Category Archives: Emmjay

The Coalition’s New Wasteband Policy.

10 Tuesday Aug 2010

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Half of the Coalition's proposed Wasteband Network.

Andrew Robb and Tony Smith announced the much-awaited Coalition Wasteband policy today, saying that if electrocuted, Tony’s government would install a more modest wasteband than the massively-overcommitted Labor Broadband.

The Co’s wasteband featured :

  • An investment of $8.35 over two years
  • A large ball of wet string and two chopped tomato tins washed and dried.  Mr Robb added that his government was supporting Australian industry and was eschewing La Gina product and going for the Edgell finely-chopped variety.
  • Coalition technology specialists said that the high speed analogue installation was good for no bits per second (unless there was some residual tomato).
  • They added that carbon capture guru Tom Switzer was developing a work-around for rural users facing the threat of the string drying out due to drought conditions in the Barcoo.

Under the Co’s plan, two houses were probably going to be linked, provided that they were neighbours.  Negotiations were well advanced with residents adjacent to Joe Hockey’s place.

Joe Hockey (the Minister for Waistband) stressed that this was no Labor white elephant, but was less clear in answering the question “Well what kind of elephant are you, Joe ?”  Shortly after that Mark Latham was ejected from the press conference.

Manne, the Pig’s Arms reporter spotted Julie Bishop with a packet of Gro-plus and a bag of lawn seed on her way to working up the Coalition’s environment policy….. or grassing up Christopher Pyne’s unicorn.

Rugby Player Not Charged Today

31 Saturday Jul 2010

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Tarquin Tough

In a shock announcement , Tarquin Tough, the new head of the NRL said that no player has been apprehended and charged by police today for:

  • Drunken and disorderly behaviour;
  • Possession of drugs (pharmaceutical or recreational);
  • Possession of a firearm, licensed or unlicensed;
  • Assault (common or sexual or aggravated);
  • Grievous bodily harm;
  • Possession of child pornography;
  • Rape (actual or attempted);
  • Murder;
  • Manslaughter;
  • Or showing up late for training.

Mr Tough said that several players were facing the judiciary for unspecified misdemeanours like sponsorship violations and the League was likely to impose heavy fines just to impress on fans how poor they are in comparison with their idols – the ridiculously overpaid buffoons with poor self discipline and bad attitudes towards women.

He then mumbled something about a minor ram raid on an ATM, and a holday home on the Gold  Coast.

Football journos are currently checking to see whether the season is on, or off or whether it’s April 1.  Bat Masterson of the Daily Telepathy was quoted as saying “Give them a fair go, it’s not even lunchtime yet”.

Pig’s Arms Samurai Sudoku

22 Thursday Jul 2010

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Most of the Pig’s Arms patrons have better things to do with their lives than fool around with Sudoku puzzles.  But just in case you feel the need to be part of a burgeoning urban commuting movement, here’s the Pig’s Arms “fit right in without having to break into intellectual panic” Sudoku.

Sushi level (Rated 4 Trotter’s Ales challenging) ……..

Samurai level ……. (Rated 3 Pink Drinks challenging)…….

And the Answer to last week’s Samurai Sudoku….

Biking to Timbuktu

19 Monday Jul 2010

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Ducati 900SS

The Mighty Ducati 900ss

If there’s something more captivating than cuddling up to a quietly ticking Ducati 900SS on a coldish night in the Brindabellas and disappearing a flask of that fine product from Bundaberg (not the molasses, Merv, the distilled afterthought), then I’m yet to discover it.

Bike touring on a big twin is something delightful and an adventure that I can heartily recommend to readers, non-readers – and would be readers – of that old Robert M Pirsig classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.  As Mr P says, it gives one the opportunity to travel in the landscape, as opposed to seeing it flash past in the climate controlled six-speaker sound system four wheeled tin cocoon.

In summer one can savour the searing blast of a run across the Hay Plains at a fair clip in an open-face helmet and strain the occasional hopper through the moustache in a headlong rush to the next schooner of life saving chilled foamy liquid – carefully balancing a couple of hundred kilos of fine Italian metalwork, exquisite engineering and completely unpredictable electrics with the need to stay under the legal limit but be relaxed and wet enough to slip through the drought.

