At long last, the depressing Marxist poem. Yay!

You gentlemen who think you have a mission
To purge us of the seven deadly sins
Should first sort out the basic food position
Then start your preaching, that's where it begins

You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as well
Should learn, for once, the way the world is run
However much you twist or whatever lies that you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on

So first make sure that those who are now starving
Get proper helpings when we all start carving
What keeps mankind alive?

What keeps mankind alive?
The fact that millions are daily tortured
Stifled, punished, silenced and oppressed
Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance
In keeping its humanity repressed
And for once you must try not to shirk the facts
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.

I have a recording of Tom Waites singing this.

It always gets people up and dancing at parties.

Questions to which the answer is "yes".

The ABC’s medical reporter Sophie Scott looks at a recent critical report from House of Common’s science and technology committee into homeopathic remedies and asks “Are patients being hoodwinked”.

The answer, of course, is a resounding “yes”.

The report notes;

A new British parliamentary report says patients are being hoodwinked by ineffective homeopathic treatments.

The report found that homeopathy is "scientifically implausible" and works no better than placebos.

Homoeopathy is a natural therapy where an active ingredient is diluted again and again until there is very little of the original substance left.

It originated in Germany in the 1700s, and is widely used in Britain and some parts of Europe, with a growing following in Australia.

British MP and United Kingdom science and technology committee member, Phil Willis, says homeopathic products are not medicines and should no longer be licensed by the British National Health Service (NHS).

"This is a fundamental point of principle as to whether we are actually hoodwinking individual patients, and they are being given a treatment that the NHS knows does not work," he said.

The report couldn’t be plainer; homeopathic remedies are nothing more than water and any beneficial result is purely as a result of the placebo* effect. Sure, you can use them if you want to and it’s entirely up to you if you’re the sort of dill that believes this guff but the danger arises if you use homeopathic remedies instead of scientifically proven remedies – such as taking homeopathic remedies against malaria.

But I do like this response from the Australian Homeopathy Association's Michelle Hookham who says the committee was biased and only considered "one kind of scientific evidence".

Yeah, that kind of beastly scientific evidence that uses empirical research and double-blind trials instead of the magical effect of pixies.

* Not the band.

Christian Doppler Week!

God bless you, Christian Doppler!

As many of you are aware, the Doppler Effect was first identified in 1842 by Austrian physicist Christian Doppler in his absolutely cracking work Über das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne und einiger anderer Gestirne des Himmels.

However, I realise some may be unfamiliar with this seminal piece, so in the interest of promoting the groundbreaking work of Herr Doppler, I provide a brief summary.

The Doppler Effect is that effect when the pitch of a sound coming from a moving object – say, the horn on a train – appears to change even though passengers on said train would hear no alteration. This is because the sound waves ahead of the train from the horn are compressed while the waves behind the train are elongated, thus producing this apparent change.

It can also apply to astronomy, where galaxies moving towards our solar system are observed to be a different colour than those galaxies moving away from us; a process known as Doppler colour-shifting.

Now, thanks to Christian Doppler, we can talk with some confidence about “the Doppler Effect” instead of mumbling pathetically about “that weirdo thing with the train horn.”

Please, there’s no need to thank me.

Barnaby - A Top Joyce

A left-leaning Barnaby Joyce?

I suspect this is where Labor's focus should be as we move towards the 2010 election.

Fancy Barnaby Joyce not being deemed fit for the job of shadow finance minister.

Who'd have thought it?

And on a lighter note...

I can haz Poetry Slam Friday?

Speak low when you speak, love,
Our summer day withers away
Too soon, too soon.
Speak low when you speak, love,
Our moment is swift, like ships adrift,
We're swept apart too soon.
Speak low, darling speak low,
Love is a spark lost in the dark,
Too soon, too soon,
I feel wherever I go
That tomorrow is near, tomorrow is here
And always too soon.
Time is so old and love so brief,
Love is pure gold and time a thief.
We're late darling, we're late,
The curtain descends, ev'rything ends
Too soon, too soon,
I wait darling, I wait
Will you speak low to me,
Speak love to me and soon.

I was going to do a depressing Marxist poem for PSF but after Bob's post, I thought it might be too much of an Alexander*

Enjoy this one instead!

* Alexander Downer - get it?

The Needle and the Damage Done

It seems many of this city's most despicable, lowlife junkies have shifted from the decrepit environs of Smith St to the Vietnamese-restaurant-lined Victoria St. They're everywhere wearing their adidas tracksuit pants with no accompanying top, and walking all fast and jittery. Often yelling at respectable people, motorists and each other.

I was loitering recently outside one of my favourite of these restaurants, waiting for Tex to arrive - he's always late yet I continue to arrive on time because, well, that's what I do - when this filthy piece of shit came marching along the street while his 3-year-old son drove a motorised toy car behind him. The following 'conversation' ensued:

Boy: Dad, can I please have a donut?

Dad (yelling): I already fucken told you I left my fucken wallet at home, don't you fucken listen to me?

Boy:
Sorry...

