Ologists

OLOGISTS

This year I’ve been to see so many ‘Ologists’ that I’m thinking of becoming one, I think I’ve got the experience, if not the qualifications.

So far I’ve seen a Gastroenterologist (liver), various Pathologists (blood), I’ve given so much that they’ve attached a faucet to my little finger, to save time. A heap of Radiologists for scans, Ultra (knee, calf, liver, eye and carotid) X-Ray (wrist, knee and ankle) CAT (liver) and MRI (knee).

I’ve seen an Opthalmologist (eyes) a Rheumatologist (Fair dinkum! knee). Dentologists (aka Dentists, on several occasions) and a General Practitionologist, so many times we’re thinking of getting engaged.

I’m getting a trifle pissed off by now, so I could become a Urologist. It really is starting to give me the shits, so maybe a Proctologist. There again, it’s really making me barking mad, so I may become a Psychologist before I turn into a Psychopathologist.

See you at the Gerontologist,

Cheers,

SkyBlueSkull

A Melbourne Fable

A Fable :- The Great Melbourne Race

Once upon a time down in Dingley Dell, the Melbourne racing fraternity organised a race between a young Wombat, a middle-aged Leopard and a famous 3 y/o Stallion (who shall remain nameless, as the race was strictly not exactly legal). The race was to be run over half a mile and the winner was to get a first class, all expenses paid trip for two, flying by Qantas to Kentucky to race in the famous Derby.

A large crowd assembled and the SP bookies (the only ones there) had the Stallion at 2 to 1, the Leopard (which, to be honest, was a bit past his best) at 3 to 1 and the Wombat at 100 to 1. The competitors lined up in the ‘barriers’. The starter fired his gun to signal the start and the three competitors competed. The horse was used to this sort of thing and leapt out of the starting gate and galloped away.

The firing of the starters gun, confused the Leopard somewhat, but finding himself unwounded, he leapt after the horse in a determined manner. The Wombat was also a tad confused, due to myopia, but regardless of popular conceptions, they are rather nippy critters (to quote popular literature, “for a fat man, he was remarkably light on his feet”) and he galloped down the straight, following the dim shapes of the other two.

The Leopard caught up with the Stallion at the quarter mile post, but then things went astray, forgetting about the race, his natural instincts took over. He leapt onto the horse raking it’s flanks with his claws and severed the Stallion’s jugular vein with his incisors and then proceeded to devour the carcass.

A few minutes later the Wombat jogged past and although they are omnivores, the Wombat decided to stick to his normal routine (eats, roots, shoots and leaves, much like most young Aussie males really!) and decided to forgo the roadkill and carry on with the race. Of course, as in all good fables, he crossed the finish line first and was greeted with adulation.

As a result of this, the Wombat was granted the Keys of the City of Melbourne and because it was a ‘Slow News Day’ (10,000 people were drowned in floods in Bangladesh, 140 innocents were slaughtered in riots in Teheran and Sarah Palin had been critically injured by a wounded moose whilst skinning it in Skagway, Ala). The Wombat appeared on the first page of the Herald Sun, with a photo of Eddie Maguire and detailed coverage on pages 2-7.

Well that’s the end of the fable really, but before we get to the moral, we should really learn the consequences of this ill-fated story.

The Leopard was banned from all further sporting events in Australia for ‘Unsportsmanlike Behaviour’ and was deported back to Africa via Christmas Island, where incidentally, he devoured a substantial number of illegal reffo’s. When he eventually arrived back in Kenya, he expired from diseases related to extreme obesity and swine flu, very shortly afterwards.

The Stallion’s remains were taken to a local knackers yard and the blood and bones were used to fertilize the roses at the Flemington Racecourse for the Spring Carnival. It was later reported that the roses were the best in living memory!

In the meantime, the Wombat and his wife went to the Airport and upon seeing that they were about to embark on a plane with a ‘Flying Kangaroo’ on it’s tail. Well! what could they do? They both knew that while Roos seem to fly over the ground, they actually bound, hop and leap. Neither of them particularly fancied bounding, hopping and leaping all the way to Kentucky.

Whatever! They declined the flight offer and went back to the Dandenong Ranges and brought up several broods of little wombatties and lived happily ever after.

The Morals of this little fable? Well! there are so many, you can take your pick. How about ‘There is no such thing as a certainty in gambling’, or ‘You can’t teach a spotty thing new tricks’, or ‘If you want news, don’t read the Herald Sun’ or perhaps ‘You can take a wombat to Qantas, but you can’t make either of them fly’.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull.

Even more about dogs

More about dogs

I’ve just been to the pet shop attached to my Vet’s place. I went there because I’m getting a tad pissed off with my 6 month old Border Collie dragging me around the streets and parks of Sunshine. It hasn’t really been the arm wrenching tugs, where the little bastard has either taken off at high speed, or dug his heels in to smell something interesting, when I am still being propelled forward.

Nah! What has really been giving me the screaming irrits, is his habit of running between my legs and then ‘playfully’ grabbing the leash (not my personal dangly ‘leash’, I hasten to add.) with his teeth and then performing gym-nasties, leaping hither and yon, with tail and legs akimbo, whilst running back and fro between my own unsteady pins.

The guy at the pet shop was aghast, when I suggested getting a metal leash. No! he said “What you need is a leather leash, and to discourage the little bastard from biting it, rub in ‘Deep Heat’ (which is an ointment used to relieve rheumatic pains and stinks worse than a strapping Jock’s, jockstrap). No self-respecting dog will bite on that, he said.

Whilst I was there with the dog and my son, he also showed us a ‘Clicker”, the idea behind this little doodad, is that you ‘Click’ and give the canine a treat, like half a sheep. The mutt will then associate ‘Clicking’ with large portions of cooked ovines.

He also showed us a ‘Treat-Ball’, this is a rather nifty idea, where you stick dry dog food (It wouldn’t work with corn flakes, so don’t buy one for your kid’s, although it could work with ‘Rice Krispies’, don’t tell anybody I told you!).

With this little sod, you poke ‘kibble’ in through a hole in the ball and then make the hole smaller and give it to the pooch. The hound then chases it around for hours on end, snaffling up dry crap, as it dribbles out.

Here’s a little ditty that I came across on the LiveIreland website, which is well worth a visit.

THE DOG’S ARSEHOLES

The dogs they had a party
they came from near and far
and some dogs came by aeroplane
and some by motorcar

They went into the lobby
and signed the visitors book
and each dog hung his arsehole
upon a separate hook

One dog was not invited
and this aroused his ire
he went into the lobby and loudly shouted “FIRE!!!”

The dogs got so excited,
they had no time to look
and each one took an arsehole
from the nearest hook

Now, its a sad, sad story
for it is very sore
to wear another ones arsehole
that you’ve never worn before

So this is why when dogs meet
by land or sea or foam
each sniffs the other ones arsehole,
in hope it is his own...

written by Matt McGinn of Glasgow.

I shall leave you with that thought.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

My time in Taiwan (continued)

The next morning I set out to explore a bit more and feeling a little peckish again, I looked for a cafe or restaurant. I saw a few places but because of the lack of English signs, decided against them until I came across a place with little plaster-cast models of different dishes in the window. Steak, Crab, Noodles and Rice and suchlike.

My first thought was that this could not possibly be a Ladies Hairdressing Salon and so I entered the establishment and attempted to converse with the very attractive young waitress in English. To no avail, I took her to the window display and pointed out something that looked like bacon and eggs. She smiled and we went back to the menu and she pointed at something, I smiled and nodded agreement.

When it arrived on my table, it was not remotely bacon and eggs but some sort of a beef noodly dish, which was very tasty, so I made a mental note to remember where I had pointed on the menu and paid and left, giving the waitress what I thought was a reasonable tip.

I returned to the same restaurant the next day and pointed at the menu at the same place and a different waitress looked at me quizzically and brought me a sort of omelette dish, this was still quite tasty, so I paid up with a reasonable tip and left.

The third day I went back and did the same thing and ended up with a fish soup. To this day I have no idea what I was pointing at on that menu. It could have been “A service charge of 10% applies in this restaurant” or “ No shoes, No shirt, No service” or “Please do not bring pets in here as they may be served up to the next customer”. After that I stayed with the “Golden Arches”. It may be plastic on plastic with a serve of plastic fries, but at least you know what plastic you’re ordering.

I decided to go down the coastal road on the east side of the island by bus and ended up at a resort near the start of the ‘East-West Highway’. I was sitting in a cafe enjoying a beer, when I was approached by a middle-aged guy who asked me in English if he could join me.

By this stage I was delighted to even hear English, so of course I said yes. He also had a younger friend who joined us, they were both trying out their conversational English. The elder of the two was a bio-ceramacist (don’t ask me what they do, something about artificial bones) who had studied and taught in the US and the younger one (who didn’t speak very much) was one of his students.

This guy was incredible, his English was a tad rusty, but almost perfect (as was probably, his Japanese and no doubt his Mandarin and Cantonese) and he was extremely well read. I asked him why Taiwan, which is such a beautiful country didn’t try to attract more Western tourists and he said that it was far better to get the Japanese tourists. The Japanese were widely understood, spent more money and were far more generous than the Westerners, so what was the point.

I also asked him why there was not far more animosity against the Japanese for them invading Taiwan, he just shrugged and said why don’t the majority of Japanese hate the Americans? Good point! I also asked him if there were any physical differences between the two races and he said not really, some Chinese can pass for Japanese and vice versa, although he may have been polite and tactful in saying that.

I spent a great couple of hours with them and learned more about Taiwan in that time than the rest of my time over there. I should have stayed in touch, but unfortunately I lost his card. From there I took a coach over the East-West Highway and it is a very impressive piece of civil engineering, with some incredible tunnels through mountains and bridges over valleys.

