bad english

Today's most creative use of the apostrophe:

The particular songs you mention we're interesting to me, because I have a fondness for all of them. I grew up listening to the Beatles from "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to "Let It Be." But I always had an affinity for some of the never-played songs.

Snoop doggy beezer

I have discovered an evidently little-known fact that may be of assistance to the Labor Party in guarding against any accusations that it is anti-American. We know about President Bush's dog Barney, but did we know that the White House is also home to Miss Beazley?

hold on, I'm comin'

I think tonight's the night we get around to updating the blogroll so I need to leave you all with something to think about. Well not really, but those were the words that came out when I moved my fingers over the keyboard.

And tonight's theme carries on from comments earlier in the week about truth and spin. So, today both Mel Gibson and Paul Hogan reveal the outcome of several weeks strategising and drafting of talking points by their spin doctors, about the best ways of restoring the value of their respective brands. Well, that was really helpful, wasn't it? If it's written down or on some crappy American TV show, it must be true. Just stick to the script, act sincere (oh yeah, you're both actors aren't you, well that should be a piece of cake then) and she'll be apples. Those sponsorships and jobs will come rolling in again.

Meanwhile, the (insert gratuitously offensive description of PM here) has moved to get Iraq off the front page by suddenly taking an interest in the welfare of the client base of his (very) junior Coalition partner. Gotta make hay while the sun shines, eh? Oh, we have too much sun? Oh dear. Solar panels? Never heard of them. And even if I had, coal is better. That's it, let's subsideise all Australian familes - yeah, with at least one breadwinner on an AWA, that's a nice touch - to have a ton of coal on their roof.

Actually, he played down fears. Interesting. Is that because we have to reserve all our fears for Muslims, terrorists, and anybody who generally is not like us, eh?

OK, play amongst yourselves, smoke if you wish, blogroll maintenance here we come.

Update: Blogroll maintenance completed successfully and in the process - well not actually, more because I have the attention span of gnat and am very easily diverted - I found this, on a Sydney Morning Herald blog that was running a piece on which Parliamentarians are like characters in The Simpsons (seems there's been a bit of puerile name-calling going on in Canberra).

Peter Beattie is so very much Troy McClure it wounds me ("you may remember me from such crises as our water infrastructure and Dr Patel").

human nature

So, if gagging debate on the cross-media lawsis using the Senate power "wisely, soberly and sensibly"...oh, it is. I forgot, it's not about the Australian people, it's about the interests of the Parliamentary Liberal Party. How could I have forgotten.

I mean, what's the bloody point? (Insert gratuitously offensive description of PM here). I didn't vote for him. True.

Instead, human nature. I mean, proper human nature (that is to say, the nature of proper humans). I got invited to a meeting at the last minute a few days ago and for reasons that need not be gone into here, I went. It turned out that I probably didn't need to go, although I picked up some useful stuff, mainly that some conclusions I had jumped to independently about some stuff (yeah, detail, but I give away no details about my work life here...) were correct. It's nice to get some confirmation that something you had more or less guessed at turns out to be right. Anyway, that wasn't the main point I wanted to make...

Rather, given that some bits of this meeting would put bricks to sleep, I started getting some word (or rather project) association going on in the usually uninhabited space between my ears, and so made a whole heap of notes about stuff I really should do. Now, would I have thought of these things if I hadn't had the catalyst or spur, even though it was from something relatively unrelated? It got me thinking about... thinking. This is always dangerous because I have no training in either the neurology aspect or the insert word that describes the process of thinking - hmm is that cognitive processes? - of it. So, no surprise, I never get very far apart from a general wondering. In this case, what was the link that I somehow perceived and how did it come about?

Note 1: I made notes about things I should do, but I haven't done any of them yet. That is another matter entirely.

Note 2: When, in the first post here at VVB, I said it wasn't going to be an academically inclined blog, I wasn't kidding. Heh heh.

The other human natural thingie worthy of a blog (well, as the author...) was a visit today to a company which, unbeknownst (isn't that a great word?) to us, had been through some rough times. The bloke we saw we had not met previously but, in answering some basic questions about the compnay, he proffered a very full and frank summary of the tribulations of the company and how, in his view, they had come about. Maybe people trust folk from government ("and we're here to help you") more than I thought, but it was a very useful bit of info for us. It was all quite calmly delivered despite the fact that he personally had suffered a bit.

I find this kind of honesty utterly refreshing. For some reason I never expect it - are we so habituated to spin and PR? - so it always blows me away when it happens.

Because the alternative is this, from one of the articles linked earlier:

"The last thing that any political leader or party in this country should ever
do is to assume that they have a licence from the Australian people to indulge
in any kind of over-zealous way their ideology or their enjoyment of power," Mr
Howard told a breakfast of business delegates.

Good advice. Why don't you take it and f**k off?

lost in a lost world

I thought this solution to the education of the young offender who burned the flag was pretty much spot on. It's not often that you get what I, with my warped wishy-washy-leftish world view, would consider a sensible response from the RSL - certainly the old man never expected it - but this one fits the bill nicely. I heard on radio I think that the RSL has been receiving hate mail. As we seem to be getting a bit of vigilatism starting to emerge in our fair land, I hope no-one gets silly about trying to prove a point.

More predictably, the unctious little slug was posturing on radio this morning about how awful the second nuclear test was, raising the threat and so on. Turns out there was no second test. Didn't stop him whining tonight about how awful it will be when they do let off a second one, and there in the article is that bloody buffoon of a foreign minister also chanting the speaking points. Hear hear, let's not let anything, certainly not the facts, ma'am, get in the way of trying to keep the populace shit-scared. That's what you were elected for, eh? What, no? You fool. Yours is coming.

money can't replace it....

Today's title comes from Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road which I have played over and over in the car today. It's in my head, who cares whether it relates to whatever I am going to write.

What I should be doing is editing this bloody 60 page report just as I have been doing the last 3 nights. Bugger me it's hard to keep at.

Instead, let's talk nukes. Now, when I open the national daily newspaper - at work, because it's so useless (except for Doonesbury) I don't get it at home any more - and I find the work one of the country's allegedly premier foreign affairs analysts, I don't expect to find this sort of puerile sensationalism. You can leave that to the Chaser or whoever. It would just be nice to get some sensible discussion about the strategic implications, not the height of his shoes. There's better debate going on in some of the blogs, or shouldn't that be surprising.

FWIW, Australia is not under direct threat (despite the Yellow Peril/Domino Theory graphics on Your ABC tonight). The risk comes from the relationship between North and South, between North and China, between China and Japan. The hot air from the world's nucular policeman and his pint-sized Little Sir Echo, and their various Talking Suits (including the woman who wears big black boots and the buffoon who wears fishnets) is just that - hot air. Despite the urgings of the just-nuke-'em-back-to-the-stone-age bloggers and letters correspondents, that is not going to happen. The US has to tread softly and work within whatever limited stuff the UN can come up with (not forgetting, without going to too much detail, that the UN Security Council is just the sum of its members).

