"It was hilarious," said a former Fairfax worker yesterday.
"We'd go down to the Fairfax annual general meeting, record his speeches that would go on forever, and then we'd all run back to the office and get out our dictionaries.
"Most of the words we'd never heard of before, but they all existed even though they hadn't been used for 100 years."
To prologise - gadzooks!
One does not expect perpetual encomia when one confronts peripeteia involving incarceration but, really, the peons are getting above themselves. I could understand insubordinate compositors but for wordsmiths to oppugn my linguistic felicity is extraordinarily odious. In what times have we arrived when it’s hopelessly optative for me to assume comprehension when speaking to persons in their native tongue? During peroration, all too quickly do the functionally illiterate cry grandiloquence.
Let’s be clear here, I’m not being accused of verbosity or prolixity but of the sin of learning and if crapulent mediocrities can’t understand me, I say the fault lies with them. I trust you will not think it rodomontade to point out that I have written well received biographies of Nixon and Roosevelt when the best these half-wits have knocked out is 500 heavily edited words on a collision between a small goods pantechnicon and a Peta protest. That story writes itself! But to capture on page the essence of quixotic FDR or mercurial Nixon is as elusive and fraught as the conjugal right.
No doubt the jaundiced hacks will beat timbrels as conveyed by tumbrel I commence incarceration. But armed with Roget and several years, my revenge will be exhaustive, if lacking concision.
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Monday, 10 December 2007
Flightmares*
Those boxes in the weekend magazines or the appalling Australian Financial Review magazine in which jetsetters relate their travel secrets:
Name: Earnest Most
Position: Vice President, Excellence**
Preferred carrier and seat: QANTAS, because they know me! 1A - in the event of an accident I like to know I’ll be the first atomised.
Most frequent destination: Singapore. The place really works and I just love sweating. It’s wonderful to see how the ethnic Chinese treat anybody who is not ethnically Chinese.
Hotel: The Fullerton. It’s very expensive but its close to the office, has really cosy rooms, is great for working and has a super bar where drinks are 5 times more expensive than outside.
Never fly without: I always work on the plane so I never forget my laptop, adaptor and Bose noise cancelling headphones. Some people say I am a gullible fool for buying the headphones but I say, Sorry, are you talking to me?
Tips: Don’t drink too much when flying or you might forget to work. Haggle! The locals really enjoy it and you could end up with a bargain!
As a one time Platinum QANTAS, Gold Kris and blah, blah, blah member here’s the truth about international travel in any class. It’s shite.
Practical advice:
Always watch the safety demonstration so you remember to forbid your children from being hosties.
To meet Asian hosties, leave your business card on your seat. To meet Australian hosties, cash.
Passengers who work on flights are invariably tossers.
Consuming 2 large valium and 3 martinis before boarding is a great way to meet people during the flight but less helpful in an emergency evacuation.
They’re not called hosties anymore.
Waitress in the Sky is still the best song about hosties, by far.
American hosties have no sense of humour. Nor do Singaporean, German, French, Dutch, Japanese, British or Australian ones.
If you give hosties a hard time, they will wipe your teabag round the bowl.
Don’t eat the food unless it comes in tamper proof packaging.
People who don’t drink on the flight are wasting their time (and money).
Lest departure be delayed, drug your children after take off.
Don’t tuck in your 1st class jammies.
Mr. Bean is no funnier at altitude.
1st class jammies tend to bunch and creep. Pull out before heading through cabin.
Other people’s children are best avoided on the ground and threatened in the air.
If you see a morbidly obese man when checking in, he will have frequency and be sitting next to you.
The hostie call button is there to be used. Don’t be shy!
* Not to be used as a nickname for QANTAS hosties.
** This is a real job title.
Name: Earnest Most
Position: Vice President, Excellence**
Preferred carrier and seat: QANTAS, because they know me! 1A - in the event of an accident I like to know I’ll be the first atomised.
Most frequent destination: Singapore. The place really works and I just love sweating. It’s wonderful to see how the ethnic Chinese treat anybody who is not ethnically Chinese.
Hotel: The Fullerton. It’s very expensive but its close to the office, has really cosy rooms, is great for working and has a super bar where drinks are 5 times more expensive than outside.
Never fly without: I always work on the plane so I never forget my laptop, adaptor and Bose noise cancelling headphones. Some people say I am a gullible fool for buying the headphones but I say, Sorry, are you talking to me?
Tips: Don’t drink too much when flying or you might forget to work. Haggle! The locals really enjoy it and you could end up with a bargain!
As a one time Platinum QANTAS, Gold Kris and blah, blah, blah member here’s the truth about international travel in any class. It’s shite.
Practical advice:
Always watch the safety demonstration so you remember to forbid your children from being hosties.
To meet Asian hosties, leave your business card on your seat. To meet Australian hosties, cash.
Passengers who work on flights are invariably tossers.
Consuming 2 large valium and 3 martinis before boarding is a great way to meet people during the flight but less helpful in an emergency evacuation.
They’re not called hosties anymore.
Waitress in the Sky is still the best song about hosties, by far.
American hosties have no sense of humour. Nor do Singaporean, German, French, Dutch, Japanese, British or Australian ones.
If you give hosties a hard time, they will wipe your teabag round the bowl.
Don’t eat the food unless it comes in tamper proof packaging.
People who don’t drink on the flight are wasting their time (and money).
Lest departure be delayed, drug your children after take off.
Don’t tuck in your 1st class jammies.
Mr. Bean is no funnier at altitude.
1st class jammies tend to bunch and creep. Pull out before heading through cabin.
Other people’s children are best avoided on the ground and threatened in the air.
If you see a morbidly obese man when checking in, he will have frequency and be sitting next to you.
The hostie call button is there to be used. Don’t be shy!
* Not to be used as a nickname for QANTAS hosties.
** This is a real job title.
Thursday, 6 December 2007
Age shall not weary some of us
Please remain clam, but, according to a host of books, if you look out the window you’ll notice society under threat from marauding packs of adults who refuse to grow up.
It’s hard not to panic when, at any time, you could be run over by fifty year olds on skateboards, but you are urged to stay focused and read on.
Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has concerns about dysfunctional infant adults, apparently the product of non-caring childhoods. Perhaps their parents were busy playing Twister.
We’re told to look at the alarming trends – more American adults between 18 and 49 watch the Cartoon Network than CNN. What’s more, there’s been a rise in the “obscene popularity” of toys and video games among adults.
Oh, come on! Toys? Obscene?
Maybe I’ve been playing Xbox on ganja too much to notice this latest threat to civilization (#3255, I believe). I have seen a few school mums who dress like their daughters. The only threat they pose is to dignity. Mind you, if you squint your eyes really, really tightly, some of them look pretty good.
And, thanks all the same, I’ll take SongeBob over the Late News and Even Stevens over Californication any day.
Where’s the evil?
We’re not talking about Oskar Matzerath from The Tin Drum – an adult in a child’s body, born with all his intellectual faculties intact and who deliberately stopped growing (I always thought in protest at how disgustingly badly adults behave – his mother’s adultery with her first cousin, for example) and later became a criminal.
On the whole, we’re talking about adults who have evolved as society allows. If you create a nanny-state you end up with a society of babies. If you diminish the importance of individual responsibility why should adults act responsibly?
If the relevance of tradition and social mores has been eclipsed by the rise of rights without concomitant duties, we can all damn well do what we like until we run up against a law. With no authority or guide but the state, we might as well make the most of the free space between it and the individual while we still can.
But this isn’t really about adult irresponsibility. It’s about jealousy, conformity and prosperity.
We're talking about adults who have the resources and time to disengage from real world concerns and indulge in the distractions which modern society has created. If the dude in board shorts at parent teacher night pays his taxes and discharges his responsibilities, it’s nobody’s business but his if he wants to don children’s clothes, play frisbee and spend his time pissed. This makes the guardians of culture uneasy and this "concern" is really about the snootiness and insecurity of the self-appointed intelligentsia.
Around 1890 Wordsworth wrote that the world is too much with us. The intervening century certainly has not made the world less present. Creepy little anti-establishment bugger though he was, those alarmed about the alleged rise of immature adults couldn’t find Oskar’s disengagement uninformed. Could it be that, while some adults indulge themselves childishly because they can afford to do so, others just want to get away from it all?
