On Marryat, Patrick O'Brian, and yellow underpants with purple spots

I was reading and walking, as I'm in the habit of doing. I almost always read and walk. It is true that once a few weeks ago I didn't have a book or magazine to read while I was walking, and the experience was most alarming. I thought I might bump into something, or fall over, or get run over by a tram, or be attacked by a wall. You need a book to help yourself ignore the perils of everyday life.

Well, as I say, I was reading and walking, in no particular order, from the train station to work, and as I read and walked my way up to the door, I was interrupted by a woman - let's call her Z* - who also works there.

"What are you reading?" she asked.

Now I like to think when I'm reading that I'm having a conversation with the author. They've gone to all that trouble to put words down on the page, to get the book published, and to make that writing interesting and engaging, for you. Books ask you questions, and answer questions you may or may not have asked: they are portable conversations. But there are some allowances that a book cannot make for in a conversation - as in, for instance, another person charging in in the middle of the conversation and asking, 'what are you reading'. You will not find the book sitting up, and saying to the person who interrupts you in the reading, 'why hello, I haven't seen you in a while', will you? A book doesn't have the capacity to say to you, 'oh look at that, here comes Podger' mid narrative. Podger has the ability to barge in mid-conversation, but the book has no ability to answer back. Not as far as I'm aware, anyway.

For all I know, I could be sitting about in the house wearing my pair of yellow underpants with purple spots (I do not own a pair of yellow underpants with purple spots, they are purely hypothetical) and the book will unexpectedly make passing reference to 'that embarassing pair of yellow underpants with purple spots you are currently wearing', but I haven't come across that book yet**. So when someone comes along, while you are in the middle of a conversation with an author, and asks you what you're reading, I'm just a little bit inclined to treat it as a simple interruption. I'm grumpy that way.

As to the question, 'what was I reading', well, this particular book was Newton Forster, by Marryat, but my first instinct was to go for a rhetorical strategy taught to me by my father. I stated the obvious:

"A book!"

Well, she let it hang there and I let it hang there, but it started to feel a bit unsporting of me. Instead of repairing again to my little chat with Marryat, I elaborated. "Captain Marryat," I said.
"Oh," she said. And then she dropped her bombshell: "Is he anything like Patrick O'Brian?"

I stiffened. Quite possibly, my hackles raised (what are hackles, anyway?) I may even have glowered (not sure how that's done, either.) You see, for the past few weeks I have been subjected to numerous spurious comparisons between Marryat and Patrick O'Brian. Here's one. And it's reproduced on the back of my book, too. Oh, the sheer indignity of it all! Quite aside from anything else, I haven't read any Patrick O'Brian, so why should I care if Marryat is anything like Patrick O'Brian? The question 'is Patrick O'Brian anything like Patrick O'Brian' would make as much sense to me as what Z asked***.

However, one author I have read a lot of is Marryat. He's great! I didn't like Masterman Ready or Frank Mildmay so much, but Mr Midshipman Easy, Jacob Faithful, Peter Simple, and The Children of the New Forest are all quite wonderful. Modern readers might be a bit off put by the slapstick humour (he gets laughs out of the hero Jack being, er, slapped with a stick in Midshipman Easy), or the wit (he has great fun with his introductions - the start of Newton Forster is a good example, where he imagines himself being confronted in a room, following the publication of one of his books, by "a tall, long-chinned, short-sighted blue, dressed in yellow, peering into my face, as if her eyes were magnifying glasses").

The plots have a wonderful blend of invention, formula, romance, and development. Jacob Faithful opens, quite unexpectedly, with the hero's father expiring due to internal combustion, and it's not for another several hundred pages that the hero earns a large fortune. Newton Forster has a ripping opening, with a ship crashing upon the rocks of the English shore, and a child being rescued from the wrecks with nothing but a box of linen once belonging to her family. In short order, the hero of the title is press ganged into the navy, taken prisoner by the French, marooned on a boat with a deadly enemy, taken prisoner by slaves, and returned home to England penniless and destitute.

All of this - disaster, murder, theft on the high seas, slavery, and so on - is merely incidental for Marryat, who has that novelists' gift of being able to hold his real plot punches until the end. His characters change, become disillusioned, and mature, as the story progresses: they aren't just immobile, expressionless caricatures. Sometimes they will suffer extraordinarily: Peter Simple, from the novel of that name, has his identity stolen from him and ends up in an insane asylum for several months before receiving his liberty. Jack Easy, from Mr Midshipman Easy, comes to disbelieve in his early philosophy (a simplified version of the romantic ideals about the equality and liberty of man); it's true that his philosophy at the end of the novel is suspiciously close to Marryat's own Tory thought, but then, young idealists do have an annoying habit of doing just that. (Also, the novel ends with a pitched gun battle over the tables of Jack's recently-inherited estate, if you're not the sort to get hung up over character development.)

Perhaps what Z meant is that O'Brian and Marryat wrote books that had ships in them. Well I suppose that is so. There are ships in Newton Forster, amongst other things. I'm not sure about O'Brian, but Marryat really was writing about a world he knew about, as the 'Captain' that precedes his other names indicates. And the affairs that he writes about - wars, the abolishment of slavery - were real, and present, and current, just as the Afghanistan war or terrorism is real and present and current to us. (I think Lord Nelson actually plays a small part in the plot Peter Simple.)

The ship on the cover of my book, and the reference to O'Brian on the back, really, is misleading: it lets you think that you are getting a work of historical fiction. (By the way, never judge a cover by its cover: on the back of my book Newton Forster is described as a 'troubled' young man, though he's not particularly troubled in the sense that I think they mean it. He's rather self-assured, actually. I recently read a copy of The Prisoner of Zenda, the cover of which says that the hero, Rudolf Rassendyll, becomes involved 'in a desperate plot': which is utterly wrong - the plot is ridiculous, not desperate.)

All this, I suppose, I should have said to Z, as we stood on the stairs, and Marryat sat in my hand, patiently waiting for the conversation to finish. Though, gormlessly, what I did say was something more along the lines of, "No." Or possibly "maybe."

And we pretty much left it at that, since right at that moment Podger came up and demanded I tell him about the yellow underpants with purple spots that were lying on the photocopier.

So, as they say in the classics, that went well.

*'... let's call her Z': a useful literary device for protecting the identity of people whose names you don't actually know.

** Nor the underpants, though I did once see a white tie with large pink spots on it.

*** You never know. Some authors are so unique that they are like no-one else on the earth, including themselves. For instance, I'd say S J Perelman is so original that he is not even like himself, but he can do a stunningly good impression from time to time.

Patronisingalong

(To the tune of Cole Porter's 'You're the Top')

You're the bum!
You're the great Grand Canyon!
You're the bum!
You're Saddam's companion!
You're a malady from a stagnant gulch
You're the gloop in the bin that holds the fruit mulch!
You're the world's arse end,
Not just Antarctic, or Antarcticer, you're the Antarcticest
Baby, at being bums, you're the best!
You're a loser, you're a boozer, you're a slum -
Baby, you're the bum!

(Audience breaks into wild applause and sneers, fade out)

Fiendishly complex

I've been following the discussion on this thread at The Punch, about university student media, and I couldn't help noticing how conversation turned to the complexities of web publication. Students are having difficulty getting their print publications online - which is odd, because the difficulties they have aren't all that difficult. 

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO GETTING YOUR UNIVERSITY STUDENT PUBLICATION ON THE INTERNET

STEP ONE: Get an account with Blogger or Wordpress. 

Aaaaaand that's about it, really. I wonder which step the students are having trouble with? 

Team songs for writing

Team songs for writing - designed in order to attract the support of the vital drunk yobbo demographic in service of the Australian literary community

Give me a P! (P!) Give me an O! (O!) Give me an E! (E!) Give me a T! (T!) Give me a R! (R!) Give me a Y! (Y!) What have we got? 

(POETRY, YAY!!!!!) 

***

 

Well there she was a writin' in her book

(Singin' semi-colons apostrophes and dots)

Usin' commas hyphens quotation marks full-stops

(Singin' semi-colons apostrophes and dots)

Upper case! (Upper case!) 

Lower case! (Lower case!)

Upper case lower case punctuation is so fine!

