Via here, we discover that 2008 is the International Year of the Potato. Yes folks, it's the United Nations again, off on another zany escapade with your money.
I am sure that all our lives are enriched immeasurably by this fact. And, as I was discussing with someone only a few days ago, if Pauline Hanson had better understood the insane lengths that the UN goes to in pursuit of pointlessly wasting other people's money, her invective would have been off the scale. Anyone who'd ever feared the UN as the stalking horse for 'one world government' evidently hasn't ventured far into the labyrinthine weirdness that characterises much of the UN outside of the Security Council. In fact regardless of the Security Council's stunning powerlessness, the rest of the UN is likely to make you feel quite insecure.
For example, the FAO. It's on the job, vis-a-vis all thing potato.
Here's the official website of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, one of the specialised agencies of the UN and indeed it is chocka with facts you never knew about potatoes. Strangely, there is no Irish language version of the site, although they are working on a Russian version. That in itself is pretty spooky, yes?
The international year of the potato appears to have commenced in 2007 (and at least it was in Idaho where potatoes can be picked from the ground with sour cream and chives already in place) and does not conclude until 22-25 March 2009 at the 7th World Potato Congress in Christchurch, New Zullund.
Quite apart from raising the perfectly reasonable question of how you can fill in three days talking about potatoes - oh I forgot, it is in New Zealand, say no more - it is also another perfect demonstration of the UN's incompetence. Because it's not a year, is it? It's more than a year. Quite a bit more, really.
Anyway, for those of you with even more time on your hands than me, here's more about potatoes. "Breaking News! President Parker (hmm... not Spiderman, surely? is he moonlighting for the International Potato Conspiracy?) announced the Congress in Christchurch."
Book my tickets, Miss Jones, I feel the need to get Up-To-Date with Nicola Nooksack.
Fo' shizzle.
27 January 2008
26 January 2008
24 January 2008
mondo rock
Actually, in this case Mondeo Rocks.
I was in the supermarket carpark yesterday when one of the new Ford Mondeos pulled in. Must say, they are very pretty piece of kit - nicely proportioned and all.
The bloke gets out and I ask him what he thinks of it. He's wearing a t-shirt with a company logo on it, it didn't register with me - not a logo I knew.
He says it's a bloody great car, etc etc, then reveals that he's a salesman at a Ford dealership. I then notice that the logo on the shirt matches one on the car.
Then he gets excited - a prospective sale! - and goes into full-on salesman mode.
I can confirm that the Mondeo does indeed have astonishing boot capacity.
OK then.
Outside my window, the Fitzroy is flowing faster and faster.
If I wasn't going home to celebrate Australia Day in the traditional way - by inviting friends around for a lamb chop and a beer or 27 - I'd be perfectly happy to sit on the balcony here and watch the river rise. Like watching paint dry, but quicker.
I was in the supermarket carpark yesterday when one of the new Ford Mondeos pulled in. Must say, they are very pretty piece of kit - nicely proportioned and all.
The bloke gets out and I ask him what he thinks of it. He's wearing a t-shirt with a company logo on it, it didn't register with me - not a logo I knew.
He says it's a bloody great car, etc etc, then reveals that he's a salesman at a Ford dealership. I then notice that the logo on the shirt matches one on the car.
Then he gets excited - a prospective sale! - and goes into full-on salesman mode.
I can confirm that the Mondeo does indeed have astonishing boot capacity.
OK then.
Outside my window, the Fitzroy is flowing faster and faster.
If I wasn't going home to celebrate Australia Day in the traditional way - by inviting friends around for a lamb chop and a beer or 27 - I'd be perfectly happy to sit on the balcony here and watch the river rise. Like watching paint dry, but quicker.
22 January 2008
rock and roll
It's been a long time since I rock and rolled...
As 7.30 Report reminded us tonight, it's been a long time since Led Zeppelin performed at Sydney Showground in 1972. They interviewed all sorts of people who were there, who all agreed that it was most special, the high point of Led Zep's career, the high point of their lives, nirvana in a bottle (to mix a few musical metaphors). Only a select few were there and they remember.
I remember. I was there. I was there with a young lady whose acquaintance I had made some months earlier at wonderful Jewish wedding of friends of the family.
I should point out at this juncture that this was some years before the young lady now referred to as Mrs VVB appeared on the scene.
To be frank, folks, I stuffed it up big time. We were in the stands, the band started (Immigrant Song), thousands rushed onto the ground. I was too scared because I thought we'd get arrested. Even after several hours I hadn't moved. Talk about strait-laced, incapable of any lateral thought or even...I don't know what.
It was the end of a beautiful friendship before it began.
I heard later she'd run away from home and was living at Byron or somewhere with several/several dozen/several dozen families of hippies (mother was always prone to exaggeration when it came to behaviour unbecoming).
The sound in the stands was appalling and we were several miles from the stage so we couldn't see anything. My could-have-been friend must have been utterly desolate - I'm surprised she didn't just go off and join the crowd.
I do have some good photos somewhere, as I had a 300mm lens on the old Spotmatic.
Regrets, I've had a few...
And this was one of them, it sounded like it must have been a great concert.
As 7.30 Report reminded us tonight, it's been a long time since Led Zeppelin performed at Sydney Showground in 1972. They interviewed all sorts of people who were there, who all agreed that it was most special, the high point of Led Zep's career, the high point of their lives, nirvana in a bottle (to mix a few musical metaphors). Only a select few were there and they remember.
I remember. I was there. I was there with a young lady whose acquaintance I had made some months earlier at wonderful Jewish wedding of friends of the family.
I should point out at this juncture that this was some years before the young lady now referred to as Mrs VVB appeared on the scene.
To be frank, folks, I stuffed it up big time. We were in the stands, the band started (Immigrant Song), thousands rushed onto the ground. I was too scared because I thought we'd get arrested. Even after several hours I hadn't moved. Talk about strait-laced, incapable of any lateral thought or even...I don't know what.
It was the end of a beautiful friendship before it began.
I heard later she'd run away from home and was living at Byron or somewhere with several/several dozen/several dozen families of hippies (mother was always prone to exaggeration when it came to behaviour unbecoming).
The sound in the stands was appalling and we were several miles from the stage so we couldn't see anything. My could-have-been friend must have been utterly desolate - I'm surprised she didn't just go off and join the crowd.
I do have some good photos somewhere, as I had a 300mm lens on the old Spotmatic.
Regrets, I've had a few...
And this was one of them, it sounded like it must have been a great concert.
sorrow
Here at pied a terre VVB we are full of sorrow, because we watched Anthony Albanese demonstrate his early familiarity with the dark arts of being interviewed by sticking stupidly to a stupid set of talking points, ritually ignoring the intent of each question. I’ve got a wind-up toy from about 1955, a monkey that bounces on its backside and claps a pair of cymbals: it gives a more convincing performance.
Full marks to the bimbette who gave him a free ride. I Iike to see that my 8 cents a day buys a Labor-compliant ABC, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, yes?
It would have been nice, albeit quite hopeless, to expect that the new government might conduct itself in different ways.
But no, we have 5 point plans, highly structured regional listening tours and all the other hallmarks of the Blair which? Project, now in its terminal decline phase back in old Blighty. So of course we now have 5 years of the same here.
Oh well, at least they’re better than the alternative. By the way, it’d be fascinating to see the feedback forms from attendees at those conferences where our revered former (former! yes! he’s gone!) PM is a keynote speaker on globalisation and leadership. Yes, two issues that he studiously avoided in both word and deed for all 11 years of his dictatorship. Would you feel dudded once you’ve had 30, or 45, or 3,250 million minutes of that piercing whinge insinuating your brain?
I know I would. You know, I think I miss him…
No, not really. Gotcha.
Meanwhile there was the entertainment of Top Gear last night, the first half of which I missed because I was out throwing up over the balcony as a result of Minister Albanese’s polished efforts. Anyway, part of tonight’s show was a three way contest between the Mazda RX8, the Audi TT (2 litre version) and the Alfa Brera, each supported in the usual highly structured fashion by one of the team of Jeremy, Hammond and James May. The track test was undertaken by the Stig and as the Audi (Jeremy’s pick) eased off the start line, Hammond called out ““there he goes, off to the hairdresser.”
And the celebrity track star was Hugh Grant who told an absorbing story about how his testicles got sore in a Bentley Continental GT he once owned. It’s amazing what you can get away with on prime time TV nowadays.
Full marks to the bimbette who gave him a free ride. I Iike to see that my 8 cents a day buys a Labor-compliant ABC, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, yes?
It would have been nice, albeit quite hopeless, to expect that the new government might conduct itself in different ways.
But no, we have 5 point plans, highly structured regional listening tours and all the other hallmarks of the Blair which? Project, now in its terminal decline phase back in old Blighty. So of course we now have 5 years of the same here.
Oh well, at least they’re better than the alternative. By the way, it’d be fascinating to see the feedback forms from attendees at those conferences where our revered former (former! yes! he’s gone!) PM is a keynote speaker on globalisation and leadership. Yes, two issues that he studiously avoided in both word and deed for all 11 years of his dictatorship. Would you feel dudded once you’ve had 30, or 45, or 3,250 million minutes of that piercing whinge insinuating your brain?
I know I would. You know, I think I miss him…
No, not really. Gotcha.
Meanwhile there was the entertainment of Top Gear last night, the first half of which I missed because I was out throwing up over the balcony as a result of Minister Albanese’s polished efforts. Anyway, part of tonight’s show was a three way contest between the Mazda RX8, the Audi TT (2 litre version) and the Alfa Brera, each supported in the usual highly structured fashion by one of the team of Jeremy, Hammond and James May. The track test was undertaken by the Stig and as the Audi (Jeremy’s pick) eased off the start line, Hammond called out ““there he goes, off to the hairdresser.”
And the celebrity track star was Hugh Grant who told an absorbing story about how his testicles got sore in a Bentley Continental GT he once owned. It’s amazing what you can get away with on prime time TV nowadays.
19 January 2008
my chemical romance
It must be the drugs that brought on this vision (thanks Geoff Pryor, yet again).
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/opinion.asp?class=your%20say&subclass=general&story_id=1165449&category=opinion%20cartoon
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/opinion.asp?class=your%20say&subclass=general&story_id=1165449&category=opinion%20cartoon
me and my shadow
It's a bit rich for an obscure indie blogger with no economic cred to say "I told you so", but there was a little schadenfreude in the air as I read Denis Atkins' column in today's Courier-Mail. Atkins surveyed the unveiling trail of wreckage the sub-prime crisis is creating. Two of his points really struck me:
1) "It is the hidden black holes that analysts fear most." Well, der, as they say. My point exactly. This is precisely what deregulation facilitates (that's bureaucratese for "makes happen.") Human ingenuity, which of course reaches its apogee in the financial sector - with a little help from the legal fraternity - will find ways to profit from any regulated environment. So, when you deregulate in the expectation that money will find its highest and best use, don't be surprised when all sorts of arcane practices become the norm, and no-one outside the immediate players can figure out what's gone on. And they ain't telling.
2) But what I really liked was the example given of how a couple of the mega-investment houses, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, had their credit-worthiness down graded from AAA to CCC, as rated by Standard and Poors and Moodys.
Somewhere many posts ago, I seem to remember that I ranted about these so-called independent rating agencies. How could their analysis have been so far off the mark that they downgrade such impeccable companies overnight? Are they so incompetent?
Of course not. They are not independent. They are as independent as those other egregious examples of the untrammelled benefits of extreme wealth, the remuneration consultants. You'll never find one of these firms recommending a lower salary, and you won't find a ratings agency downgrading a client.
These are the arrangements, the systems of governance, that will have to be unwound before any sense of fairness, of decency, can start to inform our economic system. You may well argue that economic systems are not meant to deliver either fairness or decency and you may be right. But if so, there will be costs and eventually they won't be pretty. A little regulation may, unlike knowledge, actually be a good thing.
Anyway, economic growth has its benefits which were demonstrated today when I spent a little time in downtown Rocky while out doing the grocery shopping. One, there are several good coffee places. There are a couple of good antiques shops. And a magic music shop (Green Bros) where I picked up a capo for the Aria. They are indeed brothers - well they all look awfully alike) and a couple of them were knocking out some mighty fine jazz standards on piano and trumpet. This is living!
