The Dump is:
For posting comments that don’t get up at the Drum, and for having a pleasant, mirthful or enlightening off-topic discussion.
It’s not for personal abuse of other commenters.
Please do that somewhere else if you must.
Play nicely or piss off.
However, why doesn’t a poster add a link for us to read and comment on here, much quicker. Maybe we can do a bit more bagging here, not that I speak for the moderators, yet.
NB: Being tiresome and boring, racist, sexist or just plain creepy is not playing nicely.
———-
The Pig’s Arms exists because a dozen or so years ago our other favourite playpen – the ABC’s Unleashed blogsphere started to go off. Like a sack of prawn heads in the sun. Something had to be done.
Moderation was taking forever. Comments seemed to be rejected randomly – outrageous ones appeared and reasoned ones were pinged. When they released the Drum / Unleashed ….. things actually got worse !
So many pieces from professional writers appear with no obvious merit. And the moderation has become, to put it frankly, appalling.
As a former contributor and a commenter, I was deeply disappointed at the plummeting quality from our pre-eminent media empire. And I resented so many challenging or dare I say, witty or funny posts in which we’ve invested seconds of our precious time – getting the chop.
So here, for all our benefit – is an open slather blog. Copy and paste your best rejected comments here for posterity. Does not matter whether you’re posting on the Guardian, First Dog on the Moon or wherever else.
And sprinkle pointers to the Pig’s Arms amongst your comments. Let’s try to rescue some of the old faithful.
Cheers,
Emm.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
LikeLike
The Morning after on a Greek Beach
Apollo is dancing
On our bodies, stinging
The flesh,
Clouding the brain –
Body and brain
Still saturated with last night’s
Ouzo;
Like the black olives which you had
Marinated for a whole week in
Ouzo;
And the cicadas are arguing
Again; like the tourists do over the price of
Plaster statuettes of the Minotaur.
The sea is of no help either:
Pinned as we are on the sand,
This blue, fragrant oil remains
Exotically out of our reach.
Our
Spirits ascended too high
Last night.
Curse you and your love for
Ouzo!
LikeLike
Simon and Garfunkel
Batman and Robin
Lord Funston and atomou
😉
LikeLike
He’s Bonnie, I’m Clyde!
LikeLike
It HAS been a bit of a laugh though. To think that the tag team can charge voice with being responding to a loaded question with a similarly loaded question…
Bit of a chuckle. Thanks, guys.
Now for my morning libations!
Oh Zeus!
How flawed you made us mortals!
LikeLike
Particularly when it comes to grammar, syntax and spallink!
LikeLike
If anyone is interested here’s some items http://www.cafepress.com.au/terrafugia that can be purchased as extras, when one orders the Flying Car, spruiked on ABC, this morning.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-03/flying-car-on-test-flight-in-us/3928684
LikeLike
This mouse pad, looks pretty swish.
http://www.cafepress.com.au/terrafugia.483801814
LikeLike
That’s the trouble with Greek solicitors. They’re never content with one address. I suppose the spare one is for storing honey?
LikeLike
Ouzo and baklava.
LikeLike
at Voice says:
April 2, 2012 10:54 pm
Snort.
Same as the thing in your make-up that makes you beat your wife, gerard. (Ask Stagger Lee if that seems too oblique.)
I saw this post below and as I find it slanderous,I demand that you delete it immediately.
Voice, I have never been beaten by anyone, not by my parents, teachers, Gerard or anyone else.I find your post absolutely disgusting and I will talk to my lawyers, of course you must realise that I know who you are.
LikeLike
Snort plus snicker. Ask Stagger Lee to explain it to you Helvi. I just can’t be bothered.
LikeLike
Catherine Birch:
Without prejudice.
I hereby request you take this post down.
Gerard Oosterman
3/7 Ascot Rd,Bowral 2576 NSW
Copy:
GEORGIOU & CO SOLICITORS
50 Gladesville Road Hunters Hill NSW 2110
P O Box 1132, Hunters Hill 2110
LikeLike
Your solicitors sound like they’re Greek, Gerard. They’ll understand about “loaded or complex questions” like “have you stopped beating your wife?”
I’ll stop beating mine the moment she stops beating her husband.
Midnight and you two are still at it!
Amazing!
LikeLike
But it’s got absolutely nothing to do with you. If in fact you actually exist outside of cyberspace.
LikeLike
PS. I will have to also talk to Emmjay about this.
LikeLike
Helvi, Gerard, Voice,
What on earth is going on ?!?!
Amd why am I called to the stand??
LikeLike
We are as flabbergasted as you StaggerLee,
I was having a conversation about Patrick White with Voice on the Dump, when, after some toeing and froing attempting to calm her increasing stridency with some slipping and sliding of facts, including her assertion that both parents of Patrick White were free settlers, when this strange post appeared whereby Voice wrote the following:
“Snort.
Same as the thing in your make-up that makes you beat your wife, gerard. (Ask Stagger Lee if that seems too oblique.)”.
Helvi and I felt the post to be more than strange and after seeking counsel were advised that to be slanderous. We have asked Voice to delete the post and asked Emmjay to request Voice to do the same.
I should never have attempted to reason with Voice, a useless task often proved in the past.
So, StaggerLee, do you know anything about her referring to me beating Helvi?
And that my dear friend is as it stands this morning.
LikeLike
Don’t worry about it, SL. Gerard snarled a puerile question of the “how often do you beat your wife” variety and I pointed it out. atomou has already had a go at explaining the genre of question to him but couldn’t get through. If you take on the task prepare for a long day. 🙂
LikeLike
I do worry, Voice…and I am taking this further, put away your silly smilies, I’m not smiling..
LikeLike
Stagger Lee, same here, what has all this ugliness got to do with me, I had a sleepless night and I am more than angry, on top of that she calls ato to join her in this madness…I have not even talked to her here nor to atomou…I know better…
She’s been abusive before but this I can’t take.I have to do something about it, I can’t leave it…
What on earth is she trying to achieve?.Where is Emmjay? ato and Voice chased Hung away for bad behaviour, what is this?
LikeLike
The most shameful lie in this latest attempt at bullying anyone who shows up gerard’s nonsense is the attempt to use Hung. Stop it. It’s inexcusable.
LikeLike
You’re blowing this up out of proportion, Helvi. It was just some abstract repartee. Did you really, honestly believe, that Voice, was saying that you are beaten by gererd?
Of course not. Your taking unwarranted umbrage.
LikeLike
Ms Birch, I know everything about Hung case, we have the e-mails, you want me to put them up here.
Julian, I don’t talk to her, why drag me into her nastiness.
She has ruined Pigs Arms for Emmjay, she will be the only one here…this is disgusting.
LikeLike
G&H, Voice DID NOT call me here to do the tag team thing which you two do so well. I came, I saw, couldn’t believe my eyes that you’re both so ignorant and tried to explain: that questions such as “have you stopped beating your wife?” are called “loaded” or “complex” questions and cannot be answered because to say “yes” to it, you infer that you actually did used to beat your wife. It’s a well known question which law students are given to work through during their studies (see you should have done some formal educating, gerard. it helps with such little matters).
Personally, I’m annoyed that Voice has asked to refer to this young chap Staggering Lee than to an older, more seasoned, more wisened grey hair like me! Still, you Gerard, have made a similar loaded question to her, to wit:
“Voice:
There you go again. What is it in your make-up that revels in finding fault with everyone and everything? There has to be an explanation somewhere. It’s not just me. It’s the world. What happened to you, what sort of horrors?”
I thought it was quite an insulting, patronising, shitty question to ask of someone but worse, it was a loaded, complex question that could not be answered.
As for us chasing Hungsie away, you two are yet again, talking through your butt. You have no idea what went on in private emails between me and Hungsie. None. You don’t know what you’re talking about but still you make incredible accusations such as this one.
Methinks I better get onto my team lawyers (Mrs Ato and her frying pan will for a start!) about this one.
