It’s Friday O’Clock

Fiona Uncategorized

… time to Shake, Raffle, and Roll!

What a week! Some highlights include …

Monday:
This may have slipped under most Pubkateers’ radars, but is very important news. The European Union will impose a two-year ban (starting 1 December) on three pesticides suspected of contributing to the global decline in the number of bees.

Tuesday:
The Netherlands has its first king in 120 years with the abdication of Queen Beatrix and the investiture of her son Willem-Alexander.


(Credit: Reuters – Robin Utrecht)

Wednesday:
Tsk tsk – the Nanny State (this time New Zealand) even controls children’s names.

Thursday:
Awwww! Lion cub triplets …

Friday:
At last – Samoa has been circumnavigated.


(Credit: kayak4youth)

I also understand that something happened about the NDIS, and the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement …

595 thoughts on “It’s Friday O’Clock”

  1. leonetwo,
    JGPM upped the ante today with some great visuals of Dr Napthine tearing up. Wonder if Tony & Peta have stopped by a Chemist today for some glycerine for tomorrow when he visits the disabled kiddies?
    😉

  4. muttley
    I had to have my last cat put down – at the grand age of 18 – six months ago. It’s not the first time I’ve had to say goodbye to a much-loved feline companion and every time it has happened it has become harder to deal with. I could adopt another kitty, there’s no real reason why not, I just think I’d rather not go through losing another pet. My little street is home to half a dozen cats who were once firmly kept away by the former feisty defender of her little realm. Now they are all regular visitors so I sort of have all the advantages of a cat without the vet’s bills and the anxiety.

    Rudyard Kipling (I’m a huge fan) wrote a poem about the way we love out pets and the sadness that comes when they die. I am always moved to tears when I read it, even though it’s about dogs it applies to all beloved pets.
    http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~rneville/dogpoem3.html

  9. Football? Dunno. I have less than zero interst in that stuff. Meatheads on steroids chasing balls around muddy paddocks – not for me.

  10. A follow-on from my earlier post about Abbott refusing to allow a Labor MP to join Tony’s Boys Only Big Bike-riding Trip Away.

    choosing ‏@ch150ch
    Hi @CatherineKingMP Is it true that #Abbott said you couldn’t participate in pollie pedal but said yes to your Liberal opponent ?

    Catherine King MP Catherine King MP ‏@CatherineKingMP 1h
    @ch150ch Yep. My office told numbers were capped but I could turn up at ‘community’ event in Clunes hosted by my opponent!!

    choosing ‏@ch150ch 1h
    @CatherineKingMP I wonder sometimes if #Abbott is capable of behaving decently.

    And then followed the usual troll abuse directed at Ms King and Julia Gillard which I will not post.Jjust let it be said that Liberal voters are a nasty, vicious bunch of knuckle-dragging, sexist morons. Just like their dear Leader, come to think of it.

  11. Leone,

    … a nasty, vicious bunch of knuckle-dragging, sexist morons …

    Your description warrants one more adjective: viscous. And the appellation for Mr Abbott deserves another capital: he is their Dear Leader …

    Puke.

  12. C@tmomma,
    If you do some research on breeds you should be able to find a cat breed that likes indoors and human company more than roaming around hunting. And as we have domesticated them, living inside with us is just as ‘natural’ for them as hunting. A lot of their toys and play mimics that anyway. If you think about it, you are recreating their natural environment, not providing it.

    Anyway, the standard rescue moggie will adapt to indoor and restricted garden life. Or get a dog. 🙂

  16. Tony Abbott, and the machine he has built around him, define the term, ‘Control Freak’.

    If I were the Labor Party I would box clever with Mr MeMeMe and set up an alternative Charity Bike Ride going in the other direction every day he is out on the road, with competing ‘events’ and all. Then dare the media not to cover me just as much as they do Abbott.

    Like Bushfire Bill said, you’ve got to mess with the media’s minds.

    If they refused to cover the ALP event to the same extent as the Liberal one, then you would have clear cut evidence of bias. Which is the sort of thing the public can’t ignore. Especially if you use social media to get the vision out of the competing event. They even market cameras you can attach to your helmet and film yourself as you ride your bicycle.

    Tony Abbott does NOT have copyright on bike riding or charity fund-raising.

    In fact, the last time Mr Abbott became truly discombobulated was when Bill Shorten showed up at an event Abbott was competing at, and beat him soundly! You could hear the air fair coming out of Abbott’s ego that day. 😀

    The more of that the better.

