More tales from the crypt, or... Two of the only three times I have ever been physically scared by another human-being in My Life.
Many long years ago, for a variety of reasons, including telling a copper that my name was Scott Fuckalltodowithyou, I found myself temporarily without freedom. After the coppers had finished trying to fit me up for an armed robbery - they even had 'eyewitnesses' who would swear that it was me who stuck up the ANZ bank eight months before I had ever visited the town concerned - the coppers informed me that they had warrants for outstanding fines totaling $2200, or 44 days back then. "Sweet as a nut" I said, "You've already got me, let's get it over with"
I was then informed that, by law, I had to be given seven days grace as a last chance to pay. "But I'm not gunna" I said, "Let's just get it over with"
No dice. They kept me in custody for four days, including a night in Pentridge where I spent the night in the hospital ward, there being no room at the inn. While there, I won 16 cartons of cigarettes playing 'Red Aces' with Billy 'The Texan' Longley and an armed robber from Geelong who had some sort of infection in his 'nads and had to rest his legs in a set of gynecologists' (help me, spell-checker) stirrups. He had to have ointment rubbed into them by a nurse every three or four hours. He preferred to have a male nurse do it, because he reckoned the women didn't know the difference between "Gently massage ointment into testicles" and "vigorously knead dough until all air bubbles have been removed".
He thought he had troubles; I'd just won the jail equivalent of about two months wages from Victoria's most famous criminal. I didn't sleep much that night, but I needn't have worried, Billy is a man of honour, at least he is when he probably extorted the smokes from some-one else in the first place. I was being let out in the morning anyway, so I gave them back when the screws came to get me.
At the time I was sharing a house *NOT a synonym for fucking* with the woman who was the mother of the kid whose birthday party I described way back when. The kids' father was currently serving fifteen years for attempted murder. Of the mother.
A Painters and Dockers 'agent'; he told me once, when we went to visit "I like you, you look after my kids" then he leaned in close"O.K." He said it quietly and he's only a little bloke and he was in custody and I wasn't, but I shit myself.
Taking this into consideration, I thought it was probably not the best idea for the coppers to come and take me from the house and get the kids all traumatised again, so, allowing for the evil reputation the local Police Station cells had (Very icky, indeed) I decide to front up at Russell Street when the week had elapsed and hand myself in.
Your time in custody in those days was counted by calendar, so if you were locked up at 11.59 p.m., as soon as the clock ticked over at midnight, one day came off your sentence. With that in mind, I spent the afternoon beatng my liver into submission and fronted up at H.Q. at about 11.00p.m. I don't know what it's like these days, but back then you walked up Leonard Teale's steps and turned left, pressed a buzzer to be let into a little ante-chamber and pressed another buzzer to be let into the cop-shop proper.
It was there that the trouble started. The coppers couldn't find the warrants. They tried Bendigo, where I was picked up, but they had sent them on. They tried Moe, where they had sent them to, but they had yet to arrive. "But they're on record!" I slurred. To no avail, they have to have the physical document in front of them (or another copper on the other end of a phone can tell them he has them, apparently). I must have got on their tits a bit, because eventually they made me wait in the ante-chamber. While waiting there, the buzzer for the street door sounded and in came a little procession comprised of a couple of regular uniforms, a couple of those Harry Hardcore types who wore the jodphurs, a plainclothes guy and a bloke who looked like that comedian, Carl Barron or whoever it is that does those laundry powder ads. (Might be fabric softener now that I mention it. Whateva.) Carl, for that is what I choose to call him, was cuffed and ankle shackled. The coppers sat him down next to me and a couple of them disappeared inside. Carl was very well behaved, very self-contained and still - no itching or shuffling of the feet for him, thankyouverymuchindeed. After a few minutes he turned around and looked at me. Now, I'm not much given to Marvel Comics/Justice league "pursue the evil-doers" kind of language, but my first thought when Carl looked at me was "This is an evil man, his soul is damaged"
I shit you not.
You know how, in crappy novels, they say "He looked right through me"? He didn't. Or they say " I felt like he was staring into my soul"? I didn't. There was no change of expression, or any real expression at all, he just looked at me as if we were both passengers on a train. And yet, even though he was cuffed and shackled, with numerous burly, armed coppers in evidence, when he looked at me I experienced a level of fear such as I had never experienced in my life. Even as I type this eighteen years or so later I feel illogically uneasy, as if by recalling the memory I may invoke the actuality. Pretty stupid, huh?
I was fucked if I was going to be locked up with Satan Barron so I buzzed the coppers, told them I changed my mind and got them to let me out. As soon as the street door opened every news camera in the southern hemisphere hit the lights and reporters started yelling questions. Raising my arms in victory I began, "I'd like to thank the Academy, Mum and Dad, the director.." only to be returned to the darkness with a chorus of "Fuck off, dickhead" Aah, fickle media.
The next day, after a night which would take many days to describe ( but which did include a gay guy paying to watch a surprisingly pretty prostitute perform oral sex on me in the back of his car as a reward for getting it - the car - started for him. Such was my brief career in porn.) I found out from the rag that Carl Barron was in fact a fairly unsavoury character who had killed a couple of people ( Hell's Angels, I think.), cut them up and stuffed their bodies into forty four gallon drums and dumped them in the Yarra, the famous - at the time - 'bodies in the barrels' case.
