goblins are news at the daily telegraph

I’m really not sure how even the Tele’s slap-happy editors let this one past. The English is fine in the first paragraph then quickly deteriorates. But the story itself… I’m as intrigued by the idea of snakes wearing shoes as I am by goblins, and the photo is bizarre and clearly nothing to do with the events described.

Gang of snakelike goblins wearing sunglasses, suits and shoes terrorise frightened family

The comments say it all, really…

eek! another party

Housemate Mirjam has announced another party. I swear she only does it to make me clean up. I haven’t yet, but we did at least have a garage sale today and got rid of a satisfactory amount of, um, stuff. But the party. It’s on Saturday a week from today and she’s given it a theme which is, wait for it – bad taste. I think this is not in very good taste, myself, but I could be missing the point. I’m figuring this theme will at least have the advantage of encouraging the loosening of inhibitions (along with the punch, of course). I expect we’ll organise prizes then get too trashed to give them out; it is bad taste, after all. I haven’t been to a bad taste party since I was a teenager. At that party I wore a boy’s school uniform complete with cap, and pigtails, and someone brought a trifle that looked like a green jelly swamp, with a little gumby doll drowning in it. We ate it, except for the gumby doll, which was plastic. The trifle was delicious, so the bad taste bit was purely aesthetic.

In terms of interpretation of the dress code, I think the advice would all trend the same way: go to town, go the whole hat, get your sartorial sinner on. I think we will have some of the more vulgar cocktails available, including mai tais (so refreshing in autumn), and we’re looking for a Twister mat. I might also do some of those little cocktail frankfurts on sticks, and, ooh yes, those teensy red and green onions with cubes of cheddar. Feel free to bring your poison of choice and let us know in advance if you need somewhere to crash. There may be assorted unpredictable occurrences; there usually are.

Any questions, call, txt or email me.

heathen scripture

I know, I know, I’m being really slack at the moment. Bear with me; the novel is powering along under considerable pressure; an online component is likely to emerge in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, let me direct you to Geoff Lemon, a Melbourne blogger that every Australian should read:

heathenscripture.wordpress.com

Thanks to Eug for the link – this dude’s going viral as we speak.

By the way, hope you’ve all seen the footage of the Cream Pie Incident, complete with Wendi Deng getting airborne on the way to delivering the culprit an extremely fast-response whack. Priceless.

I hope she’s a little less volatile with her children.

how very, very interesting

Have you ever heard of the Lyons Forum?

Fortunately its heyday is over, as the Wikipedia entry tells us.

trumping even bush

Donald Trump, real estate developer and TV showman, tells a crowd of supporters in a Las Vegas casino how he would run the country if he were president.

Discussing trade, he said he would tell China’s leaders, “Listen you motherf——, we’re going to tax you 25 percent.”

“If I run and if I win,” he told the crowd, “we will have a rich country again.”

Americans fall for this shit in great numbers. Sit back, folks, and grab the popcorn - the circus has begun.

through looking-glass with tea party, says redfern hostess

NEWS FROM PEMBROKE/TINY RHINOS

including an imminent party to which you are very probably invited – read on…

It may have been the last thing on my mind, back a couple of months ago, but the terrace was much in need of a gardener (as Mirjam could tell you). And then I went for a holiday by a quiet beach in Hipparkia (the) Kombi, and bumped into one. Organising a music event, he was. Hard and nut-brown in nothing but a pair of cargo shorts. Jawbone you could cut your tongue on, silver-dark hair. Used to be a surfie. Likes a smoke.

What’s a girl to do?

Been spending a lot of time talking, laughing, cooking, walking, swimming, much of it unclad. Idyllic, wot? That quiet beach (the locals told me not to tell anyone about it) is becoming quite a distraction.

But you should see my terrace. Nut-brown gardener and I have been doing some night gardening (since work still keeps me to vampire hours), and by some arcane magic there is more space, more greenery, more flowers and features, more fairy lights and, blow me down, a very sweet fountain. We must, I said weeks ago, have a party.

Yes I did, and so we set the date of the party, Mirjam and I and the green magic man Al, but we left the details loose, and my vampire hours confused me in my intention to have at least some of the party in the garden in daylight although I’m only up in the morning and in any case the rain seems to have set in.

*sigh*

I’d put the whole thing off, I’m so disorganised and the long-range forecast is shite, but Mirjam, very reasonably since it’s only a week away, has already invited people. Oh, and we did kind of agree it would have some kind of Mad Hatter’s Tea Party theme, so she told them that too. Which means a party of that persuasion is happening in my house a week from tonight and I’d better get my head – and my friends’ heads – around it.

SO HERE’S WHAT I FIGURE

The party will go from 9pm till around the middle of the next day. These are my normal waking hours, so I can look after late-night trashbags of all sorts and see things through smoothly. There’ll be several stages.

