Author Archives: Mark

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 2

25 Friday Aug 2017

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The Inner Cyberia Pleece Force in the car park after one to many Trotters

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 2

by Sandshoe (Honshades)

We need to know a lot to build a house that is a home.

We moved to New Zealand in 1983 with 5 children as the family was grown as planned. My husband had completed a Ph. D.. He accepted a position of employment in Auckland.

We had one month accommodation provided us.

Our housing was a motel next street in from a suburban beach the motelier told us was the best beach in New Zealand, only a step from the heart of our beautiful city. Our first view of it fixed on the largest and dirtiest rat I have seen ever scuttle out of

An Auckland rat…

a storm water drainage pipe onto a foreshore. The tide was in as well lapping at a narrow strip of sandy beach so that naive and homesick, we were well confused this was the best beach in New Zealand.

I did not want to immediately buy at the end of one month. I wanted to rent. I foresaw we needed a period to orient ourselves. Forewarned is forearmed. My husband considered we could not afford a rental to house our family of seven. We did not discuss options. I accepted we could not afford to rent.

Mind, we faced a raft of other underlying reasons why to proceed was looking no go at all. At one later stage we discussed suggestion my husband raised that to stay was looking financially impossible. Neither had we anticipated that raising a loan on the down payment

Tits sell

secured from the sale of the house in Australia was not a walk in the park in the NZ office of the major bank we had the previous mortgage with in Australia. First benchmark learned about borrowing money no matter how confident and successful a home buyer has been, no matter how many previous mortgages, how major the bank, no matter how upwardly mobile. You think you are home and hosed or housed. Check what is going on in any other country you migrate to and never suppose reliable employment and sound credit rating means an iota in translation.

Your bank in Australia is nothing to do with us and the decisions we make.

Get your hand off my clit and hand over the money

We were able to raise the mortgage from another bank, fortunate.

I basked later in praise newly-met friends and colleagues lavished on us. They would never have been courageous enough to buy where we did. Previous to our example they imagined, implied foolishly, they would never have considered it.

Who knows if we said it was the only property we could afford to move out of the motel on desperately straitened means.

My husband and I were as individuals and a couple entirely burdened with stress. To arrive in New Zealand as a family of seven on the day before Christmas Eve, 1983, we thought we knew what we were talking about when my husband and I discussed the move. We knew squat. We were as naive as the other. We subsequently found ourselves without income because my husband’s pay was not immediately accessible. The accounts office was closed for the summer holiday period. We had to cash in a lone investment remaining in Australia that was our one source of small means to survive, potentially no home other than the motel, potentially no transport having not anticipated Customs demands we pay a substantial amount of money to secure our

Law abiding officers

vehicle out of the depot where it sat in storage for weeks after it was unloaded at the wharf. Our transport was a rough hire van which was supplied for the first month. The first of two vans was so rough it remains a mystery to me how an employer could establish a least justification to supply it under the terms of a contract of employment. We saw danger everywhere. New Zealand had no safety belt laws. We watched out of the windows of our van in horror a cavalcade of unsecured passengers and unrestrained animals in passing vehicles. Least of our immediate worries that we did not know much that was practical about a culture and a national economy in transition we needed to come to terms with and understand, neither could have imagined.

I, my turn for a shock and on my own, attended to open a bank account at a branch of the Bank of New Zealand I chose local to the house we bought. I offered my passport as an item of identity with requisite proof of the new address. I had never had a passport before. It was a source of original joy unconfined, shiny in a protective plastic cover and one stamp only that was entry into New Zealand. The teller

She was a teller…

emerged from taking it to be reviewed by a manager in a back office. He tossed it by way of a spin onto the counter. The passport slid towards me. I was gripped by a sense of saturated disbelief watching the passport come to rest. I believe all colour drained out of my face. The teller’s had transformed to a rampant bully’s. His lip curled.

“Come back when you’ve got something decent to show for yourself,” he agressed and turned his back on me to underline contempt.

I stepped back to make a space in the middle of a crowd of customers where I demonstrated with a raised voice and vehement passion. A better recourse than turning on my heel and walking out after would have been to stay and even get perhaps arrested. I had a family to return home to. Staff at the National Bank of New Zealand I walked to across the mall regrouped, found a chair and brought a cup of tea to soothe me when I started to tell a duty officer at a customer service desk I

Did you say wank or bank…

wanted to open a bank account, but suffered a flood of tortured tears. The bank account was duly opened without question. Later I could not recall if the passport was taken out of its cover and opened. I knew neither staff or the manager who was called read letters of identity I offered. What they thought they knew of neighbourhood was perhaps torn into the tiniest pieces as mine was.

An incident at a stop at road works on a blazing hot day went to the heart of all frustrations. A road worker ambled across the road in front of our van as we slowed to crawl past a site of a road repair. He picked up a witch’s hat from the lane where it was as we approached and set it down before us in the lane we had changed into. No road repair was in process. There was no other traffic in any direction. The action appeared to be unwarranted mischief. I put my head out of the passenger window and called it we wanted to be allowed to pass. The worker slowly ambled towards the van with an expression of insolence. He leaned forward and leered in the window.

A cartoon sketched exclusively out of her own imagination by one of my two older daughters shows the mum and dad kangaroo seated in the driver and front passenger seats respectively. Clustered behind them is an assortment of joeys, one of which is a girl … as the youngest baby in nappies was … defined by femme bows tied around

Sargent Sulfate here, my friends call me Copper

her ears. Out of the mouth of the mum kangaroo in the front passenger seat is the speech bubble ‘Let us through’ and out of the beak of a shaggy hulk of a kiwi visible through the front passenger window flows the classic denunciation as it happened ‘Why don’t you go home where you came from’.

to be continued…

Christina Binning Wilson

I fucking hate cats

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 1

19 Saturday Aug 2017

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Hi honey, I’m home…

 

 

The Sociology of A Place To Call Home Part 1

by Sandshoe (Honshades)

I began writing this essay considering the issues raised by Tent City in Martin Place in Sydney.

