Brilliant salesmanship...

Hello! Would you like to give me three dollars? It sounds very attractive, doesn't it? After all, after giving me three dollars, you will receive the pleasure of having given me three dollars, and I will receive the pleasure of three dollars. Three dollars is a small price to pay for such an experience, don't you think? 

Oh, also I'll give you a zine. (New one out, twenty four pages, quality stuff, poetry, cartoons, and all that. Also it conveniently costs three dollars, which is an interesting sum of money that you just might like to give me... ) 

UPDATE! - The Baron, on reading this post: "Perhaps you might like to describe it a bit more?" 

Certainly. Three dollars, commonly comes in the form of two gold coins, or a collection of silver coins, or a combination of gold and silver... you might even get a zine in exchange for it...

Don't fear the feature

I will be feature at the Dan this Saturday. I choose to advertise this auspicious occasion in the medium of verse.

Oy you! Come to my feature! And I might give you cheese!

Please?

Spork off!

Sporks, foons, and splayds. Why were such horrible things ever invented? You have to wonder why people couldn't be satisfied with good old knives, forks, and spoons, which had the virtue of simplicity, but instead branched out and began delving into the occult world of sporks, spifes, knorks, and sporfs. It can't be long before we are overwhelmed with a whole alphabet of cutlery - of splocks and flingets and soup skewers and bloonders and knidgets and witchles and gnurtles and splodgers and electric nodgels, with roaming GPS capabilities. Yes, in this brave new world of plishes and glates and fnowls you won't even know whether you're supposed to bring a spife to foon fight or a spork to a spatula battle. Besides all which, eating with an item such as a sporf sounds a particularly worrisome and dangerous possibility indeed.

Think of all the trouble your mother and father went to getting you to learn the proper functionality of knife, fork, and spoon when you were a child. In this complicated new existence we are entering into, childhood will be an endless and painful round of dealing with floop goons and dispert gattles, learning the appropriate uses of flolloping goopers and ugg whasks, learning the difference between and the appropriate time to use and the correct placement on the table of and what happens to people who do not learn the correct uses of zogulents and forks. I am confident of this, just as we are all confident of everything about the future, for it is easy to be utterly confident about that which has never happened yet, but certainly will happen at a point long, long after we are dead. In this dire, apocalyptic vision of our future world, existence will be a dire battle over endless fine points of etiquette, indeed. Also, it will be hard to get a good monster cabbage for love or money, or make some decent Triffid pesto because of the protests by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Genetically Modified Organisims (PEGMO).  But mostly, there will be cutlery - oh so much cutlery! IF ONLY WE COULD HAVE LEARNED TO GET ALONG WITH THE SPOONS.

(Cowers whimpering at sight of a spoon on his desk).

Fig one: fiendish instrument of Satan.

All Timsy were the borogroves

"Coming up next, Tim." Seldom have less portentous words been spoken. One likes to make an impression, and it is considered highly desirable to keep one's audience in suspense, but to be introduced with a word that rhymes with 'flim', is the first syllable in the name of a chocolate biscuit, and begins words such as 'timorous' - well, a meringue might have people in more suspense.

Try this at home: pronounce the following introductions in a portentous, stentorian manner. You will find it is much easier to do with the first three than the last one:

"PREPARE for SAURON!"
"MAKE WAY FOR ZOG!" 
"SQUIRM before the BARON SILAS GREENBACK!"
"And now... for more TIM!" 

And now, for less Tim.

Cool story, old man

Once I went into a train wearing a badge saying
THE BOOK MEANS I DON'T WANT TO TALK.
Then someone else put on a badge saying
BUT I'M SURE YOU'RE FASCINATING, WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?
Then I put on a badge saying
NO REALLY I'D RATHER QUIETLY SIT HERE IN THE CORNER AND NOT BE NOTICED.
Then they put on a badge saying
OH REALLY THAT'S RIDICULOUS I'M JUST TRYING TO BE FRIENDLY AND YOU KNOCK ME BACK!
So I replied with a badge saying
NOW YOU'RE JUST BEING PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE, REALLY, CAN'T YOU JUST LET ME BE?
Then a third person put on a badge saying
STOP ARGUING YOU TWO I CAN'T HEAR THIS BOOK I'M READING!
At this point a fourth person interjected with a badge of their own saying
COUGH. EXCUSE ME. CAN'T SEEM TO SHAKE THIS COLD.
And then the arguing REALLY started.

Ten stops later I got off just in time. The whole train was clinking and rattling with badges and a Goth had just got on and the stud in his nose had just become jammed between several badges on the person opposite’s lapel.

(First button is actually an actual button via Alex Wrekk.)

An important metric

On Monday morning, an important metric was attained. Getting a frothy coffee at the Gay Little Cafe on the way to work, I noticed that for the first time in a month or so, the froth was staining the tips of my moustache. The attainment of this metric invariably marks the arrival of something unimportant, and the continuation of something insignificant. I'm not sure what. (Certainly nothing to do with me needing to trim my beard.

Other important metrics include: the colour and amount of grot beneath my fingernails, the number of times I scratch behind my ear during the day, and the quantity of little paper bags that I on occasion find in my own backpack, left over from this lunch or that snack.

Facebook scrabble

ARG is not in the dictionary!

GAH is not in the dictionary!

ARGHGHH is not in the dictionary!

[---- Insert incredibly offensive swear word here ----] is not in the dictionary!