It was originally built for the military to get men and materiel from one side of the island to the other, in case of an attack by the sneaky Red Devils from the mainland. I would also imagine that the mountains are riddled with tunnels and caves concealing all sorts of delightful weaponry, but this is pure conjecture. From a tourist point of view Taiwan is worth visiting for that journey alone.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

My own recollections of Taiwan in the '80's

To get back to Taiwan in the mid 80’s. I can’t quite remember why I decided to go there, it definitely wasn’t (and probably still isn’t) a popular tourist destination for Australians, Americans or Europeans. I think I was looking for a place a bit off the beaten track and I must have read something about it in the ‘Travel Section’ of one of the newspapers.

Whatever, I decided to go over there and have a quick shufty for myself, so I took off on an airline (I can’t remember which one, probably Cathay Pacific). After an uneventful flight, which was probably punctuated with a fair few alcoholic beverages, as was normal in those halcyon days of yore, I landed at the airport in Taipei.

I was transported to a hotel by a non-English speaking taxi driver and handed over a Taiwanese Shekel? or somesuch and he gave me a handful of different sized Taiwanese Centavos?. Being a very sceptical person regarding taxi-drivers in general and airport taxi-drivers in particular. I took him to the reception desk and asked the receptionist, if this lying bastard was trying to rip me off.

Unfortunately, the receptionist was equally as unreceptive as far as the English language went, but managed to convey the fact that they were in the process of changing from large coins to smaller coins and that some of the smaller coins were in fact worth more than the larger ones, even though they were made of the same stuff (In Australia most of the little ones are made of gold stuff and are worth more than bigger silvery ones).

As there were no Roman Numerals on the coins, this made life difficult during my time there and I had to rely upon the honesty of the good folks of Taiwan. Which is not a very reliable assumption of any nationality and I am not casting any aspersions on the Taiwanese.

After parking my bag and having a quick shower, I went back to the reception desk and managed to make it understood that I desired something to eat. She signalled that I could take a taxi, but once bitten, I decided to go out for a walk and check the place out, figuring that I could just do the usual and find a bar somewhere and have a packet of peanuts if necessary.

This proved easier said than done, this was early evening and already dark, so I approached the first place I came across with flashing neon lights and went in, to say that I was surprised to find that it was a ladies hairdressers would be an understatement. To find out that the next two places I approached turned out to be the same, was more than a trifle disconcerting. I appeared to have stumbled on the Ladies Hairdressing Centre of the Capital of Taiwan.

By this time, I had worked up a terrible thirst so I caught a taxi and indicated this in sign language. He took me to what may have been at that time the only street in Taipei that catered for western style drunks. I entered one such establishment and went to the bar, over which was a huge sign saying “IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT, YOU AIN’T SHIT”.

Being a bit of a grammatical pedant and not a pilot, I could only concur wholeheartedly with this sentiment. Seeing as the rest of the clientele appeared to consist of veterans of the ‘Flight over the Hump’ in the 1930’s. Or at the very least, from the Vietnam War, having ‘choppered’ innumerable Medevacs, I kept this observation to myself, (wisely, I thought at the time). Although I wasn’t totally accepted, I had a reasonable time and preferred it to being in a Ladies Hairdressing Salon.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

A very short, grossly inaccurate history of Taiwan

Taiwan

Just in case you’re unaware of it, (which is highly unlikely, or you wouldn't be perusing this) Taiwan is an island between 150-250kms (depending on which bit you look at) off the coast of mainland China that I visited in the mid- 1980’s. I went there for three weeks and had a stop over in Thailand for a bit of R and R for a week on the way back, for reasons which will become obvious if you carry on reading.

To give a little potted history of the Island, which may or may not be strictly accurate, on account of the fact that I’m relying on my memory and not looking it up on Google (which would be the obvious thing to do, but any silly bastard can do that).

Alright! Taiwan was originally populated by a mob of Chinese, they were invaded by the Japanese. They, the Japanese also invaded Manchuria, but they made a big mistake some time later, when they bombed the crap out of the American Fleet at Pearl Harbour.

This had the result of making the Americans very angry, which any idiot could have predicted. This resulted in the Yanks dropping a couple of atom bombs on Japan, which wasn’t particularly friendly, but did stop WWII which was good, unless you were Japanese. To the Taiwanese this meant the end of the Japanese occupation.

Meanwhile, on the Chinese Mainland, the Japanese had also returned home. This left the Communists under Mao Tse Tung and the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek to resume hostilities over who should rule China. Well, depending upon which particular school of thought you were dragged up under, for better or worse Mao beat the bejasus out of Chiang.

Chiang, spat the dummy and along with his supporters (The Kuomintang) grabbed as much gold and priceless relics as he could get his sticky fingers on and took off for Taiwan in 1949. I am unaware what the locals thought of this, they may have been overjoyed, or they may well have thought “What the fuck is going on here? I don’t like the look of this new mob!”

However, it was a ‘fait accompli’ as we intellectuals say and the locals were stuck with them. Between them they started copying things from the West in much the same way as the Hong Kongers (another mob of ex-patriate Chinese) so that ‘Made in Taiwan’ and ‘Made in Hong Kong’ and ‘Made in Japan’ became synonymous in the West as ‘A bunch of el-cheapo crap’ in the 50’s and 60’s.

Of course the Orientals were far too inscrutable and hard-working to let that continue and those labels are now badges of pride. All you have to do to confirm this, is to visit any Department Store or Car Yard and check out the electronic goods and cars and shake your head in wonder.

That ends the history lesson.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

Atheism! Who wants to be a Theist anyway?.

If you haven’t already guessed, or maybe I’ve mentioned it before, I am an atheist. If I was American, that confession would be like a Gay coming out of the closet, but I’m not and I probably never will be, either American or Gay, nor emerging from any closets in the foreseeable future.

Having said that, I’m not one of those ‘Hip New Atheists’, I don’t really give a raggedy dog’s arse whether you’re a ‘believer’ or not, that is entirely your decision. I realise that whatever I write is not going to change your mind one iota. As far as I’m concerned there are enough religions to go around for everybody, from Agnosticism to Zoroastrianism, choose one to suit yourself, but please refrain from trying to thrust it down other people’s throats.

Like I said at the start, I’m an atheist, which is the same as saying I’m not a ‘Theist’, defined as a person who believes in the existence of Gods or a God. Using this logic, an agnostic is a person who is not a Gnostic defined as a person usu. a Christian heretic claiming esoteric, mystical knowledge. But an agnostic is defined as (1) someone who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or (2) a person who is uncertain or non-committal about a certain thing.
Being a non-proselytising atheist can get a bit boring at times, so I wake up some mornings, feeling uncertain and a tad non-committal and decide that I’m going to be an Agnostic for the day. Most Fridays, I decide to be an a-Islamist, Saturdays an a-Judaist and Sundays an a-Christian.

Most of the time though, I’m an a-Pantheist, a Pantheist is defined as (1) a person who identifies God with the forces of nature or (2) someone who admits or tolerates all Gods. As an a-Pantheist, I don’t admit, but do tolerate any and all Gods. You could say that I’m apathetic towards the whole pantheon of them, but that would make me an apathetic a-pantheist.

If two negatives make a positive, as is widely accepted, that would make me a Pathetic Pantheist. I’m fairly certain that I don’t like that very much, but it is Sunday, so I might just partake of a few bottles of Altar Cider and think about it.

I invented my own irreligion once and called it Fosterarianism, but it has never caught on. It was quite a neat irreligion, advocating an end to Poverty, War, Global Warming and banning cars/aircraft and lots of other nasties.

I named myself the Messiah and my one and only convert was promised leadership upon my demise and descent into the Kingdom of the Worms. We were both expecting a bevy of beautiful young maidens to beat a path to the Temple/Garage door, but it didn’t eventuate.

I think the biggest problem was a lack of charisma on my part. Any Messiah worth his salt has to ooze charisma or chutzpah and I have to be honest here, a boiled turnip oozes more than I do. However, if you’re a fair young maiden at a loose end, with a fondness for boiled turnips, don’t hesitate to call.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

Tasty and English Food, not an oxymoron

Contrary to popular Aussie belief that the Poms only eat fish and chips, roast beef and over-boiled vegetables, curry and chips. In fact, chips with everything including bacon, egg, spam and chips for breakfast. English cuisine has evolved just as much as the Aussie variety over the last twenty or so years. Having said that, I will start this ramble with a discussion about English Fish and Chip shops or ‘Chippy’s’, which are, after all a national institution and as such deserve a good review.

I have to say that I was very disappointed with the chips in general anyway, I think that the Poms have lost the ability to cook a decent chip. It could of course be that they just didn’t live up to the the exaggerated expectations of my memory. The fish was excellent as were the steak puddings and I fell in love with a couple of faggots.

This is not to say that my sexual orientation has changed, the faggots I ate were in Swadlincote, at the chippy in the main street. If I ever found out what they were made of, I probably wouldn’t touch them with a well greased High Peak Canal barge pole, but ignorance is bliss and what you don’t know can’t hurt you. So cliches apart, they were delicious, which is more than can be said for’mushy peas’.

I persuaded my daughter to try them, this could have been a big mistake, it took me ten years to get her to eat ‘frozen peas’. She took one fork-full of mushies and as I was sitting opposite her, it was only her genteel upbringing that prevented me from wearing them. It could take another ten years to get her to look a pea in the face again. I mentioned this to my Yorkshire friend DeeDee today and she loves them, she gave some to her kids and they asked her why the mashed spuds were green.

She also mentioned ‘Pease Pudding’, which I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting. Although I do remember the old English rhyme.

Pease Pudding hot
Pease Pudding cold
Pease Pudding in a pot
Five days old.

Which apparently refers to them throwing peas into a pot and keeping it on and off the boil, don’t ask me who ‘them’ were, look it up on Google, I’m too idle.

We then got on to discussing other offal things like ‘kidneys’, ‘brains’, ‘hearts’ and ‘tripe’, but I don’t want you to lose your last meal, so I’ll leave it there.

I ate a portion of cod and chips from ‘Andy’s Chippy’ in Swadlincote, which got an award for being the 2nd best chippy in the UK. The fish was superb but the chips were ordinary at best.