Actually, thinking back, it may have been only one barrel. But it was two bodies.
Very rude of him, anyway, that's a public waterway.
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The..., or, Two Completely Unrelated Incidents
I had yesterday afternoon off work to go grocery shopping, the first time off I've had in three or for weeks. Now, I've been in this district for a bit over two years, but the whole time I've been here I've kept pretty much to myself; for a variety of reasons, so I hardly know anybody in the town where I go shopping. I was in the newsagent yesterday and said "hello" to the lady working there, not one of the two ladies who usually take turns operating the place. She said, apropos of nothing, "I'm counting the cards for a stocktake and it's really exciting."
In the next few minutes that lady passed a very important test; I lapsed into my former self and did a two- or three- minute declamatory stand-up routine on the importance to world affairs that the Mungindi newsagent had an accurate estimate on the number of casualties they had taken in the greeting card department. Not only didn't she throw me out, run screaming into the street or even look at me funny, but she even laughed. Loudly. For so long I thought I would have to resuscitate her. Like I said: test passed.
Incident number two: The husband of the Almost Perfect Woman mentioned on this very page yesterday is a vet. About seven years ago he received a call from the local police; somebody had been caught having sex with a racehorse and would he go down to the stables and swab it for evidence?
Several questions occurred to me when I heard this story; As this was the second time the man had been caught with the same horse, was the horse particularly attractive, or did it just put out? Who was the person who caught him and why did they let him finish? Twice? But most importantly, do you think the horse noticed?
I'm not racist, I love niggers. And slopes. And Wogs. And Hebes. Not too keen on Leichtensteinians, but.
The other day, in the pub (not the one I normally go to), I was accused of being a racist. Sort of. Let me tell you the story.
I was sitting at the bar, having a couple of quiet ones with a bloke I know only distantly, when a voice behind me said "Lend us five bucks."
There wasn't much of a questioning tone in the voice, instead it was more like the answer "No." had never occurred to him. Turning around, I saw an aboriginal bloke of about twenty years. Looking him in the eye, I said in a very even tone of voice "Go wash my car."
A very eloquent chap, he said "Huh?"
"I worked for my money, you can too," I said, "You wash my car and I'll give you five bucks."
"You can get fucked you racist cunt, you think I"m just a lazy blackfella don't ya?" he was getting fairly worked up by this stage.
"I think your a parasite, but it's got nothing to do with being a black fella." I said.
"Hey *****, this cunt thinks I'm just a lazy blackfella!" the young buck yelled, at a very large aboriginal bloke about thirty years old. "Oh-oh." I thought.
"You ARE just a lazy blackfella!" replied ***** and the tension eased.
It got me to thinking, though, I reckon I AM racist, but I'm O.K. with it 'cos I don't know anybody who isn't. I don't mean that I live in an enclave of inbred cross-burners, although you could be forgiven for thinking so if you are a fan of the populist media. I mean that I don't know anybody who doesn't form some sort of preconception about other people based on race. It doesn't have to be negative, for example one of the preconceptions I would have if you told me you were Vietnamese is that you were good (or at least studious) at school.
If you were Lebanese, I'd think you owned a milk-bar.
Or a Hyundai with three alternators and the world's supply of sub-woofers with the same "Doof" CD as every other Hyundai doing blockies of High Street (In Melbourne that is, don't know any places similar in Sinny or Brisvegas and I don't know if you're allowed out after dark in the city of mass-murder. In Perth it's prolly Northbridge, haven't been there for a while so I dunno.)
Whatever, the point is, having preconceptions is not by definition evil. A bit insulting, maybe, but not evil. Not unless your preconceptions remain your perception even when contradicted by the evidence.
And another thing, positive discrimination is STILL discrimination. I used to live in a coastal Queensland town, my boss' daughter (Who was about three - eighth's of an inch away from being the perfect woman in every way, being married with three kids was a drawback I was prepared to overcome. Not being the slightest bit interested in me for anything other than casual conversation proved to be a bit more difficult.) was a P.E. teacher; Health and P.E. I think they call it these days. The entrance requirements for her course at Uni were an O.P. score of 5 or better OR BE OF ABORIGINAL OR TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER DESCENT.
Nobody will ever convince that a) this isn't racist, or b)this will do any good for aboriginal people in the long term.
How can having your kids taught by somebody who doesn't have the necessary academic rigour to even legitimately qualify for the subject do them good?
And how does having them learn that "You don't have to try as hard as those white kids because you're aboriginal and they have to let you in anyway" improve their overall situation, or race relations for that matter.
The almost-perfect woman went through the course with an aboriginal girl from Woorabinda who had qualified academically for the course, but was continually forced to defend herself because people believed she was the recipient of a free pass. How is that good?
And don't go to the pub if you're broke, it's a privilege not a right and you earn it by doing something that somebody else thinks is worth paying you for.
Not really, but I've been noticing lately that dramatic post titles are all the go.
Tony Eastley was at it again on Friday, making throwaway remarks about "flood" irrigation and comparing it to overhead- and drip- irrigation. I was going to let it slide, but I couldn't resist any longer.