(Singin' semi-colons apostrophes and dots)

She used a bracket she used parenthesis

(Singin' semi-colons apostrophes and dots)

She underlined for extra emphasis

(Singin' semi-colons apostrophes and dots)

Em dash! (Em dash!) 

En dash! (En dash!) 

Em dash en dash punctuation is so fine!

(Singin' semi-colons apostrophes and dots)

***

Give me an A! (A!) Give me a R! (R!) Give me an I! (I!) Give me a S! (S!) Give me a T! (T!) Give me an O! (O!) Give me a P! (P!) Give me a H! (H!) Give me an A! (A!) Give me an N! (N!) Give me an E! (E!) Give me an S! (S!) What have we got? 

(I'VE NO IDEA BECAUSE ALMOST NO-ONE CAN READ HIM EXCEPT IN TRANSLATION, EXCEPT FOR PROFESSORS OF ANCIENT GREEK, WHO MIGHT BE LYING ANYWAY, YAAAAYYYY!!!!)

***

Thomas! Thomas! He's our Mann! If he can't do it, Immanuel Kant!

***

Editors! (Clap clap clap!) Editors! (Clap clap clap!) Editors! etc... 

***

Give me an S! (S!) What have we got? 

(A SPELLING MISTAKE, YAAAAAY!!!!)

***

O-weyoweyoweyo-oh! Haiku! Haiku! etc... 

***

Give me an exclamation mark! (!) What have we got? 

(AN ITEM OF PUNCTUATION USED TO INDICATE SURPRISE, ALARM, AND/OR TO GIVE SPECIAL EMPHASIS TO THE EXPRESSION WHICH PRECEDES IT, YAYYYYYY!!!!!!) 

***

Up there Kenneally! 

In there and write! 

So 'em your letters! 

Show 'em what's right! 

Up there Kenneally! 

You're outta sight!

Li'l Aussie Battler,

Show 'em how to fight!

About this final thing we're having...

Oh, for goodness' sakes! Can't we just all learn to get along? 

How to make the universe explode

Godwin's Law states that in the course of an internet argument, there will come a point at which someone will make a reference to the Nazis. Blair's Law states that the worlds various idiocies are gradually combining to make one gigantic, useless force. By judicious application of these two scientific principles, you can make the universe explode - in your own home!

1. Get involved in an internet argument about the Nazis. 

2. Insist, against all comers, that Hitler is 'like Hitler', and that all the historical parallels and precedents back up your argument that the Nazis bear important similarities to the Nazis. Call anyone who disagrees with you racists. 

3. The universe will rapidly converge in a naked singularity centred upon Rachel Maddow, and will explode. Easy! 

So kids, now that you know how to make the universe explode in your own home - don't try this at home. 

Please rectify immediately

Music cliches I dislike
Folk music that fades in with wafty synthesiser chords.

Fake and exaggerated accents by wistful pop-rock singers.

Sad piano music used whenever a tabloid reporter does a story about a kid dying of cancer.

Dramatic romantic symphonies that conclude by playing the same two chords 100 times.

Performance poetry cliches which, also, I dislike
Readings where every line ends with an upwards intonation.

Poets waving their hands around like conjurors when reading.

Deliberately dreamy voices.

Readings where the poet lingers slowly over every. single. word. In spite of the fact that the poem would definitely be better if read in a normal conversational tone.

Sickeningly sweet

No-one writes poems about cuddles,

Though cuddles are awfully nice: 

This lack of the cuddle befuddles. 

No-one writes poems about cuddles.

A cuddle is instantly double:

A cuddle made once is made twice. 

But no-one writes poems about cuddles,

Though cuddles are awfully nice. 

And cuddles have wonderful powers: 

Some people steer clear of mud puddles,

Preferring a field of flowers. 

But cuddles have wonderful powers - 

You could cuddle a puddle for hours. 

Find mud and get into a huddle,

For cuddles have wonderful powers:

Some people steer clear of mud puddles. 

Life's full of the most awful troubles

It's painful, it's sad, and it's rough. 

We could all do with a bit of a cuddle -

Life's full of the most awful troubles,

We get into some horrible muddles

About manners and morals and stuff -

Life's full of the most awful troubles: 

It's painful, it's sad, and it's rough. 

No-one writes poems about cuddles,

Though cuddles are awfully nice: 

This lack of the cuddle befuddles. 

No-one writes poems about cuddles.

A cuddle is instantly double:

A cuddle made once is made twice. 

But no-one writes poems about cuddles,

Though cuddles are awfully nice. 

The aphoristic brevity of paternal pronouncements

My father is quite a one for statements of the obvious. He never lets a completely unremarkable fact go unremarked if he can help it. Stomping into the room at 10.07 in the morning, he will glance at the clock, and say, 'Hmm. It's seven past ten.' A minute later, he will look at the clock, and announce, 'Ah. It's eight past ten.' This routine will go on for several minutes, until he will punctuate proceedings with a yawn, followed by a short commentary: 'I yawned'. He can while away an entire hour in this fashion. 

This fact really is true, but it's also worse than true: it's annoying. Which I suppose is the whole point of family. 

Anyway, I shouldn't really have been surprised, as Dad, Mum, my brother and I were walking up High Street after having seen the film Up at the Westgarth, to hear his reply to our question: 'how did you find it?'

'Well', said Dad, 'it was an animated film.' 

An animated film! And I had just been thinking that the film was hilarious, fantastic, whimsical, wonderful, moving, dream-like, innovative, playful with adventure and comedic conventions, subversive, and so on. But my impressions, and those of other critics and fans who had seen the film, would have been merely arguable; Dad's impressions, on the other hand, were undeniable. 

Perhaps critics and professors and appreciators of art have gone about this whole film/art/literature/music appreciation thing entirely the wrong way. Think about all the words they've expended on aesthetics when they could have been reviewing things, Dad-style: 

GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Charles Dickens

This is a small rectangular object, consisting of approximately 200 individual sheets of rectangular paper laid together, with black symbols placed on both sides. 

THE TEMPEST, William Shakespeare

A group of about 10 people stand up for an hour and make noises. Another group of people, usually larger than the first group, but sometimes smaller, sit down and watch and listen to the first group of people. This goes on for about an hour, then the rest is silence. 

THE SISTINE CHAPEL CEILING, Michelangelo Buanorotti

A stone roof which could have been made easier and cheaper out of wood, put up principally to keep the rain from falling inside. Includes a light paint job*. 

THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY, Salvador Dali

Hmm. It's 20 past eight. I think that clock needs fixing, by the way, it looks a little crooked. 

BEETHOVEN'S FIFTH SYMPHONY, Ludwig Van Beethoven

The one that comes just before his sixth symphony. It's a little noisy.** 

*I'm tempted to include an imagined review of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling by Paris Hilton - 'I think it would look nicer in pink'. But I won't. 

** I'm not sure whether it's true, but isn't there a story about a King criticising a Mozart opera as having 'too many notes'? 

Kniterature

Not that I have anything to do with it, but there is a type of nice knitting literature - let's call it 'kniterature' - out there that features on its cover manly men with nice cosy jumpers on. Or dear little children sitting about with nice cosy jumpers on. Or lovely little puppies flopping about with a skein of wool out of which the dear little jumpers to be put on the dear little children will be made. Or gay little kittens romping in and out of a basket full of colourful balls of wool. I couldn't imagine why, but apparently this sort of imagery gladdens the heart of knitters everywhere. One of these days, maybe, a cunning publisher will publish a picture of manly men in cosy jumpers, and dear little children in nice cosy jumpers, and lovely little puppies flopping around with skeins of wool, and gay little kittens romping around in boxes of wool balls, and everyone laughing, and the hearts of knitters the world over will simply die with love and content. 

Of course, appearances can be deceptive. For all the knitters know, the kittens could be thinking about pursuing small native animals prior to capturing them and torturing them; the puppies, about ripping the entrails out of the stomach of a dead enemy; the children, about how to build an atomic weapon to take over the world; and the men, about what's on the telly tonight. Which would rather go against the enforced jocularity of the whole scene. 

But all that should just go to show, you can't judge a cover by its book. Or maybe, judge not lest ye yourself wear a cosy jumper on the cover of a knitting magazine and are judged. Or possibly, a kiss without an egg is like a moustache without salt. Who can tell? 

Cosy jumpers. Don't mess with them. 

