f o

f o du jour 2

2011-12-27T11:16:00.003+11:00

yes 2 f o's in one day!! so the second f o goes to the US version of 'the girl with the dragon tattoo'. so disappointing. i was dubious from the start (when hearing there was going to be an american version made of a perfectly good original - swedish - film - why do the americans feel the need to make their own version of everything!?!) but still was quite excited about seeing a great book/story played out on the big screen sans subtitles - which yes makes me sound like a neanderthal (harking back to my slating in previous post) but it can be hard to get into a thriller movie in terms of visuals when you're reading subtitles all the way through. but MY GOD the slaughter of this great story with extraordinarily gratuitous product placement/endorsement through the film on top of dreadful performances and cramming too much detail and storyline of an admittedly complex novel into a too long film. ugh ugh ugh. tragic.

f o du jour

2011-12-27T10:44:00.004+11:00

worst mcdonalds (yes i know, i know, it's shit food anyway) ever at the st andrews store in edinburgh & i have been to outlets in europe, asia, south america & australia so do have an immense basis for comparison. basically, having little other food options post-movies, we asked for 3 cheeseburgers with no meat & clarified this no less than 3 times as i sensed the server didn't understand me the first time. one of these burgers was as part of a happy meal. we were informed we’d have to wait a few minutes for a special order. we said no problem. after waiting more than several minutes, we were given our meal & left. halfway home the happy meal box split open (as it was not constructed securely) & all the contents fell on the ground - contents being fries & no burger. given we were halfway home in the rain, we decided to suck it up & just share the 2 remaining burgers between us. on arriving home, we went to eat our burgers only to discover they had meat in them. clearly, having nothing satisfactory to eat and in a right rage given the happy meal box spillage with lacking content as well as incorrect remaining meal order, i then returned to the store & explained the situation, asking for a remake (presenting all of the meal except what fell on the ground) - the guy (who originally served me) immediately denied anything was wrong with the order. this immediately made me even more angry. i do NOT need to lie about a mcdonalds meal to get 'free food' - it was something which was quick to grab on the way home from the movies - exactly the type of situation mcdonalds is supposed to be all about. the server was so aggressive the customer right next to me joined right in on mocking my 'burger with no meat' choice. after basically telling said dickhead i wasn't interested in his neantherdal opinion, i informed the server that amazingly i have successfully ordered & been given this choice the world over - including the other edinburgh restaurant the opposite end of princes street. after several minutes of embarrassment, another employee who overheard the situation intervened & said the meal would be redone. it didn't even end there - he gave me 3 remade burgers but none of the rest of the meal, which i said thanks very much i would like a fresk remake given everything else from original order was cold or on the streets of edinburgh. get home again and the cheeseburgers are not just without meat (as requested) but without everything else except the cheese - ie no onion, ketchup, gherkin. deliberately wrongly made!! needless to say this was the worst experience I have EVER had at a mcdonalds. staff at this store need some serious customer service training. i've worked in customer service and like i said to the man at this store "it isn't fucking rocket science!!!".

hannah montana no more

2011-12-23T05:02:00.001+11:00

national portrait gallery scotland

2011-12-14T22:04:00.004+11:00

i have been along to the portrait gallery a couple of times now. on a touchscreen computer there you can select your physical and personality traits from a big list and then the 'my face my place generator' software selects the portrait that represents you the best!!!

this is scottish me:

Percy Wyndham Lewis, 1938
(Lady) Naomi Mitchison, 1897 - 1999.

Naomi Mitchison was a novelist, poet and passionate campaigner for social justice and women's rights. Born in Edinburgh, Mitchison's first novel was published in 1923, when she was twenty-six. Mitchison wrote over seventy books during her lifetime and edited and contributed to many more. She also produced hundreds of articles for newspapers and journals. Mitchison travelled extensively over five continents, was involved in the campaign for access to birth control from the 1920s and spent nearly twenty years as a local councillor in the Scottish Highlands. She was awarded a CBE in 1981.

a similar approach by inputting characteristics describing your ideal location in scotland yields another result:

Horatio McCulloch

Highland Landscape with a Waterfall, about 1835

This is McCulloch's largest known painting. The scene is probably imaginary, intended to evoke the magnificence of nature, rather than record a specific place. The picture, which has been dated to the 1830s or early 1840s, resembles the broadly painted, although much smaller, romantic views of the Reverend John Thomson of Duddingston. An inscription on the frame of this painting indicates that this landscape was one of a group of paintings commissioned by James Lumsden, Lord Provost of Glasgow, for a public hall in the city. The picture was later incorporated into the interior design of the concert hall of the Glasgow Athenaeum.

heavy rain causes problems

2011-12-13T06:45:00.006+11:00

i clicked through on a link on the abc news website titled 'heavy rain causes problems' thinking that there might be a gallery of dramatic flood or storm or damage photos to illustrate the headline - however apparently the foremost problem caused by heavy rain - according to the only photo presented - is that of extreme embarrassment suffered by old men resorting to using old lady umbrellas as shelter! the photo caption (which, in my mind but maybe i'm mad, is ordinarily used to explain the context/circumstances of the photo) states "The ACT State

Emergency Service (SES) received more than 130 calls for help after hail storms hit Canberra over the weekend." how did the call go, i wonder? maybe something like "omfg send help IMMEDIATELY to stop this shame of using a lady's brolly!!!!". lol!

post-post-script: in case abc news wises up and changes/removes the photo.... here 'tis!

you just disproved jesus

2011-12-12T23:41:00.000+11:00

and so this is christmas...

