In praise of grumbling

Wait Australia

2011-09-21T11:35:00.000+10:00

Why is there so much angst on the arrival by leaky boats of a few refugees or asylum seekers.
"Send them back" is the general Australian jingoism from politicians, radio talk backs, loud-mouthed taxi drivers and other weak-kneed opinion makers.
It seems that everyone in Australia would be happy to accept a few more miserable refugess, if only these people would wait their turn. There is an irrational fear that a trickle of refugees could mean an insidious weakening of our comfortable life.
The loudest argument now is about where this small dangerous herd should be penned. Anywhere, but not in our own backyard.
The main excuse for this meanness of spirit is that those damned foreigners didn't wait long enough for official permission to seek refuge on our 'golden soil'.
Individuals and families who need urgent shelter should knock politely at the doors of the nation, then wait till the security guards check the colour of their souls.
Dark swarthy strangers, including children, might be dangerous.
One day, we promise them, sometime in the future, their claim for help will be checked and rubber stamped by a dedicated public servant, working strictly to government rules.
If genuine refugees try to sneak under the radar by arriving on a leaky boat, they will sent to wait in holding pens in another country where they have little or no welcome.
We try to deter more arrivals by forcing those who have already crossed our girting seas to wait with infinite patience in a stalag camp , wait in a detention centre, wait in a prison, wait as beggars. While they wait, Australia offers second degree protection from their traumas, limited rights, feeble benefits, remote from friends, from support and comfort.
There is no queue for refugees. It is in only the kafka-esque minds of bigots and bueraucrats refugees must wait patiently in a queue to be processed.
Our national understanding of immigration queues seems to have been formed by visions of a cattle pen on an outback staion, or the late-night queue outside a trendy nightclub, where fashionably dressed desirables are scrutinised and either admitted one at a time or rejected and sent home with their tails between their legs.
National psyche
Very few people can, or do, now sing the words in the second verse of our national anthem " For those who've come across the seas, We've boundless plains to share"
The other verses of the original poem, that we never sing, say all that is needed to know about Australia policy on refugees and asylum seekers

"Shou'd foreign foe e'er sight our coast,
Or dare a foot to land,
We'll rouse to arms like sires of yore
To guard our native strand."

The Labor party finally voted to delete White Australia from its platform at its 1965 conference. There was a similar struggle inside the Liberal Menzies government.
"The cabinet felt that the proposal put forward could not do other, if approved, than give the impression of significant relaxation and reduction of Australia’s immigration policy. The cabinet made it clear that it was not prepared to approve or permit such a result." (Cabinet Decision, 15 Sept 1964, NAA 6980T1/ S250469)
So, while the official platforms of all major political parties in Australia vigorously reject discrimination of new arrivals based on race, the practice, in the latest parliamentary debate, is in fact a way of appeasing those who want to discriminate.
In December of 1901, the federated colonies, through the Immigration Restriction Act, brought the White Australia Policy into being. That Act used the infamous dictation test so that any potential immigrant to Australia had to sit for a dictation test in any European Language. This made non European immigration to Australia almost impossible and it was not until 1959 that this form of discrimination was officially repealed.
Now it is back as a 'queue' for refugees to wait their turn.
The old 'White Australia' policy is still alive in many minds who support the "Wait Australia' policy

Anzac Biscuits.

2011-08-29T15:08:00.004+10:00

I like a good Anzac Biscuit, almost as much as I enjoy a good grumble.
Anzac biscuits were originally baked by anxious wives and mothers during World War I, packed in food parcels, and sent to the Australian soldiers in the trenches
Last week I started a civil confrontation to protect the traditional biscuit in a shiny new chain coffee shop which opened in my local suburb.

On the counter, near the cash register they had a jar labelled "Anzac Cookies” .
I politely explained to the staff that this was a major faux pas, a heresy; showing disrespect for the ANZAC tradition in this country.
Put into plain words, in this country we eat biscuits, not cookies. Put the two words together - as in ‘Anzac biscuit’ - and you have a national icon.
They smiled, and nodded and said ‘Oh’.
Two days later, I saw when passing, they hadn’t changed the sign, they were still trying to sell Anzac cookies.
OK, I thought. Let’s up the ante. So I pulled out my always handy camera, and photographed the offending jar. And I handed the manager a copy of a sheet I carry for such emergencies, copied from Wikipedia (it looks semi official).