I noted on the Mayor of Sydney’s website there are 60,000 on the public housing waiting list in NSW. That is around three times the number in SA reflecting a larger population pretty well.

There are 105, 200 plus people homeless in Australia. 24,000 are said to be homeless in Melbourne alone. Homeless sleeping rough in inner city Adelaide is up 44 percent from last year. 20,000 plus is well more than that now surely as a figure for Queensland (2014 latest) and similarly 10,000 in West Australia. The categories by age are frightening, the old, the young, the disabled, mentally ill and just plain broke. They need services, meals, supplies of blankets, nothing more urgent than a roof overhead that offers a sense of home.

There are the boarders, rooming house lodgers, people sleeping motels, on living room

So park the car

couches. There is the population that has no choice as well but to rent, but wants security of tenure hoped for by home ownership and regard themselves as homeless. About 30% of housing in Australia is rental property. The Australian rental market is not the greatest. Renting imposes short term housing solutions on many who yearn to buy their own home. A common experience is of a battle ground.

One of the outcomes of having to move house repeatedly is stigma that is a close associate of prejudice and its poster child, discrimination. It evidences in ways beyond imagining. My experience as a renter who has lived in maybe a hundred different rental properties and housing includes a medical professional, a young doctor, at a surgery immediately above my then new workplace … local to my new rental address … tell me to stop doctor shopping.

Well and good if nothing ever happened again as bizarre as this was relative to my conservative history of medical presentation. Renters I know from years of experience walk a rocky road accessing housing and related services that have to be re-established each time they move houses, districts and, sometimes, towns and countries.

A segment of the population does not want to own a home because they cannot forsee meeting rates and maintenace costs, cannot perform essential maintenance themselves or do not want to be tied to a location view employment prospects, access visiting rights with children and so on. Rental is my mindset. My thinking about renting as a choice different from intention to own a home has progressively led me to consider the difficulties of the rental market as incitement to protest and revolution.

Wouldn’t it be nice

In whatever frame and howsoever revolution is visualised, middle- and low- income earners and those on less than the average wage logically cannot do anything else but oppose the levers driving land prices and home ownership costs upward to dangerous and dizzy height. Little people by which I mean compromised by unbridled capitalism are the bodies left behind in a debris of failed housing projects, compromised tradespersons, investment strategies gone maliciously wrong, of course mum and dad investors and so on, among them renters.

So many grubs with grubbers and so little time for everyday people who will not live fantastically long and healthy lives as a direct result of their straitened existences.

Housing policy that fails to spell out people need a roof overhead sounds paradoxical, but I believe we find that is so evaluating our everyday experiences, our friends’, families’, our struggles to keep a roof overhead as well as pay utilities, feed and clothe ourselves, access education and training, organise and attend social get togethers, go on holiday, keep our kids in the manner we would prefer them to some small degree or larger be accustomed, not to forget so many of us never see our kids of whatever age as we go round on the hurdy gurdy. Everyday people live a much-of-a-muchness hand-to-mouth existence that varies only by a few degrees house to house, suburb to suburb, town to town.

Neighbour to the next neighbouring house and further, if we are ourselves not poor by official definition or measured by relativity in a culture of haves and have-nots, we are in some way poor as a result of our personal circumstances, how many people we

Home is where the heart is

provide for, charities we feel an obligation to support, sports and service clubs we give to and on it goes, hobbies, obsessions, conditioning and addictions included as we are only human that we seek the readies to pay for our Achilles heels too.

No question we are vulnerable. Unsure if there are more recent figures but I make it the Australian median weekly income is $662.00. Median rent is $335.00. To spell it out median rent is looking towards 50% of median income. Median household mortgage repayments (monthly) are $1,755 and not to neglect figuring in rates, rubbish, roof repairs and there is everything else.

20% of the population has an income less than $650. To spell it out median rent is more than 50% of median income.

Look at Newstart Allowance that I call the dole (unemployment) in disguise. Consider the ramifications for housing that 75% or so of recipients are single.

The base rate is $535.60 that increases to $579.30 for 60 year olds and over. Median rent is way over income and if the recipient owns their home they receive no assistance to maintain it. If the recipient is a renter they receive a payment of $132.20 maximum in rent assistance per fortnight. Consider median rent is $335.00 a week so a renter paying it has to find $538.00 a fortnight.

Do not go past go. On paper leastwise a Newstart Allowance recipient who is not a home owner is not housed. This is not a housing policy. All the rhetoric in the world and documents that detail allotments of health and transport services to suburban and regional and rural populations cannot change the undeniable.

If a single recipient of a Newstart Allowance owns a well furnished mortgage free brand new home with solar panels on their new roof overhead and new water tanks in

Sister Yvonne comes home

their back yard holding sufficient rainwater to see them through a year, they can breathe relatively easy they only have to secure everything else they need to eat and sleep well out of a payment of $267.50 a week. Best they own a brand new car that is under guarantee so they can shop around for food bargains and bulk buy ‘cupboard’ milk to pay for car registration, licence renewal, ambulance cover, houshold insurance, the rates and phone, internet and for clothing.

‘Of all households’, 36% of homeowners have a mortgage. Only 31% do not.

