The Ashes is a Test cricket series, played between England and Australia - it is international cricket's oldest and most celebrated rivalry dating back to 1882. It is currently played approximately biennially, alternately in England and Australia. The Ashes are "held" by the country which last won a series and to "regain" them the other country must win more Test matches in a series than the country that "holds" them. If a series is "drawn" then the country holding the Ashes retains them.
The series is named after a satirical obituary published in The Sporting Times in 1882 following the match at The Oval, in which Australia beat England in England for the first time. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. The English media dubbed the next English tour, to Australia (1882-83) as the quest to regain The Ashes.
A small terracotta urn was presented to the England captain Ivo Bligh by a group of Melbourne women during the 1882-83 tour. The contents of the urn are reputed to be the ashes of an item of cricket equipment, possibly a bail, ball or stump. The urn is not used as a trophy for the Ashes series, and whichever side "holds" the Ashes, the urn normally remains in the MCC Museum at Lord's because of its age and fragility. Since the 1998-99 Ashes series, a Waterford crystal trophy has been presented to the winners.
In February 1883, just before the disputed fourth test, a velvet bag, which was made by Mrs Ann Fletcher, the daughter of Joseph Hines Clarke and Marion Wright, both of Dublin, was given to Bligh to contain the urn.
There used to be little public knowledge of the urn, and no record of a published photograph exists before 1924. However, when Bligh died in 1927, his widow presented the urn to the Marylebone Cricket Club and that was the key event in establishing the urn as the physical embodiment of the legendary ashes. The MCC first displayed the urn in the Long Room at Lord's Cricket Ground and since 1953 in the MCC Cricket Museum at the ground. It is ironic that MCC’s wish for it to be seen by as wide a range of cricket enthusiasts as possible has led to its being mistaken for an official trophy.
It is in fact a private memento, and for this reason the Ashes urn itself is never physically awarded to either England or Australia, but is kept permanently in the Museum where it can be seen together with the specially-made red and gold velvet and the scorecard of the 1882 match.
November 17, 2006
November 16, 2006
Horse 665 - A Papier Mache Music Box In the Shape of a Monkey Holding a Barrel Organ
Does the title mean anything to you?
The world is currently being taken in by Sasha Baron Cohen's Film - Borat: etc with a hideously long name. Without seeing the film, I can guarantee based on reviews and what I saw on The Ali G Show that the Borat film will derive it's humour from a few main sources, none of which I will divulge here.
The question then is what do I find inherantly funny. The answer surprisingly is mainly in the realms of innuendo.
See what I did with that one statement? Immediately one half of the audience reading this will have turned their minds immediately to smut; that's the beauty of innuendo. Innuendo relys on an allusion being made to something without saying what that something is. You people should get your mind out of the gutter.
The reason I make mention of this is partly due to the fact that I happen to prefer radio to television as a medium. Radio requires by the very nature of the beast that the people delivering the comedy have to create the word pictures and let the dear listener produce all sorts of things in their imagination.
In The Goon Show, some of the sound effects we are told of include Eccles driving a wall down the street or the entrance of Bloodnok with the sound of a chicken and some remark like "I must get that looked at", the innuendo produced is virtually impossible to actually imagine what the scene might look like.
In the antidote to panel games I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, this concept is taken to several extremes at once. Chairman Humphrey Littleton will at the end of his opening monologue usually make some reference about the lovely and sexy Samantha getting ready to score on the desk with him during the show. This is a piece of radio innuendo at its finest.
1. The double entendre of Samantha getting ready to "score on the desk"
2. That Humphrey Littleton is now 85 years old and adopts a persona on the show of deadpan, apathetic, disgruntled and occasionally bewildered style of chairmanship.
3. The actual fact Samantha who is frequently described in bawdy near-the-knuckle terms, does not actually exist.
Another few features of Clue is references to the Laser-Display Board or some other high-tech device when clearly the BBC would never fund such a thing.
One of the greatest examples of innuendo is in the film Duel. People find this film irritating because they never ever see the truck driver or find out his intentions are; yet this is the point of the film: to play on people's emotions to make them annoyed.
Frequently in court and parliament where the rules of etiquette demand dignity, you'll hear people speak of "my learned friends" which implies that such a person they actually think is stupid, and that in reality they're actually veiled enemies.
Innuendo is the art of making people imagine something without actually telling them what to imagine. It's a step above sarcasm, and possibly one below surrealism. A lady walked up to a bar and asked the barman for a Double Entendre, so he gave her one. You people should get your mind back in the gutter now.
The world is currently being taken in by Sasha Baron Cohen's Film - Borat: etc with a hideously long name. Without seeing the film, I can guarantee based on reviews and what I saw on The Ali G Show that the Borat film will derive it's humour from a few main sources, none of which I will divulge here.
The question then is what do I find inherantly funny. The answer surprisingly is mainly in the realms of innuendo.
See what I did with that one statement? Immediately one half of the audience reading this will have turned their minds immediately to smut; that's the beauty of innuendo. Innuendo relys on an allusion being made to something without saying what that something is. You people should get your mind out of the gutter.
The reason I make mention of this is partly due to the fact that I happen to prefer radio to television as a medium. Radio requires by the very nature of the beast that the people delivering the comedy have to create the word pictures and let the dear listener produce all sorts of things in their imagination.
In The Goon Show, some of the sound effects we are told of include Eccles driving a wall down the street or the entrance of Bloodnok with the sound of a chicken and some remark like "I must get that looked at", the innuendo produced is virtually impossible to actually imagine what the scene might look like.
In the antidote to panel games I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, this concept is taken to several extremes at once. Chairman Humphrey Littleton will at the end of his opening monologue usually make some reference about the lovely and sexy Samantha getting ready to score on the desk with him during the show. This is a piece of radio innuendo at its finest.
1. The double entendre of Samantha getting ready to "score on the desk"
2. That Humphrey Littleton is now 85 years old and adopts a persona on the show of deadpan, apathetic, disgruntled and occasionally bewildered style of chairmanship.
3. The actual fact Samantha who is frequently described in bawdy near-the-knuckle terms, does not actually exist.
Another few features of Clue is references to the Laser-Display Board or some other high-tech device when clearly the BBC would never fund such a thing.
One of the greatest examples of innuendo is in the film Duel. People find this film irritating because they never ever see the truck driver or find out his intentions are; yet this is the point of the film: to play on people's emotions to make them annoyed.
Frequently in court and parliament where the rules of etiquette demand dignity, you'll hear people speak of "my learned friends" which implies that such a person they actually think is stupid, and that in reality they're actually veiled enemies.
Innuendo is the art of making people imagine something without actually telling them what to imagine. It's a step above sarcasm, and possibly one below surrealism. A lady walked up to a bar and asked the barman for a Double Entendre, so he gave her one. You people should get your mind back in the gutter now.
November 15, 2006
Horse 664 - When Media Turns Nasty
Plastered across the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald are the reports that England Test Cricket opener Markus Trescothick has decided to leave the Test tour of Australia and go home citing depression as the reason.
Now mental health issues are nothing to be scoffed at; I for one don't know what it's like to suffer from depression but the high-profile world of Test Cricket is probably not the best arena to battle this in. Given that for the next 4 months it will be prime viewing in two countries, with wall-to-wall media coverage, not to mention the sledging onfield, Trescothick's decision is probably a wise one. The tour to Australia probably would have landed him about £30,000, so to forgo this is no small thing.
With the First Test in Brisbane in merely 8 days, personally I would have just gone walkabout; taken some time off in the Whitsundays. Usually in these circumstances it is advisable to get away from everything. When your nerves are shot this badly, stress isn't something you should deal with.
So I hope that Fleet Street isn't that hard on the chap. To turn down the opportunity to represent your country in possibly cricket's biggest prize fight isn't something you take lightly.
Now mental health issues are nothing to be scoffed at; I for one don't know what it's like to suffer from depression but the high-profile world of Test Cricket is probably not the best arena to battle this in. Given that for the next 4 months it will be prime viewing in two countries, with wall-to-wall media coverage, not to mention the sledging onfield, Trescothick's decision is probably a wise one. The tour to Australia probably would have landed him about £30,000, so to forgo this is no small thing.
With the First Test in Brisbane in merely 8 days, personally I would have just gone walkabout; taken some time off in the Whitsundays. Usually in these circumstances it is advisable to get away from everything. When your nerves are shot this badly, stress isn't something you should deal with.
So I hope that Fleet Street isn't that hard on the chap. To turn down the opportunity to represent your country in possibly cricket's biggest prize fight isn't something you take lightly.
November 14, 2006
Horse 663 - STOP!!!
Half of Australia is exhausted - Dog-tired. Wearied by longer and longer hours, by all the paper in the paperless office, by all the time spent answering those time-saving e-mails, by the fear of redundancy, by long commutes, by the drive to try and get a mortgage before you're forty, by the debilitating lack of purposelessness... We are weary, weary, weary to the point of national depression. The number of prescriptions on the PBS for anti-depressants rose from 7 million in 1995 to 28 million in 2005. Meanwhile, books on stress proliferate whilst vitamin supplements, energy supplements and high-caffeine drinks come storming onto to our supermarket shelves to jolt our weary frames into one more day's productivity.
Does it really have to be this way?
Well, apparently not. The French have taken the standard working week down to 35 hours and seen unemployment fall and productivity rise. Still, by the time an Australian government whether avowedly worker-friendly like the Labor Party or supposedly family-friendly like Family First ergo the Liberal Party actually gets round to addressing the worker-hostile and family-hostile way we work in this country, most of us will either be redundant, pensioned off on an inadequate pension, or lying on a trolley in a hospital corridor waiting for a knackered, red-eyed, caffeine-resuscitated doctor to address the minor question of the heart attack we just had.
It's surely time to live differently.
But in what way is the community of Christ a sign to this culture of a different and better way? Are our leaders less stressed? Less workaholic? Are we? Or have we actually become conformed to our culture, accepted its view of time with a stoical shrug? Is this just the way that it has to be if you want to stay employed, stay housed, stay fed? Is it really?
God created the world as a context for human flourishing. He didn't put us on the earth without air to breathe, it was already there. He didn't put us on earth without food to eat, or the capacity to grow and harvest it. It was already there. God didn't create humankind on the first day or on the second day. He created us on the sixth day, when he had created a context in which we could flourish. "Go produce and reproduce," he then said, "Work and multiply." Go release the potential in earth and release the potential in humans. Does the way we are leading our lives in Australia really contribute substantively to human flourishing?
It's time for a change, or it would be, if we had time to think about how to do it. This system is killing us, killing relationships, cracking marriages, alienating children, and sucking the joy out of even very good jobs. And in whose interest? It is a fine and good thing to engage with culture but sometimes it's a far, far better thing to disengage from it.
In a work-crazed, acquisitive, anxiety-bound, stressed-out culture what more potent testimony could there be than a community marked by the capacity to stop work, by a community that knows how to rest and be refreshed, by a community with time for relationships, by a community with a purpose beyond the acquisition of goods? Are we anywhere near creating such communities?
And is there anything in the Bible to help us? And not just high-capacity middle-class people with the talent, opportunity and pay structure to downshift to a four day week, move to the Gold Coast or change trades.
In the beginning, the Bible tells us, God rested on the seventh day - not, of course, because he was tired. Later God told Moses and the whole people of Israel to do exactly the same thing, to stop work on the seventh day. To stop work. That is stop. Not, do just a couple of hours; not, catch up on one or two e-mails; not, just finish the ironing; not, get the kids' bags ready for tomorrow; not, do all those things we don't call work because we don't get paid to do them but are work. No, the commandment says stop.
Very interesting word that. It ends with a stop. For street signs the word is unique because no other word comes with that shape of sign. It means don't move, don't hurry, don't run, do go insane because there's a mountain of stuff that needs to be done yesterday if not sooner. Stop.
Does it really have to be this way?
Well, apparently not. The French have taken the standard working week down to 35 hours and seen unemployment fall and productivity rise. Still, by the time an Australian government whether avowedly worker-friendly like the Labor Party or supposedly family-friendly like Family First ergo the Liberal Party actually gets round to addressing the worker-hostile and family-hostile way we work in this country, most of us will either be redundant, pensioned off on an inadequate pension, or lying on a trolley in a hospital corridor waiting for a knackered, red-eyed, caffeine-resuscitated doctor to address the minor question of the heart attack we just had.
It's surely time to live differently.
But in what way is the community of Christ a sign to this culture of a different and better way? Are our leaders less stressed? Less workaholic? Are we? Or have we actually become conformed to our culture, accepted its view of time with a stoical shrug? Is this just the way that it has to be if you want to stay employed, stay housed, stay fed? Is it really?
God created the world as a context for human flourishing. He didn't put us on the earth without air to breathe, it was already there. He didn't put us on earth without food to eat, or the capacity to grow and harvest it. It was already there. God didn't create humankind on the first day or on the second day. He created us on the sixth day, when he had created a context in which we could flourish. "Go produce and reproduce," he then said, "Work and multiply." Go release the potential in earth and release the potential in humans. Does the way we are leading our lives in Australia really contribute substantively to human flourishing?
It's time for a change, or it would be, if we had time to think about how to do it. This system is killing us, killing relationships, cracking marriages, alienating children, and sucking the joy out of even very good jobs. And in whose interest? It is a fine and good thing to engage with culture but sometimes it's a far, far better thing to disengage from it.
In a work-crazed, acquisitive, anxiety-bound, stressed-out culture what more potent testimony could there be than a community marked by the capacity to stop work, by a community that knows how to rest and be refreshed, by a community with time for relationships, by a community with a purpose beyond the acquisition of goods? Are we anywhere near creating such communities?
And is there anything in the Bible to help us? And not just high-capacity middle-class people with the talent, opportunity and pay structure to downshift to a four day week, move to the Gold Coast or change trades.
In the beginning, the Bible tells us, God rested on the seventh day - not, of course, because he was tired. Later God told Moses and the whole people of Israel to do exactly the same thing, to stop work on the seventh day. To stop work. That is stop. Not, do just a couple of hours; not, catch up on one or two e-mails; not, just finish the ironing; not, get the kids' bags ready for tomorrow; not, do all those things we don't call work because we don't get paid to do them but are work. No, the commandment says stop.
Very interesting word that. It ends with a stop. For street signs the word is unique because no other word comes with that shape of sign. It means don't move, don't hurry, don't run, do go insane because there's a mountain of stuff that needs to be done yesterday if not sooner. Stop.
November 13, 2006
Horse 662 - My Lunch is Awesome
I work in the 10th richest suburb in the country and to be honest it shows. Things in the supermarket are about 20% more expensive and the greengrocers stock weird items in place of regular food. You can not for instance buy a head of lettuce, but rocket is abundant - who ever thought up rocket anyway? It tastes like dirt.
In Mosman there aren't normal things like bakeries or corner shops but rather, establishments like bread emporii and delicatessens that don't sell pies or sandwiches but bruschettes and big meats that are 9 ft long.
Imagine my utter triumph over the system today when I sucessfully made 2 sandwiches for the equivalent of 64c. At just 32c a sandwich, that's even better than a pack of gum. They're not dodgy bodgy sandwiches either, but have actual proper lettuce, tomato, cheese, chicken loaf and cucumber in.
I beat you Mosman... Eat That!
In Mosman there aren't normal things like bakeries or corner shops but rather, establishments like bread emporii and delicatessens that don't sell pies or sandwiches but bruschettes and big meats that are 9 ft long.
Imagine my utter triumph over the system today when I sucessfully made 2 sandwiches for the equivalent of 64c. At just 32c a sandwich, that's even better than a pack of gum. They're not dodgy bodgy sandwiches either, but have actual proper lettuce, tomato, cheese, chicken loaf and cucumber in.
I beat you Mosman... Eat That!
November 10, 2006
Horse 661 - Thanks
Usually when my birthday comes around I'm usually busy with either work or making plans for Christmas. It's only 45 days to Christmas* from my birthday and I suppose in some respects I'm glad I'm not my grandad who's birthday was Dec 27 which must have been really horrid.
This year being my 28th birthday is actually numerically significant. In the Gregorian calendar assuming that the 100th year doesn't blip the system, then it takes 28 years to recycle the calendar. Thus 1978 is the same as 2006 and likewise if you have any 1979 calendars they are also reusable. This aside the last year has been quite significant.