Legal issues

The term Anzac is protected under Australian law and therefore the word should not be used without permission from the Minister for Veterans' Affairs; misuse can be legally enforced particularly for commercial purposes. Likewise similar restrictions on naming are enshrined in New Zealan law where the Governor General can elect to enforce naming legislation. There is a general exemption granted for Anzac biscuits, as long as these biscuits remain basically true to the original recipe and are both referred to and sold as Anzac biscuits and never as cookies.
This restriction resulted in the Subway chain of restaurants dropping the biscuit from their menu in September, 2008. After being ordered by the Department of Veterans' Affairs to bake the biscuits according to the original recipe, Subway decided not to continue to offer the biscuit, as they found that their supplier was unable to develop a cost-effective means of duplicating the recipe.

Having read this, the offending staff changed the label on the jar in three minutes I’ll check back later to see they’ve kept the proper use of the name.
I’ve taken this battle on mis-naming of Anzac Biscuits to the food trolleys on an airline, to a shopping centre (mall) and to the volunteers in a school tech shops.
Some might say I am obsessed, but I don't think I am the only one who is touchy on this subject. There's a coffee shop in Noth Sydney with a jar of Anzac Biscuits labelled differently on each side. The side which faces the public most often says "Anzac cookies". When a complain is lodged, they turn the jar around, so the label reads" Anzac Biscuits". Then when the grumbly customer has gone, they turn the jar back around.
Alright, I can’t hope to hold back the tide of language or cultural corruption completely. Let them sell their chocolate brownies, and their oatmeal cookies.
Some things are essentially Australian, and if I - or you- accept their greedy corruption, really, what’s left to be proud of?.
That means I need to make a bit of a fuss when something in which I believe is challenged, or changed through ignorance and disrespect. There have to be some limits to tolerance
I become what I accept.
If I passively accept changes to the culture I cherish then me, and my culture, becomes tangibly eroded.
There are some Australian expressions which are semi sacred, and I will fight their sloppy replacement with an American-ism, as hard and as often as I can.
One such profanity is this habit of American wannabes to call an ‘Anzac Biscuit’ an ‘Anzac Cookie’. No, NO, and NO BLOODY WAY.

Grumble in Paris

2011-03-08T13:58:00.001+11:00

One of the greatest modern day grumblers is restaurant review AA Gill

As do many great columnists, he writes for Vanity Fair.
He didn’t like his meal in a popular Paris eatery. Gill claims this could be the worst restaurant in the world.

One sentence will give you an idea of what Gill experienced

"The wine cellar is behind the lavatory in a crypt that smells overpoweringly of fetid bladder damp."

More --

No room for me here

2010-08-13T14:16:00.003+10:00

I live where there's a real mix of people, and love the place, have lived there for ten years. But rents around Sydney are becoming silly. This flat has a vintage value and I feel at home, although its a bit seedy, a bit run down, but it is dry and rat free. And its $100 a week less rent than similar flats around the district.

The pressure on landlords in Sydney to get as much as they can is high enough to turn carbon into diamond. There's a shortage of all sorts of properties, and so it's a sellers' market. I guess I am due for a rent rise very soon. That will mean that this place will no longer be affordable.

I retired a few months ago. My meager income from the pension is fixed, I cannot go with the economic flow. Time perhaps to move. Perhaps to look for government assisted accommodation.

I had my first interview with Department of Housing. They call their new improved client service the Housing Pathway. More like The Yellow Brick Road.

Along the way of applying for admission to the land of aging munchkins, I pass a person with no brain, a person with no heart and a person with no initiative

To gain admission I have been given pile of paperwork to fill in, and a list of twenty bits of evidence needed to prove that I am who I say I am

As explained to me: I am applying for housing assistance at the wrong time. It appears that the NSW Govt housing is so badly designed and built, that they must rebuild it. That means moving everyone out of their flats and houses in derelict public housing while it is rebuilt or renovated.

