Interlude

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Binary translator

Proposed titles for academic essays

Contents and their discontents: Chapter titles and the 18th century novel

Colons, and semi-colons: punctuation and body parts in Victorian literature

‘The’: an article on Shakespearean articles.

A Soon-to-be Important Article: analysing how the Soon-to-be Important Article came to be, and critiquing the arguments that it engages in critiquing itself.

‘Analysis’

‘A series of random words yanked out of the dictionary and placed in close proximity to one another’: stochastic pullulating porcine stalagmites and their malcontents.

Was going to be: a critical analysis of the so-called Soon-to-be Important Article, and an analytical critique of its so called self-analysis

Nose picking, and Colonialism

Contra-antidisestablishmentarian-antediluvianism.

Deconstructing the malcontents of the analyticially critical retrospective prospective perspective: the critical legacy of Clifford, the Big Red Dog.

Ompe

Surprise is an important element in comedy: a poem

You have a cough
A little cough
What do you do?
It might be cold?
It might be cold -
It could be flu -
What do you do?
You see the doc,
He says, 'say ah!'
So you say, 'ah!'
He says, 'congrats,
You've got pneumonia!'

Oh ah ha ha!

SURPRISE! SURPRISE! SURPRISE!

You have an itch
A little itch
On your left foot,
You little toe
On your left foot
Begins to itch
Begins to twitch
Begins to shake
A little bit
Within your shoe -
What do you do?
Take off your shoe?
(You take it off.)
Your leg drops off -
A little bit.

SURPRISE! SURPRISE! SURPRISE!

You're dead. Not dead.
You're almost dead.
The bombs have dropped
The power's down
The food is gone
You are the last
Survivor in
This post apoc-
-alyptic world.
You're dead. Not dead.
You'll soon be dead,
And as you lie
Stark raving mad
Upon the floor
Then what should burst
In through the door
Except a clown?
A happy clown!
A laughing clown!
With funny hair!
And bright red nose!
And bright red mouth!
And bright red eyes!
And honking horn!
What should he cry?
I do declare -

SURPRISE! SURPRISE! SURPRISE!

The Screw

It is finally time to tell the tale of the Screw. It is an old tale, but no less true for all that. And perhaps you will find something inspirational in the tale of the Screw. Maybe it will even inspire you to go forth and Screw in places you have never Screwed before.

The Screw was in the cupboard door, see. It was keeping the door open. Screws tend to do that. It is really amazing what good a little Screw can do, if you let it.

But over the years, the Screw became looser and looser. What had once been a good hard Screw had started to fall out. And there was the sound of weeping and wailing all over the earth.

But! Along I came with my Screwdriver. I had got the Screwdriver that morning from Bunnings. It's amazing the things you can get from Bunnings; they are extraordinarily eager to encourage the delightful practice of Screwing at work, and at home. Well, as I say, I wandered along with my Screwdriver, and I picked up the Screw, and I commenced Screwing. Never before or after has there ever been such a Screw as the Screw I had that day in the cupboard. I Screwed determinedly in the cupboard, and I Screwed some more, and then after that, I did a little bit more Screwing until the Screw was all Screwed.

And when I had finished, the Screw was completely Screwed once more.

And over the vast aeons of time - well more months and seconds actually - one generation has handed down to the next generation the tale of the Screw. Not that there has been any generations to tell the tale. But still.

Go forth and Screw!

Weekend travel special

Mountains! So big and tall and mountainy! They are very impressive objects, especially the ones that are made out of rocks, which are most of them. Unfortunately, the tallest and the mountainiest of the world's mountains live overseas, and are consequently very un-Australian. All Australian authorities agree on this important point. But there exists one type of very big, very tall mountainy mountain that you will find plenty of in Australia - and that is where we go for the Weekend Travel Special today.

AUSTRALIA'S HIGHEST 180 DEGREE MOUNTAINS!

1. Mount Horizontal, Hay

As you drive along the Hay Plains, the glorious contours of Mount Horizontal rise up at a flat angle to the otherwise undistinguished countryside. Many travellers have tried, and failed, to ascend the treacherous steeps and the craggy cliff-faces of Mount Horizontal, only to be brought down by its unyielding flatnesses. In one tragic incident, world famous explorer Mountjoy de Joymount attempted to scale the deadly surfaces of Mount Horizontal, only to fall to his death on the Hay Plains, far below.

While visiting Mount Horizontal, take time to look at other attractions of the area, including the hardy mountain beasts known as 'sheep', the interesting cultural artefacts known to the locals as 'fences', and the ground made up mostly of a rare mineral called 'dirt'.*

2. Mount Werribee, Werribee

Several distinctive geographical features mark out the area around Mount Werribee, including the world's least convex valley, (the famous Vale of Mere), occasional inclinations of up to one degree or more from the horizontal, and a an attractive local decoration known as 'rubbish'. Mount Werribee is not only one of the tallest horizontal mountains in the world, but it also has an unusually thin circumference, just metres in length: therefore its peak is particularly shard-like, and is considered too dangerous for mountain climbers to attempt (several locals have impaled themselves on Mount Werribee over the years). Mount Werribee is shown above with some 'rubbish' decorating it as part of Werribee's recent Christmas celebrations.

Mount Jones, Simpson Desert

The Simpson Desert has in recent years become a thriving tourist centre - so thriving that it's locals all live somewhere else. Nevertheless, it is home to the impressive Mount Jones, which rises up with majestic ordinariness above the otherwise undistinguished plains below. In recent years, it is true, several geologists and orographists have argued that Mount Jones is actually not a true 180 degree mountain at all, merely a hill or protuberance. One or two have even gone so far as to maintain that Mount Jones has been diminishing in size; however, these arguments are considered unorthodox.

Aside from the looming flatness of Mount Jones, the Simpson Desert also boasts another feature of worldwide significance - 'Ayers Other Rock', a pebble rising from the ground, about one centimetre in diameter and two centimetres in height. If you do want to attempt the challenging climb of Ayers Other Rock with friends, please be aware of the sensitivities of the local Indigenous people (or rather the local-but-living-somewhere-else Indigenous people), and take all rubbish with you afterwards.

*If I could just add as a footnote that I grew up on the Hay Plains, and they certainly lived up to their name: they were very plain indeed. Actually, while doing some research for this post, I found an interesting recommendation for the area on the Hay Shire website, which I quote to you now:

"Located on the vast open and virtually treeless Hay Plains, the main regional centre of Hay is situated at the intersection of the Sturt, Mid-Western and Cobb Highways. The other main towns in the Shire are Maude and Booligal, made famous by the Banjo Patterson poem Hay, Hell and Booligal."

So what are you all doing? Visit Hay, you bastards!

Little read Biblical passages

From Solomon's Extended Proverbs, Chapter 5

7. And if thy dog must crap, then let thy dog crap on the lawn of the neighbour thou most dislikest;

8. For as fresh honey is to thy tongue, so is a green lawn to the bottom of thy dog;

9. But if the neighbour thou most dislikest is thy only neighbour, even so, forbear;

10. For what thou givest, verily, thou shall receivest back tenfold;

11. Seek out wisdom, my son! It is more precious than fine gold!

Scene from a future dystopia

Society must, at some stage, accept that not only is there a widespread demand for pornography, but that it also has the potential, in the process of adhering to certain values, to aid healthy adolescent sexual development. It may seem ludicrous to envision government-funded pornography, but there is no reason why such an enlightened initiative would not be theoretically feasible. Through broadcasters such as the ABC, the government already gives funding to comedy, entertainment, current affairs programs and sport; the only reason, it seems, that pornography could not join those ranks is its general lack of perceived legitimacy.
Looking at porn doesn’t have to be a dirty secret
– David Heslin, National Times (via Andrew)

It was nearly eleven hundred and in the department they were dragging the chairs out of the cubicles and into the board room in preparation for the Two Minutes Masturbation.

A small bespectacled secretary with mouse-brown hair was fiddling with the controls to tune the telescreen into ABC69, while all around the lights dimmed. The next moment the sound of a synthetic saxophone wafted from the screen. If you were from a previous generation you would have identified the sound as belonging to a certain Mr G, first name Kenneth, but if you had the good fortune to be an enlightened citizen of 2084, it would have set your heart racing and made you gasp in anticipation. The Masturbation had started.

