xxxx insert wedding musical references here xxxx

While we were waiting for Escape to the Country to come on and thereby complete our evening, Mrs VVB and I were kind of obliged to watch the nuptials. I was quite taken with the two bros done up like human Christmas trees - I have never seen so much gold braid since Field Marshall Amin departed the scene - and that Harry's hair has probably never seen a comb since he was two.

Anyway it was a jolly jape for Mrs VVB and me and then they announce some hymn commissioned especially for the occasion. The opening bars sounded and - I swear this is the truth - Mrs VVB and I looked at each and said, "Rip off! But what from?"

It took me a minute or two. Electric Dreams. I kid you not.

Anyway Escape to the Country's on, so ta ta.

love and marriage

More ways to celebrate the impending hereditary lineage extension process than you thought possible!

Fortunately, some of these are singularly tasteless. More tasteless than you thought possible! Hurrah for human ingenuity! And bad taste! Hurrah for those of us who revel in the bad taste!!!

the music, i haz it inside

Yesterday, after 30 sec0nds of morning TV (please don't tell me people actually watch that stuff) I decided to delve into the mountainous mountains of concert DVDs what we own. Ended up having them on most of the day, what a day it was. The highlights:

Toto in 1990. Every rock star pose cliche known to man. But with fabulous musicianship such as you would only get from a bunch who began as session musos.

Cat Stevens in a very intimate concert singing songs from Teaser and the Firecat, accompanied by another bloke on guitar and - very occasionally - a bloke on bass. Apparently I was got this as a gift for Christmas, Mrs VVB was not happy when I did not recognise it as such.
What a voice. Then he introduces a song as one "I wrote before I entered my second life as a pop star." This was On the road to find out which of course contains the lines, "Kick out the devil's sin, pick up pick up the good book now." This of course before he picked up a different good book and entered a third life. At the end of the DVD, a short cartoon of Teaser and Firecat which I swear was voiced by Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan as most of it sounded like Ned Seagoon and Eccles.

Mid 70s Fleetwood Mac. Holy moloney can that Lindsay Buckingham play guitar. Gives you - or me, at least - the shits.

ELO. Great music, I retain a wholly irrational dislike of Jeff Lynne. But playing Do Ya is very cathartic, even me on an acoustic.

Neil Diamond - after 34 hours, it all sounds the same, but again, a great talent.

So today we went to JB and picked up a few more. The Who at the Isle of Wight 1970. I'd previously never seen any footage of Keith Moon in action. Once you have, the rest becomes clear.

Powderfinger's final concert at the Brisbane Riverstage. I wish I'd been there. Nothing short of magic.

papperbock writer

In the matter of writing and reading English - surely the more accurate order, chronologically speaking - I see Ms Pants has been at it also. Ms Pants observes that, despite her meticulous attention to detail, she will certainly have overlooked some minor point that will undermine her entire argument. And indeed she has. I will direct her to hyphens and apostrophes. Note lack of paragraphical (insert hysterical laughter here) formatting herein, it is supposed to have no fewer than four.

even shorter answer

No.

short answer

Gerry has requested I do some more posts to test for patterns in the myriad ways that Blogger has been buggerising about with formatting etc in recent days. This is one such post. Its topic, should I ever in fact get around to reaching it, is the time-worn one of people being interviewed who don't answer the question. Usually it's pollies but today it was a senior seat-polisher being interviewed about the success - or otherwise - of his organisation in catching international croox. The question put was whether the organisation's work had resulted in the po-lice catching more of said croox. The response went along these lines: "We have increased coordination, collaboration and working together with other agencies and we are taking more strategic positions." I thought it was pretty priceless, hence my ability to remember it almost word for word even though it was way back in the morning when I heard it. Now let's test that formatting, nicht war?

all shook up

I see that Blogger is unilaterally removing paragraphs, and probably other things as well. Just so you know, it wasn't me.

turn the beat around

In this extract we turn the protagonists around, thusly: "Meanwhile, in other news the conservative NZ government presses on with a PP ploy to deliver UFB - which is to say Ultra Fast Broadband - to 70% of the citizenry at speeds approaching 100 mbps. Naturally the Labor opposition fiercely opposes the waste and the extravagance, and condemns the plan as certain to fail. Which leaves the citizenry lost in a wasteland featuring the most appalling and expensive broadband service to be found in an allegedly civilised country ... Mention viewing videos on the full to overflowing intertubes and contemplate the blank faces. Viz and to wit, indeed. If you are of suitable disposition you can read the whole thing, follow the links to the Sheehan article, poke your eyeballs out while reading that, then note that the comments which follow are hardly supportive of that same poor benighted journo. And they reckon that News Ltd moderates its comments pages? Hardly! Mind you, they are in an increasing spot of bother in the Old Dart, eh what?

