Suburban nude

Getting undressed for the shower, you are just shrugging off the final item of clothing when you realise with annoyance that you are not sure whether you have taken the post in for today. Laziness slouches in as you decide you couldn't be bothered putting your clothes back on to get the mail. Soon after comes anxiety, and with it the dawning awareness that you will have to do a naked sprint for the letter box to see if there is any mail (this is even more irritating than those times when you took the bins back in wearing only your dressing gown, or did the gardening in a pair of underpants). Then comes concern: for your neighbours, who will undoubtedly be horrified by your nude sprinting up and down the driveway. Not to mention how embarrassing you will find it if the letterbox actually turns out to be empty because you have either actually taken in the mail earlier today and forgotten about it or you just didn't get any mail today anyway.

And then enters the good old feeling of Ah Fuck It and you turn the shower on and get back to your ordinary state of utter apathetic bliss.

Problems of modern life....

There is a chicken in our house. I am of her flock and she is of mine and it seems we have never known anything different.

This is rather awkward, as there are three chickens in the backyard. I am of their flock and they are of mine and it seems we have never known anything different.

Which is even more embarrassing, for there are three more chickens in the backyard on the other side. I am of their flock and they are of mine and it seems we have never known anything different.

I wonder how I am going to explain it to them all? That I have been seeing flocks behind their backs? I don't know if their tiny chicken brains will be able to comprehend it.

It is all very difficult.

epotry

A POEM ABOUT FREEDOM, BY TIMOTHY H TRAIN

Some say that it's a butterfly

Flitting here and there,

Some say that it's cheap alcopops,

Or lacy underwear,

Some say it is the gift of God,

Some say it is nowhere,

But I say chocolate banana shoes

BECAUSE FREEDOM.

Some say that Bunnings sells it cheap,

Some say it's in the air,

Some say it's something we should try,

Some say we shouldn't dare,

Some say the airline lost theirs

And have nothing to declare,

I swiftly paint my whippets quack

BECAUSE FREEDOM.

Some say it's nudist cars with guns,

Some say it's pubic hair,

Some say it started with the Queen,

Or even Tony Blair,

Some say it's trolling someone's blog

Some say it's being square,

But why do budgies wimples snip?

BECAUSE FREEDOM.

If cymbals ooze along the grams,

Or men bend down in prayer,

If mome-raths gimble in the wabe

Or legs are shorn and bare,

If it's a costly thing to earn,

Or life's not free but fair,

Let spiffing pimples tango now -

BECAUSE FREEDOM. 

NOTE: The poet does not endorse painting your whippets.

Because freedom. 

Critica dicta

"Can art exist without an audience?" - Alison Croggon. 

If artists did not exist, it would be necessary for critics to invent them.

Criticism is the sound of one hand clapping.

All artists are thwarted critics.

If a tree falls in the forest and there is no critic to analyse its fall, is it really art?

Art lies in wait for the creator. The creator lies in wait for an audience. The critic lies in wait for them all.

It may be possible to write the perfect criticism, but only of art that does not exist.

It is not necessary for art to be created to be art.

It is not necessary for art to be created to have an audience.

It is not necessary for art to be.

It is not necessary for conceptual art to have a concept.

All minimalist art is overstatement. All maximalist art is an understatement. Criticism is the in-between.

Art is an argument between a critic, the artist, and life.

Chook central

Chooks seem to present themselves in many and varied ways at our house. We started off with a modest modicum of chooks, Daisy and Griselda, to be layers. They were duly given a pen to the side of the garden and duly began laying.

Shortly after this, we were presented with Agatha by my brother. Agatha had an interesting story; she had for some months been living at my brother's house in Warburton, on the side of a large hill, with two guinea fowl. At night, foxes would come down off the hill and pick off the guinea fowl, but Agatha survived. We were wondering how she was going to fit in when she came to our house, but we needn't have worried: instead of waiting for the other chooks to peck her, Agatha just lowered her head and ran madly at Daisy and Gris and pecked them both into submission before placing herself over the food bowl and scoffing the lot. In fact, we've discovered pecking is pretty much Aggie's raison de etre - she'll peck anything from a trouser leg to a fellow chicken, just to keep her beak in.

For a time being we acquired Henry, because Daisy got clucky and we took pity on her and gave her an egg and in due course we all got to know the egg better, and there you go. Henry was a bantam rooster, in fact, and took to living inside, perching on teapots, and placing himself between the sounding boards of the harp and the piano when he wanted to crow. What a soothing, tranquil time that turned out to be.