1) "It is the hidden black holes that analysts fear most." Well, der, as they say. My point exactly. This is precisely what deregulation facilitates (that's bureaucratese for "makes happen.") Human ingenuity, which of course reaches its apogee in the financial sector - with a little help from the legal fraternity - will find ways to profit from any regulated environment. So, when you deregulate in the expectation that money will find its highest and best use, don't be surprised when all sorts of arcane practices become the norm, and no-one outside the immediate players can figure out what's gone on. And they ain't telling.
2) But what I really liked was the example given of how a couple of the mega-investment houses, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, had their credit-worthiness down graded from AAA to CCC, as rated by Standard and Poors and Moodys.
Somewhere many posts ago, I seem to remember that I ranted about these so-called independent rating agencies. How could their analysis have been so far off the mark that they downgrade such impeccable companies overnight? Are they so incompetent?
Of course not. They are not independent. They are as independent as those other egregious examples of the untrammelled benefits of extreme wealth, the remuneration consultants. You'll never find one of these firms recommending a lower salary, and you won't find a ratings agency downgrading a client.
These are the arrangements, the systems of governance, that will have to be unwound before any sense of fairness, of decency, can start to inform our economic system. You may well argue that economic systems are not meant to deliver either fairness or decency and you may be right. But if so, there will be costs and eventually they won't be pretty. A little regulation may, unlike knowledge, actually be a good thing.
Anyway, economic growth has its benefits which were demonstrated today when I spent a little time in downtown Rocky while out doing the grocery shopping. One, there are several good coffee places. There are a couple of good antiques shops. And a magic music shop (Green Bros) where I picked up a capo for the Aria. They are indeed brothers - well they all look awfully alike) and a couple of them were knocking out some mighty fine jazz standards on piano and trumpet. This is living!
17 January 2008
the music goes round and round
Two or so decades of liberalisation and deregulation at national and international levels created the environment for ever more complex financing models, derivatives, hedge funds and the several thousand others that I can't name.
So when, eventually, something goes a little pear-shaped, or a lot, no-one really knows how to fix it because it's a complex, living system beyond rational comprehension.
Anyway, I know bugger-all about it so that's how it appears to me.
For once I'll forgo the soapbox, but surely there would be some value in a little backroom/skunk works effort between consenting countries to start to get some governance in place that is obvious to the partially interested bystander, rather than what I imagine happens now, which is taxpayer-funded jaunts to tax havens (sorry, international financing centres) to discuss not much at all.
There's an awful lot of short term profits being made and there is presumably a measure of economic/industry activity, both public and private, that gets done purely because these arcane financial instruments exist.
You've got banks or non-bank lenders in the US making home loans to people who blind freddy can see will never be able to repay, even as the value of their homes goes into freefall. Then try to imagine what's going on in the commercial rather than domestic lending market, where the complexity is exponentially greater, not to mention the actual sums at stake.
So who pays the piper? Not to mention the ferryman?
So when, eventually, something goes a little pear-shaped, or a lot, no-one really knows how to fix it because it's a complex, living system beyond rational comprehension.
Anyway, I know bugger-all about it so that's how it appears to me.
For once I'll forgo the soapbox, but surely there would be some value in a little backroom/skunk works effort between consenting countries to start to get some governance in place that is obvious to the partially interested bystander, rather than what I imagine happens now, which is taxpayer-funded jaunts to tax havens (sorry, international financing centres) to discuss not much at all.
There's an awful lot of short term profits being made and there is presumably a measure of economic/industry activity, both public and private, that gets done purely because these arcane financial instruments exist.
You've got banks or non-bank lenders in the US making home loans to people who blind freddy can see will never be able to repay, even as the value of their homes goes into freefall. Then try to imagine what's going on in the commercial rather than domestic lending market, where the complexity is exponentially greater, not to mention the actual sums at stake.
So who pays the piper? Not to mention the ferryman?
14 January 2008
on the road again
Great episode of Top gear tonight, the return of the Hamster. I was most taken with the motivational speeches.
And because Mrs VVB hates Jaguars with an entirely unreasonable passion, she agreed with my assessment that when the Lotto comes in, we'll be getting an Aston Martin DB7 Vantage. Oh yes.
And they're casting for a team to host an Australian Top Gear franchise.
How about three blokes in their fifties who talk loudly in restaurants about cars, to the extent that someone at the next table comes over to ask them questions about the Australian motor industry? One of them can drive, one knows what he's talking about and the other is the token village idiot. Well, Kim and Derf, what about it?
And because Mrs VVB hates Jaguars with an entirely unreasonable passion, she agreed with my assessment that when the Lotto comes in, we'll be getting an Aston Martin DB7 Vantage. Oh yes.
And they're casting for a team to host an Australian Top Gear franchise.
How about three blokes in their fifties who talk loudly in restaurants about cars, to the extent that someone at the next table comes over to ask them questions about the Australian motor industry? One of them can drive, one knows what he's talking about and the other is the token village idiot. Well, Kim and Derf, what about it?
what a feeling (flashdance)
What a feeling (flash!dance!)
Post title comes because we will shortly be talking about Toyotas.
Before then, though, a quick update. We’re back safely ensconced in pied a terre VVB (although being on the fifth floor it’s not really a terre I suppose). For a while the ‘safely’ aspect was in a little doubt as we came back into Rocky through a storm including a quite severe storm cell. Because the plane’s relatively small - a Dash 8 400 series, twin turboprop) - you tend to get thrown about quite a bit.
There was an awful lot of the sound of breaths being sucked in and a few screams trying to get out – it really was quite a savage little ride as you try to estimate how many metres the plane is being bucked up and thrown down in a short space of time. And while you wonder what stresses the plane is capable of withstanding, there’s not much you can do about it. I’ve seen what remains of passengers after a plane has had an unscheduled encounter with terra firma: you’re not going to walk away so you may as well close your eyes and trust in pilot training and technology. It does concentrate the mind wonderfully, though.
It took a day to get back into the swing of work: still being relatively new in the job, I’d forgotten what I was meant to be doing. Ha ha, sort of. But by week’s end we were right back in the swing and the high quality suburban infrastructure of the lovely southern highlands was but a distant memory.
The new job brings a few new management challenges with it which have been a character-building exercise to overcome, or perhaps duck around, much the way the pilot ducked around the rest of the worst of the storm after we’d been through the savage cell.
And this week for some unfathomable reason the new job also brought a new car, I’ve somehow swapped the Falcon, which was uniformly awful, for a Toyota Camry Grande. Yes folks, that’s Grande with an ‘e,’ which makes it grander than grand.
It’s a bloody barge to drive, you can’t see where the bonnet and boot end and although it has every bell and whistle known to man and car designer, it doesn’t have the one thing I’d really like, which is park assist, which in a proper English-speaking world would have been known as parking assistance, in other words the machine that goes beep beep beep when you’re about to reverse into something.
But was it does have – along with a sunroof (yeah! got one again at last!) rain-sensitive wipers and sat nav – is an extremely comfortable seat and excellent seating position. And that to my mind is something that Toyota has done very well for quite a while. Even my old AE86 (ie 1988 model) Corolla had a comfy seat, albeit without electric positioning, lumbar support and (oh yes) leather.
But the Camry has a steering column adjustable for both height and reach which means you can get the seating position exactly right for legs and arms. I like the steering wheel to be down low and I’ve gradually grown out of the straight-arm steering position, which is tiring on the arms and physically unsound because you can’t get maximum leverage, so it’s great to be able to get the wheel close enough while still being able to stretch the legs. But I have to say that the Grande is quite a nice place to be provided you’re not too particular about knowing which direction the front wheels are pointed. Good lord, what am I saying? A Toyota? I must be going soft in the head. Please ignore this post.
I wasn’t going to write about the US elections and then, as if by some sort of telepathy, a friend sent me a very funny, rather obvious but savagely cruel joke about Republicans. Which I won’t reproduce here ‘cos I said I wasn’t going to write about it.
So, what else? I was reading Kathleen Noonan in Saturday’s Courier Mail; it’s a kind of general reflections on life column which, probably more often than not, provokes a little useful thought. But today’s column got me thinking mainly about the posts and comments from a week or so ago about why (and how) I keep VVB going when it doesn’t usually have anything of any immense import to say.
I think it’s partly that blogging itself is still very much in an evolutionary stage. I’ve certainly found through the two years (aaargh! really?) of VVB that my relation to the blog has not only waxed and waned but also matured (well I think so). And it’d be reasonable to expect that experience replicated across the blogosphere, particularly with the small, more personal blogs like VVB. Maybe the bigger, more ‘sophisticated’ blogs have been able to set out a rationale and stick to it – certainly in the case of group blogs with a predetermined raison d’etre or philosophical/ideological position – but for all of us who simply caught the wave and are still precariously hanging on, it’s a day by day existence as we continually wrestle with the whole point of it all, not to mention the effort of churning something out.
Deep, eh? And yet, I don’t feel at all ashamed of stating the bleedin’ obvious in this case because I can’t recall having the read the bleedin’ obvious anywhere else.
More to the point, the additional comments that the conversation provoked indicated to me that this is an issue (oh yes, we all got ‘issues’) that many of those who frequent the little circle of VVB are probably wrestling with either personally or by virtue of searching for some value in small, independent blogs.
I’d kind of also like to rant a bit about Australian sporting prowess, the win-at-all-costs mentality, the impact of commercialism on sport, and the decline of civility not to mention everyday manners. So now you can guess where I stand. I’ve had the Hewitts and the Pontings and Brett bloody Lees up to here. I think all competitive sportspeople should first have to play competitive bowls, darts or snooker to learn a bit of self bloody restraint. Then they can get on with their chosen profession. Oh, golf too. Self bloody restraint is an admirable thing. Hmm, all individual sports, although you do get team bowls (up to 4). I think there’s a lesson in that. Isn’t individualism and self-reliance meant to be a good thing?
Discuss.
Post title comes because we will shortly be talking about Toyotas.
Before then, though, a quick update. We’re back safely ensconced in pied a terre VVB (although being on the fifth floor it’s not really a terre I suppose). For a while the ‘safely’ aspect was in a little doubt as we came back into Rocky through a storm including a quite severe storm cell. Because the plane’s relatively small - a Dash 8 400 series, twin turboprop) - you tend to get thrown about quite a bit.
There was an awful lot of the sound of breaths being sucked in and a few screams trying to get out – it really was quite a savage little ride as you try to estimate how many metres the plane is being bucked up and thrown down in a short space of time. And while you wonder what stresses the plane is capable of withstanding, there’s not much you can do about it. I’ve seen what remains of passengers after a plane has had an unscheduled encounter with terra firma: you’re not going to walk away so you may as well close your eyes and trust in pilot training and technology. It does concentrate the mind wonderfully, though.
It took a day to get back into the swing of work: still being relatively new in the job, I’d forgotten what I was meant to be doing. Ha ha, sort of. But by week’s end we were right back in the swing and the high quality suburban infrastructure of the lovely southern highlands was but a distant memory.
The new job brings a few new management challenges with it which have been a character-building exercise to overcome, or perhaps duck around, much the way the pilot ducked around the rest of the worst of the storm after we’d been through the savage cell.
And this week for some unfathomable reason the new job also brought a new car, I’ve somehow swapped the Falcon, which was uniformly awful, for a Toyota Camry Grande. Yes folks, that’s Grande with an ‘e,’ which makes it grander than grand.
It’s a bloody barge to drive, you can’t see where the bonnet and boot end and although it has every bell and whistle known to man and car designer, it doesn’t have the one thing I’d really like, which is park assist, which in a proper English-speaking world would have been known as parking assistance, in other words the machine that goes beep beep beep when you’re about to reverse into something.
But was it does have – along with a sunroof (yeah! got one again at last!) rain-sensitive wipers and sat nav – is an extremely comfortable seat and excellent seating position. And that to my mind is something that Toyota has done very well for quite a while. Even my old AE86 (ie 1988 model) Corolla had a comfy seat, albeit without electric positioning, lumbar support and (oh yes) leather.