Mansfield Snark

Some people might say that Australia have a habit of celebrating its criminals and ignoring the rest, but those people have obviously never seen the gentlemen's public toilets in Mansfield, Victoria. They're proudly dedicated to the three troopers who were shot in the pursuit of the bushranger, Ned Kelly. After dying in the service of law and order, who wouldn't want to be commemorated by having a little plaque stuck up on a public toilet? Think about that next time you urinate. 

Right next to the public toilets is a roundabout, and right in the middle of the roundabout is what can only be described as a 'monument', dedicated to more ill-fated troopers who went after some other  bushranger. The monument is in fact a Grecian column. With what looks like flowers, and curtains, and scrolls on the side. And what appears to be a tea pot on the top. ('That's an urn, Timothy', said Mum when I ventured the tea pot theory out loud.) Such works of public art raise profound questions (quite aside from 'what the hell does it mean?'): is this supposed to be realism? I was conjuring up visions of a period of history when ancient Greeks would draw back curtains before the wondering eyes of their fellow citizens to unveil tea pots, balanced precariously atop a Grecian column. 

Well, Mum and I walked around the monument in a bemused fashion a couple of times, and then went back to the car. "The least they could do is have a monument in European style, with an important little man on a horse flourishing a sword or something in the air," I said. 

And that is the last thing that I have to say for the moment about the pleasant little town of Mansfield, Victoria.

On-and-off-the-record

I was amused recently to see that after US President Obama made a kind-of offensive comment about a boring pop nonentity, it was American ABC news management that ended up apologising. Why? Well, apparently, they had published a comment that had been meant to be: 'off-the-record'. 

It all makes you wonder, though. Is it off-the-record to put on-the-record that an off-the-record comment was off-the-record? Isn't it just possible that the Presidential persona who made the off-the-record comment, and who wanted the off-the-record comment to remain off-the-record, meant it to go on-the-record in the first place? And just why should the media care if his Presidential feelings were hurt anyway? 

Once you have reached the end, go on

I was hearing the other day about how Twitter meant the end of blogging, which made me think about how blogging was supposed to mean the end of newspapers, which segued into thoughts about how television was supposed to be the end of newspapers. That's a lot of ends, I thought. I have an end as well - it's sitting on this seat while I type this post. 

But this post is far from ended, because quite aside from television causing the end of newspapers, movies were apparently causing the end of novels and theatre, and videos were supposedly causing the end of movies, and DVDs were also causing the end of videos, and how could I not mention YouTube, which is currently ending DVDs, at least until something comes along and ends that ending. We'd been quite worried about videos causing the end of movies and movies causing an end to novels for a while - there were a whole bunch of important critical articles penned by important critics lamenting the untimely death of these cultural institutions. Unfortunately, all those articles written about the tragic demise of invaluable cultural institutions have themselves tragically demised, because we've all moved onto another tragical demise by now. 

Speaking of ends - and we were, after all - in the past century we've also welcomed in the end of history, the end of philosophy, the war to end all wars (that one happened twice), the end of art, the end of religion (this has happened numerous times), the death of God, the end of the world, the end of the Ozone layer, the end of human life as we know it, the end of the nation state, the end of globalisation, the end of money, the end of poverty, the end of riches, the end of want, the end of need, the end of democracy, the end of tyranny, and, of course, not so much the end of the end as the end of the beginning. Everything is, basically, the cause of the end of everything else, which is why everything else keeps on existing as it always existed. Just because something is ended doesn't mean it has to stop (as any good artist would be able to tell you.) 

Life is full of sadness and sorrow and pain and death, and the things of this world are transient and temporary. Everything is going to end tomorrow, but of course tomorrow is another day. I suppose it must be heroic and enobling to consider yourself the last real reader of a newspaper or the last watcher of a movie or the last authentic reader of novels. Is it any wonder, then, that all these precious cultural artefacts keep on dying around us? We like things ending so much that we keep on ending them, over and over again, in our imaginations. The end? It's more like...

The Beginning

My arts policy

Over the years, I have been to performances of various types in pubs, in art galleries, in libraries, in theatres, in town halls, in cafes, in clubs, in the street, in Federation Square, and even, once, in a garage. Pubs are undoubtedly the best. 

What is there not to like in a pub? They are fundamentally pleasing places. You can eat there, drink there, and talk there. A pub is pleasing to inhabit, and pleasing to look at: pass through almost any Australian town and you can immediately pick out the elegant 19th century facade of the public house. 

And of course, pubs are full of drink, and therefore, large numbers of drunk people. And this is why I like seeing performers - be they bands, or singers, or poets, or just miscellaneous - in pubs. The drunk people make all the difference. 

Consider the situation from the eyes of a performer: 

- Drunk people are honest. Not simply by natural alcoholic inclination, but also because they are not likely to have come to the pub to listen to you. They have invested all their effort and their money in their drink: you are extra. They do not necessarily feel any need to appreciate your art, your performance, and if they like it anyway, you know you're doing something right. 

- Drunk people are generally rude and shouty. Actually, in some places being rude and shouty is compulsory. I suppose to some performers this might be considered a disadvantage, but it's not really: most of the time, audience members are only expected to be supportive and appreciative. If they know they are allowed to swear at you and throw things at you, then they will, oddly, be more open and appreciative if you do something right. Imagine this sort of thing happening at the art gallery. You see what I mean. 

- Drunk people are, well, drunk. And being drunk is confusing. When it comes to the arts, this is a good thing. Consider the critic at the theatrical performance, pondering the postmodern ramifications of the oeuvre through the generic ramifications of the semiosis* of the existential angst of the subconscious narratology of the rhyme scheme: that's so confusing that only a critic could know what that means. Well, being drunk is even more confusing than that (as a simple test, just read that last sentence out to a drunk. They'll have no idea what it means! See?)

It follows, then, that the principal supporter of Australian culture over the past 200 years has been the pub and the drunk people who inhabit it. It is true, art galleries and schools and town halls and theatres have their place, but we must not let our attention be drawn from the fact that it is principally due to the pub. 

Why, then, do the government and philanthropic agencies not do more to support and encourage the insobriety and alcoholism that have been the great source of creativity in this nation? Drunkenness ought to be taught in schools. It would be easier to learn than maths, and less strenuous than PE. In fact, there ought to be whole philanthropic institutions set up to encourage drunk people and thereby stimulate the arts and creativity in Australia. I envisage, in some situations, this could lead to enhanced economic and administrative efficiency: for instance, the files and protocols of many a public institution probably look as if they have been designed by a drunk person. Why not actually get the drunk person who can do just that?

It would be so easy, after we have come so far, for our children to forget the drinking ways of their fathers and mothers, and slip into sobriety and puritanical teetotalism. If culture is to survive in this country, this must not be allowed to happen. 

Australians! Get behind this great drinking effort, for the sake of art! The only thing we have to lose is our sobriety! (And, possibly, our licences. And our cash. And, in certain medical circumstances, our vision). Anyway - you know what I mean!

*I know neither the correct spelling nor the correct meaning of this word. Everything else about it is right. 

Congratulations! It's a bouncing 32 year old!

I'm 32 years old, and it's my birthday today. It eventually had to happen, I suppose. I couldn't stay in the womb for ever. Please send consolation cards through to my mother, who, in spite of the fact that she lives some thousand kilometres away from me, has somehow managed to pull the whole birthing experience off today. 

Also born today at 32 years of age: Gem and Maria. Happy birthday fellow birthdayites! Tell you what - I have the cake, and you have the birthday. How does that sound? 

Blurroscopes

Horoscopes for Mindless Microscopic Amorphous Watery Gelatinous Amoebaic Blobs
(The most specifically and generally accurate horoscope in the world!)

Aries
The future is dim, grey, and murky. Each day will pass much like the other one.

Taurus
The future is dim, grey and murky. You will encounter a meaningless meeting or parting with another formless, colourless blob. Good one!

Gemini
Those born under the sign of Gemini, the twins, often find themselves at times of significant emotional or intellectual dischord, which they must overcome to move forward into a new and brighter future. Not you, though. You don't have an intelligence or emotions to be dischordant in the first place. The future is dim, grey and murky.

Cancer
The days ahead will be watery and unclear, beyond which lie gloomy and shadowy events of a colourless nature, in a grimy and musty backdrop. Events in general will be dim, grey and murky.

