Oh, Joy(ce)!

 The electoral division in which I currently domicile is New England. A majestic mountain range oversees this land of the Kamilaroi people. Guess what we've also got? Barnaby Joyce. Oh, happy day; how lucky we are! *Cough* - sarcasm! - *cough*. 

I don't know whether to feel pity (drinking problems are serious and should be treated accordingly), amusement, or contempt. But knowing me, I will run with contempt.

Barnaby is a boorish boofheaded bosthoon who can count amongst his ignominious achievements:

1. Pushing back on making available a potentially life-saving cervical cancer vaccine on his flawed reasoning it would encourage promiscuity (Barnaby, that's not how vaccines work and if someone DID become promiscuous, so bloody what?). 

2. Pushing back on allowing same-sex marriage on the grounds it would detrimentally impact his daughters' chances of marriage (Barnaby, who do you think gay men are marrying? It's not straight women, okay? This narrative makes no sense whatsoever). 

In case you haven't heard, which is a distinct possibility because the Murdoch press fawns all over the Libs and their ilk, Barnaby Joyce was filmed lying pig-drunk on the side of the road swearing into his mobile phone. I don't recall seeing any headlines demanding his resignation, whereas if this were a Labor or Teal pollie, especially a WOMAN, I'm certain there would be demands, capitalised and in the boldest font possible, for that person to leave the country, never mind the office. 

Oscar Wilde has a quote wherein he alludes we're all in the gutter, but some are looking at the stars. Barnaby was just slurring swears into his phone. 

Do I think this (literal!) guttersnipe should resign for his drunkenness? No, I don't. Do I think he should seek help? I don't know because I'm not qualified to diagnose him with alcoholism. However, he does come across as a gauche pisshead with no social ideas whatsoever, so maybe speak to his spin doctors about THAT. Also, if he is habitually drinking himself to this state, and I said 'if', then he should do something about it. 'Do something' means get dried out, not drink more. 

I do think the man should resign because his policies hurt the female and LGBTQI community. Also, there's that little matter of his totally dogshit performance as drought envoy. 

His wife has complained about people filming and not helping. I see her point. But maybe passers-by recognised the slurring sloshed slob as Barnaby and didn't want to go near him. 

I've never thought of Canberra as being a rough place, but I would like to know that if I did visit again, I could walk the streets at night without fear of tripping over some drunken prone politician. 

Waiter, there's a ...

 It's fun to write about the things that irritate, grind one's gears, even boil one's piss, as it were. I'm a bit like this with Facebook cartoon avatars that depict the account owner bellowing into a bullhorn when said account holder is making a statement. I honestly don't know why, but they make me frown. The game Monopoly bugs me, it is phenomenally boring and goes on and on and on. It is a turd that won't flush, and I will not be enticed into playing it 

I felt bugged on Christmas Day watching Love Actually. I think I wanted to engage in a Christmas tradition, and yeah, I got irritated. I refuse to suspend my belief that the Kris Marshall character will fly to America and nail three good-looking women (although in fairness, they were all as dumb as a box of hair). And I haven't even started on my irritation at Sarah for not turning off her phone and jumping Karl's bones. 

But there is nothing quite so annoying as anticipating a pleasant luncheon date, only to have it go completely pear-shaped. This happened to me, my husband, and our eldest son yesterday. As an aside, our younger son had his own moment of irritation when the drone he had been given for Christmas took off in the wind like a demented Mary Poppins. He was somewhat despondent, but after some scouring of the neighbouring streets, his gift was located, albeit with a slightly chewed blade, courtesy of some mutt. 

But getting back to the lunch: we visited a local eatery, which I now realise should be recategorised as a chew-and-spew, and duly ordered or meals. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, my husband spoke to management. It transpired that our order had been misplaced. When the meals arrived, closer to afternoon teatime than lunch, it was discovered my husband's steak had not been cooked to his specifications. But imagine this scene:

Husband: 'This isn't cooked properly; I'm sending it back-' (eyes protruding from the sockets like deployed airbags) '- Jesus Christ!' 

Me (eyes also widening): "What the fuck?"

Son: "Bloody hell!"

And what brought on this abjection? Well, traversing its confused way through the shredded lettuce in the side salad, waving its hairsbreadth legs with trepidation, was a frigging SPIDER! Not a huge hunstman or anything like that, but an arachnoid in the salad is an arachnoid in the salad. It has raised the bar from the old 'There's a fly in my soup!' trope. 