The point is to ride a machine that has a fair chance of allowing you to kill or main yourself, and an equal chance of not starting in the first place – leaving you to watch people you used to think were your mates disappear in a haze of smoke and raucous laughter down your street on only their back wheels, leaving you to fulfil the role of designated gooseberry – whose job it is to call Emergency Services when only Tommos Blue Heeler returns on Sunday night.

Unless you ride a classic bike, you miss out on the adrenalin rush associated with listening through the roar of bevel drive camshafts and mechanically-closed valves for those tiny telltale sounds that suggest a bearing is on the way out at 6,000 revs and you will be tasting the tarmac before you get to Bulahdelah.  Go ahead.  Nobody is going to notice you watching the temperature gauge and getting ready to go for the clutch.

Riding a big old bike and maybe sailing to Hobart are the last two ways you can scare yourself shirtless and experience the thrills and let’s face it pure terror of getting from Time to Timbuktu.

So how come it is those two dilettante fairies on SBS – Ewan Macgregor and Charlie Boorman can turn a major event like riding from John O’Groats to Capetown into the biggest and most boring festival of todger bothering on the small screen ?

Did you catch any of that tripe ?  I watched just the first episode and saw them struggle mightily with really fascinating things like getting a visa for their Yank friend to go through Libya.  Next time I’m going to ride through Libya, I’m going to enlist a couple of drop dead gorgeous ladies native to that turf to help ease my application through their customs formalities.  Yeah, right.

That, and Charlie’s dear wife being hospitalised just before kick off with some semi-fatal chest infection (in true scout fashion the old trout insisted that he go and she promised to pull through and cough a few encouraging bon mots down the sat line).  Give me strength.

From Chuck and Ew, I learnt quite a lot about international long distance bike travel.  Apparently these last thirty years, I’ve been doing it all wrong.  Instead of freezing crossing from Strachan to Hobart and getting snowed on in February (saved only by an open fire, a steak, a kilo of chocolate and several rums at the Derwent Bridge pub), I was supposed to be rescued by my backup crew and take a warm bath in the mobile home that was supposed to be following us a few dozen metres behind,

Just in case, you understand.

In case some of the extras from the remake of Deliverance wanted to get us to interact with the local gene pool – like it or not.  Sorry, I’m hopeless at doing pig impressions.

I think I need a few million dollars worth of film crew, support vehicles, the finest touring machines, a spare parts catalogue larger than California, several managers, my personal field surgeon, masseuse and a charismatic mate just like Charlie with eyes like two piss-holes in the snow.  The advantage is that nobody could tell that Charlie has just ridden non-stop through the deserts of Sudan (Go Ian Drury ! – I always wanted to squeeze him into a piece.) because Charlie always looks like that.  The purlieu of the mega wealthy – ultimate scruff – and the ability to hire someone far less attractive than oneself as a sidekick.  That’s IT !  I have gone through life totally without a Charlie-esque sidekick !  Although Merv would argue that I AM a Charlie-esque sidekick – or he might have said dropkick.  I’m not sure.

Through Ewan and Charlie’s august travel doco I also learnt how to cultivate a look somewhere between puzzled incomprehension and stifled frustration – possibly caused by having dental work inferior to my handsome, unfazed movie star colleague.  Or possibly because I have no actual idea what’s going on now, or what’s going to happen next – neither of which do I care to donate ordure over which of whatever. Of.

Hang on.  Can you wait on a bit ?  I’m practising diagnosing a mechanical problem by staring blankly at the silent engine cases and getting ready for my jovial and patronising exchanges with local tribesmen.  This one insists on giving me his spear ……..a fair trade for a travel doco this bad……

Emmjay

Best Art Gallery in Australia ?

18 Sunday Jul 2010

Posted by in Cricics, Critics, Everyone's a Critic, Emmjay

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Yesterday, First Mate and I visited the White Rabbit Gallery in Chippendale, Sydney – a new gallery devoted to 21st Century Chinese Art.

