would throw badgers at one another, or go about beagling or chihuahuaing their friends, or spontaneously give birth to beavers. It's undoubtedly something for the etymologists out there to look into.

Though I wouldn't hedge, or even hedgehog, my bets on it - the currency would have an annoying habit of crawling away (or possibly sprouting foliage.)

Concrete poetry

On concrete architecture

Many fine buildings
Are constructed from concrete.
Some are in Russia.

Beauty and concrete

Concrete, that sublime
Mix of cement and pebbles:
It makes my heart sing.

My favourite bit

My favourite bit
Is the bit where they put the
Pebbles in it.

That sweet word

When you say 'Concrete',
That sweet word, I want to dance
And sing hymns of praise.

Concrete has some slight drawbacks

Once, my car got caught
In wet concrete. But that was
More my fault than its.

A heartfelt wish

I would like to make
My bed out of concrete, with
Slag for a blanket.

Need I say anything more?

Concrete. Concrete. Con-
crete. Concrete. Concrete. Concrete.
Concrete. Concrete. *Sighs*

101 Poems About Concrete, published by Harper and Snellsbury, is available in all construction poetry vendories now. The above poems, 'The concrete haiku', were written by labourer Bob Slugdman, who earned minor infamy for his much-publicised and controversial 'The Love Sonnets of a Brick'. They will be published in serial form on this blog on the 31st of this month.

McCrappy Day

Bad morning, everyone. I'm at work - just got here at two minutes to seven. First thing I know, I'm greeted by the leering visages of the Channel Nine morning show presenters and their fatuous quizzes. This morning, apparently, they are asking their viewers,

What is your favourite piece of useless information?

Useless information? Feck off!

I can't wait for lunch. Then I'm going to slouch off up the street with my copy of Tory magazine The Spectator and weep at the downfall of western civilisation.

I'm not even in a bad mood - it just feels good to sound cranky. I hope you all have a day as good as mine, if not even worse!

!

Once!



But?



When -



However (
)



Still...



And then:



All of a sudden;



So -



The end.



(Part of a long-running serial. Second episode coming soon - as soon as I get a thousand pounds of chocolate in my post box, that is.)

Important breaking news of importance

Well, it's been several weeks, but finally the big media are starting to ask the serious questions in this election campaign:

Howard reveals secret of walk

Prime Minister John Howard has revealed the secret of his regular morning walks, telling an FM radio crew: "You just put one foot after the other".

"It's very, very simple. Anybody can do it," Mr Howard told the DJs, who became the latest to gatecrash his pre-breakfast exercise.

Hopefully, in days to come we will get down to brass-tacks analysis of John Howard's controversial 'one foot after the other' policy, with a focus on the ramifications of this policy for the future of Australia. We can expect, too, to see Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd come out with a similar-but-different Labor Party Walking policy, focusing on 'letting one's left and right feet alternately fall to the ground.'

On the one hand, it is true that John Howard has a tried-and-true walking policy, tested through several elections. On the other hand, it may be that we can not let him go on walking as he always has, or who knows what he might walk into? The country's future is at stake here.

However, as a wise man once said, "In the land of the blind, the one-legged man has one leg." Or, to put it another way, "If you want to walk the talk, then don't forget to put your shoes on." And I think that just sums it up nicely, don't you?*

UPDATE! - I just asked my flatmate the following question: "If John Howard came and did your dishes and your ironing, would you vote for him?"

He laughed and seemed uncertain, which gives some indication as to how uncertain the results of this election still are!

*Don't answer that.

Morish sentences

1. You have reached the end, go ahead.

2. To say I am indifferent would be an exaggeration.

3. These underpants are growing on me - I think they're still alive.

4. Some people say a lot with a little, he says a little with a lot.

5. Do exoskeletons have underwear?

6. Climacterix, meet Asterix.

7. Better out than inverterbrate.

8. Quod erat demonstrandum, reductio ad absurdum or vice versa?

9. I don't go in for abstinence, it's addictive.

10. Tomorrow never comes, yesterday is late, lunchtime is all-too-infrequent, and eleven o'clock never seems to go away.

11. Mr Crowe, for your next role, we would like you to play a Thinly Veiled Portrait of yourself.

12. "I wish I could say the same for you," I said to myself.

13. I never thought it was possible, but those underpants are an overstatement.

14. Sorry to convenience you, I'll be sure to disorder things more thoughtfully next time.

15. Vice, meet versa.

16. Dr Zandig pointed the gun at him, and everything came to an abrupt.

17. She was so coy that even her unconsciousness wore underpants.

18. I am known by many names: two, to be precise; three, to be exact; four to exaggerate.

19. So, you say you're God, hey?

20. For viol crimes against fiddling, he died, strung out on his own dischord...

21. Once you have reached the beginning, please stop.

Not good, not advice

Are you sitting uncomfortably? Good. Then we'll begin.

Well, we're approaching Schoolies time again - yes, that time of year when thousands of school children, from right across the nation, happy and jubiliant after having finally conquered their end of year exams, flock to the Gold Coast in order to get pissed, wasted, blasted off their heads, high, trippy, stoned, coked, snowed, or spaced in a completely responsible and adult fashion. Yes, it's certainly an exciting time in your life when you have finished school, and made even more exciting by the incredible stress that you've been through in the past year, as well as the fact that you've probably already become fixed, baked, bombed, totalled, tripped out, smashed, plastered, or ripped in order to get into the cheerful atmosphere of fun and frivolity that Schoolies has always been associated with.

But apart from getting zonked, zoned out, smashed, dazed, stonkered, blind, charged, narked, unconscious, delirious, potted, psyched, hyped, or junked up, you'll also be finding that you'll have to make some important choices, and those important choices will have to be the right ones, otherwise there's a strong possibility that they may be the wrong ones. I mean, sure, you're there to have some fun, and maybe make some friends, and certainly, as responsible and caring adults it's okay to hug, kiss, fondle, grope a bit, pash, go down, go up, go around, go to bed, go behind, on top, below, sitting, standing, kneeling, spooning, piledriving, or leapfrogging, but only if you have a condom on (you can get one from your teacher, though before you do that, stop and think - it might be a better idea to get several): and more importantly, only if you respect one another in the morning.

And after all, it's important to realise that your actions have decisions. So as the Schoolies make their way through the Gold Coast, you'll have to try to remember a few important rules:

Vomit thoughtfully, with all due respect to the people you may be vomiting near, besides, above, below, around or onto.

Drugs can be dangerous, so it's important, if through no fault of your own, you or your friends get stoned, zonked, wasted, shitfaced (etc, etc), do so in a moderate, adult-like and considerate fashion, so that you have one or two brain cells left over for the morning.

