Presenting a pointless political post by a persnickety prick

It's voting time almost in two days except for those who have already postal voted, and I'm happy to say that though the major parties have plenty of policies that are only superficially appealing to serious voters,  they have plenty of policies that are seriously appealing to superficial voters. Of which I am one. So, in that spirit of judging a book by its cover, let's hie to their websites now and award them points on a series of completely pointless points that we can point to.

First up, the Liberals: their polices include - um - well - um actually, they have

OUR PLAN

and what a planny plan it is, by which we will planfully plan our way back to freedom! And I could actually go on to look at the plan in some detail, but remember, we're looking to see policies that are seriously appealing to superficial voters, and I wouldn't want to take this too seriously. So I won't.

Next up, Labor. What sort of policies do they have?

POSITIVE POLICIES


Hooray! That's even more seriously appealing  in a superficial way than the Liberal Plan! Well, that was Shorten sweet.

And what about the Greens? Let's apply an equally fact-free analysis to their website. Do they have a plan? A policy? Well no, as it turns out: they have

OUR VISION

WHOA that's way better than Positive Policies and I don't even know what it means! And anyway, too much alliteration is bad for the environment. And now we have reached the end (or perhaps the superfices) of my superficial post.

Pom

Now pay attention class, I'm only going to say this once.

Pom - an English person.
Pompom - a fluffy ball.
Pomnipotence - infinite power possessed by an English person.
Pompomnipotence - infinite power gained through the wielding of pompoms.
Pompompomnipotence - infinite power gained through the wielding of English pompoms.
Pompompompomtiddlypompomnipotence - singing a meaningless ditty while gaining infinite power through the wielding of English pompoms.

That's all for today, class.

For your homework, I invite you all to submit a picture of a Pompominatrix. Thank you for your time.

Incredibly original poem about brewing

There was a young brewer from Ryde

Who ate some green barley and died

The barley fermented

Inside the lamented

And made Acetaldehyde.

Typo which I didn't actually type and I'm sorry I'll promise to do worse next time

Earpugs.

A tale of modern romance

Strephon & Phyllis: a tale of modern romance 

Strephon flicked through his phone to the live-dating app

As he scrolled through the names and the nonsense and pap. 

He swore he'd find one for a funky night out 

(Though fat chicks and those over 30 were right out). 

Through selfies and poutings and duck face he scrolled - 

Too chubby - too skinny - too squinty - too old - 

He would Try Hard and Die Hard, (an iPhone Bruce Willis)

When just then he alit on the page of fair Phyllis. 

A radiant vision she seemed to his eyes, 

A glorious Goddess in mere mortal guise - 

Strephon knew in a flash he was on to a winner: 

Perhaps he could even invite her to dinner. 

Poor Strephon knew not of the magic of Cupid - 

How one blow with his bow could send normal men stupid. 

For Strephon, of course, the case was quite dire - 

His head was awhirl and his heart was afire... 

As Strephon held Phyllis in tremulous gaze, 

He scratched at his bum in a rapturous craze 

And thought of the ways he would Phyllis enamour: 

How could he convince this fair maid of his amour? 

Win her and bring her to the temple of Venus? 

"I know", Strephon thought. "I'll show her my penis. 

One pic of my dick which I'll slyly embiggen

So it outranks in grandeur the willy of Smiggin - 

Yes, this surely is the true way to her heart - 

An image of my most masculine part. 

A young, virile member - not a palsied old todger 

Like that that belongs to that old codger Roger. 

Yes, this is my plan and it's done in a tick - 

I'll flick some random chick a pic of my dick." 

And as for what next - Strephon was not concerned -

'Twas no matter, surely - not while his heart burned! 

And shortly, his wang was winging its way 

On wireless ether to her Message tray. 

Just what do you feel after such correspondence? 

Hopeful? Or anxious? Or full of despondence? 

Not Strephon: our hero was full of calm self-collection

After mailing his mail of his male part's .... affection. 

He was not depressed, for he knew she'd be true, 

The one in receipt of his cock billet doux. 

But Strephon could not help but shout with elation

When the phone in his pocket gave welcome vibration - 

He whips out his phone with a whimpering sigh! 

He presses the button to see her reply! 

"O Goddess!" he murmurs with votary air, 

"I see at long last you have answered my prayer!"

And he gazes in trance, with his whole body tingling 

For Phyllis has answered with a snap of a.... dingaling: 

Yes, someone's John Thomas: right there on his screen - 

A random guy's noodle: it's frankly obscene! 