30% rent. Give or take a few percent here and there and there. The Great Australian Dream in its parallel universe for all that it is everyday unattainable in its form of ownership of a house that is a home with a yard, outlook and a barbecue with at least a blow-up paddle pool stored in the garage for the kids pulses yet like a power house … incredibly… even children witnessed by me first when I met High School sweethearts some years ago now who had a savings account for when they married and purchased a house, actualised The Dream.

What if this driver I visualise as so powerful, The Great Australian Dream for one when its actualisation is impossible needs a shake up to let some of our national psyche down off a hook it’s dangles from, helpless, frustrated, non-reactive, complacent even when a dream regardless it will not materialise engenders hope.

I was a home owner when I heard a University lecturer expound the premise in 1980 that rental housing is a potential choice not a default position and home ownership not all its cracked up to be. Until then I had never thought about rental from the viewpoint of choice.

How did I? To illustrate a thought process I need to provide a backdrop of personal experience.

Two years earlier I had moved with three young children from Queensland to live in Adelaide in South Australia with a partner. I was awarded a generous allotment of University of Adelaide subjects as representative of subjects I had completed at the

Queenslanders

University of Queensland in Brisbane stretched over the years 1968, 1969 and 1974. By 1980 I was 30 with three young children and a classic sandstone home in a state of disrepair, a relationship to match.

I undertook to graduate to establish employment and sufficient income asap to relieve my husband-to-be and step-father to the three children of the load he was carrying as primary provider. I wanted to graduate certainly before my ageing parents did not see it through to know I had, but as well to help provide shelter, food, clothing etc for a projected larger family of children in the future.

Having completed two full time subjects in History at the U of A, I had achieved equivalence of one Major (three years study in the one discipline). To graduate now I had sufficient Minor subjects. I needed one other Major in a different discipline, I needed to choose one only further full-time subject from either the Politics Department or English Department given the U of A had awarded me equvalence of two years full-time study in each.

Politics seemed to offer a wider field of opportunity and the subject ‘Sociology of Power’ lept off the Handbook page.

I wanted to define myself as having power and understanding power. An interest in a career in Local Government rekindled especially grown originally out of ‘dropping-out’ from the Queensland Department of Education into the social tumult of the counter-culture in the 1960s. Skirmishes with local coucils and local Progress Committees was par for the course for alternates building home made houses.

I was surprised the class ‘Sociology of Power’ attracted only a handful of students. I had thought it so interesting a concept I presupposed a lecture theatre or auditorium. Classes were delivered in the intimacy of staff offices. Especially my outlook was introspective. I did not worry at any topic and draw attention. My no-frills kick-off position undertaking to pass the one subject was to graduate. I was compromised by fatigue and the demands of a domestic household.

Professor now, Jim Kemeny, grabbed my attention however when he presented the consideration that rental housing is a potential choice. He outlined what I heard as an

Fuck off Hung TISM

idealistic in part and ideological alternative dream of a rental housing sector of tenants and landlords bound by law and common respect for the other’s purpose and relationship to housing.

We each become sophisticated in our lives in one detail or other, usually in the most unexpected ways whereas my experience had been naive in this respect, dependant and certainly powerless in regard to bigger decisions of quality of lifestyle and domestic arrangement. That the Great Australian Dream had holes in it and neither did I dream it, but complied with it escaping persecution of one variety or another, had never crossed my mind. The presentation was a housing policy set in an understanding of diverse housing needs and expectations. This was a discussion about housing policy that dealt with considerations of financing, relativity and a practical analysis of what a Dream means, who its players are and their stakes, tenancy law, contemporary shortfalls in the law, a projected future in which tenants had maximum opportunity to participate in housing policy with non-intrusive real estate agents, that they would hold rights that are the proper rights of tenants investing in being housed in a maintained home, not begrudging paying rent, enjoying diminshed friction that was otherwise rife between landlords and agents and tenants. More Australians would settle in rental if the relationships between landlords and their agents and tenants were well legislated to establish equity and pride in tenancy, that the relationships were valued. If the Great Australian Dream was not the dominant driver of the housing market, born out of a cult of individualism and desire for a higher and higher standard of living, for freedom from tenant-landlord relationships, instead more people would opt to rent but be happy, to achieve the goals of their day-to day pursuits without housing stress.

to be continued…

Christina Binning Wilson

This is my home

Episode 94 – Foodge the Bowelactic Wars Part 2

13 Sunday Aug 2017

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Foodge readies himself

Story by Mark.

Foodge looks at himself in the mirror, dusting off the cigarette ash and rehearsing his lines for the up coming trial of Merv breaching the constipation.

Your honour my client is a simple man. Hmm, no that won’t do, Your honour my client is a psychopath that will hunt you down and kill you, hmm, no that won’t do either. Well what am I to do about all this. Well I guess you need to know about the original offence.

I’ll spell it out for you. After reading the letter that Merv received what actually happened is that Merv kicked a dog up the arse for urinating on the tyres of his Zephyr that was parked in the village square, down the the road and just round the corner from the Pigs Arms. Dogs are allowed to urinate on your tyres if you over stay the parking limit of 30 minutes however when one visits Rosie or Glenda one may need a little more time than that.

So we gather at the court, the Stratospheric High Court as this is constipational. The dog is protected under the constipation Section Infinity, sub section blah blah. Regardless of that Gordon will be my back up and Gib and Angler will be waiting downstairs in the Zephyr with their shotguns ready, just in case.

With fries?

The Magistrate we have today is Ronald MacDonnell known around here here as “Big Mac” or the “Hanging Judge” so things are looking really bad plus the prosecution is being headed by Annie Arsehole.