Remember, other people on the Gold Coast may be trying to peacefully live their lives, so if you must run riot, vandalise, smash cars, public monuments, statues, or town halls, or put graffiti on walls, in halls, on famous works of art, hoot like hooligans, shout, sing football songs, throw rocks, or just smash stuff with bricks, do so in a loving, creative, sensitive, cultured and peaceful way that emphasises your commitment to civil society, and in such a way earn your fellow citizens' respect.

Think before you urinate, and then urinate.

Importantly, don't smash stuff up and burn it unless the fumes aren't toxic.

And of course, as in all such events, there will be a mean-minded and nasty few people who try to take advantage of the circumstances and join in the celebrations even though they are not schoolies, so don't be afraid to dob these people into the police. Of course, others will simply have been doing year 12 for the last 20 years after having blown their brains out at every schoolies celebration. These people are fine and upstanding citizens and worth getting to know, as they probably have a wealth of worldy knowledge (and other things) to share with you.

So basically, Schoolies are the end of an important period of your life, but they're also the start of other important periods of your life. Some people at Schoolies will go on to university, a place of learning and knowledge and culture where people gather in bars and clubs and get stoned, zonked, pissed, stonkered, blasted, wasted, tripped out, happy, high, or smashed, as well as kiss, hug, fondle, grope, go down, go up, go around, in small friendly groups of ten or twenty at a time. Others will enter the university of life, and find a job which pays respectable wages that barely enable them to pay off rent while maintaining a happy and productive party lifestyle in which they get pissed, wasted, bombed, baked, blissed, while making boning, schtupping, copulating, fooling around, getting caught in flagrante delicto, making the beast with two backs, mateing, procreating, and so on.

Schoolies, in other words, is a time for choices. It's a time for respect. It's a time for growing up . And learning. And loving. It's a time for breaking out. It's a time to challenge conventions. It's a time for self-esteem. A time for fluffy bunnies. It's a time for... (sorry, I got carried away there.) And remember, even though there are some strange weirdos who choose not to go to Schoolies, and stay at home, and read books, or study, or get ready for uni, it's a valid lifestyle choice, and one to be understood with compassion and empathy while you carry on with zonking your brains out and getting wasted and coupling up and... (etc, etc)

And finally, in the words of your parents who care for you and love you (and probably pour craploads of money into your account to fund your natural youthful ebullience), "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye".

So don't lose an eye.

The bookshelfless

My first bookshelf in Melbourne was mostly books without shelf. I just put the books on the floor, that little known item of the house we mostly use to walk on. It served the purpose well, apart from the fact that books started spreading about everywhere and tripping everyone up as they came and went.

My second bookshelf I got just a few weeks ago, from IKEA. It hung together, in a sense, but more importantly, it had actual shelves for the purpose of shelving the books. Up they went, in no particular order, and they stayed there, more or less. The bookshelf seemed to serve its purpose adequately, albeit with a somewhat curious habit of creaking when the north wind blew, and growling at odd hours of the night*.

Today, I got about to the task of reshelving the books, sorting them in alphabetical order according to author. It's a habit I got into in Newcastle, principally because it allowed me to file the Bible away under G, for 'God' . As I was putting the books up this afternoon, all of a sudden, I found the shelves developing a rather alarming proclivity to display floor-like tendencies. That is, they all tended to fall towards the floor, presumably for the purpose of becoming one with the floor.

It's disturbing to think what would happen if the floor suddenly thought it was the ground, or the ceiling suddenly thought it was the walls, or the walls suddenly thought they were both. One tends to assume that common household items like floor and walls and shelves stay where they are and serve a single purpose. Maybe I encouraged the bookshelf to develop it's floorwards tendencies by my original habit of doubling up my floor as my bookshelf, but I ask you! Is it really too much to get a bookshelf from IKEA and expect it to stay that way?

It really does make you wonder whether it's better to have a bookshelf entirely without shelves, or maybe a shelf entirely without books: a bookshelfless or a booklessshelf. (Either way seems a little pointless.)

Anyway, in the process of restacking my books and my shelfs (which I for the moment did eventually get done), I racked up some interesting statistics:

- An impressive collection of works by S J Perelman, got over the period of little more than two years, and including one almost-impossible-to-procure edition of a Perelman musical written in collaboration with Ogden Nash**;

- Two editions of Hillaire Belloc's 'Cautionary Verses', one with illustrations by Belloc himself, the other with illustrations by Quentin Blake.

- A decent collection of James Thurber books - but by no means large enough.

- Two books by Flann O'Brien, which may have to be remedied (by which I mean, I need to get more, not that I need to give the books medicine).

- A growing collection of Raymond Chandler mysteries. (I would get more but for the fact that Chandler died before he could write many more of them.)

- A decent collection of works by C S Lewis, omitting some of his most tedious Christian apologetics.

- Poetry by Edmund Spencer, Wystan Hugh Auden, Langston Hughes, Wendy Cope, Walter de la Mare, Sophie Hannah, Edward Lear, and others.

- A growing collection of 'New Yorker' magazines, and assorted issues of ' The Spectator', 'Viz', and 'The Bulletin'.

- Various zines.

All in all, not bad for three years without shelves but by no means without books.

*Which is cool, because everyone knows if something like a bookshelf falls on you in your bed, you don't die, you just get all flattened out, like Flat Stanley. Which is cool.

**They really do look natty, what with their 50s and 60s covers and fonts. Plus, two have illustrations by Al Hirschfield. Do I sound like a wanker yet?

This is not a word game

Prime Minister John Howard has accused Labor of playing word games over whether he should apologise for this week's interest rate rise. - The Age

Well, I for one am glad that the playing of word games by our Federal Politicians has finally been exposed for everyone to know about it. The corruption of word games has reached endemic levels, and it's not clear what, if anything, we can do to stop it.

When questioned on the Prime Minister's charge of 'word games', Mr Rudd stated: "For the record, I am no cunning linguist, but nor is the Prime Minister a master debater. This is just another one of his cunning stunts, but so is he - and spooner or later, he will be found out."

Recent examples of the playing of word games include the frequent use of 'Animal, Vegetable or Mineral' by Federal Shadow Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, when questioned on Labor's policy for the environment.

Meanwhile, upon appearing at a recent debate between the Industrial Relations Minister, Joe Hockey, and the Shadow Industrial Relations Minister, Julia Gillard, Abbott delivered a series of anagrams upon Julia Gillard's name that he had been working on.

"Did you know that JULIA GILLARD rearranges to LAUD JAIL GIRL? No? How about DUAL JAR GILL I, LARD JAIL LUG I, DIAL RAJ GULL I, or even A JAG LURID ILL? No? Well, it just goes to show why the Coalition's Industrial Relations Policy is better than Labor's" said Hockey. "Thank you very much."

Horrifyingly, when asked to comment on the rise of word games in politics, Mr Howard and Mr Rudd failed to comment, as they were locked in 'tightly fought' games of Scrabble with their respective members of staff, apart from saying that 'The next game of Scrabble will be hard fought, and a close match...'

