mens rea

those who pooh-pooh the immanence of evil have obviously never watched "hannah montana".

a grub in troub

barry humphries has always said in extenuation of his characters' excesses that les patterson—or to use the full honorific, dr sir leslie colin patterson, mbe—is a mild version of the typical australian parliamentarian. (amazingly, some australians pretend to be offended by this.)

this week humphries has been vindicated by shenanigans out west. troy buswell, leader of her majesty's opposition in western oz, has just lowered himself fully into the soup. buswell is in troub for bra-snapping women in his office and sniffing the chair of a female staffer immediately after she left it.

buswell is obviously not well.

a heap of broken images

the way educators (tertiary and secondary) have dismantled and then abandoned the canon has been one of the most impressive feats of military strategy since erwin rommel retook el alamein (against superior forces). this strategy may have been improvised on the fly but it has been brilliant nonetheless.

how to destroy the west's incomparable cultural inheritance in 5 easy steps:

1. criticize the canon for not being inclusive enough.
2. adulterate it with inferior "steerage class" literature reflecting the new diversity.
3. further adulterate the syllabus with tv shows and movies.
4. eliminate all qualitative judgments.
5. admit the triviality of the subject and abandon it altogether.

unfortunately the problem with this otherwise winning strategy is that it produces too many people incapable of recognising literate jokes when they encounter them; in woody allen films, for instance: "when it comes to women i'm the winner of the august strindberg award". it also greatly reduces one's ability to insult others in very sophisticated ways, as joseph epstein did in this morning's edition of the "wall street journal": "i have always considered the clintons as little more than a branch of william faulkner's snopes family, in their cases snopeses who have given high sat scores a bad name". these are important "life skills".

it is simply negligent of educators to graduate students who aren't equipped to appreciate jokes they must "process" when watching "the simpsons". really, what else is education for? parents have a right to be upset.

circadian rhythms

or, as i prefer to call it, the grasmere divide. it describes two types of people: wordsworths and coleridges. wordsworths are early risers, of haleful habits, who (alas) tend to be of earnest (if not slightly pious) disposition. coleridges are unreliable, indulgers in opiates, inveterate stayers-up-late, sleepers-in, and of dissolute habits generally.

because i like to get up early i realise, to my chagrin, that i'm a wordsworth. this is not good. wordsworths are bores. coleridges are much better company: being more frivolous, better talkers, and entertaining carousers.

whether it's due to asperger's or simple selfishness i prefer to be up by six, when the world is unpeopled (like the london pictured in "composed upon westminster bridge") and the lemon-scented gums (pictured) are at their most fragrant; running on the beach and listening to classic fm; before the air is soupy with diesel fumes and the hub-bub of commerce has been turned up to "eleven".

evenings are good. but mornings are better.

nevermind world peace,

bring back blue smarties!

the foul english breakfast

with the exception of marmelade and the made-for-tv glamour of nigella lawson's kitchen concoctions, english food is indisputably disgusting. it is nowhere more disgusting than the muck known as "the full english breakfast". (one's mind drifts back to the opening of "withnail and i" when marwood takes breakfast in a camden town "caff": all "news of the world", bad teeth, and frying eggs swimming in rancid oil.)

and yet i'm openly glad the english keep eating as they do. that despite the bullying of government and the medical profession, the cajoling of rick stein and nigella, and the swearing of gordon ramsay, i'm glad the english remain as wedded to bad food as they were when orwell, in sisyphean fashion, wrote his famous essay "in defence of english cooking". after all, one of the things which makes the english so immemorially english is their stoic consumption of dreadful food.

so i was especially glad to see that some english schoolchildren had thwarted the new "healthy foods" régime in school tuckshops by smuggling in the contraband junkfood: fizzy drink, chips, chocolate bars and the like (see story here). echoes of harriet tubman's underground railroad, the relief of mafeking, and the famous "turkey twizzler revolt" against jamie oliver in east end comprehensives.

it's heartening to see that despite the unremitting attempts to turn them into europeans the english remain, at the table anyway, thoroughly podsnappingly english. it is greatly to their credit, as it says in "pinafore".

kagan 1, fukuyama 0

of all the articles, in all the foreign policy journals, in all the world, none was as dumb as francis fukuyama's announcement that we have reached "the end of history" and the final triumph of western liberal democracy. all quite presumptuous and wrong.

