I am Carny Folk

I'm sitting outside on a very handsome summer's day in Canberra, except it's not actually summer at all; it seems Canberra has no clue how to operate it's climate machine anymore. It rains all summer, it's summery all autumn, we haven’t had a hurricane since 2010; seriously Canberra, sort yourself out. But who cares - the sun's a'shining in the skies and I'm making the most of this slice of weather perfection*.

Winter in Canberra can be a right nightmare for people who are scared of the dark season. It doesn't get as ghastly here as it gets in those weird parts of the world where your overcoat must be made of reindeer fur or you will perish, but who the hell wants to live in a place where you have to fancy dress like Prancer just to collect your mail? Not me, my friend.

I get all crankypants when I have to shovel a quarter of a millimetre of a cold ice-like substance off my car windscreen in July, so I don't think I'd cope through a winter in Moscow. Plus, while they profess to be all capitalist and normal now, it's still really a communist state, so I'd be freezing my arse off and I'd be poor, with no electricity, or Gloria Jeans. Sorry, I really know how to kill a mood, don't I.

Moving right along.  My total disgust towards the season of winter is why - this year – I’m fleeing to sun-drenched, tourist-invested, alligator-obsessed Florida for a month, where they don't do winter. Or communism for that matter.  Most Floridians have never even heard of winter.

Actually, Florida really doesn't do anything other than stinking, horrible humidity, but their dubious climate sure beats icicles hanging off your carburetor. I don't actually know what a carburetor is, but it sounds like something that would stop working if it was clogged with frozen water.

I am travelling with someone who refuses to have her name placed in any manner of social media in fear of someone breaking into her home while she's on holiday and overwatering her plants or incorrectly dusting her shelves or something. Or maybe she is concerned about being vandalised or burglarised by rogue youths; I can't remember.  It's a perfectly rational mindset, I suppose.

Given that I find it quite difficult to do pretty much anything without writing about it, and given that it's highly likely that I will blog a little while Disneying, I am trying to think up a slightly humiliating pen name for any references to her. It totally sucks being my travel buddy. 

I legally borrowed this from someone's
else's website, so Disney can sue them,
 and not me.



Orlando in Florida is the holy mothership of theme parks. Oh my god, you don't even know. Although if you are a theme park junkie, you probably do know, and you'd be getting all excited about it too. While on the east coast, we will also be spending a day at the Kennedy Space Centre, so I can fully utilise that aerodynamics elective I did at uni. They've being trying to recruit me for years.

Alas, Obama killed off the U.S. space program last year - so it's just a museum now, without cool rocket launches - which is just another reason for me to dislike his daft U.S. Democratic party. I would hate to be the one dusting all the nooks and crannies of those space shuttles on display.

We will also hit the mean streets of New York for a couple of days to get involved in a few gangland drive-by shootings (my travel buddy doesn't know - it's a surprise) and then we'll be hitting the mean shores of Waikiki on the way home.  I hate wishing away the days, and I never usually say this, but hurry the fuck up winter!



* The sun's a'shining in the skies and I'm making the most of this slice of weather perfection? I’m sorry you had to read that. Seriously, I should review this shit before I publish. Such a wanker sometimes.

The Pumpkin Effect

It’s the end of March already. What the frig? In the grand scheme of things – that being the pumpkin pie chart that is 2012 - we have eaten a slice that amounts to 25%, which makes us quite sated, happily plump and possibly on track for a bout of diabetes.

I’m glad you raised the matter of pumpkin pie, because it gives me a clear segue into my disdain for those people who think vegetables have an equal place in cakes alongside sugar, flour, butter and chocolate. Listen up people; vegetables do not belong in cakes, and their intrusion into the world of sweets has me very displeased.  I believe these people are suffering from the widespread Pumpkin Pie Effect. Vegetables don't seem to have any boundaries anymore.  They belong in roasts.  And garden beds.  Nowhere else, you hear? 

My cake rules are actually quite simple and straightforward, and I don’t really care for any variation to the regulations. All cake I consume must contain chocolate and, ideally, be 50% icing. Putting chilli or beetroot in my chocolate cake is an insult to my taste buds and simply pisses me off.  When it comes to cake, trying new things is for people who have not yet found their perfect match.  I have found mine. If you like it then you shoulda put a cake ring on it.