2011-12-10T12:03:00.004+11:00

and time for seeing amazing christmas specials on UK tv!!! my top 3 coming up listed best to bestest in descending order...

#3 - my big fat gypsy christmas ... just when you thought the carnies couldn't get any more trashtastic....

#2 - downton abbey christmas special ... with maggie smith in the cast this series was always going to be awesome!

#1 - ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL! ... WOOT!!!! still going strong after 20 years. timeless comedy classic.

my life as a pie chart

2011-12-10T04:25:00.003+11:00

thanks to siobhan for sending this to me months ago. i just came across it again and it is awesome!

ada & (great)gramma

2011-12-10T04:23:00.002+11:00

my niece ada (aka baby g/potata) and my gramma

underworld awakening

2011-12-10T04:20:00.002+11:00

omggggg i cannot wait to see this!!! hooray for the return of kate beckinsale because the third in the film series was, quite frankly, rubbish due to her absence.

miss you the boo

2011-12-10T04:10:00.005+11:00

let's revisit some photos of you "helping out" with packing up the house in late july...

can't hug every cat??

2011-12-10T03:50:00.000+11:00

love it.

only a couple of more months to wait now

2011-12-10T03:45:00.007+11:00

....til the 2012 AFL season starts - woot!!

in the meantime here are some AFL clips from the 2011 season.

first some LOLs from when the carnies (port adelaide) went up against the bye in round 18...

secondly (also from round 18!), the 2011 mark of the year - carlton's sprinting champion walkie talkie (andrew walker) using a bombass player as a stepladder to the heavens:

and finally, the amazingness of seeing collingwood lose the GF. hahahahahahahhaa

magic. bring on 2012!

thank you for being a friend

2011-12-10T03:43:00.002+11:00

super duper cheesy song that gets stuck in my head, and when it does i gladly share with others - like now - so they can have it stuck in their head too. we can all blame amanda brown for making me watch this show a million times over (i may or may not secretly like it).

feel free to laugh til you cry

2011-12-09T13:45:00.001+11:00

i know i did.

a bit more than a slight breeze

2011-12-09T03:56:00.003+11:00

winds of up to 265km/hr today here in scotland....

cruisemeister LOLs

2011-12-07T22:39:00.001+11:00

“Tom Kaun?" one of the paid junior artists reportedly asked the newspaper of Cruise.

"I don’t know who he is or what he does."

tradition doesn't make it OK

2011-12-05T23:38:00.003+11:00

Mr Humphries

I have been forwarded your response (attached below) to a constituent query on your position regarding same sex marriage.

I find the construct of your argument for your position opposing same sex marriage to be quite concerning (well, flawed) on a number of levels - to not mention it is alarming given you have, and are paid a higher salary as a result, the specialist legal portfolio position of shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Shadow Attorney-General and are appointed as an MP within a secular society where the church and state are explicitly separated, therefore I would suggest it is highly inappropriate for you to suggest that church 'law' is rated over and above to the real law of Australia.

"Just because it's always been that way" is far from being sound reasoning for not giving due consideration to making improvements to government policy or law. A lot of very unpleasant 'traditions' have formed part of human society in the past and just because they 'stood the test of time' did not make them right, just, true - which is exactly why such practices were overturned and attitudes changed - just a few examples being slavery, apartheid, oppression of women.
There are two principle reasons to change the law - firstly to reflect a change in government policy, which is policy formed by virtue of the mandate granted through the will of the people in electing their chosen MPs, and secondly being to correct legislation which is found to be incorrect on technical grounds. With regard to the Marriage Act, both conditions or reasons without doubt apply. Firstly same sex marriage is now ALP and Greens policy - while not yet formal government policy, it is inevitable that it MUST be, given the consistent polling of the attitude of the majority of Australians showing support for same sex marriage. Secondly the Marriage Act is inconsistent with other federal legislation relating to the governance of adult relationships in its discrimination on the basis of sexuality.

You attempt to make the argument that the concept marriage is borrowed from the church so we are obliged to respect the church's dictation on what marriage is. This argument is flawed in that the church does not have ownership over the laws of this country - not the policy, not the writing of the law and certainly not the definitions of terms used in federal legislation. If you truly honestly believe that one sliver of society gets to 'own' a word (marriage is just a word after all) and all that that word entails - then it is absolutely inappropriate for you to perpetuate the use of that narrowly defined word or term in legislation which purports to govern the whole of Australian society. You state that "it is difficult to identify any legal impediment that a person in an established same-sex relationship endures which a person who is married does not" as a reason for not needing to change the principal piece of federal legislation which recognises committed adult relationships. If that is truly the case, what indeed is even the point at all for the Marriage Act? You can not have your cake and eat it too, Mr Humphries - the Marriage Act either means something or it doesn't. At this point you would have to concede the very point of it is exactly as I just said - it is the principal piece of federal legislation which recognises committed adult relationships. Therefore to answer your implied question - the very legal impediment endured by those in committed same sex relationships - outright discrimination in this piece of key federal legislation!