First of all, as far as I know, Rice is the only crop grown in Australia under flood irrigation. The correct term for the form of irrigation under which most cotton in Australia is grown isSurface - Furrow Irrigation. Flood irrigation is, as the name implies, where the field is flooded to the point where the base of the plants are submerged. Now, although by its nature cotton is keen on a drink, it does not like to be submerged. In fact, it doen't even like the soil to be wet for too long.
Surface Furrow Irrigation is a system whereby the field is laser levelled to a uniform slope from one end to the other (usually about 1 in 800 to about 1 in 1500) with a 'head-ditch' across the top. The field is pulled into hills a metre apart and about 450mm high running with the slope. The cotton is planted on the top of the hills and water is run from the 'head-ditch' down the furrows to the 'tail-drain' where it is collected and re-used (it is illegal for water to leave a cotton property once it has been on a paddock, this applies to storm-water run-off as well. A one in five years storm is the bench-mark I think.)
The reason that this method is used is the soil type. A recent seminar I attended had Australia's leading irrigation designer/consultant Jim (The Alternator*) Purcell as one of it's speakers. Jim has worked mainly in the cotton industry, but has worked in Victoria, the Burdekin and Mongolia as well. According to Jim, the soil cotton is mostly grown on in Oz, (Grey cracking clay vertisols for those who are interested) could have been designed for surface furrow irrigation. It has high initial penetration, very low deep drainage, good aeration and very good water retention (It stay moist for a long time, allowing the roots to access the waer.)
I'll continue this later, right now I have to go to work. Remind me to tell you why varying the moisture level is a good thing difficult to achieve with drips or overheads.
Actually, that was one of those "Note to self" things wankers say.
*Alternator = charges even when idling.
Toady, on Adrian's blog, he gave Yobbo's page a deserved plug and also saw fit to give some much appreciated publicity to yours truly. In the course of said publicity, Adrian mentioned the poddy calf trick, in which a bloke (usually the groom at a buck's night) would be restrained and a poddy calf would be persuaded to impersonate Monica Lewinsky with him, most often by pouring milk over his wedding tackle. I haven't seen this done since the eighties in Victoria, unfortunately it was a bit late in the season for poddy calves and the chosen damsel had a couple of teeth. The gentleman in question is yet to produce offspring.
I got to thinking about other, specifically rural pranks and practical jokes and could not come up with all that many... I did send some drunken Baltic tourists in to get permission from my boss to view the coloured cotton (which is getting close to reality, but that's another story) and I know of at least one girl who suck-started several 3" diameter syphons. She proved to be very popular later on. Dead pigs have also been known to appear in places not normally associated with feral animals.
My personal favourite isn't actually a prank, but a story which has entered the rural lexicon: The Drover's Send-off.
For those of you who are unaware, which may be a few of you these days, many years ago, before the advent of road-trains and before the railways were widespread, cattle and sheep would be walked to market, or from one property to another, sometimes over distances of many hundreds of miles. The people who undertook this activity were called drovers. Droving is still a common occurrence, these days it is done to find feed for the stock in dry seasons, in the 'Long Paddock'.
The Drover's Send-off dates back to the nineteenth century when most droving was done on a contract basis by simple bush blokes, the sheep or cattle being owned by wealthy squatters, the original land thieves to whom some of Oz's most prestigious families trace their roots. After sometimes months on the road, carefully herding the squatter's stock, the drover would ask for his cheque. Usually it was forthcoming, but now and again the squatter would instruct his foreman to give the drover a send-off. And the send-off itself? It was described to me as "Shove a leg o' mutton up his arse and set the dogs onto him."
Which reminds me of the time on Argadargada station, where I was visiting friends and I asked, it being a remote place, what they did about sex. "About eight of us take the cook out the back and take turns fucking him," I was told.
"Don't like that idea very much." I said.
"Neither does the cook," my mate said, "That's why eight of us do it."
You had to be there.
Recently, I've bee getting a bit of shit for being in the cotton industry. Actually, it isn't just recently, it's been happening for years, but lately it's been stepped up a few gears.Check this out for starters.
What started as a mild comment in reply to a post on a very funny site degenerated very shortly into an abuse fest by someone called Karol who seems to think that anybody who grows cotton should be sodomised, or something. This Uber-Hippy made a series of claims about cotton and what he sees as the panacea to the world's ills - hemp. When challenged to cite his sources for these claims, the Uber-Hippy remained silent, which leads me to believe that his source was some unwashed bead-wearer who bludged a cup of 'free-range' dandelion tea from him to wash down the wholemeal lentil burger he ate during a break in the "knit your own goat" talk at the "Back To Gondwana 2: Peace, Love and Vegetable Rights" festival at Nimbin, incorporating the "Circumventing Centrelink" seminar. Not that I have anything against Hemp; some of my favourite garments are hemp. Really.
As an aside, the dairy industry in Australia uses 250%(roughly) the amount of water that the cotton industry does, for a return of less than 25% the amount per megalitre. At least, it did in 1996-97, the last year that I have figures for. Christ knows what the returns are for the poor bastards after de-regulation. Coupled with the fact that the Australian cotton industry is the most efficient of the major producers in the world, in terms of bales/ha and bales/meg (Israel beats us on both counts - an amazing feat considering what they have to work with - but it is a tiny industry by world standards) and the 'Planet Raper' lobby group loses credibility. Unless you work for the ABC.