unlike coca-cola, the kind of liberal social order fukuyama has in mind has never been much liked around the world. it only ever existed among a tiny handful of western nations (and post-ww2 japan). it is grudgingly admitted in qualified form in asia and south america, is non-existent in africa, and is violently repudiated in the middle east.

robert kagan's new book "the return of history and the end of dreams" (clumsy title) is much closer to the mark. kagan describes the world as it really is: authoritarian, increasingly protectionist, and minatory.

if the incarnadine twentieth century has taught us anything (and, of course, it hasn't), it is the precariousness of civilization. ideology—the nelson muntz of politics—is back, refreshed, and full of beans. in temper and circumstance we are cosily close to the 1930s.

history isn't over. the world remains, as ever, a work in progress. or, in this case, regress.

the wisdom of alex doonesbury

an 8 year old tells it like it is.

the revenge of malthus

i remember being introduced to the concept of "scarcity" in economics as a 14 year old. but this is really the first time i've seen the phenom in operation. the news nowadays is all about "shortages": fuel (thanks, china), food, water, housing, eligible dates and parking spaces. the only thing there's a surplus of is muslims, and nobody wants those. in a particularly cruel example toy-makers are no longer manufacturing the "horrible gelatinous blob" action-figure from "futurama". now that's really going to hurt.

something borrowed, something made

my two favourite expressions du jour are:

"sour quince log"
indicative, taken from the "who shot mr burns?" episode of "the simpsons"; to describe anything unappetizing or disagreeable, e.g. hilary clinton or that tv show in which meredith tergiversates endlessly between mcstinky and mcsleazy ("grey's anatomy").

"the puck is in the mail"
a variation of "the cheque is in the mail" dodge, employed when one is forgetful or behindhand in some business. originates from the months i have spent waiting for a special ice hockey puck to be shipped from canada.

same shot taken in the sunlight

now what colour is it? carmine?

vermilion?

shiraz? magenta-ish? colours are always a "shot in the dark" (to use a pink pantherism) when one is colourblind. contentious.

anyway, more of autumn showing off.

parthenogenesis

this pumpkin sowed itself & growed itself, spreading vines and tendrils everywhere until it looked like the triffids had invaded (eerily reminiscent of that famous "dr who" episode where an organic creature nearly eats london). i took no part in proceedings. last month it delivered itself of a 10 kilogram junior pumpkin. that's me holding the newborn. there are two others still in gestation. anyone care to adopt?

braceletters

the nike store in melbourne has closed. hold your ho-hums. because this means there are no retailers in melbourne, that i am aware of, which carry lance armstrong's "livestrong" bracelets. i wear these less because i care about cancer (a topic seldom pondered) than for the fact that i admire armstrong himself. i don't admire many sportsmen but he is my second favourite. after roy jones junior, naturally.

that leaves the internet. where i found a biz which will make "livestrong"-type bracelets of one's own choosing: one decides the colour and text. "here's a laugh," as the fellow said when mr pickwick got into a scuffle with a coachman.

very much doubt i'll be bothered to go through with ordering+payment but my preferred design is a glow-in-the-dark bracelet which reads: "do not revive".

some other slogans i considered:

do i have to?
why me?
can i go now?
the answer is no
nothing lasts
not interested
so little time
sorry for nothing
travel doesn't help
sick of rock
and
you smell.

all terrific, i know. but there can only be one winner.

why not?

i seldom find the accomplishments of others terribly inspiring. why should i? jolly good for them but has nowt to do with me. if anything, these egregious achievements are an annoyance. the london marathon, for instance. saw a little of it over the weekend. i quite like the event but don't care for all the cant that goes with it: how "inspiring" it all is. it's just running. that's all.

in one respect though i am impressed. if i lived in london i'd never run. not propitious. too wet, too crowded, too trafficy, too dirty, too awful. takes a lot of moxie to run regularly in england.

anyway if clods like amanda holden, gordon ramsay, and our good friend bozo here (pictured), can run a full marathon then surely anyone—including me—can. so i believe i will. next year. not sure which one yet. still deciding.