No wonder there’s a general shortage of rental places in this state, if such a large portion of accommodation is unsuitable, and no longer available. The shortage forces ordinary non-yet accommodated people to face higher rents in the private sector, until they, like me, can’t afford the place they are already living in, and become emergency accommodation cases! Or move to a dying town the far outback in the back of beyond, where population and the demand for places are in decline

People on the waiting list for a place can’t move interstate while they are waiting, or they’ll lose their place in the queue for non-existent accommodation. Catch 22

I am now redirected to other agencies to apply for a place to live

Next week I’ll face the first of the private agencies, armed with my pile of filled in forms and evidence.

TV hates me

2010-06-11T20:09:00.002+10:00

If I want to see the world cup from home, this year I have to watch it on a 30 year old portable black and white set. The screen is barely bigger than that of a mobile phone. The players on field look like fuzzy rice grains and the ball appears about the size of a pin prick.
I started to prepare for this world cup months ago.
Where I live I can only get a ghosty dancing image on the screen of my main TV, broadcast from one free-to-air channel, SBS. That's the channel showing the world cup in Australia.The other four free-to-air channels look like an impressionist painting seen through a bowl of onion soup.I certainly couldn't see any the city's new digital channels.
Consequently, I don't watch much TV. I missed 'Lost', and 'The Wire', and 'Big Brother' and 'So you think you can Dance'.
But with the world cup getting closer I had to make some effort. So I bought new desktop boxes, two of them. to try to see programs . All that happened was the TV screen flashed a message " No Signal". I tried connecting to an indoor arial and an outdoor arial. Nothing worked.
This suburb is a bernuda triangle for rain clouds and TV signals - they just disappear.
I can't afford cable television. Besides, I didn't want to see the rest of the cable rubbish, just the world cup.I live in a flat and would be tied to a contract.
So This week I bought a new flat screen. ready for the world cup. I bought another new digital set top box, and a I bought a new arial, and a new signal booster. Yesterday I put them all together, read the instruction books (written in Chinglish). and Lo and Behold, now I can get 7 of the fourteen free-to-air channels, as crisp and clear a signal as cable itself. The only channel I can't get is SBS, the one showing the world cup. I have reinstalled three times, but still no SBS,. So far all I've missed is the opening game.
And I have spent nearly the same as a year's subscription to cable.
Today I had a brain wave. I could watch the world cup on my computer monitor.
Down at the gadget shop I got a little dongle for my computer, another set top box and another indoor arial, with signal booster. Once again, hours of plugging bits into the computer, installing a program and rebooting the computer. After searching for nearly an hour the computer locked onto a single TV channel, A Sydney community broadcast group called TVS, whose most exciting program on their schedule is ten pin bowling. Nothing else in the way of TV channels will appear on my computer monitor. No World cup.
Luckily I'd kept this old miniature black and white set. It uses a coat hanger for an arial. The sound is like the back end of a tin can. But the reception for SBS is clear and sharp, even if its a bit like watching the game from a plane flying at 20,000 ft.
Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi

Hart failure

2010-05-15T15:24:00.005+10:00

When I saw in Sydney’s food guide that Harts Pub in Sydney’s historical Rocks precinct was serving Ploughman’s Lunch, I thought 'Bewdy... '

I went with a mate, who will probably never trust me to pick a pub for lunch again. The Ploughman's was a disappointment

It’s pricey

When I opened their menu, the hairs on the back of my neck fell limp; this place is $8-10 a plate more expensive than their competitors nearby.

On this visit, Harts Pub was out of kilter with other pubs in the district, both in cost and value.

Their Ploughman’s Lunch was listed under the heading “Mates Plates”.

Mates plates – I imagined these were plates you can share generously with a friend. At $24 for Mates Plate Ploughman’s, the price suggested we would have a real tuck-in for two. Nearby ‘The Australian’ Hotel sells a shared plate for $14, and there’s more on that plate than two grown men can eat comfortably.

Instead, for their portion control at Harts Pub, the mates they have in mind would be a sparrow and a church mouse.

The service was as shy as the lunch.