Dad: You're a fucken stupid little arsehole! How many fucken times do I have to tell you something you dipshit! I'll push you into the traffic and that'll fucken teach you!

Dad pretends to push boy into the traffic. He was out of control, just stopping short of physically assaulting the boy.

Boy has by now covered his ears with his hands to block out what is, it seems, a common occurrence.

Meanwhile I'm watching, wondering whether it was within my rights to walk up and punch the junkie in the face, grab the kid and run to the police station. I was so very close to hitting this guy. This poor kid (who will probably one day become his father - just as his father was, probably, once upon a time this poor kid) did nothing to deserve this treatment or this father. The Dad's reaction was so over the top, so out of proportion, that he could only have been either on drugs, or needing the next hit.

Eventually, Dad and Boy walk off and stop outside a house in an adjoining street. The Dad leaves the Boy parked in his toy car outside the house and disappears inside - for ten minutes.

A police car drives past, I wave it down and explain what had just happened. The police show some measure of concern and they go and talk to the Dad. After about 3 minutes they leave and that's that.

This (along with a story I read recently in The Monthly about a 7 year old girl called 'Ebony', who was so badly negelcted that she ended up dying in her locked and boarded-up bedroom fouled by her own faeces and urine) makes me look at my own 4 year old boy (who, at least for now, idolises me) and wonder how this kind of mistreatment is possible.

It Gets Better Every Time

In other news, a recent post by Lewd Bob rightfully named and shamed some wanker psychologist for claiming that the coffee we drink can 'tell' us something about ourselves.

In the midst of the comments, many of you came to the protection of Psychology, and so you should, but my argument at the time was that popular psychology saturates the media, and it is mostly, from my vantage point atop my soapbox, fucking rubbish.

The latest example is some group that examines people's Facebook status and is attempting to glean the mood / morale of entire nations.

"The creator of the index, Adam Kramer, a social psychology student at the University of Oregon (who happens to be 72 percent happier than the average American Facebook user) explains on his blog; "every day, through Facebook status updates, people share how they feel with those who matter most in their lives. These updates are tiny windows into how people are doing." From this angle it looks like social media could be the brave new frontier of the science of happiness."

Facebook the science of happiness? A 'social psychology' student getting the headlines? I rest my case. The whole article is here.

In other other news, vale Ruby Hunter.

Oh When The Saints Go Marching In

I read an article in the paper today (can’t find it online) about how gay men in elite sports are highly reluctant to ‘come out’ as it would diminish their earning capacity, interrupt their careers (because the spotlight would be on their sexuality, not their sporting prowess), elevate them to being gay spokespeople (which is not why they play sport) and result in barrages of abuse from Neanderthal poof-bashin’ fans. One elite sportsman who has come out said that he knows of many gay elite sportsmen, none of whom will come out publically. He went on to say (and I paraphrase) that so-called evil organizations such as banks and mining companies have sorted all this out (gay employees in Western society these days are not only protected legislatively, they also largely don’t need protection ‘cos most of us don’t give a shit whether someone is gay or not), and yet sporting organizations are dragging their knuckles on the issue.

But, yesterday’s Andrew Lovett thing did make me proud of the AFL.

Andrew Lovett, a very talented player (with one of the best running actions I have ever seen) has been sacked from his new team St Kilda. At his old team Essendon he was in some trouble for bashing his missus and some other alcohol-related incidents. Despite his talent, they got rid of him and the Saints picked him up late last year. Minutes after being recruited, he was under investigation for rape, and had some further alcohol-related problems (missing training etc.) The club suspended him indefinitely and the player got some legal help. His argument, which is fair, was that he was yet to be charged with anything and therefore should not be prevented from training with the team - you know, restriction of trade sort of stuff. Playing for a team is a job, and he argued, reasonably, that his earnings would be affected if not allowed to train with the team (because he wouldn’t be selected in the side, thus, he wouldn't be eligible for performance bonuses).

He was officially charged with rape yesterday and the club duly sacked him, even though he, as the adage goes, is innocent before being proven guilty. Reading through the fine print, the club seems to be saying it is not because of the rape charge… but of course, it is. They know it and we know it.

The story warms my heart a little. Sporting clubs don’t have to sack players who are potentially rapists, but, St. Kilda just did. I’m glad they did it. St. Kilda didn’t handle it too well when a few years ago a rape charge against two of their players (Milne and Montagna) was dropped due to lack of evidence… the support they gave their players in that instance was ‘sporting’, I suppose, but left a sour taste in the wider community's mouths. Likewise, the Adelaide Crows last year were a bit soft on Nathan Bock, arrested for bashing his missus, when they suspended him indefinitely from the team (the ‘indefinite’ period ended up being one solitary week).

Of course, the more lateral and logical thinking people (Boogeyman?) in this world will see a greater problem in that it opens up a bevy of potential unfair sackings from workplaces. “He’s a wanker,” is not a proper cause for employment termination. Nor is, I suppose, being arrested for an incident that took place outside of the workplace. But the more abstract and symbolic thinkers amongst us can see how what St.Kilda have done is indeed that…. Symbolic. Nicely symbolic. To quote one of my most hated sayings, it “sends a message.”