I've received 4 text messages today wishing me wishes for the day but more importantly a mysterious package arrived from the USA. I haven't yet opened it, but I'm sure that what's inside from Katja and possibly clan Salini will have been well thought out. Seriously, the fact that you even sent me anything is one of the best presents I ever got.
Ich sorge mich nicht. Sie sind meine Prinzessin und Königtum fließt durch Sie. Von himmlischen Federn trinken Sie. Sicher gibt es keinen schöner.
The Commonwealth Bank also phoned me up today and usually one doesn't want to hear from a bank manager in case it's bad news. In this case it was because they couldn't transfer my car payments.
I froze.
The reason? The car loan had been discharged. My little Rosalini, the Red Dwarf is mine.
It seems almost unfair that practically everything I ever wanted I seem to have been given without any effort at all. Most importantly the one thing I needed the most in this world, was given for free but the cost was terrible.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - in Romans 5 (I forget where at the moment)
Why should I be given such a gift? This defies description.
I also happened to be given a gift by the Australian Taxation Office... a $1600 HECS debt request... I suppose you don't get everything.
*by bizarre co-incidence it's also 45 days from New Years Day to Valentines Day
This year being my 28th birthday is actually numerically significant. In the Gregorian calendar assuming that the 100th year doesn't blip the system, then it takes 28 years to recycle the calendar. Thus 1978 is the same as 2006 and likewise if you have any 1979 calendars they are also reusable. This aside the last year has been quite significant.
I've received 4 text messages today wishing me wishes for the day but more importantly a mysterious package arrived from the USA. I haven't yet opened it, but I'm sure that what's inside from Katja and possibly clan Salini will have been well thought out. Seriously, the fact that you even sent me anything is one of the best presents I ever got.
Ich sorge mich nicht. Sie sind meine Prinzessin und Königtum fließt durch Sie. Von himmlischen Federn trinken Sie. Sicher gibt es keinen schöner.
The Commonwealth Bank also phoned me up today and usually one doesn't want to hear from a bank manager in case it's bad news. In this case it was because they couldn't transfer my car payments.
I froze.
The reason? The car loan had been discharged. My little Rosalini, the Red Dwarf is mine.
It seems almost unfair that practically everything I ever wanted I seem to have been given without any effort at all. Most importantly the one thing I needed the most in this world, was given for free but the cost was terrible.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - in Romans 5 (I forget where at the moment)
Why should I be given such a gift? This defies description.
I also happened to be given a gift by the Australian Taxation Office... a $1600 HECS debt request... I suppose you don't get everything.
*by bizarre co-incidence it's also 45 days from New Years Day to Valentines Day
November 09, 2006
Horse 660 - What Is It? It's Epica, What Is It?
You want it all but you can't have it
It's in your face but you can't grab it
What is it?
It's it
What is it?...
... it's Epica. So?
Back in Horse 358 and in Horse 364, I warned you about Holden ditching the Astra in favour of Daewoo's Lacetti. Already the Corsa has been hacked out with the Barina nameplate now affixed on the Daewoo Kalos - the car with a 1 star NCAP rating. Guess what? True to form, Holden is shoving out the Vectra in favour of the Daewoo Magnus to be called the Holden Epica.
Even Chevrolet in the USA won't touch this car, they chose the restyle the Vectra Vectra to become the Malibu. See below.
Basically the story is as follows. Holden own 51% of Daewoo and are probably looking to turn the company around by exploiting its cheap prices. On the other hand, sales of the Barina (Kalos) have lost major ground to Toyota's Yaris and even against sales of the more expensive outgoing Barina (Corsa).
The general buying public aren't hoodwinked by a badge. A Daewoo is still a Daewoo and the reason that they sell at all is purely on price. Pitching the Epica against the Camry is a bad move, since pre-sales of the Camry 4 already rival that of Commodore which itself is struggling.
The days of the big Aussie six ruling the roost have now passed thanks to rising petrol prices, but a drop in quality doesn't really justify the drop in price. The Focus and Corolla are perhaps the prime contenders in the future and I don't think Holden quite see this yet. Their billion-dollar-baby should have been replaced with a 3.6L version of the car that they're now axing in the Vectra. I fear Detroit is calling the shots here; let's face it, in their homeland, they lost the plot there too.
Admittedly the Vectra didn't sell a whole heap because people saw it as being too close to the Commodore. The Epica as it's replacement still doesn't address this problem merely because of price. I think for Holden it will appear as an anonymous car and be as unloved as the Piazza was.
It's in your face but you can't grab it
What is it?
It's it
What is it?...
... it's Epica. So?
Back in Horse 358 and in Horse 364, I warned you about Holden ditching the Astra in favour of Daewoo's Lacetti. Already the Corsa has been hacked out with the Barina nameplate now affixed on the Daewoo Kalos - the car with a 1 star NCAP rating. Guess what? True to form, Holden is shoving out the Vectra in favour of the Daewoo Magnus to be called the Holden Epica.
Even Chevrolet in the USA won't touch this car, they chose the restyle the Vectra Vectra to become the Malibu. See below.
Basically the story is as follows. Holden own 51% of Daewoo and are probably looking to turn the company around by exploiting its cheap prices. On the other hand, sales of the Barina (Kalos) have lost major ground to Toyota's Yaris and even against sales of the more expensive outgoing Barina (Corsa).
The general buying public aren't hoodwinked by a badge. A Daewoo is still a Daewoo and the reason that they sell at all is purely on price. Pitching the Epica against the Camry is a bad move, since pre-sales of the Camry 4 already rival that of Commodore which itself is struggling.
The days of the big Aussie six ruling the roost have now passed thanks to rising petrol prices, but a drop in quality doesn't really justify the drop in price. The Focus and Corolla are perhaps the prime contenders in the future and I don't think Holden quite see this yet. Their billion-dollar-baby should have been replaced with a 3.6L version of the car that they're now axing in the Vectra. I fear Detroit is calling the shots here; let's face it, in their homeland, they lost the plot there too.
Admittedly the Vectra didn't sell a whole heap because people saw it as being too close to the Commodore. The Epica as it's replacement still doesn't address this problem merely because of price. I think for Holden it will appear as an anonymous car and be as unloved as the Piazza was.
November 07, 2006
Horse 659 - I Lost Big Time On The Melbourne Cup
I got:
NO Free Lunch
Couldn't pick up commentary on the radio because of the tin roof.
Worked all afternoon, while the boss nicked off early.
And still don't who won the damn race...
Of course I didn't lay any money on the race, that'd be stupid. I can think of far better things to throw money away on like petrol or chocolate.
The Race That Stops the Nation meant precisely three-quarters of jack-squat to me; I'd say it's a 50000-1 on chance that my life will change by not an iota because of it.
NO Free Lunch
Couldn't pick up commentary on the radio because of the tin roof.
Worked all afternoon, while the boss nicked off early.
And still don't who won the damn race...
Of course I didn't lay any money on the race, that'd be stupid. I can think of far better things to throw money away on like petrol or chocolate.
The Race That Stops the Nation meant precisely three-quarters of jack-squat to me; I'd say it's a 50000-1 on chance that my life will change by not an iota because of it.
Horse 658 - Immigration & My Ignorance
There are lots of things I need to investigate or search out over the next few months/weeks. The regulations with regards immigration are just not very useful nor helpful, and I suspect that I'll need more than the odd visit to Level 59 MLC Centre will be in order. I've been reading through legislation and sub-clauses that makes the ITAA 1936 look like a children's flip picture book.
Can you say Indeterminate Zone Worker Class G4? I know you can.
It appears as though immigration into the US is handled by the US State Department. Bear in mine that these are also the same people who make you surrended little bottles of soda at the airport and take your fingerprints just in case they happen to show up on charred bits of metal when you supposedly blow something up. Somehow I just don't trust the gatekeepers at all.
On the other hand DIMIA which handles immigration for Australia seems relatively straightforward on several fronts. From the inside it looks like they'll accept anyone through the doors into Australia provided that they can't speak English and have the coping skills of a newt.
There is a way through all of this I just know it. Maybe it's like when Tip and Dorothy visited that castle in Oz. They had to enter the left door. There was only one door that led into the castle, so how could it be the left one? Put simply the castle used to have many many doors, but they had them all taken away, and now this was the only one left.
Logic like that is doing my head in biscuits and given that it's now half past stupid in the morning, I suspect that this post will make about as much sense.
Can you say Indeterminate Zone Worker Class G4? I know you can.
It appears as though immigration into the US is handled by the US State Department. Bear in mine that these are also the same people who make you surrended little bottles of soda at the airport and take your fingerprints just in case they happen to show up on charred bits of metal when you supposedly blow something up. Somehow I just don't trust the gatekeepers at all.
On the other hand DIMIA which handles immigration for Australia seems relatively straightforward on several fronts. From the inside it looks like they'll accept anyone through the doors into Australia provided that they can't speak English and have the coping skills of a newt.
There is a way through all of this I just know it. Maybe it's like when Tip and Dorothy visited that castle in Oz. They had to enter the left door. There was only one door that led into the castle, so how could it be the left one? Put simply the castle used to have many many doors, but they had them all taken away, and now this was the only one left.
Logic like that is doing my head in biscuits and given that it's now half past stupid in the morning, I suspect that this post will make about as much sense.
November 05, 2006
Horse 657 - God Save The Queen
The origins of this song are shrouded in mystery. Having evolved something in the late 16th Century, there are versions which are almost never played including verses "To Crush the Scots". As the national anthem for Great Britain, it's place is virtually unique having never been adopted and over a country that is actually made up for 4 others.
When Australia played Great Britain in the Rugby League last night, this song was sung, and I happened to make the comment that within four year that this will probably be replaced with "God Save The King".
In the USA this is perhaps better known as "America" with the first line of "My country, 'tis of thee", and when I saw England play Lichtenstein in a Euro 2004 qualifier, they played England's national anthem "Land of Hope and Glory" followed by "God Save The King" which serves as Lichtenstein's national anthem. Perhaps people in the crowd may have know this, but it was interesting to hear an English crowd singing the national anthem of another country.
In the German film "Titanic" of 1943, the song was used as a propaganda instrument, but in all honesty if you saw this film through the eyes of the English at the time, they would have thought that it was in fact a British film.
When Australia played Great Britain in the Rugby League last night, this song was sung, and I happened to make the comment that within four year that this will probably be replaced with "God Save The King".
In the USA this is perhaps better known as "America" with the first line of "My country, 'tis of thee", and when I saw England play Lichtenstein in a Euro 2004 qualifier, they played England's national anthem "Land of Hope and Glory" followed by "God Save The King" which serves as Lichtenstein's national anthem. Perhaps people in the crowd may have know this, but it was interesting to hear an English crowd singing the national anthem of another country.
In the German film "Titanic" of 1943, the song was used as a propaganda instrument, but in all honesty if you saw this film through the eyes of the English at the time, they would have thought that it was in fact a British film.
November 03, 2006
Horse 656 - In A Biskit
Can someone please tell me what's going on with the In-A-Biskit range? I was wandering around the aisles of my local Woolworths this morning hoping to score myself a box of Vegemite-In-A-Biskit and much to my horror it has been discontinued.
Why?
I'm quite a fan of your In-A-Biskit range, There's Savory, Chicken Crimpy, Barbeque, Burger (though I for won have never ever tasted a burger even remotely close to that flavour), Salt & Vinegar, even uppity Chives & Lemon In-A-Biskit but as for the perrenial Australian definative - it's nowhere to be found?
Why oh why cruel world have you decided to do this to the world of snacks? We now live in a situation where the choices we have are simply too many. If I move onto the range of Shapes I find Pizza, Barbeque, Dixie Drumstick, these flavours are never to be repeated and you have to out of the store by midnight tonight... (sorry about the crazy warehouse guy interlude), but with all these choices it's enough to drive someone totally bonkers.
In Soviet Russia there were only two flavours for anything, Grey and Communist Red. Quite frankly I think in a world of virtualy know choice at least you knew that what you were getting was crap, and you didn't go insane trying to choose what kind or crap it actually was.
Why?
I'm quite a fan of your In-A-Biskit range, There's Savory, Chicken Crimpy, Barbeque, Burger (though I for won have never ever tasted a burger even remotely close to that flavour), Salt & Vinegar, even uppity Chives & Lemon In-A-Biskit but as for the perrenial Australian definative - it's nowhere to be found?
Why oh why cruel world have you decided to do this to the world of snacks? We now live in a situation where the choices we have are simply too many. If I move onto the range of Shapes I find Pizza, Barbeque, Dixie Drumstick, these flavours are never to be repeated and you have to out of the store by midnight tonight... (sorry about the crazy warehouse guy interlude), but with all these choices it's enough to drive someone totally bonkers.
In Soviet Russia there were only two flavours for anything, Grey and Communist Red. Quite frankly I think in a world of virtualy know choice at least you knew that what you were getting was crap, and you didn't go insane trying to choose what kind or crap it actually was.
Horse 655 - It's What Dreams Are Made Of
"Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory."
— Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller has been on school examination papers for quite some time now as educators think it pert to install culture into kids by means of forcing the to study themes and issues in English classes. Like the study of Shakespeare and poetry, it instills a natural hatred within students and drives many of them to never read another novel or text ever again.
I was watching Fox last night and this came on the telly. Thankfully I didn't study this in high school, so my mind wasn't polluted with themes, issues and critiques.
At work I live in a very rigid world of boring numbers, rules, laws and forms that have to filled in. It is my job to take people's figures and tell them what they have to do to comply with the law (within the realm of tax) or let them know what they can or can't do with the money that they either do or don't have.
At its heart, my position in life is one of extreme curmudgeony. I am the cranky man, the boring man with glasses who sits in the exam room telling you to keep your heads down, not looking at someone else's paper or the hall monitor who tells you not to run in the corridors. On the famed fun-ometer I am 0.1, nerd incarnate.
Man's natural desire must embody an urge to create, to build, to make something that's never been seen before, to imagine, to dream. We call these people artists, designers, architects, poets, playwrights, sculptors and more importantly dreamers.
These are the people who create new stuff that the rest of us use, admire and look at. While something as mundane as a toaster is used for cooking bread, we still want to see more than just a little grey box with holes in.
So this is a Hurrah to all of the people who is got to dream. If you didn't then the army of nerdy rule tellers like me would have standardised the world by now; it would all be grey, taste like and be made from McDonalds Brand Imitation Megaplastic*
*The whole of everything in McDonald's is made from McDonalds Brand Imitation Megaplastic. Their burgers, chips, their drinks, apple pies, the benchtops, the tables and chairs, you name it it's all made from the same stuff and I'd like someone to prove otherwise.
— Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller has been on school examination papers for quite some time now as educators think it pert to install culture into kids by means of forcing the to study themes and issues in English classes. Like the study of Shakespeare and poetry, it instills a natural hatred within students and drives many of them to never read another novel or text ever again.
I was watching Fox last night and this came on the telly. Thankfully I didn't study this in high school, so my mind wasn't polluted with themes, issues and critiques.
At work I live in a very rigid world of boring numbers, rules, laws and forms that have to filled in. It is my job to take people's figures and tell them what they have to do to comply with the law (within the realm of tax) or let them know what they can or can't do with the money that they either do or don't have.
At its heart, my position in life is one of extreme curmudgeony. I am the cranky man, the boring man with glasses who sits in the exam room telling you to keep your heads down, not looking at someone else's paper or the hall monitor who tells you not to run in the corridors. On the famed fun-ometer I am 0.1, nerd incarnate.
Man's natural desire must embody an urge to create, to build, to make something that's never been seen before, to imagine, to dream. We call these people artists, designers, architects, poets, playwrights, sculptors and more importantly dreamers.
These are the people who create new stuff that the rest of us use, admire and look at. While something as mundane as a toaster is used for cooking bread, we still want to see more than just a little grey box with holes in.
So this is a Hurrah to all of the people who is got to dream. If you didn't then the army of nerdy rule tellers like me would have standardised the world by now; it would all be grey, taste like and be made from McDonalds Brand Imitation Megaplastic*
*The whole of everything in McDonald's is made from McDonalds Brand Imitation Megaplastic. Their burgers, chips, their drinks, apple pies, the benchtops, the tables and chairs, you name it it's all made from the same stuff and I'd like someone to prove otherwise.
