Critic speak

The poems are full of fine moments of attention and crystalline, lucid images and overall the poems work to discover value and meaning in the world.

Crikey, I thought when I first read this, who talks like this? I mean, people have a go at poets for not using ordinary language (and we don't) but this slip - from a judge - sounds to me like it's coming from another world. I mean, if you're reading a book of poetry, could you imagine someone coming up to you in the street and asking, "Are the poems full of fine moments of attention?" "I'm looking for something with images that are crystalline, but also lucid". Huh?

Critic speak I've called it, because obviously, critics do it too; it's something critics and judges do in common - apply their critical faculties to a work of art and then describe it evaluatively. This isn't a particularly bad example - questions about just what 'fine moments of attention' are (is the attention 'refined', or are the moments of attention just 'fine', ie, good)? You see the same tics in music or art gallery reviews or whatever - the problem is simple, and hard: how to convey something of the experience of a work of art without, you know, actually reproducing the work of art? You can't, obviously, though you can try, which is why critics and judges tumble over themselves to produce language which tries to be both descriptive and coolly analytical, all at once.

Just this morning Dr Cat spotted the following phrase critically applied: "achingly gritty". Not so much mixed metaphor as mixed cliche - though at least it has more spring in its step than "grittily achy", or whatever. Mind you, once I was watching one of those ABC list programs where readers vote on their top ten favourite whatevers and the host - in this case Myf Warhurst - attempted to find the adequate critic speak for each of the books (okay, it was books). The top book was one of those predictable bestsellers, and Warhurst described it as "A guilty pleasure which we can all read without guilt". Um, okay then...though personally, I rather like the sound of the phrase, "A guilty pleasure which we can all read without delight", and I feel certain there are plenty of books this can be applied to accurately.

It might be fun to ask these sort of questions of critics at critics festivals, or wherever it is that they all hang out, though: "the book you're reading - is it achingly gritty?" "Does it cast a coruscating eye over the post-industrial subjectivity we are imbricated in, or is it more a lazy summer afternoon read that we should all make time for?" "Do you give it four stars, or is that the television guide?" Go on! Try it yourself! Let me know how you go! I'll just be right here waiting for you to report back.

Poem for over-interpreting

Poem for over-interpreting

She was healthy and wealthy and fair beyond words,

He was handsome and witty and tall

Together they went for a night on the town

And did absolutely nothing at all.

UPDATE! -

Poem for over-interpreting #2
They talked about Shakespeare and poems and cats
She thought him to be quite refined
As they stood all alone in the library stacks
And - wipe that image from your mind.

NOTANOTHERUPDATE! - 

Poem for over-interpreting #3
He said that he couldn't.
She said that he might.
She thought that he wouldn't.
He said "it's not right".

So he ordered the fair-trade Latte instead. 

From the Romance of the Weed

CHAPTER ye NINTH
CONTAINING ye MOST NOBLE ADVENTURE of ye BLACKBERRY

And yt came to passe that BARON VON HARLOT and SQUIRE TIM did essay forth up ye mountain in search of further heroic exploits and noble deeds. For there, they heard tell, lived a puissant LORD who had come into these parts from landes afar, and brought all the villages to meek subjection and cowardly abasement.
And yt was passing strange, for, some of the people did say he was a cruel and fell tyrant, who did wreak devastation and waste upon ye face of ye land; but, contrary, did some of ye people say, he was a kind and generous Lord, with gifts of bounty and plenty, and many fared from afar to marveil at his great richnesse of heart and plentiful spirit.
And for some of ye year, he did make his presence known thorough ye land, with sundry messengers and knights; but, for many months, he did keep withinne his demesnes, and whether he slept, or was sicke, they wot not.
So, ye BARON said to TIM, let us see this puissant Lord for ourself, and, God wot, some good may come of yt.

 

The Baron's hands staineth vermillion with the blood of 
our enemy

Ye day was fair when they set out on their journey, and there were but few welkins, and TIM did say, My Lady doth wear her blue mantle right well this day, and ye BARON said, who is this lady thou talkst of? And ye sun was high in ye sky and they began to pant and weary and wish for a drink to slake their thirst, for their provisions were but few.
And presently, they came to a mountain pass, and right by that pass there stood a fearsome GIANT, bearing a sword in arm outstretched, so that they did think ye way was barred. But then ye giant did say,

Step under or over, do what ye wille,
Yet I will stand here guarding stille. 

 So, after much debate, they walked under ye arm of ye giant, who for his part moved not from his spot. And so they fared forth up the mountain.
Ye road was but bare and worn, and presently did it give way to a rough pass. But on either side of ye pass did stand two GIANTS with fearsome visage, both larger than ye giant before them. And they did hold their swords before them, pointing unto ye ground, and say,

Further travel, if ye dare
Into my MASTER'S lands to fare.

Then with much trepidation did ye BARON and TIM venture forward, stepping gently over ye swords, and yet ye giants moved not. And so they fared on up ye mountain.

 

Markes of friendes

Now, high above ye fair town of BRIGHTENING, did they come to a castle ypight in Stately Gardens, most plenteously endight with every good thing of Goddes creation.
But bespread over the garden grounds were one hundred and one fearsome GIANTS, each one large than ye other.
And some did carry sword or sabre, and some did carry mace, and some did darrain themselves with javelin or spear, or prepare for wrestling, in armour bespread all over with spikes, and all did roar defiance, crying

If our MASTER you would see,
Why then, SIR, you must pass by me. 

 And they did wail and snarl and gnash their teeth most terribly, but, being giants, did move but slowly, so ye BARON and TIM did draw their swords and hope to come to ye castle still. And as they pressed onward thorough the garden, lo, did this giant press on one side, and ye other press on ye other side, and this giant in spiked armour did lay hold of TIM's hand, and then three more enclosed in around them, emprisoning them in a wall of spears and of swords, but still, by dextrous manoeuvre, did they escape, and come to the castle gate.
And, behold, yt did open for them, and as yt did open, as one did ye giants fall back. And there in ye castle was a fair table, well bespread with all manner of sweetmeats, and fine red wine, and fruit of every description, and amidst it all stood LORD BLACK, laughing with arms outspread.
And he did welcome them in, and ply them with many welcome refreshments and giftes for their own Lorde.
And they stayed that nighte and many nightes after at LORD BLACK'S castle, passing ye hours in song and poetry and in ye making of witty jestes and hearty catches and rondelays.

Our puissant foe.

Naked

Have been having some field days yesterday and today with the Baron and the Baron Mother, in Bright and Beechworth and surrounds. Speaking of field days, Freud would have a few himself if he heard half of the Freudian slips made, or maybe he wouldn't, because the Freudian slips aren't slips at all, they're all deliberate and unabashed and loud and clear. Allow me to present a small sample:

"Oh, look, naked ladies!"
"Another naked lady!"
"There's some naked ladies!"
"Naked lady, naked lady, naked lady!"
"Nice naked ladies in that front garden".
"Perhaps we should have some naked ladies on our nature strip".

The naked lady, as I'm sure you're all aware, is a flower, though that doesn't stop all of the sentences above sounding like the lubricious exclamations of a person with autism in a brothel. The last sentence sounds particularly lascivious, creating an image of sportive nymphs performing exercises from dawn 'til dusk upon the lawn. Oh, and walking up the hill today, the following dialogue occurred:

BARON: "Look, those naked ladies are hiding under some bushes."
TIM: "Now you're just doing it on purpose."

Is there such a thing, then, as a reverse Freudian slip, where a person uses a perfectly lewd phrase and actually means something completely innocent, like 'gardening' or 'doing a lovely bit of embroidery'? Because maybe that's what's happening here?


Va va va voom....

In conclusion, NAKED. LADIES.

(If that doesn't get the salubrious gardening types visiting this blog, then I don't know what will.)

UPDATE! -
"Look, naked ladies outside the church!" 
"Hey, there's a lot of naked ladies in this town!"

Who needs Simon Schama?

Let's face it, there's nothing the BBC likes better than to send bespectacled history boffins out into the fields to stomp around in the mud, to frown portentously while wading through a mire, to intone solemnly while sloshing through a bog, and generally have a lovely time splashing and splattering their way through millennia of British history. Cut from a shot of the historian looking brooding and intense about something important to a shady murky camera shot of someone in a bad costume waving a sword or a parchment or an old greasy pair of undies about and then back to the historian shaking their head at the sad and sorry irony of it all, and that's a wrap, ladies and gentlemen.

