The Quibs and Bunning Writers Exchange Program #1

The Quibs and Bunning Writers Exchange Program #1: The performance poet and the train timetable guy

The Epping and Hurstbridge train timetable, as written by a performance poet

Hi guys, here's just a few poems I wrote the other night waiting at Flinders Street Station, an experience I think a lot of us have in common. I hope you like them, I think they've got a certain something to them. Excuse me. *Clears throat*

8.15 to Hurstbridge

Eight twelve at the station,
I'm just waiting at the station
With the
other
passengers.
And if the train don't come, the train won't come
So I'm waiting at the station
For the wheels to come,
And my frustration at the station,
At the station where we're at, at the station that we're in,
Has made my mind go numb.
(But the steel hums, the wheels run)

Eight-thirteen at the station
(Clitter clatter clitter clatter)
It doesn't matter to me,
Don't you see, we're not free,
(Clitter clatter bitter batter)
Political correctness is just the frustration of our nation
At the train that doesn't -
(Clitter clatter made as hatter)
At the train that won't -
(Clitter clatter clatter shatter fast food makes you fatter clitter clatter what's the matter)
- come.

Eight-fourtee... *Coughs*

Oh, I'm sorry. Lost my place there for a second.

EIGHT-FOURTEEN! And my oration
At the station
Is a statement of frustration
At this whole vast system of negation
(You're the system's sucker, fucker)
(Clitter clatter mad as hatter)
And the patience at the station
Longs for an innovation
FUCK THE SYSTEM!
FREE THE TRAINS!
DON'T LIVE YOUR LIFE ACCORDING TO TIMETABLES, RULES, SYSTEMS, RIGHT-WING AUTHORITARIANISM, HYPER-FASCISM, GODS, DIETS, COMMERCIALISM, ADVERSERIAL ADVERTISING, NEO-LIBERAL QUASI-NAZISM!

This is my commendation.

Eight-fifteen at the station. All on board!

A short poem about my girlfriend, by the guy who does the train timetables

Description Your red hair in the morning sunlight You swearing You telling me off for picking my nose when I thought you weren't looking You kissing me and making up The way you move Watching me watching you drink coffee Seeing you go to the evening shift at work Various reminiscences of you

Emotion felt Highly interested Fairly interested/slightly offput Like a puppy whose bone has been taken away Highly interested/Very highly interested Relatively interested A little distracted Saddened Various emotions, swinging from very high interest to medium interest to distraction to sadness, as well as three random thoughts about spaghetti at one point

Time of day 8.27 9.01 9.32 9.45 10.01 1.30pm 2.00 3.00 - 7.00

Junk food ads for people with eating disorders

A Mars a day helps you blerk, rest and play!

Have a steak. Have a Kit Kat.

Snickers spatters thighs!

The link that should have stayed missing

(With apologies to the Club and the real missing linkers.)

The link that should have stayed missing All the news fit to chisel on a cave wall: blog links for Primitive Man. ISSUES The blogger in the cast-stone cave maintains: "Just because we're troglodytes doesn't mean we have to act like one." Oz Neanderthal proposes a bold new idea for the furtherance of his progressive ideals amongst his fellow neanderthals. He calls it the patriarchy. Big Man Lambert warns his tribe of the dangers of the coming glacial age. Meanwhile, the Merkelman invents the wheel and tries to patent it. Small problem: the patent office isn't going to be in existence for another ten thousand millenia... The religious debate we had to have! Cro-Magnon Lad extols the virtues of the Earth Mother, "The Ever Fruitful one, who has given life to us all!" Meanwhile, The Druid proposes we all make human sacrifices to propitiate the wrath of the Mighty Sky God! INTERNATIONAL Caveman Blair is feeling understandably patriotic, and proposes we adopt a new anthem: "Let them all go to hell, except cave 17!" Could the discovery of fire be used as a weapon by terrorists? The Cro-Magnon Lad says yes. Amazon About Town dares any man to face her tribe of Amazons and live to tell the tale! ARTS Primitive Theatre Notes attends three avant-garde sacrificial ceremonies. Her verdict? NOT ENOUGH BLOOD! The Purple Tribe, meanwhile, attend the opening of the new Lascaux Caves conceptual artspace, finding that "while the play of light and shade is exquisite, and the compositions are skilfully conceived, there is very little truly original in this rendition." Homo Slammaticus is present at the creation of music, and says: "To much rock, not enough roll." SNARK, STRANGENESS AND CHARM The Piltdown Man has a blog, and dares you to prove otherwise! Australopithecine Lefty is a shy and gentle woodland creature living off the nuts, roots and berries of the forest floor. He is also a left-winger. Why not pay him a visit? Nailpolish Ochres invents beer, and celebrates by inventing drunkenness. Homo Lexiconicus has been invited to work in an exciting new Government project, the Tower of Babel. Will she accept?

Braking News!

SHOCK! CONCERNS OF MEDIA MISREPRESENTATION IN THE MEDIA!

As you've probably heard by now, there are growing concerns that the media may be being increasingly misrepresented in the media. Several media figures have come forward in the past day to complain about their wilful misrepresentation by several other media figures, who also claim to have been misrepresented. But are these claims of the media (being misrepresented) being misrepresented (by the media)? Or are these media figures fairly representing the unfair misrepresentations by other media figures? And what does this all mean for democracy in Australia?

To find out, we asked several respected media figures.

LENTIL MCLENTIL, COMMUNITY JOURNALIST: These claims of media misrepresentation of the mainstream media by community journalists are complete misrepresentations of the truth.

JONES FOTHERINGTON-MONEYBAGS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA EXECUTIVE: Claims of mainstream media misrepresentation made by community journalists are misrepresented claims, that's what. And any misrepresentations to the contrary are misrepresented misrepresentations, that's right!

PYJAMAS SMITH, BLOGGER: A number of misleading comments have been made by the mainstream media in the past couple of months regarding the amount of cat photographs I publish on my blog. I would like to say here and now that these misleading claims about my fondness for cat photographs on my blog are completely misleading. I publish much more cat photos than they suggest.

While the debate about media representation of the media is unlikely to be settled soon, it is worth asking, can the media do anything to change widespread perceptions of bias against the media? A number of prominent media figures who claim to have been misrepresented by other media figures are calling for an investigation into their misrepresentation by other media figures Hard-hitting current affairs programs have come out with incisive analysis of their misrepresentation by other hard-hitting current affairs programs, who have hit back with incisive analysis of their own. Respected newspaper pollsters have published revealing polls of other pollsters in the process of publishing revealing polls of their own, and their verdict is unanimous: all other polls into media misrepresentation of the media are misguided misrepresentations of the real misrepresentations. However, all sides come together to agree forcefully that the other side is wrong.

It is hard to know where to go from here. Many prominent media executives little known outside their respective companies are calling for the sacking of many other prominent media executives, little known outside their respective companies, too. However, other media figures are calling for moderation and restraint, and would simply like to see the misrepresentation of the media by other media to be misrepresented in a more fair way. Some Government-funded media sources, meanwhile, are claiming that they will need more Government funding in order to find out ways to improve their misrepresentation of other media sources. Other Government sources disagree, arguing that the misrepresentation of other media sources is a private responsibility and should not be performed on the public purse.

The film with the big titulars

Perusing, as is my wont, the titles of some recently released examples of cinema verite on a trip to the local picture palace today, my eye happened to fall idly upon the title of the latest film from the M Night Shyamalan stables. The Happening, the film was called. Film titles are of course meant to be generic, but you can't get much more generic than the happening that is The Happening. It's an almost perfectly ambiguous, and hence ambiguously perfect film title. It gives nothing away, but then, it promises nothing, either: the best title for the sort of film that you spend a lot of money to go and see, and feel vaguely disappointed with after you've seen it. (This is more or less the opposite to gore-fest Snakes in a Plane, in which you know exactly how disappointed you'll be in the film before you pay to see it, but you still pay to see it anyway.) Conversation on the film, one imagines, would go something like this:

A: What just happened?

B: The Happening, that's what happened.

A: Oh dear.

