2000 light years from home

Aaah, the first of the many Triumphs. This the Triumph 2000 story.

I'd owned the Datsun 1600 sports for about a year and I still quite liked it. But one Saturday I was due to take out this sheila I'd been kind of courting and I decided it'd be nice to do so in a more comfortable machine. So I went out to do the rounds of the car yards: in Canberra, this meant going to Fyshwick.

So I was poking around and found a very nice 1968 Triumph 2000 Mk1. It was a dark olive green with beige upholstery, it had 20-odd thousand miles on the clock and was, in the manner of the big Triumphs when they were new-ish, quiet and refined. So I bought it. Can't remember if the lady in question was all that enthralled or indeed interested. For example, it's taken 35 years for Mrs VVB to come around to my way of thinking that cars are interesting.

The 2000 really was a ripper and I had lots of fun in it. It did let me down a couple of times, most notably the time that the old man and I went to Melbourne for a wedding. It was a cousin on my mother's side of the family, so she'd flown down early to do all that family thing. Dad and I left about 10 pm at night, for reasons I now can't recall. I was to show him what sophisticated touring was about - I had a set of driving lights and a portable tape player that I'd fitted into the glove box, linked to a small pair of speakers in woodgrain boxes on the back parcel shelf. Very sophisticated.

It was in early winter I think - it was certainly bloody cold - and around Holbrook the generator light came on. We pulled into a truck stop and Dad suggested I pull the genny out. Of course. As one does. At 1am in the morning. To do what with it, exactly? But I didn't ask, I just did what I was told. In fact, all these years later, I still don't question authority nearly as much as I should, and now I know why...

Anyway, it was so cold that I couldn't hold a spanner, so we stretched out in the seats and tried to sleep. The next morning the car started so we resumed the journey. Put simply, we weren't recharging the battery but as the engine, once running didn't use any battery power all we had to do was minimise use of other electrical functions. So no music. Also, using no indicators and minimising brake usage so the brake lights didn't come on. This was fine on the highway, once we got to Melbourne it got interesting.

Anyway, we got to about 10 kms short of the relloes before the battery said "no more, please!" After the wedding, and with a rewired generator, I came back solo and that was one trip: Broadmeadows to Canberra in 5 1/2 hours. Not bad for a car with 100 mph top speed.

Anyway, some time later I was consoling myself about the loss of yet another lady and mixed the driving with the alcohol, as one used to do. I attempted to demolish the block of flats across the road from the folks' place and did enough damage to ensure that the car would never be the same again. While it was in the repairers I first bought a Yamaha RD250 bike and then the Austin 1800 (we've already done the Land Crab story).


Here's a Mk1 Trump in the same colour as mine was - must say I like the set-up! Would I have another one? Like a shot. I reckon the Mk1s were the pick - the dashboard was quite futuristic in design, quite something considering the cars were designed in the late 1950s. Having independent rear suspension in those days was a real rarity, although the Triumph's swing axle design was far from perfect.

I can remember driving up to Sydney one weekend and for no good reason at all - I never did it again - I took the long road through Penrose and Bundanoon on the southern highlands. As I turned into the main street in Bundanoon (I think, or it could have been Penrose) another 2000 turned in at the other end. He flashed his lights but I still hadn't got used to the flasher on the left hand side of the steering column, so I had to make do with a raised finger off the wheel as he passed. Bugger.

For those who are interested, this model is another handbuilt white metal model from Crossway Models. You can see the rear door handle is drooping. Even with a strong Aussie dollar, these models cost a motza and so I do try to stick to the cheaper die cast models. Fortunately most of the cars I want are available in die cast.

greek chorus

All quotes not really quotes, only what I thought I just heard on the TV behind me.

First, courtesy of the lazy man's almanac, Wikipedia, the Greek chorus: In tragic plays of ancient Greece, the chorus (choros) is believed to have grown out of the Greek dithyrambs and tragikon drama. The chorus offers a variety of background and summary information to help the audience follow the performance, commented on main themes, and showed how an ideal audience might react to the drama as it was presented.

So, back to the news:

(1) Lying sack of shit, cunningly disguised as a PM - we will keep you safe from people who want to do you harm. Because believe me, there are people you want to do you harm. (No, I don't mean my government!!! Don't believe everything that Alan Ramsay says!!)

(2) Idiot son of the aristocracy - people want to do you harm in Indonesia. We know this for a fact. What? Oh, yeah. Sorry, got the line wrong a bit there. I meant to say, I am advised that there are people who want to do you harm in Indonesia. I'd also like to send Kevin Rudd to Afghanistan.

(3) "Treasurer" - our brave soldiers are not fighting to keep interest rates petrol prices low.

Hint - they're fighting for one of the many other reasons we have said they are fighting, as amended from time to time.

Kevin Rudd: mouth moves, stuff comes out.

And further: They also represent the general populace of any particular story.

Well, they represent 51%. Or they once did.

In many ancient Greek plays, the chorus expressed to the audience what the main characters could not say, such as their fears or secrets.

Oh be still my beating heart! Do I really want to know what is really in hearts of our gallant triumvirate of feudal Liberal overlords? Puke, no. I can't handle the truth!

Meanwhile back at chateau VVB, I decided that I'd like some apple dumplings like mother used to make. With a little assistance from Mrs VVB - but not a hell of lot, 'cos she'd never made them before either - we have made some.

My main recollection of mother's apple dumplings from when I was little, apart from the fact that I used to really like them, was that I could never remember "cloves", so I'd ask whether the dumplings had "those umm" in them.

And as is the case in families, "those umm" passed in to everyday conversation, such that cloves were always referred to as "those umm".

Oral family histories - I love it.

see emily play

I've just scanned in some more pictures of some the remaining models that I haven't written about yet. This is the Morris 1100 story (although the keen eyed pedants amongst you will note by the grille that the model is in fact the Austin variant - this was at the height of British Leyland's badge-engineering phase so you could get the 1100 in Austin, Morris, MG, Riley, Wolseley and Vanden Plas versions).

Anyway, our 1100 was bought during the engagement period of the now Mrs VVB and me. I had my first mini, an 1100K, when we met, having sold the Triumph 2500Pi about two weeks before that fateful night. Hmm, might need to revisit that phrase...

Anyway, getting engaged and having to start planning for married life and all offered the perfect opportunity to change cars ("I'll back trade the mini and we'll have a cash in hand difference").

Yeah well. I sold the Mini and got an Austin Freeway (the third one I'd owned, refer to this post for the history). Then one Saturday afternoon, not too long after, I went with one of my housemates to look at a Holden EJ wagon - this feller had decided to supplement his income by doing a bread run and he needed a van. We found the house, there were cars everywhere. My mate knocked at the front door and blow me down, it's answered by a bloke I used to know several years earlier. An intriguing and very entertaining fellow, known as "Honest Ed", he dealt in anything that would make a buck. So we go out the back and the yard is full of cars, including the desired EJ wagon - my housemate bought it - and a Morris 1100.