Icebergs Sink Ships

It's all terribly exciting that the 'new' Titanic movie is coming out in cinemas next week.  Well, it's the same old version that made squillions in the noughties, but the director, James Cameron, has converted it into 3D, so now we can practically touch the people as they go about their drowning and what not in the icy Atlantic. Charming.

I might confess at this point that I love the movie Titanic.  And it's possibly the creepy stalker kind of love, not the dreamy romantic type.  Don't be hatin' on Titanic or you'll have me to deal with.  And I can be scary and shit when y'all be dissing on my big boats.

And THIS is why you don't drive your
boat anywhere need a friggin' iceberg



Making stuff in 3D is expensive, and adding 2D's to a 1D movie is just one gigantic money pit and requires a lot of hard arithmatic.  Evidently creating depth costs bags and bags of cash.  Just ask Cameron, who is forking out $19 million for the upgrade, presumably so he can make an extra $19 billion as he continues on his merry way of milking the popular disaster franchise for all it's worth.  I could do him a pop-up book for half that price.

I didn't see Titanic when it first came out in the cinemas for some reason.  Although I've watched the DVD a few hundred-ish times.  The best part of the DVD are the commentary components.  Cameron has a real passion for the wreck and paid great respect to it through film and documentary.

I’ve never much liked Cameron.  Despite my admiration for the talents of various people in Hollywood, I tend to view their leftist political beliefs as largely hokum.  But Cameron has been to the Titanic wreck many times to film and has quite the connection to the sunken ocean liner.  So kudos.

My interest in the golden era of ocean liners came about a few years ago, when I was required to do a presentation on a topic of my choosing for my first ever uni assessment.  One evening I was browsing the university's library shelves, searching for inspiration the old fashioned way, when I came across a book about sunken ocean liners, written by Robert Ballard, the man credited with discovering the underwater graves of many of the twentieth century's great liners. 

I sat on the floor and read, glued to the pages; I couldn’t get enough information about the Titanic, Lusitania, Mauritania and Britannic.  My new obsession turned the chore of completing the course work into a remarkably simple task.

After my presentation on Titanic and her golden era, I decided that I would continue this research when I had time. These ocean floor monoliths weren't going anywhere.  I have no idea what forms the basis of my interest; it just intrigues the hell out of me.

I have since read tales of survival and of tragedy, and of the notorious mis-quotes prior to the maiden voyage of the Titanic, that are easy targets for derision with the benefit of hindsight.
 
The fate of the Titanic is a terribly tragic story. The desperation of one man - her creator - to achieve greatness and supremacy in the eyes of his peers, and the world, enabled him to envisage the most spectacular ocean liner ever seen, but it also drove him to challenge the forces of mother nature and ignore all calls to logic and reason.

His vain attempt to make history by pushing his super liner through a field of insurmountable icebergs is one of history’s great dramatic ironies, and one of its most well-documented tragedies.

Days of Fools and Darkness

So this coming Sunday is going to be quite frightful, kiddies. Not only are we all sitting ducks when it comes to April One-ness jokes – some smartypants always gets me good due to my general susceptibility to believe any lie or piece of outrageous tomfoolery you care to throw at me - but it is also the end of daylight as we know it. We all be fools, sitting foolishly in the dark.

The end of daylight savings feels like a dud deal gone wrong to me. While we may gain an hour's sleep in this rort, we also outrageously have our daylight stolen from us, um, in broad daylight.  But during the night. ACT Government biatches stole my twilight.

But I suppose I have been manipulating mother nature for my own entertainment for years.  I remember this one time, at school camp, when I set my friends alarm clock for 2.00am and attached it to a piece of string above her bed so it swung back and forth when she tried to grab it in the dark and she couldn't turn it off and she thought she was being attacked by a wild bear who was toying with her by trying to wake her up before he ate her.  There's a considerate bear out there.  Good times indeed. 

There I go again, off with the tangent fairies.  I do love a good tangent.  The arrival and withdrawal of our savings account with the daylight brings to light many a question that I am forced to ponder over because no-one else seems to care.  For example; have you ever wondered about roosters? How they might feel about DST?

Has anyone thought to consult the boy chickens? No. That's the thing - no-one ever does. This is why they are angry birds and roost all the time all over the place and wake up too early and then go to bed too late and it's all crazy for them too.  But I suppose it gives them something to crow about.  Bazinga.