It is possible that the playing of word games by our Federal Politicians may finally be reaching a crisis point: upon attending a launch of a school for blind children recently, Tony Abbott offered to play 'I Spy, with My Little Eye' with several of the children present. Not realising his mistake instantly, he even began to offer them a game of Pictionary, but pulled himself up at the last minute.

However, we may also be on the verge of a new era of decadence. If proposals by prominent members of the Labor Cabinet are acted upon, we would see Labor policy in future released as a Findaword, allowing people to pick out only the policies which they find popular, and leave the rest.

Only time will tell...

noitnetta ot gnidnatS

1.
On my way from work yesterday I noticed a statue of a soldier standing to attention horizontally in the back of a ute. It was there again this morning, still standing to attention horizontally. Standing to attention horizontally for the term of your natural statue life seems a rather sad fate. Why not standing at ease horizontally, or lying to inattention? If the soldier is not careful, he'll graduate from standing to attention horizontally to standing to attention upside down, which nobody wants.

2.
I thank obsessively. Which is to say, I found myself today sending a lot of emails to work contacts using the term

thanks very much guys!

How many times can you thank somebody in the same way before it doesn't mean anything? You can go 'thanks heaps' or 'thanks a lot' or 'thanks a million' or 'thanks a bunch' or just 'thanks'. You can say 'thanks awfully', but how do you thank someone in an awful fashion, and wouldn't that be rather awful for all concerned? You can offer 'thanks terribly' or 'thanks frightfully', but wouldn't thanking somebody frightfully involve a ghost? Could somebody help me with this frightful dilemma? Thanks frightfully, guys...

3.
Apparently someone from work today was resigning. 'She will be sadly missed' said the email.

'Sadly missed'? Maybe she had an office nemesis, which would suggest that, instead of being sadly missed, she would be happily missed. If she had left because of coming into a small fortune, she would be enviously missed, or perhaps even green-with-enviously missed. If she left owing other people money, she would be angrily missed; and if she left with someone else's boyfriend, she would be furiously missed.

Though in the case of myself and most other people at the office, we didn't so much know her, but had encountered her at the office occasionally, and although we are aware of her physical absence, it doesn't affect us much either way. So really, she will be indifferently missed.

4.
Bet the soldier is still standing to attention in that ute now.

Stupid soldier.

... and then I did the Thesaurus...

I've been playing charades. Charades is a game where one player imitates a famous book or a movie or a famous person or a famous person's dog, and the other players imitate interest. When one of the other players guesses what book or movie or person or dog you are imitating, you swap, so they get their turn to imitate somebody, and you get your turn to imitate interest*.

Say, for instance, you were to imitate Hemingway's famous book A Farewell to Arms. One way to do this would be to have your arms drop off.
"Oh my God, your arms have dropped off!" will shout one person.
"Get a doctor!" shouts another person.
"Hemingway!" shouts a third. "A Farewell to Arms! Good one, old bean!"
There is, however, a slight danger that one of the other players could mistake your gambit and think you're imitating the medical textbook, 'So - you've lost an arm', or that famous marital handbook, 'Marriage: is it worth losing an arm and a leg for?'** And then, what have you got, but a ruined game of charades and a pair of arms in the wrong place?

Some titles present quite a challenge to the ordinary charades player. For instance, if you were given the book The Old Man and the Sea, you would first imitate an old man and a sea, and then you would imitate a a definite and an indefinite article, and then the other players would imitate losing interest (easier than imitating interest). Then again, if a player is given George Orwell's 1984, all they have to do is imitate the number 1984, (or the number one, one thousand nine hundred and eighty four times), and the title will be easily guessed.

Once I was playing charades with a person who was given the title Oxford Modern English Dictionary to imitate. In turn he took on the character of a famous English college, something Modern (I'm not sure what, I think it was by Dali), an English man, and you don't want to know what he did for the word 'Dictionary'. Later, he was given An Illustrated History of the Great Wall of China, and he did give a performance as a Chinese-speaking wall, but it wasn't that great - and so he had to sit down.
On another occasion, he attempted to convey to us (through a series of tableaus involving money and facial expressions) Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. But we mistook 'Sensibility' for 'Sentimentality', and so he failed there, too.

This same person once gave the single most bravura performance I have ever seen: he was given the book title A Children's Alphabet, and proceeded to successfully imitate every single letter in the alphabet in succession, only to get transfixed on the lower-case 'v'. By this time, however, every other player had become bored and were doing quite a successful imitation of Raymond Chandler's first novel.

On the whole, I don't think charades has too much to recommend it, but it's still an enjoyable game. I'd play it again, but whenever I suggest it to others, people suddenly seem to have a sudden, inexplicable interest in the sport of lawn bowls. Such is life.

*Imitating interest is not as easy as it doesn't look, that's all I can say.

** A mistake often made by dyslexic people, and quite dangerous too - as it often doesn't leave me with a leg to stand on.

Exchange of unpleasantries

Go forth and stultify.

Live short, and don't prosper.

Spank you very much.

How wonderful to leave you at last.

Nice to eat you.

Your reputation precedes you, as does your smell, by approximately 20 metres.

I the opposite of love you.

What a good boy you aren't.

O what a horrible morning,
O what a terrible day,
O what a vomitous feeling -
I wish you'd just go away.

When they write the book of your life, I'd buy it - mainly to enjoy the ending.

Come in, come in. Cup of tea? One lump of poison, or two?

More sentences

1. I was about to interrupt, before I was interrupted...

2. "I prefer neurotica to erotica," she sighed, gazing into his eyes in search of an incipient trauma.

3. I am second place getter in a second place getter competition!

4. That was a nice mistake, let's make another.

5. Don't say it: the sentence is longer than your mouth.

6. These shoes are appallingly useless: they have a hole in the top big enough to put my foot through!

7. A pleasure to eloquise with you, my loquacent friend.

8. Animal, vegetable, mineral, or me?

9. If you go fishing for compliments, the compliments you get are fishy.

10. I ate the original can of Campbell's soup.

11. In the beginning was the sonnet: the sequence that followed was just a bloody rip-off.

12. Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla, teste David, cum Sibylla, and did I mention I bloody well hate spring?

13. Life-threatening medical syndrome in search of a doctor to be named after: contact via email.

What your trousers say about you (behind your back)

I don't know much about clothes and clothes don't know much about me. (Then again, I'm that stupid that I often find nudity ambiguous.) But after a recent conversation, I've started to notice something strange: the amount of clothes with oddly descriptive names, with an emphasis on the odd.

Now, don't go on at me, please: it's not just things like 'underwear' (that you wear under other clothes), or 'dresses', (so called because you dress in them). There's a whole class of other items of clothing with stranger names.