When we ordered our Ploughman’s Lunch at Harts Pub only two other tables were already occupied in the bar. I can't explain the dealy. By the time our plate was slapped down, we had finished the first drink and were starting to eat their paper menu.

I could barely believe my eyes. There was so little food on the plate. These guys may have never been ploughing, but that’s no excuse not to guess the size of a ploughman’s hunger for real food. This was a concept of a Ploughman's lunch, not the full quid.

What we were served as a Mates Plate PloughMan’s Lunch would have caused a walkoff in any farmer’s field. A small piece of a single type of cheese. A couple of pickled onions. A finger bowl of gherkins. A few lettuce leaves. A feint taste of prosciuto. Six small slices of salami, about the size of a 20 cent piece, cut thin enough to see through. A single small roll that would leave a fashion model hungry. How can two mates be satisfied with that?

This is a tourist area, so we can expect to be squeezed, but not to this extent. This was all bottled and bought food,. The only work the chef had to do was slice the salami and warm the bread crumbs. There's no visible reason why it took so long to deliver, and cost so much

A simple search on Google should have alerted them to the genuine makings of a client-pleasing pub’s Ploughman’s Lunch.

After we two mates had fought to get a share of this small meal, I went, like Oliver, to the bar to ask ‘Please sir, can we have more bread’. This request took a long phone call to management to get approval. Another luncher standing in the queue behind me told me he also had had to ask for more.

I ordered a wine. I know this is a beer pub, but in Sydney there’s no excuse for any pub in the city to be ignorant of good wine service. After the bar staff had sniffed the neck of the bottle of already opened house wine, twice, to see if it had turned, she had to re-poor the liquid into other glasses, twice, before we found a glass that was clean.

When our lunch was served, the plate was slammed onto the table as the waiter ran past. It was so light, it bounced. I had to call the waiter back for side plates and cutlery.

It hadn't take long for us to scoff the mate’s plate. And the wait for extra bread meant we were getting desperate for food. Just as we were about to leave, another small roll was dumped on the table without a word.

The slogan on their web site is “So original it’s criminal”. Our lunch was almost ‘original’ in that sense.

After this paltry lunch at Harts Pub we went a block down the road to a better known packed pub, to satisfy the hunger pangs with another shared plate, , , for $10 less.

Mutton dressed as lamb

2010-04-05T13:34:00.002+10:00

Yesterday being easter, looking in the butcher’s window, all I could see was lamb.
Lamb chops, leg of lamb, rack of lamb, lamb noisettes, sides of lamb.
This strikes me as peculiar, because it is Autumn here now; I always thought of lamb being a spring dish.
Where’s the mutton? I asked the butcher about this. He grinned, sheepishly, and showed me red ink markings on the meat, all genuine certified lamb. Mutton has to be stamped differently to show it is mutton. So where is the mutton in his tempting displays of meat? Sorry, he said,he doesn’t have any.
My older recipes books have some wonderful recipes for mutton; I remember the rich aromas and taste in dishes my mother and grandmother cooked. In these days of re-inventing slow cooking and pressure cookers, I would expect mutton could be an economic way to feed a family well.
But no; I looked at the local agricultural newspaper The Land, and saw that mutton on the hoof these days is selling for almost as much as young beef. Why is this so? Perhaps the farmers like to sell lamb more, because they don’t have to spend so long feeding the animals while they grow. Perhaps, also, Australia is sending its quality mutton overseas where buyers have more taste, aren’t so easily fooled by the ‘lamb’ label.
This discovery has me thinking now; why do all the poultry shops and fast food joints sell ‘chicken’. Why can’t we eat more old fowls? When I was a kid, dad would kill the old fowls when they had stopped laying and lunch was great. What’s wrong with eating old roosters/
For that matter, when have you seen butchers advertising “old cow” in their windows. It’s all called yearling beef or veal. I’m sure I have some good recipes for old steer or old bull, if any I don’t have to travel to third world countries to buy it.
It’s food like that that once made this pioneering country great.