For no good reason at all except I liked to change my cars every three months, I take the 1100 for a drive, it seems fine, I buy it. Another housemate who was a proper mechanic (ie trained and employed as such) diagnosed a burnt valve, but in the year or so (the soon-to-be Mrs VVB started to question the frequency of car changeovers...) that I owned the 1100, that never caused a problem.

It did let me down badly once, when we took it to Melbourne, with a married couple who were friends of ours and their baby. The trip down was marred by the motor frequent cutting out, I couldn't find the problem. Then the car ran fine while we were in Melbourne but on the trip back, just out of Jugiong, it gave up the ghost entirely.

I hitched into Jugiong, rang home, it was a Saturday arvo so the folks were at bowls so it was a bit of a wait but I eventually got onto the old man who came and collected some very frazzled folks and baby. Diagnosis - torn fuel pump diaphragm.

The 1100 is still distinguished by being the only car we ever gave a name to - Emily. It was a faded light green. When Mrs VVB and I eventually went overseas we couldn't sell it. The old man took it off our hands and eventually sold it to the daughter of a neighbour. She later had quite a bad accident in it, she was OK but the car was kaput.

As all my devoted readers know, each car story finishes with the question, "would I own another one?" In this case, if I had a spare garage spot, the answer is a definite maybe. They were as slow as a wet weekend but with the Hydrolastic (pneumatic) suspension they had a quite a good ride, if slightly unusual handling. The seats were comfy and they were very economical - I used to get by on about $2 a week for petrol in 1976. Some friends had the more powerful 1100 'S' version and just last week on eBay there was a Vanden Plas version, which would be very rare, walnut dash and all. Ah time, time, time, see what's become of me...

the end of the line (*)

I really don't know what to make of this Henry Thornton article. Disclosure: I don't know who writes under the HT nom-de-plume, and I'm not sure it'd make any difference if I did.

There was an extract in today's Crikey and this sentence initially had me spluttering:

The point is - all but the most professionally outraged of the punters are only
too well aware, and greet this sort of "revelation" with a universal "ho-hum"
and quickly turn to the sports pages.

It seems to me that if a country gets comprehensively lied to about arguably the most important decision a government can take - to go to war - and doesn't really care, then all the folderol about new defence strategies may as well take place only behind closed doors, it's not newsworthy. Indeed, let's just have sport on the front page as well as the back.

Of course, half a second's reflection will tell you that there are occasions where the sensitivities surrounding a situation will decree that some secrecy is paramount. I'd argue that Iraq was different: it was trumpeted far and wide by the US, Blair signed the UK up in a most public fashion and of course there was Poland and Spain as two of the more enthusiastic early members of the Coalition of the Willing.

We got obfuscation and sleight of hand.

The current shenanigans (and it seems there was more to it than met the eye) only shows that we have a rattled government under pressure. Howard was declaiming on TV tonight that it was never about oil, and Dr Nelson has subsequently performed a Houdini with twist and pike that should score 10s from the judges. "I never said what I said. And if I did say it, it wasn't what I meant." At least he didn't claim to have 'mispoken', evidently the media minders have picked up that there is no such thing.


Most hilariously, Costello got in for his two cents' worth, which was that it had "always been the government's position that Iraq was never about oil." Well yes, exactly, it always has been the government's position (except for a few hours after Dr Nelson's momentary oversight).

It doesn't really matter what was the government's position, the position never refelected the truth. I suppose this is HF's point. More ominously, I doubt that things would get much better under a Rudd ALP government. It'd take a determined step back from the 'realism' view of international security for us to see any change, and the chances ofthat rate about the same as a change from the neoclassical brand of economics that currently has us in its thrall.

In other words...not now, not soon, but one day...

*I have a head full of Wilburys.

fun house

Hours of fun.

So far I have (and beware, some of these are awfully close to the crap we see every day):

• Come to Life. Come to Strategise.
• The appliances of stygmatise.
• Every thing we do is driven by fulfillment.
• Out of the Strong came forth Value.

Tell me your best ones.

everything under the sun is in tune...

...but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

A roundabout way of introducing the notion of jinxes. I have a theory at work that some projects just get jinxed for no apparent reason. No matter what you do, silly little things will keep going wrong that cumulatively will turn the best idea to complete and utter shite.

Which is an even more roundabout way of introducing the story of the old man's Orbital shares. He bought them when Orbital Engine Co floated, about 1967 I think. Still close to the motor business in those days and so, with his engineering and physics bent, was interested in any idea that could make the internal combustion engine, with its highly inefficient bits of metal going in all directions, more efficient.

Of course Orbital did nothing over all those years but he hung on to the shares in desperate hope that one day....

Anyway, when we asked the solicitor to sort out his affairs for probate, the Orbital shares couldn't be traced. Computershare, who run Orbital's share registry, claimed no holding in his name. I thought it was odd but didn't have time then to chase it up.

When we came to close his bank account, the bank's records showed a safe deposit box still in his name in Canberra. Maybe the original share certificates were still there? After much to-ing and fro-ing and about thirty reams of paper, they claimed to have checked the box and it was empty. Hmmmm...

However, the shares still showed up on the assets list in his Vet Affairs pension so earlier this year, I approached Vet Affairs to see if they had a copy of the certificates or similar evidence which, presumably, he would have had to show when first claiming the pension. More to-ing and fro-ing, another forest of paper, but...nope. Nothing.

So eventually, I went to Computershare myself. Two days and two e-mails later, they confirmed the holding. (Memo to self: change solicitors). So I sent off the requisite documentation to get the ownership transferred.

At this stage I should point out, most likely superfluously, that this wasn't about money. Orbital had never paid a dividend and the value of the 1776 shares was $17.76. This was about keeping faith that one day Orbital, now without its founder Ralph Sarich, would vindicate the initial promise of a better mousetrap (which is pretty much what the prototype looked like).

Anyway, yesterday a letter arrives from Computershare. Beauty, we thought. Open it up: the shares were sold on 7 June. Now, Computershare had only confirmed the holding on 5 June, so how could this be?

So today we pick up the electric telephone and navigate the menu of options of who we want to talk to and what we want to discuss and eventually get a live person. So, how did this come about? Well, it seems that Orbital itself had a buy-back of 'unmarketable packages', such as dad's 1776. They had written to all holders. And of course, of all his half a dozen share holdings (the last of the red hot socialists, yeah, well the last of the pragmatic red hot socialists perhaps, given that most of his holdings were privatisations!!), the only one for which he hadn't notified a change of address was Orbital. The opportunity to maintain holdings had expired on 30 May.

