all saint’s day

Happy Birthday TO !

Not quite 65 years ago, TO learned to walk. In celebration of this newly mastered skill, she headed off down Beach Rd wearing nothing but a chamber pot on her head.

TO's cousin still blushes when he tells the story of how he was sent to fetch her, so embarrassed he stopped at a shop and asked for a paper bag to hide the potty – no embarrassment at all about the bare botty.

She has had a thing about playing dress-ups ever since.

the beat, like, goes on, man

fifty sheds of grey

We tried various positions - round the back, on the side, up against a wall...

but in the end we came to the conclusion the bottom of the garden was the only place for a good shed.

She stood before me, trembling in my shed. "I'm yours for the night," she gasped, "You can do whatever you want with me."

So I took her to McDonalds.

She knelt before me on the shed floor and tugged gently at first, then harder until finally it came. I moaned with pleasure.

Now for the other boot.

Ever since she read THAT book, I've had to buy all kinds of ropes, chains and shackles.

She still manages to get into the shed, though.

"Put on this rubber suit and mask," I instructed, calmly.

"Mmmm, kinky!" she purred.

"Yes," I said, "You can't be too careful with all that asbestos in the shed roof."

"I'm a very naughty girl," she said, biting her lip. "I need to be punished."

So I invited my mum to stay for the weekend.

"Harder!" she cried, gripping the workbench tightly. "Harder!"

"Okay," I said. "What's the gross national product of Nicaragua?"

I lay back exhausted, gazing happily out of the shed window.

Despite my concerns about my inexperience, my rhubarb had come

up a treat.

"Are you sure you can take the pain?" she demanded, brandishing stilettos. "I think so," I gulped.

"Here we go, then," she said, and showed me the receipt.

"Hurt me!" she begged, raising her skirt as she bent over my workbench.

"Very well," I replied. "You've got fat ankles and no dress sense."

"Are you sure you want this?" I asked. "When I'm done, you won't be able to sit down for weeks." She nodded.

"Okay," I said, putting the three-piece suite on eBay.

"Punish me!" she cried. "Make me suffer like only a real man can!"

"Very well," I replied, leaving the toilet seat up.

grog

diane b at Adventure Before Dementia has inspired me with her post about two Banjos; Banjo Patterson, and her much cuter grandson Banjo.

Back in the pioneer days, when Australia was “white” and men outnumbered women – no, that’s not where the idea of mate-ship between men took hold – Australian literature consisted mainly of short stories, and poems.

Perhaps the two most well known poets were Banjo Patterson, and Henry Lawson. 

Both men have featured on our $10 notes, with The Queen herself never worth more than a fiver.

My own all time favourite Australian poet has got to be Thos E Spencer [1845-1911].

The picture above is a picture of a completely different Thos E Spencer. I couldn't find a picture of my poet Spencer, but put this picture here anyway, to break up the visual monotony of this post.

Spencer arrived on the literary scene a year or two later than Banjo and Henry, many of his short stories ‘taking the Micky’ out of Irish and also German settlers. [His witty stereotyping of these groups was nothing compared to the accepted culture of patronising women on the rare occasions they rated a mention at all.]

My favourite poem / performance-piece by Thomas E. Spencer deals with the very important matter of alcohol.

Picture of one of the five main food groups

To help set the scene, above is an 1890 painting by Tom Roberts called The Shearing of the Rams. This should not be confused with Leunig’s Ramming the Shears.

The anti-hero of this story is a shearer, who worked on a remote station* in an area such as this:

The hero is an itinerant preacher, of the shouting, fire and brimstone variety.

*[a sheep ‘station’ = a sheep ranch]

Rum and Water

Stifling was the air, and heavy; blowflies buzzed and held a levee,

And the mid-day sun shone hot upon the plains of Bungaroo,

As Tobias Mathew Carey, a devout bush missionary,

Urged his broken-winded horse towards the township of Warhoo.

He was visiting the stations and delivering orations

About everlasting torture and the land of Kingdom Come,

And astounding all his hearers, both the rouseabouts and shearers,

When descanting on the horrors that result from drinking rum.

As Tobias Mathew Carey, lost in visions bright and airy,

Tried to goad his lean Pegasus to a canter from a jog,

All his visions were sent flying as his horse abruptly shying

At a newly wakened-something that was camped beside a log.