As ever, I’m talking my lead from poetry and rock ‘n roll.
Keef is only going to stop rocking when he croaks and Led Zep expose the young pretenders as, well, pretenders. As a Welsh drunk wrote:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light...
It’s hard not to panic when, at any time, you could be run over by fifty year olds on skateboards, but you are urged to stay focused and read on.
Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has concerns about dysfunctional infant adults, apparently the product of non-caring childhoods. Perhaps their parents were busy playing Twister.
We’re told to look at the alarming trends – more American adults between 18 and 49 watch the Cartoon Network than CNN. What’s more, there’s been a rise in the “obscene popularity” of toys and video games among adults.
Oh, come on! Toys? Obscene?
Maybe I’ve been playing Xbox on ganja too much to notice this latest threat to civilization (#3255, I believe). I have seen a few school mums who dress like their daughters. The only threat they pose is to dignity. Mind you, if you squint your eyes really, really tightly, some of them look pretty good.
And, thanks all the same, I’ll take SongeBob over the Late News and Even Stevens over Californication any day.
Where’s the evil?
We’re not talking about Oskar Matzerath from The Tin Drum – an adult in a child’s body, born with all his intellectual faculties intact and who deliberately stopped growing (I always thought in protest at how disgustingly badly adults behave – his mother’s adultery with her first cousin, for example) and later became a criminal.
On the whole, we’re talking about adults who have evolved as society allows. If you create a nanny-state you end up with a society of babies. If you diminish the importance of individual responsibility why should adults act responsibly?
If the relevance of tradition and social mores has been eclipsed by the rise of rights without concomitant duties, we can all damn well do what we like until we run up against a law. With no authority or guide but the state, we might as well make the most of the free space between it and the individual while we still can.
But this isn’t really about adult irresponsibility. It’s about jealousy, conformity and prosperity.
We're talking about adults who have the resources and time to disengage from real world concerns and indulge in the distractions which modern society has created. If the dude in board shorts at parent teacher night pays his taxes and discharges his responsibilities, it’s nobody’s business but his if he wants to don children’s clothes, play frisbee and spend his time pissed. This makes the guardians of culture uneasy and this "concern" is really about the snootiness and insecurity of the self-appointed intelligentsia.
Around 1890 Wordsworth wrote that the world is too much with us. The intervening century certainly has not made the world less present. Creepy little anti-establishment bugger though he was, those alarmed about the alleged rise of immature adults couldn’t find Oskar’s disengagement uninformed. Could it be that, while some adults indulge themselves childishly because they can afford to do so, others just want to get away from it all?
As ever, I’m talking my lead from poetry and rock ‘n roll.
Keef is only going to stop rocking when he croaks and Led Zep expose the young pretenders as, well, pretenders. As a Welsh drunk wrote:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light...
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Well done us!
The world has watched in awed wonderment as Australia changed government without a single drop of blood being shed!
Congratulations to us all!
Every foreigner is smarting with envy at our grace, civility and maturity. The Chinese people I was entertaining on election night were dumbstruck that Mr. Howard should pass the baton to Mr. Rudd without first beating him around the bonce with it a few times and applying a swift knee to the goolies on the way down.
Sure, there was some initial confusion as I explained the concept of an election to my communist visitors. Oh no, no, Mr. Hu, the word I am using is election! How we laughed! But, they understood soon enough and the look on their faces could only be described as deep admiration.
While I was at it, I took the opportunity to explain to my guests that Australians aren’t just good at peaceful exchanges of power - we have many things to be proud of. For example, I explained, we buy our groceries. In most countries, those that actually have food, citizens steal them – often at the point of a gun. I told the delegation that Australians, as peaceable people, queue patiently to buy comestibles which we pay for with “money”, a kind of exchangeable token of little inherent value.
And you know what else?, I asked Mr. Hu and his colleagues as they stood before me, mouths agape, shaking their heads in disbelief, We’re really very good at sport too, as you will see in Beijing.
I could see they were at once impressed and a little worried.
What a country we have! What a people we are!
Congratulations to us all!
Every foreigner is smarting with envy at our grace, civility and maturity. The Chinese people I was entertaining on election night were dumbstruck that Mr. Howard should pass the baton to Mr. Rudd without first beating him around the bonce with it a few times and applying a swift knee to the goolies on the way down.
Sure, there was some initial confusion as I explained the concept of an election to my communist visitors. Oh no, no, Mr. Hu, the word I am using is election! How we laughed! But, they understood soon enough and the look on their faces could only be described as deep admiration.
While I was at it, I took the opportunity to explain to my guests that Australians aren’t just good at peaceful exchanges of power - we have many things to be proud of. For example, I explained, we buy our groceries. In most countries, those that actually have food, citizens steal them – often at the point of a gun. I told the delegation that Australians, as peaceable people, queue patiently to buy comestibles which we pay for with “money”, a kind of exchangeable token of little inherent value.
And you know what else?, I asked Mr. Hu and his colleagues as they stood before me, mouths agape, shaking their heads in disbelief, We’re really very good at sport too, as you will see in Beijing.
I could see they were at once impressed and a little worried.
What a country we have! What a people we are!
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
FEKR Association - December Newsletter
Welcome to the end of year newsletter of the Former Employees of Kevin Rudd Association.
Things look bleak. For years we’ve clung to the hope that we would be vindicated and Chucky caught out. It seems this is not to be.
Frankly, each of us has failed*.
Chucky not only has a multi-millionaire wife, apparently normal children, massive superannuation from the Queensland Government and, most likely, the prime ministership, he has proved, truly, that Chucky cannot die.
We know Chucky doesn’t have the strength of character to do the job and will soon be exposed as the brittle, conceited, vindictive and odious little man he is. The good (?) news is that, quite soon, everybody will know.
Asian and European debt markets continue to tighten and the true scale of US bad loans is unknown. Bad times are on the way. The combination of international events and the inability of Team Chucky to cope means that, late in the first term, the pressure will tell and Chucky will crack.
Will he again be found under his desk whimpering and sucking the corner of his hanky?
We can only hope that Red Gillard will get a snap of it on her mobile phone for sharing.
At the end of the life of the Association, I urge all members to continue to provide mutual support. Thanks to all who answered the call to talk Dwayne down from the top of the Executive Building after the national media failed to ask Chucky a hard question at Labor’s cringingly parochial campaign launch.
Please join us on December 20th, for the last time, at Association headquarters to sink a few VBs (XXXX is out as Chucky had one (yes, one, surprise, surprise) on Cup Day) to give comfort to each other and to recite our creed:
We are the FEKRs but Chucky is the one true fecker.
*Sorry if, notwithstanding the lack of expletives, that phrase caused you shiver inducing flashbacks to your time working in the Queensland Government.
Things look bleak. For years we’ve clung to the hope that we would be vindicated and Chucky caught out. It seems this is not to be.
Frankly, each of us has failed*.
Chucky not only has a multi-millionaire wife, apparently normal children, massive superannuation from the Queensland Government and, most likely, the prime ministership, he has proved, truly, that Chucky cannot die.
We know Chucky doesn’t have the strength of character to do the job and will soon be exposed as the brittle, conceited, vindictive and odious little man he is. The good (?) news is that, quite soon, everybody will know.
Asian and European debt markets continue to tighten and the true scale of US bad loans is unknown. Bad times are on the way. The combination of international events and the inability of Team Chucky to cope means that, late in the first term, the pressure will tell and Chucky will crack.
Will he again be found under his desk whimpering and sucking the corner of his hanky?
We can only hope that Red Gillard will get a snap of it on her mobile phone for sharing.
At the end of the life of the Association, I urge all members to continue to provide mutual support. Thanks to all who answered the call to talk Dwayne down from the top of the Executive Building after the national media failed to ask Chucky a hard question at Labor’s cringingly parochial campaign launch.
Please join us on December 20th, for the last time, at Association headquarters to sink a few VBs (XXXX is out as Chucky had one (yes, one, surprise, surprise) on Cup Day) to give comfort to each other and to recite our creed:
We are the FEKRs but Chucky is the one true fecker.
*Sorry if, notwithstanding the lack of expletives, that phrase caused you shiver inducing flashbacks to your time working in the Queensland Government.
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Where’s a benevolent dictator when you need one?
