Stupid songs say so much

Inspired by Sharpatootha’s comment on a recent post (and with due acknowledgment to Melbourne Girl for starting this whole Craig McLachlan thing) I present the following confession.

Many years ago, at some massive clearance sale at the Exhibition Buildings, I spent an entire dollar on a copy of Craig’s second hit, “On my own”. On cassingle, no less.

Now, at the risk of being hated forever, it was actually a pretty good song (discuss). The B-side, however, was a little number called “I want your heart.” I’m not going to google the lyrics, as I’m not sure that’s even possible, but from memory it went something like this:

The first time that I saw you I was totally drawn/ Wired to your vibe, something special was born/ Feelings that I hadn’t felt in such a long time/ Felt so good I thought it had to be a crime

Don’t let me love you no more (x3)

I/ want/ your/ heart/
Mine won’t pump on its own
I/ want/ your/ heart/
Mine won’t/ mine won’t pump on its own


Just a couple of brief comments on this:

1. I have just realised why Bon Jovi’s latest single sounds familiar
2. Anyone who can get lyrics like 'wired to your vibe something special was born" actually recorded and released is a genius.

I think the other song on this single was some sort of mad attempt at rockabilly which included the lines “When the colonel said it’s finger lickin’/ he was talkin’ ‘bout, talkin’ ‘bout chicken” but it’s possible that I have just started making stuff up now. I hope so.

Australia, your chicken is upsetting people

In “let’s get cross over nothing” news this week, the Australian Christian Lobby is apparently appalled that Red Rooster has decided to slaughter all of its chickens in accordance with halal principles

ACL spokesman David Yates said “We think many Christians would be offended if they went into Red Rooster and had to eat halal meat”.

I have no idea who David Yates is, or what he is talking about. I also have no idea who the Australian Christian Lobby are or why on earth they think they have the right to speak for me, or any other Christian in Australia.

The ACL is not alone in making ridiculous statements on this issue. Atheist Foundation of Australia spokesman David Nicholls said he would “throw up” food that had been prepared religiously. Surely it would be less trouble to not eat it in the first place?

Eventually it may occur to someone to think of the chickens. RSPCA head Dr Hugh Wirth said “I’d go so far as to say Halal slaughter in Australia is less cruel than orthodox Western methods.”

There is something a little depressing about Christians and atheists finally finding some common ground when that common ground appears to be based on not being too fond of Islam.

Still you have to admire them for standing up to be counted. Many people, no doubt distracted by minor issues like climate change, mandatory detention of refugees and third world debt relief, appear to be entirely uninformed and apathetic on the halal fast food issue.

I don’t eat at Red Rooster much, because I am trying to stay healthy and thin, but the statements made by the ACL on this issue really do make me want to rush out and buy the biggest Red Rooster burger I can find, solely to annoy David Yates.

Whoever he is.

Election wrap

Wow, that was really boring and entirely predictable.

Except the bit where the Liberal Party's primary vote dropped slightly and now everyone is tipping them to lose the next election too.

That bit rocks.

NCA

Sometimes a comment comes along that is so good it deserves it’s own post.

This one was from Melbourne Girl a week or two ago:

I was thinking you should form a club. I love clubs. And the only people who can join are people whose names are not Craig. And then the REAL Craig could come and give talks on being someone called Craig. It would rock.

The more I think about that, the funnier it gets. So, how would it work?

Since this club would mostly be made up of bloggers and we all like to keep our true identities secret, I plan to call this club Not Craig Anonymous. Sure, opening the meeting by saying “Hi, I’m I’m not Craig and I’m ‘not Craig’” would be faintly absurd, but well worth the effort.

The agenda for the first meeting will look something like this:

1. Each attendee talks for five minutes on our own experiences of not being Craig

2. We all sit back and enjoy the keynote address from Craig

3. We finish the evening by applying what we have learned to a rousing game of “You’re not Craig”

“You’re not Craig” is a game that a few of my friends and I invented many years ago whilst trying to find Craig in a crowd of people outside a cinema. We could not help but notice just how many people in the world were not Craig.


