The Substitute Handkerchief Review

The Substitute Handkerchief Review(tm)
For those many occasions when you have a cold which causes you to have a runny nose and you leave the house in a rush and forget to take a handkerchief and therefore are in need of something to blow your nose.

House bricks - it all depends. Is the house brick connected to a house? The person owning the house may resent you using it to blow your nose.

Domestic pets - with their lush, warm fur, pets seem inviting to the potential nostril in need of an aero-hygenic treatment. However, the adventurous nose-blower should first ask himself a few questions: is the pet awake or asleep, docile or active, etc? Remember: pets have claws, and often bite.

A muffin - only if it tastes bad. And only after you have tasted it to make sure. Don't get confused here: it would be quite awkward if you first blowed your nose on the muffin, and then tasted it to make sure it tasted bad.

Your shirt - are you wearing it to your office? It could still be fine to blow your nose on it - but it is preferable if your office is under a car, or in the mud on a farm somewhere.

Someone else's shirt - generally, the shirts that people are yet to wear are vastly preferable, as they are much cleaner and less likely to smell.

Toilet paper - only before you use it for other purposes. However, be aware that for some curious reason, many sheets of toilet paper these days are lightly scented with floral essences, presumably because people like having floral-scented bottoms. These may make you sneeze.

A book of modernist poetry - Unfortunately, the field of literary criticism is still unsettled in its view on whether it is suitable to blow your nose on this or not. Best confine your nose-blowing efforts to literary productions such as street directories, bus timetables, etc.

A pancake that has been cooked ten minutes ago - Large, pliable, and warm without being hot, a pancake makes an almost ideal surface on which to blow your nose if you don't have a hankderchief. Pity that pancakes taste so nice and you've probably already eaten it by then.

A seat on the tram - it really depends where the tram has been and where it's going. Also, make sure you have a ticket or Myki with you.

Should you blow your nose on this ordinary looking house brick? This is one of the many controversies looked at in today's issue of The Substitute Handkerchief Review.

First notes towards a historical study of toilet roll architecture

The origin of toilet roll towers is veiled in the mists of time. When did the first primitive peoples start using the toilet rolls that were left-over once all the paper had been taken off to make rudimentary constructions? What did the first towers, consisting of a mere two or three toilet rolls, signify? Were they a monument to the Gods? A technical experiment? A demonstration of the power of some local ruler? The more we delve into this matters, it seems, the less we know: if we are to accept that the Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs used the power of slave labour to erect their toilet roll pyramids, then how did they get all those slaves into the toilet? Like I said, it is veiled in the mists of time.

Today, toilet roll architecture stretches across the globe, and also into the Baron and Tim's bathroom. Who are the Baron and Tim anyway? What ancient secrets do they have linking them to the time of Sumer, when it is thought the first true toilet roll architectural guilds began? While we may never know for certain who Tim and the Baron are, it seems fairly clear that they live in Lalor and have a sizeable toilet roll tower in their bathroom. It is less clear just who is responsible for it: the Baron says Tim did it. Tim maintains the cats did it. The cats ignore me and lick their tails. Is there something I am not meant to know? During the whole of time I spent with this shy and vulnerable ancient tribe, although impressed by the resilience of their simple tribal ways, I never managed to get to the bottom of this question.

One thing is for certain: if you are thinking of making a toilet roll tower for yourself, make sure you do it away from the front of the toilet, lest someone going into the toilet should accidentally cause the tower to topple by shutting the door. Also, you might find that any cats or tigers that are around the house might like to play with the toilet roll tower. But was that one thing or two things? Alas, that is yet another question that we may never know the answer to in the still-developing science of toilet roll architecture. Let me just repeat three words: veiled, mists, time.

Things that sound like other things

Kafuffle. Means - a spot of bother, a fuss, a trouble.

Sounds like - something deliciously light, fluffy, and crispy that you've just cooked in the oven.

Kafuffle? Mmm, yes - I wouldn't mind one right now. Hang on, I'll make some coffee...

Next train to Sydenglam

Shared the last part of my morning train ride to North Melbourne today with someone's apple core on the seat beside me.

It was truly a propitious occasion to share a seat with such an August Personage.

I hope it had its Myki with it, though.

WTFF News: Tasmania discovered (again)

CANBERRA, TUESDAY - Australia's island state of Tasmania has finally been discovered, again, after a man named Dave was found to have accidentally packed it up in a box and put it at the back of his cupboard.

"It was a complete accident," laughs Dave, 65. "I was just closing my market stall up a few Saturdays ago, as I normally do, and happened to pack Tasmania in as well. What a duffer I've been!"

Thankfully, Australian law authorities were quickly on the case, and started their search for Tasmania only three weeks after the island state went missing. "We didn't notice anything at first," admits Constable Guffrey, of the Federal Police. "But when a couple of tourists to Tasmania from the mainland came back and said they couldn't find anything, then we started to get suspicious."

It was initially thought that the state of Tasmania had been abducted by terrorists, but after several weeks nobody had claimed responsibility.

Tasmania is not the first geographical location to go missing. Previously, the British nation of Wales took a month off to see the sites around the world, and the Newfoundland Islands were briefly lost just after being found by the Portuguese.

The location has been restored to its location by Dave with hearty apologies from the rest of Australia and a promise not to do it again. 

 

Flinders Street Station - one of many sights that you will not see in Tasmania.

The reason for my being late for work today, tomorrow, and every foreseeable day in the future

 

No, that's not a laptop you see there. If it was a laptop, clearly, it would be in my lap. Let's pretend we never saw it. 

The Baron might be late for work, too.

Heroic Olympic heroes!

Fastest sprinter over 10 gallons.

Longest high-jumping hour.

Heaviest ampere over the course of four centimetres.

Most patriotic non-Australians living outside of Australia.

How to make cheese

Hello! Welcome to my blog post about how to make cheese! Cheese making is a fascinating process that people have been doing for many many centuries, producing the wide variety of cheese substances that we know and love today, such as Home Brand Tasty, Kraft Singles, and that stuff-they-squirt-on-top-of-the-burgers-at-my-local-shopping-centre-so-that-it-looks-like-melted-cheese. Also, cheese making can often be a puzzling and counter-intuitive process: for instance, when you make the curds out of the milk, you have to heat it up to solidify it. Also, when you are salting the curds, the more salt you add, the less salty the cheese is likely to taste! Isn't that fascinating? Well, that doesn't matter.

Of course, I have extensive experience in cheese making myself, such as the one time I attempted to make mascarpone cheese in my kitchen, which is also the only time I attempted to make mascarpone cheese, which is also the only cheese that I have ever attempted to make. Plus, I have attempted to make this only cheese that I have ever attempted to make just this morning, so this extensive experience is still fresh in my head.

In the process of cheese making, I flooded the stove while attempting for over an hour to get the cream to the right temperature for adding the thickener. Also, the thermometer kept on wanting to topple headlong into the cream. Eventually I just chucked the thickener in anyway, and from a sizeable pot of cream, managed to produce an amount of liquid best described as lying between the miniscule to the non-existent. Then, I got ready to go to work. Then, my pants exploded*. Then, I missed the train.

In conclusion, if you are thinking of making cheese yourself, here's how to do it: don't**.

Traditional Kraft Singles makers at work.  

*This really is true. Please don't ask what I am wearing now, that would be embarassing for us all.

**This goes for the people who make Home Brand Tasty, Kraft Singles, and that stuff-they-squirt-on-top-of-the-burgers-at-my-local-shopping-centre-so-that-it-looks-like-melted-cheese too. ESPECIALLY for them.

A tale of two lists

Things to do today:
1) Clean kitchen.
2) Make gruit beer.
3) Make mascarpone cheese.

Things achieved today:
1) Made lists.

Definitely definitive

Hello! In this Sunday edition of  'Definitely definitive', we're going to take a sneak peek at the phrase... 'sneak peek'!

A sneak peek is an early look at something. It could be a show, a festival, an unpublished book, or anything, really! Note you aren't just looking at it - that would be just having a 'peek'!

