Yeah, why no shearers?

One of the benefits of having a depressive illness* is that you tend to spend a lot of time alone in your own mind.

During a recent 4 AM ramble through my sub-conscious I was struck like a bolt from the blue** by this revelation; none of The Boy's schoolwork involves shearers.

When I was his age, my school work was chock-a-block with shearers. Shearers' songs, shearers' strikes, shearers' stories. Why the Victorian education system was so fascinated by shearers in the late 1960s, I have no idea. Maybe it was somebody's idea to dress up Australian history so it wasn't so bloody dull, but to this day I continue to have a good working knowledge of the Australian shearing industry in the late nineteenth century.

True, this knowledge has never been called upon, but still it's early days.

* Try it coupled with chronic insomnia. It's ace!

** Or even like a bolt from Beyond Blue.***

*** I crack myself up.

A cautionary PSF.

"Beats fecking soup"

Augustus was a chubby lad;
Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had:
And everybody saw with joy
The plump and hearty, healthy boy.
He ate and drank as he was told,
And never let his soup get cold.
But one day, one cold winter's day,
He screamed out "Take the soup away!
O take the nasty soup away!
I won't have any soup today."

Next day, now look, the picture shows
How lank and lean Augustus grows!
Yet, though he feels so weak and ill,
The naughty fellow cries out still
"Not any soup for me, I say:
O take the nasty soup away!
I won't have any soup today."

The third day comes: Oh what a sin!
To make himself so pale and thin.
Yet, when the soup is put on table,
He screams, as loud as he is able,
"Not any soup for me, I say:
O take the nasty soup away!
I WON'T have any soup today."

Look at him, now the fourth day's come!
He scarcely weighs a sugar-plum;
He's like a little bit of thread,
And, on the fifth day, he was—dead!

A "Frank should have had a cat" PSF.

"You drank all that Bourbon?"

Frank settled down out in the Valley
And he hung his wild years in a nail that he drove through his wife's forehead
He sold used office furniture out there on San Fernando Road
And assumed a $30,000 loan at 15 1/4 %
And put down payment on a little two bedroom place
His wife was a spent piece of used jet trash
Made good bloody marys, kept her mouth shut most of the time
Had a little Chihuahua named Carlos
That had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind
They had a thoroughly modern kitchen, self-cleaning oven (the whole bit)
Frank drove a little sedan, they were so happy

One night Frank was on his way home from work
He stopped at the liquor store
Picked up a couple Mickey's Big Mouths
Drank 'em in the car on his way to the Shell station
He got a gallon of gas in a can
Drove home, doused everything in the house, torched it
Parked across the street laughing and watching it burn
All Halloween orange and chimney red
Then Frank put on a top forty station
Got on the Hollywood Freeway
Headed north

Never could stand that dog

It's Saint Piran's Day! Huzzah!

For those not in the know, today is Saint Piran's Day - the national day of Cornwall.


The BBC site about Saint Piran notes

In Ireland he was said to have performed many miracles but the Kings of the country were not impressed.

Not impressed?

How can you not be impressed by a Saint?

Performing "many miracles"?


Tough audience.