EUOI is in the dictionary! Four points!

Scandal crisis drama hoo ha what not!

As far as I can tell, this whole scandal about Alan Jones seems to involve people who don't listen to his program but don't like it anyway getting so cranky about things Jones didn't say on his program to other people elsewhere that they decide that his program should go off air. That doesn't make sense, but then again purple monkey diswasher. It's funny how so often these days outrage, fulmination, repulsion, coughing and spluttering, and general cantankering about something someone does or says so often seems to precede any actual direct knowledge of what that person actually does or says. But I suppose it makes it so much more convenient for everyone who depends on the ready availability of outrage, fulmination, repulsion, coughing and spluttering, and general cantankering in the continuance of their day to day lives to omit the necessity for any immediate familiarity with the sayings and doings they are talking about.

***

I was especially piqued by Nicola Roxon's comment on Sky yesterday that she wouldn't rule out appearing on Alan Jones' program in the future in spite of the fact that she thought 2GB should consider taking Jones off air. She mused that this might be seen as punishing Alan Jones listeners. It wouldn't, Ms Roxon, really it wouldn't. Aside from relying on the profusion of outrage, fulmination, etc, politicians do seem to suffer from the delusion that when they appear on air to mutter about the latest legislative such and such and the ongoing political so and so, they are doing it as a special treat for the public.

***

Amongst all of this scandal crisis drama hoo ha what not I don't think Jones will have lost any sleep. Jones must be well aware of his core demographic by now - people who like to tune into the radio to hear an angry man shouting at things. And I'm pretty sure he'll continue to satisfy this need for an angry man shouting at things for many years to come. So, I suppose, in his own little way Jones is making his unique contribution to the ongoing need for outrage, fulmination, etc. Could it be, perhaps, that the endlessly outraged and Alan Jones - need one another, do you think?

A cranky man shouting at things. Or should that be a shouting man being cranky at things? Link via Bolt via Fairfax via....

UPDATE!  - But, on the other hand, this.

One just would like to say this

It always feels slightly improper going into the front garden in a dressing gown with a toothbrush in one's mouth and toothpaste in one's hand. One is never quite certain why this should be, but it just strikes one as an activity that should be confined to the house, if not the bathroom itself. Strangely enough it always strikes one in this way after one has wandered absent-mindedly into the front garden in a dressing gown with a toothbrush in one's mouth and toothpaste in one's hand, which just goes to show, one never can know, can one? No, one can't. However, next time, one proposes a simple solution to this dilemma: instead of wandering into the front garden in a dressing gown with a toothbrush in one's mouth and toothpaste in one's hand, one will not bother putting the dressing gown on. The rose bush, one feels, is certainly of sufficient height now to protect one's modesty if and when the need should arise.

Dude. Like, just... dude. Whoa.... duuuuuuuuuude.

The above title succinctly and eloquently encapsulates my full feelings on the Hawthorn vs Sydney Grand Final, and can obviously serve as a handy summary, news report, and review of the whole affair. In fact, it would be pretty pointless writing anything else about it, ever again. Of course, some commentators may haggle with the strategic theorem expressed in my second ellipsis, but those people really don't know what they're talking about.

Sun rain wind clouds hail snow hail rain wind sun

It was a day like any other day - 

Sun rain wind clouds hail snow hail rain wind sun - 

In Melbourne, when the teams began to play - 

But when it ended, Hawthorn lost - or won! 

It was a year that happens every day - 

I mean... a day that happens every year - 

As... you'd... expect... when sydney came to play - 

Beer beer beer beer beer beer beer wind rain hail beer. 

But does it really matter in the end

How Hawthorn wins? I'm sure we'll get along

And join as one - or two - hold hands, and bond

In an absolute and utter trouncing of the swans. 

And when it's finished over said and done - 

Sun rain wind clouds hail snow hail rain wind sun. 

Wrote this on the train and tram in to the Dan this afternoon in full expectation of a Hawthorn victory. Happily, I wrote it in the tone of a person who doesn't know what he's talking about, which fits my actual personality to the ground. And now, I would like to share my ignorance about anything and everything with you all.

An extremely simple and attractive proposition

I hereby propose that the letters ACGT, denoting the four DNA nucleotides, be replaced with other letters. The letters would be carefully chosen so that, in a certain language, if arranged in a certain order, they would spell a series of incredibly shocking swear words. Thus, aside from providing us with the building blocks of our identity and millions of years of genetic inheritance, our DNA would also provide us with hours of light-hearted amusement.

The amazing exciting language of Englih.

The '' key on my keyboard ha topped working. Not jut any key, it' a key of ingular importance. You will know the '' key, of coure, it' the key for the letter that you ue to put at the end of mot plural and the letter you find at the tart of a number of other word.

Thing are getting quite eriou!

o anyway, conidering the tate of affair on my computer, I wondered if a imple redeign of the Englih language might not be in order. You know, eliminating the letter altogether, thu making the language of Englih altogether more treamlined and leek and elegant.

Here are jut a few of the new and exciting word you'll be able to ue:

piffing!
mahing!
uperlative!
weet! and avoury! 
uperciliou!

I am ure you'll all agree, there' a world of poibility out there. It wouldn't take much to make thi new, exciting Enligh language work.

Alternatively, I could get my keyboard fixed. I uppoe that' poible. Doe anyone know how to do that? I'm all out of idea on that front.