It was bearded, bronzed and hairy, and Tobias Mathew Carey

Had a very shrewd suspicion as the object he espied,

And observed its bleary winking, that the object had been drinking,

A suspicion which was strengthened by a bottle at its side.

It was Jacob William Wheeler, better known as "Jake the Spieler,"

Just returning from a sojourn in the township of Warhoo,

Where, by fast-repeated stages, he had swamped his cheque for wages,

And for language made a record for the plains of Bungaroo.

Then the earnest missionary, Mr. Toby Mathew Carey,

Like a busy bee desiring to improve each shining hour,

Gave his horse a spell much needed, and immediately proceeded

To pour down on Jake the Spieler, an admonitory shower.

He commenced his exhortation with a striking illustration

Of the physical and moral degradation that must come

To the unrepentant sinner who takes whisky with his dinner,

And converts his stomach into a receptacle for rum.

"Give attention to my query," said the ardent missionary:

"Do you not perceive that Satan is this moment calling you?

He is shouting! He is calling in a voice that is appalling:

Do you hear him? And the Spieler answered sadly - "Yes! I do."

"I can prove it is impious" said the eloquent Tobias,

"To drink stuff containing alcohol, and liquors that are strong,

And I'll prove to demonstration that your guzzling inclination

Is quite morally, and socially, and physically wrong.

When about to drain a bottle, or pour whisky down your throttle,

You should think about the thousands who have perished for its sake.

Gone! To the Davey Jones's locker, through the wine that is a mocker,

And which biteth like a serpent's tooth and stingeth like a snake."

Toby paused, and Jake replying said, "It ain't no use denying

That your logic is convincing, and your arguments are sound.

I have heard with admiration your remarks and peroration,

And your knowledge of the subject seems extensive and profound.

Yet, in spite of all your spouting, there is just one thing I'm doubting,

But I'm open to conviction, so convince me if you can.

As the iron's hot now strike it, just convince me I don't like it,

And I'll chuck the grog, and sign the pledge, and keep it like a man."

Then Tobias Mathew Carey eyed the Spieler bronzed and hairy,

But his tongue no word could utter, and the silence was intense,

As the Spieler, slowly rising, in a style quite patronising 

Blandly smiled upon Tobias, and continued his defence.

"In your arguments I noticed that the scriptures you misquoted,

But you know, Old Nick proved long ago that two could play at that.

Which has caused the greatest slaughter? Was it rum or was it water?

If you say it was the former then I'll contradict it flat.

"When Old Noah in the deluge, in the Ark was taking refuge,

All the other people in the world by water met their fate.

And King Pharaoh's countless army! - Did they drink and all go balmy?

No! You'll find they died by water if you'll just investigate.

All the records of the ages, mentioned in the sacred pages,

Only tell of one example, and the fact you know well,

Where a cove a drink was craving and for water started raving,

And that beggar was located - where he ought to be - in Hell!"

Jake then dropped the tone effusive, and began to be abusive,

Swore he'd "pick the missionary up and drop him in the dirt,"

Vowed he'd "twist his blooming nose up, make him turn his blinded toes up,

Sing him for a dusty fiver, or else fight him for his shirt."

And the air was hot and heavy, and the blowflies held their levee,

And the evening sun shone red upon the plains of Bungaroo:

As Tobias Mathew Carey, a disgusted missionary,

Spurred his broken-winded steed towards the township of Warhoo.

more sex please

----------------

We went to the Comedy Theatre tonight to see More Sex Please… We’re Seniors!

Live theatre, no matter how bad, never disappoints me. [Actually, this is pretty much my approach to cake as well. Hmm.]

I enjoyed More Sex Please, because it was live and it was light and it had some really good laughs in it. But overall, it was a stinker.

What’s Australian for “off-Broadway”? Whatever or wherever it is, that’s where this should have started, because it needs a lot of work. Or should be cheaper to see. Or something.

More Sex Please is touted as a musical comedy, but I would argue that it is nothing more than a series of songs and sketches held together by a single setting and a single bunch of characters. Beyond the setting there is no story. There is a series of … well, not even incidents, but nothing engaging on an emotional level. Whether we are talking comedy or tragedy, if at some point we are not moved to think “I hope he/she doesn’t do it” or “I hope this or that doesn’t happen” there is no drama, and therefore no story.