I'm not going to see The Happening. I have no particular interest in what happens in The Happening, and am quite content to let The Happening happen quietly for the next month or so. But really, what a title! You might as well just call the film The Event. As a matter of fact, maybe that very title was considered for The Happening. Perhaps we could apply the same logic to other films. Romantic comedies, for instance, could be described as The Series of Happenings that Happen to Bring Two Random Characters Together in a Romantic Situation. Disaster movies could be called The Thing That Happened, and the Other Things that Happened After The Thing. Science fiction movies, The Series of Rather Improbable Happenings In Big Metal Objects With Lasers.

I eagerly await the planned sequel to The Happening, with the working title The Minor Incident That Occured In the Place With People, and the Insigificant Events that Precipitated As a Result Of It.

My day, experienced as a series of mathematical equations

1) On the time spent making a sandwich for work.

T > t

T = The time spent making the sandwich for work, t = The time the bus arrives on which one is supposed to get with the sandwich that one has made for work. Clearly, T is greater than t.

2) On the amount of food I put on my sandwich.

F > f

Here, F is the amount of food I have actually put on my sandwich, and f is the amount of food I SHOULD put on my sandwich to prevent it overflowing. Here, F is clearly greater than f. (Not to mention s = Sandwich)

3) On the likelihood of tomatoes sploshing on the keyboard.

(p + 5): 100 = 1:1, therefore, p = 95.

In this equation, the unknown variable, p, is the probability that when I unwrap my sandwich at work, a big fat juicy slice of tomato will fly out from my sandwich and splosh face down on my keyboard. From the equation above, we can see that this is pretty bloody likely indeed.

4) Amount of time spent in procrastination at work as an exponential curve:



Here, the vertical axis stands for 'time spent procrastinating', while the horizontal axis stands for 'time of day'.

5) Amount of comments left on blogs while at work:

a = 2b2 + 16c3 - 17d - 4 + n.

a = Amount of blog comments left at work, b = Idle passing whims, c = My propensity to become involved in online arguments, d = The disturbing but increasingly frequent feeling I have at work that someone might be creeping up behind me, and n = an arbitrary, whole number integer.

6) The likelihood of having an excellent day at work:

l = 5/1000i

Here, l equal to the probability that the manager will ask me into his office and offer me a $10 million a week pay rise, after tax; and i = The square root of minus one, an impossible figure - ie - pretty fucking impossible.

7) The power relationships between people at work, expressed as a simple-to-follow flow chart.

Currently suffering from unitary personality disorder...

I long to be at two with the universe.

Snortripping yarns!

I've just finished reading four short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, after having picked them up recently at a book sale in Melbourne Central. The book, "The Lost World and other thrilling tales", is a Penguin republication, and rolls in two of his 'Challenger stories' - novelettes, really - complete with the pictures that, one assumes, originally appeared in the newspapers in which the stories were published; as well as two other shorter pieces which seem almost like prototypical horror stories; and the usual long introductory essay by the scholar who may or may not know what he's talking about.

Conan Doyle of course is best remembered for his detective stories, though as this book shows he could adapt nicely to the demands of the adventure or scientific romance genres of the time . This adaptation may have partly coincided with his growing interest in spiritualism, and there's certainly an interesting ongoing argument about scientific discovery and revelation in these stories. Doyle references H Rider Haggard in the title story, 'The Lost World', which is a well-shaped adventure story about a scientific expedition to find a surviving biological enclave of dinosaurs. The second story, 'The Poison Belt', bears remarkable similarities to H G Wells' novel 'In The Days of the Comet', though it's less successful than Wells' novel.

You certainly find yourself more than a little shocked at the politics of some of these stories. They are all written in the British empire's heyday, directly before the first world war. They celebrate the virtues of adventure, of courage, of daring and adventure and scientific discovery - but also celebrate more questionable virtues. The narrator of the first story, Edward Malone, is spurred to take part in an adventure after being told by his love interest, Gladys, that 'I do want to marry a famous man.' Malone later falls in with a small band of friends (including the Professor Challenger, mentioned above) who, to varying degrees, seem to embody the sort of fame and courage that Gladys requires. Travelling to the Amazon, they are betrayed by a Mexican servant (for no reason that is immediately apparent other than that it is useful for the narrative) and left isolated on a plateau with dinosaurs. There, the Professors Challenger and Summerlee occupy their time in finding live examples of animal life and killing them. (Sometimes, to balance out the plot and make it more exciting, the live specimens spend their time chasing the live characters around and trying to kill them, too.) They are also kidnapped by a race of semi-intelligent missing links, or 'ape men', after which - again with not much plot justification - they decide to side with a group of Indians also living on this (increasingly improbable) plateau, and make war on the ape-men.

There's often very little time amongst these fast moving plot events for much description of the dinosaurs or other extinct life encountered - although there are a few important exceptions to this, one of the best being the discovery of a nest of pterodactyls:

Creeping to his side, we looked over the rocks. The place into which we gazed was a pit, and may, in the early days, have been one of the smaller volcanic blow-holes of the plateau. It was bowl-shaped and at the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we lay, were pools of green-scummed, stagnant water, fringed with bullrushes. It was a weird place in itself, but its occupants made it seem like a scene from the Seven Circles of Dante. The place was a rookery of pterodactyls. There were hundreds of them congregated within view. All the bottom area round the water-edge was alive with their young ones, and with hideous mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellowish eggs. From this crawling flapping mass of obscene reptilian life came the shocking clamor which filled the air and the mephitic, horrible, musty odor which turned us sick. But above, perched each upon its own stone, tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried specimens than actual living creatures, sat the horrible males, absolutely motionless save for the rolling of their red eyes or an occasional snap of their rat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went past them. Their huge, membranous wings were closed by folding their fore-arms, so that they sat like gigantic old women, wrapped in hideous web-colored shawls, and with their ferocious heads protruding above them. Large and small, not less than a thousand of these filthy creatures lay in the hollow before us.

As science fiction, then, it works amazingly well as an adventure story. As an adventure story, it might have been able to work even without the science fiction.

The second story, 'The Poison Belt', is more of a failure - though in its own way a far more interesting failure than 'The Lost World' is a success. For one thing, the story is based upon a long-outdated, and by now forgotten, scientific theory, 'the ether' (it's a kind of substance that permeates the entire universe). Apparently the earth moves into a portion of the ether that is poisonous to life. Thanks to Professor Challenger's prompting, the main characters secure themselves oxygen tanks, which sees them through the worst of it. This necessitates the wonderfully arbitrary sentence on page 216 of my book -

... I took a taxi, and, having ascertained the address from a telephone book, I made for the Oxygen Tube Supply Company in Oxford Street.

In order to ration their oxygen successfully, Malone, Challenger, and friends spend most of the story holed up in Professor Challenger's living room, which is a decidedly curious narrative choice on Conan Doyle's part. It affords a rather narrow perspective of the world and the human race in its death throes - and a limited perspective is more or less contradictory to the spirit of these sort of tales.* Finally, when the 'poison belt' of ether passes, they are able to go out and wander about the dead world. In one particularly poignant touch, they encounter an old woman who has been prescribed oxygen for a medical condition, and has hence survived: all she does is wonder what this will do to her stocks in a certain company. The whole odd tale concludes with the world coming back to life, in another improbably convenient twist of the plot.

A lot of the charm of these stories, of course, is the way they combine futuristic and/or visionary narratives with outdated early 20th century science. The plot device of the second story - the passing of the earth through a different form of ether - harks back curiously to nineteenth century scientific theories about the universe. Similar plot devices recur in the final two stories, especially the concluding piece, 'The Horror of the Heights', in which an airman ascends above the clouds in a pre-world war I aeroplane, and discovers what he refers to as 'the jungle of the sky' - a whole tangle of bobbing, gaseous jellyfish and airy snakes amongst the upper atmosphere. That's the sort of tale that couldn't have been written even thirty years later, but it's still wonderfully imaginative.

You probably shouldn't let the politics, and late-colonial values of these stories stop you from reading them. They're at the very least excellent entertainments by a master storyteller. And once you get past the scene-setting and the laborious plot devices, you may find hidden treasures aplenty -

Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

*One of the pictures early in the story shows the four major characters sitting in a room together, discussing the imminent destruction of the world by poison, while smoking cigarettes. Which is really quite charming.