Attention is called to the health of our civil society, the strength of the polity and the engagement of the citizenry in the democratic process. After all, there’s an election on.
How does one place a finger on society’s political pulse to determine which issues furrow the commuter’s brow? Hitting the streets would lead to undesirable physical contact with Mr. and Mrs. Citizen and watching television, exposure to harmful mediocrity waves.
In the information age, electronic organs of record can help us keep in touch with the Zeitgeist. So, to illustrate the current affairs which most interest Australians, here is a list of the 10 most popular stories from the http://www.news.com.au/ website yesterday (and a helpful summary of each).
Man levitates outside the Whitehouse –Yogic flying in the no fly zone.
I love The Chaser, says TT host – A cry for mercy destined to fall on smug, deaf ears.
Idol's Dicko canned by US critics – That’s Dicko, people.
Mum cleared of killing babies - Surely that should read “Woman cleared…”?
Schoolgirl, 11, smashes record – ...after mistaking it for a very thin Frisbee.
Local whiz speeds up broadband... – Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Dannii and Shaz in TV 'bust-up' – Minor Minogue fails to pass sugar to Mrs. Prince of Darkness.
Prices jump, rate rise coming – A misprint?
Five years' jail for digital rape – Most readers clicked this looking for digital images (and not of a digit).
Falzon 'stronger' after Sonny – From repeatedly lifting him against the lavatory wall, perhaps?
Careful analysis reveals two indisputable facts. First, a hard news story snuck in at number 8. Second, we do not deserve the vote.
An American friend was recently bailed up by an elderly bore. American, are you?, he enquired. People get the government they deserve, you know.
My friend was too polite to raise the obvious retort: Actually, aged dipshit, I think you mean, 50% of the people get the government they deserve.
However, in the light of this research, the aged one may have been more prescient than he could have imagined.
In case you’re wondering if the popular stories list was an aberration, further research today reveals that “Man levitates outside the Whitehouse” is now the most and the fourth most popular story. So, things are looking up.
Monday, 22 October 2007
Voluptocracy
All human life is a genetically driven struggle for sex and protein. For these 2 things we’re viscerally compelled to strive, to compete. We have no choice in the matter. And yet, our, so called, rational minds have come to view government, business and even recreation through the lens of self-denial.
Fiscal conservatism is another name for stinginess. Efficiency is code for repression. A healthy lifestyle is cipher for a miserable pulse munching subsistence. Those new alcohol guidelines - a conspiracy of the pious, the temperate and the insufferably meek.
The Glibertine turned his head slightly, Oi, Merely, your push.
Taking this as her opportunity to escape the Glibertine’s halitosic, red-eyed rant, the babymaid scampered to the other end of the bar. He shifted his glaze in my general direction.
What we need is government by the fat. No, f*ck that, by sensualists. Hell, yes, what the world wants is sensualist rule.
Those poor Islamists. Do you know why they want to kill us? Because they’re jealous of all the sex and meat we get. They’re jealous that our civilization has better realised the promise locked within our genetic coding. In their minds we loll on beaches, men and women, in a mass meat-greased grope, sucking icy beers and licking drugs from between the natural folds of virgin skin. But we know that’s not true. We know we’ve not yet reached that Arcady. There’s much more to do!
To anybody watching, it would have seemed unlikely that the grey mullet masquerading as the Glibertine’s tongue had ever ventured past his browned fangs to traverse any skin but his own, yet his eyes shone with the light of truth.
The Islamists don’t respect us because we’re equivocal about our freedoms. Because we try to see their side, to view things from their arid perspective, they see us as weak, as having no confidence in our way of being. Bugger perspective! I say, let’s rededicate ourselves to ourselves. Let us show them how deeply we cherish our indulgences, our gluttonousness and our wanton lusts.
Our leaders will be voluptuaries, one and all. This new system of government will be voluptoccray. Henceforth the parliament shall be the Pleasure Dome. We’ll rid it of that dreadful Spartan native timber and procure furnishings befitting our decadence – cushions and the like, really comfy ones, rich brocades, velvets and silks. As they recline and govern, the voluptuaries will be served sweetmeats, sherbet and betel from trays of beaten relic gold. We’ll turn down the lights and get rid of the cameras, other than the feed to Al Jazeera.
The Glibertine drained an Irish and turned his back to the bar. He surveyed the dimly lit room, packed with punters laughing and drinking with admirable purpose.
He outstretched his arms and threw back his head in celebration, This is what we do best! Join with me, brothers and sisters, in love and desire. Hold my hand and together we’ll draw a generously proportioned crease in the sheets. The demarcation between our civilizations will be stark. Voluptocracy here, theocracy there. We will truly live as we were meant to live. We will fight and love and eat and drink and we will deeply inhale. We will lick and suck and nibble. We will use all our resources to scour the earth for protein and pleasures. We will draw to us disciples of the true way.
And, when the opium cloud lifts, we will find the world in our lap, entwined in an exhausted, sweet afterglow, Civilization’s sensory circuitry pulsing the last pleasure packets to the endings of the earth.
We will be as one and, most importantly, have won.
Fiscal conservatism is another name for stinginess. Efficiency is code for repression. A healthy lifestyle is cipher for a miserable pulse munching subsistence. Those new alcohol guidelines - a conspiracy of the pious, the temperate and the insufferably meek.
The Glibertine turned his head slightly, Oi, Merely, your push.
Taking this as her opportunity to escape the Glibertine’s halitosic, red-eyed rant, the babymaid scampered to the other end of the bar. He shifted his glaze in my general direction.
What we need is government by the fat. No, f*ck that, by sensualists. Hell, yes, what the world wants is sensualist rule.
Those poor Islamists. Do you know why they want to kill us? Because they’re jealous of all the sex and meat we get. They’re jealous that our civilization has better realised the promise locked within our genetic coding. In their minds we loll on beaches, men and women, in a mass meat-greased grope, sucking icy beers and licking drugs from between the natural folds of virgin skin. But we know that’s not true. We know we’ve not yet reached that Arcady. There’s much more to do!
To anybody watching, it would have seemed unlikely that the grey mullet masquerading as the Glibertine’s tongue had ever ventured past his browned fangs to traverse any skin but his own, yet his eyes shone with the light of truth.
The Islamists don’t respect us because we’re equivocal about our freedoms. Because we try to see their side, to view things from their arid perspective, they see us as weak, as having no confidence in our way of being. Bugger perspective! I say, let’s rededicate ourselves to ourselves. Let us show them how deeply we cherish our indulgences, our gluttonousness and our wanton lusts.
Our leaders will be voluptuaries, one and all. This new system of government will be voluptoccray. Henceforth the parliament shall be the Pleasure Dome. We’ll rid it of that dreadful Spartan native timber and procure furnishings befitting our decadence – cushions and the like, really comfy ones, rich brocades, velvets and silks. As they recline and govern, the voluptuaries will be served sweetmeats, sherbet and betel from trays of beaten relic gold. We’ll turn down the lights and get rid of the cameras, other than the feed to Al Jazeera.
The Glibertine drained an Irish and turned his back to the bar. He surveyed the dimly lit room, packed with punters laughing and drinking with admirable purpose.
He outstretched his arms and threw back his head in celebration, This is what we do best! Join with me, brothers and sisters, in love and desire. Hold my hand and together we’ll draw a generously proportioned crease in the sheets. The demarcation between our civilizations will be stark. Voluptocracy here, theocracy there. We will truly live as we were meant to live. We will fight and love and eat and drink and we will deeply inhale. We will lick and suck and nibble. We will use all our resources to scour the earth for protein and pleasures. We will draw to us disciples of the true way.
And, when the opium cloud lifts, we will find the world in our lap, entwined in an exhausted, sweet afterglow, Civilization’s sensory circuitry pulsing the last pleasure packets to the endings of the earth.
We will be as one and, most importantly, have won.
Tuesday, 2 October 2007
The proxy pratfall
I give a lot of advice, for 3 reasons. I know a lot of stuff, am always available and don’t charge.
The advice is trusted because it’s confined to limited areas of expertise. Don't ask me about habit breaking or organic gardening. Do ask what to read or drink or where to drink and read (The Warren View beer garden on a spring afternoon).
Choose your expert carefully. No diplomatic advice from Dr Mahathir. No medical tips from Tomkat.