LikeLike
Helvi, what on earth are you talking about?
Hung has nothing to do with this. It is not fair on him and Voice to bring up his unfortunate illness. I am sure that he regrets his abusive language and doesn’t need to be reminded. Stop using him as a pawn. And let him forget it.
I cannot fathom your dialogue. Which is odd, because I regard my self as pretty savvy.
Gerard makes lots of derogatory comments, about Australians, in his articles. But it is his right to be a bit grumpy and irascible, at his age. We accept it and enjoy his views. However one must expect some return fire. It’s all part and parcel of discussion. I still cannot get over this wife beating umbrage. Can you explain it? Since, it was, as I observe, abstract…..
LikeLike
First handsome then sensible! Will you STOP shocking me, lad!
GeeZeus!
LikeLike
VL, has left the building. Nite nite ♫♫ ♂ ♪ ♪☻☻►►►►►►►►
LikeLike
ATT, Hudson. I have left an opening for you to attend gerard’s article on China.
LikeLike
The Drumb is frozen.
LikeLike
I think there’s only one moderator. Nothing gets put up for hours on end. Then the posts are obviously lost and they add a few more current.
LikeLike
With the Libs having a mandate to do whatever they want in Queensland here is just a taste of what is to come.You can perhaps also imagine if the Federal election went this way.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-27/wwf-outraged-after-herbicide-allowed-to-be-used-in-reef/3916292
LikeLike
This has happened on Bligh & Julia’s watch!.. Stop dozing gERARD.
LikeLike
Helvi – I will respond to you here if I may.
I don’t know what you are talking about the “other blog”. If you mean Ellis’, I have not been back since my fight with Quixote. I can’t do it. I won’t do it.
I was not being patronising about Voss. I was genuinely happy that you were reading it. I remember telling you it was one of my favourite novels and you said that you were planning to read Gerard’s copy of it. I was genuinely happy. It was my way of leaving on a positive note. To you, of all people.
I bid “farewell” to people who do not listen, that is true. Whether they agree or disagree is beside the point. Listening is the most important thing. And as you can see, from the responses to my post, no-one was really listening. Not even you…….if you want to be honest about it.
Hudson does NOT want to keep the discussion going – Hudson simply uses someone else’s post to launch into another one of his monologues. He didn’t even respond to the questions I’d set out. What is the point of a dialogue??
The debate is over Helvi.
I know most there would like to keep it going for the sake of Jennifer…..but it is over.
I hope you enjoy Voss as much as I do. I used to read it once every 2 years or so. I haven;t done that in a while now….but the memories are still quite strong.
Bye Helvi 🙂
LikeLike
Keeping popping in Stagger. We love you.
LikeLike
I reckon he’s a bugger for punishment, young Staggers!
T read Voss twice may be regarded as a sign of desperation; to read it every two years or so looks like abject masochism to me!
LikeLike
My own aim has always been to seek simplicity and certain disconnectedness. This aim is probably steeped in wanting as little responsibility as is humanly possible and… A kind of laziness not to get involved in anything distracting me from …whatever it is that fills my head at the time, most likely, nothing much really.
My dream still is to live in a square room made of straw bales. It would have a wooden floor and a cozy wood heater in the middle. I would live out of a suitcase and eat simple food, may be lentils or smoked pork spare ribs with apples cooked with rhubarb and crumble on top, a simple glass of red wine afterwards…Sleep on a kapok mattress and read Patrick White’s Voss under a kerosene light.
LikeLike
SL,you are wrong, I have been listening to you, but sadly you have not been taking my comments seriously, you have been listening to the brain too much and forgotten about the most important thing ,the heart.
You put too much in store for what you saw as cleverness, but what was nothing more than nastiness, I was shocked by your lack of judgement about people, you go with what you perceive as learned, I appreciate wisdom., compassion, kindness…
I’m absolutely loving Voss, and will read more of Patrick after that.
I appreciate your political comments on the Drum, I ALWAYS agree, and I think why can’t other Aussies see it your way…
No goodbyes, but Auf Wiedersehen…see you again…around, somewhere 🙂
LikeLike
Funston, hello old man. You look like Daltrey.
atomou, perhaps I am 🙂 . it is a splendid novel. Do you like White?
Gerard, can You spare a bright flicker of that flame?
Helvi, Let me just clarify something from the outset. When I said that people were not listening i was referring specifically to the Wilson blog and my final 2 posts. I did not mean here, at the Pigs, or the conversations we have had here. It was just the Wilson posts. OK?
now, a few things to talk about:
Did you notice, how could you not, that Wilson and her most fervent supporters refused to engage?
Why Helvi?
Tell me why it went untouched? why did Jen Wilson leave it alone? Why did all of her acolytes run a mile?
I have my ideas…….and I’d like to hear yours.
You said that you appreciated ” compassion and kindness”……why then did you jump to the conclusion that I was “patronising”?
What on earth gave you that idea? Have I ever given you precedent or cause to think such a thing?
Who have I misjudged Helvi? I need you to explain this. what was the cause of you’re “shock”?
finally,
I spend the better part of my days, my life, my laughter, my friends and my family, my reading and my art trying to balance my head and heart. Half a lifetime ago I saw a Mondrian that had in its top left corner a square of yellow. sitting there, forever at the moment of Becoming – eternally placed at 11am on the solar clock – I saw my life’s challenge…….my life’s goal.
That”s three questions Helvi.
If you expect me to give your first sentence any consideration then you will have to address those three questions.
LikeLike
Hi StaggerLee,
I can’t throw any light on Ato’s aversion to White’s novels. I believe he is a teacher of English and perhaps White’s grammar isn’t up to scratch. Ask Ato.
My flame shines bright regarding Paddy White. I am forever banging on why there are signs along the M5 pointing to the Bradman Mausoleum, yet not a single sign or even a park bench in front of Tudor House Preparatory Schools for Boys (yuk) where Mr White went to school for a while.
LikeLike
Fucking english teachers! What would they know of English literature?
LikeLike
…or about Literature, even.
Voss is overloaded with attempts at Literature. Unwieldy, ponderous, sluggish, like a donkey climbing Everest in winter. Reading it is like swimming with a millstone around your neck.
All great stuff, if you’re a masochist and if you don’t mind putting aside mountains of bloody fine literature to wade through White. It’s a choice.
LikeLike
Ah, SL, but I have answered your questions here and in other places. Maybe I have not been clear enough, or you have not heard me…
JW might have her reasons to be ‘curt’, but I’m not going to speculate…. What I witnessed on the BE’s blog was not ‘curtness’, the exchanges between the three people (fighting) were ugly, and unnecessarily so, the language used by the female in question was plain vulgar…
(of course I’m not going to mention names or rather Pseudonyms on public forums, fora, if you like 🙂 )
PS. Talking about language, I read Voss slowly as White’s language use unusual, his insights are brilliant though… I feel like underlining them, so I can savour them later. I find turning the corners of pages of any good book almost criminal, so it has to be underlining…
Have a nice weekend.
LikeLike
To cheer you up, SL :
Friend from Sydney was telling me how her book club has got a welcome new addition, an interesting Frenchman. When she asked him about his views on Oz politics and especially what he thought about Abbott, his curt reply was: vulgar…with a Gallic shrug of course.
Maybe not so cheerful after all, this vulgar bloke might one day be our PM….
LikeLike
Gerard, That”s a good idea…..I shall ask right now,
atomou? what kind of world would it be if we were all the same?
A most peculiar one! 🙂
Anyway,
I see a map of desolation and torment and love.
I see a language rich and robust, searching and delicate.
I see an Australian Odyssey; mythological, symbolic.
I see European Modernism.
I see a novel that still lingers 25 years after my first reading.
And I am happy to carry that millstone.
I like to think I have read mountains of bloody fine Literature atomou.
White would certainly figure in that…..mountain chain.