Australia Day reflections on Hard Tack

2010-01-11T18:04:00.003+11:00

Many my age have been sent down to a corner store as kids to buy broken biscuits. They were cheaper than perfect ones. At some stage larrikin kids tried our hand at being a Beano-comic style comedian
"Mr, do you have any broken biscuits?"
"Yes, son"
"Then why don’t you mend them"
Biscuits were then scooped out from a large tin, and weighed into a brown paper bag. Our parents knew what sort of biscuits to buy then, they didn’t need fancy climate-change-producing plastic wrapped tubes with pictures on the size the grab their fancy on a biscuit shelf.
Biscuits have been an integral part of our lives and culture. Iced Vo-Vos, Yo-Yos, Anzacs, Sao, Ginger Nuts and Milk Arrowroot. In true Aussie style, they were generally referred to as "Bickies"
Imagine my horror then at the way our language is being damaged, like a stale biscuit. . I go to a restaurant and I am offered a cookie. I fly and the cabin crew offer cookies. In the supermarket the biscuit aisle is labeled ‘cookies’.
I protest. As an Australian, I want a biscuit with my cup of tea or coffee. Not a placebo sweet called a cookie.
This introduction-by-stealth of the name ‘cookie’ is a well accomplished example of subversion of Australian culture and language.
For a young nation that grew from a diet of hard tack, we must protect our great tucker.
American companies homogenising our foods and words, and weak-minded Australian marketing puppets, are gradually surrendering the name and status of our fundamental snack foods.
In 2009 ill advised Americans tried to change the name of one Australian iconic food Vegemite, to something like I_P_on_U.
The local protest was strong enough and loud enough to make the overseas owners back off. But I notice the so called ‘withdrawn’ label is still taking up metres of shelf space in supermarkets. They haven’t really withdrawn the re-named re-flavoured substitute for vegemite.it is still being sold possibly to wear down loyalty to Vegemite.
This is important to the issue, and relevant to the discussion of biscuit lore. Imagine a cookie and vegemite snack. Vegemite in a sandwich of Vita wheat crackers, oozes out little worms when squeezed. The American substitute just seeps and creeps like spilled oil.
We don’t have to accept these change. Our food is NOT Terra Nullis. ANZAC biscuits have been part of the nation's diet for nearly 100 years. When biscuit companies tried to sell some swamp hay they called ‘ANZAC cookies’ there was an outcry. Enough is enough. That was where and when the cookie should have crumbled. They still appear, and if you see them around this Australia day, join me in class action, claiming the seller is anti Australian.
Then a fast food chain (from: guess where) tried to sell more sludge, this time called by the proper name "Anzac Biscuits" but they were not the real deal (they were some fast food ignorant recipe). It was more than this country could swallow.
The Department of Veteran's Affairs ordered Subway to bake its ANZAC biscuit as per the original recipe, which is protected by federal legislation.
Rather than meet local customer needs, and the Australian law, Subway restaurants stopped selling their faux ANZAC biscuits.
Don’t get me wrong. Cookies have a place in scoffing, but not at the cost of bickies
A 'biscuit' and 'cookie' are two different classifications, not to be used to describe the same food type
The word biscuit comes from the Old French biscuit. Italians sell Biscotti-
In most English-speaking countries outside North America, the most common word for various hand-held, flour-based sweet cakes-either crisp or soft- is BISCUIT.
In the United States a biscuit is a kind of quick bread similar to a scone.
Small hard biscuits were probably first made by ancient Middle Eastern peoples. These foods were quite practical, as they were filling, easily transported and able withstand adverse weather conditions. This is why cracker-type foods have a long history in military rations. Ancient Roman armies ate biscuits, Nelson's sailors ate Ship's biscuit, and soldiers ate hardtack.
I believe the Tax Office could be well served by looking into this cookie-biscuit fiasco. At present they are confused and relying on courts to tell them the difference between biscuits and bread. Australia taxes biscuits, but not breads. Ciabatte is a bread, every where in the world, but Australian Tax Office wants to tax the local product as a biscuit. I think the ATO, and Australia, would be better served by taking the extra Goods and Services Tax off biscuits, but taxing everything called a Cookie.
With a little change in the law to protect the Australian way of life, they could collect millions of dollars (AU) from overseas food polluters, and gain the respect and support of millions of Australians.