The aim of the game is to find a person who is not only not Craig but is as unlike Craig as possible. For example, if you find a woman with long red hair who can’t play soccer for toffee and utterly lacks the mad trombone skillz, you achieve a fairly impressively high score. We planned to create a board game, complete with a large picture of Craig for reference.

This idea never really got off the ground. The problem came in the early testing stage because I usually played this game against Craig. This was not a good strategy, because it usually went something like this:

INC: You’re not Craig

Craig: Yes I am

INC: Drat and botheration. No points. Okay, it's your turn

Craig: You’re not Craig

INC: He’s got me there

Craig: I win again

This game is possibly far more fun if you are not playing against the person it is named after. It’s too late to find out, though. Now that my entire identity is based on not being Craig, anyone who finds me achieves the maximum possible score and becomes the “You’re not Craig” champion of the world.

Anyway, back to the first meeting of Not Craig Anonymous. I don’t think I could actually convince Craig to speak at this event, so we need to find a guest speaker who is called Craig, preferably one who is well known and who will not, when told about the nature of the event he is being invited to speak at, scream “What sort of nut organized this event” and run away in a panic.

Perhaps I should think about this a little more carefully.

Mowvember nights

On my way home, one night last week, I saw a guy riding a bike with a lawnmower strapped to the back, just behind the seat. It was one of those no-motor, hand pushed, lots of quite sharp exposed blades type mowers.

I now understand why people need camera phones. If my phone could take pictures then right now you would be looking at a picture of a guy with nothing between him and disaster but a thin layer of lycra with a caption of the “place your bets on how long it will be before this ends really badly?” variety.

Does anyone have a theory on what exactly motivated this guy to take his lawnmower for a ride?

Anyone?

You're two tents

A few signs that I have been too stressed about work this week.

1. Walking home with a can of soup and feeling an almost overwhelming impulse to throw it through the window of the nearest car.

2. Actually thinking to myself “I need to take my mind off things, maybe I should just sit and watch “McLeod’s Daughters”.

3. Looking at the bottle of chardonnay in my hand and wondering where one would buy a straw that reaches all the way to the bottom.

4. Considering similar questions in relation to the port barrel.

5. Being so preoccupied with thoughts of work that I got half way through getting the children ready for their bath and then realised that I am not wearing any clothes at all and I have no idea when this happened.

Sudden fondness for mX

I may have been slightly rude about mX in the past, but it is improving. Last week the paper featured an editorial by Andy Murdoch, about the ridiculous decision to axe The Glass House. The article was really very good.

I have not been watching The Glass House as much this year, as ever since it moved to Wednesday night I have been apparently unable to remember that it is on. But I am a fan and I am baffled that a show which one would think had no production costs apart from a nice big bottle of scotch just before going to air for certain guest panelists could really be axed for budgetary reasons (especially when people have finally started watching it).

Andy Murdoch took the rather more likely view that it was actually a case of political interference and the ongoing erosion of free speech (I’m paraphrasing, but I agree with him).

However, the most intriguing part of the article said this:

“There are worse things than The Glass House copping the hatchet. The GST, the Tampa, children overboard, industrial relations, “security” laws, the demonizing of single mums/ lesbian mums/ gay dads/ anybody/ artists/ writers/ Muslims/ leftie Christians/ leftie anybody/ the unemployed/ environmentalists/ indigenous Australians/ free speech/ democracy/ anybody who doesn’t like John Howard/ anybody who vaguely resembles a decent human being.”

I have been a Christian for 20 years and a lefty for the last 15 of them. I see being a lefty as a natural result of being a Christian, although it seems that a terribly high number of people disagree with that view. Certainly most people in the particular large eastern suburbs church that I grew up in rapidly came to regard me as some sort of insane communist. Then again, I also drink beer and enjoy dancing, so there was always going to be tension.