Daisy and Gris eventually slowed down in their laying and we acquired Esme and Shirley, the two Australorps; and eventually Esme became clucky, as Daisy had before her. We gave her some eggs, too, which is how we ended up with Geoffrey (despite the name, Geoffrey is most likely a girl).

What is this all leading up to? Well, this afternoon I was lying in the bath when a chap positioned himself at the front door and began shouting in. "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" Eventually the Baron wandered out, and I got some clothes on (well - a towel counts doesn't it?) and went out as well. He was holding a chicken. Another brown, by the looks of it (quite like our Daisy and Griselda). And he was kind of sort of wondering what to do with her.

How had he discovered us? It appears he'd been wandering round our street and asked someone walking the dog if anyone round here had chickens. Apparently we're a bit ostentatious about the whole chicken-keeping thing - (what - is it the habit of walking the chooks on the oval, the loud squawking in the morning from the Australorp's house, the occasional habit they have of escaping into neighbour's gardens, making it necessary for us to somewhat illegally leap fences and chase them out again?) Who would have thought? 

So we appear to have a new chicken. She's sleeping in the laundry right now.

You've heard that expression 'chick magnet', right?

Well, the Baron and I appear to be something similar. We're bloody chook magnets!

Our new neighbour

When you have bees, you often hear or read other people telling you: "tell your neighbours about your bees". "Take them some honey", they'll advise. "Do it soon! Do it now!"

Somehow, the Baron and me never quite got around to the Telling Our Neighbours About Our Bees part. No, we're pretty resolutely and adamantly stuck in the Not Telling Our Neighbours About Our Bees part of our lives, and we're getting pretty good at it, let me say. We do some Not Telling Our Neighbours About Our Bees frequently and often, so much so that by now, just about everyone in the neighbourhood must have been not told about our bees. It's amazingly successful. Mind you, our neighbours might have found about our bees anyway, thanks to the magic of looking over the back fence, but if they have, they haven't told us about it, which seems right and proper.

Some new neighbours recently moved in next door. We had come to know the old neighbour, T, pretty well; he was the one with the Chow Chow dog, though he told us officially the landlord wouldn't allow dogs on the property. Well, these new neighbours, it turns out, have a dog too (which amazingly I didn't find out by looking over the back fence - well, not before he had announced his own presence anyway). This reflects well on them, I think. In keeping with the general comradely spirit of the neighbourhood, they haven't told us about the dog, and we haven't told them about our bees, so I think we're getting along reasonably well.

Anyway, today we decided to get rid of a few cat biscuits, and what better way to do so than by using it to bribe the dog? The Baron snuck a look over the back fence and saw that the dog was sleeping; a hasty, "puppy!" quickly brought him trotting curiously over to the fence. He was just gathering his energy to bark, apparently, when the Baron scattered some cat food on the ground. He loved it! When I went to have a look, a few minutes later, he was still scarfing up all the biscuits lying around. (I was happy to add to the collection).

You know, it's just possible the neighbours see him as a bit of a guard dog. I'm not sure about that, so much. He's good at eating biscuits, though. I hope he doesn't tell his people.

I don't know if this blog post had a point except for how wonderful it is to not tell people things. And even if it did.... I wouldn't tell you anyway.

Salad daze

This might sound odd coming from me in my thirty sixth year of existence, but I don't get salad. Just what is it anyway? A smattering of lettuce, a spritz of vinegar, a trivality of tomato or apple or citrus to provide flavour? It is less a food stuff than a bowl full of oxygen with some vegetable matter in the in-between spaces.

Salad raises profound questions of existence: when does a bowl of leaves and vegetables and stuff stop being just leaves and vegetables and become a salad? Who even eats salad, anyway? Salad has long been regarded as a vegetarian cliche, but in my experience vegetarians are hardly ever interested in salad: "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse-sized soy-bean curd block!" cries the Archetypical Vegetarian, standing proudly on the hill and casting aside the inconsequential arrangement of arugula they have been presented with.

Try as I might, I can never make a bowl of lettuce and vegetables go from being a bowl of lettuce and vegetables to being a proper salad. Is there a formula one can use to balance out the lettuce leafs with a proportional amount of non-lettuce leaf material? Ought I be carefully measuring out and weighing each lettuce leaf to determine the impact they will make on the final complex mathematical algorithm for the stochastic system of food that will grace my bowl? How can you stop the liquid stuff, the vinegar and oil and all that, from just trickling down to the bottom of the bowl? Wouldn't it just be more simple, more honest, if, instead of presenting people with a bowl of lettuce leafs on the table, to just bowl the whole lettuce over the floor towards them?