Now, usually I have a fair bit of time for the ABC radio mob, especially when you compare them with the opposition, but this morning Tony Eastley gave us a real hatchet job on the A.M. program. After interviewing a few people from around the Menindee/Wilacannia region of the Darling Basin and giving them all a sympathetic "There, there" hearing he interviewed John Grabbe, the manager of Cubbie Station, the world's biggest cotton irrigation development. Before I go on, I must mention that nobody Eastley interviewed had the knives out for Cubbie or anybody else. It was mentioned but not complained about.
Eastley had different ideas, though, repeatedly cutting Grabbe short when he was answering and highlighting the fact that while people in NSW were short of water Cubbie was "holding it up" in their storages "the size of Sydney Harbour" At no stage did Eastley mention that last year, out of 35,000 acres available for cotton on Cubbie, they grew none. 0. Nil. Zilch. Nor was there any mention of the fact that, in terms of water quantity per acre, Cubbie doesn't hold any more water than any other well designed cotton farm.
Much was made of the fact that NSW had halted further irrigation development on the Murray- Darling Basin in 1993, whereas QLD didn't. No mention was made of the fact that there ain't hardly nowhere left to develop in NSW anyway, instead it was yet another case of "We're finished, so you've got to stop, too."
It's not hard to tell what market Eastley was aiming at - the inner Sydney denim-wearing cotton - haters.
It's late, I'm tired, I'll rant some more another time.
Ho hum, Carlton wins another one, what else is new?
I haven't had much of an opportunity to watch the football over the last few years, because I have a) a job which entails much weekend work and b) a life. However, we had a little shower of rain last night, which means that I won't be able to get the offsets going until after lunch so I had time to watch the replay of the Carlton - Richmond game on the Footy Channel this morning. Several points which had been lurking somewhere in the hidden depths of what I like to refer to laughingly as my mind crystallized as I was watching the game.
1. Players are marking better now than they have been since the seventies. Why this is I don't know, but I suspect it is because the umpires no longer blow marks in anticipation of the fact. This is a vast improvement over the eighties and nineties when the whistle was blown as soon as the ball contacted hands, leading to some farcical decisions.
2. 50- and even 60- meter plus goals are no longer rare. Even in general play the ball seems to be travelling further on each possession. Again, I don't know why this is, but when you see players like Fevola stabbing goals from two steps at about 55 meters without attracting fawning verbosity from the commentators. it really makes me suspicious of the ball itself; have they changed its weight or shape? I don't know how they could change its weight without sacrificing accuracy, but I'm still suspicious.
3. Players are getting bigger. Or rather, there are more big players. Look at Fevola, Whitnall, even Koutoufides. Richardson looks like he has put on about 12kg's of muscle since the last time I saw him. I put this down to the success of the Lions and the influence Matthews has had on them. A study in strength when he was playing, Matthews has added bulk to almost every Lion and it has worked. Now all the other clubs are playing catch-up.
4. The 'Possession at all costs' strategy seems to have died a death, Richmond's last stand excepted. I suspect this has a lot to do with points 1 and 2, but a lot of these things are cyclical anyway.
And thus endeth the expert summation on the state of the AFL.
Can you smell the sarcasm?
No doubt anybody reading this who has ever attended an office for whatever reason has seen a copy of the many different variations on 'The Rules' stuck up on a wall somewhere by the office funny lady; you know the one. She's the one with the coffee cup that has "You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps!" printed on it. The same woman who decided that the office Christmas party should have a "Titanic" fancy dress theme. The same one who enforces Red Nose Day.
'The Rules' are all variations on the theme of "Rule no. 1: the woman is always right. Rule no. 2: If, for any reason, the woman is wrong, refer to rule no. 1!" Well , in the latest newsletter from the Veteran Speedway Riders Association, which arrived in the mail yesterday, a set of rules from the male viewpoint has finally been published. I will repeat them here in full:
1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.
1. Saturday = sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.
1. Crying is blackmail.
1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: subtle hints do not work. Strong hints do not work. Obvious hints do not work. Just say it!
1. Yes and no are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what you're girlfriends are for.
1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.
1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days.
1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.
1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.
1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know how to do it, just do it yourself.
1. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during the commercials.
1. Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.
1. ALL men see in only 16 colours, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a colour. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.
1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing", we will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.
1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.
1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine. Really.
1. Don't ask us what we're thinking unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as sex, sport or cars.
1. You have enough clothes.
1. You have too many shoes.
1. I am in shape. Round is a shape.
1. Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know. I have to sleep on the couch tonight. But did you know men really don't mind that. It's like camping.
I used to like peanuts. Good things to have around when you're slipping into a few beers, peanut butter is a staple food of fat kids everywhere; and of course who doesn't like a Satay? I'll tell you who, me, that's who. This year we grew 160 hectares of peanuts as an opportunity crop following some rain in early December. I've never had anything to do with them before and if I have my way, I'll never have anything to do with them again. They are the most tedious, dirty, dusty crop to work with I've ever had anything to do with in my life. Everything (and there are a lot of things) has to be done at two or three kilometers an hour: digging them, rolling them, fluffing them and threshing them.