The contours of an extremely voluptuous woman became outlined on the screen. She was, of course, naked. As the screen lit up, you could see that she was sitting opposite a person of the opposite sex, also naked. Both their lips were moving, but you couldn’t tell what they were saying yet. The saxophone faded out, and it gradually became apparent what the actors were saying: they talked about feelings, about love, about commitment, about whether they felt they were emotionally ready for one another, about adequate protection, and about the importance of living in an open relationship of mutual trust and respect.

Barely twenty seconds into the Two Minutes Masturbation, people had already begun to burst out with exclamations about sexual tolerance and the importance of listening in a relationship. Looking around the room, Winton could see the faces of his colleagues bursting with the urge to live in an open relationship of mutual trust and respect with the woman or the man on the telescreen. Some had inadvertently let their mouths fall open and were panting at the possibility. Seconds later, of course, the man and the woman collapsed on the bed in sensual ecstasy, and Winton and the rest of the audience gasped.

The scene changed. This time, it was a steamy bathhouse full of buff, well-toned men. A breathy singer intoned wordless vowels as the men stroked and kissed one another. At the bottom of the screen the caption flashed, ‘It’s okay to be that way’. This was replaced in a few seconds by another caption, ‘So long as you have protection’.

In its second minute the Masturbation rose to a frenzy. You could hear the gentle plop, plop, plop as people’s pants or stockings dropped to the floor as soft-core gave way to hard-core and the shots became closer, more tantalising, and flicked from one to the other with increasing rapidity. Here there was a couple in the doggie position while the caption below told the viewers that smoking was bad, there again there was a bedroomful of people giving one another oral sex, while the caption flashed up telling viewers to keep their room tidy.

There were more images; a breast here, an armpit there; half a buttock, a penis, a nipple, someone’s waving hair – Winton seemed to have only a dim recall of the scenes afterwards – as the Two Minutes Masturbation reached its climax. Moments later, he and his other workers filed back out to their cubicles, full of panting desire to do good, enter into respectful relationships, and keep their rooms tidy, no matter what. One or two workers stopped mid-way and scurried back to the boardroom to retrieve their pants that they had forgotten…

2084, Georgus Huxwell

Announcing the discovery of the internet

I suppose you've all been wondering where I've been. Well no, you probably haven't. But I'll tell you anyway: I've been for a walk. Nothing too strenuous. Only ninety kilometres or so.

During that walk I've seen all manner of strange sights, including houses, trees, and unchangeable flat plains that stretch for kilometres on end; and one day, shortly, I may expand on some of these details.

But by jove, it's good to be back in civilisation, with its hot and cold running television, internet delivered fresh to your door every morning, and where you can pluck your muesli bars fresh from the fridge where they've been growing, instead of suffering the dreadful privations of the bucolic lifestyle (bar bistros, tourist cafeterias and hotel rooms).

Cam, saw, conquered

As you probably know I've been regularly going to the Dan O'Connell Hotel for a bit over a year now to read and hear poems read. For all that time Cam has been their MC, and I think he's done a fantastic job; it's become my favourite Saturday afternoon and evening haunt (insert here several adjectives describing Cam's welcoming/inclusive/humble/humorous, etc style). Well, this weekend is Cam's last go at MCing the Dan poets - regularly anyway. I'd originally hoped to head to the Dan for that occasion and read out some Cam poems. Not possible this weekend, as it turns out, as the Baron and I will be going off on a walking tour of the countryside. Instead I chose to read out a few Cam poems last week, including this one that I present to you now.

He's Cam he's the man with the plan from the Dan
With the chalk and the mic and the board and the book
And he am what he am what he am what he am.

He's biff and he's bam and he's blast and he's blam
With a lower left jab and an upper right hook
'Cos you don't mess with Cam he's the man with the SLAM from the Dan.

He's the ham to our spam we're the toast he's the jam
We're the menu of meals and he's the chief cook
And he am what he am what he am what he am.

And if he were a rock star he would be glam
And if he were a virus we'd all be crook
'Cos he's catching is Cam the man with the plan from the Dan.

He's not Komninos Emily Mick he's the man*
He's the man with the plan and he can't be mistook
For he is and he was and will be what he am:

Applaudable. Laudable. Please show your hands
For the man with the BLOODY GET ON WITH IT look
'Cos he's Cam he's the man with the plan from the Dan
And he am what he am what he am what he am
And he am what he am what he am what he am.

In the meantime, why not go this weekend to hear Cam MC for one last time and some great poems from the Dan regulars? You won't regret it.

New leadership! Old Labor!

Unprecedented
Julia Gillard has become Australia’s first red-head Prime Minister after being elected unopposed by the Labor caucus.

Speculations
What will this election mean for red-heads everywhere? We’ve certainly come a long way since the 1960s when redheads were forced to work at half pay, or the dark years of the 19th century, when redheads were forced to slave in underground uranium mines for those of the brown-headed and blonde-headed castes. Well no they didn’t, but it just reinforces the prejudices red-heads have been forced to bear, doesn’t it? It is impossible to speculate where to next for Gillard, but it is considered highly likely by experts that she will attempt to become the first red-head president of the solar system, after which she will exact a terrible toll on all non red-heads for the generations of suffering by her ranga brothers and sisters. Well that’s probably not true either. But still!

Controversy
However, several well-connected Canberra figures argue that Gillard’s victory was made possible through the support of several Labor heavyweights. These include the Labor left, the Labor right, unions, and another shadowy group known as ‘women’. It is not known how many of these 'women' are in politics, but we are informed that there are even influential 'women' figures in other left and right Labor factions. These contacts even go so far as to suggest that the Labor party may hope the well-connected red-head will be popular with the Australian public because she is also our first woman Prime Minister.

Other figures, however, have dismissed these charges as baseless.

UPDATE!
Take the poll!

Nice paper things with words in them

I spent a great deal of my overeducated and underemployed 20s looking for intellectual science fiction to read. By which I meant, in effect, authors like Brian Aldiss or Mike Moorcock who incorporated elements of science, philosophy, and literary modernism into their books. I don't know what I'd have done if I'd discovered Robert Sheckley back then - I probably never would have got a job at all.

Anyway, I've just finished reading Sheckley's book The Journey of Joenes (it was also published under another title, Journey Beyond Tomorrow.) Try this for a description: written by Sheckley in the 1960s, it's the biography of a 21st century historical figure, Joenes, as told by several Pacific storytellers, as compiled by an anonymous editor. As you might guess it's an extremely unreliable history, an even more unreliable future and, because the future being described in the novel is in part the present, it's a very unreliable present indeed. For one thing, apparently the Soviets are still in power, in this version of the future as imagined by Sheckley. That's a pretty common mistake for science fiction writers in the 60s, though what's nice about this is that Sheckley's style, in the Journey, is virtually made of mistakes, and mistaken interpretations of previous mistakes: so it just adds to the fun.

Here's one of my favourite passages - though it's hard to select one favourite passage out of a book that's full of them:

It is sad to relate that as Joenes flew over California an automatic radar station identified his jet as an invader and fired a number of air-to-air missiles at it. This tragic incident marked the opening phase of the great war.... Joenes jet, in the meantime, had expended its entire armament.
But it had not lost the guile its planners had built into it. It switched its radio to the missile-dispatching frequency and broadcast an alarm, declaring itself under attack and naming the airborne missiles at enemy targets to be destroyed.
These tactics met with some success. A number of the older, more simple-minded missiles would not destroy a craft they considered their own. The newer, more sophisticated missiles, however, had been alerted to just such an attempt on the part of the enemy. Therefore they pressed the attack, while the older missiles fiercely defended the solitary jet.

That's it!

Proverbial proverb

You've got to take the bags with the tea.

Lesson for today, if today is yesterday

Yesterday, which is today if you are living approximately 24 hours in time before the present due to some failure in the space time continuum, and is also the day before tomorrow, which is Monday. Amongst its more peculiar features, yesterday is also apparently Father's Day, which I had no idea about, until today. Consequently, my Father's Day conversation went like this:

DAD: Hello.

TIM: Hi Dad. How's the weather there?

DAD: Bright.

TIM: Okay.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Um, is mum there?