But the Camry has a steering column adjustable for both height and reach which means you can get the seating position exactly right for legs and arms. I like the steering wheel to be down low and I’ve gradually grown out of the straight-arm steering position, which is tiring on the arms and physically unsound because you can’t get maximum leverage, so it’s great to be able to get the wheel close enough while still being able to stretch the legs. But I have to say that the Grande is quite a nice place to be provided you’re not too particular about knowing which direction the front wheels are pointed. Good lord, what am I saying? A Toyota? I must be going soft in the head. Please ignore this post.
I wasn’t going to write about the US elections and then, as if by some sort of telepathy, a friend sent me a very funny, rather obvious but savagely cruel joke about Republicans. Which I won’t reproduce here ‘cos I said I wasn’t going to write about it.
So, what else? I was reading Kathleen Noonan in Saturday’s Courier Mail; it’s a kind of general reflections on life column which, probably more often than not, provokes a little useful thought. But today’s column got me thinking mainly about the posts and comments from a week or so ago about why (and how) I keep VVB going when it doesn’t usually have anything of any immense import to say.
I think it’s partly that blogging itself is still very much in an evolutionary stage. I’ve certainly found through the two years (aaargh! really?) of VVB that my relation to the blog has not only waxed and waned but also matured (well I think so). And it’d be reasonable to expect that experience replicated across the blogosphere, particularly with the small, more personal blogs like VVB. Maybe the bigger, more ‘sophisticated’ blogs have been able to set out a rationale and stick to it – certainly in the case of group blogs with a predetermined raison d’etre or philosophical/ideological position – but for all of us who simply caught the wave and are still precariously hanging on, it’s a day by day existence as we continually wrestle with the whole point of it all, not to mention the effort of churning something out.
Deep, eh? And yet, I don’t feel at all ashamed of stating the bleedin’ obvious in this case because I can’t recall having the read the bleedin’ obvious anywhere else.
More to the point, the additional comments that the conversation provoked indicated to me that this is an issue (oh yes, we all got ‘issues’) that many of those who frequent the little circle of VVB are probably wrestling with either personally or by virtue of searching for some value in small, independent blogs.
I’d kind of also like to rant a bit about Australian sporting prowess, the win-at-all-costs mentality, the impact of commercialism on sport, and the decline of civility not to mention everyday manners. So now you can guess where I stand. I’ve had the Hewitts and the Pontings and Brett bloody Lees up to here. I think all competitive sportspeople should first have to play competitive bowls, darts or snooker to learn a bit of self bloody restraint. Then they can get on with their chosen profession. Oh, golf too. Self bloody restraint is an admirable thing. Hmm, all individual sports, although you do get team bowls (up to 4). I think there’s a lesson in that. Isn’t individualism and self-reliance meant to be a good thing?
Discuss.
08 January 2008
now we're getting somewhere
Where we have got to is Rockhampton. But as the office has to cop the cost of my after hours computer usage if I am online, I don't think it's sustainable or right to spend hours on line on non-job stuff.
So VVB will go into a short hiatus, cunningly disguised as oblivion, until I am again in the bosom of the family or get meself to a net cafe or library.
TTFN.
So VVB will go into a short hiatus, cunningly disguised as oblivion, until I am again in the bosom of the family or get meself to a net cafe or library.
TTFN.
04 January 2008
it's scientific (*)
Using up all my available desktop pooter time until again removed to the wilds of Rockhampton and the concomitant need to blog on a laptop, whose controls I do not understand, at a coffee table, which makes my neck ache, I learn that one of my favourite lines from one of my favourite songs is a reference to William Yeats with (possibly, it was David Byrne after all) a passing glance at African literature.
Larvatus Prodeo has a lot to answer for, but who would have thought that this would be amongst it? Note: this is a hat tip, even if delivered in a grudging, curmudgeonly fashion. LP has great posts but often the commentary gets out of control. However, to acknowledge where it is due, they actually do have commentary and quite a lot. We can but dream.
To coin another cliche: "will this do, John?"
(I was sure that is a song title but be blowed if I can find a reference...anyone?)
Speaking of music, here is a picture of some being made (Halfway at the Powerhouse, Brisbane).
(*) Do doot, doot, do de doo doo doo doo etc etc..."things fall apaaaaaart, it's scientific..."
Larvatus Prodeo has a lot to answer for, but who would have thought that this would be amongst it? Note: this is a hat tip, even if delivered in a grudging, curmudgeonly fashion. LP has great posts but often the commentary gets out of control. However, to acknowledge where it is due, they actually do have commentary and quite a lot. We can but dream.
To coin another cliche: "will this do, John?"
(I was sure that is a song title but be blowed if I can find a reference...anyone?)
Speaking of music, here is a picture of some being made (Halfway at the Powerhouse, Brisbane).
(*) Do doot, doot, do de doo doo doo doo etc etc..."things fall apaaaaaart, it's scientific..."
freebird
If once owning a Toyota Corolla (oh yes, and a Crown as well, I had one of those too!) doesn't qualify you to blog authentically, I don't know what does.
Actually, yes I do. Boag's Draught. It's been coming from the same slab but tonight it somehow feels stronger, you know, tonight. It feels kind of liberating.
Which brings us neatly to libertarianism, would you believe.
Actually, you have to believe or if you don't, you have to believe in something else.
This person, for example, is evidently not a believer in libertarianism but the thought of a prospective visit to the post office, of all things, brings on such thoughts.
I get similar thoughts because various representatives of the IPA keep getting valuable column inches (centimetres, all right) in the mainstream media and they'd only get that if they were right, right?
There you go, John. James Joyce, eat your heart out. Shit, I've run out of Boag's.
Actually, yes I do. Boag's Draught. It's been coming from the same slab but tonight it somehow feels stronger, you know, tonight. It feels kind of liberating.
Which brings us neatly to libertarianism, would you believe.
Actually, you have to believe or if you don't, you have to believe in something else.
This person, for example, is evidently not a believer in libertarianism but the thought of a prospective visit to the post office, of all things, brings on such thoughts.
I get similar thoughts because various representatives of the IPA keep getting valuable column inches (centimetres, all right) in the mainstream media and they'd only get that if they were right, right?
There you go, John. James Joyce, eat your heart out. Shit, I've run out of Boag's.
mr writer (*)
Well in his comments on "wherever I lay my hat", Gerry has taken the fight up to me - why do I blog here at VVB?
I suppose originally I did it because it was a 'coming thing', 'everybody was doing it' and so on. Did I really think I had something original and useful to say?
(a) Unlikely;
(b) Of course, we all think we do.
Let's go (b), at least we'll score some points for authenticity (not that being authentic is a competition, of course).
As I've mentioned before, the availability of a soapbox and the seemingly unending ubiquity of the former Prime Minister (former! previous! no longer there! whacko!) inevitably led to a considerable amount of vitriolic and not particularly original Howard hating. This was extremely comforting for a while but eventually even it started to pall - I ran out of vitriol. And now he's no longer there! Has anyone noticed? I have! It's really, really, really good. Did I mention?
So now I'm a bit lost for content. I'm not going to buy into the US election as many, including like-minded (ooh, 'leftist', look out, heterodoxy under every bed!) blogs are. Yes, the orientation and ability of any US administration is of immense importance to Australia. But there are thousands of blogs and sources out there that actually know what they're talking about, there are several million more of a VVB-esque-ish type which just help to avoid a vacuum ocurring and, finally and quite frankly, Bush-bashing is even less rewarding than Howard-hating.
(a pause of some several hours occurred at this point)
I'm avoiding the question, aren't I?
I suppose originally I did it because it was a 'coming thing', 'everybody was doing it' and so on. Did I really think I had something original and useful to say?
(a) Unlikely;
(b) Of course, we all think we do.
Let's go (b), at least we'll score some points for authenticity (not that being authentic is a competition, of course).
As I've mentioned before, the availability of a soapbox and the seemingly unending ubiquity of the former Prime Minister (former! previous! no longer there! whacko!) inevitably led to a considerable amount of vitriolic and not particularly original Howard hating. This was extremely comforting for a while but eventually even it started to pall - I ran out of vitriol. And now he's no longer there! Has anyone noticed? I have! It's really, really, really good. Did I mention?
So now I'm a bit lost for content. I'm not going to buy into the US election as many, including like-minded (ooh, 'leftist', look out, heterodoxy under every bed!) blogs are. Yes, the orientation and ability of any US administration is of immense importance to Australia. But there are thousands of blogs and sources out there that actually know what they're talking about, there are several million more of a VVB-esque-ish type which just help to avoid a vacuum ocurring and, finally and quite frankly, Bush-bashing is even less rewarding than Howard-hating.
(a pause of some several hours occurred at this point)
I'm avoiding the question, aren't I?
Well, I'd certainly like to improve my writing skills although I must say that composing and posting 'live' is not a good way to hone your style when you don't have a good, flowing style to start with.
I do like recounting things that happen that I find interesting - for example I haven't told the stories about giving two sets of people a lift on the one day during our holidays - and drawing some conclusions from the behaviours I see about me. Even simplistic, fatuous conclusions, I must admit.
Interestingly, via Oz Politics and the excellent Joshua Gans' Core Econ, earlier today I saw an article in which a number of economists were polled about why they blog. And blow me down, the reasons are similar to why you'd expect people to blog.
Who would have thought that economists were like everybody else?
Interestingly, via Oz Politics and the excellent Joshua Gans' Core Econ, earlier today I saw an article in which a number of economists were polled about why they blog. And blow me down, the reasons are similar to why you'd expect people to blog.
There were a series of questions asking respondents to rate factors according to their importance as motivations for blogging on a scale of 1 to 5. “Fun or entertainment”, “To raise my profile”, “Contribute to policy/political debates”, “To educate the public or disseminate research”, and “As a way of recording thoughts or ideas” were rated highest, all with a median score of 4. “Contribute to academic debates” had a median of 3, “To get reader feedback from comments” and “To improve writing skills” both scored 2, while “Actual or potential direct income” and “Actual or potential indirect income” both had a median of 1.
Who would have thought that economists were like everybody else?
So, Gerry and everybody, I'm just on a journey like everybody else and I have enough hide to think that some of it might be interesting to my devoted 4 or 5 readers (at this point I took a detour to look at my most recent stats - I am in fact getting about a dozen unique visitors a day with about 3 returning visitors per day). Hardly the stuff of a new career (I already have one of those, thanks to the current appointment in Rockhampton) but maybe enough reassurance to keep it going, to try in every day and every way to get a little bit better?
But what will I write about tomorrow? Who knows. In the meantime, here's a picture of some excellent neighbourhood infrastructure in Burradoo - between Bowral and Moss Vale. Pretty and quite high quality, yes?
(*) By Stereophonics, I am informed by Google.
03 January 2008
one on left is on right (*)
Anyway so I'm thinking about what comes next and while I'm doing this I'm scanning the excerpts in the Oz Politics feeds and it looks like "leftists" are proliferating - multiplying even, although I can't imagine that they're all that good at the hard subjects like mathematics - if the number of posts accusing leftists of everything that's ever gone wrong in the world are any indication.
And that got me thinking about how non-leftist-thinking people are always simplistic, black or white, with us or against us people, whereas leftists always see the complexity in issues and so find it more difficult to devise appropriate solutions.
Of course it's also probably a factor that the views you get in personal blogs, from no matter which standpoint, are most likely simplified and exaggerated and that's the type of view mainly picked up in the Oz Politics feeds. Certainly here in the Chateau that's the way it usually pans out.
A moment's reflection should by rights have led to the same conclusion as that explained in the Edge article, but why disturb that poor sleeping brain cell?
Seriously though, you scan through the excerpts and mainly decide not to click through because the introductory paragraphs are so unappealing.
Rather, here is a picture to soothe the brain cell to sleep.
And if you're interested in the song title, it turns out to be quite fitting.
And that got me thinking about how non-leftist-thinking people are always simplistic, black or white, with us or against us people, whereas leftists always see the complexity in issues and so find it more difficult to devise appropriate solutions.
And are more willing to be critical: witness the number of 'leftist' posters having a go at Stephen Conroy over the net-filtering proposal.
Then I discover that it's all in the perception - where you stand depends on where you sit, or something.Of course it's also probably a factor that the views you get in personal blogs, from no matter which standpoint, are most likely simplified and exaggerated and that's the type of view mainly picked up in the Oz Politics feeds. Certainly here in the Chateau that's the way it usually pans out.
