Speculation was rife at the Pig’s Arms last night when Merv spent an inordinate amount of time in the Pig’s Legs having Glenda attend to his dial. The word in the front bar is that Merv intends to throw his hat into the ring as the new head of the APF and that he’s preparing for an interview.
His old mate Clarrie (Claret to Merv) from the now disbanded Division 21 (Liquor Licensing) team dropped a bombshell when he pointed out the unusually large number of former members of the force currently sheltering in the comparatively placid pool of licensed publicans.
Punters at the Pig’s have understandably started to join the dots and are coming to appreciate the nature of the cosy relationship that Merv has with the Pig’s resident bikie gang of geometricians – the Hells Angles.
Merv, on the other hand has started to wear his sunnies inside and on rainy days at night, claiming he has conjunctivitis, but Manne has sprung him doing little speeches into the mirror about strategic initiatives in the war on terriers (Helvi take note) and importation of boogie bags.
Danny said that he saw Tom Peterson – former ABC morning anchorman sipping a pink drink and leafing through a presentation copy of “How to Win Friends and Avoid Dropping Important People in the Shit” with Merv. Merv was nodding quite a lot and looking surprised with his new-found knowledge. Clearly Merv is banking on being able to emulate Keelty – wrangling the press corp and enjoying the kind of control that only expert spinners like Peterson can bring to a turning pitch.
Nobody is buying the story Merv put to Danny – that his urgent demand to have the Jag serviced and tanked up – was for a pressing need to visit to the national Gallery to see the new soft scuplture exhibition.
The consensus in the Pig’s Arms was that Merv would be really a great candidate for Keelty’s job, considering his vast experience watering down things at the Pig’s and because his inadhesive qualities rival granny’s Teflon wedge pans.
Our thanks to Indonesian Press for the loan of their photo of Keelty
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
There’s nothing stopping Merv taking a tilt at Mick’s job, mean, Merv’s more qualified, fitter and better looking. Besides, he’s got his finger on the pulse when it comes to illegally imported booze and ciggies! Plus it will be a less demanding occupation for when the twins are born.
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Emms, all your allusions have sent my brain navigating all over the literary and phasmatogorical world of allegories! From bikie gangs to turning pitches to granny’s wedges -maaaaate!
And I thought I was allusionary enough with all my mythical heroes and barnacles!
I’ll use Tony’s dyseuhemism and say, shit happened as I was reading the piece -in the kindest possible manner, of course. (Mrs Mou wouldn’t have it any other way!)
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“Dysphemism.”
Can’t have dyseuphemism, now can we? Totally dysfunctional an adjective. Contradictory prefixes.
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just before i write can anyone tell me what the apf is?
from little hadron, in lower case.
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Trust the Australian Polizei Federale to screw it up. This was one of our very earliest pieces, Jules. Back then we were all shit scared we’d get in trouble if we didn’t bodgy up names a bit.
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Those sock suspenders have disappeared. It must have been quite a business getting dressed years ago and don’t forget suspenders to hold up pantaloons as well. I wonder if the snapping of the suspenders when attiring to the bedroom, back in the forties, was a subtle signal for a possible contemplation for passionate love?
I suppose in the same fashion when nurses snap those latex gloves. It must send a thrill down or up many a man (or woman) irrespective if patient or health worker.
Just as an aside: watch the specials at the grog shops. They got us for a box of wine with a free case of beer (Heiniken). The beer was most welcome, especially during the heat. The wine reached a new low though, terriblement. The indigestion that followed took a month’s supply of Mylanta.
By the way, could it be possible to show ‘The last Picture Show ” next Friday night at the Pig’s?
Gee, Lehan I hope things will soon warm up for you. Chunks of ice on your kindle, brrr.
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George the cat knocked the printer ink down from the shelf, Sugar the poodle found the yellow and chewed it all over the carpet. The snow at the front of the house turned bright yellow. The kindle is okay now, but I have to hurl loglets from the shed to the door of the house because the icy pass is treacherous and they get a bit snowy by the time I’ve got them in the fire. A movie night would be good. I’ve just discovered I can’t watch The Daily Show any more, and that means I need a new hobby. If we can prise that huge flat screen off Merv, he can set it up somewhere nice. Or Big M can “borrow” a video projector and a sheet from somewhere…..
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Lehan,
Can things get any worse.? I remember arriving walking up a steep mountain in Tyrol arriving at a shepherds hut half dead with exhaustion. Everything was frozen solid. It took all my last bit of energy to light a fire. After, I cut, dangling from the ceiling, a salami in pieces, ate it with rye bread that those huts were always supplied with.
Experienced Austrian skiers would have done the walk up in no time, carrying skis and backpacks and routinely keep the huts supplied with wood and food.
Of course, in Finland kids are born with skis on and I cut a hopeless figure the first winter I was there and put on skis.
I also remember a Japanese film, perhaps a Kurosawa, whereby those snow bound huts were featured with
Kimono clad women and towering bundles of kindling on their backs.
Lehan, I hope you’ll find things getting better soon. Keep well and warm.
Gerard
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I was watching the Japanese news today (Sat) and it was talking about Tokyo and how much snow the poor Tokyans had to deal with all of a sudden. Made me bones shiver something awful!
I don’t understand the Japanese geography. Why is it that Tokyo and Hakodate got all snowed up and Kashima where my daughter is, is free of it? I mean I know you, Lehan, are up North, in Hokaido and Tokyo is in Honshu but my daughter is between you two so, there couldn’t be too great a distance between you all, surely? I mean, it’s pretty cold everywhere in Japan but the snow?
Why the bias?
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It rarely snows in Tokyo, atomou, that’s why they’re having such a fuss. When it snows there everything shuts down because they’re not designed for it. I once saw people rushing out to buy snow shovels after an afternoon of snow, and wondered what the fuss was about – until I slipped and fell. Just a little snow causes the trains to stop intermittently. Ice is dropping from their newest under-construction building – the Sky Tree – and they have security guards watching for it because the smallest piece of ice will become a lethal weapon when falling from such a height. They have wrapped the cranes with heating wire to try to stop ice building up that might drop off.
Whereas here in Hakodate the snow comes in December and we don’t see the end of it until March. Sapporo is much more dramatic. They have walls of snow on the sides of roads, it makes a completely new landscape. People from Sapporo say it hardly snows in Hakodate. I laugh. But I swear to god, I will never move any further north.
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Many thanks for that explanation, Lehan.
Yes, that’s what they were talking about: that huge tower and the ice blocks falling off it. I didn’t get the bit about the heating apparatus around the cranes and wondered why they kept showing them.
What a huge bloody tower that Sky Tree though is, ey? I mean, how tall was Babel before the workers developed new language groups?
They looked very precariously, tentatively balanced around its tips. Dizzying heights. It might me wonder if I’d get vertigo up there. Never felt it before but I was certain that that “tree” would give it to me.
What’s the point of all that stuff? Other than to make one feel like an ant whose world is about to fall…
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I don’t care how much he fancies her. That shirt is terrible on him.
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