Two poems inspired by blog comments

A tale of moulden times
For The Kingsley

I forged a blade of IRONY,
Of irony and gold; -
And it did gleam with mystic sheen,
A wonder to behold.

And with my sharp IRONIC blade,
I fell with savage force
Upon mine antient enemy
Without fear or remorse.

With angry lust, I carved its crust -
Its casements brave and bold:
Yea, I fell upon this barb'rous loaf
Like wolf upon the fold.

"Begone, foul fiend!" I shouted then,
Midst battle-din and strife;
And then - lo! - I did butter it,
With my IRONIC knife.

With buttering and battering,
I cut up chicken cold -
Crying "HOW ARE THE FLIGHTY FALLEN!"
I sheathed my blade so bold.

But woe betide that condiment,
Be it marmite, jam, or sauce
That challenge my IRONIC blade -
Or it shall feel its force.

I forged a blade of IRONY,
Of irony and gold; -
And it did gleam with mystic sheen,
A wonder to behold.

Substitute Cat (One cat T S Eliot forgot to write about)
For PC

Substitute Cat -
I'm the substitute cat -
For the child that wasn't -
For the couple that won't.

Substitute cat
That sits on the substitute mat
In the room in the swanky and semi-
affordable flat.

Substitute Cat -
I'm the Substitute Cat -
The might-have-that-isn't,
The will-do-but-don't.

Substitute cat
Is growing quite fat
When his owners don't look
He nibbles their hats,
Without even a thank you
Or may I or please -
His substitute life
Is all pleasure and ease.

Substitute Cat-
I'm the Substitute Cat -
For someone to have a second-hand sort of
Mumsy-and-Dadness
(Which Jellicoe Cat thinks
A quiet form of madness.)

Substitute Cat
He don't care at all -

Substitute Cat -
I'm the Substitute Cat...

Possible definition of obsession

Possible definition of obsession: when the person playing Scrabble with you puts the name of their football team as a play, only getting some seven points for it.

Another possible definition of obsession: my playing so much scrabble that it happens in the first place.

A blogger's review of real life

I must admit that for the past couple of years, I've been an enthusiastic user of 'real life'. Although the real life technology is still backward, and has a number of flaws and glitches in the system, a growing number of bloggers are using it. Why, it seems like only yesterday that I ran into Armagnacd's 'actual' persona in the Melbourne botanical gardens. What a surprise that was!

Having an actual personality is, of course, one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of real life. It stands in sharp distinction to a blogger's ordinary practice of maintaining a number of different identities, sign-in names, joke personalities, and anonymities depending on which site they are visiting or using at the time. In 'real life', frequently, a person is required to make a statement and, astonishingly, stand by it! This couldn't be more different to blogs, obviously.

I'm still not quite sure what the attraction of real life is. I suppose real life is - well, it just is. Thankfully, the technology is becoming increasingly more accessible to bloggers, who can upload themselves into 'the world' with a few swift clicks of the mouse. This 'world' - the base for all operations in the real life technological platform - lies just beyond the computer screen, and is astonishingly varied and detailed. Many parts of the real life world now are almost as good, or at the least quite similar to, their blog equivalents! For instance, just the other day I participated in a real life functionality known as 'going down the street to get the papers'. Whereas previously we had to go to other websites to read about the news, all I had to do in real life was go to the newspaper agency.

There are still, regrettably, a number of deficiencies to real life technology. For instance, when I want to go down the streets in real life, or go to the shops, or go somewhere, I can't just hyperlink there - so the journey can take quite some time. And for the moment, real life is without a proper comments facility. I feel it would greatly enhance the usability of real life if people were able to type in comments while engaging in one of its functions.

On the other hand, unlike blogs, real life has 'morality', a new and exciting function that I feel has great potential to be developed more. Users of real life are expected to strictly conform to certain 'moral' notions. This is a great innovation, though I'm not sure where the innovation came from, exactly. Anyway, it's one of the principal attractions of real life, and helps to explain why an increasing number of bloggers are using it every day.

As an added attraction, currently, real life is not owned by any major corporation. Bill Gates has recently attempted to buy out the copyrights for real life, without success. (Though apparently sponsorship deals are being worked out with a number of major companies.)

Still, I wouldn't use real life all the time. The strain is just too much, and some of the functions are too primitive. But I can heartily recommend it for those who are just simply curious, or want to log off the computer for a while and wander around.

Real life: four stars out of five.

Tip for the day

Eat lots of Smarties. This delicious food is healthy, enervating, good for the arteries, and, most importantly of all, slimming. Eat lots of Smarties today!

Apologisathon

They certainly like apologising, Labor politicians. They'll even go out of their way to do it for other people.

Della Bosca wrote apology to himself
New South Wales Education Minister John Della Bosca says he wrote the apology given to him by a central coast nightclub over a row involving him and his wife, federal MP Belinda Neal.

The statement was issued by the management of the Iguanas Waterfront restaurant and nightclub after staff claimed Mr Della Bosca and Ms Neal abused and threatened them.

Now, it's obviously not altogether uncommon for people to go out of a night, have a few too many drinks, get into a fight with staff, and then wake up not remembering anything about it. John Della Bosca and Belinda Neal have gone one better here: they've gone out of a night, had a few too many drinks, got into a fight with staff, and then woke up to find that the staff didn't remember anything about it, either.

I'd loved to have seen the apology Della Bosca wrote to himself here. Just how, exactly, do you go about writing something like this?

TO: Mr John Della Bosca
Dear Sir

You, the undersigned, would like to express your complete and full regrets to myself for the event that I say happened at the Iguana Nightclub on the evening of ____. It was due to a number of unfortunate oversights on your part that the events I allege to have happened did actually happen. You offer your most sincere and heartfelt apologies for these alleged events, and can only offer me your promise that what I allege to have happened (and did actually happen) won't ever allegedly happen to me again.

Furthermore, you would also like to say that after extensive consultations with your staff, you have determined that the events that you allege to have happened didn't actually happen as you allege them to have happened. You have found, after these consultations, that the interpretation of the events as you allege them to have happened was flawed, so that they didn't happen; and that on further consultation, the events that I allege to have happened did actually happen. You would further like to reassure me that the staff responsible for the incident that happened as I say it happened have been reprimanded for making it happen.

Again, you would like to offer your most sincere and heartfelt apologies for the entire incident. Which happened.

You're welcome.

Sincerely, not to mention allegedly, yours,
YOU

John Della Bosca, MLC, Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for the Central Coast, Minister assisting the Minister for Finance, and Leader of the Legislative Council

Isn't science fun!

Just spotted this headline today:

Pregnancy is great for sex: Angelina

Yeah Angelina, and apparently sex is great for pregnancy too!

An unprejudiced survey of far left opinion

Well, I've just had to listen to 10 minutes of ABC's new show Q and A, and I don't know how anyone could say it was politically prejudiced. It was the most unbiased representation of left to far left opinion that I've ever encountered.

My head is awhirl with important questions about pressing international affairs*. Is it right for Japanese fishing vessels to hunt Burmese orphans in the open seas, or has the Government reneged on its promise to grant a free laptop to every child in a Myanmar school (or, for that matter, their promise to give foreign aid to Australian children living inside Australia)? And what about the issue of mulesing of live experts, and whether we should really be shipping these experts to Saudi Arabia for agricultural purposes? Wouldn't they be better kept in our universities along with students instead of being inflicted on the rest of the world? And isn't it more important that we focus on the education of young minke whales, for the future of the nation? Certainly, this show demonstrates for once and for all that the sort of critics who said that there's no way a number of difficult political issues can be discussed in a detailed manner in the short space of one hour are exactly the critics who would say that sort of thing.

These are pressing issues indeed. However, I think we can all agree with the audience member who stood up and said this:

I'm just a little bit confused.

Finally, an opinion I can wholeheartedly endorse!

*Or should that be pressing questions about important international affairs? I forget now.

The ordinary in wild and savage contrast with the everyday

It was there when I got on the train. And, despite the logo on the bottom saying 'Melbourne on the move', with whizzy little arrows all around it, it was there when I looked up and got off the train. Yes, bad train poetry is back this winter. These three-line poems that Connex are putting up on their walls are the sort of three-line poems that make you look up, read them, and then say to yourself, 'Hmmm. I've just read a three-line poem.' They are not, as a rule, significant - although they often try to be.

