Weekly World News to Publish on Mars

The Weekly World News is to close as a paper tabloid in America and to reopen on Mars. The paper where almost everything is not true has decided to maintain a web presence only. This news will be a devastating blow to bored shoppers in American Supermarkets, where the paper was a welcome diversion to long queues.

Current stories include a plan by a radical left wing group to rename pawns in Chess. Important stuff and at least you can be sure that it is probably not true unlike other forms of media.

They had an interview with one of the managing editors on the radio this morning and he said that for almost all stories, there was at least some truth in an aspect of the story. Excellent philosophy of journalism.

Bloke Joke

A man wanted to test the lights on the back of his car, so he asked his friend for help. First he turned on the lights, and asked, “Are the tail lights working?” The friend responded, “Yes they are.” Then he hit his brakes and asked if the brake lights were working, and the friend responded, “Yes they are.” Next he tried his turn signal and asked, “Is the left blinker working?” To which the friend replied, “It is… It isn’t… It is… It isn’t… It is… It isn’t..

Howard Government to Dissolve States

The Howard Government today announced plans to use their constitutional power to dissolve the states and to amalgamate all their functions into the Commonwealth Government. Treasurer Peter Costello, announcing the plan said that "We pay for all this stuff, so we want to run it." The states are single handedly driving interest rates through the roof and all the Premiers are closet muslim homosexual drug addicts." Mr Costello later denied that he had said the last part.

A national programme of town meetings similar to those used in Australias great friend, the United States will be used to decide local priorities. Local communities will be given the opportunity to propose vote buying public works and Commonwealth Pollsters will evaluate their likely electoral impact prior to the programmes being funded.

Communities will have to pledge allegience to the Coalition Government, in order to have their projects funded immediately.

Prime Minister and President Elect for Life, John Howard said that "the Australian people didn't want communists running the country and the way the polls were going it was incumbent on the government to make this radical move to protect individual rights in Australia. The states are bloody useless and we have to be sure that we support our cricket team in preparing for the defense of the Ashes in Blighty in two years time" Captain Sporty went on to say.

John Howard is 123 years old. Kevin Rudd was too busy fiddling with his Facebook Account and looking at his brand new spiffy web site to comment. Julia Gillard was also unavailable due to a hair appointment.

Load a CRAP

You just know that the people behind the Cairngorms Revolt Against Pylons (CRAP) just have to have a sense of humour, but there's nothing funny about what they're fighting - the obliteration of vast tracts of beautiful Scotland by mega-pylons.

Power company lawyers arguing in favour of giant pylons through the Cairngorms National Park are having their fees paid by us, the electricity consumer - they're picking up an estimated £10,000 a day for appearing at the Beauly-Denny inquiry. That cash comes out of OUR electricity bills - companies have even demanded a price increase to pay for their inquiry costs.

Cairngorms Revolt Against Pylons (C.R.A.P.) is fighting to keep pylons out of the National Park. Pylons that are 7-times bigger than you see on the A9.

Campaigners argue that they should - Bury the pylons - London can do it...

In less than two years London has spent £70million ripping down 52 giant pylons obstructing work on the 2012 Olympic Games site and burying the cable in a 12km tunnel. Beauly-Denny power companies have been caught time and again exaggerating the cost of putting power cables underground - increasingly standard practice in Europe, the USA and Australia. Scottish and Southern Energy reported profits last year of £1billion.

THE OLYMPICS WILL LAST JUST TWO WEEKS.
PYLONS IN THE CAIRNGORMS WILL LAST FOR OUR LIFE TIMES.

To find out more, go here - where you can donate and get your CRAP badges!

The Cairngorms are a very remote part of Scotland. Very bleak and desolate even in summer and dangerous and gloomy in winter. They don't deserve pylons the size of office buildings cluttering up their vista. They wouldn't approve windfarms in this environment, why electricity pylons?

I have spent a fair bit of time in this area, skiing, hill walking, climbing and cross country skiing. I say no thanks.

Thanks Richard

Lizard Queen Flatters to Deceive

Dick Morris evaluates Hillary's less than impressive record of achievement in Government in the White House and in the Senate.

Her tag line is experience. It seems she makes a lot of stuff ups and her judgement is poor. I mean, look who she married.

Update Advice from a Fake Consultant has breaking news..

Top 100 Aussie Blogs

John Lampard profiles the work Meg Tsiamis has done to develop the Top 100 Aussie Blogs Index, which she developed pretty much from scratch and updates fairly manually weekly. A true labour of love.

