How to make things

How to use Einstein's theory of relativity, Darwin's theory of evolution, Grimm's law, and Gramscian Hegemony theory to bake a nice chocolate cake

Einstein's laws of relativity, Darwin's theory of evolution, Grimm's law, and Gramsci's hegemony theory are all revolutionary theories that have changed the world. Chocolate cake is a delicious substance that tastes nice. Now, you can apply the former to make yourself the latter! Doesn't that sound delicious?

YOU WILL NEED

- A nationful of supervillains
- An earth-sized planet orbiting a sun-sized star (no, not this one)
- A time-space continuum, about a hundred billion years in duration and several zillion square kilometres in volume
- A Large Hadron Collider, and several large hadrons to collide
- A trusty hammer
- A nail
- A bag of chocolate chips
- A telephone

HOW TO DO IT
1. Take the nationful of supervillains, from wherever you get that sort of thing, and put them on the earth-sized planet orbiting the sun-sized star, which you will have placed in a handy position in your own time-space continuum.

2. Apply Darwin's evolutionary theory, which states that in a place with limited resources, species will adapt themselves to take better advantage of those limited resources in the fight for survival. Over the centuries the supervillains will gradually evolve capabilities beyond any normal supervillains.

3. As the supervillains take over the earth-sized planet and discover the secrets of the sciences, put the chocolate chips in the Large Hadron Collider and collide a few hadrons into them.

4. Soon, the supervillains will take over the time-space continuum completely and will exist in a state of perpetual, all-out war with one another, and will use fantastic weapons that cause the time to bend in upon itself and space to curve until it almost collapses in on itself, according to the principles set out by Albert Einstein.

5. Nail the time-space continuum to the wall.

6. Phone to the Cheesecake Shop and order a nice chocolate cake from them instead.

Simple!

Perspective

Yesterday morning I heard that Oksana Grigorieva said that she lived with Mel Gibson for months while fearing that he would murder her.

Then I remembered that she was suing Mel for millions of dollars, which put matters neatly into perspective.

Afterwards I read that the entirety of Europe was in an economic decline, and would possibly be so for years, because of their single monetary currency, which placed everything into context.

Then I remembered that because of climate change nobody will be alive in a century anyway, which cast the news into a whole new light.

And then when I was on my lunch break I read that millions of years ago an object of infinite density and mass with the ability to devour whole solar systems was born, which is, or would have been rather grim news for the Earth if it happened to be anywhere near it, and everything fell into place.

Then I saw a shoe. It was quite pleasingly shoe-shaped. It cast the whole putting into perspective thing into a whole new light, and placed that casting into a whole new context, and all the casting-into-new-light and putting-into-perspective and falling-into-place were again put into perspective, and I took a broad view of the relative importance of the whole viewpoint. I mean, they were still bad and shit. But the shoe was shaped like a shoe.

What I mean is it sometimes helps to put the putting into perspective of certain matters neatly into perspective.

UPDATE! - I have no idea if there is a moral to this story, but perhaps if there is it goes something like this:

If Oksana Grigorieva and Mel Gibson collapse into a point of infinite density and suck up the entire European financial system into their naked singularity, and causing the planet to explode and making Tim Flannery worry even more about climate change, don't worry, just don't forget to wear your shoes.

Things the whole know should world

I just wrote the following sentence:

"Good Gasp!", I Godded.

Sometimes, I wonder if I carry my enthusiasm for spoonerisms a leetle too far. Other times, I just know.

Plagues, hordes, locusts, cats

We saw the locust invasion, we did. Hordes of them. Well, more like a single grasshopper which is, what, one thousandth of a single horde? Anyway, Harriet and Beatrice jumped on it every time it tried to hop away, and presented its mangled corpse to us later for inspection. I can't tell you how safe I feel now.

If God ever smites us with small native mammals like bilbies, or hordes of endangered birds, I reckon the cats would be pretty pleased with that, too.

REPORT
From Lieutenants 'arriet and Beatrice of the Anti-Locust Plague Brigade
To Dr PhD BA ESQ ASAP ETC Harlot

Well it was just like this, miss,
I was mindin' me own biz, miss,
I was marchin' with me sis, miss,
As a good cat oughter do.
When I saw with me own eye, miss,
Descendin' from the sky, miss,
A dark cloud on the fly, miss -
A 'OLE GRASS'OPPER CREW!

Well, they landed with a thump, miss,
With a boom and bang and bump, miss,
A battallion on the jump!, miss,
Grass'oppers on the 'op!
Well, I said then to my sis, miss,
"Bloody 'ell! We can't 'ave this!", miss,
'Cos it really was amiss, miss,
And we thought it oughter stop.

So we boxed 'em and we fought 'em, miss,
We chased 'em and we caught 'em, miss,
What a lesson we then taught 'em, miss,
We turned 'em on their ear;
An' if you cry, "I don't believe you!", miss,
We've a present 'ere to leave you, miss,
No, your eyes will not deceive you, miss -
'ERE'S ONE OF THE BLIGHTERS 'ERE!

Report written by Lieutenant 'arriet
Co signed by Lieutenant Beatrice.

How to catch things

A man: go up to his face and inhale deeply.

A cold: go up to his face and inhale deeply.

A mancold: go up to the face of a purple people eater and inhale deeply.

A ball: with your hands.

A football: with Gary Ablett's hands (rest of body not mandatory).

A taxi: with a very large hand.

A train: with extremely large hands, and gloves.

A falling star: with a black hole.

A meteorite that is going to cause colossal devastation to the earth: by consulting the timetable and being at the station a few minutes before it is due to arrive, except on Sunday.

A moment: with a camera.

A tune: with a somewhat unfocused camera, or possibly, a microphone.

A television show on when you are at work: with a mancold, and a television.

A fish: with a net.

An escaped criminal: by digging a criminal-shaped hole and waiting for them to fall in it.

An escaped criminal fish: with luck, they're especially slippery.

A period in history: with a history-shaped hole.

A runaway horse: by going up close to the face of a rugged manly-looking fellow from on the Snowy River and inhaling.

A wolf in sheep's clothing: with a huntsman in tree's clothing.

A nudist: with clothing.

A dwarf: with a giant.

A friend at a difficult moment: with an awkward pause.

A comma: with the hands of a linguistician.

A clause: with a comma.

A phrase: with a slogan.

A sentence: with a full stop.

To the beauteousness of the beautiful one in their beauteous beauty

You’re just like a beautiful sunrise
Except not quite,
There are generally less birds singing when you’re around
And you’re not so bright,
And if a sunrise walked in here
We’d all horribly fry,
But if you walked in here we’d probably be all right -
We wouldn’t even die.
And you have more legs
And more facial hair
And unlike a beautiful sunrise also
You only fill up some not all of the air.
You’re not very fleeting,
You’re slightly less cosmologically significant too
But in all other ways,
(With the exception of some),
I absolutely and utterly wouldn’t hesitate in any way to compare a beautiful sunrise to you.

UPDATE! - Something of an explanation here, if you can read it.

Workers seizing the means and arms and legs and brains and hearts and pancreases of production

I watched the new ABC drama Rake starring Richard Roxburgh. The first episode has Roxburgh’s character defending a ‘famous economist’ who turns out to be a cannibal.

Are you surprised that the economist – a Professor Murray – turns out to be a ‘Friedmanite’? He couldn’t be a Keynesian or Marxist could he?

Dear ABC Board,

Where are the Marxist cannibals on television screens, I ask you? What do you have against Marxist cannibals? Marxist cannibals have thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams just like the rest of us. Of course their hopes and dreams usually involving feasting on the sweet, sweet flesh of other people while turning their wealth over to large state-owned bodies, but that's no reason for you to ignore them.

I am not of course saying that the ABC should actively advocate on behalf of Marxist cannibals. That would be wrong, for the ABC, as you know, must remain politically unbiased and report all sides of the debate in a fair and balanced manner. I mean, neither you nor I may be Marxist cannibals - (well, maybe you are) - but we should look at least devote some time to examining this subculture. It's the only way we can change things for the better.

I look forward to the day when you rectify this imbalance and shows such as MARXIST CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE and KEYNESIANISM BESTIAL ORGY appear on our television screens.

Food for thought, eh? (No, no, not that sort of food.)

Thoughtfully,
TimT

An interesting point

I have a point to make.

