Wizards of Ozterity

I was listening the other day to the various austerity measures being proposed across Europe: university fees to be introduced in Ireland, an increase in the retirement age and proposals for new taxes in various countries.  And then it struck me - we've already had all of these in Australia.  We in the lucky country have apparently been living in austerity for years.  That's obviously what the "Aus" part of the name stands for.

Conversation Fragment

Overheard on the way to work this morning:

"So these poles, yeah, they weigh thirty feet a pole".

Cellebrations?

Apparently it's Spreadsheet Day today.  I find this very sad.

No-confidence Trickster

Silvio Berlusconi resigned today.

While many people will remember him for the allegations of corruption, the philandering and the general buffoonery, I think I'll always remember the stat I heard this morning, namely, that during his long reign, he survived 50 no-confidence votes!  50!  And he only decides to resign now?  You almost wonder why.  It's obviously a remarkable level of self-confidence to offset all that no-confidence.  Or perhaps self-delusion.  The man's the very walking definition of hubris!

Glad as most people (not to mention the stock markets) are to see him go, I suspect that Europe will soon seem to be a duller place without him.

A Day To Remember...Incorrectly

Did you know that for the rest of the world when people say "9/11", today is actually the day they think of.

I Wouldn't Bet On It

The leading sports story this morning was the guilty verdict from the trial of the two Pakistani bowlers who had bowled no-balls to-order for betting purposes. 

There has subsequently been much talk of the example that this set and how players would now be more reluctant to risk getting involved in the so-called spot-fixing.  And great for the game this would be if it were so.  What everybody seems to have conveniently forgotten is that it wasn't the ICB's anti-corruption team that exposed this cheating; it was the News Of The World tabloid that set up the sting to expose this racket.  Ironically, that paper was axed as a result the telephone-hacking scandal.  So, just who is going to keep cricket on the straight-and-narrow?  The ICB?

Some Mother's Son

The other morning, just as I was about to leave for work, I found myself listening to a journalist reporting from Green Square, now Martyrs' Square, in Tripoli where people were gathering to celebrate their newly won freedom.

Amongst the many people there, he had found a woman holding up a picture of her son.  As it turned out, her son had died in the fighting, and, what with a fairly insensitive line of questioning from the journalist, she began to break down and cry.  The sound of one person sobbing under the general hubbub was truly saddening.  It was a poignant reminder that even during the greatest of triumphs there will often be those who have had to suffer the most profound of losses.

No Trace ATM

Whenever I use an ATM and am prompted "Would you like a receipt for this transaction?", I always find myself wishing that it was offering me the "Would you like a record kept of this transaction?" option.  To which, of course, I would press "No".  

That way I could just keep making withdrawals without ever affecting my balance.

Award Winning Business Losing

There's a yum-cha restaurant nearby that proudly displays the sign "2010 Small Business Champion Awards - Winner". 

Now I'm sure that's not to be sneezed at and they're no doubt rightly pleased about it but it actually discourages me from dining there.  To me, winning a small business award is rather like getting a recommendation from an accountant.  Now if it was a recommendation from a food crtic, say the "2010 Restaurant Award" or "2010 Best Yum Cha Award", it would be a different story but "Best Business"?  To my, admittedly paranoid, mind, that suggests the propieters have simply found the most cunning way to overcharge their customers. 

iYob

The other night on a whim I wandered down to The Basement to catch Daniel Weltinger's Django Reinhardt tribute show. 

The Basement is usually home to a well-informed crowd of music-lovers and one of the very few venues that would host this kind of show.  I say "usually" because on this night, the crowd was unbelievably boorish, talking loudly throughout the show, many of them feverishly tapping on their mobile phones.  At first I was annoyed at not being able to enjoy the music but then, as it became apparent that the musicians were also startled by the "ambient" noise-level, it felt embarrassing to be part of such a yobbish audience.