Don’t look to Kate Moss for anything other than the clothes she wears and all you should ask of Pete Doherty is fewer hats, though, if he could see his way clear, a gram would be triffic. Fanks, Pete. Preciate it.
Having said that, it’s absolutely right to look to footballers, models and rock stars for guidance on how to live. Indeed, society should demand that footballers get dribblingly pissed before driving high powered automobiles. We should delight when sportsmen violently compete for the dimmest girlfriend. Let's applaud minor celebrity sex in public conveniences and honour supermodels for snorting lines on camera. By the way, what about a little understanding? They’ve got to suppress their appetites some how.
You may not watch them, but I say rejoice every time a B-list narcissist abases themselves on the internet, indulging in what, in this century, passes for sex. But for them, there goes (or comes) someone you may really care about.
Who still thinks it would be a good idea to cruise for oral relief on Hollywood Blvd after Divine attended Hugh? What politician still relies on the discretion of a high-class madam (a wonderful oxymoron, that) or indulges in the toilet two-step?
If, after Paris, Pam, Eva, Britney, Dannii and the lesser Macpherson, your sister can be persuaded to let her boyfriend video them in bed, maybe she deserves the humiliation. And if you haven’t learned from these incidents, when you get caught in the boss’s office with bourbon, Bouncy Betty and a bong, you do too.
You can take that advice from one who should know.
The advice is trusted because it’s confined to limited areas of expertise. Don't ask me about habit breaking or organic gardening. Do ask what to read or drink or where to drink and read (The Warren View beer garden on a spring afternoon).
Choose your expert carefully. No diplomatic advice from Dr Mahathir. No medical tips from Tomkat.
Don’t look to Kate Moss for anything other than the clothes she wears and all you should ask of Pete Doherty is fewer hats, though, if he could see his way clear, a gram would be triffic. Fanks, Pete. Preciate it.
Having said that, it’s absolutely right to look to footballers, models and rock stars for guidance on how to live. Indeed, society should demand that footballers get dribblingly pissed before driving high powered automobiles. We should delight when sportsmen violently compete for the dimmest girlfriend. Let's applaud minor celebrity sex in public conveniences and honour supermodels for snorting lines on camera. By the way, what about a little understanding? They’ve got to suppress their appetites some how.
You may not watch them, but I say rejoice every time a B-list narcissist abases themselves on the internet, indulging in what, in this century, passes for sex. But for them, there goes (or comes) someone you may really care about.
Who still thinks it would be a good idea to cruise for oral relief on Hollywood Blvd after Divine attended Hugh? What politician still relies on the discretion of a high-class madam (a wonderful oxymoron, that) or indulges in the toilet two-step?
If, after Paris, Pam, Eva, Britney, Dannii and the lesser Macpherson, your sister can be persuaded to let her boyfriend video them in bed, maybe she deserves the humiliation. And if you haven’t learned from these incidents, when you get caught in the boss’s office with bourbon, Bouncy Betty and a bong, you do too.
You can take that advice from one who should know.
Tuesday, 18 September 2007
Minutes of the Liberal Party leadership meeting in full
Yes, that wimp Merely Being is absent still. Lucky I am here to reveal, in full, the minutes of the Liberal Party's recent leadership meeting.
My friend Roger McGough, a poet of some promise, was there to record it.
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
My friend Roger McGough, a poet of some promise, was there to record it.
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
Monday, 17 September 2007
That Beattie retirement press conference in full
You stand here before me humble and grateful, your Premier.
This is not the time to reflect on the many successes and proud achievements I’ve had in my time as Queensland’s leader. It’s for others to judge the scale of those.
As I said during the audience I gave that ABC chap, I’m far too modest to sing my praises.
And now’s not the time to talk of any errors made by my colleagues. Hell, they’ve made mistakes. I’m the first to admit that.
If I am really honest, maybe I’ve been too honest. But that’s me - warts and all. Well, not warts, just minor excrescences, really, quite normal for a man my age.
Look, I'm not perfect. But nor was Jesus.
I am who I am and I'm sure many biographers will tell the truth - the unvarnished and unperfumed truth – about me and the many battles I’ve won for the people of Queensland.
This is God’s country up here, now I’ve finished with it. I am proud of Queensland and, let’s be honest about this, I’m proud of God. We've had our differences but he does some good work. I'm the first to admit that and I make no apologies for God or for Queensland.
Right, who wants to help me push these trolleys down to Cabinet?
This is not the time to reflect on the many successes and proud achievements I’ve had in my time as Queensland’s leader. It’s for others to judge the scale of those.
As I said during the audience I gave that ABC chap, I’m far too modest to sing my praises.
And now’s not the time to talk of any errors made by my colleagues. Hell, they’ve made mistakes. I’m the first to admit that.
If I am really honest, maybe I’ve been too honest. But that’s me - warts and all. Well, not warts, just minor excrescences, really, quite normal for a man my age.
Look, I'm not perfect. But nor was Jesus.
I am who I am and I'm sure many biographers will tell the truth - the unvarnished and unperfumed truth – about me and the many battles I’ve won for the people of Queensland.
This is God’s country up here, now I’ve finished with it. I am proud of Queensland and, let’s be honest about this, I’m proud of God. We've had our differences but he does some good work. I'm the first to admit that and I make no apologies for God or for Queensland.
Right, who wants to help me push these trolleys down to Cabinet?
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
Love and dignity
I hate you being in love, said the Glibertine. Thank god I am here to persuade you to give it up. There's no dignity in love for you.
Flushing, I started to defend myself but the Glibertine continued, leaving me with lips parted, as if waiting to receive a withdrawn kiss.
You shuffle around, head down, squeezing out whimpers. Your shoulders are slack, eyes dull. And you’re unreliable about drinking. One minute you’re complaining about depression, the next backstroking across 4 martinis just off world pace. All I ask from a consumpanion is consistency. How did you get yourself into such a state?
While he paused to draw breathe, I took my chance.
Sure, there’s no dignity to be found in martinis 3 to 6. But there is dignity in love.
Balls. Not for you.
That’s when I made my mistake. Irked by his negativity, I turned.
What would you know about love? You lacerate your liver night after night, sitting here with your ridiculous attire and foppish hair, philsophising through the bottom of your glass, shouting and spitting and rolling your eyes at all who pass. The only love you know is self. Don’t lecture me on love.
He sat quite still, his eyes fixed on mine. He said nothing. This was always worrying. Then he stood, turned, and went to the bar.
Nothing was said as he unloaded the tray, lining up 4 glasses in front of each of us. Beer on the left, triples of Irish in the middle and a shot glass, contents clear, on the right.
You may commence, said the Glibertine.
I lifted the shot glass and drained it, trying to suppress the twitch in my right eye.
I hate grappa.
I know.
He sat back in his chair, rested the corner of an Irish on his dressing gown cord, and ran yellow fingers through his abundant, filthy hair.
I do not presume to lecture on love, but on dignity. However, your insolence means you will receive guidance in both. When I'm done, you will understand 2 matters. First, you'll know how to love with dignity. Second, you'll appreciate there's no man better qualified to speak on the subject than I.
Tempted though I was to point out the incongruity of receiving a dignity lecture from a man in dressing gown and slippers in a pub at 4.00pm on a Wednesday, I remained silent.
Love is a feeling you cannot control. Dignity concerns how you conduct yourself while under love's influence. You're in love but you plague the object of your affection with every insecurity your brain chemistry produces. You're in love but adopt a mournful countenance. You see your love and your tongue thickens like a roed salmon but still you prattle at her like a convent girl fresh from detention. When you close your eyes you see hers but you TELL me about it.
For you, there is no dignity in love. QED.
And don’t for a moment think that's because your love is unrequited. It’s true the lovelorn are especially pathetic – who wouldn’t want to slowly crush Werther’s wind pipe beneath their heel – but you're pitiful at every stage .
With you, there's cow eyed sighing and, if I may be frank, creepy longing at the start. Then, if your nauseating patter manages to dupe some poor sap into returning affection, you're insufferably happy. And when your malformed personality kills the very love you’ve so assiduously cultivated, you loathe yourself... until the shabby carousel again rumbles into life.
Take it from me – cut out the start and the middle - just loathe yourself the whole time.
By now, my second glass was empty. I took some beer to wash away the bitterness.