Finally I would like to remind you that as an ACT representative, you represent a region and constituency with not only a high number of gay and lesbian citizens but also their heterosexual family, friends and colleagues - comprising a voting population which has collectively provided a clear mandate over a number of years for the passage of civil partnership legislation at an ACT level. This clearly reflects the values of your constituency which I strongly believe you are obliged to represent at the federal government level. You make the 'proud claim' of crossing the floor to represent your ACT constituents in the past - will you be doing so again when the same sex marriage legislation is put forward?

-------------------------

Thank you for your email regarding same sex marriage.

As you may be aware, I personally supported the removal of discrimination in legislation based on sexuality, to remove legal impediments to same sex partners receiving benefits or entitlements, including the right to superannuation payments and general inheritance from a deceased partner.

I also took the more dramatic step of crossing the Senate floor on two occasions during the life of the Howard Government to stand up for the right of the ACT legislative Assembly to legislate for civil unions between people in a same sex relationship. In that spirit I acknowledge that there are many happy and loving relationships between same sex partners.

However, I do not support the recognition of same sex marriage in Australian law, for the following reasons.

I support the definition of marriage as ‘a union between a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others, entered into voluntarily for life’.

My opinion is not based on views regarding homosexuality or discrimination, but rather on the concept of the institution or sacrament of marriage.

Marriage, of course, was originally a religious sacrament conferred by the church. Over many centuries, certain legal rights became attached to marriages which were not available outside this institution. In recent centuries lawmakers began to realise that it was unfair to exclude people not in a religiously-sanctioned relationship from the entitlements which the law attached to marriage, and accordingly a form of civil marriage was developed to confer many of those rights. In more recent decades in Australia and elsewhere, laws have begun to separate those legal entitlements from the concept of marriage altogether, leading to the point where today it is difficult to identify any legal impediment that a person in an established same-sex relationship endures which a person who is married does not. It therefore appears to me that the only substantive argument for allowing access to marriage by same-sex couples is to allow them to share the symbolism of this institution.

However, I believe that, since the state no longer needs the church-originated concept in order to confer certain rights, it should allow the church to retain a measure of ‘ownership’ over the institution which it created. For the state to ‘borrow’ the tradition of marriage from the church, only to mock or corrupt it (as would be the view of the church if same-sex marriage were permitted), would be unreasonable in my view. To illustrate my point, if it was right for the state to ‘appropriate’ this religious institution for its own purposes, why not for other purposes? Why, for example, would the state not be entitled to appoint priests on the basis that the church should no longer enjoy this monopoly?

I believe such a step would clearly be unreasonable. As I commented on the Insight program in May 2004, “Marriage isn’t a term the government invented, and to change that definition is false logic – it’s something we neither have nor want the authority to change”.

Whatever views develop within the Coalition regarding a conscience vote on the issue, I understand that the Prime Minister has made clear the Labor Party position that there will not be a conscience vote allowed, and that Labor Party members will be bound by party policy which currently maintains, as does the Coalition policy, that marriage is the voluntary union of a man and a woman.

Thank you for making your views know to me about this contentious issue.

Yours sincerely,

Gary Humphries

SENATOR FOR THE ACT

Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney-General

be strong jonah

2011-12-05T21:30:00.003+11:00

isn't it ironic (well, tragic really) that people justify homophobia and gaybashing largely on the basis of 'protecting the children from these people' - but the fact is we were all children once, these bullies have and continue to hurt all of us, and they teach their children to be bullies too ....so are actually hurting their own children by teaching them it's ok to hurt and hate others. stop the hate.

an important lesson in this??

2011-12-02T21:56:00.003+11:00

interesting developments (or theorising on it!) in ALP national conference regarding the party's position regarding gay marriage. it looks like (not that news.com.au is even close to being a reliable news source so i do apologise for referencing it) the compromise is that there might be a formal change in party platform to support gay marriage but also allowing a conscience vote in parliament so to allow far right ALP MPs to not trangress their religious beliefs. i don't know what to think of this - smart politics by rainbow left or pandering to religious right faction members?? has ALP allowed conscience voting on previous marriage matters so that the left members weren't forced (under threat of being expelled from the party for crossing the floor) to vote against their own and/or constituents' beliefs??? i doubt it!! the religious political factions would never be so generous - unless they were painted into a corner and would look completely unreasonable to not even allow a conscience vote *cough*

friday ponderance

2011-12-02T06:28:00.002+11:00

i'm just wondering how the nasty religious folk will fill the hours in their hate-filled day once gay marriage is no longer up for a game of politicial football. anyone got any ideas?

f o du jour

2011-12-02T06:24:00.002+11:00

jeremy clarkson. what a tool. my god like he works so super hard, getting paid obscene amounts of money for sitting on a couch and prattling on about cars (YAWN) not even being interesting or funny.

happy wednesday peeps

2011-11-30T22:19:00.001+11:00

another wow canberra lightning photo

2011-11-30T21:52:00.001+11:00

and link to the photo blog itself by greg sorensen who takes amazing photos!!

love a bangin' storm

2011-11-30T11:25:00.003+11:00

by all accounts i missed the 'black belt' of storms to hit canberra last night while slumming it in edinburgh which so far, aside from the impressive gale force sideways rain & highlands snow last week, has only produced a bit of annoying wind and rain. rubbish!

