Scottish Blog Roundup

The Scottish Blog Roundup with an Antipodean Perspective is published. Go and take a look.

Sorry Cricket Tournament Finally Ends in Chaos

Sambit Bal sums up the disastrous Cricket World Cup.

Even at the end, they couldn't get it right and the event ended in farce, with the teams playing out the last three overs in pitch dark. Not to take anything away from the Aussies, who apart from Scotland, were hardly challenged throughout the tournament. OK, I was talking about in the bar after the game. Got to take those moral victories.

Not a very good advert for a sport that is looking to expand.

Sexin' Up Barbie Branding

Mattel has just unveiled Barbie Girls, a doll-shaped MP3 player that turns into a live character at BarbieGirls.com, a website where girls can interact with each other in a manner reminiscent of Second Life, the virtual world for adults. The online site has many safety features, including a dictionary of 2,000 words that can be used on the site.

The company hopes the new toy, which brings together Web surfing, shopping and music downloads, will cool demand for rival MGA Entertainment's sassy Bratz dolls - a line of big-headed, skinny dolls with scant, trendy clothing.

Hannah has already asked for an MP3 player. I am sure that the demands will become more vocal now. I also wonder what you can say with just 2,000 words.

Roaming Rabbit Alert

Public Notice
Wanted for Violating Terms of Probation, speeding and the theft of neighbourhood grass.
Grey Rabbit aka Daisy the Rabbit

The public, particularly those in the Kilkenny Area are warned to guard their lawns and young vegetables against a rabbit which has escaped from household detention and disappeared into the neighbourhood.

On no account are the public to approach the animal, which is considered very loveable and missed by her custodial guardians.

The public are asked to provide information on sightings directly to this blog.

Thank you in advance on behalf of Hannah and Ben the Brown Rabbit, who likes to hang out in the garden.

This will likely get a better coverage than neighbourhood posters, which I am sure we will be making in the next few days when Hannah realises that Daisy has gone. Losing animals is extremely stressful as a parent. Hannah is the worlds number 1 animal lovers (I am sure that there are others just like her, but I only know her).

When Spotty went missing one day, Hannah completely lost it. She was beside herself with worry. It was very unusual, because he never left the house by himself and found his way back from the park, the first time we went there and he was chased by a huge dog.

We made posters and put them up, we called the Animal Shelter, called the Council, looked around the neighbourhood, the house, the yard...everything that I could think of. About an hour later, I went to get something from the car and there was Spotty fast asleep. He had not managed to make it out of the car after our trip to the supermarket. Palpable sighs of relief from me and utter joy from Hannah.

When we went on holiday last year, Spotty went to stay with my friend Rod, who lived about two kilometres away in a different neighbourhood. We got a call from the house sitter one evening, that Spotty had turned up. She was in the living room and heard scratching on the window. She went out to look and there was Spotty. He had jumped the fence at the other house and come home. Cute, but annoying. Clever Boy.

I hope Daisy comes back, but the adults in the house are not holding their breath.

Update Daisy turned up this morning and we managed to catch her. Very happy Hannah. Thanks to the blogging community for assisting in this matter.

Baaaking Mad in Sapporo

As you would be if you bought a poodle and it didn't bark, eat dog food and you went to the vet to have its toes clipped and are told they are hooves. Apparently poodles are very expensive in Japan and people who bought the $1,600 sheep thought they were getting a bargain. More than they bargained for more like.

Sheep are quite rare in Japan and most Japanese have never seen one. Perhaps they should have checked here first.

Sheep can be purchased for about $50 in the local market here in South Australia. With a bit of feeding and grooming and transportation costs thrown in, there is a good potential for a quick profit. Great business scam while it lasted.

Thanks Cheeseburger Gothic for the entertainment tip.

Always look on the bright side of life.

After a crap week of work, try this for inspiration.

Official Coronation of HRH King Kevvie Man of the People

Today is the start of the Labor Party Conference, where all the dirty laundry will be cleaned up prior to the official annointment of Kevin Rudd as Alternative Prime Minister in Waiting and All Around Great White Hope, by his adoring fans the Unions and a few others who are members of the Labor Party.

He is definitely taking a Tony Blair Cult of Personality approach to politics and is currently very popular. He just has to work out a few problems like ensuring that he can't be tagged as Mark Latham II, whether to approve new uranium mines, what to do about industrial relations, water politics and preparing for the Howard dirty tricks department, who are keen to paint him as a union flunky, job destroyer, drought creator, underminer of the Australian way of life....anything to bring him down to earth.

Based on the number of Union Leaders who are giving up their high paid jobs to run for parliament, they must feel very confident of victory in the election to be held sometime before the end of the year.