I am very pleased indeed to see leftie Christians included in that list. I would absolutely prefer be included with lesbian mums, indigenous Australians, Muslims, the unemployed and the rest of that list, than to be on a list of people John Howard likes, which by implication would include “righty” Christians (and given this government’s fondness for Hillsong, you know it does).

If I’m on the list of categories of people who are vilified by this government, rather than the list of people doing the vilifying, then I’m clearly doing something right after all.



This makes me very happy.

Yes we have no bananas

This from the Washington Post, as quoted in The Age:

Democratic pollster and analyst Mark Mellman said the mid-term results served as a reminder to Senator Clinton that she must be careful to highlight her opposition to the war in Iraq in order to avoid alienating a sizeable number of Democrats. “She’s the 800pound gorilla in this race, and the Iraq issue could cost her 100 pounds, maybe,” he said. But he added, “Seven hundred pounds is still a pretty big gorilla.”

That might be the best political quote in American history, with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan’s hilarious announcement regarding having just outlawed the Soviet Union, the imminent commencement of bombing and other such entertaining matters.

I don’t know if I have ever come across the use of gorilla pounds as a measure of something or other to do with politics, but it’s times like this that make me just wish I was a political journalist so I could ask “And how many gorilla pounds would you sat John McCain is packing?” because in this context THAT WOULD NOT BE A STUPID QUESTION.

Mr Mellman does have a point on the issue of gorilla size. The average female gorilla weighs around 100 kg. On Mr Mellman’s estimate, Ms Clinton is tipping the scales at, even allowing for the Iraq war issue, 318kg.

Mr Mellman is described as a Democratic pollster. This raises the question of whether it is possible for a pollster to be anything other than democratic. Are there autocratic pollsters who just ring up and tell people what to say?

Ms Clinton could never be elected in this country. If the average gorilla eats 6 bananas per day, Ms Clinton would, on Mellman’s estimate, consume 19 bananas per day, which is 6935 bananas per year, at an average cost to the tax payer of $19814 per annum.

And while we’re on the subject, why do people say that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys? Clearly, you would get elephants. If you want monkeys, you pay bananas, which make me wonder how on earth Triple J can afford to fund their breakfast show just now.

It has been a really, really long week.

Just wondering

A few questions that have been on my mind these past few days

1. How young is too young for one’s child to have his ear pierced?
2. As a minimum, would “while young enough to be walking around with a dummy in his mouth” be a useful guide?
3. What were that boy’s parents thinking exactly?
4. How long can one spend brushing one’s hair on the train before it gets a little strange?
5. Is 20 minutes too long?
6. 25?
7. There is a shop a few suburbs away from my place that sells two things: home brewing equipment and hydroponics. Does anyone else have a theory about what is going on here?
8. Is there some sort of award for sheer nerve in advertising and excellence in contempt for the intelligence of one’s target audience?
9. If so, can we give it to a certain burger selling company that probably has a bigger marketing budget than anyone on the planet but is currently running ads portraying itself as some sort of victim because some of the friends of the teenagers who work there may have suggested that the burgers are not necessarily made from minced eye-fillet and have cast other such slurs upon the clearly excellent quality of the food?
10. Do they also get a lifetime achievement award in the same category for, as part of the same advertising campaign, setting up a website which consists solely of propaganda placed there by one of the biggest corporations on the planet with the sole stated purpose of convincing the reader of the quality of that corporation’s products and calling it “makeupyourownmind.com.au”?
11. Seriously?

More stuff about me. Seriously?

I should learn to be clearer about when I am just being flippant and/or rhetorical. When I asked what else you wanted to know about me at the end of the previous post, I didn’t expect anyone to actually send in any questions. However, the brilliant and wonderful Sharpatootha sent a list of questions that amused me greatly and made me very happy, so the least I can do is answer them. Honey Bear also answered some of the questions for me. We decided to post both sets of answers, for the sheer hell of it.

And then the questions kept coming. And so do the answers. However, I should point out that this is the one time I’m going to do this, otherwise the whole thing will turn into a deeply narcissistic knock off of Ms Fits’ now legendary Friday questions and nobody wants to see that.


