dixie chicken

Took a flight this arvo.

You never know who you're going to get next to you.

It's a big world.

This bloke judges chooks in chook shows.

I now know a lot more about judging chooks.

where do the children play

Somewhere only recently I read that people should have paid less attention to Orwell's 1984 as an indicator of the world to come, and somewhat more to Huxley's Brave New World.

With some exceptions and a lot of extra complications, they were right.

Meanwhile, our broader notions of what constitutes a benign society is continually under siege. Forget about 'polite', I fear that very soon it'll be hard to walk down the street without someone spitting on you.

Oh look, that happens already.

And just to pile it on, here is this week's AA Gill which, apart from a nice treatise on cities, the country, how they relate (or not as the case may be) and what it means for us as a society, is worth it just for the last sentence.

No, read the whole thing first, don't skip straight to the end.

I thought I told you not to.

Have a great week.

a hazy shade of winter

It's the winter solstice and someone I know very well should have been holding a housewarming tonight. Oh no, that should have been last year, no? Or was it 2006?

Anyway mate, when it does happen we'll be there. When's the next Olympics?

It'd be kind of cool to do some analysis of the 'right-wing' blogosphere ever since we got a 'socialist' government in Canberra.

Socialist? As if. But even so I have the perception that there's more heat and noise from the right-ish end of the 'sphere than before. This is just going on the daily scan of Ozpolitics so it's a sample size of one and a not dispassionate sample at that.

But it wouldn't be surprising if it were so. Remember the lead up to the 2004 election? When Back Pages held sway amongst a slew of 'left and left-ish' blogs, Tampa and the Pacific Solution were still fresh and there was substantial reason to rail against Howard and his government?

Now the boot is supposedly on the other foot, in the most simplistic interpretation, so it's not hard to imagine the depth of feeling and need to rail by "those opposite".

Possum (well, it actually seems to be Graeme Langlands who was popularly known as Changa) has some good analysis of a couple of those leading the charge and the comments that follow are immensely good, with one exception, perhaps. It's not a need to rail according to Possum but something altogether more sinister.

This is definitely a 'watch this space' issue. In the US, the Obamaramarangadangadingdong show has embraced the power of Web 2.0001, so another independent variable is the ongoing maturation of the blog world.

What will we have in Australia when Kevin 0-0 goes to the polls next?

Here's an idea, let's have a party on Bribie. The house should be ready.

the small faces

• Setting up rules to manage your in-box? Tick.
• If you're a busy executive, paying someone to manage information flow using judgement and technology? If you don't have a dedicated PA or there are time differences because you are frequently overseas? OK then.
• Paying a team of MBAs to manage your FaceBook page? Aaaaargh make it stop.

aalice's restaurant

You want to read a review of a restaurant, but you find it contains these words: "I’m perfectly aware of exactly how interesting and attractive a middle-aged, invalid penis is."

Don't tell me you don't want to click through to find out how.

Alright then, how about "...a mincemeat hernia in a bread roll..."

Off you go.

If you don't like Gill you can try Giles Coren, presumably son of Alan Coren, a former editor of the lamented Punch and author of Golfing for Cats, a copy of which still resides in my bookcase.

Here's a taster: "...their arses bulging against the dumpling walls like stolen babies stuffed in a pillow case." Guess what he's talking about.

Alert - it's awfully snobby, young Mr Coren demonstrates that, similar to political ability, being funny can't be inherited.

chapel in the moonlight

The Sunday paper sheds a bit more light on the current craze in weddings. The celebrity affair referred to yesterday is there - apparently it cost $20m, so evidently this is a very well-paid footballer. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Makes even merchant banking seem respectable.

However it is also revealed that "an international magazine" has paid $10m for "exclusive access" to the wedding. The Economist, do you think? What's incredibly sad about this is that someone has made a business decision that investing $10m is likely to return them even more in sales and advertising. Advertising for what - brain removals?

Anyway, the princesses are getting their themed weddings: the paper also reports that one, who had likened herself to Cinderella, had a fairy story theme with tables each named after a storybook character and guests receiving a glass slipper bonbonierre, whatever a bonbonierre might be. I just hope that cleaning dirty nappies and mopping the kitchen floor also renders lots of satisfaction. I don't know what the groom's favourite story character was, but I hope that lawnmowers come into the equation somewhere.

Aaarrgh, cruel and unnecessary, yes?

Well, cop this, then. There's a desperate shortage of eligible blokes in Brisbane. They're all in Mackay and parts west, earning squillions in the mines. Well, that's part of it. The other part is evident in the 'social' pages, where mobs of young females with flashing eyes and bared fangs parade their 'it's all about me' pout. Danger, Will Robinson.

And the AAMI ad: "Give Ami a ring...you following me, Todd?"

(Addresses Mrs VVB: "Geez, I'm turning into my old man, aren't I?")

In other news, the Irish people have rejected the latest incarnation of a super-EU state through voting down accession to the Lisbon Treaty. This doesn't seem to have attracted much comment around the Australian blogosphere, I guess everybody is fixated on Obamaramaworld.

This Times column is headed "Real people 1, Eurocrats 0 (after extra time) and no cleverer headline could you find. Yes, the backroom boys, the urgers, the faceless internationals - along with true believers, no doubt - have seen their dream fall apart yet again, but Mum and Dad, the salt of the earth, etc etc, have maintained some grip on their national culture and, by extension, their history .

Their only pro-EU comment that I can muster some sympathy for is that Ireland has been ungrateful, as its turbocharged economic growth since the 1960s has been on the back of lots and lots of EU loans and grants.

And that money, folks, was made available in turn on the back of outrageous tariffs on Australian agricultural goods.

However, regardless of its provenance, the Irish made good use of that money - they invested heavily in education and R&D. They also chucked a lot at attracting foreign investment and attracted more than few world leading firms in IT and so on. But I don't think they make Toyotas there.

Anyway, that's nothing compared to this. How come we don't get analysis like this in Australian newspapers (don't bother, no-one answered this last time I asked either). In lieu of a considered response, have some dot points (and count yourselves lucky that I didn't do it in Powerpoint):

• lucky we're in the commodities producing group, eh?
• what will happen to the oil-producing nations when the oil runs out and all they have is condominiums (condominia?) and villas?
• yes, inability to control oneself now results in people being stabbed in supermarket queues: good job in bringing up your children, people;
• governments, under the thrall of the Chicago school, liberalised international financial flows;
• financial whiz kids (read: snake oil salesmen, but highly numerate) invented ever more 'sophisticated' financial instruments to take advantage;
• it all went pear shaped;
• no one saw it coming;
• no one is taking responsibility;
• the OECD, yet another body utterly beholden to neo-liberal economic philosophy, thinks it can devise an answer;
• pull the other one, it has bells on;
• meanwhile the poorest will be starving even more quickly and in greater numbers;
• spell moral hazard, then put it into a sentence;
• maybe another sentence;
• no, a different one;
• what do you think are the chances of some genuinely different thinking. Can you get George Soros elected king of the world or something? He could have Ross Gittins in the boy sidekick role.

