Up The Arse With An Electric Carving Knife

Maybe I shouldn't buy a rifle, because if I owned one I might be tempted to kill this man.

Capital Punishment as a debate topic has never interested me. I was/am against it. I don't think it is the role of the state or the judiciary to condemn its own citizens to death under any circumstance. It is barbarism dressed up as law. I think the USA is cheapened by its capital punishment policy. It devalues a society; this whole concept of killing its own people, no matter how monstrous some of these people are.

It's not punishment. It's revenge. Governments are to govern, not to be the moral arbiters of life and death.

And yet, when I hear the occasional story of someone killing one of these same monsters - like this one - I think to myself, "Yeah, I get that."

I condone honour killing. I do not condone state-sanctioned killing.

Of course, the more level-headed amongst us (B-Man) will point out that my definition of honour is not everyone's, and whose honour system are we meant to employ when championing the cause of honour killing?

So the only answer is that the system we have is the best. No capital punishment, and all other murders to be judged on their merits, working on the basis that murder in the first place is an offence we as a society will not condone under any circumstance, no matter how honourable it is prima-facie.

Still... if the bloke from this morning who threw his daughter off a bridge and killed her happens to get fucked up the arse with an electric carving knife in the Remand Centre kitchen tonight, I for one will not urge retribution from the perpetrator.

An open letter to God

Dear God*

So, this is your idea of a joke, is it?

Day after day of burning heat, night after night of slightly less burning heat with the result that the good citizens of Melbourne are going slightly crazy and are hanging out for the cool change due on the weekend.

The “cool change” being that temperatures will plummet to 31 DEGREES!!!!!!!!

Cool change, my sweaty arse.

I’m not even meant to be living here, you know. I’m genetically designed to be living in a bog, somewhere in Ireland. As Woody Allen once observed, I don’t tan – I stroke.

Lift your game; don’t make me come up there.

Hope the family is well.

Warmest regards,

Dr Ramon Insertnamehere.

*Not to be confused with the XTC song.

Becoming a statistic

Two weeks ago I, along with six others, was made redundant from the multi-disciplinary company where I worked. While it wasn’t that much of a shock given that the company had cut 33% of it’s staff since June last year, I didn’t think it was going to happen to me.

Unfortunately it is a not good time to be looking for work in my specific industry, has it has been badly affected by the downturn in the construction and architectural trade. There is nothing going in Sydney or Melbourne, but as construction in Queensland is still ticking over there are a few positions open that I am hoping to interview for in the next couple of weeks.

It’s at times like this that you realise the dangers of going down such a specialised career path. As the redundancy payout has whittled down, I have begun looking for work outside my industry to basically pay the rent and put food on the table.

My ego has taken a few dents in it as I have found how untranslatable my skill set is and how I’m only good for things like delivery driver or office shitkicking. I couldn’t even get an interview for an assistant manager position at McDonalds!

I am confident that things will turn around in the next 6 months as recent changes by the NSW State Government have led to solid November and December new home sales. But in the meantime, I am meeting with a pamphlet delivery company tomorrow (fucking hell, what am I 15 again?) and am seriously contemplating moving in with my mother so that I can keep making my mortgage payments.

You know, even though my position is a little perilous right now, I am actually glad I was let go. I wasn’t happy where I was (the only thing I miss about the place was the friendship I had with the guy who shared my pod) and I was already sniffing around to see what else was out there.

The potential of moving interstate for my next position is quite exciting, and I doubt I would have considered this if I wasn’t let go. And my boss is an insecure micro-managing cunt who was doing my career development no favours at all.

So all in all, things are quite good, besides the whole moving back in with mum thing. Maybe I should just sell the house instead?

Prussians but not proles, it seems.

Much brouhaha about the latest Tom Cruse flick Valkyri, which details the 1944 plot to kill Hitler.

Leaving aside the merits of the film, what nobody wants to discuss is the internal politics of the plotters. With Hitler out of the way, they intended to strike a separate peace with the western allies, the UK and the USA, leaving Germany free to continue the war against the Soviet Union.

This is clearly a less than optimal response and I can’t imagine “Smilin” Joe Stalin would have been too impressed.