If the solicitors had actually found the holding...

If I hadn't left it until 6 months had passed to start looking hard for the holding myself...

If he had actually notified the change of address as he had punctiliously attended to all his other personal administration...

Missed it by **that** much...

...pause...

Meanwhile, in today's Crikey, all politicians are beneath contempt and all writers are hopelessly biassed:

exhibit one: "In the parliamentary chamber this morning, Crikey understands Lennon spoke about the importance of the pulp mill to Tasmania, saying that without it the Tasmanian economy would be set back by three decades. He then recommended the Gunns pulp mill as a necessity for Tasmania."

Lack of a pulp mill, correction, lack of another pulp mill, will set the economy back by three decades? In terms of what, precisely? Certainly not transformation to a more sustainable and value-added economy, then.

exhibit two: Guy Rundle on our favourite Revered Leader: "Howard is a cynical professional politician and the polls would seem to indicate that most people now share this belief. Part of Howard’s problem is that public dislike of him is now categorical – if he donated blood folks’d say he did it to get the free biscuit."

Everything under the sun is in tune...

a different drum

This article, via Bookforum, formerly Political Daily Review, tells how close we came to legitimate fee for service downloads from Napster. But the record companies thought it was a bridge too far, too outside the box, beyond any cliche.

And the inevitable navel-gazing for the next big thing.

And the inexorable decline of music (how I remember the old man damning Cream's sublime* Disraeli Gears as I played it over and over, the perfect background to not studying for the HSC). It wasn't Django and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, it wasn't Bix Beiderbecke, it wasn't the Dorseys, it wasn't Satchmo, it wasn't...everybody who counted.

Well, sublime except for "Take it back" which one of the blues 'purists' at school lambasted as "not the blues." Just 'cos a song is a 12 bar don't make it the blues...

Now it's me in his shoes and the inexorable decline continues with Kanye West and 50 Cent and Christina Aguilera, not to mention the Spice Girls and Boys and...and...and...

...and I still don't have an iPod or similar because I don't know what I'd do with one. Still buying CDs, more country (for the "power chords and anthemic choruses"...well, sort of), been looking for Blitzen Trapper but despite being reviewed in the Australian weekend Review liftout it's still not in the shops as far as I can see. Hence the recent Wilburys purchase...heritage rock for the over 50s. Bring it on.

the dangling conversation

Look, this is way below the usually impeccably high standards of this blog (rofl), but allow me to showcase to you some of the more, er, outstanding comments from this post at Kevin Drum's Washongton Monthly - one of a series of posts on the commutation of 'Scooter' Libby's sentence for perjury.

Hold onto your hats as the finest minds of a generation - or more - let loose, noting that we have representatives from both sides of the argument...

Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!
Suck eggs, liberals. You will never win.
Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah
hah hah hah! Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!

OK, we get the point.

Paris Fucking Hilton did more time than Scooter. Fuck these fucking fucks.

Good example of how overuse of a common swear word initially reduces its effectiveness and then kind of, er, transcends it.

"Come on, pussies, whine for me!! Bush is President and you can't do a thing
about it!!"--Egbert
"Suck eggs, liberals. You will never win."--Norman Rogers
This must be what they meant when they said the adults were in charge.

**snark**

Uh, Norman Rogers?
I hate Bush, and when I first heard about the Libby commutation my immediate reaction was "Hot damn! This is too good to be true!"
Every time I think the American people couldn't possibly hate Bush any more, he
plays right into our hands.
Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!
This ought to be good for knocking AT LEAST another three points off of Bush's
20-something approval rating.
Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!
Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! Bwah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!
If that stupid, drunken frat boy motherfucker stays in there another 17 months, even Kucinich will be able to defeat the Republican nominee. Dumb W. Ass is the best campaigner the Dems have.

Good start, got seduced by the hahs though. It must be a disease, or possibly worse, a meme.

one story town

I look forward to someone - Mike Carlton, Alan Ramsay perhaps, Phillip Adams certainly, doing a similar number to this one on Tony Blair on our own revered leader, when he eventually gets hauled, kicking and screaming, out of Kirribilli.

TBA: this post left sort of open for anything else I find later tonight after I've had a refreshing top-up of Jeremy, Captain Slow and the Hamster.

and so, some time later....

Having had a feed of Top Gear, and while doing the blog rounds, exchanging a few e-mails and perusing last week's BRW* that I'd lent to my boss over the weekend, I've had the concert for Diana on in the background. On the basis that any music is better then any other TV.

This belief might benefit from some revision. On the basis of most of tonight's performances, I reluctantly have to come to the conclusion that many of my rock heroes and faves are just about at the stage where they should give up the leather pants and shiny coats, lay down the guitars and take up the implements of gardening.

Nearly all the performances tonight have been woeful. Even those old journeypersons of rock, Status Quo, were floundering and it's a bloody 12-bar they've been playing since dinosaurs walked the earth, for crying out loud. Not all that long ago (several ice ages, I guess) they could churn this stuff out in their sleep.

Duran Duran (er, actually, never one of my faves or heroes) were way off and poor old Brian Ferry really needs to take a long holiday.

Rod the Mod still puts a bit of effort into it but he's showing his age - except in his face...hmmm, how does that work? Same for Tom Jones. Isn't he about 100?

Don't start me on the rap acts. Offspring no 2 thinks there's some people finding God while Kanye West does whatever it is he does (well, shout, actually). Unlikely.

*The BRW. There's a column by a Leo D'Angelo Fisher (doesn't seem to be available online) on the gap between how senior management of service companies see (and are rewarded for) their copanies' performance, and the actual service delivery. Fisher uses the examples of Connex (who now run the trains in Melbourne) and call centres for servcies such as banking. He points out the well-known shortcomings of such services ("Connex apologises for any inconvenience caused") with the basis on which executives are paid - broad financial indicators. Fisher suggests that "Boards and shareholders could do worse than adopt a code of managerial responsibility."

I'm at a bit of a loss to figure how this comes about. We have a well-developed business environment which focuses on short term financial indicators. As Fisher points out, the effects of poor service take longer to filter through to financial results. In the meantime, all the factors that influence company performance are lined up the other way: institutional shareholders which typically control the voting do not reflect real world issues, and any small shareholder who had experienced bad service gets shouted down at the AGM. The so-called remuneration consultants are in on "the game" (deliberate reference to institutionalised corruption in Queensland in the 70s and 80s there).

If there's any move against a board or levels of remuneration at an AGM you will hear reports of "shock horror" but the proposals still get up and the same old world keeps turning.

