Here's a couple of jokes to cheer you up.
"May I take your order, sir?" the waiter asked.
"Yes, how do you prepare your chickens?"
"Nothing special, sir," he replied. "We just tell them straight out that they're going to die."
I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?"
She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.I forgot to ask whether you needed
Here's what a former supervisor of mine used to call a "rattling good read" (we were all encouraged to make our turgid briefing notes "rattling good reads"). It's the story of Scrabble and it has all sorts of ingredients: economics, the shortsightedness of large organisations, human nature and change over the generations.
With my increasing propensity to forgetting words (and let's not even
The Sydney Morning Herald raises the old national anthem / national song chestnut and gets the the predictable slew of other types of nuts in the responses. The original short post talked about a 'national song' but inevitably the national anthem vs national song issue arose. Read the post, always a good start.
Apart from ex-Senator Vanstone's predictably turgid neo-lackeyism ("loyal southern
The hypercompetitive airline market hots up with added extras that used to be known as the mile-high club. What next - palnes leave on time?
Took a flight this arvo.
You never know who you're going to get next to you.
It's a big world.
This bloke judges chooks in chook shows.
I now know a lot more about judging chooks.
It's the winter solstice and someone I know very well should have been holding a housewarming tonight. Oh no, that should have been last year, no? Or was it 2006?
Anyway mate, when it does happen we'll be there. When's the next Olympics?
It'd be kind of cool to do some analysis of the 'right-wing' blogosphere ever since we got a 'socialist' government in Canberra.
Socialist? As if. But even
Gold doesn't cut it any more, it probably has to be platinum, or titanium, or both, with bits of argon stapled to the sides.
That was a joke, I don't think argon can be stapled to anything although next time I'm in Office works, I'll loiter around the staplers and ask one of the attendants whether the Acme 3000 staples argon.
Wtf am I on about? Is last night's meandering still under way?
No,
The Sunday paper sheds a bit more light on the current craze in weddings. The celebrity affair referred to yesterday is there - apparently it cost $20m, so evidently this is a very well-paid footballer. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Makes even merchant banking seem respectable.
However it is also revealed that "an international magazine" has paid $10m for "exclusive access" to the wedding. The
Do you see what I see I wondered a little while ago, alluding to the tendency to read our own desired beliefs in any notional randomly independent issue.
One of the things that I see is the greater ability of the 'left' - as so defined from any eon to any random minute - to see flaws in their own team than the right/conservatives in theirs.
It's a rubbish argument of course, but:
a) it's Friday
Of the many, many things I didn't like about John Howard, one was the perception that he was always snarling and scowling but moreso always 'on' as Prime Minister. Well, the story was that he'd wanted to be PM since he was ten years old, so you can imagine that once he was PM, he didn't want to miss a minute.
Anyway with today's Queen's Birthday honours there he was again and the networks
Shaun Carney does the political sums for Kevin Rudd's government using the current future of the motor vehicle industry debate - a long-running serial in Australia.
Going back to the days of Hawke and Keating, the Productivity Commission provided the intellectual muscle for economic deregulation and those governments generally followed its advice.
Yes, they did. So in subsequent years, the
Except this story is about people standing on the inside looking out. And making a motza while they're at it.
Interesting that of the small number of comments, two come from Australia. With our small, incestuous finance and business community, I wouldn't be surprised at a level of insider trading that should, in any fair and decent world, call for a full scale review and rejigging of our
As I look out my window over the mighty Fitzroy towards the hills, I notice -well, it's pretty much inescapable - that it's wet, foggy, dismal and grey. Very unusual.
So I'm sipping at the puky instant coffee - pied a terre VVB is not an oasis of civilisation by my usual measure - and waiting the time to pass so I can go to collect Mrs VVB from the airport. And I run across the Guardian's
Corey Delaney, eat your heart out.
This is the professional way for spoilt brats to celebrate.
I love the divergence in the comments - no wonder we have wars! Such as:
Question from Spain: where is the ''all these lazy, unprincipled foreigners are destroying the social fabric and the wonderful british way of life and should be kicked out'' brigade?
The party rocked!!!!
Kev, Marbella,
(
Wayne Swan has just been eviscerated (within normal 7.30 Report boundaries) by Kerry O'Brien.
Four departments briefed against the national Fuel Watch scheme, so why is the Government going ahead with it?
Hmm...so where were the leaks during the Howard government's reign? At least we know that the current government is getting frank and fearless advice.
Looks like the ABC will definitely
The only song title I could come up with immediately about Saturday.
Why?
Well, not much else to think about. It's a shame the erstwhile brilliance of VVB must decline into its dotage so quickly, but what we need my friends is time, and time we don't have.