OK, enough. You know what I think about all this stuff. Keeping on doing the same thing and expecting a different answer, what's that a recipe for?

Anyway I can't leave you on such a negative note, so I must pass on a friend's advice to her daughter as said daughter left with boyfriend to see the Krusty Demons: "don't flash your t*ts unless you really want to!"

Ah yes, we children of the 60s and our approaches to child rearing. At least our own kids don't stab people.

golden wedding (*)

Gold doesn't cut it any more, it probably has to be platinum, or titanium, or both, with bits of argon stapled to the sides.

That was a joke, I don't think argon can be stapled to anything although next time I'm in Office works, I'll loiter around the staplers and ask one of the attendants whether the Acme 3000 staples argon.

Wtf am I on about? Is last night's meandering still under way?

No, it's all about weddings, the cost thereof, and all that's wrong about it. It seems that some footballer and his footballer's wife have spent the sum typical for a footballer and everyone's up in arms. From different perspectives.

Mrs VVB and I have a view about this issue and it concerns Offspring No 2, because she has been told on many, many occasions that, should the occasion arise, we are not stumping up for whatever the contemporary 'best practice' happens to be for nuptials including themes, wedding planners, expensive venues, fripperies and cakes 9 metres high. And especially 'favours' for guests, any of whom should feel themselves bloody fortunate to get a stubby of light or a glass of cheap fizzy and two glasses of vino collapso without some kind of gift that will end up in the bin by night's end. What the blokes want to drink is up to them.

In fact I believe Mrs VVB has consistently whispered the word 'elope' into Offspring No 2's sleeping ears.



Why anyone needs a wedding planner is entirely bemusing to me - that's what mothers and, in extreme cases, mothers in law do, isn't it? Whenever you read an article on this issue you get comments saying "well when I was married..." and it's no different at Chateau VVB. It was organised by the family, the reception was at a sister's place and it was no worse for having been so arranged as far as I can see.

If we have to underwrite any future union that Offspring No 2 might want to embark on, we'd rather help out with housing than an over-the-top celebration of 'princess' culture.

Offspring No 2 is of course free to provide her own comments on this issue, but caution would be in order, nicht war?

On another topic entirely, Andrew Leigh makes a few comments on Craig Emerson's speech to the Sydney Institute last week. It seems to me that even the more thoughtful bloggers such as Leigh seem too eager to categorise pollies by what they should believe, based on party membership. That said, it probably holds true more often than not and has certainly become a simpler task since the victory of 'markets' over any other model in 1989.



There's no reason why Emerson shouldn't quote Adam Smith - why, I even once managed to get a reference to Hayek into a letter I once had to write to the State Treasury while arguing, no doubt, for some market intervention somewhere. I wish I still had it: while I felt awfully clever at the time, I rather suspect that the argument must have been pretty tenuous.



Anyway, I also believe that more pollies should refer to the Theory of Moral Sentiments rather than the Wealth of Nations, which usually gets selectively interpreted anyway. Abject disclosure: I haven't read either of 'em but I am much taken with the except from the former in Andrew Leigh's post. Certainly security of ownership of property provides the basis for commerce so don't think that I'm one of those who advocates the State grabbing it willy-nilly and distributing it around the polity.



But you do get an awful lot of regulation which tends to entrench a property-owning class, which is not a good thing.



(*) For Woody Herman fans.

woman

Heart Foundation launches female awareness campaign

Very thoughtful of them, but I've been aware of women since...a long long time.

Oh, that's not what it was about? How silly of me.

lost in a lost world

Do you see what I see I wondered a little while ago, alluding to the tendency to read our own desired beliefs in any notional randomly independent issue.

One of the things that I see is the greater ability of the 'left' - as so defined from any eon to any random minute - to see flaws in their own team than the right/conservatives in theirs.

It's a rubbish argument of course, but:

• a) it's Friday night; and
• b) go to post number 1 and remind yourselves that I promised you neither robustly argued positions nor a rose garden.

Anyway, in a small but fitfully growing list of anecdotal references in support of this dodgy hypothesis I give you Peter Martin. Many of his previous posts have to do with economic issues seen from a social democratic or 'leftist' view of the world, but increasingly his posts are critical of the current Federal government, a government whose outlook we would normally expect him to support.

After this entirely baseless assemblage of generalisations, I then ask you to try to remember an Alan Wood column that was critical of the previous Federal Government.

In the absence of any responses, even given that I haven't posted this piece yet, I rest my case and go "nnnyyah".

Particularly because, as a result of very slow typing, I'm another glass or so through the bottle.

This, as the saying goes, proves it.

In other news, it's been a long time since Mrs VVB have been reunited and I look forward to next time we see each other. And blow me down, that was her then on the phone. Must be mutual, or something.

Earlier on in the bottle, I was thinking that a nice first for VVB would be a reflective piece on...on...something that seemed important at the time. Why do we do the things we do? Why do other people do the things they do? Why don't we do the same things?

It's a miraculous relief that the moment of inspiration has passed, because it was truly a very small piece of inspiration.

It was probably related to the hope that the impending mutation of Chateau VVB into VVB-by-the-sea turns out to be a good move. Many of the portents were, and are, positive but there's some current stuff that makes you think "geez what have we done?"

So the trick is to focus on the positive: things will work out for the best, we will establish ourselves in VVB-by-the-sea and sip pina coladas while te]he sun goes down.

Although the sun will go down behind us - and the house - rather than as we gaze at it. This is only a minor inconvenience.

Enough.

unpublished critics

Let's start with Ms Pants' comment on the last post about similarities between the early days of the Rudd and Blair governments. Of course Blair sent his emissaries to Oz to study the success of the Hawke/Keating era, just shortly before the Australian public decided it was far from similarly enchanted and got itself 11 years of whining and disdainful indifference, unless you happened to be a bit pigmented.

And Rudd has been sending people to the UK to study the success of the Blair, now Brown, government just before it plummets into England's green and pleasant land in a shower of spin and soundbites. Of such ephemera is government now constructed.

To which you can add the fascination with plans, Key Performance Indicators, critical objectives and 100 day statements of "success" or "progress", both of which serve as frail euphemisms for "activity."

Enough.

Anyway Kevin has thrown several bucketloads of your cash at Toyota to keep a bunch of Victorians in employment - and of course due to supply chains and just-in-time management, willing workers in other States and overseas too.

Does it make economic sense? Of course not, see a couple of posts ago. Should we be doing it?
Of course. We used to make aircraft, now we import them from Brazil of all places. Something else, like a predeliction for using knives as weapons, that happened while our backs were turned.

Are hybrid cars the answer? Probably not, but neither was the steam engine. You with me?

Anway, can the car fancier - the paid one - who reads this blog kindly impart some of his wisdom on the issue? Do we need a sophisticated engineering and design industry in this country and how much are we prepared to pay for it, or should we rest on our laurels as diggers of world class dirt and currency arbitragers?