Announcement to everyone in general and to the world at large

Please pay attention to this:

Good. Now that I have made the appropriate fanfare, I would like to announce to everyone in general and to the world at large: BEATRICE THE CAT JUST PUT HER PAW OVER HER NOSE.

Now you may all go and attend to whatever needs attending to.

Third time lucky?

Wake up from a dream about icecream but don't get out of bed to get breakfast. 

Wake up from a dream about making cheese but don't get out of bed to get breakfast. 

Wake up from a dream about pom poms and get out of bed to get breakfast. 

Clearly, pom poms make me ravenous. 

The pre-Cromwellian gurn

As fine an example of the gurn in English literature pre-1600 as I have ever come across:

XIV
Who came at length, with proud presumpteous gate,
Into the field, as if he fearelesse were,
All armed in a cote of yron plate,
Of great defence to ward the deadly feare,
And on his head a steele cap he did weare
Of colour rustie browne, but sure and strong;
And in his hand an huge polaxe did beare,
Whose steale was yron studded, but not long,
With which he wont to fight, to justifie his wrong.

XV
 Of stature huge and hideous he was,
Like to a giant for his monstrous hight,
And did in strength most sorts of men surpas,
Ne ever any found his match in might;
Thereto he had great skill in single fight:
His face was ugly and his countenance sterne,
That could have frayd one with the very sight,
AND GAPED LIKE A GULF WHEN HE DID GERNE,
That whether man or monster one could scarse discerne.

The glossary in my edition of The Faerie Queene says this means 'grin', but really. I mean, really. And that's all I have to say about that matter.

On the wearing of ties on the weekend

There are some people who object to the wearing of ties on the weekend, saying they should only be worn for the most solemn and serious occasions. Personally I think that is exactly why ties should be worn on the weekend. Nothing is more serious than doing nothing, and the occasion should certainly be celebrated by the wearing of a piece of appropriately-chosen coloured neck cloth. 

I frequently wear ties on the weekend - don't you? - and each time the ceremonial knotting of the garment fills me with pleasure, just as a well-executed origami model, or a highly strategic manouevre in chess. It is true that one knots one's shoe as well, but shoes are necessary, and therefore best ignored. Ties, being pointless but pretty, can occupy hours. If you confine yourself to 9 folds, there are at least 85 ways in which your tie can be knotted, which should fill up your time nicely, although you might want to set your other weekend plans aside. 

But aside from the act of tying - if we can leave such an interesting act behind, for it is worth noting that ties are still known by the adjective describing this act, though just what this means for the meaning of 'tie' is anyone's guess - what are ties for if not to be shown? Just occasionally I like to put on my best bow tie and go and go and buy a series of exceedingly mundane things at the shops. A neck-tie in a half-Windsor knot gives just the right sense of decorum for those times when I go to the pub, drink a little too much, and read another gory poem. Add a dressing gown to the mix and you've got just about the perfect weekend costume, methinks. 

Of course, if things go on this way much longer, I may start wearing a tie to bed. Which of course sounds like a fine idea; I may start doing that right now. Like I said at the start of this post: nothing is more serious than doing nothing, and what could be a better example of that than that nothing you do every night in bed? A fit occasion to be celebrated, I would think. You can't eat cake in your sleep, after all - believe me, I've tried. You may as well celebrate it by wearing a tie.

All ye need to gnaw

"Beauty is tooth," wrote the poet John Keats, "and tooth beauty. That is all/ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

But then again, Keats was living at an age in which the dental sciences were far less advanced than they are now, and who suffered from problems with his wisdom teeth for years, so it is only natural that he should have focused on these matters in one of his most famous poems.

Stop tittling up the back

"A tittle is a small distinguishing mark, such as a diacritic or the dot on a lowercase i or j.... The word tittle is rarely used. Its most prominent occurrence is in the Christian Bible at Matthew 5:18: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (KJV). The quotation uses them as an example of extremely minor details. The phrase "jot and tittle" indicates that every small detail has received attention." - Wikipedia.

In spite of what Wikipedia suggests, I like to think that God is being literal here. In fact, I'm inclined to go off and create a sect of grammatical fundamentalist Christians, if there isn't one already. We could spend our time handing out proper nouns and semi-colons to the poor, or singing inspiring hymns like the following:

All things bright and beautiful,
All tittles great and small,
Diacritics, ampersands -
The Lord God made them all.

Each parenthetic clause -
Each hyphen and each dash
Asterisks, apostrophes,
The tilde and backwards slash

All things bright and beautiful,
All tittles great and small,
Diacritics, ampersands -
The Lord God made them all.

(Thanks for the excellent information, Alison!)

A tutorial in all forms of hedging

"Actually," says Rafe, "I was going to do a post on Aggressive Hedging...". But of course, hedging is an incredibly complicated subject that can only be explained by a small number of highly intellectual folks to an even smaller number of other highly intellectual folks, and often requires a ridiculous number of higher degrees with highly difficult letters in order to be performed well.

However, I will undertake a short tutorial on hedging now.

Aggressive hedging.

Recessive hedging.

Progressive hedging.

Very progressive hedging. 

And finally, here is an aggressive hedgehog.

Just so we're clear. Thank you for your time.

Exciting new concept for television

Coming up, Celia has a plan that will make her sweat more than ever! Will Roger be able to achieve the abscess of his dreams? But first - can Kate finally achieve through advanced surgery the ability to produce mucus behind her knees? That's next on Gland Designs!

