Monthly Archives: December 2009

When your Christmas Greeting is MY Christmas Tax Deduction.

09 Wednesday Dec 2009

Posted by in The Public Bar

≈ 4 Comments

Bah humbug ! With thanks to the great Alastair Sim

Well, I thought I’d seen some pretty cynical bastardry in my time, but today’s Email in-box had the cake-taker of the year.

It read “This year, instead of spending money on posting out Christmas cards, we decided to donate the money amongst three of our favourite charities”.

Which, on first thought seems reasonable enough.  Second thought “ah, yes …. and get a 100% tax deduction … with no accountability for how much actually IS donated”.

But there was a rider …. As the recipient of the Email, I was asked to pick amongst three worthy charities by clicking on a link …. and thereby helping their marketing people update the database – revealing amongst their clients and suppliers, who was still alive and paying attention to their Emails.  Click on that link – get spammed to death !

I think this piece of scroogality really alienates people at Christmas and turns generosity into a cynical tax dodge and marketing exercise.  Instead of opening a nicely hand-penned card that joins us for a moment with our friends and which we put up on the venetian blind or on the TV stand as a warm reminder, we get a soul-less poisoned Email.

Bah, humbug to them !

Sardines again

09 Wednesday Dec 2009

Posted by in The Public Bar, Travels

≈ 4 Comments

The next day our Russian tour would be over and I was to take the flight to London via Moscow. Most of us in the group were going to London. This was convenient for the Queensland girls as at least there would be help with lugging those giant travel bags. Unbelievably, the Tin Can Bay Australian whose trip was to try and meet up with his old comrades from the fifties at the Moscow library suffered another attack and was taken away by ambulance again. That was the last I ever heard from him.

The plane from St Petersburg to Moscow got delayed for several hours, never mind, we were all given a free lunch of deep fried sardines on a bed of salad and cubed potatoes with a lovely crusty bread roll. When we were finally called on the plane it was afternoon and it meant we would be arriving late in London. However, when arriving at Moscow airport there was a delay for the London connection till next morning. As a consolation we again had the sardine dish for dinner, this time with generous supplies of the same Georgian white wine we had on the way over from Singapore -Moscow.

Another night in a hotel and next morning we were ushered through customs. Again we were to account for all our money less what we had spent with the proof of receipts a mandatory requirement.  All the jewellery had to be looked at and checked and the girls who had above all expectations, managed to buy some earrings were put through some serious questioning with suspicious up and down looks by the custom officers. The officers where behind a wooden counter with a high wooden screen preventing you from seeing what they were actually looking at. I imagine they had some kind of computer on which there would be names of wanted spies, corrupting capitalists or terrorists with perhaps photographs as well.  Anyway, the whole lot of us were allowed through and with our nerves a bit frayed we climbed on board for our last trip to London with compliments of Aeroflot.

The usual ‘non smoking’ was ignored again. A curious sideline in flying with Aeroflot was that the toilets had shoe polishing equipment, including a brush and buffing cloth with a collection of different coloured shoe polishes. We had hardly passed over Russia when lunch came through the narrow passageway. The trolleys on aeroplanes are always a kind of sideshow to watch for those that are not into film watching or fiddling with their earphones. Those that have locked themselves into toilets buffing their shoes or sprinkling eau de Cologne to hide those odiferous long haul flights smells without showering must now wait for the trolleys to finish delivering its food trays before returning to their seats. The balancing of food trays on those minute tables with the cutting of food made so difficult, arms tucked under and tightly packed against the chest welling up hope that nothing will spill to disappear between those unwashed trousers and legs. It seems a total waste of time and effort, but the truth must be told; we had sardines again!