For more on this: Warren Fahey was done great research on The History of the Australia Biscuit

Lets hear a good word for germs

2009-11-16T19:26:00.002+11:00

I don't quite know how to do this without breaking some law, or turning into an amoral plagarist. I will probably become a perpetual target for the world's most cantankerous columnist (AA Gill) or his irascibile publisher, Murdoch. But this is too good not to share with you. I found it in the Times, and immediately poured some draino down the sink.
Reviewing some restaurant or tother, Gill went off into one of his rants: "People are obsessed with disinfecting their kitchens. People in my house. Personally, I’m much more worried about bleach than I am about scallops. I’d rather you peed on my chopping board than wiped it down with peroxide. By the way, wee-wee is a natural disinfectant and biologically neutral. It’s perfectly okay to wipe down the breakfast bar with a damp nappy. My cleaning bottle also says that 74% of doctors agree that this spermicide eyedrop kills 99.9% of germs. I’m sorry, but that means 26% don’t agree. What if the 74% were all those doctors who were traffic wardens in Lagos and did a correspondence course and answer the phones when everyone else is on holiday and tell mothers that meningitis is gout. And what if the 26% (one in four) are all Harley Street consultants and Nobel prize-winners, and think it’s a load of bollocks? I wouldn’t get on a plane that only 74% of pilots thought was going to land. A well-run, healthy — as opposed to antiseptic — kitchen should be a great reserve of fungus, bacteria and decomposition. We need it for vinegar and bread, cheese and yoghurt, all meat and game, wine and beer. Kitchens should be living, breeding, suppurating places. "
If you really want to go and read the rest of his column, and scan the ads on the Times web page, here's the connection:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/eating_out/a_a_gill/article6910840.ece

2009-11-02T20:49:00.002+11:00

Now that I have reached retirement age, am I still of any use?
Over the years, I have been discarded by a variety of people, who have decided that I am no longer of use to them.
I am of a generation where all of our lives should be spent trying to be useful. It is our duty. Help around the house, earn cash, feed the family, mind the kids, fix the leaky tap.
At church I was told God made me to serve him. Do good works, donate a tithe, spread the word
At work I tried to earn my place in the sun. Advise the boss, plan for the future, keep records, help the team, produce results, mentor the new kids on the block.
Judgment often was that I was bloody useless at many of these tasks. I mightn’t have been a super star, but I reckon I might have been some value around places where I found myself.
Comes retirement age, and the supporting twig of purpose gets cut from under our feet. The kids are out on their own, society doesn’t want a burden of paying yesterdays heroes.
So, many who have been kicked out of home, or evicted from their place of work, are now left floundering trying to find purpose in our remaining lives. Some of us have been shrewder than others, we spend our remaining days trying to be carefree kids again. There are those who can afford to be servants to our own wants and fancies: grey nomads, sea changers, hobby farmers. That’s OK if you’ve got a sweet little nest egg. People will tolerate some selfish behaviour from elders who have assets, because there’s possibly of some profit in return for charity.
But for most of us, there’s more than a chance we will become merely a duty, a burden on our families or our communities when we stop being useful.
I think that’s why so many people when they pass retirement age but are still fit, volunteer for unpaid work, or accept child minding with grandkids, or take up hobbies like line dancing or accept menial work like being a lollipop monitor at the crossing by the school gates. Just to feel useful. We just want to feel that we are doing something functional, rather than being a problem for future generations.
What’s the answer – perhaps a stimulus package for the aged. Not increased pensions for doing nothing, but an funding an organization that can generate paid jobs for old folk.
At present older workers are treated something like illegal immigrants – the next generation argue that if we stay at work we are taking jobs away from younger people who deserve the work.
Huh! At least we can still do mental arithmetic, and remember the morality of a good days work for a good day’s pay.