“Your Honour, I rest my case” says Foodge.

“Well what case is that?” replies the Magistrate.

“Well I caught the train from Tamworth and my case rested in the luggage compartment therefore my client is innocent”

“Your Honour I object, the defendant is guilty under section infinity subsection blah blah under the constipation” interjects Annie Arsehole.

“Well, lets adjourn for lunch, say scallops fried in garlic with a nice white wine.” replies the Magistrate.

Interval music.

I fucking hate chips…

The Magistrate seems to be like a rhinestone cowboy however we will persist. I musk get Merv off this charge.

“Your honour, I call a witness , Pat the Dog” calls Foodge.

The clerk swears in Pat. “Do you swear to tell the whole truth but nothing else but the truth so help you Gordon?”

“Can opener mate.” replies Pat.

“Now Pat, can you recall for the court that day that my client Merv was apparently in breach of the constipation?” asks Foodge.

“Can oath mate. I looked at the clock on the town square and realised that Merv had overstayed his parking limit. Busting for a piss I let go on his tyres. He then came around the back of the car and gave me a foot suppository.” says Pat.

I fucking hate burgers…

“A foot suppository?” pushes Foodge.

“Yes, a kick up the arse” replies Pat.

“Your Honour, I object” says Annie Arsehole “ Kiddies may be watching.”

“Objection upheld. Mr Foodge and Pat the Dog, please restrain yourselves.”

“So what happened then?” asks Foodge.

“Well, I crapped on the lawn at the Pleece HQ” says Pat.

And so it goes.

I fucking hate burgers and chips…

Episode 93 – Foodge The Bowelactic Wars 1

01 Tuesday Aug 2017

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This is shit mate, trust me, I’m a nurse…

 

Foodge Episode 93 -The Bowelactic Wars.

Story by Mark.

Foodge paints a lonely figure at the bar, nudging his tonic and gin, it’s nine o’clock on a Saturday, la dee blah dah dee dah dah dah dah.

“Shut the eff up Foodge. Monty Python rules here mate, no singing and especially Billy Joel” says Merv.

Billy and Joel give each other a hand

So the painted lonely figure got up and walked away and said “Ewe Finnish Foodge? And wheeze in the EFFALL Union mate, wheeze fictional and wheeze want our money now, turn your head to the left and cough!” The phoneticists in the viewing audience were hysterical, not Foodge of course, he simply held his nuts in one hand and said “Fank ewe my darlin, may fertility haunt ewe and meek.”

Counter reset.

Gin and tonics are wonderful on a hot afternoon under the shade of a good tree. Sensibly my parents, Mr and Mrs

This girl once saw a Fig Tree

Foodge Senior, planted Moreton Bay Figs. One in the front yard and one in the back. Never had to mow a lawn ever. Please don’t ever challenge me on the veracity of that statement, kiddies may be watching.

Merv turned the corner behind the bar. “Foodge, mate, I need help, like real help, like you know, help mate. I got a letter that says I have to go to court as I’ve breached the constipation, under section infinity, sub section A + B = C plus square rooting, what ever that is but I wouldn’t mind trying it” grins Merv.

“Let me see that young man, where’s the bong?” Foodge foodigises, checking navel lint theory and querying cyberianism.

“Foodge, read the letter, she said her name is Maria and shes addressing this to your wife says he won’t be coming home, on a Saturday night…”

Foodge nose what he wants(wink, wink) “that’s twice now, no more singing please especially who ever that was.”

You know, Foodge is a good man, a decent man, a man of honor or so, in his most humble opinion and reading the letter basically upside down “You have a case young man. Not just to the High Constipation Court, not even to the Very High Constipation Court or the Extremely Very High Constipation Court. We go straight to the Stratospheric Constipation Court”.

To be continued…

Oh yes, it’s real…unfortunately

Episode 92 – Foodge hits the road.

21 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Foodge Private Dick, Mark

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Won’t someone think of the children

Story by Mark.

You know, the one thing that is certain is that nothing is certain. Don’t you just hate pithy sayings like that, that make sense. Now you’re okay with me getting things off my chest, nothing like a long bow, the other one that bugs me is this verse of a song who I have no idea who wrote it,

All men, all men are liars their words ain’t worth no more that worn out tyres

Hey girls, bring rusty pliers, to pull this tooth all men are liars and that’s the truth*

Said by a man making it a lie. Need I go on.

I’m in the flyer on my way to Newie, first class overnight, the Bish knows how to treat his favourite barista.

[Stop Hung, it’s barrister. Cannot I, Foodge, not perform on the stage, true to my character? Am I not a person with needs and wants, a light in a window breaks and a butterfly flays it’s wings half way round the planet so prepare for a hurricane. Those are things that make me fight for truth and justice for my client and heaps of Cyberian dollars your Honor. Objection over ruled Foodge.]

Okay then well, seen it’s being nice to me week, barrister and especially after me and the Bish had this conversation.

“Look Foodge, it’s like this. Gordon has rung me and said you should get out of town for a few days, you know just till things settle down.”

“What things?” replies Foodge, stiff upper lip and all that.

All aBout Cyberians

“Oh c’mon Foodge, it’s in the press, the Cyberograph, even the ABC(All aBout Cyberians).

“Well, Bish I have no idea about what you are talking about. Tell me what episode number are you up to?”

“Um, 94, you?”

“Er, 92, look, wheeze is both in the wrong episode, easy fixed, see ya then, been great catching up, say hello to Bronwyn, is the overnight to Newie all on Gordon still okay?”

“Well, yes, due to all the confusion we’ll catch up later.”

“Um, what am I about to do in the next exciting episode?” inquires Foodge.