A real story is made up of lots of little stories, but even the little stories in this show weren’t engaging enough to be stories. They were just fun.

There’s nothing wrong with fun per se, but seeing two hours of fun on stage with no emotional engagement is a bit like trying to read a joke book from start to finish.

The characters in the show consist of two seniors couples, plus one other incredibly irritating chap who is supposedly a maintenance man/ gofer in the Guantanamo Palms Retirement Village.

Part of the fun in a live show is seeing how the director will contrive to move props around. More Sex opens to the sound of silent movie style piano tinkles, with the maintenance man doing a truly tragic job of trying to move props around slapstick style. I felt sorry for him for about five seconds, til I realised he has a paid job and I don’t. But dying on stage is painful, and whatever he is being paid is probably not enough.

The first ten to 15 minutes were dreadfully contrived and superfluous. John-Michael Howson might be a well informed movie critic, but someone ought to tell him the best place for a writer to start a story is in the middle.

Three of the other four characters were consistently drawn, but I’m not sure John-Michael has yet made up his mind about whether Myra is a prudish middle aged woman with alzheimers, or somebody with a zest for life who knows what’s what.

It was a bit disappointing that Jane Clifton’s understudy [a name I didn’t catch] played the part of Joan. She fluffed a lot of lines, and during a song in the second half ran out of puff. I don’t want to diss the woman for not being Jane Clifton – it was obvious from other songs that she really can sing, but she simply wasn’t prepared for the part.

Mark Mitchell and Michael Veitch made a great job of the material which ranged from pathetic to brilliant – in lesser hands the characters would have fallen flat.

Tracey Harvey worked her very talented heart out as Myra, but it wasn’t enough to save the character.

It would be churlish of me to expect every single joke or witticism would be new and original – though I did hear lots of new jokes and witticisms I’d never heard before. One line was a direct rip-off of the Pete Seeger hit Get Up and Go, and I say rip-off not because it has been done before, but because it almost seemed as if we were expected to think it was original.

One final whinge is about a pet hate of mine – audience participation. My first instinct is that having left school no one should tell me what to do unless they pay me. Audience participation is hard to do well. Asking people to sing along to something that is not funny is very hard to do well.

When telling jokes – or a series of them – we have to decide whether we are entertaining a mob of sheep, or entertaining people with some intelligence. Intelligent people like subtle humour. They like to guess the punchline, and the entertainer should set up the joke and if the audience misses it, move on. When a joke is told twice so that the drones can pick up on it the second time around, the people who guessed it the first time will get bored, because they’ve already read the telegraph. To then tell it a third time as an audience participation sing along is padding. Seriously, this part of the show was patronising and insulting. Once a horse is dead, it doesn’t matter how hard or long you flog it, it’s dead.

But it was fun, and very funny in parts.

PS

If choc-top ice-creams are an important treat for you as a show-goer, be warned: At the Comedy Theatre there was a lass walking around with a chiller-bag clearly labelled Peters, but the choc-tops she was actually selling were branded Rowena.

For my five bucks I could have bought a slab of tofu and had a more satisfying combination of flavour and texture, with some nutrition thrown in. Or I could have just put the five bucks straight into the bin while I was standing next to it, and saved myself a special trip.

not pc

Few of the gems TO receives from her cousin in France are ever politically correct. Be warned… this one is no exception:

The Royal Navy is proud of its new fleet of Type 45 destroyers.  Having initially named the first two ships HMS Daring and HMS Dauntless, the Naming Committee has, after intensive pressure from Brussels , renamed them HMS Cautious and HMS Prudence. The next five ships are to be named HMS Empathy, HMS Circumspect, HMS Nervous, HMS Timorous and HMS Apologist.

Costing £850 million each, they meet the needs of the 21st century and comply with the very latest employment, equality, health & safety and human rights laws.

The new user-friendly crow's nest comes equipped with wheelchair access. Live ammunition has been replaced with paintballs to reduce the risk of anyone getting hurt and to cut down on the number of compensation claims. Stress counsellors and lawyers will be on duty 24hrs a day and each ship will have its own on-board industrial tribunal.

The crew will be 50/50 men and women, and balanced in accordance with the latest Home Office directives on race, gender, sexuality and disability. Sailors will only have to work a maximum of 37hrs per week in line with Brussels Health & Safety rules… even in wartime!

