Dear Posterity

I consider myself a fairly tolerant sort of chap, but scenes like this force me to ask the question: "What is wrong with the old people today?"

Back when I was young, old people knew their place, at home or in a home. Oh yes, there was the occasional bad gnarled trunk who'd threaten to set his dog on you for walking on his lawn but for the most part they were content to be like Malcolm Frazer, pathetic relics of a bygone era whose rose-tinted views of their own histories and pontificating on the current situation were constant but easily ignored.

But this new generation of oldsters seem to think we owe them something, despite most of them never having fought in a war for us.

I see them hanging around the railway stations and the shopping centres, their sullen, judgemental stares a constantly threatening presence. God knows what drugs they might be on and God help you if you make eye contact with one of them and as for the music they listen to, well back in my day, the old people listened to decent artists like Glen Miller, Gracie Fields and Al Jolson. Now they want long-haired wierdos like Andre Rieu, fatuous, aural-chewing-gum-peddlers like Michael Buble and insidious, self-plagiarising incubi like Andrew LLoyd-Webber. They even have radio stations entirely dedicated to the playing of this sort of tripe, usually described, (I can only presume with ironic intent,) as "easy listening". Two hundred or more years ago, the elderly sometimes needed their food to be chewed for them. This current generation of elderly seems to need their music to have passed all the way through the digestive tract.

As I said at the beginning, I'm a fairly tolerant sort of chap, but I think something needs to be done about the pervasive anti-social nature of the culture these old people seem to be embracing. Personally, I think a lot of this stems from boredom as a result of them having nothing to do.

I think it's time we as a nation took some responsibility for the malais affecting our old people and gave them a role in society.

It's no good re-introducing National Service for anyone over sixty-five, but I think it's high time that a fiscally responsible policy of "Work for the pension" was introduced.

In one fell swoop, the current child-care affordability crisis could be solved, (to say nothing of the useful long-term benefits of job-creation in the psychiatry industry in twenty or thirty years,) and although the authorities and the mainstream media play it down, I think we're all aware of the fact that the entire Western world is in the midst of a major ill-fitting knitwear shortage.

I'm sorry if I sound strident, but as a hard-working tax-payer, I feel that this obsessive cultural pandering to oldie-culture, and the sense of entitlement that the older generation seems to embrace needs to stop.

If they don't like the country we've made, maybe they should go and find one they do like or maybe they should start earning their keep in this one.

Dear Russell

I'm not going to say too much here because I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I'll just say this:

No!

I love what you've done with Doctor Who and I admire how you've expanded the concept with Torchwood and The Sarah-Jane Adventures but no. Just don't even think about going there. It's a wrong place to go and you should know better.

Did I mention the word "No" there, Russell? Well since you don't seem certain, I'll just say it again: No!

Thank you.

We now return you to your regular programming.

Dear Posterity

Iron Man is a very well put together fillum.

Tony Stark is established as a much more likeable and believable character than Bruce Wayne has ever been in the Batman movies.

Shifting the origin to Afghanistan was obvious, but it's worth remembering that that story originally happened in Vietnam.

The product placement from Audi was discreetly done for the most part, far more discreetly than has been done in the Bond movies in the past twenty years.

The CGI was of the level of mediocrity we've come to expect from ILM. Credit to John Favreau for keeping that to a minimum, but the worst bit of the fillum was the supposedly climactic fight sequence.

Blessings to Robert Downey JR for absolutely owning this fillum. Sometimes the comic-book movie can make a fine actor give a performance which suggests he's only there for the pay-cheque, but Mr Downey JR from begining to end of this fillum, seems to revel in the character and honestly, I feel I understand Tony Stark a bit better than I did when I was reading the comic as a twelve year old.

Finally, in geek mode, I'd like to address a complaint I've read about this film, about how it doesn't show the real Tony Stark because he doesn't hit the bottle.

Frankly, my problem is the lack of subtlety.