“Piss off.”

Interval

Pie tasters wanted, apply online or call Alan now on 555 5555…

 

Gib and Angler pick me up at the station in the modified Zephyr. They both have shotguns stuffed down heir pants and bragged how the girls like a big member. I thought yes, some times spotting dicks is a talent. I should now, I’ve been a dick for so long it’s become second nature. I’ve been a proud dick and times and I’ve flopped

A modified Zephyr

for various reasons however I am now convinced that once you are a dick you will always be a dick and I’d even go as far to say that I was born a dick and just like all those other dicks around me.

[Oh, spare us please, I’ll interject on behalf of everyone and I’m writing this. Get on with it.]

“Fantastic car, how much modification did you need to do?” asks Foodge.

“Nah, not much, well a bit, sort of a fair bit that turned into a lot. Once we could get the door handles and window winders working we were set. Then there was the motor however this story has a word limit” says Gib.

“Wadda ya doing in Newie?” asks Angler “Hope you don’t want us to kill no one. Good game of footy this weekend and to be frank one of the two give me indigestion.”

“Nah, Gordon and the Bish sent me here to get ready for episode 94. Apparently I’m in the shit”

“Nothings changed then” chorus the lads.

 

*Nick Lowe

“What’s that in your pocket?”

Gordon and the Bish take leave – the holiday ends yet begins – Part 3

13 Thursday Jul 2017

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Gordon and the Bish get back to work

Gordon and The Bish Go On Holiday: Part Three

by Shoe

Continued…

“Seems an important scientific fact, Bish. The longer a toad like Toad settles in one district, the less likely are its chances in its lifetime of pulling in big crowds, I reckon. See, toads travel and further and faster than a toad’s predecessors.”

“Gord, Toad was doomed on his own whatever way I look at it!”

Look there’s one

“Bish, Toad likely had a bad back too. Toad was in no shape to be on racing. Toads get spinal arthritis. Because they walk further faster. Not a word of not trew truth.”

Gordon and the Bish are both sobered.

“A population dwindles and individuals like Toad head out in a random pattern called toad dispersal. They mate with other dispersing toads. They breed more offspring than their predecessors and even faster toads that can travel even further again.”

‘Awesome,” the Bish says. “How do you know all that, Gord?”

“Shoe told me, Bish. She read it on Ogle.”

Shoe, in a former role

“Shoe’s awesome. Gord, we’re going in the wrong direction. I’m staying at Sandy’s. Remember? He’s in the manse across from the car park? Behind the Pig’s Arms?”

“Bit of a walk. What were we thinking. I had better go back with you to the good Father O’Ways, Bish. We can have a night cap. Better not tell him in the confessional. About Space World. The toad never happened either.”

The Bish muses as he and Gordon struggle to keep the pavement steady to turn around.

“Int’resting though, Gord. I like a toad story with an int’resting ending. Shoe is so awesome. Shoe wrote the frog joke, eh.”

“Yes, she did.” Gord lets out a tiny sigh. “You know when she says she did to people who like it and on tell it, she would like to make new friends or she wouldn’t say. You know it’s been in other people’s books and voted best joke

I thought you said a dog joke!

and on television and someone clever made a funny film about how much they don’t want to hear it again. The people don’t talk to her when she tells them. Shoe’s lonely.”

“Shoe? Lonely? IS she?”

“Of course she is. People running in the opposite direction.”

“We’re friends. We’re all friends. Shoe’s a friend. Wonder if she’ll write another frog joke.”

“Nah. Unlikely, Bish. She misses the frog too much. Ought to ask her if she’ll write a toad joke and cheer us up.”

“Great idea, Gord. How about we ask her will she make it a good long story with some joking around in it about a toad. The frog joke isn’t really a read, is it.”

“Here we are at the manse already, Bish.”

The home of Father O’Way

Gordon and the Bish walk in the dark with care past the mail box swinging on its hinges from the old gate post. They can just make out the familiar brass lettering of the name ‘FATHER O’WAY’ and the front path littered with debris. The garden is a mess.

When his mates clatter and clang the brass knocker on his front door to get him up off the sofa where he sits in the late evenings reading Pigs Arms porkies and laughing, Sandy O’Way is slow to stir. He gets up on thinking on it. He remembers the Bish is in town.

It’ll be a night.

The End

I’m sure there was a door here this morning

Written by Christina Binning Wilson 2017

Gordon and the Bish take leave – in much frothinesses – Part 2

12 Wednesday Jul 2017

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Yes, I know, ee eagle Emm sea dared. Bloody dentures…

Gordon and The Bish Go On Holiday: Part Two

by Shoe

Continued…

“Zarks and Constantine,” the Bish says. “It’s Algernon.”

“More than that. It’s Emm and Big M and Mark. It’s… Shoe and Viv and Yvonne and Helvi. Nev and Manne, Merv. I can see Gregor, Ricardo, Gez, Rosemary… Our mates. On an excursion. Didn’t ask us.”

Photo of the crew arriving at Space World. From Back L to R: 1,2,3,4,5
Front row:6,7,8

Gordon O’Donnell feels indignity as rough as a pineapple. The tequila is fuel to a fire lit by a surround of carousing patrons du porc. “How did you get here,” Gordon demands to know.

“I came straight off the Flyer,” says Algernon as cheerful as a bird singing in a tree top.

“I caught the bus home. The Zephyr’s in for mechanicin’.”. It’s Foodge.

He’s fucked Merv, Trotters all round fanks

Others’ voices add ‘walked’, caught the bus’, ‘the other half dropped me off’, ‘me too’ and such like.

