I happened across a rather odd - phenomenon? event? manifestation? device? - in the kitchen yesterday. Let me see, I'll try and describe it:
- It was in a box.
- It was constructed mostly of a kind of orange material.
- The orange material was painted all over in a dark-brown covering.
- Smaller orange semi-circles were scattered around the top.
- It appeared to be lubricated.
It was, in fact, a cake.
Have cakes always been like this? It may be just me, but it seems to me cakes are getting more and more ridiculous these days, what with all the additions and toppings and additional toppings and toppings in addition to the additional toppings and the glazes and the light varieties and the dark varieties and the fudges and the muds and the what-nots.
Shouldn't cakes just be a bit of crumbly stuff baked in the oven for a while at high temperatures, maybe concluded with a bit of sugary stuff spread over the top? Why all this needless complication in the art of cakery these days, anyway? It's all very confusing. It makes me wonder if I've no idea what cakes are about, after all. It makes me look at the phenomenon/event/manifestation/device/cake, and think 'what does it do?' instead of just picking it up and eating it.
Whatever it is, I don't like it and I think it should stop.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Backwardly forwardish movingly static
For no reason at all, here’s a weird piece of jargon that I heard today:
It’s true, of course, that the situation could arise, after our progress thinking leads to progress action and progress progress, where we wish to actually progress regress to a time before progress thinking occurred. And then what will we do? We will have to achieve some real progress progress in the area of progress regress, or otherwise we will be in a state of progress stasis on our desired progress regress targets, and nobody wants that.
I’ll start work on this progress regress progress now.
progress thinkingI’m still not sure what it is, but you know, I’ve been doing a little progress thinking of my own. And the gist of my progress thinking is this: we’ve been doing far too much progress thinking and progress talking lately, and there’s been far too little progress action. So how on earth do we hope to make progress progress?
It’s true, of course, that the situation could arise, after our progress thinking leads to progress action and progress progress, where we wish to actually progress regress to a time before progress thinking occurred. And then what will we do? We will have to achieve some real progress progress in the area of progress regress, or otherwise we will be in a state of progress stasis on our desired progress regress targets, and nobody wants that.
I’ll start work on this progress regress progress now.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Some wort for the road?
Lately, I've been brewing some beer at home, ably assisted by
The Complete Guide to Beer and Brewing, a natty little guide by Laurie Strachan.
Brewing beer, as it turns out, is a simple process. To brew beer, all you need is a tun. The tun is what you perform the mash in. The mash, as everyone knows, is how you produce the malt and the dextrins. After you have performed the mash and produced the malt and the dextrins, you just have to sparge the grains. This is another obvious bit, as everyone who already has a lauter tun will know what sparging is. By the end of this process you'll obviously have a fine wort, which you work with to precipitate out the trub. What the trub is will be immediately, not to mention right away, clear to absolutely everyone and anyone, so I won't go into that. Anyway, you precipitate the trub out of the wort while gradually adding the hops, after which you use a counter-flow chiller (I certainly don't need to go into that), so you are able to get your wort to the temperature at which you are able to put it into the fermenter and pitch in the yeast. At this point the hydrometer comes in and... well, no need to go any further into this process, which is so simple, obvious, and clear that it has been used for many centuries by brewers the world over. More or less.
Contrast this simple, obvious and clear traditional process with the sophisticated, complex ritual we have to go through in order to get beer in a pub: you go up to the bar, you say the beer you want, and you pay them money. I don't have the space or the knowledge to explain in detail the minutiae of each of these steps, but really, it makes you wonder why we ever left the simple old ways behind.
Just by the by, on the working with yeast bit, do you know how frightening that stuff is? It's... it's... well, as they say in the old black and white movies at the top of the tower in the middle of the howling storm after a thunderbolt has struck, causing the nameless thing on the bench to rise up and reach it's horrific arms out - it's alive. If you chuck it in some water, and turn your back for a few seconds, all of a sudden it will have fizzed up. If you add the water and yeast to some flour, and go away for an hour or two, it will have risen and be well on its way to doubling in size. If you add it to a barrel with some wort and hops at a specific temperature, and go off to work, by the time you've come back the whole concoction will be fermenting away and producing alcohol and carbon dioxide and doing your household accounts while studying the finer points of the Greek lexicon on the side. If you like you can harvest yeast off the top of a fermented barrel of beer, but every time you use it to make a new bunch of beer, the Complete Guide advises, it will have mutated. Oddly, for a Complete Guide, the details about how the yeast will have mutated, and what it will have mutated to, are rather incomplete. Given that you have to store this mysteriously mutated yeast somewhere, in a sealed and sterilised jar, in a fridge environment, you would be forgiven for feeling a little edgy and nervous while having it around the house (just as you might feel edgy and nervous at having an axe murderer around the house).
Beer brewing is simple, fun, rewarding, and, if you do it in the right way (by which I mean the wrong way) will leave you with bottles exploding every half hour, and scattering glass all over your laundry. And of course you don't want to be wrong, right? Wrong.
I've certainly been enjoying the whole brewing process, although I admit that up to now I've skipped the bits involving the tun, the lauter tun, and the counter-flow chiller, as I don't have any of those, or the bits involving the mash, and the sparging, as I've never done them before, or some of the other bits as I get a little scared by them. Actually, I'm mostly doing it out of cans, which give you a wort and hops that have been pre-mixed for you, but I certainly mean to work my way up to doing all those other things, more or less, sooner or later, if you know what I mean. (Strachan's certainly not intimidated by the tuns and chillers and spargers and what not. He has this way of referring to all these steps in the process with the verbal equivalent of a casual wave of the hand in statements such as 'I do mine in a...' or 'I use this...' or 'I plug up the sparger with a...') I suppose to some this might mean that I've taken up every part of brewing except brewing.
So. Beer brewing. It's simple, obvious, fun, it leads to exploding bottles, the yeast does your accounts and can learn to conjugate in Greek, and I might even try it someday. And what have you been doing lately?
Brewing beer, as it turns out, is a simple process. To brew beer, all you need is a tun. The tun is what you perform the mash in. The mash, as everyone knows, is how you produce the malt and the dextrins. After you have performed the mash and produced the malt and the dextrins, you just have to sparge the grains. This is another obvious bit, as everyone who already has a lauter tun will know what sparging is. By the end of this process you'll obviously have a fine wort, which you work with to precipitate out the trub. What the trub is will be immediately, not to mention right away, clear to absolutely everyone and anyone, so I won't go into that. Anyway, you precipitate the trub out of the wort while gradually adding the hops, after which you use a counter-flow chiller (I certainly don't need to go into that), so you are able to get your wort to the temperature at which you are able to put it into the fermenter and pitch in the yeast. At this point the hydrometer comes in and... well, no need to go any further into this process, which is so simple, obvious, and clear that it has been used for many centuries by brewers the world over. More or less.
Contrast this simple, obvious and clear traditional process with the sophisticated, complex ritual we have to go through in order to get beer in a pub: you go up to the bar, you say the beer you want, and you pay them money. I don't have the space or the knowledge to explain in detail the minutiae of each of these steps, but really, it makes you wonder why we ever left the simple old ways behind.
Just by the by, on the working with yeast bit, do you know how frightening that stuff is? It's... it's... well, as they say in the old black and white movies at the top of the tower in the middle of the howling storm after a thunderbolt has struck, causing the nameless thing on the bench to rise up and reach it's horrific arms out - it's alive. If you chuck it in some water, and turn your back for a few seconds, all of a sudden it will have fizzed up. If you add the water and yeast to some flour, and go away for an hour or two, it will have risen and be well on its way to doubling in size. If you add it to a barrel with some wort and hops at a specific temperature, and go off to work, by the time you've come back the whole concoction will be fermenting away and producing alcohol and carbon dioxide and doing your household accounts while studying the finer points of the Greek lexicon on the side. If you like you can harvest yeast off the top of a fermented barrel of beer, but every time you use it to make a new bunch of beer, the Complete Guide advises, it will have mutated. Oddly, for a Complete Guide, the details about how the yeast will have mutated, and what it will have mutated to, are rather incomplete. Given that you have to store this mysteriously mutated yeast somewhere, in a sealed and sterilised jar, in a fridge environment, you would be forgiven for feeling a little edgy and nervous while having it around the house (just as you might feel edgy and nervous at having an axe murderer around the house).
Beer brewing is simple, fun, rewarding, and, if you do it in the right way (by which I mean the wrong way) will leave you with bottles exploding every half hour, and scattering glass all over your laundry. And of course you don't want to be wrong, right? Wrong.
I've certainly been enjoying the whole brewing process, although I admit that up to now I've skipped the bits involving the tun, the lauter tun, and the counter-flow chiller, as I don't have any of those, or the bits involving the mash, and the sparging, as I've never done them before, or some of the other bits as I get a little scared by them. Actually, I'm mostly doing it out of cans, which give you a wort and hops that have been pre-mixed for you, but I certainly mean to work my way up to doing all those other things, more or less, sooner or later, if you know what I mean. (Strachan's certainly not intimidated by the tuns and chillers and spargers and what not. He has this way of referring to all these steps in the process with the verbal equivalent of a casual wave of the hand in statements such as 'I do mine in a...' or 'I use this...' or 'I plug up the sparger with a...') I suppose to some this might mean that I've taken up every part of brewing except brewing.
So. Beer brewing. It's simple, obvious, fun, it leads to exploding bottles, the yeast does your accounts and can learn to conjugate in Greek, and I might even try it someday. And what have you been doing lately?
Monday, November 14, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Zen Buddhism for apathetic people
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to see it or hear it, who cares?
*
What is the sound of one hand not clapping?
*
Nirvana - the blissful state attained upon cessation of all being.
Death - usually a slightly quicker way to achieve cessation of all being than Nirvana.
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
The gourmet’s gourmet: a summary of two recent meals I have eaten.
Vegan fish and chips – Okay, so it was just chips. In a bag. From the chip machine. And I’m not even sure whether the chips were made out of vegetables, they could have just been made out of plastic with salt on them. But still – yum!
Quiche Tim – it’s true I followed the recipe for Quiche Lorraine. But who the hell is Lorraine, anyway? And I didn’t follow the recipe very well. So Quiche Tim it is.
Quiche Tim – it’s true I followed the recipe for Quiche Lorraine. But who the hell is Lorraine, anyway? And I didn’t follow the recipe very well. So Quiche Tim it is.
Monday, November 07, 2011
Sometimes say sometimes again
Paul Keating's just released a book. I haven't read this book, but I know it has a title - I have read the title, at least. It's called
After Words
Not bad, as titles go I suppose - the book is supposed to be a collection of Keating's post-Prime Ministerial speeches. But it raises that age old problem (well, at least as age old as this post) - what happens if he ever wants to release a sequel? Is it going to be called 'After After Words'? Or 'An After Words' After Word' or 'A Word After After Words'? (And also: is it going to have an After After After Foreword and an After After Afterword?)
You see this problem happening over and over again with authors and book titles. Well I can only think of one example, that of Douglas Adams and his 'increasingly ridiculous' Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. So I suppose that hasn't quite reached an over yet. But still. Books. Words. Titles. It's important to think about this stuff, isn't it?
UPDATE! - Of course, another horrible possibility rears its head: what if Keating chose to call this hypothetical sequel: After Words: Electric Boogaloo?
After Words
Not bad, as titles go I suppose - the book is supposed to be a collection of Keating's post-Prime Ministerial speeches. But it raises that age old problem (well, at least as age old as this post) - what happens if he ever wants to release a sequel? Is it going to be called 'After After Words'? Or 'An After Words' After Word' or 'A Word After After Words'? (And also: is it going to have an After After After Foreword and an After After Afterword?)
You see this problem happening over and over again with authors and book titles. Well I can only think of one example, that of Douglas Adams and his 'increasingly ridiculous' Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. So I suppose that hasn't quite reached an over yet. But still. Books. Words. Titles. It's important to think about this stuff, isn't it?
UPDATE! - Of course, another horrible possibility rears its head: what if Keating chose to call this hypothetical sequel: After Words: Electric Boogaloo?
Sunday, November 06, 2011
I'm so conflicted
I would like to state right now that I have a conflict of interest with every politician everywhere.
Specifically, my conflict of interest is that I find it hard to find anything interesting about them at all. It's very conflicting.
Specifically, my conflict of interest is that I find it hard to find anything interesting about them at all. It's very conflicting.
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Greetings, inhabitants of Futuropolis
For GetUp's time capsule featuring our messages to the future (linked by Tim), I have opted for a humble poem, called, well
A HUMBLE POEM
As the preacher greets the sinner,
As the doctor greets the suture,
We the people of the past
Greet the people of the future
With a short and modest message
In words simple and sincere,
But their meaning and their moral
Is absolutely clear:
We saved the world! Don’t blow it!
We saved the world! Take care!
So don’t sell it cheap on e-bay,
We don’t have another spare.
We saved the world! Start cheering!
Although, of course, it’s true
While we saved it for the future
We just weren’t expecting *you*.
