Think Outside the Ballot Box

It’s election week. That special time, once every three years, when we get to wield our democratic power in a cardboard booth with a little pencil. However, deciding who to vote for is never easy. Elections can be very confusing and a bit boring. Let’s face it, making politics interesting is like trying to make Jesus ‘cool’ for teenagers. Many try but it only ends up being awkward for everyone. So, in an effort to help you sort through the rhetoric I have written a straight forward glossary to explain some of the more common political terms and hopefully give you a solid understanding of how it all works.

Poll: What bogan girls dance on to get fit.
Election: What may result from watching the girls on the poll.
Vote: What you do to keep contestants in reality TV shows.
Informal Vote: Wearing shorts to the polling place.
Debate: What politicians use to lure voters onto de-hook.
Campaign: What politicians drink to celebrate after they win.
Candidate: The person you don’t recognise who is standing next to Kevin or John on your How to Vote card.
Mandate: Political prerogative, so called because it is like going on a date with a chauvinist man, that is, you’re stuck with someone who makes all the decisions whether you like them or not.
Interest Rates: A numerical index to represent people’s interest in politics. Historically the higher the index, the more people are interested in what the government does. When the index is low people will be more interested in their big screen TVs.
Prime Minister: A minister that can only be divided evenly by one and itself.
Treasurer: The person responsible when the economy is going well.
International Financial Pressure: The thing responsible when the economy is going bad.
Inflation: The increase in self esteem the Treasurer feels when the economy is going well.
Government: The people who run the country.
Big Business: The people who run the Government.
Opposition: Identical to the government except for the banner they stand in front of.
Parliament: 70s funk band.
Parliament House: Type of dance music remixed from 70s funk tracks.
Trade Union Movement: The noise in the cupboard that Kevin Rudd doesn’t want you to hear.
Labor Party: The spelling indicates that it is not to be confused with ‘work’. Labor is a party with no time for ‘U’.
Liberal Party: Spelling is also important here. The big ‘L’ means the word is opposite to its normal meaning. This party is also Honest, Fair and Good for the country.
Greens: What your Mum told you to eat if you want to be big and strong. They probably are good for you but they make a pretty lightweight meal on their own.
Democrats: Mythical party who some believe still exists. The name is derived from the equally mythical term ‘democracy’.
Independent: Someone who can’t find enough friends to have a party.

Hopefully this has helped clear things up. And, on a personal note, please remember that in some countries people have to fight and die for their right to vote. Your vote is precious and vital. If you waste it, Matt Corby may not win Idol. Please vote now!

Gotta Love It!

Back in April Melbourne comedian Matt Elsbury asked me if I’d like to do a show with him based on love and hate. He very kindly offered me the ‘love’ half of the show as he wasn’t sure that he could get through half an hour without hating something. Because I had just finished a run of my show ‘Happy’, Matt reasonably assumed that I could create a positive half hour to balance his darker comedy. I’m not sure that I am overly qualified to talk about love but I was flattered by his offer and, well, a little drunk, so I said yes. Interestingly this is how a lot of my relationships start.

Such an invitation probably wouldn’t have been extended to me a few years ago. I used to have a tendency to be cynical about many things. I was even cynical about being cynical, after all, what does it really achieve? But these days I have come to terms with a lot of the frustrations that used to plague me. I have learned to accept that which I cannot change. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have questions.

Everyday there are more things to puzzle about . Questions that keep me up at night and need to be answered. For example:

1. Are my friends who aren’t registered on Facebook still my friends?
2. If there are more cars on the road every year why do service stations keep closing down?
3. Why is flavoured water cheaper than plain bottled water and how can a toothbrush cost more than a broom?
4. Who are all the naked girls on the internet? There are literally thousands of them (I checked) but no-one seems to know them. Are they like Liberal voters, no-one will admit to it, but clearly someone does it?
5. Who honestly has 5000 songs they like enough to put in their iPod?
6. Why would anyone buy a $10,000 ‘outdoor kitchen’ when they could just as easily buy a neon sign that says “I’m a massive wanker with far too much money!”
7. Does the crap on TV really need to be seen in high definition?
8. Is there a broadcasting regulation that insists all breakfast radio shows must make ‘crazy calls’?
9. How many scrapbooking stores does a society need?
10. Will “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” be followed up by “Can You Go to the Toilet by Yourself?”

I think these are reasonable questions and I’d like to think that someone has the answers. If you can help, come to our show and fill me in.

I used to have a lot of questions about love too. I think we all probably do. What is love? Where do you find it? Should I ask for a receipt? And the answers aren’t always simple. It wasn’t until Matt asked me to write material about love that I had the chance to really evaluate it all and come to terms with what love really means to me.

While writing I realised that love is actually a lot like stand-up comedy. It can be scary, it can make you feel fantastic or terrible, it might make you laugh or it might make you cringe. If you mess it up people will throw things at you but if you do it right you will be adored. It’s better with lots of people in the room and of course you need a spotlight and microphone… OK maybe I’ve pushed the analogy a bit far.

But whether you are looking for love, have found love, thought you’d lost love but then realised it had just fallen behind the couch. Whether you remember Jackie Love or Courtney Love, spell love L-U-V or simply hate love, come along to LOVE & HATE and have a laugh at love with me.

P.S. If you do know anyone who is naked on the internet, bring them along too.

Gavin can be seen with Matt Elsbury in LOVE & HATE, 8pm, Wednesday Nov 28 – Saturday Dec 1 at Glitch Bar & Cinema, 318 St Georges Rd, Nth Fitzroy. Tickets are available at the door for $15 Full /$12 concession. More info at www.gavinbaskerville.com or www.mattelsbury.com

The Prime Minister must be a drug dealer.

I read with interest Piers Akerman’s editorial yesterday on News.com.au defending the government’s handling of the farcical Haneef case.

Piers seems to think that it is important that we are tough on terrorism and therefore should detain, accuse and smear the name of innocent people in the interests of public safety. After all, rumours and hearsay are clearly enough to allow the minister to revoke a person’s visa.

I’m glad Piers thinks that way and I hope he doesn’t mind when the police arrive to arrest him and the Prime Minister. After all, Piers Akerman, by his own logic, is a drug dealer and the Prime Minister and Peter Costello must also be drug dealers.

You see there are rumours that Mr Akerman did cocaine in the 80s and continues to today. These are of course rumours, but were recorded in Hansard. That is more than enough evidence to detain him surely? If Piers has possessed cocaine he has no doubt been in contact with a drug dealer and more than likely given that dealer money. That’s material support for drug dealing. So Piers won’t mind if we now call him a ‘suspected drug dealer’.

By his own admission Mr Akerman is in regular contact with both the PM and Treasurer:

“ Well I'm interested in your perception that I'm seen as close to John Howard, as I speak regularly, far more regularly, with the Treasurer than I do with the Prime Minister.” (Full transcript here.)

So if Mr Akerman is a suspected drug dealer we’d better haul in Mr Howard and Mr Costello too as they must know something about Mr Akerman’s drug dealing.

And please Mr Kevin Andrews, do the right, moral thing and revoke their passports and defame them in public at every opportunity. It is only fair.

Freedom…? That’s a furniture store isn’t it?