am I ever

(gonna see your face again) The politicosphere is so shallow (I'd like to create a verb from shallow as I believe it could become, like, so institutionalised and, like, ubiquitous and stuff) so I ain't gonna be writin' about none o'that sheeeeeeet evah again. unless John Howard comes back. But other stuff, well it, like, you know. So I'm just gonna have to share it with everybody, like, you know.

this much is true

The only matching lid and container components in any kitchen plastic ware drawer will be of items that are quite unsuitable for taking lunches to work. Indeed, they will be for uses that simply defy imagination. Anything suitable for taking lunches to work will be found only as either lid or container. In other news, when will it stop raining? My lunch is getting wet.

push pineapple

The column is average, the photo is highly disturbing, the comments are priceless:

"They look like Phil Tufnell on acid and Jimmy Hill in drag. I bet their sex life is awesome"

"Must get my husband a Santa suit. He's just in from the pub and said ok "

"are they from the planet agadoo"

....and by far the best and this week's wiiiiiineeeerrrr....



"Urinal Ritchie? I prefer Eurethra Franklin."

reflections of my life

Appropos of nothing that I care to explain here, so apologies and all that kind of necessary stuff that is necessary when you make comments like that, I had cause to retrieve a book from the bookcase the other day. It was a book of high school poetry (*sort of - more soon) in which something I had written had appeared.

This was all a long, long, long, quite long, time ago.

*What I wrote was barely English, let alone poetry, but it was chock-a-block with teen angst and accordingly had been unkindly but accurately stereotyped into the part of the book headed "barely English, let alone poetry, but these people need their hormones relieved soon or there will be serious repercussions."

You get the picture, unwholesome though it may be.

Anyway, and this is where the story really begins (#), I was leafing (did you like that verb? very redolent of...I dunno, trees or something, and almost poetic) through the book and I saw a name that looked familiar.

It was the name of the person who lives here.

Who woulda thunk it, as they say. Even though the world was smaller then, it's actually smaller now. Gives one pause for thought, doth it not?

#For any Goons fans who may be reading this.

all the...small things

Twice within the last month one side of my glasses has sprung apart, the lens dropped out and the tiny weeny screw....

In both cases we found it. Not bad for a pair of geriatrics who actually need glasses to see...quite big things, actually.

I'd meant to get some Loctite after the first incident. I used to routinely pull apart each new pair of glasses and apply a drop to each screw thread to prevent such occurrences. The little bottle got thrown out in our move to sunny - well actually, currently not so sunny - Capricornia. I must hie me to the local 'ardware shop fifthwith.

Meanwhile, as I age into grumpy old man conservatism, I start rethinking a lifelong objection to the death penalty. On the other hand, such criminals should be prevented from breeding...

we don't need no education

The headmaster at The King's School, Tim Hawkes, is absolutely correct when he justifies why governments should fund schools such as his on the basis that ''our students do more''. Independent schools are creating the leaders of tomorrow and are required to provide a far higher level of cultural, sporting and extra-curricular support. Funding these extra activities with taxpayers' money is undeniably a sensible investment in Australia's future. Re-allocating these monies towards children in comprehensive government schools who are content to do less both in school and in life, would be a waste of money and a win for the forces trying to destroy Australia's prospects and culture.

Greg Boston Manly

I am seriously hoping that Greg's tongue is firmly ensconced in his cheek. Tomorrow's letters should be....er....educational.

losing my religion

Here's what a bloke I know would have called a rattling good yarn.

The Aussie papers are currently full of the issue of the proportion of public funds going to private, often church-owned, schools.

And the debates about teaching ethics vs religion, whether in general or a specific variant, in class in public schools.

When I were but a boy, we used to get religion in class once week. One week the insert noun here came and, during the lesson, made us close our eyes and put up our hands if we wanted to be 'saved' and have lots of good things happen to us.

Having been brought up, strictly, to do as I was told by figures of authority I closed my eyes and put my hand up.

To discover that all that had happened was that I had signed up for Sunday school at one the local churches.

I may have only been 8 or 9 at the time but I eventually figured out that a churchly figure of authority have abused the trust of a (then) Innocent child.