Some of you may not see the point of the point, but others hopefully won't be disappointed at this point.

Here is the point.



Now, I hope you agree, wasn't that an interesting point? You're welcome.

I'm so tired I could sleep a horse

Sleep! Could there be anything better? It's hard to tell really, because if you are currently enjoying sleep then you aren't really able to say for sure, being asleep at the time. But it's certainly comforting and relaxing, much more comforting and relaxing than not-sleeping, which I suppose isn't always so bad, except if you happen to be not-sleeping at a time when you want to be sleeping. That's not very comforting and relaxing at all.

We must put a lot of work into sleeping. Just think of all the effort you go to to get things right when you are trying to sleep but are not-sleeping. You put your foot at a certain angle to the sheets, and then you put it at a different angle, you place your hands on the sheets and then you try and place them on yourself, you shift your weight to a slightly different position on your hips, you flip the pillow over to get to the cool side, and then five minutes later notice that the cool side has become the hot side, and so you flip it over again, you become hot and stick both arms out of the blankets for ventilation, and then notice that you are cold again and stick the arms under the blankets, and carry on doing this for quite some time, you rearrange your body so as to accommodate the cat that has decided to flop down on the bed beside you, but not in a way that you squash the other cat that is on the other side of you, and by this time you notice that the blankets have become messed and you can't possibly sleep in a bed where your feet keep on poking out the spot in the bottom created by the absence of blankets, and so you jump up and rearrange the blankets. All this is in the first half hour or so of going to bed.

A little later you end up actually going to sleep but only to dream fitfully about the British economy (but have you ever tried to have a non-fitful dream about the British economy?) because that was the article you read just before going to bed, or possibly you dream about pink elephants because that is what everyone is supposed to dream about, or maybe dishwashers wearing frilly underwear, which possibly all culminates in your formation of plans for a new British economic system based around pink elephants on dishwashers while wearing frilly underwear, but you can't know for sure because you weren't concentrating on the details, you were concentrating on trying to get some proper sleep, which you can't really because the blankets have become messed again and your arm is at an incorrect angle. By this point we've probably got up to the 45 minute mark after going to bed, and you've got another seven or so hours to go.

And of course it might be rather helpful if a scientist or philosopher or someone actually calculated the correct angle for your arms to go and the correct position for the blankets and the correct orientation around cats, and the right sort of article to read before going to bed, and so on, and so forth, so you can simply and neatly organise your position in bed and briskly and efficiently start sleeping, but I wonder if it ever will happen. I mean, if sleep is so relaxing and comfortable as everyone keeps saying, you can't really be brisk and efficient about it, can you? You just have to do what feels good at the time. But how do you do what feels good at the time when you can't find anything that feels good enough to make you relaxed and comfy?

It makes you wonder if sleep really exists. Maybe it's a legend invented to torment everyone who is not-sleeping, which is everyone. That would explain why we never remember what sleep actually is like afterwards.

All of which isn't really a way of leading up to this, a poem I wrote a few weeks ago, about sleep. It bears no relationship to my own life apart from the few bits where it does.

Marital serenade

O darling let us go to bed
And let us sleep from A to Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Come darling let us go to bed
And let us sleep from A to Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
A cat will lie upon your head
And in your nose its hairs will shed.

But darling, let us go to bed
And let us sleep from A to Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
A cat will lie upon your head
And in your nose its hairs will shed;
Upon my legs as they are spread
A dog will lay its sleepy head.

Yes darling, let us go to bed
And let us sleep from A to Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
A cat will lie upon your head
And in your nose its hairs will shed;
Upon my legs as they are spread
A dog will lay its sleepy head;
Upon my face a cat will tread
And miaow and miaow until it's fed.

We'll get no rest while we're in bed:
O darling, let's get up instead.

Federal Shadow whatever representing the federal seat of wherever

If you've been watching the pollies on telly - and there's no good reason why you should have been - then you might have noticed Federal Shadow whatever representing the federal seat of wherever, Barnaby Joyce, has taken to referring to his colleagues in the Liberal and National parties by a nickname, easily derived from either their first or last name:

John Cobb, Cobby
Simon Birmingham, Sime or Simo

And so on, you get the idea.

It must be pretty annoying, you'd think, dealing with this sort of thing, day in day out. Certain names would present particular problems to Joyce, though:

Fiona Nash - Nashy?

You'd end up not being sure whether you were talking about a person or a pear. On the other hand,

Bill Heffernan - Heiffer

actually seems quite appropriate.

But some difficulties must be insuperable. What must Barnaby call his dear leader

Tony Abbott -

Abbo? Abba? ABS? Each suggestion is more excruciating than the last. Someone has got to stop Joyce - before it's too late.

Barnaby Joyce, or, as certain very powerful and influential and high-up people like to call him, "Barnaby Joyce".

In explaining why he would not

In explaining why he would not participate in the discussion that perpetuated a tiresome and meaningless controversy about a particular media celebrity, he unwittingly participated in the discussion that perpetuated a tiresome and meaningless controversy about a particular media celebrity.

Later, he went on to write a series of articles that became a book further elaborating his explanation about why he would not participate in the discussion that perpetuated a tiresome and meaningless controversy about a particular media celebrity, which would ensure that the tiresome and meaningless controversy about that particular media celebrity would continue for some time, possibly until long after that particular media celebrity had died.

Some people theorise that he did this out of spite for the particular media celebrity who he did not, in fact, know.

Whenever people asked him if he could explain his explanation, he would threaten to write a sequel.

He died, one day, when he accidentally took a knife to a spoon fight and was instantly set upon by all the others. Few people attended his funeral.

Spot the differences - Melbourne Cup edition

Racing lady.



Racy lady.



Racist lady.

Very somewhat bigger events of the present day

I went into the city today and I saw:

Men
Women
Horses
Horse poo
Frilly dresses
Top hats
Fake moustaches
Unicycles
Bagpipes
People in horse costumes

This event wasn't, as you might expect, the Festival of Unicycles Sitting on top of Horses Placed on top of Men and Women, Standing, or the Grand Event of Bagpipes producing Horse Poo and People in Horse Costumes in Frilly dresses, or even the Exceptional Occurrence of Fake Moustaches on Top Hats, and it was certainly not the Gala Performance of Unicycle Playing Bagpiping People in Horse Costumes or the groundbreaking Worldwide Celebration of Horse Poo at which a whole bunch of horses, men, women, frilly dresses, top hats, fake moustaches, unicycles, bagpipes and people in horse costumes also, by the most amazing and unbelievable coincidence you could possibly be brought to believe, simply happened to be in attendance.

No, strangely enough, it was not any of those things. It was simply the smaller event before the somewhat bigger event that happens tomorrow. You know, the somewhat bigger event that is so somewhat bigger that I took two days off work to avoid it, even though it's a public holiday? Yeah, that one.

Um, that's about it really.

An in-depth examination of some problematic issues

Meat-eating! It's a difficult, complex subject, fraught with problems on all sides of the debate. On the one hand, meat tastes so goooood. On the other other hand...and here we get into the problems .

"Eating meat is wrong", say some people. Fair enough. That seems like a simple, uncomplicated, matter-of-fact statement. But what if the meat was made out of marshmallows, such as with the Marshmallow Man as you may have seen on Ghostbusters? Then things get a little more difficult. Let's break it down into pros and cons, shall we?

CON: The Marshmallow Man is fictional. But then, other types of naturally-occurring meat could be made out of marshmallow - who knows?

PRO: The Marshmallow Man is evil, and not eating him could lead to him wreaking untold devastation upon the cities of the world, even if he is fictional.

CON: It would probably be cannibalistic to eat the Marshmallow Man, unless he could be scientifically demonstrated to be actually a different species to homo sapiens. Even then, there would be some doubts. I have no idea what my eight year old nephew eats, though I wouldn't be surprised if it was nothing but marshmallows, and it wouldn't be a good thing to eat him.

CON: Marshmallows aren't particularly healthy. As Christ said, or would have said if he was asked about the subject, "Man cannot live on marshmallows alone."

Also to be taken into account, CON, you may not like marshmallows anyway, and CON, why should innocent marshmallows suffer just for you or me, although, PRO, the marshmallow-man-flesh could easily be substituted for something else, like meringue-bacon or gingerbread-yak-ribs.

