I can't get started

I can't get started, an old jazz classic, applies in a number of ways tonight. Most obviously, the increasing intervals between posts indicate an inability to hit the keyboard and commit the half-formed thoughts to the ether. This has partly been influenced by being busy and work and bringing some of that home, hence preoccupation and lack of time. Also a very sore neck from too much time at the keyboard.

And tonight, it also results from some internetty problem, I can't get all my e-mails and everything else is slooow.

Most unfortunately, what it means is that the various things I've run across or thought about during the week that deserved a VVB-like comment have mostly disappeared from the increasingly dodgy memory.

The increasingly dodgy memory, or in fact the increasingly dodgy brain function full stop, was in full flight last night. Was talking to a couple of folk at a drinks function, one went to leave and although I'd been talking to him for a few minutes, knew who he was and had been calling him by name, when it came to "see you later" the brain said "Peter" and the mouth said "Jim", who was another person in the group. And I sort of watched myself doing this. Weird.

They had a magical jazz guitarist playing - shame I could barely hear him, but as I left he was playing a version of "Paint it, Black." So I go outside and there's some different, mega function on and the music playing is the Stones original version. Ultra weird.

So that's last night dealt with, but bugger me if much remains from earlier in the week.

..the next day...

It turns out that why the internetty thing is slow slow is that we are over our monthly limit, no doubt brought on by massive downloading of the files that are essential to Offspring No 2's university assignments, being landscape and built environment-related as they are and hence chock-a-block full of pixels.

The BRW Rich 200 edition landed with a solid 2kg thump in the letterbox yesterday. Somewhere in it I read about the net wealth of the 200 increasing by some 26% over the last year. I wonder what the net wealth of the average Aussie increased by? And what it increased by if you deduct the top 200 from the total before doing the per capita thing? Chateau VVB doesn't feel 26% wealthier although we have been able to sustain more discretionary spending in this period than previously.

Not to mention the world's best treasurer as being the catalyst for all this wealth, of course. Here at chateau VVB we're inclined to look to China first, and then to the wonderful world of credit in all its forms. Do we have sufficient asset backing for all these new financial instruments that are powering the mergers and acquisitions, trade, housing and straight consumer spending?
Looking at the task facing offspring no 1 who wants to buy a house, Peter Martin reported during the week that Canberra house prices rose 30% in the last year. Offspring no 1's salary certainly didn't rise by that much even though he got a promotion during the period. Do we really want to be a nation of landlords and tenants. Does offspring no 1's Gen x cohort unanimously believe that they should do the economically rational thing, that is, be renters and put the excess into shares?

The single comment on Peter Martin's price talked about people buying bigger houses than they need. When I look at the weekend real estate section and the c olour weekly mag that lands with a well-upholstered thump in the driveway, there seems to be a leats some truth to this. I'm just utterly gobsmacked by some the places for sale. Chandeliers, double dressing rooms, tennis courts, 5 car garages, it's unbelievable. And these houses are not a tiny minority. The real estate agents here in Brizvegas talk about $1 million houses as the base level at which you get something 'decent'.

Finally, didn't the Do Not Call Register come into effect yesterday? Did not Chateau VVB register on the first day? Did we get a call from some overseas gentleman this afternoon seeking to convert our home ownership into a debt instrument?

Do you see a link between all this stuff?

Is it John Howard's fault?

If not, should it be?

Finally, have a picture of a corner store. It's the corner store you have when you live on Dal Lake in Sri Nagar.

round and around

I'd really like to do one of those posts with all sorts of brilliant links that make readers go "wow" and "wtf". Everybody would be in awe, if not of my utter polymathedness, but maybe my ultra-keen ability to navigate to all sorts of bizarre corners of the wild world web and make sense of stuff.

That would be ever so good because people would be, like, "dude!".

To do this would probably (more rcently spelt "prolly", I have noticed) take me several hours and, given that many other peoples also do this sort of stuff - notably this dude - so much better, not have the intended effect.

So, in lieu, I give you the cheap and nasty VVB alternative. If you go to Anil's site you get to see stuff like this - Google vs Meetup. What's Meetup? I didn't know, so I had to Google it. Way to be ironic!

But this is really interesting. TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design. There are quite a few clips of speakers available and the list is pretty damned impressive, E O Wilson and Richard Dawkins amongst them. Although I was a little disappointed to see Bono - stone the crows he's everywhere.

I was in a workshop last week where the clip by Stewart Brand, an architect turned solver of global accommodation challenges, was shown. It was meant to be inspirational and it was. People can do anything if they put their minds to it.

There's a link between Brand's talk and what Meetup apparently is - people. That's why I think IT-based "knowledge management systems" - never seem to meet their intended objectives. What we need are gizmos - electric shocks would probably work quite well - that make people pick up the phone or get up and go to talk to someone. You read it here first. "Electric shocks for a better world." Because stories are powerful.

Now I've lost the track again. I still have a cold. Here's a picture of a naughty wolf - well, it could be a wolf - that's in a series of many similar tableaux in a park (as I recall) in Singapore. Somewhere.

public enemy

If it wasn't bad enough that the more intolerant and backward looking bits of the Islamosphere want to blow us to kingdom come (hmm, bad metaphor given what's coming...), the good old Church of England has its own variants, and I don't mean the ones that usually command the news. So, 95% of VVB's readers are going to hell? Yeah, whatever...make that an even hundred, I think.

Bloody proselytisers. Look, if you wish to believe in imaginary friends, the moon being made of green cheese or whatever, fine. The warmth and power of congregation (which is a nice word) and hymn-singing, great. I appreciate the benefits of congregation. Just keep the belief bits to yourselves and don't try to threaten me with some juvenile scare-stories. A trusting child who did what he was told without question (came from being slight and weedy and having a large and threatening father, I think), I got sucked in by a tricky clergyperson in about year 4, and I haven't forgotten it. If you have to play tricks on 8 year-olds to get them to come to Sunday school, maybe you should reflect on the power and righteousness of your message. You might find something missing.

