Story by Emmjay
There was very heavy mindset traffic on the M1 this week with a severe ideological pile-up over the death of a pedestrian Maggie T who was said to have been wandering around in circles for years after decades of allegedly acting as if she “owned the place”.
This spilled over into regional backroad mindsets with the Federal frontbencher for whatever attacking the Foreign Affairs minister over “massively insensitive” comments of first-hand experienced racism by the Minister about the deceased, to wit – that Maggie T had advised him that Australia should shut the door to Asians – not realising that the Minister was actually married to one.
Some mindset holders alleged that the deceased was congenitally unable to experience embarrassment due to a brain defect (no right hemisphere front lobe) and a skin as thick as a rhino.
In other thoroughfares, mindsets showed increasing confusion over National Broadband policy with the most lucid Libnat making the mistake of standing next to Tony Abbott when he explained their putative approach – later described by industry specialists as amusing in an absurdist way.
No mindset surprises in the revelation Thursday this week that Sydney’s peak hour traffic came in at #7 of the world’s worst – increasing transit times in comparison with non-peaks, by more than 30%. OK, Sydney WAS flowing better than Moscow (minus 30 degrees) and Venice (persistent water over the road in many places) and Beijing (who are actually smelting the air to recycle their heavy metals). Allowing for slight temporal irregularities in the Earth’s rotational speed, and for leap years, it was conceivable, according to transport experts that Maggie T would still be a little bit alive if she had died on the way to work during peak hour in Sydney – which is well recognised as more like time travel than anything that can be detected on a GPS.
Consternation, anger, frustration and entrenched bigotry were on the rise again – this time over the State government’s decision to rip up the rainbow pedestrian crossing on Oxford Street – allegedly a frequently visited gay tourist photo opportunity destination where, according to the O’Farrell government, gays camping it up for the lens on the rainbow crossing allowed redneck Eastern suburbs drivers too much time to organise hit and runs.
Staying on the transport theme, the Federal Minister, Anthony Albo announced the second wave of transport fantasy in the run up to the Federal election. The usual pile-up over Sydney’s second airport and the huge jump in Mylanta sales amongst the good people of Badgery’s Creek, was added to this week when Albo trotted out some guff about the East Coast Very Fast Train mirage being as imminent as 2019 – or the Sydney to Canberra leg, at least – with another ten to twenty years before Sydney to Melbourne via Wagga Wagga (is that a swinging seat again ?) in 3 hours becomes a reality.
The announcement prompted an astonishing quiet, punctuated after a time by a single voice (a parched journalist) coughing and ordering a Coopers followed by a lot of shuffling and shoe-gazing as the press gallery tried to avoid eye contact with the Minister, less the embarrassment became universal. Snake oil futures continue to rise rapidly and still show no sign of peaking.
Mindset traffic also came to a standstill in Sydney’s CBD this week when the City Council’s plan for turning George Street into a pedestrian mall transversed by light rail – Bourke St Melbourne style, hit a major roadblock in the form of the State Government asking the City Council what it was planning to do with all the traffic that was not then going to run up George Street. Seasoned commuters are used to waiting for the next apparition to arrive and nobody needed the City Council to actually say aloud “Gee, I wish we had thought about that!”. It was clearly not the first time the planners had run themselves up a one way cul-de-sac.
Street violence mindsets continue to strengthen with the O’Farrell government opening up public car parks to licensed shooters this week. Parking attendants have demanded bullet-proof vests, to which the premier responded “We’ve heard this all before. Only a handful of innocent bystanders ever get killed by licensed shooters. Most deaths are caused by careless unlicensed shooters like bikie gang members and my government has stamped all of them out”.
This has been Emmjay in the Pig’s Arms chopper, for Trotter’s Ale – and remember when you need to get to work in a hurry, think “Pig’s Arms”.
Tune in next week when the Pig’s Arms Mindset Team asks the question “Is coal seam gas just a fart in a phone booth ?”
gerard oosterman said:
Anyway, that mob of sheep are superb fine fleeced animals. You can tell they are densely fleeced by the way the wool parts on the back of them, especially visible on that sheep at the bottom right.
They are now breeding sheep that are less dense around the breech area because mulesing has or soon will be banned. The don’t do that anywhere else in the world. That’s why the industry found it a difficult practise to defend.
I don’t know why I diverted into animal husbandry.
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hph said:
When I looked again, I saw a black sheep in the centre of the picture.
It’s good to see at least one among all these followers of The Liberal Party.
🙂
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vivienne29 said:
I’m not at all sure those sheep are in Australia. Not merinos either. they muesled merinos only because of their wrinkly fleece.
