one terabyte of ram, please

i don't like waiting.

organic

usually means the leftovers that monkeys won't eat.

going off script

brother has a mini whiteboard in his garage which functions like a "to do" list. his wife constantly adds chores to the list, while he tries to cross them off. it's a like a magic pudding which, no matter how much you eat, never runs out. somehow there's always more things to do.

impressed with the functionality of the whiteboard concept, he gave me one. he was less impressed when he saw how i was using it. mine just reads "al gore is a nob".

it isn't everyday

you get the opportunity to name-check the abysmal 80s horror film "blood beach". but as i spent most of saturday laying drainage pipe, up to my neck in a trench, coping with repeated cave-ins, it seemed silly to pass up the opportunity.

apparently the creature sucking girls under the sand and devouring them (why is it always a female being terrorized? eg. "king kong", "forbidden planet", et al) is a giant carnivorous sandworm.

at the bottom of the poster—isn't that the most inept movie teaser ever?

scientists should think for a minute

before they publish their "speculations"; consider the wider ramifications, the social implications and whatnot. the beeb is reporting that some poindexter has posited that red hair comes from neanderthals. even a bear of little brain can see where this airy conjecture is going to lead. in schoolyards all over the world kids are going to whale on every hapless redhead they can find, all the while chanting "ne-an-der-thal! ne-an-der-thal! get back to the stone age!" yes, yes, a lot of fun for those doing the whaling. not so much for those being whaled upon. how much trauma is that going to cause? who's going to pay the medical bills? it's time for science to be more responsible.

a measure of justice

one amusing consequence of the "dumbledore is queer" revelation is that prat paul croft, of notts, and father of 5 if you don't mind, is rather regretting getting the dumbledore tattoo which covers his back. ha ha ha. (click on pix to see. i'm not making it any larger. he's hideous.) well, serves him right. tattoos are for oiks. england could halve its chav problem by imposing custodial sentences on anyone with a tattoo. though i'd also offer free laser removal. but, yes, it would be off to the scrubs for the incorrigibles. sounds too good to be true.

boo

i've just found out icelanders are eating my favourite bird: the puffin. this is an outrage. i hope monsters devour the icelanders' young.

about the author: evidence lots 24-56

hmm. this is a bit like being subjected to a sigmoidoscope (i'm guessing—i've never had it, never will).

24. i listen to karl pilkington every day.

25. 80% of the text messages i send and receive involve the exchange of "pilk facts" to and from other pilkington fans. it is, probably, the funniest show ever made.

26. as a kid i never won anything in a jew jump. they were still lots of fun.

27. i'm the only person of my type (wasp, tertiary educated) i know who is well-disposed towards israel. you go, israel! it just goes to show that anti-semitism, let's calls it, has nowt to do with christianity or a want of education. indeed, the more educated a person is, the more hostile to the jewish state they invariably are. something for social engineers to think about.

28. my favourite pre-exercise snack is grapefruit. though i suspect a conspiracy among citrus growers to artificially sweeten their crops in order to make them palatable to the moronic, obese pepsi generation. grapefruit just don't seem as pleasingly bitter as they used to be. frowns.

29. whatever the weather i only wear boxer shorts to bed.

30. i miss guy fawkes night (it's fallen into obsolescence). i also miss readily purchasable fireworks (also proscribed by the nanny state).

31. i always panicked when my pacman went off the screen.

32. i don't believe in the existence of god. as i've never seen the slightest evidence of a benign providence apparent in the world. if anything, the opposite is true. i am, however, respectful of catholicism and high anglicanism. but not the rest.

33. i have better taste in everything (except clothes) than anyone i know.

34. i forget a new name the instant it's conveyed to me. i have to write it down.

35. to avoid confusion, and in conscious imitation of english public school practice, i address everyone (including girls) by their surnames. unless threatened by human resources.

36. my greatest talent is thinking up, on the spot, funny-derisory nicknames for others.

37. i have no interest in gossip. i don't want to know it. i never pass it on.

38. i don't facebook. i opened an account to see what all the fuss was about, but i've barely used it. i decline all "friends" invitations. my status says "…is busy jellying some eels".

39. i've never sent a shabby card. if i can't find one that's in good taste i fabricate my own.

