Minjup Diary

#11 ...

2012-01-25T16:40:00.000+08:00

... has been suspended.

As faithful readers will have noticed, I’ve been away for a while.
Most of this has involved (a) chronic neuralgia and (b) trying to paint Nuytsia, the WA Christmas tree.
It happens to be fabulous at this time in the Stirling Ranges and thereabouts.
So, in compensation for my absence, here are two humble offerings:

Click to enlarge

#10. A Cottage

2011-12-15T19:10:00.004+08:00

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#9. Landscape Architecture

2011-12-12T17:03:00.001+08:00

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Transports of delight

2011-12-12T16:47:00.001+08:00

I just passed a Transperth bus. As I looked at the destination blind, it changed and suddenly wished me a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Then I passed a car with a big red nose and antlers.
The staff at the Minjup Deli were all wearing fairy-light necklaces.

What’s going on?

Eric reading The Beano

2011-12-04T14:24:00.001+08:00

#8. Erica reading The Beano

2011-12-04T14:09:00.001+08:00

Click to enlarge

This is Hell

2011-12-01T13:28:00.001+08:00

Clue

2011-12-01T13:11:00.001+08:00

“Rrose Sélavy
Demande si
Les Fleurs du Mal
Ont modifié
Les moeurs du phalle”

So:
A new (mundane?) surrealism is coming.
It’s about time.
IT(T)S.

#7. Hilarity

2011-12-01T13:05:00.001+08:00

Click to enlarge

#6. Les fleurs du mal

2011-11-30T13:53:00.001+08:00

Click to enlarge

#5. Mon pauvre coeur est un hibou

2011-11-30T13:20:00.001+08:00

Click to enlarge

#4. This Is A Pipe

2011-11-30T10:01:00.000+08:00

Click to enlarge

Protest against the Wunch of Bankers

2011-11-24T13:52:00.000+08:00

I’ve been trying to organise an OCCUPY MINJUP campaign.
No takers so far, especially down the pub.

The main problem is to find a central place to occupy; for there is no central place.
And we don’t have a bank as such. We have to go up to Blyton for that.
Or else use the Minjup Post Office (LPO). But what good would it do to protest against Dot the Postmistress or Pat the Postwoman?

I’ve printed off a few copies of this for local distribution:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/thoreau/henry_david/civil/

{{Sigh}}

Un-tilling

2011-11-24T06:55:00.000+08:00

Do you ever say ‘till’ for ‘until’? Course you do.
How do you feel about it? Anything at all?
Probably not I guess.

I feel as if I’m abbreviating ... a bit slangy. Something like that.
So imagine my surprise when I read this:

In most contexts, till and until have the same meaning and are interchangeable. The main difference is that till is generally considered to be more informal than until. Until occurs much more frequently than till in writing. In addition, until tends to be the natural choice at the beginning of a sentence: Until very recently, there was still a chance of rescuing the situation. Interestingly, while it is commonly assumed that till is an abbreviated form of until (the spellings ’till and ’til reflect this), till is in fact the earlier form. Until appears to have been formed by the addition of Old Norse und (‘as far as’) several hundred years after the date of the first records for till.
New Oxford American Dictionary

#3. The Cyclops

2011-11-23T13:14:00.000+08:00

Click to enlarge

#2. Blazes!

2011-11-22T13:22:00.000+08:00

Click to enlarge

Spitting images

2011-11-22T13:02:00.002+08:00

When I was but a lad, there used to be NO SPITTING signs all over the place. Suppose there were a lot more smokers around then. But they just seemed to disappear. So imagine my surprise when, yesterday, I had to catch a bus and, next to the driver‘s cage, was a sign to the effect:

SPITTING is not permitted
on Transperth vehicles.

Drivers now carry DNA kits
to aid in the apprehension
of offenders.

How pleasant to find such a return to traditional values with a high-tech twist. Now I have strong mental images of drivers scraping yokka off the floor and sealing it in test tubes. Just hope they get extra pay for such forensic exploits.

And, talking of images, I’ll post another Work of Arthur soon. Then you can see who was ghosting behind John and Yoko.

#1. From now on ...

2011-11-17T12:24:00.003+08:00

... you will only get Works Of Arthur.
Here is the first:

Click to enlarge

The pleasures ...

2011-11-02T12:18:00.000+08:00

... of country life include the local log chop day.
Here’s a quiet moment up at Millbrook.

Click to enlarge

Totems

2011-10-30T07:06:00.004+08:00

Why do we persist with the kangaroo and the emu on the national crest?
Why are our tourist souvenirs full of koalas and wombats?
Seems obvious to me that there‘s only one creature that deserves the honour:

If you go down to the woods today ...

2011-10-23T10:54:00.004+08:00

Top seed

2011-09-26T09:48:00.002+08:00

Hakea laurina (pin-cushion Hakea). I cooked the seed pods with a pizza and out came the little winged seeds.
Will keep you all posted on whether I can propagate the wee buggers. Probably not.

The Brunswick Triangle

2011-09-09T06:39:00.002+08:00

Here’s the answer:

The good burghers of Brunswick obviously know of their town’s reputation for vehicular mishap. I suggest you get through there as quickly as possible and DON’T STOP! If you need supplies, drop in to nearby Harvey (slightly off the highway). There you will find KEV’S COUNTRY MEATS. Highly recommended. Tune your radio to 96.5 and listen for specials.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

2011-09-08T15:16:00.005+08:00

Why are things suddenly going so right? You’ve heard my tale of the Quest for the Ring: the E14 lampshade retainer? Well, yesterday, I went into a lighting shop on the off chance. Nice young lady behind the counter says she’ll have a look in the stock room. The long wait suggested hope against hope. But eventually she returned with a whole bag of the buggers. And not your crappy plastic like in the picture; but a grooved and molded superior E14. Said someone had ordered them by mistake!

Then this morning, I took a look at the swale and decided it needed a trim. Big job that if I do the right thing and have a go at next door’s as well. I’d just pulled on the overalls and cranked up the line trimmer when a gang of blokes in orange Minjup Shire jackets turned up with all their pro kit and did it for me.

If good (as well as bad) fortune comes in threes, I wonder what’s next? Knock on the door from Nicole Kidman perhaps?

Death in Brunswick

2011-09-08T12:43:00.004+08:00

Returning from Margaret River the other day — and doing as much Bunbury Avoidance as possible — found myself in Brunswick Junction. Things go wrong there. Last time, the car window stuck open and, these days, there’s no manual over-ride. Out of BJ and all was fine.

This time, the door of the ute wouldn’t open with the remote. The knob popped up half way ... but no further. Out of BJ and all was fine.

It’s the SW’s answer to the Bermuda Triangle. And ... what does this have to do with it all ... apart from being the gold medallist in the Best-Uses-For-A-Used-Gas-Cylinder Contest? Answer tomorrow.

Snails

2011-08-30T15:52:00.002+08:00

As a keen bird-watcher, I know how to set up a hide.
I did this last night ... but to watch snails in my garden.
What I have to report is this:

Snails move really quickly when we’re not looking at them.

Heart needs a home

2011-08-15T16:33:00.008+08:00

So you go to the quack cos the blood pressure’s a bit up. And he does the check up. (No steering-wheel-down-the-underpants jokes, OK?)
And he says he can hear a heart murmur.

