The Adventurerer

ludonauts dot tumblr dot com

2011-08-01T21:34:00.000+10:00

There are 296 pages at ludonauts.

Time to go home now.

My eyes hurt.

The Top Gun Gay Drinking Game

2011-06-30T17:00:00.005+10:00

It was esteemed blogger, Fyodor, who opened my eyes to the truth of the Reagan-era awesomeness that is Top Gun.
And you can enjoy it too!

Step 1: Gather booze and friends

Step 2: Play Top Gun

Step 3: When anything gay happens take a slug of beer.
At gay instance 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40 have a shot of spirit. (There are about 44 drink-worthy instances)

Step 4: Ummm.... Victory over the Soviets AND the Conservatives, I guess.

Dear Scientific reporting: You suck.

2011-05-20T16:57:00.002+10:00

No wonder so many people have trouble accepting evolution. The standard of scientific reporting in the media is absolutely appalling.
Take this article for instance from the SMH.

If you were not convinced that evolution was fact, you would read this article and say "What a load of crap!" and still not accept evolution.
And guess what? You'd be absolutely correct.
This idea from Professor David Carrier, from the University of Utah is 100% bullshit. It is brain-numbingly stupid. If there was a statue to "Today's Irredeemably Moronic Idea with Regard to Human Evolution" it would be of David Carrier wearing his own arse as a hat and this article would be rolled up and inserted in the anus.

"Tall men attract the ladies because they remind them of our violent ape-like ancestors, according to a new theory.

A study shows men hit harder when they stand on two legs than when they kneel down, and when directing punches downwards.

This might explain why early humans began walking upright, and also why women prefer tall men, say US researchers."

1) 'violent ape-like ancestors'. What violent ape-like ancestors? No respected human evolutionist or primatologist says anything like this any more. It is an out-moded and completely disproved idea.

2) Do ape-like ancestors punch? Do extant apes punch? No they fucking don't. They hammer down with their hands and arms, they stomp and they bite. All of these are easy to do when your opponent is cowering/writhing on the ground, as what happens when you look at how apes fight and how humans fight.

3) This study shows that *fully trained boxers and martial arts experts* hit harder when they stand on two legs than kneeling. How is that relevant to how (a) untrained humans actually fight? and (b) how untrained apes actually fight?

4) For something to exert a selection pressure stong enough to change how an animal walks it has to be common, constant, generationally repeated. So, how long do you think our non-bipedal ancestors spent punching each other in a downwards direction? Answer: Absolutely fuck all.

"Standing up on their hind legs allowed our ancestors to fight with the strength of their forelimbs, making punching much more dangerous."
5) Who is stronger in the forearms? A chimp or a human? Non-bipedal Chimp. So, becoming bipedal made us LESS strong in the forearms.
6) What is stronger? A human kick or a human punch? How about a child's kick or a child's punch? Kick. So this dickhead should actually be saying "We became bipedal so we could develop better kicking abilities" but he's so fucking stupid that he can't even get the internal logic of his own idiotic theory correct.

""From the perspective of sexual selection theory, women are attracted to powerful males, not because powerful males can beat them up, but because powerful males can protect them and their children from other males," Professor Carrier said."

7) What other males? What males are attacking women and children? Maybe this douchebag thinks that proto-humans set off into the unknown future as a father, a mother and their children. In fact, he HAS to think this for this quote above to make sense. Trouble is, we didn't move around in nuclear family groups but in big tribes/clans of up to 150 individuals. And, I don't care if you are slightly more bipedal than me and can punch me 24% harder. I have another male in my group who will help me fight you. Two dudes beats one dude every time. And fifty dudes will hold their own against a pride of lions. And a big show of strength from fifty dudes will make the group of thirty dudes move to another part of the savannah.

Lions?
Savannah?

Oh, I wonder why we became bipedal?

David Carrier, you are a pedlar of utter twaddle.
SMH, you are a joke for publishing this piece of shit.

Contact us at Sydney Water

2011-04-05T10:41:00.001+10:00

Re: terms of address

I received a letter from you addressed to 'The Occupier'.
Normally such letters would be addressed to The Occupant.

Since I did not invade my flat by force of arms, I have not occupied it.

Should any insurgent activities arise at this address, I assure you that they are not a backlash against how I came to be here. There were no natives to alienate by my heavy-handed tactics, indescriminate and careless collateral damage, or by my failure to be mindful of cultural or religious sensibilities.

If you have information suggesting that others perceive me as a force of occupation, I shall immediately implement measures to reassure the local population.
Perhaps the traditional owners of my flat are a pastoral people and I haven't seen them yet because they are only here over the winter months.

I shall keep you updated as to the situation.

Please rest assured that I have been reading the works of Colonel David Kilcullen, so I will be able to protect locals from the invidious machinations of more extreme elements.

regards,
Sir Hairy Simspon KA

Tank of the Week. Mk 1

2010-09-15T09:12:00.000+10:00

Tank of the Week. sherman

2010-09-08T09:11:00.000+10:00

Tank of the Week. Cruiser

2010-09-01T09:09:00.000+10:00

Tank of the Week. T-34

2010-08-26T09:09:00.000+10:00

Tank of the Week. Comet

2010-08-20T09:07:00.000+10:00

Five Stages

2010-08-13T18:04:00.001+10:00

The Five Stages of Grief.

Everyone knows that the five stages are Denial, Anger, Deal Making, Depression and Acceptance.

They are in fact the five stages of making ANY unwanted decision. If there is a scenario we don't want to make a decision on we go through these five stages. Decisions such as getting out of bed in the morning:
Nope, I'm not getting up.
Oh, why do I have to go to work today?
5 more minutes and I'll skip breakfast and still make it to work.
My life sucks and work is worse.
Ok. Ok. I'll go. I'll get out of bed.

A similar process occurs with dieting or exercise - and the process often stops at Deal Making (Just, one more chip and I'll have two salads tomorrow) and then the depression sets in for an added bonus which explains why dieting makes people unhappy.

And of course, since we go through this process when facing up to the loss of a loved one (either by death or the break up of a relationship) is one of the most powerful emotional episodes we will experience it shows that these 5 stages are a fundemental, basic process that we automatically engage whenever there is ANY decision to be made when we just want the world to pass us by.
Which makes sense when you look at how a 3 or 4 year old reacts to being told it's time for bed (_particualrly_ when there are guests over). The same five stages.
No, it's not bedtime yet!
Why do I have to go to bed? i don't want to!
If I change into my jammies can I stay for ten more minutes?
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! It's the end of the world.
Ok. Ok. Good night everyone.

Of course, soft parents give in at the deal making stage and then they realise that they should never have had kids because they stop fun bappening and the depression is transferred to the parents but it's too late suckers!!!! hahahahahaha! Losers. I jest about the depression transfer.

So, the 5 stages of grief are not some hallowed process that is essential to our mental health - or anything else along that asinine touchy-feely overly-accepting and forgiving psychodrivel school of lameness - they are just the reactions of a child. The inability to accept/deal with reality is seen as childish (rightly so), so you could argue that those who linger at one of the stages are being childish, and that those who reach acceptance first are the most emotionally mature. Or, to be fair, emotionally shutdown. Ok, assuming they aren't emotionally shutdown, then maturity can be gauged by how quickly someone goes through the process. eg someone who simply jumps out of bed when the alarm goes off has used discipline to overcome the inner child who wants to go through the 5steps.

So, before people start expanding the 5stages to things other than grief we can shut them down with a cry of 'discipline!'.

Procrastination can be seen as getting stuck at the Deal Making stage ie 'I'll do it later'.
Hmm, bribe taking by someone trying to do a deal with the devil for the first couple of times could also be seen in the same light - the rationalisation that they will make up for it later is Deal Making.

So, does the process often break down as a way of avoiding the Depression stage - is it the abyss edge?
eg "What's the point of getting up, my work is pointless anyway?", "All this hard work probably won't pay off anyway", "I am as hollow and false as the bad guys. The whole system is broken because they always get away with it."

This is not to say that these depressing conclusions AREN'T true, just that they need to be Accepted ie discipline (to work past the Depression) will enable us to Accept and THEN be able to do something about work, pay offs and the system.

So, just as understanding evolution is all about embryology, human behaviour is childhood development.

Tank of the Week. Panzer IV

2010-08-12T09:08:00.000+10:00

Tank of the Week. Churchill

2010-08-06T09:06:00.000+10:00

Loyalty card?

2010-07-16T12:42:00.003+10:00

I picked up this brochure for the Coles loyalty card program not because I want the card but because I have to question the marketing department that put this brochure together.

This is the face of a happy person being rewarded for their loyalty.

This is the face of a victim of domestic violence being rewarded for their loyalty.

Sydney bound

2010-07-07T08:58:00.001+10:00

This is what I packed in my check-in luggage to go to Sydney.

Guess which item meant I got to meet the bomb disposal AFP officer and his four friends?

Your choices are (clockwise from the top): a wooden model of a Chinese Phoenix to give to Louis; a space cow costume for me to wear to Pip n Alec's combined 30th bday party; a bag of chilis for Pip; 3 pieces of fossilised dinosaur poo for UTS ex-workmates; 'banana saver' plastic case to stop banana squashing in your bag for Sparkly; 40mm shell from a ferret armoured car for Blacklow; 5kg of haircot beans for The Aunt?

My awesome bike

2010-07-05T09:00:00.001+10:00

What do you do when your bike is chocolate/poo brown?

FOR BATTLE!!!!

Since I am now harder to see on this thing I had better buy a shed-load of lights, eh?

Christmas in July

2010-07-03T09:02:00.000+10:00

No, that's not trick photography in a pine forest in Christchurch, NZ.

Why is this child wearing cardboard moose antlers?....

...because my father made them for his Christmas costume. His teeshirt reads "Merry Chris Moose". His name is Chris. See how it works? Comedy.

Just add alcohol and put your child on Harry's shoulders. Dance, Harry, Dance!
Is that Running Man? You bet.

I also brought this move to the street.
It was less kindly received by my homies.

Oh, well, they can't all be winners.

Saucy: PM rolled.

2010-06-24T14:25:00.004+10:00

Aha! I finally get to use this!
I took it in Detroit airport in 2008.

This is for the Army of Flying Monkeys who will be baying their woe that we stand on the doorstep of the Lesbian Socialist Republic that we always wanted.

In my head, our new PM looks like this.

Note: Not really work-safe. Sorry, Liam.

Self indulgence.

2010-06-10T10:51:00.001+10:00

24th March, 2010.

On Giving Up

Well, it is ten years to the day as far as I can reckon since I quit my job to write a book, and that seems an auspicious time to announce - no, admit - that I'm giving up on my extremely half-arsed aspiration to be a novelist.

During those five months back in 2000 I wrote 30,000 words and played a lot of Starcraft. I experimented with sleeping during the day and working during the night; I flipped out on LSD; and I was shot at by my neighbour. The most enduring thing to come from that period was that my cooking improved by great leaps. 'Rick Stein's Seafood Odyssey' was shown at noon, I'd roll out of bed and I'd watch it with a notepad ready.

Since then I have written a drift of stuff on scraps of paper, notebooks and the backs of envelopes - just like a real writer, and just like everyone else - but I never got around to really putting it all together.
And do you know why?
It's because it's really hard work to produce a published novel, and I don't have the drive or passion to go through all that shit.
Not only do you have to write a manuscript, you have to shop it to agents or (far less likely) publishers. Then, if they look at it, you have to do rewrites n times. Then, because this takes a couple of years, the market will shift and they won't publish it after all.
Luckily you're usually saved that pain by just being rejected again and again.
Ok, ok, *say* you get published. Do you know how much the average author earns? SFA. Say $8K if you do well.
$8K for two plus years work isn't enticing.

But, ahhh!, you say: you're not in it for the money, but for the love of it.
Well maybe *you* are but not me.
I kinda think that if I loved writing then I would have done something close to the 10,000 hours someone needs to do to become an expert at something. Over ten years that is 2-3 hours a day, every day.
And that's just for a shot at the title (pun). That's not a guarantee of success - you still have to be lucky.
And, sure, people do get published and make a living, but people also win lotto.
I haven't done the sums but it is tempting to think that instead of going through the agony of writing something that nobody wants, how about just get a job and turn those wasted hours into cash that you then spend entirely on lottery tickets.
After ten years you might crack the big one, as they say.
Also, there is less chance of cracking the shits, as they say, and running round the streets bludgeoning randoms with an axe-handle.

I guess it all comes back to that excellent movie 'Office Space' from the late nineties. The plot revolves around an unhappy office drone, Peter, who realises that life should be on his terms - and he starts dictating those terms. Through this process he becomes happy.
During a heart-to-heart with coworkers he tells of the careers advice he received at school. They asked the kids "If someone gave you a million dollars, what would you do with it?" and if you said you'd buy a car and do it up, then you were meant to be a mechanic. If you said you would invest it on the staock exchange then you should be a broker.
'So, what did you say', asks Peter's friend.
'I said 'Nothing'. I would do nothing'.

You know what the best bit of those five months in 2000 were? Watching Rick Stein.
No, that doesn't mean I should become a chef - I tried being a cook and it was the most stressful job I've ever had.
What it means is that I enjoyed doing what I wanted to do and that didn't look ANYTHING at all like work.

If someone gave me a million dollars I would do nothing too. Heck, I'm doing nothing now: rent's paid til June; I just bought tickets to 14 shows of the comedy festival; and I got a whole library of books to read.

It's not giving up - it's biting the bullet.

----

7th June 2010

On Not Giving Up

So, I wrote the above in a funk in late March, and I happily packed everything away in boxes and didn't think about it for a month or so.

Since then three things occured to me:

a) The above was actually quite well written.

b or 2) Something about being a spineless and lazy little girl/This being one of those test of character things I keep hearing about/Something inspirational bordering on the trite.

b part 2 (or 2 part b)) Um, how about trying doing something that actually is actually hard like being a nurse or a gigolo specialising in the handicapped or something, you tool? No? So, shut up. qv 'spineless girl'.

c) What _else_ am I going to do for funnsies, really?

d) All of the above.

Tassie the Last

2010-04-12T17:45:00.009+10:00

"The bouquet is floral and complex with jonagold apple, and banana chip, and freshly dried goji berries..."

Sat 20th, Day 18:

Last day in Tassie. We had to be at Devonport that evening for 7:30 cast-off.
Nice drive that wound through the hills to get to Scottsdale.
Scottdales is a town totally owned by the forestry people so we ate quickly in a bakery and fled.
It is back to being dry and yellow farmland, which is good because that means vineyards. We explored the Pipers Brook area a bit.
Lunch at Pipers Brook vineyard. The wines were so so, but they have THE most pretentious tasting notes ever. (see photo)
Stopped at a couple of others. Got fuel in George Town and crossed the Tamar on the Batman bridge.
Stopped at two vineyards on this side including Holm Oak who have a pig.
Took the B71 to Devonport through rich farmland with the deep red soil like we'd seen at Table Cape.

East of Devonport. Rich red volcanic soil.

In Devonport we ate in a crazy witch themed place. The building was an old stout mansion. There was tons of stuff for decoration - bottles of decorative preserved veges; old copper things; old port bottles etc. The tables were tree slabs and therefore weren't flat. The food was good and well priced. Large helpings.

H: You look ready for a cruise!
C: Do you have the frangipanis?
H: I have arranged for us to be met with bouquets.

Loading was a breeze.
We sat at the stern until Tasmania was out of sight.

Sun 21st and Mon 22nd:
I turned up at Caroline's cabin for a shower. I'd spent the night in one of the upright airline style 'Ocean Recliners' cursing people who snore. I did move away from the worst snorer, but closer to the second worst snorer. Eh, it's all experience, right?

Caroline told me "You're very lucky having me for an aunt, you know! They didn't give me a bathmat this time and I was going to use the other towel but was more kind and thoughtful than usual and let you have it."

I agree. I am lucky.

Unloaded into the Melbourne gloaming we refuelled and bought ice for the esky. Then I took The Aunt for breakfast at the enormous Italian patisserie just off Lygon St called Brunetti's. This place is an institution. It has an enormous and mind boggling range spread through two shop fronts.
We had morning tea at Ellen's parent's place in the Macedon ranges for an hour.
And after driving for far too long whilst too tired, got to Henty where we stayed at the Doodle Cooma Arms Hotel.
We'd stayed there on our way back from Victoria last road trip and loved it.
Those owners had sold it on two a pair of unhappy people.
They were singly unsuited to customer service. No greeting or welcome. He seemed displeased that we were even staying there.
Ahhh, anyway.
Got pissed on four Kilkennies and passed out from exhaustion at about 8pm.

Drove through Wagga and tried to get the Aunt enthused about the M-113 armoured personnel carrier with 75mm low-pressure gun that was on display at one of the crossroads. She didn't care.
Morning tea in Gundagai. They gave us butter for the finger bun!

Then home about 3pm. Unloaded all my loot, and bid The Aunt farewell.
And I haven't seen her since!

Above, Rain in Henty

From 'The Discovery of France' by Graham Robb

'My secret reason' for recounting all this, Stendhal (Henri Beyle, later known as Stendhal, travelled throughout France in 1837) explained, was to encourage the reader ot take a cheerful view of 'all the little mishaps that often spoil the jolliest expeditions - passports, quarantine, accidents', etc. Modern transport created expections of comfort and convenience, but a traveller who put his mind to it could avoid ill humour as 'a kind of madness that eclipses the objects of interest that may surround one and amongst which one shall never pass again'.