All the vessels will come equipped with a maternity ward and nursery, situated on the same deck as the Gay Disco.

Tobacco will be banned throughout the ship, but cannabis will be allowed in the wardroom and messes. The Royal Navy is eager to shed its traditional reputation for; "Rum, sodomy and the lash"; so out has gone the occasional rum ration which is to be replaced by sparkling water. Although sodomy remains, it has now been extended to include all sexes. The lash will still be available but only on request. Condoms can be obtained from the Bosun in a variety of flavours, except Capstan Full Strength.

Saluting officers has been abolished because it is deemed elitist and is to be replaced by the more informal, "Hello Sailor". All information on notices boards will be printed in 37 different languages and Braille. Crew members will now no longer be required to ask permission to grow beards or moustaches – this applies equally to female as well as male crew members.

The MoD is working on a new "non-specific" flag because the White Ensign is considered to be offensive to minorities. The Union Jack had already been discarded.

The newly re-named HMS Cautious is due to be commissioned soon in a ceremony conducted by Captain Hook from the Finsbury Park Mosque who will break a petrol bomb over the hull.

She will gently slide into the water as the Royal Marines Band plays "In the Navy" by the Village People. Her first deployment will be to escort boat loads of illegal immigrants across the channel to ports on England 's south coast.

The Prime Minister said, "While these ships reflect the very latest in modern thinking, they are also capable of being up-graded to comply with any new legislation coming out of Brussels."

God bless all etc…

dry

Our climate seems to be made up of tiny ecosystems, with fixed boundaries between each that rarely change. Going home from work to the small country townlet where I lived, I could sometimes drive through pouring, blinding rain on the south bound side of the highway, while the north bound lane was tinder dry.

There is even a corner of one back road between two towns that everyone knew as ‘the corner where the twisters cross”. We don’t have huge twisters in Oz, but little ‘willy-willys’ about a metre [one yard] wide would sometimes build and head in a predictable path through this particular spot.

Australia’s latest bad drought cycle lasted 12 years, from 1995-2007. [I guess your opinion about how long depends which part of the country you live in, or how many different articles you Google. But I think most of us agree it was exceptionally dry for a very long time.]

During those drought years that I was living in NE Vic, I could see, time after time, low, heavy, filthy black rain crowds approach my house, suddenly skirt the townlet, and then move on to dump their load 8 kilometres away.

It was an area that still has a reasonable amount of the right eucalypts to support koala colonies. It’s one thing to see Australian fauna in a zoo, and quite another to get into a car and drive 3 kms up into some hills where one could always spot a koala or two snoozing in the forks of trees. Like most of Australia’s “cuties”, koalas are nocturnal. I can be fairly tolerant of outsiders having no idea, but it always ticked me off to see tourists excitedly pulling and rocking on branches hoping a koala would “perform” for them so they could get some good pictures.

The “factory” where I worked in a larger town consisted of a series of huge old corrugated iron sheds [with asbestos sheet roofing, of course]. Some of the sheds had entire walls of louvre windows, for which we were grateful about 3 months of the year.

We were supposed to leave work if the temperature reached 40 degrees [104 F] outside, but when you are working at the end of a foam injection moulding line, the temperature inside might be 45 [113] before the manager even bothered to hand out lemon flavoured icypoles [popsicles] to keep up morale.

Even without the heat, half the poor workers were exhausted because male koalas during the mating season make incredibly loud grunting noises – often outside bedroom windows.

It’s long been disappointing that one day, when a male koala was seen outside the front door of the factory office, no one had a camera. Unusual enough it was there in the day time, but the poor thing looked like it had been through the dryer at the local laundrette – is just sat on the ground swaying. Somebody provided a bowl of water which he gratefully guzzled down, before wandering off like a drunk to find a comfortable looking tree.

The first clip above was Uploaded by mmajor123 on 27 Feb 2009 with the following story attached:

South Australia has had a three-year drought and as a result eucalypt leaves lose much of their moisture. Koalas normally get enough water from eating leaves but lately it's been too hot so koalas have been coming to homes looking for water. This wild koala first came to our house during an extreme heat wave (see A Thirsty Koala). Three weeks later it got hot again and he came back looking much more lively.

kokoda’s 70th anniversary

Gallipoli

Simpson and His Donkey

We make a big deal in Australia of ANZAC day, which commemorates the landing of Australian troops at Gallipoli [now part of Turkey] in 1915. Many young Australians had joined the army during WW I to help Britain because at that stage in our history we still thought of ourselves as British.