I am on there somewhere. How did that happen?

How to get your kids to eat Brocolli

Serve it in a McDonalds Wrapper

Junk-food advertising's influence on young children has been confirmed by research revealing vegetables taste better to preschoolers if served in McDonald's wrappers.

In a study prompting renewed calls for restrictions on fast-food marketing, four out of five children preferred hamburgers, chicken nuggets, fries, milk and even baby carrots served in McDonald's packaging, over identical food in plain wrappers.

Childhood obesity experts said the results of 300 individual tasting comparisons, with 63 children aged three to five, were alarming.

Seventy-seven per cent preferred fries served on a wrapper with the golden arches logo, compared with 13 per cent who liked them better in plain packaging.

I know from personal experience that this is true.

Thanks, the ever useful The Age

Howard Politically Bankrupt

Our friend John appears to be losing it.

The latest polls are absolutely disastrous and Howard looks like our friend from Monty Python.

“…… He’s not pining, he passed on. This PM is no more. He has ceased to be. (politically) he’s expired and gone to meet his maker. This is a late PM. He’s a stiff. Bereft of life he rests in peace ………… This is an ex-PM.”

Thanks Neil in comments.

The Guardian in Australia

The Guardian

Headlines and subscription details for the weekly newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia.
www.cpa.org.au/guardian/guardian.html - 7 k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this


This is the number one search term if you search for the Guardian in Google Australia.

Getting Older

As I get older, I really appreciate weekends more not so much for what I can achieve, but what I cannot achieve. I really need the recovery time to function in the week ahead. Sad but true. This is especially true in the winter here, although it is pretty mild and pleasant at the moment.

There is nothing I like more than having no plans and just hanging out with the family for a couple of days. Ryan and Elizabeth also like to just stay home, but Hannah has to have some kind of social event such as shopping or visiting a friend. The sacrifices that we have to make.

Sedentary activities such as blogging have great appeal at this stage of my life. It gives me time to learn useful stuff like this. The most interesting of which is that there are more people alive now than have ever died and there is one more of us every seven seconds.

Thanks Crushed by Ingsoc and Corporate Presenter

Better Stop Drinking a Six Pack for Breakfast

I was beginning to wonder why I couldn't remember my kids names.

South Park Bloggers

Daily Referendum has excelled with his South Park Art Skills. Now we know what some of those bloggers really look like.

This is me. Others are here.

Kissing Goodbye, Good Riddance,

Ae Fond Kiss

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.



I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy:
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met -- or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

Thank you Robert Burns

We can only hope.

At Least I have my Own Castle

Every now and again I get all nostalgic and go and browse some of the Scottish Websites. I came across Castle Campbell in Dollar, in the Ochil Hills , close to Stirling. This used to be the home for some lowland Campbells who had got it from the Stuarts through marriage.

The first owner, Colin Campbell changed the name in 1489 from Castle Gloom to Castle Campbell. And the rest as they say is history.

I have visited a couple of times and driven past many times. It is an interesting castle, not really a ramparts, defensive castle like Stirling Castle up the road, but architecturally pleasing and in a very scenic location. Secure enough to keep out a few marauding locals, but also the feel of a large house.

UK Holiday Travel Schedule

The joys of escaping the grim UK summer. Many passengers are spending more time in the airport than flying. The picture is what I remember of arriving in Manila and Jakarta rather than a first world country.

It would make me want to stay home.

Joe Hockey Man of the People

At the moment the Howard Government is using a Public Servant, Barbara Bennett, Head of the Workplace Authority to spruik the very unpopular Work Choices Legislation.

This is quite unusual. Is there a trust factor with politicians on this one?
In my view she is not being terribly apolitical.

I don't think that the Commissioner of Tax was used to sell us GST or the Head of the Armed Forces used to
promote the war in Iraq or even the Secretary for Aboriginal Affairs
(whatever Dept it is at the moment) telling why the Commonwealth was moving
onto aboriginal lands. It's the job of politicians to sell policy.

In the mean time, have an ice cream and hope that your work conditions don't deteriorate.

Update: Oh Dear!

Young Rats Turned into Dope Heads

A Scottish scientist in Sydney have determined that young rats are more severely impacted by THC, the addictive component of marijuana, than older (and presumably wiser) rats. Younger rats were more likely to crave the drug and suffered severe memory loss.

Parallels with humans me thinks.

