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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Tsrif!
Was that Bolt on ABC Insiders this Sunday morning, or was I having a nightmare. But it was no bad-dream, when I clicked over to his blog of bile, his bloggers were telling him what a great guy he was–these bloggers who hide under screen names, is it any wonder their mothers threw rocks at the stork when they were born, because they were such repulsive human beings!
It would seem that Richard Ryan has spend Sunday on a bender.
Lovely to see!
How stunned would you be to discover, Richard Ryan, that most of Blot’s harpies were, like the fabled Dorothy Dix, iterations of himself?
I’d not be the least bit surprised.
Bolt made me laugh when he described insiders as as a political discussion program. Not when you’re on it mate!
Went for a walk down the waterfalls at Leura (Blue Mountains). I have never seen so much water up there, the track was pretty much part of the creek…
Magnificent…
Thought I’d have a crack (with apologies to P,WA):
There once was this fella called Barn’,
who was Abbott’s Minister for Yarns;
Sent in to open the innings he was out wildy swinging,
muttering this would n’er happen at the farm!
Today the Boy and his friend and I (the Boy is a mad keen cook) had our first crack at making sushi, that is to say, Nori rolls. They were certainly delicious – the rice tastes so bright and fresh when it’s just made up and eaten on the spot – but I just couldn’t get the hand of rolling them with the little wooden mat thing. As soon as I’d completed one turn, the stick mat would go onto the rice – obviously not what is wanted, the roll should go inside the mat and get squeezed, I understand that, but couldn’t figure out how it’s done.
BLEG: Can anyone ‘splain this, or point me to a good YouTube explanation?
HELEN #8
Having wet fingers helps and keeping the roll ‘tight’. Many websites with hints. However why not go to your local sushi place and just watch. they are masters and if you ask I’m sure someone will be happy to advise. WEA classes also available in some places.
We were honoured to have a young man from Pakistan as our guest at lunch today. He comes from near the border with Kashmir, and converted to Christianity recently. His family threw him out with death threats, and he is in Australia on a (very short-term) business visa. People are trying to get him refugee status here. He’s staying with a family from our church, but they’re a bit older than me and I’m afraid he finds their cooking a bit bland — he went nuts over my salad today because of the garlic in it. I feel so sad when I think of his family disowning him.
Oooh, one of the local sushi places is using brown rice in some of their rolls, and its very fine. You should try it! For technique tips, there are a few decent books about, but they can be hard to find. The craze for cupcakes seems to have pushed all the other food-fad books off the shelves :/ I got this one>/a> for a buddy, its rather good.
Being late to everything, I joined Twitter today. I’m not sure of its utility, but it was strangely fascinating* to see LeVar Burton bitching about the noisy helicopters out looking for Charlie Sheen’s stolen car. Neighbourhood disputes, Hollywood style
*by which I mean ridiculous.
Curse you, html….
Discovered the new game where you call a Great Big Tax Bruce. Suggested on twitter that some brave journo shout Bruce! at the next Liberal press conference [evil laugh]. In other news, Bolt contradicts himself and defends the indefensible. Yawn.
Beautiful day once Insiders was out of the way. No wind and not too hot. Great for gardening and a really pleasant beach stroll. PLUS a pome came up about THAT relationshiop, and it was singing to me most of the day. I’ve particularly enjoyed the last couple of hours getting it into shape. Hope you like it.
THE BOUNDS OF FRIENDSHIP
Gooday, Tony, my old mate
It’s good we’ve got this time though late
An hour away from cameras shooting
Cheering crowds and lefties hooting
Feeling safe with no one to debate
About my fate
Which once was such a jumble.
Since my early days at school
Watching you play Aussie Rules
Listening to your public speaking
My young mind a hero seeking
Saw in you everything that I thought cool.
Someone who
Never will be humbled
Though our paths diverged for years
On our different careers
With your fame so widely speading
You showed the way I should be heading
Still I feared those catcalls and the jeers
Commie smears
Might get you to tumble
Here we are together now
Every day for our pow wow
I am back from country hustings
You the polls show records busting
The dream now real once carried only as a vow
We never row
And never have been rumbled
So now let’s all the doubts suspend
It’s time for secrecy to end
And with our Coalition flag unfurled
Proudly let us tell the world
This relationship cannot offend
Its open end
Means no more National grumbles.
Listen Barney my old pal
I’m having problems with morale
Liberals out there are complaining
Our popularity is waning
And the rumor’s all around the mall
The Bishop gal
Is talking now to Turnbull
Sorry one time little friend
Time for you back home to wend
Queensland’s looking for a premier
So I thought that we could send yer
Up there the budget to amend
It’s that or end
Up dead in my first tumbril.
Helen, try using less rice in each roll. After much experimentation I reckon that’s the secret to a good tight nori roll. I always used to put too much rice on the nori, and they were always a mess. Tried using not much more than a 2 or 3 grain high layer, and it works. Good luck.
