Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
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Great day with a Grandson catching up with some chores. Then off on the standard Grampians tour with short walks to the Grand Canyon and Balconies plus Baroka Lookout, Reid’s Lookout and McKenzie Falls. Over to the neighbors to feed the geese and ducks and two pet sheep plus run the Deerhounds around the man-made lakes.
I’m still visiting Adelaide and my daughter each week so it was a good excuse to chill out and de-stress. Grandson’s business is run almost entirely from his iphone. What that boy can’t do with that thing isn’t worth knowing about. Talk about feel your age!
Back into the slot though now so the main down time is the long drive through some wonderfully rejuvenated countryside thanks to a normal rainfall pattern to date.
Can’t believe that even Ambigulous hasn’t been distracted from his lazy Sunday by George Brandis referring to Turnbull’s critics as “malcontents”! Maybe I should check the other thread!
Hi Patricia,
Didn’t see “Insiders”. Went for a bike ride on a new bike path instead. Crisp frosty morning, sunny. Later we moved a young golden elm to a new spot hoping it may do better. Filled in some holes with turf from the tree planting.
Lunch out. Very pleasant day. Will depend on you for news from Canberra.
Ambigulous, it must be me! I found myself giggling and I still am about the “malcontents” in the Liberal party! (Dinchergedit?) That particular Brandis comment, not significantly newsworthy in itself, led the national news more than once today so perhaps someone in the ABC news room has a sense of humour.
And yes, I too have been doing more than pollie watching. My day began as usual with Sheba, my grey tabby, trotting along with me and Tacker on our early morning walk. Fremantle gardens are full of flowering shrubs against old limestone walls and there’s so much ground level colour with lavender, geraniums and beach daisies. While the cat and dog sniff around retaining walls and tree stumps together I have no choice but to stop and smell the roses which are blooming in abundance. It seems so easy to be a gardener here. Lawns are less and less in evidence and even on the street verges there are rockeries and patches of planted wildflowers blazing orange, purple and yellow. Some of the more neglected spots particularly come into their own at this time of year. If plants on vacant lots have survived the summer dry then once it rains they seem to flourish almost defiantly. I am told that there is something unseasonal about all this blossoming since we aren’t yet in spring and that global warming has a part in it. Not being a gardenener myself I accept the general wisdom of people who stop to chat.
Sounds very colourful and delightful, atricia WA.
As far as I can tell a Malcolm Tent provides very little shelter. If it rains, the occupant may become a shivering Gretch.
On ABC TV news tonight Christopher Pyne opined. He estimated that 99% of the Parliamentary Party are 100% behind Malcolm.
Anyone for camping?
*P*atricia
sorry
must learn to watch my Ps and Qs
There was a quaint old ritual on in town today, the Hiroshoma Day rally. Unsurprisngly for these narcisistic days, not many showed, but we were nonetheless allowed to march and block the city streets for a few minutes. No-one seemed too put out. It was satisfying when young japanese students joined in from off the footpath as we passed by. They seemed surprised by, and appreciated, the gesture.
Lest we forget.
Ambigulous, but the wretched Gretch is shivering because he’s been very firmly placed outside the Malcolm Tent. I think the Malcolm Tent could provide accommodation for a broad group of malcontents wanting to leave the Liberal Party. Surely Malcolm Turnbull must be the least content of all Liberals and he of all our pollies would know how to found and promote a new movement, a new party. He knows that in legalese that term – “mal contents” means those happy with Malcolm. What a name for a new party – “The Malcontents!”, led by the Grand Mal himself. And there’s a slogan ready made – “Honi soit qui mal y pense!” The mainstream in the party who wholeheartedly support him could be the malaprops, and the more conservative the maladroits. Surely those young liberals we saw on Q&A would rush to join the Petits Mals. All it needs is a formal structure.
Hiroshima: lest we forget, indeed.
Patricia, you are already the chronicler of the new party and its junior section. When he was elected Leader the Libs thought Mal very Adroit. Now?
Mal thought he had found a prop, in the email. Alas and alack!