Grumbling song performed on youtube

2009-09-28T19:23:00.000+10:00

The grumbling song - Lyrics

2009-09-28T19:22:00.000+10:00

In country town or city
Some people can be found
Who spend their lives in grumbling
At everything around
Oh yes, they always grumble
No matter what we say
For these are chronic grumblers
And they grumble night and day

They grumble in the city
They grumble on the farm
They grumble at their neighbours
They think it is no harm
They grumble when its raining
They grumble when its dry
They grumble all the year round
Yes, They grumble till they die

Grumble on Monday
Tuesday Wednesday
Grumble on Thursday too
Grumble on Friday
Saturday Sunday
Grumble the whole week through

They grumble at their husbands
They grumble at their wives
They grumble at their children
Its their way of life
They grumble at their parents
They grumble in their schools
They grumble at their teachers
They grumble at all the rules

Grumblers Mantra

2009-08-18T20:28:00.000+10:00

Grumbling is good.
A grumble is a subdued complaint.
A top class grumble is the result of realistic expectations, offering subtle criticism, with a touch of compassion.
A well timed, well aimed grumble is a productive version of Peter Finch’s cry in the movie “Network”; Finch’s character says “ I am as mad as hell, and I am not going to take it any more.”. The grumble says “I am pretty sane and sensible, and I don’t think any of us should take it any more”
A grumbler is anyone who considers how something could be improved, and mutters against wrongs and stupidities or offers a rumble of restrained warning, like a feint distant war drum
Only stoics, slaves and the British feel a need to say “Mustn’t grumble”
People who moan or whine are just venting spleen, they are labeling themselves as victims, without expecting their problem to be fixed.
We don’t need to be assertive nor aggressive to have an effect. Forget shouting, forget heckling or name calling. Being grumpy or cranky or crabby doesn’t change anything, they only wear away goodwill.
Grumbling rules.

Too much cheating

2009-08-17T19:47:00.001+10:00

What ever happened to our Australian tradition of a ‘fair go’?
I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but as I look around, I can see cheating is as big an epidemic as fat, or as rampant as binge drinking.
Cheating is as bad as lying, deception, fraud, trickery, pretense, or stealing.
Bullies are cheats. Discrimination is cheating. People without talent or ability trying to get ahead unfairly and lazy bastards who want to take shortcuts are cheats. Is tax dodging cheating? Yes. Is parking in a disabled space when you have all your bits? Absolutely.
Politicians with a snout in the trough are cheats. Buffoon players cheat on sports fields. On the roads, fanatical drivers cheat. Shady business has an unfair share of cheats. Hopeless sales people cheat. Unbalanced relationships are rife with cheats. Lazy journalists cheat. Greedy food manufacturers cheat. Fly-by-night mechanics and petty tradesmen cheat. Bankers cheat. Schools cheat. Even pop religions cheat to increase their weekly tithes.
This is a pandemic as tragic as any flu, but with more victims. Everybody carries the burden of cheats. You think every body’s doing it – that doesn’t make it OK
As a result of this environment of cheating, the convention of trust is almost exhausted. It’s a society where fear, suspicion , self-indulgence and arrogance are becoming a norm.
I don’t like it and am having a grumble.

Ugly Sydney

2009-06-13T19:29:00.003+10:00

Sydney gets good press from the harbour, Bondi beach and the Opera House, but after that, there are many reasons to screw your eyes tight shut.
Earlier Prime Minister Paul Keating complained that State and Council governments' planning policies had created some of the "most gormless buildings … in our history" and robbed Sydney's grandest stone and brick buildings of their dignity."
Examples of exisiting scars and warts are

Cantebury road, squat, with its small business desolation.
Blues Point Tower, protruding like a middle finger rampant.
Winter shadows in the city, tall buildings blocking any remnants of direct sun.
Lots of brutalist buildings, like the UTS tower
Traffic jams, morning noon and night
Late night drinkers spilling onto the roadways
19th century telegraph poles, a blight on the roadscape

Put a cork in it

2009-06-02T19:06:00.003+10:00

Went to a restaurant on Sunday night with three friends. Took a really good bottle of wine. When the bill came, there was a charge of $12 for 'corkage' - three dollars for each person.
This was wonderfully strange, because the bottle of wine had no cork in it at all. It was a screw top.
I think the restaurant should charge correctly, for screwing its customers.