Now for a good luck story. Because (temporary) pied a terre VVB doesn't have anywhere you can vacuum the car, I took the office chariot to the car wash to vacuum out a few weeks' worth of mud and crap.

Then, as I was there, I decided to wahs the car as well. I had $5, just enough for a wash, that stupid foaming brush that doesn't get the embedded bugs off, and a rinse.

I put $3 in, put the other $2 coin in my shirt pocket for easy acccess, and went to washing like a dervish.

Which resulted, almost inevitably, in the $2 coin jumping out at some stage and leaving me with a soapy car to drive home. Embarrassing.

But I drove the car forward and there was the $2, just on the edge of the grate. I nearly knocked it in when I bent down to pick it up, but good fortune smiled again.

We need all the good fortune we can get. Returning to the first theme, I recall the stumbles and sheer amateur ineptitude of the early Howard reign, but such was the disenchantment with Keating that he got a pretty easy run, Ministers' financial indiscretions aside (well, you sort of expect that with the Libs, eh?).

Now we have our Labor government back and they're proving a little embarrassing. They've got a year or so but they'd better get over it. And, at least our eyes are open, not an attribute I've noted in Howard-huggers.

That's enough rabid generalisations for one night.

do you see what I see?

Of the many, many things I didn't like about John Howard, one was the perception that he was always snarling and scowling but moreso always 'on' as Prime Minister. Well, the story was that he'd wanted to be PM since he was ten years old, so you can imagine that once he was PM, he didn't want to miss a minute.

Anyway with today's Queen's Birthday honours there he was again and the networks obliged by showing him power walking and scowling, haranguing and snarling and generally looking quite dislikeable.

Whereas with PM Rudd you get plenty of the technocrat but you also get pictures of him genuinely relaxed, even in the company of the people noticeably different to him (and us).

It's all in the eye of the beholder, isn't it?

Unless he gets the wheels back on pdq he's shaping up as a bit of a disappointment, but he's certainly better than the current or recently deposed alternatives. And it's nice to see a PM who is multidimensional, who can adapt to his environment and those around him and be himself. We never saw that in Howard except when he was putting the fear of god into the country about one thing or another.

He needs to get a rocket under his Cabinet, although I doubt they'll ever reach the capacity of the first Hawke ministry whom the old man dubbed "the best Liberal cabinet ever."

Those were the days.

remember the days of the old schoolyard

Today's Sunday Mail carries a mildly hysterical little piece on how children and their parents are having trouble dealing with a rating system that indicates that some children might be performing better than other children in the same class.

Hmm, I remember many years of half-yearly exams which carried out exactly the same function. I've been ruined for life although not as ruined as my parents thought after I once came 7th.

Anyway, anything we can do the Japanese can do better so sit back, pull up a comfy chair and enjoy this story. As one commenter pointed out, it is indeed a shame that there wasn't a picture, not least because it raises the spectre of a bit of a furphy or urban myth.

And here's something else that the Japanese - well apparently, according to Jeremy - do better. However I'm with Johan from Bruges (see the comments) which is why, although the new VVB-by-the-sea lacks sufficient garaging or even parking space, there will be a TR6 or something similar in the drive - or on the grass - as soon as I can arrange it.

law is for protection (*)

Shaun Carney does the political sums for Kevin Rudd's government using the current future of the motor vehicle industry debate - a long-running serial in Australia.

Going back to the days of Hawke and Keating, the Productivity Commission provided the intellectual muscle for economic deregulation and those governments generally followed its advice.

Yes, they did. So in subsequent years, the argument very simply became, "we need more deregulation." Only a little bit more here, a bit more there, and we'll be OK.

It's a seductive argument all right.

The trouble is, it's undermined by common sense because it rests on an assumption that there's a single correct answer to any question and that answer is always the same. Doesn't make sense, eh?

The argument goes that without protection, we stop doing things that don't add up economically and we will specialise in the things we do well.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the answer.

Now, this mob is extremely good at what they do, of that there is no doubt.

The question is: can we, as a nation, get by on this skill set?

(*) Kris Kristofferson, it seems.

i'm standin' on the outside looking in

Except this story is about people standing on the inside looking out. And making a motza while they're at it.

Interesting that of the small number of comments, two come from Australia. With our small, incestuous finance and business community, I wouldn't be surprised at a level of insider trading that should, in any fair and decent world, call for a full scale review and rejigging of our institutions for financial dealing.

In our current, unfair and indecent world, it's not going to happen. The vested interests, rather like the military rulers of Burma or Robert Mugabe, have too much at stake to quit.

I'm...

I'm not talking about destruction either.

Maybe excepting wealth.

Other people's.

Of course.

Difficult, isn't it?

our house

For the last few weeks Chateau VVB has served up morsels from the Times of London. But tonight we go to the Guardian, various readers will feel more at ease I guess.

First the serious: an opinion piece on the recent UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) talks, particularly in relation to biofuels. It's not a bad article but wow!, the comments. Surely we get some comments of insight and substance (and not just at the Guardian either, I should point out) that are really a level above.

Having, at one stage, been the 'desk officer' for the FAO within a bit of the Australian bureaucracy (later followed by similar roles for other UN organisations), I'm not in the least surprised by the outcome as well as the process of getting there. "Watered down language" is another way of saying 'compromise', with the added slant that it's not win-win, it's lose-lose. The conference has an end date and time and there has to be a communique, regardless of what it says.

One commenter talks about the increasing inability of the UN to produce outcomes, much as the League of Nations before it.

I'm torn on this - having seen the workings up close, you'd be demoralised to hear how bad it is. But what's the alternative? A commenter talks about delegates being beholden to their protectors who nominate them: in many cases yes, in others (such as Australia where the nomination process is reasonably transparent, within bureaucratic norms), no. Systems within systems, it's a complex world and you can't control all the consistent bits. But the big picture stuff - the objectives and arrangements between nations - should be reviewed. Should we just rebalance the power structure within the UN? Just a useful first step?

The second article is meant to cheer you up - what's happening with Big Brother's ninth season in the UK. There are a number of really classic comments in the article, you should just read it as I can't ad anything.

So, here we are in pied a terre VVB with a long weekend coming up when I won't be back in the bosom of the family back at the Chateau in the leafy western suburbs. We have signed the contract for the new Chateau and in a couple of months we'll be in it. However, it's not really a chateau - it's a bit more flat and funky - so it'll need a new name.

Suggestions, on the back of a large bank cheque, to "the new owners, VVB-by-the sea."

Hmmm, that's not bad, actually.

so tired, tired of waiting

"tired of waiting for yoooooouuuuuu..."

Midweek-ish, plenty of work so too busy to spend much time here, I'll tell you what I'm sick and tired of:

• opinion polls of politicians' "approval ratings": it's only been 6 months since the bloody election for crying out loud, if Rudd's "approval rating" goes down x% and Nelson's comes up y%, what actual impact could this possibly have?
• similarly, "MSM analysis" - it's not analysis by any definition, it's a primary school-level book review stuff of at best superficial ephemera;
• the continuing infiltration of US slang: today I saw a genuine - well as much as any could be - story with the word "takeout" in the title. Puke.