Stuff that’s been happening to my heart lately — don’t ask — I’m surprised it wasn’t screaming its box off.
In you go to see Jenny-the-Nurse for the ECG and this is what comes out:

You may need to click on this to read it properly. If you can read it at all!
But note the interesting phrase: “Possible right atrial hypertrophy”.
So the right atrium is (possibly) growing bigger which, most people know, it does to protect itself against all sorts of baddies.

Why can’t the quack say this? Murmur indeed!
Do they think those of us with hearts have no heads?

The Quest for the One Ring

2011-08-15T12:13:00.002+08:00

My favourite desk lamp has become unuseable. The ring that holds in the shade has broken.
I’ve been to every electrical wholesaler south of the river and even to a place called “Lamp Replacements”.
Lighting shops, of course, don’t have spare parts.
But at least they could tell me it’s an E14.

When I tried on line, I found they cost $US0.41, but the minimum order is 100,000.
Anyone need 99,999 of these?

Virgin on the ridiculous

2011-08-15T11:13:00.003+08:00

Recently returned from an international flight.
I don’t like flying at the best of times. The human body is not meant to do 800kph at 30,000ft.
Not mine anyway.

Towards the end of the flight, the head steward-person came on the blower and announced:

“We will soon be preparing for landing and the refreshments service will soon finish. Let the cabin staff know if you have any last wishes”.

I knew it was a mistake to fly Virgin. They’re notorious for not going the whole way.

International Semantics 100

2011-08-11T17:30:00.003+08:00

When people take to the streets in Libya in protest against a repressive government, it’s called ‘liberation’ and funded by the West. When they do the same in the allegedly Great Brtain, it’s called ‘mindless criminality’ and duly punished.

Con (the) census

2011-08-09T14:17:00.003+08:00

As you fill in your census form tonight, spare a thought for us poor Pastafarians. They won’t count us I’m sure.
But I can prove I’m both Australian and Pastafarian. The back of the ute should be sufficient evidence.
And it looks better than a stupid fish!

The Great Web of Being

2011-08-03T13:01:00.002+08:00

Life has many mysteries. Among these are:

1. Why do spiders build their webs in car wing-mirrors?
Do they like to pop out at 100 k. on the freeway and take a peek at themselves?
(Producers of Minuscule, please note.)
2. What did they do in Gomorrah?
And can I try it?
3. Why can you never find the scissors but always have too many wire coat-hangers?
Are scissors larval coat-hangers? Do they metamorphose overnight when no-one is looking?
4. Do the world’s great leaders work out where everyone is going and run round the front?
5. Who farted?

A bad press

2011-07-18T13:53:00.006+08:00

It would seem that our local rag, The West Australian (14 July, 2011, p3) has no understanding of genuine religious difference and tolerance. Though the BBC’s not that much better.

My licence is up shortly, and I’m going for one of these.
All Praise to the Spaghetti Monster!

((Click to enlarge))

A Taurean Question

2011-07-13T16:41:00.001+08:00

Q: What’s the opposite of sex?
A: Winter weeding — get it up while it’s soft.

Speak Semiotics!

2011-07-02T16:11:00.004+08:00

I have recently acquired an electric rice cooker.

This is what it says on the lid:

Click if you can’t read it.

Back-translation:
这是非常热，蒸气出来烹调时
不要用布或其他物质，否则有危险

Capstick

2011-06-27T12:08:00.002+08:00

I was immensely pleased to find this while blogging the STinOZ yesterday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUql6PRW18Y
Of course, it helps if you know the originals. This for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mq59ykPnAE

Not much ...

2011-06-26T14:34:00.002+08:00

... since Tulliver, I’ll admit.
But sometimes not much happens in Minjup.
Anyway, I think my reader must have gone on holiday!

At last ... some serious rain

2011-06-14T13:16:00.003+08:00

And more on the way.
The downside is that it tends to wash the gravel off the drive and into the swale. Whence it disappears who knows where.

Made some inquiries about buying various gravels from our local supplier today. Turns out that his name is Tulliver. No one round about finds this peculiar or interesting.

But ... as I remember ... Swift wasn’t on the curriculum at Minjup High.

Good company for atheists

2011-05-22T14:24:00.009+08:00

Just heard A.C. Grayling at the Sinny Writers’ Festival talking about his “secular bible”, The Good Book. He’s in interesting company on the Book Depository site:

Click to enlarge

Has he, I wonder, ever engaged in punctuatio?

(Coco)nuts philosophy

2011-05-18T11:40:00.004+08:00

The Prof occasionally sends me interesting passages from the philosophy books he’s reading. This one (below) must surely come close to being one of the worst sentences ever written in English. Or in any language ever?

A barren nonsemiotic island of coconuts and sand still manifests these objects to us as specific features of the landscape — the coconut appearing “as” coconut rather than as grapes, and not simply retreating into the silent execution of its coconut-effect.

For Jimbo

2011-05-12T18:51:00.005+08:00

There once was a fellow from Dorset
Who said “Local men are a ~~bore~~”. {stet}.
So he went off to France
Where he wore leather pants,
Fishnets, suspenders and a corset.

And there once was a ...

2011-05-09T17:49:00.004+08:00

... Fräulein from Berlin
Whose vocab was shocking and daring.
She blamed her amnesia
When in Indonesia
She placed orders for Nazi Göring.

In fact, it’s a gas

2011-05-09T09:43:00.007+08:00

gas plant, noun
an aromatic Eurasian plant of the rue family, with showy white flowers and fragrant leaves that emit a flammable vapor. This can sometimes be ignited without harming the plant. Also called burning bush, dittany, fraxinella. Dictamnus (formerly Fraxinella) albus, family Rutaceae.

One of the answers in today’s crossword prompted me to look this up in the dictionary. Hence the following:

There once was a singer called Britney
And this ditty was part of her litany:
“I can light plumes of gas
That spurt from my ass
When I’ve swallowed a whole bunch of dittany”.

((The less said about the possibility of ‘burning bush’ the better.))

Melithreptus lunatus (chloropsis)

2011-05-09T09:29:00.000+08:00

Aka White-naped Honeyeater. A new visitor to Chez Sledge. Interesting bit is: it’s a single bird flocking with the usual daily mob of Newhollands.

How you can tell ...

2011-05-08T11:26:00.006+08:00

... when you’re getting old:

The use-by date on the food you just bought is your next birthday.

And you think: “Probably mine too!”

Do eggs really last that long?

Cheesy paradigms

2011-05-05T18:21:00.001+08:00

And then came a fellow named Kuhn
Whose theories died equally soon.
Though they caused quite a ruction,
They were social constructions
From which science as such was immune.

A pack of old fruit juice

2011-04-30T13:47:00.001+08:00

There once was a fellow called Popper
Whose theories all came a cropper.
Their language was liable
To be unfalsifiable:
Casuistry ... not science ... a whopper!

Thor

2011-04-22T11:02:00.003+08:00

As a great fan of movies made from comics, I listened avidly to a radio review of this new one. This is what happens ... beware spoilers!

Odin (A. Hopkins) gets pissed off with his son’s arrogance. So he sends him, Thor, off to Earth to be a mere mortal and learn some humility from humanity. Thor falls to Earth and lands on Natalie Portman’s car! She takes him home and one thing leads to another.

After a night in which much pleasure is had by both and in which Thor gets to exercise his enormous Nordic nob, Natalie wakes up to catch him putting on his bearskin and picking up his hammer from under the bed.
“You can’t leave!” she cries.
“I’m Thor”, he replies, not yet having lost any of his arrogance, “I can do as I please”.
“Tho am I”, says Natalie. “You thtill can’t leave”.