November 02, 2006
Horse 654 - Tares
Bearded Darnel or Ryegrass is a common Lolium plant that very much resemble wheat. It does have its uses primarily as a stock fedd and also as the principle type of grass for use on the courts in The Championships at Wimbledon.
Because it so closely resembles wheat, if often represents industrial sabotage, because it is totally indistinguishable from wheat until the head or "fruit" is produced. As this point and because of the poisonous toxins contained therein, the only logical thing to do with it is to burn it, or totally destroy it.
The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'
'An enemy did this,' he replied. The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'
'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "
Structurally this story is rather simple but the things contained in it are hideously complex. Several things can be ascertained here. Firstly that there are people within the church who look the same as everyone else but aren't fruitful and do an excelleent job of hiding. Second, that they should be allowed to stay there until the harvest eventually comes.
The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
What does this then say if we can't actually tell who is a tare and who is a wheat? Admittedly it's not our place to judge but the thought that the enemy is already within the ranks with potential agents is a) scary and b) should be entirely expected.
To steer the fault light back on you. Are you a tare? Have you genuinely surrendered? Do you have any fruit to prove this? If not, why not? The warning is there, it's very very easy, safe and even easy to hide within a crop of wheat if you happen to be a tare, but eventually, it will come of nought.
Seriously consider this.
Because it so closely resembles wheat, if often represents industrial sabotage, because it is totally indistinguishable from wheat until the head or "fruit" is produced. As this point and because of the poisonous toxins contained therein, the only logical thing to do with it is to burn it, or totally destroy it.
The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'
'An enemy did this,' he replied. The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'
'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "
Structurally this story is rather simple but the things contained in it are hideously complex. Several things can be ascertained here. Firstly that there are people within the church who look the same as everyone else but aren't fruitful and do an excelleent job of hiding. Second, that they should be allowed to stay there until the harvest eventually comes.
The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
What does this then say if we can't actually tell who is a tare and who is a wheat? Admittedly it's not our place to judge but the thought that the enemy is already within the ranks with potential agents is a) scary and b) should be entirely expected.
To steer the fault light back on you. Are you a tare? Have you genuinely surrendered? Do you have any fruit to prove this? If not, why not? The warning is there, it's very very easy, safe and even easy to hide within a crop of wheat if you happen to be a tare, but eventually, it will come of nought.
Seriously consider this.
October 31, 2006
Horse 653 - Nohackember
Mr B has come up with an interesting idea. Following on from the familiar Rocktober in which music is to be played at 11 or louder the month that follows is to be called Nohackember. The idea is that there is to be no hacking during the month of November. This however leaves me with a quandry based on the definition of hack.
Hack -
1.(verb) to cut, notch, slice, chop, or sever (something) with or as with heavy, irregular blows (often fol. by up or down).
2.(verb) to damage or injure by crude, harsh, or insensitive treatment; mutilate; mangle
This is pretty straightforward. The broad definition of the verb implies that during Nohackember, we aren't supposed to cut each other down. This sounds like a good idea but I'd like to see certain statutes of limitations on it.
What happens for instance if someone actually needs pulling down from their pedastal? If someone is doing something stupid then do they need hacking? Gentleness and kindness should be the key drivers here. I see a major exception that could be argued - does Nohackember include everyone in the world? Would I lose my right to cynicism in the name of humour?
How about on immutable issues such as what is right and wrong, perceived injusticies, having a whinge or on the subject of Man Utd? These things need hacking, no?
Hack -
1.(noun) a person, as an artist or writer, who exploits, for money, his or her creative ability or training in the production of dull, unimaginative, and trite work; one who produces banal and mediocre work in the hope of gaining commercial success in the arts.
2.(noun) a writer who works on the staff of a publisher at a dull or routine task; someone who works as a literary drudge.
The other definition directly affects this column. I could be described as a hack very easily, though I've not seen any reward for my "quality" journalistic talent. If you want it, you can buy it. Golden Arches on the banners, Samsung on my tie, cash for comments, I'll do it to a degree. If someone wants to pay me $1,000,000 to write a puff piece on SUVs then I'll do it.
One thing you can't buy however is my integrity, I will remain the voice of reason. Statistics tell me that over 50 people a day pass through the doors to this little off-ramp on the information super-highway, and you know why? I might spout crap, but it's a different kind of crap En quatre couleurs.
So then, I fail under both conditions for Nohackember unless of course in typically Rolloesque fashion, I change the rules. Nohackember becomes... No hack; ember! In other words, give up merely cutting people down but raze them to the ground. It's a brand new age of illumination I tell you - well you cant actually be any more illuminated then being on fire can you? Or is that incinerated?
Hack -
1.(verb) to cut, notch, slice, chop, or sever (something) with or as with heavy, irregular blows (often fol. by up or down).
2.(verb) to damage or injure by crude, harsh, or insensitive treatment; mutilate; mangle
This is pretty straightforward. The broad definition of the verb implies that during Nohackember, we aren't supposed to cut each other down. This sounds like a good idea but I'd like to see certain statutes of limitations on it.
What happens for instance if someone actually needs pulling down from their pedastal? If someone is doing something stupid then do they need hacking? Gentleness and kindness should be the key drivers here. I see a major exception that could be argued - does Nohackember include everyone in the world? Would I lose my right to cynicism in the name of humour?
How about on immutable issues such as what is right and wrong, perceived injusticies, having a whinge or on the subject of Man Utd? These things need hacking, no?
Hack -
1.(noun) a person, as an artist or writer, who exploits, for money, his or her creative ability or training in the production of dull, unimaginative, and trite work; one who produces banal and mediocre work in the hope of gaining commercial success in the arts.
2.(noun) a writer who works on the staff of a publisher at a dull or routine task; someone who works as a literary drudge.
The other definition directly affects this column. I could be described as a hack very easily, though I've not seen any reward for my "quality" journalistic talent. If you want it, you can buy it. Golden Arches on the banners, Samsung on my tie, cash for comments, I'll do it to a degree. If someone wants to pay me $1,000,000 to write a puff piece on SUVs then I'll do it.
One thing you can't buy however is my integrity, I will remain the voice of reason. Statistics tell me that over 50 people a day pass through the doors to this little off-ramp on the information super-highway, and you know why? I might spout crap, but it's a different kind of crap En quatre couleurs.
So then, I fail under both conditions for Nohackember unless of course in typically Rolloesque fashion, I change the rules. Nohackember becomes... No hack; ember! In other words, give up merely cutting people down but raze them to the ground. It's a brand new age of illumination I tell you - well you cant actually be any more illuminated then being on fire can you? Or is that incinerated?
October 30, 2006
Horse 652 - A Thought
Here's a thought.
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..
...
....
.....
......
.......
........
.........
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...........................................................................100% - done.
Today's thought is:
I rather like ginger snaps.
Yes, that'll do. I might think of something else later.
Horse 651 - Halloween Annoys Me
Apart from the fact that I think that premise about sending kids out into the night dressed as little devils, ghoulies and ghosts annoys me. I also don't like the fact that they come to your house and then demand lollies for the priviledge of annoying you in the first place. Imagine my contempt at a flyer which happened to come in the mail which said that "some children will be coming around on Tuesday night so could you please be prepared".
No.
I will not be prepared. I don't see why I should be forced to take part in a stupid "holiday" which has been appropriated from Celtic pagan religions. More importantly I don't understand why I should give candy to children in a country in which we don't actually have Halloween. Thankfully Halloween wasn't celebrated in Britain before the 20th Century (or Ireland for that matter) and didn't travel to the colonies.
The commercial practice is only really from what I can gather a product of mass-marketing after the 50's. In the UK in particular, the day has warranted extra police to be deployed as youngsters have seen this as an opportunity for petty vandalism and damage. Reaction in Scotland, I've found has resulted in many houses placing signs out the front which read "Beggars, Go Home!" which I found somewhat amusing.
I bet that these were the same children who last year threw eggs over my Ka. Because of the proteins in egg, it means that they're highly unkind to the duco of motor cars. Quite frankly I should found the little gromits and made them clean up their mess. If we actually voted for a National Annoy The **** Out Of Your Neighbours Day then we'd all have something to answer for.
Thankfully Halloween is a Tuesday so I will be out playing football, so this means that I won't have to deal with the potential snotnoses.
No.
I will not be prepared. I don't see why I should be forced to take part in a stupid "holiday" which has been appropriated from Celtic pagan religions. More importantly I don't understand why I should give candy to children in a country in which we don't actually have Halloween. Thankfully Halloween wasn't celebrated in Britain before the 20th Century (or Ireland for that matter) and didn't travel to the colonies.
The commercial practice is only really from what I can gather a product of mass-marketing after the 50's. In the UK in particular, the day has warranted extra police to be deployed as youngsters have seen this as an opportunity for petty vandalism and damage. Reaction in Scotland, I've found has resulted in many houses placing signs out the front which read "Beggars, Go Home!" which I found somewhat amusing.
I bet that these were the same children who last year threw eggs over my Ka. Because of the proteins in egg, it means that they're highly unkind to the duco of motor cars. Quite frankly I should found the little gromits and made them clean up their mess. If we actually voted for a National Annoy The **** Out Of Your Neighbours Day then we'd all have something to answer for.
Thankfully Halloween is a Tuesday so I will be out playing football, so this means that I won't have to deal with the potential snotnoses.
October 28, 2006
Horse 650 - Halloween
I think it's just around the corner, and to be honest it's isn't celebrated in Australia at all but I thought it would be interesting to look into the reasons why it exists.
Halloween is in principle similar to Vampire Day but unlike Vampire Day, Halloween is more about Zombies. I make reference to the following from Horse 566.
Vampires, Ninjas and Pirates are unionised labour. They have their own health care fund and superannuation plans. This is yet another reason why they need sorted mail.
Zombies are similar to Vampires in that they're both undead. Zombies however do not have unionised labour laws and as such have to negotiate their own individual workplace contracts. In the latter part of the 20th century this led to minor rioting in the southern states of the USA.
Zombies are not in fact arguing for equal pay for equal work. What they are essentially campaigning for is increases to overtime rates. Most Zombies although they work more slowly and frequently use up sick leave, can work as many as 23 hours in a day.
The other major issue facing Zombies is that of workplace safety. Vampires for instance can not work with exposure to sunlight; so there are many of them working in photographic dark rooms. Zombies have the unique problem of limbs falling off and so most of them would prefer office type positions but sadly most of these seem to be already filled by Pirates (who make excellent customer service staff on account of their loud voices) and Ninjas who by stealth have already taken many office jobs.
Zombies argue that since Pirates and Ninjas hate each other that workplace moral in such an organisation is compromised and therefore they themselves should be considered for such positions.
The main drawback is that because most Zombies move only very slowly, most of them miss their job interviews and because of this Zombies remain part of hidden unemployed because undead people are unable to government benefits.
So there you go, Halloween is really about the undead class labour struggle - which is rather like Labour Day. No hang on, it's exactly like Labour Day, because the Labor Party has about 90% of its members who are undead... except Kim Beasley who's obviously some sort of Were-Person.
Halloween is in principle similar to Vampire Day but unlike Vampire Day, Halloween is more about Zombies. I make reference to the following from Horse 566.
Vampires, Ninjas and Pirates are unionised labour. They have their own health care fund and superannuation plans. This is yet another reason why they need sorted mail.
Zombies are similar to Vampires in that they're both undead. Zombies however do not have unionised labour laws and as such have to negotiate their own individual workplace contracts. In the latter part of the 20th century this led to minor rioting in the southern states of the USA.
Zombies are not in fact arguing for equal pay for equal work. What they are essentially campaigning for is increases to overtime rates. Most Zombies although they work more slowly and frequently use up sick leave, can work as many as 23 hours in a day.
The other major issue facing Zombies is that of workplace safety. Vampires for instance can not work with exposure to sunlight; so there are many of them working in photographic dark rooms. Zombies have the unique problem of limbs falling off and so most of them would prefer office type positions but sadly most of these seem to be already filled by Pirates (who make excellent customer service staff on account of their loud voices) and Ninjas who by stealth have already taken many office jobs.
Zombies argue that since Pirates and Ninjas hate each other that workplace moral in such an organisation is compromised and therefore they themselves should be considered for such positions.
The main drawback is that because most Zombies move only very slowly, most of them miss their job interviews and because of this Zombies remain part of hidden unemployed because undead people are unable to government benefits.
So there you go, Halloween is really about the undead class labour struggle - which is rather like Labour Day. No hang on, it's exactly like Labour Day, because the Labor Party has about 90% of its members who are undead... except Kim Beasley who's obviously some sort of Were-Person.
October 27, 2006
Horse 649 - We Still Don't Like Your Taxes
In 1775 the American Revolution was sparked over the imposition of a tax on foodstuffs and in particular tea, which was viewed as tyrannical and opressive. 231 years later another row has broken out over taxation, and in this case it's actually on British soil.
The U.S. Embassy in London owes more than £1,000,000 for the Vehicle Congestion Charge in London. City of London authorities say the charge on driving in the centre of the city is a road toll and diplomats have to pay it like anyone else. Washington says it is a tax and diplomats are exempt.
The U.S. Embassy has refused to pay the charge since July 2005. Several other embassies have also refused but London says the U.S. embassy is the worst offender by far. London's outspoken Mayor Ken Livingstone caused a flap earlier this year when he branded U.S. ambassador Robert Tuttle a "chiselling little crook" for refusing to pay.
Drivers who fail to pay the daily £8 charge by midnight the following day face a fine of up to £150.
"It is for the British authorities to decide what is a tax and what is not a tax in the UK," Livingstone said. "Both the UK government and the Greater London Authority consider the congestion charge a charge for a service: reduced congestion. The U.S. Embassy benefits from the reduction in congestion."
He said British diplomats in the United States paid American tolls and charges. "U.S. diplomats should respect British law and pay the congestion charge," he added. The U.S. Embassy has not made an official comment but has previously said its lawyers believe diplomats are exempt from the charge under treaty.
Politically is this different to say Iraq, in which the U.S. was exempt from international law?
The U.S. Embassy in London owes more than £1,000,000 for the Vehicle Congestion Charge in London. City of London authorities say the charge on driving in the centre of the city is a road toll and diplomats have to pay it like anyone else. Washington says it is a tax and diplomats are exempt.
The U.S. Embassy has refused to pay the charge since July 2005. Several other embassies have also refused but London says the U.S. embassy is the worst offender by far. London's outspoken Mayor Ken Livingstone caused a flap earlier this year when he branded U.S. ambassador Robert Tuttle a "chiselling little crook" for refusing to pay.
Drivers who fail to pay the daily £8 charge by midnight the following day face a fine of up to £150.
"It is for the British authorities to decide what is a tax and what is not a tax in the UK," Livingstone said. "Both the UK government and the Greater London Authority consider the congestion charge a charge for a service: reduced congestion. The U.S. Embassy benefits from the reduction in congestion."
He said British diplomats in the United States paid American tolls and charges. "U.S. diplomats should respect British law and pay the congestion charge," he added. The U.S. Embassy has not made an official comment but has previously said its lawyers believe diplomats are exempt from the charge under treaty.
Politically is this different to say Iraq, in which the U.S. was exempt from international law?
October 23, 2006
Horse 648 - Fallen Asleep in the Light
If God's on our side, then God is a joker,
Asleep on the job, his children fall over,
Out through the door and straight to the sky,
I don't want to die...!
Everybody's Gone To War - Nerina Pallot
I met My Maker, I made Him cry
And on my shoulder He asked me why
His people wont fly through the storm,
I said listen up Man, they dont even know You're born.
D'Ya Know What I Mean? - Oasis
I haven't written about what's on the iPod or what sort of music is currently running around my space for quite some time. Mainly because to extract the statistics is a dull process, but every so often you will end up with the odd few in combination that make you ask yourself questions, like the two stanzas as shown above.
I suspect that Nerina Pallot isn't a Christian, and I very much doubt that Noel Gallagher is but they do pose a very potent and scary question. That is, how come people on the outside of the church instinctively know what we're supposed to be doing despite us hiding away in our little hidey-holes not trying to offend them?