40. my mousepad is a laminated poster of "a bout de souffle".

41. my favourite drink is fresh lime juice and sparkling mineral water.

42. i did most of my drinking between 16 and 19, and then more or less stopped altogether.

43. my preferred racquet sport is squash (easy on the skill, high fitness demands). everyone else prefers tennis (high skill requirement, easy on the fitness).

44. i've shot one hole-in-one. you'll have to take my word for it. there were no witnesses.

45. "withnail and i" is the film i've watched more often than any other.

46. growing up i competed in gymnastics, athletics, football, tennis, baseball and cricket.

47. i'm anglophile. though that doesn't stop me bellyaching about, or ridiculing, poms.

48. i never accept food or drink when it's offered. don't know why.

49. i got on board with u2 at "october" and disembarked with "the joshua tree". "the unforgettable fire" is their apogee.

50. i don't do memes. ha.

51. my favourite piece of music which i unconsciously hum all the time is elgar's "e minor cello concerto, op. 85".

52. my least favourite piece of music which i unconsciously hum all the time is the oscar peterson and gerry mulligan interpretation of "the surrey with the fringe on top".

53. the thing i hate most in the world is rogers and hammerstein's "oklahoma". closely followed by yum-cha.

54. favourite asian cuisine: thai, japanese and mongolian.

55. least favourite asian cuisine: chinese and indian.

56. i managed to meet jonathan harris (dr zachary smith from "lost in space") before he died. incidentally, i've just seen a website which boasts "why people hate dr smith". why would anyone, in any condition of mental health, hate dr smith? that's mental. he's fantastic. that show is nothing without him.

about the author: evidence lots 1-23

when you've got absolutely nowt to say there's only one recourse left: talk about yourself.

1. i always keep a tin of vichy mints on my desk. partly for the peppermint spritz. but also as a visible reminder of french disgrace and what a laissez-faire foreign policy can lead to.

2. i try to eat all my meals with a soup spoon.

3. i've never been flexi enough to touch my toes.

4. i can't float.

5. i've met morrissey (he signed a rare copy of "education in reverse" but wouldn't sign "james dean is not dead"—so capricious!). i'd never sell it on ebay. so don't make me an offer.

6. i dislike all opera except "tristan und isolde".

7. i still have the yo-yo (a coca-cola fibreglass super-russell) from my first yo-yo season in 1980. the twirl kings put on a demonstration at my school.

8. my favourite shirt collar is the "grandpa" style, though i don't own any. (it's an anomaly.) mostly i stick to button-down oxfords.

9. if i didn't have to vote i wouldn't.

10. i never solved the cube unaided (reading the book is cheating, folks).

11. i gave away or sold almost all my pop music when i was 23. i found i had outgrown it (though i did manage to see "the ramones" before they died).

12. i've lived in the far east. i wouldn't recommend it. the west is much better.

13. politically i am disengaged; not a partisan. but if i had to define myself politically my slogan would be "pro dreyfus, contre dreyfusard". details on request.

14. my favourite book is "franny and zooey".

15. mr burns is my favourite "simpsons" character.

16. i like to get my shirts sewn up the front so they can't be unbuttoned—you slip them over your head. i lost so many buttons brawling in high school i decided to do away with them.

17. apart from fruit, food bores me.

18. i read "doonesbury" every day. i have almost 8000 of them saved on hard disc. funny stuff.

19. having used apples for the last 10 years, i'd never go back to a wintel contraption. to paraphrase hobbes: pcs are nasty, brutish, ugly and slow.

20. bauhaus is the grammar of fascism.

21. my favourite monarch is edward the first.

22. my favourite motivational, kick-up-the-pants book is st. augustine's "confessions". the e. b. pusey translation only.

