Brave our Burbs

What is it about Port Adelaide?

2005-09-20T11:08:00.000+10:00

Kane Cornes & Lucy Gross --Ben Rutten and Emily Cullen

Wonder what modelling agency was responsible for those dates?

Altona garden party

2005-08-03T15:42:00.000+10:00

Yum Yum.

Better than sailing at midnight, diving for pearls, soccer mums and murder backpacks is the spectre of seniors getting down for a good ol' bitch slap.

King-hit at bowling club out west.

Fred calls The Rumor File and says it was just a push.

Says the ambos gave the combatants a glass of water.

But we know better.

The original caller, a guy called Crackerjack, said the victim was hit on the green and hospitalised a week ago.

FRom this

to this...

Sodom and Gomorrah while u drive

2005-07-25T13:14:00.000+10:00

My sister is a huge organisation/home hints nut.

She has a treasure trove of books on how to use a 50:50 solution of vinegar and bicarb to settle the Middle East conflict, and weave oaked toenail clippings into doormats.

The books are mostly by American Bible Belt women with huge families run with the precision of a Panzer operation.

They don't get down and dirty over in the US with their home hints - unlike Hillsong co-founder Bobbie Huston (thanks Darp for alerting me to the following), whose domestic advice doesn't seem to make it out of her Sydney bedroom.

Huston's three-cassette boxed set Kingdom Women Love Sex, has since been retitled to something like Kingdom women value their sexuality and self-esteem and spirituality yadda yadda, presumably cause of the "Bobbie does Baulkham Hills" connotations, and the flak they must've got about quotes like this:

"We need to be good at sex ourselves so that if the world happens to come knocking we can tell the story of God in our lives. Without being lurid or untruthful we can say 'I have a great marriage and a great sex life'

See, God's plan for you is to have a properly inserted diaghphram.

But I digress.

Emilie Barnes, author of Creative Home Organizer, has a chapter on organising your automobile. In the glove compartment, please include

Maps
notepad and pen
Tire-pressure gauge
Cleanup wipes
Sunglasses
Mirror
Extra pair of nylon hosiery for that unexpected run
Plastic fork and spoon for those yummy stops
Reading material, Bible - you can enjoy prayer and Bible reading during waiting times in the car
Can opener
Change for phone calls
Busines Cars
Band-Aids
Matches
Stationery - again, waiting can be used constructively to catch up on correspondence
Scissors, nail clippers
Children's books and/or games

I don't know how big her glove compartment is but I'd sure as hell need a Mack truck for all that (and the trucker, too, especially if I'm gonna carry all three tapes of Kingdom women love sex).

My favorite is where Mrs Barnes uses the spin-dry function on her washing machine to rinse her lettuce.

What is it about domestic godesses and lettuce? It really brings out the anal in them (more about that later)

I kid you not - i remember a few years ago kicking back with Amco watching British food diva Delia Smith earnestly deliver instructions to prepare lettuce by wiping each individual leaf with a tea towel.

And there's this one:

For those nasty stains in your toilet bowl, use a pumice stone ... Be sure to clean under the inside rim of the toilety bowl, too.

But me here at Mallrat Enterprises thinks prevention is better than cure.

Avoid porcelain poo build-up thus: do not make your cistern hobble around in high heels.

You might do some damage to your pussy and earn yourself a visit from Bobbi Huston.

Pissed as...

2005-07-13T16:41:00.000+10:00

Reader poll:

Would your mum phone Connex for you?

Vote now

R U loan-sms 2nite? :-)

2005-06-30T18:02:00.000+10:00

Mallrat: Meet me down by the Mordialloc jetty landing
Shane: yeah, will you be naked?
Mallrat: ...bump and sway
Shane: Oh yeah!
Mallrat: The others read and stand there
Shane: Cool!
Mallrat: As the Manly fairy...
Shane: Hang on a minute....

Ban Big Brother!!!!

2005-06-30T17:26:00.000+10:00

From this week's Whitehorse Weekly:

Principal writes to Network Ten
BAN BIG BROTHER: SCHOOL

...St Andrews Christian College Principal Bob Speck said the popular show was "immoral" and didn't pomote the decent values that should be encouraged in young people.

The Big Brother production is diametrically opposed to the values the Federal Government has said should be taught in schools - values like integrity, respect and responsibility.

... and detention without trial, using dodgy GPs to clear deportations of Australian citizens with paertially severed spinal cords before they have a chance to recover in hospital, refusing psychiatric care to people going mad behind barbed wire, ruining children's formative years by locking them up, deporting heavily pregnant Chinese women to face certain forced abortion, fucking around diplomats who claim political asylum, refusing to spend more than a measly $9 million on chemical additives to stop Aboriginal kids in remote communities sniffing petrol (while the Govt spends $1b a year subsidising private health insurers)

Not so sure the Big Brother values stack up so badly next to all that.

Ah, even though I agree BB is crass shit, it's so tempting to see this Speck dude as an eastern-burbs Flanders. I bet they're having a good laugh in the shelter shed and the staff room at his call for values.

Safe target, isn't it? But in the end, which moral decay is the more damaging to our society?

Trust me, I think BB is worrying and that you don't need to be a one-eyed Christian fundamentalist to believe that that behaviour is harmful.

But I went to a Catholic school and know all about the extreme focus on sexual pecadilloes, alongside silence on economic and social injustice that the mainstream of the Catholic church - and especially its education institutions - maintains.

If you think that's a long shot, that split was actually pivotal to the Latin American revolutions in the 1980s in places like Guatemala and El Salvador. Jesuit priests finally got on the side of their faithful and started asking questions about power and poverty.

Oh wait, there's more: See "opinion", page 6:

Shoppers in Mitcham and Ringwood were asked whether they thought scenes from BB Uncut should be downloadable on the net:

Amid all the people saying nah, it's just too revolting and not for kiddies, there's one brave dissenter:

Richard Eynand of Ferntree Gully:
"It doesn't matter. Kids know what sex is all about. It's just a part of life."

Mr Eynand, sir, Operation Auxin needs you!

On another note, check out The Cheek a spoof of Andrew Landeryou'd blog. It's a brilliant pisstake of Andy Landy's self obsessed delusional whining.

Dead rat int he driveway.. yum yum

2005-06-29T16:47:00.000+10:00

A little while ago now, from the Moreland Community News...

SENIOR FINDS RAT ON PLOT

A PASCOE VALE PENSIONER who found a dead ratr on his front lawn last week says he is disgusted at the lack of help from local authorities.
Melville Road resident Brian Maher fears he is being targeted after speakin gout on "several contentious issues that some people that some people are not too happy about".
He called police in after discovering damage to his driveway the same morning he discovered the rat.
He suspects the two incidents may be linked.
...
"If f anybody thinks they can shut me up they better think again."
"The Moreland Council does a lot of work for pensioners in this area.
"The least they could do is send someone over."

Well Brian, my son, sometimes a dead rat is just a dead rat

Maybe you're just a paranoid old git with nothing better to do

muzak meme

2005-06-21T11:40:00.000+10:00

Got memed ~~last~~ about five years ago week by Laura and GuruAnn.

Nothing if not punctual.

Total volume of music on your computer:
No friggin idea.

The last album you purchased was:
Er, James reyne, And the horse you rode in on ... cause I love the acoustic version of Hammerhead , which I heard on the radio. the version of errol is also pretty good but as for the rest... kinda boring. I sent a copy to amanda.

Song playing right now:
Any vintage Leonard Cohen thing that made me nostalgic for a share household I lived in in Madrid a couple of years ago with Jenny, from Chicago, and Nicola, from Leeds.

Jenny was a mad animal lover who at one stage had 13 cats in our fifth-floor apartment. Whenever she went on holiday, cleaning the litter tray made us miss her all the more. She ran a bookshop too, but sucked at html.

Nicola and I drew the line at two cats. but then jenny brought home Mali - a little black kitten (mali means boy in serbian, her then boyfriend was an injury-prone serb soccer player). he was pretty traumatised by his previous home- this mad vet who had about 30 cats at her country property. it took him ages to settle in. he warmed irst to jenny, then to site, our mad mongrel cat - they used to play and fight and box together, it was very funny to watch as they just ripped through the house.

i totally fell in love. In the end, he shwoed me he was mine by spraying on my bed allt he time,a nd leaving little packages whenever he was traumatised (which was so often). he'd start at the slightest noise, and if you looked at him too long, he'd totally freak.

Anyway, Leonard brought it all back. one of the gals had bought a knock-off cd for sale on a blanket. we used to play him all the time. someone gave me a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle of the sydney opera house, after i said i was homesick. night after night until i gave up, i would sit at the kitchen table.

we had a plumber come over to fix the taps. we thought he was a bit of orright until he saw the puzzle (pronouneced "pooth-lay")and went nuts - "oh i love puzzles! if i had my way I'd cover every table in the house with them,, but my mother won't let me."

But you don't really care for music, do ya?

i had to turn him off. I live on my own now, and I love it, but god I miss those gals.

Five songs you’ve been listening to a lot recently, from several genres:
- Gavin Bryars, Jesus' blood never failed me. don't know who he is.
- Ojos de Brujo, M-80, flamenco-hip hop from barcelona.And guess where i firts heard them? JB Hi Fi, Ormond.
- James Reyne, Hammerhead, from the new acoustic album. No livvy, yey! Heard this version on fran kelly's show when she introd a story about the Bali Nine. it was suitably melancholy.
- Seascapes of the Interior(from Geelong, recorded in the Otways), 'Symbiont Step’
- Asereje, Las Ketchup. the chorus lyrics are delightful- gibberish - what they reckon English sound like.
- anything being played in a mall

Five people to whom you’re passing the baton (with humble apologies)
May Contain Traces of Nuts - cream of red bell pepper soup
Ben H. - because his Eurovision drinking game kicked ass
Flop-Eared Mule - Cause I reckon she'd have a music collection to burn
Daily Flute - cause I want a t-shirt of the Lleyton Hewitt strip
Boynton - new neighbour, sort of. Just being neighbourly!

Glen Eira Council - they're 600 percent on your side

2005-06-13T15:39:00.000+10:00

Last week's Glen Eira Leader, thanks to Karma to burn for this:

Glen Eira councillors have asked the State Government for a pay rise, claiming that flooding, an ageing population and the Jewish community increase their workload.

The Government classifies councils - and sets their allowances - based on population and revenue, but Glen Eira's submission said there were "exceptional circumstances" that justified a higher classification.

If the Government agrees, allowances for councillors will jump $3,000 to $18,000 and from $46,500 to $57,500 for the Mayor.

The Council's submission said the Jewish community - in particular Holocaust survivors - presented additional challenges.

"There can be significant issues of security, anti-Semitic behaviour and community safety," the council said.

The Jewish community's attempts to develop new places of worship "produces tensions which need to be managed and a need for community leadership to be exercised", it said.

A population growth of about 300 people a year had placed pressure on Glen Eira's planning system, it said."

Wow.

Had no idea those elderly Jews were so much of a damn problem.

And was that a population growth of three hundred? Jesus. they should build the new detention centre there instead of Broadmeadows. Imagine the strain on infrastructure (Werribee gets annual growth of about 20,000, but that's ok, the newcomers don't all want inground swimming pools).

No guys, look a bit closer to home if you want to know who's putting pressure on your planning system.

It's a Glen Eira planner called Fatima, who has a reputation for being rude, an asshole and obstructive, and is loathed by real estate agents, architects and draftspeople far and wide, and was given a glowing reference by her former employers at another council because they couldn't wait to get rid of her.

Fatima told my mother - who is building a house in the area - in a meeting that she could arrange an interpreter, and blithely said "i thought you were deaf" when my mother challenged her on her stonewalling.

My mother has accented English, but she is not deaf, and in no way needs an interpreter, but she does need people who will be professional and answer her questions and treat her decently.

And once the house is built, we are going to town on this local govt Nazi. No point doing it earlier, because she has the power to fuck it up for all time.

Anyway, let's meet these guys who need a whopping 600 per cent payrise.

Oops - mustn't tar em all with the same brush - Mayor Margaret Esakoff only wants a 25% pay rise.

Isn't she gorgeous? Are you sure you're not a North Shore girl, dear? You sure have the attitude . Double Pay, perhaps?

Also from Jasper Ward ...

Bob "Mr 600 per cent" Bury

Jamie "Mr 600 per cent" Hyams

From Mackie Ward...

Peter "Honorable backbench member for Eltham" Goudge

Rachelle "Miss 600 per cent" Sapir (who is also a dab hand - allegedly - at tracking down other councillors' Centrelink benefits in her day job)

Veronika "Miss 600 per cent" Martens, founder of the sister city relationship with some town in Japan.

How come these guys never put their hands up to go to Timor?

and from Orrong Ward:

Alan "Mr 600 per cent" Grossbard

Dorothy "Mrs 600 per cent" Marwick (ironically, she was a member of the State Government waste advisory committee) and
Noel ""Let's step outside so I can beat you to a pulp" Erlich (his words to ratepayer association prez David Feldman at a council meeting last year)

Uh, may be if they're so worried about vandalism of Jewish places of worship, they should ask for the cops to get a pay rise?

Feel some Glen Eira rage coming on.

Wonder where these guy's stand on Howard's new IR laws?

Maybe they can back my bid for heritage protection of my award conditions.

Throw rocks at boys

2005-06-07T11:31:00.000+10:00

My sister teaches art at a boys' school.
she periodically has to order them to stop drawing their dicks in their sketchpads.

No this is not in the exam.

No, really it's not.

Anyway, to let off steam, she plays this:

http://www.davidandgoliathtees.com/games/throwrocks.html

Private parts of councillors

2005-05-26T09:32:00.000+10:00

6 Prairial CCXII

When I first started BOB nearly a year ago, I'd preface any posts about local politics with the day's date from the French Revolutionary Calendar.

For obvious reasons - follow local pollies for any amount of time and you'l find most are little suburban Robespierres. Take Glen Eira, where Mr & Mrs Mallrat Snr live - you can't put in a swimming pool without incorporating the equivalent amount of excavataed earth into a landscape feature or some such, because there's a 1925 covenant on many properties banning gold mining, hence excavation.

Then there's all that stuff about a Port Phillip councillor and some dude in Belgium (small minds think alike) wanting DNA testing of dogshit to identify owners who don't scoop the poop. (Pity the poor fucker who has to collect and analyse)

Anyway, my dating convention (along with that other one, three feet on the floor at all times, even if you are crabby) slipped into disuse.

But now some neuron seems to have got firing again - probably cause I've just given up the fags (thanks to Synchotron colleague Xavier for pointing out I'm gonna chunk out for the next six months until my appetite stabilises again...)

This seems an appropriate time to start it up again.

It might even be good at some stage to adapt the French rev cal to Melbourne suburbia - after all, it seesm absurd to be calling our shivery May down here "prairial" when it so obviously is not. The only cherry blossoms you'll find now are made of crepe paper in a bargain bin at Lincraft.

And I'm not sure I like the idea of a 10-day week.

Fucking frogs.

The ever-entertaining Andy Landy caught me to this story a few days ago. Damn.

Glen Eira councillor Rachelle Sapir admitted using her job at Centrelink to conduct an "inappropriate search on fellow councillor Peter Goudge. Goudge was claimed to be living in Eltham - other side of town - at the last election.

Then the silly bint tells all to a Leader reporter.

30 minutes later, she calls to retrospectively declare the conversation "off the record".

How much of an idiot do you have to be to get on council?

Jeez, what a shame Sapir doesn't work for the department of immigration - she would only need a pawprint from a JP to conduct raids. Wouyldn't that have been even better? She could have made absolutely sure from Goudge's kitchen scraps where he was living.

Do you think your email is being spied on by cardinals of the order of the Rosucrucians or Jedis with plastic light sabres?

Well, here's your chance to speak up, because the Federal Government is reviewing the Telcommunications Interception Act.

It's a 25-year-old piece of legislation, so of course, it pre-dates the net, and even Kylie's breasts.

Electronic Frontiers Australia is getting shitty about the fact that it doesn't afford any privacy over stored communications like emails, SMSs, and voice messages.

Right now, law-enforcement agencies only need a warrant from a JP to access these things - with no requirement to alert the victim that their commu ciations are being pored over like the contents of Ray Martin's trash can.

So Rachelle - get cracking, cause on December 16, your e-spying playhouse is gonna get torn down, down, down....

Sapir ain't the only one.

And jeez it's fantastic when JIIS (Jack or is it Steve) Medcraft, of Hume Council - proponent of mandatory detention - gets caught out.

This from Vic Parly Hansard, via GuruAnn. I have cut out the boring bits. Coming from a pollie, of course, there were many. My interjections (order!!) are in []...

Hume: councillor
Mr NARDELLA (Melton) -- I raise a matter for the Minister for Local Government in the other place [Huh? The great upper house in the sky? Speak English, Nardo, will you?].

...Cr Medcraft ... on numerous occasions has broken the law through the illegal use of electoral rolls ... and not destroying a copy supplied to him within 30 days of the date of the municipal election.

March 2003 was the last time an election was held at Hume City Council, which is over two years ago. Under the act all candidates get a copy of the electoral roll to use for official business during the election -- to get themselves elected and to communicate with electors. Afterwards candidates are required to destroy the roll or return copies of the roll to the chief executive officer within 30 days of the election.

*** DAILY HANSARD *** PROOF VERSION ONLY *** DO NOT QUOTE *** [yeah,right]

At 10.15 a.m. on 20 December 2004 Mr Sean Payne complained on a web site called sunburyonline.com about the state of playgrounds in Sunbury -- for which Cr Medcraft is responsible -- and said that he had been derelict in his duty of providing quality facilities.

In a reply posted on the web site ...Cr Medcraft wrote in response to Mr Payne that he was not sure where he lived but he did not appear on the electoral roll as a Sunbury ratepayer. However, he was glad that he was interested in Sunbury issues.

Another example of illegality on the part of Cr Medcraft occurred at 1.06 p.m. on 21 July 2004 when Cr Medcraft responded to a posting by a Dorothy Reynolds the day before and said that he was interested in her comments but asked why she was not on the electoral roll in Sunbury? ...

Cr Medcraft, who is the leader of the 'People against lenient sentencing' group, demands no less in his rantings and public utterances. The full penalties should be applied to Cr Medcraft in view of the fact that he believes there should be no flexibility in sentencing and that sentencing should be mandatory.

Cr Medcraft has undertaken illegal activities because he has not carried out the simple act of destroying the roll. He has blatantly misused the roll to try to humiliate his local residents, which is also in contravention of
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 71

*** DAILY HANSARD *** PROOF VERSION ONLY *** DO NOT QUOTE ***

people's privacy and civil rights. Steve Medcraft is a hypocrite for saying that people should obey the law and that the full force of the law should be applied to transgressors without fear or favour. If he had any integrity or honour he would resign his council position pending the appropriate investigation by the authorities into his illegal activities.

Sunbury residents deserve better from their elected representatives, who should not be breaking the law. They should have integrity and honesty in their dealings with local residents, not abuse their civil rights. That is the reason I am referring the matter to the Minister for Local Government.

So fucking naughty, inne?
Taking comments now on best punishments.

Load of old trolley

2005-05-20T14:51:00.000+10:00

Orright, orright, yes, it was me!

I did creep into the British Museum and put this alongside a display of cave art painting.

Nice to know curators keep better tabs on Banksy much more than thei rown exhibits.

Btw, the pig was great once we bit the plastic off.

Ground zero

2005-05-18T09:19:00.000+10:00

The first shots in the war have been fired.

These were the scenes on Collins Street this morning - commuters' faces hardened in a collective grimace - as they braced themselves for the long campaign.

A spokesman for the national depression research body, beyondblue, said the entire nation was on suicide watch.

Last night's announcement had a paralysing effect similar to that which gripped Europeans in 1914 at the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

And across the metropolis, even before the reverberations of the clarion have died down, white feathers are being wedged into Express mail packages.

One that we have learned of is on its way to a newsagent in Bridge Road, Richmond, reported to have been undermining the war effort with the comment, "I'm gonna ring the Herald-Sun and say 'I've got two boobs too, you know."

Another is fluttering, autumn leaf-like, into the lap of Shae'lee from the Accounts Department at the Synchotron.

"It's not as if she friggin died," she is alleged to have said, at which her supervisor issued a stentorian, "Someone call security and have this woman escorted from the building.

"Immediately."

A male colleague who muttered, "This is the gay and lesbian community's equivalent to 9/11," is expected to meet a similar fate.

The federal Department of Community Services cold not confirm this morning whether the pair would be eligible for Centrelink disability benefits after their anticipated kneecappings.

However, Alexander Downer's office has confirmed the Foreign Minister is likely to plead for clemency on their behalf.

Day one.

And Kylie's fight has only just begun.

Are you part of the solution?

Or part of the problem?

Schapelle Pty Ltd

2005-05-17T12:03:00.000+10:00

Knight on a charger (in this case, a Nokia 6700) Mad Ron Bakir says Hell no, I won't be making no dough out of his new company, Schapelle Corby Pty Ltd.

That's a shame, as he's been linked to yet another corporate fuck-up and could use the dosh from the following great merchandising ideas:

The Schapelle stubbie holder. Great while you wait for verdicts.
Schapelle Etiquette, the book: how to make your way through strange customs
Schapelle cargo pants, seat thatched with drought-resistant Kentucky Blue
The Schapelle ringtone. Download now.
Schapelle eyebrow shaper. The fastest way to an expression of permanent shock.

argh, that's all a bit lame , i know. if you've got nay to add, post a comment. i may update if my numskull gets cracking today...