Dramatic Increase in Baked Bean Can Assaults in London

Hugh Grant takes matters into his own hands.

Very Scottish Weather

It has rained here for 36 hours continuously. Nobody is complaining. It is just very surreal and unusual.

We haven't had a weather forecast like this for about three years, unlike weekly forecasts like this for my entire childhood.

From the Bureau of Meteorology

Adelaide Forecast for Friday
Showers. Possible thunderstorms and local heavy falls until late afternoon.
Moderate to fresh northwest winds.

Precis Showers.
City: Max 20

Saturday Showers.
Sunday Showers.
Monday Morning shower or two.
Tuesday Showers.
Wednesday Showers.
Thursday Showers.

What Were They Thinking???

Campba

That would be my name if I played football for Brazil. I would be joined by family members Clutterbico, Ryun de Santos and Campbardo.

Thanks Norm

Buying Readers

Is it ethical to buy sponsored ads on Google for events such as the Virginia Tech shooting to drive readers to your site?

Peter Black from Freedom to Differ poses the question.

Jesus The Musical

Life has many possibilities. This is one.

Where are you Lex Luther?

Watch out Superman! Kryptonite Alert.

Google Everywhere

From The Age

Google has knocked Microsoft from its perch as the world's top-ranked brand, according to findings released on Monday.

The rankings, compiled by market research firm Millward Brown, also put Google ahead of well-established brands like General Electric, No. 2; Coca-Cola, No. 4; Wal-Mart Stores, No. 7; and IBM, No. 9.

Some key factors seen this year in building brand recognition ranged from corporate responsibility to serving customers in emerging markets like Brazil and India, according to the study.

For Google, which ranked No. 7 a year ago, the jump to the top underscores how quickly the web search leader has become an everyday name. The company uses relatively little advertising, instead relying on word-of-mouth promotion.

By contrast, Microsoft's slide down to third place from first comes even as the software company has been rolling out its new Windows Vista operating system with a massive global marketing blitz.

Eileen Campbell, global chief executive of Millward Brown, said the rankings showed "a blend of good business leadership, responsible financial management and powerful marketing ... can be leveraged to create and grow corporate wealth."

I can remember living in Seattle in the mid 1980s and meeting people at parties who worked for Microsoft, "a company that made programmes that allowed people to type documents on a computer" and that almost nobody had heard of. How things change.

Google, with a corporate motto "Don't be Evil" has gone from a no name to a verb (we are all googling after all) in less than 5 years. Pretty impressive. All the more impressive since less than 20 percent of the world population have access to the internet, based on somewhat imprecise estimates.

Searching on Wikipedia, I found that I was at the University of Maryland College Park at the same time that co founder Sergei Brin was getting his undergraduate degree in the early 1990s. Lives diverge.

Carnival of Cities

This is my city, Adelaide, looking over Adelaide Oval towards the city

The Carnival of Cities will be here next Monday, after going home to Mummy at Home Turf Media for this week. Pay a visit. There are some interesting articles.

Remember – one post only, please. I have a quirky sense of humour, so unusual articles welcome.

Pick your best-written work about any aspect of a single city, and get it to me by Sunday, April 29th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. That would be 03.30 on Monday morning here in Adelaide, so earlier, would be good. Use this form to submit. For more Carnival of Cities info, click here or on the side bar.

Thanks and looking forward to your input. The Carnival will be up and running on Monday, April 30 2007.

Coulda Been

This sort of stuff will make nationalists curse.

From the New Zealand Herald.

It was a document that could have changed the course of Scottish history. Nineteen pages long, written by Scottish economist Gavin McCrone, presented to the Cabinet office in April 1975 and subsequently buried in a Westminster vault for 30 years.

McCrone's paper, written for Ted Heath's Tory Government and only just released under the Freedom of Information Act, revealed how North Sea oil could have made an independent Scotland as rich as Switzerland.

Earlier this week, Chancellor Gordon Brown underlined the vital revenue stream that North Sea oil still is in the context of British politics.

In his pre-Budget report, Brown extracted an extra £6.5 billion (NZ$16 billion) in tax from North Sea oil and gas producers, to be taken over the next three years. Imagine then, what the oil could have done for a Scotland which chose independence in the mid-1970s and claimed ownership.

Thirty years ago, McCrone's conclusions shocked his political masters. An independent Scotland's Budget surpluses, wrote McCrone, would be so large as to be "embarrassing". Scotland's currency "would become the hardest in Europe with the exception of the Norwegian kronor".

Scotland would be in a position to lend heavily to England, a situation that could last "for a very long time".