sink or swim: art for sharks

2011-11-30T05:52:00.002+11:00

this looks like a great exhibition with a great message, i would love to go to it. i so want the suit the guy is wearing at the 3:02 minute mark in the video. and wow at the divers swimming in open water with the great whites further on.... it's got me thinking maybe i should be aiming for that rather than viewing them from a cage??!!

british property idiosyncracies & annoyances

2011-11-29T01:10:00.006+11:00

carpet in bathrooms

IMHO this is the worst and unfathomably common feature in british properties. why why why would you ever think it would be a good idea to put carpet down in a room which gets grubby all the time because it's where you clean your grubby self or use the toilet ie where liquids (clean and NOT) get splashed on the ground. seriously this is the ultimate room that needs lino or tiles. carpet is just wrongtown. i bet it was the brits that invented those awful carpet offcut half-circles that go around the base of the loo as well, when they were 'unfortunate' enough to be living in a house that didn't have carpet in the bathroom. revolting!

rubbish water pressure

those instant hot water thingos in nearly every shower are annoying enough (inconsistent water temperature) but matched with ridiculously low water pressure for hot water? ugh. no wonder brits are so obsessed with baths.

obsession with baths
why do brits love baths so much? my god the amount of complaining i have seen on property shows when there isn't a bath in a house you were thinking about buying or a hotel/b&b you're critiquing because you 'have a bath every day'. you're sitting in your own dirty water. yuck.

no individual mailboxes for flats in converted terrace housing

instead there is an open shelf that your mail sits on. god knows who else is living in the building to steal your mail. don't brits know about the prevalence of identity theft?? and to add insult to potential identity injury, just last month there was a pamphlet drop where you could opt out of an impending trial where, unless you actively opted out, the postie leaves your parcels or mail 'with a neighbour' if you aren't in when mail delivery was attempted. all very nice if you live for a million years in the same place with the same people around you, ie in the culdesac in 'neighbours', but if you don't know your neighbours then sorry but this is not exactly a secure or reassuring postal delivery system. the postal office sounded genuinely surprised when i was speaking to them about the reasons for my decision to opt out of the trial.

'energy efficient' heating failure

yes yes it's all very nice to have the goal of conserving energy (i'm not sure whether this is a broader energy efficiency drive in the community or just in the building we live in) by all the gas powered radiator heating in the building only coming on '2 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the evening' but what about if you want to be SUPER energy efficient and just switch it off completely when you're away? no incentive to do so when you're paying a flat rate for gas consumption like we are in our edinburgh flat. and what if you are at home during the day and need some more hours of heat? too bad! i mean yes you can use an electric heater but then the radiator electric heater we have is actually much less energy efficient than gas heating so there goes community energy efficiency goals out the window. surely it would make more sense to have individual gas meters for each flat so each tenant/owner can control their own energy use. it's when energy use directly correlates to the hip pocket that individuals make best efforts to be energy efficient, after all.

no light, no light [florence & the machine]

2011-11-26T07:53:00.003+11:00

i hear a touch of sarah maclachlan in this track.

the new florence album 'ceremonials' was the soundtrack for our scottish highlands drive - wonderfully appropriate bracing music to go with breathtaking scenery! in a bizarre stroke of coincidence, bbc radio 1 station had a live in the studio florence set on the final day of our drive back into edinburgh. magic!

north scotland roadtrip

2011-11-26T05:37:00.004+11:00

mands and i just did an amazing 4 day drive holiday north of edinburgh. having down the main sights in the lower western highlands on a 3 day haggis tour back in 2007, we drove a total of about 1500km up the eastern coastline as far north as you can go (dunnet head) on mainland britain, right across the top from john o'groats (northwest corner) to cape wrath (northeast corner), then down half of the west coast before deviating back inland to drive back to edinburgh along the shores of loch ness and through the always breathtaking glen coe. magnificent landscapes ranging from ragged cliff coastlines to low green rolling hills to towering snowcapped mountains. wonderfully maintained castles as well as wonderfully crumbled castle ruins. traditional stone cottages painted bright white with orange lichen growing on their black roof tiles as a contrast against the lush green backgrounds. loads of cute as sheep and cows, oft wandering free beside or actually on the road, casually chewing on grass cuds and not giving a care about our hirecar swerving around them. we were even lucky enough to see wild deer in the northwest - including a HUGE stag complete with amazing antlers standing right beside the road!!

except for the final day/night we didn't really decide exactly where we were driving or even staying overnight, but winged it (which tested my stress parameters i must admit), pulling up in a nice looking town to find somewhere to stay as the sun started going down around 4pm. despite my fears/anxieties beforehand about this unplanned/unbooked method of travel, we actually did really well - finding awesome places to stay in the delightful little towns of forres, thurso and ullapool (marked with red dots on the route map above). in forres we stayed in the lovely carlton hotel, in thurso in a great B&B murray house, and in ullapool at the ferry boat inn. i heartily recommend staying at all of them - great locations, big clean rooms, all with ensuites, reasonable prices and very friendly owners. the hotels had wonderful bars complete with charming (no sarcasm) locals, the ferry boat inn served up simply delicious 'pub' (hardly!) food, and the B&B even had free wifi plus the owner recommended a fantastic restaurant (the red pepper) for dinner just around the corner. the hotels were 70GBP and the B&B 60GBP per night for a double including a bang-up full cooked english (vegetarians happily accommodated in every case!) breakfast in the morning. great value!