So, to Sharpatootha’s questions:

Who are you, if you aren't Craig?
I am some utterly-not-famous-for-anything guy who lives in the south east suburbs of Melbourne, works for a firm you would not have heard of, loves his wife and children to distraction and wishes nearly every day that he had put more effort into coming up with an online identity.

Who is Craig?
Craig is one of my closest friends in the world. We met in Year 7 and we have been friends ever since, apart from the first six months when we irritated each other quite a lot. Craig was the best man at our wedding (another regular commenter on this blog was our bridesmaid) and his speech was as funny as anything I have ever heard at a wedding. People are still talking about it.

Why is He so special?
He was the inspiration for the game of “You’re not Craig” and hence, indirectly, the inspiration for my online name

Can you not be Laura for once?
I am constantly not Laura, but if I start listing everyone who I am not it will get tedious. For example, I am not George Bush, Steve Fielding, Pat Rafter, Andrew Denton, Jennifer Byrne and SEE IT’S ALREADY GETTING BORING AND NOT VERY FUNNY.

This whole shebang is confounding me, let's just go have a sit down.
Will you have a sit down with me? What about a ginger snap?
A sit down and a ginger snap sounds wonderful. Are you free next weekend? If so, feel free to drop in for coffee and cake one afternoon. Let me know when’s good for you and I’ll see if Craig is free to join us.

How did you find your Honeybear?
I just walked into the foyer of the Echuca Magistrates Court and there she was. I am forever indebted to the colleague who introduced us, and then phoned me six weeks later to tell me to hurry up and ring her. I did and the rest is a very happy piece of history.

When does the Official Soundtrack of HoneyBear: The Musical get released?
This may take a while. And, since I am one of the original cast members of this musical, it will feature some of the dodgiest singing since the cast of Buffy released “Once More With Feeling”

Can I help with some artwork actionz?
Of course. The involvement of someone with the mad graphic design skillz would be most welcome.

Have you found new work yet?
No

Is it far away?
I continue to believe that it is just around the corner. However, I may need to meet God half way and send out some more applications.

Do you like my new shoes?
I think they are winning. However, I know very little about women’s shoes so perhaps all such queries are best directed to Ms Batville.

What's your favourite book?
I think it is currently “The Sunne in Splendor” by Sharon Penman. Epic is an overused word, but this sweeping story of the last years of the War of the Roses (the period in English history, not the ridiculous film starring Danny DeVito) is simply amazing.

Did you ever indulge in The Hamburger?
I have indulged in many hamburgers, but never “The Hamburger”

Have you ever been sued for making innocent game-players eat off 'hamburgers'?
No, thanks to a combination of good luck and mad legal skillz.

Do you drink grog?
Hell yes, and lots of it. Despite spending a few years living in a town where rum in a can was the drink of choice, these days I tend to go for a cheapish but nice semillon chardonnay or a good cab sav. And, of course, when the budget stretches to it, a large bottle of gin and a straw.

Where's the best place to eat dinner?
If you don’t mind the drive, the best dinner I have had in recent years was at Bungalow Thai, conveniently located about 4 km north of Yarrawonga. I am entirely serious when I say that, despite the place looking like a such a complete dive that we nearly didn’t go in (they’re not kidding about the Bungalow), the chef, who moved there from Thailand a couple of years ago, is an absolute genius and they serve the best Thai food I have found anywhere in the country.

If you are looking for somewhere closer to home, I recommend:
For the second best Thai food in the country, Royal Siam in Kew Junction
For Chinese food, the Dragon Boat in Chinatown
For Greek food, Pireas Blue in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
And for vegetarians, the Veggie Bar, also in Brunswick Street, is an old favourite. The stuffed mushrooms are excellent.


And Honey Bear said…

Who are you, if you aren't Craig?
My fabulous, sweet, hot, perfect man

[Yes, she really wrote this - INC]

Can you not be Laura for once?
I don’t think I can picture him as Laura, although….