And then - what the Dickens? A second dick pic - 

Strephon murmured aghast, "Gee, this chick is sick!"

As if not content with that paltry selection, 

It soon became clear Phyllis had a collection,

A torrent of sausages, hot dogs and saveloys, 

Kranskys, frankfurters, salamis and bitsofboys,

A series of revellers in full Saturnalia, 

A party of parts and of male genitalia. 

Strephon switched his phone off - but that wasn't enough - 

For he saw in his minds eye those groins in the buff, 

A priapic cavalcade, pixelised, gleaming, 

They marched through his mind in the midst of his dreaming - 

The todger of Roger in front of the rest: 

Now Strephon is moody and sad and depressed, 

And questions and worries his nervous mind cumber - 

Like "Shit that weird Phyllis chick's now got my number!" 

And worse yet - poor Strephon can't shake the suspicion

His photographed phallus has been made an addition 

To Phyllis's library of penile pics - 

MORAL: don't flick some random chick a pic of your dick.

Poem based on several recent stories.

Fig 1: In which fair Phyllis contemplates what to do with the latest addition to her gallery. 

Cleaning is something which I do not like very much

Cleaning is something which I do not like very much, and therefore spend a lot of time avoiding doing. This has the effect of making the house dirtier, which I do not like, because it reminds me of cleaning, which I do not like, and reminds me of the fact that I will have to do some cleaning sometime, which I like even less. Eventually - by some bizarre slip of fate - I find myself actually cleaning, which, taken with thinking about cleaning and avoiding cleaning - is, of all those things, the thing that I like least of all and reminds me all over again why I have spent all this time in the comparatively pleasant activity of avoiding cleaning.

I found myself in this situation the other day; I don't know how I find myself in these situations, really, as I quite enjoy avoiding cleaning: it is a comparatively relaxing and stress-free activity, with the addition of a little extra mould here and there to keep the house bright and colourful. Anyway, I was in one of these situations (better known as the bathroom), and I was cleaning. The situation really was ludicrous: what place on earth does cleaning have in a bathroom? I ask you. In a last ditch attempt to avoid cleaning, I was - forgive me - grizzling in a bad tempered manner in the Baron's general direction.

"What's all this stuff doing in the bathroom?" I said. "It's ridiculous!"

"Clean it!" chirped the Baron chirpily.

I cleaned it, mostly by throwing it underneath the sink where I temporarily couldn't see it. There is a cupboard underneath the sink and as it was already crammed full of stuff, I can't rightly say that it held all the stuff that I threw into it, but I didn't mind, and neither did it.

I desultorily attempted to rub at some of the grime underneath the tap, but found to my frustration I couldn't because of all the things on the sink getting in the way of my hand while trying to rub the grime off under the tap in the process of my general effort to clean up the bathroom which I was doing because..... oh, never mind.

So naturally I went back to cleaning things off the sink. There were a lot of things on the sink, don't ask me why, it's a ridiculous question.

"There's so much soap in here!" I said. "What's soap doing in the bathroom?"

For some strange reason the Baron didn't answer this.

"This is silly! The soap's getting in the way! I'm getting rid of it!" I announced, eventually.

This was a wise decision. What place does soap have in the bathroom, really? None that I can think of, and anyway, after my decision here things went much smoother. I swooped all the cakes of soap off the bench and neatly deposited them in the garbage. Soap really is a nonsensical product at the best of times, but especially so when it is in the bathroom. Not only does it get in the way of grime, which gets in the way of the bathroom, which gets in the way of some other grime that was there before the bathroom, and which is undoubtedly much more attractive and interesting than the bathroom (though perhaps without hot and cold running water), but soap can only be used for one thing - cleaning. Even just writing about soap makes me shudder again as it raises the horrible prospect of cleaning all over again. Ugh!

So: where was I? Oh. Yes. Cleaning. In the bathroom. Having performed the irritating task for long enough (and got rid of all that unpleasant soap) I think I retired shortly after. Cleaning is, aside from anything else, a very strenuous activity. I highly recommend you don't do it.

***

It's possible the Baron later discovered the soap in the bin.

"Why is there soap in the bin?" the Baron asked.

For some strange reason, I didn't answer this.