When I was a kid I didn’t know a lot about politics and the way it all worked, but I did know one thing. There was one indisputable fact that could be used to justify any annoyance that I wished to perpetrate on my siblings. I could stand where I wanted, could make whatever noise I wanted and I could follow or parrot whoever I wanted all with the one simple, straight forward defence, ‘it’s a free country’. We all seemed to believe and accept that fact and it was probably reasonably true back then. However, recent events in Australia may set a precedent that could remove the basic rights of children. It may no longer be possible for them to be annoying little brats under the ‘free county’ defence.

The events I am referring to are those surrounding Dr Haneef who has been detained in Queensland and charged with ‘recklessly’ providing material support to terrorists. The terrorists in question are the seemingly incompetent ‘bombers’ in London and Glasgow who obviously had more money than mathematical ability when they put petrol bombs into a Mercedes Benz and a Jeep Cherokee hoping to cause massive damage, death and terror. The plot failed. Nobody was killed and the only injury was to the driver of the ‘car bomb’. Terror experts said that there was little chance that the bombs could have caused anything more than a big fireball and it is laughable to compare them to the car bombs in Iraq.

So some guys planned and executed a failed attack. That’s enough to put themselves into a lot of trouble I’m sure. But what is going on with Dr Haneef? Dr Haneef is related to two of the arrested ‘bombers’, the driver of the Jeep Cherokee, Kafeel Ahmed and Sabeel Ahmed who is charged with foreknowledge. Dr Haneef has admitted to sharing a house with his cousin and when he left London in 2006 he left his pre-paid mobile phone sim card behind as it was of little use in Australia. It is alleged that Ahmed decided to use that sim card as a detonation device inside one of the cars.

Haneef was detained for 12 days without charge and then charged with ‘reckless’ support of terrorists because the AFP had no other evidence against him other than an old sim card. The judge in the case granted Haneef bail but now immigration minister Kevin Andrews has revoked his visa sending him to Villawood Detention Centre. It is bad enough that the AFP trashed Haneef’s home, causing him to be evicted and the charges have left him without a job, but now the Federal Government has stepped in and effectively labelled him a guilty man.

This may be sold by Mr Andrews as being in the public's best interest and to ‘protect’ us but how is side-stepping the basic principles of law ever good for the country? Dr Haneef may possibly be complicit in the attacks but the fact of the matter is that the AFP were not able to provide enough evidence to prove that. They have detained a man for no good reason and however they want to spin it, the truth is Dr Haneef has been assumed guilty with little chance of being found innocent. The damage is done.

The new terror laws on which Dr Haneef has been held fly in the face of freedom and fairness. They set a precedent that would allow any person in Australia to be arrested and detained without charge and for the Federal Government to override the judicial system at their will. These are the sort of unlawful actions that we attacked Saddam Hussein for. The ability to ‘disappear’ any person whom the government deems a threat should never be tolerated.

We are constantly told that the ‘terrorists’ hate our freedoms and want to change our way of life. It seems the government’s answer to that is to get in first and remove our freedoms and change our way of life first so the terrorists can’t. Good thinking!

If only Dr Haneef had thought to use the other great childhood defence. When they accused him of being a terrorist he should have said “I know you are, but what am I?”

Nah! It’s not about the Oil.

Finally, some words of truth from our government.

It seems that according to Brendan Nelson our troops are in Iraq to secure the oil supplies. After all this time the government admits something that we have accused them of all along. Of course Mr Howard is playing down this comment and insisting that our troops are there to support our allies in bringing democracy to Iraq. (Or at least ensuring that there won’t be enough of them left alive to feel oppressed.)

The amazing thing is that people are still siding with Mr Howard on this issue. Some even claiming that we need to secure the oil to avoid rising fuel costs and invading Iraq was justified. But how do you justify an illegal invasion?

Saddam Hussein was an awful dictator and the Iraqi people certainly didn’t deserve to endure his reign. But if it wasn’t for the oil would we have joined the fight to save them? It’s just very lucky for them that their country had something we need. There are many severely oppressed people in nations around the world and we are not in any rush to bring any of them democracy. Why not?

We pretend that we are the ‘good guys’ in Iraq. The media refer to the insurgents there as ‘Al Qaeda’ and ‘terrorists’ but ask yourself what would happen in Australia if a foreign country decided that we needed to be liberated and that our resources needed to be ‘secured’. If we were invaded for our iron ore or gold don’t you think that we would fight back? If our government, army and police were replaced by supporters of the invaders wouldn’t we attempt to unseat them? If the invaders were claiming that they were there to help when it was obvious that they wanted our resources wouldn’t we feel betrayed? If Australian civilians were being slaughtered and written off as collateral damage wouldn’t we be outraged and vengeful? Australia has assisted the U.S. in an unlawful invasion and has aided and abetted the theft of oil. In essence we are international criminals and I won’t be surprised if history views us that way.

For John Howard to pretend that his decision to send troops to Iraq had nothing to do with oil is arrogant and very revealing. Does he really expect us to believe that someone who has been a politician for as long as he has and who is such good friends with George W Bush doesn’t understand the realities of global politics? To believe that Mr Howard is ‘unaware’ of the corrupt nature of the global military machine and the corporate interests in the Middle East is supremely naïve. We are supposed to believe that he honestly thought there were WMDs in Iraq. We are supposed to believe that he honestly thought that the Bali bombings were connected to Saddam Hussein through Al Qaeda and that the U.S. government wasn’t using September 11 to justify pre-planned invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. If he did believe those things then he is seriously, too stupid to be running our country. If he knew they were lies then he is complicit.

So is Mr Howard stupidly naive or a morally bankrupt liar? I think that is a fair question to ask in an election year. Either way he has a lot of blood on his hands which even his clean image can’t hide forever.

And why aren’t these questions being asked by the media or the opposition?

SPIDER SENSES TINGLING...

Or is it just my bullshit detector? The sudden ‘humanitarian’ decision of the Howard Government to send police and military troops to the Northern Territory Aboriginal communities this week is more than a little suspicious. Such a heavy handed response seems excessive and would never have been tolerated or supported by the Australian public. That is until the issue of child abuse came to light last week.

With the release of one report claiming widespread child abuse in ‘all’ Northern Territory communities the government has launched into action. Not with the provision of counsellors or health officials, but with police officers and soldiers.

If I was a more cynical man I might suggest that ‘child abuse’ was the perfect excuse and cover for the government to begin draconian measures to ‘clean up’ the Aboriginal population. After all, who would oppose measures aimed at stopping ‘child abuse’? Anyone remember 'children overboard'?

One can only speculate on Mr Howard’s true motivations. Perhaps we are due for another visit from the UN who have already been very critical of Australia’s treatment of its indigenous population? But then, that would suggest that the government cares about the UN’s opinion. Why should they? They ignored the UN’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq. And Mr Howard ignored them again when they asked for help in Sudan. So obviously they aren’t trying to help the aboriginal communities for the sake of international appearances.

And then I remembered ‘Gav’s Rule of Australian Politics’ which states that: “Government decisions are only made if someone stands to make a lot of money from said decision”.