f o du jour

2011-11-19T21:38:00.004+11:00

to primark for employing a shithouse construction company which is running overtime on getting the new edinburgh store on princes street ready for its december opening date - so that there is loud machinery operating from 7am on a saturday (in addition to all throughout the week). primark, well done on implementation of your alleged social and community responsibility policies you plaster all over your website! the construction noise has been constant for 10-12 hours a hour every day since we arrived. thank god it's nearly over and we've only been here 10 days, i feel far more sorry for the permanent residents in this building who have put up with this for something like 6 months. maybe if you came and investigated why your new store is running behind in its opening time schedule (and doubtless costing you money), you would find out why - because the million high-vis bogans your contractor has employed spend the vast majority of the day standing around smoking/eating/chatting rather than working!

edinburgh LOLs

2011-11-16T21:35:00.003+11:00

lovely 'hello from edinburgh' picture i sent to work colleagues

rude altered image returned as a response

LOL!

f o du jour

2011-11-08T22:33:00.002+11:00

to the new heathrow airport for allowing rip off merchant currency exchangers to have a COMPLETE monopoly over ATMs throughout their new terminal 5. the ATMs make a claim of not charging a fee for cash withdrawal which probably makes the average joe think wow so generous - but the savvy traveller who is keeping track of/aware of current exchange rates will quickly discover partway through a transaction that they are about to be COMPLETELY ripped off when presented with the conversion amount from the local currency amount from their home currency - because of the obscene commission % built into their offered currency sell exchange rate.

mands and i went to withdraw 600 pounds but when presented with the conversion amount in $AU, i did a quick calculation against the actual exchange rate to discover we were about to be skimmed just under $100!!!!!! the official sell rate at the time was something like 1:1.57 (GBP:AU) and travelex was going to run the transaction through at 1:1.69!!! so we cancelled the transaction and instead we waited after our arrival in scotland and until we got into CBD edinburgh to withdraw from a normal bank ATM to get some local currency.

i fully appreciate that the currency exchange companies don't provide a service for nothing but 1. the commission % charged was not only outrageous but more importantly not expressly presented to the customer as a charge (instead hidden in the currency exchange sell rate), and 2. it is disgusting that heathrow airport doesn't allow competition in the provision of financial services in its terminal, and instead leaving travellers potentially held to complete ransom by the currency exchange providers. in fact i wonder if the heathrow airport terminal owner has an actual interest (ie shareholder) in said currency providers.... anti-competitive or collusive activity??

world economy f-ups for dummies

2011-11-07T11:21:00.002+11:00

being restricted to little other english speaking tv other than CNN (bloody awful american-centric crap) and BBC world news (less than bloody awful CNN but still europe-centric news and more interesting human interest stories) has made me an 'expert' and barstool commentator in the current EU economic crisis. this clip really does sum it up for the average non-economist (such as myself) - thank YOU australian broadcasting corporation for explaining it without the spin!

awesome BBC nature clip

2011-11-06T22:25:00.002+11:00

halfway

2011-11-02T11:04:00.004+11:00

today marks the day i am halfway through my long service leave + purchased leave + annual leave megaholiday. and i must apologise to you, f o, i did intend to get back to regular blogging while on leave but whereas before leave i was too drained from life-busy to tend to you, now on leave i am too relaxed and indulging in doing delightful nothing a lot :) i won't make any such promises again but i do intend to ramp the blog back up.

f o du jour

2011-10-12T20:43:00.005+11:00

to ANZ bank for their ridiculous international currency exchange rates and fees on international transactions. they essentially just gouged ~8% commission on an international funds transfer out of my australian account into a UK account. no one believes it costs $80+ for an instantaneous automated electronic funds transfer. it's not being carried around the world by a gold plated pigeon or sent on a fucking ship is it?! thank god we have a 28 degrees mastercard (highly recommended to those travelling OS who don't want to be ripped off) to use 99% of the time with its exchange rate close to the actual/official and no ATM withdrawal fees!

f o du jour

2011-10-10T00:05:00.001+11:00

to the half-kilo bag of haribo goldbaren gummi bears purchased from budapest airport duty-free, in attempt to clear the wallet of remaining forints.

right into my stomach!

poor but extremely LOL humour

2011-10-09T23:59:00.002+11:00

taryn simon exhibition

2011-10-06T08:55:00.004+11:00

today i went to an excellent modern art exhibition today by taryn simon at the new national gallery, in the berlin kulturforum, which was awesome but really sad - lots of tragic stories, set around portraits of generations of members of family trees, the accompanying story detailing injustices afflicted on various bloodlines/families around the globe. tanzania was about a family where some members were albino and in tanzania albino natives are commonly murdered and their limbs cut off for use in traditional magical witch doctor voodoo medicine. south korea centred around family of a man who was abducted (never to be seen again) while policing illegal fishing by north koreans (also apparently a widespread problem). spain was about gay men jailed for up to 2 years in the 1960s for being or accused of being gay. lots of other heart rending stories like this. the australian tragic story and associated family tree? rabbits and the use of myxomatosis - no joke, like 50 photos of bunnies in clear boxes being the family tree. no wonder i couldn't get a residence permit - no one takes us seriously!

bad politics or bad circumstances?