Shi Jindian's 3D Blueprint in wire

The sculpture above completely blew me away.  Made from blue wire and fine filigree, it is a full scale model – or perhaps a three dimensional blueprint – an astonishingly accurate rendition of a Chinese copy of a Russian copy (Dnepr) of a German copy (Zundapp) of a WWII BMW motorcycle with side car.  For those of us interested in motorcycles I (as an  owner of a 1954 BMW motorcycle) can tell you that this piece was accurate right down to the old fashioned side valves inside the engine.

You can check out the bikeology here.

We were astounded and completely in awe of the collection.  And let me apologise right now because a few clips from the web site don’t in any way do the exhibition justice, but if it provides you with a taste, that’s a fair start.

Walking through the gallery’s four levels we were greeted with the most amazing art works we have seen in a very long time – and hosted by incredibly well-informed minders on each of the four floors.  Whereas the NSW Gallery tends to have surly guard-types minding the treasures, the predominantly young minders  at White Rabbit were deeply knowledgeable, enthusiastic – and without being intrusive – were very available for a discussion or to answer questions about art works that are most likely to be unfamiliar amongst westerners and Chinese people who are more used to traditional forms.

Three artists working as "Unmasked" - their pieces are a view of the Iraq conflict and the translation was "Men who cast no shadows".

The pieces showed a sensational array of colour, materials, subjects  and different motifs – sculptural, photographic, paintings – on very large (two storeys) and very tiny (use the magnifying glass) scales and everywhere showing a wonderful commitment to excellent execution that speaks of months and years of work in individual pieces.

Some pieces were riotously funny.

Chilli - curiously reminiscent of a Burnside Refugee jam session.

This one by  Chi Lei (Chilli – a fan of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers) was a part of a disturbing cinematic  still montage.  Others in the series set in a “celebs” hotel were softly pornographic, debauched, bizarre and even forensic.

Some of the works by activist  artists reflected profound anger with political disenfranchisement.  Others are eerily disturbing and still others sad and reflective.

Wang Luyan's bi-directional pistol

We were deeply moved by the 10 metre panoramic photographic work of Jin Feng (Appeals without Words) depicting a large group of golden-skinned peasants protesting the state theft of their land, holding paper signs without words (because no official would read the signs).

Mao's Limo - was signed upside down and hng that way, Hung.

And the large scale photographs of parts of Chairman Mao’s limousine (with two discreet bullet holes in the window) speak softly but with great power of the irony of a communist owning a limousine.

The White Rabbit Gallery shows parts of an extensive collection and reflects the superb curation of the Director, Judith Neilson.  This, the second exhibition (The Tao of Now) finishes at the end of July and the gallery will be closed during August when the third Exhibition (opening in September) is being prepared.

Do yourself a huge favour and go if you can.  It’s worth every minute.  If you can’t go, do visit the website and take your time to see a wonderful collection of works by contemporary Chinese artists.

ABC News Goes Off News

13 Tuesday Jul 2010

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I have this entrenched pattern of behaviour at the end of the day that goes: drive home through peak hour Sydney traffic for an hour or so, arrive home and pour some kind of liquid relief, assemble something resembling food for First Mate, Tim the Cabin Boy and for me, and flop in front of the ABC news.

But as the ABC’s decline into mediocrity or worse, as the cliché du jour says, as the ABC “races the commercials to the bottom” and incredibly, as they stretch out this bit of linguini to “cover” 24 hours of News, they have unwittingly set me free from the chains of habit.

I don’t know whether you’ve listened to ABC News radio, or as an antidote to insomnia watched the interestingly arrayed Virginia Trioli on ABC2 in the morning, but the modus operandi is well-established here and here.

OK, it’s not just that they run a tightly-repetitive cycle that’s so off-putting, it’s the bloody content.  Who’s responsible for throwing together this dog’s breakfast of thin, gruelling, regurgitated tripe?

Let me illustrate.

Take a look at the news items that show up on the increasingly not worth the trouble web site.  A quick scan this morning reveals the cheerful parade:

  • Liquid bomb plotters jailed
  • Oil spill, oil spill oil spill
  • Gangster’s girlfriend charged over murder plot
  • Men ‘possibly’ shot in mass brawl – let’s hope so, otherwise this item loses its punch
  • Child sex scandal
  • Drunk attacked after attempting to wrestle croc
  • Death toll in Uganda
  • Scary economic news
  • Outrageous medical fraud / misinformation
  • Endless speculation about political power / malfeasance, skulduggery and incompetence.