DAD: Yes.

[Long silence]

Did you want to speak to her?

TIM: Yes!

[End of Dad conversation]

People of yesterday! Don't be like Tim! Instead of having a stilted and awkward conversation with your father about the weather, raise the subject of Father's Day and have a stilted and awkward conversation about the event before turning to the subject of the weather! Let this be a lesson to all of you!

UPDATE! - Hey, it's not, or rather it wasn't, Father's Day in Australia after all. I look forward to accidentally forgetting the event when it does eventually eventuate and having a stilted and awkward conversation with my father at the time.

UPDATE UPDATE! - I suppose this means that today in America is actually not yesterday in Australia at all but is 90 or so yesterdays after the current yesterday, which makes it some time... after tomorrow. Glad we got that cleared up.

Sunday hat quote

"RAHRAHGLAHBLAHARGHGFARGING HATS!"

- Five young women in a car speeding past the Baron and me as we walked up the street, innocently wearing our hats and minding our own hatly business. Why thank you, yes, they are nice hats.

Whippersnappers!

(As the readers come in, Tim raises his walking stick to point at them. He stumbles, even though he is sitting down at the time.)

You young people may not know it, but I was once your age. Yes, even the ones that are older than me. Especially you. (And stop sniggering back there, you spry young sixty year olds. You'll get to be my age one of these days if you don't watch out.)

Ah! I've been running this blog for years and years. How long has it been now? It's coming up to a century, more or less. Well in purely numerical terms I suppose I've had this blog for five or six years, but they've been a long five or six years, and in blog terms five or six years is quite a long time, although those five or six blog years are exactly the same duration as five or six years in normal non-blog terms, but why quibble over facts?

Well! It was a different time when I was a blog whippersnapper. An exciting time to be alive. Why, we even had cars back then. And ovens. And ink-based plastic pens. And handkerchiefs. (Yes, I know we have them now, but they were more exciting back then. Handkerchiefs have caused people to contract a case of the hiccoughs on more than one occasion, let me know, you cheeky young rapscallion.) And none of this iPod this iMac that Blueberry nonsense; all of that was still to come.

Blogs were quite the thing back then, new, exciting, edgy, shiny, gleaming with possibility, and maybe just a little bit salacious. Oh, it was a long time before the mass media had begun flirting with blog technology or anything like that. I wonder when was it I actually first heard about blogs? It may have been eight years ago. Well! It's a long time.

By and by, as they say, I had got myself my own cosy little corner of blog space and had begun posting the occasional meditation or imagining on here. And continue to so to this day - and hopefully will continue to do so for many more years to come, God willing! I suppose there have been big changes in the technology since then; back then I imagine blogs were steam powered. Everything was, more or less. We'd all have to go and get bits of wood to put in the stove when we wanted to turn the computer on, for instance. In America I hear they had grown used to slightly different technology - they'd all have to use a hand crank to 'wind up' their computers.

Those were the pioneering years! We all developed our own 'lingo', just like you young people have today. I imagine you'll be familiar with some of the terms we used back in those early years of blogging. For instance, when someone wanted to comment on something you'd written, they'd 'click' on a 'link' titled something like 'leave a comment'. And if you ever wanted to make sure that what you'd written, either as a comment or a 'post' was right, you could simply choose to preview what you'd written: you just had to click on a button called 'preview'. I know this must seem quaint now, but it was exciting then. And, to me, it still seems quite exciting now.

Nowadays it seems things are quite different. There's this newfangled thing they've developed called 'twitter'. Well now that I come to look at it it doesn't seem all that newfangled at all; actually it looks quite like blogging, except you can't write quite so much. And what's all this facebook nonsense? What with the 'status updates' and the 'events' and the 'groups' and the 'causes' and the 'applications' it's left me feeling all quite confused. I never even knew I had a status, much less one that I had to keep on updating. But all you young people seem to be spending all the time on it these days! Well I spend a lot of time on it too, but it's confusing time! Can't we get back to the simpler things? Like little words printed in neat lines in a clean column right down the page, occasionally interspersed by pictures and reader comments.

And what's so fancy about facebook anyway? It seems more people are spending less time on blogs and more time on facebook than ever before. On facebook, why, your readers are only limited to your 'facebook friends'! There's no change of any old acquaintance, or even a nice new person, dropping by to your facebook page and reading your carefully-crafted status updates or facebook notes: that sort of thing only happens on blogs. Why, I even have people leaving comments for my blog on facebook! No-one ever leaves comments on my blog for my facebook, thank heavens. Call me old fashioned, but I just don't understand things any more. And somehow, even arguments or learned discussions just aren't the same on facebook: who wants to leave a long, learned comment on facebook? There's not enough room! And here's another thing: even if I did decide to start posting regular 'notes' on facebook as a supplement to my blog, I wouldn't even be able to format them with bold or italics, or decide on the format of the page: all that is taken out of my hands.

It's utter rubbish, I say!

Anyway, you young scallywags had better scatter, back to your 'facebook' and 'twitter'. I've just discovered a wonderful new invention - called the 'television'! Why, you just have to tune in to a certain 'channel' and watch a so-called 'television show' for however long you want to! It's quite marvellous, the things they come up with these days, even if it's not as good as old-fashioned blogging. Go on then! Here's a shiny penny, buy yourself a little snack, you funny young things!

Fartisan bakeries

I was watching A Current Affair and.... shut up! You don't think I do these things for pleasure, do you?

Anyway, I was watching A Current Affair and they ran one of their stories comparing items from different shops. This time it was supermarket breads compared to, well, breads from 'artisan bakeries'. The artisan bakery they chose from? None other than Bakers Delight.

Bakers Delight! How could you walk past them? (Quite simple really, put one foot in front of another...) I like to call them 'Bakers Despite', for no particular reason. But really, they're an artisan bakery, according to A Current Affair? Everytime I've shopped at Bakers Delight I've been forced to choose between a stale old piece of crust, and another piece of crust that is, well, crusty. Sometimes the crusty crusts have sugar slathered on them and currants jammed in them; those ones are all right. I have a whimsical fondness for sugar. The rest though? Horrible, terrible, awful, and worse.

You might remember the jaunty ad campaign BD ran a couple of years ago. They seemed to be so enamoured with that jolly, jazzy little tune they had their bakers bopping away to that they started playing it all the time, in all of their bakeries. It was nerve racking enough walking into that piece mid-tune; just imagine how angst-making it must have been for the poor kids who had to hear it bop-bop-bop-bop-bopping away all day.

Fawgh, Bakers Delight! They are to artisan bakeries what bubblegum is to pavements, what blisters are to feet, what cheap, unoriginal, shlocky-tabloid television journalism is to television. What sort of television show, exactly, might fit that bill? Oh yeah. Bakers Delight are the A Current Affair of the artisan baking world.

Linguistification

Okay -

Spick and span
Ship shape
Nick nacks

Why do we do things in this way? Why is everything spick and span but never span and spick? Why can't nack nicks be shape ship, why can't we have bobs and bibs as well as bibs and bobs, and, for that matter, why can't we go slop-slap-slip and slap-slip-slop as well as slip-slop-slap? Are we scared of letting our little children use saw sees, or, if you are an American, totter teeters? Are we unnerved by the thought of bop-be or hop-hip music? What is it?

Do we think if we suddenly switch these little phrases around, everything will go out of control, that the entire world will run skelter helter, piggledy higgledy for the hills? That matter will go turvy topsy when the clocks start going tock tick instead of tick tock? Do we faintly suspect that there is something slightly perverse about crying hoo boo instead of boo hoo? Will the world really fall in on itself if a dog wakes up in the morning and decides to go wow bow?

And stop hee teeing up the back! This is a serious matter!

Summary of a book

In the past outcast, on passed, off to class, teachers, preachers, learning, yearning, burning, homicide, suicide, desolation, destitution, devastation, restitution, affirmation, confirmation, flirtation, temptation, sublimation, kiss, bliss, resolution.

Not necessarily in that order.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

A poem about liking things

I'm not going to join the group Melbourne Poets Who Like the Australian Greens - but I'm tempted to, just so I could post this poem:

I like the Greens!
They're really nice!
Much better than scabies
Or head lice!

The oceans are rising.
It makes me fret!
If they keep rising,
My feet will get wet!