2011-09-19T19:13:00.005+10:00

with intermittent internet access and a bit of travelling of late, i will admit that i have been very lax in following political affairs back in australia. sadly due to only having two english tv channels (bbc world news and the evermore awful and repetitious CNN), i am more up to speed on every other country's politics! but i have been pondering an array of current and historical issues of late, not to mention being at the reichstag the other day with my parents, looking again at the photo of the reichstag set alight by the nazis in the 1930s - it all has had me thinking about successful democratic systems and how the average voter does or does not contribute to that concept.

from what i have read (and certainly this started before i left the country), there has been a lot of criticism levelled at julia gillard's leadership and her government. some of it is warranted (throwing human rights out the window in relation to immigration matters) but in all seriousness, is it entirely fair to blame her and her government for all of our (and thanks to siobhan for this term) "first world woes"? please take a good hard look at the world around you, average australian voter. there is a massive global financial crisis going on. countries which have stood the test of time far longer than our little nation have crashed and burned in a spectacular fashion, ie greece, with others on the brink of doing the same, ie italy and spain. the US is struggletown city with decimated currency and assets and massive unemployment. obama is facing the same probable fate at the next election merrygoround as julia also for a lot of reasons beyond his control - in the US this is inherited deep-seated regulatory, financial and social problems that take time to right - time not granted in the 24 hour media cycle.

also, average australian voter, please consider as an additional level of complexity in australian federal politics, when criticising lack of action by JG and her government, how difficult (in fact, impossible) it is to successfully and completely follow through on an election platform that was formed, in terms of policy, by one party in anticipation of forming a majority government. however due to the election outcome, that set of promises or objectives then has to be necessarily adjusted and agreed with 4 independent/green members, in terms of implementing. this is what happens in a political coalition, it's called compromise. good policy is always flexible and subject to revision as the settings change but you may recall there was no outright majority or mandate won by either of the 2 main parties in the 2010 election, which required a deal by labor with the independent/green members to have the confidence of a working hung parliament. the liberals would have had to strike similar compromises or hit similar brick walls if they'd been the ones to successfully negotiate the deal with the independents post 2010 election. let's please not pretend they would have sailed through unscathed - after all they were not even successful with cutting a reasonable agreement to found a coalition in the first place!

my point is that all of the above combined makes it pretty damned hard to look fabulous in federal/world politics at the moment. but let's just forget about all that (let's be honest it's much too hard to think about!) and keep slagging off our leaders, shall we? why bother with trying to be positive, look forward and support development of cooperative medium-long term working solutions? after all the human condition loves and prefers a good dose of short-sighted schadenfreude, doesn't it.

f o du jour

2011-09-18T16:36:00.002+10:00

to the final level of angry birds (chrome) - the final bastion of the normal levels in which i do not have all 3 stars. no matter what i do i can only get 2 stars. SCREAM!

nice one, NT news

2011-08-17T18:45:00.000+10:00

Queensland Senator Barnaby Joyce yesterday offered this assessment on what gay marriage laws would mean for his own four daughters.
"We know that the best protection for those girls is that they get themselves into a secure relationship with a loving husband and I want that to happen for them," he told a Canberra rally organised by the Australian Christian Lobby.
"I don't want any legislator to take that right away from me."
It is not known if he was trying to say his daughters were all lesbians, or if, instead, their prospective male partners would rather marry men if given the option.

ah z'berra

2011-07-28T08:51:00.004+10:00

awesome ye olde canberra photos from the 1940s to 1970s! so recognisable and yet so different. i am most amazed by the 1970s photo above showing alinga street extending right through civic past david jones - this area is all now a pedestrian mall. if i wasn't about to go away, i'd head down to civic and take a modern photo from exactly the same spot to show the difference. project for 2012!

don't agree with gay marriage?

2011-07-27T18:21:00.002+10:00

this link is for you!

p.s. also recommended for the gays ;)

we'll miss you boo

2011-07-27T13:41:00.002+10:00

hooray!

2011-07-27T13:34:00.002+10:00

i've worked out why my pictures stopped going mobile -> blog!

f o du jour

2011-07-27T13:09:00.001+10:00

i am suffering material possessions fatigue. serves me right for being a capitalist pig (of sorts).

the tide is turning

2011-07-27T10:51:00.001+10:00

jess refuses to discard her bright purple 'eye' rave pants.

fighting the sentimental (hoarder) instinct

2011-07-27T09:54:00.007+10:00

NO JESS YOU DO NOT NEED TO KEEP THE DUBLIN LITERARY PUB CRAWL TOUR TSHIRT FROM 1996 THAT YOU HAVE NEVER EVEN WORN!!!!!!

o·pin·ion/əˈpinyən/Noun

2011-07-26T22:12:00.000+10:00

1. A view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

scheisse [lady gaga/dj white shadow]

2011-07-25T14:08:00.001+10:00

1 2 3 4 [feist]

2011-07-25T13:50:00.001+10:00

uncharted [sara bareilles]

