How to really shock Melbourne people.

You didn't read "The Slap"? You monster!

I had the following conversation with my sister the other day.

My sister: “Did you see the latest episode of The Slap?”

Me: “I’m not watching The Slap.”

My sister: “Oh, it’s just that I thought you might be interested in how it compared with the book.”

Me: “I didn’t read the book.”

At which point she stared at me for some seconds in gobsmacked horror, as if I’d said I had a sneaking admiration for Tony Abbott.

But it’s all true. I haven’t read The Slap and have no intention to, because;

• The author sort of annoys me,
• I’m spent most of my life avoiding the sort of arseholes that populate the book* and have no desire to make their acquaintance now and
• Books that are described as “capturing the zeitgeist of the time” really, really, really annoy me.

Why, I can’t really say. Partly it might be intellectual snobbery, a queasiness about reading a book that everybody else seems to be reading, but mostly because they’re often shit; the sort of book that people look back on in ten year’s time and say “what on earth were we thinking, this is shit**”.

I may change my mind about The Slap. But I doubt it.

* Based on the reviews, obvs.

** Having said that, Oranges are not the only fruit holds up pretty well. The same does not apply for The Bone People. The Bone People brings to mind Dorothy Parker’s line about a book she was reviewing; “This is not a book to set aside lightly. It should be hurled with great force”.

No reason.

A "sometimes the anti-depressants take a while to kick in" PSF

We're alone in a Godless, meaningless universe. Here's a picture of kittens.

 I'd sell your heart to the junkman baby
For a buck, for a buck
If you're looking for someone to pull you out of that ditch
You're out of luck, you're out of luck

Ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking

There's a leak, there's a leak in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves and lawyers

God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business

Digging up the dead with a shovel and a pick
It's a job, it's a job
Bloody moon rising with a plague and a flood
Join the mob, join the mob
It's all over, it's all over
It's all over

There's a leak, there's a leak in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves and lawyers

God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away on business, business

Godddamn there's always such a big temptation
To be good, to be good
There's always free cheddar in a mousetrap, baby
It's a deal, it's a deal

God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business

I narrow my eyes like a coin slot baby
Let her ring, let her ring

God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business
God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business

A very cynical PSF

Nice crown!

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.


Because last week's was so sweet.

Qantas. Part eleventy billion.

The latest addition to the Qantas fleet.

I know I don’t expect much from the Canberra Gallery these days. But I would have hoped that even the dimmest hack’s reaction to repeated claims from the Opposition about the crisis at Qantas that “the Government should have stepped in earlier” would have been to ask “ummm… why?”

The dispute, before the management of the airline grounded the entire fucking Qantas fleet, was grinding slowly towards a resolution- as the industrial umpire Fair Work Australia has already noted.

Nor was there any wide-scale disruption to the travelling public, until management’s little dummy-spit.

Qantas management grounded the fleet. The Government went to Fair Work Australia, who ordered management to un-ground it*.

Which they did.

I fail to see the problem.

My boss at the union where I worked as an organiser had a saying, along the lines of “every industrial dispute gets resolved eventually”.

This was happening in Qantas. For the Opposition to now claim that the Government should intervene in an industrial dispute because of…stuff… suggests their grasp of industrial reality on the ground is somewhat less than through.

* They also ordered the unions to suspend their industrial action. Which I rather suspect was the whole point of this caper**.

** I also rather suspect this is akin to trimming your toenails with a shotgun, but I’m not the one being paid the big bucks.