But suppose you really do like marshmallows. What, then, if the marshmallows on this putative marshmallow animal were made out of fish? That is another hard question. It is a hard, difficult, morally fraught question that torments modern-day society: 'why did people start inventing marshmallows made out of fish? They taste disgusting!' The answer we are normally given to this question is, 'maybe'. And I'm sure both you and I know what we think about that.

In conclusion, don't eat your nephew. Eat a marshmallow instead, with sauce.

Like coffee without sugar, milk, water, or coffee

"The hymnal didn't have any music in it. It was Presbyterian."

I always did think tuneless and gloomy mumbling was the best method of hymn delivery, anyway.

The lack of all these positrons puts me in a very negative frame of mind

I was reading on Catallaxy the other day that

The Australian Conservation Foundation has hit back, releasing the results of a national poll of some 1500 people that appears to confirm that over three-quarters are in favour of the problems of the Murray-Darling being fixed...

and that (according to the ACF)

New polling shows more than three quarters of Australians (77 per cent) agree that degradation of the Murray-Darling needs to be fixed now...

Blimey. Sounds serious. These people being polled are in favour of problems being fixed, and shortages being rectified. As for that one quarter of people who aren't in favour of a problem being fixed, well, one wonders what they'll do if a problem happens to them? That would be very problematic, indeed.

Then again, most people would probably agree with a survey statement statement that 'there are too many chemicals in our food' or 'we have to stop using chemicals in cleaning products'. (Although of course almost everything is made out of chemicals.) That's all right, it doesn't make them stupid - you don't have to go around carrying a set of dictionary definitions in your head to be considered intelligent - but it would seem to indicate that survey results can sometimes be a little bit, er, misleading.

It makes you wonder what people won't agree to on surveys. I've got one or two surveys of my own in mind, something like...

Do you strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree with the following statements:

1. There is a shortage of positrons in this section of the universe, and something should be done to rectify this shortage before nothing is done.

2. All religions should be respected, and so there is nothing wrong with the worship of Cthulhu.

3. There is a lack of neutrinos in our galaxy, and we need immediate government funding to rectify this imbalance.

4. Problems are bad, and badness is wrong, so we should all do something random immediately in order to stop this wrong badness from causing problems.

Thank you for your assistance. I look forward to drafting a self-righteous press release and hurling it at every available media source as soon as the results of this survey are back in.

The boot is one of Australia’s proudest traditions

Since everybody’s talking about this issue, I will too. It seems a disgruntled voter took the chance to sink the slipper in to former Prime Minister John Howard yesterday.



He was quickly shoed out of the place by ABC staff.

It seems to me that this so-called shoe-of-arms is a decidedly ambiguous policy. For one thing, it makes him seem like a shoe-off, with no substance. Also, what if he really decides to sock it to the Prime Minister? Is this going to become the stocking-trade of political debate? Then again, it was years ago that John Howard first started talking about flip-flops, and I’d imagine he’s still thinging the same thong now.

While it’s worthwhile trying to raise important is-shoes in innovative ways, one would hope this manner of debate will be es-shoed in future.

UPDATE! A tosser. Another tosser. (Via here and here.)

Serene songs of suburbia

Sounds made by the boys next door playing Xbox (and by boys I mean 25 plus year old men):

BANG! BANG! SMASH!
O MUDDAFUCKA!
COMEHEREAGAIN!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!
YEAH!
BANGYBANGYSMASHILYBANG!
FARK. ME. DEAD.
POWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOW!
HEY COME ON! HEY WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Some of those sounds were made by the computer. Not that it changes things much.

Cigarette smoking fish

Today the Baron and I saw Gainsbourg, a film about the life of French singer, song-writer, performer, and whatever else, Serge Gainsbourg. It consists of a series of pleasingly arranged sounds and colours, like a jazz piece, and it doesn't really end up going anywhere much, again like a jazz piece. There's an enjoyable animated opening credit sequence, with cigarette-smoking fish - and a series of gigantic puppets toddling around, for no particular reason - and, oh, a supermodel wandering along a corridor wearing a leopard-skin jacket with an Afghan terrier in tow. That supermodel is Brigitte Bardot, or rather an actor playing Brigitte Bardot, and of course a dog actor acting the part of Brigitte Bardot's original dog. Seeing as Brigitte Bardot was famous for looking beautiful and pouting, the actor playing her does her best to do the same thing, and almost nothing but; it's a good performance but I don't know whether she should win any prizes for it. There's also a lot of wallpaper, black satin sheets, and turquoise couches, so much so that when people appear they mostly get in the way: but the nice thing about wallpaper is it never complains about being upstaged, even when it should. Oh, and of course, there's smoking - my God is there smoking, with people wandering around everywhere with ciggies stuck in their mouths, doing not-particularly-interesting-things and making slightly-more-interesting clouds above their heads while they do them.

I don't really know what to say more than that; actually I suspect I could have said a lot less. I enjoyed seeing the film but would have equally enjoyed not seeing it. It was like Sunday afternoon television, at the cinemas on Sunday morning. Fair enough then.

Deep in the ancient primal darkness

Deep in the ancient primal darkness of prehistoric times - don't worry about what we're doing deep in the ancient primal darkness of prehistoric times, that's not the point - anyway, deep in the ancient primal darkness of prehistoric times stalks the primordial cat. It is hunting the prey of all cats, since time immemorial - a nice juicy plateful of Iams, or can of Whiskas, or something like that. Fierce! Vigilant! Unrelenting! does the primordial cat stalks its pathetic prey, as it whimpers in its pitiable weakness and vulnerability.

Somewhere in this barren wilderness, in the ancient primal darkness (et cetera) there sits a chair. It is a very nice chair, as chairs go - with lovely little flowers embroidered over it, and splotches of this and blotches of that. (And don't go asking what a lovely chair like that is doing in prehistoric times. What, you let the plateful of Iams and the can of Whiskas slip by, and now you start asking unhelpful questions?) And also, it has very nice looking comfortable cushions tastefully arranged on it in a way that make it look very inviting. And maybe an antimaccassar.

The primordial cat, savage and sleek, comes to the chair. And sits down upon it.

And here we come to, or rather sit down upon, my point (and my point is of course a metaphor, otherwise it would rather hurt our bottoms, sitting down on it). In this unforgiving Darwinian wilderness, where the struggle for scarce resources and bowls of Iams and all that goes on day after day, night after night, what is this primordial cat doing sitting on this chair? In such a way that the blotches and splotches on its coat coincide so neatly with the splotches and blotches on the upholstery of the chair? Does this not strike you as a design flaw? For if, by some happenstance, in this brutal, horrible, deadly prehistoric landscape the primordial chap should come along, what would there be stopping him from sitting upon that chair (for of course the primordial chap wasn't there when the cat got on the chair, and now can't make out the cat-like blotches from the chair-like splotches) and squashing the cat?

This scenario, I believe, refutes both naive Darwinian evolutionary theory, and Creationist argument-by-design. For by what evolutionary process could Nature have brought her cat, the huntress, up to this point, where it so perfectly camouflages with a chair - when that very ability to camouflage itself renders it helpless when it confronts the substantial posterior of its most deadly enemy? Nor can Christian believers take comfort from this scenario either. What on earth did God put a chair in that barren wilderness for? It's much better in the lounge room.

I take my last words from William Blake, who should have known better than to say he wrote this, 200 years before I was born:

Kitten! Kitten! Burning bright!
In the sofas of the night!
If I were a Whiskas plate,

I'd be in quite a frightened state!

What the dickens! Look, a bum!
Descending from the sky, it comes!
Scatter! Vanish! Run away!
Or someone here will rue the day!

Kitten! Kitten! Burning bright!
In the sofas of the night!
If I were a Whiskas plate,

I'd be in quite a frightened state!

Important reflections on groundbreaking events

Forgot to take tea bags into work again today. If this goes on for much longer, I might have to resort to straining the paperclips for juice, or boiling the dental floss in my drawer.

How to keep your chakra and chi in perfect alignment without endangering toddlers

A 2 year old toddler has been mauled after a woman's spirit dog escaped and went on a rampage, it has been reported.

"I don't know why it happened," said Dawn Fairychild Crystal-Aubergine, of Daylesford. "He was always such a peaceful spirit dog, inspiring my soul, and providing me with calm and tranquil guidance in my day to day problems, and keeping my chakra and chi in perfect alignment. I don't see how he could do this."