There's also a lot of puerile slanging continuing in blogland, and Catallaxy features strongly (although North Korea is not the topic). I can see that we might be in for a bit of a seachange in blogging as this current examination of on-line personal relationships and how to conduct a debate halfway politely start to play themselves out. And if you think I'm gutless for just mentioning it here, not linking and not going in there for a stoush, well you might be right but I don't care. Gutless is my middle name.

But while we're on blogging, where do some of these people get the time to conduct their online hostilities during the working day? It goes on for bloody hours! I don't have the time to do it but even if I did, I owe it to my employer (and more importantly the poor bloody taxpayer who finances my activiiteis) to not do it. I have started to do a quick scan of some blogs while I have some lunch, but that's it.

I had meant to make mention of the Telstra float the other night, except for this bloody work that I'm supposed to be doing, even as we speak. As Chateau VVB holds some now half-price shares, in Offspring No 2's name, we get the annual reports and so on. I scanned the report quicly the other night (instead of doing this bloody report that I am still not doing) and was quite taken aback by the fear and loathing expressed in their risks section. Such as, if the government doesn't roll over and do all sorts of things, then Sol might leave and then his hand picked crew will leave and we'll be up a well known creek in a barbed wire canoe. I see that John Durie in the AFR picked up on the same stuff today.

What on earth are they thinking? I heard that similar wording will be in the prospectus for T3. Do they want to unload or not? Of course, it hardly matters, because for all the hoo-ha about the Mums and Dads, it will be the institutional investors that pick up the majority, I would imagine.

There's a bloke in my team who does a bit of trading and he's asking me will we go in, given that as current owners we get the 'inducements'. I asked our then adviser whether we should go in on T2 and he said yes, so here we are in the current predicament. I should have exercised some independent thought, compared the float price of T1 and T2 and thought, "blimey, not on yer nellie!" But I didn't. And having been burnt, and understanding just little more of what's going on now, I can't really see that we will. I have mentally written off the $2000 in T2 a long time ago.

Look, I really have to get back to this report, no matter how much fun this is. Let's get Lucinda to take us out....

I Lost It
by Lucinda Williams from the album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

I think I lost it
Let me know if you come across it
Let me know if I let it fall
Along a back road somewhere
Money can't replace it
No memory can erase it
And I know I'm never gonna find
Another one to compare

Give me some love to fill me up
Give me some time give me some stuff
Give me a sign give me some kind of reason
Are you heavy enough to make me stay
I feel like I might blow away
I thought I was in heaven
But I was only dreamin
I think I lost it
Let me know if you come across it
Let me know if I let it fall
Along a back road somewhere
Money can't replace it
No memory can erase it
And I know I'm never gonna find
Another one to compare

I just wanna live the life I please
I don't want no enemies
I don't want nothin if I have to fake it
Never take nothin don't belong to me
Everything's paid for nothing free
If I give my heart
Will you promise not to break it
I think I lost it
Let me know if you come across it
Let me know if I let it fall
Along a back road somewhere
Money can't replace it
No memory can erase it
And I know I'm never gonna find
Another one to compare
Money can't replace it
No memory can erase it
And I know I'm never gonna find
Another one to compare

your taxes at work

$55m to 'sell' the GST that was implemented badly and has made bugger-all difference.

$90m to 'sell' the so-called WorkChoices that only the two big employer associations wanted.

$20m to 'sell' the part sale of Telstra that we already owned.

Total: $165m.

You could buy a lot of all sorts of things with that.

hold on

You might be (holding on, that is) for a while, as the muse is departing again. Crikey today has the story of some blogwars a few months ago that somehow I missed, even though I recall writing around that time that I had noticed a feeling of tiredness, for want of a better word, creeping in around the 'sphere as well as the never-ending left-right baiting. Turns out that some of the baiting got pretty willing, although Crikey's links to some of the threads (at Catallaxy and Club Troppo) are mainly, to my eyes, fairly mild and mostly on topic.

In comparison to when I got described as less than an insect. Obviously that still hurts, otherwise I would't have mentioned it (or put in on the header), although what it mainly does is make me wonder what people like that are like in real life.

All of this is parrtly why I now post less and also why I mainly confine my commenting to places where I feel more 'at home' - Armaniac's, tigtog's, the Balcony, chez Diogenes, JahTeh and, simply because it provides the best environment for spewing about the PM when I can't help myself, Road to Surfdom. With the exception of the last, for the reason stated, the others tend to be more varied in their choice of subject matter, there's no pseudo-intellectual posturing (and no Karl Popper at all, for which much thanks, bugger me that gets tedious) and the commenting and general to-and-fro is a bit more like real life. I can't imagine that some of those who get all het up at those other blogs carry on like that in the supermarket on Saturday. Or towards their friends and acquaintances at a bbq for that matter.

So that's where we stand on the current state of blogging. I still have a few of the car stories to do but I'll use the film camera to get some fresh shots of the models as the digital just doesn't seem to be up to getting close enough while maintaining focus. Of course the second-hand news does provide lots of material, but only if I remember by night-time what got me interested during the day. And, from now, mostly, if it's kind of interesting and different.

For those few poisnal friends who occasionally drop by, we are all travelling pretty well at Hacienda VVB. Also the next 6 weeks at work are going to be extremely interesting and busy and the team and I are looking forward to a product at the end of that and then, insh'allah, some real stuff to do that might make a difference (c).

Also, the 12 string has had a couple of public airings lately, once at a party and the other Friday at work for some Friday end-of-week drinkies. I really love playing and wanting to entertain people and so far the reception has been good, so I should look for some other opportunities. I'll never master guitar and in fact I can't do as much with the Maton as I could with the old Yammy, but as the Maton sounds so good it doesn't matter so much. It's not so much that people are easily entertained (amused, maybe?) but that it's the simple act of getting up and trying. And once I start I don't hold back, which I suspect comes across in the performance. It's one of those different worlds, and luckily for me I can go into it in some way.

Finally, Pryor at the Canberra Times, for my money one of, if not the, country's finest political cartoonist, absolutely nails the massive communal love-in at the Quadrant celebrations the other night (here, because I can't seem to upload the image directly, damnitall).

where's yo' bin?

I's bin workin'. And there'll more to come. Will try to write something sensible at the weekend. However, if that proves just too difficult, I'll just write some usual rubbish. In the meantime, for your edification, here's the original of my gravatar - drawn by someone I worked with back in about 1971. It's quite deep, eh?

but we live in different worlds

Via the very useful Ozpolitics blog, comes this story of the online game designer's revenge. Never having got into computer games, even when they were very simple (***oh, with one exception), I find it hard to relate to, I guess, everything games-related. But this story quite piqued my interest: it would easy to imagine the state of mind brought on when, late at night when you're running on adrenalin after many hours 'in' the game, all of a sudden it seems to be coming for you.

This story also reflects another of my pet interests, namely all the different 'worlds' there are: that is to say, the individual interests that people have that just don't cross over. Horse racing - never been, would love to go one day, it just seems so different (except for the trend towards young people going just to get drunk). When we were getting a kitten a few years ago, we went to some cat shows. Utterly bizarre behaviour by some people!