Leo
You will meet, part with, or not stand in any particular relation to, another formless colourless blob who you may or may not have been at some point in your dim, grey and murky past.

Virgo
The future is dim, grey, and murky, and since you do not have a mind, it will leave you in two lack-of-minds about how to proceed with your next month. With luck, more dim, grey murkiness will lie ahead.

Libra
You will have an encounter with a few random strands of DNA and RNA that are far too complex for your puny mindlessness to comprehend. The future is dim, grey and murky. Wallow in it.

Scorpio
You have tail feathers, like paddling around and quacking a lot, you eat flies and small insects, and the future is watery, but not particularly grey and murky. You are not actually a mindless microscopic amorphous watery gelatinous amoebic blob at all, you are a duck. Get your own publication, schmuck.

Sagittarius
The future is dim, grey, murky, and rather acidic. You have just been swallowed by a toad with particularly fierce gastric juices, and you will not live to see another day. Goodbye.

Capricorn
Look! Over there! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a particularly detailed reproduction of the Mandelbrot Set? No, it's just another blob that would in some ways look to some people like some of those things if they were able to see things from your eyes. Not you, though, since you don't have eyes or a mind. The future is dim, grey and murky.

Aquarius
The future is particularly blobby. Your prospects are on the up.

Pisces
Guess which adjectives feature heavily in your future? That's right. Dim. Grey. Murky. Continue luxuriating in the general slushy gloopy gloppiness of it all, because that's all you're going to get.

The internet votes Labor

When I logged on to Joe Hockey's Twitter account the other day, the internet instantaneously shut down and refused to let me read it. 

Clearly, this means that the internet votes Labor. 

Spoonerising by the light of the silvery moonerising

Pity William Spooner - accidental inventor of the spoonerism, who had the misfortune to not only accidentally mix up phrases and sentences, but entire concepts. Look at this quote from Wikipedia:

It is said that Canon Spooner not only mixed up words, but entire concepts upon occasion. Reportedly, he once spilled salt at a dinner and absent-mindedly poured some wine on it, a reversal of the usual procedure.... According to sources, he once remarked of a widow that "her husband was eaten by missionaries."

I think I've been getting a bit that way myself, actually. More and more, I've found myself accidentally spoonerising reality. Just on Tuesday, when approaching the door to my flat, I reached to my pocket and took out my travel ticket, apparently expecting to be able to validate it and thus get into my flat that way. On Wednesday, I had a dustpan and brush in one hand, and bread in the other, and I opened up the freezer door and put the dustpan and brush in. On Thursday, I lost my mobile phone; I couldn't find it by searching around at home, so I hit upon the scheme of calling it up to see if I could hear it ring: and I reached into my pocket and drew out my watch, which obviously I was then going to use for calling up my mobile phone. 

I suppose all this mixing up of things just serves to make my life interesting, but how far do you think I'm going to take it? Instead of putting the milk in the fridge, will I try and put the fridge in the milk? Will I accidentally shove my head in my shoes and my feet in my hat prior to going out? Even more alarming: what if, after accidentally spoonerising reality for a couple of months, reality gets cranky and starts spoonerising me back? It would be unfortunate if, instead of going to open a door, the door opened me, instead. And if the ground decided to walk on me, for once, instead of the other way around, the results would be positively calamitous. 

Still, if that sort of thing ever happens, I'll just pick the fridge out of the milk, and, hearing a ringing from the freezer, will open it up, take the dustpan and brush out, and answer it. It'll most likely be reality, panicked by all this accidental spoonerising, attempting to call up their nearest helpline. 

I'll be ready for that day when it comes. I'm off now to put some butter and jam on my mobile phone. If I can find it. Yummy!

A collection of puns looking for a reason

Rye comments
Wheat bread is nice, but rye bread is nicer.

Crisp dialogue
"I like barbecue flavour."

"Me too. But what do you think about salt and vinegar?"

"A little too strong, I'm afraid."

Chipping in
Fried potatoes, anyone?

The effect of the effect on the greenhouse effect effect

Well I've just read the news that climate change is changing. Oh, thanks fellas, that's just great. Now instead of just having to deal with climate change, we're going to have to deal with climate change change. And if the effects of climate change are going to be unpredictable, then who can tell what the effects of climate change change will be?

Of course, there will inevitably be deniers of climate change change, who will try and tell us that the science of the change in climate change is not yet settled. They will insist on scepticism about climate change change on the basis of their previous scepticism about climate change. They will argue that we are not yet able to make accurate predictions about climate change, much less climate change change, and that indeed climate change may not be happening, so that climate change change may not in fact exist: we are certainly going to have to make them sceptical about their scepticism about climate change before tackling their scepticism about climate change change.

There will be others, too, who will insist that a change in climate change may in fact lead to a more favourable climate change for us all, and that if this change in the change is indeed happening, it should be welcomed.

A third group will obviously argue that we need to stop climate change before stopping the climate change change, and that if we are not able to stop the change, then we will have no hope in stopping the change in the change.

Clearly, we must not let ourselves be distracted by these denialists of climate change change, and we must work to turn back the changes in climate change before it's too late for whatever change in the change it might be too late for.

The sum of its somes

Know-it-some: the sort of person who doesn't know very much, and keeps on telling it to you anyway. 

Half-round good guy: A guy who's really impressive at some things but not so crash hot at others. 

Umnipotence: A minor, not particularly powerful deity. 

Tell-some: A person who knows a lot of fruity gossip, but only tells you the uninteresting bits. 

Hmmniscience: A rather uncertain deity. 

Part-seeing: An all-seeing entity which has gone partially blind. 

Bit-consuming passion: A hobby that makes you a little bit emotional for a not-so-long period of time. 

Unfinity: A neverending amount of amounts that, when they are all mounted up, don't amount to much. 

The Ending Story: A book that you are kind of interested in, which nevertheless ends after a moderate period of time. 

Pythagoras's Other Theorem: Some of the square of the hypothetical hypoteneuse of some right-angled triangles is equal to some of the sum of a bit of a part of a portion of the squares of the other two sides. 

UPDATE! - Not to mention Partialitarians, just like Totalitarians, except they're only brutal unforgiving dictators some of the time. 

Resignation vacant

White House environmental adviser Van Jones resigned late Saturday after a
simmering controversy over his past statements and activism erupted into calls
for his ouster from Republican leaders on Friday.

- The Washington Post, White House Adviser Van Jones Resigns Amid
Controversy Over Past Activism

To: Barack Obama, President of the United States of America,
That White Important Big House,
Washington

Dear sir/madame,

It is with great regret that today I must officially offer my formal resignation for the job of Environmental Adviser with the Council on Environmental Quality for the job which I will be officially applying for tomorrow.

I have taken this dramatic step of resigning from the position before applying for the position for many reasons, personal as well as public. Most important among these, I believe that I cannot continue to serve the people of America in the position which I would like to offer my services for tomorrow given the fallout that will inevitably occur should I be appointed to the job that I will officially apply for tomorrow.

Also, I believe that resigning in this manner will speed up the appointment and dismissal of future advisers to the Administration no end. Think how efficient it will make matters for the Democratic Party!

I hope you will look kindly on this application for resignation. I have attached the qualifications that make me a likely candidate for resignation in a 'resignation resume'. Please take some time among yourselves to scrutinise this resume in detail. However, I would just like to present, in bullet form, some of my most important qualifications for this outstanding position in resignation:

- I am a fruit loop.

- I have prior experience in many unsuitable positions with unsavoury political parties which I look forward to revealing to the public in as embarrassing a manner as possible.

- I am devoted to this great nation of ours, and look forward to resigning from a great many more positions in the future.

It is with great regret that I find that I am unable to serve the people of America in the position that I look forward to applying for tomorrow.

Yours sincerely,
Tim Train

Why I shouldn't be allowed out of the house at night

"So are you from Melbourne originally?"

"No, I'm from Hong Kong." 

"Oh. Hmmm. Do you prefer Hong or Kong more?"

This poem just writes itself, dyslexically

4.

This verse is the last of my four-verse poem.

I've put it in here at the start.

As fourth verse it might seem somewhat out of place,

But what would you know, man? It's art. 

1.

This verse is the first of my four-verse poem.

I've put it here, in second place.

