“It is clear that Labor has rebirthed political correctness as a shield to protect it from the economic impact that the Prime Minister’s latest vision to change the world will have on the lives of everyday Australians. And this is being reinforced by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong’s tireless mechanical recital repetition of this policy dogma with almost robotic precision.”

Now that’s some mixed metaphor of the shield, the attempt at a tautological string of adjectives “tireless mechanical” that then moves into a verb “recital” and a redundant “repetition” but like a student trying to pad out his ideas we are giving an overload of the same concept “with almost robotic precision,” which just shows a writer straining a point without any indication of evidence.

And they say academic writing can’t get beyond abstractions and sentence elongation. From all this I still can’t work out how Rudd is “politically correct” (I haven’t seen too much shielding of commentary on petrol prices in the MSN) and why this government is any less robotic than the previous government (replace “working families” with a host of previous “Go for Growth” “Keeping interest rates at record lows” slogans and you have even greater simplicity of message in the old g’ment communication strategies. If this is the depth of critique of the new government they’ll be in government longer than Menzies.

I know it must be difficult to pump out a weekly column functioning as a “political insider” but this is just puerile - it could have been written by one of the Year 8 kids I used to tutor.

Spent the rest of the long weekend recovering and visiting friends up at down the river; and being generally impressed by the improvements in public transport in Brisbane.

Freezing Melbourne is a bit of a comedown tonight. Brrr!

My girl-rellies get haircuts by a chap there who has a tent with a chandelier (v. cheap but good) and they are always getting photographed by tourists. We swanned about, picked up some veg, one got a massage done (I’ve never had a paid-for one but she is always doing it), looked at all sorts of interesting things people had made - a kiwi lass had clothing she’d dyed by boiling up gum leaves and cabbages and onion skins etc. We chat to stallholders as one of the rels used to be a market person - a vendor of vegetarian pies back in the days of poverty & single parentdom, and I think she is still nostalgic for the community of it. West End market is a place I am usually charmed by. Hari Krishna for lunch. Sat night tried to watch ‘War and Peace’ on ABC 2 starring Audrey Hepburn, but kept falling asleep.

Sunday kicked out of house by son & friends so they could have a jam session (v loud), taxi driving daughter to social engagements, but in between grabbed an accomplice & went to gallery & parklands, looked at the Nolan exhibition & did a bit of sketching, eating etc. Got to listen to some free music - classical in the gallery ‘inspired by Nolan’ - the singing was impressive but felt cold in that building, the clarinet was joyful. At the Parklands, electric guitars played by impossibly small people very well - as we approached, realised one had been in my loungeroom that morning jamming with my son, he was now surrounded by a large crowd. That night, tuckered out, watched my first ever episode of ‘Battle of the Choirs’ - and found myself inexplicably sucked in and wishing I too could belt out a number whilst having safety in numbers. Might be getting old - m’Mum is very fond of choirs - as a kid in Wales she used to hear the miners walking home from the pit singing and it’s a big part of their culture.

I drag me carcass outta bed on Sunday and walk real careful outside but me hangover isn’t real bad and the sun is shinin so it’s all good. The bloody spanner light is shining on the dashboard too which the missus didn’t tell me, it’s a thousand kays past it’s oil change. The oil looks a bit like vegemite on the dipstick too. I take the Fairmont out for a quick punt around me favourite track and when it’s cold it runs jes like is alwez does - a bit rough but nothin’ unusual. Then, I turn it’s nose up a hill and give it a bootfull and sure enough it starts pigrooting like a blue healer with a case of the squirtz.

I head down to SuperAutoCheaperyBarn and I’m lucky it’s Sunday coz that’s when they roster the pimply kids on and the owner is away. There’s no way I want to replace everythin’, just the broken bits but it’s a pain in the arse to keep havin’ to go back a forward. The pimply kid ask me if I want any help I just sez “follow me” and I load up him with new sparklers, leads, a dizzy cap, a coil, some oil, a fool filter and an oil filter. I figure I’ll just bring back what I don’t use. I’ll prolly have to as it costs a bluddy fortune.

Anyway, back home again I break the first rule of Ford Fixin, which sez that the bit that’s broken is the hardest to reach or the most expensive. I start with the fool filter and crawl under the back of the car, gettin’ petrol all over me hands and stinking up me watch. Disgusted, I start lettin’ out a long JD fart only to see the neighbours shoes next to the car. She wants ter know if I’ll be spillin’ oil all over the driveway again but nice as pie I tell her I won’t, then I finish me fart. She’s got one of them wrinkly noses and I carn’t help laughin when she screws it up at me. Anyway, the fuel filter isn’t the problem as the fairmont still pigroots up hills.

Next thing is the dizzy cap and leads. They look shagged, like they was fitted at the factory and never changed. They are a real bastard to change, which is why nobody touched ‘em. I cut the skin off the back of me hands reachin’ under the manifold and finally extract the old rubbish and install the new bits with only two trips for bandaids cos I was gettin blood all over the place. Then I dump the vegemite and on me back again yank the oil filter and soon enough we’re off again. Now the fairmont is runnin’ real sweet, better than when we bought it. Shoulda changed them leads and dizzy cap two years ago. I ring me mate and he tells me the trick to make the spanner light go off (hold down the odo button and turn the car on and wait for a beep). It runs even better after that.

By then, I didn’t have much to take back to the pimply kid to get me money back, so I just throw it in the boot. The missus looks at me, now greasy and stinkin of petrol, like I was somethin the dog dragged in and me Sunday is buggered, but at least that old Fairmont is runnin right.

The merchandise (and food) was as ridiculously over the top as usual. e.g. $14 for a snow cone in a plastic Disney character cup holder! This year though there definitely seemed to be less people buying the merchandise. Perhaps another sign of the waning consumer confidence…

Now I’m bludging on the web. I might play computer games. I started a new blog yesterday, so I’ve been blogging. What a lazy sunday!

Probably coincidental, but she’s never done that before, for any reason. Very odd.

ありがとござました。

That’s the spirit!

I went to a party on Sat. night and economised (or acted scroogily, depending on your point of view) by drinking my entire six beers rather than leave them lying around.

Tonight, I went to a conventional-but-fun sketch-comedy show at the Trades Hall on Lygon St.

Had a lousy birthday on Thursday. Had to work, and proved how comprehensively one can fail an assessment if one is nervous. Spent Saturday getting my confidence around locomotives back, even though a weekend track closure meant that we weren’t allowed to move anything after 11am.

Sunday — lazy Sunday. Did nowt all day. On a goods train to Nambour tonight and another in the wee small hours of Monday.

Question: Why is it called “World Youth Day” if it lasts for five days? Why not “World Youth Week”?