The gap between how the world could be, and how it is, hasn't changed.

happy birthday mr president

Just send money.

Let's count the days until the Liberal Party cottons onto this one. Doesn't Howard still have a devil spawn of his loins over in the US learning the dark arts?

our house (In the middle of our street)

Here's a couple of links to UK opinion columns which have both attracted substantial comment.

Marina Prior in the Guardian pens one of the most arch, snarky columns I've ever read, about former PM Blair's appointment as a special envoy to the Middle east. The commentary mainly lines up behind her but amongst the dissenters, there's a couple of quite moderate, thoughtful suggestions. Columns written in such a style can be immensely rewarding to read, especially if you happen to agree with the particular proposition. Whether they advance the cause of human understanding is probably another thing altogether. It's more about entertainment - and, by extension, the inevitable decline of western civilisation, I imagine. Not the news, the whole news, and nothing but, etc etc.

The second column is about house prices in the UK and resultant greater inability of people to enter the housing market. As is the case in Australia there seems to be a number of market-distorting factors at play. Without doing the research, it seems that a mechanism to reduce tax for those who "buy-to-let" is acting similarly to the CGT reduction available in Australia which makes owning a house for investment purposes more attractive, given that the actual ROI is pretty low - about 3% on average, I think I've read. This column attracted an enormous number of commenters, again across a wide range of views and the argument is, by and large, very civilised (there's a few digs at socialists, not surprising given it is the Guardian again, and a tinge of racism rears its head).

The issue that I think is hardest to get around is the desirability of owning your own home. As housing affordability for first home buyers has fallen in Australia, the received wisdom seems to have been that because shares have shown greater returns over the last 20 or so years - ie since more deregulation of the finance industry combined with continued economic growth - so owning your home is not a sensible economic decision, and so you should rent and buy shares with the savings.

Seems to me that returns from shares will, over time, trend back and also generally, people don't understand the share market as well as they do housing (note this is not a claim that people understand the housing market as well as they think they do). You also have to have the self-control to actually invest in shares, which I think would be harder to achieve than making the mortgage payments.

Of course this argument also ignores the non-economic, but cultural, desire to own your castle. Which means a lot to people, even in the face of conflicting evidence. And all of a sudden, we find ourselves debating whether people are rational actors in relation to their saving and spending decisions.

Well, they may not be rational in their own dealings but they can certainly recognise other people being a little bit too rational.



Tonight's picture is again from our time in Pakistan. It being so long ago I'm not completely certain of details, but I think this would have been taken up around the Swat Valley where we went a couple of times, rising life and limb by piloting the Mini up the Grand Trunk road to Peshawar and then turning right to go up into the hills. We never made the trip to Gilgit by plane that many did - the plane would often leave from Islamabad in the hope that Gilgit was clear - it frequently wasn't and so they often returned disappointed.

the longest time

It's been a year tonight since the old man died. It's gone so fast, I kind of still expect him to loom around the corner or something. Even though he was hardly here, both physically and spiritually, for the last 6 months of his life. Anyway, it's one of those reflective times that you get - will need to make a couple of calls this weekend to check on some of his circle.

Crikey today has a response by Guy Rundle to an article about "when did the Right lose it." In the piece, Rundle talks about a shift:

What happened? You could talk about all sorts of
surface effects, but deep down the right lost its connection with a whole middle
section of people because it lost its connection with the capacity to reason,
and the idea that you step back dispassionately from the world and analyse what
the consequences of your actions might be. In effect you reverse the
relationship between reality and thought, and come to believe that the latter
can change the former if you simply believe in it enough.

The "Right" doesn't have a mortgage on this type of process. Maliciously wounded by the language and intent of managerialism and corporate-speak, in which the medium is indeed the message but the message becomes increasingly minimal and irrelevant, political discourse has zoomed (drifted? phantamagorised?) into the ether, wherein words exist in defiance of reality. Mrs VVB went on - at length - about this last night as Mal Brough, very amateurishly, tried to respond to a revitalised, re-backboned Red Kez O'Brien. For fear of causing discomfort to gentler readers I won't go into exactly what she said, just let's say it's the language I get excoriated for when a certain alleged small PM appears on the TV.

It's got to the stage when any public figure, politician, business person or whatever, can say anything and it doesn't have to be bear any resemblance to reality. Let's not get into discussion about the meaning of the word "truth." All that matters is that pronouncements have been made.

Speaking of said small PM, some friends of mine today had the opportunity to participate in an MVA with him as the item coming off second-best. I can only assume they swerved because they want to see him flogged in the polls. Because if otherwise, I am dreadfully disappointed.

Well, back on a familiar theme and the old man wouldn't have had it any other way. He got radicalised in the sixties when he was in his fifties - going to uni and hanging about in Canberra hostels gave him the theoretical basis for what he had long believed and experienced - the rich get richer and I'm all right Jack. And who he could point the finger at for fostering such a society. "The last of the red hot socialists" I used to call him - even my economics was too dry for him - and if he were able, he'd still be railing today.

apple scruffs

The batch of apple cider that we brewed up a few weeks ago turned out to be a dud. All the signs were OK as it went through, including taking longer to ferment than a standard beer recipe. But it is flat and somewhere between tasteless and bad tasting. The problem is that there are so many variables in the home brewing process that I can't immediately identify a cause.

Mrs vvb was quite upset as she had been looking forward to it. The question now is whether to try again or just make another batch of beer, seeing as we have reasonable quantity of ginger beer on hand but my ordinary ole quaffin' beer, she is almost finished. Plus the brewing area is bloody cold, making it hard to keep the batch within the temperature range for a successful brew. Toil and trouble, etc.

Speaking of Mrs vvb being upset, her reaction to the loss of potential cider was nothing compared to her reaction to Mal Brough on 7.30 Report tonight. Mrs vvb works in the area of delivering services to the disadvantaged and knows only too well the difficulty in getting it right where the recipient isn't just a bod from the 'burbs. What got Mrs vvb's blood boiling was the obvious disconnection between the words and the reality. All pollies - you get these words, and they mean nothing. All English, all connected, usually grammatical - but they exist in a parallel dimension, as Mrs vvb accurately put it.

Anyway, it was extremely heartening to see Red Kez discover his long-forgotten backbone and actually hold a Minister to account by trying to make him answer the question. Brough's attempt to turn the question around was so amateurish that in truth there should have been no question that a proper journalist would say, "Now hold on a minute (with greatest respect, of course)...", but Kerry's been somewhat emasculated of late. It'll be interesting to see whether he's allowed off the leash again or whether the new ABC bias blocker gets deployed.

But enough of that. Tonight's picture is the next phase in the pool cleaning in Pakistan series. It's important to ensure that the pool floor in very shiny and this is how you do it. I reflect back on these days and essentially come to the conclusion that most of us must had been out in the sun too long.

doctor my eyes

Pryor gets it right again in today's Canberra Times.