If WW I was a particularly brutal and pointless war, the Gallipoli campaign was a particularly appalling waste of human life. If any good resulted from it at all, it marked a turning point in the national psyche – Australians came to see themselves as, and be seen as, possessed of a unique national character. It was a point in our history when we not only showed the world we had value in our own right, but came to learn the British did not think of us as British so much as mere colonials – as second class Poms.

-----------------

Kokoda

For some reason we make less of a big deal in Australia of the New Guinea campaign, which consisted of a series of battles fought between July and November 1942 between Japanese and Allied—primarily Australian—forces in what was then the Australian territory of Papua.

This campaign marked another important turning point in our national psyche.

To be sure, WW II was not quite so pointless as the first had been, though the devastation it caused was horrific.

A death, is a death, is a death, regardless of when it occurs.

We had been at war since September 1939 when our fellow Brits first declared war on Germany. Many of our troops were located in Europe and the Middle East, with some in Britain’s Asian territories, when the Japanese attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbour [Hawaii] in December 1941, and then managed to overcome Singapore a few months later.

As Japan had been bombing Darwin and other parts of Northern Australia since February 1942, it was reasonable for Australians to believe the Japanese advance through New Guinea was just another step in their plan to invade Australia.

Most of the Forces who fought in the “Kokoda” campaign were soldiers in the Australian Militia – citizen soldiers who volunteered to fight the Japanese and so protect Australia.

We were no longer fighting for a Britain we thought of as our Mother country, or even a Britain we thought of as a military Ally in WW II – when we started to fight in New Guinea, we were fighting for our lives.

This also marked a turning point in another important respect: As the US had entered WW II after Pearl Harbour and had decided to use Australia as a base for their Pacific campaign against the Japanese we were, for the first time, thinking of the US as our most important Allies.

Being the smaller country in any military Alliance, our sense of security comes at a cost: To some extent we are now simply sucking up to a different world power when we get involved in various wars around the globe. But none of this should detract from the greatness of the gifts we were given by those who fought in New Guinea.

-------------

Crucial to Australia's Kokoda campaign were local villagers, many of whom were press-ganged into helping but went on to become heroes for the Australians caught up in this fight.

This picture of Raphael Oimbari giving a blinded Private Whittington a helping hand
has become something of an Australian icon.

The locals, who came to be known [God forgive us] as “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels”, carried supplies, assisted with the construction of airfields and bases, and helped evacuate the sick and wounded through some truly inhospitable terrain.

Oimbari and 5 of his fellow Angels were finally recognised with medals in 2010.

“Fuzzy Wuzzy Day” - November 3 - is becoming an increasingly significant day of commemoration, in The [now] Independent State of Papua New Guinea [Niugini]

--------------

Rude and Ruder

On 22 October 1942, after a setback in the campaign, our General Blamey addressed the men of the 21st Brigade on a parade ground. The men of the Maroubra Force expected congratulations for their efforts in holding back the Japanese. However, instead of praising them, Blamey told the brigade that they had been "beaten" by inferior forces, and that "no soldier should be afraid to die". "Remember," Blamey was reported as saying, "it's the rabbit who runs who gets shot, not the man holding the gun.”

He is not fondly remembered for this remark.

Historians – based on paper evidence – now insist that Japan had no intention of invading or occupying Australia.

Fast forward 70 years to the anniversary of the Kokoda campaign, and there is some argument abroad that it’s ridiculous to elevate the significance of the WW II Kokoda campaign to the same significance as WW I’s Gallipoli campaign.

Given the significance of Kokoda to Australia’s sense of self, this attitude is extraordinary.

Putting aside any conviction that war is ultimately stupid, the notion that Kokoda or any other battle is less important than Gallipoli is an insult to everyone involved – Australian or Allied Soldiers, Papuans, families, and even the Japanese soldiers themselves.

A death, is a death, is a death, regardless of when it occurs. It’s not a competition.

sleep tight

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz… and it’s time to take your carpets, tatted rugs and druggets outside, and beat the dust out of them.