The first time we see Tony, it is with a glass of scotch in his hand, and we see so many drinks poured in the course of the fillum and references to Tony's drinking.

Maybe it's just me, but I actually want to see a sequel to this movie because I like the hero. I want to see where he goes from here because he doesn't have a lazy opponent to face.

Dear Posterity

Today I ventured forth from my mountainside haven, (don't call it a "lair",) to the flatlands and more particularly, the city.

The journey inward was a salutary, (involving one finger,) reminder from Connex of why I venture down there reluctantly nowadays.

Look! I've been patient. I understand that unforseen circumstances occur, but at the risk of paraphrasing WS Gilbert, Saturday afternoons occur at frequent, well documented and well forseen intervals, so why the clough, (sorry, trying to tone my language down here, some of my younger relatives might be reading and I don't want to set a bad example,) was it impossible for any more passengers to be crammed into the train I was on for the last five stops between here and Richmond. There are not more people taking the train to the footy now than there have been in the past ten years, you've just cut the number of cars on the trains, and even if there were more people, maybe you could, oh! I don't know, run Saturday afternoon trains to a weekday schedule on the assumption that there might be people wanting to get into the city. Maybe if you took some of the money you're spending on advertising how seriously you take the job of moving people round and spent that money on moving us around, we'd all benefit.

But I digress.

I had a very pleasant day wandering around central Melbourne.

Did some window shopping in some of my favorite book-shops, got to visit my favorite room in Melbourne and take in this exhibition, which I highly recommend, not least for the "Got, want, want, got, got." interactive aspect of the later part, as opposed to the "Want, want, want..." experience of the earlier part. What can I say? I love books and while it it makes me deeply happy that I, as a Victorian taxpayer share ownership of these books, I can't help wishing I had copies of all of them of my own.

Oh yes, one day I will own copies of all books! In future times they shall speak of the Library of Reg in the same terms as the Library of Alexandria.

But I digress.

The evening was spent catching up with a friend I've not seen in too many years due to his inconsiderate insistence on living on a different continent, and meeting my friend's other Australian-based friends, and just as happened at sjkasabi's birthday gathering, I didn't curl up in a corner and hide from these new people.

I'm beginning to think I might be getting better at the problematic art of conversation.

I'm certainly better at it than Connex are at their proclaimed job of getting people where they want to go.

The trip home from the city is a story unto itself. Suffice it to say that a headline of PASSENGER REBELLION! HEADS ON PIKES AT RINGWOOD was only narrowly avoided.

But I really didn't mind standing on Ringwood station for twenty minutes until they could find a train to replace the one that we were all told was going to Belgrave hen we boarded it in the city. Obviously, the management of Connex are trying to turn back the tide of passengers by acting like a complete bunch of dyslexic versions of the Anglo-Saxon king who tried the same thing.

I don't mind because despite them, I've had a good day.

Dear Posterity

It's rare we get a performer of this caliber, but tonight, for one night only we have a cat that really swings his arse off, or so I'm told by reliable sources:

( Read more... )

Dear Posterity

Humphrey Lyttleton was the man all BBC radio listeners wished was their grand-dad.

An erudite, occasionally irascible, occasionally slightly bewildered but always charming old chap who you just knew you could tell any youthful indiscretion to and he'd sigh wearily and then tell you how to fix it in a way that left you thinking he'd done the same thing in 1948.

Born into privilege, his service in World War II left him with a life-long sympathy with the working class. At school, when he was supposed to be engaged in sports, he was skiving off and forming his first jazz combo. After the war, instead of going into a respectable job in stock-broking or banking, he became a cartoonist to pay the bills until the trumpet could pay its way, which it did before too long an for a kid from the right side of the tracks he did more than okay.

To turn around after being described by Louis Armstrong as the best jazz horn player in Britain and start a new career as the best comedy chairman in British radio would seem like showing off for anyone other than Humph.