A skerrick of Erick

Unveil thine arms, my JULIA, where

I may behold thine oxters, fair,

Frefh-flowered with thy native hair.

Sweet verdure of thy underlawn,

Thy garden grows untamed, unfhorn,

With golden glifters in the dawn.

Thy fecret arbour, daint with crulles,

Bedeawed by fpangling fweaty pearles,

Moved by the breeze in fportive fwirles -

There VENUS is, in full plain fight,

& winged CUPID doth alight,

& pleafure is, and all delight,

& there, I wis, a fhepheard may

Tende gently to his flocke all day

& finge a laefie lang'rous lay.

There PAN his oaten reed doth play,

& MARS puts fword and fhield away

In that moft high félicité.

Unveil thine arms, my JULIA, where

I may behold thine oxters, fair,

Frefh-flowered with thy native hair.

- Erick Herrick. Previous works of his may be found here and here. 

For a second there I thought it was somebody important

Sometimes when I am at work I will send an email to myself, then go and do some work and forget all about it. Later, when I check my email, I will get a nice surprise when I see that someone has sent me an email.

Hard simple cheesemaking made simple hard

Cheesemaking is really, really simple, which is one reason why you should say it is very, very hard. It is much more impressive to say something which you find simple is hard rather than something you find simple is simple. This is how Kevin Rudd got to be Prime Minister; he made the English language, which the rest of us find pretty easy, really, seem so infuriatingly complex that we all gave him a vote for his efforts. (And then he did the same with the economy.)

But anyway. Who would have thought that in order to make cheese, pretty much all you have to do is follow a recipe? This is, essentially, what I have been doing for these past few months. Some instructions are, it is true, a little odd. In the recipe 'mozzarella - traditional method', the first instruction reads:

1. Heat the milk to 90 degrees F. The pH should be 6.8. If it isn't, wait and test again. 

Traditional Italians always kept a litmus test around their house, don't you know.

I just made a provolone today: it's twisting around in the shower recess, looking like a rather small white knobbled and ugly thing that no-one would particularly want to eat. Because it is.

Of course there are always problems: starters that don't start, curds that don't set, or won't stretch the way you want them to, not enough ricotta which is so mooshy anyway that you can't collect it without it dissolving into the rest of the whey. It's all quite simple, the recipe book says; just heat it up to the required temperature, or let it mature for such and such a time, and it will magically happen.

Simple? Cheesemaking is hard! I don't know how people do it! The nerve of that book, trying to make something so hard as cheesemaking seem simple!

How to catch pigeons with a yo yo

Reading the instructions in an origami book while trying to fold an origami tiger is a little like reading James Joyce's Ulysses while attempting to catch pigeons with a yo yo. Check this out:

31. Inside reverse-fold the two lower flaps. These will be the hind legs. The folds at the top are formed in a single motion. Find, on each side of the centrelink, a discontinuous shaded flap with two layers. The junction of the two layers forms a tiny pocket containing the loose paper needed to.... 

And, while you are reading this and attempting to fold your tiny origami paper tiger with an even tinier sheet of paper, in one swift elegant motion, you find that you have folded a perfect paper ball.

PS Perhaps you may think I have neglected to instruct you on how to catch pigeons with a yo yo, but that is not the case. Here's how, in three easy steps:

1. Go into the garden with your yo yo. 

2. Do stuff with your yo yo.

3. Catch a pigeon.

Simple!

Ken this

Old Norse Kenning for sword: 'onion-of-war', or 'leek-of-war'.

Now use it in a sentence:

'I must be off now wife, for with my onion-of-war I must dice the field-sausages* to use in tonight's bowl-blood**'.

'But enough of Grimnir's lip streams***, friends, for now I must ride-the-cushioned-waves**** with the far-sight***** while battling-with-the-fridge-icebergs******.'

'Why do you trouble me, mother? For I was journeying on the flannel-highway******* to the land-of-pillow-song******** where my onion-of-war would be needed no more.'

UPDATE! - Yes,I don't actually use 'onion-of-war' in the second sentence. I didn't want to. Bah, to hell with the lot of you! I'm going to bestride the flannel-highway once more!

* Field-sausages: modern Timnish kenning for zucchinis. 

** Bowl-blood: modern Timnish kenning for stew.

*** Grimnir's lip streams: old Norse for poetry.

**** Ride-the-cushioned-waves: modern Timnish kenning for sitting on the couch.

***** Far-sight: modern Timnish kenning for television. (I believe German for television is 'fernsehen', or far-seeing'). 

****** Battling-with-the-fridge-icebergs: eating ice cream.

*******Flannel-highway: modern Timnish kenning for bed. 

********Land-of-pillow-song: modern Timnish kenning for dreaming. 

Madrigal bladder

Once upon a time, some very wise people thought it would be a nice idea to send a group of madrigal singers on a little tour and do a film about it. Aside from going all over England, they went to France, they went to Spain, and they went to Germany, too.

 

The King's Singers somewhere singing something about something for I'm not sure. 

The easiest money to spend is always "someone else's money on somebody else", according to something Milton Friedman said. Well, that sure worked out well. I heartily endorse this spending of someone else's money on other people in order to send madrigal singers to other countries. There ought to be more of it.