  20. PuffyTMD,
    I tried the Woofle Dust and it disappeared! But no picture appeared in it’s place. I suggest google images. 🙂

  21. PuffyTMD,

    Who made Abbott organiser of the event?

    Tony Abbott, actually, and Dr Andrew Laming. They came up with the idea between them.

  22. Puffy,

    We live next door to two Ragdolls, Lily

    and Diddle

    (the photographs are approximations only – not of the specific felines).

    Over the last couple of years, both animals have taken to spending even more time in our garden, because of the advent in THEIR territory of one Olive, a shih tsu-poodle cross who, apart from being a vociferous barker, also tried to play with two relatively elderly and set in their ways cats.

    Diddle is a constant delight: any time I’m putting out / bringing in the washing, he decides after about 5 minutes that I’m disturbing his peace under the japonica bush. So he stalks past me at the clothesline, and down the path to the front garden, studiously not looking at me.

    They share the IQ of half a lettuce leaf. Give me dogs any day!

  23. About indoor cats – one of my new furry visitors is a ragdoll cat. This breed really should be kept indoors, they are very friendly, trusting and too innocent for their own good. Being allowed to be free-range is dangerous for them. If I had to have a cat that had to stay indoors then this is the breed I’d go for.

    If I was to get another cat I’d have a cat-run built outside with access through a cat flap so the cat could be outside but still be contained and safe. We’ve had new fences put in since the last cats were kittens, the new fences have huge spaces that allow easy access for dogs and my yard is no longer safe or escape-proof for kittens.

  25. Tim Matheison did a bike ride for charity a couple of weeks ago and the OM didn’t say a word until he almost killed himself on the last stretch. I’m beginning to think that Tim – an experienced rider of whopping huge motor bikes, not the pussy little girly push bikes that Abbott uses – did it on purpose to get some media attention.

  26. Fiona
    I will admit that my friend Charlie is not too bright, but he is so damned cute everyone is happy to overlook his lack of intellect.

  27. Tim should have taken JGPM as pillion. THAT would have made the media wake up!

    Though they would probably have only made derisory remarks.

  28. Leone,

    Your friend Charlie sounds like a charmer. Diddle is also cute, and very funny, so I cut him some slack. Except when he gets a bird. Then he is hosed out of our grounds every time I see him.

  29. In reply to an earlier post, about people in the disability sector voting Tory.
    Yep, while some may change their vote, don’t expect much gratitude. There are Left, Right, Green, Looney, all sorts, just like voters in general.

    I could but won’t relay stories of intercine warfare, bullying, intrigue, metaphorical and real fights, reputation trashing, take-overs, discrimation…all the hallmarks of a Shakespearean play crossed with and episode of The Office that went/go on in the diverse and fragmented social area loosely described as the disability sector.

    For example, for decades the physical disability crowd did not want a bar of the intellectual disability crowd because they did not want anyone thinking there was anything wrong with their brain. To be blunt it was bad enough being looked at as a ‘cr!pple’ without being thought of as a ‘m0r0n’ as well. “I only lost a leg”.

    Ditto acquired brain injury (a lot from motorbike accidents), “I wasn’t born this way”… Intellectual disability was the near the bottom of the heap, with mental health disabilities being the mud under the heap.

    These days I think it is a lot better, probably because there is less need to fight for limited resources, and the few charity dollars there are about. The NDIS should help too.

    So don’t expect that people with disabilities and/or families who vote LNP to suddenly change their vote.

    People with disabilities are not grateful because they have gained a right, not been given a gift. Some may respect the ALP and be thankful that someone has finally done something that shoud’ve been done a decade ago during the boom, but others will just say, ‘About bloody time’, and vote LNP.

  30. C@tmomma,

    What if PM Gillard was controlling the throttle, with Mr Mathieson pillion?

    Sort of serendipitous: me mum and I were discussing names the other day, and we both agreed that “Tim” was NOT a good name for a male, “Timmy” being even worse. Yet I have no problems at all about Mr Mathieson’s given name.

  31. I can honestly say that none of my cats ever caught anything other than mice, rats and those nasty Indian Mynahs. I know this because the whole lot of them insisted on bringing their kill home for inspection. Except ‘kill’ usually wasn’t an exact description. Slightly stunned is more like it. I can’t tell you how many dazed and confused mice I’ve had to delicately throw out the door. And then there was the time Woody the brown tabby caught his first and only bird (it was raining and the poor thing was too waterlogged to fly away) and, fastidious little moggy that he was, brought it inside and dleicately placed it in his food bowl. I think he wanted me to kill it, pluck and gut it and cook it in a nice creamy sauce.