Then comes the fun part; cleaning them. This, laze and gem, is a peanut cleaner -
Your Satay starts here. And that is as dust-free as it gets. Fourteen hours a day standing in the middle of dust so thick that sometimes you literally can't see your hand in front of your face, pushing the machine past its limits trying to keep up to two threshers, shovelling up your mistakes and then the fun part starts; on the cleaner there are four conveyor belts, a set of sizing rollers, an agitator table and a fan. The fan doesn't break. Yet. Everything else likes to have a little rest. Often. Apparently this particular cleaner, which was originally designed by a bloke in Dalby to clean corn kernels, is a major step up from the old days. I'm fuckin' glad these aren't the old days.
First, let's get the compulsory headline out of the way;
Hawks go down fighting
By Joel Zander
After I stopped rolling about on the floor and wiped the tears from my eyes, I read the rest of the article;
Hawthorn have ended a miserable week with an agonising 12-point defeat to Carlton in a thrilling encounter at Docklands in Melbourne.
Without 11 of their list due to injuries and suspension, the Hawks fought valiantly until the end and only lost the match in the dying moments, going down 15.10 (100) to 14.4 (88).
Brendan Fevola was the star once again for the Blues, following up his seven goals last week against Adelaide with six more in front of a crowd of 47,302.
Of course, for a mighty club with a proud 140 year history, the win was significant for more than one reason;
It is the first time Carlton have strung together two wins since 2001 and keeps their finals hopes alive.
The result also snapped a four-match losing streak for the club against the Hawks.
Lance Whitnall celebrated his 150th AFL match with two goals for Carlton.
And it was a dam' fine game, too;
The match might have been between 12th and last but it turned out to be one of the spectacles of the season, with the lead changing hands six times.
The Hawks were on level pegging 21 minutes into the last term but late goals to Ian Prendergast and Brad Fisher with the siren sounding in the background gave the Blues the four competition points.
Hawthorn could hold their heads high though, having gained some much needed respect after a string of recent hidings.
They had four players rubbed out by the tribunal during the week following a brawl in last week's clash with Essendon and with several others injured were expected to be easy pickings for the Blues.
Carlton had a 26-point lead at the first change but the Hawks had reduced this to 17 at half-time.
A six goals to three third quarter then gave them a three-point lead at the last break, but it was the Blues who finished the stronger of the two sides.
There's plenty more to the article, but if you want to read it then you can click the link; suffice to say that it was a ball-tearer of a game and that I'm starting to think that we might have a team for the first time in three years.
Hawthorn supporters (both of them) can take solace from the fact that their boys played their heart out tonight, a few of the young blokes are in for long careers.
I had a bit of a Discovery Channel/National Geographic moment the other day on the mulcher. I was chugging merrily down the paddock, turning barley into mulch when out of the blue (literally) a wedge-tailed eagle swooped into the field about twenty metres in front of the tractor. I stopped and watched as the wedgie struggled to lift his(?) prey out of the sprayed-out barley into the stubble. When the raptor had dragged his lunch out of the way, I put the tractor into gear and started down the paddock again. When I drew level with him the eagle took off.
I went over to have a look at what he'd caught and it was a cat. The cat wasn't dead; it's spine was broken and it was trying to drag itself away to safety. Not wanting to put any human scent on it, I left it to it's own devices. Eagles must be a suspicious species, because, after I'd completed three laps of the paddock the eagle still hadn't returned. In the end I went over to the feral beastie, which turned its head and stared into my eyes with an expression of absolute trust such as you rarely see in a wild animal, and broke its neck like a chook.
Finally, somebody what knows big words an' stuff has noticed something that's reached epidemic proportions among the less well cerebrally-endowed - or, as I prefer to call them, fuckwits;
Slang's 'yeah no' debate not all negative
By Bridie Smith
June 11, 2004
Is it just a phrase we're going through? Or could the ubiquitous "yeah no" phenomenon be here to stay?
The verdict from Monash University chair of linguistics Kate Burridge is that the apparently non-committal expression will stick around. And, like it or loathe it, linguists say "yeah no" is a surprisingly effective communication tool.
"It's not going to disappear," Professor Burridge says. "It's always hard to predict with language change, but it looks like its use is on the increase."
How much longer are we going to tolerate this abuse of our goodwill? The trouble is, you can't blame anybody; not the parents, not the government, not the education system, nobody. It is a plague that knows no boundaries, nor respects any class distinctions.
People who are too 'well educated' for "yeah, no" will still 'interface' with you 'vis-a-vis signing off on' some stupid document that should probably never been written in the first place.
This Burridge person (note non-gender specific appellation) intellectualises for a bit on the subject;
In Australia, where the phrase has become entrenched in the past six years, "yeah no" can mean anything from "yes, I see that, but can we go back to the earlier topic" to an enthusiastic "yes, I can't reinforce that point enough". So, where does the distinction lie?
Professor Burridge says the phrase falls into three main categories, each determined by context. The literal agrees before adding another point, the abstract defuses a comment and the textual lets the speaker go back to an earlier point.
The next time a footballer answers "yeah no", be aware that there is more to the reply than just an "um-ah" prefix. In this sporting context, Professor Burridge says "yeah no" is often used in its abstract context; as a way to defuse a compliment by a bashful footballer.
"You've got to downplay the compliment but you can't reject it because that seems ungracious. It's a complicated little thing."
The phrase, a "discourse particle" in linguistic terms, is all about compromise and co-operation. Or, as Professor Burridge puts it, "yeah no" is verbal cuddling.