You might, if you wanted, detect a certain change in the poems this year. Previously, they had specialised in vague-but-pretty natural images, like mist or vapour. Popular cliches in the poems - they don't really rise to the level of themes, or metaphors, or ideas - now include nature, as well as generic inner-city references, and sport.

I jotted this one down last night:

pigeon -
why do you choose
the black wire?

And there you go - a natural image in the first line, closely followed by a generic inner-city reference. All that's missing are the sporting references, found in other poems:

Cup Day -
why am I no longer
his favourite?

That's a sporting reference, a Melbourne tradition, and an implied reference to nature (ie, the horse). I don't suppose I need to go on.

Lazy grammar is typical of the poems. They almost never start with a capital letter, and indeed, seem to be chopped out of longer, more meaningful (albeit just as banal) sentences. There is very little discernible rhythm or metre: they typically mimic the 'short-long-short' three-line structure of the haiku, though display even less formal rigour than that poetic genre, which is often learned in the seventh grade. They don't rhyme, and alliteration, symbol, metaphor, and so on, if they occur in these poems, are often incidental - if not accidental.

I find it difficult to say why I despise these poems so much. When I contemplate them, I get the vague impression that they lumber through the English language, picking up random words that were good, useful, and meaningful, and suck the life out of them. I'm not sure whether I'm wrong about that, actually: one of the traditional functions claimed for poetry is that it adds new meanings to language, or revitalises old meanings. That's a hard thing to claim for these poems, since they eschew almost any rigorous technique, and seem to exist simply to chronicle the banal, the inoffensive, and the everyday. T S Eliot once made a claim about boredom being an essential part of modern life; but then, to Eliot and other modernists, boredom and meaningless were one of their satirical modes. The banal, the ordinary, and the everyday was contrasted with the bizarre, the strange, and the surreal.

In these poems, that contrast doesn't exist anymore. All you get is the ordinary in wild and extravagant contrast with the everyday. I seriously doubt that anyone cares.

Homer is where the heater is

A poem for Anonymous, who has noted my flaws, amongst others. Plenty of flaws in this poem. Knock yourself out, Anon.

As you come up the old set of stares,
And open the scratched wooden daw,
I hope you will notice the walls -
They are used to hold down the flaw.

My flaw - it is made out of bawds,
And if all the flaw bawds weren't there,
You'd fall through the flaw - of this I am Shaw -
Right down to the side of the stare.

Sometimes, under my daw
I'll find several items of male -
All on my flaw, right along with the bawds -
Each one with a different tail.

My windows, they have several pains,
And several Venetians (blind);
But through them, I can sea all the street
And keep out the cold winter wind.

If you come to my house, I'll serve T
Or coughy, and biscuits with chips;
They're in the kitchen, right next to the flower -
And just by the four-set - that drips.

In the corner, I have a small hearter,
A hearter I use to do hearting -
When my finger freezers in cold winter breezes -
And with frost bight my ere lobes are smarting.

The paint on the daw is pealing,
The flaw has many loud creeks.
The liver room is full of old couches
And many old cheep dusty and teaks.

But still, it's my house and I like it,
Along with its flaws and its stares.
So come and have coughy some time
And sit in my old and teak chairs!

Games for the neurotic generation

Join the Rorschach Ink-blot dots



Chinese whispers for control freaks



Multiple personality disorder solitaire



Correspondence Freudian word-association



Colour in your own hallucination books

Sunday Essay: the significance of cows in modern literature

Cows are very significant in modern literature.

Six word review

Too much nerd, not enough Red.

Cigars all round

I got an email recently from some friends in Hong Kong telling me that they'd just had a baby. Yes, this is how much I keep in touch with friends. I was completely flawed by the news, and I'm still not sure whether to give them congratulations or commisserations. Still, since I'm unlikely to have a baby myself at any point in the near future, for reasons which shall remain undisclosed and obvious, I feel completely unqualified to offer my Hong Kongese friends on advice into their future as parents. So I will anyway.

A PARENTS FIRST VOCABULARY Words that will acquire new and unexpected meanings for you as a parent!
WORD	POSSIBLE EXAMPLES OF USE
TIME	What time is it/Is it your turn this time/Everybody should be in bed at this time/What is it this time/I didn't even know this time existed/Time out/This is the absolutely last time I'll.../This is absolutely definitely the last time I'll.../This is absolutely definitely and definitively the last time I'll...
DON'T	DON'T pick your nose/don't eat that/don't hit your brother/sister/father/cousin/relative/pet/don't hit that random man on the street/don't do that, you're not a dog/don't throw that, it might break/smash/explode/shout
NO	NO, you can't do that/There will be no walking to school in your pyjamas/No, you'll have to put something more on than that/No, not that either/No, you can't do that/No, you can't have that/No, do you think I'm made out of money?/No, I'm not getting out of bed
WHERE/WHAT/WHEN	Where did you get that/Where have you been/Where do you think you are going/What is that/What on earth are you doing with that/Just what do you think you are going to do with that/Just when were you planning on telling me that...
LOOK	You look like something that cat dragged in/You look worse than something the cat dragged in/Look at that thing the cat dragged in, and then take a look at yourself in the mirror/It's rather difficult to look at you through all that mud/Look at the time, you'd better go to bed.
ASK	Ask your mother/Ask your father/You asked your mother and she said ask your father/Ask her again/Why are you asking these things anyway?/I don't mind you asking, but I can't answer that/Mind if I ask just what you've got all over you face...?
VOMIT/PEE/POO	(Examples too numerous and disgusting to mention here)

And they didn't even pinch a handkerchief

Tens of thousands of prisoners are opting not to apply for early release amid allegations that Britain's prisons are now so comfortable that they are effectively "expensive bed and breakfasts".
The figures were released on Tuesday by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, who also disclosed that dozens of people have been caught trying to break into prisons over the past few years... Between 2003 and 2008, 42 individuals were detected attempting to break into prisons. The number of prison break-ins has increased from five in 2003-04 to 19 over the past year. Most were people breaking into open prisons.

The Telegraph

So it's come this far, has it? When did the people trying to break into the prisons start thinking they were entitled to this? Getting into prison is hard, and you have to work for it! Sometimes, it takes years of dedicated law-breaking before people get into one of those prisons. Just look at Jeffrey Archer. Many corporate offenders steal billions and billions of shareholders money in an effort to buy their way into one of these institutions, without success. And yet these people just blithely come along and think they have an equal right to the same services as all those hard-working thieves, murderers, rapists, and common old criminals out there!

Speaking as an Australian - a nation founded by convicts who worked stole hard to get where they were - I am shocked and appalled at the appalling and shocking sense of entitlement by these would be 'criminals'.

And you thought you had it bad

Shocking tales of birth deformities!
#37

If you thought you had a bad day, consider this man:



'Peter' (not his real name) has been deformed from birth. He has been born with a generic black bar across his face, obscuring important facial features, and making him effectively indistinguishable from shady con men who appear on tabloid television shows.

"It's been hard," confesses 'Peter' in an exclusive interview with WTFF. "Very hard. Every time I went for a job interview, employers would immediately single me out as 'that guy with the black bar across his face. Very probably a criminal.' I began to wish that they could look beyond the black bar, and see that I had a very impressive resume to back up my application!"

Although eventually securing long-lasting employment for the Department of Workplace and Training, 'Peter' admits that his facial deformities have affected every part of his life.

"Even as a kid, I was singled out in the playground as the one most likely with criminal connections. Nobody would want to play Chasie with me. And they kept on accusing me of cheating in hide and seek!"

'Peter' has also had substantial difficulties in forming long-lasting relationships, and apparently family get-togethers remain 'difficult' and 'fraught'.

"I mean, sure. Mum doesn't think I'm a criminal," admits 'Peter'. "But every now and then, I catch her looking at me in a very suspicious manner. She knows I can't help looking the way I can... but she's only human I guess. But that doesn't make it any easier."

'Black bar face', or, as it is called in formal medical jargon, 'black bar face syndrome', is notoriously difficult for doctors to operate on. "Children are born with the black bar attached to the front of their cerebellum," says Doctor Lieu, of Sydney Children's Hospital. "So we can't just remove the bar. There's no easy way to fix them of this deformity, like cosmetic surgery. It can't be done."