I like the Greens!
They've got Bob Brown!
But Bob Brown is sad
With a permanent frown.

Don't be sad, please Bob!
We'll make you grin!
We'll do our best
To vote you in!

I like the Greens!
They're really nice!
Even if their economic policies are somewhat questionable.

A sensible pantoum, written on the tram

A sensible pantoum

Bilious velveteen elephants
Galloping galloping down
Into my study and drawing room
Out of the cloudy green sky,

Galloping galloping down
A stampede of bestial angels
Out of the cloudy green sky
Dirtying all my fine linen,

A stampede of bestial angels
Trumpeting sylph melodies
Dirtying all my fine linen
Making me spill all my tea,

Trumpeting sylph melodies,
Triumphantly trampling beds,
Making me drop all my tea,
On my (as mentioned) fine linen,

Triumphantly trampling beds,
Springing up out of the window
On my (as mentioned) fine linen
And nesting in my apple tree,

Springing up out of the window
Using their fore-hoofs for flying
And nesting in my apple tree
(All rather upsetting for me),

Using their fore-hoofs for flying,
Into my study and drawing room,
(All rather upsetting for me),
Bilious velveteen elephants.

Naughty after the fact

I've just realised that after a more or less unbroken record of not-wagging-from-school from the years 1982-1995, I've spent the next 15 years of my life wagging. Cool!

Though if I ever I go back, I'll be in biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig trouble.

Fearful apprehension of mysterious events that are also secret at an undisclosed Melbourne university!

Oh wow, Tim, something really exciting just happened... a helicopter has just landed on the uni oval... it's like something out of a Dan Brown novel! - The Baron

The sleek black helicopter silently dropped out of the clear evening skies onto the college lawn. Well the helicopter wasn't so much a sleek black as a ruddy white and blue, but it did drop down, though not so silently: it was quite noisy actually. It wasn't evening either, and the skies weren't particularly clear: it was still morning and, being autumn, there were a number of clouds in the sky. Also, it was an oval the helicopter landed on, not a lawn. And, because this was Australia, it was a university, not a college. So, all in all, it would make more sense to say that the non-sleek, un-black helicopter dropped, quite noisily, out of the partly cloudy skies at a time that was either afternoon, dawn, morning, or somewhere in between, onto the large grassy area that was used for sporting activities, at the particular Melbourne university at which this incident was observed.

One by one, armed FBI officers fanned out into the courtyard. Well, we've already established that this is Australia, and so they wouldn't be FBI officers I suppose. And there was only one of them too, but he certainly did come out one by one, and fanned out, though not, of course, into the courtyard, which was an oval, and not for very long either; after fanning out for a second or so he just stood there.

Behind the thin column, Langdon, and the famous, tall, glamorous, auburn-haired Madame Coco de Milo watched with fearful apprehension while - though I should state right here and now that the column was so thin as to be zero inches thick, which is to say, it was non-existent; Robert Langdon was sleeping peacefully in his bed on the other side of the world, and therefore not present for the occasion of this incident, or the incident of this occasion; and the Madame Coco de Milo, while she was there, had chestnut hair, not auburn, and spectacles, and she was speaking on a mobile phone, and had a different name which she had possessed since birth, and it is actually an open-question whether she was the famous Madame Coco de Milo at all (whoever the famous Madame Coco de Milo was, and also presumably is), though she was looking on with fearful apprehension, or perhaps a better way to describe it would be apprehensive fearfulness, at least - while, I say, they clutched in their hands, (or perhaps Langdon clutched in his hands, because it would be rather difficult for them to be both clutching it at once) the crumbling papers that contained the secret puzzle that would unveil the final diabolical mystery, both which were implicit in the initial ancient cipher unveiled in the depths of the subterranean vault in Degraves Street, Melbourne.

Meanwhile, in the laneway underneath the bridge leading in to university, a semi-important man with responsibility for the photocopiers in the Sociology Department, stubbed his toe...

Precious non-vanishing natural heritage

The latest research indicates that most of the Pacific's low-lying islands are growing, not shrinking. - Coral islands left high and dry, The Australian

In news that will be of concern to many people concerned with being concerned about concerning things, it seems that many endangered islands may be in danger of not being endangered.

Around the world, leaders of government and environmental groups have begun to debate the implications of this lack of an unfolding crisis, and the possible ways in which they may be able to bring the islands that are less endangered than were previously thought back to previous levels of endangerment, and perhaps even lift them to unprecedented levels of endangerment, in order to create concerns for concerned people.

"We need to protect our precious vanishing natural heritage so that it keeps on vanishing," says Amber McAmble, head of the Friends of the Worldwide Fund for Green Natural Heritage Peace (FWFGNHP). "Otherwise, our precious vanishing natural heritage will simply stay there, maybe forever."

Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd agrees: "if we don't do something now, who knows how long these precious vanishing islands will stay there? Nobody wants to visit or help a non-vanishing static island that's just, you know, sort of sitting there."

On Monday, a coalition of concerned economists will present a petition to the Prime Minister in Canberra suggesting ways in which sea levels can be made to rise. "For instance, sticking a really big heater over the Arctic Ice," says one. "That way, we can save the endangered islands from being endangered by unendangerment, and they can start sinking again."

The thriving capital city of a typical Pacific Island. This delicate natural culture may be on the brink of a catastrophic lack of catastrophe unless we do something to change it.

An allsorts post, but not involving licorice

1. I have a shirt that looks like it's inside out when it's actually inside in and outside out. Even more confusing, when my shirt that looks like it's inside out when it's inside in also looks inside out when it's inside out (or possibly outside in?) thus thoroughly confusing the matter. Thankfully, the shirt looks more inside in and outside out when it is actually inside in, but it's a pretty close call.

Apart from the fact that the person inside the inside out shirt feels like an outsider even though they are an insider, due to its inside-outness, it is otherwise a nice and comfortable shirt.

2. The teapot committed suicide last night. Well technically you might say that it fell to the floor and broke, but I feel certain that this was premeditated. You see, it was only two days prior to this that it's companion cup fell to the floor and broke into a thousand pieces, and I guess the teapot had been brooding over this horrifying event in a state of mingled disbelief and devastation.

The fact that I was fussing around just below the bench on which it stood with a bucket that had several things like broom handles sticking out of it is neither here nor there. I only wish I could have counselled the teapot out of its suicidal tendencies.

3. On Monday I made gingerbread men. They had mini M&Ms for eyes, which made them look like creepily-staring alien gingerbread men. The mini M&M eyes kept on falling out, or squashing, which made them look like creepily-staring alien undead zombie gingerbread men. The gingerbread men also had a habit of sticking to one another and fusing into one gingerbread man flesh, which made them look like creepily-staring alien undead zombie mass symbiotic entity gingerbread men, possibly possessing romantic infatuations with one another, to boot. That was cool.

Great scientific advances of our time

Recently on perfecting the design of my chicken-to-human translator, I obtained some interesting results while hanging out about some chickens I know. I would like to present several chicken-to-human translations to you for your perusal. It was either that or Nature magazine.

CHICKEN 1:
What do you take me for man? What?
Some kind of backwoods duck?
I've clucking had it up to here -
I mean, what the clucking cluck?

CHICKEN 2:
Shut yer pecker. Listen son.
You're just a clucking slacker.
So take your clucking grain and shove it
Up your clucking cloaca.

CHICKEN 3:
I don't give a clucking flap,
You chickhead. I just don't.
You're just a pecking clucking chick,
A cockadoodledont.

CHICKEN 4:
Cluck off, cluckhead! Cluck yourself!
Go clucking cluck your pecker!
And cluckily clucky clucky cl...

At this point, I switched off the chicken-to-human translator, realising that nothing of interest could come out of this linguistic project whatsoever, and went and did the dishes.

Retro biscuits

What do they call those little flavoured rice biscuits they have at parties these days? They are the Jatz of the 21st century. Does anyone remember Jatz? We all used to eat Jatz, whenever the occasion called for parties and a little something to eat. And then there was the time we all went crazy over Saos, and there were the imitation Jatz biscuits they came out with - Ritz. On the whole it appears if you are a person who designs savoury biscuits (what do they call them?) you probably wouldn't go too far wrong if you gave it a name that ended with Z. Jatz, Ritz, Bitz, Titz....