There was more folderol, but I’m sure you get the drift.

Today is clearly a pretty upbeat day – after last week’s headlines with photographs of one deceased digger coming back from Afghanistan and another being buried by his family and all the political heavies – 2 out of the 5 headline articles – only broken by an apparently important game of soccer going on in South Africa.

I used to think that the ABC was the last refuge for staying in touch without having to sit through or listen to unremitting trivia, gloom and despair.  I used to think that it was important to stay informed and keep in touch. But when I stopped perving on Juanita Phillips and actually listened to her speak her lines I  fell into a rather deep disappointment.

We were given a warning when Kerry O’Brien mistook insolence for investigative reporting and Tony Jones confused his guests’ shameless self-promoting buffoonery with “public debate”.  We should have heeded the warning sooner.

But now, I can comfortably set those silly notions aside, comfortable in the knowledge that there’s nothing left to miss and sink into a post-work stupor, blissfully numbed, reminisce about the days when the ABC was more than just a recycler of BBC comedy and take a long pull on an exquisitely dry martini.

…. also showing off over at the Daily Bludge

Thirty Seconds is a Long Time….

24 Thursday Jun 2010

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.... in May, First Dog on the Moon drew ......

Well, it goes to show that there IS a Santa Clause after all.  And it also goes to show what a totally shithouse perceptor of the future is your humble correspondent.  A few days ago I wrote that the Labor Party might be pragmatic, but it typically gives a leader a fair shot at failure before giving him the heave-ho.  Remember Caldwell displaced by Whitlam, Hayden pushed out by Hawke – also just before an election, Hawke by Keating ….. and now Kevin by the Power Fox.  Sorry, her Highness the Power Fox.

I don’t think Beazley by Latham and Latham by Crean (or was it the other way around) count.  None of these fine gentlemen ever had a snowball’s chance of becoming PM.

But this time, the Labor party has shown that it has definitely moved into the 21st century by striking early and going hard – on Kevin – just because he had the whiff of failure about him – and because, let’s face it, we hate to be told what to do and how to think – especially by a smart arse churchie who’s often right.  But there were quite a few not-rights, and nobody really wants to hear the PM reading the Apology-of-the-Day – day after day.  I guess the buck really DID stop with him.  And today he was well and truly bucked.  I think he deserves a great deal of respect for not contesting a vote he was certain to lose – not by a slim margin but by more than 2 to 1.  Now was not the time to take on the fat cat miners, but when Julia gets in, and has three years for electoral amnesia to weave its magic, they had better pull up their socks and take it on the fucking chin.

None-the-less it certainly highlights the difference between the ALP and rabble of the co-alition.  Three leaders in three years (the last with a single vote majority in their caucus) and all they can come up with is a budgy-smuggling bike riding swim god.  Pathetic.  True, the Labor party had a choice – an excellent choice – and the discipline to make it and make it with surgical precision.  And Labor has the luxury of not having coalition partners who are total drop-kicks.  Or Wilson Tuckey.  Or the notorious comment by Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan who once questioned Julia’s political ability because she does not have children. Senator Heffernan said Ms Gillard was unfit for leadership because she was “deliberately barren”.

I know Senator Heffernan apologised, but I’d personally love to see him eat a mountain of humble pie now.  From the arse end of the opposition benches, of course.

So how will Julia play out ?  I’m predicting a comfortable smashing of the Libs when women of Australia get to chose between a mysogynist papist and a talented woman of true grit.  Does anyone remember Tony’s “sometimes I tell fibs speech” ?  Is anyone really going to vote for that jerk ?  Maybe the Kevin haters might have.  But it’s hard to imagine now.

Another (always proven wrong) prediction…… unless the Libs really DO want to get smashed running Tony as their leader, we should expect a return from Malcolm and then we could really see the battle between equal intellects …. and between capital and labour.

I was really disappointed by Rudd and was contemplating supporting the Greens (no other choice in the NSW election – and even then, that’s a waste).  Now I’m happy to go back to the spirit of the party of the old days and support the campaign of the local federal member – as if that mattered much at all.  Maybe Maxine McKew or another marginal candidate needs the help more….