Witness, for instance, the 'jumper': a type of dress that you jump up and down in, like a trampoline. Also: 'sweaters', which are actually items of clothing that perspire whenever you walk into the room. 'Saucy Underwear' are underpants with a wide variety of chutneys and mayonaisses in them; 'pantaloons', on the other hand, are pants with an idiot in either trouser leg. (And 'Pom Poms', obviously, are a pair of British citizens who sit on your head.)

There are 'rings': jewellery that you put on your fingers that perform phone calls. There are 'pants' - things that you put on your legs that make a noise like a dog. 'Singlets', obviously, are what you wear when you don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend to pair up with; and 'doublets' are what you put on when you find one. 'T-shirts' - as my father's recent missive undoubtedly indicates - are actually 'tea shirts', clothes that you wear, either when drinking ceylon tea or eating dinner.

Some types of clothes appear to perform useful household functions. There are 'sweeping necklines', which are necklines on your dress that sweep up the dust from the corners of the room with a broom and deposit it in the bin; and there are 'plunging necklines', which are necklines that take to the sink or the toilet with a plunger in order to clean the pipes out. Clearly, 'knickers' are lacy underwear that thieves put on before going out to steal rare diamonds from the museum. They don't wear anything else except, perhaps, 'sneakers', to facilitate their sneaking. Private investigators would wear a 'watch' frequently, since not only would it tell the time, but it would keep an eye on their suspects as well. 'Holey socks' - or, to put it more accurately, 'holy socks' - on the other hand, are only worn on Sundays, and the wearing of them makes one closer to the Holy Lord.

It's pretty obvious from all these names that clothes have plenty of hitherto undiscovered social purposes and powers, and that if only we donned our sweeping necklines when doing housework, or our saucy underwear when dining, then things would go fine. You wouldn't want to get confused, though. After putting on their knickers (to knick things), thieves would have to be careful not to put on a pair of 'slippers' on their feet (since they would be sure to slip up). 'Saucy underwear' would clearly be fine at a dinner party, but would be rather more difficult to use in the bedroom when making love. And it's unclear when your 'pantaloons' - your twin pair of idiots in either trouser leg - would be socially useful. (Perhaps never).

However, it's clear that a plumber can't go far wrong in wearing a 'plunging neckline', just as a cleaner would never go wrong in wearing a 'sweeping neckline'. It's all a matter of context.

So please don't get shirty with me and sock me in the face - I'm just reporting the facts!

Socks! Socks! Socks!

Would you trust a man who wears socks like this?



Plenty more socks where these came from, in the latest Will Type For Food periodically periodical periodical.

Yes, that's right - I've got a new zine out! The Coburg Sock Lovers Quarterly, containing the best and the worst (but mostly the worst) of this blog, plus with bonus crap, including a Sock Crossword, a page of Sock Facts, the Sock of the Month, an opinion column by a radish, and a Nazi Gerbil. Coming soon, to a post office box near you!

Think you might be interested in this publication? Write to me, at

timhtrain at yahoo.com.au

Alternatively, you could just run screaming for the hills. Whatever makes you happy...

A disquisition concerning eggs

This is an egg:



Eggs are commonly produced out of the bums of chickens, or, in the technical parlance of the egg industry, 'the bums of chickens'.

Typically, eggs are small in size and ovular in shape. This is because chickens bums are small in size and ovular in shape, and so it all fits nicely. It wouldn't make much sense for a chicken with an ovular bum to lay a cubic egg, would it? However, if God ever invented a geometrical species of bird with a square bum, we might expect to see cubic eggs being laid. (Similarly, a triangular-bottomed bird would lay pyramidical eggs; and it is just possible that a bird with a perfectly circular bottom might lay perfectly cylindrical eggs.)

It is not known what thoughts go through the chicken's head as it lays the egg. This is because very few thoughts go through a chicken's head at the best of times, and they never know what they are thinking anyway - so how could we have any chance of doing better?

Eggs, therefore, are an extempore production by the chicken - an incidental production of their chicken-ness. The chicken does not sit down and think 'I am going to lay an egg'. Rather, it turns its mind to other chicken matters and clucks in an ovular manner*. Then, a feeling of utter satisfaction comes across the chicken, and the egg is produced. (If this is pointed out to the chicken, it will be faintly surprised.)

After this, the chicken is free to go off and perform other chicken activities, like pecking at seed, or standing and clucking in an aimless fashion for 19 hours or so.

It is not known how eggs first came about. One theory goes that at the dawn of time, a God-Chicken first laid the Primal Egg, from which the entire race of chickens were produced. However, this theory is disputed by another scientific school, who maintain that the God-Chicken itself came from an Uber-Egg. A third theory holds that in the beginning was Eggs Benedict, then Benedict went home and all that were left were eggs.

In other egg-related facts, my fridge used to have an egg in it, but I ate it.

Thank you for your time.

*'...clucks in an ovular manner': this helps to add to the ovular nature of the egg.

Screw the government!

I just completed my tax return.

UPDATE!
This conversation with my mother just occured.

ME: I just completed my tax return.

MUM: Good.

ME: I did it electronically.

MUM: Oh, yes - B. does that.

ME: So jolly hockey sticks, eh?

MUM: Yes.

ME: Well, must rush - off to Fitzroy...

MUM: That sounds very hockey sticks indeed.

ME: Yes. Off to play hockey.

MUM: All right.

ME: Cheerio!

MUM: Chip chip!

ME: Toodle oo!

Sometimes I rather doubt the old girl's sanity, but she seems to be on the ball tonight, what?

Ypoetr

The song of the second snowflake of winter

Hi.
You don't know me.
I'm merely the second snowflake of winter.
Not like the first snowflake,
That bloody glory hog,
Always getting those songs and odes written about him,
Oh, no.
Neither the first nor the last, that's me,
Just an ordinary snowflake,
A schmuck, a schmoflake,
Just part of a long series of snowflakes.
Humble old me.
Undistinguished.

If you're looking for the sort of snowflake that is the herald of winter, the symbol of beauty,
Piss off.
And I'm not the sort of snowflake that makes children look up and poets gasp
With enchantment at the wonder of winter either.
Oh, no.
I'm not one of those fuckers.
I'm more the sort of snowflake that falls on your finger and causes frostbite,
Or falls on your nose and is the cause of a slight case of pneumonia,
Or falls on your car window and adds to the frost and fog so that you can't see where you're going on the roads, and sends your car screeching to a sudden...
Hey, don't mention it.
It's part of my job.

Unique and individual snowflake, my arse.
I am not 'precious' or 'wonderful',
Or a 'delicate beauty'.
Oh, no: that's the sort of crap that gets said about the first snowflake -
That bloody whoopsie.
Once the first snowflake comes down, let's face it,
You people lose interest.
You wouldn't notice me if I caused the death of your dog, your cat, your goldfish, and your mother, all at once.
(Well, maybe not that last one).
Though that probably wouldn't happen anyway -
I'd probably land on the ground and have you shove a hoof in my face,
Or squash me beneath your greasy buttocks,
You arsehole.
No, the second snowflake,
And everyone that comes after,
Never got noticed anyway.
Bastards.
Don't mention it.

