An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
54 Responses to “Saturday Salon”
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Odds on – Nam Le to win the PM’s prize.
I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic when I say that pretty much my whole life is disintegrating around me.
Hardly any of it’s my fault, and as a bonus I’m mostly powerless to affect it.
Wheeeeeee!
Suppose this really belongs in the Lazy Sunday thread, but I just couldn’t wait to share the news.
well, erm….thanks for making Saturday Salon kinda *awkward* FDB. Thrid! :0)
No but serious, sorry to hear all is not well FDB. Would do a good condemnation of something help?
A condemnation of work, personal relationships, and the musical vocation might be a start.
And sorry, everyone, for being depressing. I’m sure it’ll all work out or something.
Hang in there FDB. Remember Confucius:
Our greatest glory lies in not ever falling but in rising every time we fall.
(Which is proof Confucius was an alcoholic.).
Seeking to confuce us are we, John?
It’s all going to be good, FDB.
Look back, and you see in the sand when there are only one set of footsteps? That’s when… that’s… no, I can’t remember either.
I condemn work.
(Hope that helps, EffDeeBee)
ahh FDB, I condemn work routinely so that’s not really going to help you, perhaps we need some confucion, except its a bit early in the day to be getting drunk
Perhaps a nice walk and a little lie down…jeez I dunno plenty of demons waiting everywhere aren’t there?
Slacking off (or pausing relflectively) are not options I’m afraid.
Got to go play a Vic regional gig with my totally disfunctional band tonight, with half the members not talking and me (me!) playing moderate voice of reason.
Then 2 days’ camping in the Alps should give me a chance to take my frustrations out on some whisky and trout.
So thank for the best wishes, but don’t worry your pretty little heads about me.
As a Fremantle Docker Barracker, FDB, I suspect your mettle has already been sternly tested and that you are in fact emotionally indestructible.
I hope you’re right.
Click here for a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant mapping project on New Deal Projects in California.
Having heard the typical but somewhat revealing ‘invite any 5 people to dinner’ question on Steve Austin’s show again last night got me thinking:
J. Cash, Keynes, Bob Hawke, Evelyn Scott, Rasputin (though that could be dangerous).
By the way he had a QLD politician on, Aiden McLindon, who said he would invite Paul Keating and Sir Thomas Moore amongst others.
As I say- its quite a simple yet insightful question the ‘5 people’ dinner question.
I’m going to watch The Thing From Outer Space on ABC 1 tonight. (Apart from finding a coven celebrating Hallowe’en what better way to do it, but so far as I know all the witches have left Armidale. We used to have heaps here years ago.)
The Thing (b/w) was the first horror movie I ever saw. I was about 6 or 7 and I had nightmares for weeks. This time round, hopefully, it’ll be a laugh. Hope I can stay awake. I’vre been staying up too late reading/writing etc. Just wrote the introductory paras to ch.4 of my book.
FDB,
Whisky and trout-fishing is the way to go, mate. And don’t worry about depressing us. LP is a good place to spill your guts now and then, and it does help. A few of us seem to have done it from time to time, If I recall correctly. hope things get better for you quickly.
The interview by Kerry O’Brien with Therese Rein would be a tonic for anyone contemplating eating worms*. She seems a very splendid human.
______________________
* Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I’m gonne go eat worms.
Big fat juicy ones, little tiny squirmy ones, I’m gonna go eat worms.
First you bite the heads off,
Then you squirt the guts out,
Then you throw the skins away.
Nobody knows that I eat worms three times every day.
Just to get back to some “important” issues, should i boycott VB for dropping the alcohol content but not the price?
Is it time to get a taste for the grape?
You mean there’s actually some alcohol in VB?
Anyone have an opinion on the zombie-like return of Hey Hey It’s Saturday to our TVs next year?
Sorry if I missed this discussion. if it’s been already discussed I’ve been busy after having a little train crash
VB tastes as if the cooking oil component is greater than the alcoholic content.
terangeree, I am glad it was just a little crash. I trust you did no damage to your good self?
joe2:
The only damage my good self suffered was to my pride. Two locos had to go off for repairs, though.
Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean, FDB. They will soon see the error of their ways.
Sorry Huggy, but the contemporary Tamborim is stretched with a nylon film. However, most common hand percussion drums are either skinned with cow/buffalo or goat skin (djembe = djem/log bec/goat). Some of the more exotic drums, like the warup from up the Torres Straights, is skinned with File snake, while in some places in New Guinea they prefer Goanna. Anyway, I streched a few drums and my preference is Wallaby skin and xray films. Wallaby skin is extremely tough and does not absorb much moisture and thus does not need much retensioning.