This whole shebang is confounding me, let's just go have a sit down.
Will you have a sit down with me?
A sit down sounds grand. He is passionate about good wine, ginger snaps (although we’re lacking a good source for these and suggestions would be welcome) our gorgeous bumpkins and, well, me!

How did you find your Honeybear?
He found me coz I didn’t give him a choice! Once I laid eyes on him, I never let him go, apart from the first six weeks when I was waiting to see how long it would take him to ring me. Luckily, with some prompting, he eventually did and here we are…

When does the Official Soundtrack of HoneyBear: The Musical get released?
If you are really well behaved, Honey Bear the Musical will NEVER be released. However, if you’re bad, there’s always the threat.

Where's the best place to eat dinner?
I’d have to agree with INC on the best place to eat out. Fabulously good thai food, unpretentious and affordable too. Inconvenient location though.
I hope this goes some way to unconfounding you. If not, may I suggest another chardonnay? Or, as Ms Batville would suggest, bring on the gin.

Adam said
Wait, was the hamburger meat uncooked and they still ate it? Eurgh! That's gross.
For a start, "meat" is ambitious. Anyway, it was one of those frozen ‘just microwave it for 3 minutes’ type deals so the meat like substance had been pre-cooked. And it was gross

Are you really going to get Craig's permission? But won't he then know about this blog? What if he shuts you down?
Craig hasn’t rung me back (the slacker) so this blog is safe for now and also I’ve been pretty vague on the details I’ve posted about him. I doubt that Craig would shut this thing down although he’s an IT kungfu master so he probably could. It’s more likely that my name would suddenly change to I’m not Beverley or similar.

I think we’re likely to be in more trouble if Tom Cochrane ever finds out about this blog

Is anyone else nervous?
Yes, apparently

Giggle wick said
Yes Adam, very nervous

See?


Harpo said
Perhaps there are twists that can be added to the fundamental idea:
Search For The Slurpee
Collect The Cauliflower
Pick Up The Pappadums

This amused me greatly, although how one would collect the component parts of a Slurpee is beyond me. Pick up the Pappadums in particular has a most pleasing ring to it.

I have a question to add to Sharpatootha's list though: you mention that this game has only ever been played twice — I'm staggered it got a second go. How did you get away with it a second time?!

I got away with it because I was running the youth group so I could get away with pretty much anything. The second round, many months after the first, was in fact promoted as the state championship, as another youth group from Melbourne was visiting our little town.

I probably could have said world championship, but that would have been overdoing it a little.

The real question is what sort of mad people would continue to allow me to run a youth group after the first round of that game. Then again, there were only two of us running it and the other person involved was responsible for the infamous banana sculpting incident, so I wasn’t doing too badly. In hindsight, we should have had the occasional planning meeting.



Gigglewick said
Do you know any of the people who comment on your blog in the real world (i.e. not the internerd)?

I like to tell people that I went to school with Ms Fits and Bevis, but I’m a few years older than both of them and I’m pretty sure I have never met them in real life. I just like to imply that we may have met because it makes me seem way cooler

My lovely Honey Bear reads this stuff, and there is one pretty frequent commenter on this blog who is a good friend of both of us. She also knows Craig.

I don’t think I know the rest of the regular commenters (although how could I tell since none of us use our real names or photos of ourselves) but I know my cousin in Perth has read this blog at least once because he emailed me to say thanks for the nice comments about his family when I posted about my trip to Perth.


Does that make it weirder or easier to blog?
It doesn’t make it weird, or easy. I don’t think about it much. There’s nothing anywhere on this blog that I would want to keep from the people I know in real life, except that I don’t want my boss to know I’m job hunting.

However, now that my parents know about this blog, I’m fairly relieved that I decided from the outset to cut out the swears.