Goodbye organised religion.

My opinions have only gone downhill since then.

learning to breathe

Why would anybody be surprised (surprised m'lud? why I was aghast, I tell you, simply aghast)!

When capitalism insinuates itself where it really be better off not.

No, not capitalism. But that other behaviour that a market economy encourages: greed.

Seems to poison the bastion of clear - and, importantly - longer term thinking.

You'd expect differently of a university, surely?.

get a haircut and get a real job

As someone who has laboured within the machine - or more accurately but superfluously, a series of machines - for some 40 years, I was mightily taken with Ms Pants' stories about some of her recent encounters with the bureaucracy. Tales of the entirely expected, as it were. So taken was I that I sent the link to a number of friends and one replied with a description of some of his own experiences. Read on...

"Coincidentally when I first got up here I had a similar experience(s). I went to one of the recognised employment agencies with my resume, and after some banal questioning they said I should do a Word and Excel test.

I said, 'didn't you read my resume, I've been working in IT for thirty years.'

She said, 'sorry sir, it's our policy that you do a Word and Excel test and also a typing test.'

(Yes, they made me do a typing test as well!).

I finished the test and she said I did well on the Word test, but my Excel and typing were only average. I replied that the difference between being average and excellent on the Excel test was only about four hours and in any case I wasn't looking for a data entry position.

I just got up and walked out and never heard from them again.

Amazing experience.

At another place across the road they asked me to sign an agreement to lock me into their services and I said I'd take the long document home to read and bring it back.

Well, the roof fell in...should've seen the woman's face drop. 'You can't do that...take this away from the office!'

Me: 'But I want to read it properly before I sign it.' The manager was called, papers were rustled, faces were frowned. No, I could not take it away and read it. I had to read it right there.

I got up and walked out. This time I rang DEST and got onto a nice bloke who was horrified. He got onto them ,they rang me and apologised and said I could take the paper away. I didn't bother."

There is of course a somewhat ironic twist to posting this blog. Despite hours of searching for fixes, I am still unable to copy and paste between programs. Thus, I had to type his story out in full. And no, I am not a good typist.

you can't do that

What I can't do is cut or copy 'n paste. Still. I google the problem and get 367 gazillion hits, all of which may as well be written in Korean for the sense I can make of them.

What I wanted to copy 'n paste was the comment by bro2uncle about how the video "co-insides" with the lyrics. I cannot but agree. I note I can copy 'n paste the URL. But not the words.

And I am fed up to the back teeth with things being "rolled out". Can we possibly just occasionally implement or introduce? Because they're, like, words too? Like, English words with meaning?

i got rhythm

Quite some years ago I read The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux after seeing a review in the newspaper, and through it became quite a fan.

For some time I was mesmerised by the flow of his words. He would insert some speech which often seemed at odds with the narrative; an invitation to meander even while engrossed in the story.

Principally he aroused in me a seemingly pointless ambition to insert colons and semi-colons anywhere and everywhere. Even today I will write some piece of officialese and find I have dropped a semi-colon or two therein: the conundrum then is whether they should remain. Bureaucratese is not an habitual resting place for these undervalued grammatical oddities.

So it was predictable tonight that I would be interested when I came across this Theroux piece. I had to read it, not least because I am sick of reading bitter polemic everywhere else.

The article is all in that familiar, lolloping rhythm that I first noticed all those years ago; his style hasn't changed at all. His insights may be a little more stilted now, I much preferred his reflection of the UK at the time (The Kingdom by the Sea). This one is full of points being made, rather portentously. Results of fame, I guess.

And I still have in my head the observation he made about Australians - specifically Australian backpackers - in The Great Railway Bazaar. Travelling third class across pre-Islamic Revolution Iran, he noted that when travelling in the lowest class possible, there would inevitably be Australians there. It seemed intended as an insult but probably more accurately reflected a national pragmatism; less spent on train tickets, more to spend on booze.

how bizarre how bizarre

Bizzare? You bet.

I apologise for this link. I originally clicked on the story in the SMH but then this incredible, irresistible force made me......yes your Honour, it made me.

So onlookers applauded? Presumably because she breathed, or walked, or possibly did both simultaneously.

Celebrities, they are a different race.

Mainly because when they get their pictures taken, their mouths are always wide open.

Presumably aids in doing that breathing thing.

Best not to look at the knuckles, then.

However, as for onlookers and their behaviour...my mind has boggled.