Folks - just a quick note to let you know that I take up a full time contract as a Lecturer at Griffith University tomorrow which will take me through to the end of June. Over the long uni break, I’ve mostly been working on consultancies and various writing and business projects, which has allowed me a fair bit of free time. That’s about to change. I’ll still be posting, but probably at a more intermittent rate, and will have far less time to intervene on comments threads or moderate them. But I’m sure that with 20 bloggers here at LP, your lefty blogging reading goodness needs will continue to be well catered for!
Update [by Kim]: Now that it’s 13/2, happy birthday, Mark!
Why was my comment removed?
Congrats Mark!
Thanks, Lefty E!
But you are needed here Mark!
You are leaving us at the mercy of more one-eyed and less scholarly moderators.
So, what have they got you teaching?
Dunno yet, find out tomorrow. But it looks like first year “Social Sciences in Australia” and some lectures in 2nd and 3rd year courses. Possibly on religion and on sociology of work, but that was the mail some time ago. Should know for sure after a meeting tomorrow.
Graeme, if you wish to donate 63k a year to employ me full time as a blogger, I’ll reconsider my career choices
Oh, Graeme. Here I was thinking I’ve been an excellent, albeit intimidating, door-bitch. I even bought boots for the occasion!
Yeah Graeme, we leftoid humanities acas don’t come cheap you know!
(*laughs till he cries*)
Door bitches rock!
Are they Docs, Anna?
Thigh-high stilettos. I’m also thinking of getting a whip.
Now you’re talking, Anna!
Whip it good, sister!
How long does it take to eat a brulee?
By the way, happy birthday Mark for tomorrow! xx
Opinions differ, Chairman. It would depend on whether one gobbles or savours the brulee.
63K is what a lecturer gets? Sheesh.
It’d take the Markus three weeks in that case.
Happy birthday Mark!And a GU contract for a pressie - nice. Born on Valentine’s day? There you go.
Hey, shit! tomorrow’s valentine’s day (*scribbles note to self*)
I’ve never had a comment removed.
Your birthdate is an auspicious start to a new post. Happy Day!
Ok - that was one of those daylight saving interstate communication problems. Its already the 13th here in Melb.
Tuesday is Valentine’s day, so everyone, just, erm, calm down.
Except by Miss Brownie
That got her.
good luck mark.
Thanks to your link I now realise that Griffith University isn’t in Griffith NSW that ‘oasis’ of the Riverina and the heart of - Wine and Food Country. This thriving city is a unique mix of cultures from all around the world which give Griffith that true cosmopolitan feel.
Griffith NSW
DID YOU KNOW?
- that over 130 semi-trailers leave Griffith daily & 1200 tonnes on rail (40-50 semis)!
-that they are Australia’s second largest chicken meat producer, in excess of 120,000 birds daily.
So I’ve learnt a few things tonight.
In fact, fxh, it’s smack bang in the middle of Toohey forest - who knows what lurks in the undergrowth there - perhaps there is a Griffith NSW connection?
Anyway, can we stop talking about brulees and start talking about fetish footwear again?
“63K is what a lecturer gets? Sheesh.”
Afraid so Rob… can’t really accuse us of being in it for the money!
It is, however, for the most part, a satisfying and interesting job.
Still, you could probably keep yourself in fetish footwear on that wage, Lefty E?
OK: Are thongs ever sexy? (I mean, the foot-slappin’ variety…)
Im thinking I miss them in my life.
Hmmmm. No. Sorry!
Did you see these?
Ouch!
I go cut-price, DIY, Kim - sandals, with a nipple-clip or two on the toes.
That’s more like it, Lefty E!
Anna - you can say that again!
I think a door bitch would need more practical heels…
I must confess to being in a frumpy-Dad phase. I started buying shoes exclusively for their comfort levels about two years ago - (incidentally, men, I recommend Rockport!)
My feet hurt enough anyway, without trying. Those red ones look ouchy. Im officially too daggy for this thread.
In other news, I’m off to watch Catwoman, which I unaccountably haven’t seen and which said dvd I rented tonight. I will keep a sharp eye out for Halle Berry’s footwear.
Foot massages or a visit to a podiatrist! Frumpiness and sore feet must not be allowed to interfere with stylish footwear!
Exciting Miss Laura makes 120k a year.
119k of that is what she finds on footpaths.
Sills Bend is paved with pragmatism.
I wouldn’t want my comment to be misunderstood - I was just surprised at the figure. Looking at job level standards across the APS (qualifications, responsibilities, etc.) - let alone the private sector - lecturers should be getting a hell of lot more than that.
I agree Rob. APS admin salaries in particular are exorbitant these days.
On to more important matters, we need to reconvene the LP hot TV personality fan club.
Possible nominations:
Sandra Sully. I briefly saw her hosting some crapparific TV celeb game show on Ten tonight. She’s hotter when not in robotic newsreading mode.
ummm… ok so that’s basically the only TV I’ve seen this week.
Emma Alberici!
Then Sandra Sully.
Jessica Rowe looks like a robot.
Rob - it’s a scale, that’s the starting salary - it goes up to 74500, then Senior Lecturer starts at 76k etc. But it’s still pretty crummy given the qualifications and skills you need. On the other hand, I think the starting salary for teachers in Qld is about 40k. You can make more than that working in a public service call centre as an AO4.
Pretty sick.
Not wrong there, Rob.
Catwoman was a pretty silly movie. But the cats were cute.
Mark - Congrats on the new gig, happy birthday, and good luck with it all! (To boost your income, you might consider writing on the sly a novel about lefty economics, blogging, and fetish footwear. There’s a built-in market, I guarantee, and I’m sure it could be done. These outre sort of genres certainly bought Dan Brown a villa in Hawaii. Don’t know how that ‘Cryptonomicon’ bloke is making out, though.)