A recent note from the Aunt:
"(Quoting from the website for Seahorse World, Beauty Point Wharf) Seahorse World offers a totally unique experience, as the aquarium is 100% dedicated to the mysterious life of the seahorse. Seahorse World offers an enjoyable tour that is devoted to the preservation and conservation of the seahorse.Enjoy a memorable and fun day at Seahorse World and help assist in the pro-active.."

We must have driven almost right past it. I'm sorry we ever went to stupid Tasmania now - all I wanted to see was seahorses. None of the other stuff was worth it.

actually, I thought I'd mention it in case you're ever in that vicinity again. I can't imagine you would have known about it otherwise we would have been there quick smart?? This is not a criticism as such - possibly more a disappointment in your ability to provide a reasonably decent trip for the Aunt."

I give up.

Tassie Part 16

2010-04-12T17:32:00.005+10:00

Friday 19th, Day 17:
Drove north to The Gardens which is the village that marks the start of the Bay of Fires. We wandered round the rocks for quite a while. Bright orange lichen covers many of the granite boulders.
Gradually made our way south - stopping every so often to walk along a beach or visit a lookout. We finally saw a pair of oyster catchers. We were surprised the whole way round Tasmania not to see more seabirds. We saw a lot more on the Great Ocean Road trip and we don't know why there was a dearth of them further south. It was the late breeding season and everything.
Lunch by a lagoon. Had the whole place to ourselves.

South of St Helens is a road out to St Helens Point and the conservation area. There are large sand dunes and I got to run around on them. That was cool.

Tassie Part 15

2010-04-12T17:17:00.006+10:00

Thurs 18th, Day 16:
North and inland to St Columba Falls due west of St Helens. Glorius man-fern heavy forest with lots of wattle. The thickness and height of the man-ferns give a glimpse of dinosaur forest. The falls are very nice.
Saw quite a few small birds including a pardalote or similar right by the track who was completley unconcerned by us. The info board at the head of the path has that story of a colonial woman who was lost in this forest for nine days and was tracked by two thylacines for two days who were just waiting for her to die. She spent one night tunnelled into a hollow fallen trunk with a thylacine looking in at each end. She made it out eventually when she found two woodcutters but refused to take her shoes off in their presence because her stockings were torn. What a lady!

On the drive out a young echidna crossed the road in front of us. We kept pace with him for several minutes.
The cheese place at Pyengana was crap. A tourist trap with no good cheese. Don't go there.

We drove through the thickly forested hills to Weldborough. Good views. We did a forest walk through southern beech forest with cloyingly twee signs.
Found a pub/backpackers in Weldborough. It is a pretty old building and is in very good nick. It is being run by the son and his girlfriend of a Melbourne couple who bought it as their retirement plan. The parents were tying up loose ends on the mainland before moving down. Georgeous setting. Much much prettier than St Helens.
After lunch with ciders we took the dirt road through beautiful farmland and forest to Mt Paris Dam. I think Caroline just saw the sign and said 'Let's go there!'
A juvenile tasmanian devil ran across the road up ahead.
Mt Paris Dam is no longer in use. There is a newer dam further into the hills that made it redundant. They blasted holes in it to let the water out.
"First time I've walked through a dam!" says The Aunt.

A pleasant lookout near Goshen (which I learned just last week is named after a place in the bible where something happened).

There was something that Caroline wanted to buy from a chainstore called Chickenfeed. I think it was pegs. We'd seen Chickenfeed shops all over Tasmania and while we were there it was announced the head office was moving to Sydney to start the chain up there. It is a bargain shop.
The first time I saw it I thought it actually was an animal feed place specialising in poultry pellets. The Aunt thought it was a fast food place like Red Rooster.
Anyway, Chickedfeed has everything - including kneepads.
We bought kneepads.
See our heroic poses wearing them in our cabin!

Tassie Part 14

2010-04-12T17:14:00.002+10:00

Wed 17th, Day 15:
A relatively short drive on the coast road up to St Helens.
Not impressed by the town. It is a bit touristy and has a harder edge to it, I feel. From the traffic it looks like the most common first destination for those who take the Spirit of Tasmania. It was the most expensive place too - both accommodation and food. The seafood place was a rort.
Google Maps did me wrong and placed our caravan park on the north of town. We drove passed the same roadworkers about five times trying to find the place and resorted to going back to town to the info place.
The caravan park was south of the town.

Tassie Part 13

2010-04-12T17:05:00.004+10:00

Tue 16th, Day 14:
C: Would you like eggs?
H: No.
C: You're just afraid of having blue eggs.
H: Fine! I'd love eggs thanks.
C: Too late. Only women are allowed to change their minds.

Drove out to Freycinet National Park. The Aunt was asking again about the 600 steps to get to Wineglass Bay Lookout. Instead of the six hundred steps we went to the Friendly Beaches and the lighthouse on Cape Tourville. Spectacular views, including rocky islands that host a large number of breeding seabirds: ten species (see photo of info board).

Made it back to the vineyards in time for three tastings. 'Freycinet Wines' were all very acidic. Not good. 'Coombend' at the start of the same driveway was much better. They also had the tastiest green olives ever. Bought a bunch of stuff there. And the last was when we turned up at 'Spring Vale' after the guy had locked up, but let us in and we got quite a lot there. Caroline found a rose she particularly liked.
Some excellent lookouts on the way home. The land to the north east of Hobart could be anywhere in Australia - dry and yellow.

Tassie part 12

2010-04-12T17:02:00.003+10:00

Sun 14th, Day 12:
No sign of Caroline this morning. She was charging around the foothills squeezing terrified chickens trying to get the freshest eggs possible.
It did seem we were on a mission to buy things with two gs in them.
'What did you do in Tassie?'
'We bought eggs and grog.'

We went to check out the produce market in Geeveston, but it was little more than a garage sale. The Aunt did buy some eggs though - some of which with shells quite blue. A mystery.
Picked up some wine to say 'thanks' to Allan.

We spent the late morning down in Southport. We marvelled at the blues of the water and white of the sand, and found large mussels on the rocks. Lunch by the sand.

(These photos are on the previous post. shrug.)

And I don't think we did a hell of a lot in the afternoon. Maybe we went to the new vineyard just to the north - St Imre. Set up by a Hungarian couple about five years ago.

H: I have decided that Ellen shall call me 'My Balding Adonis'.
C: Why?
H: Because it's funny.
C: Look, she's clearly not in a good state of mind (ie going out with H) but she'll come crashing back to reality soon.
H: Hey, if you want to prop up your fragile psyche; get your own blog. This is mine!

Mon 15th, Day 13:
Farewell Dover. A long drive today up to Swansea in the east. Stopped off at the bookshop to give the two bottles of nice red to Mary. She insisted it was too much and pressed two enormous frozen salmon steaks on me. These are from escapees from the large amount of salmon farming in the area.

Stopped off in Hobart on the way. I bought some Japanese handbags for Ellen, and Caroline picked up some presents for her relos.
Morning tea/early lunch at the Sorell Berry Farm about 30ks east of Hobart. Picturesque place with an interesting array of pickles and berry products including liqueurs: tayberry (hybrid of raspbarry and blackberry) and jostaberry (gooseberry hybridised with black currant), jams etc etc The food was very nice.

Swansea. We didn't learn our lesson of exploring a town properly and missed the main street again until the next day.
Moved the TV down to the table from the neck-crickingly high kitchen cupboard.

That night watched the muttonbirds coming into their rookery.

Swansea looking across Cole Bay to the Freycinet Peninsular

Tassie Part 11

2010-04-12T16:55:00.005+10:00

Sat 13, Day 11:
Drove to Huonville to check out their produce market - the Aunt has a hankering for chicken. On the way I stopped at the second-hand book shop for a poke around.
The Aunt got talking to the owner, Mary. Expressing a desire to do some fishing while in Dover, Caroline was offered a tinny and Mary's partner, Allan, for a fish in the afternoon.
The road out of Dover has many splendid vistas down valleys to the river. All very beautiful, and slightly temporally displacing. It can't have changed much in many decades.
The market is staffed by loud pleasant young women. I find haricot beans for which I've been searching for ages so's Caroline can make her well-regarded baked beans. After the cries of joy and delight that met the puy lentils, this was even more of a coup! What an awesome nephew I am.

We were going to do the Tahune airwalk but had been talked out of it by Mary who hates Gunns (the forestry people). So instead we decided to meander back. I parked the car slightly in everyone's way under the shade of a stringy bark so we could eat at a slightly fancy looking restuarant called 'Petty Sessions' by the river just outside Port Huon.
It was here we met the Slithery Waiter.
I honestly thought he was stoned. He was about 30, well dressed with a long apron and did everything slowly. The Aunt was convinced he was mincing a little and elegantly swishing his way around the restaurant because he knew he was good looking. We ordered a scallop pie for me and um a sandwichy thing for the Aunt? He suggested a Boags beer called 'Wizard Smith Ale' so I got one of those. Food eventually arrived and he slithered over to us. By this time I think Caroline was making slow motion dancing gestures from the golden age of Hollywood and giggling.
She graciously allowed me another beer and volunteered to drive us home. I chatted to his Slitheriness about local beers for a while. After he'd left the Aunt suggested that he thought I was lovely and I was flirting with him. I was still of the opinion he was stoned and that explained his languidness, or maybe that's just how they were round here.
'Nope', says the Aunt, 'He's gay. And I think he liiiiiiiikes youuuuuuu.'
Honestly!

The Aunt noticed a very long caravan being manoeuvred around the car, and that our car was now standing in sun.
'Either the sun's moved or the tree has!' she observed.
Not really engaging my brain, I turned and surveyed the scene.
'It's the sun that's moved' I tell her.
She cracks up.
I blame the book on quantum physics I'm reading.

I read a book many years ago written by a Lancaster bomber pilot called 'The Eighth Passenger'. The eighth passenger was fear.
The TV serial killer, Dexter, has his 'Dark Passenger' - his killing urge.
I had a second passenger - the sausage.
This was the, well, actually two sausages, that I'd bought in Hobart to the amusement of both Ellen and Caroline. I had been dilligently eating a bit each breakfast and the occassional snack during the day, and now it was the time for the sausage to come into its own!
I can sing the praises of the sausage if I want.
The Aunt keeps referring to bread as The Staff of Life.
'It's in the bible!' she says.
Yeah? Well, so is shutting the hell up.
We were going to use the sausage as bait. Hah!

That afternoon we went boating where occured The Incident.
We went fishing.
The Incident happened.
"And _that's_ why you don't wear your good clothes to go fishing' said Aunt Caroline.

I confirmed every impression a seafaring country type can have about incompetent city-slickers. Allan laughed quietly to himself the whole time I was demonstrating that I didn't actually know how to row. I knew the theory, but I got an oar end caught in my shirt at one point; and I had generally to do two strokes with my left for every one of my right. With much encouragement from the Aunt ie 'You're going the wrong way!' I managed to move the boat so Allan could lay two gill nets in vaguely the right spot.

Then we drifted and I presented Allan with the bait. His face said that we clearly had no idea what we were doing. But we showed him! Well, the Aunt did, at least. She caught an octopus which quirted energetically in all directions but mine. We let him go and within fifteen seconds The Aunt caught a good sized flathead (or 'flaired' as it is pronounced by Northern Beaches locals). Allan told us many anecdotes - including jumping into the lion enclosure at Taronga Zoo in the 60s to get better pictures, and being evicted from the zoo after jumping into the hippo's pen for the same reason. We chatted happily and entertained each other thoroughly. My hat blew off into the water.
Allan took over the rowing, and retrieved a mullet from the gill nets.

Coming ashore: The Incident.
Allan and I had stepped off the stern because he'd reversed it in. The Aunt, however, decided to misjudge the depth of the water and stepped off near the bow into thigh deep water. One leg was still in the boat, and this presented a problem that I didn't recognise.
Instead, with a strange look on her face, she started pushing the boat away from her with her dry leg. Confused, Allan and I swung the bow back to her from the stern end.
Once more she slowly and steadily pushed the bow away before emitting one short 'Aark!' and falling straight down into the brine.
Shrieking with laughter (being the gentleman I am) I went to aid, but she was laughing too hard to stand up, so Allan was presented with a tableau of two lunatics howling with laughter - one with tears rolling down his cheeks and quite uselessly holding the arms of the other one who was happy to stay sitting in frigid water to her waist.
Eventually we got it together and Allan scaled and filletted the fish and gave us both, which was very kind.
He showed us his shack and then we headed home for a change of clothes.
My notes read "C fell in, in a strange way."
Relating The Incident to her second daughter a few days later, Caroline was told, 'But you NEVER ask for help, mum!' thus letting me off the hook.

I have a note here of 'C stung by some fiendish Tasmanian bug'. Evidently nature took a shine to her.

Tassie Part 10

2010-04-12T16:48:00.003+10:00

Fri 12, Day 10:

I drove Ellen to the airport for the first flight out.

Dover.
We drove via the wide peninsula bounded by the Huon River to the west and D'Entrecasteaux Channel on the east. There was a sheep cheese place at Birchs Bay we wanted to visit.
Good spiel by the guy but very expensive products. They did have a nice pinot noir spread ala quince paste. A TV chef that Caroline hates was doing a segment to camera on the balcony. We each bought a small peice of the vine leaf wrapped harder cheese.

Drove on coast road all the way road - great views. Caroline was fixated on picking up a cucumber for the salad. Before the road joined the south road at Huonville we stopped at an honesty-box booth and picked up a whole swag of fruit and vege and some eggs.
Getting back into the car I was told "We've got a cucumber - that's the important thing."
She was also very happy about the eggs. If anyone is at a loss for a present for the Aunt then a dozen fresh laid free-range eggs are a sure fire winner.
South on the other bank of the Huon River. Beautiful peaceful beds of rushes. The road is slightly elevated with hills to the west. Orchards and vineyards on both sides of the road in a strip that goes down to the riverbank and up the nearest hills. Taller ranges just beyond these are forested. Near Waterloo we spot cherries and stop to sample them. They are enormous and flavoursome - bursting with trapped sunlight and drool. The old farmer is a character. I say we are in the state for another ten days. He says 'Well, you'll need two kilos, then!' Certainly for $15. Done. The Aunt starts expressing doubts we can eat them all, but I am up for the challenge.
The farmer suggests the scenic drive to Dover by taking the turn off to Police Point, as the main road cuts through the hills.
Drive, drive, drive. 'Oh, not another picturesque seaside-slash-rural village with beautiful aspect!' I moan.

At Dover, Caroline once again kindly upgrades us to a bigger cabin with large beds - we are staying three nights after all. It is still early enough in the afternoon to go searching for the supermarket. We drive around and through the town leaving it on three roads without spotting a supermarket. We do see the second-hand bookshop in an old church and other very nice weatherboard buildings, and eventually go back to the quasi general store where the Aunt picks out some disappointed greens. On the way back to the caravan park which is on the north side of the town, I manage to take the wrong road at a five-way intersection and end up instantly in the carpark of the enormous IGA we'd missed because we were too busy being entranced by pretty little weatherboard buildings.
So, even when we made an attempt to explore the town properly we still managed to miss key points ie what we were actually looking for.

Tassie Part 9

2010-04-12T16:41:00.005+10:00

Thurs 11, Day 9:

We had a walk in the clouds on Thursday afternoon much of the way up Mt Wellington. We marvelled at how wonderfully close this beautiful forest is to the city. We agreed we could live happily in Hobart.
Wursthaus haul for lunch in our apartment. (Here I also found puy lentils for the Aunt).
Drunk Admiral that night.

Tassie part 8

2010-04-12T16:34:00.003+10:00

Tues 9, Day 7:
Drove down the Lyell Highway through Queenstown and back into the lush ferny forests of the Wild-Rivers Area. Zoom, zoom, zoom.
Stopped just after Derwent Bridge to check out the new 'Wall in the Wilderness' which is a barn-sized private gallery for an expert wood carver. The main work is going to be 100feet of 15feet tall wall panels showing colonial life of the area. It is astounding - a must see. He specialises in carving totally perfect clothing out of wood. Never seen so many 'Do not touch' signs in my life. Check it out online. There is an astoundingly cool rusted metal sculpture of a cyborg eagle out the front. It looks like a cover illustration from one of the Iain M Banks Sci-fi novels about The Culture that I read years ago.

Lunched near Tarraleah power station.
We got mobile reception for the first time in days a short distance out of New Norfolk where we were staying the night. Caroline texted her daughters to assure that we were both alive even although I didn't deserve to be.
New Norfolk is on the Derwent River and the last town before it flows into the flooded river valley that leads about fifty kms away to Hobart.
We were staying in another pub I'd chosen - the New Norfolk Hotel. I'd rejected the two other suggested by the Lonely Planet as not up to Aunt-friendly standard, and even congratulated myself on how far off the Highway it was. And it was cheap too, so I'd booked one of the two ensuite rooms for the Aunt.

Wed 10, Day 8:
Now, they always put these ensuite rooms at the front of the hotel to maximise the impact of passing traffic. I slept well in my $35 single room at the rear of the hotel and woke early all excited because Ellen was meeting us in Hobart in a few hours time.
I made two cups of tea and took one to Caroline's room.
She had slept for fourteen minutes and three seconds.
A horrible night.
"Dear God!" she groaned, "He's in a good mood!"
I leapt in, spilling tea liberally, and coaxed the old girl into action.
No, I didn't. I left her to it because, for once, she actually did look like the Wrath of God.