“Granny’s latest batch of Trotters,” whispers the Bish to Gordon. Words are a hurdle. “Don’t say anything about Space World, Gordy.”

“No fear,” Gordon whispers back. He is in the same quadrant on their dial. “Don’t mention the toad, Bish, I think.”

“What if he wakes up?” the Bish whispers, nervous, glances at the Pig’s Arms Sports Bar pedal bin.

Warning: Some viewers may be offended as the following contains laptopothansia

“Goose!” Gordon answers in a snapped whisper at the Bish, “He won’t wake up. He can’t. He’s not real. Deny we know him anyway. We’ve done it once. We can do it again.”

“Why?” the Bish whispers back.

“Frogs are popular. Toads bring … opprobrium. They’re … a menace. We’ll get the blame. Anyway, if the toad is in the bin he’ll expire in Trotters’ slops.”

“Leave sleeping toads lie,” the Bish whispers as a cant.

“Good scheme. Say he’s a liar if he wakes up, escapes and says anything,” Gordon commands.

“Don’t mention the toad in the room,” the Bish cants.

“Someone’s got to get you blokes tucked up in your cots,” Merv announces. He slides a tray of freshly washed and polished new knives and forks the length of the new stainless steel serving bench and walks to its other end.

Merv and Foodge stare each other down

“Foodge?” He beckons. “Can you walk these blokes home?”

“Uncle Merv,” says Foodge, “Don’t want to. They should … should be made to pay their slate getting the way they are.”

“We spent all the coin we too… ” Gordon applies a hurtful kick to the Bish’s dangling shins. “Nexsht week, we promise,” the pair says half in unison as they slide unsteadily onto their feet off the new bar stools covered in shining new clear plastic.

“See, Uncle Merv. They’re all good for that.” Foodge is his ever trusting sheltered self and he relents. “We’re scootin’. Gettin’ on the frog and toad now.” Foodge nudges Gordon whose face has gone from pale to deathly white. “Come on, Gordon O’Donnell. Fresh air do you some good” he says, playful. “Come on, Bish. Uncle Merv, I’ll empty the pedal bin on our way out.”

Unashamedly yours

“Good work. Place smells like a dead toad,” Big M gives a thumbs up. Merv feels a glow of Uncle pride to see Foodge recognised for domestic initiative after all these years.

The patrons du porc cheer.

“Be careful with that pedal bin,” Viv warns as Foodge grasps it, nonchalant, naïve of the skill it takes to empty a pedal bin holus bolus without liquid content dribbling at best off the rim of the bucket and around the lid hinge down his arm.

Gordon and the Bish stagger back and veer towards the door in a half run between them as Foodge throws the bin onto one shoulder. The patrons du porc gasp. The weight of the sliding bucket jams the lid of the pedal bin open. Rotting Trotters’ slops propel an arc in the air of liquid silage dotted with discernible strands of coleslaw and mayo.

Nev gets the message

“Surreal,” Nev says. Nev writes restaurant reviews and scores the pub with a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the best.

“I think that’s him,” whines the Bish to Gordon and points to a crumpled black mass of oozing slime on the plastic cover of a table near the door.

“Don’t point!” orders Gordon from somewhere on high, “It’s Schticky Date Pudding.”

The Bish doubles over puking a splendid Inner Cyberian chunder on a new hessian and rag coiled rug at the door. “Lesh get out of here.”

“Where’zh our luggage, Gord,” the Bish asks as they step into night. The air is freezing. They walk along the pavement arm-in-arm to steady themselves

Look, a suppository

and for warmth. They have on Hawaiian shirts that smell bad and knee length shorts with plastic sandals.

“Dunno, I dunno,” says Gordon in reflection apparently on their luggage. His pondering might be on cold.

“Gord, I’m f’r shewer not shewer how much of our shtory’s true this time.” Gordon can see by a glimmer of a lone roadside lamp the Bish looks deep in thought.

“Bish, the toad’s closhest to trew truth.”

“That no-hoper, Gord. Couldn’t walk a straight line if he tried.”

I’m shitting bricks and farting pebbles waiting for the next exciting episode, brought to you by Red Donkey.

To be continued…

Written by Christina Binning Wilson 2017

Gordon and the Bish take leave – of their senses – Part 1

11 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Sandshoe

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Gordon and the Bish in holiday mode

 

Gordon and The Bish Go On Holiday: Part One

by Shoe

Never has the Inner Cyberian World Viewpoint looked more beautiful. Everything is coming up roses in public park gardens and out of the way places rose gardens take form. Rose bushes in planter boxes the full length of city streets droop roses in full bloom. In suburban Inner Cyberians’ front, side and back yard gardens roses bloom widdershins.

Gordon O’Donnell and the Bish are getting away from it all for a few days. They are going to Space World in the Outer Cyberian galaxy. They have a Cyberian Ogle Map.

“Should be a blast” the Bish says. The Bish is talking a holiday.

“Who’s got the tickets,” Gordon huffs and puffs. The Bish has a way of getting Gordon to carry the luggage and yes, yes, yes Gordon has talked the Bish into an old fashioned trip in a rocket space ship. Checkpoint Charlina pats them down.

Charlina is such a nice bird

Each is wearing underpants three pair deep on the outside of their shared economy travel rocket space ship suit.

“Going for just a few days then?” Checkpoint Charlina asks and chortles “No room for anything more in your travel cases. All the Hawaiian shirts.” She consults a check list. “Gordon O’Donnell. Institute of Pigs Arms Higher Thought. Physicist? The Bish? You sure?”

Gordon and the Bish vigorously bob the head of their rocket space ship suit.