It was all nonsense, of course. The west had clearly ruled anything other than “unconditional surrender” was unacceptable and the war was well and truly lost for Germany by then but the plotters’ vision for Germany was an authoritarian state, closely modelled on its Imperial past.

So a group of Prussian aristocrats try to assassinate Hitler, completely fuck up and bingo-bango, they’re (belatedly) national heroes.

Meanwhile, the real German resistance to Hitler centred on thousands of working class trade unionists, Social Democrats and communists who fought for basic human rights and a decent society (except the communists, of course, who fought for a Stalinist dictatorship).

And people like Georg Elser, a carpenter and communist party supporter who, in 1939, probably came closer than anyone to knocking off the big H.

But we can’t have Tom Cruse portraying a working class, trade unionist, communist party supporter now, can we? The marketing people would have a fit.

Eureka!

Isosceles, Pythagoras and Archimedes are sitting in a bar, throwing back a few shots of ouzo with red wine chasers.

Isosceles is eyeing off the barmaid, whose every move he studies with the precision of a mathematician and the astuteness of a barfly.

"Hey," he begins, turning to his drinking companions. "I just came up with an idea for a great shape. Picture it boys. A triangle with 2 equal sides and 2 equal angles."

He leans back in his chair, waiting for a response.

"Jesus," said Archimedes, straightening up. "That's a ripper triangle! I like it. I like it a lot."

"Very geometric," contributes Pythagoras, wiping ash from his shirt and stubbing out his cigarette. "Indeed. Let's call it the Isosceles Triangle!"

Archimedes raises his glass. "To the Isosceles triangle!"

"No, no," begs a humble Isosceles. "It really isn't necessary..."

"Nonsense!" interrupts Pythagoras. "The Isosceles Triangle it is!"

"Well if you insist..."

"I do!"

"Thank you."

"Hey. While we're on the subject. Listen to this. Just thought of it then. Imagine a right angled triangle, right? Well, the sum of the square of the 2 sides intersecting the right angle equals the square of the hypotenuse."

The others had to think about this and did few examples in their heads. Archimedes even scrawled one on a serviette.

"Fuck me!" exclaimed Isosceles. "You're right."

"Oh I'm right," said Pythagroas, lighting another smoke.

"Imagine the implications for the world of mathematics," said Archimedes.

"Not to mention building, design and hammerthrowing," added Isosceles.

"It's brilliant, no?" whispered Pythagoras.

"It is," said Isosceles. "Let's call it the Pythagoras Theorem."

"Pythagorean Theorem," corrected Archimedes, raising his glass. "To the Pythagorean Theorem!"

The skolled their ouzo.

"Lads, great work," said Archimedes. "How about this? A triangle with 3 unequal sides!"

"Good Lord!" cried Pythagoras. "A marvellous revelation it be!"

"Too right," said Isoceles, shaking his head. "Let's call it a Scalene Triangle!"

There was silence.

"Yeah," said Pythagoras slowly. "Scalene. I like it. That's quite good Isos."

"What!" shouted an upset Archimedes.

"Scalene," repeated Isosceles, warming to the idea.

"You're shitting me!" said Archimedes, standing up suddenly and knocking his glass onto the floor. "Scalene! What the fuck!"

"Calm down Arch," said Pythagoras. "It's a perfect title."

"Why not the Archimedes Triangle?"

"Why, you arrogant bastard!" said Isosceles, shaking his head.

"Humility Arch, humility," said Pythagoras.

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!"

"Come on, have another drink," said Isosceles, getting the waitress's attention.

"With you 2! Ha! You pieces of shit can go fuck yourselves! I'm going home for a bath!"

Poetry Slam Friday, Two!

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

I like to murmur the last line to myself on the train home. I find other passengers giving me a wide berth as a result.

And, by gum, this bloke has certainly got our number.

The paper quotes Islamic cleric Abu Hamza as saying

They think happiness can be achieved by being intoxicated, by going to the casino and blowing your money away, by going from one prostitute to the other.

Uncanny, eh?

Now what are they going to use?

Bananarama - no relation to Barak Obama, sadly.

I’m delighted that Barak Obama is now President of the United States and not for just the usual reasons.