We parked in Salamanca Place in Hobart at about ten, otherwise known as morning coffee time. In her efforts to get a cheap and early flight from Melbourne Ellen had woken at 4am or something stupid like that.
After their caffeine hits, both women had resumed human form and pleasant temper, and they were more than happy to wander round all the little jewellery shops, art galleries, book and gift shops of Salamanca Place. It's a gorgeous little spot. We ate lunch in an Italian restaurant and drank great wine.
Then it was time to check into the flash serviced-apartment Caroline had booked for us on one of the piers in the harbour. A wooden sailing ship was moored next door.
We ate and drank and ate and drank and ate in Hobart. It is a gourmands' paradise.
We had spectacular Greek at Mezethes; found an awesome deli called Wursthaus where we splurged on delicacies for lunch; and ate the second night in the Drunken Admiral. We were on a mission for seafood and passed up two places on the wharf and tried the Drunken Admiral at my suggestion.
The place is kitsch. The entryway looks like one for a themepark. It is crammed with nautical crap including mannequins dressed as pirates, barrels hanging from the ceiling, rear ends of boats and over all this a reasonable sized antique shop has exploded. The Aunt looked profoundly dubious but the place was packed, so the food must be ok, right?
The food was great! The wine was Pinot Gris. Very happy with that.

Tassie Part 7

2010-04-12T09:43:00.004+10:00

Mon 8, Day 6:
Back to Corrina for river cruise on the Pieman River out to Pieman Heads on the Arcadia II. Slight problem with the solar powered call button for the ferry not working, so no one came and got us until a friendly ancient canoeist paddled over to the Arcadia II on our behalf.
Cruise cruise cruise. Get out near the sea and wander over the sand until we find a stranded log suitable for seating.
Last on board again, and back we go. Quite chatty with the captain, a young couple from Adelaide and an older gent who originally came from Newport, NSW! (this is where the Aunt is from too).

I think I cooked lamb that evening. We watched Nigella Lawson. The Aunt put up with my howls at being visually manipulated by that hearty, breathy temptress. Not sexy. Good recipe for chicken and pork rib marinated in apple juice and spices, though.

Tassie Part 6

2010-04-12T09:39:00.003+10:00

Sun 7th, Day 5:
The first thing we did was return to Provadore 24. This was the gourmet food and gift shop that had caught Caroline's eye the previous day. We picked up two sour dough loaves and ten giant jaffas. The day before we'd bought local cleanskin PinotNoir and a dry white. It was as if a twister had picked up the shop and owner from a boutique part of Sydney or Melbourne and plonked them down in this endearingly rough fishing village. She wasn't like any of the locals and we never did ask how she'd come to be here. We chatted for a while about food and whatnot. Caroline told her that I was 'not too bright, but can carry heavy loads'.
She confided that she didn't think many of the locals 'got' the shop. Her philosophy was 'If you're going to have a calorie, make sure it's a nice one.'
I think Stanley was where Caroline decided she should spend the rest of the trip trying to embarrass me in front of strangers. I'd retaliate by asking if she'd 'spent too long in the sun', and things of that nature.

A much longer and uncomfortable drive to Zeehan than expected. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And the Aunt's road to her personal hell is dirt. As it turned out it was not the destination but the journey that was important, and THAT was 'Hell' to quote an unhappy Aunt.
I took the 110 kilometre scenic route that runs through the edge of the Arthur Pieman Conservation Area of the west coast. It is dirt the whole way and very bumpy. This was not my time to shine but I decided to liven things up by trying to crash into a 4WD on a corner. It was one of only two oncoming vehicles we encountered. The other was nearly hit by the 4WD and trailer that had overtaken us and spent too long on the other side of the road as it approached a blind corner.

Lunch in Corrina and crossed the river on the car ferry. I tried to mollify the Aunt by saying there were only eleven kms of dirt road left. Hilariously this was in worse condition than the previous hundred.

We got to Zeehan and checked into our miner's cottage. Zeehan is a small mining town but from a later era than I was expecting. The cottages looked 1950-60s vintage. For some reason the kitchen had about 800 cupboards. Caroline proclaimed several times that the kitchen was schitzophrenic. The bathroom was through the second bedroom so I got to relocate the mattress to the livingroom floor.
We had meat for dinner - big rump steak and t-bone with the leftovers making steak salad sandwiches for the river cruise the next day.

Tassie Part 5

2010-04-12T09:31:00.003+10:00

Sat 6th, Day 4:
From my notes, it looks like we had the morning off, but AHA! We visited the colonial manor called Highfield that is on the crest of the hill just west of Stanley. It is a really good museum - lots of information boards throughout the restored house. Most of the other buildings (barn, stables, sty, wool shed etc etc) are also in good repair and annotated.

We had lunch back at the cabin.

PM. Allende gardens. Attacked by Emu.

Allende Gardens are beautiful. This is a private project of a landscape gardener/arist who twenty years ago bought a beef cattle property and started converting it. She must have planted the stand of Californian redwoods first. She's continually added to it with her stoned gardener partner ever since. He looks like the most laidback bushranger in history - big flowing beard, and the physique of one starved out by the authorities.
A creek flows through the property and seven bridges cross over. The entrance is very pretty reception hall/summer house: lots of light; nice furniture; six small angry terrier dogs in various states of exhaustion.
You pay your money, talk to the bearded dude who looks like he stepped out of a Henry Lawson poem, get a map and then exit the building to where an edenic paradise awaits. You are immediately greated by a pair of black swans and a bunch of peacocks, peahens and even peachicks. One clutch is too young to have the crest of three decorative feathers, but the other two chicks are old enough to have them. Suitably enchanted you wander the gardens.
Such colours! Such verdant growth!
It turns out that the Aunt likes Dahlias. This is a good thing as there is a profusion of cultivars that surely covers all colours and petal form - spikey sunbursts of yellow to tight spheres of soft pruple. There is an exemplary colection of decorative trees including a weeping spruce/pine from the Himalaya where the needles hang vertically from the limbs, such that all the foliage is presented as draped curtains.
There is an avenue of silver birches that leads to the Mother Garden - which is the newest, and still being developed. This avenue cries out for a bride to walk down and indeed their brochure has such a picture. The mother garden ssurrounds a decorative pond and includes the newest arrival - a Huon Pine. We disturbed a flock of guinea fowl.
We meandered through the apples (Caroline compulsively tasting them), over the creek, past the dovecote with proper white turtle doves, and into the rose garden where there was an even greater variety than the dahlias. It was the very epitome of peacefulness. Then we entered the shade of more decorative trees and stopped at a bowered avenue where I said 'Huh! There's an emu.'

The emu approached.
And got closer.
And then he got close enough to hiss in my face.
I didn't know that emus hissed. And I also didn't know if they peck ones eyes out or, like Cassowaries, they kick.
Not eager to find out I suggested that we move on.

Perhaps we should move a bit more swiftly: the emu was following at a disconcertingly close range.
Being the gentleman I am, I interposed my taut, hairy body between that of the fearsome emu and my sinless Aunt, whilst simultaneously trying to avoid getting kicked or pecked. I figured that this behaviour was territorial and that all we need do was leave his area and we'd be fine. After all, they have freakin weddings here!!! You can't have an emu strut up and kick the crap out of the groom now can you?!!!
The emu started charging. I turned ready to do, um, I dunno, maybe take a kick to the guts and then wade into the bastard, fists flying, til he fled defeated. I would them collapse - bleeding from the exploded kidneys - while my Aunt thanked me and asked for the carkeys to drive me to the nearest hospital 560km away.
The emu backed off, but kept following. Then thudthudthud of him charging again. His head was reared back like a cobra ready to strike and that simply can't be good! It looked like he was prepped to take out my eyes (of course, now, I can see that maybe he was interposing his chest between his eyes and the kick of a rival emu).
Summoning the ghost of Hemmingway I suggested "I think we should move a little faster!" - my voice quavering just a little.
"Is he still behind us?!" asks the Aunt still inspecting vegetation - albeit at a trot.
"What do you think?!!?!?!" Women!!!
At this point the track diverged.
The Aunt went right and, thinking he was following me, I went left. The emu hove to the right like the fat bully locked onto the smaller kid with the lollies.
'No, he's following you! Back this way!'
The Aunt swung back to the left asking where we were going.
'To the house!' I said, mostly because I actually knew where we were going.

The guy seemed genuinely surprised that the emu had chased us, but then again, by the look of him, he was probably amazed every time he woke up.
'He was just playing' he stated.
I believe I only spluttered in incredulity internally.
Apparently you aren't meant to look emus in the eye.
'Didn't I tell you about the emu when you came in? Oh, it must have been the people before you.'
Yes, you stoned freak! You somehow neglected to tell us that amidst this sanctuary of light and shadow, and the whispering hymn to the Womb of Nature that there was a DIRECT DESCENDANT OF THE DINOSAURS!!!
What you are meant to do is hold your arm up with a beaked fist like it's the head of the Loch Ness Monster emerging. Hold it up high so that you are taller than the emu. It will them back down.
The same thing works with Galapogas Tortoises.
Stupid emus.

'Steph? Yeah, it's Harry. Bit of a problem. Your mum's been kicked to death by an emu.'

That evening I walked up the steep slope to the top of the nut and walked around in the gloaming. It was forested with redgums til they were all cut down for firewood by the colonial townsfolk. Now there are not-quite-trees in a protected gully, but the rest is scrub and grass. A ton of pademelons call it home and there is a mutton bird colony amongst the thickets.

Note on Stanley: this is the first town that we accidently managed to miss the main street of. Caroline came back from a drive on the second evening saying that there wasn't much to this two at all, and where exactly had I bought the booze? I explained that Church street was a main street with all those nice stone and wooden buildings on it. She replied laughingly that she hadn't seen such a street at all!

Tassie Part 4

2010-04-12T09:23:00.004+10:00

Fri 5th, Day 3: We drive the windy road along the coast. Stop at Penguin to buy me a hat. Stop near Burnie at lookout over sea. We watched a raptor beat the air til it caught an updraft. Tight spirals up to the required height, then slid back over the hills and out of view.
Stop in Wynyard for info and to eat at another bakery. Bought some sour dough that turned out to be sour faux.
Fossil bluffs are where Errol Flynn's dad found an important skeleton of a baleen whale. The sediments of the bluffs are rich with ancient seashells. The waters are obviously pristine - tons of live shellfish including the segmented-shell molluscs called chiton.

Table Cape just north of Wynyard is georgeous. Rich red soil from a volcanic core - extremely fertile. Tulips and other flowers during the right season. Currently alium, onion, iris, opium poppy and pyrethrum and barley. The road goes through the fields to a lighthouse. On the way back we stop at the flower-farm display/shop thing but it was shut. This turned out to be serendipitous because we got to see a pair of wedgetail eagles saoring effortless surveying their territory. (later we find out there are only 800 pairs left in the whole of Tassie due to shooting and poisoning, so we feel quite priveledged.)
The air is clean, the water is clear and the farmland is perfection.

Lunch at Boat Harbour after trying unsuccessfully to find the Birdland Native Gardens. We watch a fantail feed its tiny fledgingly half her size.
Black backed gulls (about twice the size of Sydney seagulls) confidently bathe in tidal pools.

Drive to Stanley. Stanley is a small town in the shadow of a flat-top volcanic core called The Nut. It stands 146metres at the end of a very thin peninsular. From a distance it looks like a surfaced submarine with the Nut as the conning tower.
The town is tiny and gorgeous with a main street of very pretty stone buildings and smaller doll-house pretty wooden shops. The Caravan park is on the eastern side, on Tallows Beach of Sawyer Bay. The beach is compact fine limestone sand. I find scallop and pipi shells. The water is very shallow and the next morning we see how far the tide has retreated.

We drink Notley Gorge Pinot Grigio - crisp, clear, perhaps a little sweet.
The fish came from the fisherman's co-op down at the wharf run by a man with an impressive collection of melanomas on his arms. They specialised in live lobster, but we were more interested in fish. Blue Grenadier the first night and something else the next. I can't remember, I'll have to ask the Aunt.

We stayed two nights; we should have stayed longer.
There's a penguin colony on the other side of the peninsular - about 500metres away. I went to say 'hi' very quietly to them. The national parks service run tours that meet at the dog fence, but we were told there were penguins on this side of the fence too. I walked up to where seven people were milling. A couple were watching an unconcerned pademelon.
I said 'You saw the penguins back there, yeah?' They hadn't and were English. (What a poorly written, yet informative, sentence.)
I had noticed the entrances to a dozen burrows on the way to the fence, so I took this couple back and showed where two full sized little penguins were carefully looking out one of them. This illicited oohs and ahhs, as penguins do. The only thing cuter is a hiccupping baby wombat. You can see the telepathy between them as they expose the minimum of themselves to look at you.
'A human! Oh, he's seen us. Shuffle back, shuffle back!'
'We'll just wait back here for a bit.'
'Yeah. Just, just for a while. Then we'll stand just at the front of the burrow, looking cute, as before'.
Animal spotting while tipsy is a excellent past-time. I also found two brown chicks hungrily waiting for mum or dad to return, and showed them to the whole group this time.
It occurred to me again, at that point, how awesome and generous I am.
I would beckon to unobservant tourists and show them the richness of nature they'd missed. I think the government could pay me to proivide such a service to make visitor's experiences of Australia that much more rewarding.

I walked back via the head of the track up the Nut. In the darkness I sent pademelons scattering. I drunkenly apologised to them as I went and eventually managed to take one shot of a pademelon skylined against the very last of the sunset.

Tassie Part 3

2010-04-12T09:15:00.004+10:00

Thurs 4th. Day 2 in Tas: Drove east not far to Trowunna Wildlife Park. This is a tassie devil specialist breeding park but also serves as a second chance for roadkill pouch young and broken-wing birds. They also had a couple of kookaburras with dislocated beaks. Apparently young kookaburras often screw up when trying to swoop on prey and scoop it up and they crash beak-first into the ground. Those who hit hard enough cannot feed properly. Kangaroos roamed and the thrity or so devils were divided up amonst enclosures all over the place. There were spotted quolls; a nocturnal house with (most charmingly) four sugar gliders; two wedge-tails rescued twenty years or more ago; other broken wing birds including a white gosshawk, some owls and parrots; and an echidna that we took forever to find because it had actually climbed the tree in the middle of its enclosure.

Eleven oclock was feeding time which started with two young wombat being brought out for a cuddle. The youngest was quite content to be cradled on his back like a baby. He had hiccups and this made him possible the cutest animal I have ever beheld first-hand. He looked like a happy fat buddha. The other was a bit shy and she tried to hide under armpits. In case you were wondering, wombats make great pets until they turn two when they get violent and independant and charge through walls and suchlike - ironically, this makes them perfect for rescued animals because they can be released much more confidently.
The devils were fed quartered pademelons (small wallabies) culled from neighbouring cattle farms. As with everywhere in Australia, opening up grassland has seen population explosions of grassland macropods. The farmers can cull, but I don't know the rules. The keepers don't use roadkill because they have no way of telling if a facial-tumour suffering devil has been at it already, thus pademelons are used for food for the uninfected. One of the enclosures had two males and six females - none of which we'd seen because they were all in burrows. Calling them out she coaxed one from the other side who loped up eagerly to the hind-quarter she was holding by the tail. This devil latched on and started growling. The keeper explained that this is what they do in the wild to call other devils to join in a tug-of-war because this is how they tear apart larger carcasses. Soon she was holding five devils all locked on and growling, and pawing at the meat and each other. The keeper showed a repectful wariness of these devils. The males are the ones with scars on thier hind-quarters because angry females who don't want to mate fight them off and bite them. Every so often one would be able to grab the lion's share and lope off growling usually pursued by one or two others.
Before this bunch she'd introduced us to a male who was a big softy who didn't mind being held and petted because he'd been rescue from the pouch at such a young age. He wandered around us sniffing our shoes much like a silent dog.

The drizzle we'd been walking around in had developed by the time we got to our next stop which was Alum Falls. These steeply folded limestone hills were cut by a river and the lookout provided a nice optical illusion wheer we both thought the river was flowing the other way until we worked out the seven sets of rapids weren't moving up the river. This place was a source of ochre.
On getting back in the car the Aunt proclaimed "Me pants are wet and me hair style's ruined!" She was loving it.

One of the focuses of this trip was to get fresh produce along the way, so we stopped by the roadside to hunter-and-gatherer some blackberries and look at flowers.
Did I mention how beautiful Tasmania is? No? Well, it's gorgeous. After Christmas I was burbling about how anyone who wanted to go to England to see rolling countryside should save money and just fly to Christchurch NZ and drive aorund the Canterbury Plain. Well, if you don't want to fly internationally then go to Tassie! The land is so fecund! Airfares being as cheap as they are, just go for an extended weekend even.

We stopped at Sheffield for lunch. The food was great at yet another awesome bakery. I had a pasty, a quiche and an eclair proclaiming that that would keep the Tasmania wolf from the door! Yeah. I don't know how I do it either. I mean, how can one *truly* explain talent? The town was pretty enough and had a whole bunch of murals on the buildings - if that's your thing. We bought cherries.
Out of town the eagle-eyes of the Aunt picked out the hand-written sign for fresh eggs in (I think) Forth.
'Probably they're cage eggs that they paint poo onto' suggested someone.