The most important news site in the world bringing the most important news in the world to the most important people in the world

In an effort to stamp out passive smoking in public spaces, a suburban council has outlawed public spaces.

The Stunningdumb Council took the move on Friday, responding to a group of concerned signatures looking for a petition to fill out.

This is not the first time the Stunningdumb Council has taken such a move. On previous occasions, reacting to people dying in car crashes on public roads, the council has outlawed people. On another occasion, when several cases of unlicensed dog breeds attacking others occurred, the council ruled that from now on, only licensed dog breeds would be allowed to attack.

The Stunningdumb Council has consisted of an empty building and a set of paper sheets circulating from office to office ever since their bold and ambitious move to outlaw people in order to lower the number of road deaths. They are also the only place to exist in the world, as, after a series of intergovernmental disputes with the surrounding Whittlesea and Darebin Councils, they outlawed everyone doing anything else anywhere else in the world, and also the world too.

“We will continue to ensure that the Stunningdumb Council implements progressive polices for the 20th century,” said the Stunningdumb Council Mayor yesterday, or at least they would have said it if there was any person in the world existing to become Mayor of the Stunningdumb Council, which of course there wasn’t because see above and nor was there owing to see above.

We will continue to bring you stories on this development as it breaks.

Rules for going to bed

1. There must be two pillows. One pillow is acceptable but two is preferable.

2. It is absolutely necessary that the sheets be at right angles to the bed. One must be quite strict about this. An angular sheet can cause hours of stress; efforts to move the angular sheet may change the angles of the sheets on top of it, and may result in gaps that let in the cold night air.

3. The sheet should be tucked in firmly but with room for the feet at the bottom. There should certainly not be gaps that let in the cold air to play around your feet.

4. Dogs are allowed to sleep in the bed.

5. Cats are allowed to sleep in the bed. Though maybe not at the same time as dogs.

6. Before letting the cats on to the bed, it is advised that one strategically align one's body so that both cat and body may have space for manouevre. Cats may attempt to thwart this strategic alignment by waiting until you are just asleep and then coming and laying themselves right across your legs, or even in between them, until you wake up realising how uncomfortable things have become, and you have to turn to accomodate the cat, resulting in less room for your body and more room for the cat. This may be avoided by... by... well, I'm not sure if it can be avoided, but avoid it anyway.

7 Do not wear socks. It may make your feet feel warm at first but then they will feel over-warm, and it will become necessary to reach deep into the blanketed area to remove them from your feet.

8. Do not, in your dazed, half-awake, half-asleep stupour, attempt to manouevre the blankets with your feet alone. Results will almost never be satisfactory, and will merely result in keeping you awake.

9. Yes, do stay in bed for another half hour. It may not be necessary - but that kind of makes it compulsory.

One collection of headlines with articles following them beats another collection of headlines with articles following them

In news today, one collection of headlines with articles following them has substantially outsold another collection of headlines with articles following them.

The figures released by the national body responsible for the release of such figure confirm that the Melbourne tabloid collection of headlines with articles following them has been the biggest seller, in spite of stiff competition from the Melbourne broadsheet collection of headlines with articles following them.

This is in spite of initial concerns raised that some of the headlines written for one of the newspapers didn't seem to have articles following them, and some of the articles written for the other of the newspapers didn't seem to have headlines before them. However, on looking closer at the results, it turns out that each of the headlines was matched with an article, and each of the articles was matched with a headline, although the two did not necessarily have anything to do with one another (apart from the fact that they followed the headline, that is).

The dreaded headline surplus of 2007, which caused chaos in newspaper circles, and created a glut in the headline market for several of the statewide and suburban newspapers, creating a need for several more articles to be penned than normal in order to fit with the oversupply of headlines, is still remembered. This created a subsequent need for more responsible headline-to-article balance, with editors and journalists everywhere ensuring that, no matter how many headlines were produced, an article was produced to go with the headline, as security against such a calamity ever happening again.

Other statistics released show competition in the newspaper market is still stiff, with the broadsheet daily being found to publish substantially more numbers with pages on top of them than the tabloid daily, which instead seemed to produce a smaller but more consistent number of, well, numbers with pages on top of them.

And while the tabloid was found to have produced more sets of large alternating black and white squares with clues underneath them than the broadsheet, the broadsheet was found to have a much greater variety in the production of sets of large squares, some of which had to be filled in with numbers rather than letters.

The tabloid collection of headlines with articles following them immediately released a headline with an article following it about the whole event claiming that they were the best, while the broadsheet collection of headlines with articles following them straightaway published a headline with an article following it about the affair demonstrating that they were really great, and that their competitor were full of shit.

It seems the future of quality journalism in this country is in good hands.

At the miniature golf course

Golf balls as big as hail stones!

The AFL moustache finals

Chris Dawes

Although at times an impressive moustache, doubts have been cast recently about his commitment or staying power in this competition.

Sam Newman

A seasoned performer, however there are doubts his moustache will last through to the Grand Final due to  recent medical procedures.

Chris Mew

While larger moustaches have been seen, the combination of flaming red hair and moustache make him a likely contender for the cup.

Robert DiPierdomenico

One of the stand out moustaches in this competition, with demonstrated tenacity, this one has lasting popularity with the fans.

Robby McGhie

Clipped but impressive, this moustache could be the underestimated player of the competition.

Travis Johnstone

 The moustache/beard combination, while a little untamed, could prove to be a winning team. Fans seem to love it.