We saved it from igniting,
Or some other gruesome fate
Caused by a changing climate –
What have *you* done of late?
With a legislative program
Of higher taxes, meant
To cut the world’s emissions
By an nth of one per cent,
We saved it. Thanks to us,
And a simple ETS,
Though the globe might still be warming,
It’s now warming one bit less.
So don’t flirt with Terminators
(They’re easy to avoid),
So don’t steer earth in the path
Of a Killer Asteroid,
So don’t die from a pandemic
From the Xenopsylla flea
So don’t waste it watching porno
On your digital TV –
We saved the world! Be grateful!
But don’t move down on the bus,
For we have just remembered
That you is also us.
And when we reach the future
(Whenever that is planned)
We would like to meet us warmly,
We will shake us by the hand,
We saved the world! How jolly!
We saved the world! Huzzah!
Now if you’ll just excuse us
We’ll be with me at the bar.
As the preacher greets the sinner,
As the doctor greets the suture,
We the people of the past
Greet the people of the future
With a short and modest message
In words simple and sincere,
But their meaning and their moral
Is absolutely clear:
We saved the world! Don’t blow it!
We saved the world! Take care!
So don’t sell it cheap on e-bay,
We don’t have another spare.
We saved the world! Start cheering!
Although, of course, it’s true
While we saved it for the future
We just weren’t expecting *you*.
We saved it from igniting,
Or some other gruesome fate
Caused by a changing climate –
What have *you* done of late?
With a legislative program
Of higher taxes, meant
To cut the world’s emissions
By an nth of one per cent,
We saved it. Thanks to us,
And a simple ETS,
Though the globe might still be warming,
It’s now warming one bit less.
So don’t flirt with Terminators
(They’re easy to avoid),
So don’t steer earth in the path
Of a Killer Asteroid,
So don’t die from a pandemic
From the Xenopsylla flea
So don’t waste it watching porno
On your digital TV –
We saved the world! Be grateful!
But don’t move down on the bus,
For we have just remembered
That you is also us.
And when we reach the future
(Whenever that is planned)
We would like to meet us warmly,
We will shake us by the hand,
We saved the world! How jolly!
We saved the world! Huzzah!
Now if you’ll just excuse us
We’ll be with me at the bar.
Monday, October 31, 2011
How to answer back to a chicken
Now I know that animal sounds are merely a series of instinctual responses which they are in the habit of making thanks to millions of years of evolution, but on the other hand, OUR CAT JUST SPOKE TO OUR CHICKENS.
Here's how it happened: Bea the cat was passing one way by Griselda the chicken when Griselda thoughtfully said, 'cluck'. Bea turned her head, and replied instantly: 'meow'. And then continued on in just the direction she was going.
I don't know about you, but that strikes me as a particularly convincing argument on Bea's part.
This series of instinctual responses of the sort belonging to a member of the primate species has been brought to you courtesy of my keyboard, the internet, and a morning off work.
Here's how it happened: Bea the cat was passing one way by Griselda the chicken when Griselda thoughtfully said, 'cluck'. Bea turned her head, and replied instantly: 'meow'. And then continued on in just the direction she was going.
I don't know about you, but that strikes me as a particularly convincing argument on Bea's part.
This series of instinctual responses of the sort belonging to a member of the primate species has been brought to you courtesy of my keyboard, the internet, and a morning off work.
What is your whichword?
Who is Zooey Deschanel? What is Ryan Gosling? I just realised, with a sudden jolt, that I have no idea what the hell any of you people are talking about.
But then again, I realise that with a sudden jolt every day about this time. And last time I admitted to it, everybody laughed at me.
UPDATE! - Actual conversation actually had with the Baron:
ME: Who is Ryan Gosling anyway?
BARON: He's an actor.
ME: Who has he played?
BARON: Men.
ME: Er, what sort?
BARON: Young men.
This all leads me back to my original question: who or what is Ryan Gosling, anyway?
But then again, I realise that with a sudden jolt every day about this time. And last time I admitted to it, everybody laughed at me.
UPDATE! - Actual conversation actually had with the Baron:
ME: Who is Ryan Gosling anyway?
BARON: He's an actor.
ME: Who has he played?
BARON: Men.
ME: Er, what sort?
BARON: Young men.
This all leads me back to my original question: who or what is Ryan Gosling, anyway?
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Aristocatic
The Queen has been pootling everywhere about Australia in the last couple of days, wearing hats, waving hands, and generally being present in the moment in that quietly satisfied way she seems to have. As she's gone here and there she's been giving journalists plenty of opportunity to get fussed about politicians causing perceived breaches of protocol by either doing or not doing some very small but important or unimportant thing in the royal presence of her royal person, although of course the journalists are neither sure what the breach nor what the protocol is; she's caught a royal tram for a couple of blocks, making me wonder if she used a royal Metcard or a royal Myki*; and she's attended CHOGM, whatever and wherever that is.
By an odd coincidence, just as the Queen has been pootling all over Australia in the past week, so have our cats, Harriet and Bea, been pootling all over our backyard, jumping over fences, popping their head in the door to make sure it's still open (and that it's still letting in the cold air) and trotting off to jump over other fences, and generally being present in the moment in that quietly satisfied way they seem to have. Do you see where I'm going here? It seems to me that the position of the Queen and my two cats could very easily be reversed, and such a solution, once it has suggested itself to us, cannot easily be denied, as it would provide a good deal of variety and excitement for all concerned.
To that end, I have drawn up this revised itinerary for the Royal Persons and also for the Queen... I mean my cats.
THE ROYAL ITINERARY
- Toddling up and down and round the backyard, occasionally crouching down in a corner and opening the royal mouth to see if any pigeons will accidentally fly in.
- getting the royal bangers and mash from the royal bowl on the floor.
- more generally backyard exercises, popping in and out of the house, maybe climbing onto the roof once or twice via the water tank.
- climbing all over my keyboard while I am typing, and creating the neologism 'ZASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSss!' by accidentally tripping over some of the keys.
- rest of the day - sitting in a box and quietly meditating upon future royal duties.
THE CATS' ITINERARY
- Receiving the general applause and acclaim of crowds.
- Catching the Feline Tram up St Kilda Road, chasing one another up and down the tram and hiding behind the seats until it's time to get off.
- Opening the new Royal Children's Hospital, mostly by chasing the ribbon around the room for 20 frenzied minutes and then curling up on one of the new chairs and sleeping.
- Catching the plane to CHOGM, sniffing under the seats of all the participants and playing with everyone's shoelaces.
Of course there will be a great deal there to get used to but in time I'm sure the cats will come to understand their new duties and perform them with alacrity. In the end this being a royal thing seems to boil down to posing for appropriate photo opportunities, and I know our cats do that VERY well. So it shouldn't be too hard for them. What do you think?
UPDATE! - Bea is in my lap - again. Not only is this not on the itinerary, but I can't very well do anything on my own itinerary either. Bung goes that plan.
Then again I suppose if the Queen were sitting in my lap in the way Bea is that would be a rather sizable breach of protocol. (I'd better check with an authority on that one, though, just to make sure.)
*That's not the only thing I wondered about the royal tram. Other questions that arose before my mind when told about this mode of conveyance: what if they accidentally caught the wrong tram and ended up in Box Hill? Did the ticket inspectors get on? Were there the customary Melbourne Drunks On The Tram, and did they stick to protocol by offering the royal persons a swig from whatever it was they were carrying with them, etc etc etc.
By an odd coincidence, just as the Queen has been pootling all over Australia in the past week, so have our cats, Harriet and Bea, been pootling all over our backyard, jumping over fences, popping their head in the door to make sure it's still open (and that it's still letting in the cold air) and trotting off to jump over other fences, and generally being present in the moment in that quietly satisfied way they seem to have. Do you see where I'm going here? It seems to me that the position of the Queen and my two cats could very easily be reversed, and such a solution, once it has suggested itself to us, cannot easily be denied, as it would provide a good deal of variety and excitement for all concerned.
To that end, I have drawn up this revised itinerary for the Royal Persons and also for the Queen... I mean my cats.
THE ROYAL ITINERARY
- Toddling up and down and round the backyard, occasionally crouching down in a corner and opening the royal mouth to see if any pigeons will accidentally fly in.
- getting the royal bangers and mash from the royal bowl on the floor.
- more generally backyard exercises, popping in and out of the house, maybe climbing onto the roof once or twice via the water tank.
- climbing all over my keyboard while I am typing, and creating the neologism 'ZASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSss!' by accidentally tripping over some of the keys.
- rest of the day - sitting in a box and quietly meditating upon future royal duties.
THE CATS' ITINERARY
- Receiving the general applause and acclaim of crowds.
- Catching the Feline Tram up St Kilda Road, chasing one another up and down the tram and hiding behind the seats until it's time to get off.
- Opening the new Royal Children's Hospital, mostly by chasing the ribbon around the room for 20 frenzied minutes and then curling up on one of the new chairs and sleeping.
- Catching the plane to CHOGM, sniffing under the seats of all the participants and playing with everyone's shoelaces.
Of course there will be a great deal there to get used to but in time I'm sure the cats will come to understand their new duties and perform them with alacrity. In the end this being a royal thing seems to boil down to posing for appropriate photo opportunities, and I know our cats do that VERY well. So it shouldn't be too hard for them. What do you think?
The Queen. She may rule over entire nations, but is she up to the rigorous standards of box sitting and biscuit eating that our cats have set?
UPDATE! - Bea is in my lap - again. Not only is this not on the itinerary, but I can't very well do anything on my own itinerary either. Bung goes that plan.
Then again I suppose if the Queen were sitting in my lap in the way Bea is that would be a rather sizable breach of protocol. (I'd better check with an authority on that one, though, just to make sure.)
*That's not the only thing I wondered about the royal tram. Other questions that arose before my mind when told about this mode of conveyance: what if they accidentally caught the wrong tram and ended up in Box Hill? Did the ticket inspectors get on? Were there the customary Melbourne Drunks On The Tram, and did they stick to protocol by offering the royal persons a swig from whatever it was they were carrying with them, etc etc etc.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Flabulous fashion
Just read in the paper last night that they’re having a strict dress code at the Melbourne Cup this year, and anyone wearing short skirts, jump suits, or other designer clothes that infringe the Cup dress code won’t be allowed in.
It’s all right though! So long as you wear a plastic feather in your hair, have stratospherically-high heels, have a bottle of champagne superglued to your right hand, and a polyester tie flecked with polymesmeric body fluids, you’ll fit right in. (Designer polymesmeric vomit available on request).
And remember everyone! The Melbourne Cup is the fashion event of the year – so start working on your graceful inebriated lurching on and off (and around and into and on top of) public transport now.
It’s all right though! So long as you wear a plastic feather in your hair, have stratospherically-high heels, have a bottle of champagne superglued to your right hand, and a polyester tie flecked with polymesmeric body fluids, you’ll fit right in. (Designer polymesmeric vomit available on request).
And remember everyone! The Melbourne Cup is the fashion event of the year – so start working on your graceful inebriated lurching on and off (and around and into and on top of) public transport now.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
That happy time of the year - taxation time!
Just what the hell is a capital gains tax event? A party for accountants?
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
A case of hit and rennet
The Global Retail Theft Barometer 2011 has found that cheese is the most stolen food item in the world, based on a survey of 1,187 retailers in 43 countries. - Caz
Who filched the fetta
Creamed the cream cheese from the shelf,
Who's on the lam with Edam,
Added parma to their pelf?
Who wangled all the Singles,
Put their finger in the Swiss,
Took a motza Mozzarella
Ere we knew what was amiss?
Who touched the Dutch,
Took the camemberts and bries,
Lock, stock and bocconcini
Without so much as please?
There's a lack amongst the lactose
Now the Gorgonzola's gone,
Some rotter took Ricotta
And the Philly's all forlorn -
Who took the cheese?
What could have caused this crime?
Can we put it down to culture,
Or was it just - enzyme?
Creamed the cream cheese from the shelf,
Who's on the lam with Edam,
Added parma to their pelf?
Who wangled all the Singles,
Put their finger in the Swiss,
Took a motza Mozzarella
Ere we knew what was amiss?
Who touched the Dutch,
Took the camemberts and bries,
Lock, stock and bocconcini
Without so much as please?
There's a lack amongst the lactose
Now the Gorgonzola's gone,
Some rotter took Ricotta
And the Philly's all forlorn -
Who took the cheese?
What could have caused this crime?
Can we put it down to culture,
Or was it just - enzyme?
UPDATE! - How good are the photos on the Global Retail Theft Barometer page, by the way? Well-groomed ladies, the same sort you'd normally see advertising the virtues of some product in a shopping catalogue, looking furtive and slipping stolen items into their bags.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Solemn Sunday soliloquy
If someone were to ask me today, 'Tim, what's on your mind?' I would unhesitatingly reply, 'buttons'. Do you know how many buttons there are in the world today? Lots. There is a plethora of buttons, a preponderance of knobs, a multiplicity of widgets and bits and switches and keys and what-nots which you can press in order to send countless electronic signals flying all over the place at light speed, telling this to open, that to close, the other thing to light up, rotate, turn, twist, spin, or do something else altogether.