Also, I like the way that Craig has been imbued with a deified status in Sharpatootha's questions, does Craig indeed have some kind of Messiah-complex?
Craig has less of a messiah complex than just about anyone else I have ever met. However, I’m sure the level of interest in the “who is Craig question” and his newly acquired “Almost as famous as the ‘Where’s Wally’ guy” status will amuse him greatly


Okay, that was three questions.
And they were all excellent

And finally, Ms Batville said
Find the hamburger is almost up there with friends who invented "Figure 8" for some restless 10 year old boys on a school camp. That's right "Figure 8" was a game that involved doing as many runs in a figure 8 formation as was possible. Genius!

Yes, it is.

I'm all for "Official Soundtrack of HoneyBear: The Musical" - you could podcast it to a grateful world

A grateful world is currently feeling very relieved that I am far too stupid to ever work out how to podcast anything, particularly if it includes my singing.

Perhaps Honey Bear could release a solo record of selections from this musical. That would be worth distributing.


So there you have it folks. Even more stuff about me, and a surprising amount of additional information about Find the Hamburger. As ever, thanks for reading.

INC’s Saturday Night By Request

This may be the lamest post in the brief history of this blog (yes, I know, that’s a big call) but since these lovely people have asked and indeed petitioned for more information, it is time to crank the publicity machine into high gear and promote the soon to be famous game of “Find the Hamburger”.

This game has been played twice ever, as far as I know. It was invented some time in the year 2000, back when I was living in a small town and helping to run the local youth group. Having clearly run out of ideas for sensible activities for the coming Friday night, I decided that we would play “Find the Hamburger”. I’m not sure why I decided this, other than that, having thought up the most excellent name, it seemed like it would be a terrible waste not to invent a game to go with it.

So I went to the IGA and bought two of the frozen cheeseburgers that, terrifyingly enough, people actually eat, and some lettuce, some tomato, and, because I am a patriot, some beetroot.

At this point, it is no doubt dawning on you that I wasn’t kidding about this being lame.

I then separated the cheeseburgers into their component parts and wrapped each part in gladwrap. One hamburger was hidden in various parts of the carpark of the local church and the other was hidden in the park across the road.

We divided a surly group of teenagers (whose surliness was only increased when I told them what we were going to be doing next) into two even teams. Each team was assigned to an area and had to find both buns, the “meat” pattie, the cheese, the pickles, the lettuce, the tomato and the beetroot and return them to the hall. First team to find all the pieces and assemble their hamburger won, um, something or other.

For those who did not believe that this post would be lame, allow me to say I told you so.

Also, I should mention that it would have worked better, and been considerably fairer, if that town had not had such a large population of stray dogs.

Possibly the real reason I came up with this game was so I could announce at the end that the next game on the program was “Eat the Hamburger”, just to see if they would.

They did.

I could so totally sell this idea to the producers of Survivor as a reward challenge (with built in reward). Anyone reading this who happens to know The Probst, please ask him to e-mail me at inc@notarealaddress.com.au as soon as possible.


So, what else do you want to know about me?

Honey Bear: The musical

My wife has an amazing ability to find a song for any situation and then sing it beautifully. This has been going on since long before we had children.

Essential, my role in life is to be a cast member in “Honey Bear: The Musical”. And try telling me you couldn’t sell tickets to THAT.

I like to contribute where I can. Hence the following scene:

Honey Bear: What did we do with the echinacea?

I’m not Craig: [sings to the tune of “What shall we do with the drunken sailor?”]

What did we do with the echinacea?
What did we do with the echinacea?
What did we do with the echinacea?
Early in the morning

[INC goes and finds the echinacea, then sings some more]

Hoo-ray, we’re not so snuffly
Hoo-ray, we’re not so snuffly
Hoo-ray, we’re not so snuffly
Early in the morning

[repeat and fade]


I suspect that there were more verses, but I have temporarily forgotten the words. This may not be a bad thing.

I know what effect this had in real life. But I’m curious. Was just reading this enough to get that song stuck in your head?

'Action'

If these people insist on ignoring my "No junk mail" sign, the least I can do is to thank them for the vivid demonstration of their environmental credentials by giving them a little free publicity on this paper-free blog.