I seriously doubt that they'd actually want the gospel preached at them, but even they can see a gaping failure in our ability to stand up for what we believe in. It's as almost as if, the enemy actually wants a decent opponent to attack rather than a walk in victory. People inherantly like a contest, and when we don't provide one they're annoyed.
From our point of view, what doe it actually say about us if we can't be bothered to a) defend the gospel or more importantly b) tell it? Is this some secret defiance against the standing orders to go make disciples? That order as far as I know remains unchanged.
Countless the souls that are stumbling in darkness.
Why do we sleep in the light?
Jesus commands us to go make disciples,
This is our cause, This is the fight.
Why do we sleep in the light? Asleep on the job, his children fall over, they dont even know You're born.
Quite scathing aint it? If this is the impression we send out, then quite frankly, we're crap.
Asleep on the job, his children fall over,
Out through the door and straight to the sky,
I don't want to die...!
Everybody's Gone To War - Nerina Pallot
I met My Maker, I made Him cry
And on my shoulder He asked me why
His people wont fly through the storm,
I said listen up Man, they dont even know You're born.
D'Ya Know What I Mean? - Oasis
I haven't written about what's on the iPod or what sort of music is currently running around my space for quite some time. Mainly because to extract the statistics is a dull process, but every so often you will end up with the odd few in combination that make you ask yourself questions, like the two stanzas as shown above.
I suspect that Nerina Pallot isn't a Christian, and I very much doubt that Noel Gallagher is but they do pose a very potent and scary question. That is, how come people on the outside of the church instinctively know what we're supposed to be doing despite us hiding away in our little hidey-holes not trying to offend them?
I seriously doubt that they'd actually want the gospel preached at them, but even they can see a gaping failure in our ability to stand up for what we believe in. It's as almost as if, the enemy actually wants a decent opponent to attack rather than a walk in victory. People inherantly like a contest, and when we don't provide one they're annoyed.
From our point of view, what doe it actually say about us if we can't be bothered to a) defend the gospel or more importantly b) tell it? Is this some secret defiance against the standing orders to go make disciples? That order as far as I know remains unchanged.
Countless the souls that are stumbling in darkness.
Why do we sleep in the light?
Jesus commands us to go make disciples,
This is our cause, This is the fight.
Why do we sleep in the light? Asleep on the job, his children fall over, they dont even know You're born.
Quite scathing aint it? If this is the impression we send out, then quite frankly, we're crap.
Horse 647 - Bye Bye Schumacher
There is a distinct difference between greatness and being a champion. A champion without honour is no champion at all. - Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen
Ever since the Belgian GP of 1991 some 15 years ago, Michael Schumacher has worked his way to being 7 times World Drivers Champion amidst much controversy.
From his collisions with Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve at cruicial moments in the championship race, to other moments where by regulation
or tactic, Schumacher's career has never been far away from courting criticism.
Whatever you happpen to think of the man, he has won a staggering 91 Grands Prix, finished on the podium some 154 times and driven some races showing a supreme amount of skill at driving a motor car.
Today's Brazillian GP marks the final outing of Schumacher in a Grand Prix. I'm not afraid to admit this, but I think that the sport will be better off for his leaving. Despite the millions of dollars being thrown around the paddock in a world where nobility counts for nought, 2007 just has the hint of being a tad fairer for all.
Bye bye Schumacher - Don't let the door bang on your arse as you leave.
Ever since the Belgian GP of 1991 some 15 years ago, Michael Schumacher has worked his way to being 7 times World Drivers Champion amidst much controversy.
From his collisions with Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve at cruicial moments in the championship race, to other moments where by regulation
or tactic, Schumacher's career has never been far away from courting criticism.
Whatever you happpen to think of the man, he has won a staggering 91 Grands Prix, finished on the podium some 154 times and driven some races showing a supreme amount of skill at driving a motor car.
Today's Brazillian GP marks the final outing of Schumacher in a Grand Prix. I'm not afraid to admit this, but I think that the sport will be better off for his leaving. Despite the millions of dollars being thrown around the paddock in a world where nobility counts for nought, 2007 just has the hint of being a tad fairer for all.
Bye bye Schumacher - Don't let the door bang on your arse as you leave.
October 20, 2006
Horse 646 - Technically Speaking
I found that when I was in America, people commented on my accent being distinctly different. This is quite obvious, but the differences between the two broad classes actually have to do with construction of vowels and more specifically the glottal stop. This in fact somewhat strange as both are more or less decended from Irish variants - in the case of America this was because of emmigration and Australia it was more to do with transportation, so the formaer rather than then latter should have a "richer class" of speaker.
Dialect does have a great deal to contribute as well, with Australia picking up Cockney and Northern turns of phrase, reflecting the criminal element on which the country was started. At any rate the techincal differences are vast, and the following are the distinct causes I think.
In many areas the American "t", when not the initial consonant in a word, is pronounced closer to a "d", and in some cases can disappear altogether. Thus latter and butter sounds more like ladder and budder, and words like twenty and dentist can sound like twenny and Dennis. Why do Americans pronounce t as d? Perhaps because to pronounce the frequent "r"s at the end of words ending in "-er" it is easier to say "-der" than "-ter".
In Britain, "t" is generally pronounced like a "t", but there are areas the glottal stop is very well known. This is the sound in between the two vowels in uh-oh, or the initial consonant in honest. In these two examples, and others like them, the glottal stop occurs as much in America as in Britain. But the glottal stop that replaces the "t" in the Cockney and Glasgow dialects is much stronger; imagine bracing for a punch in the belly when you make the sound.
As an interesting side note, Americans sometimes replace the "d" in a British word with a "t", as if hypercorrecting "d" back into the more "correct" "t". I"ve heard "Wimbleton" on ESPN and FOX Sports, found that spelling in the Webster's which is the major American encyclopedia, and whilst looking, even found cases of "Wimpleton". This confusion is borne out by Americans trying to imitate a Cockney accent by putting a glottal stop in place of "d" instead of "t" , which sounds quite odd to an English person.
In Britain, the glottal stop occurs in informal speech in many areas, although with Estuary English, perhaps not informal anymore. The association of the glottal stop with lower classes or Cockneys typically also includes dropping of "h"s , and dropping the g in -ing words.
The other major difference that I was told about specifically with me was that I'll insert "l" and remove "r" from certain words. This lies in the almost unique aspect of Australian English that we have very sharp vowels but are a non-rhotic nation.
Rhotic speakers will pronounce the r in barn, park, cart, fart, whereas non-rhotic speakers won't, making no distinction between barn and (auto)bahn. Most of America is rhotic, with the notable exception of the Boston area and New York City. SE Britain is apparently the source of non-rhotic. England is non-rhotic, apart from the SW and some ever-diminishing northern areas. Scotland and Ireland are rhotic. In the movie The Princess Bride, the bishop (Peter Cook) over-emphasized the non-rhotic accent by loudly announcing "mawidge" (marriage), and Americans often joke about eastern New Englanders who "pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd".
In Britain, the non-rhotic accent gives rise to linking "r"s, where an otherwise unpronounced "r", in "clear", is pronounced if followed by a vowel, "clear away". An intrusive "r" is an "r" added in such a situation where none actually exists, so "law and order" becomes "law ran order". In some cases, there is even hypercorrection, such as adding an "r" (Louisa - Louiser), especially when a non-rhotic person moves to a rhotic area. But if Clair hears the "r" she'll correct you.
In contrast, in the North and Scotland, r's roll stronger. Even d's can be r'd. I've been called a bluhreeiree (bloody idiot) a few times. Worse is the fact that Scottish and Geordie have stolen words from Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic is different to Irish Gaelic which futher fuels the confusion. The quaint term to refer to one's children as bairns falls hopelessly into incredulity if you happened to mention the great Scotsman Robbie Burns. Inadvertanly Scots and Geordies may actually be speaking about his children, and if "bairns" are in the "burns unit" in "burnside" you'll have a right old mess.
So then, where does this leave me? Well thankfully thanks to McTelevision and the great and powerful Beeb, Australians in general have no problem in understanding Americans or Brits. Conversely because of the way that Australian sounds are constructed, they can in fact pick up everyone else's accents easily with either coaching or by immersion. Americans on the other hand always sound odd when affecting any British accent, except for Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones, but that's due to very strict & formal coaching.
Dialect does have a great deal to contribute as well, with Australia picking up Cockney and Northern turns of phrase, reflecting the criminal element on which the country was started. At any rate the techincal differences are vast, and the following are the distinct causes I think.
In many areas the American "t", when not the initial consonant in a word, is pronounced closer to a "d", and in some cases can disappear altogether. Thus latter and butter sounds more like ladder and budder, and words like twenty and dentist can sound like twenny and Dennis. Why do Americans pronounce t as d? Perhaps because to pronounce the frequent "r"s at the end of words ending in "-er" it is easier to say "-der" than "-ter".
In Britain, "t" is generally pronounced like a "t", but there are areas the glottal stop is very well known. This is the sound in between the two vowels in uh-oh, or the initial consonant in honest. In these two examples, and others like them, the glottal stop occurs as much in America as in Britain. But the glottal stop that replaces the "t" in the Cockney and Glasgow dialects is much stronger; imagine bracing for a punch in the belly when you make the sound.
As an interesting side note, Americans sometimes replace the "d" in a British word with a "t", as if hypercorrecting "d" back into the more "correct" "t". I"ve heard "Wimbleton" on ESPN and FOX Sports, found that spelling in the Webster's which is the major American encyclopedia, and whilst looking, even found cases of "Wimpleton". This confusion is borne out by Americans trying to imitate a Cockney accent by putting a glottal stop in place of "d" instead of "t" , which sounds quite odd to an English person.
In Britain, the glottal stop occurs in informal speech in many areas, although with Estuary English, perhaps not informal anymore. The association of the glottal stop with lower classes or Cockneys typically also includes dropping of "h"s , and dropping the g in -ing words.
The other major difference that I was told about specifically with me was that I'll insert "l" and remove "r" from certain words. This lies in the almost unique aspect of Australian English that we have very sharp vowels but are a non-rhotic nation.
Rhotic speakers will pronounce the r in barn, park, cart, fart, whereas non-rhotic speakers won't, making no distinction between barn and (auto)bahn. Most of America is rhotic, with the notable exception of the Boston area and New York City. SE Britain is apparently the source of non-rhotic. England is non-rhotic, apart from the SW and some ever-diminishing northern areas. Scotland and Ireland are rhotic. In the movie The Princess Bride, the bishop (Peter Cook) over-emphasized the non-rhotic accent by loudly announcing "mawidge" (marriage), and Americans often joke about eastern New Englanders who "pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd".
In Britain, the non-rhotic accent gives rise to linking "r"s, where an otherwise unpronounced "r", in "clear", is pronounced if followed by a vowel, "clear away". An intrusive "r" is an "r" added in such a situation where none actually exists, so "law and order" becomes "law ran order". In some cases, there is even hypercorrection, such as adding an "r" (Louisa - Louiser), especially when a non-rhotic person moves to a rhotic area. But if Clair hears the "r" she'll correct you.
In contrast, in the North and Scotland, r's roll stronger. Even d's can be r'd. I've been called a bluhreeiree (bloody idiot) a few times. Worse is the fact that Scottish and Geordie have stolen words from Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic is different to Irish Gaelic which futher fuels the confusion. The quaint term to refer to one's children as bairns falls hopelessly into incredulity if you happened to mention the great Scotsman Robbie Burns. Inadvertanly Scots and Geordies may actually be speaking about his children, and if "bairns" are in the "burns unit" in "burnside" you'll have a right old mess.
So then, where does this leave me? Well thankfully thanks to McTelevision and the great and powerful Beeb, Australians in general have no problem in understanding Americans or Brits. Conversely because of the way that Australian sounds are constructed, they can in fact pick up everyone else's accents easily with either coaching or by immersion. Americans on the other hand always sound odd when affecting any British accent, except for Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones, but that's due to very strict & formal coaching.
October 18, 2006
Horse 645 - A Strange Frondship
This morning I was standing at a pedestrian crossing and saw a chap in a red Mazda Miata driving merrily along with a potted palm in the passengers seat. He was driving along looking as happy as larry, while the pot plant was actually buckled in; with the wind rustling through its leaves - clearly an item.
I could hear sniggering by the people standing next to me and wondered what was going through the mind of this man. In this age where people are free to live their lives as they please, what makes a person want to enter a relationship with his pot plant? Is it right for him to be cursed with such slurs as "Tree Hugger" or "Chlorophile"? Surely this is a crime against nature, I mean there's even a clash of basic genetic material. I've never heard for instance of any example of cross-pollination of RNA and DNA either by grafting or other methods (the mind boggles even at the very thought).
I don't even know what such a person would actually have in common with a potted palm. It not like they could share common interests other than a love of gardening is it? I don't care how much of a green thumb this man thinks he has, he doesn't posess any foliage at all. They don't even respirate the same way - one of them exhales Oxygen and the other exhales Carbon Dioxide, but in that respect I suppose that one really could not survive without the other... literally.
Am I reading too much into this? Or should I let the principle of Leaf and let leaf rule here?
I could hear sniggering by the people standing next to me and wondered what was going through the mind of this man. In this age where people are free to live their lives as they please, what makes a person want to enter a relationship with his pot plant? Is it right for him to be cursed with such slurs as "Tree Hugger" or "Chlorophile"? Surely this is a crime against nature, I mean there's even a clash of basic genetic material. I've never heard for instance of any example of cross-pollination of RNA and DNA either by grafting or other methods (the mind boggles even at the very thought).
I don't even know what such a person would actually have in common with a potted palm. It not like they could share common interests other than a love of gardening is it? I don't care how much of a green thumb this man thinks he has, he doesn't posess any foliage at all. They don't even respirate the same way - one of them exhales Oxygen and the other exhales Carbon Dioxide, but in that respect I suppose that one really could not survive without the other... literally.
Am I reading too much into this? Or should I let the principle of Leaf and let leaf rule here?
October 17, 2006
Horse 644 - It's Dark Outside & Inside Today
I've been thinking about my life lately.
Those of you who know me know that "I've been thinking about my life" lingers somewhere on my list of phrases between "I need to go to the bathroom" and "I'm going in for my prostate exam today."
Given the fact that I have a morbid imagination, sitting around thinking about life never comes to any good. I inevitably depress myself, and the main effect of that is that I get unusually quiet. Being quiet at all is pretty damn unusual for me, honestly.
I've come this far through life by barreling through it like a blinded bull in mating season, and I think it's worked out well. Overall, I know that my problems are small and petty, and I'm well-adjusted enough that people feel comfortable discussing their lives with me, since I'm a good listener and won't try to butt in with my own problems. I just don't think my problems are worth talking about, since I know that given time and effort they'll work out without anyone ever needing to hear me whining.
But I turn 28 in four weeks, and the state things are in has me thinking hard about where I am, and where I hoped to be at this age when I was younger.
You see, when I started writing this sort of thing in earnest, I didn't just write jokes to make people laugh, but to make a point. The jokes told a story in and of themselves, pointed out little things that wouldn't necessarily have gotten expressed in narrative, and while I'm not deluding myself into believing that I was doing any sort of hard-hitting journalism, I like to think that people at least "remembered" what I was talking about and learned something.
I'm okay with that to a point - you write what you know, and I know my own little quirks and anxieties well enough to know what other people will find funny about them. And certainly, comedy as a method of self-examination is an established and often popular form.
But I think about if I'm doing enough with my voice, even in the most insignificant ways. But here I sit watching countless horrors inflicted by people on each other and the world out of fear, ignorance and anger while I just shake my head and wait for the political climate to change. Were two World Wars so that I could sit on my hands in freedom and shake my head at the ridiculous lengths people will go through to appease their fears and keep themselves in power? I vote diligently and in ways I think are responsible, but what am I doing, really? Talking about how blackjack dealers named Howard and Peter Costello will take your money while conveniently ignoring how the government is afraid of my tiny tubes of TOILETRIES while soldiers are going out every day and dying in what has rapidly become a self-fulfilling prophecy of hate and unrest.
What am I DOING with myself? What SHOULD I be doing with myself? It's never too early or late to be asking yourself this question, and it seems like I haven't asked it in far too long.