Russell’s Last Paradox ...

2011-04-21T06:18:00.000+08:00

... although he didn’t write it down, I’m sure he must have thought it:
“Wittgenstein was a philosopher whose problem was that all philosophers’ problems are nonsense”.

Web design

2011-04-15T13:08:00.003+08:00

I hope they didn’t compose this page with their own software:
http://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/overview/

Hanging around ...

2011-04-15T08:34:00.001+08:00

Had to hang around yesterday in one of those shopping streets where you see 40-plus ladies in BMW and Merc sports cars shopping for expensive clothes in the eternal and fruitless effort to make themselves look 40-minus.

Stopping for a smoke on a nicely-placed bench — where I could get a good view of the cute kilted gal changing the window display in the art supplies shop — a chap handed me this (below). I thanked him for this triumph of typography and iconography. But I had a feeling he was working the wrong crowd.

More popular than Jesus?

2011-04-13T18:30:00.003+08:00

More popular than The Beatles.
At least, after he died.
For a while.

The things you read ...

2011-04-13T16:17:00.002+08:00

... in the quack’s surgery while waiting for a jab from the nurse!
Click to englarge ... if you want to read the informative text.

The End of the World ...

2011-04-10T17:30:00.003+08:00

... must be nigh.
TimTams now come in Dark Chocolate Rum and Raisin.
I shall surely die and go to heaven.

The best PhD never written

2011-04-03T14:57:00.002+08:00

Just reading a potpoiler called Wittgenstein’s Poker.
Early on, one of the witnesses to the poker game, one Wasfi Hijab, secretary to the meeting, has his career briefly recounted.

... Three years later he left with his Ph.D. unfinished. He had made a mistake fatal to his ambitions ... he had asked Wittgenstein to be his supervisor. To general astoishment, Wittgenstein had agreed.

And ... if you want a spoiler, Ludwig held a Queen-Three full-house to Karl’s Ace high.

RAS Tafari

2011-04-02T14:41:00.009+08:00

RAS was in the STinkOZ crossword just now.
It’s either an Ethiopian Prince (Duke?) or a headland, according to Chambers.
Coincidence? I happened to be around here last night and chanced a meal.
No idea what Ethiopian food might be like ... but it was great.

You eat with your hands and stick the pieces of Injera (bready-pancake stuff) into the tray of food you happen to order.
Strongly recommended.
Go there before they’re discovered by some snotty gourmet writer and move on to ... Jah forbid ... Fremantle-as-such.

Note:
Ras Tafari lived just short of 44 years. That was almost enough time to sign his name, including all the Honours he received.

Nietzsche for Beginners

2011-03-29T09:35:00.002+08:00

Endure life
OR
End your life

Hepworthism of the Day

2011-03-29T07:32:00.003+08:00

As my old grey-haired apple-cheeked Grandmother was wont to say:
“On the rare occasion that the Universe unzips its Great Flies to flash the jewel-like Genitals of Fortune ... grab it by the balls and don’t let go”.

Herr Wenders @ the tennis, a pome

2011-03-26T16:43:00.006+08:00

Wim called “cut”.
Wim was cut.
Wim’s blood flowed.
Wim bled on.

Immaculate?

2011-03-25T06:56:00.002+08:00

Those who have had the misfortune to drive along the desolate stretch of the Albany Hwy between Gosnells and Kelmscott — so desolate that they let you speed up to 70k — will have seen a huge billboard placed by the anti-abortionists. They’re not usually known for their linguistic subtlety, yet this effort sports the wonderfully ambiguous slogan:

PRESERVE LIFE FROM CONCEPTION

(Wal)wegheit

2011-03-22T18:52:00.001+08:00

The studious reader will have noticed my absence.
I had to go to the Eastern states to see if they were still there and, if so, what they were like.
Result of investigation: (a) they are and (b) a bit boring.
I only took one souvenir pic; a sign of the above assessment.
Here it is:

While I was there I had a dream.
All the whales in the world got together in the North Western Pacific.
They lined up their tails in a great row, pointed at Japan.
And the leader said, in his unspeakable whale way:
“Right, now ... on a count of three ... swish like buggery!”

Goldberg lets rip

2011-03-03T11:28:00.000+08:00

Whoopi was on the excruciating Adam Hills show last night.
She’s a sister in the struggle against the ban in Malawi.
Apparently she’s considering changing her middle name to Cushion.

... and another historical retrospective

2011-03-02T14:48:00.003+08:00

Guess which chemical plant this one is.
Click to enlarge.

Incarceration is effective for rehabilitation

2011-03-02T14:27:00.000+08:00

A friend sends me the clip below.
Though the source is not known, it looks vaguely authentic.

Out of his tree

2011-02-21T18:32:00.001+08:00

Just finished reading Keef’s Life.
Towards the end, the Kiwi medic who treated him after he famously fell out of a tree in Fiji relates his story of deciding whether or not to operate.
Here’s part of it:

“And by Monday morning he was much worse, very headachy, starting to slur his words ...”.

How the fuck could he tell?!!

The Great Chain of Wit

2011-02-15T09:30:00.002+08:00

Driving around yesterday ... one short stop at a Silver Chain nursing post.
On the wall, a poster reading:

DON’T BATTLE CONSTIPATION ON YOUR OWN

And there’s this pic of a toilet.
On the cistern, a copy of War and Peace!

How admirable of the health authorities to advertise the canon!

A very pleasant evening’s entertainment

2011-02-08T09:17:00.002+08:00

The best thing on TV right now is this. Click on MORE EPISODES FROM THIS SHOW for previous treats.
Totally WYSIWYG and consistent: I have never been disappointed by this program, even if it is always a repeat. And the music’s not bad either!

Stage 2 ...

2011-02-05T15:41:00.006+08:00

... of Chez Sledge is now nearly complete. The grass is, of course, Emo Lawn.
Cuts itself.

[[Click to enlarge ... a bit]]

Transport update ... the great riffffffft

2011-02-05T15:24:00.004+08:00

The Lilongwe-to-Dedza bus is now making secret cross-border trips into Mozambique. Passengers have been observed carrying suitcases full of baked beans, defying a contravention order thus signified:

... and render unto God

2011-02-04T09:12:00.002+08:00

Just heard about this on the ABC Nudes:
http://www.littleiapps.com/
It’s for real, officially sanctioned by the Vatican:
http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=zenit&id=31640

35 yrs since my last

Fckd best frs GF 2nite

OK Father?

Cool Perce
10 HMs
LOL

Render unto Cæsar

2011-02-02T17:54:00.004+08:00

Check your pockets.
They’re just out, so you might find one of these, as I did today after an urgent desire to eat frozen peas drove me to the Minjup Deli.

Don’t you just love the motto?
More like “Working to take 20¢ off all Australians for every 50¢ they earn”.
That’s 10¢ for government & administration (inc. the ATO), 5¢ for the military, 3¢ wasted in other ways and 2¢ for really useful things like health, education and the environment.

Took my Chevy ...

2011-01-31T16:46:00.009+08:00

After the failure of the levees and the impending failure of her levies, Queen Julia has announced that she will be holding Levers, both Grands and Petits. Every loyal Australian subject will be required to pay a fee of $50 (Grands) or $1000 (Petits) — the adjectives referring to the sizes of the respective crowds and hence to comparative exclusivity — to file past in the morning while she squeezes into her Levi’s. (Yes, they have an apostrophe, God forgive them.)

Après le déluge ... Moi!