It's all great fun and quite harmless, and if the British didn't occasionally release their historians out into the wild then who knows what would happen to them? They'd probably get all sorry for themselves, sitting in their little boxes and looking in a brooding and intense manner at a wall, or something like that.

But what about the non-historians? What about the rest of us who did arts degrees in one obscure subject or another, and now spend our time shaking our head at the sad and solemn ironies of the decline in fortunes of the Lydian mode, or intoning solemnly about the state of semiotics pre-Ferdinand Saussure to no-one in particular? Why isn't there a television network ready to release the experts in the Theodosian code or the Freudian/Lacanian interpretation of Christopher Marlowe's later plays into the wild, to wallow in galoshes through the slough of some bog, to utter grand soliloquies about some confusing philosophy or another? For, it must be admitted, even though no-one watching the television would have the faintest idea of what these people are talking about, no-one knows what televisual historians are talking about most of the time anyway. Who honestly remembers anymore details from Simon Schama's History of Britain than the fact that a) it had a title b) it was about Britain and c) it involved some dude called Simon Schama?

I think it would all be quite grand. What better setting for postmodernist philosophical thought than a pile of sludge? What other visual metaphor of the state of thinking in the modern humanities than a gigantic dirty swamp? We're on to something here, I think, by sending these professors of quibbles and obfuscantism out into the bogs and the moors. Sure, they are shy creatures and may be a little timid at first in front of the cameras - but with a little encouragement, and perhaps a scone here or there, they could become quite healthy.

Picture it now: a windy heath, a grey sky, a shadow looms on the horizon. And then a grizzled and cantankerous voice growls out: "I'm Judith Butler: and I'm here to talk about the prehistory of the subject and its role in modern gender binaries....."

And CUT!

This is just to say...

This afternoon Beatrice the cat did a really whopping turd. An absolute stinker. The capacity of these small, rather attractive creatures to produce such gigantic piles of excrement never ceases to amaze me. "Little messages" is the quaint euphemism Mum uses for cat and dog poo. Well, this one wasn't so much a little message as a positive essay, with fully developed argument and points and an elegantly restated thesis in the conclusion to round things off nicely. I think I can still smell the toxoplasmosis in the air even now.

Beatrice, take a bow. In years to come, poets shall write of this poo and where they were when it happened. Eaux, the memories!

Okay, that's all I wanted to say.

Your ABC and the dreaded Cucumber Sandwiches Brigade

I've been listening to a lot of ABC Classic FM lately. (Though perhaps 'listening' is the wrong word; no single word seems to encompass the rich diapason of experience that is 'turning on the radio to perhaps listen to a piece or two, and then forgetting about it, and then doing other things and remembering the radio is on, and then not bothering to turn it off).

Anyway, each radio station has their own presentation style, as I learnt to my frequent annoyance during my seven and a bit years at the place of old employ. Some stations have as few presenters as possible, and will probably replace their existing staff with digital voices as soon as the artifical voice technology is up to scratch (thus making the experience of listening to them indistinguishable from the experience of dialing up a multinational company and being put on hold for three hours). Some stations have the newsreader read a few cursory announcements about road accidents, and such, over a persistent 'doof doof doof' beat, which can't be good for the anxiety levels of those listening to it. At the ABC's sister station, Triple J, the newsreaders persistently and insistently colloquialise the normal newsreading style - abbreviating every word they can, throwing in lazy youth culture phrases, so: "The Prime Minister's said he's not cool with that" - in a manner that is more irritatingly formal than any old-school BBC-style newsreader. In short, each have their own ways of infuriating the listener (if they are actually listening, and they may not be - see my first parenthesis, above).

But ABC Classic FM would have to be the most bizarre of them all. Announcements are made in the manner of regretful sighs and languid coos; orchestral harpists are given the afternoon shows and when they speak they actually sound like harps. (Walter Pater said "All art aspires to the condition of music" but this is ridiculous.) I remember there was actually one point when they started playing bird song in the morning; could the point where they discover whale song actually be far off? Occasionally they have an 'ABC is your emergency services broadcaster' announcement, and when they do this they have lovely piano arpeggios over soothing homophonies: I know it would be wrong for them to try out the Lance-Corporal Jack Jones' line "Don't panic! DON'T PANIC!", but honestly, this way they make imminent catastrophe sound like a garden party.

I suppose at some point in the distant past, some ABC Classic FM programmer made the fatal decision that this is what the station would all be about: niceness, somnolence, calm, the aural equivalent of cucumber sandwiches and Pimms. Which, you know, isn't that bad a thing, but when it comes to a musical tradition that contains duellists, murderers, and revolutionaries, doesn't seem entirely appropriate.

So I suppose that means I should turn the radio off then.... and I will.... in a bit....

Onomatopeia I have used or invented in the past few weeks

Wingle wangle
gedonk gedonk
bekadonk bekadonk bekadokkily donk
woobarglefm
raow.

UPDATE! - Pop quiz (that probably nobody will answer at all). Can you guess what any of these sounds refer to? (No prizes or anything. I mean, just for the sake of general merriment and stuff).

How it all works

The 1 per cent report to the alpha male.
The alpha male answers to the lizard people.
The lizard people network with the Illuminati.
The Illuminati are secretly run by the bourgeois middle classes.
The bourgeois middle classes are in the grip of Big Tobacco.
Big Tobacco is in cahoots with Big Oil.
Big Oil is run by the Omega Man.
(Charlton Heston, not Will Smith).
The Omega Man is controlled by the Patriarchy.
But the Patriarchy have just had their season cut short by the Fox Network.

WAKE UP SHEEPLE IF WE COULD JUST SEE WHO OPPRESSES US WE COULD START A WORKERS REVOLUTION !!!!1!!1ONE

Naughty Amish

The topic of the Amish came up in conversation (and why wouldn't it?) with the Baron last night as we toddled our way to the Coles to fetch some cat food.

"I like the idea of being Amish", said the Baron.
"Why?" 
"Well, you get to have your own horse."
"You'd need to buy the horse first," I objected.
"True," mused the Baron. "We'll have to become rich. Let's get rich and then we can be Amish!"
"Hm," I said.
"And then we could compost the garden with horse poo", finished the Baron.

But by the time we'd got the cat food and were on our way home again I'd rather come round to the idea. This was because we'd just discovered the concept of 'naughty Amish', which is what I think I'd end up being.
 Here's how I imagine it goes. Regular Amish go about looking all serious and eating bread and doing farming and stuff. Meanwhile, Naughty Amish hide pencils in their beards, and snap one another's braces in a roguish manner. Regular Amish practice frowning and harrumphing (pretty essential life skills, I'll have you know). Naughty Amish, meanwhile, tie pom-poms to their horse's tails, and make castles out of their mashed potatoes. Regular Amish spend time selecting the most stern bonnets and sombre black fedoras they can find. Naughty Amish while away the hours racing cheeses down the hill and juggling bread rolls.

See what I mean? There must be some naughty Amish out there, and I think I'd fit right in. Any openings available in the Amish community, do you know? After all, I've got the beard and the fedora....

I blame everything

We all need something to blame, and I blame particularly the permissive society, the declining morals of today's youth, the social effects of communism, global warming, Tony Abbott, the Labor Party, the second Banana in Bananas in Pyjamas and poor education in our public schools. I blame them for everything all the time, obviously, but I especially blame them for my current obsession, an online game allowing me to slot columns and rows of brightly coloured rectangles into other columns and rows of brightly coloured rectangles until I have run out of columns and rows of brightly coloured rectangles to use. This game, a highly intellectual exercise with columns and rows of brightly coloured rectangles, is called Columns, and I'm sure you'll all want to play it now. My response to that is: don't! Don't! For the love of all that is good and holy, don't!

But anyway, at certain points during my stimulating endeavours to slot columns and rows of brightly coloured rectangles in with other columns and rows of brightly coloured rectangles, it is true, I start to wonder just what the fuck I am doing with my life and couldn't I be fucking doing something more productive instead? And there is great truth in this asseveration, as I acknowledge to myself while deliberating that I will do something else shortly - just after I finish the next game. Of course, "Tomorrow never comes", as the old saw goes, and it is curious that "the next game" is just as elusive.

Soon there will be nothing but columns. Just as in the past I had the experience of playing - well, overplaying - Tetris, another infuriatingly pointless game which never seems to end, and going to bed afterwards with images of Tetris blocks still slotting together in my head. Well, it's the same with these blinking columns. Every time I close my eyes, there they are. Sometimes they're there, too, when I keep my eyes open. Soon the world will be nothing but columns, columns, columns, everywhere, brightly coloured rectangles slotting in with other brightly coloured rectangles and I'll think, ooh, if I just press the left arrow button then....