Ron Barassi

One of the most reliable performers of the competition. Fans hope to see more displays of the Barassi moustache for years to come.

Mick Malthouse

While the Malthouse moustache carry off the cup again?

Other promising contenders for this year's title included Ray Shaw, Percy Jones, Bruce Doull , and Brian "Whale" Roberts, but they did not make it through to the final eight.

Who will win in this great competition? Place your tips here.

Pehrtree

Today's pehrtree reading comes courtesy of Mousse Dawe, well known from one end of Errol Street, North Melbourne, to the other.

BICYCLE

When children are born in Melbournia,

They are covered in safety helmets, laid on basketed trikes,

Having already begun a lifetime’s pedalling.

Can’t, they cry, can’t… feebly at first,

While parents playfully race with them

To the end of the block: no, you can! (And sometimes they can…)

Hoisted shoulder high for their first market ride,

They are like innocent hippies who have been years wobbling

To their first Woodstock,

Until now, hearts shrapnelled with rapture,

Or confusion, or anxiety, or whatever,

They break surface and are forever lost

In the organic flood of sound, a voice

Like the voice of God booms from the stalls,

That’s really not appropriate! How dare you! and the covenant is sealed.

Tofu and mung beans they shall eat,

They will forswear the processed, cling to the local,

And behold their developmental applications go through the council to… somewhere.

So the mythology will be perpetually renewed,

Just like the wheels on the bike, going round round round,

On a thousand blocks, the houses changing,

The importance of living an ecologically respectful biodynamic sustainable lifestyle forever the same,

Loyally crying, can’t, can’t (if feebly) to the end

Having seen in the bespectacled recruit from King Street the hope of their salvation.

Any similarity to the poem Life Cycle by Bruce Dawe is purely coincidental, and will not be further entered into unless you really want to.

Doo

When you get up to go to that certain place to do what you have to do, you have got to go.

When you get to that place to do what you have to do and you find someone is already there, they are going.

When you go into that place to do what you have to do and see what the other person has done, and all of a sudden you lose your consciousness/will-to-live, they have gone. And so are you.

Go, going, gone. Three extremely useful and pertinent euphemisms for our day to day existence.

Half the bran I used to be

Corn Flake is the singular of Corn Flakes. That's what you are left with after you eat all the rest. The unmusically named Vita Brits become, in the singular, a Vita Brit. Porridge and muesli and All Bran don't have a singular separate to their plural. They're like sheep, which either don't have a singular or don't have a plural, but don't seem to be especially exercised about the matter either way. You either have more or less porridge, more or less muesli, and more or less sheep walking all over the place while you're just trying to eat your damn cereal. (And, just by the by, I'm not sure if it is physically possible to ever get down to just one bit of muesli - because then you'd just have a sultana, or an oat. This is probably a law of the universe, like not being able to break the speed of light.)

But what about Weet Bix? This is something that I am really not sure about. Are Weet Bix the plural? And if so, what is the singular? A Weet Bit? A Weet Bick? What is Weet anyway, and how do you make Bix out of it? Anyway, this much is clear: if you add enough milk to Weet Bix, eventually one of the e's will dissolve and it will just become Wet Bix.

Can anyone help me out with that question, though, on whether Weet Bix has a singular? In the meantime, I'm off to pour out half of the contents of a packet of All Bran, and sell the rest of it under an exciting new brand name. It will be called Some Bran.

Jaws for thought

"On a scale of one to ten," the good people at The Project ask of random members of the public, "how would you rate the shark"? In the process they neglect to say what the scale  measures exactly, whether one is 'bad' and ten is 'good', and five is 'pink frilly knickers', or just about anything really. On a scale of one to ten, why would they bother? Given a choice of a) for yes, b) for no, and c) for indifferent, what is the name of the person who came up with this idea? And if it came to a fight between Dave Hughes and Carrie Bickmore, how many fingers am I holding up? These, and other crucial questions, will be answered in upcoming episodes of The Project.

Anyway, it's National Shark Week, in which we all gather together to celebrate the nation. Or sharks. Or weeks. Or something like that. Anyway, here's my contribution:

AN ODE TO THE SHARK

Hark! Hark! The shark! In water swims

Midst lots and lots of bloodied limbs.

Yuck.

I expect it'll be released as a five act opera shortly.

UPDATE! - Also for our bemusement, Carrie Bickmore claims in that linked item that the greatest fear of people is being attacked by a shark. I have to say that shark attack is not something that I have ever worried about, ever.

Laundromatters

Picked up a copy of Real Time for free while on my lunch break, and it was certainly worth every cent. Just check out this snappy and succint opening sentence: 

Practice-led research in performance throws up some considerable challenges for a form that is largely collaborative and essentially ephemeral.

But the thrills continue with what follows, for

It also generates anxieties: some artists fear they're being transformed into scholars at the expense of their art and are uncertain whether they're enduring a massive undertaking for personal growth, professional development or transformation into a new being, the artist-scholar hybrid.

If you happen to have a copy of Real Time lying around, and you're at home, why don't you have a little fun? You could have quite a jollly little quiz!

Q: What do those who choose professional lives as artists in Australia deal daily with, both in terms of staying creative and staying employed?

A: Ambiguity and risk.

Pick it up at the laundromat, Errol Street, North Melbourne. It's sitting on their door - the one free paper even the laundromat doesn't seem to want.