Are you smarter than a Queenslander?

Are you smarter than a toothpick?  Hm, now that's a bit of an awkward question to answer honestly.  Are you smarter than a Queenslander?  Now that's a question I can answer without crushing your soul, unless you think you are smarter than you actually are.  Yesterday I would have unequivocally agreed with your incessant whinging that you are smarter than a Queenslander, but not so much today. 

A lot of thing have changed since then.  Well not that much really; just the much welcome deletion from the universe of the Queensland ALP party.  Who knew that our friends up north - those crazy kids who wrestle crocodiles, are deadset psychopathic when it comes to cane toads and say 'ay?' all the time for no apparent reason - were so forward thinking and intelligent? 

The people of Queensland have spoken and have vanquished Anna Bligh's torch in some sort of Tribal Council, ay.  If this was federal politics, Kevin Rudd would be banging his torch on the ground, Bamm-Bamm Rubble style.

The fallout following yesterday's Queensland Election has left the ALP with only seven seats, which is enough to form a netball team, but not enough to be considered a major political party.  Perhaps they should cut their losses, get out their pleated skirts and join a Saturday morning primary school competition.  The Greens won no seats whatsoever, and that incoherent nutter, Bob Katter, won a couple of seats in the lower house with his own incoherent nutter party, which says a lot about the Greens.

The federal implications of this political massacre are clear; the electorate are learning that Labor are really not very good at governing.  It turns out that if you continually mismanage the local economy and build up debt, then even Queenslanders will work out that an efficient way to solve this problem is to kick your sorry arse to the curb.

Hot Chips Sink Ships

I know I bang on occasionally about my alleged exercising ways, and it can become quite tedious for those drones who are bored enough to read my blog (um, no offence), but it has come to my attention that I haven't written about exorcism (we have previously established this amounts to the same thing) for at least a week, and this must be addressed forthwith.  

Sometimes at the gym I can simultaneously watch The Biggest Loser and Masterchef while doing my thang, and this must be fairly annoying for those who are addicted to food or those who are running from food (me in my twenties) or those who can't cook (sadly my present day status).  Technology can be a cruel mistress. 

Although, to be fair, toast is bread after it has been cooked.  Nigella knows all about this technique.  Do I get any brownie points for knowing who Nigella is?  And for being able to cook bread?  I like Nigella because she raids her fridge in the middle of the night for her show credits.  Kudos. 

With the strange, mysterious and hopefully permanent disappearance of the Psycho Cough last week, my body has reluctantly engaged in a bit of cardio this week, and my gym thing is going fairly well, with a new program with new equipment that has left some of my less used - and evidently most lazy - muscles thoroughly pissed off.  Not my problem.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner.



As some form of cruel punishment, my brain has done what brains have consistently done since time immemorial when they don't want to do something they feel is quite taxing and beneath them; it has planted a seed that involves me thinking and salivating about greasy hot chips for 90% of my day.  My brain is a vexacious little bitch, but she won't win.

'Anti-summer' is the new winter

It's fast approaching my most despised season of the year - the dreaded winter of my discontent.  I've never liked that misguided season.  I remember once when it snowed in Canberra when I was a young thang; I stood inside glaring defiantly out at the weather conditions with my arms crossed and a pouty expression on my face, while all the street urchins played in the sloppy white/dirty grey goo.

I’ve since mastered the art of looking fierce when I'm uber pissed off; one of life’s most important yet undervalued skills. Winter’s arrogant and persistent nature dismays - DISMAYS! - me.

I don't mind snow so much as an adult, but it gets too cold to snow in Canberra most of the time, apparently, which sounds to me like one of the climate's pathetic little excuses as to why it just can't be bothered to convert coldness into some type of weather condition that is worthwhile and interesting.

The only thing more frustrating than the actual season of winter is people who profess to liking it. No-one cares if you like to freeze your arse off like some psychologically damaged polar bear, okay?  No-one cares. Just keep your dubious opinions to yourself.

These people are just like the ones who feel a need to bestow on the world a list of fun anecdotes and observations that apparently one can only experience if one gets up at 5am.  Everyday. Well, I don't care that you arise before the worms and the birds can even be bothered. I think you are an idiot; for getting up early and for thinking that I care about your crackwhore schedule.