Part of my glee stems from the fact that the fuck-knuckles of the Australian loopy left will have real problems with an Obama Presidency. Not because they will, in any way, welcome President Obama; in their heart of hearts they despise the democratic process and actually believe the US is a quasi-fascist state.

No, the reason is that when the Obama administration does something which displeases them and they take to the streets, do you think they’ll be able to burn pictures and effigies of a young, progressive, charismatic, black President?

I don’t fucking think so. That’s not going to play too well on the evening news.

Expect to see more generic “Uncle Sams” being denounced, burnt and spat on in the foreseeable future.

Three folktales

The Devil is in Chelm when he sees a young man in the town square, hammering nails into a CD of Sting’s greatest hits.

“Young man,” says the Devil “I can give you gold, women, and power over others in this world. But you must guarantee me your soul.”

“What?” says the young man.

“Gold, women, power,” says the Devil, speaking more slowly this time, “but you must give me your soul when you die.”

“What?” says the young man.

“This aggravation I don’t need,” says the Devil and vanishes in a puff of sulphur as the young man continues his hammering.

Moral: Why does the Devil spend so much time in Chelm, looking for souls? Is he an idiot or something?

===========================================

Irish champion Finn MacCool makes a bet with his neighbour that whoever can row across the loch and set their hand on the far shore will be entitled to that land and all the Irish-themed pubs it can support.

The deal agreed, both men set off the next morning to row across the loch.

Soon Finn pulls far ahead.

“Man, this is going to be great,” thinks Finn MacCool, “I’ll call my first pub Bridie O’Reilly’s and folk will come from far and wide to have the crap kicked out of them by dim-witted thugs.”

Not to be outdone however, Finn’s neighbour draws his sword, cuts off his left hand and throws into onto the far bank, winning the bet.

“O.K.” thinks Finn to himself, “This bloke is a complete fecking lunatic” and makes a mental note to move as soon as possible.

Moral: Don’t mess with people from Ulster. They’re complete fecking lunatics.

============================================

Once upon a time, there lived an old man and woman who were so poor they had nothing to eat but salad.

One night the old man goes out to have a quiet smoke and sees a faerie in the back garden, also enjoying a ciggie.

“Shit;” says the creature, “don’t tell the others I’ve been smoking and I’ll grant you three wishes.”

Overjoyed, the man rushes back into the house to tell his wife.

“Oh, I wish we had a salad spinner,” cries his wife and there on the table, appears the magic salad spinner.

“A salad spinner!” says the old man, “who the fuck wishes for a salad spinner,’ and goes down the pub before something else stupid can happen.

Moral: There always seems to be something that goes wrong with this whole “three wishes” caper, doesn’t there? Boy, you wouldn’t catch me in one of those scenarios.

One for you Pers, I think

Some time ago, our old friend Perseus mentioned his amazing skills in dream interpretation.

I’m glad he did, because I had a dream the other night and it’s got me flummoxed about what it could all mean.

Here we ago.

For some reason, I’m pitching an idea to a book to Nigella Lawson. It will be a collection of erotica, linked by recipes. I’ll do the writing and Nigella will do the recipes, with a tentative title of Those breasts look delightful, do you mind if I put them with my spatchcock.

Nigella loves the idea, the book is a tremendous success and we tour the world together, promoting it.

Oh and we have sex, as well.

So, over to the brains trust – any idea about what it could all mean?

You're Shittin' Me!

Surely this is some sort of ridiculous joke.

We do not need the Olympics in Melbourne and I for one certainly don't want them.

Although I love sport and there are always some incredible individual achievements that occur during the games, the amount spent on the opening and closing ceremonies is surely the BIGGEST waste of money that occurs over any four year period on Earth, it causes major inconvenience for locals and hosting the games is nothing more than a big, throbbing cock for the premier and lord mayor. No city profits from hosting the Olympics. We had the retarded and pointless Commonwealth Games just recently, Sydney had the Olympics in 2000 (Sydney's in the same country as Melbourne) and we (Melbourne) had them back in '56. Once a century is more than enough thanks very much. Not in my back yard. Fuck off.

Oh, and no excuses like 'but it will improve our public transport infrastructure'. That needs to be done anyway, and right NOW, Kosky/Brumby you fucking nincompoops.

