this much is true

The only matching lid and container components in any kitchen plastic ware drawer will be of items that are quite unsuitable for taking lunches to work. Indeed, they will be for uses that simply defy imagination. Anything suitable for taking lunches to work will be found only as either lid or container. In other news, when will it stop raining? My lunch is getting wet.

push pineapple

The column is average, the photo is highly disturbing, the comments are priceless:

"They look like Phil Tufnell on acid and Jimmy Hill in drag. I bet their sex life is awesome"

"Must get my husband a Santa suit. He's just in from the pub and said ok "

"are they from the planet agadoo"

....and by far the best and this week's wiiiiiineeeerrrr....



"Urinal Ritchie? I prefer Eurethra Franklin."

reflections of my life

Appropos of nothing that I care to explain here, so apologies and all that kind of necessary stuff that is necessary when you make comments like that, I had cause to retrieve a book from the bookcase the other day. It was a book of high school poetry (*sort of - more soon) in which something I had written had appeared.

This was all a long, long, long, quite long, time ago.

*What I wrote was barely English, let alone poetry, but it was chock-a-block with teen angst and accordingly had been unkindly but accurately stereotyped into the part of the book headed "barely English, let alone poetry, but these people need their hormones relieved soon or there will be serious repercussions."

You get the picture, unwholesome though it may be.

Anyway, and this is where the story really begins (#), I was leafing (did you like that verb? very redolent of...I dunno, trees or something, and almost poetic) through the book and I saw a name that looked familiar.

It was the name of the person who lives here.

Who woulda thunk it, as they say. Even though the world was smaller then, it's actually smaller now. Gives one pause for thought, doth it not?

#For any Goons fans who may be reading this.

all the...small things

Twice within the last month one side of my glasses has sprung apart, the lens dropped out and the tiny weeny screw....

In both cases we found it. Not bad for a pair of geriatrics who actually need glasses to see...quite big things, actually.

I'd meant to get some Loctite after the first incident. I used to routinely pull apart each new pair of glasses and apply a drop to each screw thread to prevent such occurrences. The little bottle got thrown out in our move to sunny - well actually, currently not so sunny - Capricornia. I must hie me to the local 'ardware shop fifthwith.

Meanwhile, as I age into grumpy old man conservatism, I start rethinking a lifelong objection to the death penalty. On the other hand, such criminals should be prevented from breeding...

we don't need no education

The headmaster at The King's School, Tim Hawkes, is absolutely correct when he justifies why governments should fund schools such as his on the basis that ''our students do more''. Independent schools are creating the leaders of tomorrow and are required to provide a far higher level of cultural, sporting and extra-curricular support. Funding these extra activities with taxpayers' money is undeniably a sensible investment in Australia's future. Re-allocating these monies towards children in comprehensive government schools who are content to do less both in school and in life, would be a waste of money and a win for the forces trying to destroy Australia's prospects and culture.

Greg Boston Manly

I am seriously hoping that Greg's tongue is firmly ensconced in his cheek. Tomorrow's letters should be....er....educational.

losing my religion

Here's what a bloke I know would have called a rattling good yarn.

The Aussie papers are currently full of the issue of the proportion of public funds going to private, often church-owned, schools.

And the debates about teaching ethics vs religion, whether in general or a specific variant, in class in public schools.

When I were but a boy, we used to get religion in class once week. One week the insert noun here came and, during the lesson, made us close our eyes and put up our hands if we wanted to be 'saved' and have lots of good things happen to us.

Having been brought up, strictly, to do as I was told by figures of authority I closed my eyes and put my hand up.

To discover that all that had happened was that I had signed up for Sunday school at one the local churches.

I may have only been 8 or 9 at the time but I eventually figured out that a churchly figure of authority have abused the trust of a (then) Innocent child.

Goodbye organised religion.

My opinions have only gone downhill since then.

learning to breathe

Why would anybody be surprised (surprised m'lud? why I was aghast, I tell you, simply aghast)!

When capitalism insinuates itself where it really be better off not.

No, not capitalism. But that other behaviour that a market economy encourages: greed.

Seems to poison the bastion of clear - and, importantly - longer term thinking.

You'd expect differently of a university, surely?.

get a haircut and get a real job

As someone who has laboured within the machine - or more accurately but superfluously, a series of machines - for some 40 years, I was mightily taken with Ms Pants' stories about some of her recent encounters with the bureaucracy. Tales of the entirely expected, as it were. So taken was I that I sent the link to a number of friends and one replied with a description of some of his own experiences. Read on...

"Coincidentally when I first got up here I had a similar experience(s). I went to one of the recognised employment agencies with my resume, and after some banal questioning they said I should do a Word and Excel test.

I said, 'didn't you read my resume, I've been working in IT for thirty years.'

She said, 'sorry sir, it's our policy that you do a Word and Excel test and also a typing test.'

(Yes, they made me do a typing test as well!).

I finished the test and she said I did well on the Word test, but my Excel and typing were only average. I replied that the difference between being average and excellent on the Excel test was only about four hours and in any case I wasn't looking for a data entry position.

I just got up and walked out and never heard from them again.

Amazing experience.

At another place across the road they asked me to sign an agreement to lock me into their services and I said I'd take the long document home to read and bring it back.

Well, the roof fell in...should've seen the woman's face drop. 'You can't do that...take this away from the office!'

Me: 'But I want to read it properly before I sign it.' The manager was called, papers were rustled, faces were frowned. No, I could not take it away and read it. I had to read it right there.

I got up and walked out. This time I rang DEST and got onto a nice bloke who was horrified. He got onto them ,they rang me and apologised and said I could take the paper away. I didn't bother."

There is of course a somewhat ironic twist to posting this blog. Despite hours of searching for fixes, I am still unable to copy and paste between programs. Thus, I had to type his story out in full. And no, I am not a good typist.