time and a word

A very short post after a very long week. Contains (as yet) no gratuitous swipes at our dully elected overlords in Canberra (and their HQ at Kirribilli) but does contain one unwarranted piece of reflexive anti-Americanism.

I was in the lift at work today and someone got in and said g'day to someone else in the lift, they had a short conversation and then this person got out a few floors later. And said "ta-ta". I don't think I've heard that phrase for about 20 years. Next thing someone will be saying "hooroo".

Unlikely though, they'll probably be saying that they did something from the "get-go". This obscure saying has migrated from commercial radio, where Americanisms seem first to get picked up, into the mainstream media and also into more general usage. I've always used the phrase "from the word 'go'", but I suppose I'll have to change. However before I do, I'll need to know what a 'get-go' is. Anyone know? What is it that is being got? And where do you go once you've got it?

And while we're on the subject of lifts, how stupid is it to have stairwells that you can't use as alternative routes between floors? Bloody fire regulations I imagine.

Oh look, we can't have a VVB post without a gratuitous swipe etc etc etc. Even though I expect to engage in so-called political discourse with people of sort of roughly like-minded persuasion to me, I have lately been amazed by the number of folks who reckon Alexander Downer is a hypocrite and a pompous prat. Good on 'em. The rest of us knew it from the get-go.