I'm sorry. The first place was all used up,

But really, it's just a disgrace. 

3. 

This verse is the third of my four-verse poem.

It was meant to be here all along. 

But thinking of how the other two went,

Perhaps it is triply wrong. 

5. 

This verse is the fifth of my four-verse poem.

I didn't have room for the rest. 

I had to get rid of the second, of course,

But perhaps it is all for the best. 

Where's a good vaticide when you need one?

Poetry just gets me more and more confused these days. They have a habit, for instance, of writing poems without rhymes, which just makes me confused. What's a poem without rhymes? Isn't it just a collection of sentences? I think I'd prefer a rhyme without poems. 

Also, there's this thing about called free verse. I can't exactly explain it except by analogy: free verse is like free love, except without the orgasms or the nudity. And as for free love, as everyone knows, it is a progressive and important social development, which is why most people keep on getting married. Free verse is another progressive and important social development, and consequently, this explains why many people keep on reading poems with rhymes and verses that scan. 

All that is by the by: but, just last night, I noticed another, singularly malicious tendency of poets. 

Poets have a habit of reproducing. 

Now, in most cases this itself is commendable, although if you are a poet who believes in free love as well as free verse, you might have difficulties with this. (The whole point of free love is not to have babies: you wouldn't want to stretch the free love too far, you see.)

However: many poets have a habit of reproducing and then writing poems about the progeny whom are their reproduction. 

This, too, is in itself fine, and has led to many superb examples of the poetic art: Peter Skrzynecki* has done it. Yeats has done it. And Komninos has done it, too. 

Nevertheless: after the writing of these poems, the poets have a habit of publishing them, circulating them, and reading them to audiences decades after the birth of their child. 

Like all philosophers asking the hard questions, like Job challenging his God, like the toddler asking his father why he cannot probe his proboscis with his pinkie on the tram, I find myself trembling with anguish as I ask the inevitable question: why? why? in God's name, why? Isn't this just the verbal equivalent of taking nudie snaps of your children as babies, and then dispatching them to that child's first date? Or circulating them round to guests at the wedding? 

In this day and age, ought there not to be letters written into the paper, people calling up radio stations, having hard discussions with their local members, and laws made in the parliament about this legitimate case of child abuse? One hesitates to use the term**, but isn't this the most obvious case for a hue and cry that you have ever heard? 

Poets! Think of the children! Before it's too late!

*To pronounce his name, just put a bucketful of coleslaw into your mouth, and gargle. To spell his name, take a swig of vodka, throw a bunch of scrabble letters at the board, and panic. 

**One also hesitates to use the term 'one hesitates to use the term', but there are times at which one must use the term 'one hesitates to use the term', unhesitatingly. 

Short poem on an important subject

NA'PPINESS. n.s. [nappy] The quality of having a nap. 

- A Dictionary of the English language, Samuel Johnson

Nappiness

Leads to happiness.*

*And crappiness 

Is often, but not always, alleviated by nappiness. 

Ready, willing and label

Is there any limit to the number of products with a spurious connection to Australia Australian labels to make the Australian consumer proud? There's Made in Australia, Australian Made, and Product of Australia, for starters, and aren't they wonderful. I, for one, relish the opportunity to buy an expensive, shoddily-made product which may or may not have been made in Australia in order to keep Australian manufacturers in their jobs. After all, if Australians didn't do the job, the Chinese would, and nobody wants that*. And apparently they're planning to introduce another label: Grown in Australia. Because, strangely enough, products that are 'Made in Australia' might not actually be grown in Australia, and things that are Grown in Australia might not really be a product of Australia. 

I'd like to suggest a new label of my own: 

For too long, the wonderful contributions of the Australian labelling industry to foods, drinks, and other goods bought and sold in Australia have gone unappreciated. Who but the steadfast and courageous labellers of Australia would be able to take a chunk of cheese wrapped in a plastic packet, placed in a box, covered over with more plastic, and then - put a label on top of that? No-one, that's who. Furthermore, this label delivers a clear and unambiguous message to consumers and customers all over this wide, brown land: this product has had a little coloured thing stuck on it by your brave, Australian labellers. Isn't it time we got behind their efforts? Why, in the next year alone, we could increase the number of labels our store products currently have from three, to five, to ten, to twenty! Come on, Australians! We can do it - starting with this!

I think it covers things nicely, don't you? 

*Please don't challenge that. It would be unpatriotic.**

**Possibly sexist, too. 

Wheely big problem

At work, I have a seat that affords a wonderful view of West Melbourne. I could physically see the clouds roll over as winter started, and admire the way they changed colour as the moods of the ever-fickle Melbourne weather lightened or darkened. I've gotten at least one poem out of the view. I spend so much time looking out that window that I wouldn't be surprised if I got distracted one day, and began absent-mindedly typing up weather details into what is supposed to be an official, business-like office email.

Another sight of interest outside the window is the changing landscape of the Melbourne Docklands, and in particular their ill-fated wheel of fortune. Over the past year or so, we've all marvelled as the wheel has slowly been erected, spokes gradually built out, and the circumference built up around the spokes. Then we watched as pods appeared, one by one, on the wheel. Sometimes, during the afternoon shift, as the sky grew darker, you'd be able to notice lights on the individual pods, winking at you. Yes, there is nothing quite like a bloody big wheel to inspire awe and wonder in the eyes of onlookers.

There was, though, one little problem with this big wheel.

It didn't go.

Why, exactly, important businessmen, and workers, and crane drivers, and architects, and engineers, or whoever else is involved in the making of big wheels, would make a big wheel in the inner western suburbs of a major Australian city simply for the joy of it, I do not know. Ferris wheels are, after all, typically designed to wheel around. Ferris wheels are supposed to go. Perhaps the workers who were involved in this big wheel asked themselves the same question. So, in recent months, they've started taking the whole thing apart again: lights have been deactivated, pods have been taken off the metallic circumference, and finally, the metallic circumference has been partially deconstructed so that the bloody big wheel now has a bloody great hole in its side.

Perhaps they think it will help the wheel actually work. Though, of course, it still doesn't go.

For all I know, it may never go: it may just sit there, for years, and centuries, a bloody great wheel with a bloody great hole in its side: Melbourne's motionless ferris wheel. It could become a great accidental tourist attraction, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. At any rate, there has been something glorious about the whole process, being able to see this slow but steadily unfolding idiocy, the beautiful majesty of this gigantic failure.

It is as if a God of this great, throbbing city has spoken to us, and his fearsome and wondrous words were these:

"Whoops. My mistake. Sorry about that! Won't happen again."

Due to overwhelming critical acclaim, Friday will now be held on a Thursday

Well, a few weeks ago, I competed in the first of a series of Overload Slams and was fortunate enough to win a place in the finals. I was second on the night: and I credit my success to the poodles.

It's a complicated thing, though. The final is itself a heat for another final to be had on the weekend, so you could say that the final that I'm in is the penultimate final to another final. Then again, the final final happens on the night of September 12, and I'm not sure what the winner of that gets. I had heard somewhere - but I forget where - that you would get entrance to the Bristol poetry slam, which would mean that the final final of September might merely be the final penultimate, following on from the penultimate final, and leading up to the finalisation of the final final final. Which could be a very good, or maybe just a very very thing.

Even more confusingly, according to one page on Overload, the final (the final penultimate, I mean, not the final final final) is on:

11 September, 9pm for a 9.30 start

But according to another page, it's on:

Thursday 10th September, 9:30-11:30pm

Hmmm. Holding a Friday penultimate final on the day before Friday is very penultimate indeed. Anyone want to come to the Friday final on Thursday, or the Thursday final on the Friday? And what on earth is going on here?

Perhaps you have no idea what I'm talking about. Neither do I.

Exciting start-up business!

At Tim's Trains, we aim to take you from nowhere to nowhere else in a timely and efficient manner!

While it is unfortunately true, our trains haven't been arriving nowhere and getting nowhere quite according to the timetables lately, we are always striving to better our record at delivering excellent customer service in the field of nothing. Therefore, we expect to double our services to nowhere in the coming months. 

It is also lamentably true that our trains haven't been travelling quite as fast from nowhere to nowhere as we have set out in our performance guidelines, but with the latest technology, we hope to be travelling nowhere even faster, and we promise to get you nowhere in... oh, about an hour or so. 