This is the fifth such spirit dog attack in recent months, but it pales in insignificance to the great spirit tiger rampage of 1972, in which the spirit guide of a lonely, reclusive old man living in Palo Alto, California, escaped and ate several members of the town.

There have been renewed calls for greater regulation and licensing of spirit animals following this attack. Meanwhile, Ms Crystal-Aubergine says next time, she'll get a smaller, safer spirit guide. "I'm thinking a spirit tarantula", says says. "They're so furry! Everyone loves them!"

Story in two sentences

He was a member of the small but influential spoonerist faction of the Republican Party. He believed in the right to arm bears.

Factual factoids!

When squeezing into a tight place, everyone knows that making audible 'eeeeeee' noises while you are doing the squeezing facilitates the process. Similarly, when rising out of bed first thing in the morning, it is a widely attested fact that a series of short, rapid exhalations from the mouth - 'Oooh-booh-booh-booh-booh-booh' - make you quicker and more efficient, in the same manner as grease makes a wheel quicker and more efficient. And when you are getting into a hot bath: obviously you make the bath cooler by making short, punctuated syllabic barks, such as 'Ah! Ooh! Eh! Hah!' This is a very scientific process that has been measured in laboratories (or something like that), and there is even a scientific formula associated with the rate of cooling:

r = abd

Where r = rate of cooling, a = air temperature, b = amount of short, punctuated syllabic barks by person getting into bath, and d is an arbitrarily defined constant. (Very arbitrarily defined, since I don't know what it is.)

One more factoid for you: it is well known that if you have a cat sitting on your lap, you don't have to do anything for the rest of the day. You certainly don't have to go to work. Now, if only my lap could find one of our cats...

Thunk for the day

'Nonplussed'? What kind of a word is that, anyway? How is it possible for someone to be 'nonplussed' if they can't be 'plussed?' Tell me that!

That is a problem that leaves me absolutely - well, not 'nonplussed', but 'completely puzzled', and 'in a state of utter perplexity.'

Reportage on the weekendage that occured seven days ago

Last Saturday afternoon the Baron and I bought a house. That's good news, true, but even worse than that - it's embarrassing news. How am I going to admit it to everybody? Friends are visiting from Perth at the moment; I still haven't broken the news to them. Perhaps if we break it to them gently - sit them down, speak in very calming and reassuring voices - everything will be all right. Even so, admitting to something like this creates a certain expectation: every time they visit from now on, they'll be expecting a new dramatic announcement, like, 'oh, we bought the royal yacht', or, 'oh, we've opened up an antique wig emporium', or, 'by the way, I am wearing gold-laced underwear'. So you see the embarrassment inherent in the situation.

But anyway, house-buying! Who would have thought this was going to happen, hey? When we were tromping around Lalor, going to other auctions (we went to three auctions on the day), I was secretly afraid that we would accidentally bid for a house, and accidentally buy it. (You know, by unintentionally chewing our thumb* in a way that the real estate agent would construe as a $1 million bid, or something like that. I'm sure it's happened before.) Accidentally buying a house would be rather expensive. And of course embarrassing. Even more embarrassing and accidental than intentionally buying a house and then accidentally admitting to it, say, on a blog. Hmmm.

***

Let me rephrase this post.

Last Sunday morning I accidentally stepped in something the cat puked on the carpet. It put certain matters of a general nature neatly into perspective.

*Yes, we have only one thumb between us. We share. Sharing is caring.

Historical snippet

Phar Lap’s brother, Halph Lap, didn't run very fast, but for a horse he was very talented in other areas, such as advanced macrame and making the perfect souffle. Tragically, he never really got the recognition he deserved.

A positive and practicable suggestion

It's gay to be gay, but it both is and isn't gay to say that being gay is gay.

In other news, it just occured to me today that gays could adopt a similar lexical twist to the term 'homophobe' as others have applied to the term ‘gay’. ‘Homophobe’ could mean ‘happy’, and would result in loving conversations like the following:

‘Does this weather make you homophobe?’
‘I’m so homophobe to see you!’
‘Homophobe homophobe joy joy
Homophobe homophobe joy joy
Homophobe homophobe joy joy
Homophobe homophobe joy joy!’

I can’t see how this could go wrong.

Man was not born to fly - an epigram

Man was not born to fly.
It’s crowded up there in the sky -
With savage Lepidopteras
And also, helicopterers.

A tale of two Melbournes

A tale of two Melbournes: one thinks Malthouse is a theatre. The other thinks Malthouse is a footy coach. And they were each completely unaware of one another's existence - until now!

UPDATE! - Two Sydneys: one thinks the STC is a theatre company, the other that it is a horse-racing outfit.

Two Canberras: some people think the city actually exists, while everyone else knows better.

Experts in the science of television say yes

First came Hamish MacBeth, which was a series about an isolated UK village with a rather-higher-than-usual rate of quirky crimes by crazy criminals. Then came Midsummer Murders, a show about a remote UK principality with a definitely-greater-than-is-often-the-case quantity of gruesome killings and savage slaughters. Then came Doc Martin, an ongoing look at a rural UK township with a quantitatively-larger-by-an-exponential-amount of crazy conditions and shocking syndromes of the medical and/or surgical variety.

I mean, where are they going with this? If the Poms keep on making telly shows like this, soon enough we'll have Actuarial Accountancy Aldfordshire, a riveting televisual dramatisation about a small town facing a plethora of problems with the method used in computing the periodic payments that a company must make to fund its employee pension benefits. Every week, there's a new company with a new problem relating to its employee pension benefits. Plus, don't forget to tune in for the soppy ongoing love story thrown in at the last five minutes!

Television. Has it gone too far?

Story with a somewhat generic title but very edifying contents

He started off with Blair's law. She replied with Pavlov's law. He countered with Murphy's law. She parried with Godwin's law. He applied Occam's razor. She came at him with Heisenberg's cat, Pavlov's dog, and Schoenberg's budgerigar. He attacked with Escher's solids, Klein's bottle, and Rorscharch's handkerchiefs. As their argument raged, it became apparent to both of them that their life was an example of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. So they did the hokey pokey and turned around, and that was what it was all about.

Very epic post

Went to type something into google. Then realised I had completely forgotten what I was going to type into google, so I just typed 'kittens' in instead, then stared at the pictures. They were oddly disappointing.

Six word review of my blog

Doesn't live up to expectations.

Notes on a website

The Big Dugong is nice. The Big Elephant is kinda small, for an elephant. The Big Marree Man is weird. The Big Abalone is imaginative. Berri has a Big Orange, but Orange does not have a Big Berry. The Big Milkshake is Cholesterolific. For some reason Albury-Wodonga’s World’s Largest Air Guitar isn’t included. And for some other reason there are lots and lots and lots of Big Fish.

Big Things

Not for the faint of heart

Write an article for the Agricultural Times on the effect of hotter-than-usual meterological conditions on sheep entitled 'In this withering weather, whither the wether: whether the weather will wither the wether.'

Nice one, Language. You nearly had me there for a second.

'Elephant' sounds very much like 'elegant'. But just you try going up to a lady and saying, 'you look very elephant in that dress'. Go on, do it now!

On the other hand, 'rhinoceros' doesn't sound very much like 'toilet impersonating duck', and I think we all know what that means.

You just can't trust Language. It'll always try and put one past you.

Offended? I'll give you offended!

I'll tell you what I get offended by. Those incredibly rude people who stand still on the right-hand side of the escalator. They get in the way of all those people who want to try a spot of 'run in the opposite direction to that way in which the escalator is going'.

This has been brought to you by Tim, advocate of the 'Rigidly Enforce Rules of Etiquette In Those Situations In Which The Ridiculous Whims of One Person Are Inconvenienced by the Normal Behaviour of Many Others' school of thought.

UPDATE! - Elevators are also good for playing 'corners' on. I'm not quite sure how yet, I haven't worked that one out. In the meantime, next time you're on an elevator, improvise.

Untied Nations

THE United Nations was set today to appoint an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist to act as Earth’s first contact for any aliens that may come visiting.

- UN to appoint Earth contact for aliens (thanks Caz!)

I've noticed a bit of commentary about this news story in the last few days. However, I'm slightly surprised that no-one has mentioned the obvious point yet: who knows if the United Nations really does exist?