Is there at some point a limit that we are going to reach, a set quota of buttons beyond which the human race cannot go, a moment of 'peak button' after which we will run out of new buttons to create? You'd think so, wouldn't you, but then again, no. For even as we speak, I've no doubt new buttons for new purposes are being created, buttons created in response to the ever-growing need for buttons, pleasing round metallic things to be pressed by fingers which long to press pleasing round metallic things. They've even started putting virtual buttons on computers, virtual buttons which you have to press other buttons on your keyboard in order to get to, before moving a symbolic finger over the top of them, in order to have the pleasure of pressing the real button which in turn operates the symbolic finger which causes the virtual button to be pressed, virtually. If you ever explained this to someone from 50 years ago, they would think you were mad; they would wonder why anyone should do such a thing. But we do this sort of thing these days with alarming regularity.
Buttons! What is the point of them? Things have got to the point these days where you will press a button even if you don't expect it to do anything; sometimes you will just press a button for fun: sometimes you will do it and not even know why you are doing it. I was on the train the other day and a wriggling young lad of no more than two years old gave the big, friendly red button on the carriage a hearty press; in due course, a kindly old gentleman rang through to find out what perfidy was being perpetrated and I had to explain to him what had happened. And yet I do not blame the child; while I am standing at a street corner I will press the traffic light button repeatedly in order to make it go green faster. At a train station I can barely refrain from pressing the green button in order to hear a friendly voice inform me just when, exactly, the train is coming - indeed, I notice a good deal of my fellow passengers press that button anyway, even though the train timetable is right next to them, even if they have just been looking at it. And, as anyone who reads any books or looks at any television knows, big red buttons - especially big red buttons which have signs next to them saying DO NOT PRESS THIS BIG RED BUTTON - are there to be pressed.
There is something Freudian about all of this; buttons were invented for a reason, sure, but this has to be different from the reason for which, er, we invented buttons. What are these shiny steel protuberances, these painted pustules, these plump proliferating steel implements really, but symbols; what on earth could that bright, shiny red button be to the extended finger of the child, reaching closer, ever closer, but a voluptuous object of sensual longing, beckoning to the finger to press it, just press it, to keep on pressing it, until...
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you buttons.
Is there at some point a limit that we are going to reach, a set quota of buttons beyond which the human race cannot go, a moment of 'peak button' after which we will run out of new buttons to create? You'd think so, wouldn't you, but then again, no. For even as we speak, I've no doubt new buttons for new purposes are being created, buttons created in response to the ever-growing need for buttons, pleasing round metallic things to be pressed by fingers which long to press pleasing round metallic things. They've even started putting virtual buttons on computers, virtual buttons which you have to press other buttons on your keyboard in order to get to, before moving a symbolic finger over the top of them, in order to have the pleasure of pressing the real button which in turn operates the symbolic finger which causes the virtual button to be pressed, virtually. If you ever explained this to someone from 50 years ago, they would think you were mad; they would wonder why anyone should do such a thing. But we do this sort of thing these days with alarming regularity.
Buttons! What is the point of them? Things have got to the point these days where you will press a button even if you don't expect it to do anything; sometimes you will just press a button for fun: sometimes you will do it and not even know why you are doing it. I was on the train the other day and a wriggling young lad of no more than two years old gave the big, friendly red button on the carriage a hearty press; in due course, a kindly old gentleman rang through to find out what perfidy was being perpetrated and I had to explain to him what had happened. And yet I do not blame the child; while I am standing at a street corner I will press the traffic light button repeatedly in order to make it go green faster. At a train station I can barely refrain from pressing the green button in order to hear a friendly voice inform me just when, exactly, the train is coming - indeed, I notice a good deal of my fellow passengers press that button anyway, even though the train timetable is right next to them, even if they have just been looking at it. And, as anyone who reads any books or looks at any television knows, big red buttons - especially big red buttons which have signs next to them saying DO NOT PRESS THIS BIG RED BUTTON - are there to be pressed.
There is something Freudian about all of this; buttons were invented for a reason, sure, but this has to be different from the reason for which, er, we invented buttons. What are these shiny steel protuberances, these painted pustules, these plump proliferating steel implements really, but symbols; what on earth could that bright, shiny red button be to the extended finger of the child, reaching closer, ever closer, but a voluptuous object of sensual longing, beckoning to the finger to press it, just press it, to keep on pressing it, until...
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you buttons.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Occupy Lalor
Beatrice the cat is in my lap. Can't go anywhere. Can't do anything. Help.
I made the mixture for some Chelsea Buns about two hours ago and it should be just about ready to roll out, add sultanas, and put in the oven right about now. But it's four metres away and the cat is in my lap.
About two minutes ago I felt a bit itchy but I couldn't scratch the bit that was itchy. The cat is in my lap.
If a door to door chocolate cake came and offered me a bite, I'd really like to take it up on that opportunity. But I won't and I can't. The door is two metres behind me. And the cat is in my lap.
I am starting to really need to go to the toilet. But the cat is in my lap.
Help.
UPDATE! - Now the cat is sitting on the Baron's lap and the laptop is sitting on my lap. FREEDOM.
I made the mixture for some Chelsea Buns about two hours ago and it should be just about ready to roll out, add sultanas, and put in the oven right about now. But it's four metres away and the cat is in my lap.
About two minutes ago I felt a bit itchy but I couldn't scratch the bit that was itchy. The cat is in my lap.
If a door to door chocolate cake came and offered me a bite, I'd really like to take it up on that opportunity. But I won't and I can't. The door is two metres behind me. And the cat is in my lap.
I am starting to really need to go to the toilet. But the cat is in my lap.
Help.
UPDATE! - Now the cat is sitting on the Baron's lap and the laptop is sitting on my lap. FREEDOM.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Charitable announcement
My brother Lachlan will be cycling from Echuca to Mildura on November 5/6 next month and is looking for sponsors. It's part of a cash-raising effort for the Anglicare program Peaceful Warriors, which he also volunteers for, a group that provides role models for boys from socially-disadvantaged backgrounds. I'm not sure what exactly the costs are going to but the program has a few paid workers, and have to fund regular activities and ongoing running costs. They've set a high target, of $60,000, but they've already raised over $5000 in donations.
For a while there I was trying to get them to rustle up donations with the catchy title, 'PAY UP OR THE LITTLE BUMS GET IT!' For some reason no-one seemed to be interested in that idea. Oh well.
You can support by going here and making a donation. If you like, maybe liven up proceedings by calling yourself Voldemort, or Gaknor, Stealer of Souls while making a donation. That should cause a few head scratchings.
For a while there I was trying to get them to rustle up donations with the catchy title, 'PAY UP OR THE LITTLE BUMS GET IT!' For some reason no-one seemed to be interested in that idea. Oh well.
You can support by going here and making a donation. If you like, maybe liven up proceedings by calling yourself Voldemort, or Gaknor, Stealer of Souls while making a donation. That should cause a few head scratchings.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Dihydrogen monoxide, on the rocks
I have a secret, and of course I can't tell you this secret because then it won't be one, apart from the fact that my secret is I secretly admire smokers. It could be the cool sophistication, the suave manner they have while knowingly doing something that all the right people see as something that is really rather wrong. If it annoys Nicola Roxon, it can't be all that bad. It could also be the fact that they have cigarette breaks during work. How good is that? I just get a lunch break, but they get a break every half hour or so.
I'd take up smoking myself, but I might get in trouble, so I won't. No, it seems I will have to admire smokers from afar - just as one admires extremely glamorous movie stars committing reprehensible acts of gratuitous violence to one another on the big screen, or rather eloquent professors of linguistics committing a stream of offensive expletives live to air on the radio, or particularly naughty children making melodious farting sounds in front of the teacher, or other examples of people doing really rather wrong things in front of exactly the right people.
But why should smokers have all the fun as well as the lung disease? I want my cigarette breaks as well. So from now on at work I might start taking regular 'oxygen breaks' - right while I'm in the middle of doing some extremely important and vital task that can't just be dropped, of course, just to add to the piquancy of the occasion. I'll go outside, and stride up and down on the footpath with my hands behind my back, surveying the scene with a contemplative gaze, and if any manager or head or boss (there's a lot of them where I work, I can never quite work out which is who or who is what) asks just what the hell I'm doing, I'll tell them.
And smoking jackets: what ever happened to them? No matter; from now on I think I'll adopt a billowing, velveteen jacket for my oxygen breaks. A plush oxygen jacket is just the thing needed to lend an air of louche sophistication to an activity that might otherwise be seen as, say, Tim not working. It would make the whole thing that much more eventful, adding just a touch of moment to the - well, the moment. And then there are smoking rooms and smoking cars and smoking parties... the list goes on and on. I suppose we have the equivalent of a lot of those already, and a lot of these simple pleasures have been taken from smokers by the government, so maybe I don't need all of those things.
Then again, if I keep up with this oxygen kick, where will it lead me? It mightn't be long before I sashay into bars and rasp out at the barman, 'Dihydrogen monoxide, mate - on the rocks'. Or buying magazines in greasy out-of-town petrol stations and ogling lovely pictures of gardens taken by friendly old grannies with names like Mavis or Doris (the grannies have the names, I mean, not the gardens). And - dare I mention the word - 'weed'? Yes, I'll probably start pulling up the weeds in my back garden in a short while.
After I take up oxygen, my life could quickly become an out of control spiral into endless hedonistic and decadent pleasures. Who knows? I can't wait to see.
I'd take up smoking myself, but I might get in trouble, so I won't. No, it seems I will have to admire smokers from afar - just as one admires extremely glamorous movie stars committing reprehensible acts of gratuitous violence to one another on the big screen, or rather eloquent professors of linguistics committing a stream of offensive expletives live to air on the radio, or particularly naughty children making melodious farting sounds in front of the teacher, or other examples of people doing really rather wrong things in front of exactly the right people.
But why should smokers have all the fun as well as the lung disease? I want my cigarette breaks as well. So from now on at work I might start taking regular 'oxygen breaks' - right while I'm in the middle of doing some extremely important and vital task that can't just be dropped, of course, just to add to the piquancy of the occasion. I'll go outside, and stride up and down on the footpath with my hands behind my back, surveying the scene with a contemplative gaze, and if any manager or head or boss (there's a lot of them where I work, I can never quite work out which is who or who is what) asks just what the hell I'm doing, I'll tell them.
And smoking jackets: what ever happened to them? No matter; from now on I think I'll adopt a billowing, velveteen jacket for my oxygen breaks. A plush oxygen jacket is just the thing needed to lend an air of louche sophistication to an activity that might otherwise be seen as, say, Tim not working. It would make the whole thing that much more eventful, adding just a touch of moment to the - well, the moment. And then there are smoking rooms and smoking cars and smoking parties... the list goes on and on. I suppose we have the equivalent of a lot of those already, and a lot of these simple pleasures have been taken from smokers by the government, so maybe I don't need all of those things.
Then again, if I keep up with this oxygen kick, where will it lead me? It mightn't be long before I sashay into bars and rasp out at the barman, 'Dihydrogen monoxide, mate - on the rocks'. Or buying magazines in greasy out-of-town petrol stations and ogling lovely pictures of gardens taken by friendly old grannies with names like Mavis or Doris (the grannies have the names, I mean, not the gardens). And - dare I mention the word - 'weed'? Yes, I'll probably start pulling up the weeds in my back garden in a short while.
After I take up oxygen, my life could quickly become an out of control spiral into endless hedonistic and decadent pleasures. Who knows? I can't wait to see.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Proposed additional working groups and working additional proposals
I noticed that the Occupy Sydney team have put together a modest list of 11 proposed working groups and eight different committees. Just what the exact difference between working groups and committees is is unclear to me, but this one is my particular favourite:
Aside from the 11 proposed working groups and the eight different committees, I see that, quite delightfully, they also have six additional proposed working groups (propositionally proposed working groups?) I have no idea what the difference is between a proposed working group and these propositionally proposed working groups, either, but there you go.
Anyway, what's your favourite working group? I'm quite fond of the Comfort Committee, but maybe you have a different one. LET ME KNOW ON THIS VITAL MATTER IN COMMENTS.
Social Networking working groupHopefully, the Social Networking working group will begin working at Networking straight away, so they can get the Social Networking working for all other networking working groups. It would indeed be a pity if networking between all the networking working groups was not working due to the fact that the networking of the Networking working group was also not working (possibly due to them not working). It would indeed be a real bummer.
Aside from the 11 proposed working groups and the eight different committees, I see that, quite delightfully, they also have six additional proposed working groups (propositionally proposed working groups?) I have no idea what the difference is between a proposed working group and these propositionally proposed working groups, either, but there you go.
Anyway, what's your favourite working group? I'm quite fond of the Comfort Committee, but maybe you have a different one. LET ME KNOW ON THIS VITAL MATTER IN COMMENTS.