Don't set your watch by it, though. 

And if all else fails, remember our company slogan: 

"At least we're almost better than Connex!" 

Several unpleasant things and a pleasant thing

Morning television presenters smile. A lot. Their faces are so permanently fixed up in a rictus of apparent pleasure that you know they must want something out of you. Who wants to wake up in the morning and suffer the agony of someone leering at you, teeth gaping through their half-opened mouths, for two hours on end? Yet that is exactly what morning television is like. 

Other people that smile too much: people in advertisements for gyms, people in shampoo ads, and the Joker, while he is in the midst of performing another demonically evil act. 

Also, the other day, I saw on television an advertisement for Qantas. It featured children frolicking about in the natural landscapes of Australia. They all wore white shirts. They were waving their faces around in the sunlight. They were crooning some dreadful hymn about Australia having sons and daughters who were doing meaningless things in other countries. And , O God, yes, they were smiling. It was a vision of horror! Imagine drowning at the bottom of an ocean of golden syrup, physically asphyxiating on saccharine. That's how bad it was. 

Coffee, however, is pleasant. Coffee does not smile at you in the morning while delivering banal news stories, or try to sell you gymkhana memberships. Coffee does not wear a white shirt or wave its deformed visage around in the sunlight or gargle hideous homilies about the virtues of home. Coffee is sturdy, reliable, grainy, and black. I think I will have another one now. 

Have a nice weekend. 

Unnouncement

I was going to go out tonight, but didn't.

UPDATE! - I'll keep you abreast of the non-event as it doesn't happen. And it still isn't.

Liberals, Labor 'asked' to join the Turnbull Party

Canberra, Thursday - Malcolm Turnbull has rebutted accusations that he asked Paul Keating about joining the Labor Party by replying that they, instead, had asked to join the Malcolm Turnbull Party (MTP).

'I was asked by high-level representatives of both parties, on several occasions, whether they could be absorbed into the Malcolm Turnbull Party,' says Turnbull. 'Of course, it wasn't an official party at the time, but I immediately accepted.'

Turnbull went on to elaborate to the media, saying that he envisaged the process of absorption of the two parties, with a combined age of over one century, and being constituted of thousands of members and elected representatives, would be gradual, and he would over time simply 'engorge them in my fleshy bulk', helped by the power of his ego.

The MTP, once created, would simply require minor changes to the laws of the land regarding the formation of political parties, and the democratic process. For instance, states Turnbull, 'votes could simply be replaced by an economical process of adulation'.

Paul Keating has responded to Turnbull's claims by laughing and replying, 'Look, Malcolm did approach me asking if I'd like to join with him. I was very flattered, but in the end I had to say no.'

Soundbi

These days, the media are so addicted to soundbites that a politician could sit in a studio and deliver a three-hour-long speech right to the camera, only to have that speech sampled by a journalist, edited down in the studio by the producer, and presented on air as a miniscule three-second-phrase. The meaning of that phrase is then hugely exaggerated by the reporter, presented to the public as a shocking scandal, a concerning development, a contemptuous sneer, or irrefutable evidence of the coming apocalypse, and subsequently completely ignored by the public while being repeated by reporters for weeks on end.

We've come a long way from the days when Dr Johnson and the likes would reproduce the speeches of parliament, verbatim, in their newspapers for pages on end.

It won't be long, now, before we get a news report like this:

NEWSREADER: And there is outrage in parliament today over a preposition uttered by the by the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, that indicates a possible change in Opposition policy to the ETS.

REPORTER: It all started out normally.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: ... and...

REPORTER: But then, things got very ugly indeed.

TURNBULL: ... on...

REPORTER: The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, immediately delivered this scathing rebuke!

KEVIN RUDD: ... so...

REPORTER: However, Mr Turnbull has insisted that his preposition was unfairly taken 'in context'.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Too...

REPORTER: It is not known what will happen now, but clearly Turnbull's statement means the end of the world. Until next time.

All-purpose Australian national anthem

All-purpose Australian national anthem; encompassing geometry, geography, geology, the monarchy, unions, democracy, agriculture, parliaments, and patriotism

(Full context found in the comments at Still Life With Cat.)

Australians all let us rejoice,
Our land is sort of square!
With triangles and pointy bits
That stick up in the air.
We also kind of have a Queen,
But she lives overseas:
Plus: unions, parliaments, and sheep,
And eucalyptus trees.
In joyful strains let us rejoice -
God save our Gracious Queen!

Citizen weather report

Today's Citizen Weather Report comes to you live from Melbourne, where we've just had a Rather Interesting Weather Day, at times hitting highs of Very Very Interesting Indeed while working its way up to an Extreme Fabulous Wonderful Wow Weather Day, which has only occurred twice since records have begun.

The Rather Interesting Weather Day began as days usually begin, in the morning. Out to sea, low troughs of blowy blusteriness were gathering, while inland, several areas of spotty-spatteriness were whirling around doing what spotty-spattery things usually do. Meanwhile, clouds of the woolly, wispy, whimsical, and fluffy varieties were observed at various spots in the sky, floating about and occasionally bumping into one another.

As the day proceeded in the progressive manner that days have habitually been known to proceed in, several instances of rain, high winds, low winds, no winds, sun, clouds, and everything else were recorded at absolutely every location in the city, alternating with occasional periods of other stuff.

The temperature on several thermometers hovered for most of the morning around the 'kind of nice' and 'sort of nippy' range, dropping later in the day to readings closer to 'really rather chilly' and 'better pop on your mittens'.

Whilst the occurrence of this Rather Interesting Weather Day has been interesting enough for the Bureau of Meteorology to, er, take interest, a spokesman for the bureau has spokesmanned to Will Type For Food with these words: "I've really no idea what you're on about, but yes, the day was rather interesting. Can you go away, I'm trying to eat my lunch."

Whilst it is not known what exactly caused the Rather Interesting Weather Day, apart from all the stuff that was mentioned above, it seems certain that climate change is to blame, so maybe we should have more of it.

This has been a Citizen Weather Report for Friday, the twenty-first of August.

UPDATE! - Vote in the topical poll!

Climate change may cause more Really Interesting Weather Days to happen. Is this a good thing?
	Yes.
	No.
	Not sure.
	What the hell are you talking about, dimwit?
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Practical suggestions for everyday use

Spring cleaners: I find that cleaning is best approached by exploring how the term 'cleaning' is itself a social construct, and that it is only by liberating the words 'clean' and 'dirty' from the restrictive social structures of past centuries that we can really make political progress. Also, you'll find this takes much less work than actually 'cleaning'.

Coffee drinkers: spill coffee in your lap and call it lappucino. It doesn't make sense to do this, but the name seems appropriate.

Second hand diets: you have dinner, I get thinner

Thinking of going on a second hand diet. I'm going to get someone else to eat nothing but boiled cabbage while I gorge myself on gigantic butter cakes and what not, and my weight will go down.

As I see it, it should work on the basis of a simple principle: you are what someone else eats.

A review of one in two and two in one

One in two
There are many, many good reasons to travel in a car across Siberia. Love. Money. Communism. Crime. Finding the best watermelon seller this side of Omsk. But travelling in a car across Siberia in order solely to write a New Yorker article about travelling in a car across Siberia is not one of them - and certainly not when that New Yorker article is so boringly gargantuan that it stretches out over two magazines. This is what writer Ian Frazier has done, and in the process he has demonstrated how utterly pointless the theme of his article is: because instead of enjoying the writing about Siberia, you end up just thinking about what the hell the writer is doing in Siberia.

Quite aside from anything else, if you are going to write an article about travelling in a car across Siberia, then there's no need to actually go travelling. A much easier method for writing the article is readily at hand: by lying. You'd produce an article better than this one, too.

I put my New Yorker magazine down at the end of this article, not wanting more, but wanting less. Is it possible to unread an article?

Two in one
Some enterprising publisher has been re-releasing old Eva Ibbotson titles in a series of 'two-in-one' books. Ibbotson has written enough small books, and enough good books, to really pull this concept off.

Have I rhapsodised about Ibbotson before? I will now. Here are a few two word phrases that describe her writing: brilliantly plotted, wonderfully witty, heartwarming satire, hell crazy good. That last phrase was three words, not two: that's how good she is.