Perhaps, one day,
Some wild-haired cretin,
Wearing a caftan, maybe,
Having doubtless ingested too much of one drug or another,
And carrying a book of Marx,
Will come along and pen a 'Song of the Second Snowflake of Winter',
Full of dark and despair,
And gloomy reflections on the state of the working classes,
And ennui, and terror of death,
And a generally miserable outlook.
And all in free verse (the fucker).
It will be the first song ever written
About the second snowflake of winter -

If I'm lucky.

Sentences

1.
Kids - say yes to drugs!

2.
No, no, never, never, never, never, never - well, sometimes.

3.
What do you mean, there's a gigantic arachnid standing behind my...

4.
What interesting opinions you have: they resemble mine.

5.
You stand there and look like an actor, and I'll look non-descript.

6.
Try to blend in with the place by making a noise like a brick wall.

7.
Uncle Melchior - please don't eat that!

8.
Don 't trust numbers, you can't count on them.

9.
Don't use words - say what you mean!

10.
You are mediocre, at best, at being mediocre - I'm much better...

Fastest underwear in the west

Connex is complaining about people who do their make-up on the trains, but I don't think there's anything wrong with it. All day, every day, half-formed moues and pre-plucked pouts are whizzing around the city at incredible speeds! Such is the wonder of our modern public transport system that now, people going to and from work can glower and grimace and sneer at one another at faster speeds than ever.

Other things that are zipping between train stations on the public transport system include pink frilly knickers, top pockets, green-scented handkcherchiefs in velveteen waistcoasts, and stubble. It's certainly a wonder the stubble doesn't fall out of people's faces altogether, considering the speed at which some trains go.

But we don't really think about this when we think of public transport, do we? It's more about getting to work, or escaping from home, or whatever.

It's worth noting, also, that another thing that public transport carries along with us as we go from A to B are our thoughts. A survey, recently completed, of Passing Notions Held By People Who Use Public Transport turns up the following examples:

"I like dogs!" - 17 counts

"I am very hungry, and I just ate breakfast." - 43 counts.

"I have a secret desire to lick twenty-dollar notes. I hope nobody finds out." - 2 counts.

"Why do I keep repeating myself? I don't know. Why do I keep repeating myself?" - 2 counts.

"Sex." - 103 counts.

"Why do I keep repeating myself? I don't know. Why does he keep repeating himself? He doesn't know either." - 4 counts.

"Sex - the word rhymes with ex! Ha!" - 1 count.

"It's the ten minutes of peace on the train every morning as I go to work that keep me from committing suicide." - 721 counts.

"I am not really reading this book, just turning the pages surreptitiously in a pathetic effort to make the other passengers think that I am keeping myself amused during this interminable train trip." - 4 counts.

Think about that next time you practice your champion sneering on the trains!

Groundbreaking literary analysis

O, I want to get pissed with Henry Fielding,
I want to get pissed with Henry Fielding,
I want to get pissed with Henry Fielding
All the live-long day.

I want to talk dogs with Jimmy Thurber,
I want to talk dogs with Jimmy Thurber,
I want to talk dogs with Jimmy Thurber,
All the live-long day.

I want to have vermouth with S J Perelman,
Yeah, I want to have vermouth with S J Perelman,
O, I want to have vermouth with S J Perelman,
All the live-long day.

I want to swap jokes with Aristophanes,
I want to swap jokes with Aristophanes,
I want to swap jokes with Aristophanes,
All the live-long day.

I want to have tea and scones with Jane Austen,
I want to have tea and scones with Jane Austen,
I want to have tea and scones with Jane Austen,
All the live-long day.

I want to tour Scotland with the Ettrick Shepherd,
I want to tour Scotland with the Ettrick Shepherd,
I want to tour Scotland with the Ettrick Shepherd,
All the live-long day.

But I don't want to play guns with William Burroughs,
I don't want to play guns with William Burroughs,
I don't want to play guns with William Burroughs -
What the HELL - do you think I'm fucking crazy, man?

The Workplace Chronicles, book 7, verses 1 - 4

1. And lo! Then Tim arose and went forth to the vending machine of the east. And at the bottom of that vending machine, he made the meet sacrifices and did find a Mars Bar.

2. And then did Tim sully forth to the confluence of the waters in the north: EVEN into the lands flowing with hot and cold and lukewarm water; YEAH, even so they flowed with milk and soy and honey.

3. And there he did fetch himself a mead of coffee and milk that did taste like cardboard.

4. And he did the best that he could to rejoice under the circumstances rejoiced.

Insect philosophy

If a blowfly flies
And a blowfly dies,
Does that blow- that once -flied
Turn into a blew?
Or a fly-that-has-blew?
Or a blew-that-has-fled?
Or does the fly just turn into a flew?

If a bee passes on
To where all bees go
Is it a bee-that-once-was
Or a was-that-will-bee?
Is it a bee-that's-no-more,
Or just a has-been,
Or a one-that-will-always-bee,
ineffably?

What makes a gnat a gnat?
And when are gnat's not?
Is there a gnattiest gnat,
Of the whole gnat lot?
Will the gnat world expire
In a gigantic gnaB giB?
What is it a gnat's got that a non-gnat don't got?

Ladies and gentlemen, my father

I've posted before about my father's letters, haven't I? They're just too good to miss. He makes strange spelling and grammatical mistakes that make one wonder if he actually does live on the Central Coast or in some bizarre alternate wonderland. He gets 'accosted' by dogs. He doesn't wear 't-shirts', but he does wear 'tea shirts', regularly. All food is kept and stored in 'the frig'.

The latest missive from Fatherville is better than ever. Let me give you some of the choice quotes:

Left in the car posting your latter on the way.

Visited the library and got some fruit then came home.

Also bought some semi dry olives. Both are awful, but H. likes them.

Judging from these quotes, Fatherville has several interesting features, including: a post office that deals in formers and latters; a library that stores fruit (and presumably a grocery that sells books); and olives that come in pairs. But the choicest quote is this:

Morning spent making some short bread.

Yes - shortbread biscuits, my father disdains, but he is very fond of yeast-based rolls of a minimum length! Huzzah for Fatherville!

(What's that? It's not nice to make fun of parents? Oh bugger off, he's my dad and I'm very proud of him, but his letters are too good not to make fun of.)

Collect each one in the series!

What Katie did!

What Katie did next!

What Katie did that put her brother in a mental asylum and Katie in jail for a year!

What Ted Bundy did next!

What Voldemort did!

What Hamlet didn't do next!

***

Five have fun together!

Five go to the Indes and catch malaria together!

Five are now four!

***

King Solomon's mines!

A return to King Solomon's mines!

King Solomon's sweatshops!