*** We had The Hobbit for our Sinclair Spectrum in 1983.
Oh, and I did have a mild fascination for some car rally game in about 1996. So make that two.

sunshine superman

Read this and weep. Actually, you should shout hooray for one small win against those who would sacrifice any one of us in the 'war on terror'.

In particular, note what Mr Arar has to say about the importance of governance, of the checks and balances that up until recently used to differentiate our democracies from the dictatorships of Saddam's Iraq, North Korea, the junta in Burma and Mugabe's Zimbabwe, to name a few:

"I did not seek revenge. I want better institutions in Canada. That is what I
want. One way of ensuring this is we have to hold those people accountable."

That's what we've lost thanks to Howard and Ruddock. And we're meant to be supinely grateful for such courageous leadership? Puke.

Update: and here's another little insight into how the checks and balances slowly get chipped away by the truly unbalanced. Amongst all the things that get up my snout, efforts by believers in imaginary friends to get the rest of us down on our knees in fear and trembling really get up my snout.

Rare moment of reflection: would I get as righteously indignant if a left-ish government pulled some similar swifty that simply benefited its own members, not society as a whole? Well I'd like to think I would, in other words that my position is based on principles, but I guess we'll have to wait to test it. Mind you, it'll be a long time in hell before we - or anybody we know short of the Kiwis - get an even vaguely left-ish government. After Hawke was elected in 1983 and had started on economic reform, the old man proclaimed it "the best Liberal government we've ever had", and it's been all downhill since then.

snout

As I am a wishy-washy leftist and part-time insect, it would be perfectly reasonable to paint me as anti George W Bush. I can't remember whether I've ever written about Bush, other than in my perennial whinges about our own 'leader', whose every decision seems to be predicated on whether GWB would like it.

Anyway, in common with an awful lot of other people, I think GWB is a dangerous ideologue whose only interest is perverting the institutions of governance of the USA to implant a hegemonic Republican administration. The lying little piece of excrement of course is on the same mission, but at least in this particular instance he's 'honest' (as in when he always says that his actions serve first of all the interests of the parliamentary Liberal party).

In all of this, what makes me most angry is the perverting of institutions of governance bit. Once a single political party is in a position to do this, the decisions that get taken are more and more in the background, receive little media scrutiny (because subordination of independent media is in fact a big part of the undermining of governance) and hence much less public exposure and understanding.

So it's with some relief, cunningly disguised as outright glee, that I see
Bob Woodward has turned the sights that once brought down Nixon, onto GWB. Once someone who I imagine has a fair bit of public credibility starts to put the pressure on, then an increasing number of others, who may be lukewarm supporters, might start to turn. Then it all becomes inevitable.

Our situation here in Oz is different. We have no crusading journalists of Woodward's stature. Any others get shot down by the right-wing cheer squad. With the loss of genuine Senate scrutiny - another institution of governance that has been emasculated - we have less ability to get to the truth of this government's decision-making. Laura Tingle had a piece in Friday's AFR about the true figures behind the welfare-to-work legislation that put a somewhat different interpretation on it to the government's prounouncements. But how many people would read the AFR, let alone be influenced?

Anyway, as an apprentice optimist I remain optimistic that eventually the cleansing light of day will be turned on the nasty cabal of ideologues and thugs who currently have the privilege of ruling over us.

And back to GWB for a tick, even my favourite Tory doesn't like him.

PS: got the NRL final on the teev in the background. It's the lead up to the "two thousand seven" season. He's said it twice. Just something else that gets up my snout.

kazakh attackh

The ongoing skirmish between Sacha Baron Cohen in his Borat guise and the government of Kazakhstan, with sniffy interlude from 'George Walter Bush', just gets better and better. The person who invents a vaccine that enables people to recognise - or at least stop getting upset by - satire, will get my vote forever. If they could do it for irony...heck, make them president-for-life.

The Kazakhs should get Cohen on the payroll. Anything he did for them would be more effective than "where the bloody hell are you" in attracting tourists (I loved the comment that this would have been an effective advertisement for deaf people!).

Back to the article on Borat, as I read the last excerpt I suddenly started getting images with Margaret Whitlam and Janette Howard. Deeply disturbing!

ol' 55

I started yelling at the TV halfway through the news so there must have been plenty to annoy me. In fact there was so much it has mostly disappeared, but one lingering memory is of the lying piece of shit appearing to provide a comment on every item, including the footy finals. He truly is the father of the nation, we can't go on without him.

Update: See, it's true.

Puke.

When the government doesn't own Telstra, then it can complain about removal of phone boxes without fear of being called hypocrites. At the moment, that's what they are.

This story about AMEX bringing in workers below the stipluated wage rate could become exquisite. I read somewhere that Kevin Andrews is seen as not being very good at selling the government's message on WorkChoiceLess. Why on earth doesn't someone ask whether the problem is actually with the 'message' itself? Like, that it's, like, bad?

Anyway, enough with the whinges already. Today provided some exquisite (also, again) irony. I got a letter saying I have permanency again, having relinquished it some years ago. On the same day the law says I can retire. Now, that's a true choice. Kevin, Kevin, maaaaate, talk to me about choices.

I'm off, this is ridiculous.

Sorry, it's actually preposterous. Yep, preposterous.

the good, the bad, the ugly, the others

New Matilda has a nice little article by Andrew West that deftly skewers the ugly little piece of excrement that passes for the prime minister of this fair land as a manipulative and revisionist...well...little piece of excrement. However, as such views are not new around these parts and are vexatious to the spirit, let us hurry on....

LeftWrites has a fabulous piece of analysis about the close connections between the Global War on Terror (tm) and what we used to do to witches ("build a bridge out of her!"). What this article demonstrates to me mainly is how traits in human behaviour stay consistent through the ages. It's a bit of a stretch to think that those currently propagating the GWOT - ie the supposed response, not the terrorism bit - did any research on witches and how they represented an earlier type of terrorism, but the responses are remarkably similar.

Margaret Whitlam lets a few volleys go. What a woman!

Finally, brew number 10, a Morgans Australian Bitter, has been bubbling slowly but steadily downstairs for the last three days. All the signs are positive. I need someone to cast a spell to ensure it's a good'un...maybe a witch?

these days

Costello berates companies about their directors' remuneration. Isn't that the market working? It's a global market, innit? Aren't you supposed to be cheerleader for this kind of thing?

Former adviser won't influence Telstra board, says serial liar. Yeah whatever. We're all mushrooms, feed us another one.

Truth will out. I love the smell of executive fear in the morning.

Beats writing about bloody motor cars, eh?

I've been listening to this Lucinda Willams CD on the car stereo. Kicks arse.

those were the days

Just doing the evening blog rounds and cleaning up the desk area a bit and I ran across a couple of photos. So, rather than the ongoing public exposition of trying to justify - no, make that define - my beliefs, which is ongoing because they keep changing in a grey-on-grey world, let's just slip back to, oooh, about 1974. Looks like a Sunday afternoon in sunny Belconnen ACT, maybe we could have trimmed the edges of the grass on the footpath. Or we could have gone and drunk some beer.