It lacked that je ne sais quoi. Now for Mal it’s je ne sais pourquoi?.
“Honi soi que mal y pense” – evil to him who thinks evil thereby – might apply to an email espied briefly and jotted down, as to a lady’s garter, forsooth.
We are in charted waters now; a Newspoll cometh. That sound you hear is the strange muffled echo of sufficient backbenchers finding a spine to despatch the Leader they’re 100% behind.
Patricia WA you deserve to be awarded the 2009 Malcolm Phraser Prize. Congrats
Honoured to accept the accolade, Ambigulous.
Last day of the Melbourne International Film Festival. Bra Nue Dae, the Rachel Perkins film of the play, was wonderful. And not just because of all those Broome locations. Amreeka was a softer look at the Middle East from a Palestinian perspective. All the publicity seems to have ensured a well attended festival.
I too went to the movies, and saw Rachel Ward’s Beautiful Kate with Ben Mendelsohn (sp?), Bryan Brown and Rachel Griffiths — excellent movie, which will (or should) remind people of the highest peaks in the Aust film industry, and demonstrates that you don’t need all that stupid Hollywood padding and hype and toys; all you need is a good script (Ward wrote the screenplay, adapted from someone else’s novel), outstanding actors, and some stunning scenery. Oh and a great soundtrack — check out the credits for it at the end.
Discovered the joys of cross-country skiing…nice powder, no crowds, friendly skiiers and the best damn GandT you’ve ever had. Never going back to downhill, and seriously considering camping out after a bit more experience.
Also copped a beautiful sunrise over lake Jindabyne – can’t ask for more
I went to the Brisbane Ekka. In a belts and braces operation I (a) refrained from eating a Dagwood Dog; and (b) refrained from riding on any of the rides which would enhance one’s digestive tract’s innate tendency to eject a Dagwood Dog.
I should add that this year the newly hatched cute little chickies’ enclosure did not exhibit a poster from the sponsor extolling the virtues of eating chickens.
May I offer congratulations to Quincelanders for the admirable brevity of “Ekka”. You wanted to shorten Exhibition I assume?
You retained the initial E. But halfway through the very next letter, you stopped, retaining only the ‘k’ sound, not the full ‘ks’.
Abreviation from 10 letters to 1 and a half. Has to be a record of some sort!
Prefer to minimise opening the lips where possible? Get a lot of flies up your way, do youse? Here in mighty Victoria it’s blowies and bush flies. Saw me first blowie on Saturday. Bit early.
Quiet wekend, since I didn’t go to Socialist Alliance Conference in Sydney because of fear I might catch swine flu in the city. (Had ideas of staying for a week to do some research in the Mitchell Library. Will have to go down some time soon.)
Mainly spent my time reading and taking notes from Allen French’s The Day of Concord and Lexington (written in a quaint 1920s style but still a very good history. Have also been dipping into a new history of the Napoleonic Wars by Robert Harvey – The War of Wars – I’m no expert in that period in Europe, but it seems a pretty good general history.
Broke my Saturday night routine by watching Hitchcock’s The Birds on ABC2, instead of The Bill, which I’ll have to catch up on on Tuesday. My memory might be playing me tricks, but when I saw it years ago, I thought it had a different ending – two lovebirds in an uncovered cage in the back of the car as it drove awy from Bodega Bay? Threat of worse things to come, tying in with the opening shot of the gulls in San Francisco. Perhaps the ABC broadcast the Directors cut?
Sunday was the same as Saturday. Loved Stephen Fry’s version of America on ABC 1.
I wrote the following prose-poem after listening to a radio interview this weekend.-Ron Price, Tasmania
——————————-
Paul Monk was interviewed by Geraldine Googue on her Breakfast Show on ABC1 Radio National on 8 August 2009. Monk became fascinated by the history of western civilization while he has at university and he remained so all his life. Paul Monk received his PhD in international relations from the Australian National University. His first book Truth and Power was published in 1990. He then worked for six years for the Defence Intelligence Organisation on East Asia, becoming head of China analysis and chairman of the interagency working groups on Korea and China. He is a widely published commentator on public affairs, writing regularly for major national media such as The Australian, Quadrant and the Australian Financial Review.