I often berate my work colleagues for incessantly using the W-word, which is formerly known as winter. I think winter's key problem is that it's image is tainted by its crude nature. Once a loser season, always a loser season.

It's image could probably do with a bit of a makeover and the best way to do that is to rebrand the little sucker as some type of anti-summer. Well the anti-anti-summer, because we didn't really have a summer this year. But I can work on the naming - I'm just in the brainstorming stage. So the use of the word winter is now contraband, but anti-summer is okay. It's going to be fairly complicated for some, but the drones will get the hang of the new rules in time.

An Apple a Day

I'm thinking about opening my own GP practice.  How hard can it be?  Don't give me that bollocks about needing a medical degree, and a licence to practice, and a stethoscope, and a fucking clue.  It really can't be all that difficult to diagnose patients. With me throwing my hat into the medicine ring, you better start eating a lot of apples.  Lots of apples. 

I'm going to need to watch my language over the next few weeks, because I have been crook at home for a few days and have thus watched every episode of the quite brilliant  Inbetweeners, and have somehow managed to pick up some of the foul, potty-mouthed language that is used in their charming everyday conversation.

I imagine it was never too far from the surface.  I'm sure my patients will love my new edgy take on the old, outdated pleasant-style of bedside manner.  I don't see how anything at all can go wrong with that approach.

As far as I can tell, GPs simply allow you to be in their ethereal presence for ten minutes for a sum of $72.00 and diagnose you with an illness that may or may not be correct but seems to be a fit with the majority of annoying symptoms from one of the vast and disgusting diseases featured in their boring medical textbooks.

I already attribute psychological disorders to my ungrateful work colleagues, sometimes against their wishes but generally without their knowledge, so I'm pretty sure I can handle a little GP practice on the side.

I don't want to compare myself with a medical professional who has a medical degree and spent eight years at medical school and another 150 years in practice, but I'm going to.  In my first year of psychology at uni I aced my differential diagnosis, so how hard can it be working with the rest of the body, from the brain stem down? 

The only difference I can see between my rather successful career at diagnosis as an annoying know-it-all student psychologist wanna-be and my recent visit to an actual doctor is that I carried out a differential diagnosis, which meant I ruled out all other underlying conditions before I gave the patient their prognosis. 

Apparently my doctor doesn't feel the need to go to such nutty extremes.  After five visits to the doctor due to the massively annoying and inconvenient Pariah Cough, I could have hip cancer for all he knows.

How to build a Leprachaun Trap

Don't be silly, I have no friggin' idea how to build a leprachaun trap, nor any idea whether they exist or not.  If you really care to build one, then go and consult The Google, the youth of today's alternative to a real education.

We didn't have Google back in my day, we just had to read about intelligent things via a hard copy encyclopedia; things like the second law of thermodynamics and the reason socialism is such a retarded idea. Just look at those Swedes for evidence. 

Circling back to topic...

All nation states have to be known for something.  It's the rules.  Take Australia for example.  Our country is known for housing kanagroos in our collective rumpus rooms, padlocking our thongs to a fence when we go into a fancy restaurant like McDonald's so no-one nicks 'em, providing cradle-to-grave welfare for people who are sick of dying all the time in their stupid middle eastern homelands, and for a bridge that looks like a steel coat hanger that is nestled near a pointy white house on a pretty little harbour.  Not too bad a list if you ask me.

Any cookie-cutter country in the Middle East, on the other hand, is known for its teatowel hat industry, barbaric dictators, and general allround suicidal nutjobs.  Ireland, however, has quite an unfair reputation as a nation of leprachauns who are generally six guinness' short of a sixpack of guinness. 

It really is anyone's guess how the numerous Irish paramilitary groups over many years have managed to roust together to mastermind and kill civilians in coordinated attacks.  Obviously the key word causing great confusion being mastermind.

And, of course, the Irish are also known for giving the world St Patrick, the Lady Gaga of all Saints, who is greatly celebrated because he brought Christianity to Ireland and because he was born this way, baby.  The Irish generally celebrate the day by getting hopelessly drunk on green beer, and the rest of the world seem to think this is a great excuse to get pissed as well.