Are there ranges you have in mind?…..I’m curious.
Surely not all need be Mahālangūr Himāl?
Helvi, No. not good enough. Not good enough at all. I will hold you to your post. There is simply too much evasion on these damn blogs and it stops here. right now. With you and I. Let’s do this together Helvi…….you and I versus the world!
You have not answered my questions. you may like to believe you have, but you have not.
Tell me of my “lack of judgement”.
Tell me of your “shock”.
One cannot drop these thunderclaps and then retire to the safety of silence.
I was not asking you to answer for Wilson.
Tell me what you think about her silence on my posts.
Tell me what you think about the silence of every one of her acolytes.
Speculate.
Do whatever it is you wish – just respond to the question.
Do not leave it unaddressed.
Why did you find my Voss reference “patronising”?
Your Ellis reference is lost on me. I left after my fight with Quixote and have not been back.
I will not go back.
So Helvi, what’s it to be?
Will you answer directly……or will you not?
Three questions.
LikeLike
Atomou, have just read further down the page and can see your list.
I suppose that answers my question.
LikeLike
Staggers, have you read Moravia? Same time, different channel. Not asking you to compare qualities because they are in the eyes of the beholder. I’m simply asking if you have read him at the same time you’ve read White. What about Kazantzakis? Hesse…
It’s a choice.
LikeLike
atomou, Moravia no. Hesse and Kazantzakis, yes.
Let me give some context.
White came with company – Pynchon, Vonnegut, Kesey, Heller, Robbe-Grillet, Pinter, Kerouac, Nabokov, Golding, Bellow, Beckett, Hemingway, O’Connor, Ionesco, Miller, Mailer, O’Neill, Orwell, Sartre, Rand, Eliot, Camus, Woolf, Koestler, Joyce, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Sassoon, Brecht, Proust, Mann, Fitzgerald, Chekhov, James, Dreiser and many others – and for those early and deeply impressionable years I read them as such.
What I saw and felt in one i despised in the other. It is a balancing act…..
And it’s a choice, you are quite correct; a choice of reading, of interpretation, of ideology and of Self.
You know atomou, I’m still balancing 🙂
LikeLike
Staggers, I know the context. Read all those except for, Robbe-Grillet, Dreiser, O’Connor and, I must admit, no more than 100 or so pages of Proust’s monstrosity.
The reason I asked you about Moravia is because, if, Zeus forbid, one were to make comparisons of value-for-minutes-spent, the two, Moravia and White, are in pretty much the same race but Moravia wins with three hoofs tied behind his arse. I have read all of the novels of both. The italian, I loved, the Australian I read all of his works only because I had to.
Proust was a donkey that wouldn’t move.
I must check out the three I haven’t read.
As for aussie writers, if, Zeus forbid, one were to make similar comparisons, then I’d say Kate Grenville wipes the track with White.
But it’s a meaningless banter.
LikeLike
For Stagger Lee:
“What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the dicipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you and walk on into futurity.”
Henry David Thoreau
There are people who are both readers and seers, some are merely readers…and some are seers (even if not readers)
LikeLike
Atomou, you know my context?!?!
Strangely clairvoyant…. or off the mark?
You shall have to set me straight, till then,
let me assist in that…..re-alignment 🙂
By “context” I meant Modernism. I read White in the sense that his works belong – in my mind – to that larger project of defining and expressing (the central concerns of) Modernism. The overwhelming majority of writers I listed belong to that project.
On another matter – for me somehow….more important,
I was fascinated by that little trick of yours atomou.
You qualified, in your first post, the question, by ” Not asking [me] to compare qualities because they are in the eyes of the beholder” and then moving, in your second post, directly toward a comparison,”…[if] one were to make comparisons of value-for-minutes-spent”?!?!
It made me smile.
You asked for a “time” (“I’m simply asking if you have read him at the same time you’ve read White”) and I answered with the (chronological) context.
It was a time, not of comparisons as such, but as I mentioned earlier, of investigations into the nature of (literary, formal, critical, philosophical) Modernism.
If you wish to redirect the conversation toward comparisons and value then we could chat till doomsday.
And what a lovely way to pass the time!
My two bob is this: Shakespeare over Homer, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes.
And who will be read and studied in 50, 100, 1000 years time?
Who knows!
But I’m willing to make this bet – literary skill will not be the governing factor.
“meaningless banter”?!?!
How strange that you should see it that way.
I’m also wondering how long it will take Helvi to respond to my questions.
Any idea atomou?
LikeLike
I’m sorry that you see me as a casual student of such things Helvi that the presentation of a Thoreau quote will absolve you of responding directly to my questions.
LikeLike
The way I see it, is that one doesn’t emerge being cleverer after reading these books. One has to be clever prior.
LikeLike
Ah, now I must draw my sword from its scabbard and shout out “en garde you blackguard!”
Shakespeare over Homer, over Aeschylus and even over Aristophanes! You, sir are an impertinent doghearted clotpole!
Shakespeare is good only because he has learnt his skills from those whom you consider his lesser; and he’s bad because he stuffed his chickens with too many herbs and spices, too much wine and too much ado. No more the simple, clear, eloquence of the message, the song, the emotion and the style that one sees in Homer and the poets who followed him! No, with this bard we have the bloated chest, the bloated story, the bloated word and the bloated – well, everything!
Yet, Shakespeare has done for the English language what Homer has done for the Greek and for that we ought to thank him from the bottom of our hearts; but Shakespeare has done for the English stage what the three tragedians (including Sophocles, you, you, you literary nave!) and Aristophanes have done for the world stage, the world literature, the world psychology, the world philosophy, the world -well, the study of the world!
I asked you not to make comparisons in the simplistic, ‘good vs bad’ contests but one could easily make comparisons between any two or more works on a whole lot of specific ingredients, some of which I’ve mentioned above.
Thou art not noble, sir!
As for the context, I simply looked at the one you devised by your list. I guessed “modernism” because you talked about it on a number of occasions, though I have no refined definition of such. Why not Solzhenitsyn, for example, or Ezra Pound, or Kafka, Kavafy, Karyotakis?
Anyhooo, my guess is that both, Shakespeare and Homer will continue to be studied for as long as study is possible. So will the dramaturges of 5thC BC Athens. White, however… over Grenville? No way!
LikeLike
Stagger, how long will it take for you to hear that of course I can’t talk about other people here…
I also find it it ‘discombobulating’ to refer to anyone when I don’t know who is who , some commenters have too many ‘names’….not you VL, you are most transparent.
LikeLike
Another useful litmus test is to go to Russia and ask them what they know about Australia. I did just that some years ago. The answers were almost identical to what I also received in Holland. “Your Patrick White and specifically ‘The tree of Man’.” are really special, wonderful works of great art. They were genuine in their praise.
At that time I rarely heard anything about Patrick White in Australia. I hardly ever even met anyone that had heard about him. Very odd, don’t you think?
This begs the question why he is getting far greater praise overseas than locally. One answer might well have been given in last Saturday’s Australian Magazine where a double spread was given over to that same question, together with latest publication of an unfinished book that P.White was working on.
Patrick White was not always so graceful about Australians as he was about its landscape and foreigners. Voss and the indigenous were always seen in a better light than the wealthy Australian born convict ancestry counterparts. He often was rather scathing, especially towards the squattocracy and its inherited wealth, the quasi social graces and the demeaning emptiness of the owners of great wealth.
He was a most reluctant Australian and towards the end was more given to fighting for the political left, the wastefulness of wars (Vietnam), the indigenous, the rape of the environment and was especially critical of the drongo ocker culture of the moneyd Australians. He ‘knew’ and understood all about it, having been born into it.
If students were obliged to study P.White locally I can well imagine some beery lecturer putting the boot in.
Patrick White and his acerbic descriptions of some of the snobs that he was surrounded by did not make him any friends locally and perhaps one reason he is still is seen in that light. Change is moving still extremely slow.