Part of this goes back to my job, too. I'm not complaining about the job itself; I have no right to complain about the commute. But what am I doing here? My job here is not to entertain and inform, it's to make people give their dosh to the very same blackjack dealers named Howard and Peter Costello. Can I really say that this is what I plan to be doing for the rest of my life? Can I say that this is what I want to be doing by this time next year?
What does that make me? That's a stickier question, and it's contributing to a lot of time spent staring at the ceiling. What am I doing, and how does that compare to what I should be doing?
What have I accomplished over the last year that I can be proud of, really? When I look back at 2006, will I look at it as the year that I became financially stable and paid off my debts? Is that what I'm wanting out of life? Will this be the year that I gave up on the succession of dreams I had been living previously and settled for stability?
So I usually shut up about it and keep these kind of things to myself so that they don't bother other people. But sometimes I can't help but wonder, and that's when I slow down and try and figure out why. There will be of me wondering what I'm doing at this stage of my life at the moment, and then I'll return to being the weirdo you're used to; it's just that sometimes, you can't help but sit down and dump your troubles into your keyboard, which after it's all said and done aren't really worth bothering about in the first place.
*By age 28 William Pitt the Younger was already PM of England, was up for re-election and decided to annexe Australia.
Those of you who know me know that "I've been thinking about my life" lingers somewhere on my list of phrases between "I need to go to the bathroom" and "I'm going in for my prostate exam today."
Given the fact that I have a morbid imagination, sitting around thinking about life never comes to any good. I inevitably depress myself, and the main effect of that is that I get unusually quiet. Being quiet at all is pretty damn unusual for me, honestly.
I've come this far through life by barreling through it like a blinded bull in mating season, and I think it's worked out well. Overall, I know that my problems are small and petty, and I'm well-adjusted enough that people feel comfortable discussing their lives with me, since I'm a good listener and won't try to butt in with my own problems. I just don't think my problems are worth talking about, since I know that given time and effort they'll work out without anyone ever needing to hear me whining.
But I turn 28 in four weeks, and the state things are in has me thinking hard about where I am, and where I hoped to be at this age when I was younger.
You see, when I started writing this sort of thing in earnest, I didn't just write jokes to make people laugh, but to make a point. The jokes told a story in and of themselves, pointed out little things that wouldn't necessarily have gotten expressed in narrative, and while I'm not deluding myself into believing that I was doing any sort of hard-hitting journalism, I like to think that people at least "remembered" what I was talking about and learned something.
I'm okay with that to a point - you write what you know, and I know my own little quirks and anxieties well enough to know what other people will find funny about them. And certainly, comedy as a method of self-examination is an established and often popular form.
But I think about if I'm doing enough with my voice, even in the most insignificant ways. But here I sit watching countless horrors inflicted by people on each other and the world out of fear, ignorance and anger while I just shake my head and wait for the political climate to change. Were two World Wars so that I could sit on my hands in freedom and shake my head at the ridiculous lengths people will go through to appease their fears and keep themselves in power? I vote diligently and in ways I think are responsible, but what am I doing, really? Talking about how blackjack dealers named Howard and Peter Costello will take your money while conveniently ignoring how the government is afraid of my tiny tubes of TOILETRIES while soldiers are going out every day and dying in what has rapidly become a self-fulfilling prophecy of hate and unrest.
What am I DOING with myself? What SHOULD I be doing with myself? It's never too early or late to be asking yourself this question, and it seems like I haven't asked it in far too long.
Part of this goes back to my job, too. I'm not complaining about the job itself; I have no right to complain about the commute. But what am I doing here? My job here is not to entertain and inform, it's to make people give their dosh to the very same blackjack dealers named Howard and Peter Costello. Can I really say that this is what I plan to be doing for the rest of my life? Can I say that this is what I want to be doing by this time next year?
What does that make me? That's a stickier question, and it's contributing to a lot of time spent staring at the ceiling. What am I doing, and how does that compare to what I should be doing?
What have I accomplished over the last year that I can be proud of, really? When I look back at 2006, will I look at it as the year that I became financially stable and paid off my debts? Is that what I'm wanting out of life? Will this be the year that I gave up on the succession of dreams I had been living previously and settled for stability?
So I usually shut up about it and keep these kind of things to myself so that they don't bother other people. But sometimes I can't help but wonder, and that's when I slow down and try and figure out why. There will be of me wondering what I'm doing at this stage of my life at the moment, and then I'll return to being the weirdo you're used to; it's just that sometimes, you can't help but sit down and dump your troubles into your keyboard, which after it's all said and done aren't really worth bothering about in the first place.
*By age 28 William Pitt the Younger was already PM of England, was up for re-election and decided to annexe Australia.
October 16, 2006
Horse 643 - Murdoch Wants To Get Rid Of The ABC
I opened today's edition of The Australian to find an editorial (that was pointed to via the frony splash) advocating the sale of the ABC. Now whilst this is perhaps not unexpected from a Murdoch publication, it actually sets a dangerous thought in the mind of the Federal Government who is intent on selling every single damn thing it owns.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20586352-7583,00.html
This has been stolen without permission. If the Australian wishes to charge me for the use of this article, then they're welcome. I did buy this edition of the newspaper.
Rudi Michelson: Privatise the ABC
With its poor performance, entrenched ideological bias and 'Vietcong-style' industrial strife, surely it's time we sold the public broadcaster
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 16, 2006
THE ABC in 1932 comprised 12 radio stations and was formed mainly because Australians were besotted by the British empire. Australia wanted its version of the BBC.
Postmaster-general James Fenton was typical of sentiment on the ABC Bill in Hansard in March 1932: "(The ABC will) deepen our empire spirit considerably if we, through the wireless, can listen to the greatest British artists, speakers and lecturers."
Looking back, the birth of the ABC is hardly spirit deepening. The ABC was highly censorious. It scrutinised scripts of plays to excise words such as damn, it banned certain kinds of dance music and refused outright to play jazz. Jazz was the music of black Americans. You had to apply for a licence to own a radio and only 6 per cent of Australians were affluent enough to own a radio.
Fast forward to century 21 and the reasons for establishing the ABC have become totally irrelevant. It is riddled with acrimony and operates in a range of crowded competitive markets.
The ABC today comprises businesses that include television, radio, 38 retail outlets, book publishing (over 120 titles each year), magazines, videos and DVDs, contemporary music including Renee Geyer and Kate Ceberano and logo licensing. These are all crowded commercial markets, yet Australian taxpayers are subsidising ABC businesses to the tune of nearly $800 million each year. In broadcasting, Australia has 627 operating radio stations and 138 TV stations, plus pay TV. The internet is a further ubiquitous source of information and entertainment. Why is a government broadcaster competing in this mix?
Government broadcasting is favoured by totalitarian states and Islamic theocracies. New Zealand has no government broadcaster and the CBC in Canada gets 60 per cent of its revenue from commercials.
After Australia's spate of privatisations in the 1980s and '90s, it is intriguing that the ABC was spared. Qantas, Commonwealth Bank, the ports, airports, energy, water and others were privatised. It was OK to privatise monopolies and duopolies in essential services, yet not a government body that provides entertainment. The ABC is not a smooth-running organisation. More than 3000 complaints each quarter from fed-up audiences, staff disputes, court cases, industrial action and personal vendettas are common. The latest acrimony was last month's extraordinary threat of "Vietcong-style" attacks by staff for more pay. With a fixed budget, expect more service deterioration if management capitulates.
In July it was the staff campaign against the ABC board for acting on legal advice not to publish a dirt book on rival radio broadcaster Alan Jones. This venting included a widely signed complaint, exclamations of outrage all over the ABC airwaves including a school-marmish berating on Media Watch. Yet all this heat ignored the question of why the ABC has a book publishing business. Further is the moral bankruptcy of using the ABC's supposed scarce funds for a book attacking a person's reputation and private life.
ABC acrimony has various targets and the airwaves are used to attack people. Here's just one example of how our broadcaster treats Australia's elected Prime Minister. On nationally televised The Glass House, compere Wil Anderson (April 30, 2004) responded to a taped excerpt of John Howard:
Howard: "And I always admire somebody who in his own way for his own reasons forms a conscientious objection on something."
Anderson: "Bullshit. He admires someone who forms a conscientious objection on something (sarcastically). Yep, like the war in Iraq. Or the treatment of indigenous people. Or being screwed by a free trade agreement. Gee, John Howard must have admiration coming out of his arse!"
I challenge the Friends of ABC to name a worse example of Australian broadcasting. There are more examples like this - from the ABC. The ABC complaints process is pathetic. Material such as the above is exempt because it's in a so-called comedy program. What's worse is that ABC management and the Government tolerate personal abuse and indulgences on the airwaves as just another day at the ABC.
ABC TV and radio ratings are poor. Audiences prefer the commercial networks even with advertising. A typical week's free-to-air TV ratings are: Channel 9, 28.5 per cent; Channel 7, 27.1 per cent; Channel 10, 23.7 per cent; ABC TV, 15.8 per cent. If your footy team performed like this every week, it would be asked to leave the competition. Yet the commercial stations pay tax on profits while the low-rating ABC sucks up tax dollars and complains it doesn't get more.
The ABC is positioned in a no-man's land: it can't compete with the commercial networks, but also is too big and dull to be a niche provider. There is nothing special or unique about ABC programming. ABC radio mimics its commercial rivals with the main difference being a much fatter diet of political content. When the ABC website says one of its three "must see" TV programs is the tired British Midsomer Murders you know you're in Blandville.
Part of the dullness comes from the ABC being a big politically correct straitjacket. The dominant personalities are Phillip Adams on Radio National, ex-Whitlam staffer Kerry O'Brien on TV and perennial leftists on Media Watch, At the Movies, Four Corners et al. If the ABC decides to become true to its claim of diversity, it would stop appointing same-olds.
Tonight ABC managing director Mark Scott will release the latest ABC editorial policies at the Sydney Institute. The ABC website says it publishes the most extensive set of broadcasting guidelines in Australia. This boast is like the old Soviet Union's claims of the most extensive human rights laws in the world. But the ABC needs overhaul; rewording the most extensive guidelines in Australia is just tinkering.
Privatising the ABC would be a bonanza for taxpayers. They would be spared the nearly $800 million liability each year and sales of ABC businesses would fetch multi-billion dollar prices. Also, profitability from future services would be taxed just like the ABC's competitors. But any government knows that privatisation would incite a squealorama led by the inner-city set who need their soft-left group-think reinforcement. More valid resistance may come from people who don't want commercials. Yet SBS TV's transition to semi-commerciality has been generally hailed as a success.
Further, historian Ken Inglis's book This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1932-83 states that both the Scullin Labor government and Lyons UAP government supported an ABC Bill that allowed private sponsorship. This was overturned by amendment after pressure from newspaper proprietors who did not want advertising competition. Hardly a legitimate reason.
There are different models of privatising the ABC without reducing broadcasting services. Over the past two decades, governments have become adept at privatisations especially at getting improvements in service quality. Broadcasting asset sales would be subject to strict service standards and air time would not be reduced.
A new-look ABC would carve out the retail and other fringe businesses, say goodbye to the Ultimo bureaucracy and see a number of smaller media groups of TV and radio stations similar in size and diversity to the successful mid-size public company Southern Cross Broadcasting. First preference may be management buy-outs especially in regional Australia where the people who operate the radio station could own it. Larger asset groupings should be sold to new media entrants.
Talented and hard-working ABC staff would benefit from greater rewards, more autonomy and more professional workplaces.
The ABC is becoming less relevant and less credible. It started out with roughly 50 per cent market share of Australian media in 1932; today its total media market share must be 5 per cent or less. The Government has a clear role to regulate media, but there is no compelling reason why it should own and operate an entertainment business.
Rudi Michelson, a financial public relations consultant in Melbourne, is a fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.
Dear Sirs,
I write this in response to Rudi Michelson's article on the 16th of October calling for the privatisation of the ABC. I suspect that his original starting point of argument is in fact fundamentally flawed.
The ABC as a public broadcaster has two unique points on which it can never hope to please anyone with. If it tows the government line then it will be accused as being the government's mouthpiece. If in the event it attacks the government, then it will get its funding progressively cut. Clearly there is a fine line to be straddled.
Mr Michelson cited an example from The Glass House where in the name of satire, Wil Anderson made light hearted fun over issues which this very publication has asked serious questions? Come on now, which is it to be?
Further to this they cite the ABC being set up in response to the BBC and in deference to Britain. It is argued that the government should not hold an office by which it should be allowed to inform and entertain. Is this because The Australian is scared? Remember it is proudly owned by News Corporation, which as part of the Fox conglomerate also happens to own half of Foxtel.
How then does Foxtel raise funds? Foxtel is paid for by advertisers and subscribers. Now this is an interesting point - the BBC is paid for by subcribers (via the TV licence), in principle they are both user a pays system. In 1974 when the ABC dropped the licence fee of the basis of "equity", it was then forced to live in the government's pocket. I bet that The Australian was there 32 years ago also beying for blood. Hypocritically what does Foxtel do now? Charge a TV licence fee under a different name. Or is the newspaper prepared to distance itself from its parent corporation?
Another example Michelson gave was that New Zealand has no government stations. Has The Australian resorted to lying? TVNZ which runs One and Two in NZ is a Crown Entity and as such is in principle identical to the ABC. It is fully funded by the New Zealand Government, or has this fact been conveniently forgotten as well?
Hypocracy, Lies and Deception dressed up as editorial journalism. An Australian reader is an imformed Australian, really? Quite frankly I expected more from this newspaper.
Yours Sincereley,
Andrew Rollason
An owner of the ABC who doesn't want your filthy, immoral and corrupt mits near it.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20586352-7583,00.html
This has been stolen without permission. If the Australian wishes to charge me for the use of this article, then they're welcome. I did buy this edition of the newspaper.
Rudi Michelson: Privatise the ABC
With its poor performance, entrenched ideological bias and 'Vietcong-style' industrial strife, surely it's time we sold the public broadcaster
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 16, 2006
THE ABC in 1932 comprised 12 radio stations and was formed mainly because Australians were besotted by the British empire. Australia wanted its version of the BBC.
Postmaster-general James Fenton was typical of sentiment on the ABC Bill in Hansard in March 1932: "(The ABC will) deepen our empire spirit considerably if we, through the wireless, can listen to the greatest British artists, speakers and lecturers."
Looking back, the birth of the ABC is hardly spirit deepening. The ABC was highly censorious. It scrutinised scripts of plays to excise words such as damn, it banned certain kinds of dance music and refused outright to play jazz. Jazz was the music of black Americans. You had to apply for a licence to own a radio and only 6 per cent of Australians were affluent enough to own a radio.
Fast forward to century 21 and the reasons for establishing the ABC have become totally irrelevant. It is riddled with acrimony and operates in a range of crowded competitive markets.
The ABC today comprises businesses that include television, radio, 38 retail outlets, book publishing (over 120 titles each year), magazines, videos and DVDs, contemporary music including Renee Geyer and Kate Ceberano and logo licensing. These are all crowded commercial markets, yet Australian taxpayers are subsidising ABC businesses to the tune of nearly $800 million each year. In broadcasting, Australia has 627 operating radio stations and 138 TV stations, plus pay TV. The internet is a further ubiquitous source of information and entertainment. Why is a government broadcaster competing in this mix?
Government broadcasting is favoured by totalitarian states and Islamic theocracies. New Zealand has no government broadcaster and the CBC in Canada gets 60 per cent of its revenue from commercials.
After Australia's spate of privatisations in the 1980s and '90s, it is intriguing that the ABC was spared. Qantas, Commonwealth Bank, the ports, airports, energy, water and others were privatised. It was OK to privatise monopolies and duopolies in essential services, yet not a government body that provides entertainment. The ABC is not a smooth-running organisation. More than 3000 complaints each quarter from fed-up audiences, staff disputes, court cases, industrial action and personal vendettas are common. The latest acrimony was last month's extraordinary threat of "Vietcong-style" attacks by staff for more pay. With a fixed budget, expect more service deterioration if management capitulates.
In July it was the staff campaign against the ABC board for acting on legal advice not to publish a dirt book on rival radio broadcaster Alan Jones. This venting included a widely signed complaint, exclamations of outrage all over the ABC airwaves including a school-marmish berating on Media Watch. Yet all this heat ignored the question of why the ABC has a book publishing business. Further is the moral bankruptcy of using the ABC's supposed scarce funds for a book attacking a person's reputation and private life.