Therese Rein is a naughty person for wanting to maximise her profits. No she's not, she's naughty for not supervising the people who do her due diligence. I'd still rather have a PM's wife who understands how the world actually works, in particular the commercial world, than one who's more obsessed with the thread count of the drapes, or something similar. A former work colleague now works for Ingeus, I must whether she's on an AWA. It is to laugh...

Bugger it, I have a cold and application of vino collapso is not working as I had hoped. So I'm off. Here's a picture. It's the Kabul Gorge which, unsurprisingly, is on the road to Kabul from Peshawar. Spectacular, no?

happy talk

I've been meaning for a while to make some comment on the frequency with which the word "fairness" or along the lines "it's only fair" has been appearing in the Howard media blitz. Way to grab the subliminal attention and all that stuff, guys. Why, "fairness" is the characteristic that people most often associate with the Born to Rule, eh? Because people would only be born to rule if they acted fairly, it stands to reason.

The daily vox-pop in the Curious Snail this morning gave the lie to the "Howard is gone" meme - 3 out of 5, as I recall, thought he was the most wondrous being the world has ever seen. Mind you, 5 is a small sample. And it is the C-M. Just a warning against hubris I guess.

Meanwhile, what really makes us happy. In VVB's case, it'll be when the Lotto comes in and we can get one of these:

Except I want it in gunmetal grey. I've had a red car, people make such unkind jokes. It's an Audi RS4, for those not into cars as much as we are. Oh, and I'd like a real one, not a model.

I do believe it's getting better..

..better, all the time
(It can't get no worse)

...sang the Beatles.

And in all sorts of ways, it is. For example, I get the Australian Institute of Management's monthly magazine which is always chock full of useful and interesting and, dare one say it, necessary things that managers should be doing to improve productivity by improving life at work. And this month's edition is no exception, with a substantial article on how making work life as attractive as possible gets results for all concerned.

From OH&S to job design to employee participation in decision-making to two doona days a year, there are a whole of factors, mostly pretty damn simple and commonsensical, that contribute to an active and engaged workforce that's willing, in fact happy, to go the extra mile.

Now the folks at AIM don't strike me as a bunch of rabid socialists, all this is grounded in theory and practice and is aimed at, yes again, higher productivity that is likely to get managers promoted. Even BRW runs articles like this.

Except that managers are expected to do this in a legislative environment, no longer called WorkChoices except in extant legislation, that drives lowest-common-denominator behaviour. Which has guess what outcome?

Chateau VVB will manfully, personfully even, resist making a whole series of obvious cheap gibes. If you're reading here you know how it'll run already.

But reflecting a rather interesting workshop today which at one stage descended (maybe ascended in fact) into a lively debate about capitalism vs socialism with everyone in furious agreement yet starting their sentences with "...but", we all know we have do start doing things differently and better, and starting now. Keeping that enthusiasm going and spreading the word which only seems commonsensical to a minority is the challenge.

The AIM mag also has a piece of depression at work, particularly among senior managers. This is a group who, consistent with that honoured Australian culture wherein blokes, particularly senior blokes, never admit to any weakness, are suffering depression in secret and wondering what's wrong with them. The more this type of info gets around the better.

There's also a piece about Julie Bishop that I'll pass on, thanks.

One other piece of good news at Casa VVB is that the brew of apple cider which we got going at the weekend has only now started to bubble. The can said that this mix ferments over a longer period than beer, but made no mention of being slower to start. Well it does. Should be interesting, it's starting to smell quite appley. Just as well.

through a glass onion

It's a slow Sunday night at Chateau vvb. All our outrage that the original, fair and balanced components of WorkChoices that were Protected by Law have now been Changed by Law or perhaps, more apocalyptically, Overturned by Law has been ebbing away. If our Law can be Overturned, or perhaps even more apocalyptically, Undermined, where are we to turn.

Well, in this instance at least, to The Onion. I used to read it all the time but hadn't been there for a while. One of my favourite columns is American Voices. While I could have linked to any quantity of these, here's just one: great comedy. Bet you click through to another...

kind of blue

Reasonably frequently I have a look at the newspaper from our old home town, Canberra, to see what's exercising the locals. Also because they have one of the country's better cartoonists, Geoff Pryor.

Anyway amongst the very local trivia, principal amongst which is the utter incompetence of the pretend local government to which even the left-leaning Times gives a pasting, you occasionally get a story which is just too local to hit the big time. Anything related to the public service, for example.

Which brings us to this sordid little tale of the federal government's approach to public management and accountability. Public servant refuses to lie to preserve the government's flexibility to shut down dissent wherever it might raise its head. That's what they've been doing for 11 years, particularly in the realm of overseas aid.

I guess this is hardly new, it goes on everywhere and at any time. But there's an awfully long history of this with weasel Howard and, because I don't like very much what he's done to the country, it appears to me that he and his gang of gutless spivs have again raised this to something of an art form.

Well, he's certainly been looking at the polls and reading the tea-leaves of the focus groups because the new ads for superannuation and private medical insurance are both at pains to highlight the 'fairness' in the system. "It's only fair" pops up everywhere.

So, people recognise that the country has become more unfair under his backward-looking little reign. And it's more than $33m salaries (although such instances make awfully telling examples), it's all the little things. Just like the Iraqis, we are finding out over time that repeating the words "freedom", "liberty" and "democracy" does not actually mean you have them.

On another tack entirely, the voyage of self-discovery of yer 'umble correspondent took another small step this evening through the completion of some standardised online tests. Nothing at all outstanding or innovative about them, the real value will come from how they get interpreted by the experts and what advice they give me. I am quite looking forward to that.

A couple of minutes later, an update...

Here's a letter to the editor of the Canberra Times:

Labor's Australia: old France without the cheese

Whatever happened to the shibboleth that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them? This Government has been an exemplary one, starting with the courageous, almost unbelievable defeat of the wharfies, overseeing the collapse of all but the public-sector unions, introduction of the GST, general fiscal responsibility, freeing of the economy and support for the West internationally against evil two-bit dictatorships and the humbug tolerance of them in the UN and by the left.