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Save me! Save me!

Second helping

Same subject as before....

On that extra second

I thought that I needed a second

To do all the things that I thought

I could do if I just had a second

But the second's a second too short.

In a second

The year of 2015 will be one second longer, with the Paris Observatory announcing a leap second will be added on June 30 when clocks will read 11:59:60pm.

ABC - Leap second to make June 30, 2015, a longer day, Paris Observatory announces

Thank heavens at last we have that extra second that people have always been talking about. "I'll get round to it in a second", they say. "I'll do that in a second," they say. "Wait a second," they say, only to, on all three occasions, be distracted in a second from the thing they said they were going to do in a second, and so when another second has passed, forgotten completely that two seconds ago they said they were going to do things in a second.

In order to make people further appreciate this extra second, I have introduced

WillTypeForFood leap second saving policy

Here's how it works. By laying the extra second you receive at the end of June, and saving it up till the end of July, instead of getting 30 days and one second, you will get 31 days and one second, much more time to get around to using that precious, valuable, extra second that adds so much to all our lives.

Don't thank me. Thank the Paris Observatory, those hard working individuals who toiled away for so long to produce this extra second to benefit all our lives.

Am I only screaming?

I fell off the True Blood bandwagon sometime ago - what with the 'Sookie loves Bill.... no wait, she doesn't.... no wait, she loves Eric... no wait, she loves both....' there seemed little point continuing. It had a brilliant first season, an okay second season, but by the third season it seemed to be becoming more or less indifferent, with the characters blending into one another (in a series of increasingly creative, or at least hot and sweaty ways).

The Baron's enthusiasm for this televisual phenomenon remains undimmed, however, so while I slouch around this hot house in this hot weather looking for more icecream to eat, she reclines in leisurely fashion, en couchant, with the computer in front of her working her way stoically through another episode. I haven't really seen what's going on: but I've certainly heard. In this way I think I've inadvertently worked out what the secret of the show's success is: screaming and heavy breathing.

That's about it, really. Combined with the occasional spot of naked flesh, soft lighting and shadows, I think we've almost got the entirety of seasons 1-7, right there.

In a way it's a triumph of minimalist art, the way a little (PANT-PANT-PANT-PANT) here and some (ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHGLGGHGLGHGHGLIYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*) there can be creatively combined to bring meaning and timbre and elegance to such a simple storyline. As an added filigree, with a very little actorial effort, a bloodcurdling scream in the middle of battle can easily shade into a sexy panting in the boudoir as Eric gets hot and heavy with Sookie/Jason/Pam/whoever.

Way back when I actually watched the show (about one and a half years ago, actually) I wrote a poetic summary of the first season. For some reason I can't find it on my blog (though I'm pretty sure I did put it up there). So I'm going to put it up now:

A poetic summary of season one of True Blood

Bill loves Sookie.
Sookie loves Bill.
Puppy dogs and vampires -
KILL! KILL! KILL! 

*I think that's the right way to spell it. Or did I have one too many Es**?
**As they said back at the raves in the 1990s.

ABC considers releasing an adult version of a much-loved classic

Say hello to Bananas. No Pajamas - designed to appeal to nudists and naturists across this nation.

"Are you thinking what I am, B1?" "I think I am, B2! It's pole-dancing time!"

Nothing much

This one's from my latest Christmassy-sort of zine, Badger's Dozen mark whatever.  Nothing much to see in the relative non-event of the New Year.
 

Nothing much

This year, achieving nothing much,

Though having aimed at little more,

Next year, I’ll try a little less,

Although I’ve done the same before -

With half-formed plans and half-formed schemes

That I’ve already half-forgot

Of nothing big with no-one much

And dreams of earning not-a-lot.

Though when my age was even less,

I little thought and little knew

I’d make so little of myself

Or have so little stuff to do.

Perhaps I did more good than bad,

Although I can’t be sure as such,

I overate a little bit,

Though not so much as very much.

We’ve almost no time left in life

To say our little good and true,

So Merry Christmas, happy new year,

To you, and you, and you.

In an increasingly awkward attempt at replicating the lack of success of the joke in the previous post title (made all the more awkward by the fact that doing a blog post just for the sake of the joke in the title seems a tad unseemly anyway), I have decided to press on with my reverso blog post experiment. Just how long can a blog post title get, anyway? By now we have certainly gone past the standard length allowing this blog post to be googled, and have more commas, full stops, question marks, and parenthesis in total than we could expect in an ordinary blog post title. What other surprises can we be expected to come up with? Let's try point form! 1) This is a point. 2) This, also, is a point. 3) This is a third point, though by now the use of a point form has even less of a point than when it started. I suppose I could keep this title going on for quite a while but maybe I won't because I couldn't be

Reverso Blog Post #2: The Wrath of Kahn.

In an amazing new experimental blog post, Tim has decided to reverse the position of title and post just to see what will happen. Early reports on reactions to this groundbreaking new artistic technique (though possibly not that 'groundbreaking' or 'new') show readers around the world astounded, gobsmacked, terrified, or gobstoundified. When questioned by the press about where he sees his blog going next, Tim refused to comment, even though he was doing the whole write up on his blog anyway. Reverso blog posts, people: it's a thing. You could try and do the same thing on twitter but twitter doesn't have titles HAHAHA SUCKED IN okay goodbye now. (PS pity we don't have paragraphs in these blog titles. The technology should really keep up with the art). UPDATE: At least we can do updates. But we can't do footnotes. Or differently sized fonts. What, are we living in the 1st century?

Reverso blog post #1.

The first black white President of the United States

Following the Obama's description of experiences with casual racism (The Obamas: How We Deal with Our Own Racist Experiences), former US President Bill Clinton, frequently described as 'the first black President of the US' has opened up about his own experiences with racism.

"Oh, for sure, I've encountered casual racism", says Clinton. "For instance, back in 1991 when I was beaten mercilessly by the LA police. Hey, you may say they were just doing their job. Heck, they may not even recognise it as racism themselves! But how can we learn to move on as a society if we don't recognise this stuff for what it is?"

Clinton went on to detail similar examples from his lifetime: leading the civil rights movement before being fatally shot by a casual racist bearing a loaded microaggression, for instance, or that one time he sat on that seat of that bus even after being repeatedly asked to move just for his race, or instance.

"Nothing compared to what our forefathers experienced," says Clinton. "But it just goes to show we've got further to go as a society".

Official scientific map of the box of chocolates

LEGEND

1. The yucky one that no-one wants.
2. The brilliant one that someone always eats before you.
3. The mysterious one. No-one knows what the hell that thing is in the middle of it.
4. The other brilliant one that someone always eats before you.
5. They call this chocolate?
6. The only half-decent one left over that you might as well have.
7. The one the dog ate.
8, 9, 10, 11. The pathetically small ones that actually look like little turds.
12. The not very exciting one with the brand name on it.
13. The super hard one that gets stuck in your teeth.
14. The one that gets sat on by your farty uncle before disappearing down the couch.
15. The one that is actually really small under all that shiny wrapping.
16. The leftover one after everything else gets eaten. Hey, where did all the chocolates go?
17. The peppermint one.
18. The one that your wife steals.

Glorious folk traditions of the world!

Glorious folk traditions of the world no. 4671
We are fast approaching the time of year when households all over the world are said to see the arrival of Sexist Claus, a jolly fat man in a red singlet with a smear of black stubble over his face and chin. According to lore, Sexist Claus will arrive at your house unannounced in the middle of the night, take up residence on your couch, and ask for you to bring him a drink. He doesn't come bringing any gifts, because he forgot them all when he was out.

He is associated with several magic abilities: the ability to trawl sites like OKCupid or Lavalife in an increasingly desperate attempt to find a 'special someone'; the ability to do nothing at all for extended periods of time; or the ability to turn you into an object by merely looking at you. (He has collected many fine examples of statuary for his house and gardens this way).

Sexist Claus has a secret home on the moon called The Patriarchy, where he lives most of the year with his "little helpers", the local Men's Rights Association. They don't actually do anything all year, they just talk shit and leave abusive comments on other people's blogs. His carriage is pulled by 12 galloping snarks, with a troll helper seated beside him for the journey.