Got rid of dog and cat years ago and have a great mob of wallaby on the property now. Their meat tastes good, like some of the best game I had in Europe. Just as good are my meat chooks!
I am planning to make up a small prototype Aquaponic system and grow my own sushi. Apparently you can grow in a small backyard 50kg of fish a year in a 1000 l tank. That equates to a feed of fish every week while you grow all your herbs in the filter system. My kind of pets!
Oops, sorry wrong thread ….
FDB has been kind to me a few times at this site.Maybe, decide to write a song about it ,FDB ! I am bouncing around the bottom all the time,in so much that being a Bi-Polar assessed person would be a relief!Dangnammit,I have enough Vitamin B12 from Barley Malt!Perhaps more throat singing on my agenda into impersonating the didgeridoo,not to be confused with an Aboriginal matter for this one can speak words and make the bombing sounds and blasting sounds of a gut pressed to its limits.I have in fact,a few times practicing throat singing- blasted the down and out feelings completely away,whilst feeling the nerve endings being jolted.I prefer this singing when the lightning and thunder are close.Footwear can be a prick of a thing when one is down and out,give it the boot!
Ootz, posting on the wrong thread eh? Been overdoing it with your other home grown drinkable concoction eh?
No Stevo, just working too hard as I have been digging trenches for down pipes and drainage around the house before ‘the wet’ arrives. Unfortunately can’t imbibe in the liquid amber anymore, does not agree with my guts as I have some health issues. More a matter of switching back and forth threads.
My eyes got caught by FDBs 2 days in the Alps. Lucky bugger, forget the whiskey though, drowned sorrows pop up like submerged corpses. Go totally trout – fly or lure FDB?
I’d be interested in what people think of my proposed reform of the senate.
http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2009/10/30/an-upper-house-by-sortition/
Regrettably, at 9.O’clock today I tuned into The Insider. It doesn’t seem that long ago that the program used to have at least one mildly left-of-centre voice on the panel, but today it was Attila the Hun all the way with Blot, Crap and some chap called “Dennis Atkins”, who, I found out later, had been at one point a numbers man for Wayne Swan and associated with the Queensland AWU.
With Cassidy as MC and the regular appearance from that stentorian and vacuous whoopee cushion Paul Kelly, and the main topic asylum seekers it was clear that all we’d get as “analysis” was an exemplar of the rightwing jerk circle.
It’s clear that what passes for “balance” on the ABC has now become “reactionary chorus”. At no point did anyone offer the tamest of critiques from a humanitarian perspective. Nobody was invited to specify what they would do instead.
When Andrew Blot repeated his no warming since 2001 meme, it occurred to me that this panel still thought we were in that most glorious of years for politics — 2001. Here indeed were some relics of that year woken up and invited to comment. My question was — why?
Frankly, it’s time to change the name of the show from The Insiders to The Reactionaries.
On the horrifying idea that Hey Hey It’s saturday will return to our screens next year. That Channel 9 operates on the principle Feed ‘em trash. They’ll never notice.
Oh I love this!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/29/2727378.htm
Did any of the Brisbane LP’ers take part? (And if so what parts did they take? Lungs? Spleens? Braaaaaaains?)
My Daughter finally succumbed to the ravages of breast cancer during the week. 39yrs old. The last 5yrs. after an all too short remission was lived to the fullest possible. Thank you for the sympathies expressed here during this time.
This is the first I’ve known of this, Zorronsky. You have my deepest sympathies at what is surely a difficult time. May the happier moments of your daughter’s life be those uppermost in your memory.
Viva socialism!
Oh, Zorronsky. my deepest sympathies. There’s really not much one can say at a moment like this, is there? Will be thinking of you.
I’m very sorry for your loss, Zorronsky.
My condolences, Zorronsky, I am so sorry for your loss.
So sorry for your loss Zorronsky. It was obviously a long and courageous fight against an insidious disease.
Cull Feral Buffalo to Slow Climate change
I have to say I’m not real sure about this one.
There are certainly good reasons for wanting to cull feral animals including buffalo, pigs, rabbits, camels, cats, foxes etc humanely and where there are effeicient and humane means then I’m for it.
But I’m not sure that the buffalo contribute all that much to climate change.
Sure they have all the properties of ruminant animals but it is the food source that is key. Animals raised commercially are typically the “beneficiaries” of artificially fertilised pastures and energy-intensive water supply. Then there are all the other things that go with keeping them — fences and vehicles and much else.