Labor Left Shut Down

The Labor Left have stayed to their bargain to shut up until after the election to date. Kevin Rudd is doing a good job of managing things and making Honest John and his cronies make the running with issues.

Gary Sauer Thompson analyses the strategy.

Thief Robbed of his Clothes

A Brisbane thief escaped with less than he arrived with after being robbed of his clothes by the shop assistant. He is not expected to make a police report.

Toilet Paper Indispensable

In our quiz, we have discovered that toilet paper and cars are the things that people would be most reluctant to give up for a year to reduce their environmental impact.

I have to agree.

I wonder if Panda's Have Storks

The San Diego Zoo has a new arrival. Hannah is very excited.

When I lived in Washington DC, the pandas were always a major attraction. It was major news in the Washington Post if there was even a potential that the pandas were pregnant. When babies died, it was again major sad news.

I wonder why Pandas are so appealling.

Blondie and George Harrison

Blognor Regis reminds me of the brilliance that was Blondie.

More interesting was the fact that Blondie had the longest time period between number 1 records until the posthomous arrival of My Sweet Lord by George Harrison. Somewhat ironic I suppose.

I remember for Show and Tell at New Gilston Primary School, we had to bring in something musical and I brought in a Wagner LP of Tannheuser, which I thought was very inspiring. Unfortunately it was widely ridiculed by my peers. My friend John Callan brought in his older brothers 45 of My Sweet Lord, which I found very boring, but which was deemed to be very cool by everybody else.

I still think it is boring, but there you go.

The Depreciating President

Wow! Some people have way too much time.

At least we know he (and Cheney) will be gone in a year or so. Who cares about approval ratings.

From Village Voice

New Australian Submarine Sea Trial Disrupted

The Australian Government was tight lipped today over the disruption to the deployment their latest stealth submarine purchase, which is going through last stage sea trials in New York. The submarine was due to be deployed in all marginal electorates in the coming weeks as a sign of the commitment of the government to fight the threat of terrorism.

The trials were being held in secret to ensure that embarrassing Defence Secretary Dr Brendan Nelson didn't know about them. It is understood that the people arrested in the incident were covert Australian Defence Forces personnel.

It is not clear why the claims of stealth characteristics have not been substantiated in the trials.

The Australian Government have an unparalled record of military procurement bungling , particularly submarines and this latest incident is particularly embarrassing.

OK I was just joking.

Reasons to Visit Australia

Australia has no poisonous animals except.

Snakes
The Taipan
The Small-scaled or Western Taipan
Common Brown
Tiger
Death Adder
Mulga Snake or King Brown
Rough-scaled
Sea-snake
Copperhead


Spiders
Red-back
Funnel-web
Trap door
White tail

Other Assorted Dangerous Things
Australian Paralysis Tick
Blue-ringed Octopus
Puffer Toadfish
Guy Sebastian
Stonefish
The Box Jellyfish
Blue Bottle or Portuguese Man-o-War
Coneshell
Politicians
Great White Sharks
Grey Nurse
XXXX Beer
Hammer Heads
Salt water Crocodiles

There are also very rare but dangerous animals such as drop bears which drop from trees in the bush and hoops snakes which roll down steep hills and attack there prey…both eat tourists….Apart from these the country is pretty safe.

Australia has the second highest rate of citizen support outside Thailand for British Tourists. You can understand why.