Poetry slam Friday!

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,

The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains: round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away

The World Game

I'm reading a moderately interesting book about the history of football (or 'soccer' as we call it here). It's a serious study, and quite a long and heavy book but I have to read it because a dear friend lent it to me - someone who I admire - and said I had to read it and I didn't have the courage to say 'no'. It's not that I don't want to read it, but when I have so many books piled up with more literary value I'd rather watch a BBC documentary on this topic than read a 900+ page small-fonted book.

But, I am enjoying it on a kind anthropological level.

In the introduction, the writer suggested that soccer has permeated the cultures of every country on Earth in a way that no other sport or precise cultural activity has. The last World Cup final was watched by half the world, allegedly. He said something along the lines that no other thing on Earth could get three billion people doing the same thing at the same time, peacefully.

He tried to think of some other pursuit that has permeated all cultures. Not a product as such (eg: Coca-Cola is known everywhere, but Coca-Cola is one brand, just like, say, Manchester United is). The best he could come up with was MTV - an institution that in turn promotes many different bands - but many hardcore Arab states may block that, not to mention the poorer places that don't have tellies.

So I got to thinking about things that have cultural significance in every place on Earth.

Microsoft? I reckon that's everywhere, but unlike soccer, it's not something that people are passionate about. I think it may have commercial significance, but probably not cultural significance.

CNN? Nope, Al-jazeera would tackle that notion.

AC/DC, the band? Nope. A product.

The Metric system? Nope.

A4 paper? Close, but still not cultural (A4 paper is surely the standard in all nations).

Red Cross? Hmmm - yes, probably known everywhere, but it doesn't inspire an opinion, as such.

The closest I got was: Coffee drinking.

You know, he may have a point. In life, we have rituals around births, deaths and marraiges, and all the rest is kinda personal, or tribal, but not so much global. We don't have global laws (well, none that stick), or global opinions, or global agreement on anything, except for the rules of soccer which are global, and we also share a love of it (mostly). Not so much here or the US, but we are catching up slowly.

Soccer transcends race, wealth, politics, religion... gender is perhaps the missing thing in all that, but if its the best thing we have as a planet, then maybe we need to give it some credit, and perhaps, lean on it a bit to set standards for the rest of the world to look up to.

Israel vs Palestine, shaking hands after the match, playing fairly. That could do more for the current situation than any amount of Annie Lennoxes and John Pilgers talking shit.

National Parks

My wife, my son and I spent the last 5 days in Far North Queensland. Wonderful country up there.

Spent time in the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation where I almost entangled myself in the largest spider web, complete with the largest spider - larger than my hand - that I'd EVER seen in the wild. Waded through crocodile infested creeks, swam in stinger-infested waters, snorkelled on the reef where I saw a huge sea turtle (the largest I'd seen in the wild - EVER), toured the Atherton Tablelands (named after England's finest test captain) and drank copious amounts of beer while sitting by a pool/in a bar/on the beach. Further it rained 400mm in 24 hours on our last day there. Amazing, amazing rain*. Had a lovely time, thanks very much.

While exploring the Daintree it occurred to me that it would be a hell of a shame if the average clown couldn't access Australia's (and the world's) very best national parks and finest scenery. And yet that's what the Daintree protesters were effectively campaigning against in 1983.

They had some great points. The rainforest absolutely should be protected from logging, mining, excessive tourism and associated infrastructure. But what if nobody could actually see the rainforest? Yes it's great to know it's there and that the ecology is being protected by national park and world heritage status but if the average citizen could never gain access, how could we possibly appreciate its beauty, significance and need for preservation? People need to see these pristine, virtually untouched slabs of nature so they can go back home, tell their friends about it and agree that they should be protected from destruction.

As it happened, some of the hippies' fears did rear their ugly heads. Some dodgy development has unfortunately occurred. That's why there needs to be a balance. There's nothing wrong with roads accessing national parks (yes, some forest must be cleared of course). There's nothing wrong with controlled 4WD tracks (by controlled I mean limited tracks, no 'off-track' driving, no camping, no fires etc) and nor is there anything wrong with tourists visiting these parks, as long as the road isn't lined with resorts, ice-cream shops and souvenir stands.