That meal was sent back faster than Usain Bolt chasing after a bus. 

When Dagginess Becomes Grotesquerie

'Daggy' is a great adjective in the Australian vernacular. It's often applied to something that is awkwardly inept and uncool, and from this author's observations, has an almost grudging affection behind its use as a label on things that are naff or substandard on the scale of what is deemed socially acceptable. 

On the flipside, I was thinking about the word today in context with a song that was played on the radio as I was driving around. It is one I recall from my high school years, and when I was in high school during its heyday, I didn't like it. And you know what? The years have not mellowed my intense dislike of this asinine tune. You are no doubt wondering to what tune I refer, so wonder no more: Shy Boy by Bananarama. Why do I dislike it? It's daggy, and not the good kind of daggy that can be a fun and kitschy guilty pleasure. This song blows. It's just a boring tune that occasionally deviates from boring to pissy. Listening to it is like wading through a morass of banality, almost toppling Wings' Mull of Kintyre for its power to simultaneously annoy and send you into a catatonic state through its boring mediocrity. It takes meh to a new low level of meh-ness.

The dagginess of that torpid tune flatlines when compared to the show my husband and I partially saw on the weekend. I say 'partially' because we only saw part of it. We left during interval because it totally broke and recreated the paradigm for sheer dag. I don't want to give too much away, in the interests of privacy, but after seeing an advertisement for a show, we were under the impression there would be a band and singers performing classic pop tunes from the Fifties and Sixties - a tribute show to the era. What we were given was two singers (possibly a married couple) with a karoake type machine. Let me tell you, my friends: It...was...CRINGE. The banter between them was embarrassing, and the woman's stage movements made Peter Garrett looks like Nureyev. They exchanged lamentable witticisms and executed dance moves that conjured up visions of tacky drunken aunties and uncles at a wedding. Don't get me wrong, they were fantastic vocalists. We couldn't fault that aspect of the show. But the tide of ignominy became too torrential to navigate and we did not want to drown in that dreadful sea. When the lights came up at halftime, we scarpered for the exit. When we were safely away from the grotesquerie, I said to my husband, 'What a pair of dorks!'

Yes, I do like a bit of dagginess at times; I'm a woman whose iTunes playlist has Paper Lace and the De Franco Family. Put on YMCA, and I will be there busting out the moves. But the dagginess to which I have lately been subjected is at level so alarming, I fear crutching may be required.

The One Where I Mention Kiss & Matthew Perry

I've been meaning to get back into blogging for ages, but I seem to be mired in other stuff. The other stuff generally revolves around work and study, the latter of which is going exceedingly well: two High Distinctions for assessments on teaching creatively and teaching children to read. My real-life creative teaching experiences entailed using a Kiss song to demonstrate trochaic word patters in poety and how they make the piece 'pop' for the reader. When I was on prac, I played Shout It Out Loud whilst cleaning the whiteboard to demonstrate my point. I never thought I'd contextualise Kiss with TS Eliot, but this is exactly what I did.

And speaking of the garishly bedaubed quartet, I saw them! Yeppers, I travelled to Sydney with my two sons, and a friend of my oldest son, playing Destroyer as I drove. I was reminded of that late Nineties flick, Detroit Rock City, which tells of four friends endeavouring to get to a Kiss concert after the misguided mother of one of them burns their tickets. Look, the film is no Citizen Kane, but it's enjoyable enough in a mindless way. I was reminded of the movie because we were blaring Kiss songs, as well as the fact my nineteen-year-old, who has long hair, looked a bit like the James DeBello character in Detroit Rock City. Of course, there was a glaring difference: the mother in this scenario was not going to stop her offspring and their friends enjoying the concert. Au contraire, she was tagging along to rock out, too! As an aside, my cousin and one of his sons came along with us. And oh-my-freaking-lord, what great concert it was. 

The death of actor Matthew Perry has really bummed me out. Feeling saddened is not unusual for me; the sudden death of a still-young person is sad. But Perry's death really put me in a funk. I don't know why; I'm not a huge Friends fan. I watched if I couldn't be bothered channel-surfing, but the show was never a must-see for me. I hated Ross and Rachel with the intensity of a small sun. What a whiny prat she was and what an imbecile he was! Maybe I'm cracking the sads because Chandler, the character played by Perry, was my favourite on the show. 