To cap it off, the guy next to me loudly starts to tell his mate about the new lyrics he's just written and is trying to find them on his phone.  So here I am trying to listen to the band play music that has stood the test of time for over 60 years and this clown thinks his latest thoughts are more worthy of everyone's attention. 

I'm about to lean over and tell the guy that unless the lyrics feature self-obsessed morons with delusions of grandeur and attention deficit disorder, they don't contain enough personal insight.   Then I remember that that's what thoughts are for.  

Cinemanomics - 2 x 12 = 18

I probably go to the movies twice a year.  The $18 ticket before we even get to the ridiculous food prices, which are second apparently, only to the airport, is too steep for me.  The "half-price" Tuesday ticket at $12 is an insult to my intelligence - I know what half of 18 is. 

No wonder people just figure that they will buy the DVD in a couple of months.  With big screens and surround-sound systems a lot more common than they used to be, people will just skip the cinema altogether. 

I know I'm not alone precisely because I did actually feel very alone while catching a movie earlier in the year.  There were perhaps 4 people in the session.  Granted, the movie was in its final week and it wasn't an evening session but a room that empty would suggest a broken business model.  

This model would appear to be based solely on the premise that there are enough fools prepared to pay sufficiently over-the-odds to make up for all of the empty sessions.  The problem with this model is that it only has one solution to any problem, namely to keep increasing the prices to an ever-decreasing audience.  Surely, the plan should be about attracting more customers. 

Here's something for cinema chains to consider: if the ticket was actually $9, I'd go to more than double the number of movies I currently do.  In fact, throw in a choc-top for $1, giving me a great 10 buck movie deal, I'd go every month.  By halving cost, they would make more than five times as much money out of me (admittedly not counting my cheap choc-top but I'm sure they'd still be making money on that anyway). 

So why won't that happen?

In The Dark

I heard a woman asking for downlights the other day.  So many questions raced through my head. 

If downlights light up the room, what's so special about them?  And what other kinds of lights are there? Uplights? Highlights?  And what about lamps?

Doesn't Rate At All

Here's some more dismal science.

So a ratings agency downgrades the USA and carnage ensues on the stock market - globally.  One of the main reasons the US and global financial markets are in such a mess is that a few years ago many worthless American mortgages were bundled-up and on-sold as "five star" investments to American and international investors.  The resulting carnage from that debacle was the GFC: banks folded, the retail and housing sectors collapsed and massive unemployment followed.  It's with facing all these difficulties that some "experts" have now decided that the USA isn't what it used to be.  

Now to be sure, the whole thing is more complicated than this but there are some very obvious culprits.  For example, who was it who gave the thumbs-up to these useless investments?  Oh that's right, it was a group of ratings agencies, including the one that's just downgraded the US economy and started the next crash.

Anyone else seeing a dog chasing its tail?

Oracle of The Clash

The Casbah's rocking, London's burning and what with the Olympics being in London next year, I'm wondering "Should I stay or should I go?"

Yes We Have No Bananas

If there's one thing I definitely do not understand, it's economics.  Shortly the RBA will be meeting to decide whether or not to put up interest rates.  One of the main causes for concern apparently is that the price of fruit, bananas being the most quoted example, has gone up dramatically following last year's Queensland floods.

Now I get that part.  I can understand that if 70% of a state was underwater, less fruit is grown and because demand can therefore not be met, prices go up. 

What I don't understand is how making me pay an extra $20 a week on my mortgage is going to solve that problem.  My paying an extra $20 doesn't suddenly make all the water go away and the trees come back.  There's still a shortage of fruit.   

Now perhaps, for some people, that extra mortgage payment suddenly means that they'll stop buying fruit and therefore the demand and price will drop but in my opinion there is no rationality to that argument.  Those people who want to buy fruit and can still afford it are still going to do so.  The rest of us just think about the good times when we could afford fruit.  We've already stopped adding to the demand side of the equation. 

No wonder they call it "The Dismal Science".

But the real kicker?  Other than the extra mortgage repayments?  I don't even like bananas!

