Ships

When many of us hear the phrase “the terrible twos” – especially the parents amongst us, we think of when our darling offspring reached the age of two and turned from adorable infant chips off the old blocks to abominable tiny fascists.

They know everything. They cannot for the life of them figure out why we don’t get what they are saying or intuit what they want immediately and deliver same – also immediately. They are snappy, intolerant little bastards who are lucky to make it to the pre-school years.

And they get shitty and overwhelmed by little things like a late feed, the absence of the toy de jour or more often than not a delayed sleepy bines.

But dear patron of the salle de porc, I want to introduce you to my personal terrible twos.

They are …. (drum roll) ….. two AM and two PM.

These times of the day have become mes enfents terrible. Because why ? Because I am invariably awake at two AM, when deep REM sleep would be a huge plus, and conversely, when my ageing corpus goes into heavy sleep-craving mode at two PM this becomes not a great look at work.

After some recent years of sleep deprivation – again, not unlike those post-partum months (did he say months ? He must have meant years) the night becomes a collection of snatched moments of shuteye interspersed with periods of attempting to resolve the world’s irresolvable malaises.

There are some who say, with due justification that this is an expression of depression from the age when one realizes that the mortgage will never be paid off in one’s lifetime, global warming will see us toasted in a barren planet bereft of the ecosystems redolent in our childhoods, and self-seeking power hungry malcontents masquerading as the bastions of democracy will present themselves as the saviors of our solar system ….. giving us only a choice of one kind of evil over another.

Then there are those espousing the alternative view that sleeplessness, or perhaps more correctly sleep disorders are the manifestations of the above depressive states.

Either way, dear reader, cause, or effect, there is nothing good about the terrible twos.

I have learnt these things – none of which cause me to drop off – but in the reading, may you achieve some similar benefit.

I have learnt that:

Caffeine after noon is just not on.
Alcohol after fivesies is a bad idea – although it does help one to drop off, the metabolites of alcohol are excellent at waking one up some few hours later (unless you get totally smashed, in which case, sleeplessness will not be your next big problem).
It’s better to have the major meal of the day at lunchtime and go for a light snack in the evening.
Internet at bedtime is bad because apparently the predominant blue tinged screen images stimulate the brain – I gather that there are applications out there that purport to fix this. See for yourself if they do.
Going to bed at the same time each night is good – to set up some kind of biorhythm. I personally find this nearly impossible.
Vigorous exercise sometime before noon is good. My best successes have come from 25 minutes on the exercise bike with 5 or 6 bursts of 20 seconds at maximum effort – pushes my heartbeat up to the max. I like the bike because it is easier on other bits like hips, knees and ankles – than is jogging – and it takes up a lot less time than walking. I checked with my GP first to make sure that the old ticker wasn’t going to explode at 140 beats per minute – resting was 85-90. The advantage of this is that apart from burning up about 250 calories and helping – note helping but not driving weight loss – this burst training is supposed to promote the proliferation of new mitochondria in all cells. Mitochondria are the little factories that turn glucose into work. Having lots more of them – and lots more fresh ones is supposed to enliven the body. This is my illusion and don’t you dare to disabuse me of it.

There are two nice flow-on effects – first, if one exercises early in the day it is alleged that one’s metabolic rate stays up for most of the day – generating more energy for movement and activity and burning more fat, and second, physical tiredness is supposed to help with sleep. I’m not convinced about the latter.

This is a bit personal. So if you find discussions about toileting distasteful, skip to the next point. In my post 55 days, I have noticed that the alleged bio mechanism that is supposed to turn off the kidneys during bye-byes – and hence limit the production of nocturnal urine – has broken down and that broken sleep is driven by the need for a quick bathroom trip, one to four times a night. I hate this. And I have no answer to why it happens or what to do about it except to limit fluid intake after say 8:00pm. And then wake up thirsty at 3:00AM. Bugger.
OK, I’m glad that we’re over that one. Now, my lovely partner has alerted me to the fact that I’m a bit of a snorer – especially when I lie on my back – which of course is my most comfortable sleep position. So I toddled off to a sleep clinic for a sleep study. This is a misnomer. It’s really a sleeplessness study. They wired me up, put me to bed, asked me to relax naturally (yes, of course I always do that with electrodes and wires stuck all over my head). In the morning, the technician looked at my polygraph, sucked air through his teeth and pronounced that I had moderate sleep apnoea. Meaning that I periodically ran out of oxygen and woke myself up to have a bit of breathing.

9. OK, so we’re onto something here. What can I do, doc ? Well, you can lose some weight. Yes. And you can have a bit of nasal surgery….. and stay off the grog yadda yadda yadda. Or you could get a CPAP (air pump)….. but I don’t think you’re that bad…. and it won’t do a lot of good for cuddle time.