However we're here back in the Chateau, perched in the leafy western suburbs and a full Saturday of packing, lifting, toting and ripping up
SBS news carries a report just now that the Burmese generals may be charged with crimes against humanity.
It's been a long time coming.
If we'd been looking for a substantial reason for moving to Rural and Regional Australia, the last couple of days have provided it.
Two days ago Offspring No 2 left her phone at a suburban shopping centre in the leafy western suburbs. Result: exit one phone, not the first time Offspring No 2 has lost a phone under such circumstances.
Then this afternoon I had a couple of beers with a mate at
Looks like Mrs VVB is not on her pat. Even the Times wants more done, although it's a somewhat more nuanced approach. One of the commenters thinks we should air-drop guns.
The bastardry of the generals' regime is beyond our understanding. We must do something.
You all know that I'm a big Jeremy Clarkson fan, but some weeks you go to the Times of LOndon and discover he's got the week off to conduct a mock crucifixion of Tony Blair, or to shoot ecologists.
On those days, you scout around the website and you might run across AA Gill. Gill does to poor restaurants what Clarkson does to Mercedes Benzes and Vauxhalls. So it's by-the-numbers sarcasm dripping
Mention of drugs suggests the topic of addiction, and there have been a few recent media stories about current addictions to technology - texting, games and so on. I have, until today, treated any claims about on-line or technology addiction as a bit wild. Disclosure: rampant blogging aside, of course.
Except for the last day and a half I've been ensconced in a workshop wherein we have been
As Mrs VVB and I continue our seemingly inexorable transition to denizens of Rural and Regional Australia - confirmation of which is now barely days away before we have to commit to The Move - the practical implications loom ever larger.
Foremost amongst these, barring having to find somewhere to park Offspring No2, is all the crap we have accumulated, particularly over the past few years.
Mrs
Yet more revisionism, this time from that fat fool, the previous Foreign Minister for crying out loud. Yes, how on earth did he get to that exalted position? He was once a Third Secretary, which would have equipped him to meet third-rate Australian cultural acts at the airport and conduct them around.
Now he's suddenly got views on the niceties of Australia's policy vis-a-vis the Iraq debacle.
I've got a choice between reading a paper on international standards in pressure-pipe welding, and what we need to do to get welding contractors up to speed, or write about...
Hmm, pressure pipe welding sounds pretty spiffy, eh? Maybe Ha%%y, as he still reads here to find out what I'm up to (don't laugh mate, so does Mrs VVB...) can give me a few pointers. Where are the reputable international
Alexander Downer stands down.
Does anybody with more time - and fortitude - on their hands care to do a trawl to get some Downer quotes on the uselessness of the UN during the Howard era.
They weren't keen on the UN were they, as I recall.
Nicosia's a nice place, I once had to go to a dentist urgently there. They can put a temporary filling in the with the best of them.
Anyway it'll keep
The big nipple, yes.
This is the last sentence in this week's AA Gill restaurant review but it's far from the best, so perhaps you might considering clicking through to read it. You'll get a long-ish essay on specific aspects of evolution and pick-up lines before you get to the restaurant review itself, which turns out to be quite perfunctory. But a worthwhile if not outstanding read this week.
Big black tie 'do' here last night so I had to get myself some new black tie. Until we started cleaning out Chateau VVB I did still have a formal coat, but as it dated back to about 1974 it would have been a bit squeezy and the wide, wide, brocade lapels might have been a giveaway. More tellingly, it had rested on a wire hanger since I last wore it in about 1986 and so the shoulders had gone a
Somewhere only recently I read that people should have paid less attention to Orwell's 1984 as an indicator of the world to come, and somewhat more to Huxley's Brave New World.
With some exceptions and a lot of extra complications, they were right.
Meanwhile, our broader notions of what constitutes a benign society is continually under siege. Forget about 'polite', I fear that very soon it'll
Setting up rules to manage your in-box? Tick. If you're a busy executive, paying someone to manage information flow using judgement and technology? If you don't have a dedicated PA or there are time differences because you are frequently overseas? OK then.Paying a team of MBAs to manage your FaceBook page? Aaaaargh make it stop.
You want to read a review of a restaurant, but you find it contains these words: "I’m perfectly aware of exactly how interesting and attractive a middle-aged, invalid penis is."
Don't tell me you don't want to click through to find out how.
Alright then, how about "...a mincemeat hernia in a bread roll..."
Off you go.
If you don't like Gill you can try Giles Coren, presumably son of Alan
Heart Foundation launches female awareness campaign
Very thoughtful of them, but I've been aware of women since...a long long time.
Oh, that's not what it was about? How silly of me.