Friday, October 14, 2011
How to pose for a philosopher
Wear your clothes paradoxically and give them something to think about.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Dudication
Oh my goodness! I just realised that two days ago it was 11:11 11/10/11!* Time to write a poem in commemoration of it.
Let's fondly remember the moment that was a few moments before the one that we're currently in,
Let's gladly look back to our former backlooking to time before time and sit back with a satisfied grin,
Yes those times were the days and those days were the times and I thought at the time that I'm glad to be living within it,
Though now I look back upon all those days I find that I'm glad that they didn't last over a... minute.
Still that was the time to be young or at least a bit younger than those who were probably older than me -
A time so much better or at least a bit later than the previous times like, say, Sunday at quarter to three.
- In Memory, 11:11 11/10/11
Let's gladly look back to our former backlooking to time before time and sit back with a satisfied grin,
Yes those times were the days and those days were the times and I thought at the time that I'm glad to be living within it,
Though now I look back upon all those days I find that I'm glad that they didn't last over a... minute.
Still that was the time to be young or at least a bit younger than those who were probably older than me -
A time so much better or at least a bit later than the previous times like, say, Sunday at quarter to three.
- In Memory, 11:11 11/10/11
*Not strictly true. I realised two days ago that two days ago it was such a time. Though it wasn't two days ago then. Er... carry on then.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
An explanation of some trends in modern poetry
Beat - an urban poet of the US in the '60s and '70s.
Minim - a disappointed beat poet in the '80s.
Crotchet - what happens to a beat poet in the '90s when they become old and cranky.
Semi-quaver - An imitation beat poet of 2000-2010 who subsists mainly on a diet of lettuce leafs, world music, and tears.
Minim - a disappointed beat poet in the '80s.
Crotchet - what happens to a beat poet in the '90s when they become old and cranky.
Semi-quaver - An imitation beat poet of 2000-2010 who subsists mainly on a diet of lettuce leafs, world music, and tears.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Hairy incidents
This morning I was munching down my coffee and chewing on my toast - no, wait, I was drinking down my toast and sipping on my coffee - no, I was doing both of the above and all three of the latter... ANYWAY: I was sitting with my coffee and toast on the couch clicking away on the internet. The toast, I should mention, had marmalade on it.
As I munched and sipped and clicked, I started noticing something out of the left-hand corner of my left eye. I moved my eye this way, and it disappeared. I moved my eye the other way, it seemed to come back. It was rather bright, and I concluded maybe a bit of marmalade had slipped into my moustache.
Now although I love Roald Dahl's books I have no particular wish to be like Mr Twit, who would catch food in his beard and days, weeks, and sometimes months later pluck it out again and munch thoughtfully upon it to see if it had got any tastier. So as you can imagine I immediately reached up to try to pluck out this bit of marmalade. Nothing doing; it didn't seem to be in my moustache at all. It was, in fact, somewhere else in my field of vision entirely. I thought maybe it might be a bit of marmalade on the plate and continued clicking and sipping and munching.
Trouble is, it wasn't on the plate, and it wouldn't go out of my field of vision. I moved my head this way and that and contorted my eye upwards and downwards in an attempt to get a better view of it. At the same time I started to worry at my beard with both of my hands (I suppose I looked a little strange) insistently. Finally, I produced the object in question: a small fluoro green one-third of a price tag off the back of a book: it had been dangling for - who knows how long, really? - off an obscure quadrant of my beard. I have no idea how that got there.
As I munched and sipped and clicked, I started noticing something out of the left-hand corner of my left eye. I moved my eye this way, and it disappeared. I moved my eye the other way, it seemed to come back. It was rather bright, and I concluded maybe a bit of marmalade had slipped into my moustache.
Now although I love Roald Dahl's books I have no particular wish to be like Mr Twit, who would catch food in his beard and days, weeks, and sometimes months later pluck it out again and munch thoughtfully upon it to see if it had got any tastier. So as you can imagine I immediately reached up to try to pluck out this bit of marmalade. Nothing doing; it didn't seem to be in my moustache at all. It was, in fact, somewhere else in my field of vision entirely. I thought maybe it might be a bit of marmalade on the plate and continued clicking and sipping and munching.
Trouble is, it wasn't on the plate, and it wouldn't go out of my field of vision. I moved my head this way and that and contorted my eye upwards and downwards in an attempt to get a better view of it. At the same time I started to worry at my beard with both of my hands (I suppose I looked a little strange) insistently. Finally, I produced the object in question: a small fluoro green one-third of a price tag off the back of a book: it had been dangling for - who knows how long, really? - off an obscure quadrant of my beard. I have no idea how that got there.
***
Lalor, I suppose, must previously have been populated by fairies, for the washing line hanging out the back of our house from the north-facing wall is over a head-length lower than me. Every time I go to hang out the washing, I have to poke my head up through the middle of the line, which neatly bisects my head from my body - I feel rather like I'm sticking my head into a horizontal guillotine. Considering a washing line should really be a comfortable distance above your head in order to allow you to lift and lower your arms without too much effort, and in order to minimise the risk of pegs and clothes getting in your face, I can only conclude that the quaint sylvan race who previously inhabited this suburb must have been very titchy indeed.
Well just earlier today I was hanging out the washing, which basically means I was sticking my head in and out of this horizontal guillotine repeatedly. I did most of the shirts and the pants, and then had got to the socks and underpants. As I was hanging these out, I heard a neat snip from behind, and as I lowered my head and went back to the basket, I felt a small but insistent tugging at the nape of my neck.
I grasped around there for a bit with my hands and found that a plastic clothes peg had neatly detached itself from the washing line (all by itself) and was now hanging happily from the hairs at the nape of my neck.
It was yet another hairy incident.
Lalor, I suppose, must previously have been populated by fairies, for the washing line hanging out the back of our house from the north-facing wall is over a head-length lower than me. Every time I go to hang out the washing, I have to poke my head up through the middle of the line, which neatly bisects my head from my body - I feel rather like I'm sticking my head into a horizontal guillotine. Considering a washing line should really be a comfortable distance above your head in order to allow you to lift and lower your arms without too much effort, and in order to minimise the risk of pegs and clothes getting in your face, I can only conclude that the quaint sylvan race who previously inhabited this suburb must have been very titchy indeed.
Well just earlier today I was hanging out the washing, which basically means I was sticking my head in and out of this horizontal guillotine repeatedly. I did most of the shirts and the pants, and then had got to the socks and underpants. As I was hanging these out, I heard a neat snip from behind, and as I lowered my head and went back to the basket, I felt a small but insistent tugging at the nape of my neck.
I grasped around there for a bit with my hands and found that a plastic clothes peg had neatly detached itself from the washing line (all by itself) and was now hanging happily from the hairs at the nape of my neck.
It was yet another hairy incident.
Sunday, October 09, 2011
Obscunday
"There is no frigate like a book."
That's Dickinson -- ya dig it?
Although some books -- I must admit --
Just make me shout -- 'ah -- frig it.'
That's Dickinson -- ya dig it?
Although some books -- I must admit --
Just make me shout -- 'ah -- frig it.'
UPDATE! - Now with extra dash, a la Dickinson.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Of tweed and tears
I thought I'd have a go at creating romance novel covers for well-known works of literature. And also some... less well known.
Jane Eyre
Pride and Prejudice
Badger's Dozen
Jane Eyre
Pride and Prejudice
Badger's Dozen
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Smellbourne
The best chunder I ever saw was a bright pink one, splattered neatly onto one of the steps of the Flinders Street railway station, underneath the clocks. Of course I have no way of knowing if that was an actual chunder, and not just a Jackson Pollock inspired abstract expression of bodily fluids, tinctured with the best paint colourings and raspberry cordial available, but then that's what makes living in Melbourne so cool and edgy and sophisticated, isn't it?
My mind drifted back to that when I saw this article in the Herald Sun this morning:
CCTV, you say?
More like Wee Wee TV.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here all night.
UPDATE! - If such a CCTV policy were put into place in NZ, of course, it would be Kiwiweeweetv, or possibly Iwiweeweetv.
My mind drifted back to that when I saw this article in the Herald Sun this morning:
CITY streets are on the nose: tests reveal many of them smell as bad as a farmyard.They were talking about this on radio this morning, too, and someone suggested that they use CCTV to put a 'name and shame' file of offenders on the web.
The shocking findings have prompted a disgusted Melborune[sic] Lord Mayor Robert Doyle to demand urinating revellers clean up their act.
International-standard tests conducted exclusively for the Herald Sun Public Defender have found urine, garbage and even the smell of sewage is turning streets and laneways rancid.
The results come barely a month after Melbourne was named the world's most liveable city.
CCTV, you say?
More like Wee Wee TV.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here all night.
UPDATE! - If such a CCTV policy were put into place in NZ, of course, it would be Kiwiweeweetv, or possibly Iwiweeweetv.
I know what I mean but do I understand?
I clicked on the YouTube to show me the invisibility cloak, but I couldn't see it.
Monday, October 03, 2011
Adjective Anderson
The happy news that Angry Anderson is joining the National Party left me wondering earlier today about the many possible speech openers he could use involving his name. It is not often that you find such a useful political adjective, ready to go, in a politician's first name.
Hello, I'm angry, and my name is also Angry!
Hello, I'm Angry! Twice!
It's good to be with you, I'm Angry, and I'm happy today to announce...
I'm Angry, and I'm absolutely andersoned to be with you...
Actually, now that I think about it I have no idea who Angry Anderson is. My response when told about him, as is my response when told about other celebrities who absolutely everyone and anyone knows, is: 'who'? But I'll tell you this: I may have no idea who he is, but I know what he is:
Hello, I'm angry, and my name is also Angry!
Hello, I'm Angry! Twice!
It's good to be with you, I'm Angry, and I'm happy today to announce...
I'm Angry, and I'm absolutely andersoned to be with you...
Actually, now that I think about it I have no idea who Angry Anderson is. My response when told about him, as is my response when told about other celebrities who absolutely everyone and anyone knows, is: 'who'? But I'll tell you this: I may have no idea who he is, but I know what he is:
ANGRY!
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Word things
Today I am going to read this at the Dan in a pathetically cryptic attempt to annoy the hordes of Collingwood supporters who will be too drunk and shouty to hear a syllabub of it anyway. I call it a word poem, in that it is like a sound poem, a found poem, an alphabet poem, or a nice poem, except that it is made out of words.
A WORD POEM
Cankers rankle mouldy manky
Ruthless toothless old and cranky
Gunk and skanky lice and flies -
Cats eat Pies.
McGuire liar pants on fire
Groin conjoin the highest buyer
Hanky panky chunky thighs -
Also, Cats eat Pies.
Tinkle winkle little pinky
Rabies babies farting stinky
Dingle mingle single sighs
Plus, Cats eat Pies.
Colostrum nostrum boozy bash
Casino funny money cash
Soiling sweated shifty eyes
Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats eat Pies.
Cankers rankle mouldy manky
Ruthless toothless old and cranky
Gunk and skanky lice and flies -
Cats eat Pies.
McGuire liar pants on fire
Groin conjoin the highest buyer
Hanky panky chunky thighs -
Also, Cats eat Pies.
Tinkle winkle little pinky
Rabies babies farting stinky
Dingle mingle single sighs
Plus, Cats eat Pies.
Colostrum nostrum boozy bash
Casino funny money cash
Soiling sweated shifty eyes
Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats Cats eat Pies.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Similar but different
Desiccated - what happened to the apple core I left on the bookshelf for several months.
Defecated - what the apple core looked like.
Dedicated - what some authors do with their books for friends.
Defeated - hopefully what will happen to Collingwood on Saturday, if the Cats get everything together.
AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT NOT TO DO: "Geelong defecated Collingwood at the AFL Grand Final..."
Defecated - what the apple core looked like.
Dedicated - what some authors do with their books for friends.
Defeated - hopefully what will happen to Collingwood on Saturday, if the Cats get everything together.
AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT NOT TO DO: "Geelong defecated Collingwood at the AFL Grand Final..."
There comes a point
There comes a point, every night, when you're lying on the couch perhaps reading a book or watching the telly or surfing the internet, when you realise that you're tired and might quite like to go to bed.
There comes a point, every night, when you realise that going to bed will involve -
Getting up,
Switching the lights off,
Making the bed,
Moving the cat off your part of the bed,
Brushing your teeth,
Going into the kitchen, switching the lights on again, and getting yourself some water,
Switching the lights off again,
Putting the water on the shelf next to the bed,
Moving the cat off your part of the bed again,
Going into the bathroom, filling up some water for the cats,
Going into the lounge room, switching the lights on again, again, and fetching your phone and your book,
Switching the lights off again, again,
Moving the cat off your part of the bed again, again,
Actually going to bed.
There comes a point, every night, when you realise you are far too tired to go to bed, and so instead you decide to stay up surfing the internet, perhaps for hours.
There also comes a point, later in the night, when you have actually gone to bed that you realise the whole process of going to bed would make an interesting blog post, but for some reason you are too tired to immediately get up, pull your clothes on, go into the other room, turn the lights on again, again, again, plug the computer back in, log on....