Peta and Animal Abuse

07 Monday Dec 2009

Posted by in The Other Side of the Carpark, The Public Bar

≈ 8 Comments

Of animals and stock at Lambing flats;

Farmers are always hard done by, especially in Australia. Has anyone ever tried growing anything in this unforgiving soil and climate? Recently the issue of animal cruelty has come up whereby the mulesing of sheep has drawn worldwide condemnation. Australian wool was boycotted and the video footage shown, of sheep getting plate size skin torn off around their anal and genital area, was hard to defend. Sheep were bred for large wool bearing surface areas. This resulted in sheep getting all those folds whereby the opportunistic Lucy fly would lay its eggs underneath the tail and when hatched, those larvae would eat some sheep alive. It is a cruel life.

mulesing

Of course, the mulesing was not all that sheep have to endure. The cutting of tails has been done for decades as well and not only with sheep. The docking of tails has now been outlawed in dogs. Checking dog show websites the ‘Jack Russell’s’ are still shown without tails.  Who is still doing the cutting, and why?

Some of the farmers are now breeding sheep without loose skin and all sheep breeders are on notice to stop mulesing by 2010. In The Netherlands, after testing sheep with and without tails, the conclusion was that health problems between them was negligible and those without tails did not have any less problems. All tail cutting has now been banned there.

We have now enjoyed farm life for 13 years here and have resisted by hook and by crook all those things that one is expected to follow in animal husbandry. In fact we are probably the most negligent farmers around, albeit ‘hobby farmer’.

Livestock are increasingly being targeted by the large pharmaceutical corporations.  Vaccinations now are carried out at least twice a year, if not three to four times. Drenching against high worm burdens. Selenium, copper, zinc applications are also often favoured treatments in keeping animals. Then, molasses, vinegar, high protein pellets. All at high cost to the farmers and suggested as minimum supplements to keep all stock healthy. In fact, I suspect that at the back of farm sheds one could easily encounter complete chemical laboratories.

We decided against all advice and perhaps generally doing things opposite the accepted norms  to keep all chemical to animals to a minimum. We have never vaccinated nor drenched nor given molasses nor vinegar nor selenium nor copper or anything else to our animals and allowed them to eat what they find. We decided to do this because at earlier farm lives back in The Netherlands vetenarery care was mainly practised by governmental professionals. Animal health came before corporate profit then. It was rare to interfere with animals that were healthy.

So far we have covered animals. Let us have a closer look at the land. We bought our property that had the advantage of having been ‘unimproved’ meaning that it had no history of super phosphate being spread over the paddocks. This is what we wanted, and apart from spreading natural manure around, have never applied super phosphate. We are lucky in having a limey soil structure with acidity low. Now, the local shire inspects all this and gives out notices to spray weeds, the weeds need to be sprayed with increasing strengths and with a lethal combination in combating ‘herbicide resistance.’

It is not easy being a farmer.

Gemini inimeG Stars

07 Monday Dec 2009

Posted by in Emmjay

≈ 4 Comments

Knees Up Mother Brown

Geminis have spent a large portion of their lives convincing their friend that they are not a small and somewhat underpowered car marketed by General Motors *.

But the twins, as you well know Gemini, are well and truly worth twice the trouble – and more.

Geminis are by their nature kind, gentle, charming, warm, cuddly conniving children who complete each others sentences and cheat on their homework.

Geminis will come into a fortune when their Mastercard accidentally trips a bug long latent in the local ATM.  Being twins, Geminis will blame the other guy when the bank’s private dicks come rapping on the flyscreen door.

Geminis will purchase tickets to a really expensive Joni Mitchell concert – only to find out that a really tall guy with an afro haircut is sitting in the seat in front.  Fortunately, that person, being a Capicorn on the cusp of a bicuspid, will feel a deep and abiding need to visit the toilet and will not return after the support act (Andre Rieu) strikes up the first chords in the second tune of his set.

Lucky numbers this month are pi/n and sigma (although that was a Chrysler).

Lucky colour is a greyish kind of khaki – quite suitable as a camouflage thing.

* Also with brakes to match, and alleged (but not demonstarted) steering.