I imagine he and Louis have been getting reacquainted since he left us and I imagine Gabriel is starting to worry about job security.

I'll miss Humph a great deal, but I'd sooner celebrate his life than mourn his loss.

Dear Posterity

In response to algy's St George's Day linking to Flanders and Swann's Song of Patriotic Prejudice, I humbly offer Brabbins and Fyffe (AKA Armstrong and Miller, ) with their thoughts on the same theme.



I have become a huge fan of Armstrong and Miller of late. Comparisons with Little Britain arise due to the character based nature of their sketches, but I much prefer Armstrong and Miller's reliance on extremely good writing and willingness to go for the really slow burn gag rather than Lucas and Walliams' reliance on prosthetics and familiarity.

My favorite A.&M. characters, (and judging by the number of clips on youtube, I'm not alone in this,) are these not-quite-traditional-stiff-upper-lip World War II RAF chaps, (and this clip shows what I mean about the slow burn, in a sketch lasting less than two minutes, note how much time is spent on the build up.):



Isn't it though.

Dear Posterity

There has been one small problem I had with the the new Casa Del Reg which I had not shared.

As advertised, it had gas cooking and an electric oven, but a cursory examination on the second night I was here suggested that it was actually a gas oven and I couldn't get it to work.

I reported a non-working gas oven on my condition report and the property manager called me and said "I can't find anyone who fixes gas ovens, if you can, get it fixed and deduct it from the next month's rent."

I can live without an oven, but I do like the occasional roast, casserole and pie, so I was pretty much resigned to waiting a couple of months until I could afford to get someone in to fix the oven before those options were open to me again.

Today, I was outside having a smoke and my most sociable new neighbor stopped what she was doing, (moving her stuff into storage and planning to move out if you want to know: no, not because of me, because of Bloody Connex, who've left her stranded in the city when she was on her way home three times in the past two weeks and only once had a hurricane as an excuse, and have allowed her to get an official warning from her employer for persistently being late for work, not that that is any of your business, but it's yet more justification for my increasingly rational hatred of Connex, but I digress,) to have a chat.

She mentioned that she used to live in this very flat before she moved into the one-bedroom place she's now in, so I asked her about the oven. And she smiled angelicly, told me how she'd bought a microwave oven when she'd first moved in and eventually got a bloke in to fix the oven, and then she showed me what he had showed her, ie: How to light the oven.

And it's so easy, but it's designed to make it completely impossible to gas yourself to death using this particular oven. There's a handle inside the oven you have to hold down to keep the gas flowing until you trigger the pilot light and you'll pass out and not be able to hold the handle down long before the gas reaches lethal level.

I've decided it's called the Plath-brake, but no-one's ever accused me of being tasteful.

That echidna is still looking after me.

Not by giving me a troubled American poet-proof oven, (yes, I'm a depressive but, and this is possibly the English part of my genetic make-up, I've never really entertained suicidal thoughts because I couldn't inflict the trauma of finding the resulting mess on anyone, that would just be terribly bad manners; I mean yes, I know I'm going to die eventually, but when I do, I'll try to ensure that my corpse is not a complete surprise to whoever finds it, but again I digress,) but by giving me a friendly neighbor who can show me how it can be operated by those who are not troubled American poets and just want to use a gas oven to cook a leg of lamb.

I think, instead of submitting the expected gas-plumber's bill with next month's rent, I'll instead submit a set of clearly written instructions for getting the oven to work for benefit of the next tenant, possibly in verse.

Dear Posterity

No dress code tonight, just make sure you've got change for the pool table and I wouldn't wear my best shoes if I were you.

( Read more... )

Dear Posterity

Much has been made here in the Windy Southern City of Restrained Colonialism during the past week of Sir Rod Eddington's study on Melbourne's transport needs and much of the debate seems to be centred on the cost, the need for these particular projects and their political fallout.