Things You Need to Know Before You Visit Australia

He’s got a few roos loose in the top paddock ….. (he's nuts)
May your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down…. (aussie curse)
Flat out like a lizard drinking ….. (in a hurry)
Spittin’ chips ….(cranky, frustrated, irrittated)
Chucking a wobbly ….. (Ranting, tantrum)
Mad as a cut snake …… ( really nuts)
Cranky as a shearers cook ….. (cross)
He’s a six pack but he lacks the wrapping (for people who aren’t too smart)
When the Sahara freezes over and the camels come home with skates on (in other words NEVER!)
Flash as a rat with a gold tooth (for someone all dressed up)
The room’s not big enough to swing a cat ….(small spaces)
Nutty as a fruitcake or crazy as a wheel ….. (nuts)
Laughing like a fat spider up a Christmas tree (when something good happens to you)
He couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag (weak, stupid, idiot)
So hungry I could eat the crutch out of a low flying duck (really hungry)
Queer as a three pound note (for anything suspect)
It’s about as useful as a waterproof teabag (useless)
Wouldn’t it rip the fork out of your nightie (when something shocking or unbelievable happens)
It fits like a stocking on a chook’s lip (means it fits very nicely)
Dry as the sole of an Arab’s sandshoe (drought)
full as a goog…(drunk)…goog is an egg
‘dog’s breakfast’ (A real mess)
’dry as a pom’s towel’ (When someone is very thirsty)
Chip off the old block (like father)
How much can a koala bear (stressed)
Got a face like a twisted mallee root (ugly)
About as much use as a hip pocket in a singlet (useless)
Behind like a cow’s tail (female bottom)
A sausage short of a BBQ (crazy)
Mutton done up as lamb (50+ women trying to look 16 years old)
Useful as an inflatable dartboard (useless, pointless)
Your bloods worth bottling.. ( good folk)
Two bob short of a quid… (crazy)
Cold enough to free the walls off a bark humpy (freezing)
The wind is so strong it’ll blow a dog off the chain (gales, very windy)
half your luck.…..when something good happens…. “congratulations” or “best wishes”.
As useless as tits on a bull….. (useless)
get your Arse into gear……..(someone is asking you to get moving)
Arse about face…(something is back to front)
Beating around the bush …..(not getting to the point on a subject )
Big note yourself ……(to say you are better or more important than you are )
Town Bike …..(woman of loose morals, sleeps around (everyone rides her)
Even Blind Freddy could see that …(what someone would say to you, if you are not understanding something that is obvious )
off to the Bog to leave an offering…(off to the toilet to leave a deposit)
As honest as John Howard (very very honest and trustworthy - NOT!)

All you need to know now is when to use them.

Thanks Little Aussie Cynic

This is how I feel about work some days.

Having heard this a number of times, I am sure that it is a complete set up.

It's Just Not Cricket - 50 Famous Sledges

And yes he is on the list (more than once).

"What problems do you have, apart from being unemployed, a moron and a dork?"

It is not surprising how many of these come from cricket, given all the time that they spend sledging each other.

And Number 1, the one nobody heard other than Zinedine Zidane and Marco Materazzi.

True Scots

Disabled Sightseeing

Warning: Non PC

It's Jeans for Genes Day Today

We all have our jeans on today.

Lacist Humour

I can't help it, I am Scottish. The Scots are the most racist when it comes to jokes. It is to do with our inferiority complex and anybody who is not fair of skin is sufficiently worse off to our way of thinking that they are worthy of a joke.

I grew up in a country where the only foreigners were a few white English and Irish people. People of colour were about as rare as people who like Tony Blair. Call us narrow minded and parochial if you like, but it is true.

So if you don't like it, tough. I blame my parents.

Now say it out loud after me.

Clever

In The Begining ...

Four men were sitting in a pub. They were arguing over which of their professions had been around the longest.

The conversation went something like this:

The first of the men, a Doctor called Malcolm stated:-

"Well obviously my profession is the oldest, I mean surely God must have needed a doctor to remove the rib from Adam which he then used to create Eve."

The man next to him, a Minister responds:-

"Yes my son, you may have a point there, however surely the ministry is the oldest profession, for someone had to bless Adam and Eve with the faith in God."

The third man responds rather briskly:-

"YES, Rev Jeff. I can, just about see where you're coming from on that one. However. To create the earth, and indeed the universe out of nothing but CHAOS within just 6 days is an ambitious project. After all my years in Civil Engineering I can tell you a project that size would require many engineers, hence mine, must be the oldest profession.

The doctor, the minister and the engineer all exchange a few more feeble arguments before the fourth man, a small, glum looking gentleman who's only contribution thus far has been to stare vacantly into the bottom of his whisky glass and foam at the mouth coughs loudly. He says in a quiet, patient, almost condescending voice:-

"I work fur the cooncil, who the f##k dae yae think created the chaos!"

Howard Lolly Jar Getting Opened

I listened to this on the ABC Yesterday. Classic. The politics of envy and how to get reelected at all costs. If you want better public service, better move to a marginal constituency. John Winston Howard has lots of goodies for you. I have added some thoughts in bold.

MARK COLVIN: Now everybody wants one.

Yesterday, in yet another intervention in State (Read: Bloody Labor Losers) affairs, the Howard Government announced it would directly fund a public hospital in Tasmania. The Prime Minister said the move was a trial and, if successful, the model will be extended to other parts of Australia (Depending on how the polls go as we head into the elections). Now, of course, hopefuls are beginning to form a queue that leads directly to the door of Treasury in Canberra.