Even Ken Henry, with no affiliation or affection for the current government, admits that it is the best Australia has had in 50 years. If the Government survives, it may have to look at past and current immigration policy, as that seems to be where the problem lies. That could take even more courage than confronting the wharfies.

Australia risks ending up crippled like pre-Sarkozy France, except for McDonald's, the cheese and clean, cheap nuclear power.
Chris Smith,
Braddon

I'll be interested to see whether Mr Smith draws any responses from the mainly left-leaning readers of the left-leaning paper. In the meantime, I would simply say:
(1) Freeing the economy?
Whitlam - 25% reduction in tariffs
Hawke - floating the dollar
Howard - GST?

(2) Support against evil two-bit dictatorships?
Burma?
Mugabe (oh I forget, we're not sending the cricket team).

(3) "...past and current immigation policy, as that seems to be where the problem lies."
Which particular problem are we referring to?

(4) And let's suspend any adulation for M Sarkozy until he actually does something, eh?

No point looking for logic when the talking points will suffice.

the song remains the same

Got the news on the TV behind me, the PM says that WorkChoices will be described in simple language because people are "confused". I don't think people are at all confused, and that's why the polls are the way they are. But even if there is massive confusion, let VVB be the ever helpful service that it is and suggest a new ad campaign in simple, easy to understand language.

Dear employee

You're fucked.

Uncle Joe and John

The I-rack

'cos I don't know how to post youtube links and make them appear like the screenshot, here's a link. Please, watch it, it's the funniest thing I've seen for ages.

And cutting, too. Not for Bush supporters.

Or Apple fanatics, for that matter.

all the small things

VVB as rule doesn't pinch from Crikey which is a struggling subscription-based start-up alternative to the dreaded and dreadful MSM and needs to protect its IP. So, just this once. Until next time. Here's an extract from commentary on the ABC's Bastard Boys:

Julian Burnside
As reported by AAP:
I thought Rhys Muldoon did a terrific job actually.
Watching him, especially in the court scenes was uncannily like being myself. I
thought he did a great job, he picked up on my mannerisms with great accuracy.
On the factual accuracy of the show:
I thought the series overall did a very good job. In particular, I thought it made (Patrick Corporation CEO) Chris Corrigan look like the sort of guy you could sympathise with and like…And, I think that's pretty good because, after all, it was a government in a criminal conspiracy with a big company to break its own laws.
Chris Corrigan
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Corrigan said: It's a puff for Greg Combet and it just happens to coincide with his run for Parliament. It's virtually worshipful, putting him in the most favourable light. I think the Government gets off very lightly, given that they concocted the whole scheme and John Howard personally signed off on it. We have the cabinet documents, and he signed off on the sacking of the entire workforce.

Just in case you misread that, here it is again from that impeccable source, the Daily Telegraph.

Now, what particular piece of that admittedly small snippet kind of grabs your attention?

No, not the bit about the government "concocting the whole scheme" Howard "personally signing off" on an action to break the laws of the country of which he was Prime Minister.

No, this: "We have the cabinet (sic) documents."

Cabinet documents. Really.

How.

And why.

And do the rest of us get to see documents that directly affect our well being. Like the ones on the budget figures that the Treasurer successfully defended from public view only a little while ago because they would have laid bare the logical, moral and intellectual vacuum at the centre of the government's supposedly impeccable economic management credentials.

One law for the rich.

One for the PM (although it's not really a law if a Prime Minister can kind of, you know, just override it).

And one for all of us.

You know what that means.

Just don't forget it. (Scroll down to no 6!)

Goodnight, my lovelies.

Update 16 May: Crikey has this in its corrections column today:

Thomas Hunter writes: Re. "Bastard Boys II: What the critics say" (yesterday, item 12). Yesterday we attributed the following quote to Chris Corrigan: “I think the Government gets off very lightly, given that they concocted the whole scheme and John Howard personally signed off on it. We have the cabinet documents, and he signed off on the sacking of the entire workforce.” Apologies to Mr Corrigan. That comment was in fact made by Greg Combet.

So the unions had the Cabinet documents? WTF? Looks like I've missed something, but I don't know what it is, do I, Mr Jones.

doubts, I've had a few

Hey look, what about the private health fund television advertisement onslaught? What gives? Well, apart from an imminent election, I mean.

We are being sold the whole kit and kaboodle all over again. We have to have the private health funds because there isn't enough money for public health. And we have to subsidise the private health fund because otherwise no one would use them and we'd have to give the money to the public health system.

And we have to threaten you to join the private health system by putting a loading on your contributions. And we have to set everyone up against everyone else - you wouldn't want to be subsidising those freeloaders, would you? Heck, they could be Muslims. Or worse, Labor voters.

And of course the private health funds go to extraordinary lengths to make it difficult to compare allegedly similar offerings so we're going to pay someone to compare them for you.

Hello? Like every sector whose companies used to just offer services but are now in competition. Are you going to set up a system where someone compares offerings from energy companies, telecommunications companies, all the other bloody services we used to get at a reasonable price and without cold callers ringing you up right on roast lamb time to sell you something you've already got. And that's leaving out where we always had compettition, such as insurance.

Fuck this, the whole world is going plumb insane.

Guess who this is: "We don't want to do anything that gives any skerrick of comfort to Mugabe's regime". Here's a hint - it's a voice like fingernails down a blackboard. Here's a hint for you, you twat: Invade. That's what you did last time, isn't it? What's different now? It's cricket, for crying out loud, this is serious.

I couldn't believe it was true

For anybody who reads this blog - all three of you - who don't read Peter Martin, Economics Editor for the Canberra Times, here's a link to an article by him analysing a possible reason behind the apparent drop in productivity in Australia over the last 5 or 6 years. Previous recent articles have also looked at the productivity data.