What I'm feeling much more warm about:

• country shows with lots of bull, literally;
• real people;
• including farmers in RM Williams and all the gear, including very large hat, talking about phenotypes - Australian agriculture has come a long way in the last couple of decades;
• buying a new Chateau VVB.

Au revoir, mes amis.

happy mondays

As I look out my window over the mighty Fitzroy towards the hills, I notice -well, it's pretty much inescapable - that it's wet, foggy, dismal and grey. Very unusual.

So I'm sipping at the puky instant coffee - pied a terre VVB is not an oasis of civilisation by my usual measure - and waiting the time to pass so I can go to collect Mrs VVB from the airport. And I run across the Guardian's regular (I think) contest for readers to send in song title around a theme.

This week the theme is optimistic songs, so for all of you reader who is interested in music, you'll find a treasure trove of suggestions, ranging from the obvious to the extremely obscure, especially as it's a pommy paper.

I guess Martin Seligman would approve: you can teach yourself happy, although we might park any conclusions until we see responses to next week's them.

So a wave of optimistic goodness washes over me while I gaze into the grey outside - it's gonna be a wonderful day.

the fall

A couple of opinion pieces in the Times of London.

Gerard Baker posits a decline in the Britishness of being British...economic stagnation and a political system that isn't quite democracy.

India Knight looks at the same issue from the viewpoint of the recreational habits of a substantial underclass without hope, and what they make their society. The upright working class, the "conscience and backbone" of the nation, declines into an uneducated, hateful and bitter underclass.

Causes? Guesses, anybody?

The loose, lax and permissive 60s? The lingering effects of excessive union power through the 70s? The unintended consequences of hard line economics where there is no such thing as society? The legacy of ten years of the triumph of spin over substance?

Hmm, that's 3 against 1, the ideological orientation of this little blog is getting wobbly again. Any more of this and we'll be back to public corporal punishment as the panacea for all that ails us.

Hmmm...

You can rest assured that the quick and easy answer will be wrong, but how the various policy environments have combined to get the current results is far too big to be bitten off here. 'Cos I'd like to believe that it was the single one in that list that did the damage, but common sense gets in the way.

I wouldn't like to see a return to that stultifying obeisance to authority that characterised the period when I was born. I look at Offsprings 1 and 2 and think, "well, for kids of characteristically 'wet, wishy-washy left' parents who grew up in a period when kids had a lot more freedom, they didn't end up too badly given their various educations."

But we can't go arguing from the particular to the general here, can we?

We don't need national service, but some grammar and speed and accuracy mental arithmetic tests, such as the late father used to put me through on the long drives from Sydney to Dubbo, wouldn't go astray.

we're gonna party like it's...2008

Corey Delaney, eat your heart out.

This is the professional way for spoilt brats to celebrate.

I love the divergence in the comments - no wonder we have wars! Such as:

Question from Spain: where is the ''all these lazy, unprincipled foreigners are destroying the social fabric and the wonderful british way of life and should be kicked out'' brigade?

The party rocked!!!!
Kev, Marbella,

(Thanks Kev, are you Australian by any chance? Surname Kavanagh?

Theres gone be a lot of alcohol an amazing DJ.” “There’s so much damage and clothes stolen. A lot of broken doors. people caight
(SIC) having sex.” -- Well done. Nothing like a top-notch private education.

I lived in Southern Spain 2 years ago and the chavish loutishness is identical to
the uk , only with better weather and cheaper grog.

kraftwerk

One I hadn't heard before.

I had to officiate at a 'do' tonight. We had a visiting delegation of 6 people: I introduced them all then did a bit of a spiel.

I then introduced one of the group who was to do a talk. Part way through I thought, "I forgot one of them when I did the intros." Then the one speaking mentioned this bloke by name and I thought, "ahh, he's made up for it, I must have forgotten him."

So when I came back to do the link between the speaker and next one, I mentioned the bloke I had forgotten.

Later, once it was all over, they said to me, "you didn't forget him, you mentioned him."

I made a comment about my memory to which one replied, "ah, you're like me, you've got CRAFT."

CRAFT = Can't Remember A Fucking Thing.

Exactly so, and now I have a new way to describe it.

shine a little light

Wayne Swan has just been eviscerated (within normal 7.30 Report boundaries) by Kerry O'Brien.

Four departments briefed against the national Fuel Watch scheme, so why is the Government going ahead with it?

Hmm...so where were the leaks during the Howard government's reign? At least we know that the current government is getting frank and fearless advice.

Looks like the ABC will definitely continue to be on "we are independent" watch.

Despite the "we're not racists, but..." comment made by a woman interviewed by the ABC after the meeting at Camden about the Islamic school, "Why is Channel 2 in favour of the school?"

Indeed. Channel 2 brings crime, I expect.

I particularly liked this bit:

Another resident said: "It's not for racist [reasons], just all the crime and stuff that other foreign people bring into the town."

Ah yes: thanks for that. QE f*****g D, as they say.

Speaking of which, I ran across a whole host of stories and opinion pieces about the growing use of knives in youth crime in the UK and Australia. Haven't got time to write at the moment - got work to do - but it looks like other people have noticed the trend. Got a lot to do with drink, I imagine, but...any views?

why don't we do it in the road

OK, thanks to Political Theory Daily Review, here's why I do it.

By "it" I mean blogging, what on earth were you thinking I meant?

Anyway it's therapeutic and unless I write this drivel I'll be certifiable. Actually I need to be certifiable to write the drivel, it's all cause and effect.

I mean, innit?

Even if correlation is not causation, well, nothing even correlates with what goes through my tiny mind while I write so what you get on the electronic page is probably more random than it appears.

And again from Political Theory, a link to a book that could have been written for us here in the Chateau - actually it sounds like a good common sense kind of book that the functionally innumerate such as yer 'umble correspondent could do with.

saturday night's all right

The only song title I could come up with immediately about Saturday.

Why?

Well, not much else to think about. It's a shame the erstwhile brilliance of VVB must decline into its dotage so quickly, but what we need my friends is time, and time we don't have.

However we're here back in the Chateau, perched in the leafy western suburbs and a full Saturday of packing, lifting, toting and ripping up carpet awaits.

The roof cleaner has wrought his magic and the roof is a brilliant terra cota, because that's what the tiles were before 35 years of gum sap and bird poo rendered it a tasteless, slimy green. It looks fabulous, why did we not get it cleaned when we moved in so we could have enjoyed it fully this past ten years?

I can't wait to see it when the new carpet goes down - we probably won't want to sell.

But there will be no choice, I'll officially be King of RARAland come Monday. As Gene Pitney sang, Last Chance to Turn Around...hmm, that opportunity has passed. On Tuesday I'll be in Theodore, my territory is large and diverse. It was named after "Red Ted" Theodore and is, by all accounts, a very pretty little place so despite the fact that I'll be working I'm looking forward to seeing somewhere different.