"I am thinking of bees... "

Small talk poem

- Do you like roses?
- Yes. I do.
- This weather is wet.
- Very true.
- I have visited France.
- And I, China.
I flew there once
In an airliner.
- That wall's very green.
- Hello - a cat!
- I once read a story
About a hat.
- Was it amusing?
- Very much so.
- Do you prefer Geoffrey? Or Martha?
- Not really, no.
- What is the time?
- A quarter to three.
- Here, have a napkin.
- I am thinking of bees.

(Five hours later.)

- A good thing, this rain...
- Hmm... I suppose...
- Look at my sandals!
- You have five toes...
- You are very witty.
- ... also, a nose.

The man who turned into a post-office box

A fable.

There was once a man who turned into a post office box. This is how it happened: one morning he woke up and found that he had turned into a post office box.
As he lay in bed considering the situation, his wife walked into the bedroom and said, "Oh my God - you're a post office box!"
This put him in a bad mood.

Later that day, the doctor walked into the room and looked over his patient, umming and awing in a stern yet authoritative medical manner he used to make his patients think they were going to die. (That way they were more grateful when they didn't, or more impressed when they did.)
"Ummm" he said gruffly. "Awww." he said peevishly. "Harumph."
Eventually, he cleared his throat and announced,
"This is bad. This is very bad. You have turned into a post office box. That makes four people this morning!"
"But doctor - what will I do?" cried the man who had turned into a post office box.
"Take two pills in the morning." cried the doctor over his shoulder. "Any pills will do, and it doesn't matter what morning either. They won't make any difference. I have some patients to attend to. Oh," he said as an afterthought, turning in the doorway and laying a pamphlet down on the bedroom table, "And you might find this helpful."

The pamphlet read,

ON BECOMING A POST OFFICE BOX

***

All over the country people were turning into post office boxes. It was an average of one post office box for every 10 people. People looked worried. Bureaucrats looked anxious. The Prime Minister appeared on air and said concerning things in a concerned-sounding voice.

The man who had turned into a post office box watched all this with great concern.

***

As time went on and life progressed, the man who had turned into a post office box found himself more and more standing on street corners and letting men and women as they went by on their daily business put letters into him. He found it soothing. Sometimes, after a hard day's work post office boxing, he'd save a letter just to read to himself. (He knew he shouldn't, really, but he just couldn't resist it.

Furthermore, the man who had turned into a post office box began to look upon things in a different perspective. Maybe it wasn't so bad being a post office box after all? With so many other post office boxes now to keep him company, the man who had turned into a post office box thought he might start up a friendly society, of post office boxes. He imagined himself making bestial post office box noises beneath the crimson moons with packs of other wild and untamed post office boxes.

So he did.

MORAL: Don't turn into a post office box unless you want to.

Hello everyone

Do not be disturbed. I have just been playing multiple personality disorder solitaire.

Verily, Agatha

In Lennie Lower's classic novel, Here's Luck, Agatha Gudgeon is the nagging wife of Jack Gudgeon, and mother to Stanley Gudgeon. She takes off soon after the book begins, leaving the blokes to themselves.



In W C Fields movie The Bank Dick, Agatha is again the nagging wife against W C Fields' male protagonist.



In P G Wodehouse's series of Jeeves books, the protagonist, Bertie Wooster, has an Aunt Agatha who is always trying to get him to marry. He says of her:

"My Aunt Agatha, the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth."

"Aunt Agatha, who eats broken bottles and wears barbed wire next to the skin."

"When Aunt Agatha wants you to do a thing you do it, or else you find yourself wondering why those fellows in the olden days made such a fuss when they had trouble with the Spanish Inquisition."

"Aunt Agatha, the one who kills rats with her teeth and devours her young."

"My Aunt Agatha who eats broken bottles and is strongly suspected of turning into a werewolf at the time of the full moon."



Just what did all these people have against Agatha, anyway?

More sneers

#4427: Collective sneering

Every Wednesday, the Trans-Australian Sneerers club gather in a small house in Balmain, Sydney, to share their mutual contempt and indifference of one another in a comfortably supercilious atmosphere.

Some of their mottos:

- You can always meet a new inferior among the TA Sneerers!

- A little sneer
Goes a long, long way
To ruin
Someone's day.

- Sneerily Agitur (Latin, translation: do the sneery thing)

Small talk

I like ants.

Terrors of the natural world...

Speaking of collanders

Non-sequitur poem

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Posies are pink.
The square root of ten thousand four hundred and four is one hundred and two.

Manners poem

- Do you mind?
- Not at all!
- It's not a ...?
- No!
- If I may...
- Quite all right!
- Quite, you say?
- Quite!
- This really is...
- Don't mention...!
- Are you sure?
- Go!

Dangling modifier poem

"O! Let us gaze into the moon!"
She cried, "In our pyjamas!"
"Or let us sit and drink and talk!"
He sighed, "Of loons and llamas!"

And hand in hand they gazed into
The pyjama-wearing moon;
And sat and talked and drank a cup
Of freshly-boiled loon.

"O let us eat this cake with forks!"
She yawped beguilingly.
"Or let us singing wear our socks!"
He answered smilingly.

So then they sat and ate a cake,
And then they ate their forks;
And then they donned their singing socks
And went out for a walk.

She gazed at him, and he at her,
And there and then they knew:
She gladly fell into his arms,
And madly, he did too.

It was a tight fit, to be sure -
But what else could they do?

Understatement poem

April isn't a very good month,
But let's not go over the top.

UPDATE! - An overaccurate compliment poem.

Mercy is for the squeak

The present on Facebook today is a rat.

An open message to all Drunkards

Attention, Drunkards: USE THE TRAM! It is a fact too obvious to mention that Drunk-Kind are naturally reticient and well-mannered, and therefore have an inbuilt aversion to using public transport. I would like to personally take this opportunity, on behalf of all non-drunks, who are too sober to share your natural reticience and sense of propriety, to thank you. Your efforts to raise the moral standards on public transport are appreciated, Drunk people. So go ahead. Go on. Hop on the tram and flail dizzily about, bumping into other passengers and falling at their feet. Don't worry! The other passengers will be sure to move back and make a space for you. Also, if a seat is already occupied, and you, in your drunken stupour, lurch into the person sitting down and/or attempt to sit down on them, they will stand up for you, out of natural respect for your drunken candour and your rakish charm. Oh, no. It's quite all right. It's the least we can do! Don't worry. Make yourself at home. If you feel the urge to speak loudly in a drunken manner to the other passengers and/or the driver, perhaps seasoning your witty repartee with a number of salty imprecations, go right ahead. The other passengers will simply stay silent, possibly looking in the other direction, while others will merely move to the other end of the tram. This is only to ensure that you are given as full a space as possible to express yourself drunkenly. Don't mention it. Drunkards! I also heartily encourage you to give full expression to the urge to regurgitate. Let it all out! That's right! Use up as much room as is necessary. The customers and the tram driver will merely move away and/or wipe their shoes, wishing not to impinge upon your your chosen area of artistic expression. Don't forget to use the seats as a depository for your bottles! All ten of them. Or the floor - any flat surface will do. Don't worry - it will save us the trouble of sitting and/or standing up and/or both. Drunkards, your dedication to raising the standards of manners and decorum on the public transport is something we are all wholly grateful for. After all, if you didn't edify your fellow pasengers with your company, witty dialogue, and artistic personality, you might be forced to catch a taxi, using money that could be better spent elsewhere. And no-one wants that. By working together, I'm sure that Drunk-Kind and Sober-Kind can forge a new and better world in an atmosphere of tolerance and respect. THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM TIM

The wide word of animals

It's World Animal Day today, as I learned recently. To mark this momentuous occasion, I thought I'd do a post listing some of the stranger animals out there.