At Home with Kevin and John The New Reality Political Show

This article made me laugh out loud. It just rang so true to my life. Thank you Sue Dunleavy, whoever you are. I know how you feel.

Red Tape Strangling Aussie Family Life

I decided I'd had enough of the nanny state the day my kids came home in disgrace because they had hummus for lunch - it was the same day the ACT Government banned me from walking my dog to school.

Business is always whingeing about government regulations, but what about the red tape strangling family life?

Governments are now trying to micro-manage every aspect of a parent's job - from telling you what you can feed your kids and how you can discipline them to how much television they can watch.

Now Kevin Rudd wants to test what sort of a parent you are by measuring your child's waistline, empathy, curiosity and whether they pick up a pencil dropped by a classmate.

My one luxury as a working mum used to be lunch order day - but the healthy canteen policy has robbed me of that.

Instead of sleeping in one day a week I'm now up packing lunches - because cream cheese and lettuce sandwiches just don't have the same appeal to my kids as chicken nuggets.

"Mum, I don't do sandwiches," my 11-year-old solemnly informed me during the canteen's healthy sandwich drive.

Even the task of concocting a healthy home-made lunch has become a feat of Olympic proportions, thanks to the school's new nut-free policy.

After calling a family conference to workshop lunch ideas that removed nuts, muesli bars and peanut butter from my kids' lunchboxes, I thought I had the perfect solution: chicken and hummus rolls that are not only good but tasty.

Wrong.

Hummus (which I never realised until now is a nut) is also banned because it has sesame seed paste in it.

That just happened to be the day the school newsletter informed me that getting the kids fit by walking the dog to school with them was now also illegal and I'd be fined if I took the dog on to school grounds.

If governments want to wrap families in red tape they should at least make sure the rules they set are consistent.

Do they want us to feed our kids healthy food and get them fit or not?

What annoys me most about the burgeoning nanny state is that all families are being penalised by rules meant to stop the bad practices of a minority.

If one in four children are overweight, that means the overwhelming majority aren't.

The 75 per cent of families who buy their kids one junk food meal a week at the school canteen as a treat are penalised because a few parents feed their kids junk more often.

This is an election year and I reckon it's time for families to fight back against the government red tape that is taking the spontaneity out of parenting.

Ban boring televised debates between two leaders and put them to a real life test.

Before we let Kevin Rudd or John Howard impose any more we-know-better-than-you rules on families, they should have to try to battle with the problems their rules have already caused.

Let's run the election campaign like a reality TV show.

Instead of touring the country making staged policy announcements, John Howard and Kevin Rudd should each be put in a suburban home with two kids for five weeks.

Hidden cameras can show the voters how they manage the family budget with child care fees of $90 a day and subsidies of just $4.57 a day.

Every morning they will have to come up with a packed lunch that's not only healthy but complies with the school's nut-free, seed-free, taste-free allergy policy and yet is still eaten by the children.

They'll have to work out how to fit in exercising the dog and the kids while getting the kids to school without straying on to school grounds.

They'll have to juggle working overtime with the massive penalties for picking your kids up late from childcare and still get home in time to cook a healthy meal.

They'll have to figure out how to entertain the starving and exhausted kids who aren't allowed to watch television or play on the computer and can't go to the local park because it has been stripped of its play equipment because of public liability risk.

And, before they can creep exhausted into bed, John and Kevin will have to find a non-existent product which will kill nits and spend an hour of quality time combing lice out of the childrens' hair.

Only when they can do all this do they deserve the right to impose more new rules on us.

Allelujah Amen. The Osbornes, Big Brother and all the other reality shows will be running for cover as Australian parents take revenge against meddling politicians and Nanny State bureaucrats.

Pommygranate Hits Paydirt

This post on the Self Haters Guide to Science deserves to be widely read. Very amusing and clever.

These are some I liked.

Boyle's Law
Global Warming is a product of peer-Pressure and the Volume of calls for 'something to be done'.

Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion
The 1st Law: "The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the sun at one of the foci."
The lesser known 2nd Law states; "The sun has no connection with the temperature of the Earth. At all. All plantary temperature changes are caused by man-made CO2s, especially from SUVs"

Newton's Laws of Motion;

Leftist's 1st Law of Motion
A Leftist idea, once in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by a sensible argument.

You will be nodding along. More in the comments.

Attilla the Vaccuum

When I vacuum, I like to put on Ride of the Valkyries and go for it. Get out of my way! Spotty is genuinely scared of the vacuum cleaner and when I am sucking up dust, he likes to make little aggressive forays to the vacuum head before retreating and hiding. Very entertaining! Anything to overcome the tedium of domestic chores.