Airhead

I've been thinking about the atmosphere of the earth quite a bit today.  You know - air.  Let me explain.  I think we've all been caught in the tricky situation were we've woken in the middle of the night with the strange sensation that something was missing from our lives; something fairly important in the grand scheme of things, like being able to breathe.

I don't ask for much, but I do prefer to be able to breathe.  It's just one of those weird little ideosyncrasies that my brainstem demands of me, along with other basic, vital life functions.  Breathe now, regulate blood pressure, do this, do that. 

I think one only realises how useful the old oxygen can be when one is struggling to get any of it.  On the off-chance that anyone cares, I didn't die; I just have a mild head cold, but combined with my current laboured breathing through my treachea due to the indestructable Pariah Cough, it was like hiking in the Himalayas without an oxygen mask.

The quality of my air intake was so bad today that it was like I lived in Mexico or something, which gasps through the day with a bulging population of 130 billion Mexicans.  All breathing, at the same time.  The best time of the day to breathe in Mexico City is early afternoon, when everyone is in siesta freefall.  Semi true story. 

The poor air quality might also have something to do with their lack of concern for spewing out fossil fuels, but whatever; it works for them.  Or not.

Happy birthday, dear Canberra

Today is Canberra's 99th birthday.  At least I think she was born today.  All I know is we get a public holiday today in grand celebration.  Yep, Canberra ain't a spring chicken no more.  No more staying out late boozing it up, Canberra, or wearing those short shorts that you claim are fashionable but we all know are just plain skanky. It's time to start rocking the blue rinse and popping those health pills.

While Canberra may be a dear old fogey in human years, she's just a toddler when it comes to ye old worldly townships.  And she seems to be navigating the terrible twos just fine; her weight is average for her size, she can name many everyday objects, she carries her toys from place to place, and she can walk with adult support, which means she'll soon lose her baby fat (fingers crossed that it ends up being Charnwood).

If you happen to live in Minsk, or some other far-flung location of the world that has better broadband access than most of Australia's capital cities, then you will be quite fascinated to know that Canberra is this country's national capital.  I know; extremely fascinating.

See, come to my blog and it's just like Wikileaks, except without the rape allegations, astronomical ego or interest in hacktivism.  Oh boy, I could tell you some stories of Canberra's wild, vixen past that will make your hair practically stand on end, but I know that no-one in the whole world is vaguely interested.  It's probably far less taxing to just take some Xanax if you're having trouble sleeping.

And nothing says '"happy birthday, you old duck" like a good old-fashioned public holiday.  Next year will be the big cententary celebrations, and if I cared, I would probably know what the city has planned for it's own big shebang.  Alas, I don't know because I don't really care.  I wonder if Canberra will get a certificate of oldness from the Queen and the Governor General?  I certificate of coldness would be just as suitable, Your Majesty.

Surely in the next year or so the local ACT Government will start reclaiming their property which they generously lease to Canberra home owners under 99-year contracts.  If you did not know this then you should probably have read the terms and conditions when you signed up.  The smaller the writing, the more important the writing.

And then we'll all be living the sustainable Australian dream, which will involve new eco-friendly residential estates consisting of giant upturned electric-powered wheelbarrows.  And then, when you need to go anywhere - anywhere at all - you can simply flip your house and wheel your kiddies to school.

The Oxford Blues

It's just gone 14 years since I left Oxford; I spent nearly two years in the gorgeously quaint, aristocratic English city. While I could never give up my Australian sun-drenched ways, I find myself thinking about England quite a bit; particularly my beloved Oxfordshire. During these times, I find the most excellent way to forget that I'm not there is to remind myself of how miserable the wretched weather made me feel; and then I'm all happy little vegemites again.

But if I could nab a British passport through a weetbix competition, then I would not dilly-dally in making plans to work over there for a few months during the miserableness that Canberra refers to as winter. Although the whole British austerity puts me off a little, as does the ‘orribly high unemployment rate - as if the Poms weren't depressed enough already.  But I reckon I'll be returning to the Mother Country for a visit next year, and will make sure I drop in on my old stomping ground of Oxfordshire to do a spot of stomping and what not.

One of the first jobs I undertook in Oxford, back in the day, was working as an office ring-in for a recruitment agency called Office Angels, which was sort of like Charlie's Angels, except that the work was less perilous, less thrilling, less appealing and far more focused on paperwork than kicking butt.