On the left, my 1970 Triumph 2.5Pi, post engine rebuild because it's got the second set of plates on it. On the right, a 1968 Triumph TR5 belonging to a housemate. It was the same colour as the sedan (dark blue). Today, the Pi in resaonable nick would be worth about $3000. The TR5? In similar condition, about $25000, as only a few were built and imported to Oz.

I backtraded the Pi on a warmed-over Mini K and he traded the TR on a Datsun 240Z.

Oh to be young and fancy free.

top gear

Reports from the UK that Richard Hamilton continues to recover and that the producer of Top Gear won't continue the series without him.

I've referred to Top Gear a few times in this blog. It's a fabulous program, Jeremy Clarkson is my favourite Tory (look at him snipe at UK Labor today) * and even Mrs VVB likes it.

But I was quite amazed to see the comment thread on the Spin Starts Here, which is in my view Ozblogistan's snark central - not that there's anything wrong with that, it's a dirty job but someone has to do it - with all the positive comments on Top Gear and how many people watch it. I guess I'd made some assumptions about TSSH's regular commentariat, based on the usual topics examined in that particular part of the interwebs, that simply didn't hold true for the bizarro boyos of Top Gear and their singular pursuit of the best fun you can have sitting down. Actually, they're not so bizarro: if there's one thing that makes Top Gear stand out, it's entirely unaffected way that Clarkson, Hamilton and James May relate to each other. In fact, ever since I heard about Hamilton's accident, I'd been thinking how much I like him because (a) he's about 5 metres shorter than Clarkson and May but doesn't let that get in the way, because (b) he's always taking the opposite view to Clarkson on any issue that they're arguing about. It makes for genuinely involving television. And it's about cars!

(*) Look, if I don't win Lotto next weekend, can one of you dedicated readers spot me about $195G? I simply have to have an Audi RS4. I have yet to read a bad review. Even Clarkson couldn't find a fault.

left writes, wrongs rights

Just setting aside for a second the fairly unexceptional notion that 'left' and 'right' are terms beyond their use-by date, given the extent to which policy positions on either side have coalesced in recent decades (yes, I know that's a gross simplification but to go into a further explanation is not the purpose here), here are two stories that are equally chilling:

to 'the left', there is nothing that cannot be achieved through a centrally-dictated, mechanistic approach to contolling what institutions do - this story about the (probably, one hopes) unintended consequences of targets and performance measurement in UK schools and hospitals gives a fabulous insight into what happens when governments can't clearly articulate what results they want from their spending;

to 'the right', there's nothing that cannot be achieved through brutality - the unintended consequence here is to one's own people who have to administer "the programme".

i got to move on down the line

Moving on seems to be a trend. Just yesterday a good friend told me how he'd gone into a bloke's office early in the morning and offered his services. Then went back to the current boss and said "I'm out of here", after occupying his job on a temporary basis for some 6-12 months after it was meant to be filled permanently.

Today another friend e-mails me to say that she'd given herself ten years in her current work environment, but the signs are that there's not a lot of interest in new ideas or good research. So she's looking to move on. A young family that she'd like to spend more time with, the potential to be self-employed and trade on her reputation in her field, and a lot less daily bullshit. Sounds tempting.

Another work colleague into whose office I poked my nose earlier in the week asked me what I was going to do, as a few other friends do from time to time.

Some of these people probably don't need to worry too much where the next quid is coming from, but some do. Certainly the effects of a buoyant economy include the increasing choice of what you can spend your time doing.

Rather than the economic perspective, it's more the personal that I am finding intriguing although the links are inevitable. Looking for self-actualisation, some greater feeling of being valued, as well as flexibility or lifestyle or whatever, seems to be driving some of these decisions. However, the economic imperatives around us will influence what we do. For example, after a period where people seemed to be retiring earlier, now we might need to work for longer: for example, as home ownership becomes more difficult for many Gen Xers, the oldies might need to lend a hand. Only the privileged would be able to do this on a retirement income.

Certainly, many don't want to retire anyway but would rather take on some part time or voluntary work.

I see I have quite quickly strayed from my original story about people changing jobs for a better balance between income and sanity, and retirement. The balance between income and sanity has always been with us I guess: the truly passionate/devoted can follow their dreams and live on gruel, the rest of us have to get on the treadmill to a greater degree. Seems like a few are looking for a better treadmill, though.

Finally, when you work for the rich and famous it's almost inevitable you're going to get it in the neck sooner or later. I was tickled by this little story from the SMH - sounds like Mrs Murdoch has her own way of parlaying her influence:

'Not many people can influence Rupert Murdoch. And there's only one Wendi Deng in the world. A Los Angeles Times report this week paints an interesting image of Deng's role in the multibillion-dollar empire of her husband, Rupy. "Deng's effect on Murdoch also should not be underestimated," the paper reports. " Deng, who is of Chinese descent, hired feng shui experts to rid the [Murdoch-owned Direct TV] El Segundo headquarters of bad vibes. Murdoch had installed a new president, but the feng shui experts felt his office overlooking the ocean and the mountains was unlucky. So he was moved to an office with a view of a parking garage and a sewage treatment plant."'

better

It'd be really good fun to blog the various conversations I have through the day - at least some people might get something out it. And because so many of those people have academic qualifications that enable them to provide some decent analysis, we might get something going. You know who I'm lookin' at...

Instead, here are a couple of songs that always used to make me feel good and, by jingo, they still do. Dave Clark 5

and this one holds a special memory for me, believe it or not... young love

Erk. Banish those thoughts immediatement.

I started writing a whole heap of other mumbo-jumbo about my distorted thought processes but it was boring boring boring so fortunately for all concerned it got canned.

say my name, biatch

To whom it may concern, you know who you are. I didn't read the e-mail until very very very late so I didn't absorb all the details, but here goes:

El Gran Goos
Born under a lettuce leaf in outer Mesopotamia in the year of the Aadvaark. Schooled with a strap right across *his* back, he found early success in arranging sandwich ingredients in alphabetical order. After a rapid rise to the position of OIC Dust (and Mites), he finally found fame as the bloke you hang your hat on when you're home (or away). After a spell in the regions, and then the hospital, he can now be found building sand castles and ordering around people smaller than himself. Loved by all that have never met him and avoided assiduously by those who have, his life goal is to be a paperweight. Wet wet wet.

Ham n'eggs
Awarded honourary degrees in anthropology, chicken-sexing and obfuscation before the age of 5, his first job was to sort the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats, and children from their legally appointed guardians. He was so successful at this latter task that he spent nearly a decade behind reinforced glass and barbed wire, just so the rest of the team could meet their targets. A short spell in the bovine industry saw him turn his talents to driving genuine God-fearing country people out of their ancestral properties while simultaneously preaching to them the virtues of starvation and recycling air. Never short of an opinion on damn near everything, his contribution to *the project* will be to render the minutes meaningless. Obsessive about *family values*, although his own offspring are notorious for being rude to their elders.