10, So I went to the nose surgeon and she said – sure I can trim things up a bit – it’s day surgery and it MIGHT help. Note “MIGHT” rather than “WILL”. So I had my trim – and it DID help for a while. More air in through the non-snoring pipes. But she added – that the best thing I could have done for my self … would have been to have a longer neck. We agreed that this was a big ask, given the prevailing genetics.

Darkness is good where you sleep. Get some if you can.
Fresh air is also good. French air is better.
Medium temperature is good. Try and rationalize that with the last point.
When I get really, really short of sleep one night, I might be prone to slip in a little sleeping pill on the next night – but be warned….. more than say three nights in a row can lead to trouble – like the bastards stop working and, well, you can guess where that one is going in the long run.
Learn how to meditate – to quiet the racing brain and drop a few dozen “OMs” before you try to kip down.

I’ve just about run out of sleep advice, friends of the porc chateau.

Hey. HEY !!! Arr geez, you’ve dropped off. Honestly, why do I bother ?

Fortress Government

20 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by Therese Trouserzoff in Atom, Politics in the Pig's Arms

≈ 35 Comments

Tags

Fortress Government, Greens

Borrowed from J Brown with thanks

Story by Atomou

If the Greens think that they have gained a victory by siding with enemy to deliver us this appalling Senate electoral mangling, I ask them to remember Pyrrhus who, after the battle against the Romans, he looked at the field in front of him, completely covered with the mangled corpses of his men (in a grotesque pile of brotherhood with the Romans) said “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.”

On that battle alone he has lost 6,000 of his soldiers.

How many soldiers have the Greens lost in this absurd Pyrrhic victory?

And who is the enemy here?

The enemy is not the LNP kennel of mongrels. It would be the same if the Greens had sided with the other lot of mongrels, the ALP because the enemy here are not the parties and their policies but a closed, unapproachable Govn’t. It is the Fortress Govn’t which, behind the well secured walls the career politicians do deals with each other to… to build more walls, as impenetrable as possible so that their seats can be safe, no matter who’s the sitter.

The enemy is the corrupt Govn’t.

The enemy is the Netanyahu type wall that encloses the self proclaimed elite and excludes those wishing to take part in the activities of a Democratic Parliament, activities which are quintessential to Democracy.

What does the word mean, what did it mean over two and a half thousand years when Peisistratus invented it and invented the system? “Demos” is us. All of us. “Cracy” (aka Kratos) is strength, power, also Govn’t. Democracy therefore means “people power.”

The Govn’t consists of -yes, you may have heard the words, now uttered by charlatans, “power by the people, of the people and for the people.”

And without the demos, there is no Democracy and without Democracy there is no civilization and without civilization the people die.

The enemy is the wall which the coalition of LNP-Greens have just now erected around Democracy.

In ancient Athens where it all began, during a sitting of Parliament state police would get a huge rope and, using it like a fish net, gathered all the lazy citizens and brought them to the assembly. Some 6,000 men would be gathered there to hear and to speak various motions about the city. Six thousand men would represent something very near 10% of the eligible citizens.

Any one of them could raise, walk to the podium and speak his mind.

Any one of them!

No “Parties,” no “coalitions” but individual citizens -farmers, candlestick makers, smiths and sculptors. All there and all able to speak their mind. Thucydides records a great many of these speeches and they make a very engaging read.

This deed in which the Greens participated is not a reform, certainly not one achieved by democratic means. It is a mangling of Democracy’s first principle: the universal right to be a politician, that is, a member of the Polis, of the State.

It was a coup against a Principle, the vital principle that’s at the heart of a civilised society. Remove it, as they did and we have nothing short of a CleptoKhazaria or North Korea.

Nothing short of every foul apartheid regime that lives on the delusion that it has exclusive rights to power.

I want my neighbour on the left and my neighbour on the right and my neighbour across the road to be able to use his right as a member of a society to enter Parliament and to air his views -no matter how appalling they might be; and mate, are there not people with appalling views in there already?- on the floor of the australian agora, the seat of govn’t. I want them to be able to speak where voices are heard not dismissed or disfigured by the lying, self interested press, floating in the sewers of the country.

Let them enter and let them speak. If their utterances are unwise then in an inclusive Parliament wiser voices will correct them.

People in political parties don’t speak their mind. Their mind is silenced by the inner-sanctum of the party in what they call a democratic vote. This is cabinet democracy and has nothing to do with people’s democracy. It is a self serving democracy for dictators.

A member of a party can hardly do anything wrong if s/he simply tows the line. If they miss out getting elected the next time, then the party -the worst, most abhorrent of grotesque cabals- will find him/her a sinecure of some sort to see him/her through his/her life, along with a most generous pension and all sorts of other bonuses.

