Monday, February 10, 2014

The pond succumbs to Monday hysteria and a Seinfeldian quest for nothing ...


Is this the most tragic way to open the week yet devised?

Poor old Errol Simper scribbling Spare the ABC, underdogs need a voice ...

In The Australian?

Well it makes for nice window dressing, but Simper has been banished for so long in the arcane world of media opinion that you'll never see him in front of house.

And anyway, the real tragedy is that this very morning Chris Uhlmann has turned up, like a bad penny, hosting AM on RN.

Well that's the end of that for the pond. Is that the best they could find for him to do?

Ah well, there's always world radio.

But enough of the pleasantries - next thing you know we'll be scribbling about the weather, and we all know how that upsets the Bolter.

No, it's time to get down and dirty, and wouldn't you know it, that little fucker - Blair defence - is at it again in the Daily Terror, the least trusted newspaper in Australia, with Silent over 1000 deaths, but a Somali singes his hand and ...:



Well you know where that one's heading. The little fucker - Blair defence - is telling a joke. A Somali singes his hand and walks into a bar and meets a Scotsman, an Englishman, an Irishman and a French man. Or is that a Catholic, an Anglican, a Jew and a Hindu?

Never mind, there's a splendid line about "scorched Somali fingers", which is really just as funny, if you say it quickly, as Scotch finger biscuits (but don't go calling a Scot a Scotch).

The little fucker - Blair defence - concludes his piece - it's hard to call it journalism - with an attack on Sarah Hanson-Young for getting confused about the various reality shows on Channel 7 - understandable when you consider how many they screen on their multichannels - and thereby manages to completely ignore the apparent contradiction between the federal government mouthing blather about the need for ultimate security and silence in operational matters, and the routine screening of Border Security: Australia's Front Line, in which you can see all sorts of peculiar foreign people taught a fierce lesson about the holy sanctity of Australia (why just this very weekend the pond caught a glimpse of one chappie being sent back to Indonesia in a flash, on the very next plane).

Every government needs a useful idiot, and how the Abbott government must be pleased to have a useful idiot like Blair on side. Even if he's given a Monday slot, the sure sign of doom as everybody confronts the reality of a new week ...

It's a slow day, so perhaps Blair should strip to his underpants and run around the block in a good cause, shouting a Somali singes his fingers, which could be as tricky as Because the pheasant plucker's late, I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit ...

If you say that quickly enough, you could end up describing a typical Tim Blair scribble.

And oh look, there's the Bolter out and about, and very stern about the very tabloids, including the
HUN, who have rabbited on about Seychelles Corby for yonks:



No, we're not asking you to read the actual piece - since when has the pond been into cruel and unusual punishment - we just want to remind you that for all he rails at the inner urban elites, the Bolter himself is a preening, prissy inner urban elitist, always ready to abuse people he doesn't like as bogans.

You're all bogans, you bloody bogan vermin.

Now 'bogan' happens to include a substantial part of the HUN's and the Bolter's and the Murdochian readership - where would a tabloid be without boganism in all its forms, and today you just have to glance over the Murdoch tabloids to see rampant boganism and all its diverse and exotic interests rampaging all over the digital front pages.

Was it only in 2012 that the word achieved the respectability of the Oxford Dictionary?

It was included in the dictionary's list of new word entries for June as a "depreciative term for unfashionable, uncouth, or unsophisticated person, especially of low social status". 
Dave Snell, a New Zealander who completed a doctoral thesis on bogan identity, said the OED's definition was problematic and that bogans had their own distinctive culture and were often working class but not necessarily of lower status. 
"I wasn't terribly fond of that definition," he said. "I don't really like the idea of calling being a bogan uncultured or unsophisticated. It's just a different culture. I like to say it's like taking aspects of Australian culture and concentrating it."

Yep it's as dinky di as a tabloid up against a ponce broadsheet.

But the Bolter has 'bogan' form, as when back in May 2012 he denounced Bob Carr unleashing the bogans again (Column - Carr's "deal" would be a bogan's triumph).

There's no need to register to read the column - just relish the bogans - Bolter defence - writhing at the use of the word "bogan" and you'll have enough comedy to get you through the day. It turns out that the preening, posing snob had been providing links to Wagner and Carl Orff on YouTube to his bogan readership, and they didn't know what to make of it ...

Listening to ABC FM as I blog, and being reminded of how much good music there is in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana - so much more that just the famous O Fortuna. 
UPDATE Reader George T: The program you are listening to, Graham Abbott’s “Keys to Music”, is consistently excellent.

Eek, the Bolter listens to the ABC. He makes use of its services. More public money down the drain.

But the pond is of a forgiving nature, and would have been pleased to provide a link to the Orff. After all, he's sold more coffee than most composers, and the pond has a sweet tooth, and what joy to discover that the pond and the Bolter are as one, inner elites together, marching united against the opera-hating bogans of the world. Uh oh:


Eek, the Bolter is a copyright thief. Well maybe not, but what a relief to know that News Ltd doesn't give a stuff about proprietory rights and financial compensation:

When hyperlinking and framing have the effect of distributing, and creating routes for distribution of, content (information) that does not come from the proprietors of the Web pages affected by these practices, the proprietors often seek the aid of courts to suppress the conduct, particularly when the effect of the conduct is to disrupt or circumvent the proprietors' mechanisms for receiving financial compensation. (Copyright aspects of hyperlinking and framing)

Sneering elitist pirates 1, bogan drop kicks nil! Piracy, the pond and the Bolter rulez ...

So what else? Is it possible to achieve a Seinfeldian nirvana, and do a complete post about absolutely nothing?