When asked, 'Peter' informs us of several conversations he has had with his doctor. "At one stage, the doctor said he might be able to lessen the severity of my condition. He could operate on my face so that, instead of having a black bar over it, it could be pixellated instead. That would downgrade me from tabloid con man to member of a witness protection program."

Unfortunately, the trouble with looking like someone from a witness protection program, 'Peter' was told, was that he could actually be mistaken as someone from a witness protection program. "Which could be quite dangerous".
"So for now, I'm just going to have to stay like this." continues 'Peter'.



'Peter' finishes his coffee in the cafe we have been talking, and walks to the front door. As he reaches the door, two young boys who are about to come in look up, see his face, and shrink back in fear. 'Peter' puts his hands in his pocket and trudges away. It's just another day for him. Just another day.

My whole day, in halfs

This morning, I dragged myself out of bed at half-past the hour, of half-past the half-past the hour. I may only have been half awake, but didn't realise it as I was half asleep at the time. (Or should that be the other way around?) I poured myself half a bowl of rice bubbles before the packet ran empty, and then made half a cup out of the coffee I had left. Later, I stumbled into the bus on High Street at half past eleven and got off at Coburg, where I met my ex-flatmate.

I stumbled down the old hallway and scrutinised my bookshelf, which was either half fallen apart, or half put back together, depending on which way you looked at it (that is, the wrong way, or the worse way.) Then we went into the kitchen, and had a look at the bills. We did it this way: we halved the price of the bills, and then on some parts of these bills, we halved it again, and kept on halving it until we came up with a price that looked wrong. Then I paid them.

In the evening, I logged on to the computer and read Halfway to Hotzeplotz and Halfhearted Hack and considered whether this was a glass half empty or a glass half full kind of day. Whichever half it was, it was probably the wrong half. And that ain't half bad.

The social pages: official opening ceremony held to great acclaim

THE OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY of the Timothy Train door, in Thornbury, Melbourne, was held today to great acclaim, with officials from all over the world attending. Speeches were read, bands played, and there was widespread jubilation as the dignitaries attending the event actually opened the door then proceeded inside.

Following the merriment and jubilation at the official opening of the Timothy Train door, universal mourning and sorrow was held at the OFFICIAL CLOSING CEREMONY. There was much talk of the good times had during the Official Opening of the Door, the going through the door, the thoughtful contemplation of the opening of the door and the contemplative thinking of the going through the door, all leading up to the sorrowful and melanchloy event that was the closing of the door. Following this, the door was actually closed.

The following is a selective list of some of the attendees at the official opening and closing ceremonies, including, but not limited to, all of them. They will be read out in alphabetical order:

Train, Tim

***

An OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY for the Timothy Train cupboard door was to be held today in Thornbury, but the Official Opening Ceremony was closed before opening, due to the fact that the Timothy Train cupboard door that was due to be opened was in fact already open, and therefore there wasn't any need for an opening ceremony before the opening of the cupboard door to be opened.

Train briefly considered holding an OFFICIAL CLOSING CEREMONY and then closing the cupboard door, but he would have had to have held an OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY first of all. Otherwise the official closing ceremony would have been the opening ceremony, which seemed more than a little contradictory. He retired to consult the matter over with his public servants, of whom an all-inclusive, but by no means comprehensive, list follows:

Train, Tim

That is all.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Damn!

This is about as belated a review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as you're likely to get. Belated not because it's two weeks too late, belated because it's about twenty years to late (or maybe even two hundred years.) Biographical details follow (and maybe a SPOILER! SPOILER! or two...)

I remember first seeing Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark in my aunt's house, on her old video player. After that I experienced a short-lived infatuation with archeology, but it never went anywhere. I later saw the first four-fifths of Temple of Doom at home before being sent off to bed by Mum with all my brothers. Actually, this happened several times - whenever it appeared on the telly, we'd sit through the first four-fifths and then be sent off to bed. It was pure torture, and we didn't get to see the end of Temple of Doom for a while. Perhaps that's why the film is my favourite, although I doubt it - I always thrilled to the implied 'voyage to hell and back' theme. But I think this childhood upbringing definitely has something to do with my dislike now of long movie chases; I think Indy spends about half an hour getting out of that damned temple of doom.

The Last Crusade passed me by a bit; but about six years ago, when I was in Raymond Terrace with my parents, unemployed and bored as hell, I betook myself off one Sunday afternoon to the local picture theatres where they had a one-off performance of Raiders. I may have been the only one there. I thrilled to it all over again - only this time noticing a lot more of the production details, the acting, and the scripting. It was the perfect film to end a week with; I walked away with that quiet feeling of satisfaction that good films give you.

So Professor Jones and I go back a fair way. That's not a boast, so much, but I guess it helps to explain why I just don't feel as cranky about the latest film as some reviewers. Sure, the film was derivative, but then, Indy films always were. The trick Spielberg and Lucas have settled on - and a good one it is, too - is to contrive a plot around a few themes that may or may not be true, but which we are deeply familiar with. Indy was always chasing after mythical objects like the Ark of the Covenant, or the Holy Grail, or (in the latest film) the mythical city of Eldorado. They're the sort of plot devices that an audience is at the same time deeply familiar with, but are so removed from that there's almost infinite room for fantasy and make-believe. (Then again, there are also bits like the diamond/crystal theft scene in the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark - I've still got no idea what the fuck that's about. Though it did make for an awesome send up in The Simpsons.)

In Crystal Skull, then, there's a quick voyage to the Nevada Desert and Area 51; an interlude at Harvard, or Yale, or whatever American college it is that Indy teaches at; a flight to South America to find the grave of a lost conquistador, the recovery of a crystal skull (and it's a nice touch, basing the plot around these, considering their history), followed by a journey to Eldorada. There's also some Soviet 1950s-style hypnotism and mind games going on, and the plot has a science-fiction style ending, referencing, amongst others, Velikovsky (the Nazca lines make an appearance). It sounds confused, but it's not; the plot has a clear arc and doesn't feel contrived. There are endless literary and cinema references, but they don't feel excessive. (The entire series begins with a literary reference, after all - to the Ark of the Covenant.)

The science-fiction element in this film seems strange, but not out of place. Although previously Indy was usually chasing after something more fantastic than scientific, there was always a science-fiction element to the films (he was an archeologist, after all). And anyway, one of the nice things about Crystal Skull is how it breaks free of some of the conventions of the fantasy/sci-fi film trilogy. (The little interlude in the Nevada desert really is probably quite pointless, but it does set up some of the incidental plot themes, and has an extraordinary on-the-spot scene inside an atom-bomb blast. (Indy escapes it by climbing into a lead-lined fridge and being blown to freedom. If you can believe that. After which he climbs a small hill and observes the mushroom cloud gathering above the desert.) There's a few moments like that, where Indy or others are more like the chosen spectators to wonderful or bizarre moments, rather than characters willing their own destiny.

To my mind, the Indiana Jones films are one of the few - the very few - really successful long-running fantasy films. I detest Star Wars; and I was comatose during the whole of the Matrix trilogy. One reason is that Spielberg is a real talent, one of the best cinematic storytellers, while you get the feeling that Lucas and the Wachowski brothers are more interested in making bizarre, pseudo-philosophical conclusions about 'life' and 'nature' and 'perception' and other Big Things. Also, you get the feeling that Indy could just go on forever, to different parts of the world, having new adventures, and discovering new things. That's because the world he's in is our world, and it's bigger than all the other pale imitations of worlds that you get in Star Wars or the Matrix.

When it comes to films, some folks go there for the explosions, some for the romance, some for the physical adventure or violence. I'm there for the mystery and the fantasy, the exploration of the unknown, and the encounters with strange events or things. Indiana Jones films have that in spades; and I can't wait for the next.

Perfect in his cromulence

All right, then. I admit it. I've been reading Bolt's blog. He does some very good posts, though his spelling often leaves something to be desired. This morning, he quoted Sydney Morning Herald writer Amanda Devine, leading me to wonder if he'd unearthed another member of the Devine clan. I commented on it at the time, and he subsequently amended the post (though my comment remains unpublished; I think I may have wounded his pride!)