As for Kate Grenville and P.White… a matter of choice.. and perception.
I wonder, if Paddy was still alive, would he be just as scathing about the zinc aluminated society and its endless roll out of suburbia and Abbott as I am? A comforting thought.
Bless his soul!
LikeLike
Nothing worse, than a well read fool.
Lord ╒unston 2012.
LikeLike
Is it true that Patrick White was scathing about people because of their convict ancestry, gerard, or did you just make it up? If so, I believe it wouldn’t be unusual for people in that era so I suppose you just have to make allowances.
LikeLike
Voice:
No not ‘because’ but more as an inevitable result of birth and history. The only Australians that did not come from European ancestry were of course the indigenous and true original Australians. I don’t think that there were too many that did not come from convict ancestry at those periods that White placed most of his novels.. I did not make this up. Voice, have you read Voss? Voss did not come from that ancestry. He was German. (I think).
LikeLike
No; the one book I’ve read of his is Riders in the Chariot. Oh yes, there were heaps of Australians who descended from free settlers at that time, including both White’s father and mother, so when you specifically mentioned convicts, I thought it was a reference to some kind of free settler petty snobbery. Maybe just your own petty snobbery.
You are also wrong that the only Australians who did not come from European ancestry were indigenous. Chinese came here in large numbers very early indeed, and even the First Fleet had a few non-Europeans. Where do you GET this stuff from?
LikeLike
Voice:
Where did I say that all came from convicts ancestry? Also, Patrick’s mother was English and not a free settler, his father English Australian.
You read the Riders in the Chariot. As you seemed to be very impressed, read some more.I read all his books except for his latest that is coming out soon.
What to make of your arrow directed at me ‘your own petty snobbery’, cruising for a bruising again? What is it this time again?
Also, I would not have put too much weight on his Cambridge experience having been the catalyst for his creative output or to have been his reason for being well ‘educated’. He studied French and German literature. He despised the English Boarding public (private) education he received, could hardly forgive his parents for this having inflicted on him. I suspect he was educated in the purest form, perhaps even despite of having gone through the torture of a Cambridge.
LikeLike
Yes, I dismissed his English public school education as the catalyst. Did I do that too obliquely? But that dismissal wasn’t really from me; it came from his brief online autobiography. I put the primary catalyst for his creative experience down to being stuck indoors alone with a lot of books as a child. But it wasn’t really me who put it down to that; the quote came from him. In combination presumably with a native sensitivity and introspection. Have you read his brief autobiography for the Nobel Prize? On the contrary, it WAS Cambridge where he received his first class education. He studied French and German literature. How can you not know this? And how can you presume to make stuff up such as Cambridge being a torture for him when he himself wrote “In fact I enjoyed every minute of my life at King’s, especially the discovery of French and German literature.”
Also how can you be so ignorant about Australian history? I mean, I missed the Australian History years at school as well. But you’ve lived here more years than I have and it’s you that was pontificating about it.
I find your habit of making stuff up to be completely bizarre.
LikeLike
P.S. Where did you bring up convict ancestry? Can’t remember. You can search it as well as I. It was this evening.
LikeLike
Down with AFL.
LikeLike
Don’t over think things, VL.
LikeLike
Voice:
There you go again. What is it in your make-up that revels in finding fault with everyone and everything? There has to be an explanation somewhere. It’s not just me. It’s the world. What happened to you, what sort of horrors?
LikeLike
Pathetic.
LikeLike
hahahahaha, atomou!
That’s the way to respond on a Monday morn….with gusto and dash!
Unfortunately your verve led you into error – first on Shakespeare and second, on suggesting that I was not noble!
🙂
To Funston, hello old man.
Books can help. Even a feeble mind can exercise. Words and ideas will keep atrophy at bay. On that you’ll never convince me otherwise.
I’m sorry Helvi, if that’s your answer I cannot accept it.
Strange…………you say you “can’t talk about other people here” yet have no such reservations talking about me here.
You made claims about me Helvi.
I asked you to explain them.
You retreated first into silence.
And now disrespect me with excuses.
LikeLike
No Stagger, I don’t ‘disrespect’ you, I like you… 🙂
LikeLike
Carisbrooke says:
April 2, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Nothing worse, than a well read fool.
Lord ╒unston 2012.
.
Should have gone here.
White had the benefit of several stints in England. I very much doubt that he would have been the author that he was without that background. He was of course ¾ English too 🙂
He’s probably the only, ever, Australian writer of any note.
LikeLike
Well, Roald Dahl was of that generation and I remember him attributing his love of literature to an English public school education. The cleaner used to bring in literature to occupy the boys on Sunday when the masters went in to town. 😉 Apart from that, nothing.
But I’m certain you are correct about his stint at Cambridge University. There wouldn’t have been anything that came close to that in quality in Australia, not just the lecturers but also the students. Plus the ease of travelling to Europe to further his education there.
Also, to me the most striking feature of his works (of which I’ve only read one; I found it brilliant but traumatic) is his identification with outsiders. Scanned his autobiography and he says his miserable treatment by English public school boys as a colonial contributed to that, as did his miserable treatment by Australians as a Pom due to his public school accent when he returned to Australia. As did his sickly childhood, which was also the equivalent of Roald Dahl’s school’s cleaner in terms of exposure to literature. (And I imagine he also read it. 🙂 ) Then his homosexuality would would been a massive contributor as an adult. Plus the fact that he was probably by far the best educated person of anyone he knew, bar a handful, and apparently not very tolerant about other people’s lesser opportunities and ability. But then, people had never been tolerant of him, had they?
LikeLike
Who can say, but I doubt his stay in England and travels nourished his urge to write. Just that they shaped the type of writer he became. Far more literate than he would otherwise have been, and far more identification as an outsider. He says of himself “Probably induced by the asthma, I started reading and writing early on, my literary efforts from the age of about nine running chiefly to poetry and plays.”
LikeLike
Yes Lord Funstan Carrisbrook and Voice:
That’s good comment. Of course his education and stay in England with subsequent travels with his partner Manoly must have nourished his urge to write. I remember him walking arm in arm with Tom Uren during an anti Vietnam war rally. I think a picture of that is somewhere in David Marr’s book about P.White’s letters, a worthy book on its own.
LikeLike
Voice:
And his (P. White) identification with outsiders is absolutely correct.
LikeLike
Dahl, another poor bastard been sent an English boarding school to be unhappy…
Kids and grand children loved his stories…I have not read anything by him ,meant for adults…must Google 🙂
LikeLike
…my picture was chosen by the four males in the family; Gez and the three grandsons, nothing to do with me believing that I were pretty, was pretty, have been pretty…I let the little ones make their choice…
LikeLike
@ Stagger… I’ve just come across a book of White’s plays: Collected plays volume 1.
We moved last year and still have stuff in boxes. It’s a paperback (published1985) and has my eldest son’s name on the inside cover. He did an arts degree in Brisbane.
Anyway, I digress….Flicking through it I notice the constant use of ellipsis. Sometimes including four dots.
You’re a fan of his… Is that where you got the habit?
LikeLike
Clive, has a dual personality – so he shouldn’t be mocked.
There are actually two people under that Zegna suit.(Paul Keating’s favourite brand.).. (And mine.)
There’s the Mandarin/Wu/Hunane/Cantonese, speaking Clive; excellent at doing deals and
eating. Then there’s the mini me: Clive Forefinger, who doesn’t give a rats’, since the MRRT, doesn’t affect him – or, so he says.
So, he can just blurt out whatever..it doesn’t affect most of the Zegna’s occupier. He formed a new World Soccer Association, bought 50 (approx) golf courses and sues anyone who walks on the same side of the street as him – They need the whole pavement.
But the real Clive (sound familiar), is a good guy. Why just last year, he gave all his staff Mercedes cars!!!
Choke on that Craig Thomson.
So, his alter ego has spotted this CIA, play and he just wants you to be aware. Be very, very, aware. Loose lops, sink cargo ships!