After about a month of working for the ‘Angels’ I was awarded the Oxford district 'Employee of the Month', evidently because I had worked more than 40 hours in a week for consecutive weeks. That's a big deal in England apparently. Even the laziest full-time public servant in Australia has to work a minimum of 37.5 hours per week. After concluding that it wasn't a wacky recruitment agency hoax, I graciously accepted a certificate, a cheap bottle of wine, and a vulgar bouquet of helium balloons for my troubles. Jolly good times indeed, old sport.

Another job I had was far more exciting; as a racing car driver. Well, that's not completely true, but I did work for a British Touring Car team and spent a year travelling the countryside with the TWR Volvo team as a PR assistant. At least I think that was my job description; who the hell knows what I was supposed to be doing.  I only left that gig because of the whole immigration thing, which I like to pretend didn't happen, but too many people know about it to allow me to forget. 

In a nutshell, I got caught working on a tourist visa, as it turns out, after my working holiday visa had expired.  I'd love to say it's a long story, but the older I get, the more irresponsible and ridiculous and plain stupid the whole saga sounds.  I hope the British Immigration lady who saw right through me has had a good life, because she was quite brilliant at her job.  Kudos.

Never smile at a ladybug

Sometimes I want to write, but nothing of interest feeds through my little pea brain, so I'm left bereft with little more than useless, time-wasting, blog-cluttering sentences (which turn into paragraphs), a little like the one you're currently being subjected to.  And sometimes a tiny, inconsequential ladybug can trigger an avalanche of amazing, mind-blowing, mind-boggling blog content.  Alas, I'm afraid that's not going to happen today.

It turns out that I did actually see an itty bitty ladybug today, as opposed to those mammoth ones you see stomping loudly and violently through Amazonian rainforests via David Attenborough.  If you haven't seen them then you really need to sign up for the National Geographic channel and enlighten yourself to the world of these scary, polka-dotted savages.

Whilst viewing said ladybug today, I wondered to myself - as one naturally does - if the ladybug is non-threatening to me because it is polka-dotted, thus fairly comical, or if it's scarylessness has evolved from the fact that we call it a LADYBUG.  And then it occurred to me (very slow traffic lights) that maybe this is the root of the huntsman's unpopularity; the darn things have a PR crisis. 

So I was thinking that if perhaps we renamed the huntsman 'Mr Scarylegs', they wouldn't be so terrifying to me.  Hmm, or perhap that wouldn't help much at all.  I still remember thousands of years ago, when the little arachnids used to terrify me as I drove out of my cave's garage for a hard day of hunting and gathering at Costco, so it's pretty hard-wired in there.

I have had arachnophobia - huntsman specific - for a fairly long time.  I am fucking petrified of them.  Yes, I know I can fix it by systemic desensitisation, and yes I know that my fear is irrational, and yes I know that it is absolutely not rational to keep tongs by your mailbox to fetch the post, and yes I know that it's a little weird, if not completely screwed up, to not allow furniture to touch your walls.  It seems the one thing I do having going for me in phobialand is self-awareness.  

I know what you're thinking, that a huntsman wouldn't hurt a fly, but we both know that's not strictly true, don't we?  They friggin' devour flies.  And, yes, I know they keep away other wall-dwelling bugs, burglars and probably extraterrestrial life from mars, but I have a phobia, fool, so shush.

Dear Middle Earth

Ah, the Middle East.  It's been positively ages since I wrote a word about you.  This is most likely because you haven't blown up any of our people, embassies, nightclubs or world trade centres for some time now.  I know that it certainly isn't from a lack of trying - you'll never change - but rather it is because the west have institutions that are smarter than you.  Actually, I think we have cheeseburgers that are smarter than you.

Your lack of success at annihilating the west probably also has more to do with the practical reason that you have recently lost one of the few terrorists who had a clue how to mastermind and terrorise to effect.  It is probably also because the United States have you on a permanent good behaviour bond, and a very tight leash, which gets a huge, red tick of approval from me.

But it seems we do have something in common, Middle Earth, because I would also very much approve of annihilating you and starting from scratch - seeing as all your people who are not trying to kill our troops are immigrating to the west anyway - but apparently that is a terribly racist and warmongering attitude. Personally I think getting rid of non-democratic countries and regions is just efficient global management.  But what do I know; I'm just a voter. 