Punktuation

I enjoy reading the comments to the various opinion pieces in the paper but it can sometimes be amazingly difficult because people choose not to use punctuation obviously the people writing these comments never read them back to themselves because if they took the time to do so they might notice that somewhere along the way they had lost the meaning of what it was they were trying to say they might also notice that they have run out of breath which is a sure sign that a full stop or comma somewhere has been missed

iNoLookWhereiGo

I'm going to start walking down the street doing cool things on my phone. 

I haven't got a phone that does cool things but I don't see why I should be the only person looking where they're going.  Don't blame me if we bump into each other.

U-S A-U-S

Heard some people chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A" the other night on TV.  Do you know that if you only tune into that two thirds of the way through, they're actually chanting "A-U-S, A-U-S".  Makes me feel very patriotic.  So much so, I'm off to buy a strudel.

There Should Be A Law About...Umbrellas!

After three days of rain, one can only be struck, often literally so, by the lack of etiquette regarding the use of umbrellas. 

A lot of the Sydney CBD is fortunately under cover, which is handy on a rainy day.  It would be even more handy if people didn't walk under those awnings with their umbrellas up. 

The menace comes in two forms.  The first is the District 9 Mothership-sized umbrella-wielding individual.  Yes, it's a great umbrella but why are you worried about getting it wet?  The second is the usually shorter person operating in ostrich-stealth mode, umbrella pulled tightly down around their head, completely oblivious to everybody else ducking and weaving around them trying to avoid getting their eyes poked out.

It's simple really.  If you've got your umbrella up, you can walk in the rain; that's what it's for.  If you want to walk under cover alongside the less-prepared, please take it down.

Two B's Or Not Two B's

Next Monday's English Championship promotion play-off is between Reading and Swansea.  The winner will be promoted to the premier League and receive in excess of 50 million pounds for just being there one season.  The rewards are even more if they can stay up.  It's little wonder that the fixture is known as "The richest game in football" but spare a thought for the bottom three in the Premier League who will be moving in the opposite direction.

This year it was tighter than usual and with the title already decided, all of the interest was at the other end of the table.  With the exception of West Ham, whose fate was already sealed, the make-up of the bottom three was still unknown.  Five teams (Birmingham, Blackburn, Blackpool, Wigan and Wolves) were struggling to avoid joining the Hammers. Only three could survive. 

It wasn't planned, but last Monday morning I woke up at 2.04 am.  I turned on the radio and, sure enough, the brilliant BBC World Service sports show was on.  It was half-time in all of the matches.  Over the course of the next 45 minutes, as goals went in around the country, so the fortunes of these teams changed, at times within seconds.  The second-last slot was taken by the quixotic Blackpool who were gradually reeled-in by Manchester United.  Now only one spot remained.  As the coverage crossed-over to each ground, tumultuous roars could be heard at the news of goals at other grounds.  The tension was unbearable.  Eventually, an injury-time goal by Spurs consigned Birmingham to their fate.  Of the five teams, only Blackburn had avoided being in the bottom three at any stage of the 90 minutes.  Wolves had managed to drop into the relegation zone on two separate occasions before escaping.  For the record, for those of us with an alphabetical (i.e. trivial) bent, for a while there, all of the "W's" were going down before it was eventually determined that West Ham, Blackpool and Birmingham were the unfortunate three.

This is the kind of drama, the glimpse into the abyss, that for all their wealth, finals, grand finals, superbowls and, ironically, promotion play-offs cannot create.  What great radio it made and what a great medium radio is to deliver that kind of excitement.  It doesn't much help the insomnia though.

One Way Love

Sport-wise, I've had a cracking 8 months.  Last October, St George, broke a 31-year drought by winning their first NRL Grand Final after five failed attempts during that period.  Then, in the early hours of Sunday morning last, I watched Manchester City break an even longer dry spell by winning the FA Cup.  It was their first trophy of any description since 1976 and their first FA Cup win in 42 years.  This is all great.  England even hold the Ashes.  By any standards, it's a rare alignment of the sporting planets in my life.