“Get out of here,”

“One thing, Gordy,” the Bish remarks “is perhaps a few too many Trotters’ Ales before we left.” They are waddling across the rocket space ship station tarmac towards the base of a vertical ladder up the side of a rocket space ship.

Advertisement: Go to the Moon With A Mate. Save Space.

Try our new improved space rocket

The lurid plastic clown floating above the ticket gate behind them beckons on one hand, ‘Come this way’ elongated plastic arms flailing and ‘See you’ on the other.

Gordon and the Bish remember and turn and wave. Having worked up enough volition to walk forwards instead of both toppling backwards, negotiating between themselves a complete turn and a half reverse spin to wave seems an irrational response to a plastic promotion floatie.

They reposition themselves (it’s a struggle) and climb the ladder.

“Are we there yet,” the Bish asks as they tumble into the rocket space ship. They find the modular cot allocated to them.

“Yes,” says Gordon, “We’ve arrived. Like the brochure says. In one piece.”

The face of the Bish is a picture. Gordon takes a close up.

They scrabble out of their modular cot and waddle backwards to exit. They are a tight fit stepping out through the door onto the top rung of the descent ladder.

Business class first

Below them at the base of the ladder Business Class is emptying of Business Class travellers. Once, after a perilous climb down I must say, they are on the tarmac of the Space World Rocket Space Ship Station they follow a squiggly black felt pen outlined arrow trail.

A stowaway toad in racing colours sprints past them with a scrap of muddy stretch knit cotton tee held high as a freedom flag.

“Takes no time.” The Bish is all admiration.

“Fast toad,” Gordon comments.

“No. Us, Gord. We’ve only been gone a minute.”

“The travel advisor said it would only take a minute, Bish.”

“Thought she meant the paper work. The paper work took such a long time.”

Gordon says with a smile, “We have been uploaded, Bish, at the rate of 1,000 cyberbits per second.”

No time for the Bish to raise improbability as a subject with an atomic scientist who is not yet connected to the NBN. Gordon raises the importance to them both he has urgent need of a rest room.

They do find a rest room and change into cazh. They use the conveniences and discard their rocket space ship suit. Gordon smoothes his Hawaiian shirt front. He

Gordy and the Bish suit up

scrutinises the Bish. “How do I look?”he asks. “You’ll pass,” the Bish assures Gordon.

The main lane gambling saloons and alleyways of Space World entice with flashing neon moons.

GUARANTEED TO WIN!

So Gordon and the Bish being strapped for cash throw cyber coin at machines throwing cyber coin into space on a screen on the machine. They ride the Big Zipper up and down and up and down. The Bish barfs. Gordon wears some of the Bish’s barf. They buy Spinning Space Sugar on sticks and lick and pick off with their fingers dollops of Spin and eat Space Dogs on sticks. Gordon barfs. They find the Science Academy by following the crowds and see the new movie Climate Science Denial And The Great Big Federal Government Loud Gas Bag Who Is. They have a cup of Space World covfefe after the movie and find a rest room.

WIN WIN!

Then it happens. They see a pub. No word of a lie Gordon and the Bish decide to seek the solace of a pub.

The already boozed toad is calling loudly for immunity at the bar. He sings,

Humans are redicilious

although badly: ‘O, my old man’s a dustman, I knowww becos he wears a dustman’s hat.’

“Not a toad!” exclaims the Bish.

“You don’t recognise him? It’s the toad, Bish. Might not be any others in Outer Cyberia. Let’s be optimistic. Where will we sit?”

As luck would have it, two empty bar stools alongside the only toad leastwise on a bar stool they have ever seen is their option or stand. The place is packed.

“Never shaw my old man again after that,” the toad says, doleful. He rolls his eyes, “He disappeared. Everyone’s ignoring me.”

“No more for you.” The bar tender rolls her eyes. She turns to the newcomers and asks the embarrassing question, ‘You blokes know this toad? Sez he knows you’.

“No.” Gordon and the Bish order a bottle of House tequila the same as at home by any name with salt and lemon. They start knocking shots back straight.

“Youse never bought me a drink,” the toad slurs and his eyes roll. He sings in his fashion, ‘I know a dark secluded place’. He crumples headfirst onto the bar and falls asleep. The bar tender has had her eye on him. She briskly strides from the other end of the bar and picks the toad up. The toad is unperturbed. He snores loudly. The bar tender steps on the pedal of a stainless steel pedal dustbin she has handy and drops the toad in. She releases the pedal and the dustbin lid clangs shut.

“Done and dusted,” a group of patrons chorus.

Over on ABC News 24, Brian Toldme explains the Universe in 60 seconds.

To be continued…

Written by Christina Binning Wilson 2017

Episode 91B – Foodge steps up to the Plate

07 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Foodge Private Dick, Mark

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Foodge likes to set his hair before court

 

It was midnight. It had to be midnight, it was dark and Foodge slivered underneath the covers to keep warm and doze back off into dream land. You know the one, where money is plentiful and the girls are, well endowed. No matter how hard Foodge tried and yes it got really really hard at times, the banging at the door would not go away. Oh I get it, you thought…

“Foodge-o-rama, get the fuck up, you have an episode at the Pigs Arms to appear in, Big M has put you in it” cries O’Hoo, standing at the door of the baristas apartment.

O’Hoo just has this way about him

“No one wants to write it so Hung is going to do it. I’m off for a few glass canoes, I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“Who’s Big M?” says Foodge.

“Gib W, now hurry up. Granny has been reminiscing and you know what happens when granny gets emotional and has access to a shotgun.”