Then again, maybe Amanda Devine really does exist. Maybe she's living in Austria, malapropriate land of the kangaroo and drop bear, along with celebrated Australian actor Kate Blanchett, artist Bill Hansen, and maybe politician Pauline Henson as well. Of course, all is not well in Austria: they are known to practice mortarboarding, and there are concerns about bomb communities. Nevertheless, noted writers Imre Salusinsinsinsinsinsinsinzky and Angela Shanahanrahan, amongst others, keep a firm eye on the values of the community. And of course, every week, they gather around the flag and sing the Austrian Notional Anthem, "Austrians, all let us ring Joyce..."

Makes sense!

Cheap for its price!

For sale in all leading grocers!




FOOD(tm)! Not made of any 'chemicals' at all. That's right, ours is the only medically-recognised food stuff to contain NO CHEMICALS WHATSOEVER!



FOOD(tm)! Avoids all other dangerous substances, such as
- GENES!
- RADIATION!
- ATOMS!
- SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLES!



That's right!
FOOD(tm)! is made of no substance from the known universe.



FOOD(tm)! is also:
- Non-addictive
- Non-fattening
- Environmentally friendly
- Cheap for its* price



Buy and eat FOOD(tm)! now!



NOTE: If black holes and/or lepton vortexes form in your stomach while eating FOOD(tm)!, we cannot be held legally responsible.

We can neither confirm nor deny that FOOD(tm)! looks and tastes like Flubber.

*Hideously expensive.

Late is the new black

I first heard the phrase 'fashionably late' in university. People kept on using it when they didn't turn up to lectures or other appointments on time. As far as I could tell, it meant that you could be late in a fashionable way, just as you could be tall in a fashionable way, or broad-shouldered in a fashionable way, or wear green in a fashionable way. But what the difference was between being fashionably late and late late, no-one could tell me. Presumably, if you wanted to turn up to an appointment fashionably late, and ended up there even later than that, you could be fashionably late at being fashionably late. Did that just make you extra fashionably late, or just late?

Also, you have to wonder, if people could be fashionably late for appointments, could trains be fashionably late? Could buses? Could kids stay up after bedtime, claiming 'fashionable lateness'? Why not 'fashionably punctual', or 'fashionably early' for appointments instead? (It somehow seems more possible to be punctual at being fashionably late than being fashionably late at being punctual. Though I could be wrong.)

What happened to this phrase, 'fashionably late'. Is it fashionable, lately? Or is it just, well, late?

Goin' nowhere man

I am the King of telling pointless anecdotes! You know the sort: stories that sound as if they might be amusing, but aren't - tales that seem like they might go somewhere, but don't - descriptions that sound as if they could be interesting, if told about something else, by someone else; but won't be, because they're not, and aren't. For instance, did you know I bumped into a woman on the train the other day wearing stripy socks? So there! Once, I also had an encounter with a man on the train talking loudly into a mobile phone behind me. Then, I got off the train. Also, on Saturday, when I was walking to the newspaper store, I noticed there was a tree standing outside my house: it was also there when I got back! But I wonder if it will be there next time? And where did it come from?

Pointless anecdotes are perfect for all sorts of social situations, especially the wrong ones. They can be used to fill in the time between one time and another time that most of us experience; for remarking on an event that would go otherwise unremarked; for communicating ideas to other people about things that you have ideas about; or for those times when you want to start a conversation at one random point and end it at another random point while putting a number of relatively ambiguous words in between. In other words, pointless anecdotes are a perfect expressive vehicle for expressing stuff that would otherwise go unexpressed, and can be developed into an art form of great potency.

When telling pointless anecdotes, it is always best to use half-remembered quotes - so long as the half you remember is the wrong half. These are very useful for demonstrating how knowledgeable you are in meaningless data about important people. Half-remembered quotes can be padded out by all manner of phrases: "Like, you know, sort of, and such and such." For instance:

Did you know, once at a talk given by T S Eliot, he was asked, "What do you mean by "Lady, three white leopards sat under some sort of a tree, I can't remember know, what was it?"And T S Eliot replied, "I meant three white leopards sat under the tree, whatever it was." Or at least, he was supposed to. I don't know why he said that. Whatever sort of tree it was now, I, you know, forget that detail, sorry about that.

Thus, by injudicious use of unimportant phrases, a half-remembered quote can be prolonged for however long one wants. Of course, it helps if you do some research, and be sure to read all the titles of the books by the great authors, and possibly the front-page blurbs as well. This gives you a great insight into the names of these authors, and access to all manner of not-very-important quotes. Imagine meeting a person at a party and saying: "I have read all the titles by the Great Authors!" How impressed they would be!

In conclusion, did I tell you about the thing that I did the other day in between doing something else, and another thing altogether? Well, we'd better leave it at that, hadn't we!

Destroying the world: public good, or private responsibility?

Well, apparently the Government is cutting funding to the CSIRO. As we all know from documentaries, realistic dramas on the television, and informative and educational works of fiction, scientists at the CSIRO spend all their time figuring out ways to expode the world, travelling forwards in time to the end of the universe, travelling backwards in time to the age of the dinosaurs, reanimating the rotting corpses of dead people, switching the brains of humans with apes (and vice versa), creating armies of robots to dominate the world, setting up lines of telepathic communication with evil spiders halfway across the universe, and engineering vast black holes to destroy the universe. But apart from that, what else have they done for the betterment of Australia?

Supporters of the CSIRO often claim that without government funding, they would not be able to effectively work out new ways of destroying the world, or setting up robot armies to dominate us all, and so on, and so on. On the other hand, maybe private initiative would be able to step in and help out? Although the philanthropic organisation SPECTRE, devoted to the charitable goals of annihilating democracy and bending the rest of the world to its will, has fallen by the wayside of late, it is true that there remain hundreds of other private interests and charitable societies with similar goals in mind. Pokemon, for instance. Perhaps they would be able to fund the activities of Australian scientists instead?

Also, this may seem controversial, but I'll say it anyway: why should the Government be relied upon to dominate the world, and conquer the universe? Shouldn't this be the responsibility, equally, of private world-domination companies, who can do it, off the public dollar?

Destroying the world: is it a public good, or a private responsibility? It's a dilemma we must all face up to from time to time.

(Riffing on the idea suggested in Jeremy's title)

So you say you're an accountant? Then account for yourself!

This piece, which recently ran on Sixty Minutes, says that DNA evidence indicates that all people living on the earth today are descended from a tribe of bushmen living in the Kalahari Desert. All very interesting, but quite out of date. More recent genetic, linguistic and cultural evidence all point to the one undeniable truth - that people all over the world today are related to an ancient firm of Box Hill accountants who over the millenia have peopled the world.

A typical specimen of the accountant race. Note the cranial size and the protuberant lips.

Until recent times, there have been many objections to the 'Accountancy' theory of human development. For instance, some biologists have argued that money didn't exist until several thousand years ago, which would have meant that the original accountants from which we have all descended would have been effectively out of a job before that. Well, yes. And you can imagine how depressed they all were. Why do you think there were so many wars?

Members of the accountancy tribe engaged in cultural activities. The one to the right is singing a folk song, that has been passed down from generation to generation of accountants, in invocation to one of the many powerful Gods of his tribe.

For millions of aeons, members of this Aboriginal accountancy tribe roamed the vast plains of Box Hill, hunting their natural prey of baked beans and cappucino, developing rudimentary tools specific to their needs, such as the 'pen', the 'laptop', and the 'microwave'. Although it's hard for us to understand, removed as we are from these accountants' way of life, their life must have been incredibly rich and varied, and there must have always been some sum to add up or set of books to complete. Tragically, it seems that members of this original Accountancy firm may be dying out, with no-one to replace them. The temptations of modern life, it seems, are too much.

However, when told that all people, all colours and creeds and ways of life, come from his firm of Accountants, the chief of the tribe nods his head humbly. "It makes sense," he says, in an obscure language that can only be understood by the people who speak it, known as 'English'. "People had to come from somewhere. Now. Can you please stand up? You're sitting on my calculator."

Such timeless wisdom!