A sneak peak could be one of two things. It could be a shifty mountaintop...

Or it could be a furtive orgasm had by yourself, or someone else. You could call it a 'sly high'.

A chique sneak is a fashionable but untrustworthy person. 

Sneaker pique is a person in sneakers being angry. Or just an angry sneaker.

Thank you for taking a peek at this sneak peak post!

Pink frilly brolly thrills

I have a pink frilly brolly that everyone keeps noticing. It's incredibly good at being noticed, my pink frilly brolly. You might say that, apart from keeping the rain off me, that's its special talent in the whole wide world. "One coffee please," I say. "Nice umbrella," they say. "I'm going to lunch," I say. "Nice umbrella," they say. "Hello," I say. "Nice umbrella," they say. "Robomatic chocolate birdseed," I say. "What are you talking about?" they say.

Well, aside from the odd occasion, that is, people really do keep noticing the pink frilly brolly that I have. And why shouldn't I have a pink frilly brolly with me? After all, it was very wet today. Also, pink frilly brollies are so manly.

I propose that the next time they invent a football team, they make them pink and frilly. With white spots. Just like my umbrella, only better at kicking balls.

After all, everyone would notice them. And pink frilly football players are so manly.

Lost in a concrete Eldorado

South Morang is what might be called an aspirational suburb: it may or may not exist. Up until several years ago it certainly didn't. Its very name seems to be based upon a geographical absurdity (there is no north Morang to be south of.) For some reason, Whittlesea Shire Council - which Lalor is a part of - decided to put their council chambers smack bang in the middle of this possibly-non-existent suburb. I can't quite figure that one out, but it seems likely that it is a very, very good joke that they've been having amongst themselves.

Suburbs which may or may not exist, as you might imagine, are rather good places to become lost in. Which the Baron and I did, last night. We caught the train line to the station that was not listed yet on Google maps, looking out of the windows upon the rows of suburban houses which we could not see because it was dark, and got off and promptly walked in the wrong direction while looking for evidence of a restaurant that proudly proclaimed itself - or rather, its reality - on the internet. I blame myself for using Google in the first place.

We walked by broad streets, packed with cars driving very quickly in one direction or another, along neat footpaths empty of people, next to immaculately-mown lawns devoid of weeds or trees, and past darkened council offices. We came to a looming Parthenon, festooned in lights; large posters on its side proclaimed it might be a place where we could hold a wedding, or a conference, or an opera. We continued over a watercourse into a narrower street, where houses built last year, last summer, or last week towered up at us, and we wondered whether we had taken the wrong turning down a street that didn't exist yet on the internet, or we had taken the right turning to go to a place that didn't exist anymore. Eventually we concluded that we had gone in entirely the wrong direction.

We flagged down a bus (which, rather conveniently, charged around the corner right at the point when we decided that we had gone in the wrong direction) and held a very puzzling conversation with a heavily-accented (I have no idea what accent his voice was heavy with) bus-driver who was, in turn, very puzzled by us. No, he didn't go along X Road. No, he wasn't quite sure where X Road was either. But he wasn't sure if we should be on this bus either, he turned soon, just after the station. Yes, yes, we protested, that's where we want to get off!

Eventually we were walking in the right direction towards a cafe whose existence seemed increasingly uncertain. We saw a purple sign, shining brightly on the other side of the road, and I wondered briefly whether that might be it. The Baron informed me it was an adult entertainment shop. We marched on past a fenced-off field - the original South Morang, perhaps - hung around with signs which said, ENVIRONMENTAL NO GO ZONE. And then, quite suddenly, around the corner of a rather modest-looking block of offices, we came upon it.

The 'cafe' turned out to be a cavernous hall that may originally have been intended as an an office building. A series of superfluous blue lights, blinking on and off, festooned the exterior, and to get in you had to go through a complicated system of two doors up to a main desk. We marched up to the desk and asked for a 'table for two'. (Looking out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two or three other diners scattered about the vast  interior as I asked this.) The Baron said, rather kindly I thought, "sorry, we haven't booked." The guy behind the desk waved us in in the gestural equivalent of a yawn. Soon after he had dispensed with the customary courtesies (drinks, menus, etc) he went back to the table he shared with a friend, and the two commenced gossiping.

We were left sitting, rather uncomfortably, right in front of the window, in between a bare street,  and row after row of customerless tables. Curiously, the empty street left me feeling as if I should be performing the part of a satisfied customer. The Baron and I did what we could to fill up the void - haggled over items on the menu, surveyed the decor of the cafe, eavesdropped in on the conversation of two others sitting conveniently close by.

At such places, of course, the price is also aspirational: you are subsidising the possibility of future customers. The meal may be wholly incidental; though, incidentally, when it came, it was also rather nice. But was it enough getting lost in a concrete Eldorado for? I suppose that all depends. Though on what it all depends, I have no idea...

If I may just take a little of your time

GOOD FUNGUS!
The mushrooms we've been growing in the shower recess for the past few months.

BAD FUNGUS!
The mushrooms we found that looked like the mushrooms we'd been growing so we ate them but might actually have been a yellow-stainer mushroom though we didn't get sick phew that was a close one.

GOOD FUNGUS!
Yeast, that wondrous eukaryotic microorganism that does... whatever eukaryotic microorganisms are supposed to do to make bread rise, and beer ferment.

BAD FUNGUS!
Tinea!

GOOD FUNGUS!
Mucor miehei, the wondrous coagulant found in vegetables that makes milk curdle, thus making the process of cheese-making so much easier for you if you don't want to use animal rennet!

BAD FUNGUS!
The mould that I found growing on one half a lemon I hadn't squeezed yet.

GOOD FUNGUS!
Champignons!

QUESTIONABLE FUNGUS!
Magic mushrooms! Because it's your own choice but surely there are more profitable ways of using your time?

Thank you for letting me take up just a little bit of your time in order to make this qualitative list of fungi.

A gender agenda to adore a door

I just learnt from Tim that Emily's List is celebrating 15 years by releasing fridge magnets.

 

Image via the Telegraph.

This is a perfect opportunity for Fridge Magnet Poetry!

TONY. HATE. IS.
JULIA. I. ADORE.
LOVE. MEANS. EQUAL.
ME. PAY. MORE.

***

A. GENDER. LOVE. IS.
HATE. TONY. 'S. SPEEDO.
AFFIRMATIVE. WOMAN.
ACTION. THE. TORPEDO.

***

AFFIRMATIVE. GOOD. ACHIEVEMENT.
FABULOUS. FUTURE. FOR.
FEMINIST. UNION. WOMEN.
ME. PARTY. MORE. 

***

GIRLS. LOVE. MONEY.
AFFIRMATIVE. PAY. I.
MORE. RIGHTS. FOR.
I. ME. MY.

***

DON'T. VOTE. JULIA.
FABULOUS. NOT. FOR.
LIBERAL. LOOKS. FUTURE.
IS. RIGHT. MORE.

***

CHIEF. TORPEDO. I.
ARE. AND. THE. 
DIVERSITY. LOOKS. LIKE.
MAD. IS. ME.

Piano lessons for wimps #1

Get a copy of J.S. Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues, and only play the preludes.

Wanted: new book to become distracted from

After avoiding reading Sterne's Tristram Shandy for a series of days which turned into a series of weeks which turned into a series of months which became a period of about half a year, one evening on the train, all of a sudden, I finished the same novel, which came as quite a shock. It's said that many men have a mid-life crisis, a point at which they ask of themselves, 'where do I go from here?'. Well it's certainly true that avoiding reading a book over a period of days weeks months half years gives you almost unlimited scope for distraction. When you're me, that distraction entails reading other books, writing a goodly hundred-odd blog posts, finishing off two zines, and starting on a third. Now I've actually finished the damn book I'm not sure what to do with my life. Where do I go from here? Maybe they should ban reading on the trains.

