An open thread where, at your long weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
Always nice to get two going out nights with recovery time in one weekend – and I really enjoyed trying the Spanish Tapas joint at Brunswick St Central for the first time evah. One of my new year’s resolutions is not just to go to the same (very good) places to eat or drink over and over again, but to try new ones.
Here’s a snapshot of the end of my Thursday night out. What did you get up to? I only spotted one person at a bar tonight wearing an Aussie flag polo shirt and people were looking at her quite oddly. That’s what it’s like in the Valley, at any rate.
For mine, the great thing about this country, though unfortunately it’s changed more than a tad over the course of the Howard era (and I’m quite prepared to blame Keating’s nationalism about WW2 anniversaries and Churchill sellouts as well), was that we were never flag wavers. Maybe part of that was a colonial cringe, but a huge degree of scepticism about bullshit and authority was, I think, as authentic as you’ll ever get about the Australian character. That’s gone by the by, largely. Let’s try and recapture it. It was far more precious than waving a flag.
Frist. Crikey!
Sucked in third!
And your obsession with derriers is…?
Probably the same as for most people.
Invasion Day activities here on AAAAWLYA LP thread
And more over this way http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2183852.ece
Do you often take snap shots of women’s arses, Mark
So, what is everyone doing this Oz day. I’m sitting at home at the moment listening to the J’s hottest 100 and writing Australian Research Council grants… Hopefully later I’ll combine these activities with some beer or rum…
By the way, I don’t think that Mark is taking photos of arses particularly but everyone’s attention just seems to be drawn to them somehow…
Aw c’mon, where are the up-the-skirt photos?
I went to a nightclub last night. It was unfortunately not completely devoid of plastic-flag-waving dicks but they were harmless and few in number and didn’t detract from the event to much.
Earlier, at a work function, I managed to trample one of the little plastic buggers* underfoot. *AKA the symbol of British imperial domination.
Today I swelter on my back deck and get stuck into Tacitus. Maybe I will retreat to the aircon and re-read his treatise on the Germans.
There’s my contribution to NSW Day.
Thursday we were recovering from Wednesday, because on Wednesday we went to see Andrew Bird in Northcote. What a show. He played electric violin, guitar, and xylophone. He had about 6 pedals in front of him, and sampled bits of his own songs within his own songs, before layering them into songs of their own. Really, a great performer. See him if you can.
Tanya, my new girlfriend suggested we do Noosa for the Invasion Day Holiday Weekend. Her daddy is rich and Tanya loves to flash her platinum AmEx, so ever eager to preserve domestic harmony, I went along. This morning Tanya wanted to get peripatetic. Naturally, I obliged. Between the cab rank at the Hastings St. roundabout, out along the road to Noosa Woods, the Southern point of the Noosa River mouth and back along the beach to the Surf Club, Tanya and I spotted only two Ozi-Oi-Oi flags. One was flying from the roof of a local cab, the other was draped over the window of a parked, aspirationally orientated ute.
Lots of parading toffs at the business end of Main Beach, not one of them sporting so much as a hand held. The straw poll was conducted from 10 till 11, EQT.
S/Sgt Hurley will be charged with manslaughter over the death of Mulrunji. This was announced by Palm Island council lawyer Andrew Boe at the Invasion Day rally outside the Parliament of Queensland today.
Mick, a cold longneck of beer with a brown OP rum chaser is a very sound afternoon Australian tradition, though it’s stronger I believe in Queensland and amongst war veterans.
Everybody, if you can’t enjoy a bit of flaggery-pokery, that’s fine, feelings aren’t to command. At least do the right thing today and support your local brewery or wine producer, and abstain from those imported 330ml-bottled premium beers, the scourge of the interlectuel middle clarses, who I am led to believe populate this web-site. Yes? Take that lemon out of that Mexican sugary rubbish, crack open your piggybank and take your thongs down to your bottleshop.
May I suggest, as your designated infernal beer sommelier, any of the following:
- Cascade Stout (not available everywhere) with a pie or pastie. Southwark Stout is nearly as good, and cheaper. Of course the pastie is optional
- Bluetongue Pilsener, mmmm, yes please.