One of these days I would like to have a retro biscuit party where we all gather around a table and eat those little biscuits we used to eat decades ago, with a little something on them of course.

On underpants

Some people call them Y fronts. But I call them Y not fronts.

A moustache you can trust

Nice old man Brian Aldiss discussing an aspect of his latest novel, Walcot. With his fine bristly moustache I have to say he looks quite the mid-20th century demagogue. At one point he gets so excited that he actually starts waving his fist in the camera, but it's entirely characteristic that when he does so, he is actually expounding on the virtues of apology.

I may just have to order this book.

Australia mourns death of writer it never read

With the death of Randolph Stow on 29 May 2010, all of Australia is mourning the loss of a writer it never heard of and who it never read.

In an obituary published in the Sydney Morning Herald, critic Peter Craven has said, "Stow was truly one of the greatest writers who we have never read." Craven talked in detail about Stow's atmospheric writing (which he had never read) and his gift for contriving exciting plots (which he hadn't read either.) "Maybe one day," mused Craven hopefully, "I will be as little read as Stow is today." Craven's colleagues agreed.

Writers, public figures, and dignitaries have all paid tribute to Stow, who none of them have ever read, as a great and influential Australian, albeit one that few of them knew. A number of widely-circulated newspapers, including The Australian, The Age, and The West Australian, have performed a critical overview of Stow's most famous titles, while ABC's The Book Show plans to do dramatic reading from Stow's chapter headings and back-cover blurbs on the weekend.

Meanwhile, academics from universities have spoken about the lasting contribution of Stow's unread books to Australian literature. Professor John Warblung, Sydney University, is an expert on the works of Randolph Stow, having not read all of Stow's books, several times. His most recent work is the book, 'The Life and Letters of Randolph Stow', in which he concludes, 'Randolph Stow lived for 74 years and may or may not have used the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X and Z in his works. And possibly also Y.'

The nation joins tonight in mourning over the death of this widely loved, though largely unrecognised and unread, author, before going back to read the latest Dan Brown novel. Randolph Stow, whoever he was, will be sorely missed.

EXCLUSIVE READER SURVEY

Rejected entries for Uncle Almanac's Giant Compendium of Assembled Jokeage

Q: What's the difference between a writer and a smuggler?

A: One plans plots, the other plans plots.

*

An American, an Australian, and an Irishman are due for execution. The executions are carried out successfully.

*

Q: What's brown and sticky?

A: Mud.

*

Q: What's the latest Irish invention?

A: The Large Hadron Collider.

[Editor's note: actually the Large Hadron Collider was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research.]

*

Q: What do cows eat for breakfast?

A: Grass.

*

Q: What's the difference between a teacher and a steam train?

A: One imparts knowledge, the other delivers you to a destination.

*

A librarian was sitting in the library as she had always done one day when a chicken walked in the door of the library, and up to the desk, saying, 'book, book, book, book, book.' Well, the librarian beheaded the chicken and that night her whole family had a nice roast meal.

*

Q: What's the difference between an eccentric person who goes about inquiring the local birds about various matters, and a politician?

A: One questions ducks, the other ducks questions.

[Editor's note: the Q needs work.]

*

Q: When is a door not a door?

A: When it's open.

*

One day Jackie Jackie...

[Editor's note: racism! Completely unacceptable. Wait for the Giant Compendium of Politically Incorrect Jokes.]

*

An Irishman, American, and Englishman walked into the bar and drank a moderate amount of alcohol in a responsible fashion before catching the bus home.

*

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Jackie Ja

[Editor's note: stop. right. there.]

*

Q: When is a door not an orange?

A: Doors are usually not oranges, most of the time.

*

Q: What's black and sits at the top of the stair?

A: A black... thing.

*

A blonde wants to get to the other side of the river. So she walks over the bridge.

*

Q: What's the difference between a person who designs kitchenware, and a person who draws maps on the kitchenware?

A: One person plans pots, the other plots pans.

[Editor's note: will consider it for second printing.]

Patriotic songs of the world, no. umpteen hundred and one

C: God save our marmalade!
Long live our marmalade!
Good English jam!

V: Spread it all o'er the toast
From coast to crusty coast
Proudly may all Britons boast -
Better than spam!

C: God save our marmalade!
Long live our marmalade!
Good English jam!

V: Lemon or mandarine,
Orange or tangerine,
Lime chunks that have a turquoise sheen -
Better than spam!

C: God save our marmalade!
Long live our marmalade!
Good English jam!

Onoooooooooooooooooooootel

"If a motel is a hotel for cars," I said, "A hotel for boats is a flowtel."

Well, what do you think of that? Not bad, I thought. Not bad - for an off-the-cuff remark late on a Friday night while one is out with one's parents and one has maybe drunk one or two pots of rather nice beer and is feeling rather expansive.

The trouble is, I thought this joke was so uniquely original and wonderful that I repeated it to the Baron the day afterwards while we were both on a long train trip. And then spent the rest of the hour with her turning up new versions of the same pun. A partial list is provided below.

A hotel for turtles is a slowtel
A hotel for assumed identities is a fauxtel
A hotel for boyfriends is a beautel
A hotel for emergencies is an 000tel
A hotel frequented by the Three Stooges is a Larrycurlymotel
A hotel for display is a showtel
A luminescent hotel is a glotel
A hotel for ski trips is a snowtel
A hotel for conferences regarding the significance of 19th-century American fantasy literature is a Poetel
A hotel with a particularly rancorous odour is an eaughtel
A hotel where they hold elections is a votel
A hotel for Santa Claus's is a hohohotel
A hotel for epistemologists is a knowtel
A hotel for Napoleon's girlfriend is a Jotel
A hotel for cloven-hoofed ruminants is a goatel...

Anyway. You can see where this is all going, and where it has been - nowhere particularly interesting. However, it's worth noting that a hotel for women of ill-repute is a hotel, and a hotel for people with moustaches is a motel. Also - and this has just occurred to me now - a hotel full of tinea sufferers is a toehel.

Grumble grumble

I am a little disappointed in the efficiency and dedication to the task of this particular cold that I have at the moment. Although it has left me with a suitably sore throat in the mornings, and a persistent cough throughout the day, it's worth ethic leaves something to be desired: namely, it hasn't been nearly bad enough to give me an excuse to take leave off work.

Also: it seems to have reserved its worst excesses largely for the Friday and Saturday, the first two days of my five-day holiday.

As a matter of fact, if I were to return a report on my cold's performance in the manner of an employer rating their employee, I would have to impress upon it that it's punctuality and productivity so far have been decidedly lacking. It has frequently not shown up during work hours, and it has not performed as expected during those times when it has shown up. CAN DO BETTER, cold.

After weeks of encouraging other miserable, red-nosed, husky-throated cold sufferers to share, it is more than a little disappointing.

On sausages

Sausages! Could there be anything more perfect, more pinkly pleasing than a fresh sausage, waiting to be sizzled? Rationally, the mind says no: but sausages appeal to the passions, to the heart, and to the soul. If sausages were designed for the intellect, they would be rectangular, their colour would be grey, and they would taste like cardboard. Away with such nonsense! For, as we all know, sausages are long, and ovular, and pink, or brown and juicy when fried.

Besides, many great people have uttered words in praise of the sausage. Otto von Bismarck, for instance, said that there are two things a man should never see: the making of laws, and the making of sausages. However, he was clearly a madman. There are numerous other tributes to the sublimity of the sausage throughout history, but I cannot remember them at the moment, as I do not know what they are.

Tonight was a sausage night. I sallied forth, with two of my brothers and two of my parents*, with sausages on my mind. I did not, at the time, know that I had sausages on my mind. They were sitting there, waiting to be drawn out by circumstance. That circumstance happened to be a friendly sausage vendor sitting by the bar by the river in the city, vending his, well, sausages. And so it came to pass that we bought the sausages from this sausage vendor, and we ate the sausages that were so vended.