As he looked at me, he seemed to soften. Not so.
If you must love, and it seems you must, at least follow these rules:
- Never tell ME about the nape of her neck or the curve of her ankle.
- Don’t aim too high. You are a plain man. Stick to your kind.
- Don’t trouble her with your saccharine sentiment and snivelling insecurities.
- Walk as if your spine has not been crushed.
- Consistently buy me drinks.
- Avoid disappointment by extinguishing hope.
On and on he went. Glass levels rose and fell. His dressing gown opened and, mercifully, closed. But I heard no more.
I was far away, in a different land, sipping Lacryma Christi beside a glittering sea. With my baby.
Thursday, 23 August 2007
Sydney Vs Melbourne. The winner is…
The critical question in the Sydney versus Melbourne debate is –
Does Melbourne know it’s on?
Sydney sure as hell does.
From QANTAS captains welcoming passengers to ‘the greatest city in the world’ to the Sydney Festival slogan, ‘A Great Festival for a Great City’[1], Sydney is gauche, parochial and boorish.
Proof is Sydney’s obsessive dubbing of local sites ‘iconic’. By the way Sydney, consult a dictionary on what that word means.
Here’s an unbiased assessment of 3 of them.
The Opera House is pretty at sunset but as a venue its nasty. Its once cutting edge design was superseded by any number of buildings long ago.
Inside, the public areas are cramped and the bars as tiny as they are scarce.
The seats were designed by the acoustician and the acoustics by the upholsterer.
If you’re disabled, don’t bother. If you want to take a leak, use a bottle.
This might come as a shock, but other cities have opera houses! They may not have been elevated to the ultimate i-c-o-n status, but even a Sydney resident might be impressed by La Scala, Teatro Colon or the Paris Opera.
The National Trust says that Harry's Cafe de Wheels is not only a “quintessential Sydney icon”, it’s an institution. So is Villawood.
Located between a four lane road and a harbour backwater, Harry's has dished out pies since the 1930s. Some stock could be original.
To be fair, the service is considerate - food cooled to avoid mouth burn and drinks warmed to avert too great a contrast.
The rear of the Cafe affords a fine prospect of Her Majesty's Australian Navy ships disgorging bilge into a stagnant lagoon.
Customers can test their reflexes swatting flies and dodging seagull shit. And at night, motorists can dodge inebriates as they jauntily totter into the street. Police manning a recent speed trap joined in the merriment, laughing as drunks showered cars with half eaten pie 'n peas. Ha ha![2]
There are few Sydney landmarks of which its residents are prouder than Bondi Beach.
Though its only 5km from the CBD, visitors feel a world away from the big city bustle. Except for those days[3] when every man, woman, child, backpacker, carjacker, halfling and hobbit sit squeezed together, buttock to jowl, rubbing coconut oil into their hirsute abundances.
The beach is 150 metres from the shops - across a six lane road, a median strip, a footpath, a car park, another bigger footpath, another road and a promenade.
If you’re an out of town surfer, the locals will give you a memorable welcome.
The life guards use a public address system operated by the profoundly deaf with auxiliary mobile loud hailers, just in case you missed your orders.
Get there early to play chicken with the beach cleaning tractors.
If you’re from a country other than Australia and want to experience Bondi after dark - register with the local constabulary and move in groups of 20.
With both a south-easterly aspect and no protection from the northwest, the beach is blasted by southerly squalls and baked by westerlies - sometimes on the same day.
Don’t worry, if you’re too cold or hot, you can always seek relief in the piss warmed surf.
These 3 places maybe iconic to some, but they’re comic to many.
And that’s just fine.
I’ve recently returned from Pig City in Brisbane.
Those people might have skin cancer and bad clothes but they don’t give a toss if they’re cool or anybody likes their city. This suggests they just might have their shit together.
If Pig City had been in Sydney, the crowd would have been checking itself out, not the bands. Of course, that wasn’t a bad idea when Chris Bailey was on stage.
If Melbourne is the golden retriever of cities, Sydney is the foxy constantly trying to sniff the big dog’s arse.
And Brisbane?
It’s the old blue heeler asleep in the sun, occasionally waking to lick its balls.
I think we all know – particularly the men - which has the greatest appeal.
[1] When Schofield presided over that, Dublin was celebrating its millennium. There was not a relative epithet to be seen. Dublin was content with being Dublin. Sydney needed to reassure itself that it was, err… New York? [2] In keeping with the carnival atmosphere, Harry’s Café de Wheels actually has no wheels!
[3] Those falling in summer.
Does Melbourne know it’s on?
Sydney sure as hell does.
From QANTAS captains welcoming passengers to ‘the greatest city in the world’ to the Sydney Festival slogan, ‘A Great Festival for a Great City’[1], Sydney is gauche, parochial and boorish.
Proof is Sydney’s obsessive dubbing of local sites ‘iconic’. By the way Sydney, consult a dictionary on what that word means.
Here’s an unbiased assessment of 3 of them.
The Opera House is pretty at sunset but as a venue its nasty. Its once cutting edge design was superseded by any number of buildings long ago.
Inside, the public areas are cramped and the bars as tiny as they are scarce.
The seats were designed by the acoustician and the acoustics by the upholsterer.
If you’re disabled, don’t bother. If you want to take a leak, use a bottle.
This might come as a shock, but other cities have opera houses! They may not have been elevated to the ultimate i-c-o-n status, but even a Sydney resident might be impressed by La Scala, Teatro Colon or the Paris Opera.
The National Trust says that Harry's Cafe de Wheels is not only a “quintessential Sydney icon”, it’s an institution. So is Villawood.
Located between a four lane road and a harbour backwater, Harry's has dished out pies since the 1930s. Some stock could be original.
To be fair, the service is considerate - food cooled to avoid mouth burn and drinks warmed to avert too great a contrast.
The rear of the Cafe affords a fine prospect of Her Majesty's Australian Navy ships disgorging bilge into a stagnant lagoon.
Customers can test their reflexes swatting flies and dodging seagull shit. And at night, motorists can dodge inebriates as they jauntily totter into the street. Police manning a recent speed trap joined in the merriment, laughing as drunks showered cars with half eaten pie 'n peas. Ha ha![2]
There are few Sydney landmarks of which its residents are prouder than Bondi Beach.
Though its only 5km from the CBD, visitors feel a world away from the big city bustle. Except for those days[3] when every man, woman, child, backpacker, carjacker, halfling and hobbit sit squeezed together, buttock to jowl, rubbing coconut oil into their hirsute abundances.
The beach is 150 metres from the shops - across a six lane road, a median strip, a footpath, a car park, another bigger footpath, another road and a promenade.
If you’re an out of town surfer, the locals will give you a memorable welcome.
The life guards use a public address system operated by the profoundly deaf with auxiliary mobile loud hailers, just in case you missed your orders.
Get there early to play chicken with the beach cleaning tractors.
If you’re from a country other than Australia and want to experience Bondi after dark - register with the local constabulary and move in groups of 20.
With both a south-easterly aspect and no protection from the northwest, the beach is blasted by southerly squalls and baked by westerlies - sometimes on the same day.
Don’t worry, if you’re too cold or hot, you can always seek relief in the piss warmed surf.
These 3 places maybe iconic to some, but they’re comic to many.
And that’s just fine.
I’ve recently returned from Pig City in Brisbane.
Those people might have skin cancer and bad clothes but they don’t give a toss if they’re cool or anybody likes their city. This suggests they just might have their shit together.
If Pig City had been in Sydney, the crowd would have been checking itself out, not the bands. Of course, that wasn’t a bad idea when Chris Bailey was on stage.
If Melbourne is the golden retriever of cities, Sydney is the foxy constantly trying to sniff the big dog’s arse.
And Brisbane?
It’s the old blue heeler asleep in the sun, occasionally waking to lick its balls.
I think we all know – particularly the men - which has the greatest appeal.
[1] When Schofield presided over that, Dublin was celebrating its millennium. There was not a relative epithet to be seen. Dublin was content with being Dublin. Sydney needed to reassure itself that it was, err… New York? [2] In keeping with the carnival atmosphere, Harry’s Café de Wheels actually has no wheels!
[3] Those falling in summer.