Stuck at a loose end the other night, I picked up a Wordsworth Classics edition of Tales from King Arthur, a version of Andrew Lang's 19th century classic Book of Romance. It's the first lot of Arthurian tales I've read for a while, but of course by now I know all the characters so well, having encountered and re-encountered them through umpteen books - from T. H. White's The Once and Future King through to Edmund Spencer's Faerie Queen. I haven't read the Thomas Malory (that's another book I've been avoiding finishing for about a decade now - my excuse is that I have only the last half. It's easier to start something you can't finish than finish something you can't start, evidently).

Lang's main achievement seems to have been to translate the courtly manners of the original Arthurian stories into contemporary language. This seems to throw up occasional oddities of phrase, though -

While the King was wondering what sort of a beast this could be, a Knight rode by, who, seeing a man lying under a tree, stopped and said to him: 'Knight full of thought and sleepy, tell me if a strange beast has passed this way?'

The old narrative devices can seem very creaky. We learn in opening one story that 'it was the King's custom that he would eat no food on the day of Pentecost, which we call Whit Sunday, until he had heard or seen some great marvel.' For the story to proceed the marvel has to happen, and so 'Sir Gawaine was looking from the window a little before noon when he espied three men on horseback, and with them a dwarf on foot, who held their horses when they alighted.' Some visitors including a person not confined to the conventional height paradigm is a very meagre marvel indeed. Funnily enough, though, this turns out to be one of the best stand-alone stories, with one of the best illustrations:

 

Lang seems a little embarrassed by the Grail story, starting it with a little essay about the history of the Arthurian myths. There's a lot of obvious concatenation of the various knight's tales that goes on; he uses the phrase 'and they had many adventures' or 'and many more adventures happened to them' an inordinate amount of times during the saga. He doesn't do a bad job, all up, of giving a shortened version of the tales, but he does end up leaving out some of the best parts - for instance, the wholly incidental but very beautiful story of the wounded king, restored to good health by the grail.

We do learn a good deal about the knights and their various imperfections, especially Lancelot, which is all quite interesting given his dalliances with Queen Guenevere. (Lang doesn't go into much detail there, either - he generally seems to proceed by omission, following the opposite approach to, say, John Boorman in his film Excalibur, where he tells as many stories as possible by making everything happen to a few central characters. In Excalibur, Arthur is the wounded king, for instance.)

I quote enjoyed it, on the whole. Trouble is, I've finished it now, and I'm left asking again, er, where do I go from here? Probably should do some work or something. Damn reading on the trains! It only leads to trouble!

Cat news

Cat news: finally, the media is covering the important stuff
LALOR, SATURDAY - In a development of local, state, federal, national, international, galactic, intergalactic, universal, and multiversal import, Beatrice the cat has sat in someone's lap. She sat in someone's lap and stayed sitting in someone's lap before continuing to sit in someone's lap and then sitting in someone's lap some more and continuing to sit in someone's lap also in addition. After further lap sitting, closely followed up by another bout of lap sitting, she has continued with the lap sitting in order to further continue the lap sitting before sitting in someone's lap some more.

As this situation, with social, economic, legal, artistic, scientific, spiritual, and so on, implications develops, Beatrice the cat has continued to sit in someone's lap before, in a radical change, going over into someone else's lap and sitting in their lap instead and continuing to sit in that lap until she has gone over and sat in the first lap and continued to sit in that lap in an unprecedented bout of lap sitting. (Unprecedented since the last time it happened, that is.)

In related world-changing-life-altering-mind-blowing-community-evolving-etc news Harriet the cat has walked around the house and the garden rubbing herself against things. While walking around the house and garden rubbing herself against things she has continued to walk around the house and garden rubbing herself against things while also walking around the house and garden rubbing herself against things before walking around the house and garden rubbing herself against things. In a radical-bizarre-curious-explosive-and-not-very-different-difference, occasionally instead of walking around the house and garden rubbing herself against things, Harriet the cat has sometimes walked around the garden and house and rubbed herself against things or even rubbed herself against things before walking around the garden and house.

In response, Beatrice the cat has mainly continued to sit in someone's lap.

We'll bring you more on this developing development as it develops. (That is, if it actually does develop.)

ELSEWHERE IN CAT NEWS
OPINION - Is it a lap if I'm lying down? (Panel discussions involving all important experts everywhere)
ADVICE - Good things to rub yourself against. (Harriet the cat's regular column.)

PLUS! Cryptic crossword! 


1.  Backwards pan cooks a nice sleep.
2. Confused act, with whiskers.

Wiggle niggle

Amid speculation about the future of children's rock and roll outfit The Wiggles following the announcement of the departure of three of the original members, children and parents have been left in the dark as to the future of the "Black Wiggle", Horace Greely.

The basic set-design of the Wiggles has not changed for years: Greg is the yellow one, Murray is the red one, Anthony is the blue one, Jeff is the purple one, and Horace is the black one who has for years been involved in covert terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and is suspected of smuggling drugs and weapons into Australia from overseas.

As the much-loved Black Wiggle, Horace was a core member of the Wiggles, and participated in many of their most famous songs: the one about the dinosaur, the one in which Jeff wakes up, and the one in which all the band members sing about how nice heroin is and why don't their audience members give it a try, too.

For many years, Horace has been living in semi-retirement from the Wiggles, possibly because he has been sought by the law for his funding of paramilitary organisations in Latin America. However, he has come out of retirement several times, and speculation over his future in the band now is rife.

FUN FACT! - In Horace's signature song, 'Let's spell P-S-Y-C-H-O-P-A-T-H-Y', use of regular character Dorothy the Dinosaur was dropped because of concerns about a dinosaur being 'too scary' for children.

Dens of Sin and Iniquity and Niceness

I am fond of the virtuously named pubs and theatres around Melbourne. There's a lot of them. Actually there's only three I can think of but they're all good. Actually one's not even a theatre anymore, but I'm still putting it in the list.

The Perseverance Hotel
The Temperance Hotel
The Progress Theatre

There's something, shall we say, wistful about the concept of naming a pub after a virtue such as 'Perseverance'.

Perhaps there could be more of them. A few tentative names:

The Chastity Hotel
The Upright Bar
The Soberman Pub
The Candid Venue
The Worthy Inn

UPDATE! - I just remembered, in North Melbourne there's a bar called

Prudence!

The wonderful wide world of transport

Maybe I'm just jaded because I'm only two hours off a crowded peak-hour train, but what is it with forms of transport and grumpy people? People on the train fume about not getting enough space, people driving cars grump about others walking out onto the road, people walking out into the road get into a lather over the scoundrels in the cars, people on bikes work themselves up into righteous rages because of all the slow pokes who are walking (and all of the fast pokes who are driving), and people on trams, I suppose, must get outrageously outraged because someone is speeding past them using their zimmer frame. What a lot of furious people there seem to be, going at various velocities to various destinations, and all directing their civilised ire, their cultivated umbrage, their passive aggression at one another while they zoom onwards!

I would have said that it was different a few generations ago, when everyone went about on horses, but then again, it wasn't really. Instead of passive aggression, they were often aggressively passionate, and went about donging one another with great big broadswords or lances and what not. (Actually, that sounds quite fun. Can we try that on the trams, do you think? Could we pay for the privilege on Myki?)

***

Meanwhile, I'm finding the occasional sight of police on the trains rather plaintive. I know it's something to do with making the public feel safe or some crap like that, but is it just me who imagines that it's because the force has become so cash-strapped that it has to use public transport? It makes me wonder just what sort of exciting high-speed chases they could get up to: 'suspect is on 5.41 train to Clifton Hilll... he's getting off at Clifton Hill to change to the Hurstbridge line... quick! We'll intercept him at the station! Oh NO! We're at Northcote and a member of the public is holding the door open so his mum can get in... THERE ISN'T MUCH TIME....!'


Hmmm, yeah, I suppose it probably is just me.

Beatrix, Pottering

This is Beatrix and her pet rabbit, Benjamin Bouncer. (Via here.)