I appreciate that there are far longer suffering fans than me but nonetheless, the realisation that I was 14 when Saints won their previous Grand Final and only 11 when City won the League Cup in '76 quietly stuns me.  To think that the last time I felt this good about sport, I was only just at high-school.  When I try to picture myself back then, I do know that it would have not occurred to me to think, "Hold on to this; it's going to be a long time hereafter".  Whole decades of my life have past in which my sporting teams have not repaid my emotional commitment to them.  It's surely been a very one-way relationship.    

So, as joyous a week and an 8 months as it's been, it really does beg the question, "Why do we put ourselves through this?"  I'd be lying if I said had a clue, so I guess I'll just carry on celebrating!

Strange Recall

Filling in a spreadsheet today, in respect of risk probabilities  which is about as exciting as it sounds.  Perhaps this is why I found myself staring at the word "medium".  You know, if you look at a word too long, it starts to look strange and then you start to wonder if you've spelt it correctly. 

I was just thinking that there ought to be a word that describes this phenomenon and then I remembered the old Two Ronnies gag.  The one about the midget psychic who'd escaped from prison.  Police were looking for a small medium at large.  The link is to a different skit but you'll see they really don't write them like that anymore.

So my tip for today is forget about inventing new words.  Instead, try remembering old jokes.  It's better for your health.

KFC Noir

The other night, we finished our drinking with a mojito, which, by the way, is always one mojito too many.  That's perhaps why I next found myself in KFC.  Now, KFC after midnight is no oasis of salubrity and that's not just down to the food.  To say that the one on George St has a lamentably poor queueing arrangement would be overstating it.  It has no queue.  Nonetheless, it was still with some frustration that I watched two gorillas walk in past me and start ordering.  I made the mistake of expressing this frustration.  The guy turned to me and snarled "If it's between pushing in front of you and losing $4,000, I'm pushing in, and if you've got a problem with that, we can just go outside and I'll beat the shit out of you".  Hey, put like that, it was hard to argue with the guy's priorities.

Later, as I made my way home, it wasn't the rudeness, the all-too-common aggression or even how pushing-in ahead of me was going to stop this guy losing $4,000 that intrigued me.  No, the thought that kept running through my head was,  "Why were both of those guys wearing matching bright, white tracksuit-tops?"

It no doubt reflects poorly on my sense of self-preservation, and maybe it was because of that mojito, that my mind dwelt on the more sartorial aspects of the encounter but seriously, is this some kind of uniform for bogan gangster-apprentices?  Who makes these rules up?

Smaller Stack, Bigger Loss

There's a story in the paper today about the Fisher Stack building at Sydney University having nearly half of its books removed.  Now the name of that building brings back memories.  I would only venture into "The Stack" when the books on the recommended reading lists were unavailable.  Dark, confined and unwelcoming, it was not somewhere you chose to visit regularly.  In fact, stepping into it was quite an overwhelming experience.  There are few things in life that give you as much insight into your own mortality than gazing upon thousands and thousands of books.  Apparently there are 48 kilometres of books in there.  When you walked in, you instantly knew that in your lifetime, even if you devoted your life to it, you would only ever scratch the surface of the vast repository of knowledge sitting on those shelves. 

I remember taking notes from a history book and being impressed with its level of detail and then being taken aback when I reached the conclusion, where it stated that this Hitler fellow may turn out to be a very dangerous character who may well threaten world peace.  At the time I was exasperated that the book was almost older than what I was trying to research.  Ever since, having had time to reflect upon it, I remain impressed at what a scholarly piece of work it was and, with the benefit of 50 years of hindsight, noting the remarkable accuracy of its forecast.  While sadly, I can't recall the name of the book or the author, it is footnoted on an old essay lying somewhere in a box in my garage.  Given that this book will almost certainly be one of those cleared out, that might be the last remaining reference to it in my world.

Riddle Me This, Einstein!