It is often said that if a little child denies the existence of Claus by crying "I don't believe in Sexism" thrice, a unicorn molests a fairy. Other families believe if the right charm is uttered, Clementine Ford will come galloping in on a white stallion to defend their house from the depredations of the dreadful Sexist. But his power remains undiminished, and next year he will come back stronger than ever.

Basically, he's a dick.

Pacifist curses

May you die a long and peaceful death! 

May your feet be afflicted with comfortable socks!

Even your toes, yea, even unto the tips of the little outer ones, will be smiten with a pleasant all-suffusing warmth! 

May you be devastated by plague upon plague of friendly puppies!

May you never know rest until bedtime! 

May you suffer from the three-fold comfort - nice chair, nice show on telly, and a very tasty cup of coffee! 

May all your dust turn to wishes and your ashes to dreams!

Christmas Pig

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! I got you a pig! 

The pig is not yours. It's a charity pig

That I got for some people in south Vietnam.

I don't know who they are, but they run a small farm,

Or something like that, and they're terribly poor

And they've never been able to eat pig before. 

But that doesn't matter! Your present is better,

Because I got you a card and I wrote you a letter

Which I've most ostentatiously signed with my name

Thus assuaging my white middle class feelings of shame.

And speaking of presents, gee, I don't know how

But I didn't get any. 

... So I'm eating your chocolates right now.

MERRY FESTIVAL OF GORGING YOURSELF SILLY

Christmas, as we all know, is a wonderful festival about eating*, and in preparation to relatives visiting tomorrow for a Christmassy sort of affair, I have been preparing lots of food and then eating the results. I suppose I've been leaving some over as well, but sometimes it's hard to tell.

First up was a big batch of Pfeffernuse, a delicious German word that is thankfully easier to bake and eat than it is to spell and pronounce. Not all of them turned out perfectly; for instance, some broke apart in the cooking, so I had to eat those. A few more had, you know, cracks in them. Utterly unsightly, though thankfully not utterly untasty; and into my mouth they went. Then a few more just for good measure. At some point some of the remaining pifflemouse or whatever it is called started looking lonely, so I had to clean that up too...

Next up, two rounds of fudge. I made some this morning and it looked and tasted completely delicious. Unfortunately, oh, what a terrible accident happened! Some of the fudge got in under the foil resulting in fudge with bits of foil right through it. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Can't let the folks see that. So I had a slice of fudge. Then another. The Baron walked in at that point, so obviously I had to give some to her, and a few more helpings for me.... I asked the Baron, by the way, to come home with some chocolate for some chocolate fudge tonight. Which she did. And we promptly ate that, too - the chocolate, I mean, not the chocolate fudge, though if there was some we'd probably eat that also. I'll just check.

Speaking of chocolate, everyone should get chocolate for Christmas, don't you think? I think so. I mentioned that to my nephew over the phone the other night and he agreed and asked for chocolate for his present. Then I mentioned this to my brother and he said I'd better not get my nephew any chocolate for Christmas. So he's definitely getting some chocolate, then. Sorted. 

*And so, come to think of it, is New Years, Easter, birthdays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays.... if these events have another purpose then it's surprising we haven't heard of it yet.

No! No! Not more poetry, I beg of you!

He often pulled such merry faces,

Transfixing folks in public places

Or drowning puppies in the bath - 

But then, he was a psychopath. 

Tim, what a horrible poem, I hear you cry! How can we hear less of it?

(By coming to my poetry feature at the Dan O'Connell Hotel from 2 pm tomorrow, of course - it's on the corner of Canning St and Alexandra Parade in Carlton. There'll certainly be less of that poem, though not so much of others... )

Breaking the news until there's nothing left to be broken....

ABC to produce more economic, streamlined version of all shows by rolling them into one 14 and a half minute broadcast

The Religion Poetica Report Arts Foreign Affairs Briefing Talk Chat Track Weekend Daily Show Project with added thirty second Phillip Adams Rant is due to go on air January. It will feature intelligent intellectuals having intelligent intellectual discussions about the arts in a Middle East church during a fast-developing international crisis. There will also be a cheerful soundtrack composed by an up-and-coming Australian composer, soon to be announced, for Casio synthesizer and the 'flute' button on Casio synthesizer!

Cleaning up the language, one letter at a time

At the pub the other day a thought suddenly struck me, which was surprising for all concerned (I'm never going to suddenly think again). I realised with a shock what a lot of wasted letters there were in the English language these days, letters just sort of floating around, maybe as a flailing linguistic attempt at an acronym, sometimes not even that. What? Allow me to demonstrate: observe the ever-present egotism of the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPod. Without the 'i', you'd just be left with a 'phone' (for phoning people), a 'pad', (for writing stuff on), and a 'pod' (for..... whatever the hell it is that pods do).

Is that all? As the smelly hippy said to the corporate suit offering him a job, no way, man! I haven't even started! Anyway, there's the S-Bend, which is, I presume, a bend in a street, and you probably shouldn't try J-walking over it, though I do wonder whether you'd find S Club 7 trying to do a U-turn at the corner? While we're on the road, you'll also find E Street meeting Avenue Q at the T Intersection of the L bend (or, to put it bluntly, a street, an avenue, an intersection, and another bend). Hey, maybe there's even someone standing around with an e-cigarette, because you're not allowed to e-smoke one of those things inside because of the dangers of e-passive smoking from all those e-fumes.

While we're on the 'e's, there's a few items to get through. There's the e-toothbrush, the e-book, and the e-chair - a toothbrush, a book, and a chair (that you wouldn't want to be sitting in, obviously). Scientologists use an e-meter, though funnily enough, if you take the 'e' away, you're not even left with a proper meter. Maybe it only works in e-space. What else? I suppose some people are in the habit of dropping pills of 'e' - though it would seem rather cruel to take the letter away from them, since they wouldn't be left with much either.

T-shirts, m-theory, x-rays, and Charles Dickens' charming Aged P next come to mind, though it should be noted that P G Wodehouse had the good grace to come up with a character called 'Psmith', with a silent 'P'. (But then, all the best 'p's are silent). One question that occurs at this point is, does Mr T from the A Force prefer Special K or Cheeri-Os or Cheezy-Os? Then again, subtracting the superfluous letters we end up with something Cheezy, something Cheeri, and something Special, so it doesn't sound so bad. Vitamins A, B, and C without the A, B, or C are still vitamins, and I still have no idea why they're supposed to be good for us.

You can have straight A students, they can be A1, of A quality and then the next minute you'll find them hanging around in Y fronts listening to ZZ Top while reading X-rated literature. I suppose they did say that X marks the spot, although all of a sudden you find that they're actually reading about the G-spot. Talk about g-force! It's enough to make you want to say the f-word or the f-bomb, the c-word or the c-bomb, the s-word or the s-bomb, though not (thankfully) drop the h-bomb or the a-bomb.

Bringing up the end of my catalogue, we have v-day, d-day, o-rings, c-cups, O Magazine, and someone called K Dog. Which makes you wonder what it's all about, really. Take the 'O' away from 'Magazine', and you still have a magazine, though not necessarily a very good one. A 'dog' somehow seems preferable without the 'K'. But, you know, once all the frivolous letters have been removed from all these words, you end up with a 'C, A, T', a 'H, A, T', a 'P, U, G', a 'J, A, F, F, A' and a 'Q, U, I, L, T'. I'm sure there's more, but let's throw those in the room with the dog, the bomb, the vitamins, the strange nameless man called Mister, and the students standing about in their y-less fronts reading good clean ordinary literature and see how they get along, shall we?

An Ode to Sloth

An Ode to Sloth

How wonderful is Sloth,

The vice that's nice! 

To lounge about the house all day,

A coffee icecream debauchee, 

Eat all the chocolate from the box 

Replete in dressing gown and socks,

And then to dream in comfy slouch - 

A couch! A kingdom for a couch!

Bees (CLUNK!) bees (CLUNK!) bees (CLUNK!) bees (CLUNK!) bees!

I type this (CLUNK!) with a heavy (CLUNK!) every few words as my (CLUNK!) pinkie hits the key-(CLUNK!)-board, having swollen (CLUNK!) up today after being the chosen spot (CLUNK!) for receipt of a bee-(CLUNK!)-sting.

From this you may fairly adduce that we did some work on the hive today. Things were never meant to happen this way; we had done a fairly standard job on the hive on Friday - we whisked off the top box, which is usually where the bees tend to put their honey, whacked an escape board on top of that, closed the hive up again, and waited for evening to collect the frames. Coming back in the evening, we found they were full of (bugger!) larvae, not (blast!) honey. We put some back into the hive though, unfortunately, in the process of extraction some of the combs had got broken anyway. We had been unprepared for this operation, too, so in doing so we had initially left a lot of extra space in the hive, no combs, etc; so we knew we'd be coming back soon to do more work.

