No wonder they lost the empire

why would you eat this shit, anyway?

Such a shy girl

Apparently Britney Spears is shitty with US Weekly magazine for publishing photos of her honeymoon. So I thought that I'd publish their article, too.

Everybody's a critic...

Being as how I'm all cultural and that, I thought that I'd share my opinion on non-representational art.
Most of it is crap. Despite what its perpetrators would tell you, most of it doesn't mean anything. However, some of it is aesthetically pleasing.Years ago in Melbourne A Bloke made a 'sculpture' which had some high falutin' name, but which everybody called the Yellow Peril. It was a few bits of flat yellow steel plate leaning against each other. According to the 'artist' it meant... something. Dunno what. Neither did anybody else. It caused probably the biggest kerfuffle in the history of the universe (next to the disgruntlement felt by Swans supporters when the Blues swapped Simon Minton-Connell for Greg Williams). Eventually it was banished to a wasteland under a bridge. I liked it.
Now New Yorkers are going through the same thing. This Christo character made his name wrapping stuff. He started small, with cans and bottles:
This is called, funnily enough, 'Wrapped cans and bottles', 1958 - 1959
Then, in the tradition of, well, traditions, Christo decide that size does matter, and proceed through wrapping architectural scale models to larger outdoor jobbies like this one, entitled 'Dockside packages, 1961, Cologne Harbour'.


I'm not going to labour the point, or overload dial-up browsers with slow-loading photos, but Christo and his Good lady Jeanne-Claude (apparently they were born on the same day) have been wrapping stuff ever since, including, in 1969, 2.4 kilometres of Sydney coastline in Little Bay.






I wonder if any of the dyna bolts are still there? Of course, Christo didn't just wrap stuff, sometimes he stacked stuff, too. This one is called 'Iron Curtain', it was erected in Paris in 1962 and consists of 240 oil barrels.






Now he's progressed to 'the gates'. Once again, as with the 'Yellow Peril', I like it. Doesn't mean anything, but still...
I am reminded of the story about the first public performance of Ravel's Bolero. When the music stopped there was absolute silence for several seconds then a woman stood up and hissed at Ravel "You are insane!"
Ravel replied "Madam, you are the only one who has completely understood the work."

Huh?

Why is this in a Pittsburgh newspaper?

Doubleplusungood

I must confess to being more than somewhat slightly bemused by this Cornelia Rau thing. Not so much by the fact that our government apparently has the power to detain pretty much anybody they like for whatever reason they like (O.K., so this time it was a mistake).
Nor is it the fact that a bunch of reffos could tell that she was loony tunes but the highly trained staff at the government facilities couldn't.
Nor is it the fact that our glorious Leader - hallowed be thy name - is apparently physically incapable of uttering the word "sorry" (kudos to Peter Costello, BTW, I wish he were PM), or indeed to admitting to an error of any sort. It isn't even the fact that Howard and his one-eyed supporters - they're all one-eyed in my experience - can't tell the difference between obstinacy and strength.
No, it's the fact that nobody gives a rat's arse. Our government here in the Lucky Country detains people without even taking basic steps to identify them, keeps them in custody for months, in a mental state so degraded that they are eating dirt, then doesn't even have the common decency to apologise for the error and... nobody cares. I find that very scary.
What else will they allow to pass unremarked? In such a way are totalitarian states born (see Russia, Soviet, 1920's). I put this apathy down to two things; first, the increasingly material society we live in: unless an issue directly affects people, especially financially, they ignore it, with notable exceptions like the media driven Tsunami frenzy. Secondly and probably more importantly, since September 2001 most western governments have been deliberately generating a climate of fear in their respective constituencies.
Let me state this as simply as I can - September 11 DID NOT CHANGE THE WORLD. Two buildings getting knocked down, a third getting damaged and three thousand people dying is not, in the wider scheme of things, an earth-shattering event. Nor has it ushered in a flood of terrorist attacks. I don't do statistics, but I would be very surprised if any non - right wing researcher would come up with any figures that show the order of magnitude leap of intensity that our leaders would have us believe was imminent, if not already here.
Which is not to say that the world has not changed because obviously it has. The main agent of change has been George jnr., ably assisted by people like Blair and Howard. All of them would have you believe that without sweeping new powers and invasions of various places, life as we know it would come to an end. Guess what fellas, life as we know it has already come to an end, ask Cornelia Rau.
It has got to the point where people don't recall anything. Remember WMD's? Heard anything about them lately? Didn't think so. How about Howard stating specifically that he could not justify invading Iraq on the basis of regime change. What are they justifying invading Iraq for again? That's right, regime change. I don't have anything against regime change, it came twelve years late as far as I'm concerned. They should have done it at the end of the Oil War of 1991, instead they pushed sanctions through the UN, and then enforced them as rigorously as they could, including a 'no - fly' zone which I believe went beyond the purview of the sanctions (I could be wrong, but if I am I won't admit it - does that make me PM material?) So for twelve years the country was starved to death - hardly a good humanitarian outcome.
Is democracy in Iraq a good thing? Of course. Is it 1500 dead Americans and 50,000 to 100,000 dead Iraqis good? Depends. You see, it isn't an organic democracy, created by its own constituency. It is riddled with coalitions of small, ethnic-based parties, so that there is unlikely to ever be a strong leader, which is a good thing if you are a superpower looking to cement its position at the top of the dung-heap. It is both a good and bad thing if you are an Iraqi, sure, there'll be no more Saddams in the near future, but there'll be no FDR's, Curtins or even Kemal Attaturks either.
I would like to add here that any of those chest-beating, we showed Saddam, now we're going to show Iran/Syria/Other country(but not North Korea, too many people,i.e.,non-Koreans, will get killed) types who are of age to serve in the military, have no physical or mental condition preventing military service, but aren't actually in the military can only be one of four things; an idiot, a hypocrite, a coward or a combination of the four. It's really easy to be tough from here guys (and girls), how about putting your life where your mouth is?
In other news, this week Miniplenty announced that the chocolate ration has been increased to three ounces.