I noticed a book on a colleague's desk today called "Einstein's Riddle".  Well you just have to Google that, don't you.  Having found it, you then have to wonder at what you would have done so before ye olde internet was invented.  

Anyway, Einstein's riddle is: Who owns the fish?

The clues:

1. The British man lives in a red house.
2. The Swedish man keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Danish man drinks tea.
4. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the White house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the center house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The Blends smoker lives next to the one who drinks water.

Of course, you could always Google the answer but where's the challenge in that?  And you never know; I might have changed it.

Unedifying 1 - 0 View

Watching all those people cheering the death of Osama Bin Laden reminded me of the distaste with which I watched people cheering at the footage of planes flying into the World Trade Center.

I remember thinking how simplistic their world view must be and being struck by what a disquieting sight the mob makes.

I Hear Wedding Bets

They say everyone loves a wedding and in case you hadn't heard, there's a rather large one on in London tomorrow. 

Apparently, a lot of people also like betting on weddings.  According to a British bookie, a lot of people who know they will be made to watch the wedding are "keeping it interesting" by placing bets.  You can get the following odds from William Hill:

 2/1 The train on the dress will be less than 8 feet (good to see the UK using that metric system they taught me about at school 40 years ago)
 7/4 "Waitie Katie" will only keep him waiting 3 minutes before arriving...(and he won't be the only one saying "Phew" - when it's on TV, a quick wedding's a good one...)
 3/1 Kate to say William's names in the wrong order
 5/1 James Blunt's You're Beautiful to be played for the Wedding Dance (and if that's not scary enough, it's 8/1 on Bryan Adams, God forbid)
 8/1 William to have a beard during church service
 8/1 Prince Phillip falls asleep ( that's come in from 40/1 - he must have heard that they might be playing James Blunt or Bryan Adams at the reception)
18/1 Kate's Wedding Wedding shoes to have RED soles
19/1 Prince Harry to catch the bouquet
20/1 Kate To Have Twins
21/1 To Be Seen In A Night Club On Night/Early Hours Of Their Wedding Day
22/1 That William Splits his trousers as he bends down in the church
23/1 Carole Middleton to be snapped Chewing Gum during the service
24/1 Harry Drops The Ring During the service
30/1 William To wear Glasses In Church
33/1 Harry not to make/finish his speech due to being inebriated
38/1 Prince Harry To Forget The Ring

All that's missing is a dopey song called something like: Willie's Getting Married, At Last

Say It Again and Again and...

I heard our Treasurer this morning again talking about our "patchwork economy".  I must have now heard him use this phrase 5 times (in about 3 minutes) over the week. 

Somebody needs to explain to these guys' script writers that there's a fine line between "staying on message", as they like to call it, and sounding like a kid who's showing off the new word he's just discovered.

Working For The Weekend

A 5-day weekend coming up.  That just rolls off the tongue.  Clearly, it is the way it should be. 

We should therefore celebrate Easter and ANZAC day every weekend, although we'd have to make Good Friday Better Friday to liven it up a bit.

Leaving aside the minor industrial relations issues, that only leaves one question: if there is no Friday in the working week, is it casual Thursday?

Trump Card

What a card that Trump fellow is!  I heard this morning that he was being talked about as a possible Republican candidate for the next US presidential election.

Apparently, he's not happy with the current approach to Libya.  If it was up to him, having decided to intervene, the Americans would just go in there and take the oil, generously leaving plenty for the Libyans to be able drive their cars.  "You know, in the old days when you have a war and you win, that nation's yours," he said.     Funnily enough, that sounds rather like colonialism, which I thought was something America at least pretended to disapprove of.

No doubt it's all just a publicity stunt but then again, he could make it a much cleaner situation in Libya by simply insisting that Colonel Gaddafi appear on a new "Presidential Apprentice" show and telling him "You're fired".  He'll probably do that after he's invited Barack Obama onto the show to tell him the same thing.

