16 September 2008

Peter Costello’s memoirs

The cartoon by Peter Broelman in today’s Border Watch says it all.

Tags: Australia, costello, humor, politics
1 comment


22 August 2008

Supermarket shopping and sex

Having sex … in the headline … got your attention.

Just like this forum post by Ebony Jackson, titled: “Supermarket shopping is like bad sex with the lights on”.

The post includes this wisdom: “If you don’t eat, you won’t go to the toilet, if you don’t go to the toilet, you will die.”

Homespun philosophy is always pragmatic.

Tags: humor
0 comments


4 August 2008

The Lazy Journalist’s Plane Story Generator

Courtesy of Aussie Bloggers Forum, this story generator is a bit of fun:

Adelaide passengers told of their terror aboard a Melbourne bound Qantas flight which was required to return to Adelaide yesterday due to large bits falling off.
Some passengers were distraught that the 309 passengers were told few details of the catastrophe.
They said the plane “porpoised like a dolphin chasing small fish” before turning around.
As a precaution, fire trucks were on standby when the Airbus Concorde landed.
Passenger Bob Kobb last night was still recovering from the ordeal.
“I wasn’t so much worried for myself, but for my children losing their only parent,” the passenger said.

Quite topical given the recent Qantas flight losing bits in mid air over the Philippines.

Tags: humor, media, transport, travel
3 comments


11 May 2008

Die, Fluffy Wuffy, die

Thanks to a remark he left on OzComments I have discovered the entertaining blog of Matt “not the cricketer” Hayden enticingly titled Die, Fluffy Wuffy, Die.

He writes more wittily than I could ever hope to do about current political topics. I don’t think he’s from Perth, but he’s well across West Australian politics, including the current chair-sniffing and top-lifting incidents.

Overseas readers may even be aware the State Opposition leader Troy Buswell was exposed for sniffing a woman’s chair and thinking it a great laugh.

Matt covers the topic from a clever angle: “I think there’s one other party in this farcical episode who has been entirely forgotten and who deserves far more sympathy than either — namely, the chair. Poor thing. Probably sitting in some dingy bar somewhere, completely legless …”

He also touched on the South Australian record filibuster, which I meant to get around to commenting on.

Tags: blogs, humor
0 comments


30 April 2008

Man died at desk

I’ve promised to write a book one day about my country newspaper experiences. As I head towards the end of my time at the Kalgoorlie Miner some anecdotes are coming back to me.

This one isn’t strictly related to the Miner, but I should be able to adapt it for the book somehow. Read more »

Tags: fiction, humor, myth, rumor, wacky
1 comment


28 April 2008

Car park warning

I start each work day with a smile thanks to lawyers who have an office at the back of our building.
Their private car park has a sign warning “offenders will be prosecuted” if they dare to park an “unauthorised” vehicle.

These guys normally defend people, but mess with their car park and they’ll turn Queen’s evidence in a blink.

Tags: humor, law, life
0 comments


9 March 2008

Newspaper mistakes

“Rotary supports bowel cancer” proclaimed the headline in the Golden Mail.

They were writing about the Bowelscan program, which aims to detect and prevent bowel cancer.

In the Kalgoorlie Miner this week we dropped a clanger by describing a vehicle which caught fire as a Holden when in fact it was a Falcon. That’s like calling a Muslim a Catholic.

Holden-loving revheads were quick to point out their fancies never spontaneously combust.

Tags: humor, Kalgoorlie, media, motoring
0 comments


5 March 2008

Grumpy old man

Juliet was watching Grumpy Old Men on pay television tonight and invited me to join her.

I declined, but conceded the title was me, especially at work these days. She kindly reassured me I wasn’t a grumpy old bloke and we discussed the program, which we had both seen previously.

I said I thought One Foot in the Grave (pictured) was a better characterisation of the theme. Juliet didn’t argue with that.

I do feel grumpy at times, but not to the extent caricatured. Denial is the first step towards acknowledgment, I believe.

Tags: family, humor, life, media, society, television
0 comments


4 March 2008

Great sporting streaks

Andrew Symonds shoulder charged a streaker at the Gabba tonight in a bone-jarring tackle more reminiscent of rugby than cricket.

It will send the otherwise ho-hum, yawn pitch invasion into the realms of sporting folklore. And let’s face it, a photograph or video footage is necessary to make a streak memorable.

There was a female streaker at the local cricket in Kalgoorlie on the weekend, but it’s unlikely to be spoken about in pubs or written about in blogs (except here).

Michael O’Brien’s streak (below) during a rugby international at Twickenham in 1974 was caught on film by Ian Bradshaw and made immortal.

Television doesn’t normally record streakers, but I seem to recall an exception being made for Helen D’Amico during the 1982 VFL grand final at the MCG. Super cool Bruce Doull (headband) was nonplussed.

And in New Zealand, Australian batsman Greg Chappell once spanked a streaker with his bat and was charged with assault.

Tags: Australia, cricket, humor, news, society, Sport
4 comments


27 February 2008

Python eats family pet

Overseas readers will be interested to know the story reported in the Cairns Post of a monster python stalking and devouring a family’s pet dog.

Daniel Peric said he now would not leave his two children, aged five and seven, alone in any part of the house, after the “enormous” python ate his silky terrier-cross chihuahua.

Mr Peric said in the weeks before, the family had found their cat’s body, which looked like something had attempted to swallow it and on Sunday a smaller python had eaten their pet guinea pig.

Add cyclones to the location risk, cane toads and various marine nasties, and you have to wonder why anyone would live in the tropical north.

Australia doesn’t have lions or other large animals of prey, but we do have plenty of hairy eight-legged creatures and slippery ones with fangs.

In the water, watch out for sharks, jellyfish and stingrays.

And as Baino wrote in her blog earlier this year, beware the Drop Bear. This great scary kangaroo pic came from there too.

Tags: Australia, environment, humor, nature, news, Queensland
1 comment