So let me say that I think all the projects Sir Rod suggested are probably wothwhile. The fact that the Eastern Freeway is little more than a Whitehorse Road duplication as it stands, (it serves no purpose but to funnel traffic away from the garden suburbs,) needs to be addressed, it needs to actually go somewhere, but not into the city, the last thing we need is a more efficient way of feeding traffic into the city,.

But honestly, what the Eastern Freeway really needs is a railway line driven right down the middle of it, and there is actually room to do it, and that railway to then go underground to link up with the city loop at Melbourne Central, with the inclusion of a University station.

The following is not an anti-car, green-nazi, make-the-rich suffer diatribe.

I love cars, more specifically, I love big old cars with at least six cylinders under the bonnet, cars that you can really enjoy driving, this is my idea of the perfect car and one day I will own it, (Oh yes, it will be mine!) and when I do and I need to travel into the city, I'd rather take the train, just so I wouldn't have to spend half an hour fannying about trying to find parking.

I'll be bloody annoyed that it takes longer to get to the city by train from here now than it did a hundred years ago, (and no, I'm not making that up,) but I will probably spend that time wondering why our much-lower taxed ancestors managed to build the skeleton of a fantastic rail network in the model of the London underground and the New York subway and then, some time around 1920 just stopped and said "Well that's all we'll ever need."

Transport policy should be about being smart rather than being self-righteous.

Melbourne needs at least a billion dollars spent upgrading and expanding its commuter rail network. Here in the East alone, the Glen Waverley line needs extending out to meet the Belgrave line at Upper Ferntree Gully, there needs to be a line that runs parallel to Wellington Road to cover Monash University and Narre Warren, this wonderful Eastlink freeway should have had a rail twin linking Frankston to Ringwood.

Actually, that's probably a lazy couple of billion right there, but it wouldn't have been thirty years ago when it should have been done.

It's too late for the outer East, but there's still time to build the infrastructure for the growing northwestern suburbs.

I don't care if the police feel they need to look nicer, I don't care if I don't understand why the Grand Prix is good for the state's economy, in a nutshell, I couldn't give a fat rat's arse for anything the state government pays consultants or public relations people for. I don't care about public art, since governments almost always buy Christo wrapping something in cling film rather than Banksy stencilling a few suburban railway stations. Those are the things my tax dollars can be spent on after we have a reliable and accessible to all public transport system. And accessible to all is the highest priority.

We need to get cars off the road, both to reduce congestion and to reduce carbon emissions. There is no better way to do that than by making sure that most people can walk to the nearest railway station, not a bus stop because busses are about as reliable as a one-armed wall-paper hanger.

This does become a class issue because the cost of housing increasingly drives the lower-paid, who can least afford to run a car, further from the existing transport infrastructure. I live in the outer suburbs by choice and I have access to public transport, but there's tens of thousands of people who don't have the choice or the access.

And, whilst I am not a violent leftist, I don't think I'm being unreasonable in suggesting that the board of directors of Connex probably should be given the same recompense for being relieved of control of Melbourne's trains that the Romanov family were given for being dismissed from ruling Russia.

I pay my taxes so that everyone can think about owning a car as a pleasure rather than as a necessity.

My name is Reg. I use public transport and I vote.

Happy Birthday erudito. Long may you continue to make me think about my opinions and save me from being smug and lazy in my thinking.

Dear Posterity

As Turgenev put it: "Happy is he, on such a night, who has a roof over him and a warm corner to call his own, and Heaven help the homeless wayfarer."

Well actually, things have mostly settled down up here now, but it's been a wild old day. I was somewhat pleased and surprised that Casa Del Reg had electricity when I got home, not least because all of Upwey East of the railway line was in darkness, as was my work colleague N's neighborhood in Ferntree Gully from what his wife had told him on the phone earlier. The ride home on the bus revealed a landscape of fallen limbs and power-lines and non-working traffic lights.