In the beginning ...

2011-01-31T12:36:00.000+08:00

... all humans emerged from a tribe that consisted of 200 people, or roughly 100 paired relationships.
Data are not available on the gendering of those relationships.
Each of those relationships had offspring, or else cared-for sprogs of some sort.
Ninety-nine of those relationships were shit; but one worked really well.
Of the group anthro-apologists call Shit99, 50% of the sprogs expected their own relationships to be different.
They were (statistically) disappointed.
The other 50% expected their own relationships to be shit as well.
They were as sad as the previous generation; but realistic in their expectations.
Of the singularity anthro-apologists call Non-Shit1, all the sprogs expected their own relationships to be equally non-shitty.
They were (statistically) disappointed.

Continue this pattern for all ensuing generations and you have a reasonable idea why, inter alia, anti-depressants are so popular today.

Sir Bruce Parkinson, CBE

2011-01-26T12:30:00.009+08:00

... was just on the radish to make his Horse-trailer Day speech.
He was introduced as “an honorary Australian”.
Come orf it!
He’s the one with the Imperial Honours.
Not to mention: a fellow-county-man and admirer of Frederick Sewards (‘Fred’) Trueman, OBE, who once famously said: “What d’yer mean ‘your bridge’? It’s made of Yorkshire steel and yer still ’aven’t paid for it”.

There are, though, places in Australia for Yorkshiremen.
They’re called detention centres.

Or, just possibly, philosophy departments.

— Is your name not Bruce then?
— No it‘s Michael.

Holy smoking racquets!

2011-01-25T15:44:00.001+08:00

Still trying to tidy up the outside of chez Sledge.
Spent a pleasant day touring the brickworks south of the river.
I’d been informed that the pavers circumnavigating my vast expanse are called ... wait for it ... “Folklore Cobblestone”.
So I was stuffed if I was going in there with a sample called that and looking my usual self: Rivers kit, handbag and pink RayBans.
Accordingly, scruffed myself up in old Hard Yakka pants, knackered boots and a flannel shirt with a glimpse of blue singlet beneath.
Suited the ute.
Natch, not a single “Folklore Cobblestone” to be found.
But the swings swung and the roundabouts turned at a recycling place where I was, to use own her term, “serviced” by a charming lass of some 30-odd summers.
She could have sold me the rubble pile.
When she took my address, she told me she used to live in Moribundup and rode her horse past my place.
Not Amanda-Lyn, no, not by a long piece of calcium sulfate.

But in retrospect I should’ve dressed a bit better.

Needed a long black on the way home and dropped into a Dôme establishment.
Got out the makings for a smoke on the way out.
Took my time, made a nice one with Zig Zag liquorice papers.
I heard a young lad at the table opposite ask his Mum, “What’s that man doing, Mummy?”
Amazing: he’d never seen a smoke being rolled before.
Just one more sign of age and passing time, as Proust used to say.

The radish has been interesting but.
Just love the tennis season and listening to all those inexperienced newsreaders trying to pronounce the players’ names.
Has it ever occurred to you that just about every tennis player in the world has either a first name or a surname you’ve never heard of before?
Maybe they make them in a plant somewhere and deliberately give them bizarre names.
Like pavers?

Imagine my surprise ...

2011-01-23T10:48:00.001+08:00

... when I opened the Weekend Oz yesterday and looked for the Review.
Now it’s official.
Kevin Rudd and Tony Jones have a love child.

Click image to expand

Bed of Nails

2011-01-22T20:28:00.003+08:00

TV let down of the week.
The army goes on manœuvres in Rainbow’s End and they don’t shoot Minna (Julia Blake).
But then the army was never too strong on æsthetic judgment, eh?

Before Chomsky ...

2011-01-19T11:32:00.000+08:00

... and his “colo(u)rless green ideas”, I seem to remember my Old Mum, in her peculiar Norwegian way, refering to:

Sky-blue pink, the colour of a rabbit’s egg.

Or is that just a pigment of my imagination?

The secret lives of the philosophers #1

2011-01-16T14:49:00.007+08:00

Biographical readings of the philosophers ain’t exactly de rigeur (as we say in Minjup) these days.
But I think a closer look might reveal more than meets the mind’s eye.
Here are some cases.

1) Wittgenstein famously gave up his portion of the family fortune; but when he was threatened with legal action and needed the money, he bought a common lottery ticket.
Moral: Logical ‘certainties’ may actually be less reliable than they seem; the apparent randomness of ordinary action may bring us to firmer ground.

2) Kant, when not tinkering with his sensible manifold, spent hours in search of an effective laxative.
Moral: Purge yourself of as much metaphysics as possible, but don’t expect it to work.

3) Descartes attended the Jesuit La Flèche school where, inter alia, the curriculum included ballet.
Moral: Find a discipline where the corporeal and the intellectual are in equal balance and harmony.

4) Nietzsche, before he was corrupted by Schopenhauer, was a crack philologist.
Moral: Having a good look at the words themselves can tell you more than construing the world as Will and/or Representation.

And I’d mention Russell, but he was just a sets maniac.

The birthday owl and the national interest

2011-01-11T10:25:00.006+08:00

I thought I had a pretty good handle on Australian owl species. In fact, give or take the odd Latin name, I thought I could list them all without too much trouble. So imagine my surprise when …

I was up in King Spark* yesterday waiting for one of my clients to finish an appointment at Charlies and I found a book called The Owls of Australia: A Field Guide to Australian Night Birds, by Stephen Debus. It’s effectively a cut-down version of the relevant bits of Vol 4 of HANZAB — which I’d love to own, but it costs more than it’d take to get a Pom into a bath.
[[* Don’t ever try the coffee there!]]

Flipped through and found the Christmas Island Hawk-Owl (Ninox natalis) what I’d never heard of before. Not really surprising, though, cos no-one, including the Department of Immigration, seems to think it’s actually Australian. The Island I mean.

The facts are stranger than a moderately strange thing. It’s called natalis after the Island. Geddit? It’s only recently become a species as such, having once been conspecific with something oriental. It’s threatened and is (or was) listed as critically endangered. The threats include:
• the Yellow Crazy Ant (Cirrhosus Adamii) and its supercolonies (!) which destroy habitat.
Lesson: kill some ants today — for they will surely take over otherwise.
• phosphate mining.
Lesson: stop digging things up — we don’t need most of them anyway.
• as below:

In 1987 the owl’s remaining habitat was protected within the Christmas Island National Park. However, part of the Park has since been annexed by the Australian Government for the construction of a detention centre for refugees, with mandatory environmental-impact assessment requirements waived ‘in the national interest’. (page 49)

Lesson: don’t vote for those who advocate (1) dumping those in, literally, dire straits and so (2) seeing off these little guys:

The Deep Shit

2011-01-09T10:35:00.002+08:00

Did anyone else suffer this?

And, while they can act, I’d like to spend 2011 watching dramas that do not feature James Nesbitt, Robson Green or Philip Davis.

Where is the Pseudo Times?

2011-01-09T09:30:00.001+08:00

A few people have emailed me with this query.
The change-over is buried somewhere below.
But ... it’s now here:
http://stinoz.blogspot.com/

A miƒs is as good as her ƒimile

2011-01-09T08:28:00.004+08:00

Without giving too much away, my research for this week’s crossword led me to this.
It’s by John Gay (1685-1732) but occasionally attributed to Swift.