A poem about remembering the milk

... written in order to ensure that I remember the milk.

I MUST remember the milk.

I must remember the MILK!

I MUST remember

I MUST remember

Must I dismember the silk?

Must I dismember the silk?

Doth I marimba this ilk?

Doth I marimba,

A mamba, I dither,

So pilchards do rhumba with mutts?

Mutts plumbing the depths of the malt

Schttum flambeauxes with bimbos in kilts

Flim ums might kill 'im

Kimchi for the slums -

Ooh gosh my bum is itchy, I wonder if I scratch anyone will notice?

A song for Monday

I must go down to the sweets machine, to the sweets machine and the sky,

And all I ask is a bag of chips and a coin with which to buy,

And my chair shall spin by an empty desk, and the wind shall blow in my hair,

And the sound of my feet will echo and echo along the stony stair.

I must go down to the sweets machine, where the queue is great and long,

And the sound of joy shall ring and shall ring the entire office along,

Where the managers call along the hall, and ‘chocolate’ is their cry,

And the talk is of weekend and footy rather than KPI.

I must go down to the sweets machine, while the keyboards all clatter away

For I have been dreaming and longing of M&Ms all the day;

For the lines of tea bags are calling, and my teacup is empty and bare,

And the sound of the hot water falling on china is sweet and solemn and fair.

I didn't even see the strings

Oder, der morgenstern und der abendstern.

I was two bars into a piano reduction of this -



- when a particular eight-legged creature glided down along the left-hand corner of the book and began and elegantly danced around the book for the rest of the tune. Seriously - not only did it slowly proceed from the left to the right hand edge of the book as the tune progressed, following the notes, but it tactfully disappeared behind the pages and then vanished altogether about four bars before the tune ended.

This sonnet is a limerick

Every poet has a clever form poem that they use to out clever the last poet that they heard or read. This generalisation is true even when it's not. "This is villanelle is a pantoum", says one poet on the open mic. "This triolet was a rondeaux redoublex before it was a couplet" says the next. "This is a hyperborean meteorological chart in the Eschatological mode" says a third.

The worst form poem of all form poems is the sestina. Six stanzas of six lines each, all lines of which end with the same last words that the lines in the previous stanza ended with, only in a different order - you'd think it would be perfect for lazy poets, not having to worry about rhymes, but no. It's devilishly hard working a thousand variations around the same set of six words, and making it meaningful at the same time.

Naturally, every smart alec poet has to get up to the open mic from time to time and say, "this is a Sestina." Then everyone admires them for their brilliance. Then, having got all the admiration out of the way, they actually read the poem, not realising (poets never have a sense of timing) that they should have quit on a high note.

I read my sestina poem at the Dan on Saturday. I began in the time-honoured fashion by announcing that the sestina I was about to read was a sestina. Then I read a sestina. I won't repeat it now, but let's just say it included the word 'darkling', and the phrase 'calm and soothing is the night-time'. (I am very un-calm and non-soothed by that line now. It may very well be used to torment me in hell.)

I wouldn't dream of irritating you all with it now - you have to come to the pub and buy a beer and a copy of Badger's Dozen off me before you get the pleasure of that - but let me just conclude with a four-line haiku:

Early morning sun

Slants through window on green bowl - 

Hope of a new day. 

Shut up, Tim.

Unacknowledged culinary-musical masterpieces

Justly famed for his many patriotic polonaises, Frederic Chopin's fine spaghetti bolognaises never really hit it off with critics in quite the same way.

If he had been writing today, however, it seems inevitable that his bolognaises would have been hailed as a breakthrough in the field of conceptual music, and concertgoers would have flocked to halls to hear the performance of another culinary-musical masterpiece.

Obsessio compendia

"Woah," I said, "It'd be great if I could lactate. Then I could make cheese out of it!"

And so, in a graceful, neat, and completely inadvertent utterance, yesterday I somehow managed to combine two obsessions of mine, one of longstanding, the other a recent discovery - lactating males and cheese-making.

Yesterday I also made a partial list of my obsessions. It included -

- Beer making
- Cheese making
- Zine making
- Richmond football club
- The literature of Dan Brown

I should have got together quite a list by the time I am old.

UPDATE! - It probably says something about me- well of course it does, this whole post is about me - but those who know me better will probably not be at all surprised by the revelation about lactating males, but may even be a little shocked by the revelation about Richmond.

Admittedly I'm still working on that little obsession but it's getting along quite healthily at the moment.

Untimations of ummortality

The People Who Worry About Stuff are seemingly always finding new Stuff for themselves to worry about. The latest is permeate. Apparently supermarket milk has it - who knew? Anyway, I got some milk from the shops this morning, and it had a little cheery yellow-star sticker on it saying 'Permeate Free'.

It is about time someone freed the permeate. For too long, permeate has been oppressed by hegemonic milk cartons and brutal shelves of capitalist suppression. I for one support the permeate emancipationists, for now the permeate (whatever it is) can run happy and liberated through the fields, with the wind in its hair (if it does indeed have hair). But that's not all you can do! There must be petitions, protests, banners, and above all, angry facebook pages about the ongoing plight of permeate in today's society. It's the least one should expect.

Then again, taking my misunderestimation of the uninterpretation of this little cheery yellow-star sticker to another level, perhaps 'Permeate Free' meant the milk came with some - free! - permeate. 