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gerard oosterman said:
I think the Casuarina trees on the left might place those sheep in Australia. The Merino is a Spanish sheep and was bred in Australia to the present ‘type’ including as large a skin surface as possible to increase yield of wool, hence the wrinkly skin. This wrinkly skin increased the likelyhood of ‘fly-strike’ around the bum area. Mulesing was a result of that. It had all to do with money and very little with animal care.
Farmers are now breeding the sheep back to be clean around the bum area.
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gerard oosterman said:
Perhaps Vivienne is right and those sheep are not in Australia. Maybe those trees on the left are pine and not Casuarina. Is the shot something out of Broke-Back Mountain.?
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Therese Trouserzoff said:
Hi Gez. These look like crossbred sheep to me. Some have the long face of the border leicester and many seem to have the short squat muscly body of dorsets. None appear as big as the pure merinos. It is common for sheep breeders to then mate the crossbred ewes with purebred merino rams – producing a finer wool dual purpose (meat and wool) sheep referred to as a “Comeback”. Could be a bit like that. Super wrinkly purebred merinos were championed by the Peppin brothers quite a long time ago – more skin = bigger fleeces (and as you suggest, worse fly strike problems, hence mulesing). I gather that modern merino breeders have been breeding far less wrinkly, plainer sheep for ages – to keep the breeches naturally cleaner and less prone to fly strike.
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algernon1 said:
I suppose one question with the VFT is will we get one this century. I look for to the coalition announcement that they can build of quicker, cheaper and with that new modern technology; steam.
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Therese Trouserzoff said:
Nice one Algy ! Steam ! In their case, like the steam off a warm turd on a cold morning.
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gerard oosterman said:
The fast train is just talk, talk every five years or so. Even in the form of a pipe dream will not be ready, till 2052 or something. The second airport, talk and talk I don’t know the time scale in either pipe dream or reality.
Plastic bag banning..talk, talk. Deposit on bottles…talk talk. Pokie machines…talk talk. Yet, with smoking we are a world first in plain packaging. I suppose the fast train and second airport…where is the money coming from? I am with Big M, just a normal train that doesn’t get de-railed because of a wombat and with boogies that don’t grind making that awful earpiercing noise would be nice.
Also do away with bike helmets and put them on rugby players instead would be nice.Introduce smart two storey apartments above shops together with day time closing main shopping streets to cars together with widening of footpaths for pedestrians to stroll about with lots of cafes and shady trees with impromptu dancing and music. Lots of social intercourse and no-one in bed before 1am in the morning.
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helvityni said:
Oh dear, how embarrassing, I thought you were talking about OUR own Maggie, our fashionista, Maggie T, Maggie Tabberer….we got her big girls shop here….
So sorry, Persecuted, I have already forgotten about YOURr Maggie, I believe Howard will go to her funeral.
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vivienne29 said:
Excellent read. Love it. Wagga is not a swinging seat although they do have some ‘swingers’ there (hehehe). Apparently there is a stop earmarked for Barnawatha for the very fast train (Barny would service Albury/Wodonga). Having been through all this VFT business before (20 years or so ago), I think it remains pie in the sky especially as every town along the way will want a stop for them and then the very fast train will get slower and slower. Locals here just want the regular train to run on time and be there for them instead of bloody buses. But a reminder to all (especially on the Drum) – this is not a proposal or a policy of Labor. Just another report because everyone thought it was a good idea to have another report.
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hph said:
Excellent. I enjoy weekly ‘mindset’ series. If you happen to lose a week of your life – like getting lost in the desert or trapped under a rolled-over car at the bottom of a cliff and then survive – you can always come here to Pig’s Arms and find that week’s mindset.
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hph said:
I’m talking to you, P.
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Therese Trouserzoff said:
Perhaps we need to let the National Road Accident people know about this, hph 🙂
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hph said:
Let’s wait another week.
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Big M said:
Thanks for the headsup. I’m loving the fast train idea. In the meantime they could put a few bob towards an ordinary train on time. Yes, it’s been a big week of Remembering Maggie Thatcher, NBNs and its rivals, a rainbow crossing and some old fashioned shootin’. Well done young man!
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Therese Trouserzoff said:
Thank, Big. I enjoyed your link and the clip about the work of your team. Excellent stuff and something of which to be proud.
Also …..Have you seen Foodge lately ?
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Big M said:
I thought that Foodge was staying with you!
Don’t tell me he’s jumped aboard the Newcastle Flyer without telling anyone? I guess I’ve got a couple of hours to get down to the station to pick him up.
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sandshoe said:
I thought I saw Foodge in the local Art Galleria but he was out the door before i could say ‘Foodge!
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