In other news specially for bwca, our mutual friend has left a message for you on the thread a couple of posts back ("low road").

Which enables me to state my view here: I have no problem at all with people of faith, provided they don't try to make mileage out of it. I've got a couple of regular church goers in my current team and they're fine. One in fact is very active in his church and he understands very well that it's his business and others might not share his view. In the past I've had people of faith who never lost an opportunity to tell people about it and it all got pretty tense - in a work environment you've got to be very careful about saying anything or you'll be up on a discrimination charge pdq. And you can't always rely on the group ethic to restore/maintain balance.

Others can put my view much better than me. For example this piece in the Times (why can't we have newspapers like this?).

I guess what I really have a problem with is all organised religion, which to my mind are simply power structures that enable some to maintain dominion over others. In particular, I've always found it pretty amazing how many religions enforce the domination of men over women. If I was sceptical, I'd be thinking that the church structure was put in place purely for that purpose.

monday monday

Well in an up and down day the arrival of this was probably a highlight. It's just a magnificent little piece of work, extremely detailed for a 1/43 scale model.

I bet that like many other blokes of my vintage, I wish I hadn't given away my toy cars from boyhood. I can remember most of them: a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, a Bentley S2 drophead coupe, a Fiat 2300, a Jag Mk2, a Chevy Bel-Air, a Morris Mini that I implored my uncle to buy to put on his desk (as he was at that time a purveyor of Minis). He acquiesced to the purchase (one shilling from me, six and sixpence from him) but I couldn't budge him from the view that I wanted it for myself. As he was older and a far better arguer than a 10-year-old, I lost the argument and got the model.

In today's Crikey, front-line IP lawyer and blogger Kim Weatherall had this piece:

4. Warning to Aussie software pirates: Be afraid, be very afraid
By Kimberlee Weatherall, intellectual property expert, blogger and Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland

In February, an Australian resident, Hew Griffiths, was extradited to face a US criminal court on charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringements, and criminal copyright infringement. He pleaded guilty, and last Friday he was sentenced to more than four years in prison. Because he has already spent three years in an Australian jail, he will have to serve 15 months in the US.
Griffiths was extradited and has been convicted for his involvement in ‘warez trading’: he was a leader of the DrinkOrDie software piracy group, who deliberately and consciously set up an international computer network which operated, in an
organised way, to crack technical protections on software and distribute the
uncracked version.

It’s important to get a few misconceptions out of the way. Griffiths is not copyright’s version of David Hicks. Hicks was held without charge for years in the US; Griffiths was held only after a US grand jury indicted him. Hicks was charged under laws which applied criminal penalties retrospectively to acts done before the law was passed. Griffiths was convicted for acts which were crimes under Australian law at the time he did them.

It is unlikely Hicks was thinking about possible conviction by a US court when he acted in Afghanistan; Griffiths flouted Australian and US copyright law, and boasted he would not be caught. If the US were going to choose a case for a copyright-based extradition, they certainly chose someone who is not a particularly sympathetic character.

But we should be shocked, and worried, by what has happened to Griffiths. Why? Because before he was extradited, Griffiths had never set foot in the United States. It is a worry that we have, without any apparent demur on the part of Australian authorities, the exercise of US jurisdiction. It means that Australian authorities will, it seems, happily allow US law to be applied to acts done in Australia. Why?

There is no reason why Griffiths could not have been charged, and tried, in an Australian court. There were many other co-conspirators, but none have been extradited to the US. Several were charged, and convicted, under UK law by UK courts. Why is Griffiths being treated differently? Because Griffiths was the
leader? All the more reason to try him here.

The Australian Government might respond that in the case of ‘transnational’ crimes, drastic action like extradition is necessary. But this is copyright, not international
terrorism or child p-rn-graphy we are talking about. It is an economic crime.
Extradition does not seem appropriate or proportionate. We should be worried that such extraditions might become more common. If they do, Australians will have to consider, in their online activities, extradition to the US as a possible risk. So much for Australian sovereignty.

Indeed. And even more so if the US is successful in getting this bloke back under US military sovereignty. Then we'll really know that we're the 52nd - or whatever it is - state.

BTW, I keep forgetting to give readers an update on the various extra-curricular endeavours we've started at Chateau VVB. First, the personal journey: the consultants have now confirmed what I told them when I started. But to be fair, we've been through a fair bit of introspection and analysis to get to this point and have learnt a few useful things for the future. (Geez I love being Delphic).

Second, we haven't scooped up any poo and put it in the post.

say my name

Look, this is a cheap shot and it's nothing new, but the first article I went to on Arts and Letters Daily was this cracker about baby names.

Now, nothing about bogan names or whatever, but how about:

• parents who have to consult a commercial baby name provider for advice? For all those who moan about the nanny state and the propensity of governments to interfere everywhere, doesn't this rather highlight a lack of confidence in one's own ability?
• someone who wants a name for their child that will "look good on a marquee or political banner". Suppose thr kid grows up to be an exotic dancer? Will a strong political name help? Suppose they become an axe murderer (because crime reports are the only time you'll ever see the person's middle name);
• 'And the growing brand consciousness among consumers has made parents more aware of how names can shape perceptions. The result: a child's name has become an emblem of individual taste more than a reflection of family traditions or cultural values. "We live in a marketing-oriented society," says Bruce Lansky, a former advertising executive and author of eight books on baby names, including "100,000 + Baby Names." "People who understand branding know that when you pick the right name, you're giving your child a head start."'

So, parents need to understand branding to ensure their kids get the right name. I suppose this dill believes his own bullshit, I'd be keen to check back in 20 or 30 years to see whether he's woken up that branding is not the sine qua non of human existence. On the other hand, if society is truly going down the commercial path to this extent, we are truly fucked. The success or failure of the Doha or any future rounds of trade liberalisation are a fleabite on the backside of economic progress compared to this type of insidious usurpation of human existence by the power of the dollar.

I'd say that words fail me, but clearly they haven't.

Now, back to Arts and Letters Daily, the question is whether to leave this post open to see what else pops up that requires a VVB-esque commentary.

Yes, let's.

What were we saying in the previous post about the abuse of English? Try this. Bits I especially love:

• "I'm often, like, hello?"
• "Eat's now"
• the many instances of "basically."

This is just too much fun on a Saturday night. I should get back to my work - or I could indulge in some of this.

Finally, bastard acts to emasculate workers' ability to look out for their own interests are everywhere.

saturday night and I ain't got nobody

Well that's not quite right, I do have Mrs VVB. Who, sensible lass, is in the lounge room with the fire. Yes, good folks, it's wicked cold here in the leafy western suburbs (if you want to know our temperature, look to Amberley, not Brisbane).