That night was in the caravan park of the seaside town of Ulverstone. Bass Strait was about thirty metres away. We inspected the surf and got our feet wet. Caroline went shopping to find fish for dinner. I took off afterwards to visit friends from my pub days who now lived in Burnie, leaving the Aunt to inspect the poo on the eggs.

Point form, Harry! Point form!

Tassie Part 2

2010-04-12T09:05:00.004+10:00

Safely on Tasmanian soil I immediately started driving in random directions to find breakfast somewhere.
I went the wrong way. Port Sorrell, whilst pretty enough, was lacking in anything useful to us, so we broke out the map and went to Latrobe. We ate in a bakery and then walked the streets looking in the windows of the antique shops. We then headed south-east to Deloraine. Deloraine is a really nice town along the lines of the towns of the Southern Highlands of NSW but better. We picked up brochures about bushwalks and whatnot from the info place and did some long-range Uturning before arriving at Liffey Falls, about 25km south.
Liffey Falls as a World Heritage Area.
'Oh, we can't set it on fire' says the Aunt.
'That's a nice tree', he replied driving off the road.
Some idiot had commissioned a sculptor to 'interpret the wilderness' at the start of the trail that leads to the falls. Strangely, I don't need three large slabs of acid etched metal to show me the splendour of nature that surrounds said sculture completely. Nor should anyone. It was bizarre.
Liffey falls is pretty with lots of man-ferns, nothophagus and interesting geology exposed by the rushing water.
At the car park is a sign for a tap on the same post that the tap is on. Ingenious.
There is also a sign for "Big Tree". They didn't lie. It was a massive brown-top stringybark about forty metres tall and five metres in diametre.

Lunch was back in Deloraine. Excellent bakery-cum-cafe. I bought Ellen some jewellery in a hippy shop next door, and Caroline did auntlike things in other shops.
Deloraine is on the Meander River, thus the surrounding countryside is the Meander Valley. Unable to resist a joke at the expense of Tasmanian country -folk, yet still showing my education I told Caroline that the German for 'valley' is 'thal' thus, this would be the Meanderthal and the locals would be Meanderthals. I know. Hilarious. So on our winding trip to Mole Creek where we were spending the night a mere 24kms away I kept trying to find the village called Meander so I could pose as a Meanderthal myself at the sign.
Well, I didn't manage to find the village but we happily drove through picture-perfect rural scenery: dark green mountains in the background, fat stock in the fore, with dramatic clouds over all. One mountain was grey scree crowned with vegetation, looking like a bison losing its winter coat.

We emerged near Chudleigh and were blown away by the range of flavours at the Honey factory. Almost everything is available for tasting or testing: they have about 40 flavours of honey and the whole swag of honey, queen jelly and beeswax cosmetics and health products. I bought three distinct flavours: a blue gum (the state flower of Tassie), red gum and brown-top stringybark in memory of the Big Tree. All three have an individual and great taste. Given more money and a bigger boot I would have grabbed a whole heap more. Caroline was particularly taken with some skin cream.
We drove west a bit more to Mole Creek seeing more of the abundance of wildlife in the mammals of all different sizes squashed on the road. Evidently their populations are doing well to support so many suicides amongst their number. The lonely planet had mentioned this, but even then it was disturbing. It was easy to imagine a growth in Tassie devil population to take advantage of this bounty from man's interference, and then to have their numbers destroyed also by man's interference. Yep, surprise surprise, it looks like the devil facial tumour is caused by forestry chemical spraying.

I chose the Mole Creek Hotel because I wanted to stay in a number of proper little country town hotels because we enjoyed that so much last time, so I chose this out of the way place in a scenic area near the end of the road. I didn't know that it was a logging road, so Caroline's beautifully fitted out ensuite queensize bedroom gave her all night exposure to the rumble of prime movers. Her room was all lace, cushions and colonial frumpery. It was a hoot.
We drank Huon River Wines Pinot Noir.

Dear god, this journal is going to be far too long. From now on: selected highlights and stuff in point form.

Tasmania: A journey of many U-turns. February 2010.

2010-04-12T08:41:00.003+10:00

Or, as the Aunt calls it: Tasmania and back again and again and again and again...
I don't think I'll take her anywhere again. Sensibly I have now moved to Melbourne thus making it harder to accidently do so.

(Fast forward 3 years)
Aunt: ...so, that was why I suggested that Clara turn it into a potato salad. That's Clara who married James Farris. And everyone said the potato salad was wonderful - never knowing the near disaster of two hours before. You always put Caraway seed in your potato salad now, don't you? Of course you do, because I told you to and you always listen to your wise Aunt.

Harry: Who is James Farris?

Aunt: He was a work colleague of...

Harry: Wait! Why I am in the middle of what appears to be the Kimberley Ranges with you?

Aunt: How odd you don't remember that you agreed to drive me around the North West for four months!

Harry: ...My girlfriend is going to kill me.

Aunt: Don't swerve so! It upsets me when you swerve.

H: Sorry, Aunt.

Aunt: There's a good boy. Now, look, why do they keep making movies about Archaeology? It's not as if everyone of school age is going to rush out and become archaelogists, is it? Oh, look a magpie! Magpies always make me happy. I remember one time....

I owed The Aunt a road trip after the last one was postponed when I rushed off to Canada on a quixotic quest we needn't go into here; and Aunt Caroline's oldest daughter selfishly had another baby. Happily the Aunt grew bored of her most recent grandson and it was time for me to quit employment again, so the Tasmania trip was resurrected. On the advise of a travel agent I booked all accommodation (except Hobart - the Aunt did that), the Spirit of Tasmania tickets and a river cruise; and printed out maps of all the towns we were staying in. This was totally opposite to the Great Ocean Road trip where we just winged it.

We drove to Melbourne and rendezvoused with the Spirit of Tasmania on Tuesday the 2nd of February; worked our way around Tasmania in an anti-clockwise direction; and eighteen days later met the Spirit for the return trip across Bass Strait.

All up we travelled about 3500km - 500 of which Caroline claims were backtracking.
My job was to make Caroline's life as perfect as possible - and I only failed horrendously once! As well as being driver, porter, photographer, chronicler and washer-upperer I knew I had to keep an eye out for interesting wildlife, in particular birds of prey.
Caroline's additional role to the last trip was to spot likely looking produce at the side of the road - kiosks with honesty boxes and that sort of thing.

On the way down we spent the first night in Yass with friends of mine. Here Caroline used a stubby holder for the first time. Past readers will recall that our road trip on the Great Ocean Road in 2007 saw her use a portaloo for the first time.
Stubbies are better.
We stopped in Holbrook for morning tea at the bakery that my mate recommended. I had a quick foray through the submarine museum which answered the nagging question what the hell this thoroughly inland town has to do with submarines. It's not like those cities in the mid-south of the USA that made submarines which then sailed down the Mississippi and out to victory in the Pacific.
It turns out that pre-WWI Holbrook was named Germanton. It was patriotically renamed after a submarine officer who won the VC.
The Oberon class submarine in the park is, disappointingly, not the real thing - it is mostly fibreglass.

I had bought a bag of small apples for snacking on during the trip. Obviously these would have to be dealt with before we hit the furit-fly exclusion zone. Accordingly we stopped in some town I can't remember, took the apples from the esky, and ate a bunch of them beside the chain of fetid pools that was all that was left of the local creek. We tossed the remainder in a bin, well pleased that we were doing the right thing by the Victorian fruit industry.

We met Ellen for afternoon tea/late lunch in Port Melbourne at about five. I tried not to eavesdrop on the people at the table next to us were obviously criminals doing deals.
Eventually we bid Ellen adieu, and (to quote Spike Milligan) she raised us a Hindu. The boat sails at 7:30 each evening, but first they have to load all the vehicles.
There is a saying about piss-ups in brothels that serves to illustrate the incompetence of an individual or group of persons. It was almost instantly applicable to the vehicle check-in and traffic direction staff. Relating the details will be boring, but the guy with wild-hair and the linen safari suit in the car behind us cracked before we did.
Once in Tasmania there was periodic speculation from the Aunt as to how much fun the 'wild-haired man' was having at this same instant. I would suggest that he'd driven off a cliff or into a tree in frustration with a cry of "Right! That's it! This holiday is over!"
Quarantine had inspected us by making us pop the hood first - presumable to check for the exhaustive array of weapons listed on our 'banned weapons list' that they'd given us - and then the boot - presumably for stowaways armed with rocket launchers, grenades and land mines. They saw, but didn't ask us to open, the esky - which was lucky because it was crammed with heavy machineguns and surface-to-air missiles.
(The Aunt had insisted I move the latter from under the hood due to an unfortunate incident near Campbelltown where I'd tooted at a blue pajero cutting me off and accidentally shot down the Westpac Careflight helicopter. A smart call on her part because we possibly would have been fined!)

Caroline had a cabin all to herself. This is one of the conditions of her, for better choice of words, rider. So, I guess a fair description since we were on tour and I was her roadie/manager. Other stipulations include Business Class or better for air-travel; no commitments after 9:30pm; and no heavy lifting.
I was in a four-berth shared cabin. Each cabin has a bible - presumably for use when sinking.
Things were chained down; aways were stowed; horns were piped; and I sat outside on a small deck on level nine while the Aunt sent increasingly terse text messages as she tried to find out where I was.
Melbourne fell behind as the sun set. On the shady side of the ferry the Mornington Peninsular appeared and I could smell dust on the wind.
Caroline visited the $10 salad bar and took so little the check-out guy only charged her a dollar. Perhaps inspired by such generosity she offered me some chicken.
Port Phillip Bay is enormous, and it was hours before we - travelling at 23 or 25 knots - started feeling the deep roll of Bass Strait.

Interrupted by occasion bursts of snoring from one of my two companions I drifted off and awoke with a start when the lights turned on and the public address system announced it was quarter-to-six and we'd start disembarking at six thirty.
Devonport looked colder than it was. It had rained during the night and the decks outside were wide puddles. The occasional calling seagull added to the atmosphere.
I met the Aunt and we blundered our way down to the car; drove off the boat to the quarantine station where they found the four lemons we'd completely forgotten were in the esky. I think they were underneath the anti-tank rifle ammunition. Bear in mind that we'd spoken at length about how we'd done the right thing with the fruit AND had joked about how defficient the Melbourne quarantine was to not even look in the esky, we felt like right fools. Luckily I am too handsome and charming to fine, so wasn't $129 down.

Dedication to work

2009-12-08T18:25:00.003+11:00

Two emails I sent last week.
One to the deputy head of school who was promoted to Professor. He is a very good sort who has labs where I work on Level 6; and thinks I am hilarious. Graham is also tall and handsome - facts of which my boss (Phil) and I frequently remind him. The other people mentioned in the email are his PhD students and honours student.

From: Harry Simpson
Sent: Wednesday, 2 December 2009 10:18 AM
To: Graham
Subject: Congratulations, also: YOUR DESTINY!!

Dear Sir,

Since you have now embraced your true self it is time for you to realise your destiny. As we speak I am having the mechanical workshop boys reforge the shards of Narsil. This will of course set back the completion date for any number of jobs, but the hordes of darkness must be held at bay now that you have arisen to your True Station!

There are several things you must do:

Protect the hairy-toed one (known to you as Phil) as he goes forth to destroy the evil warlock XXX by tossing the ring made of his own stupidity and the tedium of wasted hours spent in meetings, into the fires of Administratium.

You must totally romance a hot elf babe;

You must call forth the walking dead of Level5 to regain their honour in your service;

and you must be totally awesome and kick arse! (You will receive help from a girly elf known as Blacklow and his rather fine elven sistren Youmie, Fran and Monique. The doughty warrior Casamento might be of some use, but I wouldn't count on it.)

Please start growing your hair long and practicing your smoldering thousand-yard stare (think pure jewels embedded in craggy ageless hills).

regards,
Harry Simpson
Technical Officer
IBID & MMB
University of Technology, Sydney
---------------

The second concerns our Christmas party which is tomorrow. One of the honours girls (who is a bit of a princess) asked me to email her the address of the party which is Haberfield Rowers Retreat.

From: Harry Simpson
Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2009 3:22 PM
To: fran
Subject: Haberfield Rowers

Dear Fran,

Undoubtedly you have beautiful eyes.
Such eyes have stirred men to noble deeds in the honour of their bearers for millenia.
Such eyes have been compared to moonlit pools of peaceful water, or the dark calming centre of the universe.
Such eyes have made otherwise cautious men recklessly expose their souls to their harsh regard and be destroyed.
And such eyes normally are more than enough to read the 34648 signs I put up around the place showing you where the Haberfield Rowers Retreat is!!!

Perhaps before you go to your job interview on Friday you could visit an optometrist. Wikipedia tells me that: "Like most professions, optometry education, certification, and practice is regulated in most countries. Optometrists and optometry-related organizations interact with governmental agencies, other health care professionals, and the community to deliver eye and vision care."

There are at least 17 optometrists in the Southern Hemisphere alone! So there probably is one near to where you live or shop. Please do not make the mistake, as my Great Aunt Hilda did, of visiting an Optimist instead of an Optometrist. He told her that everything was going to be fine and, thinking just that, my Great Aunt Hilda happily walked into the path of one of the first 436 buses. She was horribly wounded and walked with a limp for the rest of her days. Ironically the 436 bus is one of the buses you can take to get to Haberfield Rowers Retreat. Talk about a coincidence!

The UTS Haberfield Club Rowers Retreat is on Dobroyd parade. This road is otherwise known as the City West Link.

regards,
Harry Simpson
Technical Officer
IBID & MMB
University of Technology, Sydney

Homeopathic solution to homeopathy

2009-11-15T10:05:00.001+11:00

I worked out how we can cure the world of homeopathy.

Step 1: get all homeopathists in one room. Get an equal number of skeptics. Line them up opposite each other. Give each an empty glass.

Step 2: Open a big tin of poison. Put a fatal dose of poison water into each glass in front of a homeopathist.

Step 4: Using homeopathic dilution make a super dilute poison solution. Put this solution into the glasses in front of the skeptics.

Each side now think the other has the most deadly solution in front of them.

Drink.

End of problem.

(Perhaps the only good solution is a psychopathic one?)

Had an argument with a friend about the current industrial revolution in China...

2009-11-11T22:48:00.004+11:00

Position A: China is being exploited by the West and is suffering for it.
Position B: China is being exploited by the West and is better off for it.

I am reminded of a parable in a novel or biography that I can't remember - but I remember the parable and it goes like this.

A man on holiday is walking along the seashore. The previous night there was a storm and the waves picked up all the starfish - thousands and thousands of them - and dumped them past the high tide mark. There they now sit, a whole heaven of stars, helplessly and inexorably dying in the sun.
The man sees a young girl who is picking up handfuls of starfish and tossing them back into the see. He walks up to her and asks "Why do you bother? You can't save them all?"
To which she replies "I can save these ones. I can make a difference to them".

I related this parable to another friend. He suggested this instead:

A rich business man is on holiday in a tropical paradise. The previous night there was a storm and the waves picked up all the starfish - thousands and thousands of them - and dumped them past the high tide mark. There they now sit, a whole heaven of stars, helplessly and inexorably dying in the sun.
The sea is now calm - so calm that he thinks he could skim stones across it. But there are no stones, only dying starfish.
So he picks up a starfish and tries to skim it over the water. It sort of works but the arms dig into the water as you would expect. After twelve attempted skims he changes the game to seeing how far into the sea he can throw a starfish. After fifteen minutes a young girl comes up to him. She is crying because all these starfish are dying because nature is uncaring.

So, which of the above characters owns the factory in China?

Errr....they just worked this out?!

2009-11-10T13:27:00.003+11:00

"Mr Hunt, who is also a director of Tourism Australia, said travellers were increasingly looking for out-of-the-ordinary experiences they could brag their friends about..."

"Generation Y and baby boomer travellers looking for a holiday "brag factor" are influencing a new shift towards weird and wonderful tourism experiences, a conference has heard."

Really? People like bragging about their holidays?
Knock me down with a feather.
Next they'll tell me that cars are often seen as status symbols.
And let me guess that his audience were Gen X. I can see them all sitting there nodding along at how shallow Gen Y and the Boomers are, because THEY in Gen X only go on holiday because it's good the planet and because it helps them become a well rounded personality overflowing with understanding, insight and compassion.
I know this is how it truly works for Gen X people because we're differnet to GenY and the Boomers, but mostly because I went to Borneo.

Nah, that's me just being sarcastic: I was awesome long before I went to that place that none of you have been to. Losers.

But, still the important thing to bear in mind is this: "sure, Fred went and stayed in an eco-village on the Masai Mara for 18weeks and drives a Peugeot but he's still a fuckwit."

So yes, "Generation Y and baby boomer travellers look for a holiday "brag factor"" but it's because they are, by in large, fuckwits.

Instant Bachelor

2009-10-28T21:04:00.004+11:00

Wow.
So Ellen went back to Melbourne yesterday and I became nutritionaly instantly a bachelor.

Part of my breakfast this morning was a packet of chips.
Dinner was pistaccios, some dutch almond biscuits and three beers.

Oh, and we've run out of washing-up liquid, so the washing-up is piling up.

Oh, and my fly's undone.

Fuck it: I think it's time to line up the shots and put on some real hair band rock.
(exits waving whiskey bottle and singing "Pour Some Sugar on Me")

Strawman - Eagleton v Dawkins

2009-10-16T09:55:00.002+11:00

Terry Eagleton "is, among other things, professor of cultural theory at the National University of Ireland, Galway. His latest book is Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate."