To get away from Chippies, I mostly ate at Pubs and Pub food these days is a revelation. It used to be pies and pasties, pickled eggs and peanuts. If you were really lucky you might have scored a dried-up sausage roll.

These days you can get everything from Thai food (which seems to be a bit of a favourite) through Chinese, Indian (of course) and the Olde English favourites. Roast Beef, Steak and Kidney Puddings, Gammon Steak, Ploughman’s Lunch with Pork Pies and cheeses, Liver/Bacon/onions. Not to mention various Continental dishes.

They varied in quality but were mostly very good, they have to be, because that’s how the Pubs make their money nowadays, since smoking was banned.

I was also lucky enough to stumble on a cafeteria at Morrison’s Supermarket in Swadlincote. Now, I’m not saying that the food served up there was exactly gourmet stuff, but when you’re like me and ‘eat to live’ rather than ‘live to eat’, their food is excellent value for money.

I normally only eat two meals a day, one at around 11:00am and the other at 7:00pm. A ‘Quick Start’ (I think that’s what it was called) brunch of ‘Egg, bacon, sausage, tomato and fried bread’ for two pounds seventy pee, was a great ‘start’ to the day, I wasn’t too impressed with the bread, it was too greasy and always a crust.

I did sample their excellent roast beef sandwiches on occasion, with a bit of salad, which was great with a cup of capuccino (no baristas there, out of a machine!). I once had the braised-liver, onions, mash and peas. O.K. but I can think of better brunches. (I am however in the process of cooking some up, with bacon for the family dinner tonight).

Overall, I liked English food and as an average shit-kicker, rather than an epicurean, I was more than happy with the grub served up.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

English Weather in November

ENGLAND

I recently returned back to England for the first time in twenty years, mainly because my Dad sent the family some money and the family decided that it would be a good idea for me to go back and see him before one or both of us croaked-it.

As I am one of the most invalid (as in not valid) Invalid Pensioners in existence (In my opinion, anyway!) It was decided that I should go over there with my 14 year old daughter Ness, as a Carer, Hmmh!

I didn’t particularly want to go over there as a tourist and only wanted to go and see my old hunting grounds (walking, pubs and chip-shops) and my Old Man and do boring old-farty things. My sister, in England agreed with this and said that she would pay for Nessie’s airfare and look after her over there while I did my own thing.

I arranged to stay in a cottage in Little Hayfield for the first and last weeks and stay with my sister in Swadlincote for the middle two weeks. This is an an edited account of our trip. Ness can give her own version. We left at the beginning of November, which was not an ideal time from her school’s point of view, but they reckon that travel broadens the mind and I thought that a month in England would be a better education, than a month doing trig and Religious Education in North Melbourne.

ENGLISH WEATHER

As an expatriate Pom I was a tad disappointed in the weather, November is supposed to be cold, wet and miserable. I was expecting snow, hail, frost and gale force winds. I was expecting to get chilblains on my extremities fingers, toes and possibly testicles (maybe not!). I was expecting to be slipping and sliding on icy pavements.

My Good Lady Wife (GLW) had bought me a padded jacket (parka, not strait-jacket) that would have kept Oates warm and saved him from farewelling Scott and staggering to his demise in the Antarctic wastes. I had to carry it through Changi Airport in Singapore (which boasts of being 3 degrees north of the equator and is consequently bloody hot) because it was too bulky to fit in my suitcase. My daughter said it looked like I was carrying a very large baby or a very small midget, so we called it ‘Midge’ and took a photo of it sitting in a seat with it’s arm around my shoulders.

I wore it once at Manchester Airport when my nephew picked us up, but I had to take it off to get into the car to fasten the seat belt. After that, I never wore it again and gave it away to my 87 year old dad. While he thought I wasn’t watching, he gave it away to my brother-in-law and that was the last I saw of dear ‘Midge’.

To get back to the point, ‘English Weather’, it was either exceptionally mild or maybe with ‘global warming’ that sort of weather has become the norm. It was quite cold on our first day there on 30th October and as I was staying up near the Peak District, we did experience snow when we drove a little higher. This was promising, not exactly ‘Midge’ weather, but getting close.

I spent a week up in the hills and got wet once, but apart from that, nothing. I then spent two weeks in Swadlincote, where it was even milder before returning back to Little Hayfield in the Peak for another week. I did get a little flurry of snow while I was there, it lasted for about five minutes.

After we returned to Aus (26C) I checked the weather in the UK the next day and it was a min -6C, max 3C in Stockport and would have been even colder in the Peak. I thought, bugger this, I’ll go in February next time.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull.

A sceptical view of Noah and his Ark

I was just thinking about Noah’s Ark, idly wondering how he managed to fit all those animals on a wooden boat. I thought I’d better find out a bit more, before shooting my mouth off and I stumbled on an article written by a Christian author.

According to the bible; (make that The Bible, I don’t wish to be overly offensive), the Ark when converted from cubits, was approximately 450ft long x 75ft wide and 45ft high. That is a pretty large boat in anybody’s language, and would fit a shit load of animals on it, but there are a heap of different critters wandering around out there.

This article said that the average size of an animal is about the same size as a sheep, according to some experts, or a rabbit according to others. I guess if you take into account Elephants, Camels, Rhinoceroses, Hippopotami (interesting plurals those two!) as the biggies and mice, shrews, hamsters and rats as the smallies, this could be an acceptable assumption.

It also said that The Bible, didn’t actually stipulate different ‘Types’ of animals, it could be taken as ‘Families’ or ‘Genera’ (plural of Genus, neat eh?). In other words ‘Cats’ would include Pussies, Lions, Leopards, Cheetah (no ‘s') and other assorted purring beasts, but only two generic felines would have been required. The same with Chihuahua, Siberian-Moosehounds, Wolverines and Hyena, just two canines needed?

A bit of a conundrum here with Avians though, if there were Ravens and Doves, what about Ostriches, Dodo and Rhea? Albatrosses and other Sea-birds would have been sweet, but I doubt if an Emu could have dog-paddled around the Ark for a year or so.

Which brings us to another conundrum. Marsupials! did Noah send one of his sons out in a smaller boat to round up a few Wallabies and Koala from Australia? and a couple of Penguins from Antarctica while he was down in that neck of the Antipodes? I guess another one must have taken a trip to the Americas, both North and South, there are a lot of unique beasties over there. Not to mention Africa and Asia, don't ask me why I don't mention them, because I already have, all the 'biggies' were from there.

Going by all the begatting that was going on at the time, Biblical Scholars have calculated that God created everything around 4,000BC and that the Flood occurred around 2,300BC. I’m not real sure how they arrived at these figures as Noah was supposed to be 600 years old when he entered the Ark and he was considered a mere stripling. I think that they may have underestimated by a millennium or two.

Even so, if there were only one of each genera, how did they evolve into the plethora of creatures that exist today? and while we’re about it; if you’re a Creationist and believe in Noah and his Ark, you don’t believe in evolution anyway, do you?

Finally, according to some sources, the Ark came to rest high on Mt Ararat in Turkey. Mt Ararat is 5,165m above sea-level (that’s about 16,000ft in the old money), did it only rain for 40 days and 40 nights? or is that my faulty memory? That’s about 400 feet every 24 hours over the whole wide world, where did all that water come from? Where did it all go?

Mind you, if you’re Omnipotent and have the whole Universe at your fingertips, what’s a few zillion megalitres of water? A mere drop in the ocean! or should that read a mere rise in the ocean?

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

Polymaths and Jack’s of all trades

I consider myself to be a bit of a Polymath, the dictionary definition is “A person of much or varied learning”. If this seems a bit presumptuous of me, I hasten to add that I’m not comparing myself with Da Vinci, who was the Great Grand Daddy of all Polymaths. That guy was a genius, not only a great painter and sculptor but also an inventor of helicopters and codes (Read Dan Brown if you don’t believe me, 2nd thoughts don’t bother, it’s a load of crud).

I don't consider myself an equal of Galileo, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Carl Sagan or a host of others too numerous to mention, including Arthur V. Throgmorton.

No! I’m a fourth rate Polymath, which really means that my brain flutters all over the place like a butterfly with A.D.D. I am totally incapable of retaining vast amounts of knowledge on a particular subject in my memory. I can read heaps about something and retain it for about 24 hours and then it all disappears, leaving only a residue, which can be dredged up at odd times, usually inappropriately.

Some people are capable of storing an incredible amount of data on a subject that really interests them. For instance, I have met people who can recite the names of all the race horses that have won the major races all over the world since 1909. Of course, they do this to the exclusion of virtually everything else and nobody can ever contradict them, actually people actively ignore them and who wouldn’t?

This also applies to various professionals, including Medical Specialists, who is ever going to question a Proctologist over his knowledge of bums and bowels, apart from another Proctologist? Even General Practitioners have to know so much about all the different ailments, that they forget how to change a light bulb and sometimes put their Y-fronts on the wrong way round.

What about Lawyers, what is the difference between slander and libel? (I used to know, but I’ve forgotten) and who won that case back in 1959, Throgmorton v The Crown and Anchor? The world today is a specialists oyster, you’ve got Criminal Lawyers, Bankruptcy Lawyers, Taxation Lawyers and even Lawyers who specialise exclusively in contracts for Unsynchronised Swimmers and Dipsomaniac Darts Players.

We Polymaths are no longer relevant to society, anachronisms is what we are! We can no longer use bullshit to baffle the brains of the best in barroom arguments, because some smart-arse will pull out a Mobile Phone with an Internet connection to prove us wrong.

So what has all this got to do with Jack’s of all Trades? you might ask. Well, nothing really I suppose, handymen will always be just that, men who are handy with their hands. Although I would have to say that GP’s are the ‘Jacks’ of the medical profession.

We’re never likely to see the day where a mobile phone can change a tyre, but even handymen have trouble tuning up the computers hidden under the bonnets of cars or importing photos onto blog sites and sometimes put their Y-fronts on the wrong way round. Which can be seen by the general public, when they bend down and show their bum-cleavage.