However, Martin now goes one step further by drawing a possible link to the Keating workplace reforms, Enterprise Bargaining Agreements. Martin points out that EBAs were meant to be negotiated on a workplace basis, drawing management and employees together in a collaborative process aimed at delivering benefits for all parties. By contrast, WorkChoices pits stronger management against weaker individuals, and pits individuals against each other.

If anything, the lack of common sense behind such a design simply reinforces the fairly commonly held view that WorkChoices was all about driving a stake through the heart of the union movement first and delivering concomitant benefits to capital second. Any thought that it would deliver national benefits is risible.

Having read a few of Peter Martin's columns recently, it's nice to see a new (ish?) economics commentator on the scene who doesn't just chew and regurgitate Government press releases.
I couldn't believe it was true. (But I hope it is).

back on the chain gang

Well Chateau VVB is back on line thanks to Hung the 'pooter wizard. Altho' he hasn't spread his wizardry to all corners of the ranch, we still have a networked computer that isn't.

The e-mail address book has disappeared but may be retrievable. Fortunately, all the photos and files have been retrieved including those from some of our years overseas that Mrs VVB had started scanning to disk. Many of those photos in albums had begun to fade, being quite old. Also, most of those from Pakistan days suffered additionally from local printing, where the chemicals were undoubtedly (a) already old and (b) probably diluted.

But in honour of those days, here's a photo of a restaurant whose name I found appealing in my younger and coarser days. Of course, in Latin it means "with with" and no doubt that was the owner's intention.

Apart from that, nothing really to say about the recent political stuff. Costello damned the Rudd budget in reply as lacking vision for the economy in the future. Fair cop, we should usually look to Labor to put people first to some extent: an extent that shrinks each year, of course. Praise be to globalisation!

48 crash

After a weekend of security software woes, the motherboard threw up its...bits...and died earlier this week. So we had Hung the repair bloke in today to set up offspring no 2's new Dell as the main 'pooter and he took the dead one away to see if it could be resuscitated. Let's hope so - that's where all the piccies, and CVs, and other stuff including favourites settings etc were stored. When the security programs started malfunctioning we'd tried to save all that but two attempts to burn to disk had failed as it kept telling I had the wrong type of disk, even though I (surprise) used different sorts of disks. Remember my comment the other day about how much 'technical' stuff you need to know to keep a home 'pooter going? Well, QE bloody D.

And offspring no 2 uses her (even newer) Mac notebook. She does well for someone without a full time job, eh? How does this happen?

Let me tell you: transfer payments. Economic vandalism. Voodoo economics.

I'll never get my Audi RS4 at this rate...

And there won't be any more Tasmania pictures unless we can retrieve from the old hard disk.

bad sneakers*

Here's a very very interesting article in that bastion of all things trendy and socialistic, the Guardian, on France's new President Sarkozy and what he might mean for la belle France.

France is different - it exists to remind us that there are different ways of doing things. It's not perfect, and its ways of doing things are deeply rooted in culture which means that even if laissez faire took hold (well at least a greater proportion of the citizens would understand what it meant) and managerialism triumphed, it wouldn't be the full Washington Consensus model. The same as if Australia were to adopt a more Francophone attitude to holidays and lunch.

However, the article expresses some doubt whether Sarkozy believes in as flat an earth as many cheering Hayekian commentators hope he does.

I thought the article glossed a bit over fairly extensive poverty and inequality in the US and UK. No doubt (he said, without bothering to research the stats) the unemployment rate in France is higher - I mean, look at us here with 3.75% or whatever it is. Yes, we've got the jobs and you need to have one to put the food (more on food in a minute) on the table, but many are part-time or casual or temporary. It's a job, but it's precarious and it's closer to existing than living, I would argue. Easy for me to say in my comfortable position, granted.

Yeah, food. After some decades of efficiency-driven food production: industrial agriculture, feedlots, reducing plant breed diversity, 'supply chain management', importing cheaper rather than buying better locally, supermarkets and lots of processing, we're only now waking up to the fact that the model may not be sustainable. Or good for our health and that of our children, more to the point. Slow food, buying locally, reducing the carbon cost of transporting food, eating fresher. It's got a bit to recommend it, eh?

And the humungous subsidies that have been paid to protect la vie in rural France, on the back of tariffs on our own oh-so-efficient agricultural exports? Yes, agreed, humungous. Yes, not at all economically sound in a single-bottom-line way of thinking. But in recent years I've heard some awfully similar rhetoric from rural Australia as economic change (and the drought, of course) buries deeper into the rural way of life. And not all of it from RM Williams clad National Party voters, either. You recognise that it is valuable, you want to protect it, someone gotta pay. Somehow. Transfer payments, cross-subsidisation, community service obligations and so on. Take your pick, but if the fast-becoming-mythical Australia is worth preserving, the free market will not deliver that unless there's something local that enough people will pay enough to see. By which I do not mean The Big Swaggie or whatever.

So let's watch M. Sarkozy: the rhetoric and the reality. No doubt the article makes a valid point when it says that France's current situation isn't sustainable. Babies, bathwater, agreed. Let's hope they get it right and stuff it up the nose of the flat-earthers. Let them eat McDonald's.

*Oh, Bad Sneakers? Look at the chorus: "I'm going in Seine".

La Boom Boom.

every picture tells a story

Just for something to do - well, I could be working on the business plan, but... - I thought I'd post some more photos of the Tassie holiday. This one is on some fungus on a fallen log along a walking track (Keogh's) near the Tahune Airwalk.

This one is the creek that ran alongside the same path.

This one is Stanley, taken from the top of the geological formation known as The Nut that towers alongside the village. Stanley was without a doubt the cleanest, neatest town I've ever seen. I think I saw it had won a Tidy Town award at some time and I wasn't surprised. It was just like an English seaside village.

The church at Port Arthur.

General view of Port Arthur.

hit me with your best shot

As is his wont, Ross Gittins nails it perfectly today as he labels the politics behind SerfChoices (dunno where I stole that from but it's good) as a return to class warfare that John Howard thinks he can win. The public memory may not be short but it is certainly a bit selective, and Howard is still playing on the race memory of union activism from 30 years.