23. i've been bitten by cats, dogs, ants, spiders, swans, possums and girls.

now that it has been explained to me

what, precisely, a turkey twizzler is, "turkey twizzler" has become my favourite term of abuse and disapprobation. it sounds funny and no one in oz quite knows what they are (you can see the nasty things pictured).

daylight savings is daft

sometimes an assertion is enough.

so it's come to this?

to see who can wear the skinniest-leg jeans?

the good oafs at maxim magazine

have just announced their list of "unsexiest" women with dress-up-barbie sarah jessica parker topping the list. yes. yawn. but some of the anonymous slagging off is quite amusing, e.g. "sjp is a stickperson who looks vaguely like an emu. she is gross."

trudeau is best when

he concentrates on funny, not polemics.

you little thief*

voles have a pretty dismal reputation. mostly for their involvement with the weasels and stoats in the insurgency against toad hall (at least until badger lead a coalition of the willing which routed them). but as this picture (snipped from "the sun") shows, voles also have their humorous side. of course, there's always the possibility that he nicked it.

*recaptioned this post in honour of 80s two-hit wonder feargal sharkey. everyone remembers "a good heart". but no one seems to spare a thought for "you little thief". for good reason, i expect.

impudence

wears a coat of many colours.

my first experience of stingy gender politics

occurred in music class when the slacking teacher, bless her, decided to let us listen to some recorded music of our choice. naturally there was no consensus choice. no one could agree. soon enough though the girls coalesced around duran duran. and by staking out such an extremist position they showed they had no interest in compromise. this naturally radicalised the boys into a solid voting bloc—the boys weren't going to listen to music performed by boys who looked like girls—who sought something equally offensive to the other side. so we pushed for iron maiden. not many of us liked iron maiden, but we felt we had to meet extreme provocation in kind. i forget how the thing ended up. but the experience was instructive. salient lessons struck home. the unbridgeable gap which often separates the sexes. and, ominously, how ruthless girls can be in negotiations.

well, quite

without wishing to lower the tone

i think the producers of "bionic woman" missed an opportunity by not giving her bionic reproductive organs. i'm sure that would have excited some viewer interest and done great box office.

northern hemispherians

who are easily distressed might prefer to stop here.

though we're only mid-way into spring, it was 34 degrees today; the neighbour was splashing in his (un-heated) pool, and the local beach was the most crowded i'd ever seen it. i think someone stole my spring. this feels like a premature summer.

a couple of doozies from "the news of the world"

regarding the rugger world cup final:—

on percy montgomery: "you've got to be some rugby player to wear a new romantic hairstyle—and percy montgomery is some player."

on mark cueto's dis-allowed try: "an agonizing three-minute wait for the video ref ended with stuart dickinson sending a no-try verdict over the airwaves. (stuart dickinson is an aussie, by the way."

extraordinary stuff that.

it's the first time i've read "news of the world". easily the most infantile journalism—certainly the yellowest—i've ever seen. amazingly puerile. it's probably the closest thing extant to "the daily beast" from the evelyn waugh novel "scoop".* who, i wonder, reads this muck?

*a caveat. though i do love that paper's stated editorial policy: "the best stands for strong mutually antagonistic governments everywhere; self-sufficiency at home, self-assertion abroad". very funny.

general election time (again)

the more humdrum an election seems the more mature a nation's politics are. the less excitement the better. governance is a staid business requiring nice judgment. it's not the place for inflamed passions or rabble-rousing. thankfully oz has no populist crackpots like howard dean or pat buchanan or hugo chavez.

both the parties standing are centrist and competent, so the country will be well governed whoever wins the election. as the incumbent government (centre-right) has been in power for 11 years i'm disposed toward a change (centre-left). it's never a good thing in a two-party system for one party to be frozen out of government for long periods. (that happened in 1972 and disaster ensued.) it's important both parties have some adminstrative experience at cabinet level.

my only qualm about a labour victory concerns the sticky business of racism. the labour party is forever trying to endow aborigines with rights (prerogatives, to be exact), peculiar to them, and denied to all other australians. this won't do. let's have no apartheid here, please.

meanwhile the attack ads have been fun. though they're still a long way short of lee attwater's standard of excellence. has any campaign been as much fun as the 1988 u.s. presidential race? not in my memory.

replies

to comments previously left pending.