Air 1999

According to the very groovy logo on Google today, it's 50 years since the first manned space flight.  All those great hopes launched in a blaze of optimism. 

A mere eight years later, we were walking on the moon.  So over the next 42 years, you'd have thought we'd have really gone places.

Oh I know there's robots running around on Mars and amazing telescopes being built but I just find it disappointing that 50 years after we first went into space, we're all still here.   No-one is living on the moon and I can think of a few people that should be. 

Meanwhile back on planet earth, even our planes fly slower today than they did 30 years ago.  It wasn't like this in the Jetsons!  Are we never going to get jetpacks? 
    
It's not all bad though. We do have Facebook and Twitter, so at least we can whinge more quickly.

Mixed Messages

I heard this morning that the rebels in Libya are complaining that NATO aren't reacting fast enough.  These are same the people that didn't want the West to be involved. 

So what they're actually saying is: "We'd like you to not help but a lot more quickly".

Another Australian Defence Production Starring...

Anyone really.  Especially if they don't know they're in the movie. 

It's all very shoddy on both an individual and institutional level but perhaps the most remarkable thing about the whole sordid affair is that filming people having sex without their consent is not a crime in the ACT. 

No wonder Canberra's the place from which to buy all those DVDs in the discreet packaging.

And where's Harmon Rabb when you need him?

Voting On The Big Issues

I was impressed at the range of upper house options I was given to choose from when voting in the recent State Election. 

Obviously, I didn't bother trying to find people from the list of over 300 names under the line.  Seriously, does anybody really do this?  We could save a lot of paper by not bothering with that part of the form or just printing a few of them and handing them out on request to the very keen. 

Going instead to choose from the list of parties, I realised that I didn't know too much about any of them.  Some of them appear to simply name themselves after their sole area of concern.  This is why, in a time where there are so many major issues being debated, we have a "No Parking Meters" party.  These guys obviously have their finger on the pulse of what really matters to people.

Similarly, we didn't just have a Fishing Party, we also had the Shooters and Fishers party.  They didn't even preference each other.  I'd have thought that both at least being into fishing, they'd form some kind of anglers' tactical alliance.  For the voter, trying to differentiate between them, the only tip I could have given was that one of these parties would not approve of shooting fish in a barrel.

The Biggest Loser

England losing to Sri Lanka by 10 wickets with 10 overs to go was a pretty dismal effort, the symmetry of the scoreline only serving to magnify the scale of the thrashing.  Not one wicket taken.  You really shouldn't be getting clobbered like that in the knock-out phase of the World Cup. 

As bad as that was though, England weren't the biggest losers of the evening.  Not even close.  For at the same time, we also had the State Election results in NSW.  Such was the one-sided nature of this contest that the words "bloodbath" and "slaughter" were being used to describe the result.  And that was in the opening remarks to the coverage - before there were any results to report on.  I've never seen an election where there was so much certainty before they started counting.  And so it turned out.  According to Luke Foley, who had the unenviable task of being the Labor spokesman for the coverage, it was their worst performance since the 19th Century.  Now that's some defeat.

Not Sure Why Zone

So we've got a No Fly Zone.  I remember when that was achieved by just spraying the room with Mortein.  These days apparently it means bombing every piece of military gear in sight. 

Now don't get me wrong, when it comes to colonels, I'm more of a Sanders man than a Gaddafi fan, but to me, apart from the fact that shooting up tanks and supply trucks seems to be more of a "No Drive Zone" approach, it also seems that we're a bit more involved in the war than is suggested by the term "No Fly Zone".  So it's another war with a spurious euphemism used at the outset to justify it.  That would be this war's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" then, no doubt to be followed at some point by an emphasising of the need for "Regime Change".

Of course when I say "We", I don't mean Australia.  No, when our former Prime Minister was out on the hustings spruiking the No Fly Zone, what he really meant was just that one should be set up.  With other people's planes.  After all, it's very important to make sure other people stand up for what you believe in.  Somebody's got to fight for my right.