There comes a point, every night, when you realise that going to bed will involve -
Getting up,
Switching the lights off,
Making the bed,
Moving the cat off your part of the bed,
Brushing your teeth,
Going into the kitchen, switching the lights on again, and getting yourself some water,
Switching the lights off again,
Putting the water on the shelf next to the bed,
Moving the cat off your part of the bed again,
Going into the bathroom, filling up some water for the cats,
Going into the lounge room, switching the lights on again, again, and fetching your phone and your book,
Switching the lights off again, again,
Moving the cat off your part of the bed again, again,
Actually going to bed.
There comes a point, every night, when you realise you are far too tired to go to bed, and so instead you decide to stay up surfing the internet, perhaps for hours.
There also comes a point, later in the night, when you have actually gone to bed that you realise the whole process of going to bed would make an interesting blog post, but for some reason you are too tired to immediately get up, pull your clothes on, go into the other room, turn the lights on again, again, again, plug the computer back in, log on....
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Follywood
A chance mention earlier today lead me to this video, which apparently everyone knows about. Then again, I am not everyone. You can refresh your own memory if you like - that's all right, take your time.
It features a reprehensible pair of snivelling babes, the younger who appears to delight in masticating the finger of the elder, who in turn attempts to elicit our attention by playing for sympathy. Just why, however, he allowed the offended digit to proceed into the slavering jaws of his sibling is not explained.
Naturally, when I saw this video earlier today I had no memory of it. There is nothing quite like the internet to make you feel as if you had extremely early onset dementia for failing to remember any number of very inconsequential videos about rather unimportant characters in particularly non-exciting situations. Whether they be panda bears with a cold, kittens cuddling one another, or people who you do not know dancing to music you do not know at a wedding you don't particularly care about, YouTube has thrown up an endless parade of uneventful events which, at various points, everyone (though everyone is not me, and probably not you either) has become enthused about.
It features a reprehensible pair of snivelling babes, the younger who appears to delight in masticating the finger of the elder, who in turn attempts to elicit our attention by playing for sympathy. Just why, however, he allowed the offended digit to proceed into the slavering jaws of his sibling is not explained.
Naturally, when I saw this video earlier today I had no memory of it. There is nothing quite like the internet to make you feel as if you had extremely early onset dementia for failing to remember any number of very inconsequential videos about rather unimportant characters in particularly non-exciting situations. Whether they be panda bears with a cold, kittens cuddling one another, or people who you do not know dancing to music you do not know at a wedding you don't particularly care about, YouTube has thrown up an endless parade of uneventful events which, at various points, everyone (though everyone is not me, and probably not you either) has become enthused about.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Poetry news
Hello, and welcome to another episode of poetry news.
The anti-nude dudes stewed as they viewed the nudists on Castro as they chewed on their food. "These nudists are rude, crude, and really quite lewd", was the firm attitude of the anti-nude dudes.
But the nudists on Castro said the anti-nude dudes were actually prudes. "You can't be a pseudo-nude!" insisted one dude (who was nude).
The anti-nude dudes could not preclude the option of legal action. "It could be pursued", mused an anti-nude dude as drank his brewed drink and he munched on his food.
Which was stewed.
That concludes another episode of poetry news.
The anti-nude dudes stewed as they viewed the nudists on Castro as they chewed on their food. "These nudists are rude, crude, and really quite lewd", was the firm attitude of the anti-nude dudes.
But the nudists on Castro said the anti-nude dudes were actually prudes. "You can't be a pseudo-nude!" insisted one dude (who was nude).
The anti-nude dudes could not preclude the option of legal action. "It could be pursued", mused an anti-nude dude as drank his brewed drink and he munched on his food.
Which was stewed.
That concludes another episode of poetry news.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Music-playing devices - for and against
When it comes to playing music, basically you have a choice between many fine and highly-sophisticated music-playing devices, and dancing naked around your bedroom making hooting noises. So which will it be then?
Record Player - FOR: It's very retro. AGAINST: So retro that it's hard to buy a good record-player nowadays. Some records can get scratched.
CD Player - FOR: Good, clean sound. AGAINST: Except when one of the CDs gets scratched, and 'one of the CDs' increasingly seems to mean 'all of the CDs'.
iPod - FOR: Dunno, but everyone seems to like it. AGAINST: Though it's good for listening quietly to something in the train, who wants to sit at home with those things stuck in your ears?
Piano player - FOR: Doesn't have any problem with scratches. AGAINST: Piano can go out of tune though. And the piano player will occasionally need to be fed. And the piano player will occasionally stop mid-tune and scratch their bum. And they will have to spend an interminable amount of time practicing scales and what-not if they're to be any good.
Symphony orchestra - FOR: Nice, full sound. AGAINST: They may not all fit in your bedroom cupboard when you want to put them away.
Ancient Grecian bagpipe player - FOR:... it's very retro. AGAINST: According to this, er, respected source it will involve them, er, blowing into some inflatable dog's bollocks, um...
In conclusion, start dancing naked around your bedroom and making hooting noises now. It's the only ethical thing to do.
Record Player - FOR: It's very retro. AGAINST: So retro that it's hard to buy a good record-player nowadays. Some records can get scratched.
CD Player - FOR: Good, clean sound. AGAINST: Except when one of the CDs gets scratched, and 'one of the CDs' increasingly seems to mean 'all of the CDs'.
iPod - FOR: Dunno, but everyone seems to like it. AGAINST: Though it's good for listening quietly to something in the train, who wants to sit at home with those things stuck in your ears?
Piano player - FOR: Doesn't have any problem with scratches. AGAINST: Piano can go out of tune though. And the piano player will occasionally need to be fed. And the piano player will occasionally stop mid-tune and scratch their bum. And they will have to spend an interminable amount of time practicing scales and what-not if they're to be any good.
Symphony orchestra - FOR: Nice, full sound. AGAINST: They may not all fit in your bedroom cupboard when you want to put them away.
Ancient Grecian bagpipe player - FOR:... it's very retro. AGAINST: According to this, er, respected source it will involve them, er, blowing into some inflatable dog's bollocks, um...
In conclusion, start dancing naked around your bedroom and making hooting noises now. It's the only ethical thing to do.
Friday, September 23, 2011
An extremely humble post
Speaking of At Home with Julia, I didn't watch that either. (I don't watch TV, remember?) But I did happen to read a blog post linking to another blog post linking to a news article written by a person who had watched at least a tiny portion of the show, a bit where apparently Julia and Tim had done naughty things underneath the Australian flag. This was apparently a very shocking thing.
Well I don't know what all the fuss is about. I'm sure all Prime Ministers and Attorney-Generals and Premiers and Chiefs of the Defence Force do the same thing. When I am Australian of the year, I might... well, when I am Australian of the year I might do lots of things...
Well I don't know what all the fuss is about. I'm sure all Prime Ministers and Attorney-Generals and Premiers and Chiefs of the Defence Force do the same thing. When I am Australian of the year, I might... well, when I am Australian of the year I might do lots of things...
O when I am Australian of the year
I'll rub my trophy bright for hours and hours,
Grow sprays of bottlebrush and wattle-flowers
In jars made out of cans of Fosters Beer.
O when I am Australian of the year
I'll hang a golden sausage on the wall,
And diamante lambchops in the hall,
And polished Chiko Rolls - there - there - and here.
O when I am Australian of the year
Then Liberal and Labor will strike a truce,
And everyone will call their babies Bruce
And Aussies over all the world will cheer.
For when I am Australian of the year
I'll laminate my lamingtons all day
And serve them on a lacquered redgum tray
Until my point is absolutely clear -
And when I am Australian of the year
I'll have the corpse of Bradman waxed - and buffed -
And with the best of Aussie opals stuffed
And every morning, shed a humble tear -
And when night gathers in, and sleep draws near,
In velvet billows of red, white, and blue,
I'll dream of potoroos. That's what I'll do
O, when I am Australian of the year,
O when I am Australian of the year.
I'll rub my trophy bright for hours and hours,
Grow sprays of bottlebrush and wattle-flowers
In jars made out of cans of Fosters Beer.
O when I am Australian of the year
I'll hang a golden sausage on the wall,
And diamante lambchops in the hall,
And polished Chiko Rolls - there - there - and here.
O when I am Australian of the year
Then Liberal and Labor will strike a truce,
And everyone will call their babies Bruce
And Aussies over all the world will cheer.
For when I am Australian of the year
I'll laminate my lamingtons all day
And serve them on a lacquered redgum tray
Until my point is absolutely clear -
And when I am Australian of the year
I'll have the corpse of Bradman waxed - and buffed -
And with the best of Aussie opals stuffed
And every morning, shed a humble tear -
And when night gathers in, and sleep draws near,
In velvet billows of red, white, and blue,
I'll dream of potoroos. That's what I'll do
O, when I am Australian of the year,
O when I am Australian of the year.
Gradually solving the world's problems
Those of you who saw The Gruen Transfer the other night - and I obviously didn't, which is why I'm writing about it now - will have noticed the ad for Superbet, in which a chap walks into a Tab or somewhere like that and concludes that he doesn't want to sit down next to the smelly older working class men, and decides to go and waste his money online instead. This was targeted, the expert in the loud t-shirt explained, at young men who want to waste their money but don't like smelly old men. A logical premise, then, reasonably argued, with perfectly ethical goals in mind, like all advertisements.
But anyway, it struck me then, and strikes me now, that this provides people who are looking into the problem of online gambling addiction with a perfect method of deterrence. Concerned about young people losing all their money gambling online? Solution: send out an army of smelly old men into their flats, their homes, their university colleges, and their bedrooms to counsel them at length about their problems. If by some miracle enough smelly old men cannot be found, an army of, say, young women who have rubbed themselves all over with footballer's socks and painted their face with grease from the underside of their cars could substitute. But I'm sure you could get plenty of smelly old men to participate - just give them a year's supply of VB, or something like that.
On second thoughts, maybe not: we wouldn't want to encourage the rise of counselling in this society. Already, counsellors have reached endemic levels in many parts of this country, and we cannot do enough to battle this scourge which is striking at the very heart of Australian life.
Forget I said anything, then.
But anyway, it struck me then, and strikes me now, that this provides people who are looking into the problem of online gambling addiction with a perfect method of deterrence. Concerned about young people losing all their money gambling online? Solution: send out an army of smelly old men into their flats, their homes, their university colleges, and their bedrooms to counsel them at length about their problems. If by some miracle enough smelly old men cannot be found, an army of, say, young women who have rubbed themselves all over with footballer's socks and painted their face with grease from the underside of their cars could substitute. But I'm sure you could get plenty of smelly old men to participate - just give them a year's supply of VB, or something like that.
On second thoughts, maybe not: we wouldn't want to encourage the rise of counselling in this society. Already, counsellors have reached endemic levels in many parts of this country, and we cannot do enough to battle this scourge which is striking at the very heart of Australian life.
Forget I said anything, then.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Umming, ahhh, errrr, oooh, title!
Doing an interview on 3RRR this afternoon, around 1.20, about the latest Badger's Dozen. I probably should be preparing right about now. I probably should have started preparing a couple of hours ago. I didn't, though, and I'm still not.
You could say it will make the whole interview more engaging, spontaneous, and lively. Or you could say I'll be umming and ahhhing and errring and ooohing and hmmming my way through the most excruciating 5 minutes of radio you've ever heard in your life. With a bit of luck, it'll be both. Excitement!
Here's the link for the show's website.
You could say it will make the whole interview more engaging, spontaneous, and lively. Or you could say I'll be umming and ahhhing and errring and ooohing and hmmming my way through the most excruciating 5 minutes of radio you've ever heard in your life. With a bit of luck, it'll be both. Excitement!
Here's the link for the show's website.
Monday, September 19, 2011
I like balloons
While googling for information about the town of Canowindra, I came upon this rather impressive website, which makes manages to make a lot out of a very little town:
Exhibit A: the title
Exhibit B: the About page
... which somehow manages to begin the history of Canowindra ‘Thousands of years ago’. It’s because they found some old fish fossils there or something.
The combination of humility and bluster is, in fact, rather sweet. It reminds me of other great tourist drawcards in the Australian countryside – the Holbrook submarine, (now marooned in the middle of the driest continent on earth), or the awe-inspiring Albury-Wodonga sculpture, simply titled,
Exhibit A: the title
CANOWINDRA - THE BALLOONING CAPITAL OF AUSTRALIAMeaning not that their population is ballooning. Nope. There’s just a lot of hot air balloons in their neck of the woods.
Exhibit B: the About page
... which somehow manages to begin the history of Canowindra ‘Thousands of years ago’. It’s because they found some old fish fossils there or something.
Thousands of years ago a large number of fish were stranded on dryland after the water level suddenly fell. The fish, many of them unique, were preserved for posterity in layers of rock only to be discovered in the 1900s and thenThey then employ this seamless segue:
catapulted into fame when their true value was realised.