Astral Wally

Cosmic Seer

The B52s Play Up in the Nathan Rees Memorial Ballroom

07 Monday Dec 2009

Posted by in Bands at the Pig's Arms, Emmjay

≈ 3 Comments

The B-52s Rockin' the Lobster

Well, 14 months is a long week in a NSW politics, and exhausted patrons at the Pig’s Arms were delighted to wash the muck off and share a cleansing Trotters Ale – and catch the ageing disgracefully B52s.

Our intrepid Manne was there with his trusty Nokia E51 to bring all the lushness of the Rock Lobster to the Pig’s.

Hell Hospital: Episode 5

03 Thursday Dec 2009

Posted by in Hell Hospital

≈ 31 Comments

By theseustoo

(Disclaimer: this series of stories is completely fictional and none of the persons, places or institutions in these stories are real, but figments of my own imagination. Any similarity to any real person, place or institution is entirely coincidental.)

Swannee, though tall and ruggedly handsome, was that rarest of all types of man, a faithful one. He loved his ever-fertile and almost always pregnant wife and ten tin lids; he was looking forward to the eleventh, so that he’d have his own cricket team; and the faintest trace of the remotest possibility that he might ever allow himself to entertain the slightest thought of ever being unfaithful to his beloved wife, Catherine, had not even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing his mind… in spite of the brevity of the journey.

Swannee was also just daft enough to be honest and to love simplicity; all the lies and deception which invariably accompanied infidelity were far too complex for his simple soul, so infidelity was the very last thing he would ever consider with anything but horror and revulsion.

His wife loved him for it with absolute devotion, of course. Named after the Catholic saint who had been executed by being crucified to a spinning wheel of fire, Catherine loved her husband deeply and felt it was her Christian duty to pump out as many sprogs as she could for him… She would give him the cricket team he had always said he wanted! She was almost there… another three months and she would pop sprog number eleven… Her beloved Swannee would finally have his cricket team! However, recently, she had secretly begun to wonder, with just a trace of nervous trepidation, whether or not he’d want the two reserves…

As a result of his native simplicity and his state of constant domestic bliss, what with all those willing and helpful children to help him with the chores around the house, Swannee was absolutely oblivious to the attention some of the female staff-members were beginning to pay him during their lunch hours. He was quite sure they were ‘just being friendly’. “Though by gum,” he thought to himself, as Loreen leaned forward to give her order in a deeper and huskier voice than usual, “…they were certainly very friendly… and I’m sure that pinch on the bum was just a friendly tease… it doesn’t mean anything at all, really… I hope I don’t catch her cold, it sounds serious from the huskiness of her voice…”

Loreen’s cleavage loomed large in Swannee’s vision and he was reminded that he’d promised to take the cricket team to the hills for a camping expedition in the near future… This weekend would probably be good, he supposed, as he bent to extract a hot pie from the oven.

He couldn’t help wondering why it was that Loreen and Paula always ordered items which came either from the oven or from bottom cupboard just above floor level; he was beginning to get serious back pains from all that bending over. He began to suspect, not without reason, they were competing to see who could make him bend over the most. Now he was sure they hated him because they seemed to tease him all the time, and they made him work so hard; bending over all the time like that. There was nothing he could do about it however; he had a job to do; the cricket team must be fed; he just had to serve these two temptresses their lunch and try to ignore any ‘unusual’ remarks or behaviour.

*****      *******      *****

Loreen could not believe her outfit was having no effect at all on her intended victim; yet it seemed as though Swannee were completely unaffected by even the sexiest of her work outfits; he had not even appeared to notice her fishnet stockings and suspender belt, even when she sat down facing the serving hatch and ‘accidentally’ allowed her short skirt to ride up over her thighs to reveal a small triangle of her black lace panties; her fishnet stockings went unnoticed and her cleavage ignored.

“How,” she wondered, frustratedly, as she checked her assets in a restroom mirror, “…can he ignore all this?! Is he gay?!”