So what if he is found not guilty? Dunno. But, does it matter?

The whole debate about whether sporting heroes are role-models or not is one of the more boring public debates. Clearly, they are role models, and clearly, they shouldn’t be because they aren’t equipped to be once they walk off the sporting field. But the fact remains: they are idolized and worshipped. Hell, I idolize and worship a lot of them. The male public figure I admire most on this planet is not Nelson Mandela or Christopher Hitchens or Les Twentyman or George Clooney… it’s Roger Federer, and all he does is whack a green ball across a net. But I can’t help it. He is extremely talented, perhaps the best ever at his sport and by extension that makes him a figure, a personality, a legend. Subsequently, there is unfair pressure on him to be of outstanding character as well as an outstanding green ball-whacker.

John Terry and Tiger Woods know what I mean by this. The mighty hath fallen, for reasons not related to their sporting prowess, which is the very circumstance that elevated them to role-model status in the first place. By cheating on their wives, they cheated on all of us… symbolically.

From my reading of this latest AFL scandal, St. Kilda have cottoned on to my line of thinking. They could pull the ‘innocent before proven guilty’ line and keep him in the team solely so they can win more games. But they now understand their responsibilities back to the general sporting public. Not to their devoted fans (who just want them to win), but to everyone who loves sport. It’s a gift from the Saints that they did not have to legally or contractually give to us. They are saying, “...we manage 42 blokes who are rightly or wrongly role-models to hundreds of thousands of people, and no matter how talented they are, we will honour the abstract trade that takes place between sports people and sports fans around the world… Talent is no longer enough. You continue to make our players role-models and superstars, and in return, we'll weed out the... um, weeds."

Political parties and religions would do well to take note of what sport is doing. Instead of supporting pedo Catholic Priests as they so sickeningly have done in the past, the Micks should have done what St. Kilda have done… offered up the bad apple and said, “Here, we don’t condone this. He’s all yours.”

Credit where credit is due… well done St. Kilda.

(We'll never get to see him play again, so here's a 30 second grab of how good he was...)

From our source in The Lodge.

Mr Abbott tries out his new look before the election.

The scene; Late at night at The Lodge.

The Ruddster is thumbing through a well-read copy of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, a snifter of brandy beside him. Abigail the dog is snoring and farting happily in front of the fire while Jasper the cat is tinkering in the corner, putting the final touches to his anti-dog death ray. Suddenly there is a knock on the door and a certain Welsh-born, red-haired Deputy Prime Minister enters with a sheaf of papers.

The Ruddster: “Jules, come in, sit down. Would you like a drink?”

Julia: “Oooh, thanks comrade. I’ve brought the latest from our mole in the Liberal Party. It’s their strategy for the coming Federal election”

The Ruddster: “Good man, that Malcolm.”

He starts reading and looks up at the Deputy PM.

The Ruddster: “Jules, have you read this?”

Julia (trying unsuccessfully to suppress a smirk): “Oh, yes.”

The Ruddster (reading): “Focus on IR…bring back ‘flexibility’ into the system…bash the unions…”

The long silence is broken by gusts of hearty laughter as The Ruddster and Jules stagger around the room, wiping tears from their eyes. Abigail makes a frantic bolt for the door, while Jasper makes a mental note to widen his device to include humans.

Finally the laughter subsides.

The Ruddster: “Oh dear, Tony. He really is the gift that keeps on giving. Another drink, Jules?”

Snippets

And stay out!

When will people learn not to cross flooded waterways?

Dude looks like a creepy wax figure.

Pfft! I do this every year!

I agree with Gervais

And how many people have overdosed on other drugs in the same period?

Oh, please!

Adios. He was one of my favourites.

Every time I hear her speak, I want to stab myself in the ear canal. "How's all that hopey changey stuff workin' out for ya?" Grr!

How was everyone's weekend?

Art Slam Friday

Depiction of the rape of Small Kraut and Tall Kraut by Perseus, Surfer Joe and Ponygirl.

Not really. It's 'Rape of the Sabine Women' by Picasso.

Here's Ovid's explanation:

It was you, Romulus, who first mingled the cares of love with public games, that far-off day when the rape of the Sabine women gave wives to your warriors who had waited for them so long. No curtains then hung in the marble theatre, nor was the stage made red with liquid saffron. In those days branches from the woods of the Palatine were the only adornment of our simple stage. The people sat on seats of turf, their heads canopied with boughs.