DNA testing on dog turds

2005-05-10T17:02:00.000+10:00

Ha ha ha - just caught up with this:

Earlier this year, signs were erected in the city centre, warning that people who feed pigeons face $205 on-the-spot fines. To prevent fire, the City of Maroondah stipulates that grass must not grow higher than 10 centimetres Late-night vacuuming has been outlawed by Brimbank City Council as part of a crackdown on noisy neighbours. Bizarre covenants that affect hundreds of properties in the City of Glen Eira prevent many home owners from installing swimming pools. The covenants, from 1925, ban the removal of soil from properties to prevent mining in the mineral-rich area.

And dog walkers in the City of Port Phillip face $200 fines if they fail to scoop up dog poo and are not carrying a bag to do so. (The council once threatened to DNA test a frozen dog turd to determine whether a miniature terrier from Upwey was had defecated on Elwood beach.)

PLease submit your suggestions for future bylaws, in the same spirit of municipal time-wasting.

Happy hunting ground

2005-05-09T21:13:00.000+10:00

My folks are building a unit out the back of the house I grew up in Bentleigh, a suburb that was built largely in the 1920s, charming but dull, and until young families started moving in a few years ago – a neat circle, as my parents did just that in the early 1970s - quite grey, demographically speaking.

There are lots of great fruit, veg and meat stores, thriving despite the gargantuan Coles. There’s even a Glicks selling cakes and biscuits, just like the original on Balaclava Road, but perhaps without the charmless women behind the counter in outrageously bad wigs. My first books were bought at Benns Books. I was an Enid Blyton nut. God knows. It’s as incomprehensible to me now, the allure for an eight year old, as the Wiggles’ appeal is to a toddler.

I don’t know exactly where it is, but I know there is a progressive synagogue nearby because I once met a 90 year old guy who used to go there when he wasn’t doing stand-up comedy gigs at the Esplanade – I wonder if he’s still alive. I think his name was Jack.

Anyway into this gentle environment, my family – twin sisters who were by then nine, and me, a two-year-old (oh I’m damaged forever by being born before the Wiggles were even Cockroaches!) came. A California bungalow of gracious lines.

And then there was the backyard.

But oh what a backyard.

And my imagination, limitless and trippy as a child’s is, got fed by a perfumed garden that seemed an entire world – how things shrink when you see them again as an adult! It smelled of woodsmoke – these were the days before burning off was banned – in the autumn, and I spent most of my free time on my own playing, not coming in until dinner. And even then…I was brown as a nut. And limber from climbing trees, a monkey. I even once climbed a tree wearing roller skates- not at that house, a detail that’s probably not important to anyone except me.

I used to gorge on plums – the purple kind with yellow flesh – figs, apricots and apples. Mum would make quince paste from the tree that spread across the back fence, and we’d harvest the grapefruit. I’d nick next door to be check out Mr Tonkin’s chooks and look hopefully at him for lollies, until my mother forbade it – I was annoyed at her, but in hindsight realize what her fears were.

Dad and his friends built a big brick barbecue that was used more as a cubby house by me and the girl next door, Melissa. Mum found out and tried to make me tell the priest at my first confession. Even at that young age, I had enough of a sense of self-preservation not to drag myself through that ordeal. Bravo the sanctity of the confessional.

Anyway, my dad, who turns 80 this year, rang me the other night to say it was all gone. They’re building a unit out the back to secure themselves financially in their old age. A great idea. Amazing of my mother to organise it all in the face of my father’s resistance.

But it’s all gone. The apricot trees that had gone craggy, the shed with the leadlight window – yes the shed! Imagine! – the quince tree … and it hurt so much to know it was all gone. And the space where Dad used to cultivate a vege patch.

It will be replaced by a squat, ugly unit. Low and fat,not tall and narrow, how I wanted it. I got caught up by the daily whirlwind and opted out of the tedium of fighting the planners. Big mistake. Maybe.

My childhood hunting ground.

.

Commuting time vs quality time

2005-05-05T09:49:00.000+10:00

Researchers have found that nearly a third of Melbourne fathers in full-time jobs spend more time travelling to and from work than they do engaged in quality activities with their children.

That is among the startling facts of urban sprawl: it exacts a hefty toll on all Melbourne commuters, with employees, on average, spending four hours and 22 minutes a week travelling to and from work.

Exactly!

So if I read one more snarly smirky commentator trying to conjure up this artificial divide between trendy chardonnay inner-city dwelling socialists who want higher density living and containment of sprawl versus 'real' aussies who love the burbs, I'll lose my trolley.

For the record, I grew up in the burbs. Moorabbin. it's probably considered inner-city by now. Couldn't wait to leave. By the time I'll be able to afford a deposit, I'll be looking at a fucking caravan in Cranbourne. And that depresses the hell out of me.

Living smack in the centre of a compact European city - for a peppercorn rent, too - for a couple of years brought home to me the insanity of Australia's cities. One of the first news stories i read when i got back was in Sydney, wheer ether are far more people than in Melbourne who have too much disposable income for their own good: some guy was building a home theatre. Jesus, I thought, whatever happened to going out? Is the public sphere supposed to be that anemic and privatised?

Short on blogging time right now, but I promise that soon I will have a go at Bob Birrell of Monash University who has been attacking Melbourne 2030, saying it will destroy Melbourne's leafy green character.

He obviously hasn't left Camberwell and ventured out to Narre Warren or Hoppers Crossing lately. So according to his vision, they can all go fuck themselves (well, it's not like there's much else to do, unless you count laugh clubs and Rotary as meaningful, enjoyable activities).

He's a disgrace.

Meanwhile, for want of a genuine statewide vision, urban-interface (the technical term for boondocks combining the worst of both city and country) councils are approving brick venereals and "dead worm" cul de sacs that increase the strain on infrastructure and services, isolation and are just plain butt ugly. And it doesn't have to be like this.

Why developers are being allowed to keep building huge family homes when demand is for smaller, one and two-bedroom places - and will increasingly head in that direction because we're simply not breeding much - is beyond me.

Hopefully now that Rob "I'd like to vomit on you" Hulls is planning minister, having taken over from the wishy-washy, I-just-want-to-be-loved Delahunty, the Government will have the mettle to stick by its blueprint.

Flawed as it may be - and that in itself is debatable - it's the only thing between us and LA.

So good one Clive Hamilton, of the Australia Institute, and Farah Farouque, for today's article. it'd be great if The Beige ran a campaign on urban sprawl and what the hell is happening in the outer suburbs - along the lines of its very effective, long-running Give the Yarra a Go campaign. How about Give Our City a Go? Give our Lives a Go? What sort of a life is it if you spend more time on the train than with the kids?

Nimby elements among the Greens (most of them asie from asome great architects and planners) and Save our Suburbs have a lot to answer for.

Many of the former are not intentionally against stopping sprawl. They just don't seem to grasp the connection between their activities to stop any sort of change or medium-density development where they live, and the fact that stopping sprawl requires a bit of give closer to where they live. There is no way that stopping sprawl can be painless.

You can't have it both ways: formaldehyde (it's a verb now!) existing suburbs AND end urban sprawl. Problem is, most nimbies live in cute suburbs and don't want any sort of change. They don't live in the sticks.

The equation is pretty simple. sacrifice a little inner city/suburban amenity versus out-of-control sprawl.

It is simply not possible to restore Melbourne to an 1890s look. The population pressures are too huge, and we don't live in an agrarian society any more. Accepting this doesn't mean paving the way for the planning disaster that is Bangkok.

I wish the Greens would lead the fight for intelligent, sensitive and innovative developments - that preserve amenity and offer good open space - accepting the demographics and working with them instead of pretending the problem doesn't exist.

And is it really a sacrifice? Look at the explosion in life in the Melbourne CBD as a result of apartments going in - 10 years ago, the only buzz there was from Russell Street drug dealers. Now, the dealers are still there, but there are also lots of o/s students and other inner-city residents.

A few years ago, Guy Rundle pooh-poohed the idea that people would actually wnat to live in the Docklands partments that were starting to go up. He thought they were an urban blight.

But why? they're serving a need, they're allowing people to live closer to the centre, and it's pretty much a greenfields site. And it's great that bike tracks and open space are going in. It's a pity there is no public/social/cheap housing there, but...

Institute executive director Clive Hamilton said commuting had a harmful impact on the environment as well as family and social life.

"The more we commute, the less we relate," he said. "Particularly in wealthier suburbs, where many people work long hours and have long commutes, neighbourhoods become little more than dormitories."

The photo on your right isn't even a fair depiction of the problem - it's too close to the CBD!

I was speaking to a friend who knew a now-retired public psychiatrist serving the western region, from Footscray to Werribee, possibly down to Geelong. He said mental health problems there were huge, out-of-control.

Obviously you can't pin all this down to urban sprawl - there's class, poverty, underfunding of education, etc. But if you're a teenager or a mum stuck in a burb where your household might only be able to afford one car, and you're dependent on that to get to any community/sporting/social activity (let's face it, public transport is SHIT there) then you're in trouble.

We are building suburbs where all social interaction must be planned because everything is so hard to get to and commuting makes us so time poor; through bad suburban planning, we eliminate the possibility of random, spontaneous social encounters, the streets are just populated by bored and sometimes destructive young people and the vulnerable.

And then we wonder why every few years some alienated nut goes berserk with a shotgun, or tortures a kitten at a railway station. Childhood abuse, plus neglect, combined with lack of exposure to other adult figures who could mitigate that - there'sa connection with the way we buld our cities so that people are dangerously dependent on a very narrow circle of people. If the nuclear family isn't working well, you're in trouble. If overworked teachers can't be social workers as well, you're in trouble.

I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.

You went to the wrong country, Schapelle

2005-04-15T16:53:00.000+10:00

King Mohammed VI of Morocco granted full or partial pardons to more than 7,000 prisoners today to celebrate the circumcision of his son, Crown Prince Moulay el Hassan, the justice ministry said.

AFP

Now go see Guru Ann for the full rundown, from a Sunbury persepctive, on the trial, and the bickering in the local paper from Jack-or-is-it-Steve Medcraft about how she submitted her kids to the horrors of Indonesia's prison system and bribed guards to visit Corby.

Surprisingly, Jack-or-is-it-Steve (from heron in known as JOIIS because writing it out in full is a pain in the ass)has remained surprisingly quiet on Sunburyonline on what punishment he thinks is fitting for the former Gold Coast beauty fainting-fit prone student.

Is it what we think it is, JOIIS?

He could make himself REAL popular.

****

A funny thing happened today on my way to Thomastown to buy some tiles for the new bathroom we're putting in. Lots of hefty-looking guys stroking each other's forearms and tongue-kissing.

Then the feds rolled up.

I slithered quickly down a drain.

Still Life with Fuckwit

2005-04-10T19:20:00.000+10:00

Took Mallrat’s mum to the flower show at the Exhibition Gardens. What a waste of time that was, even though we had freebies. She thought it was much better when she went a few years ago. Free samples were thin on the ground, it was hotter than Andrew Bolt in a bikini, the coffee was, predictably, senior-citizen strength, and Jamie Durie was nowhere to be found.

There were some great sculptures and vegetation installations by RMIT fashion students and others, using seed pods, and recycled soft drink bottles as vases. Pretty impressive, but probably Not the Sort of Stuff You Want To Try at Home™.

Good to see the gardening show on 3cr getting a guernsey at the experts’ marquee. My mum approached one guy there asking why her greengage plum tree had never once flowered. He tried to convince her that she needed another expensive plum tree close by. I said hang on – something in a brain cell stirred – shouldn’t I just go to a nursery with a paintbrush, dust a bit of pollen into a paper bag and cross-pollinate manually? He finally admitted that yes, I could do that.

That sort of summed up the completely commercial nature of the event for me. I'd rather avoid the hype & crowds and go to a good nursery.

All in stark contrast to the garden at the house I’m minding for another month, which is tumbledown woggy charming – lots of cacti, overgrown roses, an enormous bay tree, parsley and mint growing in every conceivable cranny, lots of couch, fences made from old gates and stakes and fencing patched together with telephone cables and twine, red-and-white piebald chrysanthemums, and even now, in early April, rich red tomatoes. I like it, but it’d be nice to prepare a bed full of flowers for the owner's return from respite care.

*****

Went to a really poor show at the Comedy festival last night with May Contain Traces of Nuts (known in the early days of this blog as Jamie Durie’s Water Feature).

I think it’s called Hell’s Angels Sent Us Here but I can’t be arsed looking it up. Two wannabe-bogans (now there's a concept) from Beenleigh (don’t worry, it’s in QLD, that’s all you need to know).

One guy with a mullet did all the talking and couldn’t stop touching his dick (yeah, we get it, ok!) and the other played the guitar and pretended to smoke a rollie, which I thought was pathetic, but also because I hadn’t brought my fags, I really wanted to jump up and shout, “are you gonna smoke that already? Cause if you aren’t, give it to MOI”. The guy was more wooden than a still life.

The basic problem I have with the these shows aboout bogans is that they’re just sneering, patronising pisstakes. Utterly lacking in interest, or surprises. How about taking us a on a journey with the character? May Contain’s work brings him in contact with these sorts of guys occasionally – smackies who are in and out of the corrections system. He observed that one of the real McCoy on stage would be far darker and far more interesting than these bozos.

A sample of the “humor” – mullet man talks about a chick he once knew, who wante to go to university and do feminist studies (he stumbles over the word). A few years later, he says she’s flashing her tits to bikies. “That must be post-feminism, ha ha.”

I couldn’t understand why a Trades Hall audience was laughing at that one. Your point, sir?
We walked out after the third song, I with a guilty dash to the door, while May Contain just sauntered, silently defying Fuckwit with mullet to challenge him. No such luck.

I would rather have spent that money being overcharged at the petrol station.

BTW, will there be paparazzi won't be getting a topless on the beach with g-string shot, cause the honeymoon's in Scotland.

Thank the Lord for small mercies.

test

2005-04-08T21:22:00.000+10:00

And like, this one night at the Sistine Chapel...

2005-04-08T18:08:00.000+10:00

I'm staying in tonite - I've got some kit furniture from I*** that I need to assemble, and I need to sweep up shards from the explosions that were my third attempt at chilli home brew.

So the telly's on and I'm just blown away by the media coverage of that old scroat (i don't know how you spell that)

I mean, Channel 9 broadcasting the funeral? I would have guessed SBS as an outside chance.

What's it all mean? Somewhere in the Burberry-clad recesses of evry gum-cracking member of Planet Eurotrash is a ticker being being lifted up to the lord, in Eggshellcis (which until today I thought was a Telstra spin-off that the Government wants to hock).

Ah, there goes Ratzinger, and my god, there's the cedar coffin ... the commentator's right, it's very simple. It looks like something you build off those Bunnings DIY plans - you know, here's a little something to go with the decking.

Urgh, the commentary is unbearable - sentimental, that tone of voice that royal commentators or channel 10 news reporters have of sounding urgent when what they're saying is actually bullshit ... and the choir is bringing back memories I'd rather stayed repressed.

So I've got All safe, All Well by a great new Geelong band called Seascapes of theInterior playing - it's melancholy, atmospheric, and I LOVE it.

So it's an interesting night for TV. I read my horoscope on line today and it said, “You are an arrogant shit, Mallrat, and you will find Channel surfing very rewarding.”

Ch 10: American Pie is on at 9. Can you believe that? I can't wait for some elderly person to write into the Hun or Green guide saying they thought they were getting the Pope and instead copped an eyeful of American teens all tryign to lose their cherry before Prom Night, How Outrageous, Blah blah.

and Aunty has the Kumars on later. I love the Kumars. Much more fun that watching this Polish gandu, ne?

And then Stiffler sent his word to the Israelites announcing the peace to Jesus Christ, our lord, and Stiffler's mom...

That is doing strange things to my head.

OMG, there's some guy who was just on before the Gospels with a voice that I can only describe as the closest human sound to Valvolene.

Hell's Pells!

2005-04-04T13:10:00.000+10:00

We had a sweep at the Synchotron where we all wagered a buck on who would shuffle off first: most of us picked PJ II, then Terri Schiavo, then Prince Ranier, but didn't bank on Schiavo being first.

Hey- what the hell is happening to Ranier?

Well, wouldn't YOU call in sick?

2005-04-01T11:52:00.000+10:00

TheGestator, we're expecting a big fat post from you now...Live from Werribee.

*****

My my, if only The Treasurer kissed each and everyone of those babies, we could nail him under the Andrew Phillips amendment.

Now we know why he was cultivating that smirk all these years.

The HUN today reports on a couple of people who seem to be taking up the Costello challenge ... giving real estate agents a bad name (like L. J. Hooker wasn't bad enough)

The daughter of the guy selling a Ballarat house says she caught the agent leaving a bedroom with a lady friend.

He walked out without his tie, and his shirt partially unbuttoned.

the real estate Institute "investigated" and said the complaint was "completely unfounded".

Rumours that Costello called them to say "I wouldn't hold off waiting for the Victorian Government to legislate on under and overquoting or doing diddley squat to make sure land tax doesn't fuck the investment property market - get going!" were denied by the minister's office.

In-fucking-deed

2005-03-30T15:06:00.000+10:00

Yeah, so like Tourism Minister Fran Bailey (of pole-dancing fame) wants Orssss-iez to ~~shit~~holiday in their own backyards.

I am most ratty that no pesky journalist thought to put to her:

So Miz Bailey, pole-dancing legend, does this mean we should not use our tourist dollars to boost the local economies of tsunami and now earthquake-affected areas of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, so wee little bairns can suckle on infant formula and people can have a thatched bamboo roof over their head this year and not have to survive on two meals a day of aluminium mine tailings.... ??

What you say to that, Miz PoleDancer MP?

The intriguing thing about Bailey's ~~Easter slow news day cunning stunt~~ call is that she's come up with 30 THINGS ORSSIEZ MUST DO BEFORE THEY DIE

And no, getting a will - living, breathing, kicking, or otherwise - is not among them. Nor even getting laid on Rye backbeach by two hockey players at once.

Her deathlist goes as follows:

THINGS TO DO BEFORE I DIE, BY FRAN BAILEY MP, TM

1. Hiking at Wilsons Prom
2. Floating along on a houseboat on the Murray River
3. WTF!!!!! SIPPING CAFFE LATTE AT FEDERATION SQUARE???!!!! WTF WANKER!!!! Who does she think we are - Virginia fucking Trioli?
4. Indulging in a spa at Daylesford. (hmmm last time I looked into the prices, they were something like $13,587.38 for 15 minutes. Lunch was an intriguing aromatherapy special - it turned out just to be the SMELL of bacon frying. F*** that.

She is insane. My list heregoes forthwith:

1. Go Cave Clanning
2. Get food poisoning from a pork salad roll in Springvale
3. Catch a ride in a shopping trolley
4. Needlestick from syringe on a beach
5. Burn a hedge
6. Crash a charismatic church service starring family first red-leather warmer Steve Fielding
7. Go to singles night at the Macedonaian social club (see link on sidebar)
8. Get taken home from cricket practice in a divvie van (Thanks to Nabakov's colleague TW for that one)
9. Get done for drink-driving (bonus registration with the political party of your choice)
10. Sell your granddad's Legion D'Honneur medals for school fundraiser.
11. PLay pokies with surviving members of the Carlton Crew at the Brunswick Club in Sydney Road
And hey - carry THIS on your car (thanks Barista, for the fantastic Flickr link)

How the other half lived

2005-03-24T21:51:00.000+11:00

No-fault divorce. What a beautiful thing.

It means we don't have more cases like this clogging up the courts.

Here's one that has recently been up in the Supreme Court common law division.

Take one (1) high-flyin' eastern burbs real estate agent and
one (1) spurned ex-lover of 4 years on a sales wage of $44k and wanting, oh, just a wee memento of the relationship - a HOUSE
Rub salt, add vinegar:

The Plaintiff and the first-named defendant lived as though they were husband and wife. Insofar as the agreement was oral ... it was by the fact that:

a) the Plaintiff lived at the home of the first-named Defendant...
b) the Plaintiff dined with the first-named Defendant as his exclusive companion including at restaurants such as Isis, Borsato, Isthmas of Kra, Stokehouse and France Soir

...when Mallrat had a relationship, our agreement covered Subway at the corner of Frankston-Dandenong Road and Greens Rd and the then Kosher Express on Balaclava Road

Throughout the relationship, the Plaintiff made a contribution to the welfare of the firstnamed Defendant...the firstnamed Defendant was:

(a) cared for in that his weight and lifestyle were of concern to both he and the Plaintiff ... On 3rd November 1996, the Plaintiff ordered the "Gut Buster" program to assist in the weight control and loss...

(b) comforted sexually by the Plaintiff agreeing to partake in activities beyond the normal required by the firstnamed Defendant

(c) Assisted by the Plaintiff on diverse occasions when the firstnamed Defendant suffered from gout. At his request, the Plaintiff used medication in a suppository form to assist in relieving his pain because he was not comfortable about inserting the suppository himself

...