Thursday, 9 August 2007
Manners - the mark of an older man
It’s taken a while to work out. I thought I was forced to repeat orders at my local because my voice was at a frequency undetectable by youth.
When drinking with the Glibertine recently, the real reason emerged.
Each of his, ‘Please may I have a triple Irish and a Cartlon’, left the youthful staff with gobs open, and not because of the frequency and scale of his personal order.
All around, people were barking, ‘VB’ or ‘2 Carltons’. They were rewarded with drinks and smiles. Our polite requests were met with uncomprehending blankness.
Could it have been the Glibertine’s burgundy smoking jacket and beaver pelt slippers?
‘What's wrong with those serfs?’, huffed the Glibertine. ‘Deaf, stupid or both?’
I suggested his attire might have struck them dumb. He scowled.
I wondered if his complex sentence construction and the insertion of the unfamiliar ‘may’ and ‘please’ might be the reason.
Spraying me with Irish mist, the Glibertine roared to life.
‘Good god man, you’re right! I might have been speaking Dzongkha to those babymaids.
May has gone for good. Please has passed away. Manners are dead.
We’ll be overwhelmed by the loathsome uncouth.’
Now he was on a roll and heads were turning.
‘I was in the East Sydney the other day. F*cking crowded.
Trying to get back to the table, I ran into two of those short browed humanoids. Couldn’t get around them.
Would you excuse me, please?, I say.
One monkey man instantly adopted an aggressive stance. The other didn’t bother to look at me, just uttered a venomous, No.
They were so unused to hearing good manners they thought they were being reproached.
Maybe I should have sprinkled a few ‘mates’ around. Aussie blokes are all mates, right, mate?’
The Glibertine sucked hard at his Irish.
‘And what about those f*ckers on Virgin Blue? Every time I board a flight, the babyface at the door says, G’dday, Douglas.
Familiar little oiks. I shake their tiny damp hands and say, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t know we had been introduced. I’ve forgotten your name.’
We discussed whether we were afflicted with some bourgeois manners hang up.
Unsurprisingly, you might think, we decided it wasn’t our fault.
Manners oil the joints of society. Except in pubs, apparently, manners make the machinery of living run just a little more smoothly.
So, to all you public bar inhabitants, if the Glibertine and I offend you with our politeness, let us know - gently.
Please?
When drinking with the Glibertine recently, the real reason emerged.
Each of his, ‘Please may I have a triple Irish and a Cartlon’, left the youthful staff with gobs open, and not because of the frequency and scale of his personal order.
All around, people were barking, ‘VB’ or ‘2 Carltons’. They were rewarded with drinks and smiles. Our polite requests were met with uncomprehending blankness.
Could it have been the Glibertine’s burgundy smoking jacket and beaver pelt slippers?
‘What's wrong with those serfs?’, huffed the Glibertine. ‘Deaf, stupid or both?’
I suggested his attire might have struck them dumb. He scowled.
I wondered if his complex sentence construction and the insertion of the unfamiliar ‘may’ and ‘please’ might be the reason.
Spraying me with Irish mist, the Glibertine roared to life.
‘Good god man, you’re right! I might have been speaking Dzongkha to those babymaids.
May has gone for good. Please has passed away. Manners are dead.
We’ll be overwhelmed by the loathsome uncouth.’
Now he was on a roll and heads were turning.
‘I was in the East Sydney the other day. F*cking crowded.
Trying to get back to the table, I ran into two of those short browed humanoids. Couldn’t get around them.
Would you excuse me, please?, I say.
One monkey man instantly adopted an aggressive stance. The other didn’t bother to look at me, just uttered a venomous, No.
They were so unused to hearing good manners they thought they were being reproached.
Maybe I should have sprinkled a few ‘mates’ around. Aussie blokes are all mates, right, mate?’
The Glibertine sucked hard at his Irish.
‘And what about those f*ckers on Virgin Blue? Every time I board a flight, the babyface at the door says, G’dday, Douglas.
Familiar little oiks. I shake their tiny damp hands and say, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t know we had been introduced. I’ve forgotten your name.’
We discussed whether we were afflicted with some bourgeois manners hang up.
Unsurprisingly, you might think, we decided it wasn’t our fault.
Manners oil the joints of society. Except in pubs, apparently, manners make the machinery of living run just a little more smoothly.
So, to all you public bar inhabitants, if the Glibertine and I offend you with our politeness, let us know - gently.
Please?
Thursday, 2 August 2007
Inner-city cool
My thanks to Merely for having the good sense to invite me to share my wisdom.
I admit to not being cool. Indeed, I abhor cool, loathe its pursuit and despise those therein engaged.
Never would I possess porn star sunglasses. My trousers are of the denim variety and rest on the upper hip. I’ve no black clothes, do not own a car, let alone a sleek one, and my sort of pinkish complexion will never adorn a magazine cover. Other than Dermatologists’ Monthly.
But I do live in Potts Point and, like it or not, living here once afforded collateral cool.
Alas, things have changed. As the area has become infected with the self consciously cool, it has lost its ability to splash a little cool on the uncool.
Potts Point was cool when it was blithely unaware of itself. It had an accidental, disheveled style attractive to the similarly afflicted.
There was nowhere to buy provisions. Locals were nourished by alcohol, tobacco smoke and cocktail garnishes. Now there are delicatessens, gourmet butchers and a host of up market emporia of ephemera.
Never before has Potts Point been invaded by so many dogs of the fluffy, yapping kind. Never before have so many alighted from Porsche Cayennes to fill the bistros with their vacuous cacophony. Vacuophony?
Overnight the local bottleshop sprouted a Simon Johnson. Pate doesn’t even go with beer. Beer does. Speaking of beer, the place now features more foreign than domestic.
Each day sees fewer discarded needles, less vomit and precious few puddles of piss, other than from said fluffy yappers.
No longer gibbering to themselves on the street, Potts Point’s eccentrics have taken their delusions inside. The slim figured, plucked eyebrow crowd with furred collars and well turned heels have scared away the mad.
This purification is insidiously snaking its way up the hill from Potts Point and west from Elizabeth Bay which has always been little more than a poor man’s Point Piper.
While it’s too late for Potts Point, one hopes that sticky puddle of neon nasty, the glorious Cross, can resist this creeping ponciness.
One prays that the smart restaurants and flash bars, sprouting like spring daffodils at the tip, will never expunge the grunge.
But, let’s face it, the few Kings Cross foot soldiers left to stop the invasion don’t make the most reliable or sober army. And, when I last checked, they can be bought. Cheaply.
See you in Redfern. Just get there before Rusty Crowe and his homey a Court stuff that too.
I admit to not being cool. Indeed, I abhor cool, loathe its pursuit and despise those therein engaged.
Never would I possess porn star sunglasses. My trousers are of the denim variety and rest on the upper hip. I’ve no black clothes, do not own a car, let alone a sleek one, and my sort of pinkish complexion will never adorn a magazine cover. Other than Dermatologists’ Monthly.
But I do live in Potts Point and, like it or not, living here once afforded collateral cool.
Alas, things have changed. As the area has become infected with the self consciously cool, it has lost its ability to splash a little cool on the uncool.
Potts Point was cool when it was blithely unaware of itself. It had an accidental, disheveled style attractive to the similarly afflicted.
There was nowhere to buy provisions. Locals were nourished by alcohol, tobacco smoke and cocktail garnishes. Now there are delicatessens, gourmet butchers and a host of up market emporia of ephemera.
Never before has Potts Point been invaded by so many dogs of the fluffy, yapping kind. Never before have so many alighted from Porsche Cayennes to fill the bistros with their vacuous cacophony. Vacuophony?
Overnight the local bottleshop sprouted a Simon Johnson. Pate doesn’t even go with beer. Beer does. Speaking of beer, the place now features more foreign than domestic.
Each day sees fewer discarded needles, less vomit and precious few puddles of piss, other than from said fluffy yappers.
No longer gibbering to themselves on the street, Potts Point’s eccentrics have taken their delusions inside. The slim figured, plucked eyebrow crowd with furred collars and well turned heels have scared away the mad.
This purification is insidiously snaking its way up the hill from Potts Point and west from Elizabeth Bay which has always been little more than a poor man’s Point Piper.
While it’s too late for Potts Point, one hopes that sticky puddle of neon nasty, the glorious Cross, can resist this creeping ponciness.