Neither of this pair is to trusted with anything more significant than the biscuit tray. "Outcomes?" "Results?" "Never met one I couldn't avoid!"

People have less to fear than they think.

don't forget to remember

Sadly, too late for that. In amongst a busy day I had an idea for a theme tonight, but it's lost in the mists of time. I suspect it may have been rodent-related so it's probably a good thing that it's gone. I certainly recall thinking at the time that the entire ABC news last night was devoted to his perpetual glorification, so I was ready with the stopwatch tonight, but only one clip with sound (30 seconds of outraged whining) and another 10 odd seconds without sound, so any theory that the ABC really is the new Pravda will have to wait. I guess if Richard Alston couldn't do it with a herd of hired media monitors, neitehr can I with a stopwatch and glass of chateau collapso in hand.

A rare burst of levity in the drab VVB suburban lifestyle will occur tomorrow night: we is going to a party! What fun! It will take some dedicated efort to remember what to do. Fortunately the invitation said "bring musical instruments" so I simply have to remember to take the guitar and not the piano accordian.

Speaking of stomach Steinways brings us back the old man, who went to school with this chap, and who only outlived dad by a couple of months. Apparently Saffron was a 'colourful character' even in his school days from what dad used to say.

update...oh yeah...

16 September...I've just remembered what it was I was going to write about and boy, is it ever ironic.

I was in a CBD supermarket at lunchtime yesterday. This market has a double row of cashiers to both the left and right of the head of the curly queue of shoppers, so the cashiers call out "next" when they are free for the next customer. When my turn came, I heard the call but couldn't discern which direction it came from. I turned left but, seeing no cashier with a hand raised, I turned right only to see a young (about 20-ish) person rushing off to 'my' cashier. Too late! I had to wait for the next one who, fortunately, was in my field of vision.

Having successfully concluded the transaction and while walking back to work, I was thinking that I hadn't expected this kind of situation until I was maybe in my 70s: certainly not my mid-50s. I didn't even think badly of the person who simply took advantage of my mistake - it's a dog-eat-dog world and I no longer expect any kind of community spirit or recognition of others' interests. I guess what's really sad about that is that we are so individually oriented.

There must be more people about with what used to be called 'manners' I suppose, but we no longer give that kind of behaviour the emphasis we once did. So what's ironic is that the poor old brain took a day to remember the incident but also, now that the story has been recounted, I sound really old-fashioned. Which was not the intention but may be the insight. Far too heavy for a Saturday, will leave it to mull over for a couple of decades.

talking heads

The brainstorming on the linkages between greenhouse policy and urban/land use planning went way beyond expectations, although not in the way I had surmised. There was one moment of potential friction when the climate change denier trotted out his usual line, but he backed off (for reasons I will need to suss out, it wasn't immediately apparent).

The dynamics at the table were interesting. We had two young female students and, of the invited experts, two male and one female. The female (no names to protect the guilty, especially those with blogs - unless you wish to identify yourself;-) ) seemed to enter into a good conversation with the students quite quickly and it took some determined effort on the part of the blokes to make their points. That said, there was a high level of courtesy displayed and when someone started to talk, the others took turns to listen and, where appropriate, respond or add to the points being made. Quite refreshing, really.

Given that all the experts - you don't mind being called that, I hope? - had substantial knowledge of the main issues as well as the related ones that arose - pricing policies, land use, sustainability, ensuring equitable outcomes in a social policy sense, resource use and so on - it was a pretty full-on discussion and I think the students were pretty blown away by the depth and complexity revealed as well as nonchalance (?) with which all this knowledge was delivered.

The lecturer who set the question apparently has a reputation as a hard marker so anything less than a 7 will probably result in several aggrieved people seeking revenge (on behalf of the principals).

Early on, one interesting issue arose in trying to define "institutional infrastructure", the phrase used in the assignment question. Seems it doesn't pop up on Google and while we all agreed it probably meant governance, it was also apparent that the students would need to define it very carefully up front. Apparently that issue has been a trap with this assignment in previous years.

Now the girls have the hard task of making sense of all the stuff and actually doing the assignment, while the rest of us wait with some measure of interest.

All in all a good outcome and it only cost me an arm and a leg for coffees for all (several coffees, in fact). We were all pumped when it was over, and the caffeine probably rated up there with the intensity of the conversation as the likely cause.

Thanks to all.

mmm mmmm mmmm mmmm

Australian journalism rediscovers its backbone. Via Road to Surfdom.

(a little later)

The IMF and World Bank meet in Singapore, the Singaporean authorities ban several NGO observers. No surprises there, that what the authorities of authoritarian states do. What grabbed my attention though was this: 16000 delegates? WTF? How many countries are members of those two august bodies? FFS, what on earth are all those people going to do?

five years*

Amongst all the analysis of five years since the World Trade Centre attacks, I found this piece by Hugh White to be the most compelling. It reads as very well balanced and based on some pretty deep analysis.

I don't know where White stands in the policy firmament in Oz. His bio lists his positions under the former Keating government, his inaugural position at the School of Strategic Studies and then some time in Defence under the current government. If he's out of favour now, maybe that explains the somewhat contrarian (to the endorsed official, you know what that means) view he espouses. Good for contrarians, we need lots more. It's a shame we don't seem to get more of this depth of analysis, too.

I'm going to have mega fun tomorrow. Offpsring number two has a uni assignment that - once you burrow under the several tons of pseudo-po-mo wankery in which it is couched, is about how to take account of greenhouse in urban planning and design. To give her and her project group some insights I have assembled a small band of my policy mates, all of whom have firm views (including on pseudo-academic wankery) but also on issues such as this. Several have not met each other, to the best of my knowledge, and are of exceptionally strong character, shall we say. There will be fireworks (I hope), leading to (I also hope) some good insights into the policy dilemmas the assignment hints at. Nothing like a good argument.

*No, this five years, silly.

it makes no difference

If Rick Danko was still around, that's probably what he would still be saying. There's heat and bloody little light everywhere as people get stuck into Germaine Greer, or stick up for her, or look around for someone to blame for the attack on the World Trade Centre, or get stuck into Justice Einfeld, or Peter Beattie, or all Muslims, or just some Muslims, or the religious right, or atheists, or blah blah blah.

Sometime over the past few weeks the intensity of the arguments I see and hear around me seem to be escalating, people retreating even further (if that were possible) into predetermined positions, the possibility of hope seems to be a will-o-the-wisp on the horizon.

What brings on such a negative posture? Wish I knew. Everything else is proceeding as to plan around the VVB family: new toilets installed today, isn't that wonderful?

Maybe it's just the blogosphere because real life - ie real real life - still seems OK, ie everyone around the personal space is still operating according to Hoyle. Maybe it's some random chemical imbalance brought about by coughing for two weeks straight. Can't be good for you.

This is pointless. I'm going to talk to the cat.