the only hitch is that a marathon requires a sustained period of training for at least 6 months. tricky. constancy not my thing. i like to bounce around from running to squash to boxing to sea-splashing according to the season. my fitness fluctuates like the sine wave on a cathode-ray oscilloscope: 3 months of hyper activity followed by 3 months of comparative lassitude (though never descending to hippo-like lethargy). some reprogramming required.

i suppose it will be worth it. if only to feel smug afterwards.

outside

it would appear to be autumn.

the feijoa fight

martial times these. had various skirmishes with the native wildlife over the season's fruits: though i won the passionfruit war, i was wiped out over the cherries after the possums and parrots ambushed me in a classic pincer move. i was also overwhelmed by superior numbers in the nectarine dispute. now the final battle over the feijoa tree is about to commence. intelligence has reported increased possum activity in the feijoa sector. a bad sign.

reign of terror over (for now)

the stupid régime of daylight misappropriations—so much more apt than the casuistic "daylight savings"—is finally over. huzzah! no more artificial boot-black autumn mornings. and as if to celebrate, nature herself, overjoyed to be manumitted, turned the gorgeousness up to "eleven". i made the most of it with a 90 minute run on the beach before brekker.

i wonder what dr who would make of this mucking about with time? maybe he should have a word with our dopey legislators. whatever it is—body parts, or posh watches, or time itself—the real is better than the fake.

the greatest game show ever

game shows are universally dreadful. they are hosted by grinning pipsqueaks who ask dumb questions and offer tacky prizes. it's all carrot and no stick. idiocy isn't punished. that's why the game show featured on the chuck jones toon "the ducksters" (1950) is so good: it's entertainingly cruel, arbitrary and punitive.

here the host, daffy duck, interrogates the contestant, porky pig:

daffy duck: i will now play a passage from a famous opera, you must name the opera.
porky pig: but... but i'm weary.
daffy duck: listen carefully!
(plays a single note on the piano).
daffy duck: and there you have it! now, what's the opera?
porky pig: "c-cavalleria rusticana"?
daffy duck: audience?
audience: "rigoletto"!

genius.

a gap in nature

when a chap has died after a long life, most of it spent buzzing along at the top of his professional tree, there really isn't anything to repine about. it's what most people would probably want for themselves: a long and illustrious innings and all that rot. so there's no reason to blub about the passing of the great english stage actor, sir paul scofield. but his death does leave a gap in the theatre, if not a "gap in nature" (to borrow a resonant phrase from "antony & cleopatra").

all the great names have gone out: ralph richardson, john gielgud, alec guinness, laurence olivier, richard burton, ian richardson, paul scofield. only ian mckellan is left. the english stage has had a twilight of the gods. don't expect to see such abundant talent again.

though thankfully there is still scofield's terrific performance as the elder brothers in the bbc dramatisation of "martin chuzzlewit". watched it again the other night. splendid stuff.

exemplary

in a command performance of queenbeeism demi moore told david letterman her beauty regimen involved bathing in turpentine and, afterwards, having leeches applied to herself. what, not impressed? "these aren't just swamp leeches though," she assured letterman, "we are talking about highly trained medical leeches." (i wonder where these leeches did their residency? johns hopkins?) anyway, hats off to old ms. moore.

as women are the most mimetic of creatures, copying whatever diet or health fad the stars du jour are reported to be doing, we can realistically expect to see oodles of women inspired by moore's example. hopefully teenage girls are right now making the necessary appointments to be feasted on by leeches, stung by jellyfish, or bitten by fruit bats in the expectation of acquiring glamorous looks and perfect well-being.

two ladybirds, bonking

currently reading

who needs george eliot?

the fabulous fox

the scope and exercise of royal power has been in remission for 4 centuries now. though the concept of a "royal prerogative", or exemption from the constraints of ordinary laws, still endures. it does. really. only it is no longer possessed by the crown. it has passed instead to basil brush. and why not? after 40 years of unsurpassable and unparalleled cheek—as cheek goes, it's quite as good as that given by mr toad to the constable in "wind in the willows"—the fox has earned it. he can say whatever he wants, whenever he wants, about whomever he wants. defamation doesn't apply.

unfortunately the northants police aren't awake to this. they've just dispatched a "race relations officer" (could only happen in england) to investigate basil's disparaging (and hilarious) remarks about new age travellers. a group more accurately described as "bums" or "thieves".