For the London Review of Books he wrote Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching a review of 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins (yes, this was back in 2006).
It is a pin-up straw-man argument. Yet again I am astounded by how smart people aren't.
I recommend reading it.

It starts with this "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology."
Tadaa! The straw-man is constructed in the first sentence!

It is tempting to think that Eagleton's title was perfect irony.

My cousin, Dan, put it very well in his review of Eagleton's review:

"Richard Dawkins is a small man words words words words longword words words longword words words words words longword words words longword words words Richard Dawkins doesn't know much about what it means to be really bloody clever AND a Christian words words words words longword words words longword words It is okay to believe and not be really bloody clever, it is NOT okay to refute and be clever too Look over there! Ha, distracted you. Now you can't possibly disagree with me. Richard Dawkins is a small man words words words words longword words words longword words words words words longword words words longword words words. Dear reader, please ignore that Dawkins excels in a field of research that demands clear and eloquent demonstration and that religion is open to any number of permutations of interpretation. Please also ignore that theology and religion are not the same thing. Richard Dawkins is a small man."

Destination Sarawak

2009-09-17T08:40:00.005+10:00

I have wanted to go to Borneo since reading Gerald Durrell's book set there. It sounded so pristine and wild and adventurous.
Then in 1998 a mate and I went to Kuala Lumpur for ten days and at the Royal Selangor pewter place gift shop we got into conversation with one of the staff and she said Sarawak was wonderful. That sealed the deal. I told her that next time I came to Malaysia I would go there - and I would hate to let her down as I am sure she is a devoted reader of this blog.

When most people visit Borneo they go to Sabah in the north east. It is a scuba diving mecca, apparently, and enjoys much higher tourist numbers than Sarawak. Since I am a rebel and say 'Fie!' to the opinions of hoi poloi I decided we would go to western Sarawak to try and be token tourists. And we were quite successful at that.
(Also, Ellen, wanted to go snorkeling and sit on a beach. Oh, and jungle would be nice.)

Even in the capital city of Sarawak, Kuching - a city of 300,000 people, there were only a couple of dozen white people. And we managed to avoid most of them because they didn't spend much time in the old part of the waterfront which was where we spent almost all our time.

I was originally looked at spending most of the time north of Kuching in Santubong, but reading around and the polite silence of a friend's boyfriend who knows the area gave me pause for thought.
I looked at the map again and saw that the road west ends at Sematan. That was why I picked Sematan.
There are two islands about 5kms north called the Talang-Talang islands that offer snorkeling sites, and there is a national park called Tanjung Datu (Where "Tg. Datuk" is on this map) that is accessible only by boat. I fugured we'd find some pretty authentic jungle there.
Finally, there is a resort there, right on the beach, that would allow us to be indulgent and lazy. Nine nights there please!

Safety First

2009-09-11T08:12:00.004+10:00

Kuching, the capital city of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, North Western Borneo.

Kuching

Sematan. Fishing village 140kms west of Kuching. The resort we stayed at was 3km west of Sematan.

Adventurerering with Ellen: Borneo

2009-09-09T09:34:00.003+10:00

Setting the bar so low it's become a floor board

2009-03-17T09:19:00.001+11:00

*fart sound*

Hilarious.

Hmm. Perhaps there ARE some things the internet simply can't do.

Work Place Follies

2009-03-12T18:40:00.003+11:00

Part 1: Chivalry is not dead. And neither is Chauvanism.

I saw a sign on Tuesday that referred to International Women's Day.
No date was included and I had no idea when it was.
Turns out it was the previous Sunday.
I went looking for someone and found Piklu (a woman scientist) and Maurice (a man scientist).

H: Piklu, do you know it was International Women's Day on Sunday?
P: No. I did not.
M: When is International Men's Day?
H: Dude! _Every_ day is International Men's Day!
I high five him, and then tell Piklu she should probably wash the toasted sandwich maker in their office.

Part 2: Proposed sign for the lab area.

WE WANT YOU
TO WASH YOUR HANDS

Parallel Imports

2009-02-17T13:50:00.002+11:00

Allan Fels and Fred Brenchley wrote a reply in response to people wanting to keep parallel imported books out of Australia.

(Wiki: Parallel importers ordinarily purchase products in one country at a price (P1) which is cheaper than the price at which they are sold in a second country (P2), import the products into the second country, and sell the products in that country at a price which is usually between P1 and P2.)

Peter Carey and others claim that parallel imports will destroy the domestic publishing market and thus prevent Australian authors from being published. Domestic publishers hold the copyright for overseas authors thus if you want to see those books in Australia they must be produced by domestic publishers. Non-parallel importing is therefore protectionism.

I am a wannabe writer. Reading is my number one past-time. I read widely. I give a lot of books as presents. I am university-educated middle-class fairly bohemian and pink. I should be on the battlements staving off parallel imports and supporting Australian publishing with my last breath.
I’m not.
I agree with Fels and Brenchley.
Carey et al are wrong.
Domestic publishers are lazy pricks who do not support Australian writers.

By saying that they can only be profitable by printing foreign authors under copyright the publishers are admitting THEY CAN’T SELL DOMESTIC AUTHORS!
Yet these are the only guys we are counting on to support said Australian authors?! Protecting them doesn’t make any sense.

The crowning argument of the anti-parallel people is this:
"But if Australian writers can't afford to go on writing (and Australian publishers can't afford to publish us) then there will be many fewer books reflecting our unique Australian experience."

This is fatuous on two counts.
a) If I wanted to read about The Australian Experience..... why would I read a novel?
Surely I would read about real people?
Like Robyn Davidson: a woman who walked across 1700km of desert with four camels. That was a cracking read. Entertaining, touching, transporting and inspiring.
Or I would read biographies of Diggers surviving the Bataan death march or fighting in Tobruk. Or I’d read straight history. 'Leviathan' by John Birmingham is a triumph of a writer being authentically Australian. Birmingham’s style is a product of his personality. His personality is in part due to being Australian.
If the reason for having The Australian Experience is to either Tell-us-who-we-are or to convey that experience to foreigners then convey the REAL experience. Don’t try and manufacture it.
Simply having a novel set in Australia doesn’t automatically make it more worthy. To claim otherwise is nationalism, and there is very little that is more stupid and childish than nationalism.

b) Australian authors will not stop writing: they will get a job and still keep on writing.
Y'know, like 99% of artists in all fields.
Fulltime writers tend to disappear up their own arseholes, anyway. There is a reason why your old stuff is better than your new stuff - you were mining your life experiences in the old stuff. Your new stuff is written when you have become a full-time writer and you simply aren’t that interesting any more. This applies equally to musicians.
'Oh listen: a song about being on tour!'
'Oh, look. A novel where the protagonist is a writer with writer’s block.'
Spare me.

Main rebuttal.

1) Books are simply too expensive. How much money do they think readers have? Are readers going to pay $35 for one book, or are they far happier to pay $35 for two books or even three if you use the Penguin model. The $9.95 Penguins are proof right there that Carey et al are wrong. Why are people buying these Penguins and not another print? Because the other print is $25 perhaps? These aren’t new books. They have been out for a while now, and if the people buying them *now* didn’t buy them *back then* there must be a reason for it. Join. The. Dots.
This is a no brainer.
I am not going to impulse buy with $20.
‘But it costs so much to print books in Australia….’
So don’t print them in Australia. Ta daa.

1b) I buy remaindered books from England for about $6-8 each. As a result I have read any number of books I would never have even looked at if they were $20 let alone $35.
Any number of my friends buy books from Amazon because they are cheaper than getting them here; they are unavailable here; they are actually in stock.
Aside from print-on-demand, it is hard to think of a more direct way to get a book.

2) If Aussie publishers are making foreign authored books then they aren’t making domestically written books. QED. Not only that, but it is cheaper to bring in the foreign print books than to print them here, so it doesn’t make economic sense to do so except for reasons of protectionism.
How much sympathy do you expect me to have for a publisher who makes only $6 instead of $10. That $4 difference is MY money.

3) Editors. Where are the editors? Editors are there to ensure the quality of writing. Since publishers became more hard-nosed they demoted editors to the point where the quality of writing has suffered. Do you know why books are bloated overly-long lumps of filler these days? It’s because they cut editors off at the knees. It was the editor’s job to reign in the author. It is very easy to see which books had good editors and which didn’t.
Where, then, is our ‘proud and needed’ Australian Experience?
If it isn’t of good quality, should we be proud of it? Should we treat it as the ambassador of the nation? Of course we shouldn’t!!! Why are we celebrating mediocrity?!?!
The obvious conclusion is that Publishers don’t care about quality. They should therefore not be protected.

4) Anyone who defends the publishers defends Matthew Reilly. Since he is indefensible, their position is untenable.

5) If they truly cared about finding Australian authors and The Australian Experience they would make an effort to market them.
How many one-off authors produce really good stuff? Lots. They say everyone has a book in them, and maybe many people only have the one. And maybe those books are short.
Better to have seven one-off's than seven Tim Wintons I feel. Particularly if you are wanting The Australian Experience. Does Tim Winton speak for the nation? Of course he doesn’t. He speaks for a microcosm. To speak for the nation you need many voices.
And that means many writers.
Publishing houses have stables of authors. What this means is that they have a set number of established authors whom they publish. They put their effort into keeping these authors rather than finding untested ones because it is easier. Obviously it is easier to feed an established market with a new Peter Carey book than with an unknown.
Publishers buy shelf space in bookshops. New release books are on these shelves for six weeks. After that time a few go to the shelves for older books and a new title fills the New Release shelves.
Publishing is a business. Do not protect business – demand more from it.

Publishers are betraying readers. They patently aren’t doing what their defenders claim they do.
Their argument is condescending in the extreme.
They are an adult saying “If you don’t do it my way, you will not get dessert” to a child.
Don’t fall for the idea that if the publishers go they will take Australian Literature with them.
It’s a load of crap.

Yourdictionary.com crapness

2009-02-08T19:14:00.003+11:00

I have never used yourdictionary.com before.
They are special.

"Einstein quotes

As Einstein once said, ordinary life in an ordinary day in the modern world is a dreary business. I mean dreary. People will do anything just to escape this dreariness.

-Pepys, Samuel"

Umm.
No.
Samuel Pepys was the famous diarist of the 1600s.

Also, the person to attribute the quote "ordinary life..." to is, surprisingly enough, Einstein.

Bizarre.
Also: douchebags.

"Tell us what you want:

1. What features would you like us to add to YourDictionary?

"

Is accuracy a feature?

Happy Chinese New Year

2009-01-29T14:33:00.002+11:00

I had my 'Kung Hay Fat Choy, bitch!' all primed for Hilary the stores woman but she pre-empted me with a shril 'You suck monkeys balls!' which is also a traditional greeting for the time of year, but less geographically ubiquitous.
This saying is, of course, usually confined to the South East of China and loses a little something in the translation.
It is more 'Happy New Year' in flavour (if you'll excuse the pun) than it seems.

In her expanding feelings of New Years benevolence Hilary recruited Stan and Jason to also wish me well.

To which I was able to reply by email:

Colleagues,

Well, after a busy morning I have finally finished sucking all the monkey balls.
So many monkeys.

All that's left now is the penises and arseholes.

Stan, I have put you down for the penises.
And Hilary, you get the arseholes.

Happy Sucking!

Sir Harry Simspon KA

Christmas retro

2009-01-15T11:08:00.004+11:00

I hosted two Englishmen for Christmas lunch or, as I explained to one of the girls at Uni, I was hosting some orphans. Her face softened and she obviously thought I was a good person. I explained it was just a figure of speech; they weren't real orphans, just guys away from home.

So, there were three wise men at Christmas aaaand we were Tom, Dick and Harry.

Jesus was happy and so were we.

Grab bag

2009-01-12T11:51:00.003+11:00

Dubbya Bush talking about his last weeks in office and the incoming president on C-span:
"I would hate to have the next to last and last day of the presidency be one giant hug-fest … But I anticipate with great interest watching an historic moment, the swearing-in of the 44th president, who happens to be an African-American male. And that's a big deal for America. And I will have a front-row seat."

A bit revealing that. "African-American male" is how cops describe perps.
---

Apparently the email survey I replied to the Managing Director with the below *was* serious. I honestly thought it was a joke.
Oh well.

Dear Mr Pxxxxxxx,

Thank you very much for your email.
We _have_ outsourced the IT helpdesk to Uzbekistan.
The new IT helpdesk jockey is more jockey than help, but he is a world class shepard. His name is Balga.
He is a direct decendant of that great Uzbek warlord Tamerlame* who killed seventeen million people during the mid Fourteenth century, and Balga has a similar attitude to IT enquiries.

No, we have not just 'handed out' his IT qualification - we had it presented to him by the nearest Australian Ambassador.

Balga is not in the office at the moment because currently driving his sheep across the southern steppes in search of pasture, but he does have intermittent satellite contact.

We think is a convicted arsonist but I'm sure it was only a small fire.

regards,
Harry Simpson
(soon to be ex-)IT Helpdesk

Edit: *Should read as 'Tamerlane'. Tamerlame only killed seven people and most of them was due to a donkey accident near Samarkand.

I just walked into the office at my other job and my boss greeted me with "Harry, I'm disturbingly obsessed by ammunition."
It was a statment of fact, not a cry for help.
He then started singing "Ammo's always on my mind. Ammo's always on my mind."

Lazy New Year

2009-01-03T12:47:00.002+11:00

Song for the new year: Sons of Butcher Possibly the greatest song ever.

Why hiphop is excellent part 1 DJ Format

Part 2 Beardyman beatboxing in the kitchen

Bond

2008-11-28T07:58:00.002+11:00

Jason Bourne threw down the guantlett and the Bond franchise failed to meet the challenge with 'Quantum of Solace'.

It was a sequel and it felt like one. It was lazy, poorly written, had a weak story and was badly directed.
Also the main title singer has no balls. It was Alicia Keyes and she simply can't deliver. Bond theme tunes are meant to be powerful, sexy and have a hint of menace - the song is meant to be a challenge. Keyes couldn't challenge a wet paper bag. And she couldn't sing her way out of one to mince metaphors.

They have invested too much money in Dench and now feel obliged to give her lots of screen time which hurts the story and the pace. Her only role is to try and reel Bond in. It's boring.

The action seuqences were far too choppy - the camera angled changed too often so that you couldn't follow what was going on. All this forced me to the conclusion that they were covering up for sloppiness. The fight scene on the scaffolding was lazy film making. You had no clear idea of who and how good a fighter the badguy was. And worst of all it didn't show how Bond shows his immense cool and talent by thinking his way through a fight which enables him to take advantage of luck. Smoothly taking luck in his stride is what Bond is all about. Oh, and in the trailer you see Bond perform a Spanish Web maneouvre - where he starts at the top of a rope with a loop around him and spins down it in a controlled fall, and arrests his fall at the very bottom shooting his gun back up the rope and killing the bad guy. Doesn't happen in the film. Stupid.
Makes it look like the director doesn't know what he's doing. Heard of storyboarding and blocking? Do it.

As if to fully convince us that this was a half-arsed piece of cinema the big building at the end blows up for no good reason. And continues blowing up bit by bit like all those villians' lairs at the height of Bond ridiculousness of the 70s. Trouble is: IT'S A HOTEL!!!
Stupid.

Everything was just too easy for Bond. It was boring.
The best change that Pierce Brosnan made was to show Bond absolutely knackered after a fight - y'know, sitting in the hotel room, collar popped open, having a smirnoff. It showed Bond was human - that he actually was making an effort.
Casino Royale showed how Bond became gritty and ruthless - another human side to him.
Quantum of Solace showed him getting handsomely cut on the face but not having to draw on reserves; and showed him being completely void of feeling rather than toughly ruefully when a helper dies.

The Bondgirl was missing almost all the elements that make a Bondgirl a Bondgirl. The fighting and fleeing are meant to serve as foreplay. They didn't get it on, and he was too much her white knight. Disappointing.

The main problem was that it couldn't get over how to show Bond was still crushing over Vespa.
Surely the whole point would be to show that he is carrying a shadow yet still doing his job for Blighty. (a) Don't make it a fucking sequel, and (b) show the shadow by having a few little 'tells' where he gets reminded of her. Ta daaa! He's English for god's sake.

It is far cooler if M is just an incidental character. She should be just a light touch on the film - not a fucking point of plot revolution - that's what the Bondgirl is for and the badguys are for. Remember them?! Bad Guys.
These ones were lame. It was not even half an idea.

Also the name sucks.

So Hollywood, when you want the next Bond, call me.

Ticking all the boxes

2008-11-24T18:46:00.000+11:00

Last night I saw The. Best. Movie. Ever.
It was even better than The Scorpion King (The Mummy spin-off that stars The Rock.).
The movie was Death Race, and the trailer shows you the whole plot so you don't even vaguely need to pay attention.

It ticked all the boxes of big dumb A-grade B-grade Hollywood.

Near future. All prisons are private and one of them holds gladiatorial contests. The next stage in this is suped-up cars armoured and armed with guns and missiles, and they race around a track and kill each other. All the drivers are convicted murderers.

Tick, tick, tick.

An ex-NASCAR driver gets framed for a Crime He Didn't Commit

Tick

So he can be the driver in this conspiracy to keep a masked driver…

Tick..

called Frankenstein 'alive'. Frank has actually died in the last race on the operating table. It's the Only Way He Can Win His Freedom

Tick

The cars have navigators

Huh?