Thanks everyone – Yes I think I was using too much rice. And a cooking class is also a great idea – good idea for a mother and son activity next school holidays.
Hullo, everybody. I’m back on line again. Bigpond had shut down here in Armidale since lat Thursday and I was without teh Internet. Have been suffering extreme withdrawals. It took heaps of shouting down the phone, waiting for hours to be connected to a consultant, threatening to change providers, etc etc to finally get something done. Anyway, I’m glad to be back. (I think I’m back. Bigpond could stuff up again of course.
Get off Bigpond is my advice PB! Do you have other options there?
Did check out Westnet who seem very good. Except its a direct debit.
Helen, it’s a lot like rolling a big spliff. As others have already said, you don’t want to have too much rice. (Actually someone of my acquaintance used to use what I now know was a sushi mat to roll multi-paper joints.)
“(Actually someone of my acquaintance used to use what I now know was a sushi mat to roll multi-paper joints.)”
Hey man. We always use the organic nori for de big spliff – no paper products now!
Whats wrong with direct debit?
David @20: Actually, you shouldn’t be putting rice in them at all. It would make them soggy and hard to light.
They’d last a lot longer that way, Helen.
It’s the technique rather than the contents I was thinking of.
Tasty Cooked Goose, are you kidding, or are you actually unaware? (aprosodia is my enemy)
I broke my own rule on direct debit when it came to my internet provider. They run a paperless office, all on line, and only dd to keep their costs right down. All I need to do is make sure I have enough bucks in my savings account to cover the cost once a month.
Otherwise, I have no contact with them because the service is so bloody good and fast.
TTCG @ 22,
You have to mess around making sure the money is in the bank in a mid pay period or mess around changing dates. Much easier to draw the cash out of the bank and pay it at the local PO. Besides, I buy lots of books on-line and I got a system worked out which ensures I always have enough money in the bank for that. Direct debiting from other organisations will mess me up trying to keep track of everything.
Paul, I can see you have other real distractions, so I feel a bit guilty again trying to get you to cast your eye over at least the last few verses of my pome @ 14 above. It is over-long I know but I enjoyed having it evolve and was really pleased that at last a near enough rhyme for “Turnbull” emerged and that I found a way to use it. I thought it would appeal to you particularly (Ambigulous it seems is off air at present) because it seemed a good politico/historical fit for the Abbott/Joyce demagogic style. Cheers.
Paul, you could always withdraw the money, as always, then deposit it onto the account the dd is linked to
BAU!
Ootz, you need a couple of accounts and some spare money to play that game. I suspect Paul’s financial arrangements are not sufficiently complex to do that.
Patricia WA,
With one big difference, The bulk of French aristocrats at least had some culture about them. They would never have appeared on a beach in budgie snugglers. And, if one would class them with anti-Jacobin revolutionaries, well, the latter were in general intelligent. Not how one could describe AA.
DI (nr),
Spot on. Pension in, pension out. Lidd;e bit of money left in to buy books on line.
Thanks, Paul, I might have known the historian in you would have insisted on a finer metaphor! I wasn’t thinking so much of monarchists v revolutionaries as the splintering of radical political movements and the ruthlessness with which the power hungry will turn on former allies e.g. the guillotining of Danton achieved by Robespierre.
So I was groping around the idea of Abbott the ruthless populist, using the demagogic skills of Joyce until they become counterproductive and he becomes disposable. Then comes another Barnaby’s choice; comfortable exile back in Qland or an unpleasant end.
After reading your comment I spent this morning back in late 18thC France. There was a portrait of Robespierre, almost a dead ringer for Abbott wearing a powdered wig!
I recalled my first ever ghost story too – those lady academics and their adventure at Versailles. Would their psychic sense of meeting Marie Antoinette have seemed so questionable if they’d lived a hundred years later in our time?
Patricia WA,
Godwinite though it might be, one should surely look back to Hitler and the SA, or Stalin and the Old Bolsheviks? The elite in the 18C, though they were sometimes capable of monstrous things, at least had a veneer of civilisation about them. As for the lower orders back then, well we always did get a bit out of hand, but our betters expected it and watched on with an amused tolerance. It took some time for them to feel the fear of us modern politicians feelsometimes, though they always did abhor us.
Correction : our modern politicians.
It’s Wednesday, which proves that I must be the fellow for whom those “For Those Who Came In Late…” Phantom comics were written.
Spent the weekend on a bad movie binge, including the classic 1993 “Godzilla Vs SpaceGodzilla” (in which an alien Godzilla, the product of “a Godzilla cell being taken into space, swallowed up by a black hole and then spat out of a white hole, went through a rapid evolution inside a sun and combined with crystals to form SpaceGodzilla”).
On Sunday, at work, the television in the lunchroom started showing on FTA the “Scooby Doo 2002″ movie. After 10 minutes, we realised that “Godzilla Vs SpaceGodzilla” was much better (and more believable).