*****      *******      *****

Paula too found Swannee’s obliviousness to her charms extremely frustrating; all the more so as she had noticed that one of the cleaners, the infamously nicknamed, “Loose-lipped Loreen” was quite obviously making a play for what Paula now considered ‘her man’. Was it her imagination or her jealousy, she asked herself, or was Swannee beginning to succumb to that Loose-lipped Loreen’s charms? She had seen him stare at Loreen’s ample bosom for what seemed like ages yesterday; was he a ‘big tit’ man? She wondered, regarding her own small but pert breasts with a dubious expression on her face. Is that why he hasn’t noticed me yet? Okay, she decided instantly, tomorrow it’s the padded bra!

*****      *******      *****

Elaine slowly turned the cards over; she’d decided against a ouija board because she didn’t want to involve her assistants. So she’d waited until they’d gone off to lunch before she took out her tarot cards and did a reading for the morgue, hoping the ether would favour her with some information about the lurking presence she now knew was haunting the morgue…

Perhaps, she thought, it was a ‘lost soul’ who’d been unable somehow to find its way to the ‘Other Side’. But she dismissed this idea very quickly; true, some souls did become earthbound for various reasons, but she had sensed something unusually terrible and evil about this one…

The first card she turned up was ‘The Fool’… a naïve young man setting out on an adventrurous journey or about to have a new experience; though not a bad card, it warned about the possibility of trouble as a result of the fool’s naivety and inexperience.

The fool was ‘assisted’ by the High Priestess, a woman of significant spiritual ability would help him with this novel experience. The ‘Death’ card which followed seemed perfectly logical, representing natural change; it’s meaning being more to do with the symbolic ‘rebirth’ which this card implied, rather than actual death itself…

These two cards were ‘crossed’ by ‘The Empress’… a powerful woman was preventing the natural change from happening. In the position which represented the immediate future, however, was the ten of swords; this card may very well indicate death, but even if it didn’t mean death it certainly meant an awful lot of trouble: The card depicted a knight, slain by ten swords, still sticking upright out of his prone corpse, making him look like a weird party-wiener, with ten cocktail sticks in a single wiener…

Trouble, she thought… and maybe even death, was coming to the morgue…

Very spooky, she thought… but the cards never lie. The question is, she now asked herself, who are these people? And what is their connection to the morgue; if she knew that, she would have a much better chance of understanding what the cards were trying to tell her… And what did all this have to do with the lurking presence she had sensed in the morgue; and which presence she still seemed to sense, just beyond the fringes of her consciousness…

*****      *******      *****

Proclaimers Play the Pig’s Arms

03 Thursday Dec 2009

Posted by in Bands at the Pig's Arms, Emmjay

≈ 15 Comments

The Pig’s Arms patrons were delighted to welcome the Proclaimers to the Nathan Rees Memorial Ballroom upstairs.

They ripped !

And Manne was there with his trusty mobile phone bringing something just slightly less than professional broadcast quality video to the patrons who were too pissed to make it up the stairs.

Much less walk the whole 500 miles !

Taurus: The Scope of Your Horo

02 Wednesday Dec 2009

Posted by in The Public Bar

≈ 30 Comments

Taurus - getting to the bottom of the matter

Taureans are known for their tenacity and ability to concentrate.  More so than lesser signs – those are known more for their eight-acity – or nine-acity.  This week will be a big one for Taureans – which is lucky for the bigger bulls out there.

As the moon enters your house, you will more than likely need to close the blinds to get a decent sleep.

Taureans are also known for sleeping through their lunchbreaks and missing out on tucker – which makes you really cranky all afternoon until your hapless Piscean partner cooks dinner and you wash it down with something sangrian.

Your lucky numbers are 0-9 and a-f (hex) or 0 and 1 if you fall into a binary loop.

Taureans will continue to enjoy a fulsome love life – particularly when their partners come into heat, roughly around September 2014.