I do seem to remember last year there were a lot of whispers about uranium mining and proposals for nuclear energy being floated. Where do they mine uranium? Oh that’s right, the Northern Territory. Why did they have problems mining it there before? Oh yeah, the aboriginal population who own the land opposed the mines.

Northern Territory, uranium mining, aboriginal land owners, child abuse claims, police and military intervention…? I’m not sure how those things could possibly fit together. Do you have any ideas?


Stay tuned.


*** Update! Evidence is surfacing. Read this.

Election Problems?

Oh great! It’s an election year. Once again it’s a complete farce but we are acting like we haven’t seen all this before.

John Howard is a great politician. However, I don’t admire him. In fact I hate him, but there’s no denying that he is a great politician. He knows exactly how to pull the strings and play the system to stay in power which is what politics is all about today.

The techniques the government use to stay in power are as transparent as a newly cleaned glass door. You know the ones. The glass doors you see on Funniest Home Videos that people keep walking into over and over again. Hilarious!

I’ve always believed that you will never go broke telling people what they want to hear. It seems that you will never lose power doing that either. The best bit about Australians is that they don’t even know what it is they want to hear so you can tell them that too.

WHAT YOU TELL THEM: You all should chase the ‘Great Australian Dream’. The ‘Dream’ of owning your own home. What? You don’t have enough money to buy a home? Here’s $7000 to get you going.

WHAT IT MEANS: For a small $7000 investment you have just given your mates in the banking industry a new customer. For $7000 you have convinced someone to take out a $300,000 mortgage. On top of that a new home needs furnishings. There’s an instant $40,000 worth of retail sales straight back into the economy. Nice work!
Suddenly the economy is booming and everyone is happy.

Of course we are talking about The Great Australian Dream and it is a dream. The problem with a dream is that somewhere down the line you have to wake up, probably to the sound of the bank foreclosing on you because you can’t keep up with the interest payments.

Losing your home is a scary prospect so you’ve also conveniently created a new bogeyman to keep people in line. Scare people into thinking that those interest rates that you tied them to may increase with a change of government. They’d better keep you in power. Nice huh? That’s like tying a rock to someone’s feet and dangling them over the edge of a river and then telling them that the ‘bad’ guys want to make the rock heavier, so stick with us.

WHAT YOU TELL THEM: The country needs more babies. Our population is in crisis. Here’s $6000 to have a baby.

WHAT IT MEANS: Babies are great consumers. From food to nappies to strollers and clothes. Once again for every $6000 investment you have instantly injected at least $15000 into the retail sector. Once again the balance sheets look great.

NB. In the past these sort of quick fix plans didn’t work because previously when people needed more money they asked for pay rises which caused inflation. Now we have credit cards and revolving lines of credit thanks to the very generous banking industry. So now all those extra retail sales just go on the credit card. ‘But that doesn’t add up’ I hear you ask and you are correct. Somewhere down the line such a system can’t be sustained, but by the time that happens Mr Howard will be long retired. So why should he care? (My previous post on the subject here)

WHAT YOU TELL THEM: You know that lovely home and child we helped you have? Guess what! Terrorists, Muslims, immigrants and home invaders want to take them away from you.

WHAT IT MEANS: Now you have even more leverage to get people to do what you want. A scared nation is a passive nation. If they are suspicious about their neighbours they won’t have time to be suspicious of you. Better still they will turn to you for protection. You can send troops to illegal wars in Iraq (I thought we had a ‘Defence’ force not an ‘Attack’ force) leaving you with ‘not enough troops’ to save the Sudanese who actually want our help.

WHAT YOU TELL THEM: We liberated East Timor and we are heroes.

WHAT IT MEANS: Now we can steal their oil and keep them poor. (Click here for more info)

WHAT YOU TELL THEM: We as a Government are facing annihilation at the next election.

WHAT IT MEANS: This is a call to arms to the ‘true believers’ (Thanks Paul) to make sure that they stay with you. You don’t want to lose your voter base. Swinging voters are less likely to vote for a party that looks like winning by a landslide and by suggesting that you need all the support you can get the people that voted for you last time may just stay on board and get you across the line. Australians always love an under-dog. Even if that dog has bitten you too many times before.

Mr Howard would never admit defeat so easily. He has more tricks up his sleeve. Over the past ten years he has stealthfully taken control of the government and wielded his influence over the spineless and share-market driven media to create a regime driven by money and conservative values. He may even believe that his ideals are best for the nation but it is far more likely that he is aiming for the history books. If he really had the nation’s interests at heart he’d know that he has stolen from the future to benefit today. When history is written it will show him to be a stubborn, merciless and vengeful leader who pandered to corporate interests to serve his own glory.

Don’t be fooled by a prosperous economy. The ‘trickle down’ effect is a myth and the current economic situation has been achieved by selling off the nation’s assets and future.

Would a Labor government do any better? Probably not. But that is not the point. ‘Better the devil you know’ is no longer an acceptable excuse. That is how John Howard has survived this long. In his acceptance speeches at every election he makes a point to say “I have a mandate to govern”. He doesn’t say “I know you aren’t happy with me, but thanks for voting me in again”. He says “You have just given me permission to do whatever I want. I choose to interpret your votes as support for my policies”. This is arrogant and inherently undemocratic but he gets away with it because we keep voting him in.

At the upcoming election please think carefully about your vote. I don’t care who you vote for but make sure you are voting for the future and not just for short term gains. This economic boom won’t last (It's called a boom for a reason). What happens when things aren’t going so well? There is no such thing as perpetual growth. The slump will come at some stage.

Be smart. Be prepared. Mr Howard won’t be there to hear you crying when you are drowning in debt. He won’t care that he put you there. In fact there’s every possibility that he will deliberately lose the election so that it will be Mr Rudd who has to take the blame.

Never forget that politicians lie. They even lie about the fact that they lie. Don’t trust them to look after your interests. If it sounds too good to be true, then you’re being screwed.

Your vote is all you have left in a diminishing democracy. Use it well.

STUPIDITY IS THE NEW BLACK

My excuse for not writing sooner is that I have been away. I spent a whole month in Melbourne performing at the Comedy Festival.

It was interesting to be back amongst the bustling metropolis of Melbourne. It is a proud city which loves to boast of its events and attractions.

One of Melbourne’s greatest claims is that it is the fashion capital of the Australia. This may be true but, unfortunately, that means Melbourne has now become the stupidest looking capital of Australia.

Today’s fashions are terrible! People love to laugh about what we wore in the seventies and eighties and blush with embarrassment at photos of themselves from those times, but seriously, there will be even more embarrassment in ten years' time from today’s fashion victims. When they look back there will be unprecedented cries of ‘what on earth was I thinking’?

I am not a style guru. I do not design fashion and would probably be considered very conservative in my tastes. But as a member of society I am surrounded by the fashions of today and as someone who has eyes and a bile duct I have to say that it all looks stupid!

For women, mismatching, formless, layered, oversized or severely undersized clothing seems to be the trend. To look cool, take the worst elements of the last thirty years’ fashion (the tackier the better) and just chuck it on. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as you finish the look by having as much of your breasts revealed as possible. Even if you barely have any to show off. If you want proof that the fashion is terrible there it is.