2011-07-25T13:45:00.000+10:00

DJ kittens

2011-07-20T17:18:00.004+10:00

ACL pot kettle black: episode #3962

2011-07-19T19:34:00.003+10:00

more strident than ever hypocrisy from our dear friend jim wallace at the australian christian lobby, refusing to show up for a gay marriage debate for fear of being demonised. wow jim, are you sure it's not because you realised you are completely and utterly intellectually outclassed and unable to summon enough (any) rational arguments to participate in a debate?

this post is dedicated to vonnie.

sorry siobhan

2011-07-16T18:13:00.001+10:00

soon i will have a lot more time and energy on my hands for lots of blogging :D

f o du jour

2011-06-21T19:40:00.002+10:00

not sure who to direct this f o towards, it's either sony, optus or blogger, but the photo blogging action from my mobile is broken. whoever is at fault, FIX IT!

blogger excuses and promises

2011-06-15T07:33:00.002+10:00

i am painfully aware of the relative (compared to years immediately previous) inactivity on f o this year so far. i have been physically mentally and emotionally consumed by other activities in the first half of the year. however the long service leave 6 month stint in europe looms in 6 weeks' time and i can promise far more prolific (and hopefully interesting!) blog activity then!!

ordinarily i would agree with annabel

2011-06-15T07:29:00.003+10:00

however, ms crabb - i find myself in the awkward position of disagreeing with your outrage over the focus by the media (well, some media) on julia gillard's relationship status and how it stacks up in terms of her worth. it only seems fitting given the government sees fit to comment on the merits of my relationship and deem it, and me, less worthy compared to heterosexual australians.

eeeeee IS BIRD!

2011-06-10T08:00:00.002+10:00

thank f it's hometime

2011-06-09T17:32:00.001+10:00

parliament house: centre underneath

2011-06-07T14:23:00.002+10:00

adshel wrap: ACL exposed

2011-06-02T07:53:00.002+10:00

posters have been put back up.

adshel corro #3

2011-06-01T18:27:00.000+10:00

Dearest ACL

A friend has just called from Brisbane with the news that the posters are being put back up!!! Oh no! After only a day of being down thanks to your good work??? A travesty to be sure!

And perhaps you could confirm this for me while he on the phone to me, trying to fill the airspace because I was almost speechless at the news, he also said the Qld Premier (and Treasurer?) has said something like the ACL should open up the calendar and check the date in it. What do they mean by that? That sounds suspiciously like they are saying you think you're living in the stone age or something.

Honestly ACL, there has got to be something you can do to pull all these folk into line. How about you announce another rapture date for this weekend - that worked so well last time round.

OK, gotta go feed my cat now. You have a good one!

adshel corro #2

2011-06-01T14:04:00.000+10:00

Dear ACL and a particular thanks to Wendy Francis!!

Thank you for your super hard work gathering 25 odd (I know you can interpret that as 'odd' as in 'weird' - but for the record 'odd' is also used to mean 'approximate' in relation to a number. You can guess which one I mean though!) people to write in and complain about the poster of the 2 guys hugging. We all know all men hugging should be banned. I'm hoping next you can take some sort of action against fathers hugging sons too - even if they're fully clothed. I mean, it's just riduculous isn't it? Why should we have to see that in public? Or even in private. Disgusting!

Anyway sorry about that little rant, once I start on these things, I just get a bit crazy and carried away.

Now where was I? Oh that's right thanks so much for getting those Brisbane GAY posters taken down. I should mention that I'm actually in Canberra so I WOULD NOT HAVE EVEN SEEN THEM except that your good work in getting a few people to write in and complain about them, so now they've moved out of the bus stops and into not just the local papers in Queensland, but across the whole country! I hear that people are even talking about it on the radio and it's on tv too. I haven't checked yet but I think it's probably made the international press too. You know how things go viral these days. Damned internet. But at least you've stopped people seeing them in the Brisbane bus stops. Good work!

So I really just wanted to write and say thanks so much for bringing these posters and their message to my attention. Without your actions I wouldn't have even known. Which makes me think, shouldn't you be charging the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities some sort of PR or marketing fee? You've saved them BUCKETLOADS in having to actually PAY for advertising spots for their posters now.

The world just really isn't fair sometimes, is it?

Have a wonderful day!

adshel corro #1

2011-06-01T14:02:00.002+10:00

Dear Adshel.

A short note to add to the countless others your company has doubtless received today. I'm sure you've received some messages of support, but more than likely far more in outrage and disgust at your decision to bow to the homophobic pressure from 25 right wingers to remove a poster of 2 men hugging one another.

It's more than obvious from the public reaction (comments, polls, press) that the public has expressed overwhelming dismay in relation to your choice.

But I have a different question for you. How do you think gay employees of your company feel as a result? How do your children, family and friends feel? If gay, doubtless they would feel very sad as you have, through your action, cast judgement on them. Even if they're not gay, you can bet your bottom advertising dollar that most of them are pretty bloody embarrassed and ashamed by your pandering to the lowest backwards fundamental rightwing denominator.