Kim… sorry I posted too late to warn you off Catwoman. It’s, well, a dog. (And such potential wasted!)
If we’re going to get back to the topic of the hotness of newsreaders, can I suggest we go to the appropriate thread?
Many very happy returns, Mark, and I hope you have a truly ace day.
As for academic salaries, I am .5, in theory (although last semester I taught ninety students across two subjects and two campuses, ran the online delivery of one subject and delivered several lectures, most of them new) and I get $24,990.
So RH: just shut it.
While I’ll add to Mark’s congrats, I’m also appalled at the neo-Dickensian industrial conditions under which academics are supposed to work these days. A contract that lasts all the way til June, at $63K per annum pro rata? Commencing a week or so before the semester starts… how on earth can anyone deliver a proper course under those conditions?
Howard’s brave new IR world appears to have already arrived in academia.
Happy birthday and happy new job, Mark.
On the subject of newsreaders (well sports news readers) how about Stephanie Brantz?
Congrats on the fulltime job. Did I read wrong or is it only a one semester job?
Unfortunately, your post reminded me about the going back to uni which includes trying to do Houdini acts to work out my bloody timetable.
Can anyone rewind time?
You didn’t read wrongly, elizajoey.
Anyway, thanks folks!
It’s today, Naomi!
But thanks!
Thats right - as Naomi and Laura point out, many of us started out on the assoc. lecturer Level A in the low 50s. I certainly did.
But now im well into the B scale, i tell you, its all orgies, grapes, and fetish footwear for me. Its like the last days of Rome round here.
PS Happy b’day Mark. I hope incumbency gives you some re-appointment gravitas come June!
Happy birthday Mark –a fellow Aquarium and congratulations on the new ‘post.’
Lefty E. I know footwear having had problems for years. I stick mainly with the European (mainly German) brands. Italian shoes usually have a too narrow last for my comfort. I also almost exclusively wear boots these days to strap up the ankles a bit. Mostly I wait for a Mountfords sale and buy up a few pairs of Joseph Seibel or Lloyds or Westlands. Not cheap but they last forever.
Happy birthday and congrats Mark - hope the new gig turns out well.
Precisely FXH - my feet became much less of an issue as soon as I started spending $250 on a pair every two years, instead of my old practice of buying a crappy $100 pair every year.
Agree re the narrowness of Italian leather, and the virtues of ankle cover….
Seibel, hey? Mmm. As I said, cant beat Rockport comfort; Echo isnt bad either.
I’m on 9k a year. If the CES land me with a job I’ll jump to 23k. Then I’ll be King of Blackshaws Road; everyone in Newport is on the dole.
Meanwhile old moses is rattling the tin for more donations.
He’s worse than the Salvation Army. A ten metre brulee wouldn’t be enough.
Nothing is enough.
That got ‘em.
Definitely got me RH - I dont know what a brulee is!
Shaun - couldnt agree more re: Stephanie Brantz. She can read me sporting bulletins with that lovely smile any time she likes.
Look it up on google, that’s what I had to do.
I’m making one for Markus - for his birthday; two hundred egg yolks and twenty litres of cream.
Wooh! Bon appetit!
Happy birthday Mark! Congrats on the job too.
Congrats on the job front Mark.
And Happy Birthday! You only missed out by 24 hours on sharing a bday with that great triumvirate: Abe Lincoln, Charles Darwin and, um, me :).
Well it’s Oliver Reed’s birthday today, or would be if he wasn’t dead, that’s pretty darn special.
Happy Birthday Mark, and trust things went well on Day One!
Thanks very much, folks!
Chairman - I had the honour of taking Mark out to dinner tonight on his birthday and buying him a white chocolate creme brulee.
Laura - Worst Oliver Reed movie ever was Castaway but a surfeit of Amanda Donohoe naked redeemed it in my eyes, or according to my eyes.
Nick Roeg made a bad film, did he? Doesn’t sound like him.
Unfortunately, Rob, it’s a flop. Apart from the aforesaid Amanda Donohoe naked goodness (nude Ollie Reed doesn’t do it for me - others may differ - there’s certainly a lot of him on show - God rest his soul - in the film).
That’s brilliant Miss Kim. Thanks for that news.
A brulee costs as much as a Toyota, you’ll probably be paying it off for the next twenty yesrs.
But I guess it’s worth it to be in the presence of Royalty.
Years, not yesrs.
I’m cheap to take out. Jelly and ice-cream is plenty for me.
Nuns serve it up at in the bluestone cavern.*
R.H.
*Little Sisters of the Poor.
Gertrude Street,
Fitzroy.
$10.90, actually, Chairman.
Nuns serve it up in the bluestone cavern.
Not: Nuns serve it up at in the blustone cavern.
Pardon me, I’m very excited today. A good looking doll winked at me as her train pulled out at Footscray.
Hell, what a mess. Time to hang up the quill.
I’m taking you to All You Can Eat For Ten Dollars.
It’s good value, but you have to be quick, the grub’s all gone by about 9pm.
Let’s know when you want to go, because I fast for three days beforehand.
But I can get a brulee for ten bucks!
Yes, but can you eat it like a pig?
It may be a tad small.
That’s right. That’s my point, at All You Can Eat you can stuff food in your pockets as well.
Beat that for value!
RH!
Unfortunately, Chairman, I live in Brisbane so am not able to take up your kind invitation.
Send me a plane ticket. I’ll do an All you Can Eat at your joint.
Watch me go!
That got her.
No dame can go the distance with RH.
Not when it comes to a feed!