Fortune will smile on Taureans and all the other signs as the stars rise over your stable relationship and a distant relative will relinquish the leadership of a major political party in an apparently bloodless chicken coup.

This week’s favourable colour is red and you should expect another good run in Pamplona next year.

Your long-range ‘scope suggests that you will meat a tall handsome chap in a blue and white striped apron hanging around the block, amidst sawdust.  More than that is uncertain, but if I was you, I’d steel myself for some cutting remarks.

Astral Wally

Cosmic Seer

Father O’Way Meets DAD

01 Tuesday Dec 2009

Posted by in Mark

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Thought to be an exposure of Hung with Tutu’s support *

The Crickmanistani’s have a droid with them that was a coffee dispenser on one of the levels of the Death Ball. Well anyway, this droid got friendly with, I mean really friendly with if you know what I mean, one of the design droids on board and has a copy of plans of the Death Ball. Well Helvi analysed them to find that there is a weak spot in the design in a location called the Upper Inner Thigh, apparently very tender and painful if struck.

So here’s the plan. Me and Helvi are going to teleport into the control room and take out the Detractor beam while Belinda and George hit the Upper Inner Thigh with a “Bouncer” which is a bomb. So we break the beam, get the zark outta there and blow the Death Ball up. Yeah, I know weak as but worked for George Lucas.

Belinda and George jettison themselves in an Escape pod just before we dock. Don’t ya just love how spaceships that travel in deep space always have escape pods, I mean where ya gonna go? Helvi and I beam ourselves into the control room. In a split second Helvi takes out two guards and the control door with laser canon fire, gees, no wonder Gez eats all his veggies. We roll behind a bank of computers and let the return fire go over our heads. My beautiful creams are turning beige to honey colour at the moments and I think the nanobots are struggling to keep up.

Helvi pops her head round the corner and with two shots takes out another two guards. There’s three left plus, you guessed it, the evil Lord Deaf Vision. Laser cannon fire is rapidly being deployed in our direction. With that Helvi winks and dives across the floor rolling and firing in the one action, I mean man, she is poetry in motion. Helvi takes a hit and has her arm blown off but momentarily she keeps firing.

Suddenly it’s quiet. A voice calls out “Sandy, just you and me now, come on out and lets fight to the death.” “Sorry” I reply meekly “I’ve got a bit of a cold and I don’t feel very well at the moment, how bout a rain-check?” Zeus! Where that came from I have no idea. “Come out Sandy, it’s time to be a man and fight, swords, to the death, just me and you. If you win you get to leave otherwise your ship and crew are mine.”

I stand up and see Lord Vision standing there, resplendent in his black armour and helmet. “Ur, um sorry old boy, but I don’t have a sword” and just as those stupid words fall out of my mouth Vision throws me a sword. “Take guard” he cries and charges at me with incredible power and speed knocking me to the ground. Luckily I used to watch Errol Flynn as a youngster and I just put my sword up in time. Just then my phone rings, I mean mobiles are a pain aren’t they, always ringing when its inconvenient.

I pull the phone out of my pocket and answer “Hello, Sandy speaking” I respond rather nonchalantly.

“It’s Gordon here Sandy. I’m in the pub with Emmjay and the boys and me what to see how you are getting on?” Gordon asks

“Well Gordon, I’m a bit busy at the moment. Lord Vision and I are having a sword fight to the death and right now he’s lying on top of me trying to cut my throat.” I inform.

“Sandy, you joker, look Algernon wants to talk to you”

“Hey Sandy, get back to Earth by New Years eve man, the bus is booked to the holy grail, and we need a priest to bless the pitch and then to absolve us of all our sins on the way home” says Algernon “Gez wants to say something”

“Hey Sandy, I made up a name for the AFL team in WA, The Fremantle Lamingtons, get it, funny eh” scoffs Gez.

“Can you put Gordon on I really have to go” I beg.