………………………………………………………………………………….
IT DIDN’T get up – so Iv’e cut out the Thomson reference. Just in case it’s one of you lot (ilk), as a moderator tonight. And I know how sensitive youse are!
LikeLike
I’m surprised… now it lets me post here… I tried a coupla posts on a coupla blogs over the past coupla days and it didn’t seem to wanna let me post ’em…
Wonder if it’s working on the other blogs; it’ll have to wait though… gotta do the shopping for the next fortnight… And then I really orta update my own blog… Speaking of which… WordPress’s new stats widget allows one to see where one’s ‘views’ are coming from, more or less… at least the country they’re from… and I was surpised to notice that yesterday, I had only one view from Oz… seven from the UK, about half a dozen from the USA (including Alaska…) and perhaps most surprisingly, three from the Republic of Korea… (it didn’t say whether north or south…)
Anyway… gotsta go shopping now… seizure later…
😐
LikeLike
It’s South Korea, asty.
Next to the list of countries, you will see a map of the world with the countries that clicked you, in red (orange to red by intensity of numbers). Click on the country on the list and you will see it highlighted on the map.
LikeLike
Thank Zeus its South Korea, Ato!
🙂
LikeLike
Would someone please change the name of this page back to ‘Leashed’…
Here’s a comment I’ve just posted on Alain de Botton’s latest drivel, “Religion for Atheists”, which may or may not make it past the censors:
“Pshaw!
This dude starts with an oxymoron; indeed his whole premise is an oxymoron… and he calls himself a ‘philosopher’?
A sophist, perhaps…
LikeLike
Well, you only pop in once a week.
LikeLike
The place is a dump and you want me to come here more often?
😐
LikeLike
Well, you could come in and sweep up 😉
LikeLike
Here I am… brain the size of a planet… and you want me to sweep up! Life? Don’t talk to me about life….
😉
LikeLike
Well the place is like a dump.
Do the washing up and put out the empty trotters bottles.
LikeLike
What did your last slave die of? I don’t work here! Bad enough drinking here! And they’re not MY Trotters’ bottles…
😉
LikeLike
HI.
LikeLike
They really are wicked, at the Dum!
They had some eight or so comments of mine at the Assange article and some dozen or so responses to them. Then they closed access and puff! Out go my comments and all that went with them! Throughly ruthless!
Now can you see why I want Wikileaks restarted here?
LikeLike
Enough to make a man superstitious!
LikeLike
Can’t even post anything now – not closed, the comments thingy has some problem.
LikeLike
No it’s got the old notice up, Vivie: “Comments for this story are closed. No new comments can be added.”
Maybe just on my browser?
LikeLike
They changed the spelling of Oakhead, to Oakshott. So they are reading every post. No wonder they are so slow.
LikeLike
Viv, I wanted to comment somewhere, anywhere, but could not find one article that interested me, I can’t stand Peter Reith, I find Assange a slime-bag, no interest in World Bank…so I did some gardening and planted some Agapanthus plants, two loads of washing, two walks and I even managed to do a spot of ironing 🙂
I even checked Annabelle, but found that tedious…I really think ABC is turning anti Labor all together…
LikeLike
Assange a slime bag!
Amazing! Simply amazing!
LikeLike
I echo ├───┤elvi’s sentiment – not as a right winger – just as a father and thinking person.
He should go to Sweden and state his case if he’s innocent.
And I believe that deep down the Wikileaks thing, is just something dreamed up to satisfy his ego – and wallet!
LikeLike
Helvi – have similar feelings. But yesterday, it wasn’t that comments were closed, when I hit the rely button the message was that there was a problem which would be fixed soon. Two hours later it had not been fixed. What is so frustrating that there is so little of real interest but time is still cut short. I find myself saying, what the fuck, another load of drivel. Still I am doing another nursing stint – hubby completely stuffed his knee. He thinks highly of the room service. He hasn’t had the account yet.
LikeLike
Christ,, I feel like taking a dump, a proverbial dump on the Bum…I mean the Drum.
I suppose we can be grateful they’ve stopped the ‘labor leadership’ stories!
LikeLike
I gave up on unleashed proper when they started closing the comments within a day. Coupled with the fact that it takes up to a day to get posted this means that there’s effectively little prospect of conversation between posters as used to be the case. I seldom used to find myself heavily censored, although they’d a real habit of cutting out jokes for no apparent reason. Yet if you quoted a comedian who’d used them in their act then you’d every chance of getting away with it.
For some reason the religious section tolerates a protracted conversations, and some of the articles are actually quite interesting to me. Recent conversations with Staggerlee and Murray Alfredson proved rewarding, but for the most part one doesn’t want to simply behave like a troll by blundering about upsetting people whore basically closed to your ideas simply because the articles are nominally in the religious section. If somebody wants to quote scripture at me then I’m afraid they’re wasting their time and mine.
My thoughts are that if only you could convince Marieke Hardy to post all the stuff the ABC wants to censor over here then I’d be perfectly happy to partake 🙂
LikeLike
Hello Hudson. You have surprised me most profoundly. I had never seen/read you here before………perhaps, like me, you have wandered in from the cold to seek warmth in this City of Refuge?
I too enjoyed our recent conversations and so I am glad that you also found them “rewarding”.
After reading the Religion and Ethics section for only about 3 or 4 months now ( I didn’t realise the damn thing was there!!) I feel it is the right place for me to pursue a conversation.
Perhaps we will see each other again.
LikeLike
A visit from your good self is truly countered as an honour my liege.
And although said jestfully.It is heartfelt 🙂
LikeLike
Apologies for bad grammar. I was just posting a recipe on The Dot!
LikeLike
Well, Hudson, this is a day coincidences, here we are comforting Stagger Lee, who has been unhappy about heavy censoring on the Drum/Opinion for some time now. In our little chat below I’m even mentioning your name, as we are also talking about pseudonyms…
The heavy rains here kept us locked indoors, so I spent a lot time checking out various blogs and happened to see you and Miowarra on some ABC blog, a religious one? Maybe it was something about freedom of the speech? By the time I had checked Jennifer Wilson’s and Bob Ellis’ blogs, I had enough and took the dog out for a walk in a heavy rain…
Come back another day, not the rain, but you, Hudson. 🙂
LikeLike
hi Helvi, just seeing your post up and thought I’d say a quick thanks for your…….comfort.
LikeLike
Great to see you here Hudson. I don’t have much time to visit the ABC sites much these days, but I remember with pleasure reading your manifold contributions there. Please come back and if you would like to contribute a piece, you are very welcome – see the “About” page. Regards, Emmjay
LikeLike
Hudson! So nice to see you at the Pigs Arms finally! I do hope that, now you’ve found your way to this delightful little virtual pub, you will not make a stranger of yourself!
🙂
LikeLike
Can I add my heartiest welcome to you to those of my fellow piglets. Always good to see a friendly “face” from the unleashed days.
LikeLike
I just blundered into the ‘Dump’ for the first time. I thought it was the gents, just renamed, and didn’t bother, because I don’t like going in front of the others, anyhoo I find the famous Hudson Godfrey, and the infamous Staggerlee nattering away like old mates.
Welcome to you both!
LikeLike
What a swizz! I wanted to post a comment on Paula Matthewson’s ‘Lost Tribe’ piece; here’s what I’d have said:
Paula, as a member of that lost tribe of pygmies, I am perhaps permitted to divulge our name, providing you promise to tell no-one else, of course… Agreed? Okay… here it is:
We’re the Fuquarwi! We spend our time pushing through the wilderness of the political undergrowth, trying desperately to find some way out, so we frequently jump up to get a better view; and, to let other tribal members know who we are we identify ourselves by shouting:
“We’re the Fuquarwi!”
😉
LikeLike
They close, every Friday 8:30. Last orders 8:25 NSW time
LikeLike
Or, 9:27 😉
LikeLike
Oh!