The blurst of all possible worlds

AROUND MELBOURNE

- Two hooded assailants yesterday stopped a man in the street and held him captive at daisy-point while they patted his dog. This has been only one in a series of pat-and-run incidents recently. Police are appealing for witnesses to the crime to come forward.

- A notorious grandmother was spotted by witnesses this morning viciously watering her Azaleas in Coburg. Those nearby report her shouting softly to the victims, "There there! That's all right! Isn't that lovely?"
"It was terrible!" reports a neighbour. "She waters her Azaleas every day. Not too much, and not too little. It's the most savage thing I've ever seen anyone do!"
The Azaleas are currently assisting police with their inquiries. When questioned by this paper, they bloomed uncontrollably at mention of the crime.

- Juvenile undelinquency is on the rise, with reports from all over the city of unsupervised gangs of youths going on good-deed-doing rampages - raking footpaths, cleaning windows, and helping little old ladies across the street. Amidst widespread outbreaks of law and order, the police have called for calm.
The Premier, John Brumby, has stated that it is time for parents to do more to combat the shocking rise in juvenile undelinquency statistics. "Give them more M rated videos to watch, for instance. Violent video games are also good. Oh, and why not help them find websites that are unsuitable for their age? And maybe a spray can on their birthday - that should work." Mr Brumby says that it just calls for "a little creative parenting", and that it is the responsibility of "mums and dads all around the state" to assist children on the path to juvenile delinquency.
However, for those people with their windows freshly cleaned, their paths newly raked, and their dogs recently walked, it's already too late.

Bill O'Reilly's beautiful soul

Here's a clip of famous American presenter Bill O'Reilly struggling to read from a teleprompter. I got it from Club Troppo.



Of especial interest is the way he snorts through his nose when he gets angry, his apparent difficulty with the name 'Sting' and the phrase 'to play us out', and the rapid change from angry shouty Bill O'Reilly to benevolently beaming Bill O'Reilly.

But I don't know what everybody's laughing at. O'Reilly is merely doing what he does best here. He's performed the nose-snorting successfully in many hard-hitting political interviews, and later on, the angry shouty act was actually scripted into his teleprompt. In fact, this impromptu act merely sets the scene for later renowned performances.

Bill O'Reilly is a devoted husband and loving father, and is said to practice for his shows by reading books to his children at home.

Puffing on his pipe in a nostalgic manner....

Growing up in Balranald, I didn't have many television stations to watch, just ABC and Southern Cross. The ABC, with a nightly episode of Doctor Who, was enough for me. I like to think that I saw through the Daleks straight away, as the inverted trash-cans on wheels that they were, but the Cybermen - well, they scared the hell out of me. Shiny silver men with hollow eyes? Creepy. No wonder I gravitated towards Dad's lap when they came on. Scary as they were, I kind of liked the Cybermats - slug-like silver metallic creatures made by the Cybermen that slunk around on the floor and jumped for your throat. Why? I guess it's because I thought they were Cyberman pets. Evil, homicidal pets that could turn you into a cyberman, true, but still pets. It seemed natural, really: humans had dogs and cats, cybermen had cybermats.

Why do I mention this now, you ask? Only because I have found the twenty-first century answer to the Cybermat...

Behold the horror that is the Cyberbunny!

Euro-Fluoro-Neurovision

At work today someone decided that there was going to be a Eurovision Sweepstakes, and everyone at the transcription desk bought into the competition. People got the Ukraine, Malta, Lithuania, Latvia; I got Ireland (with this strobarific song - I've got no hope.) Boss Man himself went nuts and attempted to create a one-man hegemony of the competition, buying five separate entries. Apparently, he reckons Albania's going to blitz the competition.

So, will it be Albania's day? Will they triumph over feisty little Malta? Who knows? Who cares? Certainly not me. I might have bought into the competition, but I'm not crazy enough to actually watch the thing, man.

Borisology

FACT: Boris Johnson has grommets in his ears.

The Non-sequitur Weekly

"Read by intelligent people, and oxymorons, all over the world!"

Well, hello and welcome to another issue of Non-Sequitur Weekly - and we hope you come back soon! Not only do we hope that you have an enjoyable read in store, but it always was that way.

In this issue of Non-Sequitur Weekly, we ask some hard questions, and good for him, too. The topics we will be covering today include:

- One sentence book reviews!

- Cat-lovers dog of the week!

- Hard-hitting coverage of international affairs, and knitting!

- Concerning issues of concern!

- Grammatical oddity of the week!

(This list is comprehensive, but not all inclusive.)

So sit back, relax, and enjoy your latest copy of the Non-Sequitur Weekly, and did you see the telly last night? There were some really great shows on...
- THE EDITOR

***

NON-SEQUITUR WEEKLY: ONE-SENTENCE BOOK REVIEWS

The Poet Who Forgot, Catherine Cole
Readers of A D Hope's poems will find themselves fascinated by this account of his life, which certainly proves Einstein's theory of relativity for once and for all.

Helen Garner and the Meaning of Everything, Alex Jones
Many people consider lamingtons delicious, and cows are not closely related to goats, so why not give this novel a go?

The Spare Room, Helen Garner
Our reviewer certainly enjoyed this heartfelt semi-autobiographical novel, so you probably won't either.

Breath, Tim Winton
A gripping read which grabbed our attention from the first page, and didn't let us go until we took her dog to the vet.

***

CAT-LOVERS DOG OF THE WEEK Woof Woof! Meow! Rover is our dog of the week, the finest tabby you have ever seen! ENJOYS: Chasing cats, rubbing himself against your leg. VERY FRIENDLY with most children, though usually on bad terms with all of them. EATS: CHUM dog food, whiskas cat food.

***

THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE

Well, fellow non-sequiturians, to great controversy, it seems that Boris Johnson has triumphed over Ken Livingstone to become Mayor of London: but what does this mean for knitters?

It is immediately obvious that Johnson is a man of great ability: however, the number of Londoners drinking tea lately is in terminal decline. To find out, all we need to do is ask knitters, as a mere glance at an Albanian television guide two weeks previously will show.

Faced with such insuperable difficulties in his first term as Mayor, Johnson should clearly adopt a dog. We suggest a beagle for a start. Weimeraners are also good. In addition, it should be observed that knitters are rarely wrong on these matters.

However, there is another point which we should also consider: pillows. The Tory economic policies don't seem to take this matter fully into consideration. The Non-Sequitur Weekly has also identified several other key areas of concern for Johnson and the Tories: bees, fedoras, the difference between American and English spelling, Charles Dickens, yellow handkerchiefs, and dahlias. Nevertheless, Labour is faced with severe difficulties of their own: pockets, top hats, the importance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the development of classical and romantic music, teddybears, floppy-eared creatures, and gollywogs.

It is also apparent that harpsichord will be a difficulty for both sides.

Mr Johnson nevertheless brings considerable intelligence and vigour to the job, and we can be sure he will meet the task with enthusiasm. Let's hope we can say the same for knitting.

***

CONCERNING ISSUES OF CONCERN

- Some people prefer their gingerbread with raisins, and some without. This clearly has concerning ramifications for the Western Australian economy.

- A reader from Melbourne writes: "I am worried about the disposal of rubbish in our area, and he is, too." But what on earth does this have to do with the international space race?

- What do Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Nicholas Cage, and Kevin Rudd have in common? We certainly think not.

- BOOTS are in this season! But are spotty dogs better than plain dogs, or does it depend on the time of day?

***

GRAMMATICAL ODDITY OF THE WEEK

The Sequitur

A sequitur, something that logically follows. For instance:

"Grass is green. My lawn is made from grass. Therefore, my lawn is green."

Clearly, you should avoid falling into this trap as much as possible, for the sake of icecream.

NEXT WEEK IN THE NON-SEQUITUR WEEKLY: Non-sequitur quiz! Interviews with politicians! News! Opinions! That's a nice dress you're wearing, where did you buy it? Oh, and MORE! In Non-Sequitur Weekly - the magazine that does not follow!

Monoculturalmultiglot

Walking along Murray Road to Preston Markets yesterday, I was pulled up by a furious donging bell. It was, as it turned out, a Chinese lady cycling lackadaisically on her bike towards the markets. I moved out of her way and she sailed lackadaisically into the markets on her bike, probably donging the bell all the way. (I'm not sure if she planned to stay on her bike all through the markets. I wouldn't put it past her.)