In between the land has seen many changes, particularly in the past 150 years with the development of a township not far from where the fishwere left high and dry.Exhibit C: page devoted to balloons.
“The flight lasts an hour but the memories last a lifetime”Exhibit D: page devoted to The Age of Fishes
“A chance discovery by a roadworker in 1956 has led, many years later, to one of the worlds great fossil discoveries in central west New South Wales, Australia.”We’re not saying it’s the greatest, mind. Just that it’s great.
The combination of humility and bluster is, in fact, rather sweet. It reminds me of other great tourist drawcards in the Australian countryside – the Holbrook submarine, (now marooned in the middle of the driest continent on earth), or the awe-inspiring Albury-Wodonga sculpture, simply titled,
World’s largest air guitar.
We are not suggesting that the goodly township of Canowindra is as grouse as this grouse here. Actually, we pretty much are.
Position vacant
Compostal Delivery Person - in this job, your responsibilities will be going round on a motorbike to every house in your town, delivering compost from other parts of the world to your small part of the world.
You will deliver sludge from Mudgee, splatter from Wangaratta, bogs from Wagga, doos from the dunnies of Dunedoo, goo from Wooloomooloo, and mulch from various gulches.
Most houses will have a compost box at the front, but if not, you can just leave it on the front door.
You will deliver sludge from Mudgee, splatter from Wangaratta, bogs from Wagga, doos from the dunnies of Dunedoo, goo from Wooloomooloo, and mulch from various gulches.
Most houses will have a compost box at the front, but if not, you can just leave it on the front door.
Continuing the paranoid theme
He was growing slowly more and more convinced that the rectangular paper object he held in his hands, full of letters and pictures, was sending messages to him. With growing horror and apprehension he considered what dread import could be held within, what mysterious magical otherworldly message could the book in his hands be attempting to convey? Those letters, right there -
S P O T S F I R S T W A L K
JUST WHAT COULD THEIR MYSTICAL MESSAGE BE?
S P O T S F I R S T W A L K
JUST WHAT COULD THEIR MYSTICAL MESSAGE BE?
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Conspiracy most fowl
I can't shake the feeling that the chooks are all clucking about me behind my back.
UPDATE! - The potatoes, too. Only they're not clucking. They're... making whatever sound it is that potatoes make when they're behind your back.
UPDATE! - The potatoes, too. Only they're not clucking. They're... making whatever sound it is that potatoes make when they're behind your back.
Reviews of second-hand books: A Creepy Company
After having just spent a period of days, which somehow seemed to turn into a period of weeks, which more or less metamorphosed into a duration of two months, reading Tobias Smollett's novel The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, I was somewhat pleased to rediscover what it was like to polish off a rapid succession of books in a rapid succession of days.
Actually, it got to the point, at several stages of the Expedition, where the very prospect of reading more Smollett was enough to fling me into other publications. It was in this way that I had done with the better part of a book of collected essays by William Butler Yeats; several epistles by several apostles; a novel-length narrative poem by James Hogg; and a copy of the Melbourne University student rag, Farrago. In a similar spirit, I suppose, I have just finished Robert Sheckley's The Alchemical Marriage of Alistair Crompton, Joan Aiken's A Creepy Company, and am only now starting Cordwainer Smith's The Planet Buyer. It's amazing how easy it is to read things that are not The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, and I just hope everybody tries it some time.
But anyway, before I continue in my impulsive headlong rush into reading books that are not The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, I just want to take you back to that second last author, and that second last title: Joan Aiken, A Creepy Company. What a great writer Aiken is: she gets off on the right foot right away, by not being Tobias Smollett, and not writing books about people called Clinker, and also by delivering this sentence:
Part of the great charm about all of this collection, of course, is that Aiken was writing in a style that was already at least a decade obsolete - the collection was published in 1993, and deals with the sort of subjects that might come up in BBC serials some 20 years prior to that. The characters do a lot of pensive staring into fireplaces, talking about the war years, going on long boat expeditions, delivering mail by bicycle, and so on. Maybe it's this obsolescence that will help it last: you can tell Aiken's been spending the best part of her life working towards it.
I wouldn't want you to get me wrong, but. Aiken's best books are her novels and short-stories for children, full of poetic and lyrical ideas. This collection of Aiken's is merely fabulous - some of her other writing is even better.
Actually, it got to the point, at several stages of the Expedition, where the very prospect of reading more Smollett was enough to fling me into other publications. It was in this way that I had done with the better part of a book of collected essays by William Butler Yeats; several epistles by several apostles; a novel-length narrative poem by James Hogg; and a copy of the Melbourne University student rag, Farrago. In a similar spirit, I suppose, I have just finished Robert Sheckley's The Alchemical Marriage of Alistair Crompton, Joan Aiken's A Creepy Company, and am only now starting Cordwainer Smith's The Planet Buyer. It's amazing how easy it is to read things that are not The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, and I just hope everybody tries it some time.
But anyway, before I continue in my impulsive headlong rush into reading books that are not The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, I just want to take you back to that second last author, and that second last title: Joan Aiken, A Creepy Company. What a great writer Aiken is: she gets off on the right foot right away, by not being Tobias Smollett, and not writing books about people called Clinker, and also by delivering this sentence:
If you run hot water over the top of the whistling kettle, it lets out a howl, did you know that?There's hardly a story in the collection that follows that falls flat; many of the stories are fiendishly good. For instance, in My Disability (the third story) Aiken writes an extremely anxiety-inducing tale about malevolent Norse trolls merely by taking the idea of malevolent Norse trolls seriously.
Part of the great charm about all of this collection, of course, is that Aiken was writing in a style that was already at least a decade obsolete - the collection was published in 1993, and deals with the sort of subjects that might come up in BBC serials some 20 years prior to that. The characters do a lot of pensive staring into fireplaces, talking about the war years, going on long boat expeditions, delivering mail by bicycle, and so on. Maybe it's this obsolescence that will help it last: you can tell Aiken's been spending the best part of her life working towards it.
I wouldn't want you to get me wrong, but. Aiken's best books are her novels and short-stories for children, full of poetic and lyrical ideas. This collection of Aiken's is merely fabulous - some of her other writing is even better.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Decree from on high
Today, all comments on this blog will be in strictly alphabetical order. Everything else, even more so.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Suggested activity
Wait until it's your birthday, then post an incredibly controversial and contentious argument on your blog, facebook, twitter, and any other social networking site you may have.
People come to you full of good will to wish you many happy returns - and STAY FOR THE FIGHT!
People come to you full of good will to wish you many happy returns - and STAY FOR THE FIGHT!
Monday, September 12, 2011
International zine awareness day
Oh, look! I've got a new zine out! Hey, wow, I'm giving it a launch!
You all should totally come and buy it. But not before you buy it and come.
You all should totally come and buy it. But not before you buy it and come.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
An article on the article
What word, more than any other, appears with laborious regularity, with monotonous determinacy in every tract by every major author in the English language? What word pops up time and time again, with the bumptious certitude of a cliche, the complacent comfort of a worn-out homily, mindlessly repeated by droning nitwits and drivelling politicians, the world over? What word has become so obvious and so necessary that it no longer seems obvious even while it is staring you right in the face, a word that has already appeared five times in this very passage? What word other than the definite article, the word used to 'denote person(s) or thing(s) already mentioned, under discussion, implied, or familiar', as the 'first part of a noun phrase', what other word could I be talking about than the 'the'?
It is depressing once you come to realise that even the greatest of poets have paid homage to this small syllabub in the very first words of their most famous works. Shelley, in Mont Blanc:
On the whole, one can think of much better words with which to open epic, sprawling novels; great, tumultuous dramas - the Shakespearean 'O', for instance, giving me one of my favourite examples:
Why must we put editors to so much trouble? We must we harass them with so many bothersome words? I propose a simple solution: from now on, let us omit all other words from the titles of books, publications, and journals, and replace them with a blank space to be filled in by the editor. From now on, they shall all be titled:
The - - - - - - ...
*Rather odd first line, when you think about it. It starts with 'the', and ends with 'things'.
It is depressing once you come to realise that even the greatest of poets have paid homage to this small syllabub in the very first words of their most famous works. Shelley, in Mont Blanc:
The everlasting universe of things*Gray, in his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard:
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves...
The curfew tolls the knell of passing day...Hemans, in Casabianca:
The boy stood on the burning deckMeanwhile, I just scrutinised a list of famous first lines from novels, and aside from coming up with another batch of examples beginning with the definite article - 'The Miss Lonelyhearts of New York', 'The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new', 'The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel' - but I also came up with this very famous example from Charles Dickens, which, while it does not start with the definite article, could be seen as little more than a way of filling up the inconvenient blanks that occur between definite articles with meaningful words:
When all but he had fled...
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.It is an odd, unprepossessing word, the definite article; a most unmusical, functional gobbet of speech: a short, three letter word beginning with two consonants and followed up by not much else. Ever since the English started speaking English, poets must have been uncertain over whether it was to be pronounced with a long 'e' - making it possible to pronounce it in an exaggerated, tuneful, or dramatic fashion, though why would you want to - or a short 'e', thus making it... not very much at all really, other than a useful device for tripping between the other words.
On the whole, one can think of much better words with which to open epic, sprawling novels; great, tumultuous dramas - the Shakespearean 'O', for instance, giving me one of my favourite examples:
O, for a muse of fire, that would ascendthe epic 'Of':
The very brightest heavens of invention...
Of arms and the man I sing...or
Of man's first disobedience and the fruit...The Kiplingesque 'If' renders not only a famous first word, and a famous first line, but a famous name, and indeed a famous ongoing motive for a justly famous poem:
If you can keep your head when all about youAnd yet I would not have it any other way: it is important to let the definite article have its dues. I was talking to Bill the other day - and if you had ever talked to Bill, you would know who Bill was - who noted how exceedingly difficult it was to research the titles of books, publications, and journals, as some sources would have the journal beginning with the definite article (as in 'The Age', 'The Sydney Morning Herald', 'The Herald Sun') - whilst others would be equally adamant that they are to go without (as in 'Age', 'Sydney Morning Herald', 'Herald Sun').
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise...
Why must we put editors to so much trouble? We must we harass them with so many bothersome words? I propose a simple solution: from now on, let us omit all other words from the titles of books, publications, and journals, and replace them with a blank space to be filled in by the editor. From now on, they shall all be titled:
The - - - - - - ...
*Rather odd first line, when you think about it. It starts with 'the', and ends with 'things'.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Exciting new Kindle additions
Just check out these exciting additions which enhance your electronic book reading experience!
- Smell of old books button! No longer do you have to stand around in second hand bookstores run by crusty old men with cornflakes falling out of their beards to enjoy the unique sensual smell of old books. Just press this button, and our special 'smell of old book' enzyme will drift into your nostrils, providing you with that deep, rich, satisfying experience that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
- Book-worm knob. Comes with several settings: 'book worm', 'weevil', up to 'cockroaches'. The insects will fall out of a hole in the Kindle, replicating the satisfying experience you have upon opening up a mouldering old tome in an ancient dusty library and find a plenitude of creatures with more legs per entity than you thought possible. And because this is the Kindle, you can enjoy the insects in as many channels as there are books saved on your device. Also, speaking of mould...
- Now the Kindle comes in several Mouldy Old skins and encrustations, as good, if not better, than any you'd find on any secondhand book. And if it doesn't trigger several allergic reactions in the user, and possible have them on life support in an hour or two, then please - return to the Kindle company immediately. We wouldn't want to let our standards drop.
- Smell of old books button! No longer do you have to stand around in second hand bookstores run by crusty old men with cornflakes falling out of their beards to enjoy the unique sensual smell of old books. Just press this button, and our special 'smell of old book' enzyme will drift into your nostrils, providing you with that deep, rich, satisfying experience that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
- Book-worm knob. Comes with several settings: 'book worm', 'weevil', up to 'cockroaches'. The insects will fall out of a hole in the Kindle, replicating the satisfying experience you have upon opening up a mouldering old tome in an ancient dusty library and find a plenitude of creatures with more legs per entity than you thought possible. And because this is the Kindle, you can enjoy the insects in as many channels as there are books saved on your device. Also, speaking of mould...
- Now the Kindle comes in several Mouldy Old skins and encrustations, as good, if not better, than any you'd find on any secondhand book. And if it doesn't trigger several allergic reactions in the user, and possible have them on life support in an hour or two, then please - return to the Kindle company immediately. We wouldn't want to let our standards drop.
Train, meet Train, Train, meet train.
This morning I caught the train in to the city, (like I always do), and got on one of the platform 4/5 trains at Flinders Street Station, (like I always do). The train today was a Burnley Train, (which was bad), as I discovered after I got on, as the Burnley Train tends to go to Burnley, which is in an entirely different direction and on a completely different line than those ones which go through North Melbourne. North Melbourne being the station where I eventually get off.