At the moment I'm reading a two-in-one combination of 'Not Just a Witch' and 'Dial a Ghost'. I'm halfway through the second, having zipped my way through the first on a Sunday afternoon.

Ibbotson has a delicious turn of phrase, with the ability to make you bark with laughter by saying just one or two words. (I love how she describes one old man 'sitting pinkly in his bath'.) And what better way to establish the moral wickedness and nastiness of characters than by saying this:

Because Fulton wasn't kind at all; he was evil, and so was his sister Frieda. The school that they ran was called Sunnydell, but no place could have been less sunny.

I want to read more. So I'm going to do it now. While sitting pinkly in my bath.

Bug love

There was an advertisement on the tram this morning that read:

Drink Dilmah to save an elephant

Now I rather liked that idea. Saving an elephant sounded fine and grand and heroic, just the same sort of a thing a big game hunter would do, but in reverse. I envisaged myself, a house husband, ensconced in a chair by the table, proudly drinking Dilmah, sip by valorous sip, while my wife (it's amazing what you can imagine on a tram journey) stomped gloomily around and about, finally sticking her head around the corner and asking what on earth I was doing.

"Oh, nothing," I would reply, magnanimously. "Just saving an elephant."

But then, I reflected, it's all about the elephants, isn't it? Or if it's not the elephants, it's the whales, or the dolphins, or the glorious wilderbeest. Humans like having big compassion for big things. Can you imagine extending that compassion to the fungal rash on your finger that has caused you to slather the dermal-cream equivalent of Agent Orange all over your hands, every morning, and every night? Or what about the plight of the parasitical bug that is so epically titchy it spends its entire life living up a mosquito bum, and has become endangered due to a tragic shortage of mosquito bums? It must be hard to extend our God-like compassion for all things living to those things which we don't know about yet.

We humans, all things considered, really are rather pragmatic about our sympathies. It's easy to feel sorry for an elephant. Oversized, overweight, but most importantly, over there. Not so much smallpox, which has an unpleasant habit of forming over you: and which we've been conducting nothing short of a genocidal war of extermination on for the last few centuries. We couldn't contract elephants like we contract bacterial infections or viruses, either: it's geo-spatially a rather difficult proposition. No, it's easy to love an elephant from afar. They don't give us anything to worry about, really. 

But still, just this once, I'd like to see an ad like this:

Buy our marvellous product! Save the endangered mosquito-bum dwelling exotic-bug-thing from extinction!

The internet has given us the power to post lolcats around the world at the speed of light

A funny thing about the communications revolution: the more revolutionary this communications revolution gets, the fewer and fewer products I use, the less and less I use of them, and the smaller their importance seems. I don't subscribe to a newspaper, have a Blackberry, I've never used the telegraph, I wouldn't even know how to use Morse Code, I would probably be too afraid to use the pony express, and if I ever got an iPod I'd probably drop a bomb on it rather than use it. On the other hand, I do have a home phone, which I use principally as a paperweight; a mobile phone, which I leave at home or turn off; a subscription to a magazine, though I don't ever read the news articles; some old envelopes lying around the house, though some of them are so old that I got them a decade ago, and I haven't ever used them; a shelf full of DVDs which I haven't seen, right next to the television which I never turn on. And then there's this laptop and the blog I log on to. Hello, everyone!

I don't even know how news gets through to me, since I don't read newspapers online either, and I read blogs for opinion and personal stories. The news stories somehow get filtered down through the internet, so by the time they get to me they've probably come fresh from a second hand source who got it from a third hand source who got it from a friend of a friend who is writing for a local newspaper in outer Transmistria, (circulation, two: a nanny and her goat).

This is what the communications revolution boils down to: when something goes wrong with your internet, you phone up your service provider, who is somewhere in Sydney, or Darwin, or Bangalore, and tell them about your problem, and they stare at their computer and try and find what the problem is with your internet connection without actually looking at your computer or your software, but by speaking to you and getting you to click through the internet yourself. When they're about halfway through this frustrating and meaningless process, something goes wrong, and your internet provider gets angry and starts speaking to you very slowly as if you were an idiot. You get angry in turn, swear at them, and ask for them name (which they'd already given to you at the start, but you'd forgotten), and say you could just as easily go to another service provider. Then your internet provider hangs up on you, and five minutes later you get another phone call back from them. They give you a false name (you know it's false because you can understand it) and tell you that the other person you spoke to, who oddly has a voice that is exactly like the person that you're speaking to now, had phone problems and that they (that is, the person who is speaking to you now but has a voice that is exactly like the other person) will be dealing with your problem now. Then you spend another half an hour on the phone to them, test everything on your modem and computer, and they conclude that the problem is either a problem with your modem or computer, and then you both have a competition to see who can hang up first.

Then a few days later Kingsley comes round to your house, concludes that the internet switch on your computer has gone off, turns it on, and everything works.

Amazing! World-changing! Revolutionary!

Though I've had enough of the communications revolution for the moment. I might hang up this blog for the day and go out and get into a face-to-face argument with the tram driver about the Napoleonic wars and the Prime Ministership of Lord Wellington, like every good gentleman should.

Singles column

M., S., seeking like-minded F. My favourite terrorist threat level is blue. My current swine flu susceptibility is 20. I like: long surveillances on the beach, dinner party conversations about what sort of plastic cutlery should be allowed on planes, and holding hands so long as you've washed yours first eight times in hot water and doused it repeatedly in industrial-strength anti-bacterial breach. If you'll be alert, I'll be alarmed. Come be the TAMI to my FLU. 

Tall and small

Standing in the queue today at the shopping centre, I reflected upon how everyone seemed to be going out with someone who was taller, but only a little bit taller than themselves. It seemed to me only natural that if tall people went out with people who were a bit taller than them, and if smaller people get going out with people who were a bit taller than them (but still small), it wouldn't be long before homo sapiens had split into two separate species, just like H G Wells' Eloi and Morlocks, except these two separate species would be called the 'tall people' and the 'small people'. 

And relations between the two species would be amicable at first, but gradually, the bodily and cultural differences between the tall people and the small people would become all too apparent, and whenever a tall person would look upon a small person, he would behold an incomparably hideous visage the like of which he had never seen before except that one time when he went to the small person village, and a small person would think the same, only in reverse. 

And so it would come to pass that a state of war would exist between the tall people and the small people, and neither side would prevail over millenia, though both would possess certain advantages over the other side: for the tall people would be taller than the small people, and the small people would not only be not taller than the tall people, but not taller than some others of the small people, which is an advantage if you a small person. 

But finally a lasting peace accord would be struck between the tall people and the small people. However, hatred and resentment would last between the tall people and the small people for generations, and it would only be through the enlightened activism and forward-(not to mention upward and/or downward)-looking policies of various concerned citizens in the tall and small person communities that the two would come together again. And from henceforth, they would exist in a state of enlightenment and happiness, with every community event and festival at which they attended being full of size-appropriate activities and thoughtful and sensitive acknowledgments of the tall and small people who had existed on this land before the current tall and small people. 

And there would be great rejoicing. 

But then, as I stood there in the supermarket, it struck me that almost everyone goes out with someone who is either taller or smaller than them, and that it's not all that remarkable really, since it would be so freakishly amazingly unlikely for a person to go out with another person who was exactly the same size as them (to within one tenth of a millimetre) that it would only happen sometimes. 

So I paid my money to the supermarket guy (who by this time had been waiting for some time) and toddled off to catch the tram. Which I missed. 

On coffee

An odd thing happened to me at the cafe today. 

That, in itself, was not odd. Going to the cafe these days is an inherently odd experience: buying a drink and actually drinking the drink is the least of the things you have to worry about. If that were all you did at a cafe, it would be all right. 

Increasingly, though, you have to contend with ideas and ideologies, with notions and hypothesis, with symbols and signs and omens and portents. Things are always skinny or lite or medium or large or two-for-one or one-for-three or free or fair or naughty or sinful or de-this or anti-that or friendly-to-those or targeted-at-them. You can barely twitch a finger without politically offending someone or upsetting a delicate environmental balance or fattening something or lightening something else or offending some other party. And that's just talking about the cups the drink comes in, even before we come to the drink.