So this Sunday morning we found ourselves preparing for another biggish job on the hive - rather reluctantly, because the bees, as you can imagine, rather begrudge our occasional incursions onto their sanctum, which I can quite understand why. We collected the hive tool (it's like a.... tool.... for the hive) and the bee brush (it's just a big arse brush) and cleaned and prepared several frames and collected our smoker and had half struggled our way into our suits, we heard a familiar whine from out the back door - our next door neighbour had decided Sunday afternoon was an excellent time to start whippersnippering the edges of their garden (they're weird that way).

It need hardly be said that bees and lawnmowing don't mix. Bees and neighbours don't mix very well either (we, er, may not have forgotten to mention our beekeeping habits to them somehow). And as for bees and lawnmowing neighbours*.... well, we decided to sit it out. We struggled out of our suits and flopped about on the couch as the whippersnipping whipped and snipped, on and off, for an hour or so. Eventually it stopped. Of course by this time we were doing another vital activity, ie, checking the internet, so we weren't able to struggle back into our bee suits for another few minutes.... by which time another familiar growl started up from the same place. The neighbour, apparently so satisfied with their whipping and snipping, had decided to upgrade to a proper lawnmower (they are very strange).

Eventually we got to it. The usual drill: bees everywhere. Bees climbing out of the sides of the hives to get at the interlopers. Bees zooming around our heads looking for something to sting. Bees generally pissed off. They were even more eager to do it this time, of course, having been set off on the previous two occasions that we were likely to try something like this. And, amongst all this, a lot of heavy moving and grunting and shifting as we rearranged the hive to our satisfaction, if not theirs.

It was only in removing my suit again that I got stung, on the end of my pinkie. I never even saw the bee that did it (which would, at any rate, have dropped dead soon after).

So, anyway, once again, great story old man, and can't I even muster up enough courage to admit to our neighbours that we have bees? But no, actually, apparently I can't. Though I can tell you. And the other hundred odd readers that drop by this website from time to time. So, as they say in the classics, it's just between me and you, alright?

*Not to mention lawnmowing bees and neighbours, which induce in me a state of utmost fear and paranoia.

Concrete, a love song

It was while watching a big concrete mixer pull up outside a nearby house the other day and wondering if they were going to get their backyard neatly concreted over that I first thought of writing this. Lalor, Epping, the whole vast expanse of outer northern suburbs out here are largely exercises in concrete. Days after we moved here we learned that P. and M., a couple of doors up from us on this street, had recently got their backyard jacketed in a neat grey coat of concrete. We are a concrete suburb, a suburb that would provide joy to grey and stony hearts of developers and town planners and politicians everywhere. There may even be someone out there now, in some remote street of this obscure suburb, that is getting their whole yard neatly paved over with the good grey stuff, rubbing their hands with pleasure at the thought of what it will look like once they are done.

Many and plentiful are the charms of concrete. It is hard, it is neat, it is grey, it is.... I can't think of any more of its many and plentiful charms right at the moment. But one thing I do like about it is the way this neat and useful substance neatly and usefully records its past. I walked over a footpath the other day that had the form of a leaf finely imprinted within it; other footpaths around here have purposeful lines of cat- or dog-paws printed in them. These sights, like that car I may have mentioned that has been parked for so long in someone's front yard in Preston that is now encrusted with several layers of lichen, or that astroturf lawn down the road from us that has Oxalis poking up through it, bring me an inordinate amount of pleasure.

Does it ever end, this gradual concreting-over that is happening to Lalor? Are we tending to a final end point where the entire suburb will be a uniform grey stretch of this landscaping material, a calming horizontal surface useful for parking cars on, or driving cars over, or otherwise levelling out land that would otherwise be rough and stony and otherwise dirty? Perhaps, though sometimes the process goes in the opposite direction, like that time when my brother came round here with a mallet and cheerfully pounded up several flagstones of concrete in our back garden, yielding us several more feet of rough, stony and otherwise dirty soil for doing gardening in. I know, we're perverse that way. My brother got so excited that when we ran out of flagstones for him to pound, he took out an axe and started chopping up the parts of a tree that had been felled previously. He went off, originally presumably to find more flagstones with his mallet back home.

And that, surprisingly, is the last thing I have to say about concrete for the moment.

To boldly go where no feminist has gone before

Feminists successfully land remote-controlled probe on Matt Taylor's bowling shirt

IN A WORLD FIRST, feminists today have successfully guided a remote-controlled probe from a rocket to land on Matt Taylor's bowling shirt.

"This groundbreaking work will allow us to answer many of the mysteries of the universe," said Boadicea Hilbertum of the European Feminist Agency. "Where did Matt Taylor's bowling shirt come from? What is its chemical composition? Why does it contain pictures that demean and objectify women who as we all know are able to do anything men do, including landing remote-controlled probes on Matt Taylor's bowling shirt?"

This is not the first time such a daring mission has been attempted. Previously, men's rights activists have made several failed attempts to land a remote-controlled probe in Germaine Greer's hair.

It is planned that the probe will stay for several days, and take samples of the bowling shirt, running them through standard feminist analyses before sending the results back to earth for further verification.

In other news, a lot of the world were apparently distracted from this groundbreaking mission by looking at pictures of a big empty rock in outer space.

DO NOT BE ALARMED! PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!

If you see something, say something.

If you see someone do something somewhere, say something to someone somehow.

If you see someone do anything anywhere to something, say anything about something to anyone somehow, before something happens to someone.

If someone sees anyone saying anything somewhere that is somewhat suspicious, say something-or-other to someone-or-other in someplace-or-other to prevent someone doing something everywhere sometime-or-other. 

If anyone everywhere ever does anything anytime to anyone everywhere else, say anything to someone somehow to prevent everything happening everywhere forever. 

REMEMBER: STOP ANYTHING HAPPENING EVERYWHERE EVER, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE. 

The Department of Existential Security

Note: Oh, and this: be alert but not alarmed. Definitely do not be alarmed. Do not be alarmed about being alarmed either, merely remain alert to signs of alarm, rather than being alarmed at your alertness. By being alert to the alarming possibility of alarm about your alertness, you will avoid this alarming alarm about something done by everyone anywhere somehow.

How to terrify humans: a guide for chickens

You're a chicken, right, reading this post? Good! Because now I'm going to tell you how to terrify humans, one horrifying, gut-wrenching step at a time. Let's begin:

1) Sit in the back of your coop, adopting a fearsome visage and a grim demeanour. As a chicken, you may be uncertain on the meanings of the words 'fearsome', 'visage, 'grim', or 'demeanour', but don't worry! They'll just come to you! 

2) When humans come to your coop to say hello, make yourself look extra fluffy. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. Humans are absolutely TERRIFIED of fluffy things and certainly will not want to pick them up and cuddle them straight away. In fact, expect them to run screaming in the opposite direction.

3) In case the human hasn't been turned into a quivering, gibbering wreck yet, by your fearsome visage, etc, or your general fluffiness, whirr at them in a melodious and lyrical tone. (Again, you may not be aware of what 'melodious' or 'lyrical' mean, but just run with it. Consider this: when your fearsome and terrifying ancestors, the dinosaurs, were roaming through the primordial forests, they  made themselves fearsome and terrifying by whirring at one another in melodious and lyrical tones. Oh cripes, I'm getting a heart attack just thinking about it!)

If you're a human reading this post, why don't you try it too? It might just work!

Statice update

Statice is a small purple flower that just happens to look like limonium perezii. Limonium perezii is a small purple flower that shares more than a passing resemblance to statice. Sometimes, limonium perezii is known as 'statice'. Statice, however, is never known as 'limonium perezii'.

If limonium perezii had a status update on Facebook, that status would read: "Anxiety". That's right. It would have statice anxiety. 

 

Pictured: limonium perezii in a typical state of existential angst.

Technical corner: how to brew with a spinning wheel

First you have to thread the trub through the rolag. You do this by gradually carding the mash with the doffer tool to separate the neps from the noils, then feeding the eyelash into the draff.

Once this has been achieved, you vorlauf the drop spindle until you have a top whorl and bottom whorl, in a process known as plying. You don't have to ply, but if you don't, you have to work out how to boucle the sparge with the driveband before the batt gets caught at the bottom of the tun and prevents the wort from running through.