But whatever, I said to myself, as the train set off on its merry way, I've got half an hour (which I did). So I looked out of the window at the sights, and I saw the sights, and the main thing that I saw about the sights was that they were there, and I enjoyed them. I got off at Richmond Station, and got on another train to take me to Southern Cross Station. This train, as it turned out, was completely packed out with people, so instead of looking at the sights as I travelled back to Southern Cross Station, I turned out to be looking at the people. The people were ugly. But that was okay, as they mostly got off at Parliament Station, the first one in the city loop, and for the rest of the trip I had a completely unimpeded and handsome view of the tunnel. I am pleased to report that it was mostly dark, colourless, and otherwise utterly non-descript, and unlike most sightseeing expeditions, had no annoying people trees, landscapes, or scenery blocking it from my admiring gaze.
I got off at Southern Cross Station, got on to another train at Southern Cross Station, which took me in to North Melbourne Station, where I got off, went and got a coffee at the roller door, and went to work. So there.
This afternoon, however, was a different story. I went to North Melbourne Station, and not only was it crowded, but a chap was marching up and down the platforms with a microphone in his hands shouting in an increasingly agitated tone of voice, 'FLINDERS STREET TRAIN ARRIVING NOW AT PLATFORM 3! FLINDERS STREET TRAIN NOW ARRIVING AT PLATFORM 3! SYDENHAM TRAIN ARRIVING 1 MINUTE AT PLATFORM 5! FLINDERS STREET TRAIN ARRIVING 2 MINUTES AT PLATFORMS 1 AND 6! SYDENHAM TRAIN ARRIVING 1 MINUTE AT PLATFORM 5!' I don't know who that guy is, but he's really good at marching up and down strips of concrete and shouting out things in an increasingly agitated tone of voice. He must really like his job.
But whatever, I said to myself, as the train set off on its merry way, I've got half an hour (which I did). So I looked out of the window at the sights, and I saw the sights, and the main thing that I saw about the sights was that they were there, and I enjoyed them. I got off at Richmond Station, and got on another train to take me to Southern Cross Station. This train, as it turned out, was completely packed out with people, so instead of looking at the sights as I travelled back to Southern Cross Station, I turned out to be looking at the people. The people were ugly. But that was okay, as they mostly got off at Parliament Station, the first one in the city loop, and for the rest of the trip I had a completely unimpeded and handsome view of the tunnel. I am pleased to report that it was mostly dark, colourless, and otherwise utterly non-descript, and unlike most sightseeing expeditions, had no annoying people trees, landscapes, or scenery blocking it from my admiring gaze.
I got off at Southern Cross Station, got on to another train at Southern Cross Station, which took me in to North Melbourne Station, where I got off, went and got a coffee at the roller door, and went to work. So there.
This afternoon, however, was a different story. I went to North Melbourne Station, and not only was it crowded, but a chap was marching up and down the platforms with a microphone in his hands shouting in an increasingly agitated tone of voice, 'FLINDERS STREET TRAIN ARRIVING NOW AT PLATFORM 3! FLINDERS STREET TRAIN NOW ARRIVING AT PLATFORM 3! SYDENHAM TRAIN ARRIVING 1 MINUTE AT PLATFORM 5! FLINDERS STREET TRAIN ARRIVING 2 MINUTES AT PLATFORMS 1 AND 6! SYDENHAM TRAIN ARRIVING 1 MINUTE AT PLATFORM 5!' I don't know who that guy is, but he's really good at marching up and down strips of concrete and shouting out things in an increasingly agitated tone of voice. He must really like his job.
Monday, September 05, 2011
Better hair than bare
It’s no go the Marxist mo, it’s no go the Trotsky
Leon was axed in Mexico and he is all kaputski
Stalin grew a bristler but his fingers stained vermillion
Now half the world are baby-faced, the other have Brazilians.
Witches cut off Aslan’s mane, Samson had Delilah,
Klim got his whole body waxed and wasn’t he a smiler
Thorpey’s stubble was a trouble but who cares said the media?
Now rumours the Thorpedo’s gay have a bit on Wikipedia.
It’s no go the Moses beard, it’s no go the Merv Hughes
Now you just need a Kojak conker and you’re in the Who’s Who.
Darwin had a lengthy line, an absolute floor scraper,
George Bernard Shaw looked venerable, and cut a merry caper,
Now Peter Garrett’s shorn his head and couldn’t win a tussel
With a little teensy bit of bearded clam or mussel.
Now mutton chops is a type of food and goatee is a fetta
Which Giselle Bundchen doesn’t want cos she’s signed up to PETA
Now handlebars are just for bikes and Whiskas just for cats,
And beards are just for weird old poets in velvet cloaks and hats.
Leon was axed in Mexico and he is all kaputski
Stalin grew a bristler but his fingers stained vermillion
Now half the world are baby-faced, the other have Brazilians.
Witches cut off Aslan’s mane, Samson had Delilah,
Klim got his whole body waxed and wasn’t he a smiler
Thorpey’s stubble was a trouble but who cares said the media?
Now rumours the Thorpedo’s gay have a bit on Wikipedia.
It’s no go the Moses beard, it’s no go the Merv Hughes
Now you just need a Kojak conker and you’re in the Who’s Who.
Darwin had a lengthy line, an absolute floor scraper,
George Bernard Shaw looked venerable, and cut a merry caper,
Now Peter Garrett’s shorn his head and couldn’t win a tussel
With a little teensy bit of bearded clam or mussel.
Now mutton chops is a type of food and goatee is a fetta
Which Giselle Bundchen doesn’t want cos she’s signed up to PETA
Now handlebars are just for bikes and Whiskas just for cats,
And beards are just for weird old poets in velvet cloaks and hats.
Friday, September 02, 2011
The decay of civilisation and other dangers of abstract minimalist graffiti art
Every time you walk past a plainly painted house in the street, how can you be sure it actually is plainly painted and is not covered in graffiti in the style of Mondrian? And it might just be possible to think that the plain grey rendered building across the road from you actually is a plain grey rendered building across the road - but then again, it could be covered in minimalist graffiti tags with a post-Bauhaus aesthetic.
Those abstract graffiti artists are everywhere - and you just don't know when they'll strike next.
Those abstract graffiti artists are everywhere - and you just don't know when they'll strike next.
Abstract minimalist graffiti art at its worst. Don't let your house become like this.
An extremely nourishing enriching touching inspiring something journey
'Journey'. The word is used so much these days that not only does it apply to everyone doing everything everywhere, but it also applies to everyone else.
Why not trip, expedition, voyage, holiday, tour, hike, flight, elopement, mission, adventure, I wonder? Just about any of these words imply more danger, or more enjoyment, or a more obvious goals, or, at the very least, more personal agency than 'journey', after all. But no - what is really required is a journey, a soul-enriching, heart-touching journey, a spiritual and inspiring journey, a journey for everyone, a journey for Peter, Paul, Mary, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Jack, Jill, and chaps called David who leave their wife and children and go and train and fight with the Taliban and end up in Guantanamo and then write a book about the aforementioned life-touching soul-caressing heart-felt spiritual and inspiring journey that it was though they don't mention the first parts much.
In a journey, at least in the sense the term is used these days, you have about as much agency as a slab of concrete. Things happen to you, maybe; you sure as hell don't make things happen. Who says 'I'm going on a journey to the shops to get some milk'? Who says 'I have sent my finger forth on a journey to probe the left handed cavity of my proboscis?' Does the term 'journey' actually mean anything anymore? Am I embarked on a journey right now as I lounge around in this armchair?
And a very life-touching soul-nourishing heart-felt spiritual and inspiring lounging it is too.
Why not trip, expedition, voyage, holiday, tour, hike, flight, elopement, mission, adventure, I wonder? Just about any of these words imply more danger, or more enjoyment, or a more obvious goals, or, at the very least, more personal agency than 'journey', after all. But no - what is really required is a journey, a soul-enriching, heart-touching journey, a spiritual and inspiring journey, a journey for everyone, a journey for Peter, Paul, Mary, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Jack, Jill, and chaps called David who leave their wife and children and go and train and fight with the Taliban and end up in Guantanamo and then write a book about the aforementioned life-touching soul-caressing heart-felt spiritual and inspiring journey that it was though they don't mention the first parts much.
In a journey, at least in the sense the term is used these days, you have about as much agency as a slab of concrete. Things happen to you, maybe; you sure as hell don't make things happen. Who says 'I'm going on a journey to the shops to get some milk'? Who says 'I have sent my finger forth on a journey to probe the left handed cavity of my proboscis?' Does the term 'journey' actually mean anything anymore? Am I embarked on a journey right now as I lounge around in this armchair?
And a very life-touching soul-nourishing heart-felt spiritual and inspiring lounging it is too.
Thursday, September 01, 2011
Controversial! Political! Polemical! Post!
Some things most trusty than a Labor Cabinet:
- A sturdy oak cabinet
- A modest unassuming cabernet.
- A soft but sweet camembert.
- A tall uniformed carabinieri
- A gay cabriolet.
- A sturdy oak cabinet
- A modest unassuming cabernet.
- A soft but sweet camembert.
- A tall uniformed carabinieri
- A gay cabriolet.
Not a politician.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
A ts about ms
There once was a lady called Ms
Who was in the political bs.
Was she Mrs or Miss?
When quizzed upon this
She frowned and said sternly, I S.
Who was in the political bs.
Was she Mrs or Miss?
When quizzed upon this
She frowned and said sternly, I S.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Amphibious ambiguous
The mangrove killifish is way ahead of us. It lives in pools that are prone to drying up, so it can also live on land for months at a time – often inside hollowed-out logs – where it survives by breathing through its skin. It's also one of only two vertebrates – the other being the closely-related ocellated rivulus – that can self-fertilise....Plenty of animals are hermaphrodites, with both male and female sexual organs. But they still tend to mate with others to mix their genes up a bit... Mangrove killifish don't tend to bother. Adults have both ovaries and testes, so when they want to reproduce they release sperm and eggs simultaneously. After the eggs are fertilised, they lay them in gravel.
I am the Killifish,
The Killifish is I,
I live in the air
Yet I do not die;
Androgynous amphibian
All alone in the tree,
Majestically monogamous
Magnificent me.
Feeling frisky feeling flirty
Feeling frolicsome and flighty,
Hermaphrodite
Meets Aphrodite;
All my ova I am over,
I am he I am she
I am mother father lover
I am me me me.
I am you they is we
Us is quite a group,
Prodigious homozygotes
Of the primal soup;
You never could imagine
Such a narcissist could be -
But really, who is you?
For we is only me.
In solipsistic splendour
I wallow out my days
Fantasising of myself
In a love-lorn daze;
Androgynous amphibian
All alone in the tree,
Majestically monogamous
Magnificent me.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Random meaningless outbursts by people of exceeding eccentricity
Apparently, I spend a lot of the time around the house going around singing out snatches of nonsense verse: lots of 'diddles' and 'dum dum dums' involved. This is, apparently, a little uncommon. Whatever.
But lately I've been barely able to restrain the urge to do this on blogs and facebook as well - textual versions of this. Maybe one day I'll burst out with something like 'Oh fiddle faddle fiddle fiddle faddle fum!' on an incredibly serious and important political blog post and everyone will be horribly offended.
Really - what's blogging for if it's not for facilitating random, meaningless outbursts by people of exceeding eccentricity the world over? Hmmm?
But lately I've been barely able to restrain the urge to do this on blogs and facebook as well - textual versions of this. Maybe one day I'll burst out with something like 'Oh fiddle faddle fiddle fiddle faddle fum!' on an incredibly serious and important political blog post and everyone will be horribly offended.
Really - what's blogging for if it's not for facilitating random, meaningless outbursts by people of exceeding eccentricity the world over? Hmmm?
Calendularic collywobbles
In the course of a news report about disaster readiness in Queensland local councils following the floods and cyclones of January, the reporter concludes: "But the preparations are in place... just in case January ever happens again."
In this case I must make a sombre prediction: January almost certainly will happen again. Indeed, if the chronological indications that I find on my calendar are accurate, not only will January happen again in Queensland, but it will all over the rest of the world, too: and who knows how many Australians will be affected by this global tragedy?
Worse is to follow, for the slowly unfolding tragedy of January will be followed by its grim aftermath, February. Despite the best efforts of rescue workers and council officials, March will soon follow, with devastating implications for everyone who is implicated in the devastation. Here the predictions get a little hazy, but June, May, and April will occur shortly thereafter, making what was already a terrible situation even worse. However, thanks to the efforts of volunteers and council officials, July will occur; and after several helpful statutes are implemented in the Queensland parliament, August and September will follow. Thereafter, October and November, and possibly even December may occur, but we shouldn't get our hopes up.
What can we do to stop it? Who will protect us from this temporal terror? The answer to both of these questions, sadly, is, no.
In this case I must make a sombre prediction: January almost certainly will happen again. Indeed, if the chronological indications that I find on my calendar are accurate, not only will January happen again in Queensland, but it will all over the rest of the world, too: and who knows how many Australians will be affected by this global tragedy?