Well we wouldn't need to have this conversation, Middle Earth, if your nation states stopped behaving like themselves and started democratising a little bit.  Your insurgents are slippery little suckers, aren't they?  But, lucky for you, you have the best cheer squad in the world - the west's own apologist leftist human rights campaigners, and much of our media - so anything we do to you is deemed racist, but anything you do to us is our own fault.

Yes, that would be an own goal; it is certainly a mystery to me why those who benefit from all the freedoms of democracy need to denigrate it.  Who the hell knows why leftists think like they do. 

And then we have our Green Movement, who also hate the west a lot, even though they too fully benefit from all the freedoms a libertarian nation has to offer, like being able to sit under the eucalypts with a tofu burger without the pesky worry of someone in their vicinity blowing everyone to smithereens with a C4 belt. 

It's another great mystery why the Greens and all the other leftists harangued George W, because he bothered to try and democratise Middle Earth's most insane nation states, yet they kick and scream and whinge and whine when freedom-loving countries like Australia don't accept refugees willy-nilly.  From a point of logic and reason, isn't it better to overthrow the bad guys in the bad countries and let their citizens just be, in their own country?  Ah, sorry, I hate it when my brain gets all practical.

I have been watching the goings-on in Syria over the past few months with (relatively little) interest; goings-on being the more pleasant way of referring to what I really think about Syria and other cookie-cutter, dodgy, decrepid little countries.  While Syria may not be Middle Earth, it's just like Middle Earth, in that it would totally suck to live there.  I don't really care about Syria, or Middle Earth, but I care when civil warfare spills out of these primitive little cocoons, which it almost always invariably does with these friggin' countries, and then it affects me, and then I care.

I will eat my pom-pommed beanie if Syria ever becomes anything vaguely resembling a free nation state in the next few hundred years, but if they do, they'll probably need a Prime Minister to start their long and winding road to democracy, so they should feel free to permanently borrow Australia's own Red Queen.

Patient Zero in Coughmania

Guess what? Just for something refreshing and unusual, I am going to post about my elephant seal cough. I figure people exhaust and astound me every damn day with their often ludicrous medical counsel that it was time I gave back to the people.

I have had coughmania for six months now. Six fucking months. I reckon it would have a red hot chance at surviving a nuclear holocaust, along with all the cockroaches and Kevin Rudd. And it is not particularly pleasurable, with the most annoying part being that it annoys other people. The fact that it annoys others doesn't annoy me in the slightest, but when other people are annoyed with my cough they pester me and this is fucking annoying.

Every day is cough groundhog day. You know when it rains constantly and everyone rabbits on about the rainfall and the traffic and the dams and the grey sky and the ducks everywhere? This is how people have been banging on - all day, every day - about me and my cough, for six fucking months. It's like my cough was invented to give boring people something to talk about when it's not raining, which fortunately it is.

I went to the doctor a few weeks ago - the same doctor I have accused in the past of being not the brightest antibiotic in the medicine cabinet - and he gave me a course of bright yellow, daffodil-scented cough killers, that did nothing but mask the seal effect until they ran out.

So yesterday I went back the the doc for the fourth time, given that all the drugs and cough mixtures and totally stupid alternative fake-medicine concotions have failed me so far. I'm starting to think I am patient zero in a new infectious disease outbreak. Prove that I'm not, medical fraternity. 

Or maybe I am actually an elephant seal. I do like tuna and I think Antarctica is real pretty and homely.  Perhaps I should think about starting my own reality television show or, in the very least, I should try and get a gig on one of those medical marvel programs they show at midnight on free-to-air.

Despite evidence that the cough - I really should give it a name - is not stemming from my chest or throat, my doc is sending me for a chest x-ray and then to a chest expert specialist person to suss it out. At least things are progressing.

He thinks it is triggered by talking and that it is largely unproductive. I didn’t think the doctor knew me well enough to make assessments on my interest level and functioning capacity in the public service, but perhaps he is smarter than I give him credit for.  My dad reckons that I should ask for my money back if they can't figure out the problem.  Despite the fact my dad's solution to most problems involve shooting the bastards, I think perhaps I should heed his advice this time.