As soon as he had sat him down, each Roman looked about, marking the woman whom he most desired, giving free play to the thoughts that surged within him. Whilst to the sound of a rustic pipe an actor strikes his foot three times upon the levelled earth, amid the unforced applause of the expectant throng (for in those days applause was neither bought nor sold), Romulus signed to his men to seize upon their prey. In a trice, with shouts that made their object clear, they laid their eager hands upon the cowering women. Even as the weak and timid doves flee before an eagle, even as a young lamb quails at the sight of a wolf, so shuddered the Sabine women when they beheld these fierce warriors making towards them. Every one turned pale, terror spread throughout the throng, but it showed itself in different ways. Some tore their hair; some swooned away; some wept in silence; some called vainly for their mothers; some sobbed aloud; others seemed stupefied with fear; some stood transfixed; others tried to flee. Nevertheless, the Romans carry off the women, sweet booty for their beds, and to many of them, terror lends an added charm.

If one shows herself too rebellious and refuses to follow her ravisher, he picks her up and, pressing her lovingly to his bosom, exclaims, "Why with tears do you thus dim the lovely radiance of your eyes? What your father is to your mother, that will I be to you." O Romulus, you are the only one who has ever known how to reward his soldiers; for such pay, I would willingly enrol myself beneath your banners. Ever since those days, the theatres, faithful to this ancient custom, have always been a dangerous lure to loveliness.

**

Here's some more visuals that depict the incident, by Sussman (the photo, which I think is a still from a movie she made), Rubens, Possin and David.

And the Post Office is a bit crap as well.

Rebecca West - hats off!

I’ve been reading Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West’s 1942 account of her travels in Yugoslavia in the late 1930s and this particular passage struck me.

She’s visiting Sarajevo and is discussing the Town Hall with a Bosnian Serb friend. The friend is upset that the Town Hall, built by the former occupying Austrian empire, is in a Turkish style.

He’s convinced this shows the town’s Muslims were favoured by the Austrians, but Ms West isn’t so sure and remarks;

“Actually it is the Moslems who have the most reason to complaint of this Town Hall, for their architecture in Sarajevo is exquisite in its restraint and amiability, and even in modern times has been true to that tradition. But this was designed by an Austrian architect, and it is stuffed with beer and sausages down to its toes. It is harshly particoloured and has a lumpish two-storied loggia with crudely fretted arches, and it has little round windows all over it which suggests that it is rich beyond the dreams of avarice in lavatories, and its highly ornamented cornices are Oriental in a pejorative sense. The minaret of the mosque beside it has the air of a cat that watches a dog making a fool of itself.”

You won’t find anything like that in a Lonely Planet guide and I think we're all the worst for it.

Pop Psych

Freud enjoying a smoke after a skinny soy latte.

Not this shit again. This article makes links between the type of coffee you drink and the type of personality displayed by the owner of the lips surrounding the mouth that consumes the coffee.

It's nothing but rash generalisations posing as psychology. It totally ignores the fact that, often, purchases of coffee - or anything else for that matter - aren't evolutionary or instinctive, but a conscious choice often influenced by the consumer's awareness of what it says about him or her.

Kyle drinks espressos so he's (and I paraphrase) moody, hard-bitten, hard working, into leadership, fast goals, he doesn't suffer fools and is into night-time shenanigans.

You fucken what?

Actually, the cunt's just been to Italy and wants his friends to know how cool he is.

Or perhaps that's just the style of coffee Kyle enjoys. Cos it peps him up.

This bollocks is much like the supposed 'group personality' of a Gen X or Gen Y individual. Just because you were born between 1980 and 2000 - or whatever the hell the time-frame is - you like broccoli and hate la crosse and cry at Meryl Streep movies and crap sideways. What a crock of Bristol Stool Scale Type 6 shit.

And don't get me started on astrology and its brand of flakey, ill-informed and ridiculous generalisations based on which fucking star you were born 'under'.

No really, don't, cos you'll wish you'd never experience my fist in Uranus*.


* Sorry, nothing like a good Uranus joke - or even a bad one.

Perseus's Pathetic Lovelife - Special Edition

I know I said I wouldn’t post all my dating woes again, but, this one seems right to post because it’s about Love of my Life, Ponygirl. Because you all know of her, it’s permissible to give an update, I feel.

For those of you who don’t know of her, here’s the summary. I met her three years ago. Her boss asked me to mentor her in a field in which I am proficient in (stage management). She became my protégé and pet-project. She was a natural at the skill, and I enjoyed teaching her, and on top of all that, she was hot. She had a boyfriend though so I didn’t really think beyond that.

Two years ago she landed a massive show, a touch out of her league, and I gave her a lot of help in the lead up. The day before the show, she rang in a panic, saying she was worried it would fall apart and asked if I could come into Melbourne to be with her as it took place. I went in and just stood next to her, giving support. She pulled it off. Then she took me for a drink, and confessed that one of the reasons she had panicked was because she had split up with her boyfriend earlier that week, and it was All Too Much. We had some more drinks, and, well, I suddenly decided she was ‘the one’ and two years later I haven’t altered that opinion.

We had some dates, but I was a rebound interest. She promptly got back with her boyfriend, as often happens. Not only that, she moved overseas with him, and I moped. Then, she dumped him again and came back to Australia, but not to Melbourne. Instead she moved to the family farm, 9 hours drive from my place. We hardly talked. I finally got over her and started dating a girl. Two days after agreeing to be this new girl's boyfriend, Ponygirl turned up at my house. We commenced an affair and I dumped my girlfriend - the whole sorry story is documented here. The affair was short but sweet because alas, she was heading overseas again. The last time I saw her was Black Saturday, documented here.