    My paƒƒion is as muƒtard ƒtrong;
    I ƒit all ƒober ƒad,
    Drunk as a piper all day long,
    Or like a March hare mad.

    Round as a hoop the bumpers flow;
    I drink, yet can’t forget her;
    For, tho’ as drunk as David’s ƒow,
    I love her ƒtill the better.

    Pert as a pear-monger I’d be,
    If Molly were but kind;
    Cool as a cucumber could ƒee
    The reƒt of woman-kind.

    Like a ƒtuck pig I gaping ƒtare,
    And eye her o’er and o’er;
    Lean as a rake with ƒighs and care,
    Sleek as a mouƒe before.

    Plump as a partridge was I known,
    And ƒoft as ƒilk my ƒkin;
    My cheeks as fat as butter grown;
    But as a groat now thin.

    I melancholy as a cat
    Am kept awake to weep;
    But ƒhe, inƒenƒible of that,
    Sound as a top can ƒleep.

    Hard is her heart as flint or ƒtone;
    She laughs to ƒee me pale,
    And merry as a grig is grown,
    And briƒk as bottled ale.

    The god of love at her approach
    Is buƒy as a bee!
    Hearts ƒound as any bell or roach
    Are ƒmit, and ƒigh like me.

    Ay me! as thick as hops or hail,
    The fine men croud about her:
    But ƒoon as dead as a door-nail
    Shall I be, if without her.

    Strait as my leg her ƒhape appears;
    O were we join’d together!
    My heart would be ƒcot-free from cares,
    And lighter than a feather.

    As fine as fivepence is her mien;
    No drum was ever tighter;
    Her glance is as the razor keen,
    And not the ƒun is brighter.

    As ƒoft as pap her kiƒƒes are;
    Methinks I taƒte them yet;
    Brown as a berry is her hair,
    Her eyes as black as jet.

    As ƒmooth as glaƒs, as white as curds,
    Her pretty hand invites:
    Sharp as a needle are her words;
    Her wit like pepper bites.

    Briƒk as a body-louƒe ƒhe trips,
    Clean as a penny dreƒt;
    Sweet as a roƒe her breath and lips,
    Round as the globe her breaƒt.

    Full as an egg was I with glee,
    And happy as a king!
    Good Lord! how all men envy’d me
    She lov’d like any thing.

    But falƒe as hell, ƒhe, like the wind,
    Chang’d, as her ƒex muƒt do ;
    Tho’ ƒeeming as the turtle kind,
    And like the goƒpel true.

    If I and Molly could agree,
    Let who would take Peru!
    Great as an emp’ror ƒhould I be,
    And richer than a Jew.

    Till you grow tender as a chick,
    I'm dull as any poƒt :
    Let us like burs together ƒtick,
    And warm as any toaƒt.

    You’ll know me truer than a dye,
    And wiƒh me better ƒped,
    Flat as a flounder when I lie,
    And as a herring dead.

    Sure as a gun ƒhe’ll drop a tear.
    And ƒigh perhaps, and wiƒh,
    When I am rotten as a pear,
    And mute as any fiƒh.

Change to ST blogging arrangements

2011-01-06T18:43:00.001+08:00

As a trial for the new year, the Australian Weekend ST puzzle will get its own blog.
You can find it here: http://stinoz.blogspot.com/
The new site will allow reader comments and there will be guest bloggers.
Hope you enjoy it.

Oh Karol ... heal thyself

2011-01-05T13:35:00.001+08:00

All the news today is of Pope George Ringo II who is to be considered for sainthood.
Evidence of the miracle is that he apparently cured a French nun of Parkinson’s Disease.
Now ... erm ... what did he die of?

The forgotten Waugh

2011-01-04T17:34:00.000+08:00

Just finished reading Alexander Waugh’s The House of Wittgenstein.
Conclusion: they were mad as meat axes to a person.
(Waugh says, kindlily, “of nervous disposition”.)

The one-armed pianist Paul’s penchant for real football gets no mention whatsoever.
Here’s a snippet of conversation rumoured to have taken place late in his life in NY between PW and a friend.

AF: You want to watch the soccer Paul?
PW: Who’s playing.
AF: Austria Hungary.
PW: Who are we playing?

Update 717

2011-01-03T09:00:00.000+08:00

Found the paper late last night by sheer accident in a growers’ market on the way back from visiting Sledgette Major.
The puzzle’s done and I shall report, post competition, now that I suspect a better class of puzzles is emerging, thus making the competition a bit fairer.

Pseudo Times 717

2011-01-01T12:30:00.002+08:00

I’m reliably informed that there’s a puzzle in today’s paper. But the whole of Minjup, Blyton and Moribundup (the two remaining pubs notwithstanding) are closed for the pubic holiday. (Yes, I know.) Buggered if I’m going up to the smoke especially. So I may or may not eventually find it, finish it and/or blog it.

To boot, there are possible changes afoot this year for the PST puzzle, if my spies are reliable — which I doubt. If they turn out as I hope they will — for the better — I shall probably take up the habit of reporting on or after the Friday when the competition closes.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a puzzle worthy of being a Times competition puzzle? That would make the new year a happy one. Still ... I wish you all just that, come what cruciverbally may.

What’s Brown and smells like a red herring?

2010-12-29T13:48:00.018+08:00

“You’re telling me the Holy Grail is really what?” asked Sophie Nonferque breathlessly as they bumped down the cobbles of the Rue de Remarques in her Placement-de-produit-mobile, the mad monk from Opeless Dei hot on their tails, brandishing his leather weapon.

After trying the clutch a few times to no effect, Robert Longdick finally found the brake and pulled the car into a convenient ruelle: “I was sure your grandfather meant us to know this”, he said. “And it only just occurred to me now that we have the two rings of the keystone safely in hand”.

Before he could answer a shot rang out.

*****

At that moment elsewhere, Bishop Aringaringarosi was leaving his audience with the Pope at the Castle Gandalf. He had learned a terrible thing whose full significance will not be divulged until page 436: the Bishop of Rome wears his underpants in the bath!

What could he be concealing? he wondered. And then it occurred to him: Never trust a man who thinks in italics.

*****

Unknown to Nonferque, Longdick or the Monk, Inspector Bezu Bebel, chief of the SPPF (Section Policière Pédérastique Française) and well-known anagram was on the blower to Aringaringarosi revealing his momentous secret. “Don’t whisper a word”, he said conveniently in English under the guise of not being overheard but also so stupid readers could understand, “I’m now looking at the original of The Last Supper, as newly restored. Have you ever wondered why its dimensions defeat the rules of the Golden Ratio?”

“Can’t say I’ve noticed”, replied the Bishop who thought art was just short for Arthur.

“Well, if you extend the frame of the work downwards so that it observes the exact ratio of 1 to (1 plus the square root of 5) (divided by 2))”, he continued, carefully pronouncing his parentheses, “you can see what’s going on underneath the table!”

“Not St Peter ... ?”, asked the astonished Bishop. “Holy shit!”

“Yes”, said Bezu Bebel. “You should have looked more closely at the Papal Jocks, as I instructed on page 69”. But they were both well and truly off the mark so that Longdick could discover the true meaning before them.

*****

Back in Paris, Longdick and Noferque had escaped with the two-ringed keystone to the château of Sir Nigel Twining-Teabags, leaving the Monk, in another pathetic reference to onanism, to flagellate himself yet again in the cul-de-sac of the dark ruelle. In his enormous library, Teabags pulled out a volume from the shelves. The spine read:

====================================
SECRETS OF THE PRIORY OF SCIFI:
CENTRALLY INDENTED FOR AUTHENTICITY
====================================

“Here”, he said to Sophie, turning to the centrefold, “is the original version of The Last Supper whose nether portion has been concealed from the world since the Vatican censored it but an hour after its completion”.