Readers' Undigest

Varieties of the epicurean sneeze

The drink sneeze - Occuring at moments of great surprise or hilarity. Includes the famous 'I spluttered my coffee all over the computer.' Results often quite unobtrusive, unless someone nearby happens to be spluttered over.

The soup sneeze - More serious, as the results can often be colourful.

The muesli sneeze - bearing a remarkable resemblance to porridge.

The coffee and croissant sneeze - If you must do this, make sure you are not eating a good croissant while it happens.

The pesto and spaghetti sneeze - you are eating spaghetti with pesto, sneeze, and all of a sudden what appears to be a jellyfish, coated in seaweed, violently emerges from your mouth, nose, and possibly one or two other body orifices as well. It is possibly the most horrifying thing that will ever happen to you.

Now which of the above do you think happened to me last night?

Symptom, symptom, anyone got a symptom?

For some reason I have been signed up to attend another one of those Work Health check thingies. By myself. How do I get myself into these things? Anyway, I guess I need some symptoms, since that's the whole point, right? I get myself a set of symptoms, go in and tell them all about it, and they say I will die in a week? It's so relaxing knowing those doctors and nurses are coming round to our workplaces to look after us.

The Baron has been doing her bit to help, chipping in with helpful suggestions of debilitating fatal diseases that may be in the process of fatally debilitating me. Just this morning I happened to mention that my tongue hurt a bit for some reason, and that it seemed to have a lump on it. Her response was as instant as it was devastating: "It could be an ulcer." "I probably just bit it accidentally," I said. "It's cancer, undoubtedly," she said.

So, in all likelihood, I will die before the Work Health check comes around. Good-oh!

Be good be good because

Be good to yer muvver

You don't have anuvver

Be good to yer muvver

Because

Because

Just don't be as good as Oedipus was

Because

Because

That was a bit too good, 

That was.

Be good to yer muvver,

Because.

Yes, that thing

Way of writing, it's a strange,

Poets who, words rearrange,

Right in the starts, the sentence middle,

Hey confusing, how diddle diddle,

What a frightful really muddle,

Does everyone it quite befuddle,

They out it work, scratch their can't head - 

Let's write it out this way instead. 

Cat scenarios

The cats spend a lot of time at the window, outside, on the fence, across the road, or just anywhere really staring at, stalking, but mostly making funny little noises at the birds around our house. Here's how I imagine the scenario plays out in their heads:

1) They make funny little noises at the birds.

2) The birds fly into their mouths.

3) They eat the birds.

4) Everyone is happy.

This situation all seems perfectly logical, if you are a cat.

Well, this morning the Baron and I were outside with Harriet the Grey, and a plane went overhead, and I fancy I saw Harriet look at it with a similar sort of interest to that with which she looked at birds. Indeed, a similar scenario may have been playing out in her head.

1) Harriet makes funny little noises at the plane.

2) Plane crashes immediately, shards of metal go everywhere.

3) Harriet goes over and rubs herself against a shard of metal.

4) The passengers, all miraculously unwounded, go over and pat her.

5) Everyone is happy.

Hey, don't scoff. It could happen.

Tuna time

When it comes to music, some people have perfect pitch, some people have imperfect pitch. I personally have cricket pitch. (I may have said something like this before. When it comes to my memory I have cricket pitch as well.) Anyway, despite all this, I also have a piano. It's only recently come to Lalor, from Newcastle, and it sits in the corner. We seem to get on well enough, the piano and me and my cricket pitch. Occasionally I even go and throw a couple of overs at it.

But lately, in spite of my devastating infirmity, I have noticed the piano changing. It sits in the corner, glowering at me. Occasionally it stomps about. Lets out a loud harrumph when I'm looking in the other direction. Yes, it is true: my piano is quickly changing from being well-tempered to bad-tempered.

How to fix all this? Get in a tuna, of course. So that's what we've done. The tuna is coming in first thing tomorrow morning. I've told the tuna not to worry about the balls; if he has a bat, stumps and a bail it should be fine. So we'll see how that works out.

Mettling my mangaphores

A passenger on the train yesterday seemed to be writing poetry in their little notebook. I decided to look at the poetry being written to see just how long it took poetic thoughts to be formulated on paper. (Though in the end I'm not sure how fast poetry should be written, anyway.) The rate seemed to be a bit faster than an autumn leaf slowly and sadly falling to the ground, and a tad faster than a continent morosely drifting through the ocean in that morose way that continental drift has of happening. Is there a scale on which we can describe the velocity of poetic thoughts, anyway?

Anyway, it all seemed faintly indecent, this writing of poetry on trains. It was a bit like seeing someone drink on the trains - just what will they allow next, I thought? Then of course I realised that, in my lap, my own notebook was open, and I happened to be penning a number of thoughts in them as well, at a rate somewhere between that of a languidly-drifting spider-web from one corner of the room to another, and... and... and the ineffable... um...

Bugger it. I'll take up being an alcoholic on the trains instead. At least I'll have a better excuse for mangling my metaphors then.

Butterflies! Dandelions! Puppy dogs! Poetry!

I have decided to invent a new type of poetry*, another variation on the haiku. I will call it the shrieku. Each line will consist solely of modulated shrieks, and of course it will follow the five syllable/seven syllable/five syllable structure of the haiku. Here's an interesting example of the method that I've just penned:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEE
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIE
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIIAA!

Strangely enough, all the other examples of the shrieku sound just like this one. So the form has some constraints. But that's the point of form, after all - by working within the shrieku form, you are able to say more with less. Well not really. You're not saying anything, you're just screaming. But that really does sum up something important about modern life, don't you think?

Please leave sample shrieks, screams, hollers, shouts, and other ghastly bloodcurdling wails in comments.

*No no, not like that time, or that time either. This time I'm serious.

Dogmatic mutterings of the press

I love the Herald Sun and it loves me, as can be seen by all the recipes it gives me for foods I don't eat from cooking shows I don't watch, and the articles it shows me about people I neither know nor care about doing things I have never heard about before with other people I know even less about. Since I don't care much what happens in the rest of the world anyway, it really is the paper for me.

But the Herald Sun also loves dogs, as can be seen on about page five or so, even third day, give or take. There was the article about the labrador fetching beer from the fridge for its owner (they showed a little picture of the dog doing just that), and then there was the snippet they ran about Australia's fattest dog (accompanied by lots of pictures of this fat dog). Fat dogs, as any good tabloid writer will be able to tell you, are even better and cuter than fat kids, because they allow you to use lines like 'canine obesity crisis sweeping this nation', and 'cries for help from Australia's fat dogs'. (Also, have you ever tried to photograph or pat a fat child? It's dangerous. Sometimes they even bite.) The Herald Sun even ran a follow up article on this corpulent canine several months after, talking about his journey back to good health ('before' and 'after' photos featuring prominently).

But all is not sweetness and light in the world of tabloid dogs, for the Herald Sun also really loves savage dogs, or at least loves the headlines they produce. They have photos for those ones too, so every time 'Killer dog on loose' or 'Pitbull off leash in children's playground' appears in their pages, there's a cute little picture of a snarling dog in studded collar that will pop up, probably on the front page.

To this day, though, the Herald Sun haven't - though I'm sure one day they'll find an excuse - run an article like the following:

TERRORIST DOG ON THE LOOSE
... the incredibly cute puppy is a signed up member of Al Qaeda, and is evidence of the canine extremism crisis sweeping our nation... there have been calls for state government to outlaw canine terrorism, before too late...  evidence of 'evil dog' training camps in the Victorian countryside... etc etc

The horror! The horror! Only costing $1 every morning, seven days a week.

The show's not over until the fat lady whispers

Progress is a wonderful thing, generally speaking; it has put more food on our tables, more money in our pockets, and a wider variety of booze in our fridges than ever before. True, occasionally this onward progression does throw up a curious specimen such as Alan Jones, but my point remains. And we here, at the beginning of the 21st century, live at the most progressive point of that progress which progressively progresses towards wherever it is going. We would seem to be living in an age of miracles.