🙂
LikeLike
Didn’t you get my… oh! Never mind!
😉
LikeLike
Yeah, I used to tell it in Kindy.
LikeLike
You can’t expect novelty from an historian, Vectis Lad!
😉
LikeLike
John Clarke / Brian Dawe script
TV: Congratulations Prime Minister Gillard. Before we start, as we stand here on Thursday afternoon, do you accept that tomorrow will be Friday?
PM: We have always supported the standard structure of the calendar and acknowledge that the public expect a regular system that provides the rhythm necessary for everyday planning and life structures. We feel very strongly about this.
TV: So you do agree that tomorrow is Friday?
PM: It isnt important whether it is Friday or Monday. What is important is that unexpected changes dont interfere with the normal expectations of the public – and this government has a solid record in supporting those expectations.
TV: But as today is Thursday, surely you can confirm that tomorrow is Friday?
PM: Everything is relative and whether the next day is Wednesday or Sunday is dependent on where you stand at the time. We have never challenged the current system and have the full support of the unions on this. Most intelligent people agree that changes are not required.
TV: Well then, what day is tomorrow?
PM: Tomorrow is the next day in our plan to further develop our marvelous country in many areas. We plan to continue providing better health care, reduced debt, reduced unemployment, controlled immigration and to be a world leader in controlling global warming.
TV: Returning to the question, can you not confirm that Friday is tomorrow?
PM: Friday is always around. It has been around many times before and will be around again many more times. Which is why we need – as a responsible government – to plan and organise for the future. Not just for tomorrow, but for our children and their children.
TV: Prime Minister, the viewers are waiting for your answer on what day you think tomorrow is?
PM: We are dealing with bigger issues here. The Friday, Saturday, Sunday thing is not important or relevant to the scheme of things. They need to understand the critical issues and focus on the matters of concern, such as the condition of our nation and how we can continue to develop it so that all may reap the benefit.
TV: Im sorry, we seem to have lost the point here again. Are you saying that it isnt Friday tomorrow?
PM: The reality is that it is not important what day it is. What is important is how we handle the situation – and my government is handling it with solid policies evolved from the mandate the people gave us.
TV: But we just want to know if you agree that it will be Friday tomorrow?
PM: Lets remain focused here. It is the nation that is important and we stand fast and rock steady in our dedication to the job in hand. In closing, let me say this one more time we are fully committed to the task and have commissioned a report that will enable us to develop the plans for the future. Thank you.
LikeLike
Vl, it’s raining again, we hardly get a chance to take Milo for a walk, had to wear my Oz rain-wear, nice and warm and looks good too(sorry Voice), it truly does.
How is the weather your way, raining?
LikeLike
Classic, Vectis Lad… classic!
We’ve had a fair bit of rain down her in Adelaide too, Helvi!
🙂
LikeLike
Helvi?
LikeLike
wot? que?
LikeLike
I’ve returned just for an explanation……and I return now as a wet, tired, bitter old dog…..looking for a quiet place in the corner of the room. Preferably near a fireplace. To be left to lick my wounds.
Yes, I agree with every word you posted yesterday. So much so that I have been calling for just that for over a year now. I even had opportunity to speak with the Drum people about it. The answer, continually, was no. I made the case. The answer was no. I plead my case. The answer was no.
So be it.
My engagements as StaggerLee, J.G.Cole and finally Totem Lesson II, were the result of those collapsed cases against the Drum. Whatever their motive – my style, arguments, manner, whatever it was….I found my voice silenced. Posts were not published. Days went by with nothing. Those days then turned to weeks. I decidedly, rightly or wrongly, to change pseudonym – thus Cole, and then Totem were born.
And so I found an outlet in my busy days for a conversation. I was happy.
That changed a few weeks ago on Ellis’ blog when i found myself in a most frustrating and disappointing argument with Doug Quixote. It was at that time that I took my leave, saying goodbye to you and Funston here. The experience left me with the deep conviction that blogging, for a 100 reasons, was deeply unsatisfying.
But like an addict I returned…….
What followed can only be described as utterly horrific. The argument with Quixote reappeared – absurdity, fallacy, nonsense, bitterness and anger spewed forth.
There was no other way it could go.
He, in an effort to protect his position, lashed out with perhaps the most appalling suggestion I have ever read. It was beyond common decency and profoundly repulsive and upsetting.
In white hot fury I spat out a threat.
Realising the gravity of what I had said…..I left, the vow never to return, absolute.
And that is it Helvi.
I should have stayed away.
But the lure of an interesting conversation drew me back.
However, I shall not be tempted again.
Whether or not it is important for you, and the others here, to read this apologia, it was important for me to write it. Some of you will no doubt say, relax, don’t take it all so seriously, but my character is not fashioned that way, I’m afraid.
Often I wish it were.
I have learnt much about myself, and much about others, and my idealism has been considerably…..bruised.
In light of that condition……I will, as I said, retire to lick my wounds.
Thank you all for providing a warm corner for me to do that in.
I appreciate it more than I can say.
🙂
LikeLike
Thanks for your heartfelt post and I feel for you, and I’ll come back to it a later on…
There is a break in the rain so we’ll have to rush out to take our dog out for a walk…
PS. I just posted to Viv on the dot that my nemesis Sea-monster-Mendez is ,under her multitude aliases, doing her utmost to chase gez and I away from the blogging scene…I feel the same about her as you do about your ‘enemies’ ( I have finally gone into hiding as well) 🙂
LikeLike
Stagger Lee, you write well, you are a valuable asset to any blog, and if BE does not see it or appreciate it then let it be. What so much fun in being told ‘fuck off’ or worse , ‘you are an effing cxxt’…?
Where is the intellectual stimulus in all the rudeness and put-downs. Have these people, who quote Nietzsche and Derrida and Shakespeare, learnt anything from their readings, where’s their civility, respect, empathy, their valuing of beauty in literature, art , architecture..
Why worry about Williamson’s riches or rings on any one’s fingers.
As for the Drum, I often see SL on the soapbox, I read many excellent replies by you on the political stories…they(the Mods) have to leave some of yours out to give ato,gez, olive, alge,stealy dan, and even me a little turn 🙂
LikeLike
oops, not to foget about VL, Big M…
LikeLike
Thank you Helvi.
It wasn’t Ellis, although he appears afflicted by the soft caress of Hubris (an unsightly thing for a man of his age and experience), it was Quixote.
Yes, you did see me last week on the Drum.
4 in 3 days!!!
Yippeeee!
It appears that the Mods have forgotten the pseudonym 🙂 and so I was glad to return to it.
I don’t wish to be selfish Helvi, I would just like a conversation lasting more than one or two posts. It seems as time goes by that’s getting harder to come by.
Sound counsel atomou.
Unfortunately I am, according to by father and brother, an idealist….it was this idealism i sought to confirm. By all means laugh atomou, it was indeed a novel experiment. Writing the words now I too have a smile on my face :).
But there you have it; my motive.
It was the manner; the puerile and brazen tactics employed against me that shocked and hurt atomou. I never expected, never in my wildest dreams, that such tactics would be used in an adult conversation. Let me qualify here what may seem like naivety on my part – my world has been both academic and private/professional and I have seen and argued and shaken fists and sweated and cried in jubilation for the better part of 20 years. But never in those years of conversing and debating and passion and losses and victories had I encountered such appalling behaviour. Never.
And I realise that the medium is to blame. I expected (personal) responsibility from those……… that type to strangers on keyboards. I, of course, found none. But why should I have? As Funston once remarked, we are all strangers…..and as strangers owe each other NOTHING – not even decency or argument, integrity or, most importantly for me, responsibility – for our thoughts, words, manner or sympathies.
And how could it be any different?
Seriously.
And it goes like this atomou:
I ask a question.
Quixote calls it crap.
I ask why.
He refuses to explain.
I repeat the question.
He refuses explanation.