But Peter Costello appears keen to limit the discussion to the Mersey Hospital in Devonport.
(Read: The attempt to keep Braddon's Liberal member, Mark Baker, in Parliament would, it seems, cost taxpayers a minimum of $120 million over the next three years. That could get pretty expensive if this strategy is applied to all the marginal seats.)

Chief Political Correspondent Chris Uhlmann reports.

CHRIS UHLMANN: The Prime Minister clearly wants everyone to know that his decision to spend $40-million a year to keep the Mersey Hospital in Devonport open may not be a one off (Read: We are going to be looking at proposals like these for each of the marginal seats.)

JOHN HOWARD: What I said yesterday and I repeat it now, very deliberately, is that we will see how this intervention works out, and if it does work out, it could well be that we do the same thing in other parts of the country. (Read: The States, run by Labor are Bloody Useless and couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery)

CHRIS UHLMANN: And the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, is all but handing out his phone number.

TONY ABBOTT: If people believe that the State Labor Governments are mismanaging local public hospitals and if they would like to see a Commonwealth funded community controlled public hospitals in their area, let them put their hands up and say so. (Read: We all know that the State Labor Governments are corrupt and bloody useless)

CHRIS UHLMANN: Liberal, Kym Richardson holds the most marginal seat in the country, Kingston in South Australia. He's heard the Government's message and has a hospital picked out.

KYM RICHARDSON: I particularly have a hospital, which is called the Noarlunga Hospital, which hasn't even got an intensive care unit. The emergency section itself is underfunded and is in dire need of a total revamp. (Well he would say that, since his seat will be the first to fall if the current polls are to be trusted. )

This looks very like the plan Labour has implemented in the UK, to target public funding in areas with the greatest voter appeal.

This strategy is also being pushed in the areas of: indigenous affairs, industrial relations, water, education, health, all areas where State Governments (all Labor at this time) are or have been in charge to a greater or lesser extent.

This is clearly one of the areas that the Centraliser in Chief and Principal Election Wedge Strategist John Winston Howard plans to fight the election. No detailed plan, no budget, no consultation. Smacks of desperation, but it will have local appeal.

I hope young Kevin and his band of merry men have an effective response as Howard paints a vision of Australia with Mark Latham clones running the State and Commonwealth Governments. Wooooo! Scary Labor is coming to eat your children. This is very ugly politics and signals the real beginning of the election campaign.

Increasing Wealth Divide in Australia

Recent information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows wealth in Australia increasingly concentrated with 20 percent of the population owning 61 percent of the wealth and the bottom 20 percent owning one percent. The income divide is not so dramatic, but is driven by ownership of property and investments.

John Symons, the smiling face of Aussie Home Loans yesterday called the housing affordibility situation, where housing affordability is at the lowest level for decades, a national social crisis.

This is the real face of the so called prosperous Australia. An Australia increasingly divided by wealth.

I wondered what happened to the Hippies

Generous Praises to Typing Is Not Activism

I used to supervise guys like this.

The Kids and the Fat Controller

Ryan is attempting to pick the Fat Controllers nose amongst great hilarity at the Annual Friends of Thomas Event at the South Australia Railway Museum in Port Adelaide.

Note: Bounteous praise to Captain Haddock who pointed out my greivous error in misnaming the Fat Controller, the Fat Conductor. Is nothing sacred? How could a serial Thomas the Tank Engine Parent, albeit a little out of practice, miss something like that?

Trip to the Beach

Treasure from the beach. Good enough for two days of show and tell for the kids.

Everything you need to know in a Turkish Lift.

Good to see Teachers at Gordon Browns Alma Mater have time to amuse the world. Perhaps that is to make up for Captain Sourpuss, Leader of the Celtic Republic of the United Kingdom.

Thanks Mr Hoods Worldwide Whatsit

National Tree Day in Australia

Every year Australia has National Tree Day. This year the local Toyota Dealer, CMI Toyota sponsored tree planting at our kids school. The kids planted around 400 native trees in the scrub area next to the school. I used to grow these in my back yard. It was nice to see the planting end of it. The scrub area used to be an Army training area, but is now a haven for the kids with native trees and a wet lands. They are very lucky to have it and the trees planted will enhance the area.

All the kids got to plant a tree or two, have their face painted, eat a sausage and dance to a free disco.