The Firstnamed Defendant entertained regularly and the Plaintiff kept a list of guests and what food had been provided to avoid the embarrassment to the firstnamed Defendant of having repeated meals:

Tom Yum Soup and eye fillet was prepared by the Plaintiff and served to the Yates, Caddens and Mantellos;
Soup, eye fillet and sticky date pudding was prepared for and served to the Monaghans, Van Egmonds, Sally Chirnside, Ken Bunny and Georgina Weir and her partner Kent

Interruption while I go to maccas as so much writing about food is making me very hungry...

The firstnamed Defendant asked the Plaintiff to assist his auctions by acting as a dummy bidder on a number of occasions. the exact addresses or properties were hard to recall having regard to their number.

It all ended in tears. But i'm not sure if she got to keep the memento.

The Adventures of Tenhae Part I

2005-03-16T22:18:00.000+11:00

Does anyone remember this sexy lady?

Yep, while Mallrat is gearing up for the Synchotron open day this Sunday, and stoopidly forgot to log out, insatiable Friend Tenhae has plopped into the BraveOurBurbs swivel seat.

Tenhae is up for some action. She's tried the Hoppers Xing bars and pubs, tried the Maltese Club's singles nights (language is a handicap and she towers over the menfolk who in any case emigrated circa 1951) and has finally decided, fuck it, me go on line:

Body type: Large-ish
Eye colour: Other
Hair colour: Other
Smoking habits: Regularly
Drinking habits: Often
Relationship status: Single
Have children: Yes, have children living at home sometimes
Number of Children: 5
Child age from: 1 Years 1 Months
Child age to: 20 Years 6 Months
Want children: Want (more) children of my own
Nationality: AUSTRALIA
Ethnic/cultural background: Not Specified
Religion: Born Again Christian
Occupation industry: Unemployed
Occupation level: Other
Education level: High School
Political persuasion: Right wing
Diet: Vegan
Personality type: Average
Have Pets: Yes, have pets
Sign of the Zodiac: Not Specified
What do the stars say about this person?

Hellooooo from hoppers!!!!

Interests:
Music: gold 104 & mmm, billy joel, celine dion, tom jones.
Reading: the signs on Springvale Road that lead to Nappyland (I'm a mum), instructions for infant formula (still, after all this time, I'm a bit forgetful, pregnant brain!:-)), the letters i get back from ray martin when i send him fan mail. anything by andrew bolt. new idea. TV Week crossword.
Movies: Nightmare on Elm Street 1-5, my ex-husband's home movies, shrek 1-2, prefer sesame street to playschool, a current affair, HUGE Idol fan. motor racing, golf, olympics, the ghanaian swimming team.
Sport: running for the fridge, running to the baby crying, running to the DSS before it shuts, running running running! :-), juggling being a mum with being a domestic goddess, family accountant, home chef, conflict resolution supremo, and vamp.
Other interests: sleep.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
well i will post a photo of myself with my motorbike soon.
I am a spunky lady with lots of nrg :-)
Love nothing better than to curl up on the couch with someone spunky and a good horror movie with someone special (though i have to mkae sure the kids are tucked up in bed first) who has a GSOH and good attitude to body hair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Relationship sought: Pen Pal or Friendship with a Male or Female
Short-term or Long-term Relationship with a Male Ideal partner:
You don't snore. Too loudly.

Now, tenhae has sent what are called "kisses" to some other hot prospects on Australia's most popular singles website.

Here's one of em:
Hell666Boy:

Great pic huh? underneath hellboy has written, "Wash your panties on these".

In case you weren't convinced he's a fucking catch, here's his little slogan:

"i may not be Fred Flintstone but i can make your bedrock"

------------------------------------------------------------------------

i am an active person,who spends a lot of time at the gym i like to go out at night meet new poeple however i have a very unapproachable persona,most of my last relationships have failed dismally on account of me lacking emotion hense being called "cold as a fish"the only time i cuddle or kiss is before sex ummmmm i have been diagnosed as a "committaphobe"by people who have known me for 5 mins and i seem to show great affection to woman right up to the moment they start to show an interest in me. so if you feel like you need to live an nightmare and want to spend the rest of your life banging your head against a padded cell send me a kiss and i will get back to you p.s dont say i didnt warn you p.s p.s i am shallow and weak willed ps.ps.ps im somewhat charming and a good shag
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Relationship sought: Short-term or Long-term Relationship with a Female Ideal partner:
Between 18 and 30 years old , between under 5'0"/152 cm and 5'11"/180 cm from AUSTRALIA
around 5f5in like big breasts and round arses ummmmmmm asians go well head doesnt have to be a oil painting however the body has to be up to scratch generally the darker skinned girls attract my attention

Oh, and hellboy poses this conundrum under "other interests":

can someone tell me why when i talk dirty to a woman its sexual harrassment but when a woman talks dirty to me its $4.50 per minute

So, uh, stay tuned for more instalments of the Adventures of tenhae, and find out Hell666Boy's answer is to her coy respondez s'il te plait is....

Heartfelt but not legally binding apology for break in transmission

2005-02-18T19:50:00.000+11:00

Dear Blogmeister,

Please excuse Mallrat's absence from school and its lamest post YTD regarding the royal nuptials.

S/he choked on a dodgy chicken submarine at KFC Glen Waverley with Daily Flute the other night.

S/he will return to normal service after a new bout of gender reassignment surgery in websafe colors, followed by a visit to the extended family, a digital camera purchase and a new rathole (pending, still taking submissions must have OSP and GSOH with maximum OMGWTF paintwork).

Also still taking food donations.

Then we'll be ready to MALL like TIGERS!!!!!!

Luv,

Mallrat's Mum.

bastard broke my heart

2005-02-10T21:40:00.000+11:00

He's taken

Sob.

WTF - a curry without beer?

2005-02-09T20:09:00.000+11:00

The United Nations is preparing a team of scrutineers to oversee an April poll in Camberwell which may spell the end of the area's 77-year alcohol ban.

More than 600 residents will go to the polls under the supervision of the blue berets on Saturday, April 16.

Hah - that's one day before Mallrat turns 18-85 - not sure of correct d.o.b. as Mallrat's mother died in childbirth, not so much because of the physical exertion of passing a shopping trolley, where most women simply complain of a watermelon, but of sheer horror.

So what's behind this plebiscite to end civilisation as we know it?

Well, the manager of the Tandoori Den on Camberwell Road wants to be able to serve up a few Pilseners with the pappadams. Maurav Khanna said:

We want people to know that nothing will change - we will still always be BYO and we are not increasing opening hours or seating capacity.

Richard Butler, with the reluctant permission of his Tasmanian gaolers, will be brought out of retirement to flush out existing stills and home brew kits so that whatever the outcome, Camberwell starts either life as The New Werribee™ or continues on its dry way. Offenders will be assessed by the nation's best psychiatrists, placed in a secure detention facility and eventually deported to the new Afghanistan.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has warned of widespread violence and bloodshed, urging the US to pay outstanding dues so that a repeat of Rwanda does not occur, with Steve Price/John Laws urging supporters of the dry ban to garotte any infidel quaffers on sight.

Predictably, there are some Members of the Local Community™ who believe that the election will make the Indian eatery a den not merely of tandoori but of licentiousness, cirrhosis and sin (so what's changed in Camberwell since 1931?)

Get the name of this group: Dry Areas Quality of Life. You know that saying, "There wasn't a dry seat in the house?" Well, it was coined with this group of superannuated Bridge players in mind.

DAQL (doesn't even make for a good acronym!) spokesman Graeme Rule said:

We believe the people of Camberwell will look at the issue and choose to keep the status quo.

I can't believe the local paper failed to get anything more colorful out of him, like,

Lifting Camberwell's alcohol ban will result in more shagging in the bushes in the suburbs' already endangered pocket parks, leading to more unwanted pregnancies leading to an increase in Australia's already unacceptable abortion rate, or more unwanted children therefore more crime.

We say no to this attack on our way of life

So I went looking for their policy platform.

They also oppose:
Universal male suffrage (don't even get started on women)
Inclusion of "Balts" in Australia's immigration intake
Withdrawal of troops from Vietnam
Dancing
Music
Burial of Bob Menzies
Decimal currency
and of course, the closure of George's

By the way, if you live in the area bounded by Prospect Hill Road, Trafalgar road, Seymour Grove and Bourke Road, you HAVE to vote.

I wish Albert Langer lived in Camberwell.

Dispatch from the Bedsit Liberation Front

2005-02-03T20:31:00.000+11:00

Wherein Mallrat trudges through Footscray and discovers Leeds Street Filipino grocery selling banana ketchup plus amazing looking Viet eatery next door. Salivation reflex reactivated for first time since sighting of nude Andrew Bolt pics.

14:00 hours: In a side street just off Barkly, sighting of TRANNY HAIRDRESSER (salivatory glands reactivate for first time since reminiscing about AB nude pics)

Oh, and fantastic Jesus and Mary and pictures and graven images of our Buddha lit up with flashing fluoro lights from the back - 20 dollar, going cheap!

Then to Forges - the department store the west can call its own (Don't mention the Dimmeys-Forges alliance pact).

Yassou!!!! Lots of yiayias wandering about. Mute tribute to their sartorial cannineness in detonating Melbourne's obsession with black. To them, black will always be the new black.

a treasure trove awaits. $9.95: big bottles of plastic peppers and cloves of garlic, to look like home preserves (only they don't).

and then there is - i love this- the Galileo Thermometer!!

It's a glass bottle, all stoppered up, filled with liquid and some glass globes. Each globe has a temperature written on it - 15 degrees, 16, etc. at any one time, heat will have made the liquid's molecules expand, forcing up several of these globes. the one at the bottom of this cluster will correspond with the current temperature.

$14.95. made in China. Am VERY tempted. Love old technology. What a fantastic idea - only they're really fug ugly.

I do heart Foo-tes-cray. However the flathunting wasnt so successful. Dumps on bypasses, that sort of thing. Will keep roving.

Winchester, like the gun

2005-02-03T18:46:00.000+11:00

Oh now look at this prospective member of the Patriotic Yoof League.

He's Steve Winchester, of Braybrook, writing in to the Western Times this week

My comments in parentheses:

IS it fair to the majority of us who live in the western suburbs, and who are not black, Asian, or Muslim, to have basically every page of our local papers covered in photos of these minorities.

Why shove it down our throats. [shove what? does he just want white dick?]

Are your editors one-sighted or something, or have they had bad experiences? [with white dick?]

Just for your info, there are also Maori, Maltese, Italian, Greek, to name a few other nationalities living in the West. [Winchester: from the Ancient Greek, meaning disgruntled gun shop owner who has a problem with paying child support and the restraining orders to prove it]

So how come I rarely find stories of these nationalities? [Steve would rather have a steaming hot kabana down his throat than some rice queen, especially after that nasty experience in Patpong last year. But he's going back there soon to help the ailing post-tsunami tourist economy]

Now I don't have a problem with these people as I am surrounded on all sides by Asians - we converse, say hello, wave. [exchange sniper fire, drop a friendly turd in the letterbox...]

My point is that I would like tro be reading more of major community issues, not petty funding for minorities, to which I pay for. [excellent command of the English language, Mr W]

...

[gets really interesting here...]
I also notice I don't read about the youths of Braybrook running amok, being racist to elderly residents [the cub reporters got sick of trailing you, Steve - they had council meetings to cover] ... Or the fact that I keep picking up used nappies from the lady down the street [sounds like a weird arrangement, Steve, what do you get in return? All you can eat sex?] , who could not care less if she dropped them on the nature strip or on the road.

Why don't you get a good story about these minorities, like a story on the World Bank and how much money they actually defer from loans so that these individuals can build an infrastructure in their own country? [or how many millions the govt flushes down the toilet by detaining asylum seekers indefinitely]

But hang on. These people come from a depressed country like Sudan [hmmm, "depressed" is one way to describe the genocide of 4 million people in Darfur]. Tell that to the Aussie family of five or six looking for public housing and who can't afford the luxuries we all take for granted. I don't see any freebies for these Australians. [hmmm... not the dole, not the single parent benefit, nor disability benefit, nor kiddies payments, nor the educational maintenance allowance....no, nothing]

If the local papers want to keep on about minority groups and ignore the rest of us then don't bother delivering to to my door.

If you want the majority to become racist, your papers are doign areally good job. keep up the good work.

We're becoming a nation that looks after other countries' problems [you bet - Iraq for one] and ignores our own.

I'd like to think that Steve Winchester's faculties have temporarily been backed up after a long night eating cheese (thanks Ukelele, what a great line!)

I mean, he could have been swimming off Willi - where the water has been a bit Bracksish, infested with enterococci bacteria - in other words, SHIT, though we don't know the identity of the squatter just yet - leading to the beach's closure last Friday afternoon and Saturday.

Why, even a squadron of 120 nipper lifesavers wasn't able to go into the water for training last night.

********

Now, if you'd like to join me in writing a response, here are the deets:

Mr Ron Coleman
Editor
Western Times
Douglas Parade
newport 3015

email: thetimes@timespublications.com.au

Right ol' bitch slap in Hume

2005-02-02T23:15:00.000+11:00
In which Guru Ann gets the front page of this week's Sunbury Telegraph, above the fold, as a result of likening Hume councillor Jack Medcraft's views on asylum seekers to the Patriotic Yoof League's™ whitest and finest.

Poor Jack. Why do these people hate me when all I said was that the Hume TPV Association shouldn't have got that $5000 community grant to help asylum seeker families eat and survive - cause the desperate pennilessness of temporary visa holders is a state and federal issue, not a local govt issue ?

YEAH LIKE THE FEDS GIVE A SHIT!!!!!

... and you want a migrant detention centre (the one to replace Baxter when it closes down) in Broadie cause it'll provide jobs. Oh, and you say that it'll be closer for the "loonies" and "rednecks"[sic] to visit.

And then wonder why people turn around and state the obvious - that you're a rightwing heartless shit! or as Mel from Syn FM would say, a Fucktard (she coined the word).

FIRST CLASS ASSHOLE

oops, is that defamatory?

Sorry, that should read ALL CLASSES ALL ABILITIES ALL AGES ASSHOLE

****
My time at the Synchotron southern campus came to an end on Monday. Thank Christ. I mean, physicists can just be nerds, y'know? We had my farewell in the state library chess room.

That's me in the suit, with Shaelee from reception.

Because of the sugar rush from all the cake and choccies, I surrendered my queen way too early.

A Pawn star, just for one day.

We trashed the place, but.

And Leonard from Accounts misfiled books with the call number 301.424 AL7H (1993) and 320.560973 D65W. His idea of a prank. Should get Luke, the young neo-Nazi from Eltham fired up...

Assume the fund-raising position

2005-01-31T13:01:00.000+11:00
Are you stuck for ideas for your next school fund-raiser, so you can afford a cleaner this year who uses REAL detergent instead of watered down Cottee's cordial to wipe down the toilet seats?

... or have you found that the very idea of a nude calendar for your local CFA to raise money for a new fire tanker gets residents breaking out in pink yeast rings?

...or maybe you're Hume councillors Jack Medcraft and Steve Ogilvie, trying to undercut other Australian municipalities for the privilege of hosting the new ~~migrant detention centre~~ concentration camp for darkies and towel-heads in Broadmeadows (indefinite detention of asylum seekers is good for the western suburbs' economy ).

Whoever you are, whatever you do, if you're raising funds for the community, forget the subtle suggestiveness of snags on the barbie and GO FOR BROKE with these sweet treats.

You'll have them cumming back for more each time.

(And don't anyone suggest snowballs at this juncture: Caroline Springs Heights is not quite ready for that). But a Beefcake Stall™ could be a franchisable idea, fellas....

Found via Gianna
full recipes and templates here

Not a jolly trolley

2005-01-28T18:22:00.000+11:00
Honorable members of council, who are trying to hunt me down and unmask the shopping trolley... I say, in the honorable tradition of Ms Fits

EAT A BOWL OF DICK

Biff tech

2005-01-26T10:27:00.001+11:00
Oh,. before I forget, Happy Straya Day, Sedgewick - I'd pop into Guvment house to see you, but it's just a bit too hot, innit?

Even Mankie the cat is making mewling noises that seem to say, "Please Mallrat, can you take the heat away? It's not much fun getting about in a fur coat, and any minute, some Smith St. ferals are going to splash red paint on me."

How was the moon last night? It looked like something from the set of Amelie, it was so overblown and wispy and wraithy and exaggerated. A big creamy, pus-y blister that you just want to pop.

I looked at the forecast online just now, and the weatherguy's crystal ball (well, probably a pyrex one given how much they screw it up) bodes hot hot hot at least till Sunday.

But what would he know?

Whereas Whittlesea resident Jacqueline Close Moore is extremely well-placed vis a vis this stuff. After all, she's just been named 2004 Victorian Psychic of the Year.

Although I'm not sure why this accolade should be doled out retrospectively, rather than in advance.

And whaddya know - she feels the same way: "I had a feeling in March that I would win. I didn't go around boasting and saying, 'Woo hoo, I'm going to win,' but I did have the feeling."

Modesty's a fine thing in a self-proclaimed sixth-generation psychic.

Who didn't foretell the tsunami.

And I don't hear a word from her about nanotechnology (nano= from the Greek for applying for research grants - that lovely little line by way of The Economist)

She does however predict that Whittlesea council will be rocked by a major revelation next year ("Hey guys, this tsunami thingie hapened six months ago - d'you think we should get a relief effort happening?)

And she has predicted that although Labor needs a woman to challenge Howard, Gillard is not the one.
"It's not strong enough. it's too weak.
"Any other female names? I don't know any of them, you see."

Things Jacqueline Close Moore could predict if she really wanted to be useful:

*How many more decades the Libs will be in power
* Whether the junkie problem round my house will ever change (I mean, shit, in one week, my car got broken into, my mobile stolen, our house got broken into, someone else's car had a window smashed, and, you know that inner-city car chase that ended with an upturned taxi in Flinders Lane? Started in our street)
* Will it ever be cold again
* Will Ghost rider ever be filmed or is Bacchus Marsh doomed to obscurity in perpetua?
* Will Cr Jack Medcraft out at Hume ever get a life, or a heart? (even a transplant ...)
* WillI I ever be able to hang onto a mobile phone for very long....
* Will FX Holden ever leave the Jesuits?
*Will Barista ever get that friggin coffee made? Talk about NOT being Barista by name AND nature
* Will a member of Family First be caught with child porn?

Now that Mark Latham has disappeared form the political horizon, some of you might be feeling a little nostalgic.

If you're wanting to hear a bit of Biff warbling, head down to Braeside Park, on Greens Road, Keysborough (take Nepean Hwy to Mordialloc, then head towards Dandenong). It's by turns been a sewage farm, regular farm and agistment for horses like Phar lap, before being proclaimed a park in the early 80s. It looks gorgeous early in the morning, especially when there's been fog.

As well as there being some incredible ghostly majestic dead gums (salinity-induced), pelicans, sugar gliders, etc, it's the breeding ground for a bird called Latham's snipe.

Two more shifts at the Synchotron southern burbs campus.

Loo de jour

2005-01-23T14:28:00.000+11:00
From your weekly loo paper delivery - add this one to the b(l)ogroll:

THE Croydon Rotary Amenities
Municipal Project will receive a
$160,000 makeover, including a new
state-of-the-art toilet system.

Well, at least it's not cutting-edge.

Move over Julia - here comes Crucify Delta(TM)

2005-01-23T09:27:00.000+11:00
Your new Opposition leader starts here.

And it looks like she's dressed to get into a fraction too many factions.

Riding bald

2005-01-21T17:53:00.000+11:00
"Riding bald".

No, it's not a term for unprotected sex. That's "riding bareback".

"Riding bald" refers to the practice of riding a bike sans helmet. And this practice is in the gunsights of Hume councillor Jack Medcraft, otherwise best-known for slamming the awarding of council community grants to local groups around Sunbury helping out Temporary Visa Holders whose families are living below the breadline cause they don't get social security and are barred from working (notice how Medcraft did not similarly slam donations to tsunami victims as being outside the ambit of local government).

Medcraft has instigated a scheme whereby cops fine ~~organ donors~~ people riding their bikes without helmets $50. But if the offender hoofs it to a local bike shop in good time, buys a brain container, and shows the proof of purchase at the cop shop, all is forgiven: the fine is rescinded, wiped from the books like so many John Elliott transactions over the years.

But my source tells me that this new regime replaces the old system of issuing a warning before a fine is imposed... and that the issue has never before been policed in the area.

Wondering if he plans to introduce a similar scheme for people caught riding bareback. Just get a Safeway/Amcal/Club X receipt for your latex and just go back to shagging in the loos at the new Maccas.

Yes, officer, I have some protection on my helmet. You can go away now.

Totally inappropriate

2005-01-19T16:42:00.000+11:00
From your friendly local paper:

"A Kilsyth community group is up in arms over what it claims is a "totally inappropriate" planning proposal."

Stay tuned for more riveting instalments.

*****

There's that word again - "appropriate". Pity I traded in Don Watson's Death Sentence for Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking (the most boring book in the English language, but it worked for me once).

I'm sure there's a juicy entry in that on how hackneyed and overused it is in corporate publications, newspapers, government reports, etc.

"Can you get your hand off my newly-bleached butthole?"

"Why?"