Makes you feel so proud.

Live Long And Prosper

It's William Shatner's 80th birthday today.  The records say he was born in March 22, 1931 in Canada.

We were only discussing him in the office the other day and someone pointed out that he didn't look 80.  While there were some murmurs about plastic surgery, I put it down to his ageing more slowly than everyone else as happens with high warp-speed travel.

Close Shave

While it wasn't the best game of the final series, the A-League Grand Final certainly had a grandstand finish last Sunday.

Brisbane Roar's 2 goals in the last 3 minutes of extra time, took the game to 2-2 and into a penalty shootout, which they then went on to win 4-2.  That also took their unbeaten run to an amazing 28 games.

The real highlight however, occurred before the match. Robbie Slater boldly tipped "A two-all draw with Brisbane winning the penalty shoot-out".  This was followed by manic shrieks of laughter from co-panelist, Mark Bosnich, who promised to shave his head and run around the ground naked if it ended that way.  Well, after consulting the police, the streak is apparently off but he is going to have Robbie Slater shave his head on 30-March, the hair being donated to a friend's children's alopecia charity.

Great tip, great bet!

Alphabet Football: The B&W Show

The English Premier League is entering its final phase, and as it stands, it looks like this:

Pos	Team	Pld	GD	Pts
14	Blackburn	29	-12	32
15	Blackpool	29	-15	32
16	West Brom	29	-15	32
17	Birmingham	28	-12	31
18	West Ham	29	-13	31
19	Wolves	29	-15	29
20	Wigan	29	-23	27

That's a lot of teams beginning with "W" currently propping up the table, and a lot of teams beginning with "B" sitting nervously above them.

If it were to remain as it stands, the bottom 3 would be the same bottom 3 that were there at the start of the season when the teams were listed alphabetically.  If things are to be resolved alphabetically, this must give great heart at the other end of the table to Arsenal fans.

The only team missing from the alphabetical tussle at the foot of the table are Bolton Wanderers, who are doing very nicely thank you, in 7th spot. 

This is a shame, from a purely lexical point of view, as they'd potentially qualify as either a "B" or a "W" when taking their full name into consideration.  On that basis, I'd also be worried about what the future holds if I was a "W"est "B"rom fan.

Mighty Grand

Instead of spending all that money trying to convince me that Angus beef is something new and special, couldn't McDonalds have spent some time coming up with better differentiated names for their Angus burgers?  Instead, they gave us the Mighty Angus and the Grand Angus.

Mighty and Grand; look up one of those in a thesaurus and you'll find the other.  In a rare moment of verification, I thought I'd check that and sure enough, a search on "Mighty" in Thesaurus.com yields:

august, bulky, colossal, considerable, dynamic, eminent, enormous, extensive, extraordinary, grand, great, heroic, high, huge, illustrious, immense, imposing, impressive, intense, irresistible, large, magnificent, majestic, massive, moving, notable, prodigious, renowned, stupendous, titanic, towering, tremendous, vast.

Funnily enough, most of those are also much better names.  How about an Angus Stupendous, or an Angus Illustrious, or perhaps the Angus Colossal?  Not so hungry?  You can downsize to the Angus Considerable?  Or maybe you just like to keep it simple, in which case, it’s the Angus Huge for you.

Meanwhile back in the the real world, it’s back to the Mighty or the Grand and trying to work out which one has the extra piece of salad on it.

Marketing Madness

Today in the supermarket I saw a product on the refrigerated section that caught my eye.

It was manufactured by "The British Sausage Company with a "Uniquely Australian" sticker on it. The product was Boerewors, very tasty South African sausage. But to get this straight now: that's a uniquely Australian, British sausage company selling South African sausage.

Just thought I'd clarify that.

Beatles Bits & Pieces

I read somewhere (not so recently) that in the first week their catalogue was made available for download last November, the most popular Beatles song was "Here Comes The Sun". Now, while that's a fine song, you can't help wondering if that wasn't also a consequence of people just wanting some heartwarming distraction from the freezing cold weather they were having at the time.