If Joe the Plumber sits at home in Craigieburn in front of his widescreen tv and never sees such environmental beauty, it's much easier for him to vote for chopping it down.

*Melbourne's average annual rainfall is 650mm.

They want us to buy what?

There are a great many things I waste my money on; beer, coffee, the Age, books on obscure aspects of history that one day I will read.

One product, however, that falls into the “why the fuck would anybody in their right mind buy that” is currently being flogged by the ABC - a three CD collection of one-hit wonders from the Countdown archives.

What. The. Fuck?

Surely one of the defining features of the one-hit wonder is that people actually didn’t like them all that much. The thought that people might shell out their hard-earned on a mixed collection of musical duds is being a touch optimistic, I would suggest.

And fuck, I hate Countdown.

Everybody raves about how it was a “ground breaking experience” and “paved the way for the future of Australian music*”. Well, sod that.

Looking at the old shows reveals it was obsessed with mainstream pap; John Farnham, Sherbet, The Ted Mulry Gang, for fuck’s sake. No Nick Cave, no Saints, no Triffids, no Go-Betweens.

Countdown and its cheer-squad can go fuck themselves.

*Sadly, given the future of Australian music seems to be Delta Goodrum and Australian Idol, I fear this may have been true.

Dorothy Parker Friday. Part Two.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

A medley of extemporanea;

And love is a thing that can never go wrong,

And I am Marie of Romania.

That Dorothy Parker, eh?

What a card!

I think my favourite DP story relates (from memory) to her honeymoon. An old friend asked at the front desk of the hotel where DP was staying, whether she could come up and visit.

“Tell her to come back tomorrow,” DP replied “I’ll be too fucking busy or visa versa.”

Sigh!

People who really have too much time on their hands have been running around in small circles, barking excitedly, about the hoax* perpetrated on the editor of Quadrant magazine, Keith Windschuttle.

For those who really care, details can be found here.

For what it’s worth, Windschuttle is a goose** who should have checked his facts but given some of the nonsense Crikey has been publishing recently, they’re really not in a position to boast.

It’s all just too similar to Pandagate.

Remember Pandagate?

No, nobody else does either.

*I’m just disappointed nobody has called it Quadrantgate.

**Who started off his public career as a hard core lefty.

Car Crash

Yesterday there was a car crash about twenty metres from my house. Full report is here, and it lead the news bulletins in Victoria last night. In short: Car drives up on footpath - 14 injured.

Yeah, I live in Lorne.

I was sitting in my front courtyard leaving a message on my friend Melody's phone at the time. The crash shook my house's windows and Melody later reported that it was clearly audible on the message.

Lorne is a small town of only 950 people, but at this time of year there's anywhere up to 20,000 people hanging about. It's a tourist town, right by the beach and there's plenty of holiday accommodation. Yesterday was perfect seaside weather. Sunny and blue sky, hot but not oppressive and thousands of people were walking around eating icecreams and yapping and being happy when this car suddenly drives up the footpath, plows through all the pedestrians and then crashes through a fence and lands on top of some other cars in a picnic area carpark at the resort.

I was on the scene in seconds - along with about a thousand other people who were either screaming in horrow, howling with trauma, assessing injuries, picking themselves off the ground where they had dived to get out of the way, or desperately trying to help.

Fortunately, nobody died (though one poor little kid has spinal damage).

My observations:

* The car that caused the damage was on top of some other cars, smoking badly, and I kid you not, about 60-80 people converged upon it to free the three occupants within seconds of it happening. I don't know much about cars and fire, but in the movies it would have exploded and who are we to say that it wouldn't happen in real life? There were so many people rushing to help that I almost had to join a queue to lend assistance. A few hours later it made me feel better about the human species. Say what you will of how horrible we all are, but in a crisis, we're not too bad. For about half an hour afterwards, anyone who looked slightly off was given attention, free food and drink from local cafes, anything they wanted. It was actually quite touching.

* Seeing the little kids in pain was awful, but just as awful was the trauma of their parents and families. I'm not a parent, so I can only imagine what they were going through. Those poor people.