The feral buffalo live off the land essentially recycling what is already there. They don’t clear forests either or demand petroleum-derived fertiliser. Perhaps if they weren’t there, some pastures would hold their carbon stores longer, but I suspect that this would be pretty marginal. What they can’t do is create more CO2e than they consume and since they aren’t consuming fossil fuels at one or two removes they comapre well. Actually, if it were practicable to substitute their meat for the meat from cattle raised commercially, this would be a net win, at least in GHG terms.
Of course, the other problems would persist.
Zorronsky – my deepest sympathy. The worst fear of any parent, having a child go before time and before ourselves. I recall the terror when my daughter was threatened by cervical cancer mid thirties over a decade ago. You remind me again to be grateful for her survival, followed by her decision to marry, have children and live for the day and to the full, just as your daughter did though for too short a time.
Before reading your news I was starting to respond to FDB and his cry of despair which seems to stem from overload with even his band being a problem. One might think that his music should help, after all……”Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast.” and all that, but the question is still asked….”Why am not I (then)at Peace?”
We all have different ways of dealing with omething we have all felt at times and for a range of reasons, not necessarily defined clinically as depression. Though I’ve been there and done that. I’m sure FDB knows himself what’s really troubling him, but I know too well that feeling of one’s life disintegrating and out of control.
Looking back over many such feelings of powerlessnes and turmoil I can see that time has been the great healer. So what does one do now when suddenly time seems the enemy as powers fade and the panic and fear is about becoming dependent. I do my best to be grateful for what remains; enjoy the garden, my dog, even the cat and most of all the family.
On a lighter note, Sir Henry C – agree with you about Therese Rein – a really decent person. Reminds me that I was prepared to take K. Rudd on trust when he was emerging in the ALP leadership struggle because anyone whom she chose as a life companion must be all right. You know…judging people by the company they keep etc. I thought Barrie Cassidy’s effort today to contradict her feeling that Kevin would never kick their cat was pretty feeble. That gentle nudge of the shoe ushering Jasper out of the gate by Rudd simply proved her right.
Doesn’t make him infallible though, does it?
My condolences Zorronsky. 39 is too young.
Oh Zorronsky I’m so sorry.
Thanks heaps all. My Daughter gave her body to Flinders Uni. There is a Memorial service at Heysen Chapel 12 Nov.
Some moments in time at above.
Zorronsky
I’m very sorry to hear of your grievous loss.
Sympathies to you and all who were close to her.
I’m lost for words on this, sad, untimely end.
All the best Zorronsky.
Sympathy for you and for your daughter’s loved ones, Zorronsky.
Treasured memories are poor compensation for the briefest shared moments.
Fran Barlow @ 35,
They’re going to wipe out wild buffalo because they fart and burp? What next?
Zorronsky, so sorry your daughter lost her battle with that insidious disease. I will be thinking of you and your family on November 12.
David H @ 1 – spot on. Guess – or insider info?
Oh dear zorronsky, that’s terrible news. I remember you posting a few times in repsect of your daughter’s illness and one always hopes for the best.
I’m so sorry.
My sister was at her best friend’s funeral just last week gone for the same, it’s such a bloody awful & unforgiving disease.
Best wishes for you & your family at this very sad time.
PatWA:
“Before reading your news I was starting to respond to FDB…”
Yes, and before reading Zorronsky’s news I too was thinking about me. Ain’t perspective somethin’?
Really sorry to hear about it Zorro. I hope you’re doing okay.
So sorry Zorro thats so so tragic. And FDB, that sucks.
I’ve unexpectedly found myself in Melbourne this week – i know its super short notice but love to have a coffee with anyone who’s up for it tonight or tomorrow – Mark has my phone no.
Amazingly, despite having an fantastic weekend in one of the most beautiful places in the world*, all of my three classes of serious problem have worsened, and it’s become clear that they are all much more my fault than I thought.
Awesome!
Silver lining – from a certain perspective, a better knowledge of my own role in bringing threefold ruin on myself verges on the empowering.
*Seriously, Lake Catani campground on Mt Buffalo, and the varying-difficulty walks to gorges and waterfalls and lookouts around it, must be seen to be believed. The fishing… not so much, at least this weekend. I have never been able to so honestly say that it didn’t matter though. I say it all the time, but I don’t really mean it. Three hours on the banks of the lake from before sunrise, watching the mountain wake up in utterly windless tranquility, I actually didn’t care that much about the hordes of trout jumping around and refusing to do anything more than lazily follow my lures.