His most recent book is: The West in a Nutshell: Foundations, Fragilities, Futures. The book presents 30 essays that reflect Paul Monk’s remarkable critical thinking skills, his wonderful prose style and his enormous breadth of interest. In this book Monk traces the beginnings of human presence on the planet, the emergence and flourishing of Western civilization and the dilemmas now confronting humankind. The West in a Nutshell has been designed as a companion to his book of original sonnets and reflections published in 2006 entitled Sonnets to Promiscuous Beauty. With Tim van Gelder, he co-founded Austhink in 2000.
Monk told Geraldine Doogue that he retired from full-time work at the age of 38 in order to write, to reflect and to do research. He took a special interest, among his many interests, in the 16th century essayist Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne also retired at the age of 38 and is often regarded as the first essayist in European civilization. I took a special interest in Monk and his comments about Montaigne because: (a) I too, like Monk, acquired a fascination with the history of ideas and western civilization while I was at university(1963-1967) and (b) I too retired early, although not as early as either of these two writers and essayists. I was 58 and it was 2003 before I could give up both full and part-time work and devote myself to reading, independent research and writing—sometimes essays and often prose and poetry in other genres. -Ron Price with thanks to Paul Monk on ABC1, 8 August 2009.
After seven years of doing
what these men were doing:
describing changeableness &
compiling change’s record &
finding myself, in the process,
an unstable, fragmented and…
contradictory being, radically
discontinuous and inconsistent
and, hence, always elusive with
readers being accomplices to my
redefinition, ease, nonchalance &
self-complacency….my efforts….
discipline and infinite suppleness
of thought..my focus on myself as
the core-matter of my book, a man
who, unlike Montaigne who was at
ease with classical authors, would
like to be at ease with the Authors
of and commentators on a new…..
theophanology, Manifestation of
God, theophany…mazhar-i ilahi.1
1 Juan Ricardo Cole, “The Concept of Manifestation in the Bahá’í Writings,” Bahá’í Studies, Volume 9, 1982, p.15.
Ron Price
9 August 2009
“Loved Stephen Fry’s version of America on ABC 1.”
It was just perfect for weekend, end.
The rest of the weekend I continued my assault on the house above ceiling space; cleaning out years of dust and rat poo to save my beloved from constant sneezes.
God I’m good and I even found time to make a huge spag bog sauce.
“May I offer congratulations to Quincelanders for the admirable brevity of “Ekka”. You wanted to shorten Exhibition I assume?”
We’ve got nothing on the Victorians. Wilsons Promontory – the Prom. The Botantical Gardens – the Tan. The Metropolitan Transport Authority – the Met. And of course the MCG being further reduced to “The G” – 22 letters down to one.
d
Patricia @ 8 – No, the Grande Mal was Fraser. I’m afraid the current Mal is only a Petit Mal.
Darryl,
ah ya got me there! Yup, the “G”.
Tan is the running track near the Bot Gardens; I wasn’t aware “tan” came from boTANical.
I had thought it was more likely “we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, and that’s it hanging on the fence!” Some tortured expressions on some of those labouring around the Tan.
” I had thought it was more likely “we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, and that’s it hanging on the fence!” ”
no “shed” ,Fred.
ummm, sorry Horrie
A Dagwood Dog, eh?
If that’s what I think it is, I’d love to see one (or even better, create one!)
Not so sure about the eating one part, though.
Didn’t get to eat a Dagwood Dog this weekend, but I did have a spectacular housemade venison sausage, served in a crazy German beer hall. Had to suppress a sudden urge to invade Poland, or maybe just rural Pennsylvania.
Oops, I just googled Dagwood Dog, and it doesn’t look to be what I thought it was going to be… Although maybe all the kooky excessive ingredients are hidden inside? (fingers crossed, for the love of humanity)