I for one am still a skeptic when it comes to the question of the UN. No firm evidence has come in either way. While the existence of the UN remains a tantalising possibility, giving hope and meaning to tens of millions of people (or maybe just tens) whose lives would otherwise be spiritually impoverished, where is the clear, factual, undeniable proof?

I accept that there are many, many people out there who have based their entire careers around the existence of the UN. There have been thousands of so-called demonstrations of the UN's existence, in documentations of meetings, photographs of members, and news stories about apparent 'leaders' of the 'UN' who express 'deep concern' about a number of events in the world. And yet, if such an organisation really exists, why does it never seem to make anything happen? And why is the documentation of UN meetings so difficult to understand? What makes the goals of this supposed organisation so nebulous, and how come the public statements attributed to them so full of bland generalisations? Wouldn't it be simpler if we argued that the 'United Nations' isn't really the 'United Nations' at all, but just a group of old men and women meeting in buildings around the world and saying a number of important sounding, but meaningless, things in order to get attention and feel better about themselves?

And yet, it is true, there is a genuine mystery out there about the existence of the UN. The reasons these people keep on meeting up, given their failure to achieve lasting world peace or an end to world poverty, is very mysterious indeed, after all.

But in the end we must be practical about this: what will happen if the aliens do attempt to make contact with the UN and find that they don't exist after all? Like God attempting to contact Moses and instead getting his annoying little brother Nigel, that would be pretty annoying for all concerned, and could possibly end up in devastation for the entire human race.

Perhaps one day members of the UN will make contact with the rest of us, and a new age of enlightenment and civilisation and peace will dawn, but until then, I'm afraid I will have to remain a skeptic.

Ban Ki-Moon: is he the head of a hypothetical organisation known as the UN, or does he lead a pointless life following meaningless rules and uttering nonsensical statements in the service of an organisation that does not actually exist? No-one can really know for sure.

S-O-O-T-H-I-N-G

A soothing poem in capital letters

SOFT AND LOW, SWEET AND LOW
HOW SOFTLY DOES THE RIVER FLOW
INTO THE DARK AND RESTFUL NIGHT,
IT BURBLES IN ITS CALMING FLIGHT.
O! HARK! AND LISTEN, LOVE, TO HEAR
THOSE SOOTHING SOUNDS FALL ON YOUR EAR!

What the cool kids do for fun

You wouldn't believe the amount of pleasure I get from typing a sentence, and using a well-placed comma in the middle of it. Hyphens, colons, single quotation marks, double quotation marks, and parentheses are equally satisfying: but the frisson of pleasure I get upon using a semi-colon, in an appropriate fashion, in the midst of a series of clauses is so unbelievable, that if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. (And nor, possibly, would I). I have been known to spend minutes, and sometimes hours, putting commas, hyphens, and colons into a poem, merely to take them out again later and replace them with something else. As Oscar Wilde once said:

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

It's what the cool kids do for fun, after all.

How the capitalist pig was a badger really, and something to do with hamsters and weasels as well

Look at this badger! Isn't he happy! He's happy because it's spring! And he's on a spring! And.... um.... anyway, this is on the cover of his latest zine, Badger's Dozen 4. Which is another reason why he's happy, because he's very pleased with it. It has plenty of fun things in it! Like cranky penguins! Sleazy weasels! Dangerous hamsters! And a boring Victorian gentleman! Do you want a copy of this zine? You can pay his secretary (which is me) three dollars on paypal, not forgetting of course to include an address and contact details - (it's linked to my email, timhtrain at yahoo.com.au. I have no idea how they do this. Good vibes, or something?)

To conclude in the manner of all capitalist pigs: oink oink! Wallow wallow! Buy buy!

UPDATE! - You can also get copies at Sticky Institute, in Melbourne!

I'll take miscellaneous

When I took my trip over to the US a couple of years back I found that I was asked two types of questions, over and over. The first was: "Why did you come here?" or "what are you doing over here?" The second was: "Oh my God, are you English?" Or: "Oh my God, are you British?" And, a few times: "Oh my God! Are you Irish?" And on one occasion, I remember, the two questions merged, resulting in the following memorable conversation. It happened while I was standing in a queue for theatre tickets in New York:

WOMAN: Oh my God, are you English? What did you come over here for, you have such wonderful theatre over there!

ME: No, I'm Australian actually.

WOMAN: Oh. I see.

ME: No, no, we have theatre in Australia too! It's a recent invention!

And that was the end of the conversation, and the relationship, too, for that matter.

The reason why I mention this all now is owing to the discussion about a side issue raised in the course of a political post by one of my favourite US bloggers, Paco - because in attempting an Australian accent (in the title) Paco may have unintentionally come up with something far closer to 19th century cockney. It is, I think, an example of a curious linguistic effect caused by the long separation of the US and the UK from one another, and Australia from both. We share the same language, pronounce the same language differently, and hear our different pronunciations of the same language differently again. "Two countries divided by a common language" doesn't quite cover it anymore, especially when you throw into the mix other Anglosphere countries such as New Zealand and South Africa and Canada.

The thing is, as I discovered, being in possession of an accent that sounds like an Australian accent to Australian ears is entirely different to being in possession of an accent that sounds like an Australian accent to American ears. And, for that matter, an accent that sounds like an English accent to English ears may not be the same thing as an accent that sounds like an English accent to American ears, or an accent that sounds like an English accent to Australian ears; and while a US listener may be able to perfectly identify where a US accent comes from, a listener from Australia may not even be able to tell with any certainty whether it comes from Canada or Texas.

Certainly not me. I might be an Australian but I can't even remember sometimes whether I'm supposed to say 'napkin' or 'serviette'; I don't know anymore whether you say 'prawn' or 'shrimp'; and I sure as hell don't understand what the difference is between a 'state' and a 'territory'. Give me a few more years and I'll start calling utes 'lorries' and get confused about that, too. When it comes to identifying US accents, hey, I'll have a go at identifying them, but you won't get me much further than saying 'it's from the north' or 'it's from the south' or 'um, is he/she from New York?'

But remember, this is all coming from a person, me, who probably thinks that Idaho is a city in Florida, Ulysses S. Grant got his middle name because his parents were admirers of Harry S. Truman, Harrison Ford is one of the presidents of the US, that Abraham Lincoln settled Salt Lake City before being shot by Edward Kennedy, that Teddy Roosevelt wrote the bill of independence after winning the civil war against General Custer at Lexington Green, and that there are 57 US states, including South Carolina, North Carolina, West Carolina, and Nor-nor-east Virginia. Just as you, a person from the US (except those of you who are not) probably think (unless you do not) that Sydney is the capital city of Australia, that Canberra is the name of the island separate to the mainland, that Tasmania is the name for a type of insanity developed by overseas travellers isolated in the Australian outback, that Julia Gillard is Australia's first elected woman president, or that Melbourne is the capital city of the eastern state of Victoria (okay, that last one is just too ridiculous to believe).

Why should somebody from the US trust a judgement about their accent coming from me? Why should I necessarily expect their judgements about my accent to be any better - or worse? Is it any wonder that the way I hear how they say what they say, whenever they say it, is vastly different to the way they hear how they say what they say, whenever they say it?
Australian accents sound like English accents to Americans. American accents probably sound Canadian to the English. The Canadians sound just a little bit English to Australians. The English probably think the Canadians sound like a cross between South Africans and New Zealanders. And God knows what the Canadians think of all this. (I assume they're too busy fighting off the hordes of savage caribou to be reading this blog.) And when - dear God - we try and imitate one another we often end up sounding like a parody of a send up of a satire of a second-hand imitation of someone else entirely.

It doesn't help - or perhaps it does - that our national stereotypes abroad are so very very different to those national stereotypes at home. Folks from the US and the UK sometimes seem to think that an ordinary day in the life of an Australian involves swimming through a raging torrent while fighting off starving crocodiles, dodging the attacks of a variety of venomous snakes, jellyfish, marsupials, lizards, and hummingbirds, before arriving at home to have a lamb chop for dinner, with meat pie for dessert. Well none of that is true, except for the crocodiles bit, and most of them are tame now anyway. Given the popularisation on the telly of weirdos and whackos like Crocodile Dundee or the Crocodile Hunter, it's no surprise that nobody recognised me as an Australian when I was holidaying overseas. Quite aside from anything else, where was my knife?