"It can emphasise agreement, it can downplay disagreement or compliments and it can soften refusals," she says.
Some rooster who does breakfast radio for some (presumably) Victorian radio station put it in perspective, though;
Breakfast broadcaster Ross Stevenson doesn't see it that way. He describes "yeah no" as a verbal crutch - an epidemic from which no strata of society is immune.
"The moment you think you are superior, you will find yourself using 'yeah no'," he says.
Note: painfully obvious joke deleted from end of quote.
*Editors note: I'm a little closer to unravelling the mystery of the shy sidebar, the text of my profile refuses to align to the right hand side of the sidebar wrapper. I know dick about HTML, but I spent a fair while messing with the template today, altering anything that looked like it might have something to do with the sidebar, particularly the profile. I became dejected when deleting the profile from the sidebar altogether caused the top of my 'links' list to move over in place of the profile. I think I'll go harm an innocent animal.
I don't really give a shit one way or the other, but this photo shows what the strain is doing to the poor boy;
Peter Garrett
Artwork: Jonathan Bentley
Garrett claims a silent voice
Luke McIlveen
11jun04
ELECTION-shy rocker Peter Garrett yesterday accepted "full responsibility" for his failure to appear on the electoral roll in the past 10 years. Trying desperately to fix his first political blunder, Mr Garrett claimed he had been enrolled as a "silent" voter and lodged a ballot whenever he was in the country and not on tour with his former band Midnight Oil.
Mr Garrett said he had voted whenever he was not touring, but his failure to properly enrol meant his vote would not have counted.
"My understanding was that I was on the roll. I thought I had a silent enrolment. I have voted in previous elections," Mr Garrett said.
Now, where do I live again?
It sounds like bullshit to me, , apparently I'm not he only one;
But the assistant commissioner of the Australian Electoral Commission, Brien Hallet, confirmed Mr Garrett could not have been a "silent elector" or eligible to vote if his name did not appear on the roll. "Your address is blanked out, but your name must be included on the roll, otherwise we are unable to confirm your identity when you vote," Mr Hallet said.
When questioned over his claim that he was on the silent roll, Mr Garrett said he had feared for his family's safety in the mid-1980s when he ran for the Senate with the defunct Nuclear Disarmament Party.
Garrett has one more radical maneuver left in his arsenal;
After coming under fire from local ALP branches since news of his decision to run for Parliament broke, Mr Garrett said yesterday he was confident the party's working-class ideals would not clash with his green past.
He also promised to move to the inner city electorate he hopes to represent after the next election
I wouldn't count on getting a 'welcome basket' if I were him.
This'll teach those Blogger-owning bastards to fuck with my side bar;
Google loses to Yahoo
By Kate Mackenzie
June 10, 2004
GOOGLE'S efforts in the Australian market have taken a body blow as News Interactive yesterday became the third major online publisher to sign a search marketing distribution agreement with Yahoo's subsidiary Overture.
The News Corporation Ltd's online arm joined Fairfax's F2 and CNN in ditching Google in favour of Overture, which has also signed No1 website publisher Ninemsn in the four months since it opened a local office. Both News Interactive - a sister company to The Australian - and F2 had been Google customers for just over a year.
Does any of this ring a bell with anyone?
But there was general dissatisfaction with Google's service.
"The reality is they haven't committed that much resources and time to Australia because they've worried more about other areas," he said. "We've had six different account managers within Google in a very short space of time, and getting them to concentrate has been pretty tough.
The trouble being that when you're stuck on a dial-up connection that rarely makes it to 20k Yahoo takes so long to actually do anything that you may as well not bother.
It's a bit hard to get angry at a company when they are supplying you a product free-of-charge, but fair dinkum, I'm starting to become mildy peeved with Blogger. If you can't find my sidebar that's because it's now the side-of-the-bottom-of-the-page-bar. And the reason Blogger help took three days to tell me?
Hi there,
On occasion, the side-bar will shift when the content contained within the
side-menu extends the column beyond its designated width. We recommend
reviewing the content in both columns to identify items that may be
causing column expansion. In most cases, long links and wide images images
are the cause of the problem.
Thanks, Steve
Blogger Support
So, I deleted the longest links in the sidebar - nothing. I'm not deleting any of the posts or images I've uploaded as a) that's what this fucking blog is for and b) I haven't uploaded even a mildly wild image since two Sundays ago. So, fuck'em, I've bought some very dodgily packaged software and I'm going to see if maybe I can't build my own site. I've seen some of those socially non-functioning pointy-heads who've made a killing out of this sort of thing and I reckon I'm up for the challenge.
I'll keep you posted.
This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.
Your Intellectual Type is Insightful Linguist. This means you are highly intelligent and have the natural fluency of a writer and the visual and spatial strengths of an artist. Those skills contribute to your creative and expressive mind. And that's just some of what we know about you from your test results.
Who said soccer was the world game? World Cup time for Rules, I reckon:
Stefan Becomes a Real Footy Ground - At Last! April 27, 2004
The first official game of Aussie Rules at Stefan Boldklub was between a Danish National team and the visiting North London Lions on September 5, 1992. It's only taken almost 12 years but one of DAFL's oldest hunting grounds comes of age this week with proper (semi-)permanent posts.