I should note in passing the vegetarian objection to sausage eating. The objection goes, I believe, that it is wrong to eat sausages. This is fine, so far as it goes. The reasoning goes that, sometimes, instead of eating sausages, people should let the sausages eat them. This, too, is fine, but how do we know that eating vegetables is any better? For all we know, the carrots that vegetarians eat - I presume they all eat carrots, it's the closest thing to sausages you can get - could be entirely made out of meat. I mean, have you ever asked the waiter if the carrot you are served is vegetarian? Even if they have told you that it is so, how can you trust them? They could just be in the pay of the meat industry.

Therefore, a person eats sausages; for, as is well known, there is a sausage-shaped hole in man's stomach that only sausages, or some other ovular, possibly carrot-flavoured and textured, foodstuff that is nevertheless somewhat less satisfying than a sausage-based ovular foodstuff, can fill.

I sallied forth tonight with two sausages on my mind. One ended up, sizzling, in a loaf of bread, with onions, in my hand, and I ate it. The other sausage sat, long and pink, in my mind until I came back home. It was this blog post. And now, you have a pink sausage sitting in your mind too. Now perhaps you should go forth and cook it.

*Just to make things symmetrical. Otherwise I would have invited three of my parents out.

Politics

Now, you know, I don't comment much on political matters on this blog. But this is an issue that is just so important: it affects all of us. Or perhaps only some of us. Whatever...

Oh, Bea!

Vote for Beatrice in the Whiskas competition!

UPDATE! -

THE BEATRICE FOR HIGHER OFFICE COALITION
If you could take a little time out of your busy schedules today to place a vote for our cat, Beatrice, in this competition, we'd be much obliged:

A vote for the Beatrice Party will benefit you in many ways:

- Beatrice has pledged to increase quotas of cuteness in everyday life.

- Beatrice is a cat of the people (and I bet you've never heard any other politician described as a 'person of the cats', have you? Exactly.) She understands and sympathises with the struggles of everyday working life.

- Beatrice has spots. And very nice ones, too. If she wins the majority of your votes, she will bring these spots to as many citizens as possible.

- Something about working families.

- A vote for Beatrice means a laptop for every child!

Well we're not too sure about that last one. But one final point:

- Beatrice is a genuine, honest cat. With Beatrice, you always know what you're going to get.

Please don't be distracted by the opposition, who have resorted to cheap gimmicks like putting their cats in ties. Let's get back to the real issues - ie, cats in boxes. Or possibly household cleaning implements.

Authorised by Timothy Train of the Beatrice For Higher Office Coalition, Melbourne.

Suggested dictionary additions

forgetting behind of the times: planning to do something but secretly resolving to put it off, and then forgetting ones plans; forgetting to remember to not do whatever it is that you had been planning to do. (See also: blanxiety)

blanxiety: Forgetting a plan you should never have planned in the first place.

nth de plume: Internet phenomena – getting into conversations with yourself while under the illusion that you are speaking to another, or several other, people. (Also: reiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiteration.)

snarcolepsy: Causing an embarrassing misunderstanding by lapsing into non-sarcasm during a sarcastic conversation.

Breaking news, belatedly

I went to the zine fair. As a record of the occasion, I would like to present this series of instantaneous-albeit-seven-hours-after-the-event-tweets-that-just-happen-to-be-on-blogger.

- I am at the zine fair.

- I have made vegan-friendly biscuits. Every time a vegan walks past, they say, "Why hello! How's your day going?"*

- These zines are selling like lukewarmcakes!

- Everybody likes socks. Nobody likes badgers.

- Just said to a person 'Have a good day' but that turned into 'Have a nice day' mid sentence, so it came out as 'Have a gnice day'.

- Gnus often have gnice days.

- Absurdly embarrassed by the fact that everyone else has press names identifying their tables, but I've just got my name. Accordingly I have taken my name out of its plastic sleeve and turned it upside down. That'll show 'em.

- Meat eaters keep on scoffing the vegan biscuits, not so interested in buying the zines. They are truly evil.

- Would anyone like to buy a zine?

- Just realised reason people keep on buying my sock zine is because 'socks' sounds like 'sex'. It's either that or the fetching black and white and grey cover design, combined with the imaginative Times New Roman font.

- I am at the zine fair.

Aren't you glad you waited for this?

*As opposed to the gingerbread, which is made entirely out of meat.

The man who mistook himself for a croissant

"Are you selling that croissant?"

"No. I'm very attached to it."

People generally are very attached to their food, I thought, as I overheard this conversation. If not at first, then afterwards. It's all to do with digestion, or something. Gradually, the food attaches itself to your skin, until you're not sure where the skin starts, or the croissant ends. Eventually - if you keep on eating croissants, at least - you reach a point at which you start looking like a whole series of croissants, from end to end. You could probably pass yourself off as a bunch of croissants if you were in a bakery of something. You could throw in a bunch of fruit and start looking like a fruit salad, or maybe a funny hat that people wear at the races, but the principle is the same. This is why you see people walking around looking like the deli section of the supermarket - it happens all the time.

It's a pretty funny way to lead your life I suppose, walking around looking like a saucy chicken and mayonaisse sandwich, or a sugary crusty little donut. You could even get the occasional gourmand looking to put you in their personal toaster oven. Still, that doesn't mean you should get fussed over it.

One way of getting around all these difficulties would probably be by eating a car. Gradually, the cars would fuse to your flesh and you would become a combination car-man, an awesome Auto-Zilla. But you would be pretty hungry. Cars aren't actually that nutritious, after all.

Bet you hadn't thought of that when you started eating cars, had you?

The fantasy alphabet....

... starts with Z. Z is at the beginning of all the most interestingly exotic, or just exotic, names:

Zardoz
Zenda
Zaphod Beeblebrox III

Even more exotic is X. If you want to make a name evoke far-off, mysterious lands, and magical rites, and quaint forgotten lore, you should start it with an X.

Xena
Xenu
Xiombarg

Other important letters in the fantasy alphabet include V (Lord Vader, Vadhagh), J, Q, and K, but who could suspect little old M? And yet M is very important. It begins the word... MURDER!

Mordor
Mordak

S with its obvious sibilance could hardly be passed over:

Sauron
Saruman
Shelob

Considering all those names come from Tolkien, you begin to suspect the querulous old linguist had something against sibilance.

And of course these letters don't have to appear at the beginning of names to work: sometimes their mere presence is enough to evoke the requisite emotions and ideas. Consider the Z in Tarzan or Godzilla, or the saucy little X dangling right at the end of Zaphod Beeblebrox III.

There are also a lot of units larger than a single letter that are important in fantasy names; some of the better authors could be said to think in syllables rather than letters. Some of Mervyn Peake's names are excellent:

Titus Groan
Gormenghast
Steerpike
Sepulchrave

C S Lewis, on the other hand, seems to have preferred to give many of his names a musical twist, ending many with what I suppose is a Latin ending:

Rilian
Caspian
Drillian
Reepicheep

Many fantasy names are just normal names with an extra syllable tagged on, or a spelling changed. It is perhaps meant to point to the fact that fantasy novels are set in other lands and times where people speak a different language, though it's somewhat undercut by the fact that the novel will invariably be told entirely in English anyway:

Hari Seldon
Bilbo Baggins
Frodo Baggins

Mostly Tolkien seems to have given up on the idea of making fancy names, if we can take names like 'Sam' or 'Tom Bombadil' as examples, though I do like 'Belladonna Took'. It's pretty out there. It's not really made up, but it seems to yank together two seemingly disparate terms, just like Douglas Adams was fond of doing with 'Ford Prefect', say - or who could forget his 'Eccentrica Gallumbitis, the Triple Breasted Whore of Eroticon Six?'

Once I tossed up the idea of writing a fantasy novel composed entirely of ordinary names: Jack, Jillian, Sam - or even better, where all the characters have only got one name between them - John Smith, ferocious dragon, eater of maidens; John Smith, glamorous enchantress, who entrapped the famed Mage, John Smith, in a nightmare; John Smith, cheeky bard, who roams the lands telling of the deeds of John, John, John, John, the famous four Smiths (one of whom happened to be a blacksmith)...

So why don't you all go and make up a name now, y'hear?

State of deliciousness!

I just sent this email to Mum:

Apparently, Victorians call Vanilla Slice 'Snot Block'. I learned this just this afternoon while unveiling at work a Vanilla Slice that I had earlier bought up the street, causing everyone at work to chorus, 'Ah, Snot Block'. As you will be visiting in a few weeks, I thought I might pass this invaluable information on to you.