She came back in December and moved straight back to the farm where she will be staying indefinitely. We had a quick and awkward breakfast in December… both of us hungover, but during that breakfast I booked her into stage-manage a few shows I was producing in January – February, the first of which was in Melbourne; an event we worked on last year as well.

So, the scene is set thusly: Love of my life is coming to work for me for a fortnight, we'll be sharing a hotel room for a few nights, and them moving down to my house for a while. I have no idea how she feels romantically about me. I head into the fortnight with an open mind...

Here’s how my fortnight with Ponygirl went:

Jan 23
We meet on site, run through the program for the next few days. Back to hotel room to check in. Out to dinner in Toorak Rd. We go to a Chinese restaurant and eat pork tendon and chicken feet. I suggest that we should go to a bar, even though we have an early start the next day, on the grounds that our conversation is stilted and we are being far too polite and formal with each other. She agrees. We get smashed at some bar in Prahran. I tell her how much it hurt that after my farm visit I never saw her again for the six weeks before she went overseas. She apologises, but adds that I was the only person that received individual contact whilst she was overseas, aside from family. I then ask if we are going to have sex this year. She gives me an adamant ‘no’ on the grounds that it will be far too confusing, given that she intends to live on the farm, and she doesn’t want the complexity of me in her life for the third year running. We are sharing a bed in the luxury hotel. She is wearing what I refer to as ‘virgin pyjamas’ (head to toe). She tells me she had a Brazillian that day. Sigh. No sex.

Jan 24
We work 7am until 8pm. We go for a burger at Embassy Café in Spencer Street (best after-hours hamburgers in the universe). Back to the hotel room for just one glass of wine each on the balcony of our room. Conversation is fixed on work. To sleep at about midnight in same bed. No sex.

Jan 25
We work 8am until 10pm. After which we are invited to a cocktail function to hob nob with B-list celebrities that we had been working with earlier in the day. Ponygirl gets a little sloshed but I’m designated driver and stay sober. The B-listers are making jokes about celebrities adopting African children. One says, “Maybe there’s a warranty that comes with them,” and everyone laughs. Another says, “Yeah, they need some sort of refund system for defective ones,” and everyone laughs. Ponygirl says, “Or they could have a 90 day ‘try before you buy’ program,” and nobody laughs, and they all turn their heads, and the air could be cut with a knife. She slumps back in her seat. We leave the party, and Ponygirl refers to them as “cunty McCunt Cunts.” She says, “Oh, it’s okay for the celebrities to crack the jokes about African kids, but not me. I used exactly the same joke, but when I say it, it’s racist!” We drink some more on the balcony. She’s fuming. I suggest to her that some sex may calm her down. She rejects the idea. No sex.

Jan 26
We work 8am until 8pm. During the day, we are forced to interact professionally with a fledgling popstar, The Songstress, a stunningly beautiful woman who I went on a date with in December, and have a second date with next week (she was away for most of January, hence the long gap between dates). It was the first time I had seen her since our date, and here I was, interacting with her and Ponygirl in close quarters. Ponygirl knew I had a date with her, but The Songstress, as far as I know, was not aware of my history with Ponygirl. I was hoping that The Songstress would flirt a little with me and make Ponygirl jealous, but because we were all in work mode, there was no flirting. Ponygirl says later, “She likes you a little. Play your cards right and she’s all yours.” I find myself conflicted. I’m a little happy that Ponygirl could be right and something could happen with The Songstress, but unhappy that Ponygirl didn’t seem to care, and was even encouraging the union. After work, another work-related cocktail party, this time with Department heads. Ponygirl avoids being racist. The Songstress rings me to see what I’m up to, and to thank me again for the work. Ponygirl and I head with some other people to Brunswick Street and get sloshed. I note a change in her behavior. Firstly, one of the B-list celebrities from the night before calls her at 1am and begs her to go out with him for a drink. She tells the B-lister that she is with me, and she will not meet up with him. Secondly, the people we are with are mostly her (former) work associates and not mine, and yet, she stays next to me the whole time and gives me all her attention. Maybe the whole Songstress thing worked? We get back to the hotel room and drink even more. It is 2am. We are absolutely drunken. Nothing can happen. We fall into bed. I go to sleep with her tit in my hand. No sex.

Jan 27
We get up early and head back to my house on the coast. I work all day and she relaxes at my house, and gets to know the two cute German backpacker chicks that are staying at my place, Short Kraut and Tall Kraut. That night, Ponygirl teaches me a game called Bananagrams. You use the Scrabble tiles, but not the board. It’s awesome, and if you want the rules I’ll post them. It’s one thing I like about Ponygirl… she likes board games, and so do I, particularly at night with wine and cigarettes. We play for a few hours, then she brings out a ukulele and I bring out a guitar and we have a singalong. We are having a ball. Jeez we get along well. Always have. I ruin the night by blurting out, “Why don’t you love me? We’re perfect for each other! We could at least have sex!” I have spare beds at my place, and she sleeps in one of them. “You need to masturbate more,” she says. No sex.