They are wooden flagpoles, the goals standing seven metres high and the point posts five metres. They are removeable, much like Farum's original posts were. They will have their baptism next week against Farum. We have also been allowed to extend the ground, unfortunately it can't be made any broader due to trees on one side and drain covers on the other. As such we have settled for 142 metres long and 92 metres wide, which is about 20 metres longer and a couple of metres wider than previously. We have also been trying to fill the worst of the holes on the ground and sow grass, but it seriously needs to be rolled which the local council (kommune) have promised to do, but who knows when...
Can't do much about the goose shit. It appears destined to remain part of the charm of the venue.
I've played on some goat paddocks, but I've never had much of a problem with goose shit.
How good is this? Bombing up and down the paddack today, mulching the barley we'd put in as a green manure crop to try and overcome some of the problems associated with long-fallow I had the radio tuned to the local ABC and "Grandstand".
I'm always a little surprised at how articulate and perceptive some of our athletes are. This week was no exception with Alison Annan, Chris Fydler and a Swans player who for the life of me I can't name. Adam something, not Goodes.
After that came the AFL broadcast from Melbourne. I'm sorry I couldn't see it, because apparently it had the first decent bit of biffo in it since they euthanased Robert 'Mad Dog' Muir.
As an aside, how old do I feel? Jason Wunderlich, one of the players involved (it's his first game, too) is the son of a former team-mate of mine. Anyhoo... during the call they gave updates of the game from Adelaide. Unfortunately, when the Melbourne game was over they crossed to the NRL. I say unfortunately not because I'm an ex-Victorian and don't like/understand league; far from it, I love all codes of football... with varying degrees of comprehension. I also think that Warren Ryan is one of the better pundits/commentators going around. This week was different, however, this week
Ian Prendergast under Pressure this was happening and I wanted to know what was going on. Ah well, I'll just have to read things like this instead:
Fevola kicked four last quarter goals as the Blues won 14.7 (91) to 12.15 (87) before 41,617 people at AAMI Stadium.
Adelaide appeared the better side for most of the contest before a Fevola-inspired Carlton surged back with seven last term goals to steal the victory.
Fevola was the last gasp hero, booting a magnificent 45m goal from near the boundary line with three minutes remaining that gave his side the lead for the first time in the game.
Adelaide's Graham Johncock then had a chance to reclaim the lead for the hosts but kicked out of bounds on the full from a tight angle when 25m from goal.
Didn't need this reminder, but:
The lowly status of both clubs was evidenced in an error-riddled fixture which only gained a spark when the Blues came steaming home in the last quarter.
I don't care; we won! And I actually heard Drew Morphett use the phrase "Suffer in ya jocks!" on the same day! Momentous. Bad segue:
The Crows led by 25-points at three-quarter time and seemingly had the premiership points in safe keeping before Fevola bagged three goals in four minutes to reduce the margin to eight points.
The visitors, with Matthew Lappin also kicking two last term majors, kicked 7.2 in the last quarter to Adelaide's 2.3.
Fevola was brilliant for the Blues, as was acting skipper Scott Camporeale and Lappin.
Why is this even an issue? I would think that people would have more Important things to worry about.
VICKI Harding and her lesbian partner, Jackie Braw, the "two mums" of Brenna, 8, made famous this week on Play School, don't understand what all the commotion is about.
In their world, two mums and a sperm-donor gay father make them a perfectly normal, nuclear family.
"It's really been a lot of fuss about something that's really inoffensive," Ms Harding said yesterday. Ms Harding, Ms Braw and Brenna achieved national fame after their appearance in a short film on the ABC preschoolers' program on Monday morning showing Brenna waving to her "two mums" and with a friend playing on a merry-go-round.
The three are not actors so the segment was little more than a depiction of their everyday life.
Like this.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A bomb at a crowded open-air market in southern Russia killed nine people and wounded more than 30 Friday, news agencies said.
Initial reports from the Volga River city of Samara said oxygen canisters had exploded in the market.
But experts later concluded the blast was caused by a bomb made of one kg (2.5 lb) of plastic explosives. It was attached to a market stall by the side of a railway and detonated by a fuse.
Chechen rebels have conducted a bombing campaign across Russia but investigators said it was too early to say who was responsible.
"Every possibility is considered at this stage, including a commercial dispute among criminal groups," Interfax quoted regional prosecutor Anatoly Yefremov as saying.
The number of gangster-style shootouts and explosions, frequent in the mid-1990s, has fallen sharply in the past few years in Russia, but they are still not unusual
How are the mighty fallen? This story in The Age today is a sign of the times when the only good news story about The Mighty Blues is a puff piece about a rookie making the senior list:
Blues' Irish rookie joins senior list
By Mathew Murphy
June 3, 2004
Carlton's Irish recruit, Setanta O'hAilpin, has been elevated to the club's senior list, raising the possibility of an AFL debut against Adelaide this weekend.
He played one pre-season game this year for Carlton as a backman, and has since been playing for Northern Bullants in the VFL, where he has kicked 11 goals in the past two games.
"This is an incredible effort by Setanta," coach Denis Pagan said. "In fact, considering his background, he has no right to have made such remarkable progress in such a short space of time. His work ethic is outstanding and there is no doubt he will see this as another challenge in his desire to make it in AFL.