Just in case you’re interested, I wouldn’t qualify as a handyman’s left boot and I wear ‘Jocks’ and sometimes have them inside out and upside down.

Cheers for now.

SkyBlueSkull.

Ships of the Desert / Stallions designed by Committees

This is apropos of Sweet Fanny Adams, as they say where I come from, which is a polite way of saying Sweet F.A. which is a polite way of saying. Well, I’m sure you’re not totally as dim as ditch-water. I have no idea why Camels suddenly sprang to my mind, I haven’t seen any since the Circus came to town about a year or more ago and I haven’t read anything memorable about them recently.

Although, speaking of the Circus, I seem to recall that they had ‘Trained Cows’ as a major attraction, ‘The Only Ones in the Whole Wide World’. I didn’t unfortunately get around to seeing them, so I can’t comment further.

To get back to camels, without going into Wikipedia and relying solely on my memory. There are two types, the one humped variety called Dromedaries and the two-humped ones called Bactrians. I’m not real sure which of them are known as ‘Ships of the Desert’, as both of them live in deserts. Dromedaries on the fringes of the Sahara in North Africa and Bactrians live happily up around the Gobi in Mongolia.

Dromedaries are the sleek beauties of the Camel world, not only are they bred as beasts of burden. Some are selected for their racing prowess, in much the same way as Arabian Racehorses. To the untrained eye, they may look like cumbersome beasts (the Camels not the Horses), but to a Sheik with a wad of Riyals burning a hole in his pocket, they are a thing of beauty.

I read somewhere that the ‘Jockeys’ were originally young lads, but this was frowned upon, in much the same way as sending young lads up chimneys in Dickensian England. I think they tried replacing them with monkeys, which wasn’t too successful so eventually they stuck robots up on the hump. I have my doubts about this and think that could be the ‘Wicked Western Media’ taking the Mick!

The Bactrians are another kettle of fish, or if you prefer, a different cup of tea (one hump or two?). Sorry about that! I guess it had to rear it’s ugly head somewhere!

Speaking of ugly heads. If, as sometimes stated “a camel is a racehorse designed by a committee,” then they were obviously referring to the Bactrian. Not even it’s mother could love one of these critters. Although, I have to confess that I have never seen a baby in the flesh or even a photo of one. For all I know, they could be as cute as kittens and puppies.

I do not have a photograph of a fully grown camel handy and even if I did, I’m too stupid as to know how to post it on here, so you’ll have to Google it for yourself.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

P.S. I’ve just remembered now, where I recently saw a camel. My son was watching a DVD of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ a few days ago. As I was walking past, I saw a scene where an urchin stuck a stick up a camel’s bum’ole, causing the camel to take off at speed with ‘Jenkins’ temporarily on board.

P.P.S. If you want to know the joke about bricking camels, you’ll have to email me on kskel5@hotmail.com

Horology, me and Alby Einstein

I got to thinking about time this morning at about 5:00am, not because it was earlier than usual for me to wake up, as I can be visiting the bathroom at all hours of the night and day, but I won’t go into that. That’s something that I shall have to discuss with my Urologist, who’s only connection with a Horologist is her wristwatch/calendar.

No! this morning the Good Lady Wife (GLW) woke me to tell me that she was going on to the Net to chat with her friend in the Philippines and her friend’s sister in California. In order to do this, they had to take various time zones and work commitments into consideration.

I must admit that I wasn’t really interested and turned over to get back to an interesting and convoluted dream. Sleep eluded me as did the dream and I started thinking about time zones in general and ‘daylight saving’ in particular.

If my memory serves me correctly, which would be a bit of an aberration, ‘daylight saving’ was introduced into Britain in WWII during one of their infrequent summers. This setting the clock back an hour served two purposes, waking them up an hour earlier, even though they were knackered, meant that they got an extra hour of sunshine at the end of the day. During which they could ‘do war-like things’ and as an added bonus it also brought them into line with continental Europe.

It’s a bit awkward if you’re waging a war and one side gets there an hour early and packs up and goes home an hour before the other mob are ready to call it a day. Of course ‘daylight saving’ was only possible during summer, because it gets dark in Britain, in winter, at about 4:00pm and it doesn’t get light again until 8:00am.

This is due to the fact that Britain lies between 50 and 60 degrees north of the equator, which puts it at the same level as Southern Canada. As every schoolgirl can attest the Earth’s axis is on a bit of a lean and rotates around the Sun every 365 days, thus giving rise to ‘The Seasons’ and endless conversations about ’The Weather’.

Except at the Equator, where they get 12 hour days and 12 hour nights every day of the year and it’s so hot that nobody has any energy to discuss the weather, or anything else really! This means that the closer you get to the Equator, the less is the probability of the Government introducing ‘Daylight Saving’.

Unless there is electricity in those countries, they have an excess of energy left over from their siestas and if you can’t work it off at a disco, or nightclub when it cools off a tad at night. What are they going to do?? Bonk of course, nowt else to do is there really?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost the whole point of this Blog at this stage. What the hell has any of this got to with Horology, Einstein or me for that matter. I shall have to go to bed and sleep on it .

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

How not to covet your neighbours assai. (Trees).

When we moved into ‘Chateau Skull’ fifteen years ago after buying it on the spur of the moment. It was an ‘impulse buy’, so impulsive that I only had fifteen dollars in my wallet when I put in the winning bid at the auction. I was a little taken aback when the auctioneer asked me for a deposit. He was, however, a very trusting person and arranged for me to get the money on the Monday, that being a Saturday.

I suppose that I should have noticed at the time, that the Chateau was situated next to a two storey block of twenty four flats. However, caught up in the euphoria of the moment and overwhelmed by my own audacity, I think at the time I was the only bidder and bidded myself up another couple of thou.

When we bought the place there were quite a few trees around the place which hid us from the neighbours. There was an old Sycamore tree and another type of English style deciduous tree and two Cherry Trees in the front and a Peach, Plum, Apple, Fig and a Lemon tree in the back with some assorted Australian Evergreens scattered along the border.

At first we had a few problems with the neighbours, because some of the flats were government owned and let out to an assortment of what can best be described as misfits and loonies. Eventually though, the government decided to sell them off to private owners, who mainly bought them for their own use or as investment properties.

For a few years everything went swimmingly, the trees grew taller blocking out the flats completely from our view, the neighbours were happy picking the overgrowing fruit and having greenery to look out on. We were happy with the fruit and the privacy to sunbathe in the warmer months and dine al fresco.

Then along came the dreaded ‘Global Warming’, which has resulted in a drought lasting for over a decade, this area is mainly clay and basalt rock and the drying out has resulted in the buildings foundations moving. The flats next door were built on shonky foundations and had inadequate drainage in my humble opinion. This has resulted in large cracks, so large in fact that herds of Wildebeest could charge through, if they so desired. Luckily for the flat dwellers, such herds do not exist in Albion.

Armed with an engineers report, representatives of the body-corporate arrived, stating that the cracks in the flats were caused by the roots of the trees sucking up all the moisture and demanding their removal. I considered fighting this, but it would have cost thousands, getting alternative reports and court costs etc. So we decided to allow their removal, provided they paid for it and replaced the trees with others with less intrusive roots.

Looking on the bright side of things, some of the trees were forty foot weeds, the figs, pomegranates and lemons were inedible, the apples weren’t much better and I was sick of plum jam. The leaves were blocking the gutters and we have got a new landscaped garden with Acacias, Japanese Maples, Magnolias and other such exotica and I’m too old to worry about getting a suntan anyway. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been getting fit working my mattocks off weeding and barrowing cubic metres of mulch.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull.

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com/neighboursparttwo

Neighbours and Trees (Part One)

This has absolutely nothing to do with the TV Soap Opera that brought you Kylie Minogue and is apparently watched by millions of British viewers everyday. Although, it is set in a street in Melbourne and I have lived here on and off for most of the last 37 years, I must admit that I don’t know which suburb it is supposedly in. In fact I have never watched a single episode or even a few fleeting moments.

In years gone by, my Mum used to watch ‘Coronation Street’ regularly and I caught my Dad watching it on occasions and I can still remember Ena Sharples and her fellow hags Minnie and Martha drinking glasses of Milk Stout in the Snug in the Rover’s Return along with Albert Tatlock and Ken Barlow. I put this down to the fact that the TV was a recent addition to the household and I could be found in moments of idleness, staring transfixed at ‘The test pattern’ and even the little white dot when that had disappeared.

These days I don’t watch it at all, at the last count we had about five of them, with various attachments such as VCR’s and CD players and games type things. They are now so complicated that I never even attempt to turn four of them on. The fifth one is in my shed a little itty bitty one, that sits next to my printer and doesn’t even have a remote. I bought it from a place like that one in ‘Steptoe and Son’ (Now, that was a good programme) for about ten quid and the only time it ever gets turned on is for Test Matches and the recent Olympics.

So, having said that this is nothing to do with TV programmes, I’ve spent the last twenty minutes rambling on about them. This is actually about ‘Neighbours’, the people who live next to you. Which I will explain in my next post.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com

Me and Sir Richard Branson

There was an article in the ‘Good Weekend’ Magazine in the Melbourne Age recently, with a photograph of Richard in 1969, this was so similar to a photo of yours truly in the same year, that it was pointed out to me by my heiry son. This in itself was a bit of a surprise, as he normally treats me with the disrespect that is customary for teenagers to afford to their elders and betters.

I don't seem to be able to get the photograph of R.B. so you will have to take my word for it. So, use your imagination and try to picture R.B. as clean shaven, younger, with a pair of thick-rimmed specs, a tad more tousled than me and with the same gormless look and there you have it. No! your imagination can’t stretch that far?


Whatever, R.B. and myself looked like identical twins in 1969, perhaps we were separated at birth, there are a couple of small problems with this theory though. I was born in New Mills, Derbyshire and R.B. was born in “the unlikely setting of Shamley Green, a small village in Surrey”, to quote the ‘Age’ article. His father was a lawyer and his grandfather was a judge and mine weren’t.