One prays that the smart restaurants and flash bars, sprouting like spring daffodils at the tip, will never expunge the grunge.
But, let’s face it, the few Kings Cross foot soldiers left to stop the invasion don’t make the most reliable or sober army. And, when I last checked, they can be bought. Cheaply.
See you in Redfern. Just get there before Rusty Crowe and his homey a Court stuff that too.
Saturday, 21 July 2007
Coping with the everyday
“Living’s mostly wasting time and I’ve wasted a share of mine”. Townes Van Zandt, sadly departed country legend, knew more than most about time and talent wasting.
Like many of his ilk, Townes spent a lot of time looking at the world through the bottom of a glass.
This document could stop with that advice but, in the spirit of this healthy age, I offer a dozen less destructive ways to make your day at least a little different from the one before.
1. Make Wednesday night, drunk night. Forget Friday and get plastered on Wednesday (why should you ruin Saturday with a hangover when you could suffer on company time?). At least work on Thursday will feel different from every other.
OK, make that 11 less destructive ways.
2. Cereal. Try a new one every week. Start at the top left hand supermarket shelf and work your way through them. You’d be surprised how the prospect of a new box of cereal can lift the weary heart. On Monday, anyway.
3. No undies day. I’ll say no more - just don’t get involved in a car accident or you’ll never hear the end of it from your Mum.
4. Spend the day only eating round food. There’s more of it than you think. Bowl essential.
5. Latinate. Make up words and see who calls you on them. Not many, is my guess.
6. Apply for employment for which you are manifestly unsuited. I’ve still not heard back from the Dallas Cowboys.
7. Draw up a list of time wasting activities.
8. Borrow the MD’s dictafone and hit the streets to interview strangers. 9. Disability day. Affect a disability for a day. Try a few out and see which handicap is right for you – speech impediment in the call centre, deafness in the class-room, uncoordination on the assembly line or rictus in social work. You’ll be amazed how the day whizzes by. 10. How much cooked meat is too much? 11. Ring up your ex-lovers out of the blue. For legal reasons, only repeat annually. 12. Sprinkle a little sand in your bed and wake up thinking you are on holidays. During winter, deploy twigs and sharp pebbles to give the illusion of camping. You see, there’s no need to succumb to the humdrum. Try something new. Try something old. Try someone else’s. If all else fails, fall back on the tried and tested - lie in bed with a bottle of whiskey and the remote. In fact, bugger the remote. You’ll lose it anyway and halfway through your vision will go. After all, as Townes sang, “To live is to fly, low and high”.
Tuesday, 17 July 2007
Baby body
I well remember the day my self-image fell apart. As I walked on to the beach for a swim, one of my friends called out, a little shocked and, I reckon, a little too triumphantly, 'Look out, here comes baby body'.
The group laughter was loud, lusty and, frankly, went on a bit long. I immediately turned crimson, rearranged a towel over my paunch and walked into the ocean to swim to Tonga.
Despite energetically embracing the pleasures of young adult life, I believed I was blessed with the physique of the sportsman I possibly had been.
Obnoxiously pleased with myself, I had failed to notice the ample contrary physical evidence.
After several days deep reflection on the changes inflicted upon my body by my embrace of a sedentary and sybaritic lifestyle, I decided what I was going to do about it.
Absolutely nothing.
Thirty years later, though I make occasional concessions to common sense, I remain committed to a life of consumption.
Perhaps I consume to fill a moral vacuum, to distract myself from personal failure or to assuage my bitter guilt at the cruelties I’ve inflicted upon others.
Then again, perhaps I consume because I adore cheese, Tokay, grass fed steak, scallops, wood fired Peking duck, mushrooms, snapper, eggs, cream, brioche, Riesling, any sausage, the wines of Burgundy and Alsace, smoked haddock, sauerkraut, sashimi, dumplings from gyoza to Shanghai, cassoulet, onion tart, beer, oysters, salt beef, pickles, biryani, labna, holy basil, mango, tomato and soft shell crab.
Never have I had to struggle with my weight - I’ve simply refused to step into the ring with it. After all, have you seen the size of that bloke?
I’ve got a big head (figuratively and literally), so a big stomach doesn’t bother me. (Repeat x 10 each night before bed)
What does bother me is that my shirt keeps coming untucked.
What bothers me is that once my waistband overcomes the friction at my belly’s apex, it slips to the floor as swiftly and silkily as an oyster down a throat.
What really bothers me is that when I bend to do up the Velcro straps of my comfortable shoes I emit a silly involuntary whistle and turn puce.
I’ve had some positive feedback.
A woman I know seems to quite like my tummy.
As they say it’s as big as a whole other person, some children of my acquaintance have assigned it a name and personality. When they see me, they give Angus a pat and ask him how he is. They profess affection for him.
As I see those vital people flogging around the park or punching their trainer’s hands, I realise I’ll never be like them.
They’ve buns of steel and abs of iron. I’ve the body of a reader.
Though John Cheever wrote of a man who can’t decide at what arbitrary point to locate his belt line and, in Quintets for Robert Morley, Les Murray (not a small chap) has written with his usual grace and wit about the fat, it’s not literature but journalism that’s given me most heart.
The apparently brilliant, astute and talented Tobsha Learner (she of exceptional taste) claims in the Times that not only are fattypuffs funnier, more modest, cleverer and better company than thinifers, we are better in the clinch as well!
I knew I was gifted in all those departments but had never attributed it to my gut.
OK, the article is really a love letter to her boyfriend, but it makes a compelling and serious point which I will be happy to confirm with any single and attractive young women* who care to volunteer.
* No porkers, thanks all the same.
The group laughter was loud, lusty and, frankly, went on a bit long. I immediately turned crimson, rearranged a towel over my paunch and walked into the ocean to swim to Tonga.
Despite energetically embracing the pleasures of young adult life, I believed I was blessed with the physique of the sportsman I possibly had been.
Obnoxiously pleased with myself, I had failed to notice the ample contrary physical evidence.
After several days deep reflection on the changes inflicted upon my body by my embrace of a sedentary and sybaritic lifestyle, I decided what I was going to do about it.
Absolutely nothing.
Thirty years later, though I make occasional concessions to common sense, I remain committed to a life of consumption.
Perhaps I consume to fill a moral vacuum, to distract myself from personal failure or to assuage my bitter guilt at the cruelties I’ve inflicted upon others.
Then again, perhaps I consume because I adore cheese, Tokay, grass fed steak, scallops, wood fired Peking duck, mushrooms, snapper, eggs, cream, brioche, Riesling, any sausage, the wines of Burgundy and Alsace, smoked haddock, sauerkraut, sashimi, dumplings from gyoza to Shanghai, cassoulet, onion tart, beer, oysters, salt beef, pickles, biryani, labna, holy basil, mango, tomato and soft shell crab.
Never have I had to struggle with my weight - I’ve simply refused to step into the ring with it. After all, have you seen the size of that bloke?
I’ve got a big head (figuratively and literally), so a big stomach doesn’t bother me. (Repeat x 10 each night before bed)
What does bother me is that my shirt keeps coming untucked.
What bothers me is that once my waistband overcomes the friction at my belly’s apex, it slips to the floor as swiftly and silkily as an oyster down a throat.
What really bothers me is that when I bend to do up the Velcro straps of my comfortable shoes I emit a silly involuntary whistle and turn puce.
I’ve had some positive feedback.
A woman I know seems to quite like my tummy.
As they say it’s as big as a whole other person, some children of my acquaintance have assigned it a name and personality. When they see me, they give Angus a pat and ask him how he is. They profess affection for him.
As I see those vital people flogging around the park or punching their trainer’s hands, I realise I’ll never be like them.
They’ve buns of steel and abs of iron. I’ve the body of a reader.
Though John Cheever wrote of a man who can’t decide at what arbitrary point to locate his belt line and, in Quintets for Robert Morley, Les Murray (not a small chap) has written with his usual grace and wit about the fat, it’s not literature but journalism that’s given me most heart.
The apparently brilliant, astute and talented Tobsha Learner (she of exceptional taste) claims in the Times that not only are fattypuffs funnier, more modest, cleverer and better company than thinifers, we are better in the clinch as well!
I knew I was gifted in all those departments but had never attributed it to my gut.