 

And as for the drink... ! There's decaffeinated-soya-mocha-latte-with-chocolate-topping not to mention extra-large-skinny-affo-gatto-with-cream-topping as well as medium-goats-milk-de-sugared-honey-flavoured-chai-latte and also... the list goes on. You could enter with a dictionary and lexicon for five different languages and still have no idea what you end up ordering. You're not just spoiled for choice, you're spoiled for choices about other choices that you are also spoiled for. And as the catalogues of beverages becomes more numerous and the interrelationships between them become more complex, strangely, the difference becomes less and less discernible by any of the five senses: the difference becomes, basically, less different. How on earth can you tell the difference between a decaffeinated-soya-mocha-latte-with-chocolate-topping, and a medium-goats-milk-de-sugared-honey-flavoured-chai-latte? Is it perhaps like the difference between a four-legged beagle and that rare breed of five-legged beagle that has been, freakishly, only born with four legs? 

I remember vaguely going into the South Melbourne Starbucks some years ago and ordering an iced drink of some vague, generic, caffeine-based sort. Halfway through sipping it down it occurred to me that I might just as well have been sipping down the iced beverage sitting on the other table in the hands of the sharp-suited businessman talking to the peroxide blonde. As a matter of fact, I started to wonder about it -  because it looked very like the sharp-suited businessman talking to the peroxide blonde was sipping my drink after all. I mentioned this to the sharp-suited businessman as I was getting ready to go, by way of a joke, and his face immediately turned several shades of purple; he began shouting at me fiercely, and he ripped a paper receipt out of his pocket and made passionate gesticulations at it. (Peroxide blonde, meanwhile, stirred her skinny latte whatever thing and looked out of the window.) I think he was still at it when I left.

 

One way of combating as much as possible the nebulous complexity encountered when going into cafes is by devising a short list of drinks to buy. Here is mine: 

- Milkshakes, because cafes can very rarely fuck these up. Anyone who wants a several gallon hit of lactose clearly doesn't care much about the environment or health, anyway.  

- Cappuccinos, just because. 

- Mochas, because they have chocolate in them. 

- Short blacks, because they're short and black: there's much less of them to stuff up. (It's the small target approach to barista-ing.) 

I suppose in a perverted way I envy the person who sashays into a cafe and insouciantly orders a skinny fair-trade frappucino-hold-the-sugar-with-a-light-and-zesty-infusion-of-nutmeg-saucily-shimmied-in-mountain-bear-yoghurt. It's not merely the obvious linguistic dexterity they possess, but the exoticism inherent in the names that roll off their tongue, the hint of something magic and sublime glimmering over the horizon. Envy, yes - but as for me, I'll stick to plain old cappuccino, thanksverymuch. 

Anyway, getting back to the odd thing that happened to me in the cafe, and that I thought was very odd indeed at the time and seems odder now, was this. I ordered one cappuccino. And the person next to me ordered exactly the same thing. One cappuccino. One. Cappuccino. 

Out of the vast swirling list of possibilities and probabilities, of coffees still to be made and combined, this network of might-haves and would-be and maybes, this giant ocean of theoretical futures, we two happened to choose the same drink. How bizarrely, extraordinarily, superbly, shockingly, terrifyingly, weirdly unlikely is that? Wouldn't it be akin to standing alone in the middle of the desert, underneath a cloudless sky, and being struck instantaneously by lightning? 

This is how I reacted: I grabbed my coffee and bolted down the hill. 

It was only later, reflecting upon the matter in the quietness of the office, that I was able to look upon the whole sordid affair with more sobriety and equanimity. 

And by the way

O let this morning train be late
Before it pulls in to the station
At a languid, lazy rate,
O let this morning train be late:
I want to finish chapter eight,
And spend some time in contemplation:
O let this morning train be late
Before it pulls in to the station.

What my night was like

And without further ado, here's some further ado.

Short title to title a short post

This is just a short post* to link another short post on Maria's blog, written about a short comment on this blog. Some things are shorter than this post, true. But very few things are postier.

*With a short title. See above!**
**And short footnotes.

Cri de apple core

Let's get voluptuous on margarine,
On rolling ravishments of Vegemite,
Toast God with steaming cups of Ovaltine.
Let's get voluptuous on margarine,
Eat pikelets with a fiery, fierce delight,
Lavished with lemons, and with five-day cream:
Let's get voluptuous on margarine,
On rolling ravishments of Vegemite.

Modern mental disorders

Pre-emptive hypochondriac post traumatic stress disorder (PHPTSD)
In this syndrome, the sufferer diagnoses themselves with a traumatic response to a coming personal crisis before that personal crisis has happened. Often, they will ask themselves questions about what will happen to them if something happens to them, and will usually experience flashforwards to the flashbacks they are going to have to some sort of traumatic event, whatever that traumatic event is going to be.

Spontaneous Tranquility Attack (STA)
The sufferer, often for no apparent reason at all, will find themselves undergoing sudden devastating feelings of calm, and thoughts like 'things aren't so bad, really', and 'isn't it a lovely day'. This is often disastrous for their nervous, high-paced lifestyle, as it results in lack of motivation and an inability to take seriously serious things seriously.

Glamnesia
The inability to remember minute details about a celebrity's life, despite being bombarded with those details, day in, day out, by every media source imaginable. This disorder is often treated by removing all the media sources from the sufferer, following which he or she will feel, for no apparent reason, as if they were missing out on something, though they're not sure what. After being exposed to celebrity media again, they will pay renewed interest to the details of the celebrity's personal life.

Multilateral summit personality disorder
A type of mass hysteria or delusion where all of the important members of a worldwide political summit decide, en-masse, that they are actually the collective delusion of a small, insignificant participant in that summit, a guy called Smith who has been sitting in the corner and quietly making notes on an Excel spreadsheet all this time. (Also known as reverse multiple personality disorder).

Advice for computer support staff

Computer support staff: when people in the office ask you to fix a problem that basically involves switching something on or plugging it in, tell them that the equivalator delivering negative protulance to the N2 and Z31 gates has been registering negative inflows, causing statistical imbalances in the flux capacitorial areas of the hardware leading to the software.

It's deceptive, it's untrue, it doesn't mean anything at all, but it'll make them feel so much better about forgetting to press a button. It'll also make you sound shit-hot smart.

It's the little things, folks, it's the little things.

Mixed metaphor poem

Or, Swine Flu over the Cuckoo's Nest

It's raining pigs with wings out there:

They're flying in the face

Of the wrong tree they are barking up:

They've lost the human race.

If you stand upon your morals,

Then you take it lying down.

So take the matter quietly while

You shout it round the town.

You might save the baker's dozen,

But then, bad luck comes in threes.

So if you lie with sleeping dogs,

Your cat might get the cheese.

Remember, look before you speak,

And think before you leap:

Stay on the flat and narrow road,

Although the hill is steep.

Don't count your ugly ducklings 'til

The golden eggs are cooked.

Don't pull the giant catch in

Until the goose is hooked.

Too many chefs make light work,

But always think of home:

And though you may stray far away,

All toads lead to Rome.

UPDATE! - In previous installments, a small talk poem, a non-sequitur poem, a manners poem, a dangling modifier poem, and an understatement poem.

Does anyone say this at home?

Shoosh! I'm listening to the PM on AM on the ABC on FM. It sounds like he's got PMT!

Me in the past, tense

I was reading somewhere the other day that the internet is an instantaneous medium while newspapers are time-constrained, or something along those lines. (It's funny, by the way, how even though internet sources of news and opinions are instantaneous they rely just as much upon received opinion like this - which is to say, cliches - as traditional forms of publishing. (Oh, wait, no it's not.)) 

Anyway, to all those people who maintain that the internet is instantaneous, I give them my email, at yahoo.com. I use this new, even-more-instantaneous service that they made me sign up to about a year ago. It's all right at home, but when I compose an email on a work computer (I do it at lunch break, okay?) things are different. Let's say I start my email with seven words or so: I type the words in, and five minutes later, they'll appear on the screen. By that time, I'll have been able to: 

- consider my spelling

- reconsider whatever I'm talking about, or arguing

- walk around the office and perform an old-fashioned, non-instantaneous (though faster) form of communication, such as talking

- make some coffee

- decide to delete the whole email and write something completely different.

Chances are, by the time I've finally typed up the email (some 20 words later) and sent it off, I'll have used up my whole lunch break. 

The internet is so instantaneous! It's almost as instantaneous as tectonic plate shift!