- Tooheys Old, which can play host, if you want, to a dash of grenadine. It makes it a bit more refreshing but it does tend to look like your gums are bleeding
- Matilda Bay or Little Creatures hoity-toity little-bottles, if tooth-rotting sweetness is your thing. They’re owned by the same people anway.
- Coopers Sparkling Ale (classic of its kind)
- Your local (or otherwise) draught beer. Turn your nose at VB, XXXX or Swan? Don’t be such a fucking snob.
Etcetera. Or brew your own, it’s cheap as chips these days, and plus, it’s legal.
A wise man of impeccable judgement, obviously.
Hi. So what do you think about that – was the original decision not to prosecute just a way of placating the Police Federation? I was outraged at that decision. Justice delayed is still justice denied. Maybe Mulrunji’s son would still be here if there had been accountability at the outset.
Cancer cure discovered: dichloroacetate (DCA).
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10971
Bad news. The pharma companies won’t do trials on it because it’s been around so long they can’t get a patent on it and they can’t make a profit on it. It’s up to universities or private benevolent groups.
“A man of wealth and taste”, according to Bulgakov and Jagger.
Australian wines in Australia rightly dominate the market, and winelovers shouldn’t have much problem getting hold of (say) a crisp Tasmanian pinot noir or a 4L dry white Kooba cask. Geddit inntaya.
I should add another recipe for those of you who aren’t beer or wine drinkers, the classic Cuba Libre, made here al Australiano. Those of you who like your UDL or Bundy cans of rum ‘n’ coke should educate yourselves into just how nice the drink can really be, if you take the time to impress your liver. Take a fist-sized/old-fashioned glass, and gather up:
- 1 part brown rum
- 1 part cola
- 1/2 spoonful brown sugar
- Ice
- 1/2 a lime
Chop the lime and drop it in to dissolve the the brown sugar a little bit in an empty glass. Add the ice, which you can crush in the blender for extra effect, and then add the rum and cola. Stir, but not too much. ¡Viva la Revolución!, and come to my arms Fidel. I’ve got a Devil put aside for you, for yoooou, for yooooou!
That’s my gut feeling – the Police Union in Qld seems to have a great deal of influence.
The Australian’s report (from the AAP) says that the union will hold a press conference later today.
Happy Australia Day, ockaz!
I’ve always thought that VB should use the slogan “Australia’s most tolerated beer”.
I have always thought VB was 4% cooking oil, as it tastes like a greasier version of Fosters.
That’s right mick!
Bunch of perves these blog commenters…
Hey, here’s an idea for some time further down the road…
It would be kind of funny, and fun, if Devil Drink and Steve at the Pub, the two resident alcohol experts, competed in some kind of ’stump-the-band’ contest; maybe you could live-blog it, depending what it was, and make it into some sort of a charity event. Raise money for hopeless, worthless drunks, or the Liver Transplant Division at a hospital, or something. Maybe in the offline world there could be like a bartending contest at some neutral pub: mix obscure cocktails, pull the perfect pint, silence a heckling patron, etc etc. The Iron Chef of booze! There could be a panel of judges composed of the drunkest commenters of LP, and maybe a celebrity drunk, who would of course all have to be soused while they were judging, and so forth.
DD: I say three cheers for snobbery! Hell, I clocked enough adolescent hours over quart bottles of Miller (gah!) to qualify as a standard-issue tasteless chucklehead, and I proudly keep my Chucklehead Union dues paid and up to date, but I still say quality roolz. This afternoon over a late lunch I split a 750ml bottle of Belgian Duvel, and hey, it rocked okay. Hmm, on some level ‘Duvel’ must be cognate with ‘duyvil’/devil, so maybe there’s some force at work here… (cue Twilight Zone music)
DD, I like you tastes and I intend to follow through with the Coopers and a Cuba Libre or ten.
I like Bloody Mary. I just can’t find a fucking girl called Mary that’s all.
Hustler White, the Musical!*
Sounds interesting, Jay Pee Zee. How exactly would it function?