Don't forget to mash the guard hair between the flyer and the false bottom to help clarify the hot break, turning with the art hackle every so often. 

Finally, by a process of dizzing the first runnings and roving the kick spindle, you will have produced a fine bowl of curds and whey. Simple, isn't it? Thanks for tuning in once again!

On the many benefits of espresso coffee for modern-day computer science

Look, I inadvertently spill stuff on my computer all the time. Every hour as I sit over it doing incredibly important stuff like internet and more internet and more more internet and even more more internet and work and did I mention internet? a fine rain of bits of fluff and dandruff and scruff and puff wafts from the regions of my beard downwards. Occasionally I like to conduct little exploratory archeological expeditions underneath the keys on my keyboard with a slip of paper or something; there has to be generations of stuff buried underneath them. In centuries to come, I expect scientists will concoct theorems and rules about the layers of accretions beneath my keyboard. Maybe they'll even start finding fossils in there.

Anyway, the point is - my computer, spills: two things, not entirely unacquainted with one another. Yesterday, though, I gave the whole computer a shock to the system: I spilled an entire latte right over the top of it. It got caffeinated to the core. It was more than a little twitchy for the rest of the day; in fact, for a while there, I was wondering if it was ever going to get over it. (Or maybe it just wanted some sugar to go with the coffee? There's no accounting for tastes...)

On the plus side, the computer did smell pleasantly of latte in the morning. And if I spill so much stuff inadvertently over it, why not manfully take the proactive route forward, and begin spilling stuff over it entirely vertently? I could give it a cup of tea every morning, as a step-down from the latte  - caffeine, yes, but not so much caffeine as to give it the twitches: the "cup that soothes" could prove quite easy on its nerves. Or who's to tell if it couldn't appreciate a little booze in its diet? A hearty ale or two? A refined glass of wine? After all, my computer is at least one year old - which for a computer is incredibly old indeed. Especially if it's my computer. And I'm in the habit of spilling stuff over it inadvertently. Which I am.

Lines written on MCing the Dan O'Connell open mic for the first time

Lines written on MCing the Dan O'Connell open mic for the first time

I've been practising...
my awkward pauses
Sudden segues in the conversation,
Non sequiturs at random clauses,
My pointless stories full of too much information....
I've been practising....
My mumbling and bumbling
And grumbling and fumbling
With the microphone and stumbling
And flailing back up to the stage....
I've been practising...
Longwinded boring anecdotes
That ramble on and on and on andonandonandonandon and send you round the  BEND
And stealing jokes from other folks
And then forgetting how they end...
I've been practising...
Forgetting things.... forgetting lots...
It's Whatsisname! You, with the face!
It's Thingummy and Whosiwhats!
It's Whatsthetime at Wheresthisplace?
I've been practising...
At finding ever less exciting ways
At losing everyone's attention
At causing eyes to overglaze
By starting sentences and then for no good reason trailing off before oh well you know what was I saying again...
I've been practising...
And I'm getting better!

How to lose things in reverse

Some things were meant to pair off together. Bread and butter. Knifes and forks. Pies and sauce. Tea cups and saucers. This is one category; another category is things that actually are pairs. Socks, arms, legs, hands, feet, eyes, nostrils, dual carriageways on roads, bicycles, and Twix chocolate bars, for instance.

Sometimes it is possible to lose one of a pair of things, thus making the whole lose its function: I'm thinking especially about socks, obviously, but (conceivably), the same could happen with some of the other items so-named: arms and legs (alarming), dual carriageways (how on earth....), wheels on bikes (any monocycle riders around?), and half of a Twix chocolate bar (though I'm happy to report this should never lessen the functionality of the remainder, unless Mars have a very strange manufacturing method).

I mention all this now because my friend EB, of Facebook-land, appears to have had a very strange turn of events. I quote:

Mystery: I now have three pieces of a single pair of socks. (???) 

There is visual evidence. A - pair(?) (what would you even call them now?) - of three identical-looking socks. As I noted at the time, EB appears to have gained a curious power: now, instead of losing one of a pair of socks (a trouble I am all too familiar with), she appears to have lost them - in reverse, gaining a pointless third sock. (Or is it pointless? Just how many legs....)

This is a valuable skill, and ought to be learnt by the rest of us. If I could only lose a couple of my best socks in reverse, I'd quickly gain a pair of three, four, five, six, seven socks. I'm tempted to go off and practice now, but then, I've been practicing losing socks all my life and up to the moment I haven't had much success at losing them in reverse.

But just imagine if you applied this skill of losing in reverse to other pairs. Arms and legs (I could do with three arms), dual carriageways (on roads what direction would they be driving on the third carriageway?), bicycles (thereby upgrading them to - ehrm - tricycles....) and Twix chocolate bars (thereby gaining three bits of chocolate for the price of two - sweet!) And, come to think of it, the town of Wagga Wagga could be upgraded to Wagga Wagga Wagga at no extra cost.

And - what's more - could this skill of losing in reverse also be applied to things that are just paired off, rather than just pairs? If I was drinking tea with a tea cup and saucer, and lost the saucers, could I get two saucers back? Or would I have to lose both the tea cup and saucer before getting both back, redoubled? Would it even be possible to lose things deliberately anyway, or is it rather like learning to fly in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the secret is throwing yourself at the ground and missing). How exactly does this losing things in reverse work?

I think I'm off to practice now....

A miracle of nature

There they were again today. I hadn't seen them for several months, but all of a sudden, a flock of them appeared right in front of my eyes.

.

Panettones. These shy, elusive creatures can be quite hard to spot, even for the most experienced student of nature. Their life cycle is quite simple: they appear on the shelf in the store around Christmas, Tim buys them, and they are eaten. In the cooler months of the year, they become afraid that Tim will not eat them, and they tend to hide in dark, difficult to find places. But the poor, timid creatures needn't be afraid. I am always willing to eat them, not being particularly fussy about eating them in season. Which I am just doing now.

And so, the glorious cycle of nature continues on, in all its grandeur and mystery.

If you see any panettones in the wild, feel free to buy them and forward on to me for eating, too, to assist them in their life cycle. Thanks in advance, nature lovers!

Bob

IT'S BOB THE SNAIL, EVERYONE!

Bob the snail! 
Bob the snail! 
He's so slimy and wet! 

Sheep are people too!

Racial connotations over black sheep prompts changes to Baa Baa Black Sheep at Victorian kinders 
BAA, Baa, Black Sheep has been put out to pasture at some Victorian kindergartens because of concern over the racial connotations of “black”. 

Staff at childcare centres in the south-eastern suburbs told the Herald Sun the lyric was being changed to reflect a multicultural community. 

Herald Sun

Considering it's in the Herald Sun, this story is probably crap. But I'd like to say, hooray, anyway! It's about time that dubious song was thrown out or updated to fully reflect the modern, progressive, right-on mindset. I hereby offer three possible revisions of Baa Baa Black Sheep....
 
1. 
Baa, baa, worker sheep, have you any wool?
Yes, fellow comrade! Three bags full!
None for the master, none for the dame,
All for the Bureau chief who lives down the lane!

2.
Baa, baa, Green sheep! Have you any wool?
Organic and sustainable? Fair trade? Cool!
One for the master, one for the dame,
One thousand dollars for the lot? Oh. That's a shame.

3.
Baa, baa, rainbow sheep! Have you any wool?
None at this moment, sorry, we're all off to the Mardi Gras.

A proposal to end all proposals

Breaking up is always hard to do. But to all those considering separating, parting ways, divorcing, or otherwise splitting up with their partner, I have come up with a simple and elegant proposal to make the whole process much more efficient and pleasurable for all concerned: combine it with a well-known advertising slogan for a popular food product. Allow me to demonstrate:

"Darling. I know we haven't been getting on well for sometime now, and the arguments just seem to be getting worse. Frankly, I don't think we can reconcile our differences anymore. I think you agree with me on that, at least. That's why... I think we should.... have a break! HAVE A KIT-KAT!" 

You should really try it, next time you break up. Not that I'm recommending you do.

An Aussie poem

A poem which no-one outside Australia will understand, and the same goes for everyone in Australia too - only less.

An Aussie poem
or
I Tim, therefore I Tam

There's a coolabah at Mooloolaba
With a bogan at the base
And he's sucking on a billabong
With a big grin on his face;
He's weighed how much koalas bear
And knows a cockatoo,
There's an Aussie flag round his tuckerbag,
And his kangaroo's called Blue. 