"It's inappropriate"

*****

Brides Magazine

2005-01-17T15:27:00.000+11:00
Monday morning (oh yes, it is, it's 2.48pm) and time for my weekly email from my colleague Fedele Castro at the Sunbury branch of the Synchotron:

nuthing much, went to spy lounge on saturday night which was really
good and afterwards the girls wanted to goto the strippers so we went
next door to the spearmint rhino. Me and my cusin got a lapdance
which was pretty good but very expensive!! Slept for a lot of Sunday.

*****

I was walking down Swanston Street and saw some pimply kid who looked 14 in long white socks and sportsgear. "hey it's $2 for a peepshow," he was shouting to his mates.

Christ, he probably still remembers being breastfed

Am I just a prude (on second thoughts, don't answer that) or is there something pretty off about the way everything around us is getting hypersexualised? I was at Parliament Station the other night, Lonsdale Street end, and four out of five ad posters had a naked/close to naked girl on them, very little if nothing to do with the product. Ok, so this is not new. Bugaup were defacing posters like that in the 70s. But there may be something in not getting so used to this stuff as visual wallpaper.

Then there was that dickhead Catharine Lumby on the weekend defending Cosmo editor Mia Freedman as "a young feminist". For fuck's sake - this is the woman advising the NRL on sexuality and she's defending a journalistic tramp who sells articles on anal bleaching to 12-year-olds.

Fuck off.

I'm quite skeptical of Lumby's passionate belief that we're all, including teenagers, sophisticated and empowered these days and everything is safely ironic. Is it just wanting to be the enfant terrible, making a name for herself 15 years ago kicking the [Germs] greers Dworkins and [Liz] Conors and [Sheila] jeffreys to get headlines and consultancies, or is it a keen desire not to believe that bad things can happen or that perhaps we're more vulnerable than we thought sometimes?

But in this climate, saying that's akin to saying you're from the Christian Right.

Then there was that Age article recently about the beautician who says that 10 years ago, Brazilians were unheard of. Now schoolgirls are her main clients. I find that dismaying. Is there anything left for people to grow into?

Then there's all those billboards screaming "longa stronga donga" and the Bolle glasses billboard suggesting a three-way.

Is there not something to be said for keeping adult pleasures adult? In places where you know where to find them but they're not necessarily in the full light of day? Where the onus is on you to seek it out, rather than just out there? I feel for people with kids who want to teach them about sexuality and body image intelligently.

There's something quite clinical about this over-exposure - for example, if you didn't know what Sexyland was, you'd infer from its advertising that it was a fucking child-care centre or TAB, their ads and graphics are so folksy. And the new club x posters of a smiling straight couple might as well be the cover of some tract of sexual hygiene like the Kinsey report, selling a white-teethed hyper-normality. or the cover of Brides magazine.

It pisses me off that we're buying the sex industry's "everything's ok" hype - that it's not to a significant degree contingent on misery and exploitation.

And that there's less and less shame attached to using sex workers, etc. Oooh, now there's a taboo emotion - shame. Ha ha - let's disown that one.

Men have always done it - gone off for sex in packs, the staff visit to the brothel, lap dancing club etc. But more and more women or groups of people going to a peep shows-as-freak-shows. No reason why women should be the guardians of public morality any more than men, but it's a bit sad when all of us forget there's a person behind the Deep Throat cartoon persona.

Someone said the other day, maybe on the radio, that the 20th century was the one that invented romance, and ultimately, the one that killed off the idea as well.

Kid you not...

2005-01-16T13:30:00.000+11:00
Out Whittlesea way ...

Free healing: Incandessence is offering a free healing to local
survivors of the Asian tsunami disaster. Services include
crystal healings, chakra clearings, kinesiology balances, card
readings and angel intuitive
consultations.

Details:
Incandessence, 0407889987
or incandessence@optusnet.com.au

OK. Let's call in a fortnight and see how many survivors' chakras they've cleansed...course, it would be more meaningful if they took a caravan to dandenong, noble park and scouted round the sri lankan community there, but given that they'd be mostly catcholic...

hmmmmm........

Motherhood statements don't feed anyone

2005-01-13T11:49:00.000+11:00
Chat with northern fringe suburbs MP who shall remain nameless until I'm sure I've shrugged off just about every reader of this blog through eratic posting.

S/he's collecting goods at electorate office and parliament house to send to sri lanka.

well meaning, and it wouldn't do any harm to the Media Monitors hits s/he gets, but COULD YOU GUYS FUCKING PUT SOME THOUGHT INTO THIS????!!!!

if there's one message that's come through in all the media coverage of the disaster, it's that people in tsunami zones need the right aid at the right time. For example, the Sri Lankan Government says clothes are not wanted - they've got enough. and all aid agencies are asking for cash. They know exactly what's needed and it's too complicated, time-consuming and costly and wasteful of their human resources to sort through goods of dodgy provenance.

The problem with a lot of grassroots efforts that are springing up is that the organisers are not being specific about what they want. We appreciate your sentiments, but no, we don't want you turning up with your 15yo futon from your uni days. people will donate that shit - somewhere in our genetic coding is this imperative to pass off our hard rubbish as gandhian benevolence.

years ago, i bought a bed from that big sleep emporium on the corner of nicholson and alexandra and got into a conversation with the sales assistant about the mattresses piled up outside. it was a very rainy day. she said, "oh well the homeless can use them". are you fucking kidding - you'd get pneumonia in two minutes sleeping on that....

so this MP has been maddeningly unspecific about what s/he needs, and the idiot on the local paper didn't do their job in pinning him/her down. I hit the phones (of course electorate office has no ah number on voice mail, no one on duty, groan). Finally, we speak.

"Oh, stuff for children," s/he says.

Like what?

"Oh, pencils, erasers..." [succeeds this with motherhood statements about how we have to pul together int his disaster, yada yada]

and i'm thinking, erasers? does she think a tsunami is a tea party? that life will get abck to normal any time soon? that you can learn on an empty stomach?

So what else?

"Oh medicinal goods"ç

Like what.

"Oh if you're at the supermarket, pick up an extra bottle of Dettol"... [segues again into motherhood statements]

"What else?"

"Oh you know,..."

No, I don't. and i'm starting to feel like Jeremy Paxman.

"Ok, do you want bandaids?"

Yes.

"Paracetamol?"

Draws breath. Pauses. "Uh, I don't think I'd be comfortable accepting that."

"So no drugs then?"

[Hmmm, someone didnt think this through...]

"uh no."

C'mon guys, let's work up a bit of a sweat for that warm inner glow.

Infoxchange seem a good choice. based in abbotsford, they regularly give stuff to aid agencies. they have all their networks and processes in place. see previous post for deets on contacting them.

******

Currently listening to Zulya and the Children of the Underground. Zulya is russian, but i found out yesterday, based in tasmania - her band are all australian musos. so i'm ecstatic. the CD is called The Waltz of Emptiness (and other songs on russian themes)

am also listening to South African Hugh Masekela, who was out here recently for the Eureka festival. i'd never heard of him apart from a newspaper story shortly before he came out. now i'm addicted to Stimela (Coal Train) and can't stop playing it. He does a good train whistle. but

Wave of mutilation

2005-01-09T13:56:00.000+11:00
Dandenong, Noble Park, Springvale have huge numbers of Sri Lankans living there, and already, their local relief efforts are in full swing, so check out the following. From sri lanka events:

Today - HOPPER LUNCH & DINNER ,
Good Sherherd Hall
34 Academy Avenue
Wheelers Hill.
$20 info - Tony - 9874 6620
Darrell - 9764 4012.

5pm tonight, Dandenong High School hosts a Variety dance concert, ANITHYA. $15

4-7pm, Sunday, 16 January, COWS Tsunami Effort with pizza and beer, Curtin Square, rathdown Street, North Carlton (Melway 2B, J2). Donations to Red Cross.

Sunday 16 Jan
Sri Lanka XI vs DDCA Combined XI friendly cricket match at Alex Nelson Reserve, Springvale South (Melway 89 A4). Admission FREE, donations accepted.

Weekend of Jan 22-23 - down at Patterson Lakes - Kingston Municipality's annual World Music Festival Globe to Globe will be raising funds for the Tsunami relief appeal.

(Ok the line-up's crap - Sally Ford and her Pachuco Boys are pretty honky Latin players, but good cause, etc)

Also check out The Age listing of tsunami relief events, which community groups are adding to.

Saturday 22 Jan. SRI LANKA CHARITY EVENT 2005
7.00pm at Moorabbin Town Hall.
$40 per head.
Deets: Narelle 0403 800 997

There are a few groups organising ca$h donations, but I won't post them here since I have no way of knowing if they're dodgy or not. Best to donate to the biggies - CAA, CARE, etc, I reckon.

If you want to donate goods in kind, apparently clothes are not needed at the moment, but things like Dettol and bandages are. But do get in conact with groups to be really sure:

from Jude Perera, state MP:
Parliament Victoria Donations of money, post cheque to:
Disaster Relief Fund
P.O. Box 5433
Cranbourne, 3977
Drop-off point for material goods:
ABC Group, 10 Birch Avenue, Dandenong (03) 5996 2901

Sri Lanka Tsunami Aid (STAID) in collaboration with Lions Club of Dandenong Supper We are collecting: funds, dry food items , medicines (pain-killers, bandages) and clothes. Distribution Network in SriLanka Sirasa TV Network, Lions Club of SriLanka, & Govt Disaster Relief Agency in Southern Region.
Material Receiving office: 2 John Street Dandenong
Phone: 0425 803 445 (Mel ref:90E11)

You can also donate items to INfoxchange - they are reputable. When I was at the Oxfam call centre a few days ago, they were advising volunteers to refer all queries about donations for goods in kind to these guys. And they have a list online of goods needed from tomorrow.

Take your swag to 375 Johnston Street, Abbotsford, 9418 7400:

Tents, mobile toilets;
Medicinal Items: paracetamol, antibiotics, dressing, suture material, disposable, syringes, antiseptic creams;
Disability Aids and equipment;
Children’s packs/School packs (they'll let you know what they'd like included in a pack).

And good stuff - this, via info exchange : finally, a future for sister cities departing from their traditional raison d'etre of being costly junkets for overstuffed councillors with no tangible public benefit (unless you are a macrame pot holder / ikebana exhibition junkie)

well you can tell by the way I use my quark I'm a physicist, no time to talk

2005-01-06T00:17:00.000+11:00
There is a performance artiste theme to this post.

Sorry.

*****

My old friend & colleague Justin Bustin' left a drunken message on my machine - no name, no Synchotron ID number - just:

God is dead.

ah herr herr (clears throat)

And we killed him.

Justin, being an unsuccessfully lapsed Catholic, is prone to issuing travel directives in papal code. Fuck Dan Brown, Justin is the original RC bullshit artist, spouting poetry at every party I've seen him at.

So he's down from Kakadu, where his bog Irish skin is getting all Bo Derek-esque at temperatures that don't drop from 35 degrees in winter. Come visit? Sure - if I want to turn into a gloopy biological warfare weapon that comes in a Sara Lee container.

Dinner at his sister Satan Monica's place tonight. They reckon it's Windsor, but my mobile, sold to me for a song by Elkie, said the location was Toorak South (I love the way mobiles do that now, plus a whole lot of other useless shit, like a William Tell Overture ringtone ... instant dickhead, just add Ikea catalogue).

Class war, class war... but I kept my big trap shut, didn't I? You can buy me off with a couple of samosas. Easy.

A horde of kids watching Lion King (I mean, wasn't that soooo 2001?) over fish and chips and dim sum in the lounge room while the "adults" sat outside and drank white wine while Bustin's explained his 10-point plan to turn the Jabiru economy around from being mining-dependent to Big fruit/vegetable/native animal-driven (the Big Pink Yeast Ring, for example) and lobby for a Bunnings on the Jabiluka site. And fly in meter maids from the Gold Coast, as the locals will have to start raising revenue from parking fines, and cybersquat the www.susansontag.com URL.

Then we saw their home made DVD of the family at Phillip Island, checking out baby penguins and shivering, made with Unsteadycam.

It was all very collegial and friendly. Reminded me of the first page of Monkey Grip, where Helen Garner writes, in the big brown house on the corner, we drank tea and ate bacon on toast every morning of our lives.

I love that opener. She captures Melbourne, the weather, its moods, so well. (and I think it was Javo came past at three this morning having a very loud argument with someone wheeling a shopping trolley on my street).

That house I think was in the crescent bordering the Edinburgh Gardens, and it sold for an awful lot under the hammer a couple of months ago, or maybe she just lived there while she wrote it. Fucking real estate agents - they never read a fucking book in their lives, then they jack up the price of a nice Victorian like they give a shit about the printed word. Helen who? exactly.

*****

Spent the morning shooting homegirl music video. Mr Cumbent wrote a rap, "Whatever", for his 15-year-old Valley Girl niece visiting from the States. He was using his Garage Band software, which kicks ass.

Cumbent used to be a shit-hot guitarist with Elroy Flicker & the Fitzroy Gutterslugs until a car accident left him a quadriplegic with limited use of his hands - he can still play slide guitar. So this program allows him to still be creative and compose stuff and have a "band" at his disposal. Sorry bout the shameless plug, but i was very impressed. Made me think that even with my limited ability to play guitar and piano, I might be able to have some fun with it.

It sounded great - Public Enemy sort of sound. Lyrics like "and I was grounded because my room was like New York on nine-one-one". It rocks.

If you want a burned CD/DVD copy, email me at mallratone at hotmail dot com. Should take about a month. Or if you want a CD of my favorite morose, i want-to.drown-myself in the Maribyrnong near the Footscray Arts centre and new weekly farmers market sort of music, get in touch. Taking a leaf out of Ruth's blog, the world would be a better place if more people swapped CD mixes, so from hereonin, i'm doin my bit.

So Homegirl is 15, weighs about 15kg, is from Bible Belt America, with eyelashes so thick I think she taped a miniature schnauzer to each lid, and she reckons she will be a virgin til she gets married (not with those pointy shoes, love). Her parents voted Bush for sure.

Homegrrrrl had about six costume changes and I played her parent - one of them, holding up a list of chores, dishwashing gloves, etc. May contain traces of nuts was directing, and doing the loop-the-loop with the camera, barking orders "And now you vil rub toofpaste on ze dog and roll round and eat a Vopper wif cheese".

******

Speaking of epics, music teacher/composer Michael Travers, 42, of Pascoe Vale South has made a New Year's resolution:

to compose a musical about Albert Einstein as part of the International Year Of
Physics (funny 'bout that - I thought it was international year of microcredit - maybe it's both? ) which he hopes to stage at Scienceworks.

Keep Hugh Jackman off the streets next year, huh?

*****
PS - if anyone knows of a flat going, or a nice labrador/other sweet-natured toilet-trained dog, email me.

Kitten in a bottle

2005-01-04T01:11:00.000+11:00
THIS is a marigold on the dungheap of local papers.

I can't believe I haven't seen it before - especially as it's been next to May Contain Traces of Nuts™ and Fiona Ridley Conquest's dunny for six months, gathering dust (and god knows what else).

It is, bada bum bada bing:

THE FRAMLEY EXAMINER

It is, of course, a pisstake, of English regional papers. But maybe it's because I'm a huge mallrat, I just find it so funny I just go sick at all of it. Even though it's nothing like local papers here... nooooooooo. Not in its whimsical typos (almost as many as me!), exclamation marks like they've got Delhi belly, and attention to pestilentially boring detail ... as they say, think locally, act locally.

My favorite:

BATLEY district Council Hygiene Officers have come up with a novel solution for the persistent soiling of the lifts in Eugene Terreblanche House, a high rise block on the controversial Dungeon estate.

"By installing fully plumbed-in toilets in each of the three lifts, we feel we are responding to clear public demand," said Gordon Speedbeadle, the senior engineer in charge of the operation. "People seem to need to pooh in these lifts, so we are sending a plain message to them: Go ahead, pooh away, just don't forget to flush."

Fuck that is so Werribee.

But it's like drowning a sack full of small animals, trying to choose just one favorite from the Framley.

So I won't.

Framley star columnist URSULA CLOYBEAM looks a little like Sally Morrell, aka Mrs Andrew Bolt, when she used to do the supermarket checkout column for the Herald-Sun

Incidentally, whatever happened to the Miranda Bolt blog ? After the initial thrill of making jokes about Bolt in the missionary position, it seemed to silently expire, its jugular perforated by its sole joke - I mean, hey, we all like to imagine Andrew Bolt having sex, but this was a bit of overkill

So yes, the same Ursula Cloybeam whose review of St Gahan's School's production of Julius Caesar was headlined I COME TO BURY SCHOOL PRODUCTION NOT TO PRAISE IT .

Ahem, I think if you were to visit at this point, FX Holden would have a cowboy hat hanging from his front door handle, Fokker-style (well, Dustin Hoffman, to be specific, shtupping Barbra Streisand, sex therapist), having found in Miss Cloybeam a rival for his beloved Mrs Slocum:

IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN sunnier on Saturday. I've been a mother all my life, but I can't bake cakes like they do at the Whoft Village fete!

This year's kitten in a bottle was won, for the fifteenth year in a row, by 81-year-old inhabitant Lutyen Dreft ...

The runner-ups were gracious in defeat. Colin Almond's intricate display of four kittens in a 375ml bottle of Tropical Lucozade almost took the rosette, but the judges sadly disqualified it for a preparational illegality.

OK, I will stop bolding copy - that's the blogger equivalent of canned laughter. I will slap myself for treating you lot like sad Idol addicts.

Ann...

Ann?

Whoops.

Try this one:

'As long as they don't ram it down our throats says Framley' s Mayor

FRAMLEY'S MAYOR gave grudging approval to the town's first Mardi Gras festival yesterday.

Gays and lesbians from all over the planet will transform our town into a gay carnival, 'like marauding vikings', only in colourful costumes.

The event is scheduled for the coming August bank holiday, officials warned...

"I suppose that the sort of thing they must like," said the happily married Mayor, 52.

This one should resonate with all youse from Sunbury way...

THE PEOPLE OF FRAMLEY received a special surprise this week from its friends across the Atlantic - a statue of its elegant mayor!

Oh damn, can't find the one about about the new civic statue of a group of scouts eating a packed lunch. and i'm not going to be a complete loser being up till 2 3am eating muesli and picking my nose trying to find it. However, I bring you this:

A new paving stone is to be laid to replace a damaged one. the stone made by Dabney & Dabney Brickworks, will occupy 45cm of pavement at the corner of ...

(you get the drill...)

There's also:
LIBRARY BOOK FINALLY RETURNS

Menace to Society
'menace to society'

And I cannot fucking believe I found this:

Drink up, then.

100% dead kitten.

I gues there are sports drinks, and bloodsports drinks.

walked out this morning don't believe what i saw hundred billion kittens washed up on the shore seems I'm not alone at being alone Hundred billion castaways looking for a home the RSPCA is pissed off to say the least you know a pet is forever not just for christmas

God's not dead, she's still alive

2005-01-03T01:47:00.000+11:00
Some bored, part-time sub-editor's idea of a joke?

Maybe i'm not the only one who, as i've said, doesn't give a flying fuck about what kids do over summer.

From page three of this week's Maroondah journal:

Hannah, 10, grade 5:
I think of icy poles, because on a hot day i go and have one. the beach, I like making sandcastles, and reading Susan Sontag.

Flash plug ins

2004-12-30T09:07:00.000+11:00
Ansell Australia presents:

places to check out Christmas lights:

Mt Waverley: Alice Street, Bond Street, Highbury Road.

Glen Waverley: Chivalry Avenue, Cooper Avenue, High Street Road (near Westlands Road). Penhurst Court

Chadstone: Margot Street, Myora Court, Terrigal street

Oakleigh: Bourke Road, Carmichael Street, ceder Court, Coane Street

Wheelers Hill: Regina Street

Mulgrave: Clendon Road, Everton Close, Grantham Terrace, Haverbrack Drive, Lebanon Crescent, Portland Street, Wanda Street.

feel free to add to this list by posting a comment.

And then one time at band camp...

2004-12-30T08:36:00.000+11:00
Like I give a flying FUCK what some 6-year-old does on their summer holidays.

But:

We both got
Bart Simpson T-shirts, Michael got
a soccer ball and I got a Spider-
Man web blaster. When Michael
wore his Spider-Man t-shirt, I
squirted him with my web blaster
and he started crying, then he
threw a water bomb at me, then
we both started crying. When we
both had stopped crying, we got a
really huge water balloon and
chucked it at my dog, but she ran
away. Two hours later my Mum
took us to the beach where my
Aunt and I went canoeing _ it was
pretty scary. When we came back
to shore, it started to rain. We
went home and played Nintendo
64 for hours.

Entering the heart of darkness

2004-12-21T01:51:00.000+11:00
Saw Bad Santa with Amiable Fool the other day. Very funny, ha ha. The all-Shaggin, smokin, boozin, stealin Santa. They should have footage of that in the Myer windows instead of that Polar Express shite.

Got a great Xmas present too from Fool - a small-scale model (about 5cm long) of a Milan Euro Missile (France used to sell these to the Soeharto regime, from the 1960s on). The. best.

A nice little piece of hardware that will look very fetching in my parents' retreat-cum-playroom, next to the Clarice Cliff teaset.

Don't they make a lovely couple? Guns ...

and butter

Actually, here's my Clarice Cliff bong. I'm rather proud of it... picked it up for a song ...