This iteration takes 20 turns, each turn growing in hostility and frustration.
Till it ends like this: that my tenacity, AND the fallacy, one of a thousand, that my alleged support of Reist equals the product of a sexually abused childhood and has…obviously…left me deranged!!!
I counter with a threat I should not have made.
As I said atomou, how could it be any different?
I sought dialogue on the initial question. He sought evasion in a responsibility-less medium. My academic life and present vocation tell me that that responsibility-less position is a sham; a refuge of recreants, a den of deceit and fallacy.
My brother and I were raised to argue a point till we reached comprehension……and then to argue it again…..and again….and again. I sought that same process here.
As an academic yourself you will no doubt have experienced the unselfish joys of such “conversation”. I sought, as a minor reprieve from my present daily vocation, such “conversation”. Helvi once said that I sought the “intellectual”. I was not. It was never about that. It was about being….adults, it was about “learning”and engagement.
I suppose it’s not so much the people but the medium.
It nurtures the conditions for effortless abrogation.
I sought that huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge world atomou…….but found instead the sliver.
And as such it is not, cannot be, for me.
I will seek out those blogs you say are there.
And try my fortune one more time.
But not now.
I am still quite…..tender.
I may linger in the corner for a little while longer if that’s OK.
LikeLike
SL, you are so right there, it’s not so much the people, it’s the medium, and it is so easy to be nasty when one hides behind pseudonyms, that’s why I have mainly used my own name, I feel more responsible about what I say…
Hudson once said that he believed in using only one alias, for the same reason…people get to know you, your values, you know then you are talking to.
Of course people are what they are, the true nature always comes out, that’s why the hiding behind many names is really silly.
The UL has also changed as the ABC has changed, and the poor Mods are only following orders. 🙂
LikeLike
The commonest mistake of them all, Staggers (and H) is that we invest small things and small people (well, mere people, I should say) with huuuuuuuuuge capabilities.
Like calling a young man, like Jesus and an older man, like G.W Bush the messiah and expect them to save us all. The same with the Dumb -or with any other single blog, other single book, other single man or single woman, or single idea. Huuuuugeness is huuuuuuge because it’s complex, monstrously pregnant with subtleties.
It’s silly.
Looking for a diamond-studded pin in an everest of rotting hay? Forget it! It’s not going to happen without the aid of a divinity -and there are no divinities to be had anywhere. Zeus used to have some sway over matters pertaining to mortals but he’s gone now, never to return. (Thank you very much Romans!)
To mutilate Socrates substantially: in all things we do, there is a search for happiness. Justice will make us happy, we say, virtue will make us happy, obeying the laws of the heavens will make us happy, good sex will make us happy, confirmation that we are correct about something or other, will make us happy, etc, etc, etc.
But, whatever happiness is, it can be found in the smallest of things and not necessarily in the things to which we have invested huuuuuuuge things; and it is a most fleeting and unreliable thing. Solon’s lesson to Cyrus comes to mind, and asty and I have discussed this here, a few centuries ago.
Finally, then, if happiness is so very important to us, then we should walk over the places that don’t afford it to us, much like a good car can go over a bump on the road, and continue with the quest elsewhere, unhurt by the little bum massage we got in the process.
And now, I do believe that, as they say in the classics, here endeth my Sunday sermon!
LikeLike
“Looking for a diamond-studded pin in an everest of rotting hay?”
Not bad. A literary synapse, from atomou.
LikeLike
ato, good point about investing big things on little people and then to find them sadly lacking…we ALL have to grow up, so WE will not be disappointment to anyone…I’ll put that one in the too hard basket 🙂
LikeLike
Wot about those that have missed out on academia? Those, that have plodded on without the MA, BA, or PhD and professorships, are they not worthy of the conversation? Some of us, have, at times, been allowed to nibble at the edges of academia, even been thrown the crumbs from the table of enormous feasts and feats of those that did manage to get qualifications from Leiden, Utrecht or Wollongong and left their marks on society…
I feel that a kind of Pigs Arm’s Inner West and Honorary Scholarship should be proposed and awarded to those nominated by the membership. Those stalwarts of society that are for justice and egalitarianism. The ones that hoisted the flags on the ruins of totalitarianism, who bravely and untiringly fought for the rights for the societal underdog. (with perhaps just a trade certificate from Granville Technical college)
LikeLike
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear enough with my rant, Gez.
All those words meant to say that no one should be excluded exactly because “things” like institutions (educational or otherwise) and “things” like certificates (educational or otherwise) and people (educated or otherwise) are not the be all and end all of anything much, if considered in the huuuuuuugeness of the Universe.
There will always be someone with a faster draw, a bigger degree, a head more clogged with information (educational or otherwise); and so, one can never know if the mesiahnic answer to one’s problems comes from the lips or the writings of someone or some institution says s/he is a messiah. There is no such beast.
No doctor can cure all ills, no tutor can teach all things, no head clogged with information can solve all the problems of the world.
And, so to get back to your point (if I’m reading it correctly) one needs as much con-versation, co-thinking as possible. Simply don’t be too hurt when some things or people are either so incompetent or so arrogant as to exclude you from such conversations. In particular, things like blogs where everyone is, like Odysseus was to Cyclops, a no one.
LikeLike
Ato, Stagger,Gez et all…
What I find that so very often people mis-read each other on these blog discussions, the smile is missing, so are the friendly gestures, the tone of the voice. People are in the hurry , reading carelessly, and of course so many of us are expressing ourselves poorly, so many reasons, one of them also the unwillingness to try to understand…
LikeLike
Helvi ,1 – I used the pseudonyms for the expressed purpose of publication. Once StaggerLee was initially banned (the reason still unknown to me) I changed. It was not my wish to deceive. For that would be without purpose or dignity.
Atomou, 1 – I invest all things with importance – big and small alike co-mingle and are considered without discrimination. And it is because the world is “complex and monstrously pregnant with subtleties” that I attempt to do it justice by noticing and remarking on as much as I can.
My happiness, one of many, is in the conversation – talking, listening, thinking. I seek neither confirmation nor conceit….I seek understanding. All experiences are valid; value is proportioned equally. I do not see myself as the scales for measure, but as the recipient of the produce.
Gerard, this is not about academia. This is about adults offering their experience and thoughts. It makes no difference whatsoever if that experience has been fired in the furnace of NYU or Granville. That they each speak of different experiences is the interesting thing to me.
Atomou, 2 – I never sought the “degree”, or the “draw”……I simply sought the language and the passion and the maturity.
Helvi, 2 – Yes, most especially to your first sentence. I am unused to communicating without a face before me.
Thank you all for your thoughts.
This afternoon we were at a BBQ….and my mind is now in a heavy hot funk of Sunday afternoon alcohol.
🙂
LikeLike
Ato,
No worries, I only threw in that bit about academics as burley to get a few bites. No way do I think that there has ever been any difference or restrictions on anyone with or without diplomas or degrees. It was only there as some kind of response to S.L remark including academia.
I don’t know how the ABC operates when it comes to accepting responses or articles. I haven’t been able to figure it out. It’s the luck of the draw.
I haven’t found is easy to write off pieces and not hear a reply or answer. At night you wake and get clammy with the sheets sticking so you feel in a straitjacket, can’t turn around. So much I depend on getting words out I get manic. It might be a form of selfishness. Still, getting them out has its own reward till the next time. I used to paint and have the place chockers with unsold works. When leaving the farm I had a large bon-fire.
At least with words they are more economical to store. I have over 170.000 words on a little memory stick that could easily fall behind the skirting. I can understand the frustration of SL, especially when his words are so much better aligned and precise. I admire all the piglets and their words.