But the Vegemite or might not
And Collingwood - but won't. 
And the Draught Beer's now all Craft Beer
And your didgeridoo don't. 

At back o' Bourke the Men at Work
Gather with the Drover's Wife
Then fo shizzel with Cold Chisel
Sing of the bugger's life.
And the emu and the Bob Hawke
Form a chorus far away
On lagerphone and telephone
With a Toorali Oorali Ay.

But Paul has ceased from Keating
With Howard's Ruddy end
And my Kit-Kat's lost its kitten
Round the riverbend. 

At Minyip stands a bunyip
And he bids the town goodbye
As he rows down old Les Murray
With a sad and knowing sigh
'til Patterson with his Banjo
Bids him stop and rest at night
For a slice of Magic Pudding
At the Great Australian Bite.

Time like a sausage rolls on
And Cloncurry's going cold
I once was so Vic Bitter,
But now I'm XXXX Gold. 

UPDATE! - The Baron has been trying to persuade me that Kit-Kats are not Australian. What rubbish! They're as Australian as Prime Minister Roosevelt Menzies-Churchill the Second, who invented Tasmania using nothing more than vulcanised rubber!

AND ANOTHER THING - For your edification, there is an alternative version of the second chorus:

But Paul has ceased from Keating
With Howard's Ruddy bum;
For it's hard to have a Gaytime
And tell it to your mum. 

Now aren't you glad I didn't tell you that?

This is the day that was: a dramatic re-enactment

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The Day of the Triffids Hops

Hops are an alarmingly triffid-like plant at the best of times. In John Wyndham's famous novel, Day of the Triffids, the mobile plants are able to uproot themselves and roam the world at will, stinging humans into submission. Hops haven't quite got to that stage yet, but what with their arrow-like buds, their ability to wave around in the air during the day, and their rapid rate of growth - you can virtually see them growing; they gain several centimetres every day in their season - you can tell they could teach the triffids a thing or two.

Ours are currently going like the clappers up the fenced-off bit of garden in front of the beehive. Four weeks ago there was just one or two little nips poking out of the ground. A few days after that, there were six or seven nips poking through the ground. A few days more, and they were waving around in the air, looking for a fence to climb up. Within a week, the longest hop-bine had found the fence, and days after that the other tendrils were grasping at any old piece of fence or netting they could find, too. They grew and grew, going up several finger lengths every day, and creepily twining here and there, almost making you feel like they were turning their heads to watch you as you went around the garden. Three days ago, there was a lull in their activity; perhaps they were deciding what they should do next. Two days ago, they had started developing a system of representative government. Yesterday, they were agitating outside the back door for greater rights for non-animal inhabitants of the household. Today, the situation has become tense and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to prevent them going to war.

So it's been exciting watching them develop in the back garden, all right. I wonder, though, if I'll be able to use some of their cones in my brews this year? We'll see, I guess.

An open and open case

Open-plan living. I hadn't known such a thing actually existed, but since I just read about it in this respectable news source, I am led to the unfortunate conclusion that it does.

It sounds awful - simply on the principle that any phrase beginning with the word 'open' is usually a coy euphemism for a dreadful reality. 'Open-plan office': a place where, in an attempt to maximise workplace productivity, everyone is spying on everyone else all the time and no work actually does get done. 'Open-minded people': people who are alert to any and every possibility except the most obvious and correct ones. 'Open relationships': exercises in lies, deceits, and selfishness. 'Open marriages': formalised exercises in the same. 'Open window' - oh yeah. That one's not actually a euphemism, but what the hell? It's cold outside!

As G K Chesterton once said, "Something something something something something open your mind to something something something something close it upon something something something." WORDS TO LIVE BY.

This post is now closed!

EBOLA!

DON'T PANIC EVERYONE!

It's just an e-bowler hat. Sorry about the little misspelling in the title.

Smoking is fantastic!

Dad retired from work a bit early, and ever since he's been a bit restless. He spends a lot of his time now at home working on projects, "project" being the word he uses in his letters to describe what he's doing with himself.

The Baron and I recently discovered that the best way of finding out what the projects are that he's working on is to surreptitiously suggest them to him. This is the way we go about it: when we're up in Raymond Terrace at my parents', I say something like, "so we were thinking we need to get a [exceedingly rare and improbable item that you wouldn't be able to get anywhere else]". Dad usually pays no attention to this, so then Mum tells him to make it. In this way, we were able to get ourselves a chook carrier (actually getting stuff for ourselves is a, er, side benefit of this). It's really great, with a door at the top to put the chooks through and pegs so we can take the whole top on or off when we want.

Dad's latest project (which we suggested to him, naturally), was a cheese smoker. I had no idea how to go about making one myself - not surprising, though, as I have next to no practical skills in any area whatsoever. Mind you, I doubted Dad could pull it off either. Dad wasn't even sure actually, as in his first couple of letters about the project he seemed distinctly skeptical of the proposition. Eventually he came across a workable design on the net, and a series of tantalising discussions of his project followed in his letters. Last week, the glorious day came when the Baron actually set eyes on the thing:

That's right, it's made entirely out of wood. And it's going to smoke the cheeses. With smoke. From a fire....! The smoke is piped through a tunnel, cools down, and then just wafts around the cheeses until they are imparted with its flavour. Dad gave a series of complicated instructions in one of his recent letters talking about how he installed several "baffles" on the sides of the smoker. They're called baffles because neither you nor I have any idea what they are.

Everyone seems to have anticipated one particular difficulty we might have with this cheese smoker, including Dad himself, ie, what's to stop it catching flame while we are in the act of smoking the cheese? Or cheeses, multiple - apparently it can do about fifty. When I spoke to Dad on the phone he pretty much told me to make lots of cheese to smoke in it.

I'm pretty cool with that last suggestion, so I'm thinking in a couple of weeks I might have a smoking party! We'll take this huge contraption out back, strap it up, get a fire crankin' and shove some cheeses in. Might as well make an event of it - because we might be only able to use it once....

By the way, some readers may have thought I was talking about this sort of smoking in the title:

That's fantastic too!

All about the Big Final

Well, it's AFL Big Final time here in Australia once again, and the question is on everyone's lips: who will win, the Hawks, or the other guys? It's a great time to be alive, that's for sure, but just what is this AFL everyone is excited about? Let's find out!

The Game
AFL stands for Australian Fandangle Lobby, which name doesn't particularly have much to do with the game, but just represents the advanced state of drunkenness the members were in at the time that they settled upon that title. AFL is a game in which two teams of players compete to hit one ball with a racket through a set of hoops at opposite ends of the pool. The game is divided into three quarters, which are positioned at the corners of the field. If the game goes into overtime, horses are brought into pool and the players ride the horses, or the horses ride the players, whichever is easiest, until the outcome is decided. Just how exactly this decides the game, I have no idea, but as I said. Everyone was drunk at the time.

The Teams
There are several teams in the competition - at least three. They are: The Hawks, the Swans, the Tigers, the Lions, the Quambatook Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, and the Other Ones. For several years in the formative stage of the game, there was only one team, the Tigers, with an unbroken record of success, but this was found to be somewhat limiting to the competition, and so gradually the number  of teams was expanded. Each of the teams have particular colours associated with them, from the Hawks' distinctive gold and brown costume to the Gold Coast's attractive livery of mahogany and puce.

The Supporters
Historically, each football team has had a broad support base from fans across the country, whether those fans be That Drunk Who Embarrasses Everyone On The Train, That Person Whose Boss Dragged Them Along To The Game, and The Kid Who Doesn't Really Care But Just Goes Along to the Game Anyway For The Donuts Their Parent Buys. The fans are vocal and really help to give the game so much colour and character.

Conclusion
In the end, it doesn't really matter which team you support, the Hawks, the Swans, or the other ones. What matters is that AFL is a proud national tradition stretching right back to at least last year. Can I have another donut?

Footage from the 2013 Big Final. A particularly delicate manoeuvre, in which both teams attempt to checkmate the other. 

In which you find out to your surprise that you do not exist, and I probably don't either

Astute readers of my blog may have noticed the post I did yesterday in which I noted that "no-one reads blogs anymore". This probably means that the astute readers of my blog do not actually exist. I apologise for any pain and discomfort this may have caused: it may take some time for you to adjust yourselves to your newly-discovered incorporeality. I'm sure you're still astute, but.