this enquiry is daft.

basil is funny. and gypsies are filthy. we don't need police to tell us this.

this controversy will probably remind literate observers of the incident in jane austen's "emma" (vol.3, ch.3) where harriet is terrorized by nasty gypsies. another case of good being waylaid by evil.

find sommat else to do, mr plod.

science is a laggard

plodding, slow-witted science has a habit of ponderously confirming what our quicker intuitive senses have long understood. to wit: a scientific study (admittedly using a small sample size) has ok'd the existence of "small man's disease". what a revelation. who hasn't been irritated by the upstart antics of undersized men? the findings were reported in an english daily. how appropriate.

the system works

4 million victorians are expected to be obese by 2020. hooray.

slow melt

39º today. 39º the other day. 41º tomorrow. some autumn. i guess we should thank china—proud owner of the world's dirtiest economy—for these meteorological treats. a bit more of this and home swimming pools could become popular again—water restrictions notwithstanding.

gin is the thing

james bond represents a cod sophistication. his preferred drink, the vodka martini, is one of the vilest concoctions ever made. and is pointless in any case. the martini is perfect. can't be improved upon. and is best made with bombay sapphire.

thin stew

the booker prize has been doing business for 40 years. that's 40 years of heaping over-praise on very modest (and sometimes very bad) novels. now they're soliciting the public's opinion as to which of the prize-winners is the best. but there's a hitch. none of them are literature of the first rank.

in "sesame and lilies" john ruskin momentarily broke off denouncing modern life (a favourite subject of his) to draw a distinction between books of permanent value (like jane austen's) and those which are merely topical or readable (salman rushdie's—though then only sometimes). he called them "books of all time" and "books of the hour".

the problem with the booker prize is that it celebrates a barren period in english literature. despite the hub-bub, and the champagne-and-smoked-salmon of self-promotion, the booker prize has unearthed no "book for all time". or anything even close. so the survey of public opinion is futile.

much better to be honest about things, and withhold the prize until something of substance is written. however long that takes. but, then, the booker prize doesn't exist to celebrate art, but to encourage sales. so who cares?

overheard in the mall

teen 1: "what time is it?"
teen 2: raises arm and displays analogue watch.
teen 1: (none the wiser) "what's that in digital?"

loving-kindness

this week the st. francis of assisi award, for generosity of soul, goes to the girl who gave up her chocolate wombat to her pint-sized nephew. this is remarkable in so many ways. in the first place women don't voluntarily relinquish chocolate. it's not in their genetic code. and, second, these wombats are awfully hard to find. (just ask david attenborough.) an admirable gesture and all that but, personally, i think she's taking the sacrificial aspect of lent a little too far. though i'm sure the nephew in q. will be smiling about it.

sacked!

a female physicist working at the particle super-collider in geneva, for illegally taking home neutrinos from work. a forensic search of her apartment found a wardrobe full of them. she used to smuggle them out in her labcoat pockets. tisk, tisk.

why bother?

apparently there's a film version of "brideshead revisited" in the works, featuring emma thompson (presumably as the gelid lady marchmain). can't see the point. the 1981 granada version is near enough to ideal. the comparison is bound to be invidious. like that awful, miscast keira knightley "pride and prejudice". again, the bbc version made not long before was excellent. if the original can't be bettered, don't try.

i'd rather see waugh's "decline and fall" or "scoop" made into a feature.

the point of "brideshead", or one of the points anyway, was to show the awkward position of england's recusant catholics living "in partibus infidelium". living in protestant england, but apart from protestant england. strangers as it were in their own country. i imagine that's how all christians must feel in england now. especially having to witness the undergraduate antics of the archbishop of canterbury.