Of course, there is another reason he is newsworthy;
"What makes Setanta an even greater asset for Carlton is the way he conducts himself off the field and the positive outlook he has and how beneficial this is to the rest of the playing group."
O'hAilpin replaces Anthony Franchina, who has been placed on Carlton's long-term injury list. O'hAilpin was named in the Irish hurling All-Star team last year.
This story from Fox Sports perked me up a bit this morning;
"CRICKET'S Top End tour could be set for an explosive confrontation, with English match referee Chris Broad set to adjudicate Australia's two-Test series against Sri Lanka.
Broad made the quantum decision to report Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan for the suspect delivery of his "doosra"  the leg-spinner bowled with an off-spinner's action  during Australia's tour of Sri Lanka in March.
Muralitharan, upset by comments from Prime Minister John Howard that he was a chucker, has yet to decide whether he will make next month's two-Test tour.
Broad's appointment can only heighten the reluctance of world cricket's greatest Test wicket-taker to return to his least favourite touring destination."
We can only hope that Broad doesn't let the intimidatory tactics of the Sri Lankan management get to him;
"Lankan officials were livid at the slur against their national treasure and sent an angry letter to the ICC claiming Broad had been drinking with the Australian players and may have been influenced by their opinions."
Cricket's Greatest Pitcher has a record of making promises he doesn't keep;
"After tests at the University of Perth confirmed he bent his arm to an illegal 14 degrees in bowling the controversial doosra delivery, Muralitharan was ordered by the ICC not to bowl the ball.
He initially threatened to ignore this advice but then decided to shelve his potent weapon in the second Test against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo earlier this month."
Let's hope he keeps this promise, thereby admitting that he knows he is cheating. If not let's hope that the ICC continue to support Broad;
"Broad was originally scheduled to handle Sri Lanka's series against Zimbabwe but the role was handed to South Africa's Mike Procter after the ICC declared it was inappropriate for Broad to assess Muralitharan so soon after reporting him.
But the game's ruling body has stood firmly behind the decision to retain Broad for the Top End tour."
I love speedway, my father brainwashed me when I was about 3 years old and I've never gotten over it. To the best of my knowledge, Australia has only ever invented two sports of any stature, Aussie Rules and Speedway. Although we had the first World Champion, Lionel Van Praag (Who was also awarded the George Medal as a RAAF pilot in WWII.), we've only ever had two more, Bluey Wilkinson in 1938 and the great Jack Young in 1951 and 1952 (Still the only man to a}win the world title from the second division and b}hold the world solo championship, the world matchracing championship, the world pairs' championship and the world teams' championship at the same time.)
Since then the pickings have been pretty slim. Well, things are about to change. My prediction is that Jason Crump is going to go one step further this year than his second place for the last three years. Anybody who saw his heartbreaking, but deserved exclusion from the semi finals in the last round of last years championship, when all he had to do was make the final to win the title after Pedersen and Rickardsson both missed the cut will know just how close he has come. Well, this year he's off to a flyer:
Those of you who watched the SGP on Fox will know that the final was all over in the first corner. Jason started from the inside gate and got a brilliant start, but rode wide on the track in an effort to keep Rickardsson (5 times World Champion and clearly the best rider of his generation ) at bay. All round nice guy Adams ducked behind and under Crump and from then it was a race for second place.
Crump - a third generation speedway rider who's father, Phil, was one of my childhood heroes - is claimed as a Queenslander even though he was born in England to a Victorian father (don't know about Mum). I think anybody who went to schoolies' is a Queenslander if they subsequently become a success. This is his best opening round result ever.
The other Aussies to watch are Adams (obviously), and Flyin' Ryan Sullivan. He didn't have the best year in 2003, but he got within a bees' dick in 2002 'til he broke his collarbone in Poland. Ryan, who raced for Peterborough for nine years in the Elite League until switching to Poole this season after he couldn't get enough money out of Peterborough; and Rickardsson, Poole's mainstay withdrew from the Elite League altogether in order to spend more time with his family.
Stay tuned for more updates, if you don't want to know the result of round two until it appears on Fox on June 5th at 1p.m., don't click any of the links.
Did you know that today is World Milk Day? Neither did I until I heard it on the Country Hour today. I feel sorry for dairy farmers, they've copped a kicking in the last couple of years, with de-regulation, feed costs trebling and more during the drought. These are rough figures drawn from an inefficient memory bank, but the farm gate price for milk has dropped by an average of about 45% since the pocket protector brigade got the opportunity to set prices. Still, there's a little bit of hope for some of them; Woolworths national supply contract is up for tender again at a time when market forces are in favor of suppliers. National Foods have the contract now (at 23c/litre, down from a national average of 45c/litre prior to de-reg.) but there is talk of splitting the tender up into regional contracts.
Whether this is a good thing is yet to be seen, areas like northern Queensland, which have relatively few suppliers may see their farmers being able to command a better price, because of the cost of transporting in any alternative. Then again, reducing the size and therefore, power of the negotiating group may not exactly make Mr. Woolworths quiver in his boots.
The Woolworths contract is only for 6% of the national market, but may well set something of a precedent for the rest of the market. I hope so.
By the way, seeing that milk is basically an emulsion of 3.8% fat in water with a bit of sugar and some protein mixed in, what is low-fat milk?
A. Water.