Failure in capitalism is worth an executive bonus

2009-01-05T20:12:00.004+11:00

The history of financial disasters is littered with bubbles that burst. Some really baubly bubbles were the Tulip Mania of 1636, the Mississippi Bubble of 1720 and the South Sea Bubble of the same period.
Recently, economists assured us they’d fixed the problems of boom and bust cycles. “It would never happen again”, until of course the great stock market boom of the 1990s, which ultimately led to the dot-com bubble, the collapse of Enron and Worldcom, and the exposure of corruption in all of the economic machinations.
“It will never happen again”, they assured us once more. Until of course the great Bush bubble was pricked last year. This time it wasn't a bubble, of course; its now called "The subprime fallout"
So how did it happen?
Spectator magazine gives a series of definitions of the chicanery that went on under the noses of economists, called “Cows, a cheerful summary”. Original author unknown, buts it’s a variation on old lessons.

Socialism:
You have two cows. The state nationises one, and gives it to your neighbour.

Communism.
You have two cows . The state takes both and gives you some milk.

Fascism:
You have two cows , the state takes both and sells you some milk.

Traditional capitalism:
You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell the herd and retire on the income.

Lehman Brothers capitalism:
You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your bother in law at bear Stearns, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer, so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred through an intermediary to a Cayman island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new President of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. The public then buys your bull.

Fish Milkshakes

2006-10-15T14:53:00.000+10:00

Back in the seventies there was a sketch TV show in Australia called "The Aunty Jack Show". They loved poking fun at the steel city of Wollongong, and strange habits of the residents. The cast produced a song about "Fish milkshakes". Yuk, what could be worse?
Last week, on the way down to Wollongong I stopped at a bottle shop to buy a bottle of Irish Bailey's. Too dear I thought, and looked along the shelf of bottles. One that caught my eye was KilKenny Cream about a third the cost of Baileys, and made in Australia.
There, on the back label in hard-to-read small print, was a list of ingredients: "produced with the aid of egg, milk and fish..."
Fish. What in the name of all that's weird did they use fish for, in a liqueur? Helping me get stewed to the gills?

The Raving

2006-01-07T11:48:00.000+11:00

This thought is attributed to Ted Manning, and seems to apply more and more to my work, as I approach a deadline

The e-Raven
Once I took e-learning (dreary), and I pondered, weak and weary
Why they forced me to go through it - who'd create this dreadful bore?
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of some one gently rapping, rapping on my chamber door.
'Tis Flash animation," I did mutter, "only this and nothing more."

Wish I could retain some meaning, 'fore my interest careening
From this dull, page-turning Fiend, Had me weeping on the floor.
Yet I plodded, kicking, screaming, clicking clicks I did deplore.
Then I stumbled 'pon a screen which did set my mind to reeling,
Quoth instructions (Times New Raven), in a font typed very small:
"Click Nevermore".

'Round the interface, I peering, long I sat there wondering, fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no learner ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
But now the words were clearly spoken, those instructions from before,
A reedy, screechy chirpy voice through mine headphones:
"Click Nevermore."

"Much I marveled - head was churning - was this teaching?
Was I learning?Could I recall course objectives, witnessed by mine eyes before?
Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing,
Performance outcomes? All unknown, but this I did the screen implore:
"Tell me truly, what thou wantest!" Quoth the screen:
"Click Nevermore."

"Prophet!" cried I, "thing of evil! Wretched software! Damned upheaval!
Dare I click this absurd button, or doest thou warn me to abhor?
What behavior seekest thee - what change in my skills' core?
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, how to grasp that distant shore!
Quoth e-learning: "Click Nevermore."

Now the screen doth mock me truly: flickering, winking, taunting coolly,
And my eyes have all the seeming of a demon most unruly,
As I wait for new instructions, those that guide me through a door
To a Haven blessing users, peaceful Eden, where true learning is adored.
Yet I grasp no hope of leaving, for in my mind those words still roar:
Quoth e-learning, "Click Nevermore."

from the WBTOLL learning digest,
by Ted Manning,Ted Manningtmanning@alleni.com
after Edgar A Poe.