God doesn't like me

I had about three-quarters of the first instalment of the God series done, but guess who gorgot to save it?
They tell me that sleep is good for things like that.

God doesn't like me

I had about three-quarters of the first instalment of the God series done, but guess who gorgot to save it?
They tell me that sleep is good for things like that.

Naggin' bloody women...

My readership is much like a fox-terrier. Small, persistent, intelligent and loyal. Who may or may not have cold, wet noses which they stick up the leg of your shorts at inopportune moments, as well as sniffing your bum and humping your leg. Which is to say that I have had a couple of concerned enquiries about my activities (see title).
I've got bugger-all to tell you. The last three or four weeks I've been working flat out, ninety to a hundred and ten hours a week. You might say that we're shorthanded. We do have a pommy guy working for us. He's done nothing but pub work for about ten or fifteen tears. We had a sweep going on how long it would take before he broke, but he's a fucking machine. One of the hardest working blokes that I have ever met. After the mandatory pub session Friday night ( the owners are on holidays and left the running of the pub to a young barmaid and her boyfriend, a sterling job they're doing, too), the Pom and I went on a bit of a scenic tour and ended up in Dirran to finish off a twelve hour drinking session. There was some middle aged guy playing guitar with a karaoke machine for accompaniment. Pretty ordinary, but when you've had a few lemonades... There was an aboriginal guy there from Melbourne who was having enough fun for about seventeen people. He certainly put paid to the 'black people have natural rhythm' theory. Next to me, he's probably the worst dancer in Oz. He certainly knows how to enjoy himself, though.
Sunday was devoted to... not much, really. Sleeping, laying on the couch listening to the TV with my eyes closed. Just resting, really, before we started irrigating again, last night. Back to the fifteen hour days. Yippee.
God starts this week sometime...

Dust

So we had a little dust storm the other day. It all came up from South Australia. Fuckin' croweaters.


This shit hung around for about four hours. Usually, when we have dust storms, the dust is as fine as talcum powder. This stuff was more like sand. Makes it a bit hard to plough a straight line when you can't see anything.
In other news, during this dust storm I had an idea for an eight post series about God. Actually, I had an idea for the eighth post, inspired by Chrenkoff, of all people. It's the title that appeals to me and the title is dependant on being the eighth in a series. I probably won't get around to it, but heh. If I tell people about it, then maybe I'll feel obligated.