Aunty recalls that another spring cleaning chore when she was a child was dragging bedding outside to prevent bed bug infestation.

Theoretically, a day in the sun will kill any of the little rotters hiding on a mattress, but they tend to be nocturnal and, like cockroaches, secrete themselves into tiny crevices about the place where they can hide in the dark until dark.

For this reason, Grandma had the family pouring buckets of scalding hot water with a ‘little’ caustic soda in all the crevices of the bed frames – wooden or metal frames with wire bases – to kill any of the little blighters.

Kapok mattresses can be heavy and often had handles on the side, but there was a time that even the newer style inner spring mattresses had handles attached to them – heaven knows why they don’t any more.

Not so long ago it was against health regulations in Victoria to sell second hand mattresses, but they are now freely available from op-shops. All of which I mention because the bed bug is making a comeback. It’s not so much a problem because they have become pesticide resistant, but a problem because traditional measures to control them have been abandoned, and the pesticides we do use tend to target other pests, for example, the cockroach bombs that were selling like hotcakes in Melbourne a few years ago.

There were reports that New York had a plague of bed bugs a few years ago. Hotels are hardly going to report outbreaks to government departments for fear of sullying their reputations, but in the U.S. a couple of hotels have been sued by customers who have been bitten by the little buggers.

Like rats and German cockroaches, they are illegal immigrants to Australia, making their way here mainly in backpacks, the lining of suitcases, and the weird and wonderful things travellers try to bring through customs.

My mother had always been obsessive about turning and rotating mattresses, though I don’t recall having actually checked the lining of mattresses. [Just writing this has got me scratching – the same as whenever people mention head lice.].

After hearing someone talking about bed bugs yesterday I came straight home and vacuumed all our mattresses and bed bases.

Apparently an adult bed bug is roughly the size of a ladybird.

YouTube is awash with clips showing hideous bed bug infestations – no point in advertising unless you overstate your case. But here is an unpaid community announcement type clip which has still left me a tad paranoid. No sign of bed bugs, just some tips about how to check a hotel room before you settle in for the night.

ouch

More reports in the Age the other day of the enquiry into the Catholic Church’s paedophile policies in Victoria, this time some rubbish about the Salesian Brothers.

Nothing I can add that hasn’t been said perfectly by Tandberg in his cartoon accompanying said article about the Salesians:

Shamelessly lifted from the Age article mentioned above

  

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I first saw this guy

Tim Minchin

on this show

Spicks and Specks was an hilarious quiz show about popular music, fronted by three very funny people, with panels of guest singers and comedians.

As a guest on Spicks and Specks, Tim always struck me as very witty and, as he says things I tend to agree with he struck me as rather intelligent. But I never realised he is a singer/song writer until cruising YouTube recently.

Tim Minchin is a modern Tom Lehrer type only more prolific, satirical, and clever. He also exudes a level of unapologetic anger I sometimes feel about issues but would never dream of showing. I don't think he is against religion per se, simply the way some use it as an excuse for bad behaviour.

If you don’t mind the language, here are two of his “pieces”… The Pope Song, and I Love Jesus… followed by a relatively apolitical, friendly tribute to Adam Hills, presenter of Spicks and Specks.

ageist

I don't pass on a squillionth of the stuff I get in emails, but I couldn't resist this one.

Me missus bought a paperback
Down town on Saturday,
I had a peep into her bag;

'Twas "Fifty Shades of Grey."

Well I just left her to it,
And at ten I went to bed.
An hour later she appeared;
The sight filled me with dread.

Her left hand held a length of rope;
And in her right a whip!
She threw them down onto the floor,
And then began to strip.

Well fifty years or so ago
I might have had a peek;
But Doris hasn't weathered well;
She's eighty four next week.

Watching Doris bump and grind
Could not have been much grimmer.
Things then went from bad to worse;
She toppled off her Zimmer!

She struggled up upon her feet
A cuppla minutes later;
She put her teeth back in and said
That I must dominate her!!

Now if you knew our Doris,
You would see just why I spluttered,
I'd spent two months in traction
For the last complaint I'd uttered.

She stood there nude, just naked like,
Bent forward just a bit …
I took a pace to brace meself

And stood on her left tit!

Old Doris screamed, her teeth shot out;
My god what had I done?
She moaned and groaned then shouted out:
"Step on the other one!"