Anyway, while writing that sentence, I started thinking back about those earlier years when people actually read blogs, and sometimes even commented on them. Do you remember those? Or you could cast your mind back even earlier, to newspapers, which were really great. For those who aren't aware, newspapers were invented in the 20th century by Frank Packer, and printed on large sheets of paper to be delivered to fish and chips stores and places like that (that's why newspapers were invented, for wrapping fish and chips up in). Sometimes, someone would even open up a newspaper, read a story, and then make a "comment" on the story. They made this comment by somewhat archaic means, ie, they opened their mouth and let sounds come out in the form of words until the comment had been made. When Malcolm Turnbull invented computers and the internet at the end of the 20th century, thankfully, more civilised means of making comment by keyboard were found.

It was great writing a blog back in the day, because heaps of people would leave comments. There was a kind of ritual about these things: people would read a sentence in the blog post, and then make a comment on it. Over time, this little ceremony was simplified, so that people would just read a word, or a small item of punctuation, and comment on that. Eventually even that was deemed too complicated, and many people would just pop into blogs, leave a comment on any old topic they desired, and go elsewhere. Thus the inexorable march of the mind continued.

Then along came Facebook and things just got really confusing. Instead of leaving a comment on blogs, people would link blogs on Facebook and others would leave comments there, too. This was rather ingenious, actually, as it allowed another simplification: instead of leaving random non-sequiturs* as comments on a blog, it allowed people to leave random non-sequiturs as comment - on Facebook. Not only would people not have to read a blog post, or a sentence, or a word, or a letter, or an item of punctuation, or a tiny jot or or tittle from the original blog post to respond to it, they wouldn't even have to be on the same page as it. Facebook, incidentally, also sometimes allows people to comment on other people's comments, which is an incredibly revolutionary step which many bloggers could only dream of. True, back in the days of newspapers, people could comment on other people's comments, but only by engaging in something called "a conversation", involving incredibly archaic technology which I have no space to go into here: "dialogue", "thoughtful response", "rational debate". Thank heavens we've moved on since those days.

Anyway, it all makes you realise what a wonderful thing progress is, doesn't it? Mind you, there are still some things better about the old days. For instance, fish and chips just doesn't taste the same now it comes wrapped in iPhones and Kindles. All that circuitry really interferes with the flavours. It's a real drag, man.

*Random non-sequiturs: can there be any other kind?

Desperate times

I spent a good deal of this morning avoiding doing work. No surprises there, obviously, but as it turned out avoiding doing work was such hard work that I eventually had to do work as a way of getting a break from the strenuous avoidance of work that I was working hard on earlier in the day.

Which is obviously why you find me here, at the computer, er.... avoiding doing work.

Hmmm. Pretend you didn't read this. (And, since no-one reads blogs anymore, you probably didn't.)

People who really like dogs and numbers

Judging from this list of  titles for craft breweries (and craft beer), those small brewers don't have much imagination when it comes to names. Either that, or they really like dogs and numbers.

Brew Dog
Moon Dog
Hop Dog
Black Dog
Dogfish Head
Two Birds
Two Brothers
Three Ravens
Three Troupers
Two Wives

The perfect craft beer title: Five and a Half Puppy Dogs and Seven Troupers Who Are Wives Go Out With a Fish?

A poem that has something to do with bees

I waxed my cheese - 

What a jolly wheeze! 

PS bees.

Poetry for the advanced drinker

One of the many cultivations of the advanced drinker is the ability to quote poetry while drinking in an advanced state. It is a wonder what a difference quoting the right sort of poetry will make to a convivial evening's end. Indeed, many will wonder how quoting poetry even started. Poetry deals with all the great subjects: death, life, trees. Stand up and quote the following delightful poem about trees by Joyce Kilmer:

I see that I shall never think

A poem as lovely as a drink.

Then have a drink. You may realise at about this point that the poem has been entirely deforested and has no trees in it. Perhaps it is a case of not being able to see the forest for the pint glass. Better have another drink while you think about it some more.

A political statement

The Queen Wants Scots To 'Think Very Carefully' About Independence

The Queen's views on independence may have been revealed once more. She has reportedly said she hopes people will "think very carefully about the future" as the Scottish independence referendum campaign enters its final days.

It's simply appalling that people should be insulted in this day and age by someone saying they should 'think very carefully' about their future! Especially in incredibly complex matters that deal with the affairs of populous nations with the lives of millions of people at stake! In such circumstances, it is vitally important that people act blindly and wilfully without thinking of the consequences, before it's too late. Speaking as a representative of the People That Act Blindly and Wilfully Without Thinking of the Consequences, I can't stress the importance of people acting blindly and wilfully without thinking of the consequences highly enough. It's the only way progress will be made! While it is true that objections have been made about a certain highly contentious faction of the People That Act Blindly and Wilfully Without Thinking of the Consequences, that is, the Idiots That Act Like a Bunch of Lemmings Who Stupidly Rush Over A Cliff Without Knowing What Dreadful Fate Awaits Them, those people have acted like a bunch of lemmings and stupidly rushed over a cliff without knowing what dreadful fate awaited them, so that problem has been dealt with. Meanwhile, I would just like to refer you all to the central policy of our incredibly influential party, that is, The Policy of Acting Immediately In a Highly Emotional State Before Something Too Dreadful To Contemplate Happens. It is in accordance with this policy that I would like to announce that I just tipped a bucket full of fresh ricotta curds down my head while reciting the words to Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's Aurora Lee in a fake French accent. Take note, David Cameron! Beware, Tony Abbott! This is just a small example of what the People That Act Blindly and Wilfully Without Thinking of the Consequences will do when forced to.

In conclusion, who does this Queen person think she is? The head of a nation or something like that? I mean, really!

Rhyme scheme

Just like businesses and corporations have earnings strategies, efficiency targets, mid-year goals and fiscal outlooks, poets have rhyme schemes. Chaucer had the Rhyme Royal. Pope had Heroic Couplets. Spenser had his own Spenserian Stanza. Dante had Ottava Rima. Whitman didn't have any, but he made so much noise and waved his arms about in a wild and distracting manner, so people thought that he did. Auden had pretty much all of them. I thought it was about time we gave this blog a rhyme scheme, too.

cat	hat pit-a-pat mat sat fat flat contrived to have an uzi hidden beneath his gaily-coloured cravat
dog	log  fog mog smog snog Dutch clog  Dirk Harthog
night	light flight might blight height bright kite sight spite  sprite Vegemite
incentivise	itemise synchronise corporate enterprise exercise  estuarise strategically advise mild surmise "Smithers, I can't help but feeling that this once-proud institution is full of spies" sad demise

The results of this rhyme scheme will shortly be released in a growth-profit matrix, with Powerpoint, a three-day workshop presentation, and a little blue booklet. I really think we're going places with this one.

Let's go to the opera!

The beloved opera duo Gilbert and Sullivan's HMAS Metaphor, a classic of the opera buffa genre, and a great hit at the time, has seen few performances of late. This is a pity, because the plot is amongst the G&S's best. It concerns the good ship Metaphor, whose crew set sail on a long extenuation into the seas of Circumstance and Peril. In the middle of their extenuation, they arrive at the island Sardonic, and are taken in by Don Sequitur and his two beautiful daughters, Simile and Inclined. Don Sequitur used to be an Irony magnate, but these days his temper has changed, and he sings the famous song: "I am like the very model of a modern major general". But what is this? It appears both of his daughters are in love with one of the crew of the Metaphor, the cabin boy, Al Egorical. They sing the touching aria, "To think we never met afore", which is overheard by the ship's captain, Metonym, who resolves to act as a go between and bring lovers together. When Al Egorical spies Simile dancing the Spanish Hyperbole, his heart is won over, while Inclined agrees to marry Captain Metonym. All is joy and happiness, and, in a Clash of Symbols, the opera concludes.

Text-to-voice haiku

(Our old friend the Text-to-voice lady is back, this time with some inspiring haiku) 

Wind tosses papers
On platform bare of people.
Train now arriving.

Blue sky, clear of clouds.
Electric voice, clear of thoughts.
Thank you! Come again!

Thank you for calling
Suicide hotline! There might
Be a short delay.

Suicide hotline!
With so many helpful tips.
Please don't kill yourself.

Suicide hotline!
Waiting for operator.
Hope you like whale song.

Suicide hotline!
Here's a life insurance ad -
Sorry about the wait.

You have reached:  fifth floor.
Empty lift. No-one around.
Lonely doors slide shut.

Thin print of new moon
On trembling curtain of sky:
Press three at the tone. 

Soft words of wisdom
That speak to the heart's deep core:
Stand clear. Doors closing.