“But, Sophie”, interrupted Longdick, “you should have guessed it all along”.

“What?” she asked, still playing the dumb broad despite the overall theme of sublime femininity.

“Think”, Longdick went on, prolonging the bleeding obvious so the number of pages could go up beyond the $19.95 limit. “The two rings, isn’t it obvious?”

“Shall I give you a clue?” asked Teabags, giving Longdick a knowing, barely concealed homosexual wink. “The word Sangria, doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“A Spanish drink of red wine mixed with lemonade, fruit and spices?” Sophie suggested.

“That’s what everyone has thought since the Council of Nicaea declared it to be a drink in 325AD”, said Longdick, taking over for no apparent reason except that he’s the hero and has to make all the brilliant revelations. “It really splits into two words, SAN and GRIA”.

“I know SAN refers in a restricted version of disgusting public-school argot to the toilet; they converted the American slang CAN, thereby hiding their masturbatory desires by asking the masters if they may go to the san, or sanitorium”, said Sophie, only half-completing the puzzle as usual.

“I learned that derivation at Eton”, Sir Nigel chimed in — when Brown remembered that Sir Ian McKellen might be more important than Tom Hanks. “It was certainly more believable if two boys in succession wanted to go to the san rather than the can. But the actual origin is much more ancient. During the Holy Wars, the Simon Templars would display the C-sign with the left hand pointing backwards when nature called, thereby excusing themselves from their sacred spiritual mission for a mere bodily function. Like the public schoolboys who came after them, they knew that san was a sibilant letter discarded from the Greek alphabet, roughly equivalent to the Doric C but pronounceable either as s or sh. They took the latter interpretation, for obvious reasons”.

“What about the second part?”, asked Sophie, her Royal Holloway training now strained to the limit.

“That”, said Longdick, “is a secret known only to the Simon Templars who excavated the Holy of Holies where the word is carved in stone in Hebrew”.

(Pregnant pause inserted by Brown, still with an eye to the $6m film rights.)

“After applying the Fairport Cryptographic Convention to the four letters of GRIA, it becomes מושב”, he said, “the Hebrew word for SEAT”.

And there, in the painting before her, Jesus and Mary Magdalene — or was it the lovely St John? — were indeed sitting together on a double ….

Art and ill-being: the iceberg theory*

2010-12-29T11:22:00.005+08:00

[[* The load-of-bollocks version of this story is here.]]

=======================================

Now that we’ve fetishised the terms, it seems that all the great artists of the past were queer, left-handed epileptics. Or, because we’ve invented the terms, they were all bi-polar, œdipal narcoleptics. Usw.

However, since his life time fell within our own era of pseudo-psycho-science, it can be truly and honestly said that Ernest Hemingway was indeed depressed. He was principally depressed about two things in particular. Women and America. And these two things were connected.

The thing that depressed Ernest most about America was its obsession with motoring. And the thing that depressed him most about American motoring was the newly-invented freeway. And the thing that depressed him most about freeways was the fact that, to ride on some of them, you had to pay. For Ernest, this last cultural fact became an obsession, to the point of absolute clinical paranoia — there’s another one — because it robbed him of the one woman he believed could make him truly happy and content in life.

In the 1910s and early 1920s, he had to travel to work each day via a short tollway into the centre of Chicago where he worked as a journalist. He hated this trip above all horrors that might come his way in the course of a working day. Rising fascism, the Ku Klux Klan, even the Republican Party could not get his guts to grumble so much as that daily stop at the toll booth where a hideous little toothless man, disfigured beyond all possible human proportions, collected his 5¢, Monday to Friday, week in, week out. This dwarf came to stand in young Ernest’s over-developed literary imagination for all that was ugly about America. He had bad dreams in which he fought him, bare chested, man to dwarf, but never came off victorious.

Then, one bright July day, the man was gone. He’d been replaced by the most gorgeous, stunning red-haired woman Ernest had ever seen. Officially, Ernest was “in love” with Hadley Richardson, also a beautiful red-head whom he would later marry. Literary history’s page, so far, does not record how much woe Ernest actually felt. Skipping to Paris to marry Hadley seemed to all those who knew him like his dream. And all the biographies concur. Yet he carried a secret candle, all those years, for the beautiful woman who now took his nickel on the way to work. She, it appeared to him, in his deepest, unspeakable, heart of hearts, could transform his twin depressions about America and women in a single moment of joy. But he was never to have her despite the protestations of his intimate friend Sherwood Anderson.

It is only now, in the final months of 2010, that Anderson’s personal journals have come to light and the truth can be known. For Anderson recorded their private conversations in his diary and the entries for this period show nothing other than an utter idée fixe with the mysterious redhead in the booth.

Summarising, Hemingway speaks of his true love but also of his prior commitment to Richardson which, as a man of honour, he could not break. Anderson, by contrast, speaks of Ernest’s obligations to his own heart. But the most frequent topic of their conversations was Hemingway’s fear that “she” (for she is never named) would be already be promised to another. And what chance would he have to discover the truth during their necessarily brief conversations? The dilemma perplexed him to the core; while Anderson urged him, regardless of her status, to press his suit.

Anderson, as I’ve already made known, failed. Hemingway was to be abjectly miserable for the rest of his days. His friend’s final words on the subject, recorded just before Hemingway and Richardson’s departure, must have stayed with him until, and perhaps were partly the key to, his death by suicide: “Ask not for whom the toll belle is, the toll belle is for thee”.

Pseudo Times 716 — The Song of Cygnus atratus?

2010-12-26T08:29:00.002+08:00

Yes, the puzzles are definitely getting better and there may be a reason for this if the grapevine re Auntie Dot’s career is correct. If things keep heading in this direction, the competition may even begin to turn into a vaguely fair (Ximenean) one and I shall accordingly have to reconsider my pre-emptive strikes in the name of cruciverbal justice. One option will be to delay the blog until the comp’s closed on the following Friday. For now, however, just a few hints — except where egregious and diabolical liberties remain and Zorro is called to slash a great Z across the page.

Across
1. Double def, one cryptic; and a shockingly wrong part of speech. NB: we call them “duffers”.
10. There’s only one five-letter star that ends in EL. It’s in Orion.
11. CENT,RALLY. Here’s a classic instance of the compiler knowing nought about this country. In fact from 1926 to 1931, there was an officially designated territory called Central Australia.
12. Seriously poor cryptic definition. But then you’d have to know the basics of marsupial reproduction.
13. Another double def.
14. Anagram (error,T). The construction of the clue unfairly makes it look like you’re looking for a nemesis, but that’s just added as padding to make the surface slightly more coherent. By contrast, the inclusion of “this” points you to the actual definition and solution.
16. Anagram (a,decent,E).
18. Mixed charade. But “can be” ≠ ABLE.
20. Cryptic def. Plain as the nose on your face.
23. A pun and the source of many a bad joke about addicted nuns getting their kit off.
24. Homophonic charade.
26. Straight anagram.
27. Anagram (a,pup,I); froggy word for “support”, not necessarily military. There’s also a more horsey meaning.
28. I SEE included in A N(ew) BALL. A hideous pommy confection that can, in suitable numbers, also be used as buckshot.