 

The vegetable that missed its calling as a bowling ball. 

And surely, if the lettuce is really what people are after, we could think of a better system of serving it up to them than salad. Couldn't we decorate these round, attractive little balls of leaf-matter by carving them? Alternatively, we could stuff them with other food stuffs: or, for the real lettuce afficionados, we could serve them up as lettuce shiskebabs, on pointed sticks, as a frugal but nourishing treat in these financially-straitened times.

Surely this would make more sense than to serve them up in - a salad.

Hetero-metro-friendly Valentines

1.
I love you in a totally-not-gay-
Not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that-way.
So hetero-metro-friend of mine,
Would you be my Valentine?

2.
Send him Roses chocolates fine,
My heteroflexual Valentine,
And casks of sparkling goon bag wine,
My intellectual Valentine,
And when our hands and lives entwine -
Oh! Man! Dude! Too far! My sweet asexual Valentine.

3.
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Here, have a beer.
I'm off to the loo.

4.
For Valentines I got your flowers
But the postage cost too much, man.

Thought for the day: on keeping a tidy house

It's amazing how messy things don't look when you ignore them.

Blurst poem in the world

Like being the oldest person in the world and then dying, being the worst poet in the world and then writing something to prove that is hardly an exclusive category these days. It was just over a year ago when Gina Rinehart wrote the (allegedly) worst poem (in the 'universe', according to this story), and now Aussie battler Rinehart finds herself pipped at the post by newcomer Kristen Stewart:

Kristen Stewart writes worst poem of all time 

 Kristen Stewart is doing anything she can to escape the brooding monotony of her one-dimensional performance as Bella in teen horror-romp Twilight... 

 Behold… The worst poem of all time, which she recited out loud to the publication during her cover interview, and kindly allowed them to publish in full for their own general amusement.... 

Just who is the worst poet in the world, in the universe and of all time anyway? Could either of these upstarts really challenge the acknowledged worst poet of all time, William Topaz McGonnagall? Surely it's time for a Worst Poetry Slam to settle this matter for once and for all.

First up, we have Rinehart's poem, Our Future:

 The globe is sadly groaning with debt, poverty and strife 
 And billions now are pleading 

Er, THANK you. Ms Rinehart's effort will now be engraved on stone and cast into the fiery pits of Mordor from whence it has sprung. Next up, Kristen Stewart brings a touch of whimsy to the worst poem competition with her poem, entitled, My heart is a whiffle ball/freedom pole.

 You read its clock, scrawled neon across that black/
Kismetly … ubiquitously crest fallen/
Thrown down to strafe your foothills/
…I’ll suck the bones pretty.

As I said to the Baron earlier today, better than a kick in the pants with a wet sock. 

Now let's move on to Mr McGonnagall, with his beautifully sensitive work, The Tay Bridge Disaster.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time. 

Hey! HEY! If you're going to throw stuff like that, make sure it's only RIPE tomatoes please, and preferably throw them in that bucket over there so we can make some passata afterwards, thank you very much. 

But in the end, gentling ladymen, isn't 'worst poet of the world', like 'favourite poet', rather a subjective category as Wendy Cope points out in her lovely poem Favourite?

When they ask me, “Who’s your favourite poet?”,
I’d better not mention you.
Though you certainly are my favourite poet
And I like your poems too.

William McGonagall looks dourly upon your petty efforts at writing the worst poem in the world.

Bin mot

Awkword.

Newfangled dingle dongle

I was at a blog meet once with Crazybrave and Nabakov and at one point Zoe said, "Let me just google that on my iPad".

"Ten years ago", pointed out Nabakov, "No-one would have the foggiest what that means".

And look where we are now.

It started when I Google pinged my iPad.
My Dragon didn't recognise the tone.
My Wiki didn't upload all my Yahoo
And had left my Facebook status all alone.
My landline wasn't talking with my laptop
And my dongle wouldn't dingle with my phone.

I tried to tweet the error with my pigeon
But nextdoor's Apple drew her from my home.
My fax was whinging to my duplicator
As it sadly tried to Roneo a stone.
I tried to call the neighbour on my mobile,
But my dongle wouldn't dingle with my phone.