A moment's reflection should by rights have led to the same conclusion as that explained in the Edge article, but why disturb that poor sleeping brain cell?
Seriously though, you scan through the excerpts and mainly decide not to click through because the introductory paragraphs are so unappealing.
Rather, here is a picture to soothe the brain cell to sleep.And if you're interested in the song title, it turns out to be quite fitting.
02 January 2008
wherever I lay my hat
In parts chuffed, amazed and distressed by the revelation that at least one reader has Chateau VVB on an RSS feed (really! get a fucking television if you need entertainment, for crying out loud!), my private (until now) reflections about what to do with the Chateau were brought to a head today.
I have no Howard to hate and I suspect that the new government will take at least one term to learn its ropes. With a new government, I am always reminded of the old man's exclamation shortly after Hawke's ascension in 1983: "this is the best Liberal government we've ever had." He was prescient in that observation, at least.
Rudd and co. do not inspire in quite the same way, but we can always be amazed if they do better than expected. However, it's not the stuff of daily blogging, certainly not the superficial off-the-cuffisms so typical of so-called analysis here in the Chateau.
I said it would be about politics, economics (ha! let's ensure that dog never wakes up), cars and music. I've still got a few of the car stories to do and really, I must get a round tuit one of these days. But they are hardly the stuff of general interest so comprehensively displayed by all of VVB's 4 or 5 readers (sorry John!). And I'm going to run out of models soon, which will mean the end of the stories.
Music? I yam what I yam. But I know bugger all compared to others (yeah I know, it's not a competition). But I'm not sure I could contribute anything likely to start some interesting conversation: but then, neither has much I've written on anything else, as yet ;-)
Chateau VVB is not alone in its current state of self-examination, and even the ups and downs in Propensity to Blog (P2B) that we've experienced here in the Chateau over the past two years have indicated that blogging is very much an evolutionary activity at both individual and aggregated levels.
There's always the role of finding out interesting/useful/useless stuff and passing it on but again, even though it's not a competition, there are others who do this awfully well, for which you could read 'so much better.'
Although, the title of this post was brought to mind by this article. This British innovation (eh?) sounds just like the Countdown Australian live tour with a few additional restrictions on the performers. Incidentally, I picked up the linked review rather than the official website - which I assume exists somewhere - but this is a very nicely weighted, well written audience reflection well worth a read, along with the comments including one from Ross Wilson of Mondo Rock.
Reading the Guardian article, I was reminded of buying our one Rick Astley CD. We were living in Burma at the time so retail therapy was carried out in a very concentrated fashion during leave trips to Singapore. It was quite cathartic (hmm? maybe) to walk in to a store and walk out with 20 CDs at a time, but this was offset by having to ask the shop assistant what was 'hot' or 'new', as we had no way of knowing. And on one of these visits, in one of the these stores, on being asked this particular question, the assistant pointed to a Rick Astley CD and played a bit of it. "What a voice" I thought, along with "and it sounds so incongruous coming from such a dorky looking person."
So I bought it, took it back to Rangoon, played it once and put it away - a very unrewarding purchase. Whereas Belinda Carlisle got played over and over.
Well, there's a few minutes of your life you won't get back, and I won't go into how long it took me to type.
Back to the navel lint, there must be more to life than this.
I have no Howard to hate and I suspect that the new government will take at least one term to learn its ropes. With a new government, I am always reminded of the old man's exclamation shortly after Hawke's ascension in 1983: "this is the best Liberal government we've ever had." He was prescient in that observation, at least.
Rudd and co. do not inspire in quite the same way, but we can always be amazed if they do better than expected. However, it's not the stuff of daily blogging, certainly not the superficial off-the-cuffisms so typical of so-called analysis here in the Chateau.
I said it would be about politics, economics (ha! let's ensure that dog never wakes up), cars and music. I've still got a few of the car stories to do and really, I must get a round tuit one of these days. But they are hardly the stuff of general interest so comprehensively displayed by all of VVB's 4 or 5 readers (sorry John!). And I'm going to run out of models soon, which will mean the end of the stories.
Music? I yam what I yam. But I know bugger all compared to others (yeah I know, it's not a competition). But I'm not sure I could contribute anything likely to start some interesting conversation: but then, neither has much I've written on anything else, as yet ;-)
Chateau VVB is not alone in its current state of self-examination, and even the ups and downs in Propensity to Blog (P2B) that we've experienced here in the Chateau over the past two years have indicated that blogging is very much an evolutionary activity at both individual and aggregated levels.
There's always the role of finding out interesting/useful/useless stuff and passing it on but again, even though it's not a competition, there are others who do this awfully well, for which you could read 'so much better.'
Although, the title of this post was brought to mind by this article. This British innovation (eh?) sounds just like the Countdown Australian live tour with a few additional restrictions on the performers. Incidentally, I picked up the linked review rather than the official website - which I assume exists somewhere - but this is a very nicely weighted, well written audience reflection well worth a read, along with the comments including one from Ross Wilson of Mondo Rock.
Reading the Guardian article, I was reminded of buying our one Rick Astley CD. We were living in Burma at the time so retail therapy was carried out in a very concentrated fashion during leave trips to Singapore. It was quite cathartic (hmm? maybe) to walk in to a store and walk out with 20 CDs at a time, but this was offset by having to ask the shop assistant what was 'hot' or 'new', as we had no way of knowing. And on one of these visits, in one of the these stores, on being asked this particular question, the assistant pointed to a Rick Astley CD and played a bit of it. "What a voice" I thought, along with "and it sounds so incongruous coming from such a dorky looking person."
So I bought it, took it back to Rangoon, played it once and put it away - a very unrewarding purchase. Whereas Belinda Carlisle got played over and over.
Well, there's a few minutes of your life you won't get back, and I won't go into how long it took me to type.
Back to the navel lint, there must be more to life than this.
31 December 2007
hook me up
"Everything is connected to everything else" has been one of my favourite expressions for a long time. It's neither deep nor original, and so sums up the VVB ethos to a T.
Anyway it's not often you get to see it proved, but within this post you'll find a pretty convincing argument. Anyway it shows biomedical research as being at the centre of the knonw universe, as least as proven by academic citations.
Whether this is a result of substantial government funding of research in the field or whether this is the centre of the universe just because it is, isn't addressed in the article.
The article was found via here and here, because Fumier thinks that Philip is very funny, not to mention insightful in the nature of government. And who would disagree?
Anyway it's not often you get to see it proved, but within this post you'll find a pretty convincing argument. Anyway it shows biomedical research as being at the centre of the knonw universe, as least as proven by academic citations.
Whether this is a result of substantial government funding of research in the field or whether this is the centre of the universe just because it is, isn't addressed in the article.
The article was found via here and here, because Fumier thinks that Philip is very funny, not to mention insightful in the nature of government. And who would disagree?
29 December 2007
holiday (the Bee Gees version)
Interim post until I'm home tomorrow with the time and the better gear to insert links and so on...
Well this is a bit of a first for Chateau VVB, as it’s the first post ever constructed offline. As I write, Mrs VVB and I are ensconced just outside the Barrington Tops National Park, which is 20 km outside Dungog, in turn of course the home of Doug Walters. Although, inexcusably, the map of the town doesn’t show his house. Whereas two days ago, in Bowral, all roads led to the Don.
It’s probably also a bit of a come-down for Chateau VVB, a ‘what I did on my holidays’ post rather than the incisive political commentary which we have offered over the last two years. Incisive political commentary cunningly disguised, of course, as two years of obsessive and not particularly original Howard-hating. Anyway, this is a chance to hone and refine, and to rid Chateau VVB of its obsessively chronological writing style. By the time we return to hearth and cat (assuming that the cat has satisfactorily withstood her enforced holiday to the end), we will have been away only a bit over a week but we’ll have been to Foster, Katoomba, Burradoo, Sydney, the Barrington Tops and Armidale.
Rather we will dip, we will linger, and we will observe, all cunningly disguised as witless prejudicial snarking. Bear with us, there may be a morsel amongst the dross.
“Not particularly original Howard hating?” During our stay in Mrs VVB and I took a trip on a Sydney ferry (just around to Balmain and back, the holiday crowds prevented a Manly trip as the queue was about 300 metres long), and as we returned to Circular Quay I asked my long-suffering spouse whether she knew what was the best thing about visiting Sydney? She proferred no response (rolling eyes doesn’t count as a response) and so I pointed across to Kirribilli and said “because that lying little weasel doesn’t live there any more.” Although she hadn’t seen the response coming, she sighed as if she could have guessed. Know what I mean?
Anyway, hearing newsreaders on TV each night introduce a story with “Prime Minister Kevin Rudd” still doesn’t sound quite right and the fact that he went to the cricket, gave us his views on the game and has a suitable jersey to wear on his morning walks (monring walks ffs, I mean I ask you...) all point to the somewhat distressing conclusion that the country has changed rather less than we might have desired.
Back to the holiday, and I’ll warn again that descriptions will be embellished with the usual kind of thoughtless prejudice that has always informed stories from the Chateau.
The first concerns those who drive four wheel drives. These people are all maniacs. Why someone who presumably is reasonably level headed in all other aspects of life would want to endanger his whole family – 3 or 4 of them – by pulling his Landcruiser V8 out in the face of an oncoming semi just so he could arrive at the 80km limit on the edge of the next town about 20 second sooner just defeats me. It may have a big V8, but it’s shaped like a house and weighs three times as much as a whale, it’s not going to accelerate like a Lotus, mate, so just get used to it.
The second concerns the urban spread of Sydney, and particularly the small country-sized suburbs of McMansion land around Baulkham Hills, Kellyville and those other areas in Hillsong territory (ooh, it’s button pressing time folks).
I’d read about it of course, but nothing prepares you for the reality of mile upon mile of identikit two storey boxes, all built within mere centimetres of each other (please forgive mixed imperial and metric measurements, it’s about what resonates you see). But for me the most distressing thing was that, from birth (or house purchase), if you’re in this part of the world you’re in the grip of the oligopilists. The suburbs, the estates, the houses, they're are all the brainchildren of the big developers. The houses, as the ‘McMansion’ pejorative illuminates, are boxes made of ticky-tacky built by the same big builders. But they’re big – enormous – not little, as in the song.
You go to shop, the majors have got you. The names on the billboards are all the same – the Harvey Normans, McDonalds, Video Ezy, Fantastic Furniture, and so on. You’re trapped, no choice, no originality.
No wonder that the brand of religion offered supposedly to compensate for the consumption-based existence is simply more of the same.
I suppose when you build whole regions from scratch, this is what you have to do in these circumstances. The variety you get from organic growth is just a luxury that such rapid increases in population who have to be housed, fed, entertained and furnitured quickly cannot contemplate.
Another observation has to do with ‘luxury’ self-contained holiday accommodation, which is Mrs VVB’s and my preferred type of holiday, with the ‘luxury’ very much in inverted commas – it’s more just good quality and attention to detail that we appreciate. We’ve had really quite luxurious places, very well appointed and with the little touches that make it special such as four different kinds of breakfast cereal. Which is why when we pulled into tonight’s place, we were a little taken aback – it’s rather home-built and rather patchy.
However, the compensations are the wildlife – so far we’ve had a wallaby, some kangaroos including one with a joey in the pouch, a possum, various birdlife and who knows what else, all poking around the balcony. The noises outside are quite amazing, it’ll be an interesting night.
Update after the fact: no, they were just money-grubbing penny-pinchers and it wasn't a good look after people who showed it can be done really well for the same money.
However, the one thing that these two places had in common was some interesting reading. The luxury place had the New Yorker. Somehow – probably passed on to him by relatives – my father used to get the New Yorker when I was in my early teens. I was fascinated to dip into it again some 40 years later to discover that it retains the same ‘look and feel’. The writing is brisk, insightful, and with the same mannered, slightly ironic tone I recall from all those years ago. The cartoons are still very New York although if anything, their quality had dropped a bit I thought, compared to the writing.
When I mentioned my love of the magazine to the proprietor, his eyes lit up and we had a good chat about it.