Jan 28
I’m at work all day. Ponygirl’s bonding with the Small Kraut (who has boy problems) becomes annoying. Small Kraut (aged 20) adopts Ponygirl as a surrogate older sister / mother figure, and that night, I can hardly get a word in. Ponygirl spends the whole night counseling Small Kraut over her boy problems. No sex.

Jan 29
I work all day and Ponygirl cleans my house top to bottom, and even irons my shirts. I tell the Krauts to go out that night and leave us alone. Ponygirl and I go out for dinner, then to a bar. She meets a lot of my local friends and she seems to like them. At 1am we kick on to a small private party, and I notice that Ponygirl is flirting heavily with me. I know her well enough to detect these things. We get back to my house. I say, “You want to have sex, don’t you?” and she says, “Um, yes.” I get all indignant and shit. “Oh, so for a whole week it’s no sex this and no sex that, but now you’re drunk, suddenly sex is alright!” She says, “Yeah… so, how about it?”. “No fucking way !” I say, and go to my own bed which is located on the higher moral ground. No sex.

Jan 30
I awake, thinking, “I am an idiot.” We are both hungover, and lazily laugh about last night. She has to go to Melbourne for a friend’s birthday party. She heads off at lunchtime, and I spend that night sober and relaxed. Meanwhile, she has a blinder in Melbourne.

Jan 31
She returns at tea-time, and we actually have a business meeting because from the next day, her work schedule is enormous. She goes to bed early, so I duck out for a drink with my friend Surfer Joe. He comes back to my place, and Ponygirl gets up and has a drink with us. The two Krauts then come home from a bar, and the five of us are drinking. It is midnight. The two Krauts, very drunk, announce they are going to bed (they share a bed). After they go to bed, Surfer Joe says, “I’d love to have sex with both of them, at the same time.” “Me too,” says Ponygirl. “Ditto,” I say. “How about a 5-way orgy?” says Surfer Joe. We concoct a plan whereby Surfer Joe would go into the room and start it up, and then Ponygirl and I would join in five minutes later. He went in. Ponygirl and I laughed. We were expecting him back out in thirty seconds. Why would two hot 20 year old German girls want to have a threesome with a chubby 33 year old they hardly know? But… five minutes later, he wasn’t out. “Jesus,” I said, “This might be happening.” “Let’s go in,” said Ponygirl. We go into the Krauts’ bedroom. Surfer Joe is pashing Small Kraut. Tall Kraut is either asleep, or pretending to be. Ponygirl and I jump on to the bed. We kind of writhe around a little but tall Kraut is not moving. We sort of laze about for five minutes. Surfer Joe caresses my leg, thinking it is Ponygirl’s. It creates mirth. Ponygirl plays with Tall Kraut’s leg, but she’s not stirring. Ponygirl says, “Well, nothing happening in here…” and gets up and leaves. Surfer Joe says, “Umm, I think Small Kraut is asleep too…” We get up and have a cigarette then Surfer Joe leaves. No orgy. Now, being that Ponygirl was up for the orgy in the first place, you would assume that means she’s maybe up for some sex. I get into her bed. She lets me spoon her, but says, “The spoon is nice, but I’m not putting out…” I fall asleep with my arm around her. No sex.

Feb 1
She works for me in another town 8am-10pm. I work similar hours but back at home. I have put her up in a hotel there. We talk on phone. No sex.

Feb 2
She works in the other town 6am – 8pm. I pick her up at 8pm and we go out for Japanese and a show de-brief. She then invites me back to her hotel room for a wine. I wonder if this means sex. We get back to her hotel. We are sipping wine, smoking cigarettes, talking about work but in a very comfortable and free-flowing manner. The weather is lovely. We hit a sweet spot. Right this second, we are as comfortable as we have ever been, and words are coming out of my mouth but I don’t know what they are because internally I am overwhelmed with swoon. Suddenly she says, “Well, I’m off to bed, good night”. Sigh. No sex.

Feb 3
She works 6am – 7pm on her last day of this show. She has done a sterling job. I am proud of her. We meet up at another show site and travel back to my house. We decide on a bottle of wine on the beach. Very romantic. Unfortunately, in a move I failed to pre-empt, we purchase the bottle from a bar that is managed by Local Love Interest (LLI). I had a crush on LLI last year, but never thought she was interested, and besides, her time in town is limited. She’s passing through for a year, maybe two, but that’s it. But in November, I detected she liked me a little, and so I abandoned all chances of romance in Melbourne and decided to finally, after three and a half years of bachelor coastal living, to pursue a local. It worked. We hooked up. Then she dumped me, citing ‘small town and I won’t be here forever’ reasons. I was shattered. We stayed friends though. Small town. You can’t have grudges or enemies. Anyway, Ponygirl and LLI meet, both very well aware of each other’s place in my life. I squirmed, and they got the ‘nice to meet you’s out of the way in seconds and we ran. Ponygirl and I drank a bottle of wine on the beach and it was beautiful and romantic. I thought, “This is the night.” We got back to my house but Fucken Small and Tall Kraut took over and monopolized her. Before I knew it, all chances of sex were over. No sex.