Who are absolute BABES

TICK

Who are female murderers.
Ahah! Tick

And then a whole heap of cool shit happens. The good guy is played by English actor Jason Statham (Lock Stock…) and his navigator is this Latino Goddess who I am sure has a name, but for the movie her theme tune so-to-speak was a dance track called "I'm Sexy".

Tick.

The good guys win and get reunited

Tick

$16 well spent. Let's have a beer.

Tick

Babes

2008-11-14T21:56:00.003+11:00

The barstaff at The Loft (which is a campus bar of UTS and just off Broadway) are some of the most gorgeous women you will ever look upon.

They are like the spicegirls but EVERY one of them is hot.
It's not like some pic'n'mix where you think 'I only feel like sqirms'.
It is like a pretty damned high level of heaven where it's like God and Allah got together aand said "Yeah, long black hair and brown drown-in-eyes are teh bomb".

Look, if you fell into those eyes you'd swim for days without reaching shore. And, no, that wouldn't be because of your particularly slow and girly form of sidestroke or lack of a sense of direction.
And then one of them has the most wicked mouth ever. If I was a small insect it would be the tastest, most yummy smelling venus fly trap ever.

And then some PhD students bought me, like, eight hundred beers.

God bless them - every one.

I love you all, but in particular the one with the tiny nose stud. Zow!
If she had glasses then I would be a puddle of incoherence on the floor right now.

"What happened to Harry?"
"he drowned and got eaten by carnivorous plants."
"Hmmm... weird."

Edit.
So, I got home at about 12:30 after having indifferent burgers at the only place open and I tried to explain to Elf Sara about the bar babes. I then went to my room and engaged in my time-proved getting home routine.
Sit on bed. Take out wallet, keys and mobile from pants. put them next to bed. Take off shoes. Go to kitchen and drink lots of water.
Which is great except I had taken out keys and wallet when Elf came in and sat next to me to offer advice because she'd misconstrued my babes explaination as a crie du coeur from the depths of my loneliness rather than just an expression of how cool life is right now, which it actually was.
"You should become a he-slut", she suggested.
Which is not the most useful thing anyone's said to me particularly when it kinda sideswipes me and I can't must the required braincells to correct the situation.
And that's why I forgot to take my mobile out of my pocket, which is why I washed it this morning.

So if you've been trying to call me that's why you can't.
And, no, I did not give out my defunct phone number to any of the bar babes. Thyat wasn't the point at all.
And, no, I am not becoming a he-slut - it would require too much shaving.

How to Confuse people.

2008-11-11T12:40:00.002+11:00

Say you get an email at work like this:
"My name is Suzie Nguyen. I have just recently joined our Science
Faculty. I will be working for Cameron E-R at Debbie Massey 's old desk.
You might want to call me as
Ms *NEW* Debbie:)"

I suggest replying with "Hi, my name is Harry, but you can call me Floppy."

However, for best results I recommend using this when meeting a new superior.

Superior: (extending hand) How nice to meet you. Harry, isn't it?
Harry (in a jolly English accent): (shaking hand) Yes, but call me 'Floppy'!

Try it today.

I'm orf to meet the new Dean. Or 'Bubbles' as I shall call him.

Fear and what was the question again?

2008-11-05T16:58:00.002+11:00

Why bother asking these people anything?

This is what a shattered Republican voter from Texas said about Obama:

"I still don't know this man. That is what scares me. He is a very pleasant speaker. But that's all I know."

Right, so your ignorance scares you.
I assure you it scares me more.

How fucking hard can it be to find out everything you could possibly want to know about Obama?!
Fucking hell, just type "Voting history" or "Obama what he stands for" or anything into a search engine!!!
What is wrong with these people?!
Look, if you 'don't know' the most stellar and important person in the US you are a complete moron, so fuck you.

UnAdventurerering

2008-11-04T17:22:00.001+11:00

I was flipping through a Human Resources/Recruitment Powerpoint slide presentation last week and the “I’m trapped in a Dilbert cartoon” feeling really reached its highest point with the recommendation that a manager should also try “Radiating Positive Energy”.

Really, they write themselves those comics.

Anyway, some classics included these:

'Examples of Competencies

Leadership
Teamwork
Motivation
Brainpower'

Manager to other manager: What is your competency?

Other Manager: BrAInPoWER!!! BRAINPOWER!!!! URGH!!

Manager: How about Having An Extensive Vocabulary?

Other Manager: Nah. Just BRAINPOWER!!!!

Under the subject of ‘Interpersonal Skills’ was a sub-topic of ‘Building Relationships.’

Become genuinely interested in other people
Call people by their names
Talk in terms of the other person’s interest
Smile
Listen

...AKA Faking Sincerity.

Did you know that “Emotional Intelligence accounts for up to 45% of one’s job success, while one’s IQ is said to account for less than 6%”?

No, I am not making this up – BUT I THINK THEY DID!

So, by maths, you can see that actually being skilled only accounts for a maximum of 49% of one’s job success.

Hmm, how about leaving me alone for the half a day each day that requires me to demonstrate Emotional Intelligence so that I only have to work 3 days a week?

Backstreet Adventurerering

2008-10-31T11:49:00.000+11:00

I was wandering randomly around the back streets of Glebe last week and I saw a big mural painted on the side of a house. It was a take-off of the Coke logo (the ‘ribbon’ one) and read ‘Glebe’. Quite clever. Instead of the background being straight red it is a number of shades with other well-known logos parodied including ‘Nice’ for ‘Nike’.

It would make an awesome photo, with only one problem of a small tree in front that obscured part of it.

So, I went home and got my camera and a saw.

I cut down the tree and took a photo but on my way back I was mugged by Glebe street kids who took my camera, so I can’t show you the photo.

I related the above to my hippy housemate. She looked shocked.

I smiled to indicate I was joking.

“You didn’t cut down the tree, did you?!” she eventually asked.

No I didn’t, and I wasn’t mugged either but THANKS for being more concerned about the tree, bitch.

So, I am going to go and cut that fucking tree down just to piss her off.

The environment's gay anyway.

A discovery

2008-10-08T18:48:00.002+11:00

From Wikipedia: "Ken Gelder* identifies six key ways in which subcultures can be understood:
1. through their often negative relations to work (as 'idle', 'parasitic', at play or at leisure, etc.);
2. through their negative or ambivalent relation to class (since subcultures are not 'class-conscious' and don't conform to traditional class definitions);
3. through their association with territory (the 'street', the 'hood, the club, etc.), rather than property;
4. through their movement out of the home and into non-domestic forms of belonging (i.e. social groups other than the family);
5. through their stylistic ties to excess and exaggeration (with some exceptions);
6. through their refusal of the banalities of ordinary life and massification."

It would appear I am my own subculture.

Also: "they [subsultures] can also seem 'immersed' or self-absorbed"

No chance of that happening with the Harry Subculture.

Does anyone want to join?

Unrelated but totally relevant, last thursday after a one-hour drinks-with-the-uni-guys that went for four hours I slept in a ditch in Sydney Uni.
Do you know who else slept in a ditch at least once? Shakespeare.
Do you know who didn't? Hitler.
Ergo, good people sleep in a ditch at least once.

You know, I might sleep in a ditch tomorrow night too.

* Some guy from somewhere

Gaming

2008-10-06T11:04:00.002+11:00

The joy of LAN parties in Days of Yore.

After making several trips to the car all the requisite parts are inside the house and, confidently declaring how much fun we are about to enjoy, we would assemble the network.
I'm sure that whoever came up with the idea of a computer network meant well and, his shining prostelysing carried each assurance of technological advancement to greater heights in the swirling mind of his research supervisor, but there is a world of difference between a neatly drawn diagram of a network all thrumming with elegant promise and the reality.
Don't get me wrong, setting up a network is a three step process - it's just that step two includes 387 incredibly hellishly frustrating ministeps.

Step 1 is to plug everything in. And that is relatively easy to achieve once various players have been cursed for not having colour coded plugs and sockets. The funiture will have to be rearranged because you find you have forty three 2metre-long Cat5 cables and only one longer cable which is so long it starts in a large coil in the middle of the floor and gradually unravels to tie each chair to a person and the chairs to other furniture, such that it is actually a good way of finding furniture you never knew you had.
'A coffee table?! Since when have I had a coffee table?' you muse aloud.
'We could have used that, you dickhead!' comes the inevitable protest.
'Where is this coffee table?'
'Right here, tied to my chair.'
Fred can't see because of the ottoman blocking the view, and anyway the hatstand tied to his monitor prevents him from moving out of the position of a hunchback. He stands up and pulls on various loops of cable, one of which starts strangling James whose flailing topples a lampshade and pulls out a cable that we don't discover for forty minutes.
Adrian falls over the coffee table, strangling James further.
'Nice table!' he exclaims.

Now that the room looks like some high-tech shipwreck and everybody has got on everyone else's nerves you are ready to begin Step2.
Step 2 is started by the player whose computer is acting as the server. He creates a network, names it and waits for each computer to join it. This is the process by which each computer works out that it can talk to every other computer. Since all the computers are crowded around the one table where each person has a space the size of an iced vovo in which to move their mouse, this should be easy.
It is not.
You've played that game 'Marco Polo' in someone's pool as a kid?
It is an uncanny analog.
The server start calls out 'Marco!' and instantly nothing happens.

You are now ready to run through ministeps 2.1 through to 2.387.
I won't go into all the details but this is where you discover that machines *do* have personalities. Some of the computers refuse to say 'Polo' out of truculence like a fat woman eating chocolate with her eyes closed claiming calories only count if you see them; some blame the others for not being in the same pool as themselves; some of them carry on like a deranged elderly relative looking for the spectacles they are wearing; and one is French.
'Marco!'
'Ou ay le network?'
'Marco!'
'Kes cou se?'
'Marco!'
'...'
'Marco!'
'Terribly sorry, old bean! Had a bit of bother with the old radgema-thingy. How nice to see you. Where is everyone else? Oh, I mean: Polo!'

By 2.133 you will be merrily deleting each other's modem drivers in a misguided search for incompatibilities.
2.201 will have you discover James' disconnected cable.
And 2.344 is to burn Bill Gates in effigy.

Step 3 is actually being able to play the game, but this isn't what I wanted to talk about at all.
I wanted to talk about graphic cards.
Quite by chance I had second-row seats to the introduction of 3D accelerators into the market. I was working at a computer parts importer from the start of 1998 and saw each stage of development come through in much the same way as the series of silhouettes from a chimp-like ape through various 'pithecuses to Homo and ultimately sapiens sapiens. 'Well that was worth all the effort: now I have a suit!'

It is a shock to think that *anything* I was involved in was ten years ago. After all, I am a disturbingly handsome and charming man, and I don't need reminding that sooner than I think I will be a roguish silver-fox with the certain twinkle in my eye that appeals to young ladies with father issues - but there you have it.
Back in 1998 we were selling 2D graphics cards with S3 chipsets and 2MB of RAM. We also had ViRGE and Rage 3D cards and they had, gasp, 8MB of RAM. That's not to say that gaming didn't exist, it did, but though you could easily spend $1500 on a truly astounding graphic card from a manufacturer hidden in an obscure valley in Taiwan and staffed by techno-warrior-monks infused with strange wisdom, there wasn't anything towards the budget end.

Then along came 3dfx Voodoo2.

Released back in 1996 Voodoo1 was the first 3D accelator add-on card and was the humble 'small step'. The Voodoo2 was the giant leap. It plugged into a PCI slot and lent its monstrous 16MB of RAM to your 4MB (or even 8MB) graphics card to turn your Ford Laser into a Ford Falcon!!
Yes, the introduction of the AGP slot was a revelation of a promising future for gaming. Its very name of Accelerated Graphics Port said it all, but Voodoo2... well, Voodoo2 made you change your pants because it was the chip that really made 3D gaming possible and allowed us to WASTE OUR LIVES!!

But the marvels of those days weren't over yet. FatboySlim exploded on the scene and changed Music As We Know It. And then that a bunch of techno-warrior-monks called Nvidia released the RIVA TNT2 graphics card.
Sweet Mother of the All Holy 32MB of RAM!
But, His Eternal Benevolence, Lord Nvidia wasn't done yet, for he so loved the world.He gave us the Geforce AGP card with its Graphics Processing Unit.

...Oh, I well up to think back on those days, their names familiar in my mouth as household words - Harry the Gamer, Geforce and Nvidia, Voodoo and Radeon - be in my mug of cold tea freshly remembered!

But even this history is not what I wanted to talk about.
Names! The eye-popping names!
They knew how to name cards back then: Voodoo 2, Mystique, Banshee, TNT, Rage.
Big powerful dangerous names that had gamers licking their lips in anticipation of the virtual horror they would be able to unleash!

But perhaps the biggest horror unleashed on the world was the marketing that went with it.
Now computers were all about gaming, and gaming was all about power and the next tiny tweak to get an extra 5% performance over someone else's card.
So, it did get a bit out of control.

(The marketing team are presenting their latest graphics card pitch to the CEO. A,B,C are marketing dudes.)

CEO: (reading) The Total Bastard 3. So this card is baaad?
B: No. It's Evil.
CEO: (dubiously) How evil?
A: (with relish) This card is so Evil it will fuck you in the ass!

(CEO looks suspiciously at his marketing team)

CEO: Come again? This card will fuck me...
A/B/C: IN THE ASS!!!
B: See, we write that here on the box.
CEO: We're not going to represent it in graphic form?
B: Well, no.
C: It would take away from the graphic of the warrior decapitating the alien.
A: I suppose we could have the warrior decapitating _one_ alien, while fucking another alien up the ass.

(They mentally invisage it and glance quickly between the box and each other. They all shake their heads.)
B: Too busy!
C: Yeah, yeah. Too busy.
A: Yeah, you're right.

(CEO pinches bridge of nose. He hates the marketing department.)

Professionalism

2008-09-08T11:01:00.001+10:00

Friday Extravaganza

2008-09-01T16:37:00.002+10:00

On Friday I visited my delightfully mad aunt who totally rocks. It was my turn to cook, so I brought the ingredients for the second version of a Italian seafood dish with which to impress the Hot Interior Designer.

(You may recall my aunt is an avid cook and generally awesome woman for whom I acted as chauffeur and butler on a two week driving holiday/seafood odyssey into Victoria last October.
We discussed many recipes on the way including many she disparaged.
Aunt: I mean, look at this! Fennel and Rocket Salad!? Easy! And yet there's a recipe for it.
Nephew: Yes, it's hardly Fennel and Rocket science.)

The morning after the marinara, I suffered a sneezing fit as she talked about the unique way she puts extension leads away on coat-hangers. An old friend was insufficiently impressed by this organisational feat.
"Sorry, I'm allergic to anecdotes," I manage to splutter.

Later I found a jar of hers that formerly held chili seeds, labeled 'Long Thin Hotness'.
"That's me when I'm lying down" I say.

Apparently I am an unending source of disappointment to her.

But, she _did_ like the marinara if not so much the way it was executed.
"There you were leaping about in a drunken rage: "What do I do with a stab blender?!" and I *told* you some woman managed to cut ALL her fingers off because she wasn't paying attention...."

That night I dreamt of a man who sacrificed his two unicorns and his soul to Bill Clinton, but I guess there are better ways to advertise that I have a loose concept of reality.

Found on my desk

2008-08-26T17:23:00.000+10:00

...but it still tasted good.

Doing My Bit for the Media

2008-08-22T17:01:00.001+10:00

Dear Mr Gittins,

I usually find your columns to be the best in the SMH, and find myself agreeing with your arguments.

However, your column on the 15^th of August “How Rich Breeders Shaped the World” was woeful. Clarks’ hypothesis and reasoning are so splutteringly preposterous I can’t but wonder why you (a) reviewed him at all, and (b) why you didn’t give him both barrels as he so thoroughly deserved.

Even allowing for his complete and absolute ignorance of evolutionary biology, his arguments are totally intellectually offensive and if this is his contribution to humanity then my only wish is that he be rolled in barbed wire and fed to lobsters as soon as is feasible.

Below, for your enjoyment, is my just-shy-of-apoleptic critique of Clark’s arse-clownery as depicted in your column

http://business.smh.com.au/business/how-rich-breeders-shaped-the-world-20080815-3wce.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 that I sent to a friend.

Regards,
Harry Simpson

(Note: "just-shy-of-apoleptic critique" not included here.)

Take that, almost B. Sc.!

2008-08-15T16:57:00.002+10:00

Me doing my bit for the Advancement of Science.

One of my varied tasks in the Advancement of Science is to make new user registers for the autoclaves and ultrafuges. They are those thick plastic spine bond books what you put together yourself.
(Next week: Harry Advances the English Language)
So my boss, Philgor the Mighty AKA Philgor Defendor of Enmore, took me down to the paper room of the faculty office on Level 4.
This room houses a large printer, the supplies of coloured paper, heavy duty staplers, the binding machine and the like.

The process by which one makes such a book is this:
1) print pages.
2) select cover and back and find the right size binding spine.
3) Put spine in the opening-out-er bit.
4) Put about 8 pages in the groove that aligns then all
5) Pull the handle that punches the holes
6) Then thread them onto the out-sprung spine.

Or, as Phil gleefully put it:
(Points to large printer)
"One machine to print them"
(Point at groove)
"One to align them"
(Point top lever)
"One machine to punch the holes"
(Point to spine springer bit)
"And in the darkness BIND them!"