* There happened to be a doctor walking past who took immediate control of the situation and was yelling orders at everyone (he told me off for offering water to victims... I never knew that would/could be a bad thing but I do now). He was bloody brilliant, and he was running from one victim to the next very quickly assessing the damage and giving stern but professional orders to everyone. Oh, and he was Vietnamese-looking. Hey, Pauline Hanson: FUCK YOU. I prefer a legend like this bloke in my country to you or anyone who digs you.

* Police, CFA, ambulances, SES, medical choppers and hospital transporters were all there in under six or seven minutes which was remarkable given a) the small town thing and b) the intense traffic jams. I sat back and marvelled at all of them.

In the end, aside from being one of the possibly hundreds that made the 000 call and offering a sip of water and a cigarette to one bloke who had managed to jump out of the way just in time, my involvement in this episode was zero. It was carnage outside my front door, but I was safe and snug, and all that's left this morning is a temporary fence... my best wishes go to all the injured and their families.

**

In other news, tomorrow, I'm going away for three nights with my new chick who I'm calling for the moment Andromeda 3.4 (if it gets serious, she's promoted to Andromeda 4.0). Going away and spending 72 hours together is perhaps a little risky so early in the romance, but I figure it will mean we can quickly determine whether or not there's a future in it. Here's hoping... but even if the romance dies, at least we'll be in good company whilst we're away: Nick Cave, The Saints, The Dirty Three, Smog. Music heaven on Mt. Buller. Can't wait.

Seeyas next week.

Fame is the spur

Despite being a radio journo, I still managed to get my face on the television news on a number of occasions – usually in a media scrum; a) looking bored, b) checking the sound levels, c) scowling or d) staring off into the middle distance, wondering when I could sneak away and have a quiet ciggie.

I never gave it any thought until I was standing in the check-out at Coles some years ago and the check-out chick said to me “You look familiar. Have I seen you on the tellie?”

There followed a slightly surreal conversation, where I attempted to persuade her that no, I wasn’t famous and my autograph would have very little re-sale value.

This got me thinking about what it must be like to be truly famous, to achieve that level of fame where you can’t even go to the cricket without your mug appearing in the papers and where bogans fell compelled to comment on your tattoo.

Much like Lara Bingle (left).

At some point you must start believing your own bullshit, that you are a wonderful, talented individual and anybody that thinks differently must be a “jelus h8ter”.

It must do your head in.

At which point you feel qualified to comment on Middle Eastern politics.

Dlisters demand "stop this now, please".

Eighties singer Grace Knight, formerly of the Eurogliders has joined the list of celebrities demanding Israel “something, something”.

Ms Knight appeared on stage with the leader singers of Wa Wa Nee, The Ted Mulry Gang and Brian Mannix to deliver an impassioned plea in something that closely resembled English.

“I’m just so appalled,” Ms Knight said.

“I mean I thought, like everybody else, we’d finally seen the last of Annie Lennox and bugger-me-dead – she pops up large as life and twice as gruesome.

“Well, two can play at that game sweetie.”

When asked what credentials or expertise she had on the Middle East and why she was suddenly taking an interest in a complicated situation dating back to the 1920s, Ms Knight attempted to break into a “funk-grove” before falling off the stage.

Reports that Boy George is contemplating re-issuing “War (is stupid)” has caused wide-spread rioting among music fans.

Perils at the Prince

I went to see Fleet Foxes at the Prince of Wales last night. Great gig, excellent band and a pretty good venue despite the fire risk.

Trouble is, I'm starting to think I don't enjoy gigs as much as I used to. Perhaps I'm getting too old. I mean, jesus, they didn't come on until 11.30. Most nights I've been in bed for at least an hour by then. I have a 3 year old, you see. Further, it's hell getting to the bar, when you do the beer is overpriced and forget trying to get to the toilets unless you want to miss half the set. Then there are the dickheads filming the show on their stupid phones (which should only be used to make calls as far as I'm concerned - and I'm no luddite) and yelling out for specific songs as though the band didn't have a set list or any idea about what they were going to do next.

There's always some 6 foot 5 arsehole standing right in front of me, a dancing looney to my right and a group of 3 clowns discussing the show, their shoes, the weather to my left. Finally, for some reason, I'm always the hapless sap who inadvertanty indicates to everyone present that the path between the toilets and the bar passes immediately in front of me. I spend much of my time manoeuvring out of people's way and jumping about in pain because some lumbering dimwit has stepped on my foot. And I paid $45 for the privilege. Lucky me.