(a little while later)

Oh all right, I'll cheer up. Consistent with the name and implied mission of this little blog, I went looking for something that might bear reporting and, in the food review section of the Times of London, I find this:

Now clubs are sprouting all over. Every other press
release for a West End restaurant boasts a members-only bar or attic for smoking
cigars and licking the ears of Moldovan hookers.

and this:

The brasserie starts with breakfast and shimmies into lunch, then dinner and
supper, so you could waste an entire day here. I started with imam bayildi,
because I’m trying to overcome my blackballing of aubergines. It was pretty good
for an eggplant, though I wouldn’t want my chicken to marry one. The kids had
crispy squid, which they tricely scarfed. Mother had tuna tartare, a big plate
of cold, dead, maroon fish, the point of which escaped me, but which she liked.

and this:

Ally had a lobster, which kept him happy for hours, like edible Meccano. Flora
ate eggs benedict as if it were her last meal (and it probably will be — as far
as I can tell, it’s all she eats). Mother had a suckling-pig sandwich that we
oinked would be an Italian porchetta, but turned out to be heartily paved with
granary bread and was a bit like trying to eat a small Cotswold cottage.

Now this is all good stuff, in a look-at-me-aren't-I-clever sort of way. The same as the wonderful Mr Clarkson, who writes for the same rag, if the Thunderer can be called a rag. That style of writing appeals to the look-at-me-aren't-I-clever bit of me, a bit which has never been satisfactorily vanquished. Mr Searle attempted to do this in year 11, as I recall, when he asked us to bring in examples of what we thought was good writing. Proving once and for all that I have not progressed one whit in all those 40 years, I brought in something from Modern Motor which was all how-clever-look-at-me. Mr Searle then slowly and meticulously demolished it in front of the entire English class. I thought I'd learnt then but evidently, no.

I still reckon you don't get people who can write such obscure yet poignant and wonderfully illuminating phrases in most Australian writing. Well, in the motoring and food columns anyway.

What's the point? It's all about looking forthe small things that keep us going when all around us is turning to poo. Speaking of which, the new toilet works fine. What a relief.

hold on to me

...or not, as the case may be. Any casual visitors looking for recent postings will have been dreadfully disappointed. Said lack of posting has resulted mainly from having been relatively ill, for a person who normally enjoys robust health. It's just something that has been going around - flu and all that goes with it, followed by a lingering cough that I still haven't shaken nearly two weeks on - interferes with sleep an' all, so you end up going to bed earlier 'cos you're tired, and so on.

But I've also got a bit tired (again) of blogging, even to the extent of not doing the rounds of my faves as much as I used. The arguments are by and large getting a bit tired; the extreme drives out the considered; and some of the good ones have disappeared into the ether.

I was going to do a link to the online furore about the program about to be aired on 9/11, and there you go, I've done it. I'm not surprised about stories of secret cabals within Hollywood seeking to institutionalise a 'right-wing', 'Christian' agenda against the usual claims of the film industry's left-wing bias. The reason I'm not surprised is that, while I subscribe to the dictum that "if it's a choice between a stuff-up and a conspiracy, go for the stuff-up every time", I'm still a sucker for a good conspiracy theory.

On another tack entirely, my favourite Tory lists his favourite cars. It's a shame that most are in the prohibitively expensive category but very revealing that the Vauxhall (nee Holden) Monaro gets a guernsey. On that particular episode of Top Gear, the Munro beat the S-type Jag and the Chrysler 300C over a series of objective and subjective criteria. If you've never seen Top Gear then do yourself a favour (as Molly used to say) and watch it. Even Mrs VVB, never much enamoured of motor cars (mainly because of the thousands I have thrown away on them) is a fan. What more can I say.

Well, nothing, really.

steal my heart away

Look, I'm no bleeding communist and neither am I some uber-laissez-faire proselytiser but, when I read something like the following (from Today's Crikey.com.au), I get real mad:

Michael Pascoe writes:
It’s not hard to form the opinion that Alinta CEO Bob Browning seems to favour a rather greedy corporate culture. Perhaps in America, it would be called "ambitious" rather than "greedy", but you get the drift.
For a start there’s Alinta's’s outrageous fee gouge, nicely documented by Alan Kohler – it makes Macquarie Bank and Babcock & Brown look like charities. Then there’s the swifty Alinta is trying to pull over the ACCC with its APT game, whereby it
gives an undertaking to get its AGL deal done and then tries to renege.
And now Alinta’s Browning is being held up as a prime example of how CEOs are copping much bigger remuneration than their shareholders are being told about.
A study by governance advisers ISS Australia highlights how CEOs at the biggest companies are, on average, getting $2.5 million more than their shareholders know about it via a serious mismatch between the disclosed "fair value" of options in annual reports and what they are actually worth. Exhibit A, CEO Bob:
An example was Alinta, where the value of 40,000 options exercised by chief executive Bob Browning last year was 33.4 times the fair value placed on the options in the 2003 annual report.
The report disclosed a "fair value" per option of 20¢, which put a total value on the tranche at $8000. Mr Browning actually made $6.68 per option, exercising them at $4.52 each in 2005 when Alinta shares were trading at $11.20.
Somehow, one is not surprised. Among the other examples, BlueScope’s Kirby Adams picked up $4.4 million on options valued at $480,690 and Axa’s Les Owen’s $166, 650 "worth" of options actually came in at $1.6 million.
Now, let’s hear it again from some CEOs about how costs must be curtailed and the rising price of labour is a bad thing, never mind a lecture on the sanctity of transparency and disclosure.

There's no need to go into the details of how CEO salaries are set by boards on the advice of 'remuneration consultants' who are in on the joke, while the factory floor/front desk wages are set by cost competition downwards. But once you get to a level where you have control over the mechanisms, such as choice of accounting models and exactly how much gets disclosed, you are in a very privileged position. What the story describes is theft, nothing more or less. Stealing. Bring back the stocks, I say!

On the TV behind me, Tony Abbott is trying to justify the proposed sale of Medibank Private. As do many other lummoxes out here in the 'burbs I wonder: what happens when we've sold off everything and then government's have no ready made easy fixes to their inability to manage a budget? The story on the TV has just been rooned by the sound of the year 12 debater, Kim Beazley, speaking slowly, deliberately and unconvincingly about the issue. I've heard pieces of rock with greater persuasive powers.

one flu over the cuckoo's nest

Meh. Another perfect leafy western suburbs weekend gone and I felt like shit all through it. Managed to get a little yard cleaning done today but had to have a good rest afterwards. I haven't been this crook for ages. My throat feels like someone's taken to it with a chainsaw.

There's a stack of work to be done and I can't raise the energy to even think about the issues: I did manage to type out a summary page of some budget figures that will contribute to thinking at some future time. I hope tomorrow I'll feel better.

A few things have struck the consciousness over the weekend that I could have commented on, but the only one that remains was what Costello said at Don Chipp's funeral: something about how all Victorians would be sorry at Chipp's passing. "Victorians?" What bloody stupid thought process leads to that? Is he campaigning in the Victorian elections (well yes, but even so...). Bloody weird.

And as for this - does he realise that there might actually be some tension between members/users (who want low costs and premiums) and shareholders (who want profits, generfated through higher premiums)? The most ideological government since Whitlam.