I am a man. I like breasts. I should be happy that they are on show everywhere I look. However, somehow the current looks even make breasts look bad. I never thought that was possible. But they bundle them uncomfortably out of shape or let them go too free or discolour them with fake tan. To a man these are desecrations of our most favourite things.

And it doesn’t stop there. If I’d been told as a teenager that in the future micro mini skirts, no underwear and tiny tops would be a trend I would have invented a time machine in a week (especially seeing as I grew up in the eighties when big, baggy clothes left literally everything to the imagination). But somehow the dream wasn’t realised. There's something disappointingly unsexy about a girl who is constantly readjusting herself and awkwardly trying to keep herself 'decent' in a display which demonstrates exactly why underwear and longer skirts were invented in the first place. And I won’t even mention the impracticality of those styles in cities like Melbourne and Hobart. It certainly gives new meaning to the term ‘frigid’.

I blame Paris Hilton. It’s a shame that she is going to prison for drink driving. She should be going to prison for crimes against fashion. Every dreadful thing she wears seems to fester through the fashion scene until fifteen year old girls everywhere cover themselves (or not cover, as the case may be) with it. I guess we can expect prison overalls to be the next big fashion sensation.

Then we come to the men’s fashion. There was a time when someone like myself could walk into a clothing store and find at least one shirt that wouldn’t make me look like a dickhead. Not any more. Unless you want to look like the latest Big Brother evictee or an R&B star you will never own new clothes again. And even the new clothes aren’t new. Now we are expected to pay hundreds of dollars for jeans that are in worse condition that the old ones you are trying to replace.

The thing that really amazes me is how we as a society buy into fashion. Who comes up with it and how on earth do they convince people that it looks good? We have all looked back on fashions from the past and thought they looked bad. So the question is why did we think it looked good then? Did it really look good then or did it look stupid and were we just brainwashed into thinking that it looked great?

Clearly something very weird is going on. You would think that taste is something inherent to our individual psychologies. But one can only assume that it is not and that it is somehow influenced or conditioned by our environment. The more we see something the more we think it looks ok. Like some kind of hypnotism we accept something which we would have never agreed to before, like wearing ugg boots in public.

If this is true then we are susceptible to anything. We will accept whatever is around us. Hang out with clowns and you will want to look like a clown. And we do look like clowns.

Fashion is a joke. I’m beginning to suspect that there is someone in the world sitting back and laughing ‘Hahahaha. I can’t believe I convinced them to wear that. Let’s see what else they’ll try on’. It is an industry that preys on insecurity and conformity and it will probably be around for ever.

Rush in! The Emperor’s new clothes are now on sale.

Back to the Blog

Oh dear, it has been a very long time since I have added to my blog. I apologise and have no excuse other than focussing all of my writing energies into my upcoming Melbourne International Comedy Festival show “Happy”.

But since my last entry the world has certainly taken some interesting turns many of which deserve comment. So in a vain effort to catch up on world events since November here are my thoughts on a few things:

Global Warming:
You’d think this was a brand new idea the way politicians everywhere are scrambling to make up for lost time and squeeze their way onto the overcrowded bandwagon. The sad thing is that now we have to watch, once again, as a genuine cause is hijacked by corporate and political interests.

None of the politicians really care about the environment. It’s just one more thing to keep us scared and in line. Let’s make everyone feel that it’s their fault that the world is changing. There’s no mention of pollution restrictions on heavy industry or reducing petrol consumption. Instead we are converting to nuclear power and banning light bulbs. Stay tuned for a carbon tax on our own respiration. That’s right, they may just have found a way to tax the air that we breathe.

There is still a lot of arguing going on over this issue, but the problem isn’t global warming and climate change. Whether (weather) humans cause global warming or not is irrelevant. The issue is pollution. The Earth’s climate is always going to change due to forces much larger than us puny humans, but that doesn’t justify the huge amounts of toxins we pump into the air and the water every day. We should be cleaning up our act and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels so that we will have clean water and clean air to breathe and to stop the political bullshit games that are being fought over oil.

The Water Crisis:
There’s water shortages everywhere. Once again the powers that be are trying to scare us. Why? Because there is a push by large corporations (like Bechctel) in countries around the world to privatise the water supply. It’s the perfect industry. Everyone needs water. The last ten years have seen the water supplies around Australia decrease in quality while the bottled water industry flourishes. Coincidence? We have proven that we will pay more for water than petrol so of course someone wants to get a hold of that market.

If water is so scarce where does all the water that is in the millions of plastic bottles on our supermarket shelves come from? Natural springs? I’m afraid not. Have a look at the labels and you’ll see that most of it is ‘purified water’. That’s tap water to you and I. And let’s not mention all the soft drinks available. Where do they get their water from? And even if the water is coming from natural springs why is that able to be sold by private companies. If you have gold or iron ore in the ground under your house you don’t own it, the government does (unfortunate but true) so why is water so different? It’s a resource and if there is such a shortage shouldn’t the government be able to take control of these seemingly endless supplies?

I’ll let you decide.

There is so much more that I need to get off my chest, from Mr Howard’s continued arrogance and hypocrisy to the revival of the terrorist threat, but I shall save my vitriol for a later time. For now I will return to my festival show which ironically is all about finding happiness amongst all this chaos.

Don’t forget to pop in to my new look website and please visit again soon as I promise I will write more often.

Tricky Debates

The Australian Senate this week passed a bill to relax restrictions on therapeutic cloning for stem cell research in Australia.

Understandably the debate that preceded the vote was full of passion, principle and anger. The result has upset some segments of the community and been celebrated by others. I personally can see both sides of this argument and do not begrudge anyone for their views on these very sensitive issues but I do think it is worth keeping a few things in perspective.

We have seen these moral arguments before. Issues such as legalised abortion, euthanasia and even IVF have split political parties and the community. Whatever the particular battle, the argument against these sorts of procedures and research are usually based on the notion that scientists should not ‘play God’.

It is worth remembering at this point that ‘man’ (read: humans, people or whatever word you prefer) has been playing God for a very long time. Since the earliest days of medical experimentation people have been altering nature through the use of drugs and surgery in an attempt to prolong life and improve health. This is effectively ‘playing God’ and was often labelled as such. The truth is that we love ‘playing God’. We do it when we clear-fell forests, when we create pollution, when we divert and dam rivers and especially when we go to war and decide that thousands of innocent people should be killed for the perceived benefit of others. I find it curious that it is often those that condone these sorts of actions who will then argue against ‘playing God’ when it comes to science.

I therefore think that ‘playing God’ should be struck off the ‘valid argument’ list and instead politicians should evaluate issues based on the real or potential damage or benefits that can be gained or lost by new developments in the scientific arena.

Of course there are very strong arguments against the ‘killing’ of embryos for research. It is virtually impossible for consensus to be reached about when life begins and whether that life can be justifiably terminated, but it is pure hypocrisy for a Senator or anyone else to stand up and say that a two week old embryo has a right to life when they themselves have probably eaten meat for lunch. I’m not a vegetarian but I would still find it difficult to morally defend the argument that a human embryo has more right to life than a fully grown cow, fish, chicken or pig.