Gittins concludes by wondering why more of the commentariat don't see Howard's ploy for the "try-on" that it is. Maybe it's because the media is not as "leftist"-dominated as we incessantly are told?

Chateau VVB is currently in the grip of computeritis. We had been using Macafee as our security program, having ditched Norton some years ago. However it was becoming increasingly evident that we were still being infiltrated by nasties. Mrs VVB, who does most of our computer fixing (because she has far more patience than me), had downloaded another major security package on a trial basis, on the basis of a recommendation from a shop.

It seems to be blocking more stuff - well, it seems to be doing more stuff - but we're getting constant messages advising us of things that may or may not have happened.

It strikes me as a real demonstration of "how we live now" that you have to be extremely expert in highly technical stuff to run a home computer. If your car breaks down it's unlikely that you could fix it yourself, but at least cars don't break down regularly any more. Computing on the other hand seems to throw up problems on an alarmingly regular basis and you've got to have a fair knowledge of what's going on, otherwise you'd be paying squillions to get someone in, it seems to me. How do you folk who run home-based businesses fare?

However, one benefit is that we can once again access our online banking from the main downstairs computer: we simply failed at setting up Macafee to allow the cookies running the bank's security to let us in. We had the networked upstairs computer on a different security package, so that's where we did the banking. Now, we can't link to the upstairs computer...

We are also getting the odd porn site getting through the new firewall. Makes for interesting conversation.

get it on (bang a gong)

Well I don't know how it's happened but suddenly the need to post every day has just dissipated. Yep, she's gone, just disparu. So what you'll get here is pretty much just a random smattering of stuff where I came, I saw and thought it was sorta kinda interesting but if you don't find it thus, well, tough.

(1) Why does SBS feel it needs to air a "some viewers may find this program offensive" warning for Iron Chef, for crying out loud? Who's going to be offended - those intolerant of iron?

(2) What about the print and TV ads for the private medical insurance system? What's brought that on? Early election, anyone? I love it, my tax dollars at work. How about chucking it into Medibank, you bastards? Oh, we have to support the private system? Of course, I like totally understand.

(Interlude: Bang a gong, we are on!).

(3) Julia Gillard needs to drop the year 11 debating team phrasing. If that's her normal mode of delivery then it needs to change, quick smart.

(4) The drought and its immediate effect on the spreading acres of chateau VVB. When we first moved here, I used to sweep up the leaves every Saturday morning. That eventually reduced to every fortnight. We've tried various leaf vacuums and blowers, both petrol and electric. I currently have a nice wide yard broom which is not only environmentally friendlier but also quicker. But getting out every weekend is still a pain so there's only a couple of bits I do that regularly.

Today I went down to the pool area and the quantity of very dry, brown leaves all around was astounding. The pool's been shut - it has a leak and as we can't fill it, the water doesn't come up the skimmer box level any more. We'll have to buy water to put in so I can run it when the bloke who has the machine that finds leaks (and goes bing, presumably) comes out. That's going to be an expensive repair. The trees are thinning out, the leaves look dry and lifeless. But when I look in the real estate section of the weekly magazine, everything's so green. How so, I wonder?

(5) Why would spell check not pick up sorta and kinda. Oh, I know...

Anyway, gotta go, time for Rockwiz. During the week I picked up some Stevie Ray Vaughan and today I got some Fabulous Thunderbirds and Glenn Shorrock's new acoustic album. The car was telling it needed new music. What it really needs is some new rear speakers as one has started buzzing in a really bad way. At least rears can be replaced more cheaply than front splits.

Until next time, stay safe, my lovelies.

Update:
Oh frabjous day, my favourite TV non-personality, Dugald, is back on Rockwiz.

And you won't be staying safe if John McCain, a Republican nominee for the 2008 presidency, has his way. Terry Jones, once a Python, tells you why. Tell me, is the whole political world stark barking mad? "I've declared the USSR illegal". "Mission accomplished". "Protected by law".

The world was so much simpler when Marc Bolan sang about riding white swans, eh?

helpchildless

Chateau VVB's theory on the Heffernan/Gillard affair is simple. Howard put Heffernan up to it. The Libs had thrown everything including the kitchen sink at Rudd but the polling still showed lots of support. So, let's turn to the next target. Conveniently, Heffernan had expressed his views about childless potential deputy PMs a year ago, so it wouldn't raise any suspicions if he simply reiterated them for the Bulletin interview.

Howard's and Heffernan's follow-up comments, the so-called apology' along with the confected outrage from other senior Libs all set the scene. But there's plenty of punters out there with views similar to 'Senator' Heffernan. " So, let's get a handle on what proportion of the populace, shall we, and where they live." "What a spiffing good idea. Hello, get me Mark Textor."

Conspiracy theories are so much more fun than real life, n'est pas? The thing is...we all know there's no depth to which Howard wouldn't stoop, so.......you know it makes sense.

here come de judge

Yesterday's big spread in the Australian about what a small time, and apparently incompetent, player David Hicks was couldn't go unchallenged when you need to keep the fear factor up all the way to election time. So here 'Attorney-General' Philip Ruddock does his bit. What a good soldier for the cause he is, when you can't get a good jury you can also be the judge.

And coincidentally in the background is the current TV ad for taking out Australian citizenship, it's "more than just a ceremony". Which of course it was under Labor, I guess. And you can get "full consular assistance." Well, you used to, now it depends (on bits that I can't recall from the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations).

Really, words do not describe, do they?

the logical song

I have kept forgetting to post a link to this wonderful periodic table of "visualisation methods", management strategy models and tools and other rare beasties to keep indentured professionals in a state of catatonic...geez I dunno, the words fail me, give me your suggestions... for a long, long time.

If you run your mouse over each box a sample pops up. This list is, without doubt, one of the most wonderful things I have ever run across. You can take it seriously as a compendium of tools available, or you can just gaze at it in wonder, knowing full well the hours, days and years that lots and lots of people have spent being intellectually and emotionally pummelled as they get forced through whatever the process-du-jour happened to have been. Like my good friend who, on arrival in a new area decided to show what a good bloke he was and volunteered to coordinate the annual business planning process. He was still at it eleven months into the year.