Mindful of crap

Two words in to an article on random website Wanderlust and we're in "mindful" territory, and I'm scared. One word after that and the word is "sober", closely followed by "subculture", and I'm shedding tears of pure terror. I want to say to these kids: who hurt you? What did alcohol ever do to a harm you? Think you're ready for the whole thing? Let's give it a go -

A mindful 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh no there's that word again

sober subculture 

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

is emerging 

takes me back to the fun old days of temperance activists. Oh. Wait. No, I meant horrifying.

indicating that we’re seeking out deeper, more meaningful connections to others.

And just like "mindful", that "meaningful" gets me again. It's the sheer unmitigated gall of the thing - thing you drunkards are having a "meaningful" time? Why don't you try something "deeper"!

The funny thing is, the more I find out about drink - and the more I drink drink - the more meaningful it is. Who is this mindful subculture anyway, to decide that it's only them who are able to make deeper, more meaningful connections? And just like the temperance activists before them they unwittingly concede to drink a power and an influence far greater than it has over anyone else. No moderate drinking for these people, nothing so pleasant as a little tipsiness,  a modest insobriety, an affable drunkenness. Nope, it's all or nothing, more meaningfulness or vomiting in the gutters.

***

I actually had a longer essay I was thinking of putting in here at this point about all the ways in which beer and wine are beautiful, but nup. However, let me finish off by quoting that notable drunkard, Christ:

31And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like? 32They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. 33For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. 34The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! 35But wisdom is justified of all her children.

Hang on... I don't think there's a single "mindful" in there!

Spray it, don't say it

GRAPHIC artist _____ has been charged by police after she allegedly spat on Richard Pearson, administrator of the newly formed Inner West Council, at a fractious first meeting on Tuesday night. - The Daily Telegraph

A public spit

She felt her hatred churning, roiling,
Deep within a burning, boiling,
Longed to make a final soiling
To The Oppressor's face -
From stomach, chest, and nose and lung
She dredged a booger up among
Her uvula and teeth and tongue -
A deep, dark, bitter taste -

This precious jewel of salt and spite,
Of rancour, fury, bile and blight,
With which she would her target smite -
She gave a secret smile -
And when his face hove into view,
Her lips flung forth the fatal brew,
Across the seething air it flew -
As straight as a missile,

Then broke apart, this mucal matter,
With a most unseemly splatter,
The droplets all went pitter-patter,
Emblems of her rage -
A perfect work of form and function,
Snot and spray and cough and luncheon,
A Jackson Pollock in high dudgeon -
Next day's headlines. Front page.

Feminist things

I have thought long and deeply about feminism, as you all know, and here is a list of feminist things.

The Womandelbrot set.
Womanta rays.
The Communist Womanifesto.
Womanfred, a play by Byron.
Womansplanation. It's a bit like mansplanation but a good thing.
Womanspreading.
Femme dashes.
Femminem, the rapper.
She Guevara.

Because we can never have too many television programs featuring dogs

Please tell me why we don't have this show on the television already?

DEPUTY ASSISTANT HOSPITAL INSPECTOR REX

(SCENE: An ordinary hospital. Or is it? Yes. It is. There is a SECRETARY sitting at a desk. A DOCTOR enters. )

DOCTOR: Have you filled out those forms, Secretary? 

SECRETARY: I certainly have, Doctor. For, as we all know, the most important part of modern medicine is appropriate administrative record keeping in the context of adequate departmental oversight. 

DOCTOR: And we never know when.... 

(MUSIC: "Dog takes over control!"

DEPUTY ASSISTANT HOSPITAL INSPECTOR REX jumps in through the window, shattering it, and stands there while the opening credits run).

DOCTOR:.... Deputy Assistant Hospital Inspector Rex comes WHY DO YOU ALWAYS COME IN LIKE THAT! 

SECRETARY: I didn't even know we had a window. 

DEPUTY ASSISTANT HOSPITAL INSPECTOR REX: Woof! 

SECRETARY: He's right, Doctor! There's no time for that when there's administration to be done! (Plonks several realms of paper on floor in front of Deputy Assistant blah blah etc etc). Here are the files, Deputy Assistant Hospital Inspector Rex! 

DEPUTY ASSISTANT HOSPITAL INSPECTOR REX: (Spews on the files)

DOCTOR: Why, thank you, Sir. 

***

(SCENE TWO: Same place, five hours later.)

SECRETARY: .... and so, Mr Rex, we come to the fiscal slide 13, point D, where... 

OLD LADY: Help! Help! A criminal has taken my purse, but he's terribly afraid of dogs! If you could onl.... 