As humans in the First World we are doomed to hypocrisy. Our moral radars are constantly being recalibrated. Ethics are quickly abandoned in pursuit of a few dollars and we are very good at justifying to ourselves anything that we do.

Our decision makers should be using their consciences to navigate difficult issues but they must be consistent in this. To find a conscience only when it is politically expedient is possibly the most immoral thing a politician can do. I think God would agree.

Sorry for the lack of humour this week. God, embryos, politicians and science should really be a lot funnier. I’ll try harder next time.

Stay tuned.

Flying

I have just returned from yet another trip interstate. I have managed to squeeze about eight trips in this year which is pretty good for someone who only works part-time. It would not be possible except for the wonderful discount airlines Virgin Blue and Jetstar.

I’m not afraid of flying. I am however, afraid of plummeting to my death in a metal tube full of strangers but I never let that obscure the fact that I actually like being in the plane. There is still something very cool about taking off and travelling above the clouds at 1000km/h.

I also enjoy the flight attendants on Virgin Blue in particular. The girls always have names like Trinity or Harmony. The sort of names reserved for flight attendants and strippers. Sometimes they have names like Eleena. That's one of those names that parents make up that kind of sound like real names but actually aren’t. Like Joeesha or Rebeccany. As far as the male attendants go I think Civil Aviation regulations require that all male flight attendants are pleasant, well groomed and just a little bit camp.

The Virgin attendants (make your own obligatory virgin joke there) also love slipping cute little jokes into their routine patter to lighten the mood of the passengers. They’ll often slip in things like “If in the unlikely event this plane becomes a boat, floatation devices can be found under your seat” or “Please ensure that you don’t forget your belongings, children or husbands as items left on the plane will be distributed evenly among the crew.” Hilarious stuff that sometimes even gets applause from the passengers. I would love to know who writes their material.

Some people don’t like flying with the discount airlines because they resent not getting free food or a movie on the flight. That doesn’t bother me. For the amount of money I save on Virgin or Jetstar fares I can afford to go to a real movie and have a real dinner instead of eating some sloppy stroganoff while watching an appalling romantic comedy on a vaguely visible TV screen.

There is free audio entertainment on the discount flights if you bring your own headphones. I highly recommend that you do bring your own as the little red ones they sell for $2 aren’t very comfortable and would be better used to extract confessions at Guantanamo Bay than to provide entertainment on a long flight.

I usually choose the comedy channel to listen to. All airlines have one and they are all very similar. For every minute of genuinely funny comedy there will be at least ten minutes of pointless dross. They also like to set the audio level on the comedy channel much lower than the other channels. This is a cute little prank and is where the real comedy happens. As passengers tune in to get a small dose of levity to drown out the baby in the next seat that is clearly racking up their Frequent Cryer points they are forced to turn the volume up to full to hear the jokes. Then of course the mandatory unfunny comedy piece comes on (usually some Guido Hatzis or something equally banal) tempting the listener to change the channel. This is the punchline. When they change the channel they are instantly hit by ear piercingly loud music because they forgot to adjust the volume first. I’m pretty sure the pilots monitor this and laugh heartily every time it happens. I’m guessing whoever thought of this gag may also be responsible for writing the attendant’s comedy material.

Passengers on a plane are interesting to watch. They seem to love queuing but I’m not sure why. They queue up eagerly to get on the plane, but then can’t seem to get off the plane fast enough at the other end. Despite pushing to get on (especially if it’s unallocated seating) as soon as the seatbelt light goes out at the end of the flight and long before the doors are even opened the passengers are all standing up, squashed into the aisles or wedged awkwardly under the overhead compartments, juggling bags, baby strollers (the kid’s still crying) and jackets ready to get out of there as soon as possible.

And so they stand there… and stand there… and stand there… and stand there. It always takes at least five minutes for the doors to actually open and for the passengers in front of you to leave. But everyone insists on standing up poised for action. And what are they rushing for? Where are they going? Of course. They have to be the first ones to the baggage carousel so they can stand there for a further fifteen minutes until their bags arrive. The queuing now takes the form of a human fence around the carousel. The bags haven’t yet come into view but the barrier ensures that anyone behind them whose bags are actually there can’t get through to collect them. God forbid that everyone could just stand back and approach the carousel once their bags are spotted. But I guess they are all just keen to get their bags so that they can rush off to the next queue at the parking ticket machine and then jump into their cars so they can queue up again at the exit gate.

I’m not quite sure where this queuing mentality comes from but it does make me worry a little though. Watching this behaviour really doesn’t instil me with much confidence that in the unlikely event that the plane does becomes a boat that the passengers would proceed in an orderly fashion to the emergency exit. I’m pretty sure they would instead be pushing, shoving, getting in each other’s way, screaming and crying while the attendants pleasantly divide the leftover belongings amongst themselves.

And In Other News

Interestingly another fairly major news story was ignored by our media last week. Granted, it probably seemed a bit boring when lined up against Paul McCartney’s divorce or Keith Urban’s rehab adventures but I still think it would have been worth a mention somewhere.

For those who missed it, last week George W Bush signed the Military Commissions Act after it passed through the US congress. “Wow! Riveting” I here you say. Maybe that’s not very interesting but what is interesting is what the act means for the USA and the rest of the world. Essentially the act, under the pretence of creating a ‘safer’ America, overrides some of the most basic human and democratic rights that were previously unassailable in The American Bill of Rights.

The new law basically allows the US government to arrest any person suspected to be an ‘enemy combatant’ and hold them without charge indefinitely. The law excuses the government of any mistreatment of current detainees and worse, means that any US citizen, or foreigner (read ANYONE!) can be arrested and charged based on hearsay, be held without knowing the charges against them and be tortured until they confess. That confession can then be used to convict and prosecute the accused. Sounds tough, but then, the terrorists and ‘enemy combatants’ deserve tough treatment. Right?

But who exactly is an ‘enemy combatant’? According to the Military Commissions Act it is anyone who is declared an enemy combatant by the Government. This includes not only terrorists but also anyone who commits a crime of burglary or vandalism, or maybe someone who publishes an article critical of the government. The beauty of the law is that it doesn’t have any protections built in to stop anyone being labelled an enemy combatant and being arrested. And if you are mistakenly accused you will not have any right to a fair trial or to question the charges against you.

The notion of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ has been removed and it is now completely legal for the US government to ‘disappear’ anyone who they deem a threat. Sound familiar? Wasn’t that the sort of dictatorial system that the US was liberating the Iraqi people from?

Amnesty International have expressed their objections to this law. Other human rights commentators, mainstream media commentators, senators and lawyers have mourned the loss of liberty and expressed dismay at the complacency of the American voters who have accepted the destruction of their ‘self evident’ rights. So why haven’t our leaders, foreign affairs ministers or even media commentators raised concerns about this?

The attitude from these quarters seems to be that these laws are ok because we can trust the Bush administration not to misuse their new, self appointed powers. Well, I feel a whole lot better now.

Despite the fact that George W Bush has given himself the right to arrest anyone in the world, detain, torture, prosecute and even execute them because he believes they are a threat to the United States we should trust that he won’t abuse the privilege because he’s one of the ‘good’ guys. Thank God!