I replaced the landline with a ripe banana.
About my floor spaghetti now is strewn.
My laptop's been upgraded to a kitten.
And now, instead of Yahoo, I just Groan.
And all because my Google pinged my iPad
But my dongle wouldn't dingle with my phone. 

A great novel, summarised in verse

The following novel may or may not exist. But if anyone challenges me, "This isn't fiction at all! You just made it all up!", then my only answer is, "Yes, but it's all true, dammit!"

A GREAT NOVEL

Summarised briefly

In verse

Her breast

He pressed

Unto his chest,

Caressed.... 

The rest. 

Distressed, 

Obsessed, 

Depressed - 

Molest molest molest molest molest. 

"Good sir, unhand the lady, lest" - 

"Well, do your best!" 

"I'll put your weapon to the test!" 

"Murder! Fire! Arrest! Arrest!" 

Digressed, 

Went west. 

There met an old time friend, 

When pressed, 

Confessed - 

Incest. 

EPILOGUE

It was only in the summer of that fateful year we found she had been demonically possessed.

Things to do on a hot day

Close everything.  
Close door, screen door, lock both, and slide bolts shut on back door, because the heat is a bastard and will try and get in no matter what you do.
Take socks off.
Take shirt off.
Take pants off.
Take underpants off.
Look around to make sure nobody is watching because this next bit is a bit rude. Take body off.
Float around the house, a bodiless entity, looking for somewhere cool to nest.
Notice cats are sitting underneath the couch and frame hanging the washing, wish you could fit under there with them.
Open the fridge idly and enjoy the breeze.
Notice it is only 10 o'clock.
In the morning....

UPDATE! - One of the only difficulties in taking all your clothes off in the heat is that sometimes you want to put something in your pocket and you just can't. Even when you have just your undies on your can snap it in between the elastic and your waist.

Of course, you could try putting whatever you want to put in your pocket you know where but then you would sit on you know what and then where the thing you put you know where would go I don't want to know.

An opinion column about the weather

I have just written an opinion column about the weather. Here it is.

An opinion column about the weather

The weather. Everyone talks about it, but it’s time we actually did something about it. By taking hard action and firm decisions on the weather now, our government will win worldwide acclaim and set the planet on path for a better future. Or will it? To find out, I asked Professor of Climactic Meteorology, Mr Tim Tims, if it was time we did something about the weather.

“Yes”, he said.

So that’s that. And yet despite this clear consensus of scientific opinion, there remain a hard core of sceptical deniers cynically nay-saying every call for action in a negative fashion.

Looking for answers, I went to Professor Smith Smith, CBA, HONS, PHD, FGHIJKLMTOZ of Alphabet University.

“The rain’s a bit wet lately” I said. “Surely it’s time for legal recognition of this difficult problem?”

“Well, no” he said.

And so the sad cycle of denialism continues.

Nevertheless, it is becoming overwhelmingly clear to the vast majority of the enlightened community that we need to take action now. I suggest we start with clouds. It’s high time we entrusted this vital public service to a reputable government agency and left all these tired old public/private debates behind. It’s that sort of wasteful situation that has led us to where we are today, wherever that is.

And then there’s wind. The situation here is certainly becoming urgent. Sure, we’ve all enjoyed the sensation of a cool breeze in our hair during a long hot day at the beach, but isn’t it time we all acted sensibly and restricted the distribution of wind to those who most need it, in order to keep this vital national resource for future generations of Australians?

And what about the sun? On the one hand, thousands of people all over the world have enjoyed its benefits from time immemorial, but isn’t it time we got rid of this outdated technology and replaced it with a truly modern public transport system? This proposal has its critics, but when I conducted a reader survey in the following paragraph, the results from readers were outstandingly positive.

SHOULD WE REPLACE THE SUN?

1. Yes  ________________________.

(Please tick relevant box).

There are many many more examples that I could go through, but when we get on top of things, the bottom line is this: isn’t it time we replaced the environment with something more cost-effective and health-wise to prevent the rise of childhood obesity and preventable workplace fatalities? Isn’t it time that we, at the very least, included a health warning to ensure that we look after all Australians, instead of perpetuating the old colonialist system of racial discrimination? I think we both know the answer to that question. Or do we? Yes.

FIG 1: Clouds.Yet another example of how desperate the situation has become.

Proposed new character for Sesame Street

Previously, beloved children's educational program Sesame Street has introduced such characters as Alex, whose muppet father is in prison, and has taught Cookie Monster that "cookie is a sometimes food".