I got to Upwey and found Main Street with the shutters pulled down. The station tannoy was announcing that no trains were running, that doesn't really say anything about the weather as, with Connex that could just have been due to an unforseen Wednesday. Needless to say, a replacement bus service was "being arranged" but it had only been two hours or so since train services had been stopped, so I wouldn't have expected one any time soon.

So I wandered home, managing to halt a bid for freedom on behalf of my rubbish bins which had been emptied this morning after I'd left for work. Not long after I got in under my own roof, the rain which had been threatening all day started and I was happy indeed.

One of my new neighbors didn't fare quite so well. I'd met her briefly over the weekend and tonight she found a letter in her letter box that didn't belong to her and she thought it might be mine so she knocked on the door to give it to me. It wasn't mine, but I was on my way out for a smoke anyway, so we chatted for a bit and she told me about her trip home from work in South Melbourne. She'd left work at 4PM hoping to beat the rush, but the traffic meant that the trams weren't moving so she'd ended up walking most of the way to Flinders Street Station. The train was only running as far as Camberwell and was servicing the Belgrave, Lilydale and Glen Waverly lines, since Glen Waverly trains were only coming in as far as Burnley. I could go on with the full details of her trip, but suffice it to say, that she'd just got home as we were chatting and it was about 9.10PM.

My fingers are crossed that sootysmudge managed a slightly less fraught trip home from work.

Dear posterity

Greetings from Casa Del reg Mk. II.

It turned out that it took two days to move, partially due to various mishaps meaning we couldn't get the first load of stuff in here until after lunch on Thursday, partly due to my best friend Tim, who was doing the driving on the operation, having sprained his ankle two nights before meaning I was left with all heavy lifting and most of the moving as such.

I had thought I lead a fairly spartan existence, so it was amazing how much crap I seem to have accumulated over the past six and a half years. Words can't express the relief I felt as I carried the last armful of stuff in the door here at about seven-thirty on Friday night, nor the utter physical exhaustion.

Rain on the roof has never sounded as sweet as it did later that night.

There is still a lot of unpacking to do, and unfortunately, quite a bit of furniture to acquire, but oh, I am loving this place. I think it's about three times the size of the old Casa Del Reg and it is not sandwiched between Burwood Highway and the railway line. It has oodles of storage space where the old place had none, a hot water service with a greater capacity than the average domestic kettle and...well let's just say that I think I'm going to like living here very much indeed.

Dear Posterity

Tomorrow is moving day, (please gods, let's get all of this rain over with tonight,) but tonight there was an unexpected knock on the door and it was Syd, the long-suffering landlord of this Casa Del Reg. He'd just called around to wish me all the best and to thank me for being a good tenant. I found out why he had to sell and I feel a lot happier knowing. Syd was always a great landlord and I'm really pleased for him that he sold this place at the top of the current real estate bubble and he was genuinely glad that I'd found a new place.

Syd was a wonderful landlord and he told me he thought I was a really good tenant.

Which was nice.

Dear Posterity

What was supposed to happen was that the skies would open up this Thursday evening, just after I'd finished moving into the new Casa Del Reg.

I had a quote from Turgenev lined up for the occasion and everything.

But nature has decided to open up tonight, I love the rain and I love thunder, particularly when I can listen to them whilst snuggled up in bed.

Global warming? That's nothing as long as I can heat the sound of rain on a corrugateted iron roof over my head. It's the sound of Australia.

Dear Posterity

I'm sure all my friends will share my happiness at the way New Upwey as been thriving, we've contained high-rise developments and we've been building our public transport system to the point where every citizen gets to go exactly where they need to.

I'll admit that during dark hours recently, I lost faith in the ideals of New Upwey, but I am reassured by the notion that there is housing for everyone in New Upwey.