Of course it is (well, Jerry Seinfeld can do a mortifyingly bad routine about cars and coffee, and here, Bolter style, it is). Cue Henry Ergas:


The challenge here is not to actually read the words of the hagiographer, the challenge is to find a single example where Henry Ergas ever discovered a laughing matter, and actually laughed.

Does desiccated coconut ever deliver up a rich, rousing, gut-wrenching laugh?

Meanwhile, there are serious issues afoot.

ACOSS has dared to pay attention to the entitlements enjoyed by the well-off, and shortly are about to send Nick Cater into a frenzy by talking about sustainability (here). They've already proposed that Hockey must review all government entitlements.

This is outrageous stuff, shocking the pond to its core.

This week has been formally and officially designated union bashing week - with Paul Sheehan leading the commentariat way - and is certainly not about bashing the privileged and entrenched rich week. What, put Sheehan's magic water and most perfectly baked sourdough under threat?

Thankfully the Bolter has now provided the best answer to all those who can't afford an opera ticket ...

Go watch it on YouTube.

(Below: and in case you missed it, David Rowe on entitlements. Poor old Barners, and more excellent Rowe here, where this very day you'll find a delicious fat cat as the union bashing gets underway)








13 comments:

  1. DP - you may find this interesting. It's about how the Christian right spreads urban myths and downright lies in a quest to seen as persecuted.

    "The Christian Right's Bizarre Delusions of Persecution

    Being a Christian is a privileged position in American society; that makes it really hard to claim you’re being oppressed. But they keep trying.


    "Time and time again, Christian right stories of oppression turn out to be bunk. A kid who was disciplined for fighting is turned, in the Christian myth machine, into a kid who was punished for quietly praying to himself. A track athlete is disqualified for disrespecting a teacher, but the Christian media says it was because he thanked God. A Southern Baptist website is blocked for accidentally distributing malware, but in the hands of the conservative press, it’s oppression. They need to be victimized. No one can really bother to do it for them. So they have no choice but to do it for themselves."

    http://www.alternet.org/christian-rights-bizarre-delusions-persecution?paging=off&current_page=1

    ReplyDelete
  2. Revisiting days of my misspent youth in hippy Londos I came across the revival of the great Jeremy Taylor's classic song "Jobsworth,"

    Seems to fit the present Tony Abbott pretty well.


    ReplyDelete
  3. One can always depend on an American baseball player or official go come up with a pithy saying on winning and losing. Gabe Paul was associated with baseball for 40 years and the following is attributed to him:

    “There is no such thing as second place. Either you're first or you're nothing.”

    Tell that to Peter Hartcher of the SMH. On the weekend Labor won the Griffith by-election. It was a win for Labor, not a loss. But Hartcher tries his pathetic best to paint Labor as the loser:

    “The average byelection swing against a government has been 4 per cent of the two-party preferred vote over the past century.

    But in Saturday's byelection to replace former prime minister Kevin Rudd in Federal Parliament, the vote for the conservatives was broadly unchanged since the September general election result in the same seat. If anything, there was a small shift in favour of the Liberal National Party, a gain of 0.7 per cent in the two-party preferred vote.”
    A gain of 0.7 per cent, wow, just wow. What an astronomical number. Imagine your cholesterol going up by 0.7 per cent. The cardiologist will recommended an immediate heart transplant.

    Also by Hartcher,

    “This is the first time in 18 years that a government has gained at a byelection."

    Yes, but the Coalition still lost, Hartcher.

    Also by Hartcher:

    “But it is a rejection of the scare campaign that Labor ran on what it calls ''Abbott's cuts to health'', all of which are speculative and nothing more.”

    Get it into your head, Hartcher, the Coalition FAILED. Either it is first or it is nothing. It is nothing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Seems odd, hb, that Hartcher, of all people, would not consider Rudd's huge personal vote. That alone would have made it very difficult for the ALP to increase its vote.

      Delete
    2. I agree, Ian, and Hartcher's opinion piece would not be amiss in the Oz - alongside similar twaddle by the blatherskite Shanahan.

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    3. thanks for this HB. Truth to tell the pond thought of doing something about Hartcher, but the wave of nausea and the stench of a rotting fish was too much. Good to see you're made of sterner stuff and gave the wretch a spanking. Now what we need is a spanking machine to automate the work in this innovative nano futurist big Mal world ...

      Delete
  4. Don't you just love it when the LNP start bleating that Labor ran a negative scare campaign . LOL

    ReplyDelete
  5. On the Liberal National Party website for the Federal Election 2013 is found the following:

    “We will restore accountability and improve transparency measures to be more accountable to you.”

    https://www.lnp.org.au/campaign/deliver-stable-government/


    On today’s SMH website is an article with the following heading:

    Twitter, Facebook out of bounds for Coalition staff under strict controls

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/twitter-facebook-out-of-bounds-for-coalition-staff-under-strict-controls-20140210-32b4n.html

    the following is an excerpt:

    “staff must: ‘Other than in the course of their professional duties, not post personal online commentary or other material or publish books or articles expressing personal views which relate to either their minister's portfolio area or the general work of the Australian government.’
    ‘The Prime Minister's chief of staff should be consulted for further guidance.’
    Though staff have not been banned from using Twitter, Facebook or other social media sites, the move is designed to head off potentially embarrassing commentary for the government.”

    First it was Operation Sovereign Borders and now we have an Operation Information Bypass.


    “Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.”

    ― George Bernard Shaw

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Keep 'em coming HB, but be warned we might start stealing lines like Operation Information Bypass

      Delete
  6. Hi Dorothy,

    The first recorded use of Fuck in English and look who it's about;

    http://io9.com/heres-the-first-recorded-instance-of-the-f-word-in-eng-1519247071

    Priceless

    DiddyWrote

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks DiddyWrote. This is doing the rounds and sure enough the pond found it irresistible. Keep 'em coming ...

      Delete

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