The independent candidate, the one who is unattached to a party will have no such “assistance” from anyone. If s/he misbehaves, that is if he goes against the will of the people, s/he will be out of the House and out of a job. They are on their own and only their views, their heart, their intelligence will dictate where they end up.

Parties are rife with corruption. Wheeling and dealing and self interest is their adhesive. The political contagion which grips one politician can and almost certainly spread to the rest of the party.

Let me rather have a govn’t of independents, much like the one that ruled ancient Athens and much of the rest of Greece.

Finally, I have heard a nauseating number of times the slogan that the Greens had this policy in their books for over a decade!

So what?

And so what if it was Bob Brown who put it together?

It was wrong then and it certainly is wrong now. It should have been ditched then and it should certainly be ditched now. It is a foul policy, an indubitably wrong policy if we are to pride ourselves that we are ruled democratically.

Of all the great things that Bob has achieved over the years, did the Greens have to focus on this error of his and make it out to be the very emblem of virtue?

And why was it utterly dormant for a decade?

And did those who voted for the Greens ever suspected -even if they knew that the policy was there- that this party will launch into an election with that piece of anathema?

I certainly didn’t and not only have I been voting for the Greens for the last decade but was an active volunteer with them.

Never thought I’d see the election in which this nonsense will be so vigorously promoted.

“I am afraid. Very afraid!

I am afraid that the doors and windows of Parliament are shutting us out ever more certainly and ever more securely and that all we will be able to do henceforth is to see the very badly acted Theatre of the Absurd they present us, called Question Time.”

Foodge Probably 59 – Une Nuit Chez la Maison de Porc

03 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Therese Trouserzoff in Big M, Foodge Private Dick

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

En Nuit, Ennui, On Wee

Story by Big M

It was mid-morning, and Foodge stood at the bar, absent-mindedly polishing a pint glass. O’Hoo, in his brand new bib ‘n’ brace overalls, wandered over and leant against the bar. ‘You’re in a funny mood, Foodge.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Foodge slowly turned his gaze to O’Hoo.

‘You’ve been grinding two desiccated flies into the bottom of that glass for over half an hour.’

Foodge quickly emptied the dry fly guts into the bin, and placed the glass in the washing rack then poured a couple of canoes. ‘I am experiencing a deep sense of ennui, or a sense of deep ennui.’ As he clinked glasses with O’Hoo.

‘On wee?’

‘Yes, ennui, I read it on Mark’s blog.’

‘Oh, ‘ennui’, yes, he mentioned it the other day.’ O’Hoo knocked back half a pint in one gulp. ‘I thought it would be guilt, or perhaps, remorse.’

‘Why so?’ Foodge was now polishing another pint glass with the same filthy rag.

‘Well, you did slough old Merv’s Mum onto Big M.’

‘Slough is too strong a word’ Foodge didn’t like strong sounding words this early in the day.

‘Emmjay reckoned she got stuck in a hallway.’ O’Hoo motioned for a second glass canoe.

‘Yes, rather unfortunate.’

‘Bloody unfortunate for the Ms.’ O’Hoo stopped to wipe some perspiration from his glistening forehead.

‘Yes, jolly unfortunate’ Foodge didn’t like swearing this early, either.

‘How did they get her out? I heard they were gonna get a crane to pull her through the ceiling.’

‘They let nature take its course.’ Foodge suddenly realised that his rag was contaminated with dead flies, so flicked it into the small laundry hamper under the bar.

‘What, they let her die?’

‘No, she shrank down a bit from not being able to eat or drink, then they poured some cooking oil around her, and out she popped.’

‘So where is she now? O’Hoo was relieved.

‘The Ms popped her on the Country Link train to Barraba, or Boggabri, or some place with wide open spaces.’ Foodge pushed another canoe across the ancient bar.

‘So, which is it?

‘Which is what?’

‘Ennui, guilt or remorse.’

‘On wee?’

Foodge 58: – Things Get a Bit Sticky

26 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by Therese Trouserzoff in Emmjay, Foodge Private Dick

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Big M, M&M

Mars-murrie_5

Story by Emmjay

Merv’s Mum soon acquired the nickname “M&M” – named after her favourite post-Maccas snack.

It startled Big M to see her in the garden tearing up and eating his prized radishes. For some reason the image of a horse floated around the back of Big M’s eyes and projected a startling image of Big M’s barbied steak sans condiments. It was clearly the end of his supply of horse radish.

M&M was certainly a sticky proposition and he could well understand the B&B “no-Vacancy” signs hastily put up by the lady bowlers, Hedgie’s missus and even Hedgie’s brother “Clipper” who, at the time was delivering to the la Salle de Porc patrons our favourite herbal remedy.