Whereas here, I find Car magazine. I used to get Car back in the days when the late, the wonderful, the iconoclastic LJK Setright was its main correspondent. Unlike the New Yorker, Car had been updated several times and is now a bit too ‘try-hard’. But it still retains its great section at the back wherein all cars on the UK market are listed, not only by useful statistics but also a great summary under three headings, viz. ‘For’, ‘Against’ and ‘Verdict’. Which leads to some magic commentary.
“Maybach: For – Powertain, equipment. Against: Truly vulgar. Verdict: Shows the difference between taste and money.
Perodua Kenari: For – Plenty of headroom. Against – but people might see you in it. Verdict – upsetting.
And speaking of cars, we came out of Sydney today along the old Parramatta Road (the rule for the trip has been ‘no payments to bloodsucking monopolists who run privatised motorways’). And I was pleased to see that Parramatta Road is still mainly a car alley with lots of new and secondhand purveyors, much as they purveyed when my mates at I would trawl the road in the early 70s looking for our dream cars. Mind you, the massive concentration of ‘big box’ and other retailers around Auburn is new, and also generates a bit of traffic.
Apart from that, our trip out of Sydney was smooth and then we headed north through Windsor and up the old Putty Road. This was, I believe the motoring writers’ test track of choice back in the 60s when car manufacturers used to just give them a car to test and hang the consequences, rather than the more stage-managed efforts that seem to occur nowadays. The road is an appealing mix of very tight, twisty hilly bits with some open touring over the higher country and there was very little traffic, which was utterly different to last year when we got stuck in a 30km traffic jam outside Bulahdelah. As indeed the news reports said was happening again this year.
Although I’m still a car fan, I’ve slowed down a lot and with Mrs VVB observing that unlike me, she has no steering wheel to hang onto, I take it somewhat easier than I used to. So when the local yokels scream up behind in their 4WDs on narrow, bumpy roads, as they do, I’m looking for somewhere to pull over and let them past. No wonder that deaths of young blokes in the country are still disproportionately high as indeed they were when I was growing up in central NSW, and three classmates perished during years 11 and 12.
However I still find sharing the road with the terminally death-wished a little disconcerting. That said, on a suitable piece of back highway today, I still managed to sit on an easy 120 which Mrs VVB noticed but didn't take exception to, as the Saab is quite comfortable on smooth surfaces, but it hates choppy surfaces and suffers from terminal understeer on tighter roads, which mean you carry car speed into corners that then cannot be satisfactorily washed off or compensated (with great dollops of turbo assisted throttle) without undue distress to the passenger(s).
We’ve done a bit of bushwalking but regrettably as neither of us know much botany, we don’t range far as one piece of subtropical rainforest looks much like another I have to admit. But we enjoy the solitude and the restorative properties of nature.
Well that's it, will update (or possibly delete) later.
Update: if anyone really wants me to insert links to explain Doug Walters, Donald Bradman, the Putty Road, LJK Setright or anything else that doesn't immediately strike a chord, let me know. Otherwise, take it as read. I'll post some photos later - most of them are on film, not digital.
We have returned to hearth and cat, the cat is mightily pleased to be home again. And speaking of cat, the best memory of the whole trip was seeing a cat hanging out the window of a car when offpsring no 1 took us for a day trip to the Fitzroy Falls and Kangaroo Valley. It has its tongue hanging out and fur flowing in the breeze, just dogs usually do. It looked wonderful.
Well this is a bit of a first for Chateau VVB, as it’s the first post ever constructed offline. As I write, Mrs VVB and I are ensconced just outside the Barrington Tops National Park, which is 20 km outside Dungog, in turn of course the home of Doug Walters. Although, inexcusably, the map of the town doesn’t show his house. Whereas two days ago, in Bowral, all roads led to the Don.
It’s probably also a bit of a come-down for Chateau VVB, a ‘what I did on my holidays’ post rather than the incisive political commentary which we have offered over the last two years. Incisive political commentary cunningly disguised, of course, as two years of obsessive and not particularly original Howard-hating. Anyway, this is a chance to hone and refine, and to rid Chateau VVB of its obsessively chronological writing style. By the time we return to hearth and cat (assuming that the cat has satisfactorily withstood her enforced holiday to the end), we will have been away only a bit over a week but we’ll have been to Foster, Katoomba, Burradoo, Sydney, the Barrington Tops and Armidale.
Rather we will dip, we will linger, and we will observe, all cunningly disguised as witless prejudicial snarking. Bear with us, there may be a morsel amongst the dross.
“Not particularly original Howard hating?” During our stay in Mrs VVB and I took a trip on a Sydney ferry (just around to Balmain and back, the holiday crowds prevented a Manly trip as the queue was about 300 metres long), and as we returned to Circular Quay I asked my long-suffering spouse whether she knew what was the best thing about visiting Sydney? She proferred no response (rolling eyes doesn’t count as a response) and so I pointed across to Kirribilli and said “because that lying little weasel doesn’t live there any more.” Although she hadn’t seen the response coming, she sighed as if she could have guessed. Know what I mean?
Anyway, hearing newsreaders on TV each night introduce a story with “Prime Minister Kevin Rudd” still doesn’t sound quite right and the fact that he went to the cricket, gave us his views on the game and has a suitable jersey to wear on his morning walks (monring walks ffs, I mean I ask you...) all point to the somewhat distressing conclusion that the country has changed rather less than we might have desired.
Back to the holiday, and I’ll warn again that descriptions will be embellished with the usual kind of thoughtless prejudice that has always informed stories from the Chateau.
The first concerns those who drive four wheel drives. These people are all maniacs. Why someone who presumably is reasonably level headed in all other aspects of life would want to endanger his whole family – 3 or 4 of them – by pulling his Landcruiser V8 out in the face of an oncoming semi just so he could arrive at the 80km limit on the edge of the next town about 20 second sooner just defeats me. It may have a big V8, but it’s shaped like a house and weighs three times as much as a whale, it’s not going to accelerate like a Lotus, mate, so just get used to it.
The second concerns the urban spread of Sydney, and particularly the small country-sized suburbs of McMansion land around Baulkham Hills, Kellyville and those other areas in Hillsong territory (ooh, it’s button pressing time folks).
I’d read about it of course, but nothing prepares you for the reality of mile upon mile of identikit two storey boxes, all built within mere centimetres of each other (please forgive mixed imperial and metric measurements, it’s about what resonates you see). But for me the most distressing thing was that, from birth (or house purchase), if you’re in this part of the world you’re in the grip of the oligopilists. The suburbs, the estates, the houses, they're are all the brainchildren of the big developers. The houses, as the ‘McMansion’ pejorative illuminates, are boxes made of ticky-tacky built by the same big builders. But they’re big – enormous – not little, as in the song.
You go to shop, the majors have got you. The names on the billboards are all the same – the Harvey Normans, McDonalds, Video Ezy, Fantastic Furniture, and so on. You’re trapped, no choice, no originality.
No wonder that the brand of religion offered supposedly to compensate for the consumption-based existence is simply more of the same.
I suppose when you build whole regions from scratch, this is what you have to do in these circumstances. The variety you get from organic growth is just a luxury that such rapid increases in population who have to be housed, fed, entertained and furnitured quickly cannot contemplate.
Another observation has to do with ‘luxury’ self-contained holiday accommodation, which is Mrs VVB’s and my preferred type of holiday, with the ‘luxury’ very much in inverted commas – it’s more just good quality and attention to detail that we appreciate. We’ve had really quite luxurious places, very well appointed and with the little touches that make it special such as four different kinds of breakfast cereal. Which is why when we pulled into tonight’s place, we were a little taken aback – it’s rather home-built and rather patchy.
However, the compensations are the wildlife – so far we’ve had a wallaby, some kangaroos including one with a joey in the pouch, a possum, various birdlife and who knows what else, all poking around the balcony. The noises outside are quite amazing, it’ll be an interesting night.
Update after the fact: no, they were just money-grubbing penny-pinchers and it wasn't a good look after people who showed it can be done really well for the same money.
However, the one thing that these two places had in common was some interesting reading. The luxury place had the New Yorker. Somehow – probably passed on to him by relatives – my father used to get the New Yorker when I was in my early teens. I was fascinated to dip into it again some 40 years later to discover that it retains the same ‘look and feel’. The writing is brisk, insightful, and with the same mannered, slightly ironic tone I recall from all those years ago. The cartoons are still very New York although if anything, their quality had dropped a bit I thought, compared to the writing.
When I mentioned my love of the magazine to the proprietor, his eyes lit up and we had a good chat about it.
Whereas here, I find Car magazine. I used to get Car back in the days when the late, the wonderful, the iconoclastic LJK Setright was its main correspondent. Unlike the New Yorker, Car had been updated several times and is now a bit too ‘try-hard’. But it still retains its great section at the back wherein all cars on the UK market are listed, not only by useful statistics but also a great summary under three headings, viz. ‘For’, ‘Against’ and ‘Verdict’. Which leads to some magic commentary.
“Maybach: For – Powertain, equipment. Against: Truly vulgar. Verdict: Shows the difference between taste and money.
Perodua Kenari: For – Plenty of headroom. Against – but people might see you in it. Verdict – upsetting.
And speaking of cars, we came out of Sydney today along the old Parramatta Road (the rule for the trip has been ‘no payments to bloodsucking monopolists who run privatised motorways’). And I was pleased to see that Parramatta Road is still mainly a car alley with lots of new and secondhand purveyors, much as they purveyed when my mates at I would trawl the road in the early 70s looking for our dream cars. Mind you, the massive concentration of ‘big box’ and other retailers around Auburn is new, and also generates a bit of traffic.
Apart from that, our trip out of Sydney was smooth and then we headed north through Windsor and up the old Putty Road. This was, I believe the motoring writers’ test track of choice back in the 60s when car manufacturers used to just give them a car to test and hang the consequences, rather than the more stage-managed efforts that seem to occur nowadays. The road is an appealing mix of very tight, twisty hilly bits with some open touring over the higher country and there was very little traffic, which was utterly different to last year when we got stuck in a 30km traffic jam outside Bulahdelah. As indeed the news reports said was happening again this year.
Although I’m still a car fan, I’ve slowed down a lot and with Mrs VVB observing that unlike me, she has no steering wheel to hang onto, I take it somewhat easier than I used to. So when the local yokels scream up behind in their 4WDs on narrow, bumpy roads, as they do, I’m looking for somewhere to pull over and let them past. No wonder that deaths of young blokes in the country are still disproportionately high as indeed they were when I was growing up in central NSW, and three classmates perished during years 11 and 12.
However I still find sharing the road with the terminally death-wished a little disconcerting. That said, on a suitable piece of back highway today, I still managed to sit on an easy 120 which Mrs VVB noticed but didn't take exception to, as the Saab is quite comfortable on smooth surfaces, but it hates choppy surfaces and suffers from terminal understeer on tighter roads, which mean you carry car speed into corners that then cannot be satisfactorily washed off or compensated (with great dollops of turbo assisted throttle) without undue distress to the passenger(s).
We’ve done a bit of bushwalking but regrettably as neither of us know much botany, we don’t range far as one piece of subtropical rainforest looks much like another I have to admit. But we enjoy the solitude and the restorative properties of nature.
Well that's it, will update (or possibly delete) later.
Update: if anyone really wants me to insert links to explain Doug Walters, Donald Bradman, the Putty Road, LJK Setright or anything else that doesn't immediately strike a chord, let me know. Otherwise, take it as read. I'll post some photos later - most of them are on film, not digital.
We have returned to hearth and cat, the cat is mightily pleased to be home again. And speaking of cat, the best memory of the whole trip was seeing a cat hanging out the window of a car when offpsring no 1 took us for a day trip to the Fitzroy Falls and Kangaroo Valley. It has its tongue hanging out and fur flowing in the breeze, just dogs usually do. It looked wonderful.
23 December 2007
eat to the beat
Well it's travelling VVB at the moment as Mrs VVB and I pursue (??? engage in? enjoy? whatever?) a short driving holiday we had already booked before I got the gig in Rockvegas. Last night in Forster was OK, a pretty ordinary motel but I was so shagged from driving that we woke up an hour later than the schedule dictated.
Dinner at the RSL, standard excellent RSL fare (plus 3 schooies).