ABC acrimony has various targets and the airwaves are used to attack people. Here's just one example of how our broadcaster treats Australia's elected Prime Minister. On nationally televised The Glass House, compere Wil Anderson (April 30, 2004) responded to a taped excerpt of John Howard:
Howard: "And I always admire somebody who in his own way for his own reasons forms a conscientious objection on something."
Anderson: "Bullshit. He admires someone who forms a conscientious objection on something (sarcastically). Yep, like the war in Iraq. Or the treatment of indigenous people. Or being screwed by a free trade agreement. Gee, John Howard must have admiration coming out of his arse!"
I challenge the Friends of ABC to name a worse example of Australian broadcasting. There are more examples like this - from the ABC. The ABC complaints process is pathetic. Material such as the above is exempt because it's in a so-called comedy program. What's worse is that ABC management and the Government tolerate personal abuse and indulgences on the airwaves as just another day at the ABC.
ABC TV and radio ratings are poor. Audiences prefer the commercial networks even with advertising. A typical week's free-to-air TV ratings are: Channel 9, 28.5 per cent; Channel 7, 27.1 per cent; Channel 10, 23.7 per cent; ABC TV, 15.8 per cent. If your footy team performed like this every week, it would be asked to leave the competition. Yet the commercial stations pay tax on profits while the low-rating ABC sucks up tax dollars and complains it doesn't get more.
The ABC is positioned in a no-man's land: it can't compete with the commercial networks, but also is too big and dull to be a niche provider. There is nothing special or unique about ABC programming. ABC radio mimics its commercial rivals with the main difference being a much fatter diet of political content. When the ABC website says one of its three "must see" TV programs is the tired British Midsomer Murders you know you're in Blandville.
Part of the dullness comes from the ABC being a big politically correct straitjacket. The dominant personalities are Phillip Adams on Radio National, ex-Whitlam staffer Kerry O'Brien on TV and perennial leftists on Media Watch, At the Movies, Four Corners et al. If the ABC decides to become true to its claim of diversity, it would stop appointing same-olds.
Tonight ABC managing director Mark Scott will release the latest ABC editorial policies at the Sydney Institute. The ABC website says it publishes the most extensive set of broadcasting guidelines in Australia. This boast is like the old Soviet Union's claims of the most extensive human rights laws in the world. But the ABC needs overhaul; rewording the most extensive guidelines in Australia is just tinkering.
Privatising the ABC would be a bonanza for taxpayers. They would be spared the nearly $800 million liability each year and sales of ABC businesses would fetch multi-billion dollar prices. Also, profitability from future services would be taxed just like the ABC's competitors. But any government knows that privatisation would incite a squealorama led by the inner-city set who need their soft-left group-think reinforcement. More valid resistance may come from people who don't want commercials. Yet SBS TV's transition to semi-commerciality has been generally hailed as a success.
Further, historian Ken Inglis's book This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1932-83 states that both the Scullin Labor government and Lyons UAP government supported an ABC Bill that allowed private sponsorship. This was overturned by amendment after pressure from newspaper proprietors who did not want advertising competition. Hardly a legitimate reason.
There are different models of privatising the ABC without reducing broadcasting services. Over the past two decades, governments have become adept at privatisations especially at getting improvements in service quality. Broadcasting asset sales would be subject to strict service standards and air time would not be reduced.
A new-look ABC would carve out the retail and other fringe businesses, say goodbye to the Ultimo bureaucracy and see a number of smaller media groups of TV and radio stations similar in size and diversity to the successful mid-size public company Southern Cross Broadcasting. First preference may be management buy-outs especially in regional Australia where the people who operate the radio station could own it. Larger asset groupings should be sold to new media entrants.
Talented and hard-working ABC staff would benefit from greater rewards, more autonomy and more professional workplaces.
The ABC is becoming less relevant and less credible. It started out with roughly 50 per cent market share of Australian media in 1932; today its total media market share must be 5 per cent or less. The Government has a clear role to regulate media, but there is no compelling reason why it should own and operate an entertainment business.
Rudi Michelson, a financial public relations consultant in Melbourne, is a fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.
Dear Sirs,
I write this in response to Rudi Michelson's article on the 16th of October calling for the privatisation of the ABC. I suspect that his original starting point of argument is in fact fundamentally flawed.
The ABC as a public broadcaster has two unique points on which it can never hope to please anyone with. If it tows the government line then it will be accused as being the government's mouthpiece. If in the event it attacks the government, then it will get its funding progressively cut. Clearly there is a fine line to be straddled.
Mr Michelson cited an example from The Glass House where in the name of satire, Wil Anderson made light hearted fun over issues which this very publication has asked serious questions? Come on now, which is it to be?
Further to this they cite the ABC being set up in response to the BBC and in deference to Britain. It is argued that the government should not hold an office by which it should be allowed to inform and entertain. Is this because The Australian is scared? Remember it is proudly owned by News Corporation, which as part of the Fox conglomerate also happens to own half of Foxtel.
How then does Foxtel raise funds? Foxtel is paid for by advertisers and subscribers. Now this is an interesting point - the BBC is paid for by subcribers (via the TV licence), in principle they are both user a pays system. In 1974 when the ABC dropped the licence fee of the basis of "equity", it was then forced to live in the government's pocket. I bet that The Australian was there 32 years ago also beying for blood. Hypocritically what does Foxtel do now? Charge a TV licence fee under a different name. Or is the newspaper prepared to distance itself from its parent corporation?
Another example Michelson gave was that New Zealand has no government stations. Has The Australian resorted to lying? TVNZ which runs One and Two in NZ is a Crown Entity and as such is in principle identical to the ABC. It is fully funded by the New Zealand Government, or has this fact been conveniently forgotten as well?
Hypocracy, Lies and Deception dressed up as editorial journalism. An Australian reader is an imformed Australian, really? Quite frankly I expected more from this newspaper.
Yours Sincereley,
Andrew Rollason
An owner of the ABC who doesn't want your filthy, immoral and corrupt mits near it.
October 15, 2006
Horse 642 - I Won't Keep My Opinion to Myself
You're a big eejit!
Don't touch what doesn't belong to you. No-one intentionally plays catch with a live hand-grenade so why start now? If you want to eat fish then expect bones, and if you want to start talking crap then expect pain. Didn't common sense tell you not that what's off limits is always off limits, no matter what the circumstances?
Doesn't your conscious suggest that this is a very very bad idea? If not, hadn't you better ask it? Blindness doesn't have to result in stupidity does it?
Don't touch what doesn't belong to you. No-one intentionally plays catch with a live hand-grenade so why start now? If you want to eat fish then expect bones, and if you want to start talking crap then expect pain. Didn't common sense tell you not that what's off limits is always off limits, no matter what the circumstances?
Doesn't your conscious suggest that this is a very very bad idea? If not, hadn't you better ask it? Blindness doesn't have to result in stupidity does it?
October 11, 2006
Horse 641 - Life Imitates Art
I was looking in the Trading Post Magazine for a new car for a friend of mine. I just burst out laughing when I read this, but the car does seem like a reasonable buy for the money.
Price $12,960
Vehicle: 2000 Ford Falcon AU S Pack
Sedan - Red
Automatic Transmission
Distance: 115350km
Engine: Inline-6 4L
Plate: QGQ-175
Air-Con, Alloy Wheels, Front Air Bags, ABS Brakes, Remote Central Locking, Cruise Control, CD Player, RACV Inspected.
Now then, guess the headline that ran with the article - it's just so obvious isn't it?
Horse 640 - I Bished
1996 - Lowndes/Murphy - Number 1 plate
Craig Lowndes as the 1996 ATCC Champion won the right to wear the number 1 plate on his car until the next time the championship was run. The usual numbers of 05 and 15 were changed to reflect Mobil's wishes and for a better asthetic look on the side of their cars. So for Bathurst 1996, the Lowndes/Murphy car wore the number 1 plate.
This was not an altogether odd thing to do either. For the 1973 running of the Bathurst 1000, the Brock/Chivas car wore the number 1 after Brock had been running 28 for the 1973 ATCC Season.
For 1997 the organisation had been taken over by AVESCO, and so the Lowndes/Murphy car wore 15 which Murphy had campaigned to a very respectable 4th in the championship. The 05 car which was touted at the time as Brock's last Bathurst came nowhere in the great race with co-driver Skaife.
The rules on who had the right to take the number 1 plate had also changed. Since Bathurst was now a championship event, one had to wait until the next year before they could take over. Strictly speaking, could Lowndes/Murphy had worn 1 in 1997? Probably maybe.
October 10, 2006
Horse 639 - The Promised Land
"Andrew is at times more likely to daydream than pay attention to his work. Sometimes in art, his imagination goes to places that a normal little boy's doesn't" - Miss Silver, Year 4
You know what? Nearly 20 years later, I think that Miss Silver may have been right. Oops.
I misspelled Israellites as well.
October 09, 2006
Horse 638 - Please Don't Vote For Me
In the town of Blaine in Minnesota a candidate who is on the ballot paper for the city council elections is currently campaigning for his opponent and hoping to lose the election. Paul Herold has been officially told by the offcials that it is too late to remove his name from the ballot list, but it seems that Mr Herold has already landed himself another job and would not have time to actively represent his electorate.
Apparantly he's phoned up friends and family and appeared on local news media doing his level best to not get elected. In a bizarre twist of fate and despite this his actually still managed to advance to the next stage of elections and is now pitted against the imcumbant candidate.
Herold paid for advertising that offered to drive voters to the polling stations as long as they pledged to support anyone but him. It didn’t work. The extra media exposure made him a pseudo-celebrity in the small community. Some argued that they wouldn’t have turned out to vote had he not inspired such political curiousity.
To strike him from the ballot paper is too late, but if he gets elected against his will he would more than likely resign instantly which would mean another $30,000 would have to be spent in organising another election.
Herold stated that the only way he can get out of this would be to die, or move out of the district. Herold has been advised to offer to join the incumbent’s campaign in an effort to kickstart her campaign.
Reports have surfaced that Katherine Kolb has refused his help, arguing that his endorsement is likely to help his own candidacy. In one of the more bizarre election campaigns, a candidate who doesn’t want to run beat a candidate who wanted to win, and is poised to beat an incumbent who doesn’t want to lose. In Blaine, they may end up with a politician who doesn’t want to serve, that may have to because there is no alternative, proving that in politics, you never really know what you are getting when you cast your vote.
That's democracy at work for you - government of the people, by the people, for the people; a nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal and really really STUPID.
Apologies to Mr Lincoln
Apparantly he's phoned up friends and family and appeared on local news media doing his level best to not get elected. In a bizarre twist of fate and despite this his actually still managed to advance to the next stage of elections and is now pitted against the imcumbant candidate.
Herold paid for advertising that offered to drive voters to the polling stations as long as they pledged to support anyone but him. It didn’t work. The extra media exposure made him a pseudo-celebrity in the small community. Some argued that they wouldn’t have turned out to vote had he not inspired such political curiousity.
To strike him from the ballot paper is too late, but if he gets elected against his will he would more than likely resign instantly which would mean another $30,000 would have to be spent in organising another election.
Herold stated that the only way he can get out of this would be to die, or move out of the district. Herold has been advised to offer to join the incumbent’s campaign in an effort to kickstart her campaign.
Reports have surfaced that Katherine Kolb has refused his help, arguing that his endorsement is likely to help his own candidacy. In one of the more bizarre election campaigns, a candidate who doesn’t want to run beat a candidate who wanted to win, and is poised to beat an incumbent who doesn’t want to lose. In Blaine, they may end up with a politician who doesn’t want to serve, that may have to because there is no alternative, proving that in politics, you never really know what you are getting when you cast your vote.
That's democracy at work for you - government of the people, by the people, for the people; a nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal and really really STUPID.
Apologies to Mr Lincoln
October 08, 2006
Horse 637 - Henry Beats the General
Every year in October the nation stops to watch one of the biggest motorsport events in the world, the running of the Bathurst 1000. Some 7 hours after they begin and 1000km later, competitors will have charged around a tourist drive 161 times in the usually sleepy town of Bathurst in the NSW goldfields.
With the passing of 9 times winner Peter Brock this year's event started out emotionally but as soon as the green light came on at 10am the gloves went on and sentiment was blown out the exhaust pipe.
Holden's favourite son Mark Skaife lasted only a few hundred yards with a slipping clutch before he was smacked from behind and with him, the red menace's fortunes went to shash - by about lunchtime their second car was also kaput. By the end of the day, it emerged that the town was not painted red but blue.
The winner Craig Lowndes, dedicated yesterday's Bathurst 1000 victory to his mentor and the man who won more races at Mount Panorama than any other - Peter Brock. He also promised to take care of the inaugural Peter Brock Trophy, likely to spend its first year in Ford's headquarters. He and Jamie Whincup ended Holden's seven-year winning streak as a record number of fans paid tribute to the driver known as the King of the Mountain.
The day was especially challenging for Lowndes, a protege and friend of Brock. They went to the same school in Melbourne and played for the same football team. They stayed in close contact after Lowndes defected from Holden to Ford. Yesterday was Lowndes's second Bathurst win. His first was 10 years ago with Holden, when Brock was still part of the Holden Racing Team.
Lowndes increased his lead at the toop of the championship which means that if all keeps on going his way, it won't be 888 on the door next year but for the first time in 10 years, the number 1 plate will again be fixed to his car.
October 05, 2006
Horse 636 - We Didn't Start The Fire (But We Did Create a Lot of Confusion)
Billy Joel didn't start the fire, or so he says. If you look through the lyrics of his famous song, you soon realise that he didn't put things in chronological order either. Despite various attempts I've found to date the events, there are a number of outriders.
49 Harry Truman
49 Doris Day
49 Red China
49 Johnny Ray
49 South Pacific
48 Walter Winchell
49 Joe DiMaggio
50 Joe McCarthy
50 Richard Nixon
56 Studebaker
51 Television
50 North Korea
50 South Korea
53 Marilyn Monroe
51 Rosenbergs
51 H-bomb
51 Sugar Ray
53 Panmunjom
55 Brando
56 The King and I
51 And The Catcher In The Rye
53 Eisenhower
53 Vaccine
52 England's got a new queen
52 Marciano
53 Liberace
53 Santayana goodbye
53 Joseph Stalin
53 Malenkov
54 Nasser
53 Prokofiev
53 Rockefeller
58 Campanella
56 Communist Bloc
54 Roy Cohn
55 Juan Peron
54 Toscanini
41 Dacron
54 Dien Bien Phu Falls
52 Rock Around the Clock
55 Einstein
55 James Dean
55 Brooklyn's got a winning team
54 Davy Crockett
53 Peter Pan
56 Elvis Presley
55 Disneyland
52 Bardot
56 Budapest
56 Alabama
56 Khrushchev
56 Princess Grace
56 Peyton Place
56 Trouble in the Suez
57 Little Rock
57 Pasternak
56 Mickey Mantle
51 Kerouac
57 Sputnik
58 Chou En-Lai
57 Bridge On The River Kwai
58 Lebanon
58 Charles de Gaulle
58 California baseball
58 Starkweather homicides
62 Children of Thalidomide
59 Buddy Holly
59 Ben Hur
59 Space Monkey
59 Mafia
57 Hula Hoops
59 Castro
59 Edsel is a no-go
60 U2
60 Syngman Rhee
59 Payola
60 Kennedy
60 Chubby Checker
60 Psycho
60 Belgians in the Congo
61 Hemingway
61 Eichman
61 Stranger in a Strange Land
61 Dylan
61 Berlin
61 Bay of Pigs invasion
62 Lawrence of Arabia
64 British Beatlemania
62 Ole Miss
61 John Glenn
62 Liston beats Patterson
63 Pope Paul
63 Malcolm X
63 British Politician sex
63 J.F.K. blown away
60 Birth control
55 Ho Chi Minh
68 Richard Nixon back again
69 Moonshot
69 Woodstock
74 Watergate
74 Punk rock
77 Begin
81 Reagan
76 Palestine
76 Terror on the airline
79 Ayatollah's in Iran
79 Russians in Afghanistan
83 Wheel of Fortune
83 Sally Ride
83 Heavy metal suicide
82 Foreign debts
85 Homeless Vets
81 AIDS
85 Crack
84 Bernie Goetz
88 Hypodermics on the shores
89 China's under martial law
85 Rock and Roller Cola wars
Now the things in bold are the events which for asthetic reason have been mushed and places swapped. For all you nerdy types out there, I've included an Excel chart which actually shows something perhaps not unexpected.
