No wonder I’ve been feeling stir crazy lately. Or is it cabin fever? I just grabbed my travel bag to pack for my weekend in Perth, and saw that the previous airline tag was dated August 2006. It’s been more than a year since I’ve been out of Sydney! Eek.
A pre-election meditation
Most of my Saturday mornings start with a quiet, reflective time. ’Pong has gone to work, the cats are fed and have finally shut the fuck up and gone back to sleep. It’s not yet time to join the Snarky Platypus for our regular gym, lunch, shiraz and sarcasm session. I’ve got a couple of hours to sit, still unshaven and often in my underwear, sort through the newspapers and my notebook, turn them over in my mind, and see what emerges.
What emerges this morning is laughter. About John Howard.
Not a belly-laugh, though, nor that loud, pointing, “Haw haw haw! Hey Charlene, will ya just look at that!”
No, it’s a quiet chuckle. A roll of the eyes and a slow shake of the head which says, “Oh, you bloody idiot.” And this moment of amusement is certainly helping to make up for the anger of the last fortnight.
Oz Politics says I’m an Australian Democrat
Of the top 7 Australian political parties, apparently the Australian Democrats most closely match my political worldview. So I guess it’s a shame they might well vanish from federal parliament completely in a few weeks.
That’s according to the Test your political inclinations thingo at the Oz Politics blog. Fun, though they do warn that “if you are unhappy with the results, do not worry about it too much. The instrument has not been validated scientifically and the results could be misleading. Do not use this test to decide how to vote at an election.” Quite.
More intriguing is the summary of the last 5000 voters. 74% of self-identifying Greens voters think all third-world debt should be cancelled, and only 7% disagree, but 54% of One Nation voters disagree, and only 24% think the debt should go. No surprises there. But dig and you’ll find some gems.
Warning, I’m reading Clive James
Fair warning: Over the next few weeks my writing is likely to become more introspective, and I’m likely to use longer sentences. Because I’ve started reading Clive James’ book Cultural Amnesia.
I haven’t read any of James’ books before. His TV shows annoyed me, mostly because his slightly-too-clever scripting was delivered in that, flat deadpan style of someone implying “I’m cleverer than you, so I’ll speak slowly so you realise how clever I am.” Or so it felt to me. But when I read an interview about Cultural Amnesia back in March, it triggered so many wonderful thoughts that I was inspired — nay, forced to write Stay alert, ye nameless, toiling animals.
I still think it’s one of my better essays.
So when I finally saw Cultural Amnesia in paperback, I had to grab it. 35 pages in, I’m rapt.
Published twice in one day
I’m happy. I’ve been published twice today, thrice this week.
As I mentioned before, Crikey was happy for me to cover today’s panel discussion with IT minister Senator Helen Coonan and her Labor opponent Senator Stephen Conroy. They were joined this morning by Democrats leader, Senator Lyn Allison.
My Crikey story points out that Coonan scored at least three own goals. I’m chuffed that it was selected as a “top story” for subscribers.
My other Crikey story was about Australia’s contribution to the Space Age, published on Wednesday and including my comments about the spaceport we never seem to get.
I’ll do a public version of both those stories tomorrow.
And the third piece was a little snippet for New Scientist, which I sent them on 24 June. There’s a picture (right), but here are the words for search engines to find.
The label on reader Stilgherrian’s Australian-made Starmaid ice-cube trays reassures him that they are “freezer safe” — which he says is “handy”.
But right now it’s Red Wine Time…
Consonant-laden über-geek
Apparently my degrading media designation is “consonant laden über-geek”. At least that’s how Crikey bylined me on today’s article. Personally I’d have used another hyphen.