China lied about ...oh, everything still.

2008-08-13T15:03:00.003+10:00

Well, the little girl who sang at the opening ceremony was lipsync-ing to another voice.
The fireworks were pre-recorded and not the ones actually let off.
The good news for us is the home ground advantage for the medal count because the games aren't in Beijing at all. They're in Dubbo at the secret government facility I keep reading about in Paranoid Christian Magazine AKA The Philadelphia Trumpet.
And it's not smog - it's a smoke screen to obscure human rights abuses.

But even with the home ground advantage Steph Rice won't win eight gold medals and this PROVES that we aren't investing enough money in sport these days. Or underwear ads.
Cut the pension from $277 to $210 and the dole from $219 to $195. It's for the country.

Also, those shoes I was crowing about?
Well... they were crap.

I got teh blues

2008-08-11T12:31:00.002+10:00

I went to live jazz last night at the Macquarie Hotel near Central Station.
One of my housemates works in a cafe and one of her regulars is the singer and said to come along. So we did.
I don't much care for jazz so I was very happy when it was actually blues. Slinky sexy blues with the singer in just past elbow length black gloves without fingers. Zow!
I leaned over to Sparkly Sara and declared that I wanted to marry those gloves.
A few minutes later she leaned back and said "I think _everybody_ wants to marry those gloves."
Too true.

And - get this - at the station on the way to the gig I found a pair of shoes. And they were my size. I am wearing them today and telling everyone at work. The jealousy was all too evident.
Someone said I was "special". Well I must be special because I don't see THEM getting free shoes, do I?!?!?!

Anyway, the Macquarie Hotel is a brew pub and has some quite nice beers. Of the six on offer I think the dark is best.
The band is one each Sunday of August from 5pm until 8:30. Double bass, guitar, drums and keys.
A very recommended and cruise-y way to end the week.

OBE OMG!

2008-07-03T11:36:00.002+10:00

Kylie got an OBE and I think we should celebrate by having an instant Public Holiday mostly because I don't wanna be at work today.

But how I really celebrated was I went out this morning and bought some shoes and then I felt up a man at the bus stop.

Go Kylie!

Evolution

2008-07-01T12:22:00.000+10:00

I am told that today* marks the 150th anniversary of Darwin and Wallace's work being presented in London.

If they'd only used an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters I am sure it would have happened sooner.

But, hey, two opposable thumbs-up to The Enlightenment!!

*Except that blogger is US timestamped. July 1, people. Obviously done for start-of-financial-year purposes.

Tapas in Sydney

2008-06-25T13:09:00.000+10:00

Overpriced and crap.

Is there a Tapas place that actually embodies the spirit of what tapas actually is ie cheap finger food while you drink and chat?
I don't think so. For some reason everyone thinks tapas should be overpriced and an all hoitytoity playground for self-conciously dressed people to dick swing.

Last night I went to Subsolo at 161 King St, Sydney.
Substandard.
$30 each got four people:
A beef skewer with 5bits. Not top grade beef. Some marinade.
A chicken skewer of 6 bits. This was quite nice.
Two very small slices of french stick.
A small bowl of salad leaves presumably so we could put meat bits on-a-bed-of salad. Also included was one half artichoke and ONE green olive.
Good sized platter of indifferent paela including 4mussels and about six prawns.
Bowl of green beans with onion.
Bowl of potatas bravas (chopped baked potato with a chili tomato sauce).

What a bunch of cheap-skates. The cheapest vegetables in the world, and not even lots of them (to paraphrase a Woody Allen joke).

As bowls were being cleared we started asking if the main was coming.
No, that was not the entree. It was the whole meal.

What sort of a tapas place does not have:
a) bowls of a variety of olives
b) bread and oil to dip it in
c) chorizo
d) mushrooms for anybody but particularly when we requested vego options.
d) something fancy that makes you go "ooh! Haven't had that before"?

I'll tell you what sort of place: a shit one.

Don't go.

Hopefully the new winebar licenses will see real tapas come to Sydney instead of this overpriced crap. It's meant to be seasonal peasant/fisherman's food you bunch of pretentious dickheads!
if you don't have salt and pepper whitebait (the fish is $6 a kilo) when it's in season then you deserve to be firebombed.

Unimpressed, Marrackville.

An Instant Adventure!!

2008-06-23T10:26:00.000+10:00

I am going to a restaurant called 'Subsolo' on King St in the city.
They have a 'find us' function where you type in your address and they give you directions.
I typed in 'central station' and got this

Which takes me from a town in West Virginia, USA to the restaurant in Sydney, Australia.

The best bit? Direction 25. "Kayak across the Pacific Ocean. Entering Australia (New South Wales). 7906mi."

What an excellent adventure to be had!

Canadia Pictorial the Last

2008-06-17T17:21:00.000+10:00

Quebec City

The old town of Quebec City is simply beautiful.

Unfortunately there is no high fiving on the funicular.

No high fives left.

But there is a place to be yourself.

...and to be yourself by yourself.

A model for 50% of us

2008-06-04T14:29:00.001+10:00

I am a scrotum model.
Yes, the job does exist but not many people do it. Only a handful, really.

Actually for a couple of months last year I was a cook, barman, driver and scrotum model - which is a lot of balls to keep in the air - but, I just want to tell you about the last position that I held.

ASMI (Australian School of Medical Imaging) is a school for training sonographers ie ultrasound technicians.
Some people can't put a price on dignity, but I reckon $40 an hour covers it, so I decided to put my balls on the line for the good of humanity.
And it's not every day that someone offers you a way to do good by getting your happy sack depicted chiaroscurally.

In a Gilbert and Sullivan way I am the hairy model of some modern major genitals.

They like me because I have an interesting scrotum. I would hate to have a boring scrotum: it would make conversation difficult, particularly at the myriad award ceremonies I attend.

A: So, what's your scrotum like?
H: Um, normal?
A: Oh. Mine's very interesting.
H: Show off!

I have a scrotal pearl and varicose veins. The varicose veins are a congenital condition. A condition of which I am inordinately proud because of the pun.
A scrotal pearl is a calcium deposit that usually arises from contact sports, and appears as a bright white object on the screen hence the name.

This is now my fourth tour so I know how it works and I read a book, vague out or snooze.
The first time I showed up the guy explained that I would be in a cubicle with one demonstrator and one student, but first he wanted to use me in a demo for THE ENTIRE CLASS. I must have turned white because he hastily assured me that there would be a screen.

It didn't take me long to get used to it. I feel asleep on the table on the second day. If they are good students you really can't feel anything but the contentment of contributing to a job well done. The only trouble with falling asleep is coming to with a start which alarms the students. "I'm very sorry, Mr Harry!' is the usual response.

And, yes, I was worried about inappropriate movment but I found the whole experience completely asexual. So non-sexual that I even started testing my control. I ran some surefire scenarios in my head and didn't get even a twitch.

Last week the attractive female student with the particularly nice hair commented that I had brought a book.
I explained that I read Jane Austin in June and Dostoevsky in January, and that modelling was more appropriate for Dostoevsky because, though there are many balls in Austen's books, none of them are slimy*. And it had occured to me that since I was reading the classics there was an obvious author to read: Balzac!

I suggested if people didn't get my literary references then it was a case of me casting scrotal pearls before swine.

I was just flirting. I was hardly in a great position to ask her out - not that I was trying - but how (ahem) ballsy would it be to try it on?!

Harry: Nice hair.
Student: Nice balls. Let's make love for hours.

But if you really want to see balls then check out Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Press Club Dinner. Sir, me and mine salute your great big brass ones!

*Also: There is no postscript scene where Darcy's shag-slick balls are cooling in the breeze while Elizabeth gasps "I thought your fortune was your only thing that was the third largest in England!!"

A model for us all

2008-06-03T14:02:00.000+10:00

I picked up 'The Mammoth book of Wild Journeys' which is a collection of travel writing excerpts from the early 20th century to the present.
Each of the 40 writers has a mini bio at the start.
The best bio is this one:

"Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Fawcett DSO was born in England in 1867 and led several expeditions to the Amazon and Mato Grosso. In 1925 he disappeared without trace in the Brazilian jungle whilst searching for a lost city. With Fawcett perished his son Jack, and their friend raleigh Rimmell."

AWESOME!!! And, need I say it, Whizzo!

The worst writer I found was this guy:

"The travel writer Shiva Naipaul died in 1985, aged forty. His books include 'Fireflies', 'the Chip-chip Gatherers' and 'Beyond the Dragon's Mouth'. An annual prize in his memory is awarded by the 'Spectator'."

Yeah, well I'm thinking this prize is awarded to the most ignorant and stupid travel writer of the year.
This guy (who is a proffessional free-lance travel writer) was sent to write about Morroco.
He writes "Nor, perhaps, would I have gone if I had known it was the holy month of Ramadan and been forewarned of the privations and dangers to which I would be exposed to..."

Well, with that level of research perhaps the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Award is for the travel writer most like Matthew Reilly!

Canadia Pictorial part 5 Toronto Part 2

2008-05-23T12:08:00.000+10:00

I noticed this last year too: how Torontonians love their barbers and psychics. I was on Bloor St in a neighbourhood called The Annex. I went looking for a psychic barber but was unsuccessful, but I did think of asking a psychic which barber was the best.

In Chinatown on Spadina I saw a shop that advertised "Palm-face-reading". What is Palm-face reading? Is it noticing the body language when someone 'face palms'? Or is it the next step in technology where a psychic reads your facebook page.
"Hmmm, you are popular with strangers. Also eighty of your friends made 132 assorted extraneous comments on stuff."

They advertise soccer as 'the beautiful game' I guess because Canadian football and ice hockey are ugly.

I confirmed the bad news in the Royal Ontario Museum that although T Rex could high two and allosaurus could high three, that most charismatic of dinosaur predators, the velociraptor, also could only high three.

AvenueQ was not on yet but whilst on the metro I saw that Dirty Dancing the stageshow was. To celebrate I stole as many babies as I could and piled them up in the back left of the carriage.
When the distraught mothers demanded to know what I was doing I replied that _someone_ had to put babies in the corner.

The metro is $2.75 to go anywhere one way and the security guards are polite yet firm and hand you over to the police efficiently.

Toronto is divided East and West by Yonge St. I walked extensively round the West. Much of it looks like the prettier parts of Sydney's innerwest. A long winter with the second highest snowfall on record was followed very quickly by a week of about 20degrees. Spring erupted spectacularly. The flower of the city is the tulip.

Queen St West is fairly similar to King St in Newtown.

I really like Toronto.

Canadian Pictorial Part 4

2008-05-23T11:56:00.001+10:00

Toronto (Well, derr.)

Blue Jays! High Five!

Be Yourself!

Kensington Market street sculpture showing that, indeed, Australia is at the arse end of the world.

I agree.

Harry goes Bananas

2008-05-18T20:44:00.000+10:00

Bananas are $1.69 a kilo.
$1.69!
I remember the wailing in the streets after that cyclone a few years back when bananas went up to $500trillion dollars a kilo payable only in family heirlooms and the ashes of your ancestors. I distinctly remember pundits shouting that it was the end of the world, while the less hysterical among us were moaning that it was merely the end of the entire capitalist system.
Done. Dusted. Adam Smith's experiment over.

So, at $1.69, where is the joyful dancing in the streets and the cries of "MANA FROM HEAVEN! God has remembered his children! We are saved etc etc" followed by a pogrom against smug socialists?!

Where are the street closing processions of delighted families converging on speakers shouting extracts from Paul Keating's speeches about us being a banana republic and everyone carelessly getting it exactly wrong like middle-class kids wearing Che teeshirts and designer shemags around their necks?

Canadia Pictorial 3

2008-05-16T11:32:00.000+10:00

Halifax has beautiful scenery nearby.

Happy tourists at the beach.

And sexy pumpernickel. This, I guess, is what you get when you mix Germans with ummmm ummmm drugs?

But it embraces the whole Maritimes spirit of redefining the rules; for instance, tin the Maritimes you are free to...

...put asparagus on your wife's head.

Particularly if your wife looks like this..

..and you look like this.

Who would know that this young lad would become an associate professor of microbiology?

Canadian Pictorial 2

2008-05-16T11:28:00.000+10:00

Montreal has nice buildings...

They also have breakfast of tea, chocolate coissants and a pretty girl. Sounds perfect, right? But does it have somewhere where I can really be myself?

BE YOURSELF!!

Canadia Pictorial 1

2008-05-14T14:15:00.000+10:00

THIS IS BELGIUM!!

Well, actually it's Ottawa.

But they do have some Greek influences.

...and they do have tea fit for heroes.

They have nice scenery.

And some guy being slightly cliched.

Passerby: Are you trying to find yourself?

H: No, to be myself.

Overseas Homosexual Hilarity

2008-05-12T09:48:00.001+10:00

On a flight from Toronto to Halifax the cabin adress was by a delightfully camp man.
His gold was:
"We ask, ladies, that when you put your purse under the seat in front that you ensure the straps are fully under the seat. And gentleman if you have a purse we ask only one thing.... that it match your shoes."
Plane erupts in laughter. Flaming-death-on-takeoff fears subside.

The Canadians have the same maritime patrol aircraft that we do but instead of calling it the P3 orion they call it the Aurora. The maintenance crews and any other pilot, however, call it 'The Great Grey Slug'.
In return the GGS crews call F-18s 'Twin tail Plastic Fag Jets'.

I guess that means that our next fighter aircraft are Sthuuuper hornets!

Happy Star Wars Day

2008-05-05T00:01:00.000+10:00

May the Fourth be with you.

American WW2 poster

Random wanderings around Toronto

2008-05-03T02:08:00.000+10:00

East meets New World West

2008-05-03T02:03:00.001+10:00

The worst:

Chinatown in Toronto just off Spadina

The best:
History of Origami store, Narita airport, Tokyo.

TO Canadia

2008-04-27T06:57:00.000+10:00

Paul the homeowning Canadian offered me an open packet of snackfood.
"Here! Try a 'Crispers'. They're not chips and they're not biscuits," he said.

Well, they have a good texture. And they aren't oily like... um, Paul, whAT FLAVOUR ARE THESE?!?

"Pickle!"

Yes.
The bit you pick out of a big mac and flick onto the ceiling? Yep, a snack food flavoured like American pickled baby cucumbers.

Does not go with beer.

Anzac Day in Toronto

2008-04-26T03:56:00.000+10:00

Step 1: Fill fridge with beer

Step 2: Fill Canadians with beer

I cooked snags on the barbie for the lads for breakfast.
Paul the Homeowner is delighted with Anzac Day. It's his first.
He wishes me a happy Anzac Day. I explain that that's not really what it's about. I explain about the beer once more and give him another.
He bragged to his friends who are holidaying in Australia. They ask him how that can be.
"I got me an Australian" he tells them.

The next day one of his local buddies texts him "Happy Aztec Day."

This fish scultpure is neither Aztec nor Anzac

Toronto Voxpop

2008-04-24T06:09:00.001+10:00

Having just walked by the Royal Ontario Museum ad for their dinosaur exhibition in a semiconscious daze I was stopped by a voxpop film crew.

vp: Can I ask you about polygamy?

H: Dinosaurs get married?!?!

vp: No, not dinosaurs. Have you read about the events in Texas involving the children?

H: Look, if Texans can, I don't see why dinosaurs shouldn't. There are lots of dinosaurs in Texas.

vp: Sir, you're missing the point. i would like to know your views on polygamy. Do you think it happens in Canada?

H: I dunno. I'm Australian. You should ask a Canadian.

vp: Does polygamy occur in Australia?

H: Well, we have dinosaurs, so I don't see why not.

vp: Thank you sir.

H: Also, Chinese mistresses so called 'second wives' get set up in Australia. Also anglo mistresses I say too. And we have immigrants from countries that allow polygamy, but I don't know how many wives they can bring in.

vp: Hm. Good answer.

H: And now a velociraptor impression!

vp: No thanks.

H: It's ok - this one supports gay marriage.

vp: Ironic for a velociraptor from Utah!

H: See, I knew I was talking sense all along. RRargh!

Vp: (shrieks delightedly)

A letter to a friend.

2008-04-10T06:37:00.000+10:00

April 9
Ottawa

Gribble sticky wickey and a Hoi Hoi Hoi!

And _that_ is how we won the war!

Old bean, I bring news.
News AND herpes. But you only really get one of them from the snaggle toothed whores in the village. They are great gossips, and there is no proper willy-shrivelling VD to be found anywhere in the Province!
O, how I long for the old days of the Northwest Frontier. Shipping out from some pox infested Cinque Port to make landfall in crotch burning agony at some sweltering hive of gonorrhea in India.
Ah, the sweet smell of disintegrating undergarments in the sticky evening! God bless those women! (And even some of the men, eh wot, you old plonker you!)

I'm in Canadia. Yes, the one with the silent 'i'. I suggested that to my Lady Friend and she thought I was merely being charming and not the towering intellectual linguist that I am. So I slapped her on the arse and ordered another round of port and goose lard. It's how you keep sailors happy in these parts.
If you keep an eye out on the canal you will see Captains determinedly spanking the buttocks of their crew and giving orders and, in some of the more permissive boats, taken orders too!

Things work differently in these parts of the frozen north. Mostly, they don't work at all! Frozen solid, you see.

Look, really I'm just giving you a tip that if ever you find yourself in Ottawa then the War Museum is a slap-up damned good show. They have very interesting stuff and plenty of it. Just like Matron.