OK, the article is really a love letter to her boyfriend, but it makes a compelling and serious point which I will be happy to confirm with any single and attractive young women* who care to volunteer.
* No porkers, thanks all the same.
Sunday, 8 July 2007
A rock 'n roll guide to the leaders: Part 1 K. Rudd and Irish pop
Something about Kevin Rudd bothers me and, until recently, I hadn’t been able to pin it down. What is it about him that gives me an involuntary shiver? When I see him why do I get the creepy feeling my nervous system has hitherto reserved for unexpected encounters with larger lizards?
He does share the lizard’s liplessness. Has anyone measured his blood temperature? Hell, has anyone tested for blood?
His skin has that waxy sheen not seen since the Politburo presided at seventies May Day Parades.
Being no oil painting myself and remembering the injunction against judging books by covers, I decided it was unfair to condemn the man on looks alone. But then I saw him limply air punching in a soft roundhouse style at the news the Australian cricketers had won the World Cup. Even some children of my acquaintance emitted a collective and involuntary “eeeewww” at that.
That half hearted air prod got me wondering about him again. Anyone who works so hard at being seen to be good can’t be.
Anyone who so loudly professes his commitment to balance must be imbalanced.
A person who conspicuously needs to show he is capable of love (by licking his wife in public at every opportunity) is only capable of self-love.
There must be a cavity at his core - a soft centre that’s not there. Trying to be all things to all people leaves you being nothing at all.
I couldn’t help but think he reminded me of someone I’d met or seen or heard about. And when I remembered who it was, bugger me if that bloke wasn’t called Kevin!
All that need be said about Kevin Rudd was sung by The Undertones, the infectiously enthusiastic Irish rockers of the late seventies and early eighties.
These purveyors of perfect 2 minute pop precisely nailed a lot of teenage experiences – just listen to “Teenage Kicks” or “Here Comes the Summer” and try not feeling the old stirrings of longing and angst.
In “My Perfect Cousin”, Feargal Sharkey, the band’s lead singer bemoans the goodliness of his cousin Kevin. Read this in your head at top speed in an Irish falsetto, imbued with the timbre of a 44 gallon drum being dragged over concrete and the exasperated tone only teenage injustice can inspire:
Now I've got a cousin called Kevin
He's sure to go to heaven
Always spotless clean and neat
The smoothest you can get them
He's got a fur lined sheepskin jacket
My ma said they cost a packet
She won't even let me explain
That me and Kevin were just not the same
Oh my perfect cousin
What I like to do he doesn't
He's his family's private joy
His mother’s little golden boy
He's gotta degree in economics
Maths - physics and bionics
He thinks that I'm a cabbage
Cos I hate university challenge
Even at the age of ten
Smart boy Kevin was a smart boy then
He always beat me at Subbuteo
Cos he flicked the kick and I didn't know
Oh my perfect cousin…
His mother bought him a synthesizer
Got the Human League in to advise her
Now he's making lots of noise
Playing along with the art school boys
Girls try to attract his attention
But what a shame it's in vain total rejection
He will never be left on the shelf
Cos Kevin he's in love with himself
I bet Kevin Rudd did like The Human League and, worse, didn’t have the guts for the haircut.
Better than read it, let the boys sing it for you. Play it LOUD!
He does share the lizard’s liplessness. Has anyone measured his blood temperature? Hell, has anyone tested for blood?
His skin has that waxy sheen not seen since the Politburo presided at seventies May Day Parades.
Being no oil painting myself and remembering the injunction against judging books by covers, I decided it was unfair to condemn the man on looks alone. But then I saw him limply air punching in a soft roundhouse style at the news the Australian cricketers had won the World Cup. Even some children of my acquaintance emitted a collective and involuntary “eeeewww” at that.
That half hearted air prod got me wondering about him again. Anyone who works so hard at being seen to be good can’t be.
Anyone who so loudly professes his commitment to balance must be imbalanced.
A person who conspicuously needs to show he is capable of love (by licking his wife in public at every opportunity) is only capable of self-love.
There must be a cavity at his core - a soft centre that’s not there. Trying to be all things to all people leaves you being nothing at all.
I couldn’t help but think he reminded me of someone I’d met or seen or heard about. And when I remembered who it was, bugger me if that bloke wasn’t called Kevin!
All that need be said about Kevin Rudd was sung by The Undertones, the infectiously enthusiastic Irish rockers of the late seventies and early eighties.
These purveyors of perfect 2 minute pop precisely nailed a lot of teenage experiences – just listen to “Teenage Kicks” or “Here Comes the Summer” and try not feeling the old stirrings of longing and angst.
In “My Perfect Cousin”, Feargal Sharkey, the band’s lead singer bemoans the goodliness of his cousin Kevin. Read this in your head at top speed in an Irish falsetto, imbued with the timbre of a 44 gallon drum being dragged over concrete and the exasperated tone only teenage injustice can inspire:
Now I've got a cousin called Kevin
He's sure to go to heaven
Always spotless clean and neat
The smoothest you can get them
He's got a fur lined sheepskin jacket
My ma said they cost a packet
She won't even let me explain
That me and Kevin were just not the same
Oh my perfect cousin
What I like to do he doesn't
He's his family's private joy
His mother’s little golden boy
He's gotta degree in economics
Maths - physics and bionics
He thinks that I'm a cabbage
Cos I hate university challenge
Even at the age of ten
Smart boy Kevin was a smart boy then
He always beat me at Subbuteo
Cos he flicked the kick and I didn't know
Oh my perfect cousin…
His mother bought him a synthesizer
Got the Human League in to advise her
Now he's making lots of noise
Playing along with the art school boys
Girls try to attract his attention
But what a shame it's in vain total rejection
He will never be left on the shelf
Cos Kevin he's in love with himself
I bet Kevin Rudd did like The Human League and, worse, didn’t have the guts for the haircut.
Better than read it, let the boys sing it for you. Play it LOUD!
Saturday, 7 July 2007
Cocktails – teetering on the brink of disaster
I used to think the best part of a martini was the olive.
In those days I drank them for effect. I still do, though the result I now seek is more anaesthetic than pyrotechnic.
Let there be no mistake, incaution still leads to remarkable and unfortunate consequences.
My youthful appetite also involved affect.
John Cheever warned of the sorrows of gin and the dark vision of his melancholy characters, surely, was attributable to the pitchers of martini they swilled, their inhibitions dissolving as the ice in the blue oils; short-term fulfillment and long-term guilt the inevitable consequence.
But there was also much joy, romance and, at cocktail hour at least, hope.
I affected sophistication. Suburban
There wasn’t much sophistication in evidence the night dinner guests arrived to find their hosts sprawled on the lawn in the dark, martini making paraphernalia littered around our supine bodies.
There wasn’t much dinner either.
As we were in our early twenties, the shaker was revived and we were quickly forgiven.
We’d only sat down for a sundowner before we began cooking.
False bravado, public kissing, nudity, regretted copulation, abuse, declarations of love, drunken dialing and fisticuffs follow cocktail capers.
In case of residual doubt, cocktails get you very pissed very quickly and, unless you have wide experience of them, they should be approached with respectful caution.
For me, a mysterious alchemy occurs between the second and third martini.
One moment I'm the personification of urbane sophistication, wit and charm, captivating my companion.
The next, an olive up each nostril and a cocktail umbrella tucked behind my ear, I am propositioning the Maori bouncer.
An old friend called from the duty free lounge asking what tipple to bring. I suggested the makings for martinis.
He was silent for a while, running through his memory bank . Then he said, “OK. But I’ve packed a book for this holiday, not a crash helmet”.
Now I know what cocktails can do, I'm (nearly always) sensible. Alas, as a visit to Kings Cross on a Friday night will attest, lots of people, usually young women, haven’t acquired this wisdom.
If young motor cycle riders need to work there way up to big bikes, so young drinkers should work their way up to calamitous cocktails.
I suggest each bar have two cocktail lists. The first, readily available, may only catalogue the fruity, fancy and mainly harmless for the young.
Those of us with crinkly eyes should be able to ask for the “other list”.
In there will be found serious drinks that young people don’t even like – the Vesper, the Rusty Nail, the Negroni.
Inevitably, all this writing has made me thirsty.
I am off to see my favourite barman, Charlie, for a martini, very dry, with a twist.
Possibly, three.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)