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The Wedge-Tailed Beagle
This rare and majestic creature can be found by travellers in mountain climes, swooping from peak to peak, hunting for its only natural quarry, the Postman. Occasionally, it can be heard from far off, as it's eerie yet noble bark is heard ringing around the lonely mountain peaks. Soaring through clouds, this fearsome creature has inspired more than one poet to write lyrics in its honour:

She clasps the crag in crooked paws,
And on the thund'ring winds she soars!
The whole empyrean is her domain
From which her fur doth fall, like rain:
While those below scan height to height
To see her in her sombre flight.
Then, like a thunderbolt, she falls
On bone or biscuit which she mauls:
Yea, a mighty predator that flies
Is the WEDGE-TAILED BEAGLE of the skies!

Green Tea Frog
Many a tea-drinker, on pouring out a cup of green tea and turning away for a second, has been surprised to find on turning back that, with a plop and a splash, their cup is now habituated by a frog! Historically, the Chinese have considered this hot-water habituating amphibian to be especially propitious. Europeans, however, were less fond of the creature, due to the habit the frog had of occasionally hopping out of the tea and into the Europeans mouths (leading to the expression 'A frog in one's throat').



The Skylurk
The Skylurk is a disreputable species of bird, which has a habit of malingering about the skies of the world, not doing very much, and getting in the way of other birds. For centuries, scientists have sought to answer the question, 'Why is the Skylurk such an annoying creature', but as yet, their researches have not come up with any firm answers.

Habits of the Skylurk include: loafing around clouds, loitering from one tree-top to another, and glowering in an irritating fashion at the smaller birds until they cry.

Commode Dragon
This curious reptilian species makes its home in water closets and toilets, and has surprised more than one user, in the middle of doing their business, with its booming roar and fiery breath. Despite the fear and terror that it strikes in the hearts of all natural toilet goers, the Commode Dragon does not habitually feed on humans, but rather makes a meal of small rodents and fish.
Nowadays, the dragon is an endangered species, but a breeding program is underway. If you wish to have a Commode Dragon habituating your cistern or water closet, please speak to the National Commode Dragon Preservation Society today.

Squallow
The Squallow is a relative of a more common bird species, the Swallow. However, it lives in rather more squalid conditions, which are frankly too disgusting to go into here. So I don't think I'll mention any more about this species.

The Great Australian Wild Bore
The Great Australian Wild Bore can be found in large numbers around the Canberra region, and in lesser numbers scattered around all areas of Australia. It is a political creature, variously described by journalists as a pig, a swine, or a creature that loves rolling around in its own muck. Frankly, many people prefer ordinary boars or pigs - and I agree with them.

The Mountain Gloat
Adventurers and travellers in distant lands, seeking to test themselves in trials of strength, often find themselves in the mountainous regions inhabited by this creature. Perched on the peaks of the highest mountains, the Mountain Gloat will look down at these travellers as they attempt to climb onwards. The travellers will occasionally squint at the creature, and wonder why it seems to have a look of such sly self-satisfaction on its face.

The Mountain Gloat is typically a silent creature, but on occasion - perhaps a traveller breaking his leg, or mountain climbers having to run away from a slight avalanche which may or may not have been caused by stones pushed down its own hooves - it will open its mouth, and emit a sudden snickering sound, causing the travellers to look up again and wonder if the Mountain Gloat is not making fun of them. But as soon as it snickers, it is silent again - and all the travellers will hear will be the wind...



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That's all for the moment. This evening, I'm off to a suitable film for the occasion, 'Dinosaurs OF THE DEEP!', screening at the IMAX theatres. (Incidentally, I was amused to find that a similar post I did a while ago continues to garner comments, months, and probably years, after the post was written.) Cheerio!

Some of their drivers enjoy high-speed duels!

When you're writing for a major international magazine like The Spectator, it's usually pretty safe to make up columns about weird foreign people living in foreign countries. The only problem I see with this particular column, by Tim Heald, is that it's about Sydney and parts of Sydney that I know fairly well. And it's all crap!

He starts off on safe ground, whinging about the public transport system, something that we all do from time to time. 'The trains are unreliable' he moans, 'and Central Station is a nightmare.' I don't see anything wrong with Central Station myself, but we'll let him have his whinge.

I love this bit:

buses swirl past stops during rush hours because they’re full, and some of their drivers enjoy high-speed duels with each other.

I wish I'd been in one of those high-speed duels. Whenever I caught a bus in Sydney, I seemed to sit across from a raving alcoholic, and the buses hardly ever went anywhere.

The preferred form of travel for those venturing out of town is by air — as anyone visiting the Italian-dominated suburb of Leichhardt can testify. Leichhardt is on the flight path not far from the airport and every few seconds a big jet thunders overhead...

He should try visiting Marrickville. And what's with this 'air travel' being the preferred form of transport? Perhaps he should take a drive on the Pacific Highway.

And how about this bit?

St John’s College, where I’m spending a half-semester, is an imposing Victorian Gothic complex in an otherwise grotty part of town. My wife and I are living in the old gatehouse on the busy Parramatta Road opposite what appears to be a groovy house of ill-repute and near to more dealers in white wedding dresses than even Barbara Cartland could have imagined. The College and the university feel, to me, ill at ease with their environs.

I'm not sure how he can see this as an 'otherwise grotty party of town'. Perhaps if you take out the university, the colleges, the few statues dotted around the Prince Alfred Hospital, the various libraries, the Anglican college on the corner of City Road, and the sporting ovals... And if the university is 'ill at ease' with its environs, what does he make of the cafe and bookshop culture on King Street or Glebe Point Road? I guess university students or professors don't need to eat, talk, or read books.

Hey, maybe I'll take a trip to England and write an article about it for the newspaper. I'll be sure to talk about the 'dilapidated suburbs of Old Blighty' and the 'ramshackle tenements' in which I stayed, as well as the 'neurotic combination of the groovy West End types' with the 'anxious Tweed-and-Tennyson set'. Throw in about twenty more adjectives, and I'll have my column.