LikeLike
Stagger Lee, I know that you made up a new pseudonym because the previous one did not get you published anymore. What I’m against is when one pseudonym backs her/his arguments by using yet another alias; they feel stronger, and most posters are not aware that there is only one person attacking them, but hiding in two or three disguises. 🙂
LikeLike
Used to know a dude – another muso and singer – who went under the moniker of ‘Stagger Lee’… I met him through a mate of mine who was a fellow matric student at Elizabeth Community College, Ray Jaques, about thirty years ago. I suppose it’d be too common a nickname for there to be any connection, eh?
😉
LikeLike
He says he’s off.
LikeLike
Yes… Oh well… no harm in trying…
😐
LikeLike
No Asty, no connection.
And you’re quite right…..there is never any harm in trying 🙂
LikeLike
Reminds me of the comedian who suffered from cerebral palsy, called Steady Eddy. Very funny guy reigning during the 90s. haven’t heard him or of him since.
Staggers, I think you’re suffering from MRS (Moderators Rejection Syndrome). It’s a very common syndrome with the number of sufferers, having reached staggering heights, these last couple of years. However the news isn’t as horrible as the sufferers seem to think. Recent studies (I’ve asked my mum and my sister) reveal that it is an indubitable fact that the symptoms simply go away, all by themselves when the sufferer does one of two things. 1: Forget the blog where the moderators treat him/her with the lack of respect s/he does not deserve and find another blog with moderators who give him that respect. There are thousands of them around, accommodating all areas and degrees of wisdom.
OR, 2: Simply go on a blog holiday. Withdraw completely and to allow this to happen with as little pain as possible, find other preoccupations -like translating ancient greek, starting up a vegie patch, cooking, writing paralogical essays, painting, getting married, getting divorced, having another child, emigrating…
Both tactics work most adequately and -what a bonus!- there is no need to resort to psychotropic medications.
The world is huuuuuuuuuge, Staggers! Huuuuuuuuge! To be hurt by one blogger and by one moderator, is to lock yourself away from this huuuuuuuugeness that the world has provided for you. Tell them to get stuffed. Tell them they’re dreaming. Tell them that you’re going to tell the rest of humanity that they are shits.
More importantly, however, is for you to tell yourself, that in the real scheme of things, in a scheme of things where the universe encompasses an infinite number of planets and that this one is probably the most insignificant, where this planet has seven bzillion people upon it and that you are but one and that the moderator is but one and that the guy you’re arguing with is but one and that I am one butt, you are being very churlish with yourself.
Remember, even Socrates was condemned to death. Even Cicero was murdered (Antony’s wife Fulvia took Cicero’s head, pulled out his tongue, and jabbed it repeatedly with her hairpin in final revenge against Cicero’s power of speech) and, you know very well that the number of utterly wise and gentle folks who were, not simply rejected by some blog fascist but murdered by some vile fascist, is also huuuuuuuuuge.
Come, then, young man! Forget the fuckwits and fuck with the witty fucks!
LikeLike
Mulga is such a wanker.
LikeLike
Wanka or not, Mulga is one of the best brains that the ABC will ever see!
I love his world view and I certainly love his writing style. Broad, eloquent and whether he wants to write a mellifluous or malefluous piece, he will do it using all the best tools the English language can offer. Had I still been teaching, I would have taken many of his posts into the classroom as examples of masterly english; and had he been in my classroom I’d have him spending more time in front of the class than me.
Politically and philosophically, I think there are only a few things about which I disagree with him.
You and I lad would do well to try and emulate him.
LikeLike
I agree about his English. That doesn’t excuse his incessant twisting of the truth.
SYRIA:
Do you agree that all of the deaths and unrest recorded by The Red Cross and The UN is fabricated ? He does.
Anyway, I don’t want to argue with you about these matters. Suffice to say that aligning yourself ‘totally’, with her, is also ratifying some of her more outrageous claims.
There is nothing wrong with a basic philosophy of sharing, and, of course, giving the impression that not only is one a paragon, but a know it all. Even in the face of irrefutable evidence. You or I, would be embarrassed*. Not her!
*Well I would be.
LikeLike
I like Mulga more now that he is keeping his posts shorter; I agree his language use excellent…
He does not do ad hominems either, which is rare on The Drum.
LikeLike
What makes you think Mulga’s a man?
LikeLike
VL, why do you think that Mulga is a woman? I have never thought too much about that, there are so few women on the Drum , so I just assumed M too is a bloke…
I have been right with all my other assumptions, so why not about this one.
LikeLike
I agree Mulga’s very knowledgeable and pretty sharp with it, but he is sometimes a bit too vitriolic and has a tendency to allow his hatred of certain western powers to get in the way of finding real solutions to the problems, in spite of his intimate understanding of said problems… and he does write better than most!
🙂
LikeLike
Finally, after all these years, you actually said something that makes sense
LikeLike
Perhaps Mark, if you try really hard, you too may reach such dizzying heights of accomplishment!
😉
LikeLike
I wrote this.
Firstly: ALP policy wasn’t sanctioned, remember?
Julia, scraped in by forming a Cobbletion, then implemented a tax that was NOT sanctioned remember (for the 2nd time)?
So, obviously, she and you, are running an agenda, under a false premise.
Now do you understand?
So, when the Public are distressed about this they have a perfect right. You will see their rights exercised, quite dramatically at the next election in 18months. Unless The Gnome can come up with something close to what the ALP voters were told that they were going to get. Although the likelihood is that as an incumbent he will pledge barrel after crispy barrel, using the treasury, which will, of course, be under his control. The Liberals will not have that luxury, but will however, in my view, stomp home. Swan and Stephen Smith, losing their seats in the process.
They printed this:
.Grumpy Pom from the DOT :
27 Feb 2012 11:39:35am
Firstly: ALP policy wasn’t sanctioned, remember?
Julia, scraped in by forming a Cobbletion, then implemented a tax that was NOT sanctioned remember (for the 2nd time)?
So, obviously, she and you, are running an agenda, under a false premise.
Now do you understand?
So, when the Public are distressed about this they have a perfect right. You will see their rights exercised, quite dramatically at the next election in 18months.
LikeLike
This now a police State. I’m going to write to my MP Ha ha ha
LikeLike
VL, we all have our ‘truths’, I’m glad Mulga is back and he seems to stay…
LikeLike
Meeetooo, I’ve got somebody to play with.
LikeLike
Thats odd last time I looked at the . there were 6000 posts now there’s 2630 . someone must be house keeping.
LikeLike
silly me clicked on the wrong thread.
LikeLike
Typical day at the IPA
“Hi Chris, what are you doing?”
“Thinking Ted, what about you?”
“Yeah, thinking, what about you Sinclair?”
“Just being a dickhead guys….”
LikeLike
Which Mark are you, Big M or Hungie ?
Something for our Detective, Vectis Lad, to ponder about…I’m only his assistant 🙂
LikeLike
And a very lithely, able, one at that. Modest Blaise of The Tavern 🙂
LikeLike
Will it get up? dollar ew.
What’s gorgeous about all of this, is the blatant exposure of the media, ‘not’ influencing the polls, the electorate an the politicians.
For far too long, the inveterate, pontificating, lefty bloggers and journos in The All Day Media, having been trying to spin skewed parables about the Murdoch influence, ect, ect.
Well no-one twisted ‘Plodder Swan’, to trash his erstwhile leader and school colleague…His angst was there all along, apparently!
The incumbents should wake up. The Electorate, never wanted them there in the first place. They have a flimsy, cobbled alliance that has been bursting from day one.
Whatever the outcome at the O.K. Corral, this slushy, wishy crew, will be on the nose.
All this kidology and second coming is too shameful to watch.
LikeLike
Another on Jules..go for it–it’s raining heavily. The aubergines are plumping though. That’s the good bit.
A message to D. Young
While studying all of your, quoted, authors, does you some credit. It’s a shame that you can’t write anything original about the supernatural.
Books are other people’s thoughts.
Hitchens had the benefit of being educated, but living today with his perspicacity. Perspicacity, that no matter how long you search, will elude you, Damon. Sorry.
LikeLike