*If you don’t get the joke, don’t google for context at work
I proclaim today to be National Dart Day. Nominations are being taken for people to stand in the centre of Sydney Stadium and have darts thrown at them.
Now that she is no longer in office, I nominate Amanda Vanstone.
Well DD since you did ask, today’s tipple will several stubbies of batch no 11, which was a Morgans Qld Bitter, and maybe a couple of batch no 12, which was in fact ginger beer, the brand I can’t remember but it came from Woolies, and then a couple of reds afterwards. The ginger beer is alcoholic but not overly strong – quite nice actually altho’ the ginger gets a bit much after 4 or 5 glasses…
Probably a good idea to schedule – and sequence – these carefully.
No flags out in Perth last night (that I saw anyway). But many Australians doing the right thing – when it’s still 35 degrees at 9.30pm, the local lagers hit the spot; and they continue to do so until the very wee hours. Although, it must be said we were all sweating it out rather than pissing it.
Also, it’s well known that VB stands for (the) Very Best.
And as I write, that’s six down for the Poms. FFS…
As you were.
“Cancer cure discovered: dichloroacetate (DCA).”
Might be a tad premature to state that a “cure” has been “discovered.” It looks interesting, but way more data is needed.
BTW, the researcher concerned has filed a use patent so he’s clearly keen to make money out of it – probably in conjunction with a drug company or two
I note that Sigma-Aldrich have been funding the research……………
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/ia.jsp?IA=CA2006/000548&LANGUAGE=EN
Mark, is The Alibi playing the Hottest 100?
I dunno, mick.
I’ll just go check their myspace.
Brisbane’s “hippest indie dj night” apparently!
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=51237374&blogID=219170119&MyToken=e3c20a42-3c7e-4347-81c2-823e76ee5321
Thanks Mark, seems that my new Oz Day plan is to entertain some Europeans who have arrived here for the conference next week. I thought Story Bridge but I think that’s a pretty steep transition for people who just stepped off the plane… Maybe the Regatta is a good middle ground.
Anyone have any other suggestions?
Regatta mightn’t be bad… though I reckon you should go for culture shock immersion and go to the Story Bridge…
There’s one problem with the Story Bridge, I applied for a job with one of these guys and I can guarantee that some of my old Rugby mates will be at the Regatta…
Hi,
I got spaminated
Everyone:
Last night, I watched an excellent documentary on Dumb-Bunny TV (formerly SBS) about author Arthur Upfield and his fictional character, detective Napoleon Boneparte – “Boney”. When I was a kid, everybody – especially ABORIGINES – liked those stories. They were clever, they were entertaining, they were truly Australian and they showed a very positive view of Aborigines. The main character was a suave, highly-intelligent and resourceful “half-caste” who always outwitted the baddies, no matter how clever they were ….. he was a terrific role-model for young Australians of ALL races, (move over James Bond). Upfield and the cartooist Jolliffe, both “white” men, did much to make the general populace more respectful of Aborigines. It was remarkable that they managed to get their works published at a time when the official, religious, academic and business attitudes towards Aborigines ranged from patronizing at best to exploitative and repressive at worst.
Great documentary ….. then Spoilers came in. I know there’s a need for balance ….. but that doesn’t extend to allowing Holocaust Deniers to pop up in a program about Jews so just what were these latter-day Wowsers doing on a program about Aboriginal advancement and the very early days of Reconcilliation?
No matter what anti-white racists and history-tweakers do to hinder it or to run it off track …. or what their mirror-images in government and business do for that matter …. Reconcilliation among ordinary Australians is happening right now and it will continue …. no matter how rough the road.
I saw that too. Can’t say I care too much for the genre or the character, but I thought the woman’s comments along the lines of ‘only aborigines should be allowed to write about aborigines’ were pretty stupid.
But then again so was the halfwit Michael Duffy, so it all balances out I guess.
And that is how it should be. All these cries for apologies from governments, etc. is a crock. Australian’s really need to shake off this convct psyche.
Perhaps the fact that they did it in a well-established genre – detective stories – helped to make it less scary to publishers?