I used to be able to do Brisbane to Canberra in one high speed hit, especially in the old Pug 405Mi16, and very especially over the great back from road from Molong to Cowra. But no more, the back and neck tense and stiffen up within hours. And the Saab, while far more powerful, is no match for the Pug's superlative roadholding. Not for nothing did the Peugeot have the accolade - in 1989 - as the best handling front wheel drive car in the world.
Anyway. Here we are in coolish - ie quite cold - Katoomba in a beautiful old house. So we go for dinner and the RSL is between us and another 15 minutes' walk to get to the main street, so in we go.
Words do not describe. The waiter got 50% of the entrees wrong and about 70% of the mains, I got a whole deep fried sole curling up on a serving platter, that looked like it had been a nuclear experiment. The two couples at an nearby table pointed and laughed, either at the fish or at my expression. I ate a few scraps. Mrs VVB's fish tasted like soap.
The staff didn't care, and Mrs VVB and I were reminded of our first marital trip - we had booked the Hydro Majestic for our honeymoon. There were 6 people staying there, when we the "maitre d'" ushered us into the dining room and took us to a table, the two old ladies sitting there refused us because it was "their table".
We ended up at a table with a couple of young gay blokes - whose lives couldn't have been too easy in the mid 70s - and it was a riot, thanks to them. All the portions were measured, you couldn't have even some extra milk for your tea or on your cereal, it was just appalling. The blokes tried everyhting, they chatted up the elderly waitresses, they snuck into the kitchen and stole some milk, they begged for an extra desert. They really made the event for us.
Although we had booked for a week, we couldn't stand it after 2 days of starvation and went north to Port Macquarie, ended up in a wonderful motel with orange shag pile carpet.
Anyway there we were tonight with two inedible dishes in front of us and Mrs VVB said, "we don't have much luck in Katoomba, do we?"
Seems like no, but by crikey we have some fun.
Dinner at the RSL, standard excellent RSL fare (plus 3 schooies).
I used to be able to do Brisbane to Canberra in one high speed hit, especially in the old Pug 405Mi16, and very especially over the great back from road from Molong to Cowra. But no more, the back and neck tense and stiffen up within hours. And the Saab, while far more powerful, is no match for the Pug's superlative roadholding. Not for nothing did the Peugeot have the accolade - in 1989 - as the best handling front wheel drive car in the world.
Anyway. Here we are in coolish - ie quite cold - Katoomba in a beautiful old house. So we go for dinner and the RSL is between us and another 15 minutes' walk to get to the main street, so in we go.
Words do not describe. The waiter got 50% of the entrees wrong and about 70% of the mains, I got a whole deep fried sole curling up on a serving platter, that looked like it had been a nuclear experiment. The two couples at an nearby table pointed and laughed, either at the fish or at my expression. I ate a few scraps. Mrs VVB's fish tasted like soap.
The staff didn't care, and Mrs VVB and I were reminded of our first marital trip - we had booked the Hydro Majestic for our honeymoon. There were 6 people staying there, when we the "maitre d'" ushered us into the dining room and took us to a table, the two old ladies sitting there refused us because it was "their table".
We ended up at a table with a couple of young gay blokes - whose lives couldn't have been too easy in the mid 70s - and it was a riot, thanks to them. All the portions were measured, you couldn't have even some extra milk for your tea or on your cereal, it was just appalling. The blokes tried everyhting, they chatted up the elderly waitresses, they snuck into the kitchen and stole some milk, they begged for an extra desert. They really made the event for us.
Although we had booked for a week, we couldn't stand it after 2 days of starvation and went north to Port Macquarie, ended up in a wonderful motel with orange shag pile carpet.
Anyway there we were tonight with two inedible dishes in front of us and Mrs VVB said, "we don't have much luck in Katoomba, do we?"
Seems like no, but by crikey we have some fun.
17 December 2007
military madness
I forgot to put in the short report of the CSN concert that Military Madness was introduced by a bit of Bush-bashing and the general sort of small-l (ie US) liberal commentary for which the band has always been known.
While Steven Stills wrestled with his guitar strap, David Crosby mused that the US should introduce a law which prevented it from possessing nuclear weapons while ever it had a President who couldn't pronounce the word properly. This then led into a bit of by-play between the band members about the need to get rid of the Bush administration, summarised by "throw the bums out." Graham Nash noted that this was what Australia had in fact done, Stills said "throw the bums out" again so Nash had to bring him up to date with our momentous political upheaval (well change of government, anyway).
And then, in introducing the song, David Crosby lamented that some 45 years after the song was written, the world still suffers from military madness.
While Steven Stills wrestled with his guitar strap, David Crosby mused that the US should introduce a law which prevented it from possessing nuclear weapons while ever it had a President who couldn't pronounce the word properly. This then led into a bit of by-play between the band members about the need to get rid of the Bush administration, summarised by "throw the bums out." Graham Nash noted that this was what Australia had in fact done, Stills said "throw the bums out" again so Nash had to bring him up to date with our momentous political upheaval (well change of government, anyway).
And then, in introducing the song, David Crosby lamented that some 45 years after the song was written, the world still suffers from military madness.
16 December 2007
long time coming
Ironic and all, that title also summed up the feeling of the crowd at last night's Crosby, Stills and Nash concert in Brisbane. Graham Nash joked with the crowd who had kept their tickets from the originally scheduled concert date of February.
The concert itself was an amalgam of powerhouse rock ("For what it's worth" in particular) to the acoustic harmonies that Nash and David Crosby do so well: that said, their voices weren't truly on song until the second half. As a singer, Stills makes a great guitarist and he doesn't look a well man.
But he is a great guitarist and put on a good show, theatrically flipping his hand away from the guitar on the harmonics (and boy were they sweet) and once or twice doing a galumphing hippo walk across the stage - the benefits of wireless guitars and drawbacks of age and size, as he is 62 and a big bloke. And one particularly memorable cross between a gorilla and cormorant - quite bizarre.
But it was a superb night, the sound was great: not too loud and wonderfully clear.
They played all the favourites (as Nash said to the audience at one stage in response to a request, "we'll play all the songs we can fucking remember - all four of them, or two in Crosby's case").
I can't pick out any highlights, it was all highlight.
Hero of the night goes to one of the two blokes next to us. They were fairly pickled by the start time, but each managed an additional four cans of bourbon and coke during the first half. One fellow disappeared, but the other bloke managed a couple more during the second act.
The band got a resounding encore and responded, not surprisingly, first with Teach Your Children and then with Woodstock. Nearly two and half hours - not bad going for a band who've been doing it for 40 years.
The concert itself was an amalgam of powerhouse rock ("For what it's worth" in particular) to the acoustic harmonies that Nash and David Crosby do so well: that said, their voices weren't truly on song until the second half. As a singer, Stills makes a great guitarist and he doesn't look a well man.
But he is a great guitarist and put on a good show, theatrically flipping his hand away from the guitar on the harmonics (and boy were they sweet) and once or twice doing a galumphing hippo walk across the stage - the benefits of wireless guitars and drawbacks of age and size, as he is 62 and a big bloke. And one particularly memorable cross between a gorilla and cormorant - quite bizarre.
But it was a superb night, the sound was great: not too loud and wonderfully clear.
They played all the favourites (as Nash said to the audience at one stage in response to a request, "we'll play all the songs we can fucking remember - all four of them, or two in Crosby's case").
I can't pick out any highlights, it was all highlight.
Hero of the night goes to one of the two blokes next to us. They were fairly pickled by the start time, but each managed an additional four cans of bourbon and coke during the first half. One fellow disappeared, but the other bloke managed a couple more during the second act.
The band got a resounding encore and responded, not surprisingly, first with Teach Your Children and then with Woodstock. Nearly two and half hours - not bad going for a band who've been doing it for 40 years.
14 December 2007
cash money cars clothes*
I've got a very good, long time friend who is intimately acquainted with the car, or motor veeeehicle, industry worldwide. Worldwide? Hell, I'm bad , I'm nationwide.
(No, he's not).
But he does know stuff about the industry and he does his analysis and recently, knowing that he has a current obsession with the price of cars in Australia, I drew his attention to this letter in the Sydney Morning Herald:
(*) No, I'd never heard of it either.
(No, he's not).
But he does know stuff about the industry and he does his analysis and recently, knowing that he has a current obsession with the price of cars in Australia, I drew his attention to this letter in the Sydney Morning Herald:
And in response, my friend wrote this to me:So Australia is "the most competitive car market in the world" ("Got a brand new
Cadillac", Drive, December 8-9)? Gee, really? Then why do we pay through the nose for cars, especially imports?The subject of the article, the Cadillac CTS V6, is to be priced from about $70,000 when it goes on sale next year in Australia. In the US its price starts at $US32,990 (before sales tax) - about $38,000. That's right, we'll be paying a whopping $32,000 more.Sure, there are additional costs due to freight, import duty, GST and minor equipment differences, but there is no way they add up to anywhere near an 84 per cent increase. Compare the local price of any imported car with what people are paying in the US or Britain and you will find such huge discrepancies.When the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is done dealing with the airline industry's price fixing, maybe it can take a look at the local car market.Nathan Sneed
Darlington
So, any VVB car fans out there care to give a damn? After all, it's your money we're talking about.And did you see the pricing for the upcoming Jag XF: Spec: 4.2V8 Price: US - USD49750. Aus - AUD135000. Spec: 4.2 V8, Supercharged Price: US - USD62000. Aus - AUD170000
Do the sums. At AUD1=.USD0.8 and 10%duty, and 10% GST, and even with a little LCT, there is something like $60-80K difference in price, all of which goes straight to margin.
We really have to be the most uneducated car buying public in the 'developed' world. The up-line brands can't pull this sort of stunt any where else, excepting Uganda and Malaysia, maybe. And we keep buying the stuff. And boasting to our respective neighbours that we paid 400% of their Commodore price! We boast about it! We feel good about it. We're better humans!
It's interesting. In the US, the difference between a well-equipped, generally competent GM car and its natural up-line competitor (M-B, BMW etc) is around 100:140-160. In Australia, it is 100:300-400. How is that? Let's stick that on VVB and see what comes from it. I put a not dissimilar entry (regarding BMW 335i pricing) onto the Wheels blog, and while the editor (Chris Kable, a friend of mine), saw and commented favourably on it, as far as the general public goes, not a whisper.
(*) No, I'd never heard of it either.
09 December 2007
higher and higher
As a kind of antidote to the whingeing, snarky tone that crept into the last couple of posts, I should just relate that I caught the last couple of minutes of the NSW Education Department's Schools Spectacular. If anything gives you hope in the future, if not necessarily public schooling itself, it's the sight of 3000 enthusiastic kids giving their all to the closing number.
But moreso, a couple of the soloists were just outstanding. There was one girl, inexplicably clad in a large, ornge furry animal suit, who had a voice with the phrasing, intonation, range and projection that would put any Idol contestant to shame. She was doing a Queen song, I can't place the name but it has those multi-octave runs that Freddie Mercury lived on and she just nailed them all.
Now it's the Countdown Spectacular or something but I'll need to be off the bed soon as it's a 4.30 departure for all parts west. It seems to be very much a second XI effort after the successful first show.
But moreso, a couple of the soloists were just outstanding. There was one girl, inexplicably clad in a large, ornge furry animal suit, who had a voice with the phrasing, intonation, range and projection that would put any Idol contestant to shame. She was doing a Queen song, I can't place the name but it has those multi-octave runs that Freddie Mercury lived on and she just nailed them all.
Now it's the Countdown Spectacular or something but I'll need to be off the bed soon as it's a 4.30 departure for all parts west. It seems to be very much a second XI effort after the successful first show.
08 December 2007
speak to me
Another occasional observation from the wilds of CQ and believe it or not, folks, there is nothing to report that hasn't been reported already about CQ.
Anyway it woulnd't be a VVB post unless I had a quick snark at something obvious, so for tonight it would be the the bloke in the Woolies ad where they sing "I wish you a Merry Christmas" who sings "and a happy noo year." I think he's meant to be a butcher, that's what he's done to our accent.
Yes folks, when all else fails, a little reflexive anti-Americanism always fits the bill.
But seriously, it's an Australian-made ad, couldn't they have re-shot it with someone who hasn't had his brain turned to "awesome sides"? With mayo?
Nope, nothing more serious than that. Must all be OK.