Amiable Fool is the only person I know who goes to work at a place where, instead of looking up at a nice Ken Done or Monet waterlilies on the wall qwhen he's not netbludging, is treated instead to machine guns in glass cabinet. In fact, the other day, there was a nice tinsel Happy Christmas sign hanging off one gun mounted on the wall.

So, that was my first Xmas present. I won't pretend it was on the wishlist with the two Dresden Dolls CDs or the Kath & Kim t-towel "I am not a housewife I am a hornbag" on sale at Supply & Demand in Richmond...

Went Christmas shopping with Tango Lee - passed up the $4 belly button duster - and got my mum a fantastic book called something like Amazing chiceksn - it's a glossy book of chook photos. She's crazy about her chooks. she's had two lots so far, named after Columbus' ships - La Niña, la Pinta and the Santa María (yeah, i know, blogger can't deal with accents but fuck it). then one by one they will fall prey to foxes and dogs and cats, so she gets the next batch and gives thenm the same names. a bit like parents who give a newborn child the previous dead child's name. a bit creepy...

Got Mallrat snr a book on conditions in the merchant navy in WW II, because that's where he was knocking around at the time as a youngster. he was granted political asylum in sweden - a bit of a joke in our famiily , or at least it would be if we had a sense of humor. He had made friends with a Spanish anarchist who was a couple of years older. Jumped ship a year later and headed for the States.

Found for Mallrat's sister a Wizz Fizz stocking at Safeway. Awesome.

I guess for some reson i cannot quite admit to consciousness, I'm not going on a Bunnings frenzy this year. Maybe I'm saving myself for january sales.

So anyway, this kid writes to the Emmy Hill Times, this is a classic:

DEAR Santa, I would like Spiderman Web gloves because I want to shoot webs and climb walls with boots that stick on walls as well. I would love a silver Spiderman costume and mask with silver singlasses. It has to have a little silver spider on the front and big black sparkly spider on the back of the costume. And I would say thank you Santa and send him two cool books that I make myself - one for him and one for Rudolph. And I wish a loveheart necklace for Mummy because I love her, and a cool T-shirt with long sleeves that can zip off for my Daddy. And I wish my best friend Daniel was better because he is sick and been having treatments. He is soon going to be better and see me at Playgroup. Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday to baby Jesus.

Shooting webs. Love it. Give this kid a spot with Virginia Trioli.

30 days left at the Synchotron....

Time to ban the word "community"

2004-12-20T23:40:00.000+11:00
Driving along Road X today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, and then my roving eye caught a billboard that blared the following:

A unique opportunity for the local community."

I mean that is just local government-speak par excellence - the sort of stuff that makes Donny Watson puke up dangling modifiers. You can say it about anything and it means nothing.

Now what product/service/community campaign do you suppose it was for?

a) St Kilda Cemetery has plots available

b) Construction starts on Moorabbin's inaugural magistrates court

c) The Bacchus Marsh Chamber of Commerce announces a welcome party for Nicholas Cage showcasing Bacchanalia Wines and lavender-scented doilies

d) Hume Council announces a lavatory dunking for redneck, vigilante, anti-asylum seeker councillors Jack Medcraft and Jack Ogilvie

e) Epping Senior Constable Sophie Leete announces a campaign to give every tweenie hooning down Plenty and McDonalds roads a free Classic FM Hot 100 CD so residents can at least have their sleep disrupted by loud Wagner instead of loud Eminem.

f) Casey Council's summer holidays hands-on workshops for schoolkids at its nappy recycling facility

g) Family First number 2. Senate candidate and Catch the Fire Ministries honcho Danny Nalliah awarded a free, one-way plane ticket to the US by VCAT on the proviso that he successfully audition for Morgan Spurlock's new reality TV show and gets to spend 30 days with a Muslim family in Virginia

h) Street parade in Fountain Gate to mark Epponee Rae's christening

i) Celebration in Cxxxx Street East Bentleigh to mark Karma 2 Burn getting best Victorian blog in the 2005 blog awards, with Port Phillip Council convincing neighbouring Glen Eira to follow suit in waiving public liability insurance costs for all street parties in the municipality

j) The chance to see how Sedgwick lives and a chance for Human Rights Watch to verify how many Canberra bloggers got shot down retrieving balls from the vice-regal gardens at their recent get-together, when Government House opens its doors to the public on Jan 26

k) Annual art exhibition at School X where my sister teaches, the chance to see sketchbooks filled with pubescent penis self-portraits

*******

Your time

starts

NOW

Yes, you may call a lifeline.

But be careful what you wish for...

Well, the answer was (a)

St Kilda Cemetery has freed up some space (don't ask ... but Gary Gray did mention a desire to move into consulting after leaving ALP office) and you can now purchase a lovely plot - light-filled, quiet location, pergola-covered entertinament area and close to schools, shops and transport.

Can you believe that? Kinda crass, isn't it?

I was kind of surprised that they didn't add "for the whole family".

Pawn shops on alert for log fireplace and kitchen

2004-12-13T11:43:00.000+11:00
Thefts in the outer burbs are fascinating. People building houses in places like Hillside, Taylors Hill and Melton will get to the construction site one morning and find all sorts of weird shit stolen - the front door (they cost a heck of a lot, I read about one that was worth $800), a rangehood, even imitation log fireplaces.

About three months ago, Deer Park resident Anna Halliday was on the verge of settlement for a new home in ~~Caroline~~ Suicide Springs when brazen thieves smashed windows, stole kitchen and bathroom appliances, stole her oven, cooktop and rangehood.
Weeks later, the kitchen sink, bath taps and front door lock were taken.
Later that week, the windows were smashed again and the hot water system was stolen.

Oh well, three times lucky.

This is probably creating a black economy that's bigger than GST takings for the area.

But it's got me scratchin' me head ... it's not like you can take these things to Cash Converters and be inconspicuous.

... Or like you can do as convicted Werribee smack provedore Simon Dertilis, caught by police last year exchanging smack along Russell Street for stolen items like cameras, portable CD players and mobiles (yeah, I bet mine's down there now).

I mean, try dragging an imitation log fireplace up to the first-floor toilets of the Hungry Jacks on the corner of Bourke and Russell. Have you tried it?

I have. That's how They first got me. I got too bling for my velcro trainers. Now I look at imitation log fireplaces and break out all over in pink yeast rings.

They're fucking heavy.

Dertilis would often accompany buyers to the Cash Converters in Smith Street to close the deals for cash.

So when he fronted Werribee magistrates court a couple of months back, the local paper reported magistrate Noreen Toohey having a right old serve at Cash Converters.

Dertilis's defense counsel reported the common - which is not to say any less horrific for being that - childhood of people whose lives are dominated by smack: his father would tie him to chairs, burn him with cigarettes and flog him with a belt. He began smoking dope at 12 and by 19 was on heroin.

After giving Dertilis a six-month non-parole period, Toohey said slammed Cash Converters for allowing Dertilis to repeatedly pawn goods without scrutiny.

He was, in fact, something of a pawn star.

Toohey said the store had "aided and abetted" his criminal activities.
Organisations like Cash Converters ... effectively allow drug traffickers like you to survive and commit further offences in the community

She's not the only one.

Then again...

So when is someone going to do a study on how viable cash converters would be if it didn't take purloined stuff? or are the imitation log fireplaces just too addictive?

Martha Stewart Disease: Early Warning Signs

2004-12-10T20:19:00.000+11:00
From The Eye Weekly:

You have an obsession with hanging swags of brightly colored fabric from curtain rods.

Your house is decorated with plaster-cast gremlins and angels.

Every shoebox and empty tin can in the house has been dcoupaged with flowers cut out from old wrapping paper.

You float candles in the punch bowl at parties.

You use a gold ink pen to sign all your cards and to leave little notes around the house.

You have glass jars filled with dried rose petals everywhere.

There are pots and pots of herbs on your windowsill, and each herb is painstakingly labelled, along with a hand-drawn picture of the herb.

You've made a doormat with a sunflower design on it out of old bottle-caps.

If given the choice, you would rather spend your weekend in Canadian Tire than be taken out for a good dinner.

DEFINITE SYMPTOMS OF MARTHA STEWART DISEASE
You polish every lettuce leaf with a clean white cloth until each one shines like a newly waxed car fender before you put it in the bowl.

You save snowballs from last winter in your fridge, in case you need them to create an ice-sculpture centrepiece.

You have tie-dyed all of your T-shirts with dyes made from vegetables grown in your garden.

You've made wind chimes out of old coconut shells.

Your hedges have all been pruned to resemble chess pieces.

Your salads consist mainly of nasturtiums and pansies.

Every chunk of cheese on your cheese tray comes with a toothpick and a little flag upon which is clearly labeled the cheese's country of origin.

Your hair looks like a bonsai tree.

You hoard cookie cutters in all sizes, shapes and colors in a kitchen drawer and nobody is allowed to touch them.

You insist on using ostrich eggs instead of regular-size eggs for the annual Easter egg hunt.

You put rouge on your children's cheeks so they'll look all fresh and rosy and apple-cheeked when company comes over.

ACUTE CASE OF MARTHA STEWART DISEASE
All of the grass in your front yard is braided.

You serve entrees in an attractive real bird's nest you found in a nearby forest.

You make your own Jell-o from calves' hooves rather than buy the powdered stuff.

You decorate your cakes with pieces of ceramic, bundles of chiffon, buttons, marbles and other inedible stuff just because "it looks so pretty."

Each and every flower in the back yard is wrapped in raffia and sports a shiny red bow.

You serve wine to your guests in conch shells.

You've smeared the walls with yogurt so that over time, a natural-looking greenish mould will grow, giving your home the fashionably distressed look of an ancient Greek temple.

You dress all of your children, despite their gender, in white chiffon dresses and white straw fedoras with white satin ribbons and haven't fed them for days in case they grow into an awkward, gangly phase.

You've macramd yourself a computer cozy from hemp and recycled plastic.

Before you go to bed at night, you spend hours on your hobby farm putting the wool on your sheeps' bodies in hot rollers, so they will look more fluffy and glamorous than the neighbor's.

You sleep outside the house, in a tent, so that you don't spoil your perfectly made bed.

The dog that mistook a pine tree for a hat

2004-12-09T14:01:00.000+11:00
I hope this didn't happen to the same dog:

WITH decorations, hanging lights, food, alcoholic drinks and
indoor trees, Christmas can be a hazardous time for pets.

Here are some tips to keep your pets out of harm's way.

Brightly-coloured sparkly ornaments and strands of tinsel may prove irresistible to a cat or dog, but they present a danger due to potential choking or swallowing.
Discarded wrapping paper and ribbon could also be dangerous if ingested.

An animal can wreak havoc.

For the safety of both your pet and ornaments, keep pets out of the room containing the Christmas tree and
do not leave your pet unattended in a room with decorations.

Try to position the tree away from objects such as bookshelves, which a cat could use to jump onto the tree.
Pine needles can be dangerous, especially to cats, as they can lodge in the digestive system and cause internal punctures.
Pine trees are toxic, so be careful that your pet does not eat any part of the tree or drink the water the tree is sitting in.

Poinsettias, a common Christmas plant and artificial snow are toxic if ingested.Be careful with Christmas
lights, as some pets may try to play with or chew them, potentially resulting in electrocution.

Candles can pose a danger, as a pet could easily knock one over and get covered in wax or start a fire.
Never leave a lit candle unsupervised. Christmas is a time when food and drink are usually sitting around, often at animal-height.

If your pet is wandering around freely, ensure that it doesn't eat or drink anything unless you feed it specifically, and keep all scraps out of reach. Chocolate and caffeinated products are toxic to cats and dogs, and too much unfamiliar food could give them an upset stomach.

While a small taste of meat is fine, never feed your pet cooked meat containing bones.

The golden rules with pets at Christmas time is not to leave them unattended with anything unfamiliar, including decorations, food, plants or people and not to feed them anything unusual. Try to keep their routine as normal as possible.

************

God knows what website that came from. you're likely to have seen it on your local rag.

PS: Do not let your dog eat your Playstation
Do not let your cat around anyone unfamiliar, like Uncle Stavros
Do not feed your staffie Lindor balls
Do not serve your hamster a steaming latte
Do not pour champagne into your goldfish bowl
Do not lay a Christmas wreath round your rottie's neck
Never perform exorcisms with the pets around
For the safety of your cats, whop may find bookshelves too much to resist humping onto, make sure you keep all new releases - especially Jillian Watkinson's fab new book, which hopefully will be just as good as The Architect - in the sink

Wash your face twice a day, or The Government will hunt you down like a feral pig

Dogs.

Sending crunchy, bite-sized Christmas lights express post to 81 Flinders Street, Adelaide, SA, 5000.

Three Colors Red

2004-12-08T12:56:00.000+11:00

Q. What's red and green and swishes around?

A. Kermit in a blender

or....

The world's first traffic lights to begin operation, on this day in 1868.

This momentus event took place at London's Parliament Square.

##########

At the Synchotron yesterday, we were speculating on how this would have worked with four lanes of horse-drawn traffic (was it gridlock back then, or boglock - which is different from bloglock?).

Were there three men in variously green, amber and red hose, doublets and tricorns alternating between waving lanterns with appropriately colored glass and then sitting on them?

What did the first commuters make of all this? Did they spit out wads of snuff contemptuously, and toss peanut shells as if it were just another tragedy at The Globe?

here's what happened.

The inventor and the first guy to take out a US-wide patent on the traffic light was Garrett Augustus Morgan (1877-1963), the son of former slaves.

Morgan also invented:
zig-zag stitching attachment for manually operated sewing machine.
a gas mask that got picked up in world war I after he heroically saved a few people trapped somewhere underground
The pink yeast ring
and HTML, although at the time, no one could find a suitable application

While we're in/on traffic, here is a great read, via Craft Victoria's mailing list - well worth subscribing to, and it's free: we're not talkign beeswax wheatbags here or pink yeast ring bikinis. it's also how I came upon the Museum of Victoria's seasons of the Kulin people link, which is a beautiful alterantive way of looking at the seasons' changes around Melbourne. It's in my sidebar.

Now here's a screed on the car park and how it moulds the American (and by extension, Australian) psyche:

Someone like Jean Baudrillard comes to the United States and he sees Las
Vegas and he sees the desert and he sees massive roadside shopping
warehouses, and he interprets it all in terms of European secular Marxism,
and so it's all a kind of giddy, Heideggerian earth-lessness - but an
American doesn't do that. An American says, "Holy Christ, this place sucks
- I better go to church on Sunday, I'm lonely as hell. I'm lonely as
fuck-all. I need to find God.

******

Biggest. Zit. Ever.

But I'm taking it on the chin.

Nicholas Cage in Bacchus Marsh love tunnel

2004-12-06T17:01:00.000+11:00

Q. Why did Nicholas Cage - nee Coppola -
leave Las Vegas?

A. Why, to come to Bacchus Marsh!!

Well, der...

Late last month, Moorabool Shire Council received a building application from Columbia Pictures, who plan to start filming the $40-million remake of the Marvel comic Ghost Riders in Melbourne between Jan 31 and Feb 4, and feb 10 & 11 - with scenes in Broken Hill too.

Cage will play the lead role of Johnny Blaze. From Kikizo

Blaze is a motorcyclist who is bonded with a demon after a bike accident. After agreeing to become a host of vengeance he periodically loses control as the demon goes about inflicting justice on the guilty.

Sounds like the many Saturday night incidents that end up at Werribee Magistrate's Court.

The carnavalesque-style set will feature a mirror maze, hurricane ride, love tunnel and stalls selling pink yeast rings, beeswax wheat bags, Bacchus Marsh Rotary Club stubbie holders, and macrame pot-holders.

It will reportedly cost $250,000 and take 6 weeks to build.

The location in the Avenue of Honour is owned by Western Water, and was used as a pumping and purification station for 10 years until 1993.

Now this is an interesting turn of events, because it was just a fortnight or so ago that Oscar winner Adam Elliott (Harvey Krumpet) spoke to a group of schoolkids in Broadmeadows, telling them that:

Young people might think they're from a suburb where there aren't many opportunities, but the most exciting stuff is happening on the fringes or in regional areas.

The great thing about animation is that you can make it anywhere - we could make our next film in Broadmeadows.

All hail the north-by-northwest filmic revival. Expect Moorabool mayor John Cutler to be hunting down Cage like a feral pig for photo opps (demand one condition, Nic - the mayoral robes and chains for your love-tunnel-warming).

Here are some night spots Nic (not our Nic this time)could go to when he gets tired of the on-set catering, which will no doubt feature many pink yeast rings:

He could scout the local talent
Hang out at Bacchus Marsh Skate park, Rotary Park, Cnr Bennett and Young streets, Melway ref:333 J6
Have a meal at the Back to Bacchus restaurant, or the local Brumby's/Baker's Delight where they sell 'home-made' sausage rolls, pasties and pies
Hang out with ambo Wayne and the boys at the Bacchus Marsh SES and attend their next Road Crash Rescue Challenge
Ride the Street Surfer bus on Sundays, and do more talent-spotting at Melton Idol
Accompany Mayor John Cutler on a trip to the site of Bacchus Marsh's forthcoming innovative tree-planting initiative, which will satisfy the KPIs of incorporating aspects of Bacchus Marsh social history, tapping into the mythic origins of the suburb's name, providing a highly sought after cash crop, increasing soil and general fertility and encouraging community participation in the yearly harvest (Council us not sure whether there is an OH & S issue re utilising scythes for this purpose)
$4 vodka cruisers all night Fridays at Pure niteclub in Melton, and Saturday Mambo swimwear parade
Join Melton Waves Leisure Centre and get:
* 10 personal training sessions,
*a personal training diary,
*3 progress consultations
*and bikini or lingerie of your choice
Maybe there'll be another Young Mums Fun Rock Day at the Jumbo Indoor Playground on High Street, Melton
Go drag-racing at Macpherson park, Melton
Hang out with the crew from Charlotte's Web

Or he could just stay inside his love tunnel-cum-trailer and honor the area by smoking some Wacky Bacchy.

Ba-boom.

we-hell...

2004-12-06T11:07:00.000+11:00
Eddie Edinburgh has been surfing today and came back limping with this wedged between his teeth

Hmmm. he was also responsible for getting brave our burbs transalted into swedish. so the banner came up as:
Another Burb, another Bunnings… wild duck strap afternoon asks, if you drink then drive, you essence to ask pious Werribee

Java Script

2004-12-06T08:37:00.000+11:00
Doesn't it shit you that if you do a road trip to Sydney, for example, you don't get any good coffee north of Coburg?

I went to Harrietville last week (it's so fucking green there I thought the garden where I was staying would heave up and the Incredible Hulk - or Godzilla, RIP - would ask me to turn on the hose and soap down his back with a packet of Omo).

Didn't touch the coffee anywhere. No milk where I was staying but there was tea, so I made Easy Chai (TM), brought to me by my mate Mrs Singhson. If you're not a tea person - especially black tea - then it's a good way to make it palatable: just wrap a couple of knobs of ginger in foil with a couple of cardamom pods, cloves and a bit of cinnamon bark before you head off. Let it steep with your tea bag (do take the foil off - you may need to recycle it for one of the many illicit pursuits one can indulge in in Legends, Teddybears and Bankrupt B & B country).

What shits me about country Victoria is those twee little country cafes full of lace curtains and beeswax wheat bags and lavender sachets that stink of desperation.

They have the nerve to charge $3 for an alleged "coffee". Like, hello - just because it's been put through a cappuccino machine doesn't mean it's somehow not Nescafe anymore.

I'd like to say I've found a decent coffee in the burbs - apart from my folks' place - but I haven't. Most places operate on the Gloria Jean principle - ask for more shots, the more Holy Water they put in (I think Darp might appreciate that reference). It's still piss weak, and they still manage to burn it.

I mean, on my drive to work, once you get past Glen Eira Road there is NO PROSPECT of a decent coffee to perk up the commute. Brings to mind what Peter Corris once said about how civilisation ended in melbourne with the tram tracks, somewhere around Caulfield.

Sure, 10 minutes away, there's Moorabbin Ikea on the right, with their brekkie special of scrambled eggs and bacon for I think $2.50, but I have to say the thought of breakfasting in a furniture shop when i'm not buying furniture doesn't do much for me. I mean, it's not like there's real Swedes in there or nuthin.

I suppose I could also pop into Southland, walk up to the bridge over Nepean Highway and plop my butt down at Bay Swiss (what is this friggin' Swiss theme at Southland? there's a hairdresser there called Karl of Switzerland - like, hello, it's probably Paul from Frankston), which has views over Nepean Highway - probably the only eatery at Southland with external views. You can see the Melbourne skyline from there, but you're looking out over eight lanes of traffic and smog. It's kinda weird. And I don't think it opens till 10 anyway.

But wait ... is that dawn I see on the horizon with rosy fingers and a packet of Java? A Knox chick has won Michel's Espresso Victorian Barista of the Year. Rachael Adams, 21, reckons the secret to a decent coffee is:
The right consistency, it has to look good and taste good

So far so good, but then we discover she has devised a specialty coffee served in a martini glass, which comprises:

nutella
ice cream
honey
hazelnut syrup
nuts
a wafer stick

As a Synchotron colleague said to me, that musthave been devised by a pregnant woman.

Beg to differ - it lacks pineapple and ham.

Oxford, VCambridge, Yale and...