I would like to propose a new character for the program, loosely based on the already existing character, The Count.  This new character would help to introduce children to the magic of swearing, and he would be called - The Cunt.

As I see it, his main function in the program would be to laugh manically while reeling off lists of naughty words, culminating in a final, apocalyptic shout of "Cunt", with theatrical organ music, thunder cracks and lightning flashes, bats, etc.

Sample scene:

(THE CUNT enters his castle and finds BIG BIRD and SNUFFLEUPAGUS waiting for him.)

THE CUNT: Bollocks! I vastn't expecting to see you!

BIG BIRD and SNUFFY block up their ears as best they can, shocked at THE CUNT's profanity. 

THE CUNT: Eh? Vats zat? Bollocks, doodle! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Bollocks, doodle, fanny, arsche, titz! BWHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Bollocks, doodle, fanny, arsche, titz, pussy, cock! BWAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Bollocks, doodle, fanny, arsche, titz, pussy, cock, nipple, ving-vang - (pause for dramatic effect) - CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNT!  BWAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Cue usual thunder, lightning, organ music, flying penises and vaginas, etc).

(In his excitement, THE CUNT stubs his toe on a stair)

THE CUNT: Ach! Oopschie-doopschie!

FIN

(Possibly some might prefer him to titter manically rather than laugh manically. I'm open to suggestions on that point.)

The dangers of excessive thinking

If, like me, you find that the drinking of beer at some point leads to the brewing of beer, which leads to talking about beer and thinking about beer excessively - a sad decline I could have avoided if I'd only stuck with the drinking - at some point, you'll start talking about the beginning of beer. People have talked about the beginning of beer since, well, the beginning of beer, so there's a lot of stories about, although oddly we don't know which story is the right one. Perhaps if we hadn't been telling so many stories and paying attention we would know exactly how it happened.

With the coming of this advanced age of scientific achievement and technical rigour and shiny machines that go ping and stuff, you'd think we'd have worked it all out and really know how beer began. But no, we're still telling stories, more stories, often just as unconvincing and disreputable as the stories told by earlier, more drunk people, but far less entertaining.

I recall watching part of a documentary about beer creating civilisation where one scientist claimed that beer originated by early humans putting beer 'in a collection vessel'. A 'collection vessel'. Right. Couldn't he have just said 'a pot?' The early humans then went off and did early human things while somehow the barley got wet, then sprouted, and then leached out sugar into the water, and then began to ferment.

A recent theory about the origin of mead that I read contained some similar rather silly speculation: the earliest mead maker was mixing honey with water to make it flow better, and gathering it in an animal skin bag, 'perhaps' speculated the writer, to take back the honey to the 'alpha' human. Who knows just why he wanted to drag in this piece of half-arsed sociology and anthropology into his speculating about the origins of mead, but at any rate, the theory itself is as simple as some folks put water and honey in a bag and then some yeast came along. Which could just as well be how it happened, but on the other hand, if we really want a farfetched origin story, why don't we turn to the drunk, dangerous, and much more entertaining ancient Scandinavians:


The gods had a dispute with the folk which are called Vanir, and they appointed a peace-meeting between them and established peace in this way: they each went to a vat and spat their spittle therein. Then at parting the gods took that peace-token and would not let it perish, but shaped thereof a man. This man is called Kvasir, and he was so wise that none could question him concerning anything but that he knew the solution... when he came upon invitation to the abode of certain dwarves, Fjalar and Galarr, they called him into privy converse with them, and killed him, letting his blood run into two vats and a kettle. The kettle is named Ódrerir, and the vats Són and Bodn; they blended honey with the blood, and the outcome was that mead by the virtue of which he who drinks becomes a skald or scholar.

So: the Gods make a man out of spit, and then the blood of this man of spit is mixed with honey to become mead. Got that? Spit appears again when we read the following from The Kalevala:

'Thou, my golden-breasted marten,
Thou my son of golden color,
Haste thou whither I may send thee,
To the bear-dens of the mountain,
To the grottoes of the growler,
Gather yeast upon thy fingers,
Gather foam from lips of anger,
From the lips of bears in battle,
Bring it to the hands of Kapo,
To the hands of Osmo's daughter.'


"Then the marten golden-breasted,
Full consenting, hastened onward,
Quickly bounding on his journey,
Lightly leaping through the distance
Leaping o'er the widest rivers,
Leaping over rocky fissures,
To the bear-dens of the mountain,
To the grottoes of the growler,
Where the wild-bears fight each other,
Where they pass a dread existence,
Iron rocks, their softest pillows,
In the fastnesses of mountains;
From their lips the foam was dripping,
From their tongues the froth of anger;
This the marten deftly gathered,
Brought it to the maiden, Kapo,
Laid it in her dainty fingers.