15 weeks

to get into prime running form before the "run melbourne" 10k on june 22. the distance is a lark, but the training required to run flat out for 40 minutes is horrible. still, it beats "drinking for england" as the saying goes.

the problem with hillary

yes, the problem with hillary has nowt to do with experience, or expectation (her belief that america owes her the presidency for not rocking the boat during bill's felate-gate boo-boos), or even competence.

hillary's problem is there aren't many people, bless them, who want a termagant in power.

there's a moment in "great expectations" where joe gargery explains to pip his sister's cruel nature. "your sister is given to government," he says. that is, the bossing about and hectoring of others (made worse by a flaunting tone of self-righteousness). that's essentially hillary.

simply regarded as a human being, hillary is a lousy specimen. that's an awful handicap in an election.

while the upside of an obama candidacy is the chance to finally leave behind the squalor and the squabbles of the 60s. something i'm sure we're all sick of. the culture wars are over anyway. look around. the left won. there's no culture left to speak of. instead we have the "turner prize".

caveat emptor

tried jalna fat-free natural yoghourt. double yuck. reminds me of something fielding mellish (woody allen in the movie "sleeper") said: "this stuff tastes terrible. i could have made a fortune selling it in my health food shop in greenwich village".

's wonderful

it's incongruous. though knowledge is more extensive, and more easily available than it has ever been, people have seldom been dumber. if only alexander pope was around today. it's a golden age of idiocy. just the other day a caller on a bbc radio show suggested gandhi's first name was "goosey goosey". a pity it wasn't. it's a great improvement on mahatma.

still, the thickening of the west has its sunny side. like this found notice for a missing cat. (i love the "not house broken" detail.) of course it's a brushtail possum (the chap deserves a citation for valour for picking it up—very sharp claws). just a wonderful moment.

there's always the chance the whole thing is a wheeze. but i'd like to think it's on the level. it's fun to live in a world where people can no longer distinguish cats from possums.

public-sector teachers everywhere should call a snap strike to celebrate the occasion. none of this would be possible but for them.

retard of the week

me. for my first car mishap. unassisted. while parking. while i was wearing my lucky red crocs, too...

a constable sky this morning

swann's way

like charles swann who famously "fell for a woman who wasn't even his type", i'm still getting over spending $45 on a book ("the mill on the floss") by an author i don't even like. blame everyman's library.

did someone mention david beckham?

not a good look

two men on a scooter.

the 4 stages of fitness

1. fast
2. efficient
3. slow
4. paddington bear.

keep aiming high

former "people's princess", katie price,* has become a porn-entrepreneur (or is that entreporneur?), having launched a range of "jordan" blobs and sex gizmos. will they sell as well as her memoirs? doesn't matter. she's done well, has our katie.

*price relinquished her title to jade goody.

feathered lollipops

an exact idea of how much seed those crazy, mooching parrots eat each week.

not this time, thank-you

received this year's concert programme from "musica viva", melbourne's toney chamber music forum. thought it very broad-minded of them to find room for a gentile on their mailing list. shows an optimistic outlook. a sunny disposition. in hoping someone besides jews will subscribe to the upkeep of high culture in melbourne. bravo.

unfortunately the culture isn't so very high. the programme is a scratch lot (some of it by australian composers, which is unconscionable). have no interest in hearing any "classical" music written after "rhapsody in blue". it's junk. film scores are much better.

so this year "include me out", as sam goldwyn said.

happy birthday

last week billy bunter, of greyfriars school, turned 100. he is one of the great characters of english literature, as impressive and estimable as any of dickens heroes. (for an outline of the bunter phenom see george orwell's celebrated essay "boys' weeklies".) bunter is swell: fat, greedy, lazy, skiving, deceitful, covetous and unintelligent. though, i confess, he doesn't make quite the startling impression he used to. that's because everybody's obese nowadays. that's not his fault.

good news

the world is a lot less beige.

yesterday toshiba surrendered in the high-definition dvd war. the future will be blu-ray. toshiba's hd-dvd format was developed with fellow axis power, the beige behemoth microsoft, whose apps are famously cumbersome, slow and ugly. blu-ray is aligned with apple—elegant and simple—which suits me.

saving the world from wintel hideousness, one small step at a time.

comfort reading

one of the more accurate ways of ascertaining one's favourite books—one least susceptible to voter fraud, shall we say—is to declare which books we like to re-read; which books we tend to read again and again when either tv is too stupid or the brain is too lazy to grapple with anything new; when we desiderate something pleasing and familiar. something cosy.

these are my 10 comfort reads:

t. s. eliot, "the waste land: a facsimile and transcript".
j. d. salinger, "franny & zooey".
simpsons comics.
alan bennett, "forty years on".
p. g. wodehouse, "the code of the woosters".
john henry newman, "apologia pro vita sua".
a. e. housman, "a shropshire lad".
kenneth grahame, "the wind in the willows".
dickens, "the pickwick papers".
george orwell, "essays".