Fortunately here in sunny Queensland we don't need none of that there ideology, as the campaign ads for both Labor and the Coalition demonstrate. Talk about amateur hour. What a waste of money.

Finally, I was looking for something that I thought I had read earlier but got this instead. Why baboons make poor CEOs, or some other conclusion you may wish to draw.

doctor doctor

Semi-apologies for lack of posting, have been and still are very lurgified and as a result have been early to bed every night.

However, on Wednesday I was a little closer to usual bedtime as a result of having been out to deliver the future, optimism and daily grind talk to another bunch of grateful folks. Well, that's my story...

Anyway, when I'm sufficiently back to normal to recommence posting, there'll be a few changes around these here parts. I'll fiddle with the profile and taglines a bit (and thanks to those who made such suggestions) in order to rid this little blog of any propensity to diss the dwarf (or perhaps pummel the pigmy): that, I will leave to comments elsewhere.

random

A common topic for discussion these days is a reduction in of people's interest in politics and the political process. This is variously ascribed to the smaller gap between the major parties' policies, particularly economic, the ascendancy of 'spin' over substance, broken policy 'promises', and so on. In fact I had just such a discussion this morning.

The thought has been chasing itself in the wide brown vacant areas of my brain that maybe one could apply Simon's theory of 'satisficing' to this phenomenon. This theory has it that people will preferably look for an easy first best choice rather than expend lots of energy in seeking out the optimum choice. In an environment where the choice is seen to be becoming smaller, why waste your effort? Presumably any such trend would be backed up by a rising informal vote and the extent to which voters go to the trouble of allocating preferences, where they have such a choice. I might check that out later and update, after I've done tonight's work.

You'd kind of expect that, over time, parties would respond to any such indicators. Regrettably, I see the dominance of the current accepted wisdom - budget surpluses, less investment in infrastructure and increasing fees for service, more cost-shifting onto the consumer - as continuing. The minor parties should fill this gap, but get demonised by the majors. Even moreso now with the passing of Don Chipp. His loss just makes the Democrats easier targets for the headkickers of the Coalition and Labor.

Somewhere else in the aforesaid wide brown vacant land was the original point I was going to make. But there has been a duststorm that has blown all the thoughts away.

A bit more on classical music, listening to, in car. After decades of listening to rock, you forget how powerful a symphony orchestra can be and also the dynamic range between the soft bits and the bits where they all give it the guts. On the way home I was listening to Haydn's Symphony No 57 in D Major (had to look on the CD cover for the title!). Wow baby. I did have the stereo screwed up but you don't need that unless you want to blow your ears off (and let the wide brown bits out). Good stuff. I liked the last movement, the Prestissimo (you can guess the nature/mood) - lots of sizzling violins. I interspersed that with some of my favourite jazz, Jacques Loussier, who I can listen to all day.

For an ever so random diversion into what people think about the world of politics, go here.

the organ of the rich

At last I got around to getting the old man's Scandalli accordion out. It was very dusty - for some reason he had insisted on throwing out its case, which he had fabricated from pieces of a downed B24 Liberator (as I recall) . When I cranked it up it was a bit wheezy - playing notes even when no keys (treble) or buttons (bass) were being pressed. He was going to show me how to pull it apart but we never got round to it. Nonetheless I figured out how most of it comes apart and gave it a preliminary clean which fixed the wheezing.

It weighs a bloody ton and so I might start to 'play' it a bit just for the exercise. It's a 120 bass for which you need to rewire your head in order to remember how the buttons go. Longitudonally they go up and down in fourths, while laterally they go tonic note, major, minor, seventh, diminished, augmented (I think). The thing is, it's quite loud so it's hard to play/practise without disturbing half the neighourhood - similar to bagpipes, I imagine.

Actually, when I say 'play' that is an rough approximation - I can still play piano but my abilities on the 'stomach Steinway', as father used to call it, are very limited. He had played it in a jazz band in the early 1950s and could still pump out Stardust, Elmer's Tune and similar songs when he was well into his sixties. Still, it'll be worth having a go occasionally.

(2) I was going to write something about the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us. Chip Goodyear only turned in a $10.5 billion profit for BHP Billiton last year so the board didn't pay him his maximum performance bonus - he got stock currently valued at $3.6 million with about the same again in options. These figures are just beyond the average worker's comprehension - they're certainly beyond mine. The article in the newspaper made much of the genuinely stringent performance hurdle/s that the board had evidently set. Still, I can't see that such disparities in income are sustainable. I read somewhere last week about the combined total of bonuses paid to the financial whizzes in the City of London last year. Juts staggering amounts. This is globalisation - the incomes at the top get driven up by competition for talent, and the incomes at the bottom get driven down by competition for lowering costs. Doesn't seem right.

(3) Sale of remianing bits of Telstra. As someone who bought into T2 (I did check with our then 'adviser') I have pretty much written off that money. It's in my daughter's name, we may as well sit on it until she has an income and needs a tax write off. I think I really don't understand this stuff. I'm supposed to be working - good night.

the minute waltz

Things have started to get busier at work and are about to get even moreso. There will be an impact on the frequency of posts, so I suppose I'll have to concentrate on quality. Starting with the next one...

The new car speakers (Focal splits, mine are the 165v2 model) are extremely suitable for classical music so I've bought a stack of CDs from the el-cheapo Naxos range as I wouldn't know the difference. I've bought a selection - Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Dvorak and so on, desperately trying to recall what little I knew about the various composers when I was a wee tacker and learning piano. So far so good - I found that I was getting sick of the rock and so on, except for some all time faves such as Little Feat, Crosby Stills & Nash, Steely Dan and so on. We'll see whether it lasts. The Focals are smooth as: clear, detailed and modulated (eh?) in the middle ranges. The highs are just so, and while the blurb says the bass extension is good, I found that I need to give them a teensy bit of bass boost for best results. And some volume, of course. The car has a secondary amp, 30w a side, so I can drive the speakers easily. I've found the experience of driving around with classical on at fairly high volume to be sort of liberating.

I am sure it has been well over two weeks since anything John Howard-related graced these pages. I gotta say, I feel better for the experience. So even if I don't collect on the wager, the details of which still elude me, I've won already. There is, of course, nothing I can say that isn't being said either better or louder elsewhere, so why induce the stress, eh? I don't think he reads this little blog. If he did, that might be a different matter. Suffice to say, the wheels will fall off one day and when they do, I hope the road is icy, the bus is full and the surroundings are proximate and unyielding. If you catch my metaphor.

Mentoring this morning was conducted in brilliant early summer Brisbane sunshine. I did more of the talking than I usually try to do, but we had agreed that I would do a personal explanation of some stuff I used to do in a group/course context a few years ago. It seemed to get as good a reception as it used to, probing questions back at me etc, so I think I delivered something of value. I can see an alternative career starting to invent itself, but the big question is 'what is it worth?' Finding answers to that question is something I will need to put some devoted effort into. Starting next week or the week after. Or while I take some holidays hopefully later in the year. Mrs VVB and self haven't had a decent holiday together for over ten years so it will be a new experience, almost. Something to look forward to. And on that note, goodnight.