And I do have this little blog. Seeing as what it's been wicked cold and somewhat damp today, I've been mainly at the computer. We're putting in for an award so I've been drafting massive amounts of bureaucratese all day. The back of the task is broken, the next step is just to get the rest of the details down and then the interesting bit: turning it into a style of English so seductive it will reel the judges right in. Nothing like this style, then.

It's quite dispiriting in a way, this misuse of English. The bureaucratic or corporatespeak styles drain so much of the meaning right out of whatever it is being discussed. There's no sense of the imperative of taking some action, of the fulfillment of achieving objectives (and, of course, goals), or (in some of the examples I'll be citing) the excitement and passion that sits meekly below the bureaucratic surface. I could probably go back to it but it's sucked the actual joy of the project plumb outta me.





I've got a photocopied extract from Don Watson's Recollections of a Bleeding Heart at work, in which he talks about his experience of dealing with the public service during the Keating years. Of course Watson is also a fervent advocate for plain writing.

The letters to the Ed in today's Curious Snail, by a good proportion, support the general thrust of Howard's intervention on Aboriginal child abuse but nail him on the timing. The Snail is no red rag, no pusillanimous Fairfax scandal sheet, it's a good solid Murdoch contribution to the forces of good and right, so the general tone of the letters should be seen as telling. Greater numbers of Aussies are waking up to the subterfuge that's been perpetrated for the last 11 years. Relaxed and comfortable was a ruse. While you've been relaxed and comfortable, I've stealing your rights, your heritage, your country. And look: when I went to grab a URL link for the Snail, I find this. QE fucking D, as they say.

Would a Rudd government be much better? It's not a strong front bench (think back to 1983 - when Hawke came to power, my old man said "this is the best Liberal government we've ever had." Mind you, dad was a bit of a fellow traveller, if you follow me.





It'd be easy to see Rudd mesmerised by the seductiveness of power, if not the trappings (surely he'd return Kirribilli to its previous purpose). The reality of government and the grubby accommodations you have to make would come pretty quickly. If he could keep himself from lying to the country for a couple of years, though, we'd be away ahead. It's not too much to ask, surely?





I had the Business Review Weekly lying around somewhere and was going to comment on some inane story in there about how the insurance companies were able to pay out on all the claims from the recent storms down south. Good - that must mean their actuaries have been on the money, so to speak. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?





Ahh bugger it. Time we weren't here. It's raining softly outside, the water tank people have absconded with our deposit, damn damn damn. There's surely something dead under the house from the increasingly obvious smell...may have to actually crawl under there tomorrow to see what it is.


In the meantime, have a pciture of the paternal grandfather. Not sure when this one dates from. Confectioner, jeweller, a few other things as well. Made and lost a couple of fortunes. I only met him once, I was about 4 or 5, we have a picture of that day and I can still remember it, a tiny flat on the edge of Kings Cross.

Pretty natty dresser, eh?

through a glass darkly

It's been a frantically busy week which has meant not much interest in blogging when I get home. I always bring some work home and I usually do about half of it. A couple of times I've come home and fallen asleep on the couch.

OK so that's me, what's been happening outside the immediate circle? Well I read Crikey - a little less of it each day, I reckon - and check out Ozpolitics. The blog headings are a real turn-off: predetermined positions signalled, often with the aid of inflammatory language and neither 'side' has a mortgage on that. Of course seeing things through a particular world-view, the language and positions of one 'side' usually appear far less wholesome than the other, but some reality really should intrude. Why do we make life so miserable for ourselves (yer 'umble correspondent included).

So I check out my faves where I'll find something to inform or amuse: JT, Phillip Challinor (this just gets better and better), Harry Hutton (the comments are always hilarious), Gorilla Bananas, Sinfest (even though I don't understand it), Penny Arcade (which I understand even less), Riot Act for some news about the old home town, is the bear awake yet (no), Stereogum for new music, Capitol Hill Blue (though I'm going off that), Washington Monthly, and so on. If I'm feeling resilient, Political Daily Review has a new name but will still yield a week's reading.

Recently, a couple of newies (to me): bwca and a fellow Latin and car fan in Toowoomba (bet it's cold there tonight). And usually LP, Club Troppo and a few others.

Which brings us to where we are: a bit tired of the permanent political campaign, quite over the things that divide us and ready for another holiday (as Mrs VVB continually reminds me). The water tank people have absconded with our deposit it would seem, the house has white ants, the pool has gone green.

On the other side of the ledger, I saw (on film) a story today about how some government facilitation had brought about a rebuilding of social capital in some western Queensland regions: stories of ordinary people being supported to support each other. Very good for the spirit and rekindles a little bit of hope.

Yes, bloody lefty tax-eating heavy-handed statist intervention. Everything that's supposedly wrong with the world according to the dominant discourse. Except, just occasionally, it works.

Have a lovely weekend and to help with that, have a picture of how you clean swimming pools in Pakistan. When I came out of the office and found this unusual, not to say somewhat dangerous, activity going on, the other staff assured me that the fellow in question was "shockproof".

over the rainbow

I challenge you to watch this and not get a little bit damp around the eyes.

Connie sings.

And a heartfelt thanks to el grand goos, from whom I got this.

Faith in humanity restored, even if only for a little while.

you take the low road

Much easier than actually having to think, devise and polish a post is to just point to someone else's. So sit back, loosen the seat belt a tad and enjoy - sort of - the ride as My Favourite Tory, Jeremy Clarkson, gives you chapter and verse on road design, the state of Britain and what's wrong with most other people.

You will note by the time you've reached the end of his piece that, although it is ostensibly a road test of the Mitsubishi Outlander, there's only one sentence which says "don't bother."

Quite so. We had an Outlander for the recent holiday in Tassie and it was ideal. Because Tassie is so breathtakingly beautiful, it helps to have a car in which there is nothing inside of any interest. Also, despite sewing-machine-like quietness it was as a gutless as a bucket of amoebae, giving you plenty of time to look out the window.

Even while driving.

And appropos of Lamborghini Gallardos, there was one parked at the rear of the local noshery than Mrs VVB, a mate and I visited on Friday night. And a bunch of young blokes having a smoke and a yarn outside the kitchen. On questioning, one claimed it was his.

Either the restaurant is doing exceptionally well or someone's in a slightly different game. I looked at the young blokes and my money's on the latter.

takin' care of business

The business of business is business, I thought someone once said (I thought it was a previous CEO of General Electric, but I could only find Calvin Coolidge and the quote is not as I thought I recalled, so that must have been what I was thinking of. Sensible in one sense, very restrictive in another, as it could be construed to mean that boards are only interested in the most efficient use of assets, in the belief that everything will flow from that. And there's plenty of theory to support that particular view of world, not to mention laws about fiduciary duty.