Anyway it woulnd't be a VVB post unless I had a quick snark at something obvious, so for tonight it would be the the bloke in the Woolies ad where they sing "I wish you a Merry Christmas" who sings "and a happy noo year." I think he's meant to be a butcher, that's what he's done to our accent.
Yes folks, when all else fails, a little reflexive anti-Americanism always fits the bill.
But seriously, it's an Australian-made ad, couldn't they have re-shot it with someone who hasn't had his brain turned to "awesome sides"? With mayo?
Nope, nothing more serious than that. Must all be OK.
04 December 2007
all you need is love
This is pretty much what David Crosby said on 7.30 report. He's still a believer in the great wave of hope that rolled over the western world in the mid to late 60s. If you read Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, you'll read how he relates when the great wave rolled back. Altamont had something to do with it, so did did the rise of Nixon. Thompson says you need the right kind of eyes. When you listen to Crosby, and take him at face value, you realise you also need the right kind of heart and the right kind of brain.
So it's still philosophy for dumboes here in slightly airless, downtown Rockvegas. Maybe it's all the spare time I have, when I don't have to gather up and process the fallen leaves that characterise the leafy western suburbs and Chateau VVB is particular.
Gets to you though - Pied a Terre VVB has a pool and on Saturday it was all I could do to stop going down to scoop up the 5 or 6 leaves that had fallen in it. That and the fact that I had temporarily misplaced the key to the pool.
Anyway I'm looking forward mightily to seeing and hearing Crosby, Stills (well the guitar more than the voice in Steven's case) and Nash in a week or so's time. I will be disappointed if they are anything less than sublime but I am sure I will not be disappointed.
The Rocky management experience continues to yield daily doses of new experiences and situations with which to wrestle. It's all great experience and I need to make sure I don't forget the high and low spots.
On another tack entirely, it's mightily liberating not to rant about the recently deposed (except he hasn't conceded yet - how typical). It's like other things, addictions in fact, that I have given up. Yes, we're talking about coffee. I went out to Yeppoon at the weekend and can confirm that you can't get a proper flat white, at least at one shop. But I'll be going back to test some of the others as I can't imagine that a place where townhouses on the marina sell for over $2m that you can't get a decent espresso. Although such places undoubtedly have a built in coffee maker in the (European) kitchen.
Anyway that's about it. Hanging about the blogosphere and its neighbouring parts is another addiction that no longer has its scrawny fingers around me...half an hour and I'm done.
Is there anything going on? Drop me a line, c/- pied a terre VVB. I'll be counting leaves in the pool.
Actually, I see that the name of the movie The Golden Compass (tm) is trademarked. For no other reason than petty narrowmindedness on my part, I think this is legalised insanity. I was going to make a remark about parents trademarking a newborn's name, but as I recall reading a little while ago an article about 'branding' a child for future success, I actually wouldn't be surprised.
And I can't figure out how to select text on this machine so I can use my usual font. Bum.
So it's still philosophy for dumboes here in slightly airless, downtown Rockvegas. Maybe it's all the spare time I have, when I don't have to gather up and process the fallen leaves that characterise the leafy western suburbs and Chateau VVB is particular.
Gets to you though - Pied a Terre VVB has a pool and on Saturday it was all I could do to stop going down to scoop up the 5 or 6 leaves that had fallen in it. That and the fact that I had temporarily misplaced the key to the pool.
Anyway I'm looking forward mightily to seeing and hearing Crosby, Stills (well the guitar more than the voice in Steven's case) and Nash in a week or so's time. I will be disappointed if they are anything less than sublime but I am sure I will not be disappointed.
The Rocky management experience continues to yield daily doses of new experiences and situations with which to wrestle. It's all great experience and I need to make sure I don't forget the high and low spots.
On another tack entirely, it's mightily liberating not to rant about the recently deposed (except he hasn't conceded yet - how typical). It's like other things, addictions in fact, that I have given up. Yes, we're talking about coffee. I went out to Yeppoon at the weekend and can confirm that you can't get a proper flat white, at least at one shop. But I'll be going back to test some of the others as I can't imagine that a place where townhouses on the marina sell for over $2m that you can't get a decent espresso. Although such places undoubtedly have a built in coffee maker in the (European) kitchen.
Anyway that's about it. Hanging about the blogosphere and its neighbouring parts is another addiction that no longer has its scrawny fingers around me...half an hour and I'm done.
Is there anything going on? Drop me a line, c/- pied a terre VVB. I'll be counting leaves in the pool.
Actually, I see that the name of the movie The Golden Compass (tm) is trademarked. For no other reason than petty narrowmindedness on my part, I think this is legalised insanity. I was going to make a remark about parents trademarking a newborn's name, but as I recall reading a little while ago an article about 'branding' a child for future success, I actually wouldn't be surprised.
And I can't figure out how to select text on this machine so I can use my usual font. Bum.
30 November 2007
walk like a man
Well here we are in downtown Rockhampton. It's a cool evening and out on the balcony the evening breeze is soft and gentle.
In here it's a little more airless - one of the next things I'll have to do is buy a fan so I can bring the breezes in without having to put the aircom on. The Everly Borthers are doing Wake up Little Suzie, but it's a guest spot on the Simon and Garfunkel Old Friends DVD. Hot damn but it's great fun, though.
Tomorrow night there is a fireworks show to which the aforementioned balcony will afford good views, so a few of the people from the office are coming around with their families. That will be good.
Because I'm not much one for my own company. Why take the job, then? Well, it's part of the journey of self-examination and doing different things, testing how well I can work in different environments and against new challenges. Of which I have a few.
I reckon a lot of other people do it far more than I am - or have in the past, for sure - but sooner or later the urge comes on you (or you just wake up a bit about how the world works).
Something I've noticed over the last few years is how much blokes my age actually are talking about this sort of thing. I always used to think it wasn't done - to admit you have insecurities was a sign of weakness, if you said you had ambitions or similar, you were a self-promoting wanker. Now it seems we - all us ageing blokes - find ourselves in similar situations, we are not in competition, we really don't have a lot to lose but we have a lot to gain amongst which is the comradeship of shared experiences.
I've had this sort of conversation in different ways twice this week already. Inclduing one bloke who rang me about 15 minutes after we'd finished and he'd left, to give me his biggest insight gained from some recent decisions he had made. That in particular really blew me away, it's a form of honesty and a way of extending support that I don't think I've ever really run across before.
I'm typing this on a laptop while sitting at a kitchen tables, the angles are all wrong and my neck is starting to hurt like crazy so I'll stop now. This has been a far more personal post than usual, but the world has changed in both big and smaller ways and it's only appropriate that Pied a Terre VVB respond in kind.
Take care you all.
In here it's a little more airless - one of the next things I'll have to do is buy a fan so I can bring the breezes in without having to put the aircom on. The Everly Borthers are doing Wake up Little Suzie, but it's a guest spot on the Simon and Garfunkel Old Friends DVD. Hot damn but it's great fun, though.
Tomorrow night there is a fireworks show to which the aforementioned balcony will afford good views, so a few of the people from the office are coming around with their families. That will be good.
Because I'm not much one for my own company. Why take the job, then? Well, it's part of the journey of self-examination and doing different things, testing how well I can work in different environments and against new challenges. Of which I have a few.
I reckon a lot of other people do it far more than I am - or have in the past, for sure - but sooner or later the urge comes on you (or you just wake up a bit about how the world works).
Something I've noticed over the last few years is how much blokes my age actually are talking about this sort of thing. I always used to think it wasn't done - to admit you have insecurities was a sign of weakness, if you said you had ambitions or similar, you were a self-promoting wanker. Now it seems we - all us ageing blokes - find ourselves in similar situations, we are not in competition, we really don't have a lot to lose but we have a lot to gain amongst which is the comradeship of shared experiences.
I've had this sort of conversation in different ways twice this week already. Inclduing one bloke who rang me about 15 minutes after we'd finished and he'd left, to give me his biggest insight gained from some recent decisions he had made. That in particular really blew me away, it's a form of honesty and a way of extending support that I don't think I've ever really run across before.
I'm typing this on a laptop while sitting at a kitchen tables, the angles are all wrong and my neck is starting to hurt like crazy so I'll stop now. This has been a far more personal post than usual, but the world has changed in both big and smaller ways and it's only appropriate that Pied a Terre VVB respond in kind.
Take care you all.
25 November 2007
lollapalooza
Via the Hoyden and Baroquestar, here's a wonderful lolgillard. You know, I never cease to be just blown away by the imagination and ability of people - how do they come up with stuff like this? Just bloody terrific.
This is likely to be the last post for a little while at least. I'm off to Rockvegas tomorrow and I will need to do some research about after hours access. There were a few internet cafes in Rocky last time I was there so I could always use one of those if the off-site access proves problematic. At the very least I can write a post of two when I'm back in Brisbane.
I could also, I suppose, induct Mrs VVB into the delights of blogger and let her entertain you for a while. Hmm, not a bad idea, I'll suggest that one over dinner and see what kind of response we get.
Today's blog round-up includes a fair bit of reflection, a lot of celebration and of course since Costello has announced that he's not in the race for leader, a lot of wtf? Not to forget the death of Matt Price, one of the few current journos whose writing I enjoyed.
The Surfdomers and Lachlan Grods have steeled themselves to the unpleasant task of trawling through the world of RWDB for its response to Kevin!07, where the right is right and moreso if the government hasn't taken your guns away and the greatest threat that Australia faces is its imminent dhimmitude because the Labor Party hacked our voting machines.
And you know, I could have sworn I felt an unseen force on my hand as my pencil moved over the ballot paper - that'll be the 'voting machine' - all by itself. "Is that you, Kevin?" I asked, to the extreme disquiet of Michael Johnson supporters to my right and left and further right.
But no! My hand was turning green! What to do? I quickly found a sharp object (hint: paper cuts) and checked my circulation. Yup, still red.
So I must be a watermelon.
24 November 2007
after the gold rush
A few quick reflections:
- Howard was more magnanimous than I would have expected;
- but his voice still makes me want to break things;
- Mrs VVB noticed that Janette was nudging and urging him all the time, whereas Therese Rein just beamed and applauded Kevin;
- Costello looked more human than I have ever seen him;
- Kevin Rudd needs to learn to use the second person more frequently - there is enormous power in using 'you' rather than talking in the third person abstract, particularly in relation to the "great Australian people" and even moreso in relation to your own family, for crying out loud;
- he could also perhaps drop the frequency of the "great Australian people" line - out the back door, perhaps?
- who promised to govern for all Australians in 1996?
- who did in 2007?
- will he?
- we're still under the colonial yoke in Ryan, I must have a word with our neighbour;
- but it's a new dawn.
Afterthought - I should have visited the Canberra Times before now. Geoff Pryor did his analysis and came up with this cracker of a cartoon. Given Mrs VVB's observations on Janette tonight, the panes on the left of the cartoon are spot on. It's only come out lately how much influence she has wielded and it's been of a particularly narrow, pernicous and socially regressive type.
Presumably Therese will simply want to screw workers' entitlements :-)
Also, this will be the last Howardia post.
I would expect.
wish you were here
I think I recall making a commitment last night to just have an open post so that occasional readers could leave a comment. I expect nothing less than complete anonymity from these people - J@cQ$e! - and a tonne of insight.
Can I also just thank certain people who bore with me bravely in a spirited endeavour to get utterly sh&tfaced, thus ensuring a good night's sleep for once.
It worked.
The last day in the Brisbane office for a while was also remarkable in many ways.
If today goes the way that the sorts of people who hang around Chateau VVB hope, then the nature of VVB will no doubt change. Maybe lose a few of its...preoccupations...over the last nearly two years. Well, let's be honest, one preoccupation.
The internetty access arrangements in Rockvegas may, however, prevent even a modicum of bloggery, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it.
OK, go for it.
Afternoon update
Well, the democratic duty is done. I've probably wrecked my reputation for good by shaking hands and chatting with one of the blue-shirted brigade at the polling booth, but he is my neighbour and he is also going to be useful to me in the Rockvegas job. While I knew very well that he was of conservative disposition, I didn't know he was actually a party member. However, it does explain his visceral loathing for Peter Beattie, easily equal to mine for Howard, whom he used to call the "blond Mugabe".