The Preston Markets are an impossible place, a contradiction in terms. I remain unconvinced that anyone buys anything there, since the main capital they stock are nick-nacks that make you go 'oh' in surprise, but don't convince you that you'd want to buy them. There are cooking pots without handles, and handles without cooking pots, and egg flips that are made out of plastic (would you like your egg sunny-side up, or polystyrenised?)

Also, they only open on Saturday. But walking past the various cafes in the markets, I noticed fat Italian gentlemen sitting around drinking coffee and opening out their newspapers. Do they get their papers home delivered the rest of the week and then saunter into the markets? My theory is that the chubby Monsignors come with the place; that, along with the rest of the cafe, they are locked up early on Saturday afternoon and, folding up their copies of Il Monde, lie down to hibernate. Last week, I noticed an ancient Chinese grandmother waddle out of the supermarkets pushing her wheel-bag along the ground. A little kid was standing up in this wheel bag, looking up in faint surprise at the world. Did the Chinese grandmother get him from the markets? Or was it the other way around? (I can remember thinking at the time, "I hope he's remembered to validate his ticket.")

In various forays into the market, I have also run into gangly Vietnamese lads hawking shonky coffee pots, bepimpled teenage Lebanese selling greasy German sausages, portly Greek grocers with almost all their teeth missing grocing away, and a group of Sudanese either carrying a bag of bones, thinly covered with raw meat, into the train station out of the markets, or out of the train station and out of the markets. I might have made a few of those up, it's impossible to tell as far as Preston Markets are concerned.

Faced with such a varied concourse of humanity, what can I do but retreat hysterically into my own individuality? Everytime I enter into the markets, a wave of panic sets over me, and I am beset with unitary personality disorder; I have a 'reverse epiphany' and encounter 'the opposite of enlightenment.' In my crazed non-schizoid state, I suffer from hallucinations about the Preston Markets three hundred years ago, a place known amongst the Indigenous people as one that was haunted by spirits, fat white creatures that shook weird rectangular objects and drank steaming cups of hot black liquid...

As a great man didn't say: if the Preston Markets did not exist, it would be necessary for them to exist. Or, to put it another way: you can't take the Preston out of the Preston Markets, and you can't take the Markets out of the Preston Markets either. Or, to put it another way: neither the chicken nor the egg came first. You can buy both from the Preston Markets. Probably on a stick, and with a side serving of grease.

Thought for the day

If we really only had one thought for the day, then we'd be in trouble all right.


Rodin's thinker struggles to produce his quota of one thought for the day.

And now for a word from our sponsors

It's TEDDYBEAROCLOCK, boys and girls!

A teddybear that is BOTH a cute plush-toy AND an alarm clock!

Cute, huggable, and comforting in the evening...

And positively TERRIFYING in the morning!

Hurry! Buy now! Stocks are limited!

NOTE: Take care to not let your child accidentally reset alarm clock for optimal sleeping results.

Blogging as a conceptual art

Imitation of a blog post written by a person who is sitting in a tub full of live eels

Hello! This is a blog post being written by me, Tim T, who is currently sitting in a tub full of ... ah! Oooh! Ewwwww! ... as I say, this is a blog post, written by me, currently... ooooh! Hahahahaha! OUCH! I didn't know these things had tee... er, anyway. Blog post. I wrote it. I'm currently sitting in this tu... YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! How did that get in...BUZZ! Hey, who was the joker that slipped an electric... Yuck! Ooh! ooh! hey! hey! Wha... OW! HA! UNGGGGGH! Get out get out get out! Engh! Ooof! Right! So, as I was saying. I'm sitting amongst these live eels, and would just like to say this important thing about politi... OHHHHHH NOOOOO! How did that thing get in my p... no! no! don't go the... out! out! out! out! I don't understand, I had it all zipped up and the belt was... AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

This has been an imitation of a blog post written by a person who is sitting in a tub full of live eels

UPDATE! - Squelch!

Written on hearing that Boris Johnson has become Mayor of London

The Blue City Blues

Boris has won London
An' I don't know what to do
Yeah, Boris has won London,
An' I don't know what to do
My tea's gone cold, I'm feelin' old,
I got the Blue City Blues.

[Guitar refrain]

Red Ken's dead, my baby,
Red's dead, baby, ooh -
Red Ken's dead, my baby,
Red's dead, baby, ooh -
My elbow aches, I'm outta cakes -
I got the Blue City Blues.

[Guitar refrain]

They're all singin' 'Tory, Tory
Halle-LUJAH!' at the news;
Yeah, they're singin' 'Tory Tory
Halle-LUJAH!' at the news -
I'm feelin' down, O Mr Brown
I got the Blue City Blues.

[Guitar refrain]

Boris has won London
An' I don't know what to do
Yeah, Boris has won London,
An' I don't know what to do
My tea's gone cold, I'm feelin' old,
I got the Blue City Blues.

[Guitar refrain]

World's oldest 48-year man about to break a new record!

It's just another amazing day of records broken for Jeremiah Grimble, the world's oldest 48-year man!

Mr Grimble, who is the only man to have leaped the longest metre in Australia, the tallest man under the height of 1.82 metres to wear a deerstalker hat, and owner of the shortest six-syllable name (counting by syllable) for the Thursday/Friday period, is currently in training for the regional BLCAA championships.

The BLCAA - or Ballarat Lounge Chair Audio Awards - is a bimonthly event held every year* in the Ballarat town centre.
Contestants gather together, and compete to see who can most convincingly imitate the mating cry of the domestic Lounge Chair in its native habitat. Results will be judged by a series of experts, some of whom have over 20 years experience of sitting in lounge chairs in pursuit of their studies.
However, competition will be fierce, with several of Mr Grimble's contestants previously gaining plaudits in sports of skill and endurance. These include:

- Ms Janice Elia Plubbs, acclaimed owner and breeder of Australia's most convergent set of parallel lines, and driver in the famous Mobius Strip car race of two years ago;

- Ms Ellen Fitzwilliam-Iggs, possessor of the vertically highest passage of printed words in existence;

- Arthur Chubb, aka 'The Great Smerg', who has won previous acclaim for his amazing endurance feat of having lived through the slowest two hours in history without drinking more than one cup of water.

Mr Grimble says he is taking nothing for granted, but enters the BLAA after having gained second place in the recent Box Hill Musical Eisteddfod, for which he gave a successful performance of air guitar for a judging panel consisting mostly of street mimes.

*Bimonthly but held every year: that way, it saves money.

The internet is working! Sort of...

Finally got some form of internet connection up at home.

If you're reading this blog and it suddenly explodes, don't worry. It's probably just my internet connection experiencing a few technical difficulties.

For the good of society

Free the chemicals now!

And now to a serious subject

Drugs! Not only are they the scourge of society, the pernicious cause of crime, but they're also illegal! But apart from that, what else is wrong with them?

Rock stars use drugs. This is in itself bad enough: imagine if instead of taking drugs, Robby Coltrane and Britney Spears concentrated on bringing joy and happiness to the hearts of millions through their music!

Worse than that, though. Australia's Olympic athletes may be taking drugs. Drugs enable athletes to be faster, stronger, more aware, tire less easily, and have more endurance than they had before. This is horrifying! If something is not done about the scourge of drugs amongst modern athletes, then nothing will be done!

And it's not only the brightest and best who may be taking drugs. Losers could be taking them as well. For instance, consider, in the 2002 Olympics, when Australian Olympic athlete Stephen Bradbury through an amazing stroke of luck became our first ever Winter Olympics gold medallist:

What if he won the gold medal in the Winter Olympics through an amazing stroke of luck - while under the influence of illegal drugs?

Horribly, no-one could be immune from the deadly influence of these dreadful chemicals. In the 2000 Summer Olympics, Eric the Eel became unofficial champion of all our hearts when competing in the 100 metre freestyle swimming.

But the question must be asked: did he become unofficial champion of all our hearts through the horrendous, all-pervasive influence of drugs?

This has been a WTFF Investigative Report.

UPDATE! - Some words which rhyme with drugs:

- BUGS!
- MUGS!
- THUGS!

I think this just proves my point.