Here, in the Times, Graham Searjeant laments a restrictive view in the light of the rise of private equity, its short time horizons and the complex web of investment and financing vehicles that have been developed to facilitate the business of business since banking was generally deregulated over the last 20 years. He argues that the increasing complexity of the financial arranegments has the effect of distancing the owners of capital from the actual goods and services being financed, with deleterious effect.

The article summarises another dilemma that chateau vvb wrestles with - a cursory understanding that business produces the goods and services that are desirable outcomes to fuel our lifestyles, and to prosper it should be allowed to get on with, yes you guessed it, business...but that the recent evolution of the capitalist model is not sustainable over any reasonable period as one of the 'assets' being worked so hard, the human input, should not be treated the same as land, capital or other raw material inputs.

Wrestle wrestle.

Oh and btw, see Paris Hilton in the right hand panel? A digitally enhanced image? What do they mean, do you think?

much, much later...so much later it's in fact a different day...

Had a little splurge in JB HiFI and we came away with:

the Drive By Truckers...recommended to me by anonymous Chris. Good driving music which reminds me, the car needs a service...

This recent release. As I never had the original on vinyl as some of my compadres still do, I'd been hanging for a CD issue. Have just watched the DVD...really good. Some of the clips plus the making of the making of the making of. All five - Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Geoff Lynne, Roy Orbison - seem to get along just fine. Orbison has a bit of a whinge that he was the best but couldn't get his ideas incorporated, someone else in voiceover makes the comment that Orbison's voice was so strong that it was hard to mix him back in with the others, Geoff Lynne seems smug (it's the fucking sunglasses, I've always thought he was smug, we'll have to ask anonymous Chris what the real story was...), Tom Petty of whom I am, strangely, a big fan, seems a bit humbled, and Harrison is sublime and human.

Which is why I also bought this.

Lots of good times coming up so who cares about the finely tuned Formula One economy? This one, I mean.

insane clown posse

The world is speeding up. Things are not as they used to be. These days are most confusing. People are under greater stress, to meet the mortgage repayments, keep up with the trends that their kids are following, do better at work, build sustainable communities and so on. How do we keep going?

I'll tell you. You have to keep laughing. So, as a special VVB present to all of you who are feeling the strain, need to relax and realise that even your tenuous grasp on reality is greater than others around you...we give you:

exhibit A: teh Howard Government is teh greatest environmental government evah!

and

exhibit B: Prof David (I'm not an elite but by goodly gosh I know one when I see one) Flint speaks up on behalf of that other person who has been appallingly treated by his employers and is therefore generally powerless and needs help, Alan Jones.

"Insane" doesn't adequately capture the surreally twisted logic so exquisitely on display here. On the other hand, "clown" does.

For those who don't know who Insane Clown Posse are, try this:

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

don't know why

PHILIP RUDDOCK, ATTORNEY GENERAL: My understanding is that having been born in Egypt that there may well be a proper basis upon which Egyptian authorities would have some interest in him and his wellbeing.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Who sent him to Egypt? The Pakistanis or the Americans?

PHILIP RUDDOCK, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don’t know.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: You don’t know?

PHILIP RUDDOCK, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don’t know.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Who do you believe sent him?

PHILIP RUDDOCK, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well I don’t know.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Have you not sought to find out?

PHILIP RUDDOCK, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well I haven’t been advised, and I don’t know that I’m in a position to find out, but I’ve not been advised.

(Courtesy of comments at Blogocracy).

"Wellbeing?"

I would be interested in readers' comments about what should be done about/to this alleged Attorney-General once he is no longer the occupant of that previously distinguished position.

fixing a hole

A post about digging, taxation, generational inheritances, reality TV, managerial responsibilities, model car collecting and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

When the Beatles were fixing a hole, it was because the rain was getting in and stopping their mind from wandering. I fixed a hole today, but it was to let the rain in.

See, Chateau VVB is going to get a rainwater tank one of these months and, because we can't tap the overflow into a stormwater drain, I have to dig a gravel pit. Well, I don't actually have to, but if I want the rebate I do. We want the rebate, so digging it was.

Frankly, I would rather have put some street clothes on and Mrs VVB and I could have popped over to Paddington. We could have had a nice coffee and looked for an additional display cabinet for the model car collection. Because I now have all 1/43 scale models of cars that I have owned in real life that are currently available, I've started broadening the criteria for the collection. The new theme is "Australian cars that I personally think are significant." Plenty of latitude there. So I already have the Trax Opal series EH and FC. This week I got a Bathurst Torana A9X and a Valiant Hemi Pacer. But I've run out of room to display them, the cabinet is full of my mother's old china collection and Mrs VVB's cats.

I'd been wondering what the next model in the Opal series would be (the Opal series, a new release by Trax, is exceptionally detailed for a die-cast model in 1/43 scale). I'd been betting on the HR, almost as iconic as the FC and EH. Lo, they have released it this week but no, they've gone for the HQ Premier.

See, for all the occasional whingeing, Chateau VVB actually does alright income-wise. There are two incomes, one of which is significantly above the median and so at household level we are also doing OK. I must say, the tax cuts over the last few years have been noticeable when it comes to spending and saving. So as long as we don't care about investment in infrastructure, social services and the longer term and anything to do with others, we're OK.

This talk is getting heretical, must get back to the story.

Because it's not quite that simple. Being of baby boomer vintage and having been brought up by a relentless Depression-era do-it-yourselfer, there was no way I could (a) forgo the rebate or (b) pay someone else to dig the hole. So, it's off to Kennards. I'd figured a post hole auger to loosen the soil would make things a bit easier. The council wants a hole measuring 1m in all directions. As offspring no2 would say, that is one big fuck-off hole, especially to dig by oneself at home. The tank bloke told Mrs VVB that we just needed a decent size one.

I always worry about hiring power tools. As someone who spends 30% of his working life at a computer keyboard and the other 70% talking, and doesn't do any exercise, it's a big ask to bring home anything petrol-powered and do the job the way it is supposed to without killing yourself.

I have to do a lot of talking because my business card labels me as a manager. So I have to manage. No I don't, I have to lead. I have to coach, align, empower, support, strategically position, reflect, intepret and encourage. I do all this by talking. It's not appropriate training or preparation for wrestling with monstrous machinery.