I genuinely hope you see the error of your ways and rightfully reinstate the posters. We don't live in the stone age anymore.

the adshel story of shame

2011-06-01T14:00:00.001+10:00

link here.

more amazing canberra sunsets

2011-05-21T23:41:00.007+10:00

photos stolen (borrowed? credited?) from my favourite canberra blog (aside from my own!), the riot-act. hopefully i don't get in trouble due to the nod....

overdue dose of LOLs

2011-05-19T20:16:00.006+10:00

LOL @ me reference LOL @ jaws reference
LOL @ pretentiousness LOL @ wordplay
LOL @ mands reference

another amazing sunset!!

2011-05-19T17:15:00.002+10:00

approaching the end of another canberra autumn...

reassuring workplace signage

2011-05-19T14:45:00.002+10:00

glad i wasn't in the lift this morning when the 'incident' happened.

more pot kettle from ACL

2011-05-15T22:44:00.001+10:00

Rob Ward, of the Australian Christian Lobby, said people were free to gather but the debate should be civil.

''Sometimes Dawkins and co have been a tad impolite.''

f o du jour

2011-05-06T22:19:00.004+10:00

wankers on bicycles who are clearly only wearing their helmet because they know it's against the law not to wear one, but they don't clip up the chin strap. you know what? you don't look cool, you don't look like you're giving the law the middle finger - you look like a dickhead who would crack their skull open if you actually did come a cropper. you wouldn't feel so much like a cool rebel then would you? do you pretend to wear your seatbelt when travelling in a car too? idiots.

the wisdom of david g

2011-05-04T22:24:00.001+10:00

"How we treat our enemies is NOT about them - it is about US. How we treat our enemies is not about what they did to us, it is about who we REMAIN despite what they did. How we treat our enemies is a measure of how much the most precious elements of the spirit our enemies set out to destroy remains undaunted, untarnished and untouched REGARDLESS of the ills they inflicted on us."

wise words from a wise man.

i'd rather celebrate an end to all hate and war-mongering

2011-05-03T18:26:00.002+10:00

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that"
— Martin Luther King Jr.

heater slug

2011-05-02T20:05:00.000+10:00

carlton tops sydney

2011-05-02T19:50:00.001+10:00

work coffee mug battle with a colleague. take it stinky swans!

f o du jour

2011-05-02T07:38:00.001+10:00

tinned mango slices, you are truly utterly revolting.

foggy morning

2011-05-01T08:22:00.003+10:00

something serene about waking up to a good fog.

leave me be

2011-04-30T00:40:00.002+10:00

f o du jour

2011-04-30T00:29:00.004+10:00

"chefs" who think, in response to a vegetarian request (which is hardly unusual or arduous in this day and age), that it is a satisfactory entree offering is to plate up the food which basically formed the side or basically presentational aspect of an meat/seafood entree without adding anything additional - either quantity or quality - to substitute for said meat/seafood and charge the same price and more importantly pretend it's a genuine entree. you are shit - and should be working at maccas rather than parading as a high end restaurant chef.

judd & blues trump will & kate

2011-04-29T21:44:00.002+10:00

f o du jour

2011-04-29T18:07:00.007+10:00

army wankers.

i found it hilarious (not) to read in above linked article:

The lawyer for one of the men immediately moved to have the case heard in a closed court because of "national security concerns".

seriously? you're a misogynist immature 18/19 year old and you (via your lawyer) think your identity genuinely constitutes a national security concern? firstly get over yourself, and secondly come now tell the truth, you are in reality bloody embarrassed (as you damn well should be) at being revealed for being the filthy pig that you are. congratulations on your arrest and i hope you look forward to a lifetime of these articles showing up any time anyone googles your name. names being daniel mcdonald and dylan de blaquier.

z'boo z'wine

2011-04-28T20:46:00.002+10:00

binara street graffiti

2011-04-27T15:10:00.002+10:00

yes it's jesus in a gas mask but what does it mean??

gareth birthday bbq 3

2011-04-25T17:44:00.002+10:00

gareth birthday bbq 2

2011-04-25T17:43:00.002+10:00

gareth birthday bbq 1

2011-04-25T17:34:00.002+10:00

mountain walk 3

2011-04-25T11:28:00.002+10:00

mountain walk 2

2011-04-25T11:16:00.002+10:00

mountain walk 1

2011-04-25T11:14:00.003+10:00

mum and i walking the cascade rivulet track - from back of cascade brewery to base of mount wellington.

misty mountain

2011-04-24T16:53:00.002+10:00

mountain wellington with swirling cold mist.

potata

2011-04-20T15:48:00.002+10:00

art: 2

2011-04-20T14:30:00.002+10:00

euthanasia machine @ MONA.

art: 1

2011-04-20T12:23:00.002+10:00

art. at MONA.

four generations

2011-04-19T19:57:00.004+10:00

my niece, sister, mum and gramma

ada banada potata's 1st birthday bash

2011-04-19T15:34:00.003+10:00

hardcore party supplies: jelly shot sans alcohol but with fruit. delicious!

ada opening the best present - from aunties jess & mands - contained lego and david bowie (labyrinth). essential childhood tools.

sentimental favourite

2011-04-19T10:29:00.002+10:00

cat and fiddle arcade, it plays and moves on the hour

criterion street stencilwork

2011-04-19T10:15:00.003+10:00

hobart CBD street art

lord street

2011-04-19T09:39:00.003+10:00

lovely autumn morning in the mania.