However, I can not help but note one small anomaly in this supposedly inexorable march onwards to better, bigger, greater, nicer times; a hump in our way; a lump in our... well, our throats. Our throats? Yes, our throats, our mouths, our lungs, our tongues, and all our organs that give us capacity to speak and sing and deliver voluble auditory ornaments unto our fellow human beings. For you would be forgiven, dear reader, if you thought, upon venturing into a pub where a band was playing, or a cafe where a poet was reading, or a library, or gallery, or theatre where someone was delivering a speech, if you fell to wondering that we did not live in a race of giants with the voices of gnats. Nothing else could explain our fondness for microphones, loudspeakers, hailers, and amplification devices of every variety.

The comparison could not be any clearer, really; just one hundred years ago, people packed into capacious theatres and gigantic galleries and libraries of the most vast proportions to hear this person speak, that person sing, and another person recite; somehow, all these artists managed to make themselves perfectly clear in spite of their handicap. These days, no matter how small the venue, no matter how few people there are, the speaker, or musician, or poet will find it absolutely necessary to place between themselves and the audience a small metallic object in order to negotiate their relationship with the audience and facilitate a louder ambience than would otherwise occur.

How can this great change have occurred? In this age of miracles, have our voices miraculously shrunk so that we can only make ourselves heard with a microphone, attached to a sound system, in which all of the knobs and buttons and widgets and dubobs have been manipulated by an expert technician; and in which the volume button has been turned to the top? Are our shrieks no louder than the whispers of previous generations? Consider that only a century and a half ago, Abraham Lincoln somehow managed to address an entire army, without amplification of any kind - and managed to make himself understood perfectly clearly, and have his words remembered until this very day. But we shrink at the task of winning over a couple of drunks in a pub. 

It really does seem strange that, in this great age of onward progress and inexorable miricalishness - an age, moreover, in which few people are above a bit of shameless exhibitionism and self-display - that we should really consider the device known as the 'microphone' to be so necessary. In most cases, a person speaking in an ordinary tone should be able to make themselves perfectly clear to the majority of their listeners.

So Poets! Musicians! McCracken! Throw off your microphones! You have nothing to lose but your chains! (And, er, your pride. But who wants that anyway?)

Solidarity, chaps!

I have invented a new protest chant, and I think it really cuts to the core of the many difficult issues we are facing. Join with me, comrades:

ME: GIVE ME AN A!

YOU: A!

ME: GIVE ME A B!

YOU: B!

ME: GIVE ME A C!

YOU: C! 

I carry on in this manner for another few letters

ME: GIVE ME A J!

YOU: J! 

ME: GIVE ME A CHOCOLATE! 

YOU: OKAY! 


Following this, you all give me chocolate.

Like I said. It really cuts to the core of the many difficult issues that we all face. Now, anyway, about that chocolate...

A gurning poem

A gurning poem

My darling I'm thinking
Of you and your gurning
I feel a deep yearning
A yearning, a burning,
For your clever gurning,
So tasteful, discerning,
I'm yearning I'm burning
My stomach is churning
Is churning with yearning
Is turning and churning,
Is flipping and turning,
My lover, your gurning
Is turning,
Is
Turning
Is 
  Turning
 ME
ON.

Join the zineage revolution

This is a post about zines! Aw, zines. Everybody loves zines! Pity no-one knows about them. Anyway...

There's a particular way of taking one sheet of paper, making a cut in the paper, and folding the paper so that all of a sudden you have a six-page zine. It's quite clever, and is an easy way to create a booklet with few resources, and I'd be a huge fan but for one fact - almost everyone who does this leaves on side of the paper entirely blank because of the way the paper is folded.

Now I'll grant you that this is a small thing, and it might be a concern shared solely between myself and me. (I note on that site I linked they do suggest adding "secret notes on the "hidden pages" that are different for every copy of your zine.") But being economical and efficient with resources pleases me when it comes to zine making.

Occasionally, I'll come across zines that are made out of sheets of paper with print on one side of them only; so half the zine consists of blank pages. That's foregoing a little trouble (working out how to print on two sides of a sheet of paper) and using a lot more paper than you need. Other zines, I notice, the makers will print only on one side, but stick the blank sides to each other somehow - with staples, usually - to make it seem as if their zine has less pages overall. The illusion is interesting - but again I get a funny feeling in my tummy, not the good sort, when I think about all the blank paper, unprinted on.

Somewhere along the way I've become a bit of a zine maker myself - printing out the odd thing here, accidentally putting another strange thing together - and browsing through the various zines I've made (almost twenty), I find that none of them are single-sided, not even the early ones. I didn't like that idea, even then; and there is something about the challenge of making double-sided little booklets that appealed to me.

In order to make a zine this way, you do have to work out, not only the intricacies of the photocopier, but how you arrange the pages on each sheet of paper - okay, I am actually a bit obsessive about this - so that when they are all photocopied, and stapled together, the pages fall in the right order. (For instance, if you take up a book, hold it up the right way, and open it up so you can see the back cover and the front cover, you'll see that the back cover appears on the left and the front cover on the right, though you'll be reading left to right.) And you also have to make sure that you've prepared the right amount of pages, something that fits into a multiple of four. (Again it's all to do with how the pages are folded and stapled together). So periodically, in my writing notebooks, you'll find big lists of numbers like this:

36 1

2 35

34 3

4 33

32 5

6 31

30 7

8 29

And - okay, okay, I am a lot obsessive about this - so on.  And once you arrange all the pages on your sheets of paper the right way, and get the photocopier sorted out, you've got these beautiful double-sided booklets, all efficiently and economically printed out. 

Then, of course, the next part of being economical and efficient is selling the damn things.

Now that part, I'm not so good at...

Reptile philosophy

Flat out like a lizard thinking.

Facts about Randall Stephens

The time has come, as we all knew it would: people are asking the question, 'Who is Randall Stephens?' Well, he's this guy. But aside from that point, there is no denying that the question as to Randall Stephens' identity - the postulation as to the ontological reality behind that particular phenomenological signifiier, as it were - is a hard question. A hard question about a hard man. A hard question about a hard man - for hard readers.

FACT! - When Randall Stephens walks up to a bar, he asks for a cold pint of testosterone to drink.

FACT! - When Randall Stephens kisses girls, they instantly sprout moustaches due to his excessive machoness.

FACT!- You might be wondering what happened to all the Care Bears. Well, Randall Stephens eats one every morning for breakfast.

Feel free to add your own facts about Randall Stephens in comments.

Glorious opening

It was a grand morning when the various dignitaries - politicians, musicians, celebrities, representatives of Parliament and the press, supermodels, superheros, sports stars, artistic geniuses, various nice people, and some guy called Jack - gathered around the computer for the cutting of the ribbon, marking the Glorious Opening of another Blog Post By Tim.

The rest of the post was a bit of a disappointment, though.

UPDATE! - Not all openings are quite so glorious as this Glorious Opening!

Medium tedium indeedium

There's nothing boring about Boring, Oregon, especially when it comes to building bridges with the good folks of little Dull, Scotland.

Boring, a rural suburb of Portland named after its early 20th century founding family, is poised to formally declare itself Dull's sister community on June 5 when its community planning organization convenes.... "It will be interesting to see where this goes," [community councillor Marjorie Keddie] said, adding: "Everyone has been smiling at the prospect of the very eye-catching road sign this will inevitably require."

Boring, USA forges links with Dull, Scotland - Ninemsn

I'm not quite sure why these people would get excited at the prospect of a road sign noting an agreement between local councils, but maybe that's why they're living in Dull...But it would be interesting to see the inevitable Dull announcement in the Boring newspaper, or the Boring agenda item in the Dull meeting minutes, or the Boring Councillors discussing the idea over with Dull, or the Dull citizens looking at Boring photos. In time, I'm sure, there will be joint Dull-Boring pronouncements on the Boring-Dull future, maybe even Boring visits to boring Dull, or Dull visits to dull Boring...