Perry's death has brought out the virtue signalling snot balls on the Internet. I read a tweet from someone who felt it imperative to point out to be careful about what was shared about Perry because, according to this sook, Chandler on Friends made comments that could be construed as hurtful to the LGBTQI community. Uh, Friends was made in the Nineties, everyone (in case some of you missed it). And correct me if I'm wrong, but this show featured a lesbian couple raising a son. I don't know if Chandler made many transphobic comments regarding the issue he had with his father, who performed in a Les Girls type of cabaret, and who was played by Kathleen Turner.  A lot of shows from decades gone by could be considered problematic, if one looks hard enough. What's that they say? Seek and ye shall find. So, being of somewhat sensible persuasion, I replied to this clown, asking was he aware that Matthew Perry was an ACTOR reciting lines for which he was not responsible? For my trouble, I found myself unable to view any more of this gronk's tweets. 

Oh well, I better get on with my studying.

Rock on, Kiss; and RIP, Matthew Perry. 

If the shoe fits, make sure it complies with footwear regulations

 Things I can pretty much do without at the moment:

1. Seeing in my newsfeed an article about some entitled uber-Karen in the UK who's cracked the shits and the sads because her precious kid was sent home on her first day of secondary school for having inappropriate footwear. She sent her daughter to school in a pair of Vivienne Westwood pumps, which - colour me flabbergasted! - are NOT school uniform. Gee, who'd-a thunk it? It seems the daughter has worn this style of footwear in primary, but the secondary school have advised it's a contravention of their WHS policies. I can understand that; the students are probably doing more design and technology subjects, or potentially hazardous experiments in the science labs, that were not part of their everyday activities in primary. The school advised the moaning mama that footwear must cover the top of the foot, which pumps don't. I guess this woman thinks it's okay to have these pumps because of the cute logo on them. 

Her grievances at the school's enforcement of their rules includes the children being treated like 'they're in the army'; and having to 'do this and that and wear this and that'. 

Um, does she actually know how schools operate? They have rules and are entitled to enforce them. She enrolled her sprog in the school and should therefore comply with the rules, which, when one looks at them objectively, are fairly typical. They are not unreasonable. But Mumsie here doesn't get that concept and is refusing to send her poor hard-done-by crotch-fruit back to the school. 

Listen, lady: if you can afford a pair of Vivienne Westwood shoes, then you can afford a pair of Bata Scouts that will comply with regulations and keep the kid's foot safe. (Do they still make Bata Scouts?). 

I seriously cannot understand the mindset of people who have a situation explained, and it's a SAFETY issue, but still take to the Internet in shouty capital letters about their cHiLd'S rIgHtS. Yes, kids have rights. Those rights include food, shelter, education, play, and the right to not sustain injury from a dropped piece of apparatus in the science lab because they're wearing a shoe designed by a woman who shagged Malcolm McLaren.

Yeah, I shouldn't give this woman my time, but the hill upon which she is choosing to die is so...damn...POINTLESS! I honestly feel very sorry for her kid, who's had her photo plastered on the Internet (and she's wearing the offending footwear), because her mother just doesn't get it. This is a true 'Gee, Ma. Do I hafta?' situation. 

2. The other thing I can do without at the moment is hearing Livin; on a Prayer by Bon Jovi for the fifty-seventh time this week.  I didn't mind the song when it first came out, but because I listen to AM radio, it seems to get a spin at least three times a day. Surely to God Tommy's got his bloody guitar out of hock now, the union's declared a resumption of work, and the dock's been knocked down or replaced by a waterfront restaurant. Can someone please let this song die already?

Oh well, I will now tackle some study. I've experienced a hiccup in an area of the course and it's created a funk of despondency in me.  Tomorrow might be a doona day, who knows? Hide under the doona, peeping out like a frightened animal to watch Netflix. 

Have you HEARD about this series?

This afternoon, I settled myself with a cup of tea and checked out the latest additions to Netflix. I'm partial to the odd docuseries, and have an interest in legal systems, so thought I'd have a look at the new docuseries focusing on the John Depp and Amber Heard defamation case wherein Depp was the plaintiff. If you haven't heard of this series, it's courtroom footage of the two parties giving evidence, as well as the witnesses. It's been edited so we don't see one l-o-o-o-ng episode of just one witness speaking; instead, it's cut and spliced in a kind of he-said-she-said presentation. Artistically, this is a good idea because in theory, it stops the viewer becoming bored.