Back to the decline of VVB, apparently despite its continuing lapse into irrelevance certain readers do take the time to peruse and discuss, including the now Mrs Possum. I'm bitterly disappointed that no anonymous comments result from this no doubt close parsing of the fragile text on display here. I'd welcome a bright, hermeneutics-based confab (why did that word spring to mind?).

After all, youse do it in real life, real time, eh?

Anyway, the call of manual labour grows too strong to resist. I've had a quick look at today's headlines, this is the only one of any interest whatsoever. Although 400 doctors or something have pronounced John McCain fit enough to be President of the US. I think that's more detail than anybody should ever reasonably want to know: what would we have learnt about John Gorton, for example?

I suppose just to put in something of substance, this is a pretty good article I think about corporate governance as she is practiced in Australia.

No having the slightest in depth knowledge of any of this stuff apart from if it smells off it probably is, VVB can't really do any discussion. However the public prominence of the proposed Westpac takeover of St George has certainly got a lot of people talking (well, those that talk to me anyway - a dwindling crowd).

Most focus on the role of Gail Kelly as previous CEO of St George, and that's certainly a factor. But I was in a workshop earlier this week where someone put up the stats on how many mergers, let alone takeovers, fail to produce the forecast benefits. Far more than half of these destroy shareholder value. Investment advisors, the merchant banks, do very well from the fees.

Whenever I get comments about the sort of thing I do and whether it does any good, I always compare it to these shining lights of human endeavour and I end up feeling a lot better about myself. If this corporate activity has published stats on previous success, or lack of it more to the point, but the smarties and small club of board directors in Australia still persist, surely you've got to ask why?

Hmmmm.

Next post will be written entirely in either first, second or third person but not all three.

No, bugger it, it'll be written how it comes out.

hit me with your best shot

A little reflection after last night's post on the cyber-bullying issue leads me to reaffirm my commitment to opposing the death penalty in all circumstances. I am not a wobbly on this issue, no matter how enticing an opportunity to improve the gene pool might appear. Executing teenagers is not a policy platform for a kind and tolerant Australia, yes?

But what is a suitable punishment? Here are two: one drawn from history, and one that's a bit more relevant and contemporary.

History? Bring back the stocks - surely a little public humiliation might lead some of these youngsters back to the straight and narrow?

Modern? A punishment that is enforceable and relevant? Blacklist them with service providers from ever having a mobile phone service (kind of like being banned from driving). Sure, the obsessive will find a way around it but, similar to being caught driving without a licence, the consequent actions would be demonstrably criminal and treated accordingly.

Waddaya reckon? We need to stamp this out before it gets worse - look what's happening in the UK. There's a breakdown in the very usual ways that people behave - sure we've always had the hoods, the idiot fringe, the downright criminal - but this seems a whole world removed from what has been accepted as fringe behaviour in recent decades. And this use of knives? Where did that come from?

But...in keeping with the general (we hope) Chateau VVB vibe of always looking on the bright side of life, here's an article from the Times of London about this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Mrs VVB and I always look forward to Eurovision - it marks the passing of the year almost equally with DanceSports on Christmas Night - but the Times is looking for a bit more substance in the usually outrageously naff show this year.

They posit the possibility (eerk, sorry about that) of taking E-vision seriously by having credentialled representatives from each country. All well and good, but they take it to the next level, incorporating an Australian innovation of which I am sure their pop culture correspondent is unaware, namely State of Origin. Read it now.

long time coming

SBS news carries a report just now that the Burmese generals may be charged with crimes against humanity.

It's been a long time coming.

there's no aphrodisiac

Your humble correspondent is a troubled, and increasingly somewhat pissed, soul this evening.

The news from Burma gets ever more dire, not that anyone with any understanding of the bastards that run the place should be surprised.

Returning from a semi-work function last night we were listening to the radio with some unidentified UN official giving a series of increasingly bureaucratic (there are the reasons we can't do anything) responses to the question about intervention. Such as this letter:

UN's lip service.

While governments and the United Nations posture and send messages "in the strongest possible terms", Burma's junta stockpiles aid and the people die in vast numbers. It is almost impossible to think of a more appropriate scenario for the use of the UN's "responsibility to protect" provision ("Criminal inaction a call to arms", May 16). As the refusal of Burma's generals to allow the entry of aid is directly causing unnecessary loss of life, a crime against humanity is being committed and thus the provision's criteria are fulfilled. As a regional power, the Australian Government must pressure the UN for immediate action in Burma in whatever form is necessary to ensure that assistance reaches those who need it now.
Dr Andrew Clift
Siem Reap (Cambodia)

The time has come for the world to call the Burma "regime", "junta", whatever you wish to call it, to account. The deliberate repression of your own people following a massive natural disaster may not be genocide, but it has the same results.

Oh, look at this. Let's watch closely. The China factor is pivotal - what about those Olympics and international recognition (as well as their own earthquake disaster)? We can intervene for good purposes, yes?

Time to start splitting hairs.

Meanwhile, the media is full of the new scourge of cyber-bullying, particularly following the suicide of a young girl in the US after an (adult!!) neighbour set up a fake MySpace page to lure the girl into a virtual relationship with a boy, then ending it.

The colour magazine in today's Courier-Mail (can't find the article on-line, sorry) carries an extensive article with a similar story from NZ at its heart. In this case, the girls who allegedly perpetrated the bullying hung around the funeral, giggling and pointing.

I'm getting very wobbly on capital punishment after stories like these. I think a couple of public executions might get some results (apart from the inevitable TV series - "Teenage Executions Unlocked").

Interesting point, there.

In fact, we'd say that there's a pretty direct link between cyber-bullying, with attendant doctored videos, photos and "facts", and these types of TV series.

What is becoming of our society?

Sometime earlier in the week there must have been a comment about how awful Adelaide is, which provoked a response from one Alexander Downer, a currently irrelevant backbencher in the Parliament. Mr Downer's letter elicited a number of spot-on responses, such as :

Some of us have tried living in Adelaide, Alexander Downer, and the experience was far from pleasant. There are summers of dry, 40-degree-plus heat, and freezing winters, with little in between. Adelaide has the worst water problem of any state capital. A good percentage of the population are religious bigots, self-righteous and suspicious of outsiders. Are we to believe that if Mr Downer were offered an ambassadorial posting to Paris or New York he would turn it down because Adelaide is such a great place to live? I don't think so.

Allan Hondow Ballina

Yes, Alexander Downer, we could all move to Adelaide, but it would be moving the traffic jam from one city to another. And we would have to put up with the likes of you.
Carmel Woods Hurstville

Such a wonderful juxtaposition of opinion from two former foreign affairs ministers: Alexander Downer grappling with the sauvignon blanc delights of the verdant Adelaide Hills and Gareth Evans with the complexities of the humanitarian crisis in Burma. Says it all.
Anne Garvan Chatswood West

Oh yes. Mr Relevance Deprivation Syndrome himself shows he's over it and well back in harness. As for Mr Recently Deposed...

in the country

If we'd been looking for a substantial reason for moving to Rural and Regional Australia, the last couple of days have provided it.