Free permeate? Yay! I want my permeate and I want it now! Just pour it in my pocket, thanks, and I'll be on my way.

Free this stuff! (Pic courtesy of UCDAVIS)

Hoary old folk sayings

They say if you peel the mandarin all in one go, you can predict your future husband's recipe for strudel, but in my case that doesn't apply as I am wearing socks. 

*

She who sleeps with the trimmings from her husband's left moustache underneath her right foot will, it is rumoured, cause bad luck for any politician who comes into contact with her left inner elbow. Old Serbian method for fixing elections. 

*

He who drinks black coffee before sniffing thrice will rise lustily from their bed, plough all their crops in one day, predict all the words on Wheel of Fortune, and eat the Borscht of propitiousness. He who drinks black coffee after sniffing thrice is Stalin. Old Russian proverb.

Interpretration interpolation

Whenever someone somewhere posts something about their dreams on facebook, twitter, or blog, there is always someone somewhere else who will immediately post on their facebook, twitter, or blog a Freudian analysis of someone else's prophetic divination of another person's symbolic interpretation of that same dream. It's happens so much that a scientist could write a law about it, if they wanted to.

So here you go, here are some dreams that I made up dreamt, specifically for the purposes of such divination. Let's see what your fertile imagination makes of my fertile imagination.

1.
Am on a plane. The plane is full of water. A door opens and in walks Kerry Packer, who shows me his pocket. It contains Lassie, and a banana, which becomes a stair which I walk down with Lassie.

2.
Am having a witty conversation with Dr Sigmund Freud. In the middle of the conversation he lights a match which he then puts to his face and lights up his beard. Then he lifts up a penis and begins to smoke it like a cigarette. Our two cats walk into the room and begin ripping up a television guide. All of a sudden I remember that I have left the oven on, and wake up saying to myself, 'Oh, that refrigerator should be green just about now.'

3.
I dream I am flying. It feels very ordinary and natural, as I am a bird. Down below I spy noted blogger TimT. He has a target on his head. Also, he is wearing only his pyjamas, and is walking to school, which is odd, as he hasn't owned pyjamas for years, and hasn't gone to school for even longer.

Family scrabble conversations

A: "Is Zod a word?"
B: "No! There's no such thing as Zod!"
C: "Doesn't it depend if you're an atheist or not?"

This conversation made me reflect on the complexities of belief in Zod in this modern, scientific world. Who or what is Zod anyway? Is there anyone who can truly say they know for certain that Zod does not exist?  And, above all, why? It all makes me want to express it through song:

Praise Zod Almighty, Zod on high,

Just who or what or why you are,

Praise Zod majestic in the sky, 

Or somewhere equally as far - 

No matter when you are, oh Zod,

Or what you wore last Thursday night,

I'll praise thee with my jerpling cod,

And Zod, it's just as well I might - 

For if the Azodnostics shout,

Or where the Antizodnogs meet each week

To spread their heresies of doubt,

We'll praise thee still with glystic meek - 

Praise Zod! Through thick and thin and thought!

Praise Zod! In black and white and socks!

Praise Zod! I'm doing what I ought!

Praise Zod! And peach and turquoise summer frocks.

Housekeeping tips from Tim

It is absolutely essential, when mother, father, and brother descend on the house for a half-a-week sojourn, to have fresh cheese drying on one of the beds, beer fermenting next to the fruit bowl, and so much hair growing on your face that you will not be able to see in the mirror that the amount of hair growing on your face is a little bit too much hair on your face for you to be able to see the look on your mother's face when she sees how much hair is growing on your face. It'll probably be an impressed look, but you still won't be able to see.

It is also highly desirable to have hair growing on the cheese, fresh fruit in the fruit bowl, and beer spontaneously fermenting from your face, but just because you have everything everywhere doesn't mean you can have anything anywhere.

This is the word of the Tim.

Humph! Bumph!

Occasionally people like to take a word, beat it about the prefix, thrash it around the suffix, put its vowels through a strainer, cram its consonants through a mangler, and then use it like it is a completely different word, just to show it who's boss. "That's so random," said a girl on the train today to her friend. "Don't you think that's random?" "It was so random." Though, in fact, I strongly doubt she was referring to a thing that was 'without definite aim, purpose, or reason' or 'according to a pattern or method.' "It was surreal," said a footballer in a recent interview, referring to an event that was admittedly a little curious, but nevertheless clearly defined and bound by the conventional parameters of the sensuous universe. "That's so gay," said all teens everywhere at all times, in the process offering up a definition of the word that was neither "homosexual", nor "carefree", nor even referring to a person of that name.

In this process, a few words get hurt, a lot of people get irritated, and angry letters into the newspaper (or their modern day equivalent, the cantankerous blog post, the tetchy tweet, or the peevish Facebook note) are fomented on laptops and iPads all over the world. But it is doubtful whether the language is hurt at all. Just today, I learnt of a lovely new, resonant word, perfect for use in everyday conversation, useful for rhyming purposes, which will in all likelihood be around in English for a long, long time to come. "Bumph": junk, detritus, rubbish, especially the sort that you find on your computer. Now isn't that nice?

Then again, just the other day, I was listening to the football on the radio (I bet you never thought you'd hear me say that) when one of the announcers cried out in excitement: "It's a skirmish - that could develop into a melee!" Though whether one or the other nouns was true - and whether it really mattered - was rather debatable. It was, like, so random.