DEPUTY ASSISTANT HOSPITAL INSPECTOR REX: Woof! 

DOCTOR: He's right! There's no time for that when we're examining Fiscal Slide 13 point D! 

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR MORE EXCITING ADVENTURES OF DEPUTY ASSISTANT HOSPITAL INSPECTOR REX! 

Some may be more real than others

Ideas for workshops in Kyneton. Some may be more real than others.

Spoon carving.
Cabbage massage.
Permacultural yodelling.
Dog unbending.
Egg whittling (with chainsaws).
Egg whittling (traditional, with axes).
Gum scribbling.
Getting in touch with your inner chicken.
Getting your chickens in touch with their inner egg.
Permacultural beard maintenance.
Vermicelli balancing.
Paleo cooking with oblongs.

How to run a national culture - an A to Z

Devastating day of reckoning for Australian arts as 62 organisations miss out on crucial operational funding.  

Australian artists have faced many desperate moments over the past three years, particularly in the last 12 months following the 2015/16 Federal Budget announcement last May, which revealed devastating cuts to the funds distributed by the Australia Council. However, Friday the 13th of May 2016 is now a day that will be remembered in infamy by many as one of the blackest in Australia’s artistic history. Published this morning, the Australia Council have announced the list of 128 fortunate recipients of the highly sought after four-year funding grants. However, many unsuccessful applicants, including 62 organisations previously funded by the Australia Council, are now facing uncertain futures as their operational costs are no longer underwritten.  

Limelight Magazine - Black Friday: Australia Council cuts defund dozens of arts companies

A - artists, the people who make art. They are the most important people of all. A also stands for audiences, but no-one gives a shit about them.

B - bureaucrats, who deliver money to the artists. Everyone loves bureaucrats! Until....

C - cuts to funding happen periodically, but only when evil Coalition governments are in power.

D - despair. It's natural to feel disappointed when your funding source has been cut, but artists, being more important than other people, have much more important feelings: hence, despair.

E - economy, something that doesn't exist and even if it does it's not important anyway and even if it is important it certainly doesn't justify the cuts to funding to the arts, and even if it does it's not important, because emotions.

F - fighting amongst themselves, a fun practice which artists indulge in in these economically-straightened times when they discover their artist friends have got money but they haven't.

F - forms, which artists have to fill out a lot of if they want to have a chance to get funding.

G - gloom, a side-effect of despair (see above).

H - horror, another side effect of despair (see above).

I - independent, something that all artistic organisations lay claim to. Some have been independent for several decades, although strangely independence is only ever possible by being dependent on government for money.

I - institution, icon - things which every artistic group is, especially when its funding is in danger.

J - jobs, jobs, jobs. What some artists lose in the cuts to funding.

K - knitting jumpers for lamp-posts, one of the many important works of art which has previously attracted funding.

L - latte, the traditional food stuff of the artist.

M - minorities, groups which artists often discover they are members of when they are filling out forms.

N - nation, the thing that culture does stuff to, much like a culture does stuff to milk to turn it into a delicious yoghurt, although with less curds, and with more conceptual installations and interpretative dance pieces.

O - opera, something some artists love, most artists complain about, but very few go to. It is usually unaffected by the funding cuts.

P - protests, which at some point someone will organise.

P - paradigms, things that artists shift a lot in their artistic works. No-one has seen a paradigm in the wild, so no-one is quite sure what they look like.

P - politicians, who are ultimately responsible for all the funding.

Q - questions raised, something that important art does, although presumably, it does somewhat less of it now because of the cuts to funding.

R - regions, places which artists care about a lot, although they seldom visit them unless there's funding involved.

S - schmoozing, a helpful thing to do when applying for funding, and which makes it all the more annoying when that funding gets cut.

T - taxpayers, the people who make money, only to have some of it taken off them by politicians with a variety of dubious justifications and spent on art that they don't necessarily want anyway.

U - unemployment, the unfortunate side effect of funding cuts (and of running an artistic organisation for decades without somehow preparing yourself for the day when the funding gets cut).

U - urban areas, the exciting places artists like to hang about in.

V - voluntary support of the arts, a ridiculous thing that artists rightly dismiss, because who wants to make art that people want to pay money to see?

W - whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? A cry of despair uttered by artists when they hear about funding cuts.

X - xenophobia, what artists are fighting against. They're not sure how to link it to the present politicians and the cuts to funding, but they will find a way.