“Gordon here Sandy. Look to really piss Vision off just use the farce. Think of the stupidest joke you ever heard and throw him across the room. See ya”

Hmmm, stupid joke, I know, Horse walks into a bar and barman says Why the long face? I mean as if a horse would understand English, and what’s he doing in a bar anyway and what if the horse isn’t over 18? Go away Vision. And with that Lord Vision is hurled across the room smashing into a computer terminal and impaling himself on his sword. I go up to him. He’s breathing hard. “Sandy take my helmet off, I’m dying and I want you to know me before I die.” I unscrew the helmet. “Dad?”, “Sandy”, “Dad?” “Yes Sandy it’s me John.” Vision reveals. “But you’re dead” I assert. “No son, I faked my death to become an intergalactic umpire with the ICCB. Now look I’m dying there must be many questions you want to ask me?” Vision says. “Well, remember when I was 9 and all I wanted was a guitar and you got me Understanding Chaos Theory, why did you do that? And then when I was 13 I wanted a 7’6”Gordon and Smith surfboard and you got me Quantum Mechanics for Beginners, why was that?” “Yes, yes, parenting’s a tough gig, but Sandy don’t you want to know how to win at horse racing, predicting lotto and the truth about Gordon?” bleats Vision with one final breath. “No not really…..”

And there ends the first part of The Father O’Way Chronicles. The next part will probably be called “The Umpire Raises His Finger” followed by “The Return of the Ball” if you get my drift and of course it will totally meaningless as usual.

Cheers all merry seasons greetings

Hung and Tutu.

* This photograph will have a strange resonance for those who went to the David Byrne concerts recently.

** I would like to express my great appreciation for Hung’s masterful chronicles, and Warrigal’s digital wizardry – together making Father O’Way live, breathe and generally piss fart around !  Good on you !

Emm

Tony Abbott’s God Delivers !

01 Tuesday Dec 2009

Posted by in Politics in the Pig's Arms

≈ 18 Comments

Inquisitor General Abbott

Inquisitional Mischief by Warrigal – and a share of the Bullshit

From developments today, we can clearly see what happens when there is carelessness in the handing of the chemicals in the darkroom.

Against the prevailing play, the great inquisitor, the big tomato himself, has hit the overdrive button and miraculously eclipsed the great Malester.

I was looking over past political posts and I notice how convincing Julie looks as a faithful sidekick.  Now she’s really going to have to put the boxing gloves on and get on her bicycle.

And our old mate Joe the Hock has graciously eaten of the humble pie and joined the ranks of the Brendans and Mals with a new seat up in the nose-bleed section of Parliament – so expertly kept warm by the world’s former third greatest Treasurer.

Tony Abbott at his press conference today is alleged to have said that he will introduce parliamentary uniforms in keeping with the status and power of relevant LNP parliamentarians.

He said, “I grew up in a regimented environment and prospered well in the uniformed cloisters of Riverview where boys of good Catholic character were systematically rogered then sent to play rugger in the rain. Those that survived thrived. I’ve always thought well of a man in uniform since those days.”

“Pell’s Man in Hell” or the “Catholic in Canberra”, as the sometime altarboy and erstwhile pugilist likes to be called, has had a very special uniform run up just for him. It includes an overly snug genital gusset with internal spikes so he can atone on the run. It also includes a snappy little mitre inscribed, with a nod to “Apocalypse Now”, (the notion not the film), “Death From Above” which is how our wannabe Inquisitor General likes it.

Abbott is convinced that should he get the search and seizure powers he’s looking for, he’ll “have more power than the old Egg Marketing Board”.

This seemed to make him very happy.

So where to from here ?  Several instances of Tony being put in the pound until the medication takes effect, followed by a massive electoral defeat followed by a closely fought leadership battle between Christopher Pyne and Bronwyn Bishop’s hairdresser ?

Who knows ?  But the term “bizarre” has grown a huge new meaning.  I’m interested in how many Libs who cross the floor on ETS are not going to come out after they see the great Inquisitor.