Hmm, yes, I do, thinks Foodge and if only granny could see him as her real soul mate and lover. He imagined walks along the riverbank on sunny days, picnics, good coffee, absorbing the suns rays and then intimacy, touching, feeling, lovingly man to woman [Okay cut, Mark here we get the picture].

Granny had contacted O’Hoo after Manne had handed her his mobile phone. “Get Foodge, Manne needs help.”

Manne, temporarily caught up

The bar is now buzzing with activity, no not the insect kind but everyone came in to try and help Manne.

“[Theme from Rocky as Foodge makes a grand entrance] Yes everyone, it is eye, Foodge, come to avert this horrible crisis. Show me Granny, this offensive phone message that our poor intellectually challenged Manne had to cope with.”

Granny hands Foodge the phone. Foodge diligently, like all legal folk, reads everything in the message very carefully. He pauses for a few moments,

“Hmm, battery is low, shit, now even technology has depression.”

Ewe fink dats funny, wait till Episode 92

Foodge Episode 91 or thereabouts Granny Reminisces

28 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by in Big M, Foodge Private Dick

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I use Granny in my kitchen, wipe on, wipe off

Granny Reminisces

Story by Big M.

Granny was a tad busy, what with Merv having gone off into town to look for ink for his antique dot matrix printer. He had asked all of the patrons about it, and they were split between getting a new inkjet versus a new LASER printer. They were united in thinking that the dot matrix was done.

Anyhoo, Granny was busy washing and cutting up rough looking, dirty Robertson potatoes, frying eggs, and making her own brand of salsa, as well as listening out for the bar. At least the Bowling Ladies were pretty self sufficient, and, if they weren’t, Hedgie has dropped in to fill the urn, make tea, and pour glasses (many glasses!) of Sherry.

 

 

Manne was nowhere to be seen, as usual. He was supposed to be the acting cellarman, but was frequently anywhere but in the cellar. He had developed quite a

Manne, ewe in dare

penchant for watching Redtube on his iPhone, a habit that was decidedly antisocial!

Janet had dropped the twins at preschool, then gone on the Hearing Clinic to get her hearing aids tuned up, which may explain all of the shouting for the last couple of days.

It was far too early for Foodge, Barrister at Large, to be anywhere outside Granny’s boudoir, particularly mid-winter. Besides, he had been up late working on a case (of South Seas Islands Scotch).

The nurses hadn’t finished night shift, yet, so the place was relatively quiet. Granny didn’t mind being alone. It gave her a chance to ruminate, in fact, yesterday’s spice jar mix up reminded her of a fat, slow moving little boy who had come into her life quite by chance. She was a young woman, just given up her career as a professional

Julian's Pigs

Call this a hotel…

boxer, and had taken over the licence of one of the most beautiful, in her mind, buildings in Sydney, the Window Dressers Arms, Pig and Whistle. She loved every aspect of the place, from its tiled façade to its tall, proud chimney pots, and everything in between. Anyway, there was this pudgy little kid used to hang around the car park, waiting for his mum to finish drinking, or philandering, or usually, both. One afternoon said kid turned up with blood running down his shirt, and a rapidly evolving black eye. Granny rushed him into the kitchen, applied ice, gave him a pink drink, and asked him what had happened.

Well, the reader knows the story, the kid’s name was Merv, and he was bullied at school, and his mum didn’t care, and he knew that Granny had been a boxer, and could she teach him to fight? Of course she did, but it entailed training with Granny, which meant meeting her at sparra’s fart, running to the gym, where they lifted weights, threw medicine balls, skipped and boxed. There were mornings when she didn’t pay him much heed, but coached other boxers, but the kid kept his ears open, and was amazed at how much he learned.

The gentle reader knows the rest, how the bullies got beaten up, and how the fat kid hit puberty and suddenly grew muscle and lost fat, continued to train, becoming a professional boxer himself. Unfortunately Merv’s mum never spent much time with him,

Merv’s room

so when she announced that she was marrying a ‘rich cow cocky’ and moving to the country, the teenage boy didn’t mind, instead asking Granny for a room at the pub. Merv never looked back.

Granny’s reverie was interrupted by the sound of a banging at the front door, the beer truck. “Manne, Manne, where are you?”

No response, so she marched through the cellar, to fling open the cellar doors nearly knocking over an unwitting pedestrian, then lining up an old wooden ramp to guide the kegs in. “Where’s Manne?” Asked the driver, who was already positioned to deliver the first keg?

“Buggered if I know!” Retorted Granny through gritted teeth, as she rolled the first keg of Wretched Pilsener into place. “Probably watchin’ nudies on his phone.”

The driver let out a hearty laugh. “Fuckin’ wanker!” He grinned.

The cellar was quickly filled with full kegs; the empties were already out the back,

Granny’s Best

waiting to be picked up. “Still brewin’ yer own beer?” The driver had been instructed to find out, in case Granny was buying from a rival brewer.

“Yep.” Granny nodded to rows of old kegs. “Still do me own Best, Bitter, plus some seasonal IPAs an’ such.”

“Hello, looks like some patrons.” The driver nodded to the nurses as he helped Granny close the cellar doors.

Granny soon found herself in the Main Bar surrounded by cheery nurses who all enjoyed a post night shift beverage with bum nuts, wedges and salsa, whilst the Bowling Ladies had finished their planning meeting, and had sent Beryl in with a breakfast order. “No rush, dear, whenever.”

There was a sudden hush as everyone turned to see a visibly pale Manne standing behind the bar, his mouth moving, but nothing sensible coming out. He pushed his iPhone into Granny’s hands, her eyes widening as she stared into the screen.

To be continued…

In which year did Australia win the 1947 Ashes series?(For your citizenship exam)