Let’s just hope that when his term as president ends none of the ‘bad’ guys get his job. What if someone less trustworthy had those powers? What if they decided that conservatives and not the ‘liberals’ were a threat? What if they started arresting Christians instead of Muslims with these powers? Would people care then? But I’m sure that won’t happen. The good voters of the USA will make sure that their next president is just as trustworthy as Mr Bush.

By the way, has anyone seen those WMDs?

Sydney

I’ve just returned from a trip to Sydney. While in our country’s most famous city I visited the Powerhouse Museum. Like everything in Sydney it is very easy to find… if you already know where it is! They don’t seem to believe in signs in Sydney. The road signs are just as bad.

Rather than clearly posted directions with reasonable advance warning they seem to prefer ambiguous road signs positioned 30 metres before the spot where you have to turn and good luck if you are in the wrong lane. If you miss it, there won’t be another exit for ten kilometres and if you think that you can just get the next turn and work your way back FORGET IT!

Sydney roads never go where you think they should even if you have a map. Just as God works in mysterious ways an elaborate array of one way streets, freeway exits and dead ends ensures that if you aren’t on ‘the one true path’ you will never get to your destination. Added to this you have toll roads which have toll booths in some lanes, usually the lane two over from the lane you are driving in and you’ll have about 5 seconds to get across the relentless traffic.

If you are planning to drive through Sydney I recommend a co-driver to help you decipher the signs while you try to juggle your attention between the directions, the road, the speedo and the myriad of mental drivers who have clearly decided that it is easier to just ignore the road rules altogether and just do whatever they like in their ludicrously expensive sports cars.

Of course once you have worked out where to go, getting around Sydney is fairly straight forward. It’s just that by the time you have worked it out you have probably lost your mind or at least become a selfish, arrogant road tyrant. (So that’s why there are so many of them.)

And now it seems the Sydney roads have taken me off course again. I was meant to be writing about the Powerhouse Museum. Where’s my map?

I was quite excited about going to the Powerhouse Museum to see the On The Box exhibition which celebrates 50 years of television in Australia. I’m not sure what I was expecting. I’d heard they had Agro, Mr Squiggle and Ossie Ostrich on display and I wasn’t disappointed. The three puppets were indeed the highlight. However, aside from some costumes from Norman Gunston, Mother & Son and Kath and Kim the rest of the exhibit was frankly, quite sad.

I’m not sure why exactly they thought that a couple of hand drawn posters from audience members on Australian Idol were worth encasing in glass. Even one would have been pointless, but two? I sure hope they were authentic and not just scribbled by the curator.

Generally the exhibition was a wonderful walk down memory lane and a great reminder that, on the whole, Australian TV has always been a bit crap.

More depressing however was the rest of the museum. Despite some excellent exhibits most were tainted by the evil hand of corporate sponsorship. The worst examples were ironically in the environmental future display. Kettle chips were displayed twice highlighting their ‘eco-friendly’ packaging. Kambrook were showing off their environmentally designed kettle. Brick companies, appliance makers and even Westfield Shopping Town were quite prominent in this exhibit which made me feel a little unsettled.

I know that funding a museum is not cheap and corporate sponsorship is necessary but these displays were blatant advertising. A sponsor board at the entrance used to be enough credit for generous benefactors but now their logos are emblazoned across the displays. The lines between advertising and education are getting very blurred. Children are now getting their nutritional information and pool safety tips from McDonalds. A real estate company educates kids on fire safety with the suspiciously named ‘Hooker’ Bear.

Where is it going to end? One day our teachers will be dressed as clowns and hocking Happy Meals and Pepsi to children as they explain the importance of multiplication tables. It will be too late to turn back. We’ll have missed the turn. The sign was there but we couldn’t change lanes in time.

Naughty North Korea

So North Korea is going to test a nuclear weapon. Is that a weapon of mass destruction? I would have thought so. And yet we don’t see the US rushing in to topple this cruel and dangerous ‘evil doer’. Instead it has been left to the UN to form a plan to deal with Mr Kim Jong Il.

It’s peculiar that the media hasn’t really questioned Mr Bush or Mr Howard over this issue. We went to war over suspicions of WMDs but when someone stands up and says “We’ve got em! Look!” our government just tut-tuts them and has a chat with their ambassador.

The really strange thing is that North Korea is rumoured to have lots of oil. Seems like a perfect place to go to ‘liberate’ the oppressed masses. I wonder what the problem is. There’s money to be made there too. Mr Rumsfeld himself sat on the board of ABB while they sold reactors to North Korea. Think of the boon they could have with rebuilding contracts.

Anyway this is just a passing observation. A busy week has kept me from a longer post. I’ll have something more substantial for you next week if nuclear war hasn’t begun.

Thanks for visiting.

Lingoism

Here are some new words that I would like to introduce into the Australian vernacular.

Dumbocracy: (n) Process by which disinterested and uninformed voters choose their leaders.

Fair Go: (n) Social equality afforded to those with fair skin.

Fuel Crisis: (n) Dilemma faced by motorists during a petrol price war as they try to decide whether to fill up now or wait and see if the price will fall further.

Homophone: (n) One who claims not to be a homophobe, but who sounds like one.

Idoluded: (adj) Pertaining to people with limited singing ability who audition for Australian Idol.

Media-ocrity: (n) Default level of quality aspired to by commercial television and radio. Formerly known as ‘lowest common denominator’.

Pod-estrian: (n) One who walks while listening to an iPod, completely oblivious to those around them.

Re-search: (n) Academic or scientific study based entirely on information sourced from the internet via a Google search.

Terrorist: (n) In the same way that a racist promotes unfounded fear of other races a terrorist promotes unfounded fear of terror. i.e. George W Bush is a ‘terrorist’.

Compluckwit: (n) Anyone who creates new words by merging others together for use in marketing, tabloids or blogs. Examples: Brangelina, TomKat, infotainment, pod-estrian, blog.

Fair Go Mate!

John Howard and Andrew Robb have decided that new Australian citizens should have to pass a test to demonstrate that they can speak English and have an understanding of Australian ‘values’, history and the concept of a ‘fair go’.

I hope they are planning to test their understanding of ‘hypocrisy’ too because I believe that is the number one ‘value’ being demonstrated by our leaders.

One can only assume that this current nationalistic push is a valiant attempt to keep the terrorists out. After all, terrorists can’t speak English and surely wouldn’t know anything about Australian values????

But what exactly are ‘Australian values’ anyway? I can only assume that Australian values are the ones that we demonstrate most often. With that in mind I suggest that we include these oaths in the citizenship ceremony:

”I promise to celebrate our multicultural society but fear and ostracise Muslims because Mr Howard and Today Tonight say they are terrorists.”

”I promise to fear invasion and attacks on our lifestyle but will endorse any unprovoked attack on any country that the USA points to and back the killing of thousands of innocent civilians.”

”I promise to care about natural disasters overseas and provide aid by the truckload… as long as a footballer or Australian tourist was killed. Otherwise I couldn’t care less.”

”I promise to prioritise sports over education.”

”I promise to jump on any bandwagon and follow any sport… as long as Australia is winning.”