I have a business planning session next week, as some kind of perverse welcome-back-to-work present. I hope we have on-line audio-visual capacity on the room. If so I'll be going to this within the first five minutes.

Incidentally, the link was sent to me with the e-mail title "recipes for spaghetti and other disasters" - a reference, of course, to the Barry Jones Knowledge Nation fiasco.

Enjoy!!!!

your gold teeth

A bit more on Working Identity. Another theme that struck me about the case studies was the number of people who went into the not-for-profit sector, ie mainly humanitarian causes. At least half a dozen of the 25-odd cases, all successful professionals including quite a few in management consulting, had identified through either serendipity or reflection that this was where they wanted to work - to make more of a difference, they found. There's one snippet where an investment banker reflects on what he feels he had achieved in investment banking and decided it wasn't very much, and his embarrassment to the extent that he used to hide his profession when meeting people at parties, for example.

Which is not to take a cheap shot an investment banking, tempting though that is. More to the point, the theme of moving from highly paid for-profit jobs into (usually) less well paid employment in the not-for-profit sector seems to be becoming more common, as I read similar stories quite often in management journals and business magazines.

Of course for it to be a genuine trend you'd need to do some objective comparisons over time. I'm not trying to draw any long bows between the rise of the market economy and greater levels of dissatisfaction and inner turmoil in highly-paid executives. I've no doubt that many businesspeople have always sought to assist in various philanthropic ways. Still, it would be interesting to see whether there is in fact some trend emerging.

My copy of Working Identity is to go on loan almost immediately in a direction I hadn't anticipated, namely to a good friend who has just failed to get a job he had every reasonable expectation of getting and is now in introspective mode. You never know, as they say.

Finally, Kenneth Davidson, who seems to be drifting even further "leftish" in his economic analysis, not that there's anything wrong with that as we must let a hundred schools of thought contend, writes here about the imminent shitfight over the proposed Australia-China Free Trade Agreement. Government reliance on dodgy modelling is nothing new, Keating and co did similarly on the Uruguay Round negotiations. Those forecast numbers have still not been achieved as far as I am aware. Why you'd want to go into an agreement with an economy that ceteris paribus is destined to overwhelm you anyway is beyond me. Davidson laments that trade "liberalisation" will be the outcome with the China agreement: well no surprise there, that's what such agreements are meant to do. Classifying China as a market economy for the purposes of the agreement is just crap, there's no other word for it.

Trade agreements are fine in principle, provide you get something out of them. That's the bit that seems to be missing here. Investment? Services? Hmmmm.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of the main church (St David's?) at the Port Arthur site. I love the feel of the light in the afternoon.

Last thoughts. Does Australia love Snoop Dogg? Do you love Snoop, as his lawyer avers? Answers on the pack of a Chupa Chup to this address.

going up the country

The country we are going up - the journey referred to a couple of posts ago - is an internal one. One of a great many late realisations that I've made is that it is possible, indeed desirable and perhaps even necessary, to continually look inward and reinvent yourself. As I hinted, for a substantial period of my life I drifted through what I was doing. I was moderately successful, defined in work terms, which seems to be how we define ourselves far too frequently. Not outstanding but certainly comfortable would be how I'd put it.

I was fortunate a few years ago to get onto a personal development course. It was without a doubt the most intense example of such activities that I've seen and, almost without exception, those of us who experienced it got a lot out of it. While the immediate effects may wear off, it left a substantial legacy including the continuing desire to change, as well as some of the tools you need to do so.

It was that course, along with a few things that have happened in the meantime, that led to me getting Working Identity (from Amazon, no-one in Brisbane seemed to have it including the Australian Institute of Management whose computer system showed one in stock, but it was nowhere to be found).

Working Identity relates a number of strategies for bring about a career change that are wholly consistent with the general approach taken on the course: finding oneself first; becoming much more comfortable with ambiguity; looking for new sources of inspiration; and, particularly in the context of job change, trying out new versions of yourself in new situations.

Because I've never learnt the lesson of "never a borrower nor a lender be", I'll be lending it to a couple of people to see what they make of it.





The picture shows one of the many walking paths we enjoyed while in Tassie. This one is on the Freycinet Peninsula, heading back to Coles Bay from Hazards Beach. I love paths like this - every corner you approach promises something new. I feel the picture accurately captures the nature of following a path where the journey is the destination, where the things you discover along the way represent the most value.




Comments on the day's proceedings? Radio CommunistNational, which I was listening to on the way back from the waste recycling centre (oh how I yearn for the days of going to "the dump") had a quite insightful program on Howard's repositioning of the Liberal Party, including interviews with a number of the 'wets' who were unceremoniously dumped along the way. There was one wonderful snippet (couldn't pick up from whom) about Maggie Thatcher being wheeled in a few times to provide her particular view on how the world should work. The speaker described the rapturous reception she received, and the content of her speeches as "stupidly offensive". Or it may have been "offensively stupid", I thought at the time that it could have been interchangeable.

money

The triangulation starts here (see comments on previous post for some sort of explanation).

The picture has no relevance to the topic, it's just a close-up of the bricks in one of the buildings at Port Arthur - they made the bricks with sea water and the salt content made them vulnerable to the weather. I liked the pattern.

I was thinking, see. Have we ever had a PM called Kevin before? It just sort of struck me that amongst the Roberts and Bobs and Johns and Pauls we haven't ever gone bogan chic, if I can be so rude. PM Rudd has a nice sort of ring to it - in an On Our Selection sort of way - but Kevin? I am reminded of the more famous Kevins - this one for example. Well, it's got to happen first I suppose before we get all thing about his name.

There was a letter in the Courier Mail this morning from a bloke who runs a recruitment agency, wondering how he'll ever get a fair run in bidding for government work in a Rudd-led government, with Kevin's wife being Therese Rein, founder and CEO of Ingeus.