Feb 4
I work all day, then at night, Ponygirl and I worked at a show. The show goes perfectly and we had fun working side by side. We head back home at about 1am and stop in to see Surfer Joe. He insists we have a drink. We get a little drunk. I realize that I have drunk every night with Ponygirl. I’m not a big drinker, and it’s wearing me down. Tiredness hits. We go back to my house and I can’t keep my eyes open. No sex.

Feb 5
She was supposed to leave, but had decided the night before to stay another night, maybe two. I kick the Krauts out for the night and we are having a lovely time drinking wine and playing Bananagrams, just the two of us. “This is the night we’ll have sex,” I think. “It’s possibly her last night. She asked to stay this extra night. It’s on.” Surfer Joe drops in and offers us ecstacy pills. Ponygirl says yes, so I did too. It’s 1am and we’re high. “Oh, there’ll be sex,” I think. But then the Krauts come home with some boys, and some other people come, and at 2am there is a party in my house. At 3am, Tall Kraut pulls Ponygirl aside to talk about boy problems. They go into the kitchen. I kick everyone out. Then Tall Kraut and Ponygirl go into the Krauts’ bedroom to talk more. I figure, “Ah, just girl talk.. they’ll be out soon.” I wait ten minutes then go for a quick chat. Tall Kraut asks me to find Small Kraut. I go looking but I think she has left with one of the boys. I go back in and say, “Nah, she’s gone. I’m by myself out there. What are you guys doing?”. “Talking,” they say, then stare at me… they obviously don’t want me in there, so I go back out to my kitchen and wait. I sit alone in my kitchen for an hour, on drugs, high as a kite, by myself. I go to bed at 4.30am, sad and angry. No sex.

Feb 6
I have to get up at 7am to take Lord Byron the kitten to the vet. I get back home at 10am and she’s still not up. She gets up at 11am, and finds me sitting all passive aggressively at the outdoor table reading the paper. She asks what’s wrong. I tell her about last night. She apologises profusely, saying she was on drugs and had no idea I was sitting by myself and what time it was. She packs her bags and goes. No sex.

The only good thing was that the Krauts moved out as well. Small Kraut had been with me for three months and I liked her, but once Tall Kraut arrived I wasn’t happy. I have my house back. I slept alone in my house for the first time since November 12, though I slept badly.

Feb 7
Black Saturday anniversary, which is also the anniversary of the last time Ponygirl and I had sex… late at night on her Mallee Farm, on a rug on her lawn. So long ago. I spent the day cleaning the house, passive aggressively.

**

Fuck it was hard. I love the girl so dearly and we get along famously, but living with her for such a long time with all this history was too much. I kinda like it that she’s back on the farm.

Luckily, diversions are in place. I have two appointments with The Songstress – one is work related, the other is our second date. Wish me luck.

But what’s also murky is that when Ponygirl and Local Love Interest met, I looked at both of them and thought, “You know, I gave up too easy on LLI…”

But now for the punchline. Ponygirl will be back in three weeks time, for another week of work for me. I’d use someone else, but a) I’ve already promised her the work and b) She is very fucking good at it, and I want her on a professional level.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

Dan is thinking about eating rissoles for lunch

Phil is deciding whether to read a book or update his status on Facebook

I wonder if people who like to post their 'status' (i.e. whatever inane thing they happen to be doing at the moment their walnut-sized brains decide to make the post) on Facebook or Twitter, really think anyone gives a fuck.

Do they think they're so important that others are hanging on their every vacuous post?

"Keith has been working hard and is now enjoying a glass of beer."*

Fuck off Keith, I don't give a shit. If you were really enjoying your beer, why don't you just drink it, instead of telling everybody about it, you arsehole.

"Rick thinks your (sic) going to love Avatar."*

Rick, you don't have any fucking idea what you're (see how I spelled that?) talking about, twat.

And incidentally, the people that respond to your status don't give a fuck either, they just want you to check their status:

"Doreen is glad there's something good on TV!"*

Well fucken watch it, bitch, instead of telling your stupid friends about it.


*Actual status updates - names have been changed.

Take care while crossing Sydney harbour

Time that is moved by little fidget wheels
Is not my time, the flood that does not flow.
Between the double and the single bell
Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells
From the dark warship riding there below,
I have lived many lives, and this one life
Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells.

Deep and dissolving verticals of light
Ferry the falls of moonshine down. Five bells
Coldly rung out in a machine's voice. Night and water
Pour to one rip of darkness, the Harbour floats
In the air, the Cross hangs upside-down in water.

Why do I think of you, dead man, why thieve
These profitless lodgings from the flukes of thought
Anchored in Time? You have gone from earth,
Gone even from the meaning of a name;
Yet something's there, yet something forms its lips
And hits and cries against the ports of space,
Beating their sides to make its fury heard.

