kodachrome

Although only on the very periphery of political blogging in Oz, Chateau VVB would like to offer a reflection on the current situation...no, maybe the vibe...of the non-campaign campaign at the moment.

We've detected a certain ennui - much more than as reflected by the letters to the editor and blog comments saying "come on John, let's just have the damn thing and get it over with."

No, this is more along the lines of utter disenchantment with the whole political landscape. The country has been politicised well beyond its previous somewhat lackadaisical 'live and let live' approach to politicians and their tricks. 1975 aside, perhaps.

As a card-carrying Howard-hater I feel obliged to sheet home the blame to him and his perpetual campaigning. That is no doubt a factor, but the role of the media has been well to the fore, beating up stories beyond their natural life and inventing new crises whenever public attention started to drift.

And even beyond that, I feel that Ozplogistan has started to tire in its search for the new line, the new twist. With the honourable exceptions of those who do the numbers, Possums Polytics, Mumble etc.

So, is it just Chateau VVB that feels this way? And is it a retrievable situation? I guess for every blogger still consumed by the daily goings-on there are some that feel similarly to me, and for all them there are hundreds of thousands of Aussies who don't give a fig. Good on 'em, I am inclined to think, provided they do a little mental arithmetic before casting their votes. But Aussies as a whole don't see their world through a political lens, so I hope the attempt fails to insert that lens into our national landscape.

Well we're back from the weekend and it went almost as forecast in the previous post. The first house we saw was by far the most suitable, particularly if we were to move tomorrow. It wasn't outrageously expensive, though, so we were wrong on that one. Trying to imagine ourselves in ten years' time, either retired or (more likely) semi-retired but doing different work, proved to be the major factor in identifying what we might want in a house. Or, to be more accurate, in identifying where we might be living such as either still here in the leafy western suburbs or somewhere else. And if somewhere else, where?

No wonder we have ennui.

Unfortunately we didn't take the digital camera to the Noosa Beach Classic Car Show or we could have inserted some nice piccies of Aston Martins (the featured marque this year, I utterly fell in love with a green DB9) along with all the sorts of cars we'd love to have for a toy: Triumph TR6, big Healeys, MG TC and TF. But we forgot the camera.