2004-12-05T10:14:00.000+11:00
When you think of Australian cultural and intellectual capital - the places that gave birth to the Push, the Pram Factory, Helen Garner/Pete Singer/Raimond Gaita/ Germaine Greer/Clive James/Dinny O'Hearn's stomping grounds - which suburbs might you rank first?

Parkville
Glebe
Fitzroy
Newtown
Carlton

Nah. Wrong. No 'MMM rocks Werribee sticker for you' today!!

In Saturday's Age, real estate agent Michael Hall of Judd Berwick said that that urban blight now gangrening past Dandenong - those brick venereals better known as Cranbourne, Berwick and Narre Warren - is gonna be an intellectual mecca.

A hospital opened there a month ago, Monash Uni/Chisholm has a campus and there are a few new public schools.

So, says Hall, Berwick will evolve into an
education city like Oxford and Cambridge because we have a pretty township, so much education and these new health facilities.

Ahem, slight dfifference in funding for Berwick vs Oxford unis. And how many fucking k's do I have to drive to the milk bar again?

Here's Oxford and here's Berwick. Can you spot the difference?

Nah, thought not.

They call him... Mr Joy

2004-12-02T08:25:00.000+11:00
This. is. gold.

Don't send me no doctors
Fillin me up with all those pills
Got me a man called Mr Joy
yeah-oh

This would have to be the most lyrical account of the lot of a lollipop guy. a time and motion story executed with love. From Paul Amy at Moorabbin Leader:

Give crossing supervisor Ray Joy his fluorescent jacket and whistle and you fancy he'd take on holding up a Formula One field.

There is a hint of defiance and a great deal of dash about the way he operates his crossing on centre Dandenong Road in Cheltenham. It has been his patch for 16 years.

Few motorists care to strike a red light.

But when Mr Joy is stopping traffic and shepherding pedestrians across the road, he naturally commands the eye.

He manages to bring a touch of magnetism to a mundane task.

His white lines are between Colac Street and Avalon Court on one side and Moonda and Tenham groves on the other.

Mr Joy patrols them with zeal from 8 to 9am and 3 to 4pm on school days at Cheltenham East Primary.

In quiet times, he stands on the footpath, four or five paces away from the lights, his carriage as erect as a drill sergeant.

His hands are usually buried in the pockets of his orange-hooped and sashed white coat. Occasionally he will make an inspection of his shiny black shoes or take a few steps one way and then the other.

But he is always scouting for pedestrians. He calls them his "customers".

When they appear, he is as niimble on his feet as an Olympic gymnast as he makes his way to the lights and snaps at the button.

As with the best comedians, timing is everything for him: he tries to work it so that the pedestrian does not have to break stride.

Mr Joy is on the roadway as soon as the amber has changed to red, more darting than walking to the centre.

His whistle is in his right hand and he tends to shake it, as if to check it still has its rattle. Then he gives it two hearty blasts, the cue for pedestrians to hit the road.

Mr Joy may mouth a few words to the person crossing, but his guard never drops. "If you laugh or joke around the cars will take advantage of you," the semi-retired Cheltenham resident explains.

When the cars have been sent on their way, Mr Joy steps back to the footpath, eager to do it all again.

It is a joy to watch him

Ruth Brown, I got your CD mix in the mail - you are a legend!
Ellie, I'll speak to you when i get back.
Juzz, hang in there.
David, thanks again.
Ann, will post on B1 & 2 anon.

Off on a mini-road trip. MMM may or may not rock the Victorian Alps. then swing thru Ballarat for the Eureka festival on the way back. Amco, c u there.

Nice hose

2004-11-30T23:44:00.000+11:00

Fuck fuck fuck! I've been put onto late shift at the Synchotron tomorrow night - in the bean-counting section - so I won't be able to go see the return of Wild Colonial Psychos - Mark 'Jacko' Jackson and Chopper read, sans Roger Rogerson.

They're on at Pure Bar + Niteclub, 92 Mckenzie Street, Melton, show starts at 8. Support act: the Lisbeth Gorr Lapdancing Allstars, because Pure is that kind of classy joint:
their Xmas Eve party, judging from their ad, will have at least one blonde chick wearing a diamante necklace and a santa bikini.

Mmmm, love that fur trim. I want one, but I doubt they come in size 20.

Actually, I'm crocheting a nice two-piece at the moment out of Coles bags. But I can't model it until my pink yeast ring fades. Damn that pink yeast ring.

********

Out with Country Boy last nite, counting down to his departure for NZ. Five weeks and six days...

We were at a pizza joint across the road from Moonee Ponds Station when about 10 cop cars pull up. "Must be doughnut time," CB said. Droll.

Stuff Rogernomics - he hasn't even left Aus and he's coming up against Rogerednomics: it will cost him 3 times his airfare to send his adorable siamese cats, Lazy and Moscow - but at least he won't have to deal with them running onto Moonee Valley Racecourse during busy race meets. he's thiinking of trying to smuggle them in and telling quarantine, "I'm importing two possum killers".

Meantime, if you're in the market for a washing machine, a Moran (thank you very much) sofa, and a fridge, go look him up in the warehouse at Sexyland Campbelltown - thankfully, Country Boy kept on his day job even after reaching the quarter finals of Idol (he came to grief because his voice started breaking. Shows what happens when boys do Britney covers. I warned him, but does he listen to me? Noooo). He'll be the one eating the staff caf daily special - hot dog and pink yeast ring topped with "I can't believe it's not whipped cream"

******

Out for unclassified drinks with Amiable Fool tonight; he related his first experience of Melbourne after migrating from Swaziland. He was one of those yuppie immigrants Mandy 'The whale' Vanstone' keeps complaining about - swanned in on an F1-11 on an employer nomination visa from a Nigerian pyramid scam conglomerate, wielding a fistful of euros.

(Actually while we're on the subject of Mandy, please click on the link "mail the whale" on the sidebar, and tell Mandy not to deport the Rotaru family from Dandenong later this month - I will try to link to my previous posts on them, but Blogger seems to not give you that option after a certain period has elapsed, so you could try googling "rotarus" and "dandenong")

Anyway, Fool screamed for a full month when they locked him up in Broadie for trying to smuggle in a quantity of green vegetable matter heading in a south easterly direction - in this case, it was basil from his mother's garden. But then he got transferred to civilisation - ie., Niddrie . Now he has a job, machine gun in the glass cabinet next to his abacus, and unlimited Nescafé, and he feels safe and happy and the money keeps his mum in cocksucker cowboys.

Digression:
I do love my Mac, because I can insert symbols like €, and ™ and ¥ and ® and ©, but it shits me because I have to enter in all the code to make text bold and italicise it, which really fucks me off. yes i know the world's going - to hell through Windows - but I don't like it. and then blogger can't read these symbols and translates them as complete fucking gibberish. It's a hard hard world.

**********
Now,
OK, this is arguably not the burbs cause it's in the Macedon Ranges (however, shortly i will dig up a poem that appeared some time ago in the local paper about this very phenomenon), but it's irresistible:

The Tylden Rural Fire Brigade wants a new tanker, so their boys and girls have stripped off for a calendar.

WOOO HOOOOO

The brainwave came from Miss June, Carol Carter, who spent 18 months trying to talk the guys round before they relented, saying "Struth, not the crown jewels? yaaaaair. Orrrrright. You owe me a beer and a Bunnings voucher."

Mallrat is privileged to have sighted a beauty of a photo of Mr February, Lindsay Henderson, naked but for a massive sign over his tupping-ware, saying "OVERSIZE"

Pick it up for $20 around Trentham, Kyneton, and Tylden. or send a cheque for $21.95 made out to Tylden Rural Fire brigade, 9-11 Maxwell Street, Tylden , 3444.

My contact wrote:
I had the pleasure to have one sent to me already, and I'm planning on
putting it up on the wall just under the air conditioner. This is for two
reasons, 1. So everyone can see it, and 2. Obviously it's pretty hot stuff
so this would be a good place to cool it down.

twas a bloke, too...

Now I can't wait for this to catch on in the Victorian Liberal Party. I mean, once Fran Bailey has done her free Polestar pole-dancing class, and got her parliamentary colleagues involved (hmmmm, the thought of Victor Perton poledancing makes me feel all kinds of things, and I know it makes Nabokov feel them even more intensely), there's one hell of a sexy calendar waiting there.

Go for gold, 2006.

Grease that pole, Fran

2004-11-29T11:11:00.000+11:00
The Hon. Fran Bailey, MP
237 Maroondah Highway
Healesville VIC 3777

Dear Ms Bailey,

I am the marketing manager of Polestars (TM), an an exciting new dance venture in the McEwen electorate, which will provide jobs for local youth and state-of-the-art, world-class recreational and fitness activities to the region, helping reduce the incidence of obesity and heart disease - significant problems in this electorate - and raise women's self-esteem and empowerment.

I recently read of your call in the local media for schools to apply for grants of $1500 in federal funding for a new flagpole, should their present facility be inoperable.

I am hoping to enlist your support in our application for a flagpole for our new school.

You stated:
Every child should have the chance to learn about the history and symbolism of our national flag and celebrate the opportunities that abound in our country.

We would like to assist you in this endeavour. We believe that parents are central to the modelling of civic and democratic behaviours. Our students are women aged 18 and over, many of whom have children. To this end, we propose to fly the Australian flag in all classes and incorporate the national anthem as the soundtrack to several routines, including our end-of-year presentation night at Spearmint Rhino.

We at Polestar (TM) also invite you to take part in a free taster class. In honour of your inner sex goddess, participants in the Polestars taster class will receive a free Gillette Venus Divine shaver!

I hope to hear from you soon.

Kind regards,

xxxx xxxxxx
Marketing manager
Polestars Australia

PS> could you please also send us an Australian flag?

***********************

Bloody local MPs. They dress up normal parliamentary entitlements as noblesse oblige.

$1500 for a flagpole?! wot the... how many breakfasts, Reading Recovery sessions, educational maintenance allowances, textbooks, native plants, library books etc could that cover?

La Fran says:

Every child should have the chance to learn about the history and sumbolism of our national flag and celebrate the oportunities that abound in our country.

Oh do fuck off, Fran.

She's also inviting schools, individuals, etc, to call her office to get an Aussie flag. All MPs offer this service. As they do a letter commemorating your gran's 100th birthday, whatever.

Fuck the flag. Flags have caused more strife this century and the last than few other things. Making kids worship a colored rag is noise, air and mental pollution.

Christ, Julia Gillard was just over at Melton Primary, gladhandling everyone there over their new flagpole. She was treated to a "stirring rendition" of the national anthem. and the new flag monitor - probably a bedwetter - is apparently beside himself at the extra resposnibility he's been handed.

"Ma, I get to put up the flag and take it down".

every day.

Up down up down. good training for life in corporate Australia.

Just stepped on an urban impact

2004-11-28T17:27:00.000+11:00
#2 Council bureaucratese that passes for journalism in local papers:

"The catchment model tackles local issues like stock access to creeks,
housing developments, and urban impacts including dog poo."

Dodge the urban impact. Now.

Dirty, pretty, fuzzy things

2004-11-28T14:10:00.000+11:00
There's some godawful writing in suburban newspapers. Take this intro from a story about a koala census at Hanging Rock next weekend:

Are you into fuzzy things and counting?

What else could that intro be about?

A swingers' club
Job ad for David Jones' accessories section
Any food made chez mallrat, which will have grubs crawling in it
Caterpillar-spotting in Bronwyn Bishop's beehive
Administrators of the new Monash Medical Centre simian IVF program?
Ad for World Blind/Vision Impaired Lawn Bowls championships, Johannesburg, April, 2005?
Sedgewick taking the stairs after a few too many pink yeast rings
Monash Gender Dysphoria clinic making dodgy Medicare claims for 'prostate cancer' procedures

?????

Any more suggestions?

I kid you not about the World Blind Lawn Bowls championships. Alma Fagan from the Werribee Bowling Club has been chosen as Straya's rep for Jo'Burg. I myselfr am aiming for a berth in a few years, when my retinal detachment comes through. Onya Alma.

But wait ... there's more drama in the lawn-bowls world. A shitfight of Andy Bolt-Pete Singer proportions centring on the ethical dilemma of just at what point do we tell the tobacco industry to fuck off and give up setting up fake grassroots smokers' rights groups? 'Cause they will seize on this like extra-mild manna.

See, Moreland Council has just brought in a new bylaw banning smoking in council faciltiies.

That got up the arse of the senior citizens at the Glenroy Bowls Club (no, no web page - are you mad? they're grappling with electric typewriters still), who threatened to dump a pile of stinking wok-fried cat shit (another Mallrat merchandising option TM) on the steps of the council offices, and have several coronaries if they weren't granted an exemption.

It's our friggin club and we'll smoke if we want to. Gotta die of soemthin, eh? And if you don't let us, we'l boycott our own club!

Now, if you wanted to do a massive buga-up to the Quit campaign and find a nice venue to smoke in that's not a bar, your choices are limited: Crown Casino and now... the Glenroy Bowls Club.

Yep, Cr Stephen Roach (pardon the pun) of Moreland Council (cue: FX Holden enter stage left with biting comment), went in to bat for the codgers. he convinced his colleagues on council to vote five to four to allow smoking, saying compassion was needed for "a group of elderly people that wanted to run their club their way."

"This club was built in 1954 through the physical labour of these members. It is an outrage that we attempt to primary-school them."

Well, they got their way - with a few conditions: the issue has to be revisited every year at the agm, and they have to designate a smoking area.

Now, if the Melbourne Press Club had any sense, they'd have booked their Christmas party here, rather than at the bowling green at Flagstaff Gardens, which i've never heard of.

Truth & Beauty

2004-11-27T01:03:00.000+11:00
It was an impulse buy: Truth & Beauty, by Ann Patchett. It was on the new releases shelf and I thought, who would be so pretentious as to call their new novel that?

Only it’s not a novel, it’s a memoir of a friendship, and I zipped through it in a matter of hours. So I’m up naked at the laptop (in my stunning 18-stone girth) still in the glow of this wonderful book. I have the house to myself - well, Mankie and I do, as Odysseus' Wife has gone to the cenrtral coast.

As soon as I read the blurb, I knew it was a book for Juzz, who had also done the Iowa Wriers’ Group a few years ago.

All the “Do you love me”s confirmed that there are friendships and relationships out there big enough to contain big feelings. It's about loneliness and love and the jealousy that friends have but rarely speak about.

I like the line where Patchett observes of Lucy that , this time she was in love, as opposed to being upset that he had failed to be in love with her.

And I love the episode where Lucy talks Patchett out of wearing a short, napkin-like skirt at a famly gathering, saying it makes her look whore-ish, only to come down the staircase, Scarlett- like and very sexy, wearing same skirt.

Nabakov, you’re in there too:
The next night I talked to Lucy from the payphone for a long time. It was cold and bright in Nashville and I stood outside in my backyard and looked up at the stars. Lucy told me she was going into rehab in Connecticut.
In the middle of all the talk about fresh starts and new jobs, we started talking about Nabokov, and then we were talking about the night sky, the different sides we saw from New York and Tennessee, and then about the metaphysical process of sight.

There’s more stuff that touched me but I can’t recall it right now.

Have to read Bel Canto now – saw the reviews when it came out, didn’t grab me. Nice when you read something that takes you past the initial judgement.

Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn’t even realized was gone. With Lucy I was a native speaker.

The people that I love: Juzz, Boomboom, Amco, Schlueter, Danica Coit, Country Boy, Laura, Tango Lee, Claudio (even though he freaks me out) and Pascal (even though I knew him such a short time).

I don’t know what language you guys speak, but it works for me.

This one’s for you, Juzz.

Love, Mallrat (you know who I am). See you Tuesday.

Shit

2004-11-26T13:27:00.000+11:00
My cover is blown

Vote schmote

2004-11-26T10:39:00.000+11:00
I don't have to vote tomorrow, to vote tomorrow.... ha ha ha ha ha... because I am registered in my parents' LGA, which is not up for election. Great - it would really have buggered up my Saturday, braving 34-degree heat to get there.

If you are suffering insomnia, which I believe most readers of this blog do, try reading candidate statements in your local papers. Here's the identikit one:

I will work with the community for better outcomes for stakeholders, I will deliver services with no increase in rates, accountability, there will be a new era of openness to rival the Prague Spring, and I will use the top 10 most-loved words in the English language in every speech I make (even if 'pumpkin', 'hippopotamus' and 'fuselage' will be somewhat problematic to incorporate).... I will guarantee an Idol contestant for 2005 from this municipality and name a community centre after him/her, with increased linkages between stakeholders, world's best practice recycling and smaller bins for everyone and $200 fines for those who keep their bins out past midday on bin day, shorter grass in all front yards, blah blah.

And even if the fact that I am running for council confirms I have no idea what the word "passion" means, I will endeavour to incorporate "eternity" at all council meetings.

Shame on the candidates who are pushing for abolition of Melbourne 2030, and don't seem to care about Melbourne sprawl going on forever.

Then there's Brian Maher, 61, Socialist alliance, of Moreland, who says he will fight for an end to the war in Iraq. And...
I will seek to connect Moreland with cities in Palestine and Iraq to build solidarity

And when you're done voting:

Saturday
Yarra Glen
Dance,
Saturday, 8 till midnight,
Memorial Hall, Bell Street,
Yarra
Glen. Tickets $8,
ladies please bring
a plate. Info: 0418566166.

Garage sale and sausage sizzle,
Yarra Valley FM 99.1 at
their studios,
shop 1/1385
Healesville Koo Wee Rup Road,
Woori Yallock, this Saturday from
10am-1pm. Details: 59615991

Sunday
EXPO TIMOR 2004
A Celebration of East Timorese Culture, Music, Arts and Food
Factory, 19 Belgium Street,
Richmond 11 - 4

Grassed off

2004-11-25T14:42:00.000+11:00

Senior citizens of Wyndham (Werribee, Hoppers, Tarneit, etc) are grassed off with the council - and, get this! - there's an IDOL angle!

First, diggers and vets felt somewhat dissed when no one from Wyndham council turned up to their Remembrance Day service or laid a wreath at the Station Place cenotaph. Just to rub it in, neighbouring Melton Shire and Hobsons Bay did send wreaths/people.

Wyndham Mayor Harry Barlow said, "Jesus, it all happened decades ago, can't you guys just MOVE ON??!!"

Joke, Joyce - but it's probably what detention centre for Broadie proponent Cr Jack "it'll create jobs" Medcraft over at Hume said when Rabbit Proof Fence came out.

Barlow said the council hadn't been invited to the service, he'd been interstate and that other councilors had prior engagements/full-time jobs they had to be at, though the minute's silence was observed by all and sundry.

Then someone lets the cat out of the bag - a council rep was sent to meet the family of Idol loser Anthony Callea at a photo shoot 30 minutes after the end of the service.

RSL member David McDiarmid told the local rag:
If they are more interested in Anthony Callea's singing career than the people who fought for and died for this country, then I believe they should be sacked. It's rotten".

Ouch! Boof! Biff! That's one knockout punch, sir. Over the ropes, wham bam thank you ma'am. We can see why you won your AO. And as soon as Sedgewick is made to stand down over those Hollingworth-esque allegations, you're first in line. Maaate.

Thank God Casey Donovan wasn't come from Werribee - Mr McDiarmid would have been saying
That's fine if the council is more interested in a dead porn star with a huge schlong, but don't expect us to rise to Wyndham's defence when Jihad Jack is let out on parole.

A little further north at St Albans, pensioner Anton Schwartz is livid that he's been fined $200 for letting his grass grow beyond 15cm, under local law 64.4*(2) (yes, I know you really wanted that detail).

This poor sod is 84, speaks little English, but has a very feisty daughter, Maria, who said:
The council goes to the trouble of issuing an infringement notice and within two days, the blooming grass is cut anyway irrespective of their notice. Why couldn't they have sent a letter that said, "You have five days to cut it?' Without giving people a warning notice, is the current method merely revenue-raising?

I can just see the headlines on DJ Rob's weekly column in the Banner, or in the Wyndham Bitch (which seems to be in lamented recess):

YOUR RATES AT WORK IN WYNDHAM: COUNCIL OFFICERS WATCH GRASS GROW

Another guy slugged $200 reckons he has video footage proving his lot hadn't even reached 15cm when council staff came to inspect. And that nearby council land had even higher grass.

CEO Ian Robins said warning notices weren't issued because landowners were supposed to be responsible for their land.

Well may you say his ass is grass at the local senior citizens' club.

Pink yeast ring

2004-11-24T19:36:00.000+11:00
The caf at the Synchotron is selling this great snack item, called a pink yeast ring, made by Balfours- I shit you not.

They got the cream of copywriting talent to come up with that one.

Can you guess what it is? And should I eat one?

Runaway hoss

2004-11-24T09:59:00.000+11:00

Wo runaway horses
Take us thru our life
Wo runaway horses
Oo oo baby hold on tight
Racing thru the darkness
Trying to find a light
You and I on runaway horses
Oo baby hold on tight

Wo, gaaah, Belinda Carlisle flashback, aaargh!!!! Stop! Turn on the lights and stop throwing horseshoes onto my nose. I am not a game of coits.

I love this: there's something deeply touching about knowing that this stuff can still happen in the burbs (ok, so the burbs are a national park, in this case), occasionally - a bit of animalia anarchy, ridin' in the wind, ridin' for freedom:

In tea-room land on November 18, Olinda Police were called to restrain a runaway hoss on Olinda-Monbulk Road. The hoss had several near-misses with local traffic (I think my mum was up there looking for an overpriced tea cosy).