Another town that has been in the news later has been Fucking, Austria. Just imagine a sister-community relationship involving that town: Fucking-Dull anyone? How about Boring-Fucking?

UPDATE! - Maybe Dull and Boring could have a sister communities song. Something you could hum. A Ho-Hum?

The seven modes of blogging

Just as the Greeks discovered musical modes by which their music was classified, so too did they discover the seven basic modes of blogging. They are:

Mimetic
Ironic
Sarcastic
Moronic
Catatonic
Polemic
Bubonic.

So what mode do you blog in mostly, do you think?

UPDATE! - Some other less commonly-used blogging modes:

Sardonic
Philharmonic
Colonic
Bernardtomic.

Excerpt from The Canterbury Tails

(I am in many ways a very trivial person - this Anzac Day I have nothing to offer by way of thoughts about war, human sacrifice, the fallen soldiers of Australia and New Zealand, or such like. Instead, I have spent the previous half hour penning the following domestic poem. It is an imitation - or perhaps I should say an irritation - of Chaucer.)

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

Than longen cattes to sitte hem doon on chaires,

And humans for to stroke their silkene hayres;

Than longen cattes to reste hem safe in boxe

Whiles humannes pat their grey and spottey lockes;

Than longen cattes to hide beneath ye bedde,

Whiles humannes swive uponne ye nette insteade. 

When Zephyrus, eek withe his frowzy mouthe

The welkin bloweth east, west, southe, northe, southe,

(Full sikerley, yt ys a bloustrous daye,

Plusse wilde, wette, woollie, grimme eek also graye),

Than longen folke to loll and tak their ease,

In bedde, on couche, with crackers, eek with cheese;

Than longen cats to jumpe in open lappe,

And curle in balle, and purre, and have a nappe.

To goon on pilgrimage? Manne, be ye nuts? 

The footy's on - sitte doon eek watche, ye putz!

Quiet quite

Accidentally wore my comfy socks to work today... and just between you and me, the levels of warmth, and luxury experienced by my feet in my accidentally-worn comfy socks were quite accidentally comfy indeed. Like having a quiet orgasm at your desk, only more sockish.

Maybe I should accidentally forget to put on work socks more often.

(Mind you, pretty soon I might accidentally forget to forget. And that would be a jolly bother.)

How we used to be shocked

Well, I was shocked. Shock these days is a relatively relative emotion, of course, as there are so many things to be shocked by, so many ways in which to be shocked, so many people to be shocked for, and so many minute advantages to be gained by being shocked. It is possible to be a little shocked, rather shocked, very shocked, ironically shocked, conveniently shocked, furiously shocked, electrically shocked, electorally shocked, shocked by Labor, the Liberals, the Greens, the Nationals, or the football, pleasantly shocked, horror-film shocked, shocked-but-not-surprised, sarcastically shocked, or absolutely and utterly shocked and appalled and horrified. Nevertheless, I was shocked, utterly shocked, upon picking up the latest copy of Melbourne University student publication Farrago and finding that it was not bad, not all bad at all, actually quite good and entertaining in places.

Oh, there were spots of minor irritation - occasionally outbreaks of 'hetero-normative privileging of heterosexual', that sort of thing. There was an interview with resident Green, Adam Bandt, which managed to be rather unctuous - 'forcing action on climate change and a rethink on the war in Afghanistan'. And then there was the little piece by the union president - 'I attend a consultation session with Federal Government representing OH FUCK OFF!' My thoughts at that point may have got a little mixed up with the actual words, sorry.

Still, it looks good - well designed, colourful, uncluttered, great cartoons, nice art. The columns are actually, for the most part, interesting. There's a sciency one about geckos, and a meditative one about the culture of drinking and drinking in culture - more impressive because it mostly manages to avoid phrases like 'an incohate acceptance and penance for the decade's ills'. Mostly. True to student form, there is also the pleasantly-titled Goon Review - it's been done plenty of times before; that lure of cheap alcohol, insobriety, and a chance to brag about it afterwards is a heady cocktail indeed: but never has it been done with such elegance as in the current issue of Farrago.

And then, of course, right next to aforementioned Goon Review was a column by one student detailing how she and her girlfriend set out, during O Week, to have sex in as many public places as possible. Yes. Well. Speaking of shock...

Reader, I recall with fondness the diligent exhibitionism and studious shamelessness of Sydney Uni's Honi Soit writers and editors of days of yore. One year, the editors had the idea of replacing page three girls with page three boys. There was the time ladies from the feminist collective stood up in a student bar and took their shirts off, and stood there bare-breasted, with the word 'Slut' written across their chests. They did so in order to raise awareness of... I'm not sure. There was another issue, I think shortly after I left uni, that published a 'letter' from a 'student' containing details of a private bedroom act in which all of the relevant body parts had been renamed as politicians. 'I placed my hands around his Keating... my Gillard was ready', that sort of thing. This was all back in the dark repressive days of the Howard government, you'll recall, that time when politicians didn't go around having leadership ballots all the time, or bribing independents in order to keep a hold of power, or protecting corrupt union members from being charged by the police, or going through three Speakers of the House in almost as many months.

They were grim days all right, and I suppose they contributed to the general tone of tight-lipped propriety and prudishness at the time. Because never, can I recall, ever did a writer pen a five hundred word essay detailing several sexual encounters in public, one apparently right in front of a football team. Reader, I was utterly shocked and appalled and horrified. I was even shocked.

A clash of thimbles

Cognitive dissonance aplenty at the place of employ, where an email about a free theatre ticket crosses paths with an email about parking tickets being given out in the area. Be in attendance at the performance of a fine by VicRoads? Don't mind if I don't, thanks. Parking inspectors will be handing out comedy show tickets to anyone who's left their car in the wrong place? Depends on the show, I guess.

Mind you, I'm the sort of person who, if a person takes offence, wonders where they take it from, where they're taking it to, what they're going to do with it when they get there, and if they've wrapped up warm for the trip. Plus, once when I was waiting for a job interview and someone asked me to take a seat, I picked it up and said, 'where would you like me to take it to?'

So I am possibly an unreliable interpreter when it comes to these matters.

Thunk from a Saturday morning

It is really annoying, when you are draining the sink, to have plug-shaped objects constantly fall into the area that was previously occupied by the plug-shaped plug. These plug-shaped objects have a predictable habit of stopping the water draining out of the hole-shaped hole, which is somewhat against the purpose of draining the sink.

To solve this problem, I propose a new system whereby, instead of making the hole in the sink the shape of plug-shaped objects, such as plug-shaped jar lids, or plug-shaped bowls, we instead devise a system whereby the hole is non-plug-shaped. Therefore, all we would need to plug up the non-plug-shaped-hole would be a non-plug-shaped-plu.... oh.

Aren't you glad you read this thoughtful post?

New HTML tags to be used on your blog! (Reflecting the needs of the current generation)

<rant>

<sarcasm>

<toomuchselfdisclosure>

<pictureofmeinmyunderpantslookingforpastramiinfridge>

<digression>

<obsessiveinterest> (this tag is often opened, rarely closed)

<catpictures>

<dogpictures>

<duckpictures>

<frogpictures>

<boyfrienddressedasfrogpictures>

<adhominem>

<gush>

<persuasiveargument> (this tag is rarely opened)

<nostalgia>

<trolling> (also rarely closed)

<spam> (closed? as if)

<freechocolatebars> (still to be used)

Now almost defunct html tags

<truth>

<justice>

<niceness>

<civilised>

<interesting>

<witty>

<engaging>

<honourable>

<courageous>

Yet another tedious plan for world domination

Right, this one's got to work. I'm going to start up a boy band, right? Except they won't be a band, because they won't be playing music - instead, they'll go around the world committing acts of artistic conceptualism in public places. Leaving knotted up pieces of string in trees, sealing their bodily fluids in cans, getting random people in the street to sign their autograph, or putting large installations in public art galleries consisting of electrically-controlled objects going on and off for no reason at all.