Elaborately brocaded jackets worn by
genuinely out-of-touch-with-realityeccentric millionaires must be worn, otherwise it will be a pale imitiation of the original.Via Senator Bartlett:
http://www.andrewbartlett.com/blog/?p=1303
There will be a (probably free or very cheap) blogging conference in Brisbane on March 8th.
On the contrary Youie, it stands for Vile Brew
Now that is a curiously multicultural foodie drug.
Anything like the stone from Thai Buddha Sticks?
Buried inside a triumphalist Oz-day wrapper, the SMH’s front page yesterday was a long and fairly objective story about a terminally-illl Sydney doctor’s decision to die in a Swiss euthanasia clinic.
The paper’s editorial, though, found that the old slippery-slope argument was enough to decide the issue:
That’s blown it for me. Next week I’m taking Mum to the tattoo parlour to have “do not rescuscitate” inscribed on her chest.
TheDevilDrink:
Your comments and suggestions, as always, enlightening.
Now you mentioned war veterans and rum : this may have come about, in part, because of the Malayan Emergency where innocent Australian diggers were exposed to the evils of British S.R.D. rum which was issued to the Royal Navy. The aroma of S.R.D. rum was said to be capable of perplexing a water-buffalo at 200yards [?180 metres or thereabouts?] whilst killing every anophyles mosqito about ones person. Perhaps war veterans continue to drink strong rough rum in order to ward off malaria and to prevent being run over by stampeding water-buffalo …..
“Perhaps war veterans continue to drink strong rough rum in order to ward off malaria and to prevent being run over by stampeding water-buffalo ….”
Or once they’ve drunk enough rum, that’s what they attribute for the drinking of rum to too rum to rum too.
A good anecdote I heard from one who there was about a RN and USN frigate moored by side by side in a Mediterranean port in the late 1940s.
Over the USN PA came “Will the crew take the queue for candy rations.”
Seconds later over the RN tannoy came “First call for rum rations.”
Both crews found themselves lining up at the same time seperated by only two sets of deck rigging, a metre of water and an utter gulf between grog and hershey bars. Much ragging then ensured, led regrettably but predictably by coarser elements of the RN.
Apparently the Atlantic Charter was severely strained later that night by some full on major brawls ashore between former allies. Even the officers joined in towards the end.
Gulpers all round.
The diggers must have been rightly confounded themselves, then. Perplexed, I should expect, flat out on the ground of the Supply Reserve Depot, if what I know of the Australian Army at play still holds.
True story as related by a hospitality worker: a group of four eighteen-year old sailors on shore leave from an American carrier in the 1990s decide to avoid the Woolloomooloo fleshpots so beloved of their shipmates and go to a civilised dinner. They sit down, order their meals and ask for a bottle of wine. The waiter asks them whether they’d like red or white. They look at each other for a couple of seconds then one asks:
Hey Mark, I actually saw you in the Valley taking shots with your phone … hah hah busted!
Come over to West End this weekend, we could record a conversation in MP3 and post it!!!
Rumpus Room anyone?
TheDevilDrink:
The other side of the coin are those US service personnel who have been on duty in many parts of the world and who can identify the drink by a mere whiff of its aroma as soon as the bottle is opened …..on a dark night and in a stiff breeze. ((b.t.w., think it was Services Rum Distillery but better ask someone who served in the Royal Navy or who was in Malaya)).
Nabakov:
Good one. One night prior to the Liberation of the Philippines, a Japanese aircraft went directly over a supposedly dry American ship – seems everyone from the skipper down took the end of Prohibition seriously and smuggled vile liquor on board – they rushed out and let fly with everything they had, including pistols!, and – since what goes up must come down – they steamed right into where all the expended ammunition was falling back into the sea. Because they were being showered with metal fragments and because they were drunk, they imagined that the (long gone) Japanese aircraft was firing on them so they doubled their efforts. No doubt the log would have recorded firing on a Japanese aircraft – but the state of the ship’s crew at the time – given the severity of USN punishments – is unlikely to have been recorded. Regulations or no regulations, apparently not all of the U S Navy was as dry as is assumed during the Second World War.
You should have said hello, Ben!