Are you shouting at me, dead man, squeezing your face
In agonies of speech on speechless panes?
Cry louder, beat the windows, bawl your name!

But I hear nothing, nothing...only bells,
Five bells, the bumpkin calculus of Time.
Your echoes die, your voice is dowsed by Life,
There's not a mouth can fly the pygmy strait -
Nothing except the memory of some bones
Long shoved away, and sucked away, in mud;
And unimportant things you might have done,
Or once I thought you did; but you forgot,
And all have now forgotten - looks and words
And slops of beer; your coat with buttons off,
Your gaunt chin and pricked eye, and raging tales
Of Irish kings and English perfidy,
And dirtier perfidy of publicans
Groaning to God from Darlinghurst.
Five bells.

Cock

I shouldn't let this cunt make me angry, but he does.

This bloke is a climate change sceptic. He refutes the position of the vast majority of climate scientists who agree that the earth is warming, and that it is caused my man. Apparently it's some sort of conspiracy by communists.

Incidentally, he's not a climate scientist. Instead, he's a quack.

He's entitled to his opinion, however misguided - in my opinion - it is. So, actually, it's his followers that annoy me (e.g. the hundred 'retirees' that attended his South Yarra speech). If 99% of scientists agree on something, based on sound, logical investigation and analysis, then that's what evidence is.

And now for something completely banal and non-intellectual...

I have decided to sell my car. I only bought it last year in July, but have had numerous problems since I bought it. I put it down to the fact it's a second hand car. After the first second hand car I bought, I vowed never to buy another one. I should have listened to myself. I have spent at least $5,000 since I bought it, and it seems as if it's in the shop every month at some point or other. It just cost me another $1,500 on Tuesday. I'm fed up. Sadly, it has been a car I have lusted after for some years. I'll be sad to see it go, but I can't keep expending so much money on it.

So, the question is, what sort of new car do I buy? I don't want to spend more than $30,000 - $35,000 (because I'm about to be saddled with a mortgage), and my list of manufacturers is fast dwindling.

I won't buy a Ford, Holden, Suzuki, Kia, Hyundai, Daewoo, or Skoda. I don't like hatches (for reasons I don't quite know myself - if someone can convince me why they're better than sedans, I will consider them). Any car I get will have to be manual, and I like my gadgets. I would love for the car to come standard with auto lights, reverse parking sensors, and some sort of input for my mp3 player. However, if the car was cheap enough, I would pay for these to be added later if need be. I also hate 2 door cars, so it has to have at least 4. I refuse to buy a car whose seats I have to flip forward to access the back. Stupid, ridiculous concept.

This would seem to narrow the field to either the Mazda 3 SP23, or the Mitsubishi Lancer VRX. Unfortunately, Mazda have recently given their cars a face lift, so they now resemble something from a Disney Pixar film. I refuse to drive around in a cartoon car. Which just leaves the Lancer. But I'm not entirely sure I like it.

Are there any other cars I should be considering? My other requirement is that I usually buy blue cars. Bright blue cars, not dark blue cars. I just prefer this colour over all others. So if the car didn't come in a nice blue, I'd probably not consider buying it.

Any suggestions?

I can't take this gibberish much longer!

For those of you who are bored with politics, here's a photo of a kitten. With a gun. Enjoy!

I was going to write a longer post about the two public opinion polls in the Oz and the Age today, but quite frankly – after the deluge of stupidity this morning from the commentariat – I can’t be arsed.

Quick version – neither of them really mean a pinch of shit, this far out from an election.

Point one. Polls bounce around all the time. Pointing to one poll is a largely meaningless exercise, you have to look at the underlying trend over several months and on that basis neither Kruddy nor Brumby is looking too bad.

Point two. Polls only tell you what people are thinking at the time. As a predictive exercise as to what people maybe thinking several months away, they’re almost useless.

Point three and a prediction. Based on a highly analytical process we pundits call “making shit up” Kruddy will win a handful of seats, Brumby will lose a handful and the Greens will not win any lower house seat in any mainland Australian state. Nichts. Nada. Zip.

Also.

I keep hearing the line “you’re just like heaven to touch” from the song You’re just too good to be true as “I think I’ve broken your clutch”.

Why is that, I wonder?

What we did on the weekend.

The Boy: “Daddaddad, let’s do karate fighting in the backyard!”

Me: “Right-so, Boy.”

Some time later.

The Boy: “Daddaddad, let’s pretend to be tigers and hide in the front yard and growl at people as they walk past!”

Me: “A sage suggestion, Boy.”

Some time later again.

The Boy: “Daddaddad, let’s spin around and around until we feel sick!”

Me: “An adroit idea, Boy.”

Some time much later again.

The Boy: “Daddaddad, let’s…”

Me: “Hang on Boy; I have to lie down for a bit.”

See what you’re missing out on Puss?

That’s pretty much it for the weekend. Although I think I might have had a beer or two at some point.