Two days ago Offspring No 2 left her phone at a suburban shopping centre in the leafy western suburbs. Result: exit one phone, not the first time Offspring No 2 has lost a phone under such circumstances.

Then this afternoon I had a couple of beers with a mate at the pub, went back to work, packed up and went to buy something for dinner. I noticed that my phone wasn't in my pocket so I went back to work print out some stuff that I had forgotten for a meeting tomorrow and to get the phone.

Hmmm, no phone.

Oh yeah, I must have left it at the pub.

Went back, enquired at the counter noticing that there were a lot more people there than when I left and fearing the worst.

No, phone was held behind the bar.

Welcome to RARA land, where people look out for each other.

In other news, I very much liked this letter in today's SMH:

I am glad the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission can find no conflict of interest in the merger. It must have been tough for Westpac's new chief executive not to disclose any proprietary knowledge of St George's operations or structure to a competitor.

Caven Tootell Rydalmere

Couldn't have put it better myself. There should be a law against it. Maybe there already is?

we're going wrong (*)

Via Webdiary, Lee Iococca, once CEO of Chrysler, delivers a finely crafted rant about what he sees is wrong with the USA.

I suspect many of us in Australia don't 'get' the US. We certainly may not be convinced by Manifest Destiny and I'm certainly one of the many who rail against the continuing Americanisation of our language and culture.

Offspring No 2 'gets' the US: she's seen the best and certainly the worst it has to offer, but having spent lots of time there she's at least in tune with how Americans see themselves.

But while a lot of unnecessary column and air space has been devoted in Australia to the current US presidential election process, we can't ignore the role that America still plays - at least for the present.

It'd be comforting to put all that's wrong down to the current Administration and no doubt, as Iococca illustrates, the President and Congress have really stuffed a lot of things up. But common sense tells you that the rot must have set in earlier.

And that's where we come in. What are the similar mistakes we've made that now result in such an infrastructure shortfall in Australia? Why are our health services failing more frequently? Why are we always looking over our shoulders while out and about lest someone king hit us?

All good questions, thank me for asking them, a bit of a dog's breakfast because I was eating dinner at the same time and now it's time for the airport.

(*) A song by Cream, if you didn't know.

the road to mandalay

Looks like Mrs VVB is not on her pat. Even the Times wants more done, although it's a somewhat more nuanced approach. One of the commenters thinks we should air-drop guns.

The bastardry of the generals' regime is beyond our understanding. We must do something.

so you're leaving, in the morning...

I think I'll need to rename this little corner of the 'sphere to the Blogi Weekly or something similar. During the week the constant travel, need to spend evenings on paperwork and less than instantaneous response from the pooter while on NextG, among the most easily identified factors, mean that I don't get time to put together even my tiny, gaseous posts.

But here we are back in the Chateau in the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane, gradually ridding ourselves of the detritus accumulated over the last 11 years - and longer - and getting the place in shape to leave.

As people with a light footprint on the earth, in that we really don't have deep roots anywhere, this is not as sad a task as it might have been. We've really loved this house and the family been through a few changes while we've been here, but the decision to move on has been just that little bit easier than if we were leaving great hordes of relatives and so on.
Mind you, I'm not sure that Mrs VVB would endorse all of that, as she's the one bearing the major part of the preparations to leave and she's the one who's got to find a new job. But the lure of something new, and diving into the next phase of our lives in Rural and Regional Australia, does have an appeal for both us.

Even a Blogi Weakly lacks for the regular catalysts for mirth or derision: the unceremonious exit of the former overlords known as the Howard Government has seen to that.

Last week I gave some props to Ross Gittins, this week it's Peter Martin. On reflection, I think we've long needed a Canberra-based economic writer who just doesn't toe the line. I don't know what sort of access to government Peter Martin has, and would suspect that if he keeps telling it like it is he may not get the sort of access which would really help inform his writing. But he's certainly a breath of fresh air.

Finally, before we head into another day of toting barges and lifting bales, a comment on the absolute bloody tragedy in Burma. Even Mrs VVB, normally a bastion in support of sovereign nations, living and letting live, etc, believes the west should invade. Surely there's more reason for doing so in the current circumstances than in Iraq.

As Mrs VVB and I have quite some experience of Burma, we know that the generals will not give up without a fight. The Burmese people tried several times to take that fight up in 1974, 1988 and again last year, and got brutally put down. With the current suffering illustrating to good effect how little the generals care for the people - ie a lot less than they care to preserve their own status - it's time to say 'enough'.

Until next week...probably.

the music goes round and round

Is Ross Gittins Australia's premier heterodox economist?

No screaming lefty (oohh bad, evil, etc) but just common sense expressed plainly. We have a multitude of economic problems (or issues or challenges if you prefer) but the orthodxy keeps saying we need more of the same 'reform'.

You know that saying about stupidity? You know, doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result?

Ring any bells?

whip it

One of the problems of being in the wishy-washy left camp is when something happens that disturbs the conservative beneath. Especially when, as age catches up, that underlying trait worms its way to the surface more and more frequently.

So, as the news showed an obviously repentant young man stick a single finger at the camera (*) after a court appearance for kicking a kitten to death, we were rent with conflicts. Because, essentially, this little waste of space deserves to get it all back.

As an aforesaid wishy washy etc etc, I am deeply opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances. Except, perhaps, unrepentant kitten killers. Just possibly the human race would be improved if this type simply weren't around.

No, that's surely a step too far.

Maybe we could give the family the chance to exact some retribution. Wouldn't that would be just? A little family kicking?

No, as a confirmed wishy etc etc etc, that's too close to "an eye for an eye." Wishies are beyond the Old Testament, surely (the old man called it "a survival manual for a nomadic desert race."

Anyway, the judge has reserved his decision.

Maybe the young bloke could learn to feed the tigers at the zoo. Without training.

On a happier note, the human formerly known as Princess Anne gave some kind of brooch to one of the other royals, some kind of apprentice soldier. Now, the news got it wrong because this person is now known as Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal which got me thinking: what does she put on forms? What's her given name now? "The?"

"What's your middle name?" "Princess."

Bring on the republic, because with the inevitable breakdown in law and order, respect for authority etc, we'll soon be executing kitten kickers.

(*) When I was growing up - a process still being undertaken, according to some observers - a rude gesture was two fingers held up, the 'V for victory' reversed. When and how did the single finger come to replace it?

I blame the Americans, but then I would.

It's part of being wishy washy etc etc etc etc.

old macdonald had a farm

Today's (Sunday) paper provides the springboard for a few snarky comments, but before we dive in it's worth looking out over the balcony to the ranges across the river. The afternoon light catches all the ripples, the ridges and valleys and it's almost as if each individual tree, branch and leaf is outlined - a big kind of leafy blanket all rumpled up to frame the horizon.