Nerdy People Please Click Here for the Excel spreadsheet
A graphical analysis of the dates shows that there is a marked spike in the values for things mentioned late in the song. Consequently this song dates as 1989 (which is also the last thing mentioned)
When you apply the theory to coin collecting you can date any given hoarde by the date of the last coin. With memory on the other hand, generally history books are written for things that have happened after the event; time acts as a filter and a lot of crap magically disappears. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that the things mentioned in the immediate past are only concepts rather than actual events.
For me this song sits in the same category as REM's It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues and of course Don McLean's American Pie. It is very difficult to find anyone who can actually sing all three songs from memory - this is a feat which not even I can do.
49 Harry Truman
49 Doris Day
49 Red China
49 Johnny Ray
49 South Pacific
48 Walter Winchell
49 Joe DiMaggio
50 Joe McCarthy
50 Richard Nixon
56 Studebaker
51 Television
50 North Korea
50 South Korea
53 Marilyn Monroe
51 Rosenbergs
51 H-bomb
51 Sugar Ray
53 Panmunjom
55 Brando
56 The King and I
51 And The Catcher In The Rye
53 Eisenhower
53 Vaccine
52 England's got a new queen
52 Marciano
53 Liberace
53 Santayana goodbye
53 Joseph Stalin
53 Malenkov
54 Nasser
53 Prokofiev
53 Rockefeller
58 Campanella
56 Communist Bloc
54 Roy Cohn
55 Juan Peron
54 Toscanini
41 Dacron
54 Dien Bien Phu Falls
52 Rock Around the Clock
55 Einstein
55 James Dean
55 Brooklyn's got a winning team
54 Davy Crockett
53 Peter Pan
56 Elvis Presley
55 Disneyland
52 Bardot
56 Budapest
56 Alabama
56 Khrushchev
56 Princess Grace
56 Peyton Place
56 Trouble in the Suez
57 Little Rock
57 Pasternak
56 Mickey Mantle
51 Kerouac
57 Sputnik
58 Chou En-Lai
57 Bridge On The River Kwai
58 Lebanon
58 Charles de Gaulle
58 California baseball
58 Starkweather homicides
62 Children of Thalidomide
59 Buddy Holly
59 Ben Hur
59 Space Monkey
59 Mafia
57 Hula Hoops
59 Castro
59 Edsel is a no-go
60 U2
60 Syngman Rhee
59 Payola
60 Kennedy
60 Chubby Checker
60 Psycho
60 Belgians in the Congo
61 Hemingway
61 Eichman
61 Stranger in a Strange Land
61 Dylan
61 Berlin
61 Bay of Pigs invasion
62 Lawrence of Arabia
64 British Beatlemania
62 Ole Miss
61 John Glenn
62 Liston beats Patterson
63 Pope Paul
63 Malcolm X
63 British Politician sex
63 J.F.K. blown away
60 Birth control
55 Ho Chi Minh
68 Richard Nixon back again
69 Moonshot
69 Woodstock
74 Watergate
74 Punk rock
77 Begin
81 Reagan
76 Palestine
76 Terror on the airline
79 Ayatollah's in Iran
79 Russians in Afghanistan
83 Wheel of Fortune
83 Sally Ride
83 Heavy metal suicide
82 Foreign debts
85 Homeless Vets
81 AIDS
85 Crack
84 Bernie Goetz
88 Hypodermics on the shores
89 China's under martial law
85 Rock and Roller Cola wars
Now the things in bold are the events which for asthetic reason have been mushed and places swapped. For all you nerdy types out there, I've included an Excel chart which actually shows something perhaps not unexpected.
Nerdy People Please Click Here for the Excel spreadsheet
A graphical analysis of the dates shows that there is a marked spike in the values for things mentioned late in the song. Consequently this song dates as 1989 (which is also the last thing mentioned)
When you apply the theory to coin collecting you can date any given hoarde by the date of the last coin. With memory on the other hand, generally history books are written for things that have happened after the event; time acts as a filter and a lot of crap magically disappears. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that the things mentioned in the immediate past are only concepts rather than actual events.
For me this song sits in the same category as REM's It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues and of course Don McLean's American Pie. It is very difficult to find anyone who can actually sing all three songs from memory - this is a feat which not even I can do.
October 04, 2006
Horse 635 - NZ Rugby Sevens
The tale of Rugby is a tumlutous one with many twists and turns, from the famed split that saw the Rugby League break off in 1909 to the eventual hosting of the Rugby World Cup in 1987. Few can dispute the utter wave of joy that swept England after they won the 2003 World Cup, or the bitterness when over the course of 12 months the Wallabies managed to lose all four trophies that they held (Cook Cup, Bledisloe Cup, Tri-Nations Trophy and the World Cup).
Of course most feared of all the rugby nations in the world is that of New Zealand. That little spit of islands lying 3 hours by plane off the coast of Australia, boasts a national side that even before the kick-off is likely to make their opponents weep, if for no other reason than their war dance the "Haka" before the match. When the Bledisloe is played, Australia always goes in as underdogs for the simple reason that if New Zealand were to lose, it would be a national disgrace.
Rugby is really the only sport played in anger in New Zealand and I do literally mean "in anger".
Is it perhaps little wonder then that when it comes to the Sevens variant of Rugby, New Zealand has won all World Tournaments bar 2006 when the tiny nation of Fiji stole the cup from under their noses. Is it little wonder then that the All Blacks coach Graham Henry came out this morning with the promise to "restore NZ Rugby pride and win back the 2006-07 series.Tenei te tangata puhuru huru. Nana nei i tiki mai. Whakawhiti te ra!" The last part taken directly from the Haka and means: This is the hairy man who fetched the Sun and caused it to shine again.
New Zealand's record in the Sevens format is so blistering that when it comes to their Commonwealth Games efforts, not only have they won all three Gold Medals for the three occasions it's been part, but the have also never lost a Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens match.
Incidentally the USA leg of the tournament will be played San Diego's Petco Park on February 10-11, 2007. The pitch will line up so that one corner will line up with the foul lines from home plate.
Of course most feared of all the rugby nations in the world is that of New Zealand. That little spit of islands lying 3 hours by plane off the coast of Australia, boasts a national side that even before the kick-off is likely to make their opponents weep, if for no other reason than their war dance the "Haka" before the match. When the Bledisloe is played, Australia always goes in as underdogs for the simple reason that if New Zealand were to lose, it would be a national disgrace.
Rugby is really the only sport played in anger in New Zealand and I do literally mean "in anger".
Is it perhaps little wonder then that when it comes to the Sevens variant of Rugby, New Zealand has won all World Tournaments bar 2006 when the tiny nation of Fiji stole the cup from under their noses. Is it little wonder then that the All Blacks coach Graham Henry came out this morning with the promise to "restore NZ Rugby pride and win back the 2006-07 series.Tenei te tangata puhuru huru. Nana nei i tiki mai. Whakawhiti te ra!" The last part taken directly from the Haka and means: This is the hairy man who fetched the Sun and caused it to shine again.
New Zealand's record in the Sevens format is so blistering that when it comes to their Commonwealth Games efforts, not only have they won all three Gold Medals for the three occasions it's been part, but the have also never lost a Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens match.
Incidentally the USA leg of the tournament will be played San Diego's Petco Park on February 10-11, 2007. The pitch will line up so that one corner will line up with the foul lines from home plate.
October 02, 2006
Horse 634 - Three Mondays
The City of Sydney is bounded on three sides. To the north by the Kuring-Gai Plateau, to the south by the Woronora Plateau, to the west by the Blue Mountains and to the eastby the Pacific Ocean.
The last three weekends have been particularly interesting. The first week I saw the sun set into the Pacific Ocean, the second I managed to lose Tuesday almost in its entirety and this morning I saw the sun rise out of the Pacific Ocean.
Now I had seen the sun rise out of the ocean on a number of occasions and have even seen the little green flash that happens just before the sun rises, but when the sun sets it's something different, almost like the deep red sun is being extinguished by the water. One almost expects to see a giant puff of steam as it sinks below the surface.
If you want to know the truth, I did happen to see a giant puff of steam, but that particular cloud came from out the rear end of a 1990 Toyota Tercel - which was neither expected or nice - Poor old Kirby.
The last three weekends have been particularly interesting. The first week I saw the sun set into the Pacific Ocean, the second I managed to lose Tuesday almost in its entirety and this morning I saw the sun rise out of the Pacific Ocean.
Now I had seen the sun rise out of the ocean on a number of occasions and have even seen the little green flash that happens just before the sun rises, but when the sun sets it's something different, almost like the deep red sun is being extinguished by the water. One almost expects to see a giant puff of steam as it sinks below the surface.
If you want to know the truth, I did happen to see a giant puff of steam, but that particular cloud came from out the rear end of a 1990 Toyota Tercel - which was neither expected or nice - Poor old Kirby.
October 01, 2006
Horse 633 - Thomas
Sometimes when I'm in church I suspect that even if I'm listening to the same sermon as every one else that something either in my brain or maybe because I'm concentrating on something else like making sure the notes go to screen, causes me to take something away that either was not intended or alternatively was meant only for me.
Luke last nigth was talking about Galatians 6 and the close of the letter. I on the other hand was thinking about another comment he made part way through with regards the apostle Thomas. Now Thomas is sometimes derided as having little faith in the Bible when he demanded to see Christ's wounds, but perhaps there is another lesson to be learned here.
What is wrong with demanding proof?
If something is true then it should be able to be proved thus. Assume for a second that you happen to be a non-believer and you find someone who claims to be a Christian. Isn't it simply a matter of logic and common sense that you should be able to witness or notice a changed life? Or at very least find evidence?
Christ himself bore the scars of the price he had paid, but as Christians are we also required to be and act like Christ towards them? Thomas demanded proof probably out of a state of shock, but in the modern world where everything is plastic, fake and can be counterfeited and bought from a knock-off shop for $1.99, it would be very easy to see why people also demand proof.
Then of course if the proof isn't there, then this does bring into question what people claim. Just because something has a bill, doesn't mean it's a duck - if it looks like, sounds like and walks like a duck, then it's probably a safe bet that it is one or otherwise that thing with a bill mit just be a platypus.
Thomas demanded proof, why should the world be any different? What's wrong with giving people proof and truth?
Luke last nigth was talking about Galatians 6 and the close of the letter. I on the other hand was thinking about another comment he made part way through with regards the apostle Thomas. Now Thomas is sometimes derided as having little faith in the Bible when he demanded to see Christ's wounds, but perhaps there is another lesson to be learned here.
What is wrong with demanding proof?
If something is true then it should be able to be proved thus. Assume for a second that you happen to be a non-believer and you find someone who claims to be a Christian. Isn't it simply a matter of logic and common sense that you should be able to witness or notice a changed life? Or at very least find evidence?
Christ himself bore the scars of the price he had paid, but as Christians are we also required to be and act like Christ towards them? Thomas demanded proof probably out of a state of shock, but in the modern world where everything is plastic, fake and can be counterfeited and bought from a knock-off shop for $1.99, it would be very easy to see why people also demand proof.
Then of course if the proof isn't there, then this does bring into question what people claim. Just because something has a bill, doesn't mean it's a duck - if it looks like, sounds like and walks like a duck, then it's probably a safe bet that it is one or otherwise that thing with a bill mit just be a platypus.
Thomas demanded proof, why should the world be any different? What's wrong with giving people proof and truth?
September 29, 2006
Horse 632 - By Any Other Name
but when we're riding in my Malibu,
it's easy to get right next to you,
I say baby, scoot over please,
and then she's right there next to me
- Cake
My trip to the USA has actually lifted my opinion of the US carmakers. Despite having the double whammy of really crap fuel (at only 87RON as opposed to 91RON in Oz or 95RON in Europe), and being forced by consumers to produce big steaming piles of poo-poo they call SUV's, it would appear that their normal cars are actually starting to become somewhat sensible.
The Ford Focus is sold in the USA and actually does rather well for itself. But as I looked aorund the place, I realised that several other cars were in fact lurking under the badges of the US Auto makers probably due to percieved racism. They learnt this when Pontiac sold the Monaro as the GTO, and US buyers simply didn't take to it after they refused to let their "Goat" be built buy Australians (who it must be said actually do a better job and have tighter build quality).
The car that I happened to drive in the USA was the Chevrolet Malibu. After I thought about that above, it dawned on me that this was yet another lurker in US clothing. Check out the above comparison and tell me what you see.
That's right, it's the Vectra. The "All-American" Chevrolet Malibu is actually the Opel/Vauxhall/Holden Vectra with a different tart kit front and rear. Under the bonnet is the familiar Family 2 Ecotec engine found in Astras, Vectras, Zafiras, Movanos and Combo Vans. Also further to this, I did some research and found where the engine for this car was made - Elizabeth , South Australia!
Hmm America, you're cars have Aussie knowhow packed right under the bonnet and you didn't even realise it.
The Vectra on Australian roads is a big car, on European roads it positively massive but in America it's quite a small beast and is dwarfed by the Impala and aforementioned Stupid Utility Vehicles.
The Malibu in particular will hold some memories for me which I refuse to shake. The burgundy example I had, I was able to lend out to Katja while Kirby decided to lunch itself.
Also despite it being a wee bit too big for my liking, with Katja in the seat next to me either on the driver's or the passenger's side, the whole thing felt perfectly normal; almost like we'd been that way for years. To look across and see her smiling back was a joy to behold...
... but then, it's not really about the car, is it? ^_^
September 18, 2006
Horse 631 - 3rd & A
Sometimes upon entering a foreign land I'm filled with a sense of adventure and an almost foreboding sense of the unknown, like some vast cloud and a gap of knowledge has become blatantly apparant. Somehow when I entered the US, things were pretty well much the same, as though the country had been familiar despite never setting foot here before.
This is no more so obvious than with the people I meet. I'm sure they all find me to be rather different considering I speak with what must sound like a foreign tongue and I'm told reliably by Katja that people might think I'm weird (as if that we're a problem because let's face it, even in my own country this is still the case) but even then I don't feel particularly like an outsider; to be honest I think it might be a case of curiosity on their part.
With the email transmissions flying back and forth between Katja and myself for quite sometime, I in no way feel anywhere else like home. If this week I was supposed to be somewhere then this is it. It's not hard to feel loved, not when you have one as precious right next to you.
The Lord himself as the author and perfector of both our lives and our travellings has every day pre-written before even a single one has come to be. I'm becoming painfully aware that although I might be a repository of a hoarde of useless information, and indeed know quite a lot about how the world operates, in reality I like Issac Newton "have stood on the shoulders of giants" and "don't know 1% of 1% of anything" .
Some things however are truth cast in iron. (eye-on? aye-ron?) Awe hang it.
Time has been corrected to be correct as at here, which is both ahead and yesterday.
This is no more so obvious than with the people I meet. I'm sure they all find me to be rather different considering I speak with what must sound like a foreign tongue and I'm told reliably by Katja that people might think I'm weird (as if that we're a problem because let's face it, even in my own country this is still the case) but even then I don't feel particularly like an outsider; to be honest I think it might be a case of curiosity on their part.
With the email transmissions flying back and forth between Katja and myself for quite sometime, I in no way feel anywhere else like home. If this week I was supposed to be somewhere then this is it. It's not hard to feel loved, not when you have one as precious right next to you.
The Lord himself as the author and perfector of both our lives and our travellings has every day pre-written before even a single one has come to be. I'm becoming painfully aware that although I might be a repository of a hoarde of useless information, and indeed know quite a lot about how the world operates, in reality I like Issac Newton "have stood on the shoulders of giants" and "don't know 1% of 1% of anything" .
Some things however are truth cast in iron. (eye-on? aye-ron?) Awe hang it.
Time has been corrected to be correct as at here, which is both ahead and yesterday.
September 17, 2006
Horse 630 - Greg, the Stop Sign!