Well readers, I won't tell no more
What happened on that day.
Suffice to say my jet black hair
Turned "fifty shades of grey".

it makes me cross

"The Catholic Church on Thursday fended off accusations by Victoria Police that sexual crime victims were too often talked out of reporting it to police, while suspected offenders were sent elsewhere."

"Father Mackinlay said abuse victims were vulnerable and while the church actively encouraged them to report incidents to police, they respected their choice not to.

…Father Mackinlay said the police submission contained many errors and failed to consider the choices of victims."

Can someone please explain to me how a 9 year old boy, for example, can make an informed choice about reporting their rape to Police?

This disgusting twaddle has gone on too long.

"The Catholic Church of Victoria's Father Shane Mackinlay said if police had any evidence church members were deliberately hindering their investigations, they should take legal action."

Evidence? Is it not hard enough to provide evidence in any kind of sexual assault case? Bad enough when the victims are similar in age to offenders, harder still when the offender is in a position trusted by the community, a position of authority over, and much, much older than the victim.

The standard of evidence required in a court would be problematical for police. On the other hand,

• many of these sods have been successfully prosecuted
• prosecution of these cases has confirmed time and again that the standard response was relocation to a setting where re-offending was easy - which does NOT meet a common law duty of care

What I would like to see is a civil, class action against the Church for failing in its duty of care, by not removing these a-holes from public contact. The church should be taken quite literally to the cleaners. 

I hope it happens while Cardinal Pell is still in Australia. I don't like his face.

--------------

We can readily infer from the Church's claims some victims "choose" not to prosecute, that the extent of abuse cannot be measured by prosecutions alone.  

---------------

"The Catholic Church in Victoria has backed mandatory reporting of child abuse to police for religious ministers and personnel,

……….with an exemption for information received during confession."

Presumably, the relocation response of old - supposedly no longer policy since 2009 - used the sanctity of confession as its basis/excuse.

The Church's attitude to this issue [amongst others] is a slur on decent people who call themselves Catholics.

It also feeds the miscomprehension that Catholics can do what they like with impunity - do what you like, confess, then go out and sin again.

While I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member, I still hate to see the baby thrown out with the bathwater, and any good a religion might do lost to the world because of its leaders' failings.

--------------------

The point of confession is to provide people with a reason to try harder. If we cannot forgive ourselves or be forgiven for our mistakes, then we have nothing to lose by just continuing to do the wrong thing - nothing to gain by trying harder.

The privacy of a traditional confessional, in one of those little boxes that look like toilets, affords people an opportunity to test their ideas or feelings with someone neutral. Sometimes it can be a good place to talk about problems that are not even necessarily about "wrongs".

If someone has committed a grave wrong, a priest is in a very good position to try and encourage someone to do the right thing and report themselves to the Police.

The Church clings to the idea that confession will lose its power to achieve something positive, if matters confessed become subject to the law. To some extent I can see the benefits of this confidentiality.

Ultimately, though, there are rules about who can or cannot be forgiven. A Priest can refuse to give absolution. The sinner

• must know he has done wrong
• feel true remorse for what he has done
• do every thing possible to atone

Then and only then should a Priest wipe the slate clean.

Why in God's name would any Catholic confessor or big-boss-bishop provide absolution to a paedophile before the crime is resolved?

How could they forgive such a person at all who does not feel any remorse? How could anyone demonstrate remorse and atonement unless by handing themselves in?

At the very least, compassion demands they not call their victims liars.

How, in the name of common sense if not compassion, could the hierarchy put these bastards in yet another situation where they can do the same thing again?

Can we imagine, for one moment, the outcry if some Muslim, Jewish or other religious leader claimed religious privilege for not reporting a heinous crime? Is there a reason why the Catholic Church should be exempt?

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Which brings me now to a question of proportion.

Mr Rabbit is unashamedly Catholic. He finds the idea of abortion abhorrent.

Why is it wrong to destroy a child before it is born, but okay to destroy them afterwards?

Why is Mr Rabbit outraged by the filth Slipper was texting but not standing up screaming outrage against the Church's continuous refusal to accept responsibility for the sins of its employees?

Which is the greater filth?

What has Bernardi to say on the matter? Surely Priesthood leads to paedophilia as inevitably as gay marriage will lead to bestiality?