I mean, come on. There's just got to be a huge untapped market of skivvy-clad intellectuals, who are also young and female and  going to school, who will be just dying to see this group of boy conceptualists doing pointless things in public places repeatedly for huge amounts of money. Right? Right.

Or, to put it another way - take this, add it to this - and profit!

All in good bad taste

When I was a kid occasionally pots of Polish jam would appear in the fridge, which Dad would rather mystifyingly refer to as "radioactive jam"."What do you mean radioactive jam?" I would ask, causing Dad to expound further. "It glows in the dark, Timothy!"

He was referring, of course, to the Chernobyl incident, which as everyone knows destroyed the environment, killed wildlife, and caused quaint little pots of Polish jam to fluoresce in attractive colours. Dad was a health and safety inspector, so he should know.

Anyway, my point is, food is a rich source of memories and associations, sensations from times past and memories from other lands. One of the beauties of a family meal is everyone can reminiscence together about past environmental disasters, whether they be nuclear plant explosions, or toxic gas leaks, or poisoned streams, or GM contamination - there really is no end of past horrific events for mum, dad, and the kids to be horrified, appalled, and self-righteous about.

And there is no better way of enjoying these memories than re-creating the authentic foods of those environmental disasters in your own kitchen. The modern kitchen is marvellous; thanks to the many ingredients you have at your fingertips you have all you will want to be able to make these traditional food stuffs live again. Try this for starters:

Oil spill duck l'orange
This one is simple. Just use the same recipe for duck l'orange that you normally would, but before you do anything else, douse the duck liberally in petrol and let it marinate for a couple of hours. Then proceed with the recipe. Savour that extra richness in the sauce!

Atom Bombe Alaska
Okay, so while it's not technically possible yet to set off this classic dish with an Atom Bomb in your living room (though just think how spectacular that would be for a big family feast!) you can do just as well by using radioactive Polish jam, as mentioned above. Bombe Alaska is made by making classic Baked Alaska in the oven, and then flambeing the whole in a darkened room. Before you stick the Alaska in the oven, turn the lights down and splash several teaspoonfuls of radioactive Polish jam over the top. If you can't get any radioactive jam, you can prepare some for yourself by getting radioactive elements from the local hospital and stirring them into a pot of plum jam. Think how impressed the kids will be!

'Silent Stream' caviar
Let's face it, there are a whole host of wonderful fish dishes to try out there. The true gourmand could hardly walk by the classic whale sushi, or trawl-netted dolphin, but nothing can beat simple delicacies such as caviar - especially when it's come from a stream flavoured with the rich essence of DDT. Now you probably don't have any DDT around the house, but that's okay. Once you have the caviar, wash it lightly in water. Then all you have to do is saute it in a light bath of washing detergent or bleach. It should soak in pretty soon; serve lightly salted - on mother of pearl spoons to avoid tainting the taste of the caviar. Yum!

***

Basically, food is a wonderful way to reconnect with the basics of life - to go back to an earlier time, when man lived in harmony with a blighted, devastated, wasted, poisoned land, and when people in hairshirts marched around the city waving posters in all our faces. Fun for the whole family!

(Feel free to add your own recipes in comments)

Instructions for backyard cricket

Instruction #7b: If you don't have a cricket bat in the house, use a fruit bat or a wombat instead. They won't mind.

An exceedingly pertinent point

"Hey, because we don't have any coffee, it's okay to have a glass of Kahlua in the morning instead, isn't it?"

"Have two!"

A certain tense moment

There is a certain tense moment when you walk into the room, and you see the cat, and the cat sees you, and you see that the cat is thinking.

What is the cat thinking? Is the thinking it is thinking entirely innocent, or is it thinking that it can see you seeing it thinking? Maybe it is thinking what you are thinking as you see it thinking, and it sees you seeing it thinking. You wouldn't put it past the cat.

It probably is entirely innocent, whatever thinking it is that the cat is doing. But at certain times, that certain tense moment is followed up by a certain action:

Cat crouches on table next to glass of water and thinks
You see cat
Cat sees you
You see cat seeing you
Cat reaches out with paw and pushes glass of water over.

So you see, you never can be sure just what the cat is thinking, or whether what the cat is thinking is what you would want it to be thinking. Which is a little worrying... I think.

This has been another Crazy Old Cat Man post by Tim.

Bleauwgh bleauwgh bleauwgh

omnomnomnomomatopaeia (n) - the sound of words that are being pronounced as the speaker is eating something, resulting in words that sound like someone eating.

Upon matters entomological, economical, and etymological

Upon recent botanical surveys of the environment in the immediate vicinity of our Lalorian provinces, local monitors could not fail to take note of the proliferation amongst the flora of a certain species of creature. The pertinent points about said creature were as follows: it was 'green', it was a 'bug', and we found it upon the 'vegetables'.

With all the zeal of the famous botanists and biologists of yore (whenever yore was) we immediately took these observations to that eminent entomological record otherwise known as the internet, thinking it was time to find the appellation of this curious specimen that habituated the foliage of our own environs, in the way that we have thus described - ie, being 'green', being a 'bug', and living upon 'vegetables'.

In the fullness of time*, our labours were rewarded with an answer - said 'green' 'bug' that lived upon 'vegetables' was, to all intents and purposes, labelled, denominated, symbolised, given the epithet, and, in a word, known as the GREEN VEGETABLE BUG.

Notwithstanding this disappointment, our monitors carried on their monitoring, and our researchers continued forth with their researches; for it was not only in our back or front yard that such entomological wonders were to be brought to the light. For, it seemed, upon conducting a strict economical stocktaking of the cupboard in the kitchen, otherwise known as the 'pantry', we came to be familiar with a number of small winged creatures, of the genera or species or whatever of 'moth'. Behold, for we had another creature to reward our entomological endeavours! A type of 'moth' that found its domicile in the 'pantry'! What curious nom-de-plume would we find for this 'moth' of the 'pantry', we wondered?

We immediately took ourselves once again to that eminent journal etc etc etc etc etc etc and presently the internet told us that those phantastical beasts that closeted themselves in our closet, those 'moths' of the 'pantry' were called none other than PANTRY MOTHS.

It was then that a heavy despair began to settle over our souls and we wondered whether or not it might be more profitable to spend our times scoffing the remaining Easter chocolate. Which we duly did.

*About five seconds. 

Hard questions for hard readers! This is what I am asking - hardly.

On the one hand, there are the believers. They are people who have stuck with Him from day one, like limpets to a clam or a nail to a wall or one sticky thing to another thing which it is sticking to. On the other hand, there are the skeptics - the many disaffected people who have gradually become disillusioned with belief in Him, who have come to doubt the many myths told about Him, and who argue that it is possible - indeed, even vital - to lead a fulfilling life that is not centred around His words or deeds.

It's time we took up this controversial topic at Will Type For Food: does Richard Dawkins really exist?

Of course, it is true that Richard Dawkins appears to believe that Richard Dawkins exists. But is Richard Dawkins' faith in Richard Dawkins enough? What if Richard Dawkins' belief in Richard Dawkins turned out to be based on false premises? Who would we be able to turn to then?

On the other hand, many other believers in Richard Dawkins will point out that there needs to be an ultimate meaning behind the name Richard Dawkins, and if that meaning is not Richard Dawkins himself, well then, what are we left with? They will point to the many works of Richard Dawkins as evidence of his existence - the books, the television appearances. But can we trust this? What if it all turned out to be a coincidence?

It's a question to which there are no easy answers. Perhaps the most we can hope for these days is an honest agnosticism about the question of Richard Dawkins' existence - he may be out there, or he may not: but we need someone to fill a television program, and if not Richard Dawkins, then who?

But just suppose Richard Dawkins was proven not to exist. What would he do with his life then?

Another astounding not-ad

Tired? Suffering from hair loss? Looking for fabulous underwear? Want chocolate? Why not

LEAVE A COMMENT ON A BLOG!

It might make your car go faster!


This has been another astounding not-ad from Tim.