And on another Beatles-related note, a rather poignant observation about Brian Epstein was made in The Word magazine, namely that he would never have heard "Hey Jude". Obviously one can simply work this out by knowing the relevant dates but when it's put like that, it's rather sad.

Zu Are You?

Here's a list what Google Instant serves up when you type in the first letter for each letter of the alphabet (in Australia, on my PC, at any rate):

• ANZ
• BOM
• Centrelink
• Domain
• Ebay
• Facebook
• Gmail
• Hotmail
• iTunes
• Jetstar
• Kmart
• Lasoo
• Myer
• Netbank
• Optus
• Paypal
• Qantas
• RTA
• Seek
• TPG
• UAC
• Vodafone
• White Pages
• XE
• YouTube
• Zu

Clearly, banks/money, real estate/shopping, email/social networking, the odd holiday and even the weather all loom large, but Zu? Apparently it's a shoe store. Shoes? Really? Who are these people?

Accidentally Like A Martyr

Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian who sparked off the turmoil in North Africa after setting himself alight, never got to see the aftermath of his action.

By all accounts, it appears to have been the final act of frustration at the futility of his own personal situation, rather than a statement of any great political intent but it's no less a tragedy for that. What happened afterwards however, would surely have been inconceivable to him.

And likewise, as revolution subsequently spreads through Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, I wonder if the policewoman who slapped him has ever given it another thought, or if she's ever come to rue her action.

What price to afford someone their dignity?

They Don't Write Like That Anymore

I recently saw an obituary, in an English music magazine strangely enough, and only belatedly so, because of how long it takes for these magazines to reach our shores.

It was for Australian journalist, Murray Sayle (1-1-26 to 18-09-2010), and it prompted me to look further. In doing so, I found an obituary (among several) in one of our local papers and had to marvel at what a story his life made.

As a journalist, he covered half-a-dozen wars, located Francis Chichester on his solo yacht trip and on the same trip, went on to track down Che Guevara and be the first to report that he had left Cuba to take the revolution to South America. He also managed to interview infamous British spy, Philby, in Moscow, the only journalist to do so after Philby's defection. His career at The Times ended when he resigned on principle over the Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry, his viewpoint being eventually vindicated a few months before his death. After leaving The Times, he spent 30 years living and working in Japan. Somewhere in there, he also climbed Mt Everest. All in all, it sounds like he was a pretty remarkable individual.

I wonder what he made of today's journalism with so many stories revolving around celebrity and research amounting to little more than running searches on Twitter.

ICC Nothing At All

The opening ceremony to the ICC World Cup was held last night in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Perfect! It's over and I managed to miss all the dancing. Now let's sit down and watch some sport. Oh, there's nothing on! That's right, no cricket. At all.

I've already discussed the uselessness of opening ceremonies but you've got to hand it to the ICC to take them to a new level of pointlessness.

Only cricket would start a tournament with a rest day...

Well, What Do You Know?

Every year the BBC publishes a list of "100 things we didn't know last year". It's always an entertaining read and it's interesting to see how many of them you actually knew. Sad to say, that while several of them are not particularly surprising, this year I can only claim to know 5 of them!

Of the 95 I didn't know, the most startling facts were that:

• Hamburger-related injuries are on the rise in Taiwan
• The two most common pronunciations of Van Gogh are wrong.

Although some might argue that finding out that Donald Trump's hair was real was very unexpected...

For the full list, see the BBC site.

Mirror Mirror

I love how, when you've finished getting your hair cut, the hairdresser holds a mirror up to show you the back of your head. The problem with this is that at any given time, I have no idea what the back of my head looks like, so I'm pretty clueless as to whether what I'm being shown is actually an improvement.

I'm pretty sure that when I say "That's great!" as I invariably do, it's either because I never cease to be amazed by the simplicity of the two-mirror trick, or, much worse, it could be because I'm just very excited to be seeing the back of my head again...