It was ever thus. Some 500-and-a-bit years ago when Christopher Columbus took a trip over the seas and found the Indians over there, he mistook them for, well, Indians. Maybe if he'd carried on to India he would have mistaken the Indians for Egyptians, or Chaldeans, or Sumerians, or Akkadians, or some other, wilder variant of humanity. It is pleasant and, on the whole, rather complimentary to realise that, as an Australian, you are seen by many Americans as some other exotic species of humanity, be it English, Irish, South African, or miscellaneous. To realise that one person from one nation can actually seem like several people from several nations, depending on who they are talking to, makes the world seem wider, more strange, and more wonderful than it has hitherto appeared.

What I am saying - well, I don't know what I am saying, but I guess what I am saying is that, in this atmosphere of mutual misunderestimation, and incomprehensions arising out of failed attempts to clear up past misinterpretations of certain international preconceptions that had arisen previously, an international environment of tolerance and mutual respect has developed. And isn't that nice.

I can’t believe it took me five years to invent this pun.

Popperganda.

Now give me another five years and I might be able to tell you why I felt an urge to share it with you all.

Using it in a sentence

"Prosaic language cannot convey the experience."

*

The axe-wielding maniac had a very prosaic howl.

*

The box that contained the rare blood-sucking butterfly looked very grey and prosaic.

*

The boring poems written by the boring poet were very prosaic.

*

"PAY ATTENTION OLD MAN!" woofed Lassie. "TIMMY O'TOOLE HAS FALLEN DOWN THE WELL, AND ONLY HE KNOWS ABOUT THE SECRET GESTAPO PLANS FOR INVASION!"

"What a prosaic bark you have, Lassie," said Grandfather McGurrity, and patted the pretty dog on its pretty little head.

*

The highly intelligent professor, who had made it her life's work to study the conduits, sewers, and drainage systems of cities and towns all over the world, at various points in human history, the ditch water was not prosaic at all. It was highly poetic, in fact, and caused a deep spiritual yearning to awaken within her soul.

To everyone else, however, the ditch water was very prosaic. The ditch water was, to employ a term, as dull as ditch water. Indeed, to some of them, the ditch water was even more dull than ditch water. You can't get more prosaic than that.

*

The books that were given to the class of very talented music students were rather prosaic. Consequently, when exam time came, they all failed.

*

It was then that the nightingale decided that it was rather prosaic singing the same song, night after night. It entered law school the day after and became a barrister in a top legal firm, and never sang again.

Not feeling very positronic about all this

I got this from Steve, who got it from Nature, who got it from scientists who should have really known better.

To demonstrate special relativity, which says that time slows down for moving objects, the researchers jolted the single atom in their optical clock so that it oscillated at relative speeds of less than 10 metres per second.

Jolting and jiggling atoms, twitching neutrons, wiggling photons, bouncing light waves - don't these scientists ever leave those poor little atoms and quarks and leptons alone? Do they think they have a right to go around batting and banging items of indeterminate mass and velocity all over the place? It's a disgrace. Granted, all these little hadrons and leptons and quarks and positrons and what-not are too small, and in some cases too theoretical, to see, but what if some guy put those little things there for a reason? I know how I'd feel if a particular sub-atomic particle in my possession was being poked and prodded by interfering scientists, and the feeling that I would be feeling would not be a good feeling at all.

And I don't even want to give those theoretical physicists, with their particle accelerators, and hadron colliders (oh! oh! oh! how'd you feel if I collided into YOUR hadron one of these days, bastards!) the privilege of being talked about. Those hooligans of the physicist profession, spending all their days whizzing those teensy-tiny particles, that don't know any better, around at massive speeds, and smashing them into things! It's horrible, I tell you.

Let's face it, one of these days, those scientists will run out of particles to poke and prod and pull and jiggle and jolt and jump and bounce and bang and flick and oscillate and stimulate and tittilate and irritate, and then what will we do? Because we're made out of those particles, probably we'll be oscillating all over the place at various frequencies. And no-one wants that. This day will be billions upon billions of years in the future, of course - so I'd better put the tea on before it happens.

Scientists! Bunch of rapscallions, I tell you!

Proposal for a new AFL team

So after this whole football Grand Penultimate today, with Collingwood being the team everyone loves to hate, and the Saints being the team everyone hates to love, I thought I'd propose a new football team. A team for the times. A team for the mystifying, baffling, pointless, directionless times we all live in. The team that everyone doesn't care about not caring about.

Name of team
North-South-East-Western Globules

Colours
Grey and beige.

Location
Undecided, of course, though maybe Eden-Monaro is the place for them, since that lot are permanently undecided.

Team song
CHORUS: Carn! Carn! The grey and the beige!
Maintain your ineffectual rage!
Fight fight fight! War war war!
And win a devastating draw!

VERSE: Hey, is there anything else on the telly man?
No, I don't care if we are at the stadium, seriously, change channels.

CHORUS: Carn! Carn! etc.

Team food
Cinnamon donuts, with a hole so big that there's no donut left over.

Possible chants
Meh.

Like, you know, whatever.

Huh.

It's never too late!
Equivocate!

Team philosophy
It doesn't matter if you draw or lose, what matters is how indifferently you play the game.

Have you ever...

... typed 'poolitician' into the computer accidentally and been tempted to not change the spelling at all?

UPDATE! - 'Pooet' is a good one too.

For no reason at all

The poys! the poys!

Will they doy
Or will they floy?
We'll find out
Boy and boy.

Either woy
After todoy
Some team will be
So very goy.

How to tell a St from a St.

Don't pray to a St
Just use your ft.
And show some restrt
Don't walk on a St.

You may have no idea what I am talking about. If it's any consolation, I have even less. Thus I consider it a credit to my talent for journalistic research to have produced such eloquent results from such a paucity of material.

Proposed advertising campaigns for somewhat obscure or offputting products

Here is a song I wrote about suet. I can see it spearheading a national ad campaign championing the virtues of this fatty fat that comes from around an animal's loins and kidneys. Now I think I'll just sit back and wait for the ad dollars to roll in...

Making pudding?
Have a cruet?
Want to glue it?
I know
Why not
Try some
Suet!

You won't rue it!
Have some suet!
Do it! Do it! Do it! Suet!

Have you tried it?
I intuit
That the suet
Was quite helpful
Yes I knew it!

You won't rue it!
Have some suet!
Do it! Do it! Do it! Suet!

Or an appropriate vegetarian substitute.

Now let me tell you a small story about one of my cats

I dedicate this entire poem to Mitzi G Burger, who was there the whole time.

THE INCOMPLEAT HARRIET

I sing now of a certain cat,
With coat of grey and four white socks,
Oft running round our little flat,
And in and out of every box,
And chewing on the old straw hat,
And even in MILADY’S frocks,

Hight HARRIET. She loves to pace
Alone along the street and then
With sister BEATRICE to chase
The neighbour’s chickens in their pen,
To right around the garden race,
Then through the window home again.

Whereat regaled with cuts of meat
Both sisters then with pleasure dine;
She cleans her coat, and all four feet,
She licks her tail back into line,
And after this she finds a seat,
And with a sigh she does recline.

Alas! Ambition pricks the breast
Of man and beast, of friend and foe.
A home for cats is comfiest -
THIS cat would on adventures go,
And keep her HUMANS from their rest,
The truth of which you soon shall know.

For once when dusk drew down the sky
She heard Adventure’s miaowing call,
And with a soft and swift goodbye
She silent stole into the hall,
With questing heart and roaming eye -
And did not come back home AT ALL!

Unknowing did her HUMANS wait
For HARRIET to homewards come,
Hoping, yearning, praying late
That HARRIET would cease her run -
For what is fun at one to eight
Is not so much at EIGHT TO ONE.

What nervous thoughts her HUMANS nursed
- O how and why and what and where -
They thought their anxious hearts would burst,
They searched the street, they searched the stair,
They hoped the best, they feared the worst -
They could not find her anywhere.

At last the HUMANS homewards drew -
And let us leave them fretting there,
Their brains beset with thoughts of rue,
And hearts bewrayed with woeful care,
While we our heroine pursue
Who vanished has into thin air.

Now just imagine you’re a cat
With things to see and things to do;
You wonder where the action’s at.
A doorway opens – just for you -
The doorway to another flat,
Containing vistas fresh and new…

For this, it can be now disclosed,
Is what occurred to HARRIET;
And though the door behind her closed,
She was on exploration set!
Each object in the flat was nosed -
It was her best adventure yet!