But there is a problem, at least with this viewer (the one sitting here typing): I WAS bored. I have watched one episode and do not think I will waste time on the subsequent two. I am not going to contact the producer and demand that forty-one minutes of my life back, after all, I took the risk when I clicked 'play' - it's the old 'you pays your money, you makes your choice' scenario. 

Yeah, I know. It's potentially salacious stuff; it involves two celebrities, together with alleged substance abuse, alleged spousal abuse, and someone allegedly taking a dump on Depp's pillow. But I guess I'm feeling a wave of ennui and scepticism at this pair of ass-clowns. Don't get me wrong, I have always liked Depp as an actor, but these entitled Hollywood twats both lost me with their sorry-not-sorry apology for not declaring their ugly thyroidal lab-rat-lookalike mutts that time. I can cope with a genuine error on their part, but it was their entitlement afterwards. 'How dare we not be treated with total veneration and subservience and crawly-bum-lick - don't these people know we're FAMOUS ACTORS?' 

I don't care who people are - if you fuck up, own it and apologise! Genuinely apologise, that is. 

Anyway, I don't know if either of these people are abusers - I wasn't there. Furthermore, I really don't think I will be there for the remaining episodes. 

Now I have to find something else to watch. 

Hesperus & H-Bombs

 If my calculations are correct, then I will likely have that scrolled parchment (or a facsimile thereof) in my hands in just under a year. Yes, I will have confirmation that I hold a Bachelor of Education degree, making me a qualified high school English teacher (and not a moment too soon, given the atrocious spelling and punctuation I see in Facebook postings). To be honest, I don't know what's worse: the lamentable level of literacy or the underlying messages contained in these posts. Peeps, the ramblings of some nincompoop in a Tik Tok film clip hardly equates to a peer-reviewed scientific journal, okay?

Life has been busy. This has involved what seems insurmountable stress at times, but there has been fun. Let's focus on the fun. One of my university assessments requires me to imagine a piece of text as a short film. Not only do I have to imagine it, but I must also CREATE the film, along with a report explaining camera angles, diegetic elements, and all that blah-blah-blahdy-blah about which I have been learning. 

The text I have chosen is Longfellow's The Wreck of the Hesperus. I am not going to go to the extreme of crashing a fishing boat in the river of my town, but a call on Facebook for props and wannabe actors led to a kindly man offering me use of his miniature model ship. I took footage on my phone, wobbling the phone a little, and yes, it does look like the boat is sailing in a cataclysmic storm. A lady lent me a pipe that belonged to her late father, and it became a prop for the vainglorious sea captain in this piece. 

What has been really fun was filming Mr Bingells, who stepped out of his comfort zone to play the ancient sailor who warns the captain there is likely a hurricane approaching, so please put the ship in 'yonder port'. The captain was played by another guy I know, who does have a theatrical bent, but this was all new for Mr Bingells. Mr Bingells stepped up admirably. He even interpreted the character in a way I hadn't - my thoughts were that the old sailor might be timorous in his pleas to the foolhardy skipper - but Mr Bingells' motivation was fury and anger that this dunderhead paid no heed to the warnings of a very experienced sailor. 

Although I am using non-diegesis without spoken dialogue, Mr Bingells' improvised rehearsals involved him scolding the captain with words to the effect: 'You fucking idiot! There was a ring around the moon last night! Where's the moon now? There isn't one! There's a storm coming!' 

When we discussed his contributions later, Mr Bingells wondered how his dialogue would have fit in the source material. I am of the view that Longfellow did not have the older sailor address the captain thus because it is kind of difficult to work that speech into the traditional tetrameter-trimeter pattern particular to this ballad style of poetry. 

Yesterday, I filmed a young girl who had volunteered to play the daughter whom the captain had tied to the mast. She did well, praying in earnest for her salvation from the storm, as required in the narrative. 

Really, even though it was study, it has been something of a hoot. 

The other activity in which I engaged to distract myself from the stress that is modern life was to treat myself to a movie last night: Oppenheimer. I thought it was magnificent. 

Oh well, I'd best away. Chat soon.