”I promise to get emotionally involved with the plight of trapped miners, convicted drug smugglers, disaster victims and celebrities with cancer but instantly forget about them as soon as the next distraction comes along”

”I promise to claim all successful New Zealanders as Australian until they do something wrong”

”I promise to buy luxury houses, have babies and use credit to buy everything I want and put myself into massive debt but complain that someone should help me when I can’t pay it all back.”

”I promise to believe everything that Naomi Robson, John Laws and Alan Jones say because despite having millions of dollars and living in luxury they understand the plight of the Aussie battler”

and

” I promise to demand perfection from immigrants but mediocrity from everyone else, after all that’s the essence of a fair go”

Let’s just hope that the values test won’t be thrust upon the rest of us. I doubt many ‘real’ Australians would do very well in an Australian history exam and if faced with the idea of an English test I think most Australians would ask “Is Warnie playing?”

9/11

I can’t believe it is five years since the World Trade Centre attacks. It seems like only yesterday that the world sat glued to their television sets amazed at what they were seeing.

Since 2001 the world has become a very different place. The words ‘terrorist’ and ‘Muslim’ are now commonplace (I reckon I’d heard the word Muslim maybe five times in my life prior to 9/11.) The last few years have seen an increase in security, an increase in law making, an increase in fuel prices, an increase in military expenditure and my favourite, an increase in conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theorists have always had a bad name. Their foil hat wearing, moon-landing doubting, UFO spotting ways opened them up to ridicule that tarnished the term ‘conspiracy’ with an inherent subtext of paranoid lunacy. They did have a couple of wins though. Oliver Stone’s film JFK changed many people’s minds about Kennedy’s assassination and The X-Files gave UFO geeks the chance to be cool for a short time. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 also got people thinking. But still, mentioning a ‘conspiracy theory’ will doubtlessly be met with sighs of indignation from ‘realists’.

Psychologists claim that belief in conspiracy theories is actually an attempt to feel secure. The belief that a government can control so many people and events is actually more preferable to believing that the bureaucracy is incompetent and not in control of our wellbeing. The flipside of this is people who refuse to believe in conspiracy theories for exactly the opposite reason. They don’t want to entertain the thought that the government may not have their best interests at heart and may be lying to them.

Where do I stand? I try to remain rational and realistic. I know that in reality governments are made up of people and departments that would struggle to organise the tying of a shoelace. Self interest and corruption tends to weigh against organisation and unity. However I also understand that through the power of media voters are often mislead and lied too. Politicians even trade on their reputation as liars coming up with expressions like ‘core’ promises that are to be differentiated from election promises that they will break. I also know that very few things happen in this world unless someone is making money from them.

In a world where lies like ‘Saddam’s WMDs’ and ‘links to al Qaeda’ or ‘children overboard’ can be propagated and believed it is hard not to be sceptical when our leaders try to sell us a story. Especially when that ‘story’ seems to be playing very well to their interests.

And so we come to 9/11. A simple Google search will bring forth an insurmountable wealth of pages making all sorts of claims of conspiracy and government complicity. They range from sensible and rational debunking to fantastical and downright ridiculous speculations. It would be easy to just ignore it all and just believe the official government line.

Unfortunately I have this little part of my brain that kind of twitches when things don’t seem right. I can’t quite explain it but it is the same part that gives me bad feelings about people I meet who later prove themselves untrustworthy. And I have to admit when it comes to the events of 9/11, “I have a bad feeling about this”.

To try and come to terms with it all I took the position of a juror. That is, I will look at the evidence that is put before me and make a judgement on whether it seems credible or not. In this way I am not bound to believe any one source or any single explanation. I can simply look at each event and decide what it means. I won’t make unfounded assumptions. I don’t ask anyone to believe the same as I do and certainly don’t claim to have the answers.

The only conclusion that I have drawn is that there are some very worrying anomalies in the events of September 11^th 2001. Obviously I don’t want to turn this post into another conspiracy page but if you have time and want to start asking your own questions I highly recommend looking at these points in particular:

1. The way the WTC towers collapsed with special attention to the less often reported collapse of Tower 7. This link is one of many that uses physics to demonstrate the problems with the official story. http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/BilliardBalls.html or here

2. What got destroyed and who profited. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/silverstein.html
http://killtown.911review.org/wtc7/collapse.html#cdi

3. How easy is it to fly a passenger airline into a building? http://physics911.net/sagadevan.htm

From my point of view these few aspects of 9/11 are the ones that don’t seem to have adequate explanations and aren’t ‘debunked’ effectively by any source that I can find. Granted, they all pose even more questions than they answer but so do the ‘official’ explanations. I understand if people don’t want to believe a conspiracy theory but isn’t the idea that a faceless group of foreign terrorists could elude security, plot and plan to hijack planes and fly them into protected airspace and accurately crash them into high profile targets and bring down two of the biggest buildings in the world in itself a ‘conspiracy theory’?

I will not speculate on who is responsible for the events of 9/11. As far as I can see there is evidence to incriminate all sorts of people. All that is known for sure is that planes were flown into the World Trade Centre and many innocent people died needlessly. If I had lost a loved one in such a disaster I would want to know the truth. I would not want to blame the wrong person and I certainly would not want the perpetrators to be allowed to go free.

There is no reason to involve yourself in the conspiracy theories or even ask any questions about it. But considering the fear that has been thrust upon our society since 9/11, the racism towards the Muslim community that is being encouraged and incited by our media and even our Prime Minister, the infringements on our basic freedoms that are being proposed by sedition laws and the degradation of the basic principles of law such as ‘innocent until proven guilty’ I for one would like to know that the War On Terror is directed at the real threats to our society and not some convenient patsy devised for the profits of a few.

I promise that next weeks post will be funnier. And that’s a core promise.

Poor Pluto

How degrading! Literally. Poor old Pluto has been stripped of its planet status. All those years of learning about the nine planets in our solar system and now we find out that Pluto doesn’t count. Why? Because it isn’t big enough, apparently. Or more to the point it is as big as other stuff floating around which means if Pluto is a planet then other chunks of rock like 2005FY9 and Xena must also be classified as planets. So rather than add new planets to the solar system the ‘nerds in the know’ decided to take Pluto off the list.

Personally, I don’t really care. Maybe if I had intricately built a model of the solar system in school from polystyrene balls and coat hanger wire I might be a little pissed off that I’d spent all that time on a planet that didn’t belong, but fortunately I was too lazy in school to ever put that much effort into any project.

I guess my only issue is the new category that Pluto has been resigned to. Officially Pluto is now a ‘dwarf planet’. Now, that would be cool if it meant that Pluto was actually a planet inhabited by dwarves with miniature cities and little cars and nobody different enough to play Santa’s helper at Christmas. But it doesn’t. It just means that it is a small planet. I guess they thought that still having ‘planet’ in the title might appease the Pluto fans around the world. But really, if you aren’t a planet and you’re never going to be a planet, why rub it in? Why not come up with a cool new term? Start a new club that will make the real planets jealous and want to join. I’m surprised that the geeks didn’t think of that.

So, now all our space books and solar system charts are wrong and new ones need to be printed. I guess someone will make some bucks out of this. Let’s hope they don’t start re-classifying anything else that we learnt in school. I don’t want to wake up and find out that ‘X’ isn’t actually a letter or that spiders are really insects after all or that February is now a ‘dwarf month’.