Down
2&8. As noted in the earlier post, I think there’s a typo here and the clue should read “to GET fish for food” for this is indeed an edible fish, Neoplatycephalus richardsoni. Note that there’s nothing to tell us to include the E for “energy”.
3. Perhaps the best clue in the puzzle. You have to remember the term used in old business letters for “last month”. Easy to get fooled into thinking DEC or H.
4. Anagram (Scot) + …
5. Straight charade apart from the “of”. Heather is nearly always this or ERICA.
6. Anagram.
7. Anagram (D,in,most,horrid). It helps to know your Greek, dromaios (“swift-running”) and ornis (“bird”). Includes the giant emu.
8. See 2dn.
9. Extended double definition where you have to read “finds” as a pointer (instruction to find) the more literal of the two.
15. Straight charade (RA for “Rear Admiral”) …. The def includes some cuckoos, but also my old friend the Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike. So, definition by example.
17. Another abbrev. from old letters written on paper. Remember those?
19. ANT,LION. An insect much beloved of crossword setters. Usually two words.
21. Not quite fair, as there’s only an indication for three of the seven letters (HUB) and where not to stick them. Jim’s nemesis in the Royle Family Christmas Special.
22. TU for “union” ….
25. Now here’s a gripe: part of the anagram is concealed. You have to convert “ten” to X before sorting the letters. This is simply not on in today’s world of crossword etiquette.

Pseudo Times 716 alert

2010-12-24T12:51:00.002+08:00

To all those who follow such things, Dot’s #716 is in today’s paper.
It’s a poor excuse for the usual Weekend edition but will still cost you $2.60 in these parts.
The crossword is on page 19.
I’ve done it and will report later.
Suffice to say for now, I think there’s a typo in 2&8dn.
There should be a “get” between the “to” and the “fish” — and even allowing for that, the clue is dodgy.
Ramson will help if you have him to hand.
(NB you can still get the cut-down version here.)

And ... the real ST Xmas puzzle is still sitting in .pdf form on my desktop.
Not that it’s any good.

Bushes 1, Nietzsche 0 — A Christmas Cavil

2010-12-24T09:28:00.014+08:00

The worst “thriller” ever written, Michael Jackson notwithstanding, is Eleven Hours by Paullina Simons. I had it in a stack of things other people call “holiday reading” because they have holidays. Most of the others have been OK so far and I particularly recommend Reginald Hill’s Pascoe and Dalziel books. They’re much better than the telly programs of the reverse title, if only because Pascoe’s more focal and interesting in print than on the screen and because they (at least the ones I’ve read so far) don’t tell you how to pronounce the other policeman’s name. And most of the people in them are bright as buggery — especially the lovely DS Edgar Wield.

Simons’ book is all about incredibly stupid people doing incredibly unbelievable things to no point whatsoever. It may not take you eleven hours to read it but, however many it takes, you’ll want them back. With interest — because this book has none.

It starts with a very pregnant woman, Didi, in a Texan shopping mall. Apart from the fact that she’s pregnant — a condition which, probably in general and certainly in Texas, ought to require a licence — there is absolutely nothing to recommend her. She’s a classic middle-class American christist who likes nothing more than purchasing and praying. And she is utterly, utterly, stupid.

Somehow a nasty man, Lyle, manages to get her out of the mall and into his car. He offers to carry her bags (full of useless crap), but she refuses, suspecting him of male-volence. But still, having refused, and still suspecting, she goes with him under the weakest of verbal entreatments. Turns out later that he’s carrying a gun and a knife (which, of course, he has to use later) but these do not come into play in her abduction. The whole thing should have fallen into a heap at this point on sheer grounds of believability; not to mention æsthetics. She could have coshed him with the sheer weight of her purchases, for example. But that would have prevented the litany of farces to come.

The scene shifts to her distraught and equally stupid husband, Rick. To cut an unduly long (300 pages) story short, he ends up with the stupidest FBI agent in the world, Scott, who — and this is likely to happen, isn’t it? — takes him on the recovery mission, allowing him to ride in the FBI helicopter, to wear combat gear, usw — stopping just short of issuing him with a firearm. Only their combined stupidity allows the search to go on for quite so many bits of wasted tree.

A single example: not much after 7:00pm, way more than an hour before sunset in Texas in summer, the cops find that, and from where, Lyle has stolen a police car and is now using it as the kidnap vee-hickle. The police car has a unique identification number and they have a helicopter. Wield would have had Lyle in the cuffs within a few minutes.

Didi and Lyle aren’t rich, just average Americans (i.e., fairly rich). They don’t have enemies, unless they are rival christist publishers (Rick’s job) — now that would have made a great plot! And Lyle doesn’t know them. So why on earth else would a nutcase abduct a specifically pregnant woman? You don’t have to be Shamrock Wombs, or even Tara Moss, to work this one out. But it’s not revealed as such, in actual printed words, until page 263! Simons must think her readers are as stupid as her characters and, most likely, as stupid as she is on this showing.

From a practical point of view, the shopping and the faith in god-and-fairies remain more or less in tact by the end of the story. Now, in Texas, that’s called getting your priorities right.

To be shore, to be shore

2010-12-23T10:08:00.002+08:00

Austal Ships, founded in Fremantle, has just won a contract to build ten littoral combat ships for the US Navy.
Minjup Boats Pty is now applying for the metaphorical ones.

Yoof & Gasping Ruins

2010-12-22T14:56:00.001+08:00

In the inevitable shopping centre today, I saw a spotty youth emerging from a Fone Shop. His badge read “Senior Consultant”.
As it’s approaching the Season to be Gay, the religious were out in force. I was approached by two teens in white shirts and their badges let me know they were Elders.
Home now, and on the local radish, the host is introducing an adolescent psychologist. But then they all are, aren’t they?

Draft dodging 2011

2010-12-20T07:31:00.000+08:00

No way Phil Ochs would get out of the army as of today:

Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse ...

Two good reasons to like global warming

2010-12-19T16:29:00.000+08:00

Bring it on, I say.
If the sea levels rise by 14 metres they’ll drown most of Fremantle and practically all of UWA.
Look — click on it for details.

You can check your own situation at: http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=-27.8390,138.1640&z=13&m=7.

Pseudo Times 715

2010-12-19T13:19:00.000+08:00

A very strange and mixed weekend of crosswords this week, brightened only by the sound of clattering English wickets. Started with the Saturday (London) Times (24724). I found this quite hard and got stuck all over the grid, largely because all four long answers (two of 12-letters and two of 14-letters) proved troublesome and were not available in the bit of software I call “Neville”. (Details on application, as it were.) But how’s this for a great clew?: “Persistent rhythm: to be taken up, please beat it like this (8)”.

Moved on to the (real) ST which was a Christmas jumbo. This was quite the opposite. Lots of really obvious cross references to Wenceslaslike themes and chestnuts (!) galore. Must be friggin freezin in the allegedly united kingdom. Also a typo of Pseudo Times proportions. If Minjup Diary fans (sans Times subscription) have not much to do over the Xmas period, give me a buzz and I’ll let you “have all the details”. You get my drift, as the wind said to the snowman? After all, we have no idea whether there’ll even be a Weekend Oz next week.

So, to Dot’s Own Offering. I did this on Saturday morning in charming company and whizzed through it before said company could brew the second coffee or even manage to find a dictionary. (Turns out there wasn’t an English one in the house anyway.) Just got a mail from NP wishing me well with the TN — thanks NP; White Tara will no doubt do the trick — and expressing a few Dot-induced difficulties this week. So it may not be so straightforward as I thought at the time. Still, in keeping with the possible crossword drought, I’m going to be more cryptic than usual.