Perhaps we could all go to a cafe and order Snot Block together.

Non-sequiturs speak louder than words

Harriet just used my tracksuit pants as a scratching post, while I was in them. In response, I put on a CD of Lutoslawski and Bartok and turned on the most atonal track I could find.

Didactic poem about underwear

Wear a bra.
You will go far.

UPDATE! - Some damn fine poems in comments. A pair of gold knickers to the lot of you.

Sunday morning thoughts about sitting

Is there anything a cat will not sit on? Here is a list of things that cats are partial to sit on, if they are looking for somewhere to sit: a mat, a bag that you may be preparing to take to work, a magazine that you may be wanting to read, another cat's head, and, if you are in a suitably stationary position, you. And yet, if you waited until the cats were in a suitably stationary position and sat on them, they would not be happy.

It really makes you think about the relative value of sitting on things, and being sat on by things, respectively.

Embiggled

You'll have heard by now of Kevin Rudd. He's the guy with the biggest nation-building biggest renewable-energy planning biggest school modernisation programming biggest reform-since-Medicaring biggest social-housing expanding biggest global-economic-crisis wrestling biggest investment-in-cancering biggest Defence-project-undertaking biggest solar-generating-plant-building biggest telescope-building Government in Australia. The only other thing he and the rest of the Government could do to achieve the biggest bigliness in the big area of bigliness would be to be the biggest bigamists in Australia, too. And, you know, maybe they're working on that.

Still, all this big-hearted bigliness opens up a clear line of attack for the Opposition. They could promise to undertake the most medium-sized nation-building program in Australia! Begin the most moderate school modernisation program in the country! They could strive to achieve any number of neither-particularly-large-nor-particularly-small achievements in health, defence, education, and perform a certain-but-not-too-large-amount-of-activity in the general areas of middleness! In short, they could present themselves as an alternative Government with the biggest amount of middling plans for this country, and for the world.

After all, John Howard always said that political parties should underpromise and overdeliver. They could go one better: overunderpromise, and underoverdeliver.

It would certainly give Rudd something to worry, in a sort-of way, about.

Wine, oats, sugar, cofffee, icing, coffee, chocolate, coffee, HELLO NURSE!

Last night I drank a bottle of wine. We were at a housewarming, see, and that wine wasn't going to drink itself. I had a large styrofoam cup and it took about four refills and three quarters of an hour.

The morning after the night before, I had a large bowl of porridge with brown sugar and milk, three cups of coffee, and (when I got to work) one sultana bun with margarine and icing and coconut frosting, and one large mocha. Later, I took my plunger into the kitchen at work and in a short time I had two more cups of coffee, large, and black.

All this consumption - by no means excessive on my part - was for an ulterior purpose, you see. I had elected to have a work health check at 1 PM this afternoon, and I didn't want to disappoint the people doing the checking. It's absolutely excessive to prepare yourself for a work health check by eating and drinking exactly as you would any other day, only more so. Otherwise the work health check isn't going to be accurate, is it? Plus, you want to give them more chance to find something wrong with you. Otherwise their day isn't as entertaining.

A little disappointingly, I didn't get told that I had leprosy or that my appendix was about to explode or anything like that during the health check. Although I did walk away with a bunch of confusing numbers and a shiny booklet.

Things I didn't say, for some reason, to the health check nurse:

"So, do you, like, tell every 10th patient they have tuberculosis, just for fun?"
"Do you and the other people doing this have a bingo card for the health problems you turn up every day? Do you sit around after work going, 'obesity, heart disease, BINGO!"
"Is it all right to eat lots of steak, because it's made from cows, which are made from grass, which is made from vegetables, which is what I'm supposed to be eating?"
"And what if the fruit I eat is made from meat? What if it's like a chicken banana?"

Fleurs du Artie

"Randall Stephens is a poet owing more to Rambo than to Rimbaud."

Well that's an idea for a poem, I thought. Or maybe ten. Thanks Randall!

ARTHUR RAMBO - POEMS

Fancies
Smoke twines around, about the bar
I peer at bodies through the haze
And seem to dream -
of paratroopers
Storming villages with guns
And military operations
In quaint, remote and foreign lands.

The water comes. I order coffee:
Long and black. The music plays,
Fantastic filigrees of sound -
I fall into a swoon again:

I pull the pin on yet another
Hand-grenade, and hurl it in the blaze.
A soldier screams - in pain or rage -
I shoot some automatic rounds
Into the point that made the sounds.
And, like a doctor's distant cough,
Someone fires a bazooka off.

And so I dream, and so I seem
To spy these visions through the steam.
Oh! Sweet fancies of the evening air!
I sigh and fall back on my chair!

Nostalgia
Oh do you remember
The first you dismembered?
I do.
And the horrifying memories of that traumatic incident haunt me to this very day.

Pastorella
Sweet nymph of the waters,
Clearly-running waters
Daughter of the waters
Smiling on the shore,
Pure and demure nymph,
I yearn for you to say
Where you keep your hi-tech
Military weapon store.
Your rockets and your launchers,
Your landmines and grenades,
Your automatic weaponry,
And of course hand-guns,
Machetes swords and sabres,
Dynamite and bombs,
By the clearly flowing waters
Of the river as it runs?
Goddess of the rivers,
Ever running, ever laughing,
Lying like a dream
Upon its sandy bank,
I burn for you! I pine!
Say quick where we can arm
Before we all get blasted
By that fucking armoured tank!

Illumination 1
Such interplay of light and shade!
Paratroopers on a raid.

Illumination 2
A delicate secluded glade -
Then someone throws a hand-grenade.

Flowers are evil!
In the cafe
Music playing
And I hear
Fine blue petals,
Perfumed petals
Fall upon my ear.

Nectarine mist,
Purple odours,
Fragrant rain,
A bird sings
And I shudder
As in pain.
Don't worry,
It's just
A recurrence of post traumatic stress disorder yet again.

My very meta metabolism

Stomach, that was a really good idea of you to get a hamburger for lunch. Mouth really enjoyed it and Tongue thought it was pretty good too. But how long before Brain and Eyes notice that we're all sitting right next to a lolly machine, and tell Stomach, Mouth, Tongue, and the rest of them about it? It probably wouldn't be long before Fingers go looking for money, Mouth begins salivating in anticipation, and Legs facilitates the whole sordid process by carrying the whole all of us over to the machine. You didn't plan for that, did you?

It's getting pretty bad, Stomach. Fingers and Hands are already waving about in the air gravitating towards Tim's pocket. And while Fingers and Hands are doing that, you've got to wonder - who's typing this blog post? Brain's going out of his, well, brain fretting about that.

Whine critics

Wine drinkers: spend most of their time drinking lots of wine.

Wine critics: spend some of their time drinking a very little wine, and then spend a lot of time inventing bizarre phrases to describe the little wine that they have drunk. These phrases could include 'sparkling Beaujolais', and 'hearty and invigorating Burgundian finish', which very few of us understand.

Clearly, of the aforementioned, wine drinkers have far more on-the-ground experience and practical knowledge of the area of concern. It is true, wine critics are able to use phrases like 'sparkling Beaujolais' and 'hearty and invigorating Burgundian finish' which the typical wine drinker would not be able to understand when sober or even pronounce when drunk, but that is hardly an excuse, is it?

How and why things should be this way is one of the great mysteries of the universe, and perhaps you'd like to formulate your own theories (philosophical, mathematical, or theoretical-physical) as to this important matter. However, maybe it is time to give wine drinkers, who are in the act of drinking their wine, a go at writing wine criticism, (while they are drinking their wine, naturally.) True, the results may be just as incomprehensible, and wine drinkers will probably spend less time talking about 'sparkling Beaujolais' and more time discussing wildly varying subjects in a series of bizarre, unrelated non-sequiturs, like their mothers favourite football team - but isn't it time they were given a go?

Discuss.