The evening will be themed most strongly – this means, according to our house rules, that if you turn up before midnight you must be dressed to theme or consent to be dressed by the house. After midnight this service is optional.

The theme

Through Looking-Glass with Tea Party

(I know, I’ve been reading too many headlines lately)

9pm

I wish to reclaim the tea party from those evil, right-wing Americans, partly by adding various superior intoxicants. There will, for example, be punch. Schnapps. Assorted teas of course, good coffee, finger food. Lewis Carroll’s two Alice books as a dress theme should further add, what can I say, a scholarly respectability. Think rabbits, kittens, cards, chess pieces, top hats and perverse Victoriana. Walrus, Carpenter, Wasp in a Wig. Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Jabberwocky, if you dare. Bandersnatch.

4am

Parties usually simmer down to the hardcore somewhere around 4. We’ll have braziers on the terrace, so smokers and talkers will be cosy, and inside there are plenty of soft places and spare blankets for any who want to crash here rather than on the road. There will also, according to theme, be cards and a chessboard.

7am

For those other night creatures arriving from work after 7am, we have the Grand Weekend Legless Breakfast – beer, wine, cocktails if there’s any left. Weather permitting, this will centre on the terrace (free vitamin D with every drink), and roll right on into…

10ish am

A late-morning bacon-egg-and-vego feast. Daytime folks who did or didn’t come the night before are also welcome to the big brunch…

And… simultaneously we will have, for those still in Wonderland or wishing they were, Afternoon Tea in the Morning – assorted teas, espresso coffee, bread and butter, fruit – cake, if you’re lucky. Mix and match. Put your top hat on.

It’ll only get messy if it rains and we all have to crowd onto one big table.

All contributions to table and bar welcome.

If you want to play a set or share an idea, get in touch.

If you want to be there and haven’t been smsed or emailed, get in touch.

Otherwise, see you through the mirror.

Costume ideas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_the_Looking-Glass

president obama, call off your dogs

Please go to avaaz.org and sign the petition requesting the US government to stop the torture of Bradley Manning for releasing documents to Wikileaks.

I’m having trouble with their website; let me know if you have similar. On my Mac laptop, any type of sign/send operation clicks through to a blank page.

one for the roos

The big kangaroos are highly sensitive and sentient entities with clear tribal social structures and complex modes of communication. I inadvertently confronted a mob once, on the edge of their territory, and got a strong sense of guarded but non-aggressive warning.

As of last March, it appears they feel the need to reclaim Mt Ainslie.

I eat kangaroo because Aboriginal people do, and because it’s delicious. And like most Aboriginal people, I presume, I don’t do it often and I don’t do it unmindfully. I really like the idea of a large kangaroo mob maintaining a bareknuckle defense of Mt Ainslie – or, for that matter, the idea of one big irascible grey powering up the hill, sideswiping and then laying out some random male human, out of sheer angry contempt…

assange for australian of the year

“You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can’t lead to a good conclusion.”                                                                                      – Julian Assange

Russia wants him nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize; it may be an idle political sally but we should definitely start with Australian of the Year. Click on the link, then fill fields and select buttons as the choices dictate until you get to the big window for ‘tell us about your nominee’. By the way, Assange’s home if not his residence is Parkville, Victoria, and towards the end of the form you will need to nominate a referee.

Here’s what I put for the case. Copy, adapt, extract as you please. Or write your own.

Aside from his formidable technical skills, Julian Assange has shown unparalleled courage in the face of some of the most powerful, arrogant, and merciless opponents in the world. His determination and capacity to enforce government transparency is nothing short of revolutionary, and as a revolutionary he will be hated and hunted by those powers he challenges – even though, or perhaps because – the principles he is enforcing on them are their own.

Justice, democracy, integrity, open-handed diplomacy: the marks of civilisation have become meaningless logos on the sides of global juggernauts. More than anyone has been able so far, Julian Assange has shown the world how the Internet can intervene in the hypocrisies of power, and since this intervention is a necessary step on the way to true justice and even ultimate human happiness – indeed, to much of a future for the human race at all – he should be lauded as a hero.

Moreover, the man is an icon already. In many ways this twenty-first-century larrikin, so dry he’s astringent, could only have come out of Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald called him “the Ned Kelly of the digital age”, Amnesty and others have given him awards, Russia suggests the Nobel Peace Prize, but Assange remains razor-sharp, dead-cool, totally fair and exquisitely modest. Julian Assange is a true Australian hero – he does us proud, he makes us proud, and he deserves to be Australian of the Year. Furthermore, he is increasingly and urgently in need of our support.

an open letter to julia gillard re julian assange

On abc.net.au by Jeff Sparrow and Elizabeth O’Shea. Comments were disabled when I visited, but I urge you to read it and comment here. Thanks to Bluehigh for the link.

And then here is the avaaz petition.