Is this what Halfway referred to when they sang about the CQ Skyline?

Or is it more to the left, over the glittering railway lines and out towards the flatness of the central west?

Meanwhile, back in the newsprint...

The UN says that wrong headed IMF policies over 2 decades have exacerbated starvation because countries were pushed into growing export crops rather than aiming to feed their populations. Mind you, that's exactly what you'd expect from the UN.

Ah, self-sufficiency, the bane of free market economics. Here's your crust of bread, Mr Ricardo, but we've run out of water because it got privatised and sold for the "highest and best use" which, in this case, was not for drinking.

Probably unsurprisingly, there are two letters to the Ed on the same subject, with one correspondent reflecting the consumer-unfriendly outcomes of deregulation. Nobody saw that coming, did they? Wasn't in the model, yes?

The middle ground is where we should be aiming for, and a certain modicum of common sense applied before the theoreticians - who are almost always well fed and living in cities well away from the means of production - allowed to have their head.

The impending investigation of Pauline Hanson and whether she appropriated party funds is comprehensively misunderstood by nearly every letter written in her support. It's not whether she was entitled to the funds - under the law she was - but what she did with the money. This is a distinction quite lost on the support base.

One correspondent goes a step further: "It's just that some people don't like the truth: our country will be overrun, no jobs, high crime etc."

In far happier news, fans called out "We love you Diddy" as the ultamegarapastar was commemorated at Hollywood's Walk of Fame. Evidently the man was right when he dropped the 'P' from his name because it was getting between him and his fans. Although often a quick P is desirable and often inevitable.

So as the sun sets slowly over the rolling hills, we wonder how come one dominant stream of economic theory became so entrenched. The Uruguay Round never fulfilled its far-fetched claims (no thanks to the ideologically indoctrinated economic advisory agencies that cooked up the figures).

Seattle was a turning point so, even given the protracted nature of multilateral negotiations, any outcome on Doha is way, way off. I love seeing the occasional headline, "Still hope for talks" and so on and reports that some committee has decided to set up another committee to decide when everyone might meet again to discuss "modalities."

How the dedicated officials keep going year after year in such a soul-destroying job is beyond me. Oh, no it's not, see under "ideologically indoctrinated" above. That's in part how we came to leave Canberra. That was a machine I didn't want any more to do with and, gradually, I've left it behind. Except when I read the paper.

Although, on reflection, it did pop up in a dinner conversation with some coves a week or so back, in which I tried to explain how Australia has been so opposed to the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, not least because tariffs on Australian exports to the EU go to funding it. The CAP aims to protect the 'heritage' of farming such as small, unbelievably picturesque but economically inefficient French family farms.

Except when, as happens reasonably frequently, a small Australian rural community wants to preserve its heritage. That's different, apparently.

No, it's not. And, moreover, heritage is valuable. Priceless, in fact.

Well, enough of that, my head hurts. I think tonight will be a bit of a blow-out, I'm going to cook a roast and watch the Logies. Two firsts in one day, can I stand the excitement?

brain salad surgery (*)

What's the noun for sporadic? Sporadicity? Well, that's what we have here at pied a terre VVB - I said it'd be more sporadic, but it's even more so.

Put it down to work, teeth, travel, competing priorities, and maybe a dash of wtf?

No news apart from observing that finding a new house should, in principle, be exciting and joyful. And indeed it is, for the first 20 or 30. After that, it's an exercise in frustration.

Anyway, Mrs VVB and I edge towards commitment to a new Chateau VVB (with added sea views), although my earlier desire to live right on the edge of the continent - a seductive vision, I have to say - is probably not to be fulfilled. Salt spray, for starters.

(*) Couldn't think of a suitable post title, I take it that all readers are familiar with Emerson, Lake and Palmer?

I've barely had time to read or listen to the news, so the even opportunity for superficial snarking has been reduced. I'd kind of like to comment on the death of the Aussie soldier in Afghanistan, mainly from the perspective that I don;t really know what we're doing there. If we were genuinely eradicating the poppy crops and assisting the Afghans to replace that cash witrh something a little more socially acceptable, I'd be all in favour. Maybe we are, but I really don;t know. Why don't I know? Where's the message?

In any case, the death of any Australian soldier overseas is an occasion for sombre reflection on the value of our armed forces, certainly not for superficial snarking.

Of course the impending first Swan Budget had raised the stakes for our new-ish federal government - there's been a few leaks but mainly it's under wraps, yes?

Oh, it's Saturday night, 7.30 pm, Top Gear's on, the chicken's in the oven, got to go.

Talk amongst yourselves, smoke if you wish (as a now deceased - not from smoking - mate of mine used to say).

This is really disappointing, I'll have to find something of substance to write about.

leaving home

This post comes to you from within the lovin' bosom of Chateau VVB itself: yes, we're back home in the leafy western suburbs of Brisvegas for a few days.

It's evident that the new job and amount of travelling it demands (Barcaldine last week, Townsville this past week, now Brisbane ) means that for a while at least, blogging will be sporadic.

This weekend is devoted to helping fix up the Chateau for sale, which means today we were in a shop whose name is not unlike "runnings" and where you can't get decent help no matter what you do. So a request for assistance with the correct bag for the lawn vacuum was met with "you may as well buy a new machine, those bags are so expensive."

Well I knew that already, even though the price came down from $56 (yes, $56 for a consumable!) to $38, they still only last a month or so. What I needed was help to translate the previous part number into the new one, because the packaging was quite different.

Which explains how I came to back there late afternoon trying to exchange this morning's guess for the correct one. But that seemed to be a request too far.

And so that's also how I came to be in the 'refund/exchange' line later this afternoon, behind bogans who use it as a quicker way than the main checkouts. Bogans who don't look after their kids while they carry on and show off to their mates. So the kid begins to wail that he's lost his daddy.

Now, blokes my age can no longer help little lost boys in shops and supermarkets lest some misguided zealot, or bogan father perhaps, makes an unwarranted deduction.

Anyway today a nice young Indian girl pointed the youngster back to his dad who immediately abused him for wandering off and then accused him of being "mental". Nice.

About a year ago the wonders of the internet brought me an inquiry from the UK about a car I had owned when I was still at school. Having googled "Morris Isis", my interlocutor came across this post and left a comment on a later blog, asking me to contact him.

Which I did. And it turns out that not only is he a Morris Isis obsessive, but he owns the actual car from which my model, as shown in the post, was copied. Here it is on the right. The model didn't get the length of the bonnet correct - the Isis had a 6 cylinder motor and a mighty long bonnet to put it under.

He asked me to write up a longer version of my post, which I did some months ago and this week a copy arrived of Quality First: The magazine of the Morris Cowley, Oxford and Isis owners club with my piece in it. It's titled It's a small world and indeed it is.