24 hour party people

did us all a favour, i think, by de-mythologizing the suicide of ian curtis. his death, as rendered in the film, wasn't a consequence of profound melancholia. it was mean, dimwitted and shabby. but the myth rolls on. now anton corbijn (who i only knew as the photogragher who took the covershots for "picadilly palare" and "november spawned a monster") has re-mythologized curtis in the film "control". but is there anything to really eulogize—besides the early death and the nazi embellishments?

there has been some toing-and-froing in these pages about the lines of demarcation separating "new wave" from "new romantic". well joy division and siouxsie and the banshees are new wave. duran duran and spandau ballet are new romantic. you wouldn't confuse them in a police line-up.

this pix also by anton corbijn.

disgusting

the louvre is going to permanently loan part of its collection to a new branch office in, of all places, abu dhabi. why? for money. naturally. so as to fund "new acquisitions" (don't laugh). they say.

this is crazy. those works of art are the patrimony of western civilization. they have no business being on saracen territory.

art is a fixed commodity. the real thing stopped being produced long ago. art is finite and precious. it's not to be given away.

where is french cultural chauvanism when you really need it?

when less(ing) isn't more

doris lessing is this year's nobel laureate. ho-hum. i'm happy to say i've never read one of her 39 books, or even peeked inside. it's very pleasing. you know, i may just inscribe that achievement on my curriculum vitae: "no lessing here".

the nobel prize for literature is a queer thing. in 1970 the prize went to alexandr solzhenitsyn for detailing the horrors of communism. the very next year they gave the prize to pablo neruda who did his utmost to establish the very communism solzhenitsyn had previously described. strange, don't you think?

the prize itself is generally supposed to recognise literary excellence. but that's a misapprehension. the actual remit for the award specifies someone "who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency". there's the troub. under that criteria t. s. eliot—the outstanding literary talent of the 20th century—is ineligible. but he got it anyway. in 1948. he was too good to ignore.

anyway, why lessing? for perseverance, perhaps? or, more likely, because there's no real brilliance around anymore.

m

are you the person i call if i want a murder?

he's called spiderman

because he can grope 8 women simultaneously.

now that's a real superhero.

another question for hannah

i'm curious to know why advertisers and media buyers are so concerned to attract the attention of 15-25 year olds when, strictly speaking, these are the most penurious people in society (after pensioners). yes, yes. 15-25s are selfish; in that they spend every new pee they come by on themselves. but it's still a paltry amount. compared to a middle-aged man spending his way out of a mid-life crisis, or the shock-and-awe shopping habits of a woman married to chap who "has a good job in the city".

any thoughts?

straight up?

the gentle, misunderstood (according to anti-war democrats, anyway) president of iran, ahmadinjasomething, wowed the crowd in new york by declaring iran had no homosexuals. none. at all. (presumably they've all been executed.) does that mean there's no disco either?

the house that junk built

how apt. the extension to the tate modern is as daft as the stuff housed inside. looks to me like a cheap frank gehry knock off. though i do feel a teaspoonful of sympathy for the helpless londoners forced to foot the bill.

graffiti addendum

there's one i forgot to include. this forlorn scribble was on the temporary fence surrounding the national gallery of victoria during its recent renovation:

"1871
1917
1968
now!"

obviously an undergraduate (sans boyfriend or girlfriend) idling away the spare hours.

i wonder how many passers by would know anything about the paris commune? and would they even care to know? this being oz, my guess is not many.

she knows

i dropped into a chav pub on the weekend—public houses aren't such a chore now that smoking has been proscribed—to watch the jermain taylor-kelly pavlik middleweight fight, and was entertained throughout by a lady chav giving her boyfriend a faultless technical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of taylor's style.

it's funny because it actually happened.

deckard is a replicant

in case you were wondering. ridley scott said so in a recent interview in the "new york times", coincident with the release of a new director's cut of "blade runner"—that oblique and (sadly) plotless film.

still, i'm surprised no one has made a stink about the asian appearance of the dystopian future envisaged in the film.

3 favourite railway station graffiti

back in the 80s, before the blight of "tagging", graffiti was seldom seen and usually of a political (the left, naturally) nature. and, consequently, more entertaining. the first two come from toorak station. the third is from windsor.