And while her HUMANS wailed and wept
And wondered why she ran away,
Why, HARRIET round the lounge room crept,
And clawed a couch or two in play,
From chair to stool to bench she leapt,
Past pots and pans in bright array.

Her HUMANS’ thoughts were doom and gloom;
They wondered where their cat could be,
But HARRIET went from room to room,
Exploring to the nth degree
The cupboard where was held the broom,
The jars of raisin and split pea,

And not forgetting to survey
The fruit bowl by the table head,
The line of bills laid out to pay
From black and white to in the red -
And finally, in bold assay
She leapt and curled up on the bed.

In restless sleep and sleepless rest
In bed the HUMANS tossed and turned;
In fitful dreams their pillows pressed,
In nervous agonies they burned;
They made their blankets very messed.
They twitched. They woke at thumps. They yearned.

Through bathroom window open wide
Still BEATRICE her sister sought,
On midnight missions went outside,
But bringing back a strict report,
She found, it cannot be denied,
No evidence of sister. Naught.

The Zephyrs blew fresh show’rs of dew,
AURORA painted o’er the skies,
While bright-eyed, shining, silver-hued,
Did dainty HARRIET arise;
And so arose her HUMANS too,
With blinking, blotched and bleary eyes.

Now HARRIET stands behind the door,
And wishes much to be let out -
A game before is now a chore:
While in the streets her HUMANS shout,
They call her name in vain once more
And just when everything’s in doubt -

Who should come up the stairs but – GLEN,
Who spent the night upon the town,
And only came back home just then?
He turned the lock and handle round,
He opened up his door again,
And HARRIET with joyous bound,

With jubilant and joyful sound,
Leapt straight across the hall to home.
A kitten lost! A kitten found!
Her HUMANS sang, made gleeful poems,
And gave her biscuits (half a pound)
And asked her NEVER MORE TO ROAM.

Yes, everyone was quite relieved -
How many pats, how many kisses,
How many strokes she then received,
From HUMANS and from BEATRICES -
On count they would not be believed:
How full this day of joy and bliss is!

MORAL:

A moral now can be proposed:
Unerring is a cat’s direction,
But sometimes they are indisposed,
Evading everyone’s detection.
They will come back, it is supposed,
If home's a place of much affection.

(This is a true story. Harriet really did go missing for a night last week, and it turned out that she was in the neighbour's flat. I wasn't there at the time H. first went into the hall, and Mitzi Burger was with us while we went searching the streets in the morning, but essential details are correct.

No animals were harmed in the making of this poem.)

Reasonable and logical

Harriet is quite reasonable and logical. For instance, she has spent the past half hour going outside through the window, deciding that she doesn't want to go outside at all, and then coming inside through the window again. When we concluded that charade by closing the window, she did the only reasonable and logical thing you could do in such circumstances: she lay on the floor with all four legs cocked up in the air. All very reasonable and logical.*

Now if only someone could explain to me the reason and logic behind it.

*Please note, Harriet is a cat. You wouldn't find a person going in and out of the window for no reason at all, would you? And they wouldn't lie on the floor with all four legs cocked up in the air either. No, they'd prefer to do it on the bed.**

**If there is one thing you learn from this blog, it's this: people are not cats.

Attention vegetarians

They serve a lentil-based dessert at the Tibetan Yak restaurant, in High Street, Northcote. Soon your fiendish dreams for world domination will come true and every single food source in the world will be made out of lentils.

UPDATE! -
Q: What's the vegetarian version of a meatlovers pizza?

A: A beet-lovers pizza!

I invented that joke on Wednesday and managed to get a half smile from the half mouth of half of one of the people with me. But maybe that was only because they were being kind and it was my birthday.

UPDATE UPDATE! - Also spotted in Northcote last night, a place selling a 'beef-veggie-burger'. Nice one vegetarians but what's the point if the beef is not made out of lentils? Try harder next time!

Bush poetry, maaaaaate

It's tough to be out bush
Where the tofu shops are rare -
And you can't buy a latte
Though you've looked everywhere.

Yeah, they make us rough and rugged
On the wild open ranges,
Us hobby-farming hippies,
And us gardening tree-changers.

For the bushman's life is hard!
And you cannot buy light beer!
And the cafe closes weekends -
Yeah, it's really mean out here!

And the shops are 50 k's away
You have to go by car -
All that CO2 pollution -
And they ain't got no caviar.

And the timetables for the buses
And the trains are bloody frightful.
Yeah, it's tough to be out bush -
But the scenery's just delightful!

Recorded for posterity, or whatever comes after that...

"Ah. A toy racoon. Ooh. A handbag in the shape of a cassette..."

One liners inspired by Etsy.

UPDATE! - "Ooh! A cupcake in the shape of an acorn."

"Hmmm! A mini-Trilby for budgerigars."

Please add your own in comments.

Whatever floats your boat into a particular port in a storm is my cup of tea

STORM IN A TEACUP
Tumultuous torrents rush down
It boils it broils it bounds
From rim to rim
With waves fierce and grim
While scalding hot steam rises round –

A flood of white horror comes crashing
And clashing and splashing and bashing
Into the molten ocean
With torrid motion
Then a hail of white stones begins dashing…

Go swim in the rivers or seas
While it’s raining and 40 degrees
Go paddling, floating,
Or rafting or boating
But a storm in a teacup is hardly a storm in a teacup to me.

Off your facebook

On Facebook, which is neither a face nor a book, where you make friends with people who are not friends, and attend events that are not events, I recently liked something that I did not like. I would tell you more about it but I don't want to offend any of the friends who are not my friends.

So maybe I'll just go and throw a cow at the Baron instead. Not the Facebook sort either. A real one.

Futilitarianism

Aren't computers marvellous? Literally thousands of impressive applications on them that you don't know about*, and would have no idea how to operate if you did know about them, and wouldn't want to use if you did know how to operate them: they're absolutely throbbing with unlocked sensuous potential, I'm sure you'll agree.

Want to unlock that sensuous potential and enter the wild technological vortex of the future? Yes? I'll tell you anyway.

Get a cat. Any cat will do. Cats have a natural affinity with computers: they sit on them a lot. You wouldn't sit on something you didn't have an affinity to, would you? One of our cats, Beatrice, sat on my computer this morning, and within mere seconds had opened up a window that I hadn't wanted opened, to a website that I wasn't particularly interested in, containing a subject that I didn't bother reading about, opened up a sidebar that I had no idea about to the window that I was already working in, and concluded the proceedings by bringing up another little window asking me what I'd like to save (though I hadn't done anything worth saving anyway). And then, to conclude proceedings even more, just... kind of... stayed sitting there while I patted her.

Alternatively, throw out your computer and just get a cat. It makes things much easier.

Beatrice, thankfully not unlocking the throbbing sensuous potential of the toilet.

*They've got to be impressive if you don't know about them.**

** I don't know if that's a compliment or not, it was meant to be.

An open and heartfelt letter

To the Person Who Left the Chocolate Bar Sitting All Alone On Top Of The Sweets Machine At Work For Several Hours, Not Once Coming Back To It,

Just who do you think you are, hmmm? What did chocolate ever do to you that caused you to abandon it in so cruel, so unjustifiable a fashion? Did you think the chocolate bar looked at you in the wrong way or something? You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Chocolate never hates. Chocolate loves. Chocolate is kind and witty and humorous and entirely pleasurable company, and it is very tasty too. I'm taking this chocolate bar out of your hands and you're never getting it back. It's coming to a loving home where it will be welcomed for its natural talents and its innate chocolatiness and its inborn ability to be eaten and appreciated by all and sundry. Don't worry, chocolate. You're safe now. Yum.

As for you, you person who abandoned this chocolate, perhaps you can think about what you've done.

Sincerely, Tim

Proverbs, antiverbs

Broken Biro has this list of proverbs from all around the world. Things like, 'the trunk of the elephant is longer than the beak of the goose, but the feather of the goose in the trunk of the elephant is like the bottom of the rhinoceros in the face of the monkey,' or 'the three fingered goatherd has the oversized carrot of tranquility in his top-right-hand coat pocket, right next to the racing form.' (More or less.) Well, I looked at the proverbs -

'Every hill has its leopard.'
Bahaya proverb

'Who takes a hut, also takes the rats and cockroaches.
Ntomba proverb.