I refer of course to the absolute banana breaths lovely folk from the local branch of the Victorian Liberal Party, who have given my letterbox a handy run down of their "Let's get Victoria Moving Again" plan. Unlikely to be particularly persuasive to those of us who like Victoria exactly where it is, but let's take a closer look, shall we?

The first thing I noticed about this little brochure, apart from the photo of Ted Ballieu looking inexplicably cross and pointing at nothing in particular, was the slogan:

* Stronger leader * Stronger team * Stronger 'Action' Plan*

The 'Action' plan plan gets mentioned precisely six times, and the word 'action' is always in inverted commas. Why?

And how do we determine if this is a stronger 'action' plan. Stronger than what? A plan with no inverted commas? If the goal was to emphasise that particular word, it's called underlining, look into it.

And just one further comment on the proof reading side of this thing. Since when is the phrase "on-time" hyphenated? Or the phrase "on-budget"?

I'm starting to realise why you complete chucklebutts dedicated servants of the public could not figure out a simple "No Junk Mail" sign. Apparently trying to shut down every school in the state last time you nutters wise and wonderful people were in power may have had some impact on literacy.

So, enough suspense, what exactly is involved in this 'action' plan? What are the issues that really matter to those who would govern us? There are four, apparently:

1. Greater security for [the local shopping centre].
This apparently means spending a surprising amount of money to install CCTV cameras. I'm not sure why, since the local shopping centre they are referring to is possibly the safest place in the world, unless a sausage falls on you when you are passing the deli or something.

I hate being filmed by CCTV cameras everywhere I go, and I have no interest in a government spending $150,000 to make this happen at my local shops.

2. Fixing traffic snarls in [a particular road somewhere near my house]
I love this one for two reasons. Firstly, the entire plan is to install a right turn arrow at one particular intersection. It already has one. Secondly, they go out of their way to assure us that this particular plan is "fully costed and budgeted".

3. Multi level carpark at [local train station that clearly does not need one as it already has a huge carpark]
Does this mean they should change their slogan to "Let's get Victoria parking again"?

And finally...

4. Supporting older motorists
By reinstating the $84.30 motor vehicle registration concession to pensioners.
This may get Victoria moving again, but if it means more pensioners driving on the local streets then Victoria is unlikely to be moving particularly fast or in a very consistent direction.

At least they will have somewhere to park.


On the off chance that anyone is convinced that the current government will be returned in a landslide and one should therefore vote for the Liberal party to "send a message to Steve Bracks" or some such sentiment, please bear in mind that the message you will be sending is along the lines of "We really want to be governed by idiots"



Authorised by I. N. Craig for the Life is a Highway Party, Melbourne.

Great rock quotes 4ever

I regularly claim to be into really credible, alternative bands and to altogether have impeccable musical taste.

My frequent declarations of fondness for the Bangles do not help.

Nor will this confession:

I seriously considered buying "The Secret Life of the Veronicas"

Why on earth does anyone over 20 like the Veronicas? Sure, they won at least one ARIA this year, but seriously, why? There are many excellent reasons:

Firstly, I heard an interview with Jess and Lisa (they are twin sisters, they can't both be called Veronica) on some radio station or other before I ever heard any of their music. They were both engaging and personable. Also, they sang "4ever" live in the studio with only an acoustic guitar for backing and they could actually sing.

Secondly, "4ever" is wonderfully happy and poppy and thoroughly mainstream and yet they managed to include a beautifully filthy guitar riff that would not have been out of place on Soul Asylum's "Somebody to Shove" or Rocket Science's "Sex Call".

And thirdly and most importantly, there was this little bit of dialogue as reported in last Satuday's Age. The sisters were arguing over a decision made by their record company and how they should have handled the situation. Lisa said people come to her because they are afraid to speak to Jess, while Jess said people should be frightened to speak to Lisa because she is so ugly. And then we get this:

Jess: Your face would scare anyone.

Lisa: We're identical twins. Moron.


Go. To. Love. That.