Y - yartz, the - term of contempt for, or endearment with, the arts, depending on whether you are an artist or a lowly taxpayer.

Z - Zzzz, the instinctive response of many non-artists when they see these arguments.

Words that totally should be in the Scrabble dictionary but totally are not

ew - Yuck. This one's obvious.

zot - old word (apparently a Train family word) for nipping into spots in traffic.

queery - an inquiry by a queer person

hgkpfvq - no idea what it means, but that one time it would have been really useful if this was an acceptable bingo.

Font of all wisdom

The ABC is designing its very own font...

TO: All ABC staff
RE: New font. 

... To reflect the changing and diverse nature of Australia's multicultural society, there will not only be an 'Italic' option in this font, there will also be options ranging from Asiatic to Islamic.

Old hegemonic modes of class discourse are outdated, and to embody this, there will be no 'upper-case' and 'lower-case' (upper caste and lower caste, much?). It will all be lower case.

Likewise, 'bold' will no longer be required, as this strikes an unnecessarily aggressive patronymic note, but this will be replaced with a groundbreaking 'gay pride' option.

Some savings will have to be made, as the ABC font will be run on an economically-collectivist basis, and until the establishment at long-last of a worldwide communist utopia, neoliberal capitalism will create shortages. Redistribution of materials will be necessary: ellipsises can be made out of full stops gathered from previous sentences,  or, if necessary, colons which have been inverted in the technical department.

The needlessly phallic hyphen and the positively priapic exclamation mark will be replaced by more gentle yonic symbols of global motherness. Ampersands for all!

Thank you for helping us in the formation of this bold - sorry, proud - new font, and we look forward to rolling the first letters out of our workshop shortly!

Management. 

ABC staff hard at work in the font workshop.

Haikus are a gateway drug: a public service announcement

 Haikus are a gateway drug. 

"Just three lines, and you'll be fine". 

KIDS, DON'T LISTEN TO THE LIES. 

Soon you'll do them all the time. 

Next thing you know, you're doing odes - 

The heavy stuff. IT'S JUST NOT COOL. 

SAY NO TO HAIKU WHILE YOU CAN - 

And sign up for accounting school. 

Antsy disestablishmentarians

If you get a whole bunch of contrarians in a room together, what happens? Do they all argue it out to see who is the top contrarian, or do they all slyly agree with one another in a passive aggressive attempt to piss one another off? Or does something more shocking happen, and they find that, having opposed orthodox opinion for so long, they are all genuinely in agreement with one another and they never need to start arguing at all? Or - in the somewhat more likely event of them actually not finding any point of agreement at all - what happens if someone actually says "we can't agree on anything at all, can we?" Would it, like, cause the universe to explode or something, or would they all avoid catching one another's gaze and instead look down to their feet as they shuffle awkwardly about the room?

And, while you're all thinking about that, what's the collective noun for a group of contrarians anyway? A disagreement? A beg-to-differ-ance? A Wellactually?

Obsolete units of measurement

pubit - as long as a standard Imperial pubic hair.

Though of course a question remains: curly or straight?

I drink to forget, but never forget to drink

ODE TO THE FORGETFUL DRINKING OF A CUP OF COFFEE 

My morning coffee cup is 

Not yet full 

I have become so very 

Fretful 

I need to get my big warm 

Wet full 

But now I drink it in a fit 

Forgetful 

Alas! I search for it, 

Regretful. 

 Alternative title: "Don't give up your day job".

(Thanks for the inspiration Shelley!)

Lesser-known examples of onomatopaeia

 flomp - the sound of a cat taking up too much room on the bed. All night.

geklangbeplonkenbonk - the sound another German verb makes as it thuds its way through the memory part of the brain, crashes through the understanding bit, flounders about in the confusion and exasperation centres, and comes out at the other end.

snilp - the sound of another one of Tim's socks quietly disappearing in the night.

humber - the quietly disapproving noise of a pile of slowly accumulating unwashed clothes.

conblustergration - the silent, yet terrifyingly audible, sound of 1000 angry mainstream media blog commentators on an article about racism and celebrities.

Balance maintained

Living with vegetarians: the Baron bursts into the study and says, "do you want some quince bacon?'

Living with carnivores: Beatrice the cat finds a mouse, eats the bottom half, and leaves the rest twitching on the front door step.

 Life. It's all about the balance, maaaaaaaaaaan.