The Pig’s Arms black-marketeer “Clipper” Hedges, more usually renowned for his ability to source quality green merchandise at competitive prices (aka “Mates Rates”) has opened up a new bit of business to round out his bottom line.

The Hedgemeister will be purveying his fine products in the Pig’s Arms carpark – a snip at just $5 a roll – cash up front please. Limit of 128 rolls per customer – more for bums and drop kicks.

And remember as Hedgie says “Be quick – it’s my March runout sale ! Bring yer money win ya !”

S’later suckers, discerning customers 🙂

Be it known through all the lands that unto Lord Mervyn Purvis and family is born a Grandson Master William “Pigsarms” Pervis, 3.1kg.

Lady Emmlet 1 and Emmlets 1.1 and 1.2 are all well and sporting 60 fingers and toes between them. Lady Emmlet 1 looks more like she’s back from a trip to the PA Beauty Salon than having just punched out a sprog.

Lord Mervyn, Mr Emmjay and Ms FM are (as Jacky Geason might have almost said) “Over the Moon”.

Please leave flowers and chocolates at the pub door – we are all in lockdown (well, Lord Mervyn has been in lockup too).

Regards to all our friends and subjects (biology, history and English).

Emmjay 🙂

Story by Emmjay

Another Australian Senior – General “Motors” Holden is the latest Australian icon to fall victim to the Corolla Virus pandemic.

How do you know you’ve got the Corolla Virus ?

Our Pig’s Arms specialist, Morris Major says these are the things to look out for:

• There’s a small white deposit in your driveway
• And a similar sized perforation in your bank account.
• You find yourself defending an overwhelming blandness with statements like “It’s incredibly reliable and cheap to run”.
• You have an urge to wear white long socks and sandals.
• Friends will notice that you find boiled rice especially tasty.
• You fart a lot when you drink the milk that every other grown up has stopped drinking – mainly because Milo is your beverage of choice.
• You are secretly glad when a childcare centre opens up near you because you can drive at your comfortable speed of 40km/h without people honking and abusing you.
• When you go on holidays, there is a familiar-looking white deposit in a driveway of a shack in Ettalong.
• You do not need to clean birdshit off your car.
• The one CD in your car was recorded by Enya.

Unfortunately, like chickenpox, the Corolla Virus is impossible to completely kill and you’re likely to experience occasional outbreaks particularly when you are under a lot of stress, like during pick up times at that childcare centre you used to wish for when tiny Mums in giant four wheel drives lose control, in shopping centre car parks and going to Andre Rieu concerts.

However, the Corolla Virus can be managed by staying away from the friends that you don’t have … and by asking a demented senior to mind your keys.

The wonderfully outrageous Tom Waites…..

Story by Emmjay

FM asked me the other day – when the air in Sydney was simply unbreathable, and water restrictions (albeit mild by national standards) had cut in and we were trying to save the garden with a few watering cans worth of the wet stuff – she asked whether I thought this might be the start of the end.

Now lest anyone think otherwise, FM is a pretty tough cookie.  She grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs amongst a prototype generation that has now morphed into a tin plated underclass, with an industry specialty in random violence and petty crime.  An excellent place from which to emigrate – as she did`.

I think FM’s question was prompted by the completely bonkers and human-hostile weather and the fact that there’s no rain in sight.  And it’s everywhere.  Look at the terrible fires in North and South America.  People getting burnt out of their homes in the tens of thousands.  And the rainforests of  the Amazon and south east Asia more or less constantly on fire.

The ABC reported that the current fire season had dumped a gazillion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere equivalent to half of the usual national CO2 production.

Some of our patrons know that Emmlet 1 has a farm in NSW’s New England Tablelands.  This is the first time the farm has run out of water in 130 years.  FM and I are going up there for Christmas and I asked Emmlet 1 whether it would help if we brought up a few hundred litres of drinking water for the house.  Just not wanting to be a burden on their family.  She replied that it was a lovely thought but they buy in their water 10,000 litres at a time – by the tanker load.

More worrying is that the feed bill is currently $15,000 a week !  A BLOODY WEEK !  And she added that they will have to take the hard decision in the new year about selling off their breeding stock.  I’m sure you can imagine what kind of catastrophe that must be for a farming family.   When it eventually does rain.  Assuming that rain will come some time – the prices of stock will go through the roof and farmers / graziers who sold at the bottom of the market will have to buy back at the top.  Bloody cruel.

Emmlet 1 said that Australia will see a lot of small family farm holdings come onto the market as a result of not just the drought – but the breaking of the drought – and the only people with the cash to buy will be the big agribusiness companies.  

I’m sure you can see what this means for our country and our rural people – consolidation of power in the hands of the few – the kind of outcome that has led to the plundering of the Murray Darling by monster  cotton growing conglomerates.  And this coupled with the gutless, nay just plain stupid politicians who are apologists for big business constitute a worsening crisis for the driest inhabited continent on Earth.

I really don’t know how to answer FM’s question.  Is this the start of the end ?  I have a sneaking suspicion that the numbers of happy clappers lining up behind Scomo to offer up prayers suggests that the possibility that humanity’s end game is warming up is an unspoken but widespread suspicion.

It’s a spooky feeling, is it not ?  A bit like the passengers on the titanic – well aware that there were too few lifeboats rearranged the deck chairs and joined the band and chorus singing “Nearer my God to Thee”.

But, I suppose that this is taking far too short a view.  It’s not an off a cliff catastrophic event like the meteorite strike that allegedly wiped out the dinosaurs.  Maybe it’s more like the black death that wiped out a third of humanity at the time – a brutal, but admittedly effective way of pressing the reset button on an overpopulated planet.

I want to finish up on a more positive note than that, though.  Is it not great news that so many Australians, in the face of the shittiest leadership in living memory – are doing the right thing by our country.  Solar power and wind farms are actually putting downward pressure on coal prices.  They are slowing demand !  Hurrah !  And there’s nothing that the coal loving Scummo can do about that.  As solar and wind power becomes cheaper than coal and gas, we are arriving at the tipping point where digging up carbon makes no economic sense.  

More good news is the increasing divestiture of investment in carbon by the massively cashed up super funds. And I read today on the ABC web site that the UN is pressuring the giant Siemens to stop buying coal from Adani.  What a Christmas present for the world that would be.

As I rocket towards retirement, my fears for the future for my Emmlet and her 1.5 kids is a little bit allayed by the possibility of a slowing decline, by the actions of a new generation of activists – who have the power of the Internet at their fingertips  and the support of a generation who cut their teeth on demonstrating in the 1960s.  It’s not an overnight solution, but the drive and audacity of the young is a beacon for everyone.

FM and I want to wish all our dear friends at the Pig’s Arms greetings for the season and our sincere hopes for a fucking wet 2020.

Emmjay and FM.

For the Pet who has everything…

This year, Pig-Tel kicks off the Christmas spendfest with one of our all-time great pieces of completely useless shit..

The Pug-Tel automatic ball tosser – for the tosser who’s too lazy to bother throwing a ball for Rover / Rex / King / Rinty to fetch.

Yours for a modest $399 … batteries not included ….. solar powered model, complete with solar powered dog out soon. Free upgrades guaranteed.

Optional Petguard health insurance for the pooch who runs out before the batteries do…… just $39.99 per month*

*Covers 15% of your vet bills if you can come up with a sworn affidavit from a supreme court judge or QC.

Sadly, punters, this shit actually exists ! Kind off explains the last election result, doesn’t it….