Mrs M, while vaguely remembering her own gran’s predilection for ironing the sheets, demonstrated in the flesh that sheet-ironing had poor heritability and could reasonably be judged to have no post-dilection. She (Mrs M) was surprised that M&M did not actually wash the sheets and dry them before ironing. Which, one supposes was why things became a bit sticky.

But the real point – as Hung would say – was not to start a discussion on the state of Family M linen. So it’s time to go back to M&M…… ah da~n ! I’ve run out of …… the letter…. just after “L” in the alphabet and to the right of “N” on the keyboard. You’ll have to apply some i~agination and bring your own ~s to the story.

Big ~ became very distressed when ~&~ nanaged to wedge herself in the hallway. The very hallway that Big ~ had renovated in Episode 34. Don’t go and look it up, I just used that as a placeholder and I’~ going to forget to replace it with the proper reference, because I’~ sloppy like that when I get busy {Editor’s note}.

Where was I ? Oh yes, I left ~&~ stuck in Big ~’s hallway.

Big ~ thought hard. With no inspiration forthco~ing, he tried thinking soft. “We need some butter”, he said.

~&~ frowned, re~e~bering the scene from “Last Tango in Paris” where ~arlon Brando used butter to get in the back door of ~aria Schneider’s house. But ~&~ was blocking access to the kitchen. “Go around the back !” shouted ~rs ~. “But I haven’t got any butter” replied Big ~. “There’s a hole in the bucket” sang ~rs ~. “What bucket ?” said Big ~, who by this time had gotten tired of the “exhausted M supply” joke. “Forget it, Big” she said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to shift the horse” she added, returning to the joke in the second paragraph. “We’re going to have to pull the whole house down”.

Big frowned – a big frown. “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we put her on a diet of water and fresh air for a while ?” Mrs M smiled. “I’ll ring up Foodge and see whether we can borrow one of George’s kitty litter trays.”

M&M frowned a much bigger frown than Big – who was contemplating how he was going to get to the kitchen. … nothing ….. – who was contemplating whether he would light up some of Hedgie’s herbal remedy …. and remembered that this was a short-term alternative that would inevitably lead him back to the kitchen access problem.

“While you’re on the line, can you ask Foodge to organise a shipment of Granny’s wedges, please. I’m feeling peckish. I think I’ll go and have a lie down on those freshly-ironied sheets”.

Foodge: 57 point summit Merv’s Mum

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Therese Trouserzoff in Big M, Foodge Private Dick

≈ 8 Comments

big

Big M here.

Have had an interesting call following last week’s post. It all started when Mrs M answered the phone (which is where interesting calls usually begin). ‘Of course, Foodge, dear, if things are too much for you, then hop on the train and M will pick you up.’

‘What?’

‘Who’s in the car?’

‘You had better speak to M.’

‘Sorry, you’ve got who in the Zephyr?’ That’s me speaking.

‘Merv’s mum, look I’m calling whilst filling the petrol tank, and I’m afraid the iPhone might set off an explosion.’ Foodge sounded desperate.

‘That’s bullshit, Foodge, no one has ever proven that, anyhoo, where are you driving her?’ I wasn’t that interested, but, you know me, feigned fascination with the story.

‘She wants to go to the Pigs Arms.’

‘Well, that’s OK, they’ve got rooms galore.’ By this stage I was looking at Facebook.

‘No, but she can’t meet Granny?’ Foodge sounded exasperated.

‘Why not, Granny’s a nice old chick, and pretty buff by your accounts.’

‘Granny has vowed that if she ever meets Merv’s mother she’ll kill her. Granny’s got the speed, but you should see this thing, it’s a BIG unit.’ Foodge was so excited that he had spilled a cuppla litres of fuel on the forecourt.

‘What the fuck do you want me to do?’ I tried to keep things light.

‘Couldn’t you take her for a couple of days?’ I could hear Foodge trying to wash the petrol from the side of the Zephyr with that dirty water that is there to wash the car windows.

‘Foodge, you know that petrol isn’t soluble in water.’

‘Don’t baffle me with science. What am I going to do?’ Foodge sounded more desperate.

‘What about Hedgie, or Emmjay, or the Bowling Ladies? Knowing full well that these folk lead full, interesting lives, and won’t want to be encumbered with some old hag.

‘No way, I’ve already rung around. Can’t you take her?’

Now, sometimes you know you’re making a mistake, before you even take action, usually it’s one drink too many, or perhaps a kiss that shouldn’t have been proffered. I suddenly found myself saying. ‘That’s OK mate, put her on the Flyer, I’ll pick her up in the Zephyr.’

That was last Thursday. Since then it’s been, ‘no, not like that’, ‘don’t you lazy people iron your sheets?’ ‘Can’t we go for a drive?’, ‘not another bloody pub meal’

I’m quietly looking at the train timetable as we speak!