Or does your belief in free-speech only stretch so far?

Readers with a long memory will recall Australia’s leading cry-baby cartoonist Michael Leunig got all hot and heavy back in 2006 when somebody send one of his hilarious anti-Semitic anti-Zionist drawings to the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri, without his permission.

The paper was running at the time a series of cartoons suggesting the Holocaust was a "malicious hoax".

Poor old Mike had a bit of a sook, suggesting it was all the work of the “pro-war lobby” and thanked Hamshahri. The Melbourne Age reported at the time;

Leunig said the editors of the Iranian website had been "the first to defuse this", removing the cartoon immediately and apologising. He said he was pleased the editors were "acting in the interests of truth".

Mike went further and said the Iranian Government “cared”.

It was later revealed the cartoon had been sent as a prank by one of The Chaser team – an organisation not previously noted for its blood-thirsty, pro-war rhetoric.

Perhaps Mike might now like to take up cudgels on behalf of an Iranian newspaper which has been recently shut down by the Government for daring to suggest Hamas may not, in fact, be heroic freedom fighters.

AFP notes;

The Iranian press watchdog shut down leading reformist newspaper Kargozaran on Wednesday over publication of a piece criticising Palestinian militants, the official IRNA news agency reported…

He said the ban was ordered over "a piece yesterday which justifies the Zionist regime's crimes against humanity in Gaza and portrays the Palestinian resistance as terrorists who cause the deaths of children and civilians by taking up position in kindergartens and hospitals."

How about it, Mike?

Bob is Legend

So anyway, I wake up to find that a virus has wiped out the Earth’s population except for me and 9 beautiful, ethnically diverse women aged between 18 and 35. We come together through a series of coincidences and ingenious communication methods far too complex to explain here, settle down to live together in a large mansion in East Melbourne overlooking the Fitzroy Gardens and get along swimmingly.

Luckily one of the beautiful women is an excellent chef and is more than happy to cook for the rest of us each night. The mansion has an excellent industrial kitchen. Another of the women, fortuitously, is a former topless model and domestic maid who is neither a bogan nor a nag. She keeps the place spotless and looks great doing it.

We live happily, have incredible sex and chat about literature, music and films. Until I start to get bored with living in Australia and decide I want to live in a castle in the south of France. Luckily, one of the girls is a sea captain, so we drive in a convoy of luxury 4WDs – global warming is no longer a concern – to Darwin where we commandeer a sturdy, oceangoing fishing vessel and set sail for mainland Asia. We soon make land, stumble across a limousine that holds 10 (one of the girls is, would you believe it, a chauffeur) and has a large stock of liquor (not that the supply of liquor is going to be a problem…although beer may be an issue after a year and wine after 20 but Janine, the chef, assures me she can brew both wine and beer, phew) and travel across Asia, the Middle East and Europe – stopping at various points of interest – until we reach the south of France. Food hasn’t been a problem yet: there’re plenty of tins of food and we, of course, collected plenty of stuff as we traveled.

Luckily for us, one of the girls happens to be a superb physician and surgeon (with a great set of tits it must be said) so sets our minds at ease regarding potentially fatal illnesses. The Indian girl is a farmer and sets about managing our property with a view to long term nutritional requirements. We gather sheep, goats, chickens and a brown cow by the name of Greg, begin growing vegetables and grain crops and soon become self sufficient. The engineer amongst us – Madderly the German – not only sucks great cock but manages to keep our electricity running via a generator powered by food scraps. She also builds an Archimedes screw to ensure constant fresh water – the river is a 12 minute walk from the drawing room. After several years we realise that we have, probably as a result of the virus, become immortal which I consider most convenient because I’m really starting to enjoy my new life.

Some of us take occasional trips to Africa and northern Europe and occasionally Asia, just to keep the relationship(s) alive, while several others stay home at the castle and hold the fort, so to speak. We’re occasionally tormented by packs of wild dogs but luckily Bambi is an excellent shot and keeps them at bay.

It’s a lovely life and only good seems to have come from the end of humanity as we know it.