These are only minor differences in my opinion. The major difference seems to me to be that R.B. is currently the 236th richest man in the world according to ‘Forbes Magazine’ and I am unsure of my own ranking, as it doesn’t appear in that particular magazine, for reasons known only to themselves. I very much doubt that I would make 2,360,000th, but could possibly be the 23,600,000th, I don’t really want to go much lower than that. I don’t think my self esteem could handle it.

So what went wrong? He finished school after publishing a successful magazine while studying for his ‘O’ levels, I was still delivering successful newspapers (such as the ‘Daily Mirror’) while studying for my ‘A’ levels. I think that must have been where we started drifting apart.

He was arrested in 1971, for selling records in the UK that he had pretended to export to Europe, thus avoiding paying purchase tax, he spent one night in a cell, before his dear old Mum put up the family home as surety to bail him out. I once spent a couple of hours in a cell in the Philippines, I bribed a cop about A$100 to get out, but that’s another story. I only mentioned that to highlight the similarities.

I can only conclude that it all boils down to Richies’ sheer ruthlessness and naked ambition to succeed. In my case, I’ve never really had any ambition, naked, or fully clothed, including thermal underwear and I didn’t have any ruth to start off with either, so I couldn’t lose it. Not to mention the fact that I reckon the best thing to succeed is a parrot. So, there’s a lesson to be learned in there somewhere, but don’t ask me what it is. Maybe, I’m just a late developer and my best is yet to come.

Next time you’re in Melbourne, Rich, just look me up and we can compare notes about life in the UK in the sixties, I may be able to give you a few tips on how to chill out. It must be a bit stressful being a billionaire and perhaps you could slip me a few bundles of folding stuff as ‘seed capital’. Although you seem to be doing a pretty good job of chilling out by yourself, with all those nubile young lasses. If you bring your photo album, we could still have a bit of a giggle together, don’t forget the folding stuff though.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull.

New Mills Grammar School 1960-1967

When I was Eleven I took the Eleven Plus exam, if you passed it you went to the Grammar School. If you failed, it was off to the dreaded Spring Bank Secondary School, which was the equivalent of the Spring Bank Primary School, but for older kids. Secondary Schools were there to keep kids at school, but get them more into the technical side of things, learning trades etc. The girls ended up as shop assistants and the like. Elitism was alive and well in Britain in the swinging sixties.

New Mills Grammar School was a fairly old fashioned school, just coming to terms with the post war influx of (smarter?) kids from the hoi polloi. We had to wear blazers, long grey pants, caps and ties. It also had a Quadrangle’, Prefects and taught Latin to first formers, (which in my humble opinion, is like teaching hippopotami to tap dance) but at least it was co-ed.

My first day there was a bit traumatic as my blazer and cap were three sizes too big, but at least my Dad had taught me how to tie a double-windsor knot. When I got there after a 10-minute walk from home, I discovered that the rest of the kids my age were in the same predicament, except they couldn’t tie a double-windsor, so it wasn’t too bad.

By the time I was sixteen my blazer and cap had shrunk compared to me, it looked like I was wearing a yarmulke and the sleeves of the blazer barely reached the elbows, which was a thing to be proud of. I was also a prefect and had a class of thirty young kids to supervise, before the teacher arrived.

I couldn’t really be bothered and let them run riot until just before the master got there, when I threatened them with death through a slow form of torture. For this reason I was considered to be a ‘good’ prefect by the kids. The form master had his doubts.

Being a prefect and head of the table at lunchtime in the school canteen it was my responsibility to dole out the food for the younger plebs. The poor sods at the bottom of the table always got the smallest portions and the older you got the bigger the portion. Until you became a prefect, then you could pig out.

Mum used to pay five shillings a week for the lunch, but I never used to go there after the age of fifteen. I used to go to the pub with a couple of mates and have a pastie and a pint of beer, except for when there was Roast Beef or Apple Crumble on the menu, then I’d go to the dining room and get my pig’s share of it.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull.

The Origins of Association Football or (Soccer).

Some misguided Australian souls think that Australian Rules Football predates ‘The Beautiful Game’. To back this up they claim that ‘Rules’ was codified earlier than Association Football (A.F.)

They also claim that a form of ‘Rules’ was played by Aborigines going back thousands of years. There is no evidence to back up this claim, apart from some evidence that they did indeed indulge in kicking stuffed possums around for a bit of fun. This would not really merit any serious consideration that it was a precursor to ‘Rules’.

There is however, hard evidence that the first game of A.F. was played in Britain about 2,000 years ago, between the home side represented by the Iceni and a team of Roman Legionnaires.

In order to get some revenge on Julius Caesar for stumbling onto a British beach and uttering the immortal words “Veni, Vidi, Vici” (which roughly translated from Latin, means “I came, I saw, I beat the crap out of ‘em”). Queen Boadicea/Boudicca/Bouca, (depending on which school you went to.) challenged Julio to a football match.

In fairness to the Romans, the match was played on a neutral ground at what was to become known later as Clacton-on-Sea, which is about halfway?? between East Anglia and Londinium as the dog legs it. The date was set, being the 15th March 0005, (an Ides, co-incidentally).

The Legionnaires left on foot on the 13th (a Friday, co-incidentally) and after a forced march, arrived in Clacton at about 2:30pm on the 15th, about a half hour before kick-off.

Meanwhile, Boadicea (I went to New Mills Grammar) had charioted in her team, who were fresh and raring to go. The Iceni were led onto the pitch by the Queen herself, and she played no further part in the match itself, but was pivotal to the result.

The Iceni had eleven players, including the goalkeeper, but the Romans started off with ten, (they couldn’t count in anything more than tens) In the end they co-opted a Russian Merchant named Leviticus Yashin, who just happened to be passing through, to be their goalkeeper.

The official in charge was Benticus the recently appointed Consul for a City that was later called Scunthorpe, in North Anglia. He had originally been destined for Constantinople, but having been caught ‘In flagrante’ in a public convenience, with two under-aged slaves, a dove and a large female hamster, he had been downgraded in the Diplomatic Corps.

To start the game, Benticus threw the ‘ball’ (an inflated pig’s bladder), towards the Romans, but although they had divested themselves of most of their weapons and armour, they still clanked as they ran. The Iceni, who were clad only in loincloths and a very thick veneer of woad ran rings around them. If it wasn’t for the brilliance of Leviticus ‘The Cat’ Yashin, they would have been 10 goals up by half-time, as it was they were only 2 up.

At half-time Benticus invented the ‘off-side’ rule and ‘substitutes’. He installed a marble bench for each side, which fitted exactly ten men. The Romans took advantage of this and at any one time, there were between 15 and 18 Romans on the pitch. The Iceni had neglected to foresee this and only had a young lad in reserve, who was there to run on with a sponge and a supply of sliced limes.

After an exciting ten minutes the score was 4-3 to the Romans. Queen Bee decided to take some action and sent the lad off to cut down and sharpen a straight branch of good Anglian Yew. She then positioned herself behind Lev’s goal and proceeded to prod him vigorously in the arse, whenever the Iceni looked like scoring, thus destroying his concentration.

Even though the Romans had 19 men in defence, the Iceni managed to score three unanswered goals and emerged victorious. This feat was commemorated by the erection of a plaque on the foreshore of Clacton-on-Sea, but it was unfortunately swept away by the tide that King Canute failed to stem.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com

Football, or hoofing a ball around a ground.

Football, it means a lot of different games to different nationalities. Most countries think of ‘Soccer’, when they talk about football and let’s face it, it is the only code where only the feet are used. Except of course the legs, torso and head to a limited extent, but definitely not the hands and arms. It is also strictly speaking a non-contact game.

I have broken one of my rules here and used Wikipedia to check out a fact. I normally believe that if you don’t know a little bit about something, you shouldn’t be bull-shitting about it. But in this case my memory wasn’t up to it and I couldn’t remember the name of the Wally who invented the name ‘Soccer’.

It was according to the Wik a bloke called Charles Wreford-Brown who was a student at Oxford Uni and prone to using terms like ‘Brekkers’ for breakfast and ‘Rugger’ for Rugby Football, what a tit! So ‘Soccer’ was only used in upper class ‘Public Schools’, stick that up your jacksies, you ignorant Skips and Yanks.

In America they call Gridiron ‘Football’, which of course it isn’t, as from the little I’ve seen of it, they hardly ever use their feet. They seem to play with two entirely different teams on each side, one when they’re on the offensive and the other when they’re defending. They also seem to wear body armour and smash into each other regardless of where the ball is. In the meantime a quarter back and a wide receiver are playing with each other.

They also have a specialist ‘kicker’ who comes onto the pitch a couple of times each game and tries to hoof the ball through the goals. They earn a couple of million US$ a year, which isn’t a bad way to make a quid in anybody’s language. On top of all this they also have a ‘World Series’, which is a bit cheeky, because only the Yanks play it, or maybe that’s Baseball which is almost the same story.

Other ‘Football Codes’ include the two types of Rugby, ‘League’ was played by miners and factory workers, from the North of England, wearing flat caps and hobnail boots. They were ‘professional’ and were paid a few bob after each game, or if they had a great game, were given a dozen bottles of Tetleys or Newcastle Brown or maybe Boddingtons Bitter, if they were unlucky .

‘Union’ had an extra couple of players and was played by amateur ‘Gentlemen’, doctors, lawyers and other con-men, who should have known better. It was invented on the playing fields of a ‘Public’ school (where else?) by a young ‘prefect’ called Webb or Ellis or some such appellation. Possibly because he had two left feet, he picked up the ball and ran with it, punching the ‘fags’ in the face as he did so.

This obviously appealed to the watching landed gentry, even though they would have preferred it, if the fags could have been given a damned good thrashing at the same time, at least the showers were cold.