I really hope that I’ve read the tea leaves more correctly this time around – and that Julia hasn’t been given the hospital pass that Carmen Lawrence, Joan Kirner (Anna Bligh – almost….) and certainly Kristina Keneally have taken…..

I’m Bloody Exhausted

21 Monday Jun 2010

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I wanted a pic of Suzie Wright here, but all I could find was pix of Lee Rhiannon - so here's another green.

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Well, the Penrith by-election came out as expected – with the flogging of Labor by the worthy Liberal candidate Stuart “Stu-boy” Ayres.

And what a flogging it was.  While pundits have been evenly divided over the underlying cause – assuming that it was just one cause, adding a touch of “can’t get to work for under $80 a week – if the public transport ever shows up” to “our suspicions about the incumbent being as crooked as a dog’s hind leg being confirmed” and maybe just a dash of “time to change the pigs at the public trough” should just about explain the massacre.

Local versus national issues ?  See the previous paragraph !

When the ABC interviewed a few locals this morning to get their take on the blood-letting, I found one response particularly interesting.  A former Labor-voting woman put the boot into the Liberals for wasting so much paper morning after morning at the railway station (so much for a cyberspace campaign debate, folks).  This woman voted “Green” of course, but she went one further than that.

She voted “Green” and then “Exhausted” her vote.  Now personally, I usually find voting exhausting – and even debilitating if it was not for the local P&C cake and coffee provided as a public good and fundraiser for the school.

But in this sense, in NSW, at least, one can simply put a “1″ next to the party of one’s choice and nothing else and nobody gets a preference after that.  It’s a way of raising the middle finger to the major parties.  And when I cannot bring myself to vote Liberal no matter how vomitous the candidates or the totality of my traditional roots party are, in the NSW election coming, at least I would like to simply do as our Penrith sister did.

Admittedly a by-election voter backlash is not unusual – democracy being such an imposition particularly when the Panthers are playing away, or the Wallabies are set to cough one up to the Lions (thanks, Matt).  But this one has the hallmark of an avalanche to come.  In Penrith, this time, 3% of the 88% voter turnout  voted informal and the exhausted vote count was 62%.

The people of Penrith were pretty clear about their preferences.  In some traditionally Labor booths, the Liberal candidate out-polled Labor 2 to 1.  Labor’s vote set the new record turn around of minus 25.7% of which the Liberals scored plus 18% and a bit and the Greens (not traditionally well rewarded in the Western Labor heartland) were rewarded with a gain of somewhere around 8 % – just for showing up.

I don’t know about you, but given the incumbents and the alternatives, vastly talented O’Furball team, I’m feeling exhausted already.

* Apparently “optional preferential”  voting only works in NSW single constituency by-elections.  Disappointing, huh ?

something quite  like this appeared over at the daily bludge a few minutes ago….

The Return of Tiger Woods

21 Monday Jun 2010

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...Mr McInnes has admitted behaviour "unbecoming" of a chief executive in relation to a female staff member at two company functions..... pic and caption c/- the ABC. My 8 cents are in the mail.

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Well, the weekend papers and the electronic media were chockers full of rather unflattering news about the sacking of the former DJs CEO, Mark McInnes, now bunkered down with his pregnant wife in a distant hell-hole like Monaco, somewhere else on the Riviera or the Costa del something.  Wealthy tackiness score – 10/10.

When the story broke late last week, there was a memorable quote from ‘shareholder activist’ Steven Mayne about how Mr McInnes had single-handedly turned around the flagging flagship retailer and how this had been one of the truly great feats of corporate governance by miraculous leadership.  Shareholder value, blah blah blah.

I was wondering, then,  aloud over a rather fine cup of Java why it was that DJ’s had not simply handed over a cartload of cash to the victim and buried the story – getting on with the urgent task of making more  shed loads of cash, matching Gerry Harvey’s  cut-throat prices, giving excellent customer service and pouring out the finer goods to the gentry.

First Mate did her oft-repeated impression of tired incredulity with my naivety and said simply “Tip of the iceberg, tiger woods style”.