Let's start with Ms Pants' comment on the last post about similarities between the early days of the Rudd and Blair governments. Of course Blair sent his emissaries to Oz to study the success of the Hawke/Keating era, just shortly before the Australian public decided it was far from similarly enchanted and got itself 11 years of whining and disdainful indifference, unless you happened to be a bit
Today's Sunday Mail carries a mildly hysterical little piece on how children and their parents are having trouble dealing with a rating system that indicates that some children might be performing better than other children in the same class.
Hmm, I remember many years of half-yearly exams which carried out exactly the same function. I've been ruined for life although not as ruined as my parents
For the last few weeks Chateau VVB has served up morsels from the Times of London. But tonight we go to the Guardian, various readers will feel more at ease I guess.
First the serious: an opinion piece on the recent UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) talks, particularly in relation to biofuels. It's not a bad article but wow!, the comments. Surely we get some comments of insight and
"tired of waiting for yoooooouuuuuu..."
Midweek-ish, plenty of work so too busy to spend much time here, I'll tell you what I'm sick and tired of:
opinion polls of politicians' "approval ratings": it's only been 6 months since the bloody election for crying out loud, if Rudd's "approval rating" goes down x% and Nelson's comes up y%, what actual impact could this possibly have?similarly, "MSM
A couple of opinion pieces in the Times of London.
Gerard Baker posits a decline in the Britishness of being British...economic stagnation and a political system that isn't quite democracy.
India Knight looks at the same issue from the viewpoint of the recreational habits of a substantial underclass without hope, and what they make their society. The upright working class, the "conscience and
One I hadn't heard before.
I had to officiate at a 'do' tonight. We had a visiting delegation of 6 people: I introduced them all then did a bit of a spiel.
I then introduced one of the group who was to do a talk. Part way through I thought, "I forgot one of them when I did the intros." Then the one speaking mentioned this bloke by name and I thought, "ahh, he's made up for it, I must have
OK, thanks to Political Theory Daily Review, here's why I do it.
By "it" I mean blogging, what on earth were you thinking I meant?
Anyway it's therapeutic and unless I write this drivel I'll be certifiable. Actually I need to be certifiable to write the drivel, it's all cause and effect.
I mean, innit?
Even if correlation is not causation, well, nothing even correlates with what goes through
A little reflection after last night's post on the cyber-bullying issue leads me to reaffirm my commitment to opposing the death penalty in all circumstances. I am not a wobbly on this issue, no matter how enticing an opportunity to improve the gene pool might appear. Executing teenagers is not a policy platform for a kind and tolerant Australia, yes?
But what is a suitable punishment? Here are
Your humble correspondent is a troubled, and increasingly somewhat pissed, soul this evening.
The news from Burma gets ever more dire, not that anyone with any understanding of the bastards that run the place should be surprised.
Returning from a semi-work function last night we were listening to the radio with some unidentified UN official giving a series of increasingly bureaucratic (there
Looks like Mrs VVB is not on her pat. Even the Times wants more done, although it's a somewhat more nuanced approach. One of the commenters thinks we should air-drop guns.
The bastardry of the generals' regime is beyond our understanding. We must do something.
Looks like Mrs VVB is not on her pat. Even the Times wants more done, although it's a somewhat more nuanced approach. One of the commenters thinks we should air-drop guns.
The bastardry of the generals' regime is beyond our understanding. We must do something.
Those of you who are so intrigued by the brilliance regularly on show at Chateau VVB, or possibly with far too much time on your hands, may have visited the 'about me' profile summary.
In there, you would have found a short list of 10% or my favourite bands, including 'one hit wonders'. I included this as a shorthand way of not listing a whole heap of songs I really like, such as I fought the
Actually, please do look back - and front, but never sideways - in anger.
I walk very quickly. I like to get from A to B because that means I'm ready to get back to A again before everybody else. So whenever Mrs VVB and I are walking somewhere, she always gets a wry look when I almost walk over the back of someone or, more accurately, when she notices me forcibly refrain from bunging my elbow
You know, I feel very disappointed that several months after the ascension of St Kevin of the Good and Goodier, here at Chateau VVB we're still snarking about Alexander Downer. Really need to get over it, even if he does deserve all he gets.
But I don't believe in deleting posts just because I feel bad or ambivalent about them.
About a millennium ago I started to talk about a personal, an
Well a few very little things caught my very small attention during the day, a day very full with lots of activities so the old short-term memory problem has manifested itself at a great rate.
But...let us try, shall we?
Crikey reports itself less than convinced with Leader of the Opposition Brendan Nelson's heartfelt plea to the assorted good and godly at the National Press Club that the
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