Excellent Community Event. Community focused events like this mean more to me than annoying television commercials for cars, so ONYA CMI TOYOTA. End of Commercial Endorsement.

Happy Birthday Lawrence of Arabia

One of the Greatest. 75 Today.

I'm a Snarky Type of a Guy

You Are a Snarky Blogger!

You've got a razor sharp wit that shines on like a crazy diamond prior to polishing. You like to eat Weetabix for Breakfast and to drive on the wrong side of the road. If there is an unusual angle on a story, you are likely to find it, if it doesn't find you. Your favourite animal is the Tapir and you hate those tedious SEO Optimisation type blogs. Your cultural background makes you often indecipherable to your readers. You make up for this by putting a lot of pictures on your blog. The End!

What Kind of Blogger Are You?

Snarky? from Urban Dictionary

Thanks CrashDummie

My Autobiography

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE

1920’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!

• First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.
• They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.
• Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.
• We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
• As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
• Riding in the back of a Ute on a warm day was always a special treat.
• We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
• Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Red Rooster.
• Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn’t open on the weekends, somehow we didn’t starve to death!
• We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
• We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy fruit tingles and some crackers to blow up frogs with.
• We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because……
• WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
• We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
• No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
• We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with matchbox cars.
• We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms………. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
• We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents .
• Only girls had pierced ears!
• We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
• You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross buns at Easter time…….no really!
• We were given BB guns and sling shots for our 10th birthdays,
• We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing at Maralinga in 1956.
• We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
• Mum didn’t have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!
• Footy had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
• Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather straps and bullies always ruled the playground at school.
• The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
• Our parents got married before they had children and didn’t invent stupid names for their kids like “Kiora” and “Blade”
• This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
• The past 70 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
• We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

PS -The big type is because your eyes are shot at your age

(Doing the rounds on email - source unknown)

Thanks Meg

I have seen a version of this before I started blogging. I am glad to have it again. Although my childhood was not Angelas Ashes, it had plenty of rough edges. Where my parents worried if we didn't turn up when it got dark, we worry if our kids disappear for 5 minutes. My kids look at me aghast when I discuss my childhood where my mother could not drive, no television, internet, computers, DVDs.... Unbelievable and just not possible in their minds.

William McGonagall The Worlds Worst Poet?

Some Scots are lobbying to recognise William Topaz McGonagall as a Scottish Poetic Icon. Many snooty Scots would like to have none of it.

The late 19th century poet's work is so bad he carried an umbrella with him at all times as protection from the barrage of rotten tomatoes he faced wherever he recited.

His most famous work, a poem initially titled The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, drew derision from crowds when it required a hasty rewrite after the structure collapsed in 1879.

It became The Tay Bridge Disaster with the immortal opening stanza: "Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!/Alas! I am very sorry to say/That ninety lives have been taken away/On the last Sabbath day of 1879/Which will be remember'd for a very long time."

With gems like this, he will take some beating as the Worlds Worst Poet.

The Tay Bridge Disaster

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."

more

More than 100 years after the poet's death, detractors still won't give him a break: The Scottish literary establishment has blocked plans for a memorial to him at the Writers Museum in Edinburgh alongside those honouring Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Sir Walter Scott.

Despite his plodding verse and excruciating rhymes, McGonagall has remained in print since his death in 1902. He was branded the "world's worst" by his own publisher who put the epithet on a volume of his works.

McGonagall himself was confident of his genius, believing his poetry to be second only to that of Shakespeare.

Today fans keep the flame alive with regular recitals and their own version of a Burns Supper - the annual gatherings marking Burns' birthday that include prodigious consumption of Scotch whiskey. At McGonagall night, the meal is eaten back to front with the dessert first and ending with the starter.

On such evenings, devotees are likely to declaim vintage McGonagall verses such as: "Beautiful Moon, with thy silvery light/Thou seemest most charming to my sight/As I gaze upon thee in the sky so high/A tear of joy does moisten mine eye."

Neither McGonagall's home town of Edinburgh, nor his adopted city of Dundee, on the east coast of Scotland, has a statue to him - though both have plaques.

I grew up just down the road from the Tay Bridge, travelling over its replacement on many ocassions. The Tay Bridge Disaster is part of the local history. I think a statue to McGonagall overlooking the site of his most famous poem would be fitting.

Kilkenny Life

I live in Kilkenny and we are all fans of South Park here. Our suburb gets a mention in each episode.

You can make your own South Park Character here.

Thanks Lady Banana