  34. puffy
    I agree with every word. There is this perception among ‘normal’ people, especially Labor voters, that having a disability or being the parent of someone with a disability just has to make you a nice person. Pig’s arske it does.There are just as many feral people involved in the disability area as anywhere else. Maybe even more.

    Bob Ellis, for example, has fallen for this. In his latest work, linked earlier today, he referred to ‘the 1.5 million disability votes’ helping the government. In your dreams, Bob.

  35. I can just see Emmo on a Harley. Why doesn’t Tim organise a Labor bkiers trip for charity.

  36. Puffy,

    People with disabilities are people. As you correctly point out, their likes, dislikes, political preferences, etc., are as diverse as those of all people.

    However, there is one thing that people with disabilities resent: the assumption that they are disabled in every way.

    I have strabismus. This was picked up very early by my astute parents, and I wore a patch from about the age of 2 until 12 or so. I had “corrective” surgery at 5 years of age, which, unfortunately, was unsuccessful (hence the continuation of the patching – and of the frustrating exercises with the optician of trying to put the stupid cup onto the stupid saucer etc etc). So for almost all of my life I have had double vision (quadruple when having had a bit too much alcohol … or so I like to pretend).

    One interesting effect of wearing a patch for all those years was observing the reactions of people around me. I cannot tell you how many times I heard children asking a parent “What’s wrong with that girl?”, or having adults ask my parent(s) what was “wrong” with me – assuming that if I had a defect with my vision therefore all my other faculties were impaired.

    As far as I’m concerned, it’s not a disability: there are ways around it. But that decade – when I was so young – of being regarded by so many people as a freak has affected me for life. In the best possible way, of course.

  38. fiona,

    Excuse me for interrupting your conversation with cat but your last paragraph struck a nerve with me ( as they say ).

    I have had a stutter my whole life. It was really bad when I was young and I still remember the reactions I used to get from people.

    It was never a matter of people looking at me and saying ” what is wrong with him ” but more a matter of people talking to me or overhearing me and saying ” what is wrong with him ”

    People either laughed at me, looked away as I spoke or, the one I loved the best, tried to finish my sentence for me.

    In a strange way it was the best thing to happen to me. It made me independent ( I was a only child as well ), very comfortable with my own company and very determined

    I still stutter but it is just part of who I am now so no drama at all but I just connected with your last paragraph.

    Cheers.

  40. Fiona
    When my boys were very small we went on a family holiday to Fiji . (My beautiful daughter has never forgiven her father and me for not waiting unti she had arrived before we went.). My eldest has physical disabilities. One thing really hit us from day one in Fiji. There we were, with two little blond boys in strollers, guaranteed to attract attention when we ventured off the usual tourist routes. The locals would spot that one had problems. Instead of doing what Aussies always did -pretending not to notice and scurrying off – these lovely people came straight up to us and simply asked ‘what happened to him?’ When we explained it was something he was born with they were so openly warm and accepting. I loved their attitude and their willngness to accept a difference. We could all learn a lot from them.

  41. Sorry puffy.

    I can’t resist – what about Jason Clare in leathers on a Harley? That western suburbs background makes it all work so well….. Or maybe Mark Dreyfus as a silver fox biker?

  42. That makes two of us with Strabismus! Those bloody eye exercises! I had a card that I had to put on the tip of my nose and then follow the markers on it up and down, up and down, up and bleedin’ down again! I gave it up as a bad joke after a few years of going to the Eye Hospital for this and other exercises, to pretty much no avail I think.

    Now I’m of the opinion that if I can see OK, who cares what people think? In the end it never stopped me getting my fair share of boyfriends, which was all that counted. 😉

  44. Doyley,

    As far as I’m concerned all conversations at The Pub are open for everyone to join!

    I think that you have had a much harder row to hoe than mine.

    Patience, and tolerance, and shutting the #$%^ up when encountering something unexpected are things I’d like to see taught to everyone.

    Many hugs, m’dear.

  46. Who knew public toillets catered for Daleks? A clever fiddle with a shower sign at Paddington station in London and…

  47. Puffy,

    Do you mean ter say that I’ve been pouring octuple brandies?

    Well, that might explain a few things.

    As for Emmo and Mark Butler – and whaddabout Jason Clare – swoon territory plus!

  48. Pyne seems to have vanished. No-one has seen him or heard a peep from him for weeks. Not that I’m complaining. Now I know why – he has come a cropper at his local skate park.

    Rumour has it that Pyne is lying low – issues involving promises made, favours done, pipers demanding to be paid…..

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