"Osmotar, the beer-preparer,
Brewer of the beer of barley,
Used the beer-foam as a ferment;
But it brought no effervescence,
Did not make the liquor sparkle.

For those who didn't bother reading that to the end, it basically says that in order to get the first beer ready, "Osmotar, the beer-preparer" orders for some wild-bear spit. There's also an oak chip and cones from the fir tree and a magic squirrel and bee involved in there somewhere, to be honest I can't remember it all in detail. Still, you're not going to get that from a chap who habitually talks about 'collection vessels' and honey being collected for 'alpha humans', are you?

I don't really have any other examples and it's too hot to think of a proper way of rounding this post off, so instead I'll just

UPDATE! - By the way. Beer poetry here!

Theology corner!

Now Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and he put him to death. - 1 Chronicles 2: 3

Er, just how did Er err? Was Er who erred from Ur? Did Er err in Ur?

Heyza, groovtacular heptasms!

I wrote this on the weekend. I still have no idea what it means.

Heyza, groovtacular heptasms! Want a coolio dealio to zwing-zwang your razzamattazz? To zip-zooptacular up your supercallafragilisticexpialadocious dongle so it's in tip-top-tip-top-tip-topper form? Calltextmailbuzzzapdinglezankfaxvote 131 at 131 at abcdefg dot dash dot dash dot dot dot dash dash dash dot com NOW!

Following that, I wrote this:

Actually certainly definitely really real people! Suffering an existential crisis? LOGISTIC SOLUTION ANSWER PROBLEMATIC TECHNO-SOLUTION LOGISTICS could potentially possibly hypothetically maybe just maybe help you! Call 1300 1300 1300.

Short and to the lack of point. Then I concluded with this:

Fun fun fun in a gloriously funky funnulacious ball of amazulament to the power of a fazillion burning suns fun! It isn't fun-ish! It's definitely not -ish! No ish-ishm-iffy-um-izzy-and/or-backslash-hyphen-ish at all! No! It's fun-tacular-acious-est-est-est-isular-itely-ently-intly-full-stop-exclamation-mark-aciousness to the power of wow! What were we talking about again? I forget. Oh yeah! Fun! Hyperglycaemictasms of fun! We're coughing up great gobularverbosities of fun! Where? I wish I knew! Call me to let me know! I don't have my phone number either so call me to let me know that too! FUN!

Thank you for your time.

Degrees of dissatisfaction

It's going to be 43 degrees today. I could have gone through all my life without knowing that it was going to be 43 degrees celsius on the 14 of January 2014 quite happily, but strangely everyone seems to keep announcing this. "It's going to be 43 degrees tomorrow" announced the Baron yesterday, meaning that by the time the tomorrow that she was talking about had rolled around, it was today. Meanwhile, everyone on facebook apparently felt some curious mass urging to announce that it is going to be 43 degrees today, because it is of course absolutely necessary to know with all the exactitude of modern measurement precisely what degree it is going to be on any one particular day. Just to round things off, I logged on to the Bureau of Meteorology which informed me chirpily of the forecast, which was that it was going to be 43 degrees today. Just why, exactly, they wish to inform me in such detail about this particularity, I do not know, as they are comparatively cavalier and creative in their approach to talking about the rain: "some rain", "mostly dry", "shower or two", "few showers", "scattered showers", "possible shower". There is a lovely ambiguity in all of these statements: it leaves open the possibility that there could be no showers at all, and there could be a great deal of showers too. By comparison, the two little numerous "Four" and "three" when combined in the temperature reading of "Forty three degrees celsius" have a brute force; they are positively terrifying. Do I really need to know it is going to be 43 degrees? Why not just say that it's going to be BLOODY HOT.

 But it is perhaps a matter of personal taste. I am not one of those who wishes to grimly inform others just what the temperature is going to be tomorrow. Perhaps I might, quietly, log on to the Bureau of Meteorology occasionally to note the pertinent facts, shake my head sorrowfully at the way things are going to be, and then grimly endure it as much as I can.

It's another question entirely after you have been through the Bloody Hot day in question. Then I feel the particular temperature should be announced loudly and proudly to everyone and anyone in particular. "Yesterday was 43 degrees and it was BLOODY HOT"....