I guess greater minds than mine are on top of these things. And apologies to the International Astronomical Union for calling them nerds and geeks. I’m sure they are all very interesting, cool and exciting men and women with great social lives.

And commiserations to Clyde Tombaugh who discovered Pluto in 1930. I guess he won’t care seeing as he died in 1997 but I’m sure his family is disappointed that their big claim to fame is now that their relative found a rock.

Until next time…

Trying to be positive.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote. I’ve been away visiting my parents and friends in Perth. I was hoping to come back with a new found optimism, especially in the light of my last few blogs that were all a little negative. I was also hoping that I could avoid talking about TV as that too has become a bit of a focus for my rants.

And so I return home and get ready to write again when I am confronted with all the TV programs that I missed while I was away. I’d like to ignore them, I really would, but they are so terrible that they must be commented on.

Channel 7 had been going so well this year. The continued success of Lost and Desperate Housewives and surprise hits Deal or No Deal and Dancing With The Stars helped 7 to topple the Nine Network’s long held reign. One could almost have been fooled into thinking that Channel 7 had finally worked it out. After years in the wilderness their programmers had finally got a handle on what viewers wanted and how to get them to watch. Then they pull out The Master, a cynical Millionaire rip off with nothing new to offer and certainly no interest to viewers. It was axed after one episode, proof positive that the programmers have learnt nothing and are still clutching at straws. Their other successes have been nothing more than dumb luck. Even the executives at 7 admitted that they were surprised at the popularity of Lost and Housewives. This proves that any hope that we might get anything worth watching on our screens in the future looks very unlikely.

Channel Ten have launched a couple of new shows in the last few weeks. The most hyped one being Tench Tonight. Tench had potential. It wins points for being an Australian innovation and an attempt at something different. The show has a ‘virtual’ host that interacts with its guests. Great idea! Except that they blew it. So much potential blown so quickly. Once again the powers that be have made fundamental errors in judgement.

The history of sassy and humorous talk show hosts is rich and deep. Real hosts Jay Leno and David Letterman to fictional interviewers like Norman Gunston, Dame Edna, Pixie Ann Wheatley and Ali G were all huge successes. Drawing from such great precedents the makers of Tench could have created a new TV icon, a character full of wit, audacity and wickedness.
Instead, they came up with a very boring and quite annoying creature. In an attempt to make Tench an amalgam of talk show hosts they ended up with a very bland looking pastiche that actually just looks like Tim Fergusson from The Doug Anthony All Stars. His wit is about as sharp as the class clown in a suburban primary school and his overall demeanour is that of a smart arse schmuck rather than a likeable or humorous interviewer. He fails to cleverly embarrass his guests or reveal anything new about them. Why hide behind a character if you aren't going to let loose and hit hard?

Above all else why on Earth would you, if faced with inventing a new computer generated character, create a generic looking male host? They could have made any living thing. Anything else would have been more interesting. An alien, a crocodile, a kangaroo, a robot… a woman???? If we really needed a new character to interview celebrities did we really need another slick haired male? Once again a lack of imagination and a complete lack of a decent sense of humour destroys an otherwise great idea.

What’s really sad is that Andrew Denton’s production team were responsible for this disappointment. I would have thought he’d have a better sense of what to do with this new technology. All that said the show will probably do OK. After all it’s only competition at the moment is Celebrity Survivor on 7. Faced with a choice I hope Australian viewers will turn to the ABC. But they probably won’t and we’ll have to put up with more promos, more non-celebrities facing 'challenges' and more pissweak comedies from the commercial networks.

Let’s hope the next week will bring me something more positive to write about.

Yasmin’s Getting Axed

At least we can only hope so. Channel Ten has finally outdone even themselves with a new low in cheap, exploitative TV. Yasmin’s Getting Married is a reality TV format purchased from Scandinavia (God forbid we could come up with a TV show format on our own) and has a simple premise: Find Yasmin a husband in 9 weeks by letting the audience vote on who she dates.

Question 1. Who the fuck is Yasmin?

Answer: Who cares?

Question 2: Why would we want to vote on who she marries?

Answer: If we vote for Idols and Big Brother contestants, why not this too?

Question 3: Why does the studio audience laugh hysterically at every inanely stupid thing Ryan Phelan says?

Answer: If you are stupid enough to want to be in the studio audience for this crap you are stupid enough to think that primary school innuendo can pass for wit.

Question 4: Why is this crap on five nights a week?

Answer: Because Channel Ten is so ludicrously tight with their money that they thought they could get away with making one program on a shoestring budget and still fill a week of primetime spots where they can charge lots of money for advertising. A great plan… in theory.

Ten has already proven that they don’t need to make many shows to fill their schedules. Big Brother, The Biggest Loser and Australian Idol are excellent nightly line-up fillers. You only need one set, one host, one cast (mainly unpaid ‘contestants’), one lot of titles, one theme song and from that you get 10 hours of programming that conveniently also fulfils the Australian content requirements. Added to that is the wonderful addition of SMS voting which generates millions of dollars and pays for the production.

Then along came Yasmin. I’m sure the executives were salivating at the prospect of success with this. The show has one very basic set (which looks pretty cheap and must be the only set on TV without a plasma display), it goes out live (no annoying editing or post production costs), it has no million dollar prizes, it has lots of SMS voting and it can go on every night in the lucrative 7pm timeslot. The holy grail of television production: no costs and lots of profit. But they forgot one very basic principle. Even though TV audiences are fairly dumb and will swallow most of what you feed them, they do still require some level of interest. If Yasmin had been a previous contestant on Big Brother, a celebrity or a sports star the audience might actually care who she marries. As it is we have no idea who Yasmin is and more importantly we don’t know if we like her.

I don’t know who OK’d this program but clearly they have no understanding of why people watch TV. Although it’s not surprising that they would be working for Channel Ten, after all, this is the same network that thinks we watch TV to see promos for other TV shows.

For a long time now Ten have seen fit to plaster annoying supers and scrolls across our screens during our favourite shows and over the credits to promote other programs but now they have taken it even further. In an astoundingly arrogant move they now bring up supers 10 seconds before the end of a segment that read “Don’t move. A Ten promo is coming up”. They actually think that viewers want to see a Ten promo. Apart from anything else we have probably already seen it fifty times today. This type of promotion is proof that the networks have lost the plot.

If the executives and producers really knew what they were doing they wouldn’t need all this intrusive promotion. If they put on good shows, people will watch. Harassment and bombardment might get people to watch once but they will only stay watching if the show has something to offer. And it’s not like Australian audiences have particularly high standards. If they watch Dancing On Ice and It Takes Two and as a producer you still can’t come up with something to capture their interest you really should be looking for a new job.

In the meantime, good luck to Yasmin. I hope she finds the man of her dreams. And if not, no matter, she might be called back for a new series… Yasmin’s Getting Divorced or Yasmin’s Up the Duff or perhaps Yasmin’s In a Loveless Marriage and Has Turned to Prescription Drugs To Help Her Cope. Actually I think even I might watch that.