A fair point, I can't recall any other PM with a spouse who was in business. I don't have an answer to the question - it'd be a big ask for her to sell the business should we actually get a PM Kevin - but surely it's better to have a PM with a spouse who understands business from an owner's point of view, who's been there and done it so to speak?

Trip update: I took two books with me - The Natural Advantage of Nations and Jeremy Clarkson. Natural Advantage would put bricks to sleep. I got about 20 pages into it and put it away until the return flight. I was quite struck by the number of Australian examples, but I was more struck by the apparently unaddressed need for lots of editing. On one page Ken Henry, Secretary of the Treasury is lauded for talking about consumer sovereignty and on the bottom of the same page is a pretty weak damnation of the reliance on a single mechanism, the price signal, in a market economy. Now that's a slightly simplistic analysis of what's actually in the book, but if you are going to try to make a case in economic terms you can't have potentially contradictory arguments - and certainly not in such proximity.

There are lots of examples of successful innovations with the potential to lead to sustainability in economic, social and environmental terms but overall the tone is relentless without being intriguing. I would have thought such a book should draw you in, caress you to its way of thinking. I'll need to get back to it at some stage but I have been distracted. Not by Clarkson - which I'm whipping through a couple of stories a night - but by this. It was recommended to me and so far I like the approach. It is also based a lot on case studies, but the stories of each individual's goals, motivation, psychological and practical responses to issues which arose in the search for a new career and so on are well captured and analysed.

And money? Well, it's a hit, don't give me that do goody-good bullshit.

A strong economy is good for you.

down two then left

Australia's rising, inflation isn't, all's well in the universe. Looks like the end of history, so this will also presage some changes at chateau vvb.






It's been obvious for a long time that I have nothing new or insightful to say about the Australian polity and, in particular, the disastrous way it has been 'managed' (and believe me that's what it has been - certainly not 'led') over the last 11 years. My disdain for John Howard and the deep, unnecessary damage he has done to Australian society since he came to power knows no bounds, but simply repeating that view here doesn't change anything.

There are plenty of blogs which do better analysis of that damage, and of the particularly limited and regressive worldview of Howard's that brings it all about, not to mention the vindictiveness that informs his political machinations. Best we leave that job to the experts.

It's time that vvb went off on a bit of a different journey, symbolised at the beginning by the fabulous piccie that mrs vvb took of one of the many natural arches on Tasmania's eastern coast, and also these goats at one of the places we stayed (one of two places run by ex-Queenslanders). Which kind of got us thinking about a potential move, too.










As a bit of a teaser, I'm hoping to also embark on a bit of personal journey over the next little while, some of which I plan to share. It'll be revealing, mainly about how someone can sail through life for so long with so little understanding of what's been going on around him, but maybe talking a bit about that will be where the value will come from.

For consistency with this approach, I've asked that venividiblogi be dropped from the daily OzPolitics feed. And if I do get the urge to vent about Howard, I have another tiny spot in the Wordpress part of the blogosphere. I haven't posted there for ages because I keep forgetting I started it (update - and I deleted my wordpress account so I won't be doing any more posts there - clever). So instead, here are some other pictures.

Here are some caves (King Solomon's at Mole Creek).









More wave sculpture on the Tasman Peninsula on the east coast.











Stewart's Bay, next to Port Arthur. We had a little self-contained cabin, it was positively silent except for the sound of the waves in the background. And, for some reason, utter pitch darkness inside. Made the ritual going to the toilet at 2am journey quite interesting.










Keogh's Creek near the Tahune AirWalk. Wowie zowie, is that airwalk ever an experience. Not for those with vertigo, to be sure.










Triple Webers on an original ex-Bathurst Holden XU1, owned by the people who ran one of the places we stayed. We also went to Georgetown to catch the first (Prologue) session of the Targa. Good fun, for those of that kind of inclination.

back in the ussrbrisvagas

Mr and Mrs VVB returned safely to the arms, charms and whatall of house, cat and offspring no 2 this arvo. Blogging will be resumed probably after I'm back at work and back in the rut. For the meantime there are eleventy thousand photos, both digital and traditional negatives, to sort through and choose which to print.

The highlights?

• arriving in Melbourne to find that the reception for the "apartment hotel" was on floor 8 and the lifts were u/s. So I trudged up to 8, got the key to the room (which was on 9), wedged open the stairwell door, went back down and collected Mrs VVB and the heavy bags and went up to 9. Slowly. There was an elderly French couple waiting in the lobby and even after two treks to the room and time to get settled, the poor dears were still waiting for the "in 30 minutes" repair when we went back down. At least I got to exercise my minimal, vestigal French. They got the lifts working but they soon went out again for a few hours.
• the fabulous National Gallery, and how much the inhabitants of chateau VVB prefer traditional forms of art;
• the museum isn't where it used to be 40 years ago;
• buying food (to cook) on Easter Sunday can be a challenge in Melbourne CBD;
• the Spirit of Tasmania is quite good fun even if you don't sleep like you expected to;
• Tasmania is breathtakingly beautiful - every turn you make unveils a new vista (hence the number of photos);
• especially Port Arthur and the Huon Valley;
• but we don't think we'll go to live there, altho' we did discuss it a bit and spent an afternoon looking around to get a feel for the suburbs (we've had a real estate feed coming in for about a year);
• it takes about a week until you stop thinking about work during the ritual 2am awake period;
• the proprietors of both the owner-operated places we stayed at were ex-Queenslanders (including a couple from the next suburb who also patronise the shop where offspring no 2 works - yup, it's a small world);
• you don't really miss the internet and newspapers and all that hoo-ha;
• and you don't want to come home.

But here we are. Selected photos later.

just a song before I go

As those of you who laboured (ha ha) through last night's ode to the government's new-found interest in my innards will know, chateau vvb is off on some long-delayed holidays, leaving vvb-ette to mind the chateau and cat.

So in a frame of mind to give you something to have a laugh at and almost certainly stir up the culture wars - well, if there were enough readers it would - here are couple of articles from something called Radar.