Earlier, coming back from a couple of hours finishing up stuff at the office a couple of free coffees at the 'other office' - many of you will know where I mean - I was listening to the 1pm news. It seems that Deputy PM and leader of the Nationals, Mark Vaile, said he would go to church to pray for a Coalition victory this evening, before heading to Sydney to join his Coalition colleagues.
If he wants to have a faith, fine. But he's going to pray for God to intervene after everybody has cast their votes? Ah, the Nationals, where would we be without their continuing comedy to enrichen our days?
Can I also just thank certain people who bore with me bravely in a spirited endeavour to get utterly sh&tfaced, thus ensuring a good night's sleep for once.
It worked.
The last day in the Brisbane office for a while was also remarkable in many ways.
If today goes the way that the sorts of people who hang around Chateau VVB hope, then the nature of VVB will no doubt change. Maybe lose a few of its...preoccupations...over the last nearly two years. Well, let's be honest, one preoccupation.
The internetty access arrangements in Rockvegas may, however, prevent even a modicum of bloggery, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it.
OK, go for it.
Afternoon update
Well, the democratic duty is done. I've probably wrecked my reputation for good by shaking hands and chatting with one of the blue-shirted brigade at the polling booth, but he is my neighbour and he is also going to be useful to me in the Rockvegas job. While I knew very well that he was of conservative disposition, I didn't know he was actually a party member. However, it does explain his visceral loathing for Peter Beattie, easily equal to mine for Howard, whom he used to call the "blond Mugabe".
Earlier, coming back from a couple of hours finishing up stuff at the office a couple of free coffees at the 'other office' - many of you will know where I mean - I was listening to the 1pm news. It seems that Deputy PM and leader of the Nationals, Mark Vaile, said he would go to church to pray for a Coalition victory this evening, before heading to Sydney to join his Coalition colleagues.
If he wants to have a faith, fine. But he's going to pray for God to intervene after everybody has cast their votes? Ah, the Nationals, where would we be without their continuing comedy to enrichen our days?
22 November 2007
ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Had a complaint. Or maybe just a comment in passsing. Gone back to old template. I didn't like the new one either. Just seduced by the concept of change.
Work triumph today. Feels good. Results in short sentences too, evidently...I'm still digesting it all. Isn't it great when a plan just comes together.
Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday night's all right.
Or so it would - hesitatingly - appear.
Bonsoir, mes petits.
Work triumph today. Feels good. Results in short sentences too, evidently...I'm still digesting it all. Isn't it great when a plan just comes together.
Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday night's all right.
Or so it would - hesitatingly - appear.
Bonsoir, mes petits.
21 November 2007
you must remember this - as time goes by
Well I've noted time and time again that Geoff Pryor in the Canberra Times is one of the most incisive cartoonists in this fair country. Check this one out: the facial expressions, the detail and finally, the message. If anything feeds into our preconceptions, this does. Well done, sir!
We were going to have a Don's Party - as no doubt many around the country will be doing, albeit in hope of somewhat more felicitous outcome than in 1969 - but a few of the anointed ones have forsaken us. So no Phil's Party.
The thought intrudes that, just maybe, they would have preferred a less...stressful...night out than having their host running to the TV and computer every 3 minutes and either whooping uncontrollably or throwing things, also uncontrollably.
The best reason proffered has to be the couple, somewhat more committed Labor supporters than your 'umble scribe, one of whom dictates that they never go to parties on election night any more after a lifetime of Labor losses whenever they did. Mind you, they did live in the NT under several centuries of CLP rule. Enough to make anyone gun-shy, I guess. Actually, that was a very poor metaphor.
Anyway, with a departure for parts central Queenslandian now scheduled for not too long afterwards, probably better that Mrs VVB and I don't spend the morning after picking bits of brick out of the television.
It's not so much the actual outcome, as the commentary you have to endure from the panels in the tally room. One lot will be unbearably smug and full of hubris, the other will be desperately trying to polish the turd that the polls have dealt.
Regardless of the outcome, the idea of listening to any analytical commentary by Nick Minchin is just a step too far - or far too many steps, to be precise.
No doubt there will be a cornucopia of live blogging from which Chateau VVB will choose.
Or we might retire early and hope to wake up in a brave new world.
Cin-cin, y'all!
19 November 2007
the rain in spain (*)
Here's the weekly column but instead of Jeremy we get Francie Clarkson.And she says this about the Aston Martin DB7:
I know that people think I drive an Aston Martin V8 Vantage because I’m a girl
and I think it looks pretty. That’s actually true, it is pretty. But what I like even more than that is the combination of its manual gearbox, the enormous noise it makes and the way it handles.
What a woman! What car-fancying bloke wouldn't give his left...er, ear...to be married to someone who (a) is so into car stuff, chasis dynamics even, and (b) can express it so eloquently.
At this point, before the assembled multitudes of cupro-witches, pantalonses and bwiccans descend to defend the sisterhoodiness can I just say that, after over 30 years of wedded bliss and a couple of years of prior amiable cohabitation, Mrs VVB has at last got it
and wants one of these for her next ride.
The Golf GTi - a really nice piece of kit, some friends have one and it was all I could do not to take it home when I saw it.
So Mrs VVB has proven impermeable to the charms of Triumphs - lots of them - Pugs, various minis and their larger cousins, and the somewhat more reliable jap-crap. But now she's got it and, in the manner of Sellars and Yeatman, it is a Good Thing.
And it would be in place of this Pulsar - small, not particularly notable but it is the SSS version.
(*) By George she's got it.
17 November 2007
slice of heaven
For all our New Zealand readers. Via.
Oh, and wasn't Dave Dobbyn fantastic on Rockwiz tonight? I didn't recognise his intro song but he held its final note for so long, not only did the crowd erupt but even the members of the Rockwiz Orchestra were open-mouthed.
Oh, and wasn't Dave Dobbyn fantastic on Rockwiz tonight? I didn't recognise his intro song but he held its final note for so long, not only did the crowd erupt but even the members of the Rockwiz Orchestra were open-mouthed.
fade to black (updated)
Following on from the previous post, I thought I'd cheer myself up by linking to comments and descriptions that have appeared around the traps recently. The point of this otherwise pointless excursion is to act as a reminder that the denizens of Chateau VVB are not alone, the species Howard-hater is more widespread than thought previously.
Are we ready? Then let us begin:
I only hope that Rudd P.M. will see an end to the small minded mean spirited selfishness that seems to characterise contemporary Australia.
of course this classic: What a slimy, self-regarding, small, repugnant, grub of a man.
All you have to do is take a quick look (please don't linger) at Alexander "Little Lord" Downer's puffy, privileged face to quick-smart understand how depraved and far removed these born-to-rule-forever dandies are from their subjects. Out of touch? The very idea of being in touch makes them cringe with repulsion and contempt.
On television last night the National Security Hotline commercial was on TV. 8 days away from a federal election. Originally badged as “Authorised by the Australian Government Canberra” it is now authorised “M Keelty, Chief Commissioner, Australian Federal Police“. Can there be any more transparently cynical attempt by Howard to get around the election advertising laws to blow the anti-muslim dogwhistle?
In fact, is it actually legal for them to do this? (Emphasis added).
John Howard’s plan is a big step backwards for Australia’s social cohesion. He still, operates — and thrives — on division.
...a picture of ministers keen to approve projects in Coalition electorates regardless of the advice of their officials and so sloppy in the way they went about it that they often didn’t even bother to record the basis of their decisions.
It paints their behaviour as venal, lazy, and verging on unlawful... (emphasis added)
In the comments on the piece (Productivity Coalition style) about the Regional Partnerships (ie 'partnerships with marginal seats') Program: With the nearly late government it is always hard to differentiate between acts of incompetence or mendacity.
John Howard has led a mean-spirited, dishonest, arrogant, intolerant, cynical and unabashedly opportunistic government.
Aaaahh, breathe out. It's not meant to make you feel better, more to just work through the issues. Which are (once more with feeling):
(Update).
1 - As if we needed it, yet more evidence that this shameless pack of fascists seem to think they've been imbued with omnipotent authority. As if even the oft-claimed but usually spurious 'mandate' wasn't enough.
2 - but here's someone who comments on this latest lowest common denominator piece of bastardry far more eloquently than me.
I tell you, we know we've lost a lot over the last 11 years but we'll only find out the full extent of how far good governance has been traduced once we've had sufficient, finely targeted inquiries with full judicial powers. As a country we deserve nothing less.
Are we ready? Then let us begin:
I only hope that Rudd P.M. will see an end to the small minded mean spirited selfishness that seems to characterise contemporary Australia.
of course this classic: What a slimy, self-regarding, small, repugnant, grub of a man.
All you have to do is take a quick look (please don't linger) at Alexander "Little Lord" Downer's puffy, privileged face to quick-smart understand how depraved and far removed these born-to-rule-forever dandies are from their subjects. Out of touch? The very idea of being in touch makes them cringe with repulsion and contempt.
On television last night the National Security Hotline commercial was on TV. 8 days away from a federal election. Originally badged as “Authorised by the Australian Government Canberra” it is now authorised “M Keelty, Chief Commissioner, Australian Federal Police“. Can there be any more transparently cynical attempt by Howard to get around the election advertising laws to blow the anti-muslim dogwhistle?
In fact, is it actually legal for them to do this? (Emphasis added).
John Howard’s plan is a big step backwards for Australia’s social cohesion. He still, operates — and thrives — on division.
...a picture of ministers keen to approve projects in Coalition electorates regardless of the advice of their officials and so sloppy in the way they went about it that they often didn’t even bother to record the basis of their decisions.
It paints their behaviour as venal, lazy, and verging on unlawful... (emphasis added)
In the comments on the piece (Productivity Coalition style) about the Regional Partnerships (ie 'partnerships with marginal seats') Program: With the nearly late government it is always hard to differentiate between acts of incompetence or mendacity.
John Howard has led a mean-spirited, dishonest, arrogant, intolerant, cynical and unabashedly opportunistic government.
Aaaahh, breathe out. It's not meant to make you feel better, more to just work through the issues. Which are (once more with feeling):
- small minded mean selfishness;
- small repugnant grub of a man;
- depraved and....removed from their subjects;
cynical attempt to get around the...laws; - operates and thrives on division;
- venal, lazy and verging on unlawful;
- difficult to differentiate between acts of incompetence or mendacity; and
- John Howard has led a mean-spirited, dishonest, intolerant, cynical and unabashedly opportunistic government.
John Howard has led a mean-spirited, dishonest, intolerant, cynical and unabashedly opportunistic government.Fade to black.
(Update).
1 - As if we needed it, yet more evidence that this shameless pack of fascists seem to think they've been imbued with omnipotent authority. As if even the oft-claimed but usually spurious 'mandate' wasn't enough.
2 - but here's someone who comments on this latest lowest common denominator piece of bastardry far more eloquently than me.
I tell you, we know we've lost a lot over the last 11 years but we'll only find out the full extent of how far good governance has been traduced once we've had sufficient, finely targeted inquiries with full judicial powers. As a country we deserve nothing less.
don't look back in anger
"Snnnuurrr, snnurr, can you take the risk, can you take the RISK of handing over the economy to the Labor Party?"
Guess who?
Listen you dickhead, Australia is a country. Get that? COUNTRY! It's filled with people. Citizens. (And some prohibited non-citizens, of course, so we have something to fear).
You show me the economy and I'll give you a considered opinion about the risk of handing it over to anyone. Just bring it round to the leafy western suburbs, store it in boxes with little yellow tags on every one.
These f**kers have to go. Not so much out of touch, not so much lost the plot, more like just complete.....do you know, I can't come up with an appropriate description? It's a combination of irredeemable stupidity, utter corruption, and overweening arrogance.
Gotta do something about this burning anger.
Guess who?
Listen you dickhead, Australia is a country. Get that? COUNTRY! It's filled with people. Citizens. (And some prohibited non-citizens, of course, so we have something to fear).
You show me the economy and I'll give you a considered opinion about the risk of handing it over to anyone. Just bring it round to the leafy western suburbs, store it in boxes with little yellow tags on every one.
These f**kers have to go. Not so much out of touch, not so much lost the plot, more like just complete.....do you know, I can't come up with an appropriate description? It's a combination of irredeemable stupidity, utter corruption, and overweening arrogance.
Gotta do something about this burning anger.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