Yours in friendship etc
etc etc tea medals etc etc gout etc God Save the King/Queen etc

Sir Hairy Simpson KA 1st Battalion, Short and Curlies

It's all about me

2008-03-27T12:29:00.001+11:00

.
People are so self obsessed.
Me, on the other hand, I am not self obsessed at all. Just the other day I was talking to some people whose eyes had glazed over about just how un-self-obssessed I was. I went into exquisite and peerless detail about how I was a genius with superb taste in all things and I am sure they agreed with me... etc etc gout etc brandy etc tea and medals etc etc

Diet

2008-03-26T18:30:00.001+11:00

.
I have accidently been living on bananas and sausage rolls.

This means my diet is high in potassium, fibre and sausage rolls.

But I am still a testosterone-filled man-beast and quivering tower of hetero man-meat.

For all future leaflets

2008-03-25T20:26:00.001+11:00

If you are pretending to be a Muslim activist group then you really shouldn't spell 'Allahu akbar' as 'Ala Akba'.
When your spelling and grammar are incorrect it casts doubt on the veracity of the rest of your leaflet.
I believe the phrase from our American cousins is 'rookie mistake'.

Better luck next time.
Mind you have shown that acrimonious marriage breakups CAN be funny, so cheers for that.

Tools.

Five years on

2008-03-20T15:58:00.000+11:00

There is a reason why returned soldiers say 'never, ever go to war.'
There is a reason why they beg their sons not to go.
There is a reason why they commit suicide once they've come home to enjoy the peace.
There is a reason why 60 years later they cry at the recollection.

Here's an question for the Great Generation of World War Two: Would you rather be revered for being a participant or would you rather all your dead friends and relatives had lived?

Don't manoeuvre people into the peverse position of equating patriotism with losing sons and daughters in combat.

Don't conflate patriotism with nationalism.
A patriot fixes their own country and stands in direct opposition to nationalism.
A nationalist is one who uses patriotism to cloak ignorance, cowardice and a bellicose nature.
A nationalist doesn't ask if their country is wrong, or what is wrong with their county.
A patriot does.
Nationalists puff and bluster, but patriots have true passion.
Nationalism is mindless and serves no higher ideal.
Patriotism is constructive.

I am certain that the invasion of Iraq is the USA's greatest strategic blunder.
Militarily, economically and geopolitically.
But what did I expect from a bunch of people proclaiming 'Freedom' without understanding how it comes about.

The ideology behind the invasion was to trigger a domino effect of democratic liberalism throughout the middle east and sweep out despotism, inequity and barbarism. It would work because everyone wants to be free.

Right, so 'Freedom' means Democratic Liberalism.

Democratic Liberalism was born in the French Revolution. If everybody wants freedom (however you define it) why then did any number of European peoples oppose Napoleonic France?

Because nationalism is a stronger force than patriotism.

I saw a photo of a recuperating soldier meeting Dubbya. He was twenty five and the arm that wasn't prosthetic had only three fingers left. His remaining leg was scared and the stump of the other one was hidden by its prothesis. The fire that had consumed his head must have been a private hell: reconstructed lips, vestiges of ears and hairless scar tissue for skin.
Fifteen years from now when he turns forty he's gotta ask himself if it was worth it.

How many functioning limbs was a fair swap?
How many nightmares of burning?
How many pitying stares from his closest friends?
How many years of getting nothing but sympathy fucks from even prostitutes who blanche at his body?
How many aspirations, dreams and hopes rendered impossible by that roadside bomb?

But would he even make it to forty?
What about when he takes that gun a couple of years from now and thankfully finished the job, and the eulogists say that it was a bullet that just took 3 years to arrive', or that he was another 'sacrifice to the cause fo freedom', or a 'true patriot' because they are too cowardly to say 'suicide' or 'despair'?

Opposing the war while supporting the troops is a non-position.
If you support the troops you only send them to war when it is dead-set 100% neccesary. And you know when it's neccesary when those who sign the documents send their sons and go themselves.
Seventeen of the fifty six who signed the Declaration of Independence fought. Five were captured and nine were killed.

As for the Iraqi people, well here's an article from the future expressing disbelief and shock that a well dressed middle-class man blew himself up in Times Square. Seconds before he'd been seen crying and mumbling the names of his eight close relatives killed by US munitions. you can see the tears on the security footage released onto Youtube. the press will probably call it 'senseless' and 'cowardly'.

Words, words, words

2008-02-01T15:47:00.000+11:00

I like books a bit too much.
But that's good because that means when I find a book I dislike I really hate it.
Like this one for instance.

It was the first in my New Attitude to Books: that some should stand as an example to the others. I let my displeasure be known, and now they all know.

What I thought was going to be a history of the Japanese doomsday sect was a poorly attempted dramatised thriller. Even allowing for translation problems the author doesn't know how people speak nor think, hence Unreadable.

And I think I spelled 'excrable' incorrectly too.

The next was one of any number of things that spring out two years after a conversation with LordMattressHamster40K. We were discussing doing a PhD in Rhetoric at Oxford University. When it came to the appropriate time there were two options in response to the question "How will you defend your thesis?"

a) a very angry "WHAT?!?!?" and storming out.

b) a smug "I don't think I need to" and walking out.

Anyway, it seemed sensible to sometime, eventually find out what studying rhetoric would actually entail.
"A whole lot of wank" is the answer to that foray into the unknown.
So, I felt my laziness quite vindicated in my decision not to earn a degree in "making really crap shit up as I go along".
*This* is the humanities subject that the rightwing are always going on about, and I quite agree with them.

So what would happen if you combined these two books in some bringing together of the broken-signet-rings of Gross Incompetence and Literary Affrontery?
Wouldn't it be funny if there was a book out there that was as shit as this two books combined?

Shaza-am!

..which some evil bastard gave me for Christmas after getting it inscribed by the 'author'.

(Several years ago I received a letter containing a review and photo of that Reilly fool which immediately found a place impaled on an aluminium kungfu practice sword I had lying around.)

Which brings me to the best book review I have found. It is from September 10, 2000 and is entitled "Everyone has a book inside them... Sadly James Thackara's is terrible."
If everyone was this honest and entertaining the world would be an infinitely better place.
I wonder if the reviewer chortled to himself that it took a year and a day for him to find something perpetrated by man that was more horrible .

And on the third day

2008-01-31T13:45:00.000+11:00

It hurts on the inside

2008-01-15T15:44:00.000+11:00

Holy shit!
Princess Diana died!
Why didn't anyone tell me?
Way to bum the Happy New Year vibe.

Unfortunately the only gravestone I have handy for the occasion is this cool one a friend gave me for helping her shift furniture on Sunday.
It's the best I can do.

So, unlike Lady Di, I have started making plans for the new year. I have been experiencing that excited prospect of new adventures to be had, jobs to quit and new women to do whatever it is one does with women these days.

And I was reminded of an old adventure I had in the desert back in, ooh, 1998.
It was a camel trek out to a desert lake where there was boating and dinner watching the birds dipping before flying off to their nightly roosts elsewhere.
The boating was an unexpected delight. They were authentic feluccas from the Nile. Some eccentric had taken a fancy to felucca cruising in the fifties and had some shipped out to Australia. Somehow they ended up with this trekking crew and, after a bit of repair, became this excellent feature. The fittings were all African bronze and genuine Nile flax sails.
Sailing was a welcome respite from the argumentative and testing camels who only responded to violence. They issued us with proper camel prods, but one of the English guys had found a whippy stick that he employed to much greater effect.
As darkness fell our guide, Max, was folding the sails away and the English guy was flexing his whippy stick when it sprang out of his hands and struck the guide in the crotch.

Everyone was stunned: Max the flax stacker was smacked in the jatz-crackers by a backpacker's ersatz camel whacker!

Happy New Year

2008-01-02T17:33:00.000+11:00

.
.

May your new year be prosperous and just a little bit gay.

I know mine will be.

How it all started.

2007-12-13T15:03:00.000+11:00

The Cromagnon called Abu sat back on his haunches prouder than he'd ever been before.
'Hey Jom!' he called. 'I've just invented the wheel. This'll get cars off the ground.'
'Well, bugger me! You just invented the pun, too!' replied Jom, extremely impressed.
'You're right! I think I've just revolutionised civilisation as we know it.'
'Hmmm...Good on yer!'

And now there's me.
But I'm not here to revolutionise civilisation as you know it, or as I know it, or as the guy down the street knows it. Sure, not too many years ago I wanted nothing more than to bend the world to my will, but not so much now. That way madness lies - and (even today) sometimes dragons and beasts-without-name that serve a metaphoric yet cowardly purpose.

Humour is the single most useful way tool we have to push boundaries. Next to no-one sits down to wade through a massively detailed and compelling argument. They want instantanity. Hence those moments where everyone is laughing along and then the brain catches up, they stop, and realise: Ah.
It's magic.
And the person you have to surprise most is yourself.

If brevity is the soul of wit then that's fucking awesome!
How cool is brevity? I can't say enough about it.
Imagine if there was a Force of Brevity that acted like gravity and pulled two disparate ideas together using the fewest words possible.

I went to the Chinese gardens to ponder the complex beauty; enjoy the serenity; and curse other people's children.
If you hold them under the water long enough the thrashing stops and the serenity comes right back.
I thought how nice it would be to have a Chinese garden of my own - with waterfalls, boulders, pools and fish.
But not koi. Koi aren't my style at all.
Coy?!
I don't wont coy: I want hussies, long-finned skanks and siamese slut-fish! I want fish that are so sexy that when sun-adled sailors come over they have delusions that nude women are in the water.
Hell, I'll just go the whole hog and hire wannabe models to swim around.

Not that I entertain sailors - that sounds a bit gay.
I prefer flyboys anyway.

Some of you might say I'm a bad person because I only read the articles about missing college students if they were secretly internet porn stars.
Find your own level, people.

I was thinking about the Helen Hunt/Mel Gibson movie 'What Women Want'.
What do women want?
Babies.
Just saved you two hours there.

Also, I think you'll find that chicks love whopping great generalisations.

Retrospective Adventurerering: Standup 2000 or 2001

2007-12-04T15:31:00.000+11:00

Imagine if your mind was stolen.
Your life taken from you.
And your body ...duplicated
You would have to buy ... more socks
You would use underwear twice as fast
And other people would probably get a bit confused.

This was how I started the most successful of five Raw Comedy attempts. This time I'd taken along my workmate Gino to share in inevitable victory, fame, fortune etc. It was a very simple three step plan.

I was doing an impression of that irretrievably annoying movie trailer voice-over guy ('It was a time for men. It was a time for heroes'), and expressed how happy I was to hear he had died, and how interesting it was when the pastor got up and said "There is a time to sow. There is a time to reap"

Gino chipped in with a similar rant about the over-caffeinated extremely loud guy from the late-night furniture clearance adverts.
Then we grabbed a random woman from the front row and, each holding one of her hands, serenaded her: me as voice-over man, and Gino as the yelling man.

Unforgetable that's what you are... unforgetable
BUT I CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU!
Fish gotta swim,... birds gotta fly
MY GIRL, MY GIRL, TALKIN 'BOUT MY GIRL!
Darling I, cant get enough of your love... baby
NEAR! FAR! WHERE EVER YOU ARE I BELIEVE MY HEART WILL GO ON!
Memories, light the corners of my mind...
MEMORIES!
Nothing more than memories
YOU'RE THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS!

Every time Gino contributed she took a startled half-step backwards such that we were against the back wall by the end.

Then we seamlessly introduced the idea that Ang Lee should get into porn and make...

'Crouching Doggie, Hidden Sausage'.

'Womb Raider'

(This joke is now even funnier because Angelina Jolie now goes around the world collecting babies.)

'The Bridges of Madison County'

and finally 'Pearl Harbor'

The transition to each new pose was tai-chi-like apart from Pearl Harbor which simply involved Gino leaping sideways. This was how he got carpet burn to the face.

And then it was time for props, drug jokes and aliens.

H: Why oh why do aliens fly eight million lightyears just to stick a probe up some guys arse?
It makes no sense whatsoever.

I went on to explain that the only way this could happen was for aliens to get stoned, go to the kitchen to make prawn crackers, and get inspired by kitchen utensils. We put on antennae, knelt and mimed this.

AlienGino: Dude! Right, right, lets go to earth and...and.. and stick this (see photo) up someone's arse!
(Both explode with drugged laughter)

H: So they fly down to earth at 40k's an hour...
"look out for that asteroid!"
"arh the planets are getting closer"
"Satellite! Satellite"
...occasionally bumping off things.
And land on earth, where they go up to a human and...
(Harry stands and takes antenna off) Can we have a volunteer?

We grabbed a guy from the audience, again holding a hand each.
I asked him questions whilst Gino repeatedly shouted "Take me to your leader!" and jabbed him in the arse with the probe.

I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking that I am a genius.
It's true. I am.
And it's also true that Destiny was so obviously smiling upon us that night for not only was there a spaceship on the backdrop but it matched my shirt!

We didn't get to the next round.

Europe according to Spike Milligan's Dad via '1066 and All That'.

2007-11-30T12:23:00.000+11:00

by Sir Hairy Simspon KA
Wandering Chair of Armchair Travelling, Oxon.

Some say that Britain is the middle of Europe. This is correct from a moral and honour point of view, but geographically Britain is a bit to one side.
If God were to ask Europe how it dressed, it would say "A little to the left".
Ergo the balls of Europe are the British Isles; and long may they be emerald green.

Some say that anyone east of Dover is a wog. This is true, but not navigationally helpful.

A History of Europe is hereby called for at this point. etc.
Caesar (q.v.) said France was divided into threee parts. They are called A, B and C.
A and B stayed under Roman occupation and, later, under German occupation. During both these times nobody visited Part C. When they did they wrote a history of the region entitled "Long Time Ago, no C".

With the Spanish Armada (Sorta 1588 or somesuch) it was discovered that people living south of Dover were Dagos. And those who weren't Dagos were Spicks. These are not to be confused with Diegos, who are a totally different kettle of fish all together whilst not ACTUALLY being a kettle or more than one percent fish.

But, getting back to France: it is easy to see that Paris is in Part B. France is recognisable by garlic, cheese, frogs, berets and a dessert or rice dish made of sparrows called Edith Pilaf.
When heading to Russia from England you will see Italy on your right. This is very important to remember. Turning left will result in (a) Belgium, and (b) Scandinavia. Neither is harmful unless you yourself are Russian, in which case certain parts of Scandinavia are fatal.

When Marco Polo travelled to Italy and discovered pasta he made detailed a map. Using this map the famous detective Columbo discovered America. It was a very good map.
I have, instead, made a map based on the work of two cartographers: Goscinny and Uderzo.

Alexander the Great conquered mostly in the right-hand direction. France was not included, but since everyone else managed to conquer France it does prompt one to ask just how great he actually was.

Alexander died of wine. I don't think there is a lesson here. You will have to experience this yourself to learn anything from his example.

Inspired by the French revolutionary Egalitarian Fervour (a type of cold) the US was made in 1775. In recognition the French gave the US the Statue of Liberty. To celebrate this event the US promptly declared war on itself.
The French then gave 18 inches of cold steel to the Prussians, Austrians, Belgians, Russians, Dutch, Spanish etc etc.
After several years the Europeans combined and gave it back twice as hard.

It is said that this was a triumph of Britain's Public Schools. An interesting notion from a nation that obsesses over keeping their privates out of public view and treating their army privates like scum.
The Duke of Wellington himself was fond of saying "melons", but that was because he spent too much time in Belgium inspecting troops from the teeth down, and ladies from the navel up.
Don't go to Belgium.

Switzerland does not actually exist, as this map clearly illustrates.

In 1938 Lake Guernica was bombed by Fascist aircraft and destroyed. It is still undecided as to whether this was a good thing or not.

Germany.
There is only one thing you have to remember about Germany and this is cuckoo clocks.
And bears, of course.
Some of Germany goes up, and other parts go down.
During the One Hundred Years War over half the German population was killed. This is true and not funny at all, until you release that this angers Germans.
Germans DO have a sense of humour, it's just very small and kept in an ornately carved wooden box.
During fifteen hundred and something the Lex Lutheran priest called Martin (Tex) Lex Luther tried to stamp out corruption in the church by nailing "these" to the cathedral door. He probably would have been better nailing corrupt monks to the doors, but what the hey. To combat Lex Lutherans the Germans invented Supermen called Ubermenchen who disguised themselves with glasses and toothbrush moustaches.
Several times Germany tried to expand its borders with a combination of balloons, very long elastic bands and string. This didn't work for long both times, so they stopped.
It is interesting to note that after the Germans failed to extent their living rooms that the Russians installed three air corridors.

Hey, this doesn't have anything to do with Europe, but three days ago I was lying in bed and I thought of a cool name for a Space captain/ Private Investigator: Captain Justin Autoshave. I think it's cool.

Germany has strudels. A great many strudels. In fact it could be said that they have oodles of strudels. China has oodles of noodles, and we can only hope that the New World Order of Germany and China never eventuates lest we all be flooded by oodles of noodles and strudels.
Too many so called 'empty' carbs.
In order to demonstrate this problem here is a doodle of oodles of noodles and strudels.

As the comedian Charlie Pickering has pointed out, the only thing that rhymes with Nazi is yahtzee.
Nazis are not funny, no matter how many ornately carved wooden boxes you put them in.

Thank you.