First up, America's worst colleges. As Radar says, this really should be a useful service. The dominant and successful colleges I imagine do all sorts of advertising to attract the "best and brightest", but what if you're mainly known for irrelevant courses or the propensity of the student body to engage in antisocial or criminal behaviour? Shouldn't prospective students get a few insights into the bad along with the good?

Although I must say that America's entrepreneurial society does spawn some, er, inventive ways of raising money even in a student body.

Second, American colleges' worst courses. Lots of so-called cultural studies of course with an emphasis on making something out of nothing from popular TV shows. But I was most taken with The Textual Appeal of Tupac Shakur. That'll be the late Tupac, of course. The idea of gaining an extra credit for learning the Humpty Dance should appeal to those who are driven to achieve at all costs.

Enough of this frivolity. The serious business of ensuring we have packed everything has commenced. As it's been a while since Mrs VVB and I have been hols, this endeavour holds the potential to presage the inevitable tension that will erupt the within the first minutes of collecting the hire car.

Just joking folks. This holiday has been a long time coming and I reckon we're up to making the most of it. How I'll deal with lack of Crikey and blogging is another matter. So, to make up for that, the reading material I'm taking is:
- Amory Lovins and others - the Natural Advantage of Nations;
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation - Educating for the Creative Workforce;
- Jeremy Clarkson - ...and another thing.

I've just tested the first bottle of Coopers Pale Ale. Quite tasty but utterly flat. Bugger.

a guest post by offspring no 2

This blog is being written by offspring number 2.....why? There's some heavy stuff going on here in Casa de VVB, and Mr. VVB felt that perhaps I should write about it.

I arrived home today and collected the mail (as usual), and proceeded to the front door. Lent up against the door was a large A4 packet, marked clearly 'Australian Government'...very official. It was addressed to Mr. VVB. I left, and have just returned to the house to discover that the official package was in fact a once in a lifetime opportunity for Mr. VVB to participate in...

The 'NATIONAL BOWEL CANCER SCREENING PROGRAM'!!

What an opportunity. What an honour. Mr. VVB is indeed a very lucky man.

The general gist is that the Australian Government would like Mr.VVB to provide them with 2 very special little brown presents.

So what's in the packet? Let's have a look.

• Two specimen collection sheets (Did you know that someone makes money out of making paper that you poo on?)
• Two collection sticks (I thought that a spoon would have been more appropriate)
• Two collection tubes (no comment)
• Two labels (he gets to name them)
• Two screw-top transport tubes (so they can go everywhere he does)
• Instructions for sample collection (in case you have never sampled your own excrement before).
• One reply paid envelope. (Which appears to be addressed to the wrong person, I'm sure if Mr.VVB were going to send his poo somewhere it would be to John Howard).

Storage and handling seem to be of concern, displayed in clear red writing. "Sample tubes should be stored at room temperature in a dark, dry location. May be stored in fridge but do not freeze."

So here's Mr. VVB, he's just done his service to Australia...and now he's going to put his two new friends (Todd and Jeremy...he got to name them, remember) in the fridge next to last night's left overs.

Will he do it? Won't he? Will he be allowed on to a plane to Tasmania with the kit, or will it be considered a weapon? All that and more when VVB returns in 2 weeks....

Over and out.

Postscript from VVB:

Various thoughts spring to mind, foremost amongst which is "Australia expects every man this day to do his duty...then collect it in a bag and send it back to us."

As for instructions on how to collect, in case you haven't collected sample of your own excrement before...hmmm, yes. Not one of my hobbies, so, no but yes, but no.

Also, how does someone invent the floating poo catcher? And what testing does it go through to determine fitness for purpose? I think someone's been straining to get to this point.

Anyway I think I'll leave Todd and Jeremy in the fridge, maybe someone can feed them to the cat.

As mini-VVB-ette said...over and......OUT!

Post-script to the post-script: You know it's an election year when you get an unsolicited letter from the government asking you to tell them about something that's very important to you. And enclose a demonstration.

free falling

Stacks of times throughout the day various things will suggest themselves for a blogpost. If I was rooly rooly keen I'd write them down and then, when the evening comes around (what song does that come from?), I could post. It'd be ever so efficient.

Regrettably, with the need to actually try to concentrate on work, allied with the attention span of a gnat - and the observant amongst you will note the incompatibility of those two factors - I don't. Then every evening, when it comes around, I have to try to remember what it was that so damned fascinating, or at least moderately interesting, so I can write. Speaking of attention spans... playing video games gives you a longer attention span? Didn't I read somewhere yesterday that the makers of board games like Monopoly are having to bring out new versions that last 20 minutes, not a whole evening, to cater to Gen Y?

Fortunately for all of my reader, work has been insinuating itself into my life to a greater extent recently. This has aligned nicely with an ennui, a certain je ne sais quoi, with the whole bloggerama thing. There are, believe it or not, only so many times you can whinge about Howard and co. No, actually that's not right, many others in the 'sphere do it literally incessantly and VVB is more than happy for them to continue to do so, and we'll come around and leave a comment occasionally. Maybe you're supposed to get some feeling of belongingness by being part of the vast left wing echo chamber but if so, the feeling has passed me by.

It'd also be far more effective to write posts offline, to mould and sculpt them into finely honed pieces of literary brilliance. I believe other people do this, quite obviously I don't. But if I did, there'd have to be an awful lot of sculpting. And would it still be a blog? Ah, the unfathomable, the imponderable questions of life.

No, me neither.

So, what about that David Hicks eh? Did you see Major Mori on the 7.30 report tonight? Good performance I thought, very professional, then he started to sound like he wanted out but Red Kezza just kept on coming. Mori remained professional in his responses but the tone started to sound a bit, not peeved exactly but certainly keen to bring it all to a close. Especially the answers about having to save up questions for Hicks himself when the gag - if it lasts any possible appeals - comes off on 31 March 2008.

How about that Australian Howard Government eh? What a bunch of blokes. Go team.

My neck hurts. Goodnight.