Worse is to follow, for the slowly unfolding tragedy of January will be followed by its grim aftermath, February. Despite the best efforts of rescue workers and council officials, March will soon follow, with devastating implications for everyone who is implicated in the devastation. Here the predictions get a little hazy, but June, May, and April will occur shortly thereafter, making what was already a terrible situation even worse. However, thanks to the efforts of volunteers and council officials, July will occur; and after several helpful statutes are implemented in the Queensland parliament, August and September will follow. Thereafter, October and November, and possibly even December may occur, but we shouldn't get our hopes up.
What can we do to stop it? Who will protect us from this temporal terror? The answer to both of these questions, sadly, is, no.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Morning meditation
I suppose I should really stop walking around with my socks on my neck at some point. It's just it's been so convenient so far (though what did convenience ever have to do with anything?)
Stay tuned for Tim's exciting Post-prandial ponderances, Saturday-sunrise-sooths, and Lugubrious Lammas-tide lucubrations.
Stay tuned for Tim's exciting Post-prandial ponderances, Saturday-sunrise-sooths, and Lugubrious Lammas-tide lucubrations.
Friday, August 19, 2011
The Ailments of Style
Muphry’s Law is the editorial application of the better-known Murphy’s Law. Muphry’s Law dictates that:
1. if you write anything criticising editing or proofreading, there will be a fault in what you have written;
2. if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book;
3. the stronger the sentiment in (a) and (b), the greater the fault; and
4. any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent.
Muphry’s Law also dictates that, if a mistake is as plain as the nose on your face, everyone can see it but you... Acknowledgments to John Bangsund, of the Victorian Society of Editors, who first coined the term....
One law holds the arty-farty,
Cliques and claques of literati,
Hoi-polloi, and humble hacks,
Looking looking to their backs,
Feel they cannot look away
As it holds them in its sway,
One pen pricks their huff-and-puffery -
One law alone - its name is MUPHRY.
Letter writer sneers and jeers
Says a journo's full of smears,
That they're false and 'full of fuphrys' -
Oh look! My goodness me! A Muphry!
Writer, feeling twitchy twitchy,
Their editor is rather snitchy,
Ah, but soon they find recovery
For see? The ed. has made a Muphry!
Critic makes a proclamation
On a famous animation,
Writes 'Gagglemel' and 'Smrufs' and 'Smufrey' -
Muphry, Muphry, Muphry, Muphry!
Teacher writes his school reports
Full of cranky sharp retorts
But sillyish billyish, what-an-old-duffery -
He's written Muphry after Muphry.
One law holds the arty-farty,
Cliques and claques of literati,
Hoi-polloi, and humble hacks,
Looking looking to their backs,
Feel they cannot look away
As it holds them in its sway,
One pen pricks their huff-and-puffery -
One law alone - its name is MUPHRY.
Cliques and claques of literati,
Hoi-polloi, and humble hacks,
Looking looking to their backs,
Feel they cannot look away
As it holds them in its sway,
One pen pricks their huff-and-puffery -
One law alone - its name is MUPHRY.
Letter writer sneers and jeers
Says a journo's full of smears,
That they're false and 'full of fuphrys' -
Oh look! My goodness me! A Muphry!
Writer, feeling twitchy twitchy,
Their editor is rather snitchy,
Ah, but soon they find recovery
For see? The ed. has made a Muphry!
Critic makes a proclamation
On a famous animation,
Writes 'Gagglemel' and 'Smrufs' and 'Smufrey' -
Muphry, Muphry, Muphry, Muphry!
Teacher writes his school reports
Full of cranky sharp retorts
But sillyish billyish, what-an-old-duffery -
He's written Muphry after Muphry.
One law holds the arty-farty,
Cliques and claques of literati,
Hoi-polloi, and humble hacks,
Looking looking to their backs,
Feel they cannot look away
As it holds them in its sway,
One pen pricks their huff-and-puffery -
One law alone - its name is MUPHRY.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Splot of news (why do I keep typing splot?)
Another day, another plug for my zine, Badgers Dozen. Here's where you can get it now
- Bird in the Hand, Newcastle
- Brunswick Bound, Brunswick
- Sticky Institute, Melbourne
- Polyester Books, Fitzroy
- Collected Works, Melbourne
- Thornbury Records, Thornbury
And, if I can get my shit together, you should be able to get copies off the Perth Zine Collective in a few weeks.
The next issue, the Spring one, will be launched at the Dan O'Connell in a couple of weeks time - Saturday, September 17 - sometime after 2.
Meanwhile, I got told a couple of days ago that Badgers was a semi-finalist in the Golden Stapler awards. The what? I'd entered it into them months ago because I liked the names and hadn't bothered worrying about it since. I plan to keep doing things that way, since it seems to be working for me so far.
AND THAT'S THAT.
UPDATE! - I've just added Thornbury Records to the list as well. And of course people can contact me by my email address, timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au, and get me to post something to them directly. Hello, good people from the Society of Editors!
- Bird in the Hand, Newcastle
- Brunswick Bound, Brunswick
- Sticky Institute, Melbourne
- Polyester Books, Fitzroy
- Collected Works, Melbourne
- Thornbury Records, Thornbury
And, if I can get my shit together, you should be able to get copies off the Perth Zine Collective in a few weeks.
The next issue, the Spring one, will be launched at the Dan O'Connell in a couple of weeks time - Saturday, September 17 - sometime after 2.
Meanwhile, I got told a couple of days ago that Badgers was a semi-finalist in the Golden Stapler awards. The what? I'd entered it into them months ago because I liked the names and hadn't bothered worrying about it since. I plan to keep doing things that way, since it seems to be working for me so far.
AND THAT'S THAT.
UPDATE! - I've just added Thornbury Records to the list as well. And of course people can contact me by my email address, timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au, and get me to post something to them directly. Hello, good people from the Society of Editors!
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Kromulent Kimball
Ever read something by a critic
I passed on the sad news [of Margaret Olley's death] to Roger Kimball, the New York art critic, and editor of the New Criterion who first encountered her work in Sydney in 2000. He wrote back: 'I vividly remember her deftly inflected neo-impressionist work: Matisse-like in its orchestration of colour and poignantly expressive of the character and humanity of her sitters. She was the real thing in an age of posturing and ersatz.'and thought, this guy is a bloody liar! What this Kimball dude is 'vividly remembering' is apparently a collection of ambiguous nouns, adjectives, and verbs which, when strung together, could be applied to just about any artist, and describe just about any painting, whatsoever. And who writes like that in a letter or email, anyway?
Peter Coleman, Australian Notes, The Spectator (no link available)
"Vividly executed deftness in a Neo-Matisse like field with orchestral impressions": a work by the late Margaret Olley.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Whimsical topics for dinner party discussion
Meanwhile, this, from Thylacinowhatsimacallit:
I suppose it must be difficult, though, if you're a member of the Angry Mob, or the Protesters, or the Rioters, sorting it all out in your own head. Are they the ones full of a burning desire to smash things, or a smashing desire to burn things? It probably all depends on whether those things are made out of glass, or wood, or a combination of both.
These small but important matters are crucial if you are to make your way in society, so you'd better starting studying them right now, young whippersnapper.
UPDATE! - The Absolutely Crucial Essential and Very Important Guide to Things. If you are a Rioter, Protester, or Angry Mob, you should definitely study this closely:
Glass things - known for breaking.
Wooden things - good for breaking glass things.
Fire - good for burning wooden things.
(Note: you may not want to burn the wooden things if you are using them to break glass things.)
Store things - the things behind the glass things. You take them once you have broken the glass things.
Things - If you can't burn it, break it, steal it, or use it to burn, break, or steal other things, what good is it? Well, you might be able to use it to throw at other human things. (See below).
(Note: maybe don't throw the things if they are light and fluffy, like feathers or puppies, though.)
Human things - The things you see going about with arms and legs and a capacity for moral reasoning. This last one is a difficult concept for Rioters, Protesters, and Angry Mobs to understand, but after a long meditation they might be able to come to grips with it.
Asked if he felt guilty that other residents had their cars reduced to cinders, the older man said that, if a resident had come out and said it was their car, the group had moved on to another. "If you leave your car outside when there is a riot going on, it's going to happen, isn't it? Breaking stuff is part of a riot, otherwise, it's just a protest."It's an important question, isn't it, just what distinguishes a Riot from a Protest. On the one hand, you have a bunch of angry people shouting things and smashing other things, while on the other hand you have a bunch of cranky people smashing things while shouting other things. It's a small but crucial difference, and of course it's absolutely vital to to know this if you want to be seen as a respected and well-mannered member of society. Of course, you wouldn't want to get the Rioters and the Protesters confused with the Angry Mob, who I suppose can best be described as a hard-hitting group of people hitting things, hard.
I suppose it must be difficult, though, if you're a member of the Angry Mob, or the Protesters, or the Rioters, sorting it all out in your own head. Are they the ones full of a burning desire to smash things, or a smashing desire to burn things? It probably all depends on whether those things are made out of glass, or wood, or a combination of both.
These small but important matters are crucial if you are to make your way in society, so you'd better starting studying them right now, young whippersnapper.
UPDATE! - The Absolutely Crucial Essential and Very Important Guide to Things. If you are a Rioter, Protester, or Angry Mob, you should definitely study this closely:
Glass things - known for breaking.
Wooden things - good for breaking glass things.
Fire - good for burning wooden things.
(Note: you may not want to burn the wooden things if you are using them to break glass things.)
Store things - the things behind the glass things. You take them once you have broken the glass things.
Things - If you can't burn it, break it, steal it, or use it to burn, break, or steal other things, what good is it? Well, you might be able to use it to throw at other human things. (See below).
(Note: maybe don't throw the things if they are light and fluffy, like feathers or puppies, though.)
Human things - The things you see going about with arms and legs and a capacity for moral reasoning. This last one is a difficult concept for Rioters, Protesters, and Angry Mobs to understand, but after a long meditation they might be able to come to grips with it.
Do not presume to assume
Sometimes you see a word or a phrase that just leaps out at you. It might be, say, the name of an organisation, and the presence of one simple word shows you that what they assume they are about, and what they assume their assumptions are, are two different and separate things. Such as...
For Too Long We Have Allowed Youth To Endanger Our Way of Life. Isn't It Time We Did Something About the Scourge of Youthfulness that is Sweeping Our Nation? We Need to Tax Youth In Order to Discourage Its Prevalence in Our Society! We Ought to Undertake a Range of Initiatives To Ensure That Youth Is Used Responsibly. We Can No Longer Allow Young People To Take Part In Youthfulness: It Should Be Restricted to People Aged 18 and Over. Why Not a Plain Paper Packaging Policy For Youth? Opinion Column: Scientists Discover Youth Eventually Turn Into Old People, And Shortly Die. Should This Be Allowed? Ought We Not Ask the Hard Questions As Society, Such as Appropriate Ways of Dealing With Our Youth Before The Tragedy of Old Age Sets In?
Or maybe just...
Youth: Taking All the Alcohol Before Older and More Responsible Drunkards Can. It's Time To Act as a Society Before The Last Beer Goes.
McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth
For Too Long We Have Allowed Youth To Endanger Our Way of Life. Isn't It Time We Did Something About the Scourge of Youthfulness that is Sweeping Our Nation? We Need to Tax Youth In Order to Discourage Its Prevalence in Our Society! We Ought to Undertake a Range of Initiatives To Ensure That Youth Is Used Responsibly. We Can No Longer Allow Young People To Take Part In Youthfulness: It Should Be Restricted to People Aged 18 and Over. Why Not a Plain Paper Packaging Policy For Youth? Opinion Column: Scientists Discover Youth Eventually Turn Into Old People, And Shortly Die. Should This Be Allowed? Ought We Not Ask the Hard Questions As Society, Such as Appropriate Ways of Dealing With Our Youth Before The Tragedy of Old Age Sets In?
Or maybe just...
Youth: Taking All the Alcohol Before Older and More Responsible Drunkards Can. It's Time To Act as a Society Before The Last Beer Goes.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Suggestion for the day
Replace the teaching of the base ten number system with a number system based on feelings. Therefore, teaching of the times tables, arithmetic, and other simple mathematical skills could be quickly and easily replaced with a method in which the answers to maths problems are worked out based on a passive-aggressive class-based negotiation, eg: "You feel that the answer is 'hurt'? I am frustrated at your conclusion, and applying my frustration, I find that the answer is 'regretful' instead."
I can't see the public schools having any problems with teaching a feeling-based number system at all. Actually, I'm surprised they haven't implemented it years ago.
I can't see the public schools having any problems with teaching a feeling-based number system at all. Actually, I'm surprised they haven't implemented it years ago.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Beardservation
I constantly get stopped these days by people talking about my Ned Kelly beard. This morning a dude kept on shouting out stuff about my Moses beard.
Did Moses keep on getting random Hebrews stopping him and telling him about his Ned Kelly beard? Did Ned Kelly have other bushrangers stopping him shouting about his Tim beard? I ask you.
Did Moses keep on getting random Hebrews stopping him and telling him about his Ned Kelly beard? Did Ned Kelly have other bushrangers stopping him shouting about his Tim beard? I ask you.
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