Don’t hold back, tell me how you really feel , but only if it fits in 149 charact

You’ll remember how the other day Shore old boy Trenton Oldfield swam midstream to disturb the Oxford boat race in order to protest something or other. One of the rowers, William Zeng, had this to say about the incident:

When I missed your head with my blade I knew only that you were a swimmer, and if you say you are a protester then, no matter what you say your cause may be, your action speaks too loudly for me to hear you. I know, with immediate emotion, exactly what you were protesting. You were protesting the right of seventeen young men and one woman to compete fairly and honorably, to demonstrate their hard work and desire in a proud tradition. You were protesting their right to devote years of their lives, their friendships, and their souls to the fair pursuit of the joys and the hardships of sport. You, who would make a mockery of their dedication and their courage, are a mockery of a man.

Excellently put. Trouble is, Zeng did this on Twitter, so that eloquent paragraph originally came out like this:

8 Apr William Zeng ‏ @Zengscape
FavoritedFavorite • Close Open Details
and the hardships of sport. You, who would make a mockery of their dedication and their courage, are a mockery of a man.

8 Apr William Zeng ‏ @Zengscape
Reply RetweetedRetweet Delete FavoritedFavorite • Close Open Details
You were protesting their right to devote years of their lives, their friendships, and their souls to the fair pursuit of the joys

8 Apr William Zeng ‏ @Zengscape
Reply RetweetedRetweet Delete FavoritedFavorite • Close Open Details
to demonstrate their hard work and desire in a proud tradition.

8 Apr William Zeng ‏ @Zengscape
Reply RetweetedRetweet Delete FavoritedFavorite • Close Open Details
you were protesting. You were protesting the right of seventeen young men and one woman to compete fairly and honorably,

8 Apr William Zeng ‏ @Zengscape
Reply RetweetedRetweet Delete FavoritedFavorite • Close Open Details
no matter what you say your cause may be, your action speaks too loudly for me to hear you. I know, with immediate emotion, exactly what you

8 Apr William Zeng ‏ @Zengscape
Reply RetweetedRetweet Delete FavoritedFavorite • Close Open Details
When I missed your head with my blade I knew only that you were a swimmer, and if you say you are a protester then,

You have to read it from bottom to top to make sense of it, and the sentences are chopped off in the middle! That is as good a demonstration as any other as to why Twitter will never be an effective medium for argument.

Inappropriate surprise parties

Playing golf. 

While skydiving.

Chess tournaments.

At a silent monastery.

At the commencement of coronary bypass surgery in the operating theatre.

Surprise funerals.

Plan for world domination #7-and-a-bit

Start up a blog called FOOTBALLERS AND PUPPIES.

Who could resist it? Lots of lovely photographs of the most adorable playful joyful creatures known to man, and the puppies wouldn't be bad either.

It is clear that the wild popularity of such a blog would rapidly lead, through inexorable physical forces, to my domination of the world's economic, political, technological, militaristic, and whatever-else-you-can-think-of systems.

Now to just find a steady supply of footballers and puppies...

The big list...

... of things that Beatrice the cat does when she wants to go outside in the morning.

Bite toes.
Put claws in feet.
Walk around the bed.
Miaow incessantly, in as many tones of voice as possible.
Walk back and forth on the bed head.
Walk back and forth on the pillows, over our faces.
Eat paper on the floor.
Chew on the magazines on the lower lying shelves.
Put claws in your face.
Jump upon stomachs.
Sit on various parts of various humans until they wake up.
Sit on human's chest, put claws around their neck, and knead the pillow.
Claw carpet.
Claw seat.
Claw bedspread.
Claw flyscreen.
Pee on wall.
Take running long jumps into the middle of the bed from the floor, as if there is an army of invisible mice in the middle of said bed that need to be captured. Do this about one hundred times.

This is a developing list...

Economise, expletivise!

When you are trying to drive in a nail with a heavy hammer, and hit your finger instead, the short, sharp monosyllable which you employ - and which I strongly suspect that even the Archbishop of Canterbury would employ in the like painful circumstance - comes of an instinctive desire to relieve the over-burdened soul.
Walter Murdoch, Bad Language

All very true of course, but you have to wonder why anyone would need an excuse. For instance, when I want to swear, I get rid of the nail and just hit my finger with the hammer instead. One less thing needed.

UPDATE! - Anyway, if it's so easy to hit your finger with a hammer when you're aiming for a nail, you'd think the best way to hit a nail would be to aim the hammer at your finger instead. But who knows? Kids, try this at home! The only way to find out is through an experiment!

Me make you aweish at my word power

Me! Thornbury! This afternoon! Sprout Community Market! Me have good zines! You pay me big money quick-quick! Me make you aweish at my word power! Lots poetry heaps good! Come along! Okaybyenow.

PS Buy my zine!

Post-thing

These days I seem to spend an awful lot of time wandering about looking for things, and then when I am finally looking at the things I was looking for, looking at those things and wondering what it is about those things that I am looking for.

What sort of things? What sort of things? What a ridiculous question! Flower-things! Garden-things! Book-things! You know the sort of.... well... thing.

I mean, is it just all the things in general that I want? Is it a thing amongst the things in particular that I am looking for, the third thing from the right, the one with the other thing on it? Before I go looking for things to look at, ought I to compose a list of important things so I know beforehand what sort of thing I am looking for amongst the things? But what if I change my mind about something? And anyway, I don't know what to think about the things before I go and look at the things, I just know that I like going to look at the things! It's all very confusing.

What I mean to say is, it's the principle of the thing! It's the point of the thing! It's the thing of the thing! That's the thing that we ought to be thinking about. Right? So, everyone... thing!

You are a cat #somethingorother

You are a cat, remember?

The situation is this: it is almost dawn, and you are up and about. Your humans are not. You wish to be outside. Your humans wish to remain in bed. Clearly, this is a complicated domestic situation, and will require the utmost in Negotiation, Tact, and Diplomacy in order to achieve an optimum result for all interested parties.

Crush the toes of your human beneath your powerful jaws! Proceed to shred any rare books, precious contracts, or expensive bills with your dagger-like teeth! But only if you spring joyously back and forth on your humans' stomachs like they are a trampoline first! That's Negotiation! That's Tact! That's Diplomacy!

You are a cat. You are outside. Excellent.

It's time we stopped blaming the pheremones and got back to a sense of personal responsibility

Do you want to know what's been on my mind for ages (if by ages you mean two days at least)? Well it's too bad because I'll tell you anyway. Dogs sniffing other dogs bums, that's what. What's up with that?

I mean here you have a typical case - a Great (in every sense of that word) Dane, majestically bounding over the other side of a road, where a pathetic (in the only meaningful sense of that word) terrier quivers, and then the two dogs quibble over the proximity of one another's rectal areas.

Can anything be more undignified? Can anything be sillier? Two creatures, of disparate sizes, and of contrasting colours, sitting at opposite ends on the Brilliant-to-Ridiculous spectrum, haggling over who will get to inhale the gaseous aromas wafting forth from the sphincter of the other. It makes you question the meaning of it all, doesn't it? A dog, normally a respectable, reliable member of society, who does not go around sniffing the posteriors of humans, cats, possums, squirrels, monkeys, birds, apes, wombats, or any other species or genera or whatever, suddenly loses all control and compunction when placed in proximity of another dog, no matter what it's size, and no matter how different the two creatures may be in appearance.

 What's the point, dogs? Pull yourselves together!

Disappointing ad campaigns for suburbs

Make Hurstbridge your first bridge!

South Morang - it sounds a bit like that thing that tastes nice!

Darebin - not just rubbish!

Frankston - Frank lives here. Maybe.

Reservoir - it's more than just a name!

Research - look into it!

Parkmore or less.

Chocolate - you can eat it in Nunawading!

Keon Park - they named a train station after us!

I think therefore I Sandringham.

Boronia - a B-rated suburb!

Box Hill - it's all right.

UPDATE! - Sydney edition.

Zetland - listed last in the street directory!