'Do not grab your heel until the ant has bitten you.'
Ekonda proverb.

And I attempted my own:

The tree is very leafy.
Australian proverb

As you know, making up boring proverbs is a great Australian tradition, performed by me since the dawn of time (by which I mean this morning.) So here are a few more ancient proverbs:

The cat is very furry.
Mgomba proverb

The coffee cup is rather empty.
Yambala proverb

He who attempts to blow his nose produces snot.
Ignocious proverb

The rain is particularly wet and watery.
Tsk-blgn proverb

The two-legged chicken stands firmly on its second, and first, leg.
Proverbial proverb

He who carries a handful of eggs is going to make an omelette.
French-Ungolan proverb

I hope you enjoy this timeless wisdom. (You'd better enjoy it, it took me literally minutes to come up with it.)

A nice picture of a bit of a truck

You might remember a few months ago the Baron and myself went on a grand three-day hike from Wangaratta to Bright, covering about 30 kilometres every day.

Now, there are pictures! Here, for instance, is an attractive image of a bit of a truck, surrounded by some countryside.



We should have more attractive bits of trucks scattered about our countryside. It would really pull in the tourists.

Hogamous

One night, American philosopher William James sat up in bed and wrote this poem:

Hogamous higamous
Men are polygamous
Higamous hogamous
Women monogamous.

Which is funny, because one day several decades later American poet Dorothy Parker wrote:

Hogamous higamous
Men are polygamous
Higamous hogamous
Women monogamous.

So who really wrote this hogamous higamous polygamous monogamous poem? The eponymous William James or the eponymous Dorothy Parker? Or was the poem synonymous? Did they both write it? Or did no-one really write it, thus making its authorship anonymous? Was it just, kind of, you know, out there?

Minimonous monomonous
Some poets are eponymous
Monomonous minimonous
Some are synonymous
Minimonous monomonous
And then some are anonymous
Monomonous minimonous
While others are just plain ignominious.

Let's hope that whoever writes the poem, however they write it, whenever they write it, and whatever the poem that they write is, does a good job of it - because if not it would be an abomination. And that would be abominous.

UPDATE! -

Bottomus nottomus
Straights are monotonous.
Nottomus bottomous
Gays are lobotomous.
Bugger the lottomus -
Try Love Hippopotamus.

A nightmare scenario

Just saw this headline:

Bird flu jumps to pigs

Headlines I'd like to see:

Bird flu jumps to pigs from 'flying pig' sub-species

Horse flu jumps to pigs via birds, does a run round the track a few times, then back to horses again

Man flu crosses species barrier!

Okay, that last one is a bit improbable. But just imagine if it did! That would be a nightmare scenario.

Masterchef spin offs

Big Meringue Theory - the tale of two hyper-talented young cooking students who compete to win the affections of an attractive theoretical physicist who lives just next door...

Labor loses election, stays in government

Julia Gillard: unelected Prime Minister of Australia. Twice.

Zsa Zsas in my eyes...

An ode to Zsa Zsa Gabor

The wistful wind whispers, it whispers a name,
It murmurs a rumour, a rumour of fame,
It carries it here like a dream from afar,
And that name the wind whispers – that name is Zsa Zsa.

When you first arrived, Zsa Zsa, in your tutu,
The gents all went gaga, the ladies went goo-goo,
Yes your magic, your mojo, your jubilant juju
Had the suitors all lined up crying ‘me’ and ‘me too!’
- There was even some talk of the drummer from U2 -
For you O for you the whole planet went cuckoo
O Zsa Zsa O Zsa Zsa Gabor.

And the fashion the frocks the frou frou the ricrac
The high necks the low necks the notions the knick-knacks
With the tszujed-up zigzag and sequins as well
By Fifi and Mimi and Coco Chanel –
How much more we adored you O Zsa Zsa Gabor.

When they played on the tom-toms and you danced to the cha-cha
When you shook your pink pompoms with voom and with va va
When you boogied your woogie with Princes and Rajas
And they looked up and cried ‘could it be – ZSA ZSA!’
And then they were then they were sure, O Zsa Zsa Gabor.

And the papers all prattled they babbled their blah blah
With their yadda yadda, their so so, their pish posh, their ha-ha,
But I didn’t care what they said, I cried ‘la la’
For to me you were always the ultimate star
I love you I love you galore O Zsa Zsa Gabor.

May you live forever O wondrous Zsa Zsa
May you feast on bananas and chocolate rum babas
And Turkish delight and baklava and more
And Kit Kats and Tic Tacs and Picnics galore,
O lovely, so lovely Ms Zsa Zsa Gabor.

News you can rely on

Australian chi shortages at record low levels
The flow of Chi through all Australian states and territories is at dangerously low levels, according to latest indications from experts. Measurements of this unquantifiable, invisible, unsmellable, untouchable, tasteless, noiseless, substanceless substance inherent in all things indicate that for the tenth year in a row less Chi has come into Australia than has gone out. If shortages of this intangible undefinable substance continues, it is feared they could have incomprehensible consequences in the future, with horrific, though of course utterly unknowable, impacts on the lives of Australians.

In the words of one expert in the area of Chi expertise, "this would be bad."

Chi as it is meant to look. Though of course you can't see it here, it's busy being all translucent and unknowable and stuff, but in a healthy way.

Solutions
"At this time of historic Chi shortages, all levels of government are working together to achieve a solution, and put yin back in the correct balance with yang, whatever that is," said the PM today, whoever they are.

Across all states and territories, households and businesses are being urged to restrict their personal karma expenditures, whatever they are, and gradually make cut backs in their personal chakra intakes and outtakes, however that is to be achieved, by whichever means necessary.

Valda, Psychic and Chi consultant for the government of former Prime Minister John Howard, argues that there has been a lack of investment in critical Chi infrastructure, thus obstructing the flow of the vital substance, in all its indomitable ineffability. "This has been a mistake by governments of all levels for years". Valda suggests a Chi Department set aside to facilitate the flow of Chi, in which various public servants meditate on the oneness of all things and the thingness of all sensation, put out expensive reports consisting of the word 'Om', and "just sort of send out good vibes, state by state", in order to restore the national spiritual balance.

Diagram of chi as it looks in Australia. Still invisible and unknowable but much, much worse.

Other suggestions improve:
- A whale for every schoolchild
- A gigantic incense stick to be burnt in the national capital, sending out its fumes of calm and serenity across the nation
- Taxes raised in some area or other to improve Chi development somehow or other.
- Couches and cushions in the northern end of Australia to be, sort of, shifted about so the year inflow and outflow of Chi is not restricted, and Australian feng shui can be improved.

Whither chi?
"If these infrastructure developments are undertaken", says Valda, "then I am sure we will notice improvements in nationwide Chi flow, though of course as Chi is all ineffable intangibility we won't really notice them and be sure about them at all, but things will be better."

Could movement of a couch in the Northern Territory impeding feng shui dramatically improve our nation-wide Chi flow?

A good day in my books is a day in my good books

This morning, I forgot to turn the heater off before leaving for work. So theoretically, the house and all its contents could have burnt down in a fire of devastating proportions. That would have not been a positive development.

On the other hand, I did remember to put my pants on. This was, undoubtedly, a positive development. Any day on which I remember to put my pants on before leaving the house is a good day in my books. So, even if the house did collapse in itself on flames, at the very least, I would have been appropriately attired for the occasion.

Let this be a lesson to you: if your house is going to explode in a horrifying fiery apocalypse, always remember to put your pants on first. And possibly a nice hat, if you have time.

Three headlines looking for a column

Match fixing? Asif.

Salman queer fish.

Butt head.

A limerick about Ned, and other disappointing pieces

A limerick about Ned
There once was a fellow called Ned
But alas and alack! He is dead!
So his verse never finished.
It was rather diminished.

A second disappointing limerick
There once was a woman called - what?
Do you know her name? I've forgot.
Nup. I can't recall
What she did at all,
Which screws this poem up quite a lot.

The disappointment never stops
There once was a fellow called John
Who needed to go to the john.
Which in the circumstances was quite reasonable, really.

Continuing disappointment
I once knew this woman called Elle
Whose legs one day suddenly fell
Off under a lorry,
Which made her quite sorry -
And you, I am sure, are as well.