The owners had not registered their mount with Yarra Ranges Council, which is calling on them to contact the shire (presumably so it can slap them with a humungous fine).

Otherwise, Black Beauty is dog meat.

Please post your stories about runaway fauna below. Especially spiders. Just for once, shopping trolleys do not count.

oooh baby do you know what that's worth? ooh heaven - Sunbury Maccas - is a place on earth (c) Belinda Carlisle Sunbury ambassador 2004

No Playstations for Xmas this year

2004-11-23T19:43:00.000+11:00
The crap you find when you're cleaning up after the bloody kids...

Forgive me Father, for I have signed

2004-11-22T11:53:00.000+11:00
Now, I don't want to come across all right-wing or nuthin', but the kid who almost drowned in Merri Creek the other week has spoken, and Bobbie Hughes would go poiple if he heard.

Little Daniel Andrade, 13 jumped into a Fawkner stretch of Merri after his keys fell in.

'Scuse me? What 13yo has keys to anything? (And I bet his mobile isn't pre-paid either and I bet he's rung up some incredible 0055 bills on mum's phone)

While he conceded that jumping into the roiling waters wasn't one of his brightest ideas, HE ENDS UP BLAMING THE FRIGGIN' SIGN - or absence thereof.

I definitely would of thought twice about going in if there was some kind of sign,

Yeah, I wouldn't have played chicken on Geelong Road last night at the first exit to Hoppers HAD THERE BEEN A SIGN.

Nor would I have stolen $10k of building materials, kitchen cupboards and a gas space heater from a construction site in Caroline Springs, HAD THERE BEEN A SIGN saying I could get busted for theft.

I wouldn't have blown up those letterboxes in Bacchus Marsh on November 14 HAD THERE BEEN A SIGN saying their bozo owners had spent $100 of perfectly good pokies money on a stupid cuckoo receptacle for their CityWestWater bills and bullshit glossy promotional material about the trees they're cutting down on the Avenue of Honor.

Nor would I have posed as a doctor by the name of Markc Hatzikostantinous at the Civic Parade Medical centre last year, treating about 100 people, vacinating people and even ordering one patient to get a lumbar puncture and chastising the clinic director for forgetting how to do same, HAD THERE BEEN A FRIGGIN SIGN saying I'd go to jail for 12 months.

*****

(says in stoned Sahndra Sulleeeeee voice): And in dispatches from Burbland just to hand:

Two Bacchus Marsh letterboxes were blown up by firecrackers on November 14, on McCrae Street(worth $50) at 11.20 pm.

Don't ask me how the cops are so precise.

And another got blown up on Underbank Boulevard between 11pm and 7am next day.

It was worth $100. Who spends $100 on a friggin' letterbox? Quick - sell the kids for the replacement...

Now adding Bacchus now to the list of burbs the Feds will want to bomb for harboring terrorists ... after Werribee, home of Jihad Hack.

Actually, there might be a reader poll in that...

*****

Blink here if you can't stand the thought of a community service annoncement. My apologies. It's just that Tango Lee - who is to our joy visiting from Buenos Aires where she is studying the convoluted sexual politics of tango - had a kidney stone the other day and her ambulance subscription had lapsed. Luckily, her sister, Dash-8 Daisy, was home and was able to take her to St Vinnie's. At her post-recovery doorstop (well, it was a ciggie break) she told reporters:

Drink lots of water, buy a Wonderbra and renew your ambulance membership- because a trip would have cost me about $800.

OK, i've never had one of the things, but I just signed up online now. Plus if you do it before tomorrow, you save $5 off a single membership ($50).

*****

Email exchange at the Syncho this morning 'tween me and Fedele Castro. And this is all I will say about Idol, which is covered in other blogs far better than it is here:

G'day FC, were you one of the tearful last night over that git
anthony callea? Or have you not stopped crying since Garth Ploog lost
out?
Are you coming to the Christmas party {John Blackman is our MC, can't fucking wait]?

---------------Reply---------------
Hey Mallrat,
Was bit disappointed, must admit. Don't really like Callea but wanted
him to win for Werribee and thatcos I'm from the west. And he's the best
singer and will sell records. Unlike that other boring girl who got the
sympathy vote. I shuld turn up 2 the christmas party, but i don't
have a mask yet, maybe i shuld come as garth ploog. In other news, did
u c how hot Amali was looking last night, what a babe!!

---------------Reply---------------

maybe i should get a guy sebastian mask.

---------------Reply---------------
Oh ok, cool. Has anything else interesting been happening. I didnt do
much on weekend. Went to Seven on Saturday night, it was pretty
good.

---------------Reply---------------
wot the fuck is seven?

---------------Reply---------------
Seven's in Sth Melb. Just a club, one of the best. Plenty of those blonde
model clone typa girls. Was like being at one of Hugh Heffner's parties
im assuming.

---------------Reply---------------

Dja get lucky?

---------------Reply---------------
Nah, I wish!

Bloodsucker awards

2004-11-21T10:35:00.000+11:00
So the Gladstone Park Hotel won the Australian Hospitality Association Award for excellence last week for Best Gaming Venue with 50 machines or more.

Let's take a look at how much the municipality has lost through pokies, shall we?

According to an excellent paper by VU's Dr James Doughney posted on the VLGA website, Hume is one of the seven municipalities in greater Melbourne hardest hit by pokies:

Three western suburbs local government areas are in that list of 7.

Hume is beaten by Dandenong - where Pandazopoulos is the local MP - Maribyrnong, Brimbank, Wyndham and Whittlesea, but is ahead of Monash.

So presumably the criteria for the Best Gaming Venue included:
* most number of machines with access to Readicash
* most number of free drinks offered for pokie players only
* Most money for school fees, excursions, food, clothing, etc lost by local families
* Most money lost per adult in the municipality (for Hume in 2002-2003, this was $821. The average loss for the heavy loser - 60% of all losses - was $8213)

So now is the idea of an award for best gaming venue starting to seem a little Orwellian?

Can't tell from the figures how much was lost to the municipality as a whole last year. But Hume's population is 150,000 - so make your own calculations.

Over the 12 years it's had pokies, Monash has lost $1 billion - or $852 per resident in the past year=$71 a month.

And isn't it starting to look like Tourism Minister John Pandazopoulos' attendance legitimised the inexcusable?

Victorians last year spent $6.5m A DAY on the pokies.

Now, with council elections coming up, give some thought to candidates' stances on this issue.

In the absence of any political will at state level, councils are at the forefront of trying to meet with Pandazopoulos to explain the devastation and get caps on machine numbers.

The Greens have what looks to be a well thought-out policy, not just a knee-jerk reaction saying 'ban them' (although we'd like to, that ain't gonna happen).

The ALP have no credibility on this one. why would you make meaningful sacrifices to an addiction that accoutns for 15% of state revenue? (not sure how much GST accounts for...interesting to find out, after all, part of the reason it was introduced was to bring in moreincome for the states)

The Libs would be talking a lot, but who believes them anyway? and they brought them in ...

For every Family First gambling policy you get a free DVD of Steve Fielding & Danny Nalliah's cover of 'Abbey Road'.

well he would say that, wouldn't he?

2004-11-19T13:55:00.000+11:00
Kiwi Ken is the chief bottle washer at the Mentone Bowl - my other job when i'm not messing around with laser beams at the Synchotron, pointing them at the Monash Gender Dysphoria Clinic.

Apropos of nothing, he pops pout tonite with the news that Israeli nightclub owner Mandy Rice Davies once tried to tour NZ with her cabaret act, but was refused a visa on moral grounds. The aroma of Profumo lingered longer than an easterly over the Werribee CBD.

Incidentally, the latest pisstake on the famous Christine Keeler pic by Lewis Morley- (who now operates out of Parramatta Road, Leichhardt) where she's astride an Arne Jacobson Ant chair is at the site of the old Chevron on St Kilda road.

Not as good as the Homer Simpson pisstake, but.

So for years, there was this graffiti incident in Auckland, on Upper Queen Street, close to Newton Road, saying "We want Mandy". I like that.

Jihad Jack from Werribee. I like that too. It's got a certain je ne sais quoi.

I'm a bit worried for Juzz. I mean, maybe we'll start bombing soon. Although I reckon she'd be happy to see Sunbird Crescent razed, and start it all again.

The municipality of Wyndham has a couple of mosques, one just completed ... and did you know Australia's first mosque opened in a small house near Adelaide in the 1890s?

*****

Met up with the lovely Eva Kaneeva this morning and took her on the temptations tour of the CBD (I'm out on parole, which is bad news for this blog, but good news for me). she is down from Skidney for this, c u there at the picnic tomorrow from about noon.
The weirdest form of blind date last night, meeting fellow bloggers at Golden Terrace, Brunswick.

I bounce up to Barista, take his hand and deposit a scrunched-up strip of paper into his palm. He unfurls it, puzzled: a 'MMM rocks Werribee sticker', for kindnesses and sagenesses rendered.

Nabakov demurely refused all offers of alcohol. And observed that the preponderance of older male bloggers probably reflected how much having a blog was like having a shed - only it's warmer in winter.

FX Holden was there. Regretted not having worn his school blazer. he's not exactly the Bon Scott type though.

Gummo, Northcote knob, and Tony T from aftergrogblog.

Where the hell was Poet?

Boynton and I exchanged what I thought were complicit glances, but I'm happy to stand corrected. She and Tony T from aftergrogblog are trivia mates with gummo.
Cast iron balcony made an appearance.
Sedge distributed cartoons for the hungry.
Jeremy of Melbourne Lefty brought his fiance.
A sign language class changed Daily Flute's life.

went for afters to this gargantuan pub on the corner of Moreland and Sydney Roads. Ran into my parents (or maybe they were shapeshifters) eyes glazed and feeding coins into the 42 machines, 6 of them connected to Readycash or some such. they have agreat dining room with giant replicas of the Parthenon, Coliseum and some other Italiante edifice. Tackorama. glorious. but we were shunted to the back.

Amco, get well soon.

K2B, let's do that coffee soon.

Local &/or General

2004-11-17T11:06:00.000+11:00
You guys don't know this because I've kept it under wraps, but I'm a serial phone caller of people in authority; just doing my bit for the burbs.

For years, I've called Democrat leader Lyn Allison's office every morning and spoken to a lovely lady, Natasha, under the pseudonym of Brian from Footscray. I am usually completely pissed when I do this at 9am. When I won first prize in a Herald-Sun competition - a trip to see the Tour de France - a few years ago, I invited her along, but she said she had no one to look after her dogs.

Around 11am, I usually wake up an eastern suburbs choir director affectionately known as 'Foetus' by his choirmates (clue: first name, Andrew, surname: Wailes), saying he needs to put more songs on their Christmas program that resonate with Melbourne's outer west growth corridor. Chisel's Choirgirl comes to mind.

Then I usually have a midday game of pool in the Synchotron caf. Just wait for when they open the Particle Accelerator next year: it'll be a fucking blast, plus there'll be paper on the tables so we atomica geeks can plot out the mechanics for the first cold fusion eski - and do not fret - we will make the Da Vinci code look like the menarchic dribblings of Elisabeth Taylor from Sex and the City.

Maybe we get into shit like that 'cause we're all from developing suburbs with a long history of pediatric Ritalin addiction.

Who was the charlatan who moved among our staffroom?

Then there's my daily phone call to Rob Wilson, Mayor of Casey, begging him to come with me to the next Pagans in the Pub night at Kelly's Bar & Bistro in Cranboune, corner High and Childers Streets. 2pm last Sunday of every month.

And a twice-weekly call to Jessica Minutoli out at Brimbank telling her she's doing a great job on ridding the municipality of shopping trolleys, but could she please take the case for the death penalty for trolley abductors to Mr Bracks? Nothing more, nothing less. I see people wheeling 'em, but I don't people takin' em backem.

It turns out I'm not alone in this municipal harrassment effort. There's a nice little piece in Leader this week about two women - of the senior citizen persuasion - who spend all their time going to council meetings at Stonnington.

Oh boy do they sink the boot in, they are two tuff ho's who really bitch-slap that council around:

"It took Stonnington council a whole year of deliberation to rename the Northbrook House Art Garden the Sir John Gorton Garden".

Yeeow!And

it took more than an hour of heated council debate to vote on donating $1000 a year over three years to East Timor. The row last March finally ended when finance committee chairman John Chandler said he was horrified a council with a budget surplus would be concerned about donating so little".

Yeah, but look how stroppy some of the crs over at Casey got when they donated $5k to Beslan a couple of months ago - and striking how amazingly generous this outer-burban council is compared with Toorak).
.

I mean $1k over three years - and we wanna see a Mission Statement, Key Learning Areas, a good governance audit, a waterwise 10-point plan, security policy, World's Best Practice and Outcomes?

Still, they can't all be bad at Stonnington - council workers recenhtly refused a request by the obscenely cashed-up Wesley College - which received $5.5 million in federal funding last year - to waive a $1400 charge for using the Malvern Town Hall for a fund-raiser. It's for an overseas trip, probably a bit of community development in Aspen ... oh no wait - the Wesley College Big Band was invited to play in LA by the International Association for Jazz Education, with James Morrison.

Stonnington said it had no money left in the kitty to support waiving the fee, and Wesley were late with their application anyway. So they're going instead to the Port Melbourne Yacht Club, Mon, Dec 13, 7.30-11pm in Beach Street.

Byo eggs.

Who was the charlatan who moved amongst our staff room?

A Bogan dan o vic production

2004-11-16T11:19:00.000+11:00
For all things bogan today, check out this golden thread at the spin starts here.

Tulla hair day

2004-11-15T16:40:00.000+11:00
Is it just me, or do you too find the idea of grade 6 kids at Tullamarine Primary School singing I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair hysterical?

66 choir members - boys and grrrls - can't be wrong. obvoiusly tapping into the zeitgeist.

Their production of South Pacific is on till next Thursday at Resurrection House in Essendon. Book those tickets now on Tiketek (just kidding) 9338 2826.

Is it...?

2004-11-15T13:09:00.000+11:00
Darkness all round.

The Cave Clan expedition had gone horribly wrong. Lured into a RIP. It started out as a dunking but then no one wanted to stop. And now I'm washed up in a drain playing three-chord blues on some fresh catgut that I found lying here (the Yarra Rangers Rangers have been zealous in enforcing the feline curfew).

SFX: match striking

*drags stump of half-chewed leg, cranes neck to lap up condensation from cave roof.*

Flame catches, flaming and I'm flemished.

Sometimes the wind changes direction.

Caiga quien caiga

Men'u del d'ia, inc IVA:
Sopa de polla
Conejo, mucho conejo
Morcilla la vallekana
El librito de mi 'ultima relaci'on, a la parrilla
Pulpo a la morrin~a
Huevos super-estrellados (justo)
Postre: no quedan barquillos. Pero se podr'ia arreglar alg'un co~no (d'onde est'an los tildes en este puto teclado?) de chocolate.
Para tomar: Lo que nos salga de los cojones.

Alucinante.

Gora gora gora los barrios. De los barrios al cielo.

Ando por las urbanizaciones y los Alcampos escuchando los quejios
el futuro en cada esquina del blog'osfero pende de un hilo

Y ya que estamos en el tema de jam'on....Oye, deja de joder. Vete a la plaza de la paja y te lo cascas ya de una vez. Howard, confiesa, que Bush te la pone tiesa. jam'on, chulet'on, cabr'on, serrano, cerrado, machacado, picado - 'echalo todo por la ventana de tu restaurante preferido, 'echale pa fuera.

Las tres palabras m'as mocosas del idioma:
"No significa nada".

Y cuatro mas:
"Era todo una ficci'on."

Ya tengo un sitio nuevo donde comprarme los libros. Y otro y alguno mas.

Council elections coming up. See you anon. Tormenta en el ayuntamiento, oh yeah. El alcalde quiere que le respalden. Y vaya t'itulo para un culebr'on: pelandruscas en los esca~nos.

Mi abuelo, que en paz descanse, fue alcalde del pueblo de Aldeanueva de Barbarroya en los a~nos 1930-31. Nunca le conoc'i. L'astima. Supongo que por eso me ha entrado el odio/fascinaci'on por temas locales. Bueno, ya sabeis algo de m'i.

He salido del agujerito. Ya empiezo de nuevo.

Un saludo muuuuuuy cordial.

el/la ratoncit@

!Voy, voy!

Blogdom sucks

2004-11-07T15:38:00.000+11:00
But before I swear off forever, here's the pic of my cat, Sunday, which I promised Francis Xavier Holden I would post. She now lives with Amco.

Sunday's about 11 (Spinal Tap reference, there) and has a brain the size of a mandarin.

Sydney II

2004-11-06T19:56:00.000+11:00
I forgot to say that Kartik, Mrs Singhson and I were having a chat about relationships. Kartik is talking about various mind-fucks he has endured, and says wide-eyed, "you know, the worst are the head jobs".

And I say, "Do you know what that means in Australia?"

Somewhere in the dim recesses of memory, a glimmer of recognition.

Then we wheel Mrs Singhson home in a shopping trolley, no REALLY. Down to Toyland, the spanking new estate where she lives which from the outside looks just like housing commission but costs more of a packet than Alan Jones' wildest dreams.

So I meet up with Eva Kaneeva at the Clare on Broadway and we get Lucky on the sofa.

I don't need her or the Generalissimo to tell me Clover's fucking up left right and centre (but mostly left)but they tell me anyway.

Over sushi we compare swear words from diverse linguistic backgrounds. Then Legend, who is coming down for Meredith in mid-December, Funky Flanagan and I retire to some pub where the hours are so Sydney. As we walk home, FF points out the violently violet jacaranda blooms littering the streets and that it looks the way dandruff might lit up on a nightclub floor.

Melbourne seems grey. Shit weather and ~~reiufh#$%%&GFCTHV^*%*TF*&TFU~~

I am hearing so many sinful things and all

2004-11-03T21:22:00.000+11:00
Mrs Singhson is dry humping mr singhson in the lounge room. Seé what you happens when you leave the burbs and hit Balmain?

So me, mrs s, mr s and Kartik sat on their balcony last night till FOUR drinking whiskey and talking about Mrs Singhson's new show that starts next week on Sydney's all-subcontinental radio station - catering to a population of 90,000 - Indian Link (it-s a subscriber frequency, 103.5 FM - they piggy back on 3PBS's signal - no idea how that works - $9.95 a month, the boxes you need to tune in are a $50 refundable deposit).

Indians sure can drink. they give brits a run for their money.
Tried some becherovka, a spiced spirit from the czech republic.
Kartik was on the Ardbeg. apparently that came about becauase some whiskey buffs set up a fan club for some 10 year old stuff abnd [persuaded the distillers to go even younger. Mr Singhson says People who dont know ardbeg will imagine you drank crap because it"'s 6 years old.

If you're in sydney, tune into The Mrs Singhson Hour of Power from 8-11am, Mondays, wednesdays and Fridays. once the show is bedded down, she will start a matchmaking section, because she's SUPER at setting up strays. And Kartik does the news with a deep voice to die for, which was only enhanced by last nights chains moking and whisky guzzling.

I remember tuning in last year when i was in a taxi, and there was this great Indian bloke taking talkback on whether the Indian pakistani conflict needed to endure forever.

Subcontinental talkback rocks - they're not afraid of a bunfight. they jump right in there where Jonesie and Lawsie and pricie will not tread - instead of cutting off callers who dont agree with their rightwing brand of tatti, these guys say "bring it on".

Hello, Priya from Parramatta? Listen you've got to stop going out with such losers and get yourself a nice investment banker or IT geek.
Hello, is that Rani from Rozelle?

Kartik told us about how "Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott and Ross Cameron came on his show before the federal election.

what a bunch of bhenchodon.

Or even better bhenke laudon (this is Hindi for, 'the women in your family have dicks. especially the sisters).

He was toying with asking Cameron as an ice-breaker, "Soooo, had any Indian lately?"

Oh, Hey Bhagwan, I am hearing so many sinful things last night and all, yaaaar.

Backyard chainsaw massacre

2004-11-01T16:54:00.000+11:00
Channel 9 is taking the axe to Burke's backyard after 17 years.

I guess there are a few hotel managers around the country that wil be relieved.

it's all true. Bit cryptic?

Think TISM, circa 1986. And lots of domestos afterwards.

My huge gut saved my life

2004-10-31T12:46:00.000+11:00
Things to do on a Saturday afternoon. Go to Bunnings, buy a chainsaw, then find a person with a huge gut and go sick.

Corrrr check out that photo, Hunk o man!.

Roasting birds

2004-10-31T10:33:00.000+11:00
Having a smoko in the carpark gazebo, I feel like there's a little bit of Crown Casino in Dandenong South today.

There's a massive flame roaring on top of a tower at the natural gas plant across the road. The only thing missing is roasting birdlife. As far as I can see, the local birds - pelicans, red stints and Latham's snipe (i shit you not) that frequent the wetlands near the new watergardens housing estate - don't seem to want to self-immolate today.

Tomorrow's another day.

Yesterday, Mallrat Senior turned 76. Got merry, and sang tuneless songs from his Celtic region with his friends. We discovered he used to ice skate as a young man at a rink that has long since been replaced by apartments/casino on Southbank.