In ‘Union’ they wear bandages round their ears, to stop them getting bitten off in ‘scrums’, or if they are bitten off it makes them easier to find and also soaks up the blood. Also, in these scrums it is not unknown for a player to grab the ‘nuts’ of an opponent and squeeze them hard, for obvious reasons this is known as a ‘squirrel grip’ and puts the opponent off his game almost as much as losing his ears.

Another interesting aspect of ‘Union’ is the ‘Lineout’, in this the players from both sides line up and a player throws the ball between the two lines. Meanwhile, two or more players grab hold of one of their own players by the shorts, giving him a terrible ‘wedgie’ and launch him as high as possible to intercept the ball. This, combined with the ‘squirrel grips’, could explain why some players voices are pitched at the upper end of the musical scales. So don’t be surprised if your doctor sounds like Tiny Tim Tippy Toeing through the Tulips, or Maurice Gibb strangling a Bee Gees number.

There are other football codes, such as ‘Gaelic Football’ and ‘Aussie Rules Football’, these are fairly similar, or at least sufficiently so, that the two codes can play a series of three games every year, alternating between Ireland and Aus. These are not a great success as Gaelic is played with a round ball and Aussie with an ovoid one and the goals are different.

Also Gaelic is ‘non-contact’, to the best of my knowledge, whereas Aussie is very much contact. Aus players are bigger, because they eat more meat and less spuds, so they tend to pick up the Irish players and kick them towards the goal, while they are holding on to the ball. This is frowned on by the Irish officials and they usually say that they will take their round ball and go home, which is a tad difficult if they are already home in Tipperary.

As well as the shape of their balls, (I’m not talking about ‘Union’ players here,) the ones used in the different codes have different flight characteristics, but don’t ask me what they are, just trust me. The Goalposts are all different, soccer goals are smallish and have a net, rugby and gridiron goals have two long poles and don’t, Gaelic football has a combination of the two and Aussie Rules has two long poles and two short poles. Don’t expect me to explain the points scored, I don’t know all of them and I don’t think either of us gives a monkey’s anyway.

How does all this affect your truly? Well, I was brought up with soccer and supported New Mills F.C. initially and then Manchester City closely for five years from 1962 to 1967 (I still support them, but from a distance of 12,000 miles). From 1967 to 1973 I followed Rugby Union closely, firstly in Wales and then South Africa. When I came to Aus. I didn’t support anybody at first, but now ‘support’, Melbourne Storm in ‘League’, Man City (of course) through the Internet and Melbourne Victory in Soccer and the Western Bulldogs in Aussie Rules.

Again, you probably don’t give a flying frolic, but for what it’s worth, the Bulldogs haven’t won a Premiership since 1954, which is even worse than Man City. So get on the Bulldog’s bandwagon all you masochistic City supporters, what have we got to lose but our sanity?

Cheers for now,

Sky Blue Skull.

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com

An unbiased Australian view of the London Olympics

Over here in the Antipodes, I’ve lived for more than 37 years of my 60 years on this mortal coil, but I’m still considered to be a ‘Whingeing Pommy Bastard’.This basically means that I am considered to be a bit of an outsider, I’m neither an Aussie or really a ‘Pom’, so I have the best, or worst of both worlds, I choose to think the best. With the Olympics, I am glad to see that the UK is now represented by all four countries. I don’t know what the Mick’s, Taff’s and Pict’s think about it, but I’m all for it. I reckon it’s a great idea.

My adopted country, for some reason seems to think that Australia and the UK have to compete, especially when it comes down to sports. I have to say here that I don’t know many Poms here in Melbourne. We appear to be very few on the ground. Perhaps, I’m mixing with the wrong crowd.

When I ‘worked’ in the Tax Office, I often thought that I was the ‘Token Pom’, taken on just to prove that there was no discrimination. There again most Poms wouldn’t be seen dead working in a Tax Office anywhere. Me included, which is why I spent most of my time there in a semi-comatose state, I fitted in well.

To get back to the Olympics in particular and sport in general, the Skips love to beat the Kiwis (and vice versa) and the South Africans, but there is nothing they like better than sticking it up the Poms. I guess this has it’s roots in history. They did after all send all their thieving ratbags over here, when the rotting prison hulks were sinking into the Thames, so what do they expect? Gratitude?

To make up for this, they love to point out that they got the better part of the deal, golden beaches, hot summers and cold beer and why not throw another prawn on the barbie? To be honest here, I’ve never actually seen anybody throw, or even carefully place a prawn on a barbie and even if they did I wouldn’t eat it, I don’t like the little shit-eating critters.

Back to the Olympics once more, now Beijing is over and done with, we are looking at the 2012 games in London. This has caused a little concern over here in the Antipodes and the bad press has started already, below is a ‘tongue in cheek?’ review from my most un-favourite newspaper.

CAN BRITS LIFT IN TIME?

“So you thought Beijing was going to be bad, we worried about the smog, the police, the food. Every concern under the sun was aired and most of it turned out to be without foundation.

But now a secret dossier has been uncovered, which reveals the threats that London will pose in 2012 to the health and wellbeing of the crowds likely to descend on the City.

FOOD

You can get every cuisine under the sun in London, each with one universal quality - it has no quality.

From Thai to Indian, Chinese to Pub Grub, it won’t make you ill as such, just sad.

TAXIS

Not one taxi driver in Beijing speaks any English, and after a week in London you’ll dream of those halcyon days as yet another cabbie tells you why national service should be reintroduced, it’s never been the same since Mrs Thatcher left and hanging’s too good for them. Almost enough to make you take the Tube. Almost.

THE AIR

The air of despondency that is. Beijing’s army of volunteers, all happy to help and pleased to see you, will be supplanted by a city of people who won’t give you the time of day as they wallow in their own misery.

INFRASTRUCTURE

It took a totalitarian Government with absolute control to to impose on Beijing the necessary building works and venue construction.

By contrast, as if London’s planning laws were not bureaucratic enough, the mayor whose dream it was to host the Olympics and regenerate East London has just been replaced by a bumbling toff, whose pre-occupation is cracking jokes and riding his bike.

BEER

Not just served warm but also fermenting and guaranteed to be alive and kicking inside you the following day.

English “real ale” is barrel conditioned; ie, it’s an ongoing process, so you’ll never be sure of the quality of what you’re drinking until the first mouthful.”

So there you have it my friends, an unbiased Australian preview of the games in four years time.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com

Asinine and Equine fun in UK, Afghanistan &USA

This has nothing at all to do with betting on horses (or asses, the main thing I know about them, is you should'nt covet your neighbours, which is easy because they're all big and ugly) as I don’t know the first thing about it and never indulge. Actually, this is not strictly true, because once a year I am coerced by my daughter into laying out some boodle on The Melbourne Cup.

This takes place every November and is known as the ‘Race that stops a Nation’. Work-places throughout Australia run sweeps and if you don’t participate, you’re considered to be the worst kind of wowser. Melbourne has a holiday and most places stop what they are doing and watch it on the TV.

It is supposedly a world famous race, in the same vein as The Derby and Grand National in the UK, the Kentucky Derby, The Arc de Triomph and some race in Hong Kong whose name escapes me. Horses come from all over the world to compete, well at least a few from England, Ireland and Japan. I’ll be in England in November this year, so I’ll check to see if it rates a mention in the racing pages of The Daily Mirror. Damn! I forgot to do that when I was over there.

Having got rid of the betting aspect, I’ll get down to actually personally riding the beasts. Just about every kid in the North West of England worthy of the name, has ridden one of their close cousins (the horse's cousins, not their own cousins, we're not talking incest here), the world famous donkeys on Blackpool Beach. There’s nowt like trotting up the sand for 50/60 yards and back, astride one of those noble creatures. Even if it was being dragged along on a rope pulled by some ruffian.

Apart from that, I have ridden a 'real' horse twice in my life. The first time was in Afghanistan in the Bamiyan Valley, this was in 1976 and the country must have been between wars. I know why I was in the Valley, it was to see the two statues of Buddha that had been carved into the side of a cliff thousands of years ago.

Somebody had defaced them literally, centuries ago by carving off their faces, but they were so big that they couldn’t destroy them completely. This little task was left to the Islamic Taliban in the 1990’s (they didn't like idols, American or otherwise) . They tried blowing them up using explosives, but it didn’t work. So they came up with the idea of using Surface to Air Missiles (SAM’s), this did work and left big holes in the cliff. The Taliban were happy with this and went off satisfied with a good day’s work well done, to persecute a few more unfortunates.

What has this got to do with horses? You might well ask, but this is a ramble and you never know where you’re going to end up. I just thought you might be interested. To get back to the horses, for some unknown reason me and my two travelling companions were asked if we wanted to hire some horses to go for a bit of a ride.

Having nothing better to do, we agreed and paid a seedy looking Afghani an exorbitant amount of money and he produced three nags which we mounted. As another aside here, the national sport in Afghanistan is called Bushkhazi, this is played on horseback and involves two teams galloping around wildly and trying to fling the headless carcass of a calf between two ‘goal posts’, a bit like Polo without mallets really.

If these steeds, upon which we were mounted, had ever been used for that purpose, they were now a little past their prime and could barely manage a slow walk, let alone a gallop. All three of them were suffering from terrible equine haemorrhoids, so after about thirty minutes we left them to recover with their owner and a quiet graze.

My second riding experience took place in Montana in 1978. I was visiting an Aussie mate and his new American wife, who were staying with her godfather on a fairly substantial ranch. I was introduced to the rancher and his family, which included two young girls.

The girls asked me if I would like to go for a horse ride with them. I thought that sounded like a good idea, so they saddled up a horse for me. It was a large horse and we looked at each other rather dubiously, but the girls assured me that it was a very gentle steed.

The two girls jumped onto a couple of smaller horses, without saddles, if my memory serves me correctly and galloped off. The noble steed and me set off at a more sedate pace, with said steed stopping at regular intervals to graze on the pasture.

I decided that it was about time to assert my authority over this equine hulk and pulled sharply on the reins to interrupt it’s lunch and dug my heels sharply into it’s flanks. This surprised it somewhat and we started moving along at a reasonable pace. We came to a gulch (luckily dry, are there any others?) and the steed wanted to go the easy way to the left, but I was determined to maintain my authority and forced it to the right.