However the little one-person post hole digger was fine. A couple of times it started to dig in and threaten to spin me around, but I caught it in time. So we have a hole about the size that the tank bloke reckons will work. After a dodgy start, it even looks more or less like a professionally dug hole. I always used to wonder about these TV shows like Burke's Backyard and Backyard Blitz, especially the latter. They'd descend on some poor wretch's suburban disaster zone and start digging. The nerdy personality-free one would paint lines all over the ground, Scott Cam would start nailing things together, the sheila with the voice like a chainsaw would harangue you about nasturtiums or something while Jamie Durie would flex his pecs at the nearest female apart from the one with the voice like a chainsaw and order everybody about. And their holes were always neat and symmetrical and quite postmodernishly marvellous.

I'd never dug a hole like that in my life. There's always tree roots and bits of old brick and animal droppings and what-all. But I must say that today's hole is one to be quite proud of. As I have to take a photo of it to show the council, I may even post a piccie here.

For those of you counting, we only have obsessive-compulsive disorder to go. Mind you, anyone actually counting will be intimately familiar with OCD, I suspect.

So, Mrs VVB approves the hole and says she's going to have a nap, and I say I'm taking the hole-digger back to Kennards. Except I look at the hole and mentally compare it to the council-approved target and think, "hmm, better dig a bit more."

And I did. Fortunately I don't have to give any piano concert recitals tonight because my hands have gone all claw-like from gripping the machine. But I can still type.

all along the watchtower

...there must be some way outta here

said the joker to the thief...

Still ploughing my way through The Natural Advantage of Nations. It all makes perfect sense provided you accept that it will require government and corporations, in particular, to give up on the growth project as measured by both population and GDP. Once growth isn't the sole objective, then you can start to draw up the alternative rules. Anything in the meantime is just nibbling at the edges.

Dunno why it takes about 400 very small type pages to say that, it's about 3/4 of the way through. The rest is seemingly pointless propagandising and force-fed optimism. How to remain optimistic when, essentially, the message is "come the revolution?"

So that's not really worth a whole post, eh? We could divert onto a post about optimism but it'll be an uphill climb from this start. That would require me to rewrite it and we're too far gone now...

In lieu, how about this? The story of alleged bribery of the House of Saud by British Aerospace, aided and abetted by the British Government, has been hanging around the UK press for a while but I don't recall seeing too much locally. Maybe now that evidence of Ministerial corruption is seeping into the light, we'll see a bit more. Here's George Monbiot's analysis.

Of course, everyone does it (Iran-Contra, AWB, anyone?). But it certainly throws into stark relief the hypocrisy of western lecturing and posturing on corruption in those countries where we usually expect it to happen. And believe me it does, and it's far more evident. All that seems to separate us is that we are usually more successful at hiding it. The benefits of a more sophisticated legal and financial industry, I suppose.

So the task of reform is vast, vaster than we'd like to think. In fact it's so vast that we actually have to start with reforming the word 'reform' itself which, over the last 18 years, has come to mean deregulation, privatisation, user-pays, the supremacy of private property rights and capital over damn near everything else, and budget surpluses. Whenever I hear the word reform I think of Brendan Behan and his autobiography of his time in Borstal, a reform school. So it means you have to believe that reform means fixing bad things.

That meaning has been bastardised. In its current narrow application to the domination of economics over our everyday lives, it in fact only means "a different model." However, the forces in support of deregulation etc etc etc, have won the argument for the last several decades and so now we get indoctrinated that everything that came before was bad. Which is very demoralising for lots of people, particularly those who don't recall it as being so bad at all. No wonder people get confused.

Anyway, enough of that. The market economy is a very beneficial thing and it is in fact so insidious that it has permeated even the robust walls of Chateau VVB. How so, I hear you ask?
Like this: I have two guitars for sale.

Maton EM425/12, (12 string electric acoustic), 3 years old, minimal use, including Ashton hard case, $1050.
Ovation Applause, built-in pickup, fair to good condition, hard case, $295.

Come one, come all.

No not, yet, here's tonight's photo . It comes to you courtesy of the RAN, I've forgotten which ship but it was the one that carried the fleet band, the jazz ensemble component of which you see here. As these are strapping young men without their shirts on, I am hoping that JahTeh will approve.

bits and pieces

(I'm in) bits and pieces, as the Dave Clark Five used to sing. Jeez, has it been a week since I last put finger to keyboard? Sure looks like it. And a start like this can only mean a "what I've been doing for the last week" post, undoubtedly the most missable of all.

The political process hasn't got me down but, as Ms Fits has on her blog, I just hope that Kevin doesn't fuck up. Actually I think that's unlikely, but whether the same can be said for the bruvvers of the union movement, I can't be so sure. You would think that they'd have the sense to put a sock in it for a couple of months, wouldn't you? Nah, that's actually too much to expect. And Sharan Burrow, for fuck's sake. What a stupid stunt. Nice piece of framing by the Oz, though.

As I scan the lead paragraphs on the OzPolitics feed, I see many expressions of outrage at something that apparently Tony Abbott has said, along the lines that he can't understand whey everybody is swooning over his most immaculate government. The leftosphere goes into predictable sniggerations. Me, I think: "What's he up to?" He may be a god-bothering bully but he's not entirely stupid so, what's his game? Just doesn't add up.

I actually got an invitation today to some function in Sydney that he'll be officiating at. Unfortunately it coincides with toenail trimming day but I will send a spy to see what's up. In fact, I doubt I could trust my own self-restraint if he uses an ostensibly routine opening-of-a-thing function to bag Labor. He should just save that for the SMH, after all it must be news if it's in the newspaper.

So, politics. Breathe in, breathe out, trust that a flood of common sense will wash over Australia just as this rain, hallelujah, is washing over SE Qld. Of course our tank hasn't been installed yet so all the water is going down the drain. I heard a story yesterday of some people whose tank was installed the day it started raining. Timing is everything, as they are wont to say.

Speaking of which, I see it's nearly 9.30 which means it's time for Grunt Files on Briz31. If there's anything that stirs my blood, it's the sight and sound of beefy blokes destroying massive quantities of tyres just because they can. See you soon...

a little while later...

Aaah, much better. I love the interviews. Some people are unable to combine undoubted technical and manual ability with the capacity to put three words together, but others are very quick on the uptake too. One bloke was asked when he was going to grow up, to which he retorted "I'm never going to grow up."

I can relate to that.

The sound of massive V8s trying to tear their insides out is a bit of a change from this arvo, when the team and I were talking to room full of researchers at a local university. These folks are heavily into gene therapy and similar techniques aimed at improving the quality of life for people with bone diseases, accident damage and the like. Such as one might sustain in a car accident, I suppose. We're aiming to try and link companies with research projects that they may be unaware of. It's really rewarding when you can bring people together and watch the interest and intensity build. Doesn't happen all the time but it's great when it does.

Which rather all adds up to a what I've been doing this week post. Bugger, missed it by that much.