Date:	2008-03-21 19:14
Subject:	In An Effort To One-Up algy
Security:	Public

Dear Posterity

Mitch Benn has released the video for his new single Happy Birthday War And whilst you can view it here or you could, courtesy of director Adam Bromley, view it here: ( Read more... )

Dear Posterity

I think I now understand the ramifications of  my recent encounter with the native wildlife.To meet an echidna is neither lucky or unlucky, but if you do the right thing by the echidna, the echidna will look after you and see to it that you can stay close.

So, after a month and a half of not a single place that I could afford, let alone manage to get to work on public transport from, within days of meeting the echidna and shepherding him away from the highway, the perfect place for me was suddenly advertised. Ten minutes' walk from the current Casa Del Reg and the railway station is in between, slightly more expensive, but considerably more spacious, and under $200 per week, in the midst of one of the most stinking hot  March weeks on record, it has air-conditioning.

I think it was the echidna's gift.

But it wasn't easily won. The way I worked out that I could pay a considerable premium on my current rent is by declaring the new place smoke free. I do tend to habitually chain-smoke while online in this place and actually having to get up and go outside for a smoke is going to save me more than enough to cover the extra costs. I also had to make deals in terms of doing much better house-keeping than has been traditional in the current Casa Del Reg, which is something I wanted to do for myself anyway, but now I'm contractually obliged to do it.

And I have been shown the abyss.

When I woke up this morning, (at 3.02 AM, 3.18AM, 3.28AM...5.06AM) I was gripped by the terror of having absolutely no idea where I'd be living this time next week. "I've done all I can." I thought, "And nothing is working. I am going to be living on friends' couches and in caravan parks from now on. I am about to fall through the cracks. I'm about to join the underclass."

There are no words to describe the mixture of fear, shame and self-loathing I felt as I lay awake in bed.

lucy_anne suggested, in her regular morning wake-up call, that I call the agent and make a new bid, which got me thinking and that's when I came up with the house-keeping bid and within three hours I had the last affordable unit in the Eastern Region.

So, the moral of this story is: Do the right thing by an echidna and you'll be given a chance to improve your life, and get to keep living in the echidna's neighborhood.

And so there will be a new Casa Del Reg, a larger, more comfortable, tidier and much more visitor friendly Casa Del Reg. And every March 6th, I will try to find a monotreme preservation organisation to give some money to.

And thank you to all of you who sent positive thoughts my way. They were greatly appreciated and they worked.

And thanks to the echidna.

Dear Posterity

I've been reticent to speak about this here, mainly because talking about it is not going to be productive and it'd serve no purpose than to make my friends fret about me, but the fact is, the current Casa Del Reg is not long for this world. The property has been sold and my residency was not part of the deal.

The day I got the letter from the agents telling me I'd have to move on, the rental market around here seemed to go into hibernation and the national media suddenly decided to run with "The Rental Crisis" and run stories every day about how affordable rental accommodation has disappeared.

I am not a low-income-earner, but I've spent the last six weeks living in fear of being homeless and it's not over yet.

Tonight I found the perfect place, but so did four other people.

It's nothing fancy, vintage bathroom fixtures, weatherboard exterior and no magnificent views, but I want this place so much, it burns.

Any rental application Karma you can send my way would be hugely appreciated.

I'm frightened and I don't want to become a statistic.

Dear Posterity

It's time for Avengers to assemble, (no, Steed hasn't just been to Ikea,) or for the old band to get back together or for us to say "Well, darn it! Why don't we put on our own show right here in the old barn?".

In short, it's volunteer time, and I don't mean folks from Tennessee with a penchant for wearing orange.

Mitch Benn needs someone to do some light lifting this coming Monday to help with the video for his new single, an updated version of Happy Birthday War.

If I were in London, I'd be there in a heartbeat, although, having moved stuff around before, I would insist on being credited as "Gaffer".

And just as a tip-off, it's only a matter of time before Adam Bromley, the director involved, gets his first feature film and this could be an opportunity to get on his team right at the start.