Awesome reviews by awesome people

So yesterday I got given a copy of Ethel the Aardvark, the zine for the Melbourne Science Fiction Club, and I started leafing through it. Pretty soon, I happened across this - a review of Avatar - which I will now quote from:

Avatar is Fantasy - quarriers don't trample civil rights

In my professional life, I'm the editor of Quarry magazine, the official monthly journal of the Institute of Quarrying Australia. Quarry is read by 3,000 subscribers across Australia and overseas. What follows is my editorial from the March issue of Quarry, in which I commented on parallels drawn by activists between the Na'vi of James Cameron's Avatar and other disenfranchised indigenous groups around the world... My headline was - parallels aside, Avatar still a fantasy.

For that opening sentence alone, that is possibly the most awesome review ever written.

Rather infrequently updated page of pleasantries

Being fired for twittering twitty tweets seems a little harsh. How can you do otherwise? Here is a list of words that sound like 'twitter':

titter
snicker
twat
nitter
natter
shitter
twittier
witter
flitter
stutter
gutter
glitter
git
tit
spitter
spit
litter
pitter

Some words are downright rude, several are sounds made by naughty schoolboys, some are speech defects, and the rest sound like pointless gossip.

That being said, I suppose it would be possible to run a nice little polite page on twitter. So that's what I've done.



Expect it to be a rather infrequently updated page of pleasantries.

UPDATE! - I actually don't have any heart for this twitter thing. I'm going to shut down that page after a few days, I think.

UPDATE AGAIN! - Well that's all very embarassing. My twittering didn't last for long.

British general election dinner party

A British general election dinner party guest list

MR SMALLING - Will talk about how he voted Tory because he wants to be the naughty one and attract everyone's attention.

MRS SMALLING - Will talk about how she voted Tory because she wants to be the naughty one and attract everyone's attention.

MR CHADWALLA - Will talk about how he voted Tory because he wants to be the naughty one and attract everyone's attention.

MR SMURCHILL - Will talk about how he voted Tory because he wants to be the naughty one and attract everyone's attention.

MS GLADRAG - Will talk about how she voted Tory because she wants to be the naughty one and attract everyone's attention.

MS DE EAUGH - Will talk about how she voted Tory because she wants to be the naughty one and attract everyone's attention.

MR NUGGS - Will talk about how he voted Tory because he wants to be the naughty one and attract everyone's attention.

MS FERRIER - Voted LibDem. Wants to be seen as the nice one.

MR TWINGE - Has voted Tory all his life. Doesn't want to talk about politics at all because everyone sees him as the evil one. Will try and distract the conversation by talking about puppies.

Never prejudge prejudice

Went to see a film this morning with the Baron: Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon. I had the review all written out even before I went to see the film - I always seem to be writing reviews in my head about things that I see, before I see them. It's more convenient that way. Here's how the review began:

Intense! Harrowing! Thought-provoking! Grimly realistic! Profound! Dull!

The trouble with the review, fine though it was, is this: I actually saw the film, and the film that I actually saw was quite good, actually. Reality has quite a rude way of refuting your expectations like that. That's why it's so much more convenient to write reviews of a thing before seeing it, and why all sorts of critics so often use the simple expedient of lying about something instead of telling the truth. It allows their reviews to be so much more entertaining. Also, it often helps them cover up if they haven't actually experienced the thing they were supposed to experience.

All this reminds me, once when writing an essay at university about romantic music, I happened upon a neat quote in Hector Berlioz's Memoirs that I used to illustrate some fatuous point I was making about composers deliberately attempting to be popular. Berlioz was saying something like 'let all works that are not approved by the masses be burnt!' Years later, I actually got around to reading Berlioz's Memoirs: and discovered that he was making exactly the opposite point to that which I had quoted him as making.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so bothered by this. After all, as Sydney Smith once said: "I never read a book before reviewing it. It prejudices a man so." Likewise, one should never watch a film, go to an art gallery, read a poem, or do anything, really, before offering one's decisive critical judgment on it. Spend your time eating a cake instead. Future generations will thank you for it.

The relationship between insignificance and unsignifier

There's a shop called TOFWD that I always pass when I make my way to Sticky to do a spot of photocopying, or maybe buy a zine or two. It's called The Organic Food and Wine Deli or something like that, I don't know. Anyway, whenever I pass it I automatically think 'TOFU With Disabilities'. Which is a pretty odd thing to think about, because what sort of disability could tofu - a shapeless, tasteless, limbless, brainless clod of white substance - possibly have? Maybe I haven't been paying attention? The mind boggles.

Anyway, this meaningless post about a meaningless sign that does not mean what I think it means, means nothing. I just wanted to make a note of it here. Sorry for wasting your time, you can go back now to climbing that mountain or writing that post-post-postmodernist masterpiece, or whatever it was you were doing.

TOFU-RELATED UPDATE! - Tofu's a pretty strange thing when you think about it. Somewhere in the world there's got to be a vast tofu factory that contains endless styrofoam crates containing humongous blocks of tofu, stacked one on top of the other, right up to the ceiling, flobbling around in that flobbery way that tofu has. Yet how could people tell where the tofu ends and the styrofoam crates begin? When you think about it, this is probably not a thing you should think about.

Deadlines? I spit on deadlines!

Today, I spent 30 seconds composing a status update that should have only taken 10 seconds. On the other hand, I did leave work one minute earlier than I was supposed to. Who needs deadlines?

Sentence

He used his Twitter page to say less with less.

Mraow!

Yesterday night I got home after having a dinner out, and found a fine white snow on the floor underneath the table. The cats, it turned out, had been making merry while I was out, and happily tearing up my latest copy of the New Yorker.

This morning I found a forlorn fragment of literature (from the same magazine) on the bathroom floor. Here is what it says:

structure by
flung compo
see their lo
with Al Q
and Zaw
and di
Che
M
O
a
t
O
n
I

(and on the other side)

ed
Bush
k in one c
broadly. If the
were meant in
e that would
opular in the
succeeded.
at a set of
errorist
good
alcu
he
d
e
.
t
e
s

It seems to me to be at least arguable that this is a marked improvement on the literary quality of the article in question.

Meanwhile, this morning the cats are sleeping on the chair, and in the box, respectively. They look positively mesmerising.

I have become convinced that cats, and possibly babies as well, are able to mesmerise one through the use of mind control beams and/or Soviet-style hypnotic suggestion. This theory seems to fit all the available evidence.

Ignoring the behemothian beam in my own ocular cavity to cast out the sub-molecular mote in mine enemies' ocular cavity

Dear preposterous Antipodean popinjays of the popular press,

If I may be so bold as to ask: why has your attention been drawn by the brief use of a four-letter expletive in the film Kick Ass, where a character in passing says:

Okay you cunts... Let's see what you can do now!

I put it to you that there is a more pertinent problem than this dialogue: to wit, the blatant and shameful use of an American spelling in the film's title, that is, 'Kick Ass'. The word I am referring too, of course, is 'ass'. What is this 'ass' it is speaking of? Surely they mean 'arse'?

Accordingly, I would like to propose an alternative title for the film: you may find it somewhat unwieldy at first, but you will find it will be more in harmony with our own Australian dialect. The title is as follows:

Vigorously Placing Foot In Other Person's Posterior In Order to Induce Feelings of Satisfaction in Oneself and Feelings of Pain and Humiliation In Other.

As you can see, it summarises the theme of the original title in a precise yet thorough manner, and all in a perfectly acceptable vernacular idiom which the ordinary, everyday Australian would find to be quite comprehensible. Quite soon, conversations such as the following may be heard across the land:

A: Oh, what are you doing today?

B: Generally whaffling about in a nugatory fashion this morning, is my supposition... and this afternoon, I plan to see that film, Vigorously Placing Foot In Other Person's Posterior In Order to Induce Feelings of Satisfaction in Oneself and Feelings of Pain and Humiliation In Other. You know, the Hollywood new release?

A: How perfectly delightful!

Nevertheless, it does occur to me now that when giving the film the particular epithet 'Kick Ass', the filmmakers were referring to the practice of vigorously and violently kicking donkeys. While not endorsing this practice, I put it to you that, in order to dispel any ambiguity, the film be given the following title:

A physical, metaphysical, and moral examination of the most lamentable practice of vigorously and violently placing the foot in the front, back, sides, tops, or bottoms of donkeys, mules, or related animals, in the form of cinematic arts.

This title will quickly find its way into the local and national idiom and can thus be put to good use, as in the conversation provided above.

Yours,
as ever,
Tim of the Ts.