After again driving in this topsy-turvy world and being on the wrong side of the road, I have come to the stark conclusion that turning right against red lights is odd. Stop signs on all sides of a box junction is also somewhat odd. As is trying to find the BBC on the radio. Banknotes are all the same size and roughly the same colour but some things remain spectacularly the same.
People are still people who are capable of acting like sheep in front of cars, stealing your wallet right on the footpath but most of all, still capable of creating and responding to love. How crazy is that?
The more you travel over the world, the more you find just how much the same we all are... and occasionally the special ones.
People are still people who are capable of acting like sheep in front of cars, stealing your wallet right on the footpath but most of all, still capable of creating and responding to love. How crazy is that?
The more you travel over the world, the more you find just how much the same we all are... and occasionally the special ones.
September 12, 2006
Horse 629 - I Couldn't Drive Because I Was Blind
When I heard the story of a man who was stopped from driving because he was blind on the news this morning I thought that Peter Berner on The Cage may have been inventing the story as part of a comedy routine, but when Omed Aziz told London Police "I couldn't see what I was doing because I was blind" I didn't expect it to be literal.
I later heard on the BBC World Service, Mr Aziz was pulled over by police after he had swerved around two traffic islands and a corner at 35mph in a 20 zone. He had been driving by following instructions on where to steer and when to brake from a passenger who himself had been banned from driving.
When police stopped the Peugeot, Mr Aziz was asked to step out of the car and remove his sunglasses, the officer was surprised to see he did not have any eyes. Perhaps the only unsurprising thing about this story was that he had no licence and no insurance.
I could make joke about having a white cane sticking out the window or a seeing eye dog in the seat next to him. When reality is this weird, I scarcely need to.
I later heard on the BBC World Service, Mr Aziz was pulled over by police after he had swerved around two traffic islands and a corner at 35mph in a 20 zone. He had been driving by following instructions on where to steer and when to brake from a passenger who himself had been banned from driving.
When police stopped the Peugeot, Mr Aziz was asked to step out of the car and remove his sunglasses, the officer was surprised to see he did not have any eyes. Perhaps the only unsurprising thing about this story was that he had no licence and no insurance.
I could make joke about having a white cane sticking out the window or a seeing eye dog in the seat next to him. When reality is this weird, I scarcely need to.
September 11, 2006
Horse 628 - Where one's treasure lies...
The US Department of Defence for the year 2006 has an official budget of US$419.3bn Conversly the US Treasury has set aside US$400m for the purposes of research into alternate fuels but of this, only Chevron has applied for funding and for US$12m
Or to put this another way:
Killing people is 34,940 times more important than finding an alternate petrol source.
Or to put this another way:
Killing people is 34,940 times more important than finding an alternate petrol source.
Horse 627 - Left in the Digital Dust
The time is now tommorrow and I'm watching the Italian GP where the tifosi is going to go utterly mental when Schumacher again steers his scarletti stallion across the line in first place.
Being in the English speaking world we of course happen to get our feed from ITV. Or do we?
When I was a wee lad there was in fact only 3 channels in the UK - BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV which most people had on 3. Channel 4 was started in 1980 and Channel 5 started up in 1997 amidst fanfare and the Spice Girls who officially launched it.
Likewise in Australia there used to be only three stations being the ABC, Channel 7 and Channel 9. Channel 0-10 started up and SBS started in 1980.
Martin Brundle happened to mention that extra features were coming up after the GP on ITV4... what? What? WHAT?!
This shows you just how far we are behind in this jerk water burg we call Australia. Only now we have ABC, ABC2, SBS, SBS2, 7, 9 and 10. Since opening up the digital domain in the UK they now have on freeview:
BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, Channel 4, E4, Film Four, Channel 5.
The big players now have four channels at their disposal and space for datacasting and have done so since 2001. In Oz they're still arguing about Digital radio.
A report suggested that the switchoff for analogue in Australia for TV was supposed to be 2007 and for radio in 2008. I'm afraid that the roll-out has been so utterly woeful that we don't even have two digital radio networks left alone 4 spaces by the TV stations.
Now excuse me a while while I sit on the front porch with my rifle and stare at the McCoy's on the other side of the street. Hey ma, get off the dang roof! Can I eat pot roast 'till I can't eat pot roast no more?
Not if it's digital.
Being in the English speaking world we of course happen to get our feed from ITV. Or do we?
When I was a wee lad there was in fact only 3 channels in the UK - BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV which most people had on 3. Channel 4 was started in 1980 and Channel 5 started up in 1997 amidst fanfare and the Spice Girls who officially launched it.
Likewise in Australia there used to be only three stations being the ABC, Channel 7 and Channel 9. Channel 0-10 started up and SBS started in 1980.
Martin Brundle happened to mention that extra features were coming up after the GP on ITV4... what? What? WHAT?!
This shows you just how far we are behind in this jerk water burg we call Australia. Only now we have ABC, ABC2, SBS, SBS2, 7, 9 and 10. Since opening up the digital domain in the UK they now have on freeview:
BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, Channel 4, E4, Film Four, Channel 5.
The big players now have four channels at their disposal and space for datacasting and have done so since 2001. In Oz they're still arguing about Digital radio.
A report suggested that the switchoff for analogue in Australia for TV was supposed to be 2007 and for radio in 2008. I'm afraid that the roll-out has been so utterly woeful that we don't even have two digital radio networks left alone 4 spaces by the TV stations.
Now excuse me a while while I sit on the front porch with my rifle and stare at the McCoy's on the other side of the street. Hey ma, get off the dang roof! Can I eat pot roast 'till I can't eat pot roast no more?
Not if it's digital.
September 08, 2006
Horse 626 - At Death's Door
I was at Death's door today.
The problem was that Death's mail had accidentally been sent to my mailbox so I went round to his place. Naturally the doorbell didn't work so I had to knock but there wasn't anyone home. I tried to phone him up on the mobile but alas, being his phone it was as expected - dead as well. I guess that Death must have been out making a few house calls, so I left him a note.
When Death finally finally showed up at my door, he explained that he was out paying his gas and electricity bills. He used to do it at the Post Office but every time he turned up, the people behind the counter would snuff it. He explained that he went to the Electric Company's offices in person and found that it was attended by lifeless individuals and that he probably should try there in future.
He kept on leaving dusty stains on the carpet so I told Death to go away and he didn't seem very happy. I'm not looking forward to tommorrow when I have to do the accounts for his cousins War, Famine and Pestilence. War is always intent on making someone else pay for his debts, Pestilence is just a pain to work with and I feel a bit sorry for Famime - he's a bit poor.
The problem was that Death's mail had accidentally been sent to my mailbox so I went round to his place. Naturally the doorbell didn't work so I had to knock but there wasn't anyone home. I tried to phone him up on the mobile but alas, being his phone it was as expected - dead as well. I guess that Death must have been out making a few house calls, so I left him a note.
When Death finally finally showed up at my door, he explained that he was out paying his gas and electricity bills. He used to do it at the Post Office but every time he turned up, the people behind the counter would snuff it. He explained that he went to the Electric Company's offices in person and found that it was attended by lifeless individuals and that he probably should try there in future.
He kept on leaving dusty stains on the carpet so I told Death to go away and he didn't seem very happy. I'm not looking forward to tommorrow when I have to do the accounts for his cousins War, Famine and Pestilence. War is always intent on making someone else pay for his debts, Pestilence is just a pain to work with and I feel a bit sorry for Famime - he's a bit poor.
September 07, 2006
Horse 625 - Ask Koizumi!
Today marks a very auspiscious occasion here on Horse for we have with us in the studio, none other than the Japanese Prime Minister himself, Junichiro Koizumi. Seeing as Koizumi-kun's tenure as PM is about to expire, we thought we'd field some questions for the most flamboyant Prime Minister on the planet today.
Kirsty Wark - BBC Newsnight: Mr Koizumi, can you please tell us the difference between a biological and a non-biological washing powder.
Koizumi: Thank you very much. I'm not sure what this has to do with my position as Prime Minister but as far as I can tell, a biological washing powder of the type you might put into your upright automatic washing machine contains what's known as an enzyme.
An enzyme is a protein that accelerates or catalises chemical reactions. In these reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called substrates and the enzyme converts these into different molecules: the products. Like all catalysts they do not take part in the reaction, and merely speed it along.
Al Roker - NBC Today: Koizumi-san it's a pleasure to have you here today.
Koizumi: Thank you, it's nice to be here.
Al Roker - NBC Today: I was wondering, as indeed many of our viewers, where the phrase "Bob's Your Uncle" came from.
Koizumi: What's going on here? Um, I believe that it probably refers to the British Prime Minister of 3 times - Robert Salisbury and nepotism. Basically he had a useless nephew called Arthur who despite being totally unqualified and hideously unsuitable, was made a minister of the crown on no less than 4 occasions. If "Bob's Your Uncle" then I suppose it means that you're pretty well looked after.
And lastly...
Koizumi: I do hope someone asks me something useful.
Prahan Daghpur - The Times of India: I have a question to do with the cabinet.
Koizumi: Ah yes.
Prahan Daghpur - The Times of India: I have a flat-packed self-assembly Elko cabinet that I purchased from Ikea. Should I allow for ample swingway to allow the doors when hung to open without impedence?
Koizumi: I have lots of experience at putting together a cabinet as you could well imagine. Basically flat-packed self-assembly furniture has been pre cut and moulded so you need little more than an Allan key to assemble it. In most cases they benefit from a wide number of options and the ability to easily update them through the addition of for example, new cabinet doors.
And that's all we have time for today. Join us next time when we have Canadian PM Stephen Harper teach you how to make Pizzoccheri from scratch using buckwheat and egg white.
Koizumi: Can I stay for that?
September 06, 2006
Horse 624 - Authentic?
I went into an Indian restaurant this morning and wanted to get a small Chicken Korma. The place was bedecked in typical garb with kind of pointy doorways and a small shrine with some oranges in front of an elephant statue with 8 arms and incense burning away. I rung the bell and imagine the surprise that swept over me when I saw who'd arrived to take my order.
He was a short chap who with a shock of red hair and wearing a nametag which read "Bill". Now forgive me for this, but shouldn't there be an Indian person working at an Indian restaurant? I I for instance asked the question "How's your Naan?" I think he would have replied "She's old, but it's all good".
The reverse is also true. I'm all for integration into society, except I do happen to think that we lose some of its rich social tapestry when you see the shop name in Blacktown Jimmy's Chinese Tucker.
Admittedly a lot of kebab shops are quite intelligently done such as Yabba Kebaba Doo, Hommus On The Range, Absolutely Kebabulous. Even Hey Hey Kebab in Auburn always good for a laugh.
The one time that really blew me away was once when I was staying in the city of Liverpool. The city is known the world over for its Scouse dialect and accent and also co-incidentally happens to have one of the oldest Chinatown districts in the world. I was in a pub with a few of the people I was staying with and having a chat to the locals when a Chinese man walked in through the door clad in a purple pin-stripe suit much to the jubilation of the patrons; he must have been some local hero.
Anyway when he opened his gob, it wasn't Chinese or Scouse that came forth but almost unintelligble Scottish. This guy had grown up in Edinburgh and it's just not what you'd expect at all - a Chinese Scot.
He was a short chap who with a shock of red hair and wearing a nametag which read "Bill". Now forgive me for this, but shouldn't there be an Indian person working at an Indian restaurant? I I for instance asked the question "How's your Naan?" I think he would have replied "She's old, but it's all good".
The reverse is also true. I'm all for integration into society, except I do happen to think that we lose some of its rich social tapestry when you see the shop name in Blacktown Jimmy's Chinese Tucker.
Admittedly a lot of kebab shops are quite intelligently done such as Yabba Kebaba Doo, Hommus On The Range, Absolutely Kebabulous. Even Hey Hey Kebab in Auburn always good for a laugh.
The one time that really blew me away was once when I was staying in the city of Liverpool. The city is known the world over for its Scouse dialect and accent and also co-incidentally happens to have one of the oldest Chinatown districts in the world. I was in a pub with a few of the people I was staying with and having a chat to the locals when a Chinese man walked in through the door clad in a purple pin-stripe suit much to the jubilation of the patrons; he must have been some local hero.
Anyway when he opened his gob, it wasn't Chinese or Scouse that came forth but almost unintelligble Scottish. This guy had grown up in Edinburgh and it's just not what you'd expect at all - a Chinese Scot.
September 04, 2006
September 01, 2006
Horse 623 - By Any Other Name?
There is a song on the radio by a Ms Sandi Thom which sounds vaugely folky at the moment in which the chorus goes like this:
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In '77 and '69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late into a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
Having listened to this song, the only word that springs to mind is Rebellion.
The reference to "flowers in my hair" is no doubt a reference to the Summer of Love in 1967 and the wave of Hippie culture that followed. Apart from being greasy layabouts, Hippies cherished personal liberty and sought freedom from governmental interference in their private lives; in particular the legislation of sexual morality and prohibitions against psychoactive drugs. They were ethical libertarians and believed that individuals have the right to do as they wish with their own persons and property, as long as they do not infringe on the same rights of others.
Hippies came to feel that in some sense a monolithic entity had emerged; composed of corporate industry, corporate media, the military and government that exercised undue power over their lives. They often referred to this monolithic entity as "The Establishment," "Big Brother," or "The Man."
Punk on the other hand also wanted to remove "The Establishment" but sought to do so via more violent means. Punk ideology is concerned with the individual's intrinsic right to freedom, and a less restricted lifestyle. Common punk ethics include a radical rejection of conformity which at the time actually included Hippie subculture, the DIY ethic, direct action for political change, and not selling out to mainstream interests for personal gain.
What's interesting is at the heart is a desire to pull down "The System" whatever that happens to be, but as to the notion of what to replace it with is usually ill-conceived. Either way, both are focused on the rights of the individual and at their heart are for the most part intrinsically selfish.
So Sandi Thom, at the heart of the matter what you're actually saying is that: Oh I wish I was a selfish like my parents before me.
But isn't that just like everyone else whose gone before and therefore the most conformist thing you could actually say?
PS: I suppose that I shouldn't really read this much into songs like this. Take the example of "She's Leaving Home" by the Beatles. I remember once thinking "yeah stick it to the parents - woohoo" but nowadays I just get the impression that the girl in the song is an insensitive and selfish A-Grade snotticus bratticus who'll probably run home to mummy and daddy anyway when she realises how good she had it...
Um well... hmm.
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In '77 and '69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late into a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
Having listened to this song, the only word that springs to mind is Rebellion.
The reference to "flowers in my hair" is no doubt a reference to the Summer of Love in 1967 and the wave of Hippie culture that followed. Apart from being greasy layabouts, Hippies cherished personal liberty and sought freedom from governmental interference in their private lives; in particular the legislation of sexual morality and prohibitions against psychoactive drugs. They were ethical libertarians and believed that individuals have the right to do as they wish with their own persons and property, as long as they do not infringe on the same rights of others.
Hippies came to feel that in some sense a monolithic entity had emerged; composed of corporate industry, corporate media, the military and government that exercised undue power over their lives. They often referred to this monolithic entity as "The Establishment," "Big Brother," or "The Man."
Punk on the other hand also wanted to remove "The Establishment" but sought to do so via more violent means. Punk ideology is concerned with the individual's intrinsic right to freedom, and a less restricted lifestyle. Common punk ethics include a radical rejection of conformity which at the time actually included Hippie subculture, the DIY ethic, direct action for political change, and not selling out to mainstream interests for personal gain.
What's interesting is at the heart is a desire to pull down "The System" whatever that happens to be, but as to the notion of what to replace it with is usually ill-conceived. Either way, both are focused on the rights of the individual and at their heart are for the most part intrinsically selfish.
So Sandi Thom, at the heart of the matter what you're actually saying is that: Oh I wish I was a selfish like my parents before me.
But isn't that just like everyone else whose gone before and therefore the most conformist thing you could actually say?
PS: I suppose that I shouldn't really read this much into songs like this. Take the example of "She's Leaving Home" by the Beatles. I remember once thinking "yeah stick it to the parents - woohoo" but nowadays I just get the impression that the girl in the song is an insensitive and selfish A-Grade snotticus bratticus who'll probably run home to mummy and daddy anyway when she realises how good she had it...
Um well... hmm.
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