spooked

had to replace a defective lightbulb in the microwave. a surprisingly complicated procedure which involved pulling the machine apart and delving in its innermost workings. of course there were the usual warnings against removing the outer case, authorising "service personnel only" and some blather about earthing the appliance first. pooh-pooh. the great thing about being male is that you never have to bother with warnings or danger notices of any kind. (that's girl stuff). one just carries on regardless. however, lately i've been watching the robert aldrich film noir "kiss me deadly" in which gaby rodgers opens a doomsday box, ignoring all warnings, with cataclysmic consequences. the correlation didn't escape me.

full of bunly goodness

as lunchlady doris said to lisa simpson, à propos of something else. these christian buns are the best thing about easter (mixed peel must have mildly narcotic properties). much better than silly eggs. plus they help keep the saracens away, which is so important nowadays.

bearded git

anyone who has negligently jogged through a copy of "the divine comedy" will, i expect, be puzzled why dante places traitors—to kindred, country, and lords—at the very bottom of hell, where the punishment is fiercest. why treason especially? when you consider the vast catalogue of human iniquity—from talking during the movie, to upskirting, to bakers putting chocolate in their hot-cross buns—treason, or double-dealing, doesn't seem so terribly bad. or so i thought.

then i happened to hear the archbishop of canterbury's simpering plea for the incorporation of sharia law in england. quite amazing, really. a supposed "defender of the faith" arguing for an accommodation with radical evil (to shoplift a phrase from hannah arendt). and at a time of war, no less. what larks.

one thinks back to the '30s and the reputations of the high-and-splendid obliterated forever by their keeping company with appeasement: geoffrey dawson (editor of "the times"), lord londonderry, miss unity mitford, halifax, chamberlain. pooh-pooh. child's play compared to the archbish's effort.

though i suppose i should send a "thank you" note to lambeth palace for clearing up this dante business for me. all quite straightforward now.

(note: pix "the kiss of judas". no excuse needed for giotto. it seemed most appropriate.)

smashing

meanwhile in blighty. a new "mr men" animated children's show has re-designed the villainous mr rude character as an impolite, unhygienic, farting frenchman. this is excellent. mutual antipathy is the traditional measure of anglo-french relations. it is wholesome to see them restored. (francophilia—especially of the highbrow type displayed by julian barnes—has no place in the public realm. that's letting the side down. offside, sir.) anyway, good show channel 5.

i wonder if we'll ever see a rag-headed "mr evil"?

something for hannah

a lenten benediction

courteous thanks to ami, belinda, betty, cath, chloé, ella, emma, gretta, hannah, jennifer, karina, mel, nora, paige, rachel, rachelle, renee, (and anyone else i may have carelessly omitted), for stopping by "foundfoundfound" last year, leaving comments, and helping themselves (unprompted) to all the chupa-chups.

swell egg of the day

roz chast, cartoonist. a googly-eyed, jewish girl from flatbush. find her stuff in the "new yorker".

made too much

shrove tuesday means pancakes, of course. in my case it was blueberry and cinnamon pancakes with raspberry, banana and passionfruit. it was enough, i subsequently realised, to feed a modestly sized irish family of 17.

clip-clop

if i had a horse i would call it "the mare of casterbridge".

some don't like it hot

as it's going to be 41º tomorrow i'll be hastening, with the rest, down to the local beach. where the object is to jump in and stay underwater holding your breath for at least 8 hours. by then the heat will have abated a little. until the next day anyway.

a shame about tatiana

the bay area tiger who slipped the surly bonds of its enclosure and, commendably, killed two teenagers before being shot. don't feel bad for the teenagers. they aren't people—they're the reason shows like "american idol", "big brother" & "home and away" remain on tv. in any case there are plenty of teens to go around. tigers, alas, are scarce. and getting scarcer.

authorities suspect tatiana was abetted in its escape. an accomplice, what? there invariably is in these cases. there's a very guilty looking zebra skulking about the place. wouldn't be surprised if he gave tatiana a boost over the fence. probably a whole gang of 'em involved. there's more to this story. just wait and see.