All I’m going to do is reveal the unches (unchecked letters) in the answer grid, row by row. One note of caution though: there’s a wrong tense in the clew to 11ac. Here we go.

Row 1: A,V,M,A,N,P,P,R
Row 2: H,M,S,E,R,P
Row 3: E,R,N,O,S,Y,H,A
Row 4: A,P,O,A,I,S
Row 5: B,E,A,A,I,A,E
Row 6: P,R,U,E,L,L
Row 7: T,R,U,G,C
Row 8: E,P,S,H
Row 9: G,T,L,M,O
Row 10: U,A,G,I,M,N
Row 11: T,O,S,E,M,L,M
Row 12: L,N,H,T,M,N
Row 13: C,N,L,S,S,B,T,K
Row 14: D,E,L,V,S,V
Row 15: H,D,O,O,G,D,A,R

A Harpy Crumble to all our bleeders.

And if you’re travelling between the Peloponnese peninsula and the Greek mainland, have a Crappy Isthmus.

AWOL #2

2010-12-16T16:53:00.000+08:00

Yes … the reason for all this strange behaviour and consequent absence from my post(s) is simple. But few will believe it.

Sledge has been off the grog for more than two months now!
No, not a drop unless the odd gargle with Listerine counts.

Not, for one moment, that I’ve been tempted to join the local Temperance Society. No wowsering round here. Though I’ve yet to be game enough to go down the pub and drink a lemon squash in front of the usual crowd. Bad enough running into Spookie in the deli the other day while checking out a 24-pack of Pepsi Max. He didn’t recognise me without a six of Coopers.

(Talking of which, I wouldn’t buy any shares in this great purveyor of fine ales right now. Their share price has plummetted during October and November. Wonder why.)

Now, I suppose, you’re pondering the connection between Sledgean groglessness and anal-dyslexia and I’m not really sure what it is myself. But I’ll try to have a go. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

For quite a number of years now, decades perhaps, I’ve suffered minor bouts of a nasty little number called Trigeminal Neuralgia. Check it out on the web if you like; there are lots of sites on the subject. My take though is this.

You’re minding your own business, not doing much to disturb the Order of the Universe and then, with nary a portent but a slight jaw ache and a watery eye, a Mack truck full of bauxite hits you in the side of the face. If you think I’m exaggerating, remember the worst toothache you’ve ever had, multiply it by a factor of ten and then imagine it taking over the whole of one side of your head for half a day.

For years, I put up with occasional attacks, happily hitting them with codeine. But over the years it’s got more frequent, more painful and longer-lasting. The amount of codeine required to knock it out was getting dangerous. Not to mention the funny looks on the face of the Blyton pharmacist. I took to going in there in a singlet so he could see I didn’t have tracks.

So I went off to see Dr Haruspex. (He’s a Punjabi chap and his name has been anglicised to Harry. He wears glasses. Hence.) He’d tried a while back to get me on a course of treatment what they give to epileptics. Apparently, there was some poor bastard who was both an epileptic and a TG sufferer. When he went on this stuff, he stopped fitting and also had no TG attacks. Don’t know who he or she was. But I’m grateful.

Last year — and it seems strangely to coincide with the big Easterlies coming in, Octoberish, depending on how the seasons are going — I got into a bit of this treatment and it seemed to work. This year, not much cop. So Haruspex upped the dose. Considerably. Once it was in my bloodstream, after a week or so, all was well. Except that, ten minutes (exactly ten minutes) after a cleansing Coopers, the Mack truck was back. And so, therefore, was the codeine.

Back up to Blyton to consult Haruspex. “Oh”, says he, with his subcontinental inscrutability, “I didn’t tell you about that bit. Thought you were a clever chappie and could work it out for yourself”. Turns out this stuff works on the CNS and alcohol negates whatever it does to it. So, up goes the dose again and a strict caution to stay away from the types of beverage that have sustained me since my Old Dad used to slip me a shandy or two when I was about twelve.

Accordingly, I’m blaming the anality on having to keep myself busy instead of my usual routine of thinking: Oh ferk it — it being whatever happened to need doing at the time — let’s crack a beer or two, or twelve. And I’m blaming the dyslexia on whatever the medicaments are doing to my CNS.

In short: I’ve become extremely boring. I’d like to think sort of like Van Gogh on treatment for his madness. He’d be a complete wash up today. Come to think of it, he had to bloody well die before anyone took any notice anyway.

Damn!

AWOL #1

2010-12-14T17:40:00.001+08:00

OK, it’s true that the MD has been a bit without content for a while if you ignore the crosswords, even if that’s the only reason why most people bother to read the bloody thing in the first place, so I think some kind of explanation is well and truly overdue.

The truth is much stranger than a fair bit of the yarn-spinning that passes here for objective reportage on WA’s most important non-town. One clue is just how dodgy my crossword solving/explication has become over the last few weeks, like mixing up my Macropidia with my Macropodia. How could anyone confuse Kangaroo paws with Mallee fowl? Only a seriously twisted brain could manage that and mine’s normally fairly twisted as it is.

Another clue, which you will have been unable to observe, since it’s been conducted by a consenting adult in private, is yours-truly’s all-but-obsessive tendency to spend his time engaged in all those tasks you just don’t do, the things you put off until another day because they’re not utterly, glaringly necessary. Things like: defrosting the fridge, scrubbing out the microwave, pulling out that curious bit of the washing machine that collects all the fluff and bashing it with a toothbrush, getting out the Mr Muscle and removing grease from the inside of the oven and related kitchen parts. Not to mention similar feats of cleanth involving ceiling and extractor fans, light-switch surrounds, even remote controls. It’s amazing how much crap the latter can accumulate. Take a look some time in a good light.

On top of that there’s been guitar renovation, further fits of making good the missing bits of painting around chez Sledge and even scraping off the paint from an old jarrah bookcase I’ve had in the shed for the last dozen or so years. All this without mentioning a serious re-mulching of Stage II of the garden — involving trips to the local tip where free mulch is to be had and a charming class of person to be conversed with. Said trips, of course, have a tendency to clog up the ute; so that’s had a good going over as well, including scraping off some tar stains that have been there since I bought it all that time back, and applying a special product that dissolves the brake-dust from the rims.

No wonder I haven’t had time to waste at the keyboard.

For the same period — we’re talking a couple of months here — I’ve developed a strange form of auditory and visual dyslexia. That is, I mis-hear and mis-read very ordinary things with remarkable frequency. Here are just some of the auditory examples.

• Some earlier frost => smellier frost
• They did get very excited => the dickhead’s very excited
• He’ll be quite happy in his role => he’ll be quite happy in Israel
• Calf-length black socks => catholic black socks
(You have to hear this last one as pronounced by David Letterman.)

You get the sort of thing? But you have no idea how aggravating it can be when it happens all the time. Did I really hear/read that? And then you have to check … if you can. If not you just go slowly nuts. And when it comes to writing, which I’ve been avoiding — ah the rub! — I’ve been simply too scared of writing the wrong word. Crosswords, especially the homophone clues, have become nightmares. And I try to do the real Times every day and not just the Dotty Pseudo at the weekend.

So what’s behind all this general anality-dyslexia? Simple … but you won’t believe it.

[[Stay tuned for the next episode in which all this explained. I have to go and clean something. Urgently!]]