So life still provides plenty of opportunity for comment along the way, but I fear that somewhat less of it will be coming from Chateau VVB until Mrs VVB and I are comfortably established in RARA land. We've got to a shortlist of houses we like, we're organising the bank finance (eeeeurrgh interest rates) and as mentioned earlier we're trying to get Chateau VVB into saleable condition. It's a bugger of a plave to keep clean inside and outside and so there's a lot of work to be done to make it presentable.

Along with the move I have to sell the current motor, this one. A long way from the Isis, yes?

And does anyone want an acoustic electric Maton 12 string, by any chance?

atom heart mother

Just when you think life can't get any more...well weird doesn't quite do it, but 'wrong' kind of sums it up... you get a story like this (sorry, I am going to make you click the link, no easy passes here at Chateau VVB).

And you realise that having lots more choices about what you can do with your life doesn't really enrich it. Nor for your nearest and dearest.

I'm not in Chateau VVB nor even pied a terre VVB, I'm currently in Townsville, I just don't seem to stand still any more.

To badly paraphrase ZZ Top: I'm RARA, I'm nationwide.

i've been everywhere

Been everywhere? Not quite, but I'm working on it.

But I've been to Barcaldine - well in fact I'm still here - and, in pursuance of the blogcredo about a decent espresso being the signifier of civilisation, I can now report that you can get a perfectly acceptable flat white here. Along with a nice big piece of well buttered toast. A perfect breakfast in other words, which I had this morning and hope to have again tomorrow.

Cool mornings, brillant days, cool evenings (well at this time of year anyway). A radiant night sky all full of stars.

Does life get any better than this?

Answers on a piece of box wood suitable for making a didgeridoo, c/- middle of the road, Barcaldine.

They don't have the Tree of Knowledge any more, but you can see where it used to be.

around and around

"I have some issues around that..."

"We've been doing some work around..."

"Can I suggest that we talk around..."

"We need to focus around..."

You get the picture. Imagine 6 hours of it. Makes you want to hit things, that might be lying around...

spooky tooth

Just a quick update to why this corner of the universe has been quiet of late: teeth. Specifically, unbearable shooting nerve pain over 4 days which antibiotics, Nurofen Extra, Panadeine Forte and a short piece of dentistry couldn't right. The Panadeine Forte almost got me there - the nice pharmacist said "you do realise it'll make you drowsy?" to which I replied "that's the general idea", but as the drowsiness overwhelmed me, the nerve pain shot through again like a bloody great butcher's knife.

Two nights in a row wide awake, sipping iced water to dull the pain, lie down for 2 minutes, sip and swill again, etc etc etc.

Three a.m. on Wednesday morning the iced water stopped working. I had 4 Panadeine Fortes in me and, basically, there was nowhere to go whether physically, pharmaceutically or mentally.

Got on a plane home, saw my own dentist who, knowing my history, diagnosed correctly and started the road to recovery. It's nice to be functional again, I can tell you.

One of the things that Mrs VVB and I have been considering, as we make this move to Rural and Regional Australia (capitals intended), is the availability of infrastructure to support us into our next decade.

So far, that is to say based on this single example, it's come up a little short so far. But that's not to say that there aren't suitable services once I know the area better. The dentist I saw seemed perfectly competent and came with a number of recommendations, but he didn't know my clinical history and I presented him with a complex problem. He did the standard checks, he did the best he could on the knowledge he had. And best of all, he was honest with me as we tried to work out what was going on. Including noting that the anasthetic he gave me would buy me a few hours' peace. It did, he gave me three hours' sleep in three days.

But the availability of infrastructure and support services is a big issue in Sea Changing (capitals intended).

The Sea Change has a lot of other elements including real estate agents, terms and conditions of employment, builders, and adult children residing at home, but they are all stories for another day.

As a sort of meta-comment, I know writing all about me and the personal doings of Chateau VVB is probably pretty basic blogging. You may be interested, most likely you won't. But knowing who my regular readers are now, and adhering to some good advice I once got (from a bloke I ran across today for the first time in a long time): "don't underestimate the value of a bloody good story, well told."

Well we mightn't have quite reached those lofty heights yet but I do try to add a little commentary to the daily doings. And, surprise to say, I find this somewhat more rewarding, or at least less demeaning, than ranting about the former government and its despicable leader. Although you can see how quickly one can relapse. Was that "despicable" really necessary? Or is there a more suitable word?

Answers on the back of a Liberal party sanctioned piece of electoral bastardry to Chateau VVB, in transit, Queensland.

Oh how we fall.

gimme little sign

You all know that I'm a big Jeremy Clarkson fan, but some weeks you go to the Times of LOndon and discover he's got the week off to conduct a mock crucifixion of Tony Blair, or to shoot ecologists.

On those days, you scout around the website and you might run across AA Gill. Gill does to poor restaurants what Clarkson does to Mercedes Benzes and Vauxhalls. So it's by-the-numbers sarcasm dripping with bons mots and just happens to be excruciatingly funny, if you like the same humour as me.

And if you do, you don't need to know about the restaurant in question - well it is in London, after all - but the lead up that makes this sentence priceless is worth the detour:

I think all professions should do this, except gynaecologists.

Go and read it now.

s'wonderful

Those of you who are so intrigued by the brilliance regularly on show at Chateau VVB, or possibly with far too much time on your hands, may have visited the 'about me' profile summary.

In there, you would have found a short list of 10% or my favourite bands, including 'one hit wonders'. I included this as a shorthand way of not listing a whole heap of songs I really like, such as I fought the law and Turning Japanese.

Anyway, fast forward to yesterday arvo at the shops and I'm in Sanity, as there isn't a JB Hi Fi within cooee of here, being as we are in RARA land.

So I'm fossicking about and find a compilation of One Hit Wonders. Wow, I feel myself demographically targetted and bingo, by Jove the marketers have got me right where it counts!

So, they've got this compilation and it's got 2 CDs and a DVD and it includes some really nice stuff, by my lights: Kajagoogoo (Too Shy), Paul Norton (Stuck on You), James Freud (Modern Girl), Dream Machine (Life in a Northern Town) and so you go. Nice to have the DVD, it would take me back except we were overseas when a lot of this stuff came out and never saw the videos on TV.

The nice young lady comes over and asks can she help and I say "do you really get 2 CDs and a DVD for only $24.95? What a bargain!" and she replies in the affirmative.

However, when we look at the CD and DVD we see Owner of a Lonely Heart, by Yes. Now I have to take exception to categorising Yes as one hit wonders. Certainly, Owner of a Lonely Heart was late in their time after several personnel changes, it sounded different to a lot of their other stuff and in particular it featured words that made reasonable sense as written. But one hit wonders? Never. What about Yours is no disgrace, Starship Trooper, Roundabout to name but a few?

Heresy.

nowhere man

It's been a week since I posted. I've been busy, I've been ill, I've been all over the shop.

Lack of consistent posting is death in the 'sphere, I believe I read somewhere.

Well, that's it then. I'm dog-tired, I have multiple toothache, I have nothing even remotely interesting to comment on.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Bonsoir, mes amis.

Nup, spoke too soon.