"Suffer the little children" indeed.

Just because the current enquiry is being conducted by the Victorian State government, this does not make it a "State" issue. Religions enjoy taxation and other privileges courtesy of the Federal Government.

The silence is deafening, and the Church is laughing all the way to the bank.

can - berra

quisnam est dignus?

Two ongoing scandals collided in the Australian Parliament today -

• a scandal regarding the House Speaker, and
• muck from the mouth of a shock jock.

The first seed of today's events was sown in 2011 when Peter Slipper - a Liberal MP for many years - accepted the position of Speaker in the House of Representatives.

This move indirectly supported Labor's right to claim government, and rule the country without a clear majority.

Peter Slipper: Liberal MP; Speaker of the House; alleged pervert

The Coalition were delighted, some months ago, to hear that a former staffer had made allegations of sexual harassment against Peter Slipper, and have been baying for his blood ever since.

When the staffer first complained, Slipper stepped aside without actually resigning while the allegations were investigated. Labor was able to keep governing.

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The second seed was planted not so long ago by a radio shock jock, Alan Jones. Amongst his many excessive comments he had said the Prime Minister should be put in a chaff bag and dropped out at sea.

The Prime Minister's father had only passed away a short time before when Alan Jones told a Sydney University Liberal Club function that Julia Gillard's father had died of shame:

This time he had gone too far. A massive public backlash has forced many major sponsors of his radio show to withdraw their advertising.

One man who attended the function donated a chaff bag jacket for auction.

Ha Ha, but not a smart move for someone who was a Public Relations executive for a major corporation: He has since resigned and taken pains to reassure us he was not representing Woolworths at the function but was there in a private capacity.

The Liberal Party leader and would-be Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, conceded the comment about Gillard's late father were not in good taste, but effectively dismissed them as an exercise in free speech.

Tony Abbott Leader of the Opposition

The shock jock, Jones, has been relentlessly misogynistic in his radio performances for a very long time.

Government Ministers started to raise the issue of Tony Abbott's own sexist and/or misogynistic attitudes.

Mr Abbott's wife spoke up on Tony's behalf:

Outsiders might be tempted to think that Australian politicians can be pretty low and personal, and they would be right. God forbid they should start to behave and actually concentrate on running the country instead of running non-stop election campaigns.

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Things warmed up when details of the Speaker's sexual harassment investigation were made public. Specifically, the content of some fairly unsavoury text messages between the Speaker, Peter Slipper, and the staffer who alleges sexual harassment.

Messages like this one:

"Brough is a c..t,'' Mr Slipper said in a text on October 10 last year. Soon after, he said: ''Funny how we say that a person is a c..t when many guys like c..ts."

That's a mild example. If you have the stomach for it, you can find more info here

Personally, I don't think anyone's perfect, and I certainly don't care what consenting adults do in private. I do, however, wonder about the intelligence of some of our representatives. Which part of the Prince Charles /Camilla /Tampon phone text hacking did Mr Slipper miss?

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In a moment of righteous indignation, Tony Abbott used these messages as an excuse to state that his former Liberal ally was not a fit and proper person to be in Parliament.

Whether Abbott was just being opportunistic, or sincere, or even both, he made a big mistake when he spoke in support of his motion to remove Peter Slipper. Consciously or unconsciously, he paraphrased the radio shock jock's offensive remarks about the Prime Minister's father dying of shame.

What Mr Abbott said can be found at 2.00 minutes into this clip:

Mr Abbott made several references to the content of the text messages, at one stage talking of "truly gross references to female genitalia".

“This Speaker has failed the character test but the Prime Minister failed the judgment test” he went on to say, referring to Prime Minister Gillard's decision to do nothing about Peter Slipper until his case had been fully investigated.

Whatever one thinks of her policies, or the fact that she can't afford to lose any more votes in the house, the Prime Minister finally betrayed a hint of personal outrage when she spoke against the motion to remove the speaker.

One of the clips above gives some indication of just how fed up she was.

For those with the time and the inclination, this longer clip provides the full context as well as content of her reply. It's an unusually impressive performance.

At 13:37 in the tape above, Tony Abbott's head appears to be shaking. It reminded me a great deal of the way it shook in this clip below, from an incident some time ago: [start 2:00 minutes in]

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No wonder voting is compulsory in this country.