Thursday, June 30, 2011

pikcha this

Encouraging email with newspaper article saying Smack The Pony team are working on another (TV) series.
Can't tell you how exciting this news is.



Saw Bridesmaids last week. Could do without the first few minutes of humpy pumpy [okay, I'm a prude] but after that it was hilarious and, I must say, it reminded me of Smack the Pony humour [with no references to parachutes].

Not just funny - enough human moments to make it's characters 3 dimensional.

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Went to Mornington Cinemas tonight to see Oranges and Sunshine, the latest movie about the British Immigrant Child Scheme.

Like a good scout, I was prepared with a selection of pain killers for the inevitable tension headache that follows a good cry. A bountiful supply of tissues is also useful when watching a serious docudrama; the only real challenge is trying to blow one’s nose in the gaps between important bits of dialogue.

No surprises in the story line, but some very impressive performances on the screen.

Reality check films like this always leave me feeling powerless and cynical. Some days I harbour great hope for humanity, others a mantra starts up in my head: “all politicians are shits, politicians are all shits are politicians…”

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The last movie I saw at Mornington was The King’s Speech. Colin Firth’s performance blew me away the first time I saw it, so I had to go again and see if it would have the same impact second time around.
Sho’ nuff, I found myself almost gagging all over again, as I tried to help him spit some words out.

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In between viewings of The King’s Speech went with some interstate guests to the Imax in Melbourne and saw Born to Be Wild in 3D. Wow.
My least favourite creatures are rodents, reptiles and redbacks, but I love 'rang utans and elephants, which were the two animals featured in this 3D masterpiece.

I don’t know why people insist on calling Julia Gillard a ‘ranga’. Firstly, she isn’t a real redhead and secondly if she was a real redhead why not just call her ‘Blue’ like any normal Australian would?
She might not be Australian born but she certainly sounds like she has choked on a barbecued snag or two.

Besides, only attractive, humanoid primates with personalities should be called rangas.

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What is it with this ALP stand against gay marriage? What is it with this stand from a woman who lives in sin in the lodge?

A friend who is a dedicated die hard Labor member went along to the Vic state conference this year and she said it was stacked with fundamentalist christians [a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one]. These were the people who shot the gay marriage policy proposal down in flames in Vic.
Of course, they wouldn’t have so much sway if people were not deserting the party in droves. Worse still, with the nookie-Nazis signing up it creates the impression the ALP still has some support.

Of all the countries in the world where gay marriage should not be an issue, surely Australia is near the top of the list:
The leader of the Greens is gay, one of Julia’s cabinet members is gay, a recently retired High Court Judge is gay – none of them have felt the need to keep it a secret.

Some people are predominantly heterosexual, some predominantly homosexual. [I'll assume you're not wondering about ol' fruitcake here, but just in case you have issues, I'm predominantly headache-osexual.]

Honestly, if we want to imagine what it’s like in someone else’s bedroom, wouldn’t we find someone better to picture ‘at it’ than a politician? So by the same token, why should politicians worry about what voters do in the privacy of their own homes?

C'mon, Julia, don't you want to be remembered for having done at least one thing voters actually approved of?
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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

spare me daze

Do what you will with the suggestion but I don't support it... I'm just putting it here so I can discuss it.
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Got an email today with the heading THIS IS NOT A JOKE
containing the following message:

IMPORTANT
AUSTRALIA WILL BE HOLDING A CENSUS IN AUGUST DO NOT LEAVE THE RELIGION SECTION BLANK. BE SURE TO AT LEAST TICK CHRISTIAN [OR YOUR UPBRINGING FAITH]. 1,000,000 MUSLIMS WILL TICK THEIR BOX.
10,000,000 AUSTRALIANS WILL LEAVE IT BLANK AND THEN WONDER WHY A MOSQUE IS BUILT IN THEIR NEIGHBOURHOOD!!!!!
PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.

To be fair, the typesetting was better and the pass it on bit was in red and there was lots of bold type but I'm chuffed I've even worked out how to start a blog let alone make it look pretty, so you will have to trust me it LOOKED threatening.

Where do I start. Well, what if my upbringing faith is Islam? What have I done or said to this person to indicate I give a damn what people believe so long as they aim to do no harm?

Would it sound trite if I said some of the nicest people I've ever met have been muslims [and probably still are]? Trite, perhaps, but true.

There are lots of things about this email that ticked me off. I mean, like, okay, where does the word neighbourhood come from? I mean, like, okay, maybe the original was written by an orstralyen who grew up with sesame street but, like, okay, maybe whoever started circulating this wasn't even original enough to draft their own message from scratch. It almost looks like they've taken a hate message from someone else and attempted to adapt it for locals. I mean, like, what's with all those exclamation marks?

What really cheeses me off is when I get co-opted into someone else's crap values.
Just because I am white am I supposed to laugh at boong jokes?
Just because I'm not 80 does it mean the checkout chick should roll her eyes at me seeking sympathy if the little old lady in front of me takes a few moments of fumbling to find the right change in her purse?

Don't get me wrong; there's nothing I love more than to laugh at a politically incorrect joke, but only if it reflects my values. I can be satirical, but only if I'm sure the other parties to the joke will understand it is satire.

I can laugh at Billy Cokebottle because so far I haven't heard him say anything that reflects badly on Aboriginals. I don't know why he blacks up and pretends to be Aboriginal when his jokes are good enough to stand on their own, but if they simply send the message that Aboriginals have a sense of humour, or are human; if they are just observations of normal human foibles, then who cares?

Can't stand Kevin Bloody Wilson but, hey, I'm not going to deny some Aboriginals like him. I just wish it was satire coming from an Aboriginal rather than crudity from some white idiot.

Where was I? Oh yeah...

There are only two kinds of people in this world - arseholes and non-arseholes.
There are Christian arseholes and Muslim arseholes. There are Christian non-arseholes and Muslim non-arseholes. Give me a non-arsehole any day.

Let me rephrase that - there are nice christians and then there are people who just call themselves christians. There are nice muslims and then there are people who just call themselves muslims.
It's what people do or say that might or might not make the world a better place that matters.

I had a husband once who tried to tell me how to vote. He had been away fishing during an election and when he was sent a fine for not voting he ticked the excuse box that said "deceased". Well, duh. I told him ... oh so many things... but in this case I suggested if he wanted to influence the election results, he could pay the fine and get his name back on the electoral roll.
A suffragette threw herself under a horse to give me the vote, I sez to him, and the days of husbands telling women what to think were long gone. Well, the days of women actually doing what their husbands told them to...

As for census night, I have had a lot of fun in the past with the religion question. I can remember sometimes ticking 'other' and then making up a religion, tho' I'm not sure last time whether they wanted to know what 'other' was. Anyway, my census paper is MY chance to skew the outcome - if other people want the results skewed they can go skew themselves.