1. "ronald mcmurder, the cows aren't laughing".
2. "v.f.l. and c.i.a. conspire with tv to keep the people ignorant".
3. "the third way: neither moscow nor washington" (national front).

serene

meanwhile outside

cherry season is getting closer (if the parrots don't swipe them all first).

some more good names

for writers of soupy romances:
molly coddle
sarah toenin
donna tello
miss o. ginny

send for mr sowerberry

what fun. the university of nebraska press has just published the first two volumes of its planned 140 volume edition of "the complete letters of henry james". volume 1 is u.s.$90. volume 2 is $95. if this trend continues volume 140 will be $785. i love academic publishers. they know just how to price their books so as to discourage all possible interest in the subject. it works every time. any wonder the humanities are moribund?

a question for hannah

prior to 9/11 the foreign policies of western states toward the middle east was one of realpolitik and cold war balancing. as there were no good guys for the u.s. to ally themselves to, we tended to support the least worst of the available options: supporting tinpot autocrats who promised to keep a check on terrorists, maintained the flow of oil to world markets, and didn't threaten israel (the only genuine liberal democracy in the region). however, this "deal" proved untenable when terrorists, succored by our "allies" in the region, attacked the west. since then we've tried to "make the world safe for democracy" and civilize them by force. but they're proving quite resistant to civilization. in fact, in the case of iran, they're more barbarous than ever. so which way now? you're studying the region. what policy should we adopt that guarantees stability, oil, israeli security, inhibits terrorism, and isn't injurious to western economic and strategic interests?

governance

some peoples are democratic (u.s.),
some peoples achieve democracy (france),
and some peoples have democracy thrust upon them (germany).

somewhat spoilt

england—despite the crowding, the weather, the mosques, the kippers and curries, the lost ashes—is awfully spoiled when it comes to art exhibitions. the latest indulgence is a john everett millais show at the tate (go here). it looks terrif. just be sure to skip room 5: the "fancy" pictures, of what lady bracknell would call "more than usually revolting sentimentality". otherwise wonderful.

ee, it a'nt fair. where are our pre-raphaelite extravaganzas?

trouble at the top

the point of luxury goods is to make those who possess them feel superior, and those who can't afford them feel miserable. a perfect arrangement. it's like an x-ray of human nature (which contains by volume so much of pride, envy, unhappiness and snobbery). that's why pointless objects like this hermès handbag cost $5,000 plus. it's not worth $5,000, of course. no bag is. it's priced that way so most people can't afford it. hence, more happy feelings of superiority for the bags' owners, and more general misery for the rest. at least, where fashion-minded women are concerned. naturally i couldn't care less.

i'm reminded of this by 3 recent occurances.

1. hugo boss prosecuted a local retailer for selling boss suits at a discount, thereby "substantially damaging the reputation of the brand". in other words, the effect of making hugo boss more affordable made previous boss buyers unhappy (feeling a lot less superior) that more people could afford the clothes.

2. an enterprising melbourne woman is leasing the above mentioned kelly bag and its ilk for $100 a day; all to coincide with melbourne's dress-up season of the spring carnival. now the miserable can be made temporarily happy.

3. a hand-wringing article in the "australian financial review" worrying that luxury brands were losing their "premium cachét", as more people could afford them. according to the logic of marketing, luxury brands like hermès and louis vuitton were losing their "aura of exclusivity" and being "sullied". (at this point i had to choke back a tear. poor cartier! poor bulgari!). it all sounds like france before the revolution.

anyway, what all this demonstrates is how wonderfully perspicacious dr suess's "sneetches" story is. oh the narcissism of petty differences. unlike the story though there'll be no happy resolution in real life.

where to next?

i wouldn't be surprised to see a renaissance of the toff. when luxury brands become ubiquitous the only really socially exclusive criterion left is noble birth. you never know. the "almanach de gotha" may become the fashion bible of the 21st century.

{an addendum. a related instance of the above phenom was the louis roederer cristal champagne brouhaha. this wine, as you probably know, was originally conceived for the absolutist house of romanov. owing to its priceyness it had lately become popular with black hip-hop types—the most vulgar people in living memory—who know nothing about wine, but everything about conspicuous crassness. when quizzed about his new clientele the owner of louis roederer shrugged his shoulders and said ruefully it wasn't his fault; he couldn't help the people who bought his wine. cue pouty protests from offended nouveaux riche millionaires like sean "poof daddy" coombs. i felt sorry for the vintner. his crime was to have the effrontery to tell the truth.}