Hmm, that took well over a minute.

steely dan phil

Tonight I was just about to throw out a paper bag that the old man had kept some of his papers in when I saw a scrap at the bottom, that didn't look much like scrap. It turned out to be a cutting from an old newspaper and indeed it was: a poem I had published in what must have been the Canberra Times (regrettably there's not enough of the cutting to date it).

You see, I went through a poetry period, starting in about year 11 with a teacher who was really quite a good bloke and encouraged us - to do things like this ("Phil, your poems are too dense: K, yours are too light; N, yours are just awful"). Yes, this is encouragement.

K - do you remember that? Worms? Poems about worms? Plays about worms?

I kept it up for a few years after high school and I've still got a folder of them somewhere (I hope). Anyway, as a sort of insight into the evolution of Leafy Western Suburbs Man, I give you Cold Steel. Sometime in the early 1970s. I wasn't big on revising so this would have been how it came out.

Cold Steel

Not for me the cold steel of your buildings;
Cold,
Impersonal
Unnatural.
For me, the grass,
Scented as home, and friendliness,
Warm and comforting,
Close to creation.

Not for me the sterility of your logic;
Sterile,
Calculating,
Unnatural.
For me, meditation on an empty field,
Eternal, inviting,
Yielding to intrusion by family,
And familiar welcomes.

i can see clearly now

From the ABC news:

"Last night the Department of Health issued an alert in relation to meningococcal disease," he said.
"A mistake was made when that alert was issued in that it had an embargo on it - it was not an active decision it was a mistake.
"It was an inadvertent mistake to issue it with the embargo on it, the media brought that to our notice straight away and we issued further information to the media to get the embargo off it."

I'm glad that's clear....

the road to Mandalay

Here are some photos of Burma (as I still call it, now officially Myanmar of course.

This is the plain at Pagan. I've forgotten how many temples - the figure 140 springs to mind but this was 20 years ago....




Bullock cart near a village on the road to Mandalay - yes, really.



Temple outside Mandalay.








The U Bein bridge.







This has taken me about two hours. I had to close down Blogger and IE after each upload. Sometimes the uploads didn't work. Sometimes all I got was the previous photo, hence having to close down so I could do a fresh load. When they did load, the first two were loaded in order, then the next ones were loaded at the front of the post, not where the cursor was. Very frustrating. Anybody got any ideas why and/or how to fix?

Anyway, I hope you like them.

triumph of the will

Here is the car I was telling one of you regular readers about this morning. There are a few stories associated with this car, but I was reminded of one infamous incident earlier this week by two mates who were there at the time.No details, I'm not proud of it.

The car itself is a 1970 Mk2 Triumph 2.5 pi. This was my second Triumph. These photos were taken after I had got it back on the road after I fed the motor with flood water, trying to ford a swollen stream outside Dapto and momentarily (well maybe longer than 'momentarily', maybe just long enough to do the damage) forgetting that the air pickup was about 15 cm off the ground, rather than at manifold level. Lotsa bent rods.

The other car is of course Eric the Half a Car, a Mk1 Wolseley 24/80 bought for $180 to keep me on the road while the Triumph motor got rebuilt.

Psalm 23: The Office version

I was sorting through the old man's papers the other night and found this newspeak, bureaucratically correct version of the 23rd Psalm. I don't think he wrote it, but as a fan of the peculiarities of the English language, as well as knowledgeable in several other tongues, he certainly could have given it a good shake. In any case, despite a few clunky bits I think it needs a broader airing, so with no further ado...


The Lord and I are in a shepherd-sheep situation and I am in a position of negative need.

He prostrates me in a green belt grazing area.

He conducts me directionally parallel to the non-territorial aqueous liquid.

He returns to original satisfaction levels my psychological make-up. He switches me on to a positive behavioural format for maximum prestige of his identity.

It should be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make ambulatory progress through the umbrageous inter-hill mortality slot, terror-sensations will not be instantiated within me due to paraethical phenomena.

Your pastoral walking aid and quadruped pick-up unit introduce me into a pleasurific mood-state.

You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure in the context of non-cooperative elements.

You act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract. My beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis.

It is an ongoing deductible fact that your inter-relational empathetical and non-vengeance capabilities will retain me as their target focus for the duration of my non-death period.

And I will possess tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanently open-ended time basis.

c'mon wheels, take this boy away

Eventually, they did. Who wants to sit a uni exam on a warm, early summer Saturday morning? Certainly not me. Here's the Datsun 1600 sports story.









When my family moved to Canberra in the mid 1960s, I fell in with a group of blokes at school, one of whom corrupted me for life by turning me on to cars. He had an enormous collection of Wheels and Modern Motor and we discovered Cars and Car Conversions and Car, featuring the wonderful, late LJK Setright.

As we got closer to turning 17 we started to buy our first cars. His first was one of these rare little Berkeley B105s, one of only five in Australia. He followed that with a series of Triumph sports cars. I began with the Austin A30, then the Morris Isis that I bought from the old man, then an early (long stroke) Mini Cooper, then an Austin Freeway wagon. By this stage I reckoned I was ready for a sports car. I had an open mind on what, except for an MGB because I reckoned there were too many of them about. So by a laborious process of trundling out to the old Sports Car Centre in Fyshwick, ACT, I eventually got the Datto, an early 1966 model, with a 3 main bearing crankshaft but not bearing the Fairlady name badge. It had a leaking rear main bearing so the first step was to pull the donk out to replace this, so that oil no longer got onto the clutch and the thing might actually go forward in the approved fashion.

By chance - is it ever? - the very next weekend one of these little buggers came up for sale. One of only 15 in Australia, quick and rare and this one was not only in good nick, but the owner only wanted the same as I'd just paid for the Datto. Bummer!

Anyway we got the Datto going, it overheated regularly for a while and then came good. By my lights, if you owned a sports car you should leave the hood down all the time and so I did, even through the Canberra winter. The car had a good heater (gets cold in Japan!) and I wore sheepskin mittens and a beanie. It was bracing but exhilarating, given a broad interpretation of that word. The only other downside to top-down motoring was the half hour spent getting knots out of my fashionably shoulder-length 1970s style hair after any long road trip. Ouch!

The 1600 proved a reliable enough little toy. Around that time, European tyres were becoming popular and I put a set of Metzlers on it. There may well have been worse tyres in the wet, but if so I don't know what - the damn thing was close to uncontrollable, although the enthusiastic driving style may have been a factor. That said, the only bingle was inflicted by a girl I was keen on, when I let her drive it after the office Christmas party. Didn't get me anywhere, either.

Some time around then, I must have also sat down to a uni computing exam one Saturday morning. I couldn't recognise anything on the paper that rang any bells and it seemed a bit pointless to waste three hours of such a beautiful day. Those the precise sorts of days when sports cars are in their element...

Eventually I got a bit bored with the Datto - I quickly got bored with all cars in those days - and so one Saturday when I was taking a young lady out and thought I needed something more comfortable, I traded the Datto on the first of a long line of Triumph sedans, a Mk1 Triumph 2000.

But that's another series of stories.