This was an error of judgment on my part and we ended up at the bottom with a very steep ascent in front of us. My noble, equine friend turned and gave me a withering look and then bolted up the bank, I held on for dear life and we both got to the top in one piece. After that we came to a compromise i.e. it would do as it liked and I would sit there quietly.

A few minutes later the girls came galloping back and reined in to check on us and then set off back to the ranch house. Upon sensing that it was on the way back to the stability of it’s stable, my loyal companion, also started galloping wildly home. Try as I might, I could not get my arse to go in the same direction as the saddle and at that precise moment, vowed never to sit astride a horse ever again. A vow that I’ve upheld to this day, thirty years on.

Cheers for now

SkyBlueSkull

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com

My personal sporting achievements.

For some reason, my Muse has decided that sport is the flavour of the week, having got rid of the Olympics (temporarily). We (my Muse and I) thought we would give you a bit of an insight into my own sporting achievements.

I was totally useless at soccer and cricket because of my glasses; at least that was my excuse. Anyway, to cut a short story long the Games master did the usual thing and picked the two best players and told them to pick their teams. This inevitably resulted in Me, Daffy-Don Davenport and Charlie Hulme being the last ones chosen. Daffy-Don’s only claim to fame was his ability to make an extraordinarily loud farting noise using a cupped hand and his armpit. (If you don’t believe me, try it sometime on a hot sweaty day).


Charlie must have been one of the original eggheads, he had the biggest cranium I’ve ever seen, he was a brilliant scholar and ended up getting thrown out of London University for wasting his time train-spotting. He also spent every lunchtime at school, cycling around to as many pubs as he could reach, giving them his own version of the Egon Ronay system for pints of beer and pasties.


(I have recently heard from Charlie and although he did fail the first year at Uni, he went on to graduate and became very successful in IT at Manchester Uni. Him and his wife are still cycling around Derbyshire and he still loves his trains. I’m not sure about the ale and pasties.)


That left yours truly, the last but arguably the best of the “useless trio”. I used to be pretty good at cross-country running, which didn’t involve hand-eye co-ordination and some of the best distance runners in history wore glasses. Although I must admit I can’t name any off the top of my head, so you’ll have to take my word for it.


However the smoking and drinking got to me, sooner rather than later, and my running career finally fell flat. Me and a couple of mates were caught smoking by one of the teachers. We were hiding in a quarry having a quiet smoke. We were watching the leaders passing by and waiting for a clear break in the field of runners, so we didn’t finish too high in the placings, (nothing but honest me and my mates).


The lousy, hypocritical sod crept up behind us and confiscated the smokes (he was a smoker himself, of course) He kept us behind, till everybody had overtaken us, including Charlie and Daffy Don and then let the four of us go.


We ran into the school grounds past the assembled pupils and teachers and pretended to race each other, we were all from different ‘houses’ and the crowd was going berserk. As we crossed the finish line, we all ran over together holding hands. Much to the delight of the pupils and the chagrin of the teachers.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com

St Skull of Assissi

I’ve often thought that I have a way with birds, of the feathered variety. I wasn’t a bad looking lad in my youth ( I will try to prove this by adding a photo here, if I can get access back to my site, if you’re reading this then I am back on line, after a traumatic morning of deprivation). As I was saying, I was a good looking young chap but terribly shy, an attribute I carry to this very day, shyness that is, not good looking.


I still blush when nubile young maidens come up to me and fondle my nether regions whilst whispering “Take me, big boy” into my shell like. Or at least, I think I would if it actually happened.


Anyway, to get back to Avians, the first bird I ever owned was a budgie, bought for me by my next door neighbour, along with a cage and a stick of millet, I think it was eaten by a neighbourhood cat (the budgie not the millet).


My Dad caught the cat in the kitchen and from what he told me later, he closed the doors and chased it around, at one stage it was defying the laws of gravity and was racing around closer to the ceiling than the floor. Whenever it was close to the ground, he helped it along with a hob-nailed boot up the jacksie.


Before you write to the RSPCA protesting, it should be remembered that this was 50 years ago and back then you could get away with that sort of thing. This taught two sentient beings a lesson, the cat never entered the Skull domicile again and I (I’m sorry to say this, if you are a feline devotee) have a lifelong detestation of pussy cats.

This first one was followed by a succession of other Budgies, as a family we didn’t like to see them caged all the time and used to let them fly around the ‘living room’ during the day. I must add here that we only ever had one budgie at any one time, not a flock of them flying around like a bunch of homing pigeons, the house wasn't big enough for that.


This habit led to some unfortunate deaths, one was stepped on by my Mum, another flew off when I answered the front door with it perched on my shoulder. The ingrate took off without even a cheep of farewell and no doubt perished at the hands or beaks of the local sparrows.


The best of the lot had quite a considerable vocabulary, mainly thanks to Mum, and even got drunk one Christmas, when Dad shared a dram or two of Jamaican Rum and Orange with it, he ended up putting it in it’s cage where it lay flat on it’s back, I’m not sure whether or not it had a hangover when it eventually woke up, as I’ve never been fluent in ‘Budgie’. I’d like to say it died of natural causes, but it didn’t, I won’t go into that it’s too painful to contemplate.


To get back to me and why not? I’m writing this stuff!. One day I was walking to Sunday School, when I saw a bunch of kids in a circle. I went to see what was happening and they were surrounding a Rook and were too scared to approach it and were just about to start throwing stones at it.


I didn’t like that, so I went up to it and put my arm out and it hopped on, somebody had obviously tamed it, because it just sat there and eyed me with it’s beady eyes. This was the greatest excuse ever to get out of Sunday School, so I took it home.


I built it a perch and a tray to eat and drink and fed it a few slices of Mother’s Pride bread and gave it some water and we cawed at each other for a while. It obviously felt at home because it stayed there. In fact it stayed for about six months. It became so tame that it used to peck on my bedroom window to wake me up to feed it, before I went on my paper round.


Unfortunately I had to leave it, while we went on our summer holidays to Southport or Morecambe, or some other such exotic tourist destination for a couple of weeks. I gave instructions to a kid next door on how and when to feed it, but he was scared of it. I must admit that this was understandable, it was a large black bird, the sort associated with death and witches and had a diabolic gleam in it’s eyes and a vicious looking beak, with talons to match.


When I got home it had disappeared for ever, I prefer to think that it had gone to live in a nearby rookery and lived happily ever after, raising little baby rooks with a loving lady rook. Rather than thinking that the kid had taken to it with a piece of ‘four by two’, after it attempted to savage him. He vehemently denied any such act on his part


At the moment I’ve only got four birds, a lunatic Rainbow Lorikeet, a Cockatiel and a couple of budgies. The lorikeet terrorises the other three most of the time, the male budgie terrorises the cockatiel and sometimes the lorikeet and the cockatiel terrorises the female budgie, the whole lot are terrified of me. One normal big happy family really.

Since I wrote this. the Rainbow Lorikeet disappeared on a dark and stormy night and the female budgie met a tragic end at the beak of it’s mate, so I’m down to two and the dog hates them both, which means they are confined to their cages.

Cheers for now,


SkyBlueSkull (The (ex)-birdman of Albion).

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com

The Olympic Games, an Australian viewpoint.

This was originally written a few months ago and is now ancient history, but I came across it as I was seeking inspiration for an original blog, so I'm putting it on this new site for your edification and delight. It does provide a bit of an insight into the competitive spirit of my adopted countrymen.

Well it’s all over now and I’m a bit sorry to see it end, I became a bit of an enthusiast for synchronised diving and weight-lifting and although I’m no expert, I would have given all the divers perfect scores and wanted all the lifters to get those weights from on their tits, to over their heads without falling over backwards.

I have to say that some of the divers and most of the gymnasts were a tad too young for my liking, the females that is, all the males were, well too male, I suppose for me, thus proving that my sexual proclivities are bordering on normal.

I did fall in love with the whole of the Netherlands Womens Hockey Team and not a few Beach Volley-Ballers, and Track and Fielders. The swimmers left me a bit cold, but the female water-poloists all looked very cute in their funny little helmets.

Having said all that, I began to wonder what they were all getting up to after they’d finished competing. Let’s face it you’ve got 3,000+ of the world’s fittest young men and women confined together for about three weeks, there must have been a fair bit of the old ‘how’s yer father’ going on behind the ‘Birdcage’.

I read recently, that an American base in Antarctica had just received a consignment of 16,000 condoms and there are only about 150 of them wintering over there. Is freezing cold an aphrodisiac or what? Sod me! we’ll all be trying to get into the cool rooms at the local bottle shops, never mind the beer let's have a bonk!

To get your minds back up out of the gutter, I’ll get back to The Olympics, as far as I can make out the final tally of gold medals had the Chinese well in front of the USA with 51 to 36, although the Yankee Doodles beat the Chinks 110 to 100 on total medals. Giving them both bragging rights although I reckon the ‘septic tanks’ were a trifle off-pissed.

After that came Russia, Great Britain, Germany and Australia. This would no doubt have had Vlad ‘The Impaler’ Putin spewing in his borscht, but to give him his due, he had lost quite a few ‘Stans’ and other assorted territories. It probably didn’t particularly impress Angela either, now that the two Germanies are unified (and presumably drug free).

Living in Australia however, the locals are spitting chips that ‘The Pommy Bastards’ (Brits to those not in the know) got more than they did, 19 to 14 ‘Golds’ and 47 to 46 medals overall. Bugger the others, what are those shitheads doing better than us for the first time in twenty years, it’s an affront to our sporting traditions “We always beat the bloody Poms”.

To overcome this perceived anomaly one of the local papers, the equivalent of ‘The Sun’, or one of Rupert's other 'News?' Papers without the page 3 girls, came out with the following report.

“Australia is belting the UK, US, Russia and China despite what the Olympic medal tally says.