Some Mr Men books for the modern generation

A call to action

There are millions of people in this world who are disgruntled. And just look at all these news stories! Students disgruntled... disgruntled police officers... disgruntled with your child... Disgruntled investors... disgruntled fans...

This catalogue of disgruntledness, this list of horrors, leads us all to ask, how did all these people get disgruntled in the first place? What is the root cause of all this disgruntledness? It is impossible to tell how many people around you may be disgruntled. Maybe you are disgruntled, too. What's it like? Tell the world about your disgruntledness. Maybe it will make you feel better.

Most importantly, what can we do to gruntle everyone again? We need a Federal Minister of Gruntling to get onto this problem, we need a UN inquiry into the cause of Disgruntledness, we need an International Conference on Behalf of the Regruntling of the world! We need to start gruntling - straight away!

PS
While we're on these important matters, what about that chap in the Keats poem who is 'Alone and palely loitering'? How is it possible to 'palely loiter'? Isn't that another way of saying that you 'loiter in a pale manner'? If it's possible to 'palely loiter', it must be possible also to 'crimsonly loiter' and 'vermillionly loiter'. Plus, if you can 'loiter palely', perhaps you can be 'pale and loiterish', too. What on earth was Keats talking about?

PPS
A person got to this blog (hi!) googling for 'Food that grows hair'. I'm glad that somebody has finally got onto this problem.

Modify that dangler!

Vague's catchphrase used to be "Dangle your modifier and I will fucking cut you", but I'm afraid to say that it's only recently I got around to looking 'dangling modifiers' up. Wikipedia has a good entry on them, saying, basically, that "a dangling modifier... [is] a word or phrase intended to modify one element of a sentence but, owing to its placement... seems to modify another element or none at all. "

So basically, I set about writing a set of dangling modifiers for myself, in sentences like the following:

I scratched a three-day old stubble and pushed open the door to the bathroom.

But you can't tell here whether it's the door to the bathroom that has the three-day old stubble, or the speaker, or somebody else. A better version of the sentence might be:

I scratched the three-day old stubble on the door to the bathroom and pushed it open.

It's probably not good to ask how the door to the bathroom got the three-day old stubble. And then, there was the following example:

Putting a hat and a coat on, I then led a giraffe and an elephant out of the garage.

Now, obviously it's not clear here whether I put the hat and coat on myself, or put the hat and coat on the garage, or put the hat on the giraffe and the coat on the elephant, or a combination of all those things. It would probably depend on the hat, and the coat; and also the elephant, the giraffe, and the garage. What sort of hats do garages wear? Perhaps we'd better ask a linguist.

This sentence is obviously wrong, and the dangling modifier is probably easy to spot:

A coconut fell on Clive, Stanley, Geoffrey and Ned, who were walking through the garden.

Did a coconut fall on Clive, or Stanley, or Geoffrey, or Ned? Only one coconut is specified but several people are walking through the garden. Perhaps it is a pity that more coconuts did not fall. What sentence is more accurate?

Clive was walking through the garden with Stanley, Geoffrey and Ned, when a coconut fell on him.

Stanley was walking through the garden with Clive, Geoffrey and Ned, when a coconut fell on him.

Geoffrey was walking through the garden with Clive, Geoffrey and Ned, when a coconut fell on him.

Ned was walking through the garden with Stanley, Geoffrey and Clive, when a coconut fell on him.

Who is to say? Probably not the one who was the victim of this malingering coconut.
Then there was the following surreal example:

I was walking through the garden, where apples, oranges, dates, grapes, bananas, pears, tomatoes, squashes, turnips and a coconut fell on me, with Clive.

Did Clive fall out of the clear blue sky, or was he merely idling in the garden after either Stanley, Geoffrey or Ned had been conked by a homicidal coconut? Who knows. After a great deal of research, I can reveal that the answer is in fact the following

I was walking through the garden when Clive fell on me with a whole bunch of fruit.

This sentence turns Clive from an innocent loiterer in the garden to a possibly murderous fruitbat. And aren't you glad you found out? It's an important thing to be careful about grammatical phenomenon like dangling modifiers, or perhaps we would never have found out for sure.

And imagine how terrible that would have been for you and me - and Clive!

(Now feel free to comment away and tell me how wrong and sloppy I have been in my commentary about dangling modifiers here.)

Incomplete catalogue of sneers: an excerpt

#7821: The Sneer at Fifty Paces

At arts festivals and large public events, it is often necessary for the sneerer to be able to make the sneer felt to the sneeree* at medium to long distances. Sometimes, one must even engage in extended exchanges of sneering and/or sneering duels until the sneeree has submitted in shame and anger at your forceful sneering.

The sneer at Fifty Paces is a highly refined sneer, designed to be felt across crowded auditoriums, and sometimes even through auditorium doors. It is not so much a physical sneer as a metaphysical or spiritual sneer, being felt more than experienced by the sneeree. As such, it represents one of the highest achievements of sneerdom.

*Sneeree: person being sneered at.

The war against the pumpkins

N.H. Pumpkin Tosser Knocked Out By Launcher

(AP) GREENFIELD, N.H. The first weekend of pumpkin flinging season ended abruptly Sunday in Greenfield when one of the operators of a catapault-like device was knocked out in a freak accident.

Chuck Willard of Hancock was hit in the chin by the boom on the Yankee Seige, a remake of a medieval weapon called a trebuchet. It can toss pumpkins 300 yards and it knocked Willard for a loop.

An employee at the attraction said Willard was out for about two minutes.

He was treated and released and said to be anxious to start tossing pumpkins again.

The Yankee Siege, on Route 31, will be launching pumpkins, weather permitting, every weekend through the end of next month.

Via Harry.

Yet again, it seems, a pumpkin has sustained an injury in the seemingly endless violence and retribution being wreaked against their species by the humans. Many in the pumpkin community will be wringing their leaves and crying, 'Why must innocent pumpkins suffer?' And yet, for all the talk of turning over a new leaf and root causes, human-on-pumpkin violence seems endemic. There is little that we can do to turn the tide in human-pumpkin relations.

It may seem impossible to imagine this now, but there was a time, not so long ago, when humans and pumpkins lived in peace and harmony together. We would share the same houses! Stride through the same fields! We would dance lustily through the same gardens, singing pastoral hymns to Bacchus! (Well, the pumpkins wouldn't sing so much - they could never hold a tune). These were simpler, happy times, before the onset of internicine pumpkin warfare and the discovery of bubble and squeak.

Perhaps it is time, once more, to go up to a pumpkin and shake their leafs. Time to acknowledge pumpkin suffering and to once more attempt to live in peace and harmony with pumpkins of all backgrounds. Why not write letters to your local member, advocating the pumpkin cause? Why not, indeed, invite members of the pumpkin territories to your house to discuss things you hold in common? Humans have lived in harmony with pumpkin-kind before: we can do so again.

Free the pumpkins!