Wonder why he never told us that. Perhaps it would have ruined his image as a fearless sailor/forklift driver.

A work day and half of blogdom's asleep, which makes it a little more boring.

sigh.

Plague time

2004-10-30T18:04:00.000+10:00
If you were at a barbecue in keysborough last weekend (hmmmm), it would have been ruined. Especially if you were wearing white.

The recent rains plus warm weather created a swarm of flies.

Shit will happen if there's a chook farm nearby.

It's been a problem for 15 years in this area - one neighbour said she had brought in a litre of flies one day and dumped the mess at council offices; she reckons she goes through a can of flyspray every day.

The chicken farm which will soon go anyway, as it's on the Mitcham-Frankston tollway reservation.

Travelling in a north-easterly direction with a quantity of green vegetable matter, and we're in Casey, where the council said very firmly this week that it would NOT lift the cat curfew despite a rat plague next door to the Casey Aquatic centre.

One concerned resident said her daughter was chucking bread at ducks in the pond when out of nowhere, a whole lot of rats appeared, stealing the bread, then whipping out guitars and singing Kumbaya.

"They weren't scared of humans, they didn't run away, they just stayed there."

God, you'd think they'd just give up, huh? I mean, it's not like they lost the election.

Council is mulling starving the rats into seeking asylum elsewhere by erecting a sign saying 'do not feed the water birds'.

Maybe they should just import the snakes that have infested Werribee's backyard sandpits to deal with the problem.

BTW, If you're at a loose end next weekend, you could check out the Australian Rat Fanciers Society Show at the Whittlesea Show. They will tell all about breeding pedigree rats at the Poultry Pavilion, all day Sunday, November 7.

Went out last night to Narre Warren so that my new workmate at the Synchotron, Edinburgh Eddie, could return this lemon that he bought through e-bay. It failed the roadworthy in all possible ways with parsley on top.

As Eddie read out the list in his pairfectly adorable scawts ahksent, the seller was ejaculating "struth"s like they were bullets coming from the gun of a crazed sporting shoooters association committee member on GHB.

Fuck, I thought Nare was really close to Dande but it's fuckin miles away. It's horrific.

Eddie, who's from a small town 15 minutes north of Edinburgh that isn't even considered part of Edinburgh, was aghast.

I repeat, with all the tub thumping zeal of an eastern suburbs bible basher, that it's absoutely criminal to be building burbs so far from anything. they are social, cultural and economic death, because people are social animals and if starved of that and forced to rely on the car for all interaction, lead narrower lives.

Save our Suburbs can go fuck themselves. A plague on all their brick veneer houses.

Body parts everywhere

2004-10-29T14:16:00.000+10:00
Boy, what a muck-up night they had in Tarneit last week.

Year 12s at Thomas Carr secondary college went sick - the local paper calls it 'a night of teror'.

First, they overpowered 9, yes NINE security guards at the school, graffitied buildings and smashing aforesaid guards' car windows, pouring motor oil inside.

a 7-eleven person on duty locked themselves in as the drunken horde approached.

Neighbours' houses got pelted with eggs. Much drink-driving was had by all, and worse... the grounds were strewn with animal body parts.

Dpown the road in Hoppers Crossing - I can't get over this story - the Education department has apologised to parents of 8-year-old kids who weer suibjected to a rather explicit sex education lesson.

They were told how to put on a condom, and the prevalence in parts of Africa of men having unprotected sex with virgins to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Then the kids took home diagrams of stick figures engaged in anal intercourse, and the shit hit the fan as far as a the parents weere concerned.

one take on show and tell, that's for sure.

The dept says the class was a cultural clash sort of moment- the teacher had been working in South Africa for quite a while previously.

Probably my Hoppers friend juzz is reading this and freaking out completely. and i have set off a mid-life crisis.

Mallrat & sisters

2004-10-29T09:03:00.000+10:00
Dinner with my sisters last night.

Mallrat 2 just finished her law degree - quite fitting that a family of mallrats should have a real rat in the family.

Mallrat3 regaled us with tales of her inner city gig teaching art at a boys' school.

She's having a tough time with the Opus Dei twit who runs the school, but he's leaving. Her job is mostly yelling at the boys to sit the fuck still and shut the fuck up, rather than teaching per se.

"Right!" she roared at them this week. "I don't want to see any more penises in your sketchbooks from now on!"

We squeaked merrily into the wee hours.

JBT chronicles

2004-10-28T16:01:00.001+10:00
Seems a very dangerous proposition to publish nasty comments made about yourself when you have written a very lame column about the evil of the John Butler trio.

Here is a sample:
N e-mailer called "Littletroublegirl" writes: "I would love to harpoon andrew bolt in the chest, negative hate filled racist xenophobic c---".

"Peter" agrees: "You are a ph.cking craven coward . . . I hate you with a passion you yellow backed scum."

Actually, some of these look suspiciously like blog entries or chat rooms rather than emails sent to Bolt - why would you refer to him in the third person if you're writing straight to him?

but imagine the trouble he'd have on his hands trying to explain what a blog is to his loyal readership.

I think Boltie just wants to be king of the kids. any attention is better than none.

No knowing what he'd stoop to if he came across Ms Fits. He'd probably start spelling the 'c' word in full.

True, some e-mails were reasonable, but the ferocity of so many fans of this guru of green peace was a warning: as I've long said, the green church has a streak of brownshirt fascism.

Tool.

Tool with a persecution complex.

Allah of suburbia

2004-10-28T12:48:00.000+10:00
This is fucking brilliant.

Fawkner resident Osamah Al-Bakiry plays Saddam Hussein in the play The Trial of Saddam Hussein, which has its world premiere at the Clocktower Centre (750 Mt Alexander Road) in Moonee Ponds on Saturday (it's on till the following Monday. )

Al-Bakiry, 21, is a method actor and explains how he plays the former dictator turned romance-novelist: "You have to think like him, talk like him, walk like him".

I will be the one pointing and yelling "He's behind you!" when they recreate the discovery of Saddam in the cellar.

There's an adorable photo of him in the local paper, wearing an army beret, dark sunnies and a full-on Saddam moustache.

But unlike BookBook - who claims he looked like a French porn star before he shaved his off and burned all extant copies of a certain eddition of the Melbourne Weekly - Mr Al-Bakiry does not look like a porn star at all, Iraqi or otherwise.

Al-Bakiry will be more than ably backed up by actors Zaid Al-Halaf, of Thomastown and Majed Al-Absawi of Roxburgh Park.

It doesn't say who they will be playing unfortunately, so here are my guesses:

the late Uday Saddam Hussein- who shot dead Hanna Jajo, Saddam's most trusted food taster and procurer of women. the two had been at parties on either side of the Tigris when Jajo's party got a bit rowdy and started firing salvos into the air.

Uday crossed the Tigris (don't you love that?) and asked his buddy - the nice way - to stop.

When that didn't work, he shot the guy dead.

Hmm, might try that on the doof-doof neighbours sometime. Or Sken the Albanian if he comes around again insisting that I really want it.

Or Qusay Hussein, the mastermind of the destruction of Iraq's amazing southern marshes, in revenge for the Ma'dan or Marsh Arabs' - who had lived there for thousands of years in what used to be a part of Mesopotamia - role in the 1991 uprising. the marshes were also a common refuge for fugitives from the regime. Half a million were smoked out of their homes as the marshes were burned and the wetlands turned into desert but now there are attempts underway to restore the ecosystem.

The lead actors's dad, Jaafar Al-Bakiry - who is head of the Islamic centre in Fawkner, which two years ago at their Muharram festival had this amazing outbreak of food poisoning that left 250 people ill - wrote the script and directed.

Hell, they sound like an antipodean version of Hanif Kureishi and his writer dad.

The show will proceed from the Clocktower to to the Fawkner Centre, then Sydney, then it's "hello Sheppartooooooon!!!!" and "I loooove Coburg".

For bookings, phone Walid on 0403 641 535.

Say hi to Country Boy and his cats while you're in the area.

He rang me on the eve of the Cox Plate last week, shitting himself (quite apt really, given that he seems to have started a blog called Flaming Poo and never told me about it) that his two Siamese would get in trouble.

Daisy and Roscoe (both boys- go figure - and named after the Dukes of Hazzard) often cross Union Road and dash on to the racecourse. he's had to go in, get secruity clearance to get onto the track and scoop up the two naughties, one in each arm, and take them home.

Ha ha - Jessica Simpson is to play Daisy in the Dukes of Hazzard the movie.

And while you're there, wish Country Boy well with the sheep shagging.

Killer vacuum cleaner

2004-10-28T09:43:00.000+10:00

be afraid. Be very afraid.

Don't be driving across to Broadmeadows to borrow any household appliances.

It could be fatal (even apart from the risk of running into Cr Jack Medcraft, who is campaigning for a migrant jail there).

There's a killer vacuum cleaner on the loose.

Brazen thieves stole the apparatus from the old northern Hospital in Greenvale, now an asbestos-ridden construction site (the team are also on the lookout for stray redmnecks and loony leftists).

It's a black Nilfisk vacuum cleaner.

Police said the brazen thieves "could be setting themselvces up for a death sentence" as they may have breathed in asbestos dust.

The goddesses of small things

2004-10-26T11:35:00.000+10:00
i think i posted this pic before Bookbook, my trusty supplier did.

Karma2burn wrote:

The reporter said, no, Mark's with Delta, and Paris said, Nah-uh, he's with me now. See, I've got his picture on my mobile phone. He's mine, so that makes it real. We've been going steady for two whole days. It will be our one week anniversary soon, which I think is Lint. Two weeks is Thong. Three weeks is Bundy and Coke and four weeks is... I dunno what four weeks is.

I hate her for posting something funnier than I did on the subject, and remind her that I will send Tommy Ravlic her personal details - along with the misinformation that she is newly single and most interested in bedroom chat about where the accounting profession is headed - if she keeps that up.

God- how prescient was the title of this post? I just read Hendo's spray on Arundhati Roy getting the Sydney Peace Prize.

It smells even boggier than underpaid school cleaners.

Note, Hendo - if you're gonna slag someone off, at least get the name right - it's Arundhati- not Arundathi.

And please wipe the seat with a properly disinfected rag when you've finished spraying.

The cars that ate Melbourne

2004-10-25T10:05:00.000+10:00

Congratulations to Graeme Davison, who won a Premier's Literary Award for his chronicle of the automobile's takeover of Melbourne, Car Wars.

But it surprise me that no one on the judging panel pointed out that Professor Davison forgot to put this picture in.

Oh man, i didn't see it until yesterday - one of the local rags ran an amazing pic of Family First offspring - it was just small kids in the shot - demonstrating against the tollway.

I wish I could post it here but it's not online.

It looked a bit like a re-enactment of Margaret Atwood's the Handmaid's Tale , above, or some other spooky futuristic reproductive technology drama.

I seem to recall a blogger close to my acquaintance had one of those, and that it is about to turn 1 very soon... happy birthday karmatoburn junior!).

Davis is threatening a sequel, based on the perhaps the furores over CityLink or the Mitcham-Frankston Tollway.

Don't you love him? asked what he'd do with the $30,000 in prize money, he said he'd probably lash out on some home improvements.

Trouble at the mall

2004-10-24T14:26:00.000+10:00

to this

Boys check in, boys check out.

Oh my godski

Hilton made the shock revelations during a shopping spree in West Hollywood.

She declared her new love while in a Guess Jeans store at LA mall The Grove.

When told Philippoussis was dating Goodrem, Hilton replied: "Not any more. That is completely over.

"Mark says after a while it became obvious Delta was too boring," Hilton said.

Asked if she would join the tennis circuit's cheer squad, Hilton giggled: "I hope so. I can't wait."

Guys, how long do you give it?

gosh, the women's magazines are gonna be in overdrive...
Fuck, imagine being dumped for Hilton. would you be laughing and crying all at once?

hope we get an andrew bolt column out of it. might try writing one...

Sken the Albanian

2004-10-23T22:36:00.000+10:00
Hooning in Williamstown

Turbo love

Recline those bucket seats

More at www.commodoreclub.net, which lists a WeStErN SuBuRbS CrUiSe but "No Street Racing Events Allowed".

"You pick up because of your car," says Sken, a bouncer, kickboxer and gift to women, apparently. He has four mobile phones: one for his girlfriend, one for bitches (his slant on potentials), one for work and one for business. What type of business? "Business," he says coldly. OK, then, I'd better mind my own... business.

"When the chicks jump in, they go 'Mmm, that smells nice', and I might get a head job."
(yeah, Sken, but I bet they don't swallow)

read more here

It is fucking priceless.

Sken the Albanian, you are bitchin!

All roads lead to Bunnings porn

2004-10-22T18:00:00.000+10:00
Someone googled "bunnings porn" to get to my site.

I am gratified in all sorts of ways.

Gunning for Bunnings

2004-10-22T14:43:00.000+10:00
Bolt the Dolt strikes again.

this is too much, if you are in need of a laugh, go visit Boltie.

Reality check. Butler may indeed by our finest male artist, but as a balladeer for our times he sings an ugly song – of hatred, ugliness, dependence and selfishness

John Butler trio? i would have thought Bolt would want to nominate Guy Sebastian.

and oh yes, jb sings some nasty things about Bunnings aiding and abetting the destruction of old-growth forests.

Mind you, Butler the peacenik doesn't brim with hatred for Howard alone, but seems keen to take an axe to your friendly local hardware store, too.

John Howard do you know anything?

Bunnings do you know anything? . . . Hell, no.

Evil Bunnings, selling the corpses of murdered trees.

As you'd have guessed, not least by the sullen menace of his cries for "peace", Butler is a green fanatic – and typically self-absorbed with it.

Over at JBT HQ, they're cracking open the beers. their first boltie!

Bring back mural experiments

2004-10-22T08:47:00.000+10:00
You know that graffiti incident in St Kilda inspired by the animal liberation movement?

Well, as Little Johnny would never say, I take it all back:

The spirit of Howard Arkley , the late Oakleigh poet in oil paint, lives on in this beautiful mural at a northern burbs school on the way to the airport.

You possibly can't make out all the arkley-esque detial, but it's there.

Thanks for sending that in, x, you know who you are, and thank christ you'll have a spare key when Odysseus's wife goes away.

Now, from school aesthetics to politics:
Jellyfish
(who btw posted a super werribee zoo pic on his/her site the other day - it is mating season after all) writes:

I have heard from several very good sources that the new principal of Maribyrnong Secondary College is actively discouraging the school from allowing any more kids from migrant and refugee backgrounds to enrol.

He apparently wants to raise the school's 'academic standards' and attract a 'different kind' of student to the school (probably the kind that will live in those trendy new apartments on the Maribyrnong River)

And those pesky migrant kids with all their traumatic experiences, dead or missing relatives, financial problems, etc etc. apparently don't fit into this vision.

Hmmm. Takes me back to Andrew Bolt's column last month, where he got stuck into the entire student population at the about-to-close Moreland Secondary College with some lovely ethnic slurs on his favorite denomination, Islam.

A classic case of dog-whistle politics.

any AEU members out there who wish to shed light on what's happening at Moreland/Maribyrnong/similar?

About the only thing i could find that gets anyweher near rebutting Bolt on Moreland
was this from Phil Cleary. but it doesn't go into much detail.

Liberal hunk (come on, take a joke) victor perton's webpage had an intriguing reference to labor's act of class war in closing down the college, but link rot had set in, tellingly)

(oh my god, the prat has now called it Victor perton's webpage for Doncaster in a Global Society - oh purlease, and the URL is myliberal.com, like you'd talk about 'my staffie' or 'my bitch')

I found this in some usergroup:

From: VietEraA6Ordie
Subject: Re: Muslim trouble brewing Down Under in the land of Auz

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 13:26:32 GMT, Mike Craney
wrote:
In article , nospam@nospam.net
says...
Usenet Police" wrote in
news:5rejy88cgiaqfdt.050620041622@paulo:

It showed the King Khalid Islamic College has for two years not
recorded one VCE result of at least 40 out of 50.
Nor has the troubled state Moreland Secondary College, most of
whose students are also from Muslim families.

This is a bunch of crap. I teach computer science and my best students
are all foreigners - Egyptians, Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, German, French, Bulgarian, etc. The "dumb fucks," as you so elegantly put it,
tend to be Americans who generally have a piss poor work ethic. Next
time you look in your local paper for the local high school's science
and math awards, notice all the "out-of-state" students grabbing the
awards. This problem is known by educators, government, and science.
Why do you think we import so many foreign graduates students?
Because, if we didn't, we'd have empty grad programs in most of the
sciences.

Well,I guess things are a bit different here form the states, and moreover, we don't have league tables to enable comparisons, unlike NSW, which have their uses but the downside is, there's always got to be one Mt Druitt High.

pick up sticks

2004-10-20T22:48:00.000+10:00
whatever happened to pick-up-sticks?

you know, the Federation Arch, ~~for which hume council paid $200,ooo only to have it sitting in a warehouse~~? which Hume council got for FREE apparently they're about to find a sponsor. ~~wonder where the hell they'll put it~~ and soon to be erected, according to Sara - thank you Sara - on a prominent position on the Hume Highway.

God- with this error rate I'll soon be on Crikey's humungous payroll!

The french fries school of public art.

saw Vault in South Melbourne the other day, not expecting to see it. only thing missing was a shopping trolley. got very excited.

when i was in grade 6 at st paul's primary school bentleigh - back in the days when robertson swann's work was known as the yellow peril and pissing off more people even than andres serrano's piss christ did 15 years later - i had this disgusting teacher who was into corporal punishment.

Mrs Mercer. God i was in fear of that battleaxe.

as a class assignment she made us all write letters to the then premier - was it rupert? - humbly beseeching him to remove it from the city square and put in something more relevant and ja-cay-shnl, like a perspex map of the world.

took 10 years of therapy to get over that one.

fuck i'm tired.

Bikini stunt at Brimbank

2004-10-19T10:56:00.000+10:00
This is a beauty... last week, the local paper in brimbank ran a front-page photo of an unusual (for these parts) protest: a young woman in a skimpy bikini storming a council meeting last week.

She was part of a group that is opposed to the demolition of the old open-air pools to make way for car parking, as part of the sunshine aquatic centre revamp, which will see new indoot pools built.

Mayor Sam ~~David~~ Bjelke-Petersen has written to The Advocate this week, and boy does he sound like a right old plum-sucking prude:
I am disgusted with the attempt by a vocal minority to interrupt and upset last week's Brimbank Council meeting.

As you will be aware, the meetign was disrupted by a calculating protest group who staged a tasteless media stunt.

While the initial reaction of everyone in the chamber was of surprise and amusement, concern was quickly expressed when it was apparent that the protest group lost control of their stunt and subsequently placed the safety and wellbeing of a teenager at risk.

On Tuesday night the group stooped to a new low in their campaign to destabilise a council project by bringing a young girl dressed in a bikini into the council chamber.

Several members of the gallery and councillotrs reported that the girl became visibly upset and distressed by the situation she found herself in.

Now Sam's bringing out the big guns, in a chest-thumping "i am sam, sam i am' declaration:

As of today, Brimbank Council will no longer tolerate this behaviour.

using managerial powers under the Local Government Act, the council will ensure these individuals are unable to put the safety of residents at risk through any further disruptions they plan to bring to council meeting."

How? In the end it's a peaceful protest.

Don't they love their health and safety in local government? They use it to justify everything. it's the alderman's defence for stomping on dissent, street parties, or anything that has the remotest whiff of fun or anarchy about it.

Meanwhile, Councillor Ian Douglas - whose ward is the location of the pool - claims he's receiving death threats, possibly related to the pool issue, and says police are investigating. he says he knows why the three men are.

anyone with a window to the this conflict, pols write in...

Lords of Doreen

2004-10-19T09:10:00.000+10:00
This is in the mould of the three Raiders of the Lost Ark fans who were on Denton the other week having lovingly recreated the film as kids.

Chris Brennan, 38, the director of the Star Wars Appreciation Society of Australia has wound up shooting for Jedi heritage, a fan movie for the next international Star Wars convention in may, to be hosted by the world's most liveable city.

Maybe, just as Lord of the Rings did for NZ, Jedi Heritage will put Diamond Creek, Doreen (yes it is a suburb, as are Albanvale and Dallas- you just don't get out enough) and South Morang on the map.

It's now in post-production.
let's see if we can get Chris to do the occasional JH diary for us...

can't wait for their end-of-year party in Mitcham.

actually, this is a good opportunity to scour the web for xmas parties across the board- cat fanciers, dog fanciers, car fanciers... any items you can think of, please post below.

My workplace is having a xmas party at the former keg, i think, on albert park Lake. dress is formal with a touch of masquerade (shudder to think of the creative licence that will be taken by sales reps).

The MC is John "genius begins great works but labour finishes them' Blackman.

all my christmases have come at once i think- especially as last night on Queer Eye, guest victim Ari's nowhere hair brought back fond memories of Gavin Wood.

Get out the black armbands

2004-10-17T16:15:00.000+10:00
get out the black armbands, cause it's a sad day for hooning

Plans to seize hoons' cars

luv the photo that goes with the article: "a driver smokes after he allegedly crashes his car through a fence in Epping during a police pursuit.

allegedly?

no officer, the dog did it.

Good thing this wasn't hapening in Darp territory last night.

I reckon he was a bit hard on Gina. probably ful of regrets that he didn't get in while the going was hot.