Body for body, the Aussies have outpunched every superpower in the world.

Every other nation in the tally top ten has at least double our population and China is 70 times bigger.

Only the weight of numbers has put us behind them.

When the numbers were adjusted to make the games a fair fight for everyone, we also had a a moral victory over the smug UK.”

There was a table showing that Jamaica was #1, Slovenia #2, NZ #3 and Australia #4. Where did the UK finish? Well, if you really want to know, at #20, with the US at #42 and China at #61. For what it is worth, India finished last with one gold for a population of one billion.

Don’t blame me for that, I’m just showing what has been reported in the local press, but it does get better so you’ll have to read my next posting.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull.


http://www.keith-skellern.blogspot.com

An update on naked bog hopping in the Peak District

Well, the Summer Solstice has come and gone, with no great surprises. Despite, or perhaps because of, a considerable police presence, in the form of Constable Paddy MacGillicuddie, formerly of the RUC but now with the Royal Cheshire Mounted Police (RCMP, Motto ‘We always get our person’) (Yet another example of Political Correctness gone wild).


Constable MacGillicuddie, a splendid example of a British Bobby, standing 6ft 3in in his size 14 Bobby boots and Bobby helmet, but actually 5ft 6 3/4in without them, reported that he had made no arrests.


He did however sight ‘a bevy’ of naked women skipping through the bogs and gave chase, but lost them as he became bogged down and sank into the bog, up to his strategically positioned, police issue truncheon. It should be mentioned here that the Constable was only attired in the aforementioned boots and helmet in order to blend in with the expected crowd of revellers.


When questioned about how many women constitute ‘a bevy’, he admitted that he was unsure because he had his whistle in one hand and was holding his truncheon strategically with the other, thus rendering him unable to count them all, but stated categorically that there were more than two.


Senior Detective Sergeant Mullet of The Police Association (Well known for his cameo appearance on ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ solemnly intoning “ ‘ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, there’s something fishy going on ‘ere”) has subsequently stated that he will not have his members exposed to that kind of thing in future.


He has since released funds from the Association’s ‘Slush Fund’ to provide knitting needles and wool to Gladys MacPlebian and the spinsters, along with the ‘Vital Statistics’ of Constable MacGillicuddie and asked them to knit a ‘Willy-Warmer’ for future events.



When she saw the ‘statistics’ Phyllis Arkwright gigglingly suggested that the Sen Det Seg’t had failed to take into account the ‘Wind Chill’ effect on the high moors and that perhaps a Man City Blue would be a better colour co-ordination. Mullet told her “Shut your gob! and start knitting, or else!”. Constable Paddy quietly informed her, that Mullet was a ‘dyed in the wool’ Man U supporter and to use the red and white skeins.


Cheers for now. until the Autumn Equinox.


SkyBlueSkull.

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com

My life in the Australian Tax Office

To stay on the topic (for a change), I also worked at the ATO for twenty years and would still be there now if I hadn’t been invalided out at the age of 54. The only reason I went in there, was because there were no jobs going around in 1983, so I took the Public Service Exam. I wanted to get into exciting areas like Foreign Affairs (sounds good anyway) or Defence (probably not so good) but the ATO wanted me more or probably less, but they got me anyway.

I really needed the brass so I joined, if a trifle unwillingly. After my first day I knew that this was not the job of my dreams, more like nightmares. My first couple of weeks were spent in a converted wool store (honestly!) I can’t remember what, if anything, I was supposed to do there. After that I was moved to ‘Lodgment Enforcement’ with another two new recruits.

Apart from the three of us there were four of the biggest deadheads ever to inhabit the ATO (and that is no mean accomplishment). The desks were arranged in a circle around a large pot plant, in the centre of which was an even larger hand written sign, proudly proclaiming ‘THE VEGGIE PATCH’ (this is no bullshit).

Of the four, one used to get to work at 9:30 and immediately go to sleep for his fifteen-minute tea break. He was right handed but kept his pen in his left hand and his feet in the desk drawer and with his face away from the supervisor, slept until lunchtime. Another one once walked out of the office and banged his head in the side mirror of a parked truck, drawing blood. He raced back up the stairs (which in itself was a first) and placed his head on the photocopier and took a copy for evidence in his workers comp claim. One of the others pushed his luck a little too far and ended up getting fired for rap dancing on his desk.

This unholy crew was ‘supervised’ by a young woman, who was semi-permanently on stress leave or on the phone or both. After a couple of weeks of this, the manager asked if anyone in the section wanted a move, me and my two relatively normal co-workers were the first in the queue after sending desks, chairs and pot plants flying.

I could go into this further, but the memories are still too close for comfort, so I shall cease and desist for another decade or two.

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull.

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com

Work and Public Servants (aka pubic serpents)

Contrary to popular belief, this is not an oxymoron; it is in fact a double oxymoron. Having been one myself for twenty years, I can say as an ex-insider that they perform quite extraordinary feats in the avoidance of that four-letter word beginning with a w and ending with a k. No! Dear reader, I am not referring to self-gratification. Well I suppose I am, but not of the onanistic variety so reviled by the Catholic Church, what we are considering here is WORK.

The other part of that oxymoron is Public and Servant. If you have ever had the misfortune to deal with one (and let’s say here, that they are so all pervasive, you can’t escape the bastards). You are, presumably, a member of the Public, some synonyms for which are civil, urban and society, whereas others are vulgar, common and hangers-on. A servant can be an attendant or alternatively a footman or a famulus. Put yourself in their position and ask the question “Would you rather be an attendant to a civil society, or put your famulistic boot (foot) into a common, vulgar, hanger-on?

What brought this on, was that the GLW (Good Lady Wife), gave me some rather startling news yesterday. Apparently a son of one of her friends has gone to work at my old workplace, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) at the tender age of 20. If little Johnny and his treasurer Peter Coster-Living have their way and their successors follow suit, this means that the poor sod will still be there in 60 years time i.e. 2067.

The reasoning behind this thinking, is that when the Old Age Pension (OAP) was introduced early last century, the average life expectancy for males was 61years. Barton or Skullin (no relation) or whomsoever, decided that the toilers should not only be given an eight-hour day (provided they worked longer than that). But should also be allowed to retire at 65 and the government would generously provide them with a pittance, to eke out on essentials over their last few miserable years. Secretly hoping, meanwhile, that the vast majority would croak it before then.

Of course the untrustworthy, hoi polloi bastards decided to live longer and the average life expectancy is now 82 and rising, before long the ungrateful dastardly swine will be living as long as Her Majesty and her kith and kin. The buggers will be retiring at 65 and living for another 50 years. What worries Little J and Peter is the ‘Economy’, at that rate you’ll have tens of millions of geriatrics collecting the Old Age Pension (OAP) and clogging up the hospital system. Who will be providing the taxes and hence the wherewithal to pay for this, your kids that’s who!

The obvious answer to this is to raise the age of retirement to 80 right? That’ll fix the sneaky sods and keep them toiling for another 15 years, which will have two benefits. More of them will be dropping off while toiling and will be paying taxes for another 15 years and the rest of them will be so shagged out they won’t be able to make it to the phone, let alone hospital. Brilliant! Why didn’t we think of it years ago? Because it would have affected us baby boomers you brainless berk.

The Pollies have already covered their sweet smelling, little buttocks by creating a ‘Futures Fund’, this cunning little ploy has been instituted, so every Pollie gets $1,000,000 for every year served in Parliament with an upper limit of $1 billion for ministers, prime and otherwise. The hoi polloi are also required to pay for their own pensions by secreting 10% of their wages in Super Funds. So my GLW’s mate’s son gets to work in the ATO until he’s 80. Serves him right I say!

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com

A light-hearted look at DEATH

Death, not a polite topic at nice people’s dinner parties, but why not? It happens to all of us sooner or later and you can’t escape it. Someone once said that you can’t escape taxes either, but as an ex-tax officer (thankfully ex) I can vouch for the fact that this is not strictly true, there are a lot of sneaky, conniving, dishonest, rich bastards out there ripping off you poor, but honest, snivelling, poor, ignorant wretches.

Back to death, it comes as a bit of a surprise to some, although the surprise lasts for only a few nano-seconds, they are the lucky ones. One second they’re happily shagging, gardening, running marathons or playing polo and the next whammo! Hello worms!

For others, it can take days, weeks or years, not so good! Even then, some welcome it with open arms, believing that they are heading off on a one way trip, to their own particular nirvana. Others have to be dragged off kicking and screaming by the grim reaper knowing that they’ve violated every commandment and are destined for the great perpetual toaster in the netherworld.

Personally, I would prefer an instantaneous to quickish one. I do not wish to be put on life-support and there is a slab of VB in my will, for anybody willing to kick the plug out, while nobody is looking.

I’d like to be turned into a little pile of ashes and kept in a sealed designer urn on the mantelpiece, so the family can put me in the centre of the dinner table, along with a nice vase of petunias on special occasions. The reason for sealing the urn is fairly obvious, it would ruin everybody’s day if some drunken sot sprinkled my ashes on the turkey thinking it was pepper.

Unfortunately, my family are, if not deeply religious, at least ankle-deep Catholics and will want to inter me rather than (b)urn me. There is also the fact that everybody is aware that you might be in a nice cedar casket with beautiful brass handles as you trundle along the conveyor belt. As soon as you disappear through the curtain, they whip you out of the casket into a cardboard job (to create a few more ashes) and whoopsy-doo! Stick ‘em in a nice little porcelain job, bought in bulk from Woolworths.

If I do have to be buried, I’d like to go in the new ecologically friendly way. Whack me in a hessian sack or at the very worst a recycled cardboard coffin and stick me vertically in the ground. Instead of a headstone they can plant a tree on top or next to me. A spreading Oak would be nice, but I would settle (literally and metaphorically) for a Ghost Gum, Weeping Willow or best